UW-Parkside presents trio of summer foreign films

Noomi Rapace in "The Girl Who Played with Fire."

A "firecracker" Swedish murder mystery, a dark Italian comedy, and an absurd look at an absurd time in Romanian history highlight the summer foreign film series at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Featuring the second installment in the Stieg Larsson trilogy "The Girl Who Played with Fire," director Lina Wertmuller's Oscar-nominated "Seven Beauties," and Romania's "Tales from the Golden Age," each film is shown three times on consecutive weekends beginning July 12 in the Student Center Cinema, 900 Wood Rd., Kenosha.

"In selecting films for this year's summer program, we paid close attention to comments our patrons made on our annual survey," said series director Norm Cloutier.  "They expressed a preference for a vintage foreign title, and the Romanian film received a lot of votes, and they wanted to see another installment in the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson."

July 12-14, computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist are back in "The Girl Who Played with Fire." Lisbeth is framed for her parole officer's murder and must find the real killer while Mikael investigates a human trafficking scandal that caused the death of two colleagues. "Reelviews" critic James Berardinelli called "The Girl Who Played with Fire" a "firecracker of a story--sharply written, superbly acted, and fast-paced. The plot features the kinds of twists one expects from a good mystery."

July 19-21, Wertmuller's "Seven Beauties" introduces us to Pasqualino, an Italian everyman with his own unique definition of honor. Pasqualino defends the honor of his seven unattractive sisters (the seven beauties) and as a result is sent to an asylum for the criminally insane. Released to serve Italy during World War II, he later woos the homely mistress of the Nazi prison camp he is sent to after trying to desert. Nominated as Best Foreign Language Film in 1977, "Seven Beauties" is a classic of European cinema and a "can't miss" summer film.

July 26-28, the series concludes with "Tales from the Golden Age," a comic, sometimes poignant look the dying days of Romania's communist dictatorship. As the brutal regime of Nicolae Ceau?escu coughed and sputtered to its demise, Romanians used humor to survive. "Tales" presents five urban legends of the era?the "Legend of the Official Visit," the "Legend of the Party Photographer," the "Legend of the Greedy Policeman" and others?in what Film Journal International critic David Noh called "a deeply human array of short films" that "provides many a well-observed laugh and moment of hard-pressed economic truth."

Admission to each film is $4. Cloutier noted during the academic year, the series requires a season subscription but that tickets can be purchased at the door for the summer program. Show times are Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m. All films are subtitled.

For more information on the summer films or the upcoming 31st season of the UW-Parkside Foreign Film Series, call the Student Center Concierge at 262-595-2307.

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Story Status: Archived
Publish date: 6/21/2012

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