Classic Cinema Club | |||||
Films for May and June
18th May
The Story of Qiu Ju A rare comedy from the director, this gentle satire on bureaucratic inefficiency provides a fascinating glimpse into the daily life of the Chinese. Hidden camera and non-actors playing themselves give the film an edge of reality. Despite this, the director’s trademark sweeping rural landscapes, deep colours and beautiful compositions are still in evidence. “One of the pleasures of the film is to see everyday China, which appears on screen unrehearsed and natural. Watching the film, we find the humor for ourselves, and along the way we absorb more information about the lives of ordinary people in everyday China than in any other film I've seen.” Roger Ebert 25 May The Lights of Ten Thousand Homes The film is set in Shanghai after the Second Sino-Japanese War and interconnects the urban scene and life with the rural ones for a comparison which expands the film’s connotations, enlarges audiences’ vision, and reflects broader social outlook. The figures in the film are distinctive and well developed, and the film making style is plain, natural and subtle. The film's conflicts arise from oppositions including rural vs. urban, worker vs. management, and younger generation vs. older generation. The film is selected as one of the 100 best 20th-century Chinese films by Asia Weekly and the Hong Kong Film Academy. 1 June
The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre (1948) Filmed mostly on location in Mexico, this is a gritty depiction of the cancerous effects of gold lust upon a man's soul, and an uncompromising look into the dark side of human nature. Among the favourite films of Stanley Kubrick, as well as Paul Thomas Anderson, who used it as inspiration when making There Will Be Blood. 8 June
The Asphalt Jungle
(1950) The Asphalt Jungle is a study in crime, hard-hitting in its expose of the underworld. Ironic realism is striven for and achieved in the writing, production and direction. An audience will quite easily pull for the crooks in their execution of the million-dollar jewelry theft around which the plot is built.” Variety 15 June
The Misfits
(1961) Written by Arthur Miller for Monroe, his wife at the time, and filmed in Nevada, this is an elegy for the death of the Old West, made notorious due to the problems which dogged the production, and the fates of its actors soon after its release, it remains haunted by the best performances of their careers. 22 June
The Night of the
Iguana (1964) A defrocked priest finds himself the centre of attention of several women in an atmosphere of sexual temptation and frustration set and filmed in sweltering Mexico. A Classic Ealing Comedy! One of the superlative Ealing Comedies, this is a tale about a man who plots to kill every relative that stands between him and the family inheritance. At once a witty black comedy of manners, a grotesque serial-killer caper and an acerbic satire on the class system, with its delicate balancing act between bad taste and bad manners, the Ealing genre reached utter perfection.
17th May 2012 |