Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992)

By: börek - January 8th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 15 January 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Glengarry Glen Ross * by James Foley, script by David Mamet * 1992 * 100 minutes * In English with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

What is important about this flick isn’t so much the director, but its provocative scriptwriter David Mamet (Wag the Dog). The craft of his writing is so powerful it makes the director unimportant, and no matter what theme he takes on, he always elevates it to another level. His punchy razor-sharp dialogue is so unique there is even a term to describe it – ‘Mametspeak’.
In this one he throws us into the real estate world, a place almost as creepy as the banking sector, and it shows how once things start to go wrong, the inherent greed and viciousness of the employees turns inward as they start tearing themselves to shreds. For many, if you want to understand how the guts of big business operates, this is the best film to watch.
During the pandemic we were told to stay at home and chill, but others were more busy. Ruthless speculators like the American investment corporation Blackrock were busy as hell acquiring more spaces in this city so they could leave them empty and eventually jack up the rental prices for a huge profit in the future. When squatters tried occupying one of those empty Blackrock buildings, they were immediately dragged out by the police. Welcome to the dark world of high-finance, where profits matter more than human lives.
And what is just as amazing as the script is the crazy cast cobbled together to speak the dialogue – Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and old-schooler Jack Lemmon. We’re not a great fans of that genre of films where there are zero women roles of any importance. Still, for the energy in this film it was important to keep the testosterone levels as disfunctionally high as possible.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: finally the legendary Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema (René Viénet, 1973)

By: börek - December 7th, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 11 December 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: finally the legendary Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema (René Viénet, 1973)* 90 minutes * In French with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

This is a movie we wanted to screen for ages – after all, we even named this cinema-night after it. But all of the available copies were so terrible… muddy vhs tape transfers that were virtually unwatchable and took all the joy out of the experience. But now it has finally been restored in its full color glory.

Back in the mid-60s in France there was a group of post-artists that called themselves Situationists. One thing they observed was how even the most radical ideas can be transformed into harmless commercial products by the power of modern marketing. But then they thought – why not reverse the process? Why can’t we take some banal commercial products and turn them into something subversive, alive and meaningful again?

A great example of the wild, sly humor of May 68 can be seen in this delirious flick. The situationist collaborator René Viénet took a 1972 Hong Kong martial arts film called Crush, and replaced the entire soundtrack with his own narration and dialogue. The new dubbed soundtrack he added changes everything, turning the kung-fu film into a politically-charged struggle about gender equality, the alienation of consumer society, the Paris Commune and post-Marxist political theory. And it’s all done with a razor-sharp sense of humor, because joy was part of their ammunition. The new script is witty and snappy. At one point one of the characters asks “What the hell was the original film about anyway?”

To do the new voices on the soundtrack René Viénet brought in some members of the satirical Café de la Gare Theatre group, including the legendary Patrick Dewaere. The finished film is a riot, but one with a message!

This will be a high-definition screening.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965)

By: börek - November 2nd, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 13 November 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965) * 108 minutes * In English. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

In many ways this classic British Cold War thriller was set up as an anti-James Bond comment… where Bond is glamorous and heroic and sent to exotic locations, instead here we find our secret agent Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) buried in shitty errands, bureaucratic confusion and endless paperwork. There is always another form to be filled out before he can do anything. He has a hard time getting any girlfriend at all, and when he tries to be witty people mostly find him annoying. In the background the movie also comments on the Americanization of England, as colorful supermarkets invade gritty post-war London.

But when Harry stumbles onto a forbidden file, he suddenly finds himself hunted from all sides, and all hell breaks loose in the midst of double-crossings, kidnappings and mysterious killings. Strangely enough, this flick also reflects with uncanny accuracy the secret brainwashing operations the CIA had in foreign countries worldwide, including their so-called partners in Europe. It is one of those movies considered to have an outrageous premise when it hit the screens, but later it turned out to be based in reality.

Shot in rich Technicolor widescreen, and besides starring a youthful Michael Caine, it also sports an iconic music score by John Barry.
This will be a high-definition screening.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Vertical Ray of the Sun (Tran Anh Hung, 2000)

By: börek - October 9th, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 9 october 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Vertical Ray of the Sun * Mùa hè chiều thẳng đứng / À la verticale de l’été * 2000 * by Tran Anh Hung * 112 minutes * In Vietnamese with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

Most American movies these days have huge stories, and zero content. This movie is exactly the opposite, and in some ways is closer to European cinema of the 1960s. Here the story is minimal, but it is done in such a lush way. Even when it starts raining it feels like a shower of silver, not like the gloomy rainfalls here in Europe. To put it simply, poetry is still intact, and there is an engagement to the bigger picture of life, something lacking in more narrative driven movies. This is the kind of film you can sink into body and soul.

Although the film has a lush exotic mood, it doesn’t get carried away with its exoticism, and breaks the borders between East and West by bringing in elements of Western culture. For example, a Velvet Underground tune that pops up. The reason this diversity is possible is that the director grew up in Vietnam until he was 12, and then moved to France. So he has a double identity, and in his movies he brings together the best of both worlds.

On the surface it is about three sisters who meet in Hanoi over the course of a month on the anniversary after their parents’ deaths. In these encounters secrets about the past are revealed. But the real meat is the ultra-sensual mood, and its feeling of incredible harmony with the environment. it doesn’t have a conventional approach to narrative story telling… instead it’s more a mosaic of small intimate moments, and the power of images to communicate a sense of life.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Divided Heaven (Konrad Wolf, 1964), GDR series

By: börek - August 31st, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 11 September 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Divided Heaven / Der geteilte Himmel (GDR series), 1964 adaptation of Christa Wolf’s novel by Konrad Wolf, 109 minutes, in German with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

This film is part of the GDR / Why Women Had Better Sex under Socialism series

Based on the famous novel by Christa Wolf about two lovers who are torn apart as the Berlin Wall is about to be constructed, dividing the country in two. Rita has a lover, but over the course of their relationship it becomes clear they have different political points of view. The movie is great in laying out excellent arguments for both sides… the socialist East Bloc and the consumer-orientated West.

The film embraces the structure of the novel, which begins with a woman waking up in a hospital, and through flashbacks, recounts the recent events that got her there. This wild structure matches well with the film’s French New Wave feel. It is often quite experimental – using angular photography and scenes overlapping between the present moment and the past. The cinematography is crystalline, with an endless array of exquisitely composed black-and-white images. The soundtrack is also bold, with an experimental electronic music score giving the story a modern, ‘in transition’ sort of mood.

It makes sense that since each character is a different gender, they make different decisions. In the West men are in control and have more advantages… and Rita stays in the East where there was much more gender equality. But the real argument is much more than that, it is more about if a person should fight for a cause, or just live as easy as possible.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: I cannibali (Liliana Cavani, 1970)

By: börek - August 17th, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 14 August 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Year of the Cannibals (Liliana Cavani, 1970), 87 minutes, in Italian with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:30, film starts at 21:00.

This is a wild offbeat plunge into European cinema of the 70s… a time when everything was up for grabs and bold experiments were being forged by visionary directors… in this case Liliana Cavani (The Night Porter). As I have mentioned before, female directors were emerging here in Europe in this period, a phenomena that would pretty much be dashed in the 80s. This bizarre document was made during the social protest years of 1967-69 and stars Britt Ekland along with the uncompromising Pierre Clémenti. It’s loosely based on the Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, but this version has been updated into a surreal-symbolic Italian sci-fi of the 70s.

We enter a situation where the city streets are littered with the copses of hundreds of boys and girls, who were probably demonstrators beaten by the police. The bodies are left there as a warning against rebellion by the government, and no one is allowed to touch them. The story centers on a woman who wants to bury her dead brother, and together with her friend Tiresias, they conspire to break the law and bury the dead. The thunderous music score is by Ennio Morricone.

Ironically the cityscape strewn with lifeless bodies anticipated a bomb which exploded in a Milan bank a few months later. First blamed on leftists, it was later discovered it had been planted by neo-fascists. The bomb blast killed 18 and wounded 80. Director Liliana Cavani would later call her film a “tragic prophecy.”

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000)

By: börek - July 2nd, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 10 July 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000), 89 minutes, in English with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:30, film starts at 21:00.

The director of this film Jonathan Glazer says that he based it upon an old Greek myth about a man who thought he was happy and the Gods sent him the unhappiest man on earth. That seems to be a good way to look at this wild story about a British gangster (Ray Winstone) who wants nothing more than retire and enjoy his wealth. He lounges at his villa on Costa del Sol, with not a care in the world, until his Mediterranean paradise is interrupted by Logan (Ben Kingsley), who wants him to be involved in a London heist and won’t take no for am answer. That’s the volatile set-up for this raw drama that explodes into surreal proportions.

Especially Ben Kingsley’s infamous character, as a goateed, shaved-headed pit bull of a gangster is a classic, and its a direct contrast to his earlier academy award winning incarnation of Gandhi. In fact in this film he plays a kind of anti-Gandhi….a pushy gangster type which you will never forget. Director Glazer is best known for his inventive video work for bands like Massive Attack and Radiohead, and here he takes cinema head-on in this “high-voltage crime thriller that crackles with chilling style and wit.”

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)

By: börek - June 5th, 2022  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 12 June 2022, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002), 97 minutes, in English with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

Scottish director Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk about Kevin) proved to be the boldest of all female European filmmakers when she blasted into the scene with her compelling early short movies and her haunting debut feature Ratcatcher. Morvern Callar was her second feature film, and we find her covering radically different territory yet again, with a story about a woman in Scotland whose boyfriend has committed suicide on Christmas Day. She then breaks away and takes off on a trip with her female friend to Spain. Actually, there is a lot more to this story than what I am telling, involving many levels of deception, intrigue, questions about art and forgery, and hidden secrets, but it’s better to let the story unfold itself. And although there is a story, I would say it isn’t a movie for a story-driven audience, one that is looking for thrills and spills… but rather for an audience that can pick up on ambience, the sensuality of the human face, and quiet subdued moments rather than overblown ones.

This is an absorbing portrait of the main heroine portrayed by Samantha Morton, and if you allow yourself to be open, it will suck you into its vast world. The cinematography hits you over and over again with its atypical framing and focusing, which is immersive and revealing. These images are fused with a wide-ranging soundtrack including music by Aphex Twin, Broadcast, German Kraut-rockers Can, Stereolab, Ween, the Velvet Underground, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, etc. The film is based on the debut novel by Scottish author Alan Warner, who dedicated his book to musican Holger Czukay, so of course some of his music also emerges in several scenes. The free-form approach and unrushed speed of this flick, devoid of the normal identification gimmicks, means you won’t connect to our main character like you would in ‘normal’ movies…. she stays independent and mysterious. A poetic stream of both rough and lush textures, with an astounding performance by actress Samantha Morton that is absolutely mesmerizing.

This will be a high-definition screening.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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