FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22 – 7:30 PM
GET REEL is a movie-clip based comedy show, where comedians voice over movie clips live. This month’s theme is REEL LOVE.
Hosted by:
Max Wittert & Joe Castle Baker
$5 @ Spectacle Theater
124 S. 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11249
(Williamsburg)
It’s no secret that the last twenty years have seen an explosion in disorientingly slick and overproduced nonfiction cinema. All the more reason there’s something revelatory about the films of Kazuhiro Soda, who spent many years producing docs for NHK, the biggest broadcasting corporation in his native Japan, before becoming a one-man-crew to follow an old classmate running for local office in the classic CAMPAIGN (2007). Soda makes crucial decisions on the fly after winning the trust of the people he’s interviewing; when those arrangements threaten to encroach on the drama onscreen, the filmmaker never hides his role in the proceedings. A prolific author, citizen journalist and cat-lover, Soda is an utterly one-of-a-kind documentarian, celebrated at festivals and seminars worldwide in the decade since CAMPAIGN. This spring, in addition to multiple opportunities to see his breathtaking new INLAND SEA, Spectacle is honored to host the maverick documentarian for a two-month retrospective of Soda’s “observational films”, including his deep dive into the University of Michigan’s massive football stadium THE BIG HOUSE (made in collaboration with a class of undergraduates, when Soda was a visiting professor.) Soda is infamous for his “ten commandments” of documentary filmmaking, which are as follows:
1. No research.
2. No meetings with subjects.
3. No scripts.
4. Roll the camera yourself.
5. Shoot for as long as possible.
6. Cover small areas deeply.
7. Do not set up a theme or goal before editing.
8. No narration, super-imposed titles, or music.
9. Use long takes.
10. Pay for the production yourself.
“Soda’s habit of never showing his subjects in humiliating or overexposed positions is less a lapse of documentarian duty than a gesture of respect; tellingly, the two subjects whom Soda chooses to film despite their discomfort and protestations are career politicians he visibly doesn’t much respect (and even then, it’s only their public demonstrations he records). It might be more accurate, however, to label this trait as a therapeutic device: it’s because Soda’s subjects feel at ease with the filmmaker that they open up to the camera as trustingly, gratefully, and cathartically as they do. Decorousness is an unusual virtue to celebrate in an observational filmmaker, but then much about Soda is unusual. Some other documentary filmmakers equal Soda in keenness, intelligence, and wit, but few come off as so genuinely caring and kind, able to shift from observer to assuager with such beguiling grace.” – Max Nelson, Cinema Scope
Special thanks to Laboratory X Films, Rock Salt Releasing and MUBI.
( poster by Luke Alexander Atkinson )
INLAND SEA
(港町)
dir. Kazuhiro Soda, produced by Kiyoko Kashiwagi. 2018.
122 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, MARCH 2 – 7:30 PM – KAZUHIRO SODA AND KIYOKO KASHIWAGI IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)
SUNDAY, MARCH 3 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 5 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 12 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 25 – 10 PM
INLAND SEA is Soda’s first film in black-and-white since student days at the School of Visual Arts – an idea suggested by his longtime partner and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi, whose mother is from Ushimado, the fishing town profiled onscreen. What began as a casual stopover while Soda was shooting his epic documentary OYSTER FACTORY (coming to Spectacle in April) grew into its own stirring meditation on nature, industry and loss; it’s also a rich look into the farming of fish, Ushimado’s main stock and trade. The archipelago is an example of Japan’s shift to metropolitan centers of industrial power, while the film’s elderly protagonists (but especially the 84-year-old Kumiko, a fiery-tongued villager who spends every day near the ocean) typify the country’s aging, marginalized population outside the big cities. Soda doesn’t skimp on the texture of their disappearing way of life, but as he said at the film’s world premiere at the 2018 Berlinale, “I don’t make films that can be reduced to a simple catchphrase.” INLAND SEA is a vision of documentary that’s clear yet contemplative, rigorously made yet almost drunk with the earthy poetry of the sleepy port village’s bygone years.
“The scene in which one of the subjects briefly takes over the film – bringing the camera with her to finally tell a story she probably had never told anyone – was so calmly stunning, raw, and emotional. It didn’t feel forced or manipulated. It just seemed like something very naturally walked into the filmmaking. It’s an art of documentary filmmaking… A subtly moving and breathtaking documentary.” – Bong-Joon Ho, filmmaker (OKJA, THE HOST, MOTHER)
“With its sensitive approach and gentle curiosity, INLAND SEA approaches a certain timelessness. The generous and emphatic engagement that emerges from the film is both moving and beautiful.” – Andréa Picard, Artistic Director of Cinéma du Réel
“Primarily a work of simple and unapologetic humanism, happily in love with people. In the second half, the emphasis shifts to local gossip, chatterbox and unofficial guide Kumiko, an octogenarian of child-like enthusiasms whose garrulousness evidently exerts a powerful spell over the director. The fact that she passed away in 2015 during the editing process — the shooting took place back in 2013 — perhaps helps to explain her increasing prominence as the film unfolds, with Wan-chan and Soda taking more of a back seat, the eponymous sea only intermittently visible.” – Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter
CAMPAIGN
(選挙)
dir. Kazuhiro Soda, production associate Kiyoko Kashiwagi. 2007
120 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SUNDAY, MARCH 24 – 5 PM – KAZUHIRO SODA AND KIYOKO KASHIWAGI IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)
Shot in just 12 days, Soda’s breakout observational doc (which later won him a Peabody Award) film follows Kazuhiko Yamauchi, a mild-mannered former classmate of the filmmaker’s, hand-picked by Japan’s long-entrenched Liberal Democratic Party to run for a vacant City Council seat in a Tokyo suburb. Yama-san’s lack of political experience or camera-ready charisma isn’t a total liability; his tactic of choice is “bowing to everybody, even to telephone poles”, while apparatchiks and spinmeisters from the corridors of power descend on Kawasaki to steer the process (including Japan’s former Prime Minister, the eternally suave Junichiro Koizumi.) Even though it’s all too real, CAMPAIGN one-ups the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest and Sacha Baron Cohen for its rib-bruising spotlight on the circus of local political theatre.
“Appreciation of this film hardly depends on an intimate knowledge of or interest in Japanese politics; the candidate and his prospective constituents don’t manifest much of either. Instead Mr. Soda uses tried-and-true fly-on-the-wall techniques to create a real-life satire. CAMPAIGN may invite a certain skepticism about democracy, but it will surely restore your faith in cinéma vérité.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times
MENTAL
(精神)
dir. Kazuhiro Soda, production associate Kiyoko Kashiwagi. 2008.
