This is a blog post I will update whenever we saw a movie or short films at the Irish Film Institute.
28.09.2014 Willow and Wind - Beed-o baad from 2000 - Iranian Movie
Written by Abbas Kiarostami
Directed by Mohammad-Ali Talebi
Starring Hadi Alipour, Amir Janfada, Majid Alipour, Mohammad Sharif Ebrahimi
Plot: A young school boy was ordered to walk a long way to purchase a piece of window glass larger than he could carry back to his school. The weather was bitter and the wind so strong that he almost failed on the road. He tried hard and finally moved the load back to the classroom where he was supposed to fix up a broken window. He was all alone and no one to turn for help. The glass blew crushed in pieces by the wind...
Source Wikipedia.
Here is also a link to The Guardian Review of the film.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/10/willow-and-wind-review-iran-child-film
01.11.2014 Archive at Lunchtime: Double Bill (Programs 1 & 2)
Program 1
Tribulations Irlandaises from 1960's
This French newsreel presents a whirlwind tour of 1960s Ireland.
La Reve Celtique from 1978
Made by Frédéric Rossif for French television La Rève Celtique presents Ireland as a country of ethereal landscapes, inspiring generations of traditional Irish musicians.
Program 2
Belfast from 1897
The first films made on the streets of Belfast produced by the film pioneers Les frères Lumière
81 from 1997
Director Stephen Burke imagines a French film crew in Belfast to cover the Hunger Strikes in 1981. They interview a Catholic and Protestant family, living within feet of each other, similar in every way but for their politics.
02.11.2014 IDA from 2013 - Polish Movie
Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Pawel Pawlikowski
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik
Plot: Agata Trzebuchowska, making a powerful debut) is required to visit her Aunt Wanda, her only surviving relative, before taking her final vows. Her hard-living aunt is a proud member of the Communist Party, and a judge whose fervent prosecution of enemies of the state has earned her the nickname ‘Red Wanda’. Initially wary of each other due to their vast differences, their relationship is complicated by Wanda’s revelation that Anna was once Ida, born to Jewish parents of whom no trace remains. In search of her origins, Anna travels into the Polish countryside with her aunt, seeking a connection to the family she never knew, her faith tested in this and other, more earthly ways. Beautifully shot, Pawlikowski’s spare and affecting film is a strong addition to Polish cinema’s body of work examining the country’s troubled history.
Source IFI
09.11.14 Playtime from 1967 - French Movie
Written by Jacques Tati, Jacques Lagrange & Art Buchwald
Directed by Jacques Tati
Starring Jacques Tati
Plot: Taking over three years and costing 17 million francs to make, Jacques Tati’s Playtime was by far the director’s most ambitious and fully realised film project. Shot on a vast and stylised purpose-built set known as Tativille, the film portrays a modernist Paris dominated by high-rises all cast in glass and polished metal. Reprising his role as the tragi-comic Monsieur Hulot, a mostly solitary and silent figure, Tati appears only peripherally and yet is as close as we get to a protagonist.
The only other mainstay is a young American tourist called Barbara with whom Hulot shares a subtle and beautifully drawn connection. But attention here is much more on the balletic movement of people through space, and, particularly in the riotous and intricate restaurant scene, several incidents often occur on screen at once, making this an extraordinary cinematic experience like no other. (Notes by Alice Butler.)
Here is a link to a review about the film:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-playtime-1967
Source IFI
08.12.14 Stations of the Cross from 2014 - German Movie
Written by Dietrich Brueggemann & Anna Brueggemann
Directed by Dietrich Brueggemann
Starring Hanns Zischler, Birge Schade, Florian Stetter, Franziska Weisz, Ramin Yazdani, Lucie Aron, Moritz Knapp, Klaus Michael Kamp, Lea van Acken, Georg Wesch
Plot: Maria (Lea van Acken) is a devout 14-year-old Catholic girl counting down the days to her confirmation. She is determined to devote her life to Jesus and longs to attain sainthood. Encouraged by her fundamentalist family, and just like Jesus on the road to Golgotha, Maria embarks on a fraught path measured out in 14 stations and leading to her own sacrifice, resolutely resisting being distracted from her course, despite attracting attention from Christian (Moritz Knapp), a boy she meets at school.
Filmmaker Dietrich Brüggemann presents each chapter of Maria’s story in static, single shots, each incident framed impeccably, and it is an arresting and inventive device that serves the intensity of the drama. Stations of the Cross is a rigorous examination of radical faith and devotion, a study of the dangers of unquestioning dogma that is daring, intelligent, and slyly humourous.
Sources IFI, Wikipedia
07.01.15 Archive at Lunchtime: Double Bill (Programs 1 & 2)
PROGRAMME 1
AMHARC ÉIREANN: EAGRÁN 240
New Year’s sale fever in Dublin
FILM INFO: 3 minutes, 1964, Black and White
CÁ N-IMÍONN AN T'AIRGEAD/
WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?
Thrifty shopping habits for young men and women.
FILM INFO: 10 minutes, 1954, Black and White
CIALL CHEANNAIGH
Guinness Film Society’s minutely observed day in the life of Cornelscourt Shopping Centre
FILM INFO: 11 minutes, 1970, Black and White
PROGRAMME 2
CLERY’S DEPARTMENT STORE
Early days of Clery’s with its life-sized model zoo, bargain basement and delightful tea rooms.
FILM INFO: 3 minutes, 1932, Black and White
OUR COUNTRY
A party political broadcast for Clann na Poblachta in which director Liam O Laoghaire plays an apologetic shop-keeper.
FILM INFO: 7 minutes, 1948, Black and White
THE END OF THE COUNTER
It’s 1965 and it’s out with the over-the-counter and in with the self-service in Matt Melia’s shop.
FILM INFO: 11 minutes, 2013, Colour
07.01.15 The Green Ray (Le Rayon Verte) from 1986
Written by Eric Rohmer and Marie Riviere
Directed by Eric Rohmer
Starring Marie Riviere
Plot:
It is summer and Delphine is stranded in Paris just when everybody else is leaving the city for their holidays. She has just ended a relationship and she is desperate for an escape. A number of pitying invitations result in unsatisfying trips to Cherbourg, to
the Alps and to the beach. Her parents try and persuade her to travel to Ireland, but she doesn’t want to spend time with them.
Delphine appears desperate for love, for romance or just for a connection, but her manner insists that she wants those things
on her own terms. Rohmer’s acute, earnest observation on relationships and feminine behaviour remains fascinating and relevant, in no small part because of Marie Rivière’s irresistible performance as Delphine. In a largely improvised film, her presence is believable, precious, honest and beautiful, affording The Green Ray a disarming daringness.
Sources IFI, Wikipedia
©2015
28.09.2014 Willow and Wind - Beed-o baad from 2000 - Iranian Movie
Written by Abbas Kiarostami
Directed by Mohammad-Ali Talebi
Starring Hadi Alipour, Amir Janfada, Majid Alipour, Mohammad Sharif Ebrahimi
Plot: A young school boy was ordered to walk a long way to purchase a piece of window glass larger than he could carry back to his school. The weather was bitter and the wind so strong that he almost failed on the road. He tried hard and finally moved the load back to the classroom where he was supposed to fix up a broken window. He was all alone and no one to turn for help. The glass blew crushed in pieces by the wind...
Source Wikipedia.
Here is also a link to The Guardian Review of the film.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/10/willow-and-wind-review-iran-child-film
01.11.2014 Archive at Lunchtime: Double Bill (Programs 1 & 2)
Program 1
Tribulations Irlandaises from 1960's
This French newsreel presents a whirlwind tour of 1960s Ireland.
La Reve Celtique from 1978
Made by Frédéric Rossif for French television La Rève Celtique presents Ireland as a country of ethereal landscapes, inspiring generations of traditional Irish musicians.
Program 2
Belfast from 1897
The first films made on the streets of Belfast produced by the film pioneers Les frères Lumière
81 from 1997
Director Stephen Burke imagines a French film crew in Belfast to cover the Hunger Strikes in 1981. They interview a Catholic and Protestant family, living within feet of each other, similar in every way but for their politics.
02.11.2014 IDA from 2013 - Polish Movie
Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Pawel Pawlikowski
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik
Plot: Agata Trzebuchowska, making a powerful debut) is required to visit her Aunt Wanda, her only surviving relative, before taking her final vows. Her hard-living aunt is a proud member of the Communist Party, and a judge whose fervent prosecution of enemies of the state has earned her the nickname ‘Red Wanda’. Initially wary of each other due to their vast differences, their relationship is complicated by Wanda’s revelation that Anna was once Ida, born to Jewish parents of whom no trace remains. In search of her origins, Anna travels into the Polish countryside with her aunt, seeking a connection to the family she never knew, her faith tested in this and other, more earthly ways. Beautifully shot, Pawlikowski’s spare and affecting film is a strong addition to Polish cinema’s body of work examining the country’s troubled history.
Source IFI
09.11.14 Playtime from 1967 - French Movie
Written by Jacques Tati, Jacques Lagrange & Art Buchwald
Directed by Jacques Tati
Starring Jacques Tati
Plot: Taking over three years and costing 17 million francs to make, Jacques Tati’s Playtime was by far the director’s most ambitious and fully realised film project. Shot on a vast and stylised purpose-built set known as Tativille, the film portrays a modernist Paris dominated by high-rises all cast in glass and polished metal. Reprising his role as the tragi-comic Monsieur Hulot, a mostly solitary and silent figure, Tati appears only peripherally and yet is as close as we get to a protagonist.
The only other mainstay is a young American tourist called Barbara with whom Hulot shares a subtle and beautifully drawn connection. But attention here is much more on the balletic movement of people through space, and, particularly in the riotous and intricate restaurant scene, several incidents often occur on screen at once, making this an extraordinary cinematic experience like no other. (Notes by Alice Butler.)
Here is a link to a review about the film:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-playtime-1967
Source IFI
08.12.14 Stations of the Cross from 2014 - German Movie
Written by Dietrich Brueggemann & Anna Brueggemann
Directed by Dietrich Brueggemann
Starring Hanns Zischler, Birge Schade, Florian Stetter, Franziska Weisz, Ramin Yazdani, Lucie Aron, Moritz Knapp, Klaus Michael Kamp, Lea van Acken, Georg Wesch
Plot: Maria (Lea van Acken) is a devout 14-year-old Catholic girl counting down the days to her confirmation. She is determined to devote her life to Jesus and longs to attain sainthood. Encouraged by her fundamentalist family, and just like Jesus on the road to Golgotha, Maria embarks on a fraught path measured out in 14 stations and leading to her own sacrifice, resolutely resisting being distracted from her course, despite attracting attention from Christian (Moritz Knapp), a boy she meets at school.
Filmmaker Dietrich Brüggemann presents each chapter of Maria’s story in static, single shots, each incident framed impeccably, and it is an arresting and inventive device that serves the intensity of the drama. Stations of the Cross is a rigorous examination of radical faith and devotion, a study of the dangers of unquestioning dogma that is daring, intelligent, and slyly humourous.
Sources IFI, Wikipedia
07.01.15 Archive at Lunchtime: Double Bill (Programs 1 & 2)
PROGRAMME 1
AMHARC ÉIREANN: EAGRÁN 240
New Year’s sale fever in Dublin
FILM INFO: 3 minutes, 1964, Black and White
CÁ N-IMÍONN AN T'AIRGEAD/
WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?
Thrifty shopping habits for young men and women.
FILM INFO: 10 minutes, 1954, Black and White
CIALL CHEANNAIGH
Guinness Film Society’s minutely observed day in the life of Cornelscourt Shopping Centre
FILM INFO: 11 minutes, 1970, Black and White
PROGRAMME 2
CLERY’S DEPARTMENT STORE
Early days of Clery’s with its life-sized model zoo, bargain basement and delightful tea rooms.
FILM INFO: 3 minutes, 1932, Black and White
OUR COUNTRY
A party political broadcast for Clann na Poblachta in which director Liam O Laoghaire plays an apologetic shop-keeper.
FILM INFO: 7 minutes, 1948, Black and White
THE END OF THE COUNTER
It’s 1965 and it’s out with the over-the-counter and in with the self-service in Matt Melia’s shop.
FILM INFO: 11 minutes, 2013, Colour
07.01.15 The Green Ray (Le Rayon Verte) from 1986
Written by Eric Rohmer and Marie Riviere
Directed by Eric Rohmer
Starring Marie Riviere
Plot:
It is summer and Delphine is stranded in Paris just when everybody else is leaving the city for their holidays. She has just ended a relationship and she is desperate for an escape. A number of pitying invitations result in unsatisfying trips to Cherbourg, to
the Alps and to the beach. Her parents try and persuade her to travel to Ireland, but she doesn’t want to spend time with them.
Delphine appears desperate for love, for romance or just for a connection, but her manner insists that she wants those things
on her own terms. Rohmer’s acute, earnest observation on relationships and feminine behaviour remains fascinating and relevant, in no small part because of Marie Rivière’s irresistible performance as Delphine. In a largely improvised film, her presence is believable, precious, honest and beautiful, affording The Green Ray a disarming daringness.
Sources IFI, Wikipedia
©2015
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