ALI IN WONDERLAND
(علي في بلاد العجائب)
dirs. Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, 1976
59 mins. Algeria/France.
In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19 – 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 22 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27 – 5 PM

4K RESTORATION – NYC PREMIERE

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Miraculously blending styles of militant polemical and experimental essay filmmaking, ALI IN WONDERLAND speaks to the struggle of Maghrebi workers in Paris in the 1970s. Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy made the film in their twenties, as participants of the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes – a leftist cinema collective formed in the aftermath of the May 1968 uprisings. Fully living up to their stated intention to imbue images “like blows of the fist” upon the film’s viewers, Abouda and Bonnamy paint a visceral and unforgettable portrait of migrant exploitation as it manifests (whether in history or today) in western urban capitals – essential viewing alongside Spectacle favorites like Sidney Sokhona’s NATIONALITE: IMMIGRE and Madubuko Diakite’s THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE.

Formally playful yet ferociously political, ALI IN WONDERLAND is among the most important Francophone films of the (increasingly so-called) postcolonial era, yet has been unavailable to see for decades. Following streaming engagements organized by our friends at Another Gaze and ArteEast in 2021, Spectacle is thrilled to host the New York City premiere of ALI IN WONDERLAND’s new 4K restoration, based on original negatives and a 16mm exhibition copy, supervised by Léa Morin at Image Retrouvée in collaboration with the filmmakers.

“Shaky and stirring, ALI IN WONDERLAND shows an increasingly devastating conflict between the actions of workers and those of the society that employs them without ever seeing or considering them. Luxury shops and boutiques selling haute couture contrast brutally with the living conditions and work undertaken by the Algerians. Images of narrow walkways between tower blocks, slums, substandard apartments, respond figuratively to society’s repressive order of police violence and racism, as well as France’s colonial legacy (the filmmakers include archival images of the Algerian War of Independence, the Sétif massacre, and photographs taken by journalist Élie Kagan on the night of the Paris Massacre of 1961). Abouda and Bonnamy make use of the full audio-visual arsenal of experimental cinema at the time: superimposition and flicker; mosaic images and split screen; fast and slow motion; the integration of still images and animation; jump cuts and shots where the cut is almost imperceptible; and glitching and distortion, either done in-camera or in the edit. Each aesthetic choice is justified by a politics that is precise and easy to decipher – following in the footsteps of the soviet tradition of “ciné-poing” / “cine-fist” (Eisenstein) and even the “ciné-œil” / “cine-eye” (after Esther Choub and Dziga Vertov) and avant-garde documentary of the twenties and thirties (Alberto Cavalcanti, Hans Richter, Jean Vigo).

The montage brings together musical and vocal refrains with visual motifs and the repetition of certain sounds and images takes the viewer into an almost ‘fantastical’ dimension (as noted by the writer Tahar Ben Jelloun in Le Monde in 1978), making the city feel even more oppressive, presented like a great biopolitical and disciplinary laboratory. This ensemble of themes (work, city, lodging, women, children, men, sex work) is contained within a circular construct that echoes the “City Symphonies” genre of the twenties, beginning and ending at night with a shot of the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, having taken the viewer through all the stages in a day in the life of an Algerian worker.” – Federico Rossin, Cahiers du Cinema (via Another Gaze)

screening with

ALGERIE COLOURS
dirs. Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, 1972
16 mins. France.
In French with English subtitles.

CINE-CITE
dirs. Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, 1974
15 mins. France.
In French with English subtitles.

Via Association TALITHA Films. Special thanks to Peter Limbrick and Lea Morin.

(poster by Benjamin Tuttle)

LES VAMPIRES
(THE VAMPIRES)
dir. Louis Feuillade, 1915-1916
417 mins. France.
Silent with English inter-titles.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 20- 11AM to 7PM (This event is $15)

GET TICKETS

A secret organization of ruthless criminals known as The Vampires haunts the streets and ballrooms of Paris. Journalist Philippe Guérande seeks to unravel their nefarious plot. At the center of it all stands the mysterious and elusive muse to the criminals, Irma Vep, brought to life with a dangerously seductive glamour by the legendary Musidora.

Released in its day as 10 “episodes” over the course of 7 months, Les Vampires is now typically shown in marathon format—a drawn-out affair clocking in at 7 hours, by turns tedious and exhilarating. Its plotting is byzantine, consisting of reversals of identity and double- and triple-crosses, straining logic in deference to the theatricality of a given scenario.

Olivier Assayas has once again renewed interest in this classic of serialized cinema with the enormously entertaining mini-series revamp of his 1996 film Irma Vep. If cinema is truly in crisis, as Assayas enthusiastically proclaims (he promises this is good news), then perhaps a means of diagnosing its illness can be found in searching the images and modes of its past that still haunt us today. Though Irma Vep’s series run is now complete, those uninitiated to Feuillade’s vision are likely eager to spend more time within this fantastical world. With this in mind, Spectacle is pleased to present a marathon screening of Les Vampires, with a soundtrack composed of original works from local artists and friends of the theater.

This August, join us for two feature films (and a few odds and end short surprises!) from Gabriel Bartalos, the practical effects mad man behind most of the LEPRECHAUN series, as well as a resume that spans from DAWN OF THE DEAD and FRANKENHOOKER to TIM AND ERIC’S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE. There’s something for everyone (?) in these two singular ‘horror’ flicks from a living effects master.

SKINNED DEEP
dir. Gabriel Bartalos, 2004
97 mins. United States.
In English.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 7 – 5 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 8 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20 – 9:30 PM with Q&A with Gabriel Bartalos
(This event is $10.)
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27 – MIDNIGHT

GET YOUR TICKETS!

A family’s flat tire on a barren stretch of road, with only a diner dotting the landscape, leads them to Granny, the seemingly nice old woman who runs the establishment.

Released in 2004, SKINNED DEEP plays like a surreal riff on THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE from an alternate dimension. It follows a family on a cross country road trip who stumbes into a hellish diner run by ‘the Surgeon General’ and his nightmare family, including ‘Brian’ (who has a massive cranium) and ‘Plates’ – a maniac who throws….plates – played by Warwick Davis.

Clearly crafted with a lot of love and care, SKINNED DEEP is mandatory midnight viewing for slasher fans.

SAINT BERNARD
dir. Gabriel Bartalos, 2019
97 mins. United States.
In English.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 26 – 9:30 PM – with Q&A with Gabriel Bartalos
(This event is $10.)
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30 – 7:30 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

A classical musical conductor unravels into the abyss of insanity.

Gabriel’s second feature manages to outdo its predecessor in terms of both scope and tone – SAINT BERNARD has far more in common with experimental classics like ERASERHEAD than the bizarro 70s/80s slasher fare of SKINNED DEEP.

Those expecting a linear narrative (or the WTF slasher antics of SKINNED DEEP) will have their expectations twisted like a Bartalos clay sculpture, and if you allow yourself to get on the movie’s wavelength, there is a lot to love – a sincere, surreal exploration of obsession and addiction, full of chaos and mind blowing practical effects.

Deep in the forest a group of five friends wander around like a lion herd. Lost in their word games, they play and seduce each other while going back and forth into adulthood territory, in a desperate search to avoid their already written story.

LEONES is a fairy tale drawn in sinuous, long Steadicam takes which call to mind similar hypnotic camerawork in films by Michaelangelo Antoioni or Max Ophuls. Widely celebrated on the festival circuit, the film curiously never received proper distribution in the United States despite López’s preternatural command of mood and image, and copies have become hard to track down in the ensuing decade. Ten years later, the spontaneity of its teenage performers and its insinuating psychological texture have become unforgettable. Inspired by both avant-garde literature and real-life grief, López depicts youthful listlessness as a kind of festering, with the characters’ disjointed conversations rarely lining up in an equal exchange. LEONES is a work of pure cinema – surreal, melancholy, macabre, impossible to pin down but never obscure for its own sake.

IF I WERE THE WINTER ITSELF
(SI YO FUERA EL INVIERNO MISMO)
dir. Jazmín López, 2020
92 mins. Argentina.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 – 7:30 PM with Jazmín López in person for Q+A moderated by Josh Siegel
(This event is $10.)
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30 – 10 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS! 

Four friends meet on a remote estate to create a cinematic re-enactment of three iconic works that embodied the social and artistic revolution of 50 years ago.

López’s second feature tackles its artistic influences head-on (specifically, works by Harun Farocki, Ana Mendieta and Jean-Luc Godard) while expanding on the uncanny assurance of filmmaking demonstrated in LEONES. Like that film, SI YO FUERA EL INVIERNO MISMO is an odyssey traversing the physical world and an unknowable afterlife, but López’ signature operatic themes are undercut by the film’s sly sense of humor and an unerring eye for tedium – not just of collectively workshopped art/performance, but also of heartbreak and grief.

Special thanks to Scott Macauley (Forensic Films), Mitchell Mailloux Glidden and Ilyse Singer (Roxy Tribeca).

JAZMIN LOPEZ is a filmmaker, visual artist, and a professor. She graduated from the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. She has also an MFA in Visual Arts from NYU and MFA in Visual Arts from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. She participated in the WhitneyISP. Her work is represented by Ruth Benzacar gallery and has been featured in venues like Fondation Pernod Ricard, San Jose Museum, OCAT, Tabacalera, Kadist, Istanbul Biennial and KW. She works as professor for NYU and as an assistant professor of Boris Groys. 

JOSH SIEGEL is a Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). He has organized more than 150 film, media, and gallery exhibitions, many of which have appeared on Best of the Year lists in the New York Times, Artforum, Film Comment, Cahiers du cinéma, and the New Yorker. He serves on the selection committees of the annual festivals New Directors/New Films and Doc Fortnight, and he is the founding director of To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, now in its 20th edition. He serves on the executive boards of MacDowell (as well as its nominating, admissions, and DEAI committees), Light Industry, Cinema Tropical, and the Maurice Sendak Foundation.

ANTHONY CHASSI is a writer and curator based out of Queens, NY. His writing has been featured in Hyperallergic, Film Comment and Screen Slate; his curating has been featured at Spectacle as well as at the Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University.