135 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 – 7:00 PM – KAZUHIRO SODA AND KIYOKO KASHIWAGI IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)
After being diagnosed with “burnout” at the end of too many grueling work weeks, Soda became fascinated by alternative means of mental health treatment. MENTAL is a portrait of an outpatient psychiatric clinic called Chorale Okayama, founded by one Dr. Masatomo Yamamoto – the protagonist of the film, an elderly doctor working for essentially nothing. Chorale Okayama serves people with incurable mental disorders, who Yamamoto essentially believes can be nevertheless helped by a sympathetic community of listeners.
Soda structured MENTAL so that viewers would will feel like they’re stepping into the clinic just like he did for the first time, unaware of what he would find. It’s not the easiest film in his body of work to watch but is nevertheless an act of courage, looking beyond what the filmmaker calls “the invisible curtain” that separates the well from the unwell (a questionable dichotomy to begin with.) As Soda speaks with Yamamoto’s patients about their lives, struggles, hallucinations and dreams, MENTAL becomes an extraordinary cross-examination of taboo in Japan, to say nothing of the accumulated costs of trauma and, finally, the documentary form’s inherent potential for compassion.
CAMPAIGN 2
(選挙2)
dir. Kazuhiro Soda, production associate Kiyoko Kashiwagi, 2013
145 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SUNDAY, MARCH 24 – 8 PM – KAZUHIRO SODA AND KIYOKO KASHIWAGI IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)
Soda’s sequel to CAMPAIGN is another showcase of Yama-San’s dedication to politics, but also sees him taking on a more cohesive electoral persona: this time running against the Liberal Democratic Party machine that propelled him to victory years before, with a strong anti-nuclear agenda in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. Even if CAMPAIGN 2 picks up where the pyrrhic victories of the first film left off, it also complicates its goofier image: as Soda profiles other Kawasaki residents, candidates and dealmakers, he also shows us how his own celebrity has grown following (and because of) the first CAMPAIGN. The result is an absorbing survey of the relationship between Japanese politics and society, and a self-reflexive question of the role played by public debate in shaping mores on the ground.
“With people fretting over heightened radiation levels, to eat and to breathe is a matter of life and death – and Soda’s efforts in recording the quotidian around him makes perfect sense, as he captures images of masked commuters on train platforms and on the streets, signage about electric conservation, or even children playing in a park, bereft of the fear their parents might feel. Though at times protracted and repetitive, it’s a process which keeps track of a certain point in time when politics and real life converge – or, as seen in CAMPAIGN 2, how a disconnect remains between the two.” – Clarence Tsui, The Hollywood Reporter
THE BIG HOUSE is the result of an undergrad course taught by Soda at the University of Michigan in 2016, alongside professors Terri Sarris and Abé Markus Nornes. U Mich’s campus boasts the the single largest football stadium in the United States (capacity: 107,601), the eponymous “Big House”, so Soda challenged his young co-directors to stick as closely as possible to his Ten Commandments while capturing eye-of-the-storm footage across two different game days – resulting in perhaps the most durable testament to his custom-developed technique. Given the filmmakers’ freedom to roam, THE BIG HOUSE is a riveting and frequently hilarious all-you-can-eat buffet of direct cinema that focuses on “everything but the game”.
While the film was shot during the 2016 election season, Soda et al do not conjecture any easy diagnoses about conservative politics or Midwestern identity. Their reluctance to directly insert politics into a sports doc is palpable, while the concurrent spectacle of football and pageantry are nearly superceded by the massive logistical coordination that makes it all possible. These ins and outs become their own discrete narrative arcs; what exhilarates is coming up for air among the cheering hordes, the ambient satisfaction of picking out real-life details while being swept up in a much bigger wave.
“We are social animals, social creatures. Sometimes we cannot endure being alone, and being individual—we have this also. We are being constantly invited to fascism. And what you see in Michigan Stadium is a demonstration of that. It feels so good when you lose yourself and feel like you are a part of a larger something. If you’re rooting for your team and wearing the same colors and singing the same song at the same time with 100,000 people, you feel good! I felt good too. Although I’m not from Michigan, and I’m Japanese. But when I was there shooting, I felt so good. Which was very scary too (laughs). And I felt a desire inside of me, to be connected with everybody else and to be lost in this crowd, to be part of this huge creature. The problem is that politicians are trying to use that, use this tendency that we have.” – Kazuhiro Soda, interviewed in Shingetsu
PEACE
(平和)
2010. 70 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10 – 7:30 PM with Kazuhiro Soda and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi in-person for Q&A.
(This event is $10.)
Considered an “extra” among Soda’s official body of what he calls “observational films”, PEACE is a radiant portrait of Toshio and Hiroko Kashiwagi, an elderly couple running a “Welfare Transportation Service” in the town of Okayama – a town which is (not entirely coincidentally) the site of Soda’s previous deep dive into alternative caretaking, the 2008 documentary MENTAL. The pair are also the parents of Soda’s producer and wife Kiyoko, so part of the thrill of PEACE comes from watching Soda shape his ten commandments of documentary filmmaking in following people from otherwise life. Working with reduced assistance from the Japanese government, Toshio and Hiroko pair tend to their charges, who include a traumatized WW2 veteran living alone in a flea-ridden shoebox and a worker who describes himself as unmarriable due to a physical deformity. It’s obvious their decades of care have not yielded in a lavish lifestyle or worldwide fame, yet Toshio and Hiroko carry on. PEACE is beloved (and possibly infamous) for a subplot detailing Toshio’s attention to the stray cats gathering near his house, episodes which offer an oasis refuge of tranquility amid the grind of day-to-day life (and, in his wife’s words, a “nuisance for the neighbors”.)
“In its depiction of calm cooperation under adverse conditions, PEACE proves newly relevant in the wake of the Honshu earthquake and subsequent tsunami, suggesting increased arthouse viability….Docu proceeds in a continuous flow that appears effortless, segueing from person to person and cat to cat with perfect equanimity, Soda handling all aspects of the filming himself.” – Ronnie Scheib, Variety
OYSTER FACTORY
(牡蠣工場)
2015. 150 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17 – 7PM with Kazuhiro Soda and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi in-person for Q&A.
(This event is $10.)
