The quietly uplifting Bridge of Spies, Don Hertzfeldt’s The World of Tomorrow, and an appreciated Bergman/Craven pairing
Thursday
Bridge of Spies (9:30p — Union South Marquee)
When you strip away the secrets and lives at stake, international espionage is a rather silly, small enterprise. Nowhere was that more eloquently illustrated than in Bridge of Spies‘ opening minutes, where Soviet operative Rudolf Abel (an superb, nuanced Mark Rylance) retrieves a microscopic cipher from a hollowed out nickel tucked under a park bench where- you get the idea. Steven Spielberg’s latest might have been a quieter, less salacious recreation of attorney James Donovan’s (Tom Hanks) negotiation of Abel for a captured U.S. pilot, but its eloquence reveals a superior story, where acts of valor are only as important as the character of those behind them. (FREE.)
All freakin’ weekend
Oscar Shorts: Animation and Live-Action (Sundance)
It’s that time of year again — to point out just how white those Oscars nominations are. Diversity and representation have essential places in culture, even when the decision-makers behind the annual awards show are (infamously) lots of old white dudes. While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences flails to gets its public relations shit together, you can enjoy what little diversity this year’s nominees offer; you’ll just have to do so on a much smaller stage. Once again, Sundance Madison is playing exhibitor to all three of Oscar’s short film categories, many of which sport far more heterogeneity than the feature-length siblings. Basil Khalil’s Ave Maria comes to mind, pushing buttons and shirking stigmas with his dramedy about five Palestinian nuns obligated to help an Israeli family (Cap Times editor Rob Thomas brings his Sundance chats back on Wed, Feb 3.). The World of Tomorrow takes the cake though, animated or otherwise. Bitter Films mastermind Don Hertzfeldt soars to weird science-fiction highs and crushing existential lows in forecasting the inevitable fate of four year-old Emily.
Sunday
The Virgin Spring (2:00p — Chazen Art Museum)
Taking its place alongside Fritz Lang’s all-timer M, Ingmar Bergman’s medieval drama still provokes and challenges assumptions of guilt, morality, and vengeance to this day. After his daughter is raped and murdered in the Swedish wilderness (and while their pagan servant girl watches and does nothing), Bergman regular Max Von Sydow takes justice into his own hands. Under this deceptively simple ethical fulcrum lies a whole mess of faith and humanity, with screenwriter Ulla Isaksson outlining heathen ritualism and Christian virtue before muddling those same religious divisions. Ultimately, The Virgin Spring is yet another testament to Bergman’s direction, with a timelessly chilling murder playing out in stark black-and-white photography in cold and remorseless clarity (Cinematheque’s Bergman on 35mm series plays FREE).
Monday
The Last House on the Left (7:00p — Union South Marquee)
And if you can’t see The Virgin Spring on Sun, WUD Film and Cinematheque are giving you a second chance. Kinda. Wes Craven’s sensationalist debut is stylistically different from Bergman’s formalism, but the late master of horror held no reservations about crediting the 1960 film’s influence on his own tormenting of two women (Sandra Cassel and Lucy Grantheim). With a flimsy budget and production assistance from Friday the 13th‘s Sean S. Cunningham, Craven would make the first of several indelible marks on horror cinema in 1972, capitalizing on doomsayers of American morality and the Manson cult hysteria and influencing the likes of future indie dark horses like The Blair Witch Project and gory spiritual successors in Martyrs. MGM’s provocative trailer assures us “It’s only a movie…” but the first FREE “Marquee Monday” of 2016 suggests a darker, deeper lineage behind this.