Capital Projections: Precocious teen 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.
EL ANGEL
One of the most entertaining (if problematic) movies from this year’s Latin American Film Festival opens Friday. The true crime biopic follows Argentinian serial killer Carlos Eduardo Robledo Puch, a baby-faced teen who in 1971 murdered 11 people. Puch came from what by all accounts was a happy family. His youth and vigor disarmed all those around him, from the petty thieves he worked with to his unsuspecting victims. Director Luis Ortega turns this brutal killer into a likable character in El Angel. As I wrote in a Washington City Paper roundup, “With its charismatic leads, sexual ambiguity, and chooglin’ soundtrack of early ’70s Argentinian rock, it’s as entertaining as crime dramas get. … Ferro is impressive in his first feature, and a dead ringer for the young killer, but if this is one of the more accomplished examples of post-Tarantino blood-thirst, those deep vinyl cuts make it as superficial as a K-tel compilation.”
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday at the Landmark E Street Cinema. $12.50.
CHEF FLYNN
Culinary prodigy Flynn McGarry was developing sophisticated meals in his bedroom kitchen at an age when most of us were lucky to be able to open up a can of SpaghettiOs by ourselves. Yet what makes the movie interesting isn’t its portrait of the young chef, but its candid depiction of his sometimes-resentful mother, an independent filmmaker who laments, “There are times with Flynn where I feel I’ve lost my identity of who I am.” As I wrote in my Spectrum Culture review, the portrayal of this dysfunctional family dynamic “makes director Cameron Yates’ film something of a failure as a conventional food documentary. But it’s that very tension that makes the material work as nonfiction drama.”
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday, Nov. 23, at the Landmark E Street Cinema. $12.50.
LE NOTTI BIANCHE
Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) is a lonely clerk wandering the dark streets of a romantic Italian town. At the stroke of midnight, he meets the lonely Natalia (Maria Schell), whom he sees crying on a bridge. Thus begins a brief and bittersweet affair. Director Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of the Fyodor Dostoevsky short story “White Nights” shifts from the neorealist ideal of such previous films as La Terra Trema to a highly stylized and at times dreamlike ballet — a dance accompanied by a lush score from frequent Federico Fellini collaborator Nino Rota. The National Gallery of Art’s screening of a 35mm print of this exquisite romance from 1957 is part of its Visconti retrospective, which runs through Sunday, Dec. 16.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, Nov. 17, at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 COMMERCE QUAY, 1080 BRUSSELS
Director Chantal Akerman was only 25 years old when she made this study of a middle-aged widow (Delphine Seyrig of Last Year at Marienbad) and her daily routine, which includes cleaning, preparing food for her adolescent son — and turning tricks. As part of the citywide series Films Across Borders: Stories of Women, the AFI Silver Theatre will screen this 200-minute masterpiece in a time slot when many of us will be thinking ahead to Thanksgiving, and such domestic anxiety may well echo the protagonist’s dilemma. Read my Spectrum Culture piece on the film here.
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre. $13.
AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL
Set in a struggling industrial city in China, this 230-minute epic observes four troubled characters in the course of a single day. Although these tragic players suffer what seem like more than their share of trials, Sight & Sound writes: “The film’s images extricate beauty from the most dismal of situations and together with his actors, all of whom deliver performances of astounding sensitivity, [director Hu Bo] manages to evoke emotions so deeply felt and overwhelming, they compensate for any narrative contrivances.” Sadly, this ambitious work is the first and only film from Hu, who killed himself in October 2017; An Elephant Sitting Still was completed posthumously.
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, Nov. 18, at 1 p.m. at the Freer Gallery of Art. Free.
THOSE WONDERFUL YEARS THAT SUCKED
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Michal Viewegh (which was released in an English translation under the less evocative title Bliss It Was in Bohemia), this 1997 comedy charts three decades of a Czech family: from 1962 (when the author was born) through the Prague Spring of 1968 to the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The movie will be shown as part of Bistro Bohem’s monthly Film and Beer series presented in tandem with the Embassy of the Czech Republic.
Watch the trailer.
Tuesday, Nov. 20, at 8 p.m. at Bistro Bohem, 600 Florida Ave. NW. Free, but reservations are required by calling 202-735-5895 or emailing bistrobohem@gmail.com. Guests must arrive by 6:45 p.m. to keep their reservations.
This post has been updated to correct the opening date of Chef Flynn.
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