Like INLAND SEA, this film grew out of summer vacations spent by Soda and Kashiwagi in the village of Ushimado, in Japan’s Okayama prefecture – the fishing town of 7,500 where Kashiwagi’s mother grew up. After being invited by a fisherman named Hirano to film his oyster factory, Soda and Kashiwagi ended up accumulating over 90 hours of material in three weeks. The result is one of the filmmaker’s most sweeping works, complete with a 20-minute opening sequence in which nary a word is uttered onscreen. The extracting, shelling and scooping out of many varieties of shellfish become indelible soundscapes unto themselves, and the filmmakers’ careful attention to the given moment anticipates the stream-of-consciousness narrative of INLAND SEA. OYSTER FACTORY in particular bears out Soda’s sixth “commandment” of filmmaking, to cover small areas deeply. In time, conversations with incoming oyster factory manager and owner Watanabe (whose own business closer to Tokyo has been displaced by the Fukushima meltdown) and his employees take the lid off the the fishing industry’s wariness towards newly hired workers from China. The result is a hypnotic (and at times nailbiting) survey of heavy industry, plus all the raw humanity that entails: increasingly embattled in getting his footage, Soda captures remarkable glimpses of comradery and xenophobia, to say nothing of the compact between these fishermen and the Seto Islands Inland Sea that stretches back at least a few centuries.
“Superb.” – Charles Mudede, The Stranger
“All’s well that ends well? The film offers no such pat arc. Instead it digresses freely, tracking the adventures of a white stray cat Soda and his wife adopt and following the rescue of a fisherman who falls off a dock…. (OYSTER FACTORY) is warm, insightful and human.” – Japan Times
THEATRE
(演劇)
2012. 172 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, APRIL 27 – 12 PM with Kazuhiro Soda and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi in-person for Q&A.
(This event is $10.)
“Human beings are organisms that perform.” – Oriza Hirata
Not unlike MENTAL, Soda’s fourth feature-length documentary captures many people refracting around a solitary and perhaps genius central figure – in this case, the perpetually exhausted Oriza Hirata, considered by many to be Japan’s most prestigious playwright and theatre director. Hirata’s stamina and attention to detail are indeed made epic over the course of Soda’s two-part, nearly six-hour portrait (which we’ll be screening marathon style, as it was released in Japan.) THEATRE forms Soda’s most elaborate inquiry into art culture and its relation to society, especially insofar as the brass tax of running such an operation like Hirata’s Seinendan (meaning “Youth League”) theatre company, as well as smaller festivals and performances – the constant mapping out of logistics, endless small fires to be put out, and lots of rehearsals. The shooting of actors at work bring both THEATRE films closer to the realm of staged drama than any of Soda’s other works (unless you count CAMPAIGN), but only in the time made available before Hirata calls for a break or asks an actor to try a different approach.
THEATRE 2
(演劇 2)
2012. 172 mins.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, APRIL 27 – 4:30 PM with Kazuhiro Soda and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi in-person for Q&A.
(This event is $10.)
If the first THEATRE zeroed in on Hirata as an impresario, the sequel expands on questions of art and society by following him as he seeks financing for more ambitious-still performances, including the kind of work that’s made him famous internationally – his interest in staging plays with robot actors alongside the humans. Hirata’s own European influences and philosophical insight amount to a master class, but also open up essential questions: Why have people been watching Romeo & Juliet for 400 years despite knowing the ending? What is theatre? Why do human beings act? What emerges is a (frequently hilarious) depiction of Hirata’s belief in public arts programming as a kind of therapeutic practice, and his unwavering faith in the ability of this kind of performance to startle and surprise a different audience each time.
“Through the fascinating spirit and creativity of Oriza Hirata, Kazuhiro Soda’s THEATRE 1 & 2 evokes a plurality of dimensions cleverly portrayed as inseparable aspects of the same problem: pedagogy vs. performance, culture vs. politics, individual creation and experiences vs. collective involvement and responsibilities. A tale of art in our time, THEATRE 1 & 2 is one of those rare and precious acts of filmmaking that delves deep into the essence of culture. – Jérôme Baron, Artistic director, Festival des 3 Continents
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20 – 7:30 PM w/ Special Q&A and discussion with director carl1 and DP Sean Dahlberg led by artist Alex Ito
THURSDAY, MARCH 21 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 29 – 10 PM
BLUE GOD 1: INTO THE DIRT, PINK
dir. carl1, 2016.
USA/Taiwan, 32 min.
Two young girls engage in a metaphysical conversation on the rooftop of their school. Together, they decide they are unwilling to accept the expectations of adulthood, and vow to escape society altogether. Filmed by three collaborators during the summer of 2015 in Taipei and Southern Taiwan, Into the Dirt, Pink is the first of a two part series about the birth of Blue God.
BLUE GOD 2: MY LETTER TENDERLY
dir. carl1, 2018.
USA/Taiwan, 60 min.
In the second act, the protagonists enter a series of dream worlds and alternate dimensions. Within this, a hummingbird, a leaf dance. Two flowers strike a deal with the moon and sacrifice a chicken. When the girls reawaken, they find themselves in the presence of a blue god and tasked with a new everyday.
carl1 (b. 1991 Fremont, California) is an NYC-based artist that goes by many names. Their practice includes sculpture, film and poetry, and is frequently collaborative, fragmentary and ongoing.
MRINAL SEN, director of at least 34 feature films in the Indian state of Bengal, passed away on December 30th at age 95. Critics called his early work the catalyst of the Indian New Wave and he became one of the major figures in Bengali “parallel cinema”. Sen came from a politically active family, and lived through India’s independence, Marxist uprisings and communist rule in Bengal, and the more recent rise of conservative nationalism.
Sen’s films tend to center around ideas and interpersonal exchanges, which expand through a solid cast of actors and carefully shot settings. Sen worked frequently with celebrated cinematographer KK Mahajan, including the three films in this small retrospective. What comes through is a portrait of Calcutta and it’s surrounding region from the relationships within it. Political parties are questioned, middle class values are laid bare, and the ancient past makes an inescapable imprint.
PADATIK
(aka THE FOOT SOLDIER)
dir. Mrinal Sen, 1973
India, 91 min.
In Hindi/Bengali with English subtitles.
MONDAY MARCH 4 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY MARCH 15 – 7:30 PM (Q AND A with writer UDAYAN GUPTA)
MONDAY MARCH 25 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY MARCH 31 – 7:30 PM
PADATIK is the last film in Mrinal Sen’s triptych of Calcutta films, which includes INTERVIEW and CALCUTTA ’71. This film largely takes place within a young woman’s apartment, where a young revolutionary hides from the authorities. Sumit has taken part in a high-profile action and was lucky to escape capture. He spends his days in Shila’s flat reflecting on his own philosophical turmoil, suspicions within the party, and a difficult relationship with his father. Shila (Simi Garewal) works a day job in advertising but also a side project where she interviews local woman on gender inequality. PADATIK balances the tension of the domestic hideout with playful new-wave film gestures, assuring that life is full of beautiful distractions.
One can assume Sumit is a Naxalite, a catchall term used at the time by authorities to describe all revolutionary guerrillas and left-wingers. An armed revolt of landless peasants and urban bombings of state offices in the late ‘60s lead to a massive crackdown against supposed agitators. By the early ‘70s, 2,600 people were detained, and many more were murdered in the countryside. Some took to hiding, as is the case in PADATIK. This film shows the complexity of party engagement, struggles with defeatism, and the strain put on family and relationships.
