2008 Spring Season
At Park High School
Volver* Jan. 24-27
In Pedro Almodovar’s
enchanting,
gentle, transgressive
Volver, the
spirit of a deceased
matriarch named
Irene as moved
in with her sister
Paula, who is
growing senile
and appreciates
some help around
the house, especially with the baking. They live, or whatever you’d call
it, in a Spanish town where the men die young, and the women spend
weekends cheerfully polishing and tending their graves, just as if they were
keeping house for them. We meet Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and Sole,
Irene’s daughters; Raimunda’s daughter, Paula, and Paco, Raimunda’s
beer-swilling, layabout husband. Two deaths occur closely spaced to upset
this happy balance. The radiant Cruz, looking voluptuous and rounded
(in the style of Sophia Loren or Claudia Cardinale in their heydays), has
never been more illuminating — and clearly Almodovar’s camera loves
her. Equally fine is Carmen Maura, an Almodovar protégée from his early
days, who returns to the fold as the ghost mother who has more than a
passing resemblance to the director’s own madre. Almodovar is above all a
director who loves women —
young, old, professional, amateur, mothers,
daughters, granddaughters, dead, alive. Here his cheerful plot combines
life after death with the concealment of murder, success in the restaurant
business, the launching of daughters and with completely serendipitous
solutions to (almost) everyone’s problems. He also achieves a vivid
portrait of life in a village not unlike the one where he was born. Like
Fellini’s Amarcord, this latest film from Almodovar is a fanciful revisit to
childhood. 2006 European Film Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best
Actress, Best Cinematographer. (Spain, 2006) Pedro Almodovar. Spanish
language. 121 min.
The Cave Of The Yellow Dog * Feb. 14-17
Set in the distant wilds of Mongolia, The Cave of the Yellow Dog follows
the travails of a single nomadic family as a decision must be made regarding
the prudence of maintaining their nomadic life. Amid these issues the
eldest daughter of the clan, Nansal (all of seven or eight years old), finds
a puppy in a cave and decides to keep him, much to the chagrin of her
father. As the family makes the decision to leave their centuries-old way of
life, Nansal’s attachment to the little dog grows ever deeper, leaving a great
chasm in her heart when she is expected to leave him behind when the
family moves on. There is a good deal of drama in writer/director Davaa’s
(The Story of the Weeping Camel) simple reflective narrative. The filmmakers
use part of an actual nomadic Mongolian family in the movie (the
child actors are all siblings), and, though the film is not a documentary,
the use of the Batchuluun children, along with a particular focus on the
everyday lives and events of nomadic Mongols from the making of cheese
to the disassembly of the Yurt (a sort of structured tent) brings a profound
trueness to every moment of The Cave of the Yellow Dog. Along with the
poignant and astute narrative, cinematographer Daniel Schonauer’s rendering
of the Mongolian landscape is breathtaking. It must also be noted
that each of the Batchuluun children is extraordinary and that Nansal
Batchuluun is among the
most captivating creatures
captured on film — ever.
2006 German Film
Awards: Outstanding
Children or Youth Film.
(Mongolia, 2006) Byambasuren
Davaa. Mongolian
language. 93 min.
The Lives Of Others * March 27-30
A delicate cross between a
Robert Ludlum political
thriller and Francis Coppola’s
voyeuristic nightmare The Conversation, The Lives of Others,
which swept the German
Film Awards and went on to
win an Oscar for Best Foreign
Language Film, is a fascinating
look into the political and
psychological underpinnings of communist control in the former German
Democratic Republic. Director von Donnersmarck doesn’t simply provide
a cursory morality tale about the evils of totalitarianism; instead he creates
a multi-layered drama examining the makeup of the totalitarian mind.
Captain Gerd Wiesler is one of the top agents with the Stasi secret police
who is assigned to do audio surveillance over one of East Germany’s most
gifted — and loyal — playwrights. Along with his actress wife, Georg
Dreyman is a champion of communism, but his dashing charisma and
his wife’s rising star have attracted the paranoia of the Politburo. Captain
Wiesler, like Coppola’s Harry Caul, is a cipher with no inner life who
preys upon the lives of others in order to define himself. One day, though,
he is so moved while listening to Dreyman play the piano concerto of a
recently deceased friend that his life begins to change. While the picture
has a Kafkaesque logic, it isn’t as pervasively buggy as The Conversation.
The Lives of Others takes place only a few years before Glasnost started the
thaw that ultimately took down the Berlin Wall. This unflinchingly brave
picture shows what came down with it. 2007 U.S. Academy Awards: Best
Foreign Language Film. (Germany, 2005) Florian von Donnersmarck.
German language. 137 min.
Kinky Boots *
April 17-20
Charlie Price is a wannabe ad exec finally breaking away from his father’s
dream for him to take over the family shoe factory but he’s obliged to
return when Dad suddenly dies. Charlie learns that the manufacturing
plant is also not long for this world, according to the red ink in the books.
Charlie feels obliged to save the company out of respect for its multigenerational
lineage and for the sake of the workers. However, the quality product
Price & Sons has always been known for has recently been snubbed
by retailers in favor of more inexpensive products. Charlie doesn’t know
how to resolve this until fate teams him up with his niche market, one that
needs top-notch, durable footwear, preferably in a size 13 and made of red
patent leather with snakeskin accents. For those who still haven’t twigged,
this would be the transvestite sector. When Charlie comes to the aid of a
damsel-in-distress who’s being harassed by some thugs, his world changes
when he learns that ain’t no lady. It’s Lola (Dirty Pretty Things’ Chiwetel
Ejiofor), a drag queen who bemoans, broken heel in hand, that stiletto
boots weren’t made to hold someone six-foot-two with a boxer’s physique.
The two team up, but both must surmount situational obstacles as well as
their own insecurities before the rousing, Swarovski-crystal-studded feelgood
finale. 2006 Florida Film Festival: Best International Feature.(UK,
2006) Julian Jarrold. English language. 107 min.
Pan's Labyrinth * May 8-11
Pan’s Labyrinth is one of the cinema’s great fantasies, rich with darkness
and wonder. It’s a fairy tale of such potency and awesome beauty that it
reconnects the adult imagination to the primal thrill and horror of the
stories that held us spellbound as children. Opening titles set the story in
Spain, 1944, as resistance fighters lurking in the mountains continue to
fight Franco’s fascist regime. In the first vertigo-inducing minute or so of
the film we’re plunged into the turbulent imagination of Ofelia, a bookish
11-year-old girl who is traveling with her pregnant mother Carmen to an
old mill in the forest, where Ofelia’s evil-stepfather-to-be, Capitan Vidal
commands a fascist outpost. Ofelia, fascinated by fairytales, discovers an
overgrown, ruined labyrinth behind the mill. In the heart of the labyrinth
she meets Pan, an ancient satyr, who claims to know her true identity and
her secret destiny. The satyr explains to Ofelia that she is not who she
thinks she is; she is a lost princess, and she can return to where she belongs
if she carries out the three tasks he gives her. Time is running out – for
Ofelia and for the rebels. Both will have to battle hardship and cruelty
in order to gain their freedom. But who can be trusted in a time of lies
and danger? Is Pan telling the truth? And if not, who is? In this beautiful,
yet harsh and uncompromising film, Ofelia learns to trust her own
instincts about right and wrong. In order to find her true self, she must
also find the strength to break the rules imposed by authority. 2007 U.S.
Academy Awards:
Best Achievement
in Art Direction,
Best Achievement
in Cinematography,
Best Achievement in
Makeup. (Mexico,
2006) Guillermo del
Toro. Spanish language.
120 min.
