Capital Projections: Ridiculous, silly, hilarious 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.
SYNONYMS
This semi-autobiographical film from writer-director Nadav Lapid (The Kindergarten Teacher) is ridiculous, absurd, self-indulgent, meandering, nonsensical, entirely unrealistic and crude. It’s also hilarious.
Making his feature debut, Tom Mercier stars as Yoav, a former soldier who has fled Israel for Paris, his motivations blurry. Yoav is a troubled soul who spends a lot of the film naked, whether he’s running around an empty apartment he’s snuck into or contorting himself for a pornographer who wants him to talk dirty in Hebrew (unbeknownst to his exploiter, his shouts of supposed ecstasy translate in part to “Run away! Run Away!”). Yet Yoav has walked into a strangely charmed life; when a handsome couple, Emile (Quentin Dolmaire) and Caroline (Louise Chevillote), find him passed out and freezing in the bathtub of that empty apartment, they offer him money (they have too much of it) and fancy clothing — and, eventually, themselves.
The weird newcomer spends much of his time walking Paris streets and practicing vocabulary he’s learned from a compact dictionary. Somehow, he gets a job working security at the Israeli Embassy, where he befriends Yaron (Uria Hayik), a guard who’s even more socially awkward than Yoav. In one telling scene, Yaron approaches strangers at a bar and tells them he’s an Israeli Jew, bracing for conflict but meeting a baffled politeness.
Synonyms is loosely based on the time Lapid spent in France after his own Israeli military service, and one wonders if his life there was this aimless. The movie is like watching a deranged and not particularly charismatic friend (or maybe Adam Sandler) walking through an elegant European capital reading a thesaurus out loud and occasionally bursting out into dance. This may all sound excruciating, and not just because of the amorphous narrative — exaggerated camera movements make it tough to watch. In one ludicrous scene, Caroline catches Emile trying to seduce Yoav, and her response is to flip a light on and off rapidly, the camera whipping back and forth from the ceiling fixture to the switch. It’s a disorienting device that cinematographer Shai Goldman uses repeatedly, but when the camera starts shaking again, it’s in the context of a nightclub dance scene, and suddenly the whip-motion makes sense: It conveys Yoav’s unpredictable, feral nature.
Lapid leans into a heavy-handed treatment of national identity here; Yoav denies his heritage and is reluctant to speak Hebrew, hoping to fully assimilate into Parisian culture. But what he encounters in his struggle to become French, especially when he starts to take citizenship classes, ends up offering savage political commentary. Synonyms is hardly a movie for everyone, and I completely understand if even seasoned arthouse regulars resist its peculiar, shifting tone. Even though the director has a number of other features under his belt, it sometimes feels like he’s never even seen a movie before. That’s a compliment; like it or not, this confounding picture is an original.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, Nov. 22, at Landmark E Street Cinema. $12.50.
LOVE IN SUSPENDERS
The Avalon Theatre’s monthly Reel Israel DC series continues next week with this 2019 romantic comedy from director Yohanan Weller. Tammy (Nitza Shaul, who appeared in several episodes of the BBC series EastEnders) is a 64-year-old widow who’s mourning the loss of her husband but manages to maintain her naturally optimistic disposition. Beno (Yehuda Barkan), on the other hand, is a 70-year-old widower who’s bitter and sarcastic. The pair meet-cute when Tammy’s car hits Beno’s. Can they find love in the autumn of their years? There’s a long history behind the leads’ real chemistry: Barkan explains in a promotional video that he married Shaul 44 years ago — though he doesn’t mention that she was his first of three wives. Given that the marriage to his leading lady didn’t last, there is a certain verisimilitude in the actors playing a mismatched couple.
Watch a behind-the-scenes short about the film.
Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 8 p.m. at the Avalon Theatre. $13.
THE ASTHENIC SYNDROME
The National Gallery of Art’s series “Welcome to Absurdistan: Eastern European Cinema” wraps up this weekend with a 1989 drama that was the only film banned by the Soviet government during the reforms of perestroika. Romanian-born director Kira Muratova, whose films had grown more experimental after fairly conventional works like The Long Farewell (1971), tells this story in two parts. The first section, black and white, observes a widow (whose husband looked just like Stalin) railing against the world. This turns out to be a film-within-the-film; a second section, in color, opens on a movie theater where the black-and-white film has just premiered, and the narrative focuses on a schoolteacher who had slept through the showing. On the occasion of a 1996 screening, Chicago Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote: “Though this tragicomic epic has plenty to say about postcommunist Russia, it also deals more generally with the demons loose in today’s world. It may drive you nuts — as it was undoubtedly meant to — but you certainly won’t forget it.”
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, Nov. 24, at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art in the West Building Lecture Hall. Free.
10 DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING
The programmers at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery consider the very existence of this 2018 Yemeni drama “almost miraculous.” As the title suggests, the film, set in the port town of Aden, tells the story of Rasha (Sally Hamada) and Ma‘moon (Khaled Hamdan) in the days leading up to their wedding. But the couple runs into more than the usual prenuptial obstacles. For starters, Ma’moon loses his job and Rasha’s landlord takes a shine to her. Worse, their town is still reeling from the country’s civil war. The movie’s troubles reflect the nation’s; 10 Days Before the Wedding is the first commercially released Yemeni film in 40 years, and because many of Aden’s movie theaters were destroyed, the filmmakers had to rent out wedding halls to screen their work there. World Film Reviews reports that the film was made on a budget of only $30,000, but even with its limited distribution, more than 60,000 tickets had been sold by the end of 2018. Director Amr Gamal will appear at Saturday’s screening for a Q&A.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, Nov. 23, at 2 p.m. at the Freer Gallery of Art. Free.
SONG OF THE SCARLET FLOWER
The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center closes its Silent Cinema Showcase with this Swedish romantic drama from 1919. Director Mauritz Stiller, whose young protégé Greta Garbo would soon get tails wagging in Hollywood, showcases picturesque landscapes and ancient folk customs in the story of Olof (Lars Hanson), a spoiled farmer’s son who is used to having his way with women. Will he get his comeuppance? The film will be screened Nov. 23 with live musical accompaniment by pianist-composer Gabriel Thibaudeau; subsequent screenings will feature a recorded orchestral score composed by Armas Järnefelt and performed by the Gävle Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jaakko Kuusisto.
Saturday, Nov. 23, at 4:30 p.m. (with live musical accompaniment); Monday, Nov. 25, at 4:45 p.m.; Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 4:45 p.m.; and Wednesday, Nov. 27, at 4:45 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. $15.
BLOOD FREAK
The Macy’s parade, a football game, Black Friday; these are the Thanksgiving-week traditions we all know and (sometimes) love. Well, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society has its own holiday staple: this 1972 sci-fi horror movie about a mad scientist who creates a giant turkey that gobbles up humans (presumably without stuffing them first). This cinematic turkey was directed by Frank Grinter, whose Flesh Feast, about Florida Nazis who bring Hitler back to life, provided a late-career role for screen legend Veronica Lake. The WPFS asks the crucial question: “Light meat? Dark meat? It’s all gonna be dead meat.”
Watch the trailer.
Monday, Nov. 25, at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel. Free.
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