KHARIJ
(aka THE CASE IS CLOSED)
dir. Mrinal Sen, 1982
India, 99 min.
In Bengali with English subtitles.
MONDAY MARCH 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY MARCH 16 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY MARCH 30 – 7:30 PM (Q AND A with writer UDAYAN GUPTA)
“All of us are at fault universally… we try to set aside the truth with these [law] books”, says a lawyer friend of the family. The law protects the middle class couple, however they must live with the guilt for the way they live in the world.
KHANDHAR
(aka THE RUINS)
dir. Mrinal Sen, 1983
India, 100 min.
In Hindi with English subtitles.
SUNDAY MARCH 3 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY MARCH 26 – 10 PM
SUNDAY MARCH 31 – 5 PM
“Want a drink? Dinner here can take centuries.”
Two city guys are convinced by their friend to take a trip to his family’s crumbling countryside manor to relax and appreciate the decaying beauty. Soon after they arrive, they are made aware of a lingering marital drama that haunts the ailing matriarch and Jamini, her daughter. Subash, a quiet photographer, explores the estate and becomes entranced by Jamini. They develop an almost wordless and torturous flirtation. There is something ancient and fated that thwarts them, as though the ruins themselves play an active part in their destiny.
Since 2003, Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn have been quietly making some of the 21st century’s most inventive independent cinema. With casually gorgeous 16mm visuals, a penchant for thinly veiled overdubbing, and riotous gag-lines that drag the films’ possible interpretations out into the harsh light of day, Kalman and Horn invite their audiences to discard everything they thought they knew and start all over again. Spectacle is thrilled to bring the filmmakers to present the New York City theatrical premiere run of their luminous “spa western” TWO PLAINS AND A FANCY. As an added bonus, we will be screening their novella-sized debut BLONDES IN THE JUNGLE, their transcendentalist comedy L FOR LEISURE, and a special program of rare work and ephemera. With Kalman and Horn for select Q&As.
TWO PLAINS & A FANCY
dir. Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn, 2018
89 mins. United States.
NYC PREMIERE THEATRICAL RUN!
FRIDAY, MARCH 8 – 7:30 w/filmmakers in person for Q&A moderated by Thomas Beard
SATURDAY MARCH 9 – 7:30 w/filmmakers in person for Q& moderated by Hillary Weston
SUNDAY MARCH 10 – 3 PM w/filmmakers in person for Q&A moderated by Bingham Bryant
(These events are $10.)
MONDAY MARCH 11 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY MARCH 12 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY MARCH 13 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY MARCH 14 – 10 PM
Made with the assurance of a wide-canvas Western while embracing the braindead intellectualism that’s fundamental to (and the target of) their prior works, TWO PLAINS AND A FANCY is Lev & Whitney’s most ambitious film to date – a brain-melting “spa western” that’s equal parts travelogue of turn-of-the-20th-century Colorado and meandering interrogation of Deep Time and the American mythos.
“The most imaginative and visionary recent addition to the [Western] genre.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Imagine Alex Cox’s anachronism-prone political oater WALKER B as a half-sickly, half-soothing cinematic soporific, or a karaoke cover of Jim Jarmusch’s DEAD MAN that becomes, over time, its own beguiling composition… TWO PLAINS & A FANCY is a cosmic joke forged on a Kickstarter budget.” – Keith Uhlich, The Hollywood Reporter
“Forgoing sepia-tint past-tense pastiche in favor of Super 16mm richer than any filter, the film embodies a past that hardly seems stable. The tone is its most anachronistic element—the sense of humor is an alchemy of laid-back hipster-hangout banter and what Kalman describes as the ‘aggressive absurdism’ of the David Wain school of meta-comedy.” – Mark Asch, Film Comment
“No verbal or written description can do justice to TWO PLAINS & A FANCY’S best moments, which seamlessly render the absurd and sublime one and the same. One scene, which bears witness to a pair of ghosts descending upon an empty whorehouse, lumps cinema with mass hypnosis, playing the film’s unabashedly low-budget artifice for metaphysical sex comedy, complete with the unforgettable image of wax candles, obviously puppeteered by hand, dry-humping each other on a webby windowsill.” – Daryl Jade Williams, Slant
“[A] gorgeous, laugh-out-loud psychedelic Western.” – Dana Reinoos, Screen Slate
( poster by Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn )
L FOR LEISURE
dir. Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn, 2014
74 mins. USA / Mexico / Iceland / France
FRIDAY, MARCH 8 – 10 PM w/filmmakers in person for Q&A moderated by film critic Mark Asch
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)
Horn and Kalman’s 2014 hilarious breakout feature L FOR LEISURE follows a handful of clueless 20-something grad students on their various vacations – as they explore ideas of sex, history, life, society, science and time (and perhaps most importantly, the art of wasting it it.) Boosted by the gorgeous 16mm location photography that has long been the filmmakers’ signature and a swooning synth soundtrack by John Atkinson (of the band Aa), L FOR LEISURE diagnoses a moment of pre-9/11 complacency with an airy wit and a razor-sharp eye for detail.
“Brilliant… L FOR LEISURE offers a metaphysical dream of pure vision, one that is attainable only through leisure and landscape…That pursuit is itself the essence of cinema.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Beneath its inherently trendy façade, L FOR LEISUREunlocks truths about the importance of friendship and the art of conversation few films could so categorically and honestly convey.”
-Ash Beks, The Essential
“At times it appears as if these unburdened scholars are committed to their own annihilation, blasting one another at a laser-tag arena called Future Warz. Kalman and Horn, in their own understated way, have updated the French actress Simone Signoret’s piquant remark that ‘nostalgia isn’t what it used to be’: Their wry, nimble film points the way forward for others who might also wish to look back.” – Melissa Anderson, Artforum
“Brazenly original.” – Sarah Salovaara, Filmmaker
BLONDES IN THE JUNGLE
dir. Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn, 2009
48 mins. USA / Honduras.
SATURDAY MARCH 9 – 10 PM w/Filmmakers in person for Q&A moderated by Steve Macfarlane!
(This event is $10.)
At the serpentine intersection of Degrassi and Wade Davis, you’ll find the dazzling BLONDES IN THE JUNGLE. Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn’s 48-minute debut is a dazzling “tropical cyclone” – a metaphysical stoner comedy about a trio of spoiled WASP brats searching for the Fountain of Youth in the wilds of Honduras. Color-saturated and empty-headedly hilarious, Kalman and Horn’s film is a deep dive into pampered ignorance and a wealth of topographic riches.
