Sylvie Testud, an axiom of contemporary French cinema, a waif of steel, has made her bold mark in movies like “La France” (Serge Bozon’s lovely, bizarre musical, soon on DVD). In one of this week’s highlights from Siskel’s European Union Film Festival, “Lourdes” (Sat, Thu), she plays a paraplegic in a wheelchair who travels to the city of miracles; in Austrian director Jessica Hausner’s small film, Testud conveys grace in even her most reserved expressions. French writer-director Jacques Doillon’s (“Ponette”) first film in five years, “Just Anybody” (Fri, Wed), posits a messy ménage-a-trois that involves a young woman, a deadbeat dad-cum-drifter and a policeman in a seaside setting who takes note of them. Shooting digitally, Doillon is able to accentuate the fervor of his dialogue-heavy, actor-attentive style. The intimacy of the long takes impresses. Film critic and historian Peter von Bagh’s “Helsinki Forever” (Wed), presented by freelance critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, is a poetic city symphony and cinema-essay, drawing on archival and fictional footage, with twinned male and female narration, in a league with Terence Davies’ Liverpool lullaby, “Of Time And The City.” The cumulative impact is ravishing. The true treasure is Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth” (Fri, Mon; pictured), an unexpected gem of Greek black comedy, made with an uncommonly assured hand. A wealthy industrialist and his wife keep their grown children in a compound away from the outside world; things have odd names and superstition abounds. Lanthimos’ work harks back to classics of cinematic surrealism, but never becomes pastiche: its oddities are earned, touching and shocking at once. (Ray Pride)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
Film 50 2022: SELECTORS—Programmers & Festival Producers Behind the scenes of what constitutes "film"—industry and community, in Chicago and the Midwest—is circle upon circle, an ecstasy of Venn diagrams…programmers shaping history by presenting vital work.
Talking Screens: A Week in Chicago Film, February 19-25, 2021 OPENERS Searchlight Pictures' "Nomadland" expands its theater reach while debuting on Disney sibling Hulu; its reception from critics' groups continues, with nods last week from the Toronto circle (adding to a lengthy roster including the National Society of Film Critics, Boston and London) for best film, director Chloé Zhao and a flinty Frances McDormand. McDormand's Fern is on the road…
Talking Screens: A Week In Chicago Film, March 12-18, 2021 OPENERS How condensed do you want your Almodóvar? In thirty taut minutes, the Spanish writer-director burrows inside Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play, “The Human Voice,” with Tilda Swinton as his physical and psychological blade. Studio-confined during pandemic days, it’s brightly, boldly interior in every way. Music Box Theatre; shown with Almodóvar’s 1988 breakthrough, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”…
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