Film Top 5: September 2017

1
Dawson City: Frozen Time
(Siskel, September 16, 19-20)
The latest, great film by Bill Morrison (“Decasia”) washes over the brain like cool, cool history: an intricate singularity, a historical palimpsest and of course, a visual hallucination that is a cinematic gold rush that I could gush about for pages but prefer to point emphatically in its direction.

2
Killer Of Sheep
(Siskel, September 9, 13)
Charles Burnett’s brilliant Los Angeles 1978 neorealist classic returns in a restored edition. Bountiful in sound and image and understated performance, it’s an American masterpiece that’s absolutely necessary to know.

3
Columbus
(Music Box, opens Friday, September 8)
Video essayist Kogonada’s first feature is an elegant telling of a love affair set within the expanses of the southeastern Indiana town with the bounty of modernist architectural commissions.

4
Desert Hearts
(Siskel, September 3, 7)
Donna Deitch’s rapturous 1959-set lesbian romance, released in 1986, returns in a Janus Films-Criterion 4K restoration.

5
Holy Smoke
(Chicago Film Society, Northeastern Illinois University, September 20)
Jane Campion’s overlooked 1999 love tempest between Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel, shown on the CFS’ very own 35mm print.