“If you could put a healing balm on the psychic wound that is the ’80s, it would probably contain a dose of the original toxin. BLONDES IN THE JUNGLE is just such a remedy … [it] takes a panoramic view, at the same time gently revealing hypocrisies and reveling in a surplus of pleasures.” – Cine-File
“A cheerful, genial and strange comedy, yet it’s so good-natured and screwy that it’s easy to go along with all of the improbable happenings – and there’s certainly plenty of those. Plus, the scenery is absolutely beautiful to look at with gorgeous cinematography by Horn.” – Bad Lit
“Long story short, it’s amazing.” – Flavorwire
SUNDAY, MARCH 10 – 5PM – FILMMAKERS IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10.)
While BLONDES IN THE JUNGLE and L FOR LEISURE have attained cult-film status and enjoyed long lives at festivals and microcinemas (including Spectacle), many of Lev & Whitney’s other equally audacious and wonderful films have gone largely unseen, screening only at private parties, in art galleries, or languishing in Youtube deserts. In conjunction with the NYC premiere run of TWO PLAINS & A FANCY, Lev Kalman will present favorites of these, featuring time traveling teens, purgatory ping-pong and Bloomingdales shopping sprees. Intimate and candid conversation to follow.
LEV KALMAN (b. 1982) and WHITNEY HORN (b. 1982) have been making films together since 2003, when they were undergraduates in New York City. Their distinctive style blends lo-fi 16mm photography, dreamy electronic music, philosophic musings, and steady bursts of absurdist humor. Their films have played festivals including Rotterdam, BFI London and BAMCinemaFest.
MARK ASCH edited the film section of the late, lamented-by-some The L Magazine, and its sister publication Brooklyn Magazine, from 2007-2012 and again from 2014-2017, the latter stint while living, curiously, in Reykjavík, where he also waited tables and taught in the English department of the University of Iceland. He’s the author of a pocket guide to “New York Movies,” which comes out in the US on May 14 as part of the inaugural run of Close-Ups film guides produced by the UK magazine Little White Lies, and a contributor to Film Comment, Reverse Shot, Nylon, and other fine publications.
THOMAS BEARD is a founder and director of Light Industry and a programmer at large for the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
HILLARY WESTON is a New York-based writer. She is the social media director for The Criterion Collection, as well as a staff writer for their online publication, and has written for Film Quarterly, BOMB, Interview, BlackBook, MUBI, Teen Vogue, and others.
BINGHAM BRYANT is a filmmaker and programmer based in New York City. In 2014 he co-directed, co-edited (with Kyle Molzan) wrote and produced FOR THE PLASMA, an experimental narrative feature about forest-fire lookouts. An official selection at Entrevues Belfort, BAMcinemaFest, IndieLisboa, Jeonju IFF, the film was distributed theatrically and on streaming/VOD platforms by Factory 25. Bingham is also the producer of DEAR RENZO (dirs. Agostina Gálvez & Francisco Lezama) an Argentine-US short film screened at the Viennale, FICUNAM, Entrevues Belfort, BAMcinemaFest and BAFICI. He is currently in post-production on FOREIGN POWERS, a short narrative starring Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell. As a film programmer he works at the streaming platform Le Cinéma Club.
Upsetting many an innocent audience’s stomach, NEKROMANTIK and NEKROMANTIK 2 have deservedly earned a cult reputation for their wanton necrophilia and general repulsiveness. Yet more than just isolated cinematic perversions, these films belong to a mini-movement of transgressive cinema pouring forth from Berlin during the late 80’s and early 90s. Spectacle is unfortunately proud to present a three month long mini-retrospective of two filmmakers from this milieu – Carl Andersen and Jorg Buttgereit. Perfect for spoiling even the most well thought out Valentine’s day date, Jorg Buttgereit’s NEKROMANTIK 1 and 2 will be playing all February followed by Buttgereit’s DER TODESKING and SCHRAMM to keep you feeling cold through March and Carl Andersen’s no-wave scored MONDO WEIRDO and VAMPYROS SEXOS (AKA I WAS A TEENAGE ZABBADOING) playing all April.
[CONTENT WARNING: These films contain scenes of explicit sexual contact, mutilation, rear female nudity, violence, frontal male nudity, dark humor, disembowelment, nihilism, decapitation, deviant sex, depictions of murder, frontal female nudity, documentary footage of the actual killing of an animal, ejaculation, mental illness, rear male nudity, criminal mischief, on-screen urination, sexual perversion, blood, adult language and necrophilia.]
Special thanks to Cult Epics and American Genre Film Archive.
( poster by Stephanie Monohan )
NEKROMANTIK
dir. Jorg Buttgereit, 1987
Germany. 75 min.
In German with English Subtitles.
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 2 – 10 PM
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 14 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 22 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 26 – 7:30 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
Guaranteed to make you gag, Buttgereit’s feature debut was concieved with a purely punk spirit in mind – how far can a film go before its maker would be arrested. NEKROMANTIK follows Rob and Betty – a lovely young couple fond of collecting body parts in jars and bathing in blood. When Rob brings home a mildly rotten cadaver from his job cleaning corpses off the street, the two fall rapidly in love with it – eating dinner dinner with it, reading bedtime stories to it, and initiating it into their sex life. However when Betty decides to leave Rob and run away with the corpse, Rob spirals into utter depravity.
Banned in nearly every country aware of its existence, NEKROMANTIK has rightfully become a cult classic of underground horror cinema. Yet it’s reputation as a gross-out sleaze-fest can betray a lot of the tenderness Buttgereit surprisingly lends the film. Shot on grainy 8mm and set to a soft romantic piano melody, the film feels more like a hypnagogic elegy than an exploitation quickie.
NEKROMANTIK 2
Dir. Jorg Buttgereit, 1991
Germany. 105 min.
In German with English Subtitles.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 10 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
“I want to master life and death” -Ted Bundy
NEKROMANTIK 2 begins right where the first film disgustingly left off, but it’s not long before the film finds its own sickeningly romantic direction. Monika has a proclivity for digging up corpses and taking them to bed with her, but when she meets Mark, a sensitive soul who dubs porn for a living, her heart is torn. The bizzare love triangle develops across romantic trips to the amusement park, an awkward movie date featuring an absurdist parody of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, and more taboo sex than you would ever think to ask for.
Significantly longer than the first film (110 minutes compared to the previous 70) and made with a modestly bigger budget, NEKROMANTIK 2 feels less like a continuation of the original than an expansion of its ideas. Gone is much of the excessive sexual violence that made NEKROMANTIK a favorite amongst 80s German punks and in its stead comes a greater attention to psychological detail of Monika’s romantic frustration. With a balletic camera capable of gracefully spinning through the air in ways rarely achieved before the advent of digital and more deliberate narrative rhythms, the sequel seems to fully realize the original’s repugnant poetry.
US, 84m/104m (extended cut)
NEW YORK PREMIERE OF NEW RESTORATION AND CUT
30th ANNIVERSARY
Original Cut dates:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – 10 PM
Extended Cut dates:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 7:30 PM
Original Cut extended into March:
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 15 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 – MIDNIGHT
Starker wafts of a Pynchon hero scurrying like a rat through the moribund, chaotic future as envisioned by Derek Jarman or Alex Cox. This 2K restoration of the cult headtrip is some kind of miracle — lovingly transferred by Verboden Video and the filmmaker after the discover of not only the film’s original 16mm negatives, but a print of a never-released, 20 minute longer cut of the film as well. We are ecstatic to be able to bring you both.
(poster by Ariel Davis)
FAMILY LIFE
(FAMILIENLEBEN)
dir. Rosa Hannah Ziegler, 2018
Germany, 97 min.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18 – 7:30 PM
“First, you need to figure out what your life is worth to you and what you want to do with it.”
Denise and Saskia live with their mother, Biggi, and her ex-partner, Alfred, on a run-down farm in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The two sisters, one of them recently back from a foster home, are hindered by bouts of anxiety and depression, as well as a shared love interest. Alfred and Biggi try to give them stability, but they have their own demons- their dreams for the farm seem impossible without sufficient funds. Soon, their bucolic idyll of horses and dogs feels like the end of the world.
This somberly-shot, poetic documentary, directed by Rosa Hannah Ziegler, creates a close, sensitive relationship while allowing the protagonists the time and space to express their vulnerabilities, brokenness, and almost insufferable isolation.
“On the face of it, there is little to suggest that FAMILY LIFE is more than an observational portrait film. But this would understate how profoundly generous and affectionate Ziegler is in her depiction of this German family. Against all odds, Alfred, Biggi, Denise, and Saskia strive and aspire—and they have formulated a loving and caring family life to battle these odds. The film notes how humanity may have lost its capacity to provide accommodating (dare one say equal?) opportunities for all, even as it shows the resilience and courage of individuals living in precarious contexts.” – Sander Holsgens, Cultural Anthropology
ROSA HANNAH ZIEGLER was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1982, and studied directing at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. She won the German Short Film Award in Gold for her documentary CIGARETTA MON AMOUR – PORTRAIT MEINES VATERS (2006). She followed this with multi-award-winning short films ESCAPE (2011) and A GIRL’S DAY (2014) which both screened at numerous international festivals. In 2017 she made the television film DU WARST MEIN LEBEN which was nominated for a Grimme Award. FAMILY LIFE is her first feature-length documentary.
The genesis of Rockuary has faded into legend, however it remains a February institution of music in film, music on film, the country love letter, and the occasional rock opera at Spectacle.
This Rockuary features Sarah Minter’s must-see punk dramas, the return of HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS (along with H.H. REVISITED), and Jim Wolpaw’s Rhode Island epic, IT’S A COMPLEX WORLD. THE THE’s INFECTED is screening alongside Too $hort’s classic era videos. You have one night to catch psych-rockers The Taj Mahal Travellers, Les Rallizes Dénudés, and D.C. rock legend Butch Willis!
I want to rock! (Rock!)
I want to rock! (Rock!)
I want to rock! (Rock!)
I want to rock! (Rock!)
Special thanks to Graham Leader, Emiliano Rocha Minter and Claudia Bestor of the UCLA Hammer Museum.
AMATEUR ON PLASTIC
dir. Mark Robinson, 2019
77 min.
ONE NIGHT ONLY! FILMMAKER IN PERSON!
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9 – 5:00 PM *THIS EVENT IS $10*
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9 – 7:30 PM *THIS EVENT IS $10*
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
BUTCH WILLIS is a Washington, D.C. rock legend. Born and raised in Beltsville, Maryland, Byron Henry “Butch” Willis came of age in the late ’70s post-hippie subculture of Takoma Park. After sharing an apartment with infamous local music icon Root Boy Slim, Butch was inspired to become a rock’n’roll star himself.
The unique and unusual brand of “outsider music” that Butch Willis & The Rocks created captivated the local D.C. music scene beginning with their appearance at the seminal Primitive Night at the Psychedelly in Bethesda in 1984. AMATEUR ON PLASTIC chronicles Butch’s life and career from the ’80s all the way through to present day. It features a host of Butch-appointed band managers Joe Lee (Joe’s Record Paradise), Jeff Mentges (No Trend), Jeff Krulik (Heavy Metal Parking Lot), and director Mark Robinson (Unrest/Teen-Beat). Also co-starring is Al Breon, the Rocks’ innovative “throat guitarist.” The film combines archival footage, interviews with Butch, and performances of his hit songs “Drugs,” “The Garden’s Outside,” “TV’s From Outer Space,” and “The Girl’s on My Mind.”
THE TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS ON TOUR
dir. Matsuo Ohno, 1972
Japan, 102 min.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
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A travelogue of the most expansive and mind-manifesting sort, Matsuo Ohno’s documentary follows the gargantuan yearlong 1972 tour of his fellow experimental-music frontiersmen, the Fluxus-associated action-artist Takehisa Kosugi’s acid-ambient ensemble Taj Mahal Travellers, as they set out from their native Japan with a rune-inscribed VW Minibus for Scandinavia, meander through Alpine Europe to Rome, Greece and Istanbul, traverse the Middle East via Iran, Kabul and Pakistan to end, finally, at the glittering palace of their namesake, the Taj Mahal itself! Along the way, the band plies its otherworldly improvisational art at areas of intense natural beauty, state-sponsored museums and ancient holy sights – ecstatically fulfilling their self-styled commitment to “play where ever there is a power-source.”
Kosugi’s rambling, spontaneous and worldly compositional method is perfectly matched by his open-ended touring approach, with a heavy emphasis placed on pure immersion in local culture and music. The resultant cinema-verite of the sticklike ebullient longhairs taking in the sights, trying the local fare, jamming on seaside cliffs and hanging with historic heavies like Don Cherry makes for a meditative and mimetic biopic of the entire touring experience, replete with an ever-shifting language-barrier. Ohno, a longtime mentor and collaborator of Kosugi famous for his own pioneering electronic music, proves to be the optimal observant eye for a performance-centric film about, ultimately, the joyous negation of sonic, cultural and music-business protocol.
LES RALLIZES DÉNUDÉS
dir. Ethan Mousiké, 1992
France, 88 min.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
Left behind in a legacy of bootleg destruction stands this “ambient documentary” on the mythical Japanese political psych-noise pioneers Les Rallizes Dénudés, the ultimate revolutionary cult band whose bass player was a member of the Japanese Red Army “terrorist group” and part of the faction that hijacked a plane with samurai swords and pipe bombs and got away with it, achieving refugee status in Commie North Korea, thus sending the unsuspecting guitarist, leader, auteur and songwriter, Takashi Mizutani, into a paranoiac downward spiral and eventually into hiding, wherefrom he would emerge every half-decade to demolish adoring crowds with sheets of noise, feedback and naive songcraft.
THE THE: INFECTED
dir. Tim Pope, 1987
UK, 47 min.
with
TOO $HORT: BORN TO MACK
dir. Various, 1988-1995
USA, 50 min.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – 10 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
In celebration of THE THE’s comeback tour, Too $hort’s release of The Pimp Tape, and Tim Pope’s plan to direct a new documentary on THE CURE, we present a special program for your tired eyes: TOO INFECTED.
“If you live my life, you’ll be fighting to live.” – Too $hort, from “Life is… Too Short”
The music videos of Too $hort take you through the highs and lows of life, from house parties, to car rides, to police harassment, to the ghetto during the crack cocaine epidemic. Where Matt Johnson wants to tear down the myth of his identity, Too $hort (Todd Anthony Shaw) is trying to build it up. He’s a true player, he rapped with the heavies, and he’s a survivor. His music was always bass heavy and dirty as hell, and this selection showcases the best of the best.
HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS
dir. James Szalapski, 1976
United States. 90 mins.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – 7:30 PM- (Producer Graham Leader in person for Q&A! ONE NIGHT ONLY!)
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 5 PM
In 1976, producer Graham Leader and director James Szalapski documented the outlaw singer/songwriter scene that extended from Austin and Nashville. Included were then relative unknowns Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, and John Hiatt, plus their musical mentors Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. Born was HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS, a cult classic film among fans of the genre. In the relaxed manner of the handmade documentary, we’re given a tour of Townes Van Zandt’s backyard, where we see dogs running loose while he is chugging whiskey and shooting guns. Townes picks up a guitar and sings the poignant “Waitin’ Around To Die” in his kitchen, an elderly neighbor breaks down in tears. We follow David Allan Coe to the Tennessee State Prison to watch a performance; we see Charlie Daniels on a small stage in front of a crowd of near-riotous fans. A gang of buddies, including Rodney Crowell, gathers around a table at Christmas time to sing and pick guitars, showing us some very early work by Steve Earle. The structure of the film is very loose; at times almost surreal, especially viewed through the fish-eye lens of time. There is no real story to the movie, only the tales which are told in the lives of people who love music and make it not for a living.
HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS REVISITED
dir. Wayne Price, 2017
United States. 87 mins.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – 5 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
Fans of HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS can rejoice! More than 40 years after the original, director, Wayne Price, has taken up the mantle, and created another chapter. HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS REVISITED is focused on exploring the current alt country community of musicians inspired by outlaw country in Nashville. Following the same intimate & loose non-structure, HH Revisited ambles from musician to musician, while we listen to their stories and songs. In HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS REVISITED, the filmmakers reunite with HEARTWORN originals Guy Clark, Steve Young and David Allan Coe while focusing on the next generation of “outlaws”: John McCauley, Jonny Fritz, Josh Hedley, Justin Townes Earle, Shovels & Rope, Langhorne Slim, Robert Ellis, Andrew Combs, Shelly Colvin, Phil Hummer and others who honor the traditions of their predecessors while forging a highway all their own.
NADIE ES INOCENTE
(NO ONE IS INNOCENT)
dir. Sarah Minter
55 mins. 1985-87.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10 – 5 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25 – 7:30 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
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No hay
no hay futuro
No hay
No hay amor
No hay
No hay cemento
Yey yey
Los mierdas soy yo
Sarah Minter’s no-future classic NADIE ES INOCENTE is a fictionalized document of the chavos banda (youth gang) punk community in the slums of Mexico City’s Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl (also known as Neza York) shot on Betacam over a number of years. Minter structures the film around bad trip of a reformed punk named Kara as he takes the train from Neza back to the main city; delivered in both flashback and voiceover monologue, his memories serve as desolate testimony from an apocalyptic adolescence. NADIE ES INOCENTE was written and performed in collaboration (Minter would later say, complicity) with the young Mierdas Punks who play themselves onscreen, and betrays Minter’s extraordinary access. The film also repurposes 16mm concert footage from her collaboration with Gregorio Rocha SABADO DE MIERDA (SATURDAY OF SHIT), using slow motion and inventive sound editing to give big-screen gravitas to handheld shots of desert throwdowns as Kara’s self-extinguishing memories. Shown and distributed locally on VHS in New York City by Karen Ranucci’s Downtown Video for years before it was seen in, NADIE ES INOCENTE is a remarkable and unsentimental depiction of teenage life and urban displacement.
screens with
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Starring Maribel Mejia as a young woman who goes on a road trip reeling from a string of heartbreaks and bad relationships, Minter’s early collaboration with her then-partner Rocha feels more apiece with the French New Wave influences of a successive generation. (She spoke admiringly about Godard in an interview, but described her later ideas as more directly influenced by Dziga Vertov.) There isn’t a ton of evidence of the staccato editing that would mark NADIE ES INOCENTE, but one prolonged sex scene – in which a furiously edited sequence of sound effects takes center stage over abstracted imagery – can only hint at the individual liberation to follow.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – 7:30 PM
Part-improvised and starring a cast of nonactors led by real-life punk Ana Hernandez (as Alma, which also means “soul”), ALMA PUNK traces the tortuous path of a young riot grrl from the Mexico City punk scene as she moves north to Tijuana and, eventually, towards the United States. It confidently breaks with the rules of staging docudrama with an unsparing look at Alma’s love life, unfakeable scene bohemianism and extensive location footage of Mexico before NAFTA and after the 1985 earthquake. “I feel like no one is supporting me,” Alma says. “Guys want everything and give nothing in return. Isn’t that so?” Like NADIE ES INOCENTE, this film uses the intimacy and flexibility of video (this time, 3/4″) to wring innovation in the editing room, this time to give Alma a similarly alienated and jittery headspace.
(screens with)
SABADO DE MIERDA
(SATURDAY OF SHIT)
dirs. Sarah Minter and Gregorio Rocha
25 mins. 1988.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Bookended with snippets of This Heat’s classic 1979 slow-burn “Twilight Furniture”, SABADO DE MIERDA is a classic rockers-versus-punks story set in a near-autonomous version of Neza York in the year 2000, lorded over by teenage punk gangs. The movie plays at once like riveting docudrama and sprawling music video: capturing one massive crowd scene, Minter and Rocha paid off police officers to stage an intervention that sends dozens of punks scattering between the floodlights. The desert depicted is at once a Mad Max-influenced arena of brawling moshpits and mob rule, but also a permanent freedom from the rules and demands of society.
SARAH MINTER (1953-2016) was a pioneering video and installation artist, a photographer, curator and avant-garde theater performer from Mexico. She spent her early 20s collaborating with Juan Carlos Uviedo, an exiled Argentinean theater director who had migrated to Mexico City after many years heading the Living Theatre at La Mama in the East Village. Her contemporaries included her longtime partner Gregorio Rocha (co-director of two of the films in this series), the cinematographer Emmanual “Chivo” Lubezki (THE NEW WORLD, CHILDREN OF MEN) and video producer and theorist Pola Weiss (who once said “For me, film would be the epic; television, the novel; and video art, poetry.”) Minter’s video works are bitter, unforgettable dispatches from the margins of society, drawn in opposition to the tropes and food chains of TV documentary and theatrical distribution; she later experimented with looped installations shot over the course of many years. This is how she described her approach to video as opposed to film:
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – MIDNIGHT
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DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
Even without our presentation of Mexican video artist Sarah Minter’s VHS-era punk docufictions NADIE ES INOCENTE and ALMA PUNK, there’s never a bad time to resuscitate Francisco Guerrero’s jawdropping midnight movie epic INTREPIDOS PUNKS, (nor its irrepressible sequel LA VENGANZA DE LOS PUNKS). This was the original pitch from when INTREPIDOS PUNKS played Spectacle in August 2012:
Described in INTREPIDOS PUNKS is about a sexy apocalyptic biker gang led by a ruthless luchador pushing drugs, racing choppers and killing the police who are helpless to stop them. And partying. Featuring the song “Intrepidos Punks” along with an unabashed rip-off of “Sweet Emotion” that improves significantly upon the original.
“I found this VHS in a box of tapes someone left on the sidewalk. I was surprised it was a cool movie.” – Anonymous, The Internet
“It’s 99.9% certain that this is the most gleefully assaultive display of a misappropriated cultural movement in history, which is by no means a criticism. […] This film isn’t recommended… it’s MANDATORY.” – Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film
“It wouldn’t be entirely beyond the pale to say that my entire life has been leading up to the moment I first heard of, then tracked down and watched this overwhelmingly fantastic slice of punk rock exploitation. […] INTREPIDOS PUNKS is a colossal juggernaut, a true giant striding across the landscape of sleazy movies. If you have not seen it, you will notice there’s probably a little hole in your soul. A hole shaped exactly like a busty blonde in a chainmail bikini, sporting gigantic hair and a grenade launcher. Let INTREPIDOS PUNKS plug that hole and finally make you complete.” – Teleport City
IT’S A COMPLEX WORLD
dir. Jim Wolpaw
1991, USA
81 minutes
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 7:30 PM *With Director Q & A!*
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – 10 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
In the vain of regional cinema (like a madcap cousin of Eagle Pennell’s LAST NIGHT AT THE ALAMO) and ’80s New Wave midnight movies, IT’S A COMPLEX WORLD the film takes place over the course of one night at Lupo’s as the whims of a hostile terrorist folk-singer (Stanley Mathis), a neo-fascist presidential candidate (Bob Owczarek), a mercenary biker gang (lead by Captain Lou Albano), street preachers, and more intersect, soundtracked by local color The Young Adults. Keep your eye out, too, for appearances by NRBQ and Roomful of Blues.
Though The Young Adults are not quite a household name outside of the Ocean State, their influence was significant. The Fabulous Motels, an earlier incarnation, launched the career of Charles Rocket (of Saturday Night Live and DUMB AND DUMBER) while Rudy Cheeks was cast in the Farrelly Brothers’ later Rhode Island picture ME, MYSELF AND IRENE. A documentary about the group’s 9-day sold-out stint as the backing band for Bo Diddley is captured in the 1978 short COBRA SNAKE FOR A NECKTIE—it will screen alongside COMPLEX WORLD on February 16th, following a Q&A with director Jim Wolpaw.
Special short for 2/16 screening:
COBRA SNAKE FOR A NECKTIE: BO DIDDLEY AND THE YOUNG ADULTS
dir. Jim Wolpaw
1978, USA
28 minutes
In partnership with Gravel Road Distribution, Spectacle is thrilled to exhibit a handful of deep cuts from the heyday of South African blaxploitation cinema, excavated and restored by Cape Town-based Retro Afrika Bioscope. Many of these were developed under a government subsidy spearheaded by one Tonie van der Merwe, the white owner of a construction company who realized there was an opportunity to produce and screen inexpensively made genre films in impoverished Black townships. (In a 2015 Guardian interview, van der Merwe said, “We used all of my equipment as props. My diggers. My airplane. My cars.”)
The ensuing “B-Schemes” are complicated: they star entirely Black casts, yet the movies are apolitical genre thrillers, melodramas, adaptations of South African novels – Van Der Merwe himself is estimated to have worked on nearly 400 of them, a quarter of what was produced until the end of the white-supremacist regime in 1990. Here’s how Bevis Parsons, director of CHARLIE STEEL described the “B-Scheme” pipeline:
“Distribution was informal to say the least in that a film copy was supplied to an independent (Black) distributor who drove into the countryside far from large cities with a small pick-up truck with a projector, a generator and a portable screen. Posters were usually put up at the rural school and films were generally shown for one night only before moving on to the next venue. I know this sounds primitive but at the time there was little or no infrastructure to do otherwise. Ticket stubs were returned to us to claim subsidies on each movie and these returns were carefully audited by the Department of Information, which oversaw the B-scheme subsidy.”
Retro Afrika Bioscope is dedicated to saving, restoring and distributing these films worldwide, including making each of them available streaming on their website.
UMBANGO
(THE FEUD)
dir. Tonie van der Merwe, 1986
68 mins.
In Zulu with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25 – 10 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
The 1986 western UMBANGO is a lovingly crafted spaghetti-style epic, and probably the most ambitious B-Scheme in this series; van der Merwe’s pulse-pounding closeups on hands gripping revolvers and eyes squinting in harsh desert sunlight demonstrate him as a keen student of filmmakers like John Sturges and Sergio Leone. Such as it is, the plot follows a ruthless cowboy-businessman with a Hitler moustache named Kay Kay, who wages total war on two drifters named Jet and Owen after mistakenly accusing them of killing his brother. The two friends – heretofore inoffensive cowpokes – must defend themselves against KK’s cadre, but at what cost? Like Moustapha Alassane’s 1966 short film THE RETURN OF THE ADVENTURER – wherein a young African man returns to his home village with a trunk full of gallon hats, leather chaps, pistols and bandanas, upending centuries-old tribal dynamics in a few broad Western strokes – UMBANