STILL WALKING is an exquisitely detailed family drama that shines with warmth and understanding. Lushly photographed, and with an expert script that incorporates elements of director Kore-Eda's personal experience, STILL WALKING is a quiet pleasure unlike anything else you will see this year.  Fifteen years ago, Junpei, the youngest son of the Yokoyama family, died while rescuing a boy from drowning. On the anniversary of his death, the remaining siblings visit the quaint home of their parents with their families in tow. Over the course of a beautiful day, new relatives become acquainted telling stories and squabbling over sizzling tempura, and an elegant graveside ritual is performed for Junpei. Based on Kore-Eda's original screenplay, under his polished direction, all the characters come sharply to life, exchanging dialogue that both delights and tugs at your heart. As the film unfolds, brimming with compelling realism, it reveals the modest joys and gentle sorrows that accompany the realization that life must inevitably move on. The Yokoyamas' are a typical dysfunctional family, bonded by love as well as resentments and secrets. With a subtle balance of gentle humor and wistful sorrow, Kore-Eda portrays just how annoying, and exactly how precious, family can be.

“Transcendent…Completely absorbing, so sure of its own scale and scope that while you're watching it, the rest of the world fades into irrelevance.” - A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES

“Kore-Eda sees each character's flaws and virtues with equal clarity, letting them unfold with a measured grace that equals Jean Renoir's…The movie seems like a perfect found object, as if it had always existed and was just waiting to be uncovered.” - Sam Adams, THE ONION


Saturday, February 27, 2010 - 7:30pm
SERAPHINE

THERE WILL BE A DISCUSSION SESSION AFTER THE FILM

2008  (Not Rated)  100 min.   France, Tunis/subtitles  
Director: Karin Albou
Cast: Lizzie Brochere, Olympe Borval, Simon Abkarian

Two young women find that their differences bring them closer during a difficult time in this drama from writer-director Karin Albou. Nour and Myriam grew up in the same neighborhood in Tunis. As they've grown into adulthood they've stayed close friends, even though Nour is a Muslim and Myriam is Jewish. It's 1942 and Tunis is under occupation by Axis forces, which makes life difficult for both women. The German authorities have prevented Khalid, Nour's fiancée, from getting a job, forcing them to postpone their wedding. Myriam's family must pay exorbitant fines for being Jewish, which may lead her into a marriage of convenience to a wealthy physician many years her senior. While Myriam sees no way out of her desperate situation, Nour finds that the Nazi propaganda circulated throughout the community is piquing her worst suspicions about Jewish stereotypes. But as Nour and Myriam sink deeper into their personal crises, they begin to understand how badly they need one another's support. Film critic of The Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas, concludes his review with this observation: ”Albou brings to life a Tunis in which oppressed, large populations suffer from a lack of education that make them vulnerable to rabble-rousing propaganda. Yet in the face of all this adversity the bond between women just may hold.”

“A sensuous, astonishing, and memorable film about the different shades of love in sexuality, friendship, and marriage.” - Frederic and Mary Brussat, SPIRITUALITY AND PRACTICE


Friday, April 2, 2010 - 7:30pm
BLISS

2007  (Not Rated)  105 min.  Turkey/subtitles
Director: Abdullah Oguz
Cast: Talat Bulut, Ozgu Namal, Murat Han

BLISS is the most acclaimed Turkish film of the decade and the first anywhere to tackle the taboo subject of honor killings. When 17-year old Meryem is found, disheveled and unconscious by the side of a lake in the Turkish countryside, her family believes the worst - that her chastity has been lost. They turn to the ancient principle of “tore,” a strict moral code that condemns Meryem to death. When she refuses to take her own life, the duty of upholding the family's honor is given to a distant cousin, Cemal, who has just completed a brutal tour in the military. Cemal reluctantly agrees to take Meryem away and kill her. Based on the internationally acclaimed novel and set against the backdrop of Turkey's natural wonders, BLISS is an unconventional road movie that pits tradition against modernity, urban against rural, and East against West, all the while refusing to settle for easy answers. The film has astonishingly beautiful cinematography and a memorable musical score. The natural beauty of the countryside and waters around Istanbul are stunning.

“However streamlined, the consistently gripping, visually intoxicating film stands as a landmark of contemporary Turkish cinema.” - Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES

What follows is a review by the New Zealand film critic Caleb Starrenburg: “Not since TOUCHING THE VOID has such an edge-of-your-seat and nerve-shattering mountaineering film been committed to celluloid. And like that feature, director Philipp Stolzl's NORTH FACE is based (rather loosely I imagine) on a true story. It's 1936 Germany and with the Olympic Games close at hand the Nazi party is lusting after new Aryan idols.  Climbers from all over Europe head for the unconquered north face of the Eiger, in Switzerland's Bernese Alps. The first to the top will be presented with gold medals. Among the climbers are Bavarians Toni Kurz and Andi Hinterstoisser. When the flag waving editor of the Berliner Zeitung, Henry Arau discovers his intern Luise Fellner is a school friend and possible former flame of Kurz, he scents a propagandist story for the Fatherland. The two newspaper staff set off in tow. The NORTH FACE is as stunningly beautiful as it is terrifying. The large number of climbers who have died while scaling the mountainside have earned it the epithet, Mordwand, or Murder Wall, a play on the face's German name Nordwand. So when Kurz and Hinterstoisser - with an Austrian team tailing them - set off with scant equipment and the weather setting in, we know this will be no walk in the park. Soon the frostbitten climbers are fighting for survival as they're battered at every angle by the unremitting elements…The film also serves as an opportunity to explore Nazi Germany's ideological exploitation of the mountaineers and the hagiography of human sacrifice. Arau remarks that only a great success or great tragedy will make headlines. He's happy to see either…NORTH FACE is the sort of palm-moistening and head-spinning experience that cries out to be seen on the big screen.”

“A gripping cliffhanger!” - Phillip French, THE OBSERVER (UK)

“*****Brilliant!” - THE FINANCIAL TIMES

2009  (PG -13)  100 min.   United Kingdom
Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina

It's 1961 and attractive, bright, 16-year-old schoolgirl, Jenny, is poised on the brink of womanhood, dreaming of a rarefied romantic existence. Stifled by the tedium of adolescent routine, Jenny can't wait for adult life to begin. Meanwhile, she's a diligent student, excelling in every subject except the Latin that her father is convinced will land her the place she dreams of at Oxford University. One rainy day, Jenny's suburban way of life is upended by the arrival of 30-ish, witty, and urban David who instantly unseats Jenny's stammering schoolboy admirer. To her great amazement, David even manages to charm her conservative parents and effortlessly overcomes their initial suspicions and objections to their daughter's older and worldly suitor. In a very short time David replaces Jenny's traditional education with a glittering new world of classical concerts, late night suppers, art auctions, and smoky nightclubs. Just when her family's long held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, starry-eyed Jenny is seduced by a sophisticated lifestyle. When reality enters Jenny's and her family's world, Jenny will have to rethink her choices!

“No movie I've seen in a very long time has touched me so deeply, or bestowed so much pleasure.” - Joe Morgenstern, WALL STREET JOURNAL

“Mulligan makes the role luminous when it could have been sad or awkward.  She has such lightness and grace, you're pretty sure this is the birth of a star” - Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES