Capital Projections: An eye for an eye 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.
THE NIGHTINGALE
With its historical setting, arthouse production values and B-movie levels of violence, the latest film from director Jennifer Kent tells a visceral, provocative story of revenge. But much like the bloodlust that drives it, the drama that unfolds in the outback of 19th-century Australia is ultimately unsatisfying. Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones) stars as Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict who has completed a term of service to her abusive British master, Lt. Hawkins (Sam Claflin). The officer refuses to grant the freedom she has earned, and worse, Hawkins and his cronies commit unspeakable horrors against her family. Clare decides it’s time for payback, and she sets out on a bleak journey out of oppression with the reluctant help of tracker Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), whose own people were devastated by the English.
The Nightingale plays out its timely themes against a backdrop of unspoiled nature, with the scenery bolstering Kent’s argument that colonialism has wreaked havoc upon Earth and all its creatures. The film’s stark path resonates with wildly diverse ancestors such as the Hollywood classic The African Queen, the atmospheric adventure Walkabout and the grindhouse thriller Ms. 45. Franciosi vividly captures Clare’s trials, with her expressive, blood-drenched features at times suggesting an injured religious icon. But after a brilliant build-up of suspense, the final act peters out with affirmations that are even less subtle than the buckets of gore that precede it. Kent’s impressively frightening 2014 debut The Babadook used horror movie tension to suggest that the greatest terrors come from our own mind. This assured follow-up addresses institutional racism and sexism by means of a gruesome quest through the wilderness. Some scenes are so brutal that producers have encouraged anyone writing about the film to provide trigger warnings. But whether or not viewers can handle Clare’s trauma, there’s not much of a payoff.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, Aug. 9, at E Street Landmark Cinema and ArcLight Bethesda. $12.50.
TEL AVIV ON FIRE
Palestinian director Sameh Zoabi treats oppression with light satire — but not kid gloves — in this entertaining comedy about an ancient conflict. Set in the present day, the film tells the story of Salam (Kais Nashif), a 30-something Palestinian who’s a bungling production assistant on his uncle’s hit TV soap opera Tel Aviv on Fire, which takes place in 1967 just before the Six-Day War that changed the map of the Middle East. Something of a slacker, Salam would love to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Mariam (Maisa Abd Elhadi), who doesn’t think he’ll ever amount to anything. When Salam makes an offhand remark that impresses the show’s star actress (Lubna Azabal), he gets the chance to write dialogue, and uses that minor brush with celebrity to get out of a jam at a checkpoint. But wait: Israeli officer Assi (Yaniv Biton), whose wife is a fan of the popular soap opera, starts feeding Salam increasingly complicated suggestions to make the program more Israeli-friendly.
Nashif is spot-on in a role that resembles a Palestinian Woody Allen; he’s a little sloppy and self-deprecating but has a creative gift and is an incurable romantic. Despite the rom-com setup, there are frequent reminders of the political and cultural divide — how many other comedies bring up the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, when Zionist paramilitary groups killed hundreds of Arabs outside Jerusalem? While the soap opera Tel Aviv on Fire depicts an Israeli-Palestinian love story, the movie doesn’t seem to see much hope for reconciliation, but humor may be as good a way as any of bridging the two sides.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, Aug. 9, at Landmark Bethesda Row. $12.50.
THEM THAT FOLLOW
The Pentecostal communities of Appalachia, which prove their faith by handling venomous serpents, are a mystery to outsiders who look upon their customs with horror. Such religious fervor remains elusive in the largely unconvincing feature debut from co-directors Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage. The drama centers on Mara (Alice Englert), the daughter of Pastor Lemuel Childs (Walton Goggins). Mara is not the most resolute believer; she has promised to marry the devout Garret (Lewis Pullman), but she’s really in love with the more secular-minded Augie (Thomas Mann) and is pregnant with his baby — and Augie’s mother Hope (Olivia Colman) suspects as much.
The melodramatic plot doesn’t seem like the most respectful way to treat the troubled region. Goggins, who was terrific in The Hateful Eight, is well-cast as a charismatic leader, but the script by Poulton and Savage gives him little more than folksy platitudes to chew on, and the movie can feel condescending toward its characters, especially the young leads who seem little more than pawns in a chess match. Colman and, perhaps surprisingly, comedian Jim Gaffigan (as Augie’s father) seem more authentic, and the film’s second half turns into a compelling thriller when Augie’s tenuous faith is put to the test. This indie drama had the potential to shed light on a neglected people, but it turns an impoverished town into the setting for a B-movie.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, Aug. 9, at E Street Landmark Cinema. $12.50.
MASTER Z: IP MAN LEGACY
One of this year’s best action movies had only a brief commercial release this spring. But, thanks to the Freer and Sackler galleries’ Made in Hong Kong Film Festival, local moviegoers have another chance to see it — and for free. The film is a spinoff from the popular Ip Man films, and even with franchise star Donnie Yen (Rogue One) staying behind the scenes as a producer, it’s one of the most thrilling in the series.
As I wrote in this space after its April release, “this martial arts showcase — directed by legendary stunt coordinator Yuen Woo-Ping, whose career goes back to the 1978 Jackie Chan vehicle Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow — has the look and emotional beats of a classic melodrama. But elaborate sets that re-create a neon-drenched 1960s Hong Kong make the movie look like someone took Francis Ford Coppola’s candy-colored musical flop One From the Heart and turned it into a kung fu thriller — which means you must see this on the big screen. … [This] is a welcome showcase for Yeoh, whose recent appearance in Crazy Rich Asians barely hinted at her action-star past. Watch for Guardians of the Galaxy star and Arlington native Dave Bautista in his first Chinese production.”
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, Aug. 11, at 2 p.m. at the Freer Gallery of Art. Free.
THE GREAT ESCAPE
In one of many pop culture references in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, the fictional actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) lost the lead part in John Sturges’ 1963 action epic to Steve McQueen. As part of its ongoing United Artists Centennial Retrospective, the AFI Silver Theatre — which is the only venue in the area where you can see Tarantino’s latest in 35mm — gives you a chance to catch up on his influences with a screening of The Great Escape.
Based on Paul Brickhill’s 1950 nonfiction account of daring escapes from German POW camp Stalag Luft III, the three-hour adventure stars McQueen as one of a number of Allied prisoners held captive during World War II. The all-star ensemble cast features some of the most popular actors of the ’60s and ’70s, including James Garner, James Coburn and Charles Bronson. Scott Tobias, in the Onion A.V. Club, writes that, despite a lighthearted tone that treats “escaping from prison [as] just the last in a long series of practical jokes … the authentic depiction of the breakout, in all its myriad delegations and strategies, is a prime example of crackerjack Hollywood entertainment.” For a McQueen double feature (albeit with separate admission), stay for the actor’s 1958 breakthrough The Blob (Saturday, Aug. 10, at 6:30 p.m.), which will be introduced by the film’s editor, Al Hillman.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, Aug. 10, at 3 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. $13.
DUFFY
This forgotten caper from 1968 was directed by former child star Robert Parrish, who starred alongside Charlie Chaplin in City Lights. James Coburn plays an American expat hipster hired by two English half-brothers (James Fox and John Alderton) to hijack a boat that belongs to their filthy rich father (James Mason). Like the 1967 spy comedy Casino Royale (which Parrish co-directed), Duffy is one of a number of campy crime films of the era, but this one has rarely been revived. The New York Times’ A.H. Weiler wrote upon its release that, “if the basic idea is not mint-new, this band of decidedly turned-on operatives, working against exotic, psychedelic backgrounds and the twanging, staccato ‘in’ musical score of Ernie Freeman, makes this a fast-paced, antic melodrama.” The Library of Congress (disclosure: I work there, but did not work on this program) will be screening an archival 35mm print.
Watch the trailer.
Thursday, Aug. 15, at 7 p.m. in the Mary Pickford Theatre on the third floor of the Madison Building at the Library of Congress. Free. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
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