Capital Projections: Troubled couples edition
Capital Projections is The DC Line’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting arthouse and repertory screenings in the coming week.
MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE
The Norwegian-born Marianne Ihlen was one in a long line of muses and lovers taken by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Director Nick Broomfield, who has profiled subjects from rocker Courtney Love to politician Sarah Palin (and admits to a brief affair with Ihlen himself) paints a portrait of the celebrated couple that at first seems to glorify free love but ends up as a perhaps inadvertent indictment of such tenuous arrangements. Ihlen met Cohen in 1960 and lived with him on the Greek island of Hydra, a community that embraced the changing mores of the decade to the point where open marriages were the norm. Cohen was deeply inspired by his lover, writing some of his most enduring hits for her, like “Bird on a Wire” and “So Long Marianne,” which featured a line in which Ihlen “held on to me like I was a crucifix as we went kneeling through the dark.”
Self-inflated imagery to the contrary, Cohen was not a reliable messiah. Years later, he would explain to live audiences that certain songs were written for a woman with whom he had spent less and less time over the years. In the end, Words of Love is not much of a love story. Through vintage footage and contemporary interviews, Broomfield effectively conveys both the era and the lifestyles of residents on Hydra. But Ihlen never quite comes into focus as a person, and neither does the relationship that is the ostensible purpose of the documentary. Still, this is no hagiography; Cohen frequently comes off as an arrogant Lothario, and people who knew Cohen and Ihlen on Hydra insightfully reflect on the idyllic era as one whose excesses left behind damaged lives.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, July 12, at E Street Landmark Cinema, Landmark Bethesda Row and Angelika Mosaic. $12.50.
THE REPORTS ON SARAH & SALEEM
Love affairs have long fueled bodice-ripping melodramas with the tempestuous romance that moviegoers crave. Yet this new soap opera of modern sensibilities in an ancient land stands out for its politically charged coupling. Sarah (Sivane Kretchner) is an Israeli Jew who runs a cafe in West Jerusalem. Saleem (Adeeb Safadi) is a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who delivers bread to Sarah’s cafe. Unhappy with their spouses, the two have been carrying on in the back of his van. When they’re caught, Sarah and Saleem are drawn into a broader conflict of espionage and police intrigue. For his second feature, Palestinian director Muayad Alayan creates a raw, tense environment in which the lovers seek to break out of their cultural roles, but bodily desires are clearly not the answer to forging peace in this troubled region. Kretchner and especially Safadi turn in strong performances that convey the internal struggles within a situation that comes off like an adulterous Romeo and Juliet, its tragedy born of man-made boundaries that have created tensions that may never wane.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, July 12, at E Street Landmark Cinema. $12.50.
UNDERGROUND
Director Emir Kusturica had just finished making a Johnny Depp movie (Arizona Dream) when he started work on the sprawling film — more than five hours in its original form — that is his masterpiece. Orginally released in 1995, Underground traces the long, volatile friendship of Marko (Predrag Manojlovic) and Blacky (Lazar Ristovski) from World War II through the ’90s. We meet them returning from an epic bender, shooting guns into the air on their way back to their homes in Belgrade as a brass band follows them playing a furious theme song called, appropriately, “Kalashnikov.” But if the buddies and the traveling musicians who provide the soundtrack play hard, the war that unfolds around them matches their fervor with brutality. Underground is filled with bad people on both sides of its political conflict, but the passionate characters are thrilling to watch. The film’s closing image offers an unforgettable metaphor of a country that, no matter how broken, will never stop playing its furious song. The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is screening a new digital restoration that runs 170 minutes.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, July 15, at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, July 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. $13.
MĀDADAYO
In conjunction with the must-see exhibition The Life of Animals in Japanese Art, the National Gallery of Art offers the film series Animals in Japanese Cinema, which runs through Sunday, July 28. The program has already featured a number of landmark samurai pictures from director Akira Kurosawa, whose impressive staging of battle scenes featured armor inspired by the animal kingdom. For this 1993 drama, the legendary filmmaker observes animals in a more contemplative, modern setting. Based on the career of author Hyakken Uchida (1889-1971), the film tells the story of a retired professor (Tatsuo Matsumura) beloved by his students and the pet cat that wanders into — and out of — his life. This was a natural subject for Kurosawa, who was 83 when he made the film; Mādadayo, which translates to “Not yet,” was his final completed work. Roger Ebert, in a three-star review, wrote that, “There were times when I felt uncannily as if Kurosawa were filming his own graceful decline into the night.” The National Gallery of Art is screening a 35-mm print.
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, July 14, at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
SPEED
GIven that Netherlands-born filmmaker Jan de Bont was cinematographer for Die Hard, one of the best action movies of the ’80s, it’s no surprise that his debut as a director was one of the best action movies of the ’90s. Yet Speed isn’t merely a visceral thriller of remarkable ingenuity; this is blockbuster entertainment with profound themes — what, after all, is speed but the attempt to conquer time? That is the thread that links the two protagonists: SWAT team member Jack (Keanu Reeves) and Howard (Dennis Hopper), who rigs a city bus so a bomb will go off if it goes slower than 50 mph. Jack is near the beginning of his career, wryly reconsidering a path that routinely puts him into grave danger, and for what reward? A gold watch after 30 years of service. Howard, on the other hand, was forced out of his career in law enforcement, having received a gold watch as scant compensation for a career-ending injury. This was a breakthrough film for Reeves and co-star Sandra Bullock, but its central performance belongs to Hopper, who’s bug-eyed, feral intensity made him one of the most vivid villains of the decade. The National Museum of American History is screening the movie as part of Keanu Reeves’ Excellent Film Series, which runs through July 14.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, July 13, at 2:45 p.m. at National Museum of American History in the Warner Bros. Theatre. $10.
THE JOKERS
Before Michael Winner launched Charles Bronson’s brutal Death Wish franchise, the British director made a number of thrillers fueled by the energy of Swinging ’60s London, including this 1967 caper. Michael Crawford (Hello, Dolly!) and Oliver Reed (Women in Love) star as the aristocratic Tremayne brothers, who plot to steal the Crown Jewels — not to keep them, but to test the effectiveness of national security. Roger Ebert wrote, in a three-star review, that the film “is another suspense-and-comedy situation about an incredibly complicated theft, and I’m a sucker for them.” The Library of Congress is screening a 35-mm archival print of this rarely revived comic thriller.
Watch the opening credits.
Thursday, July 18, at 7 p.m. in the Mary Pickford Theatre at the Library of Congress on the third floor of the Madison Building. Free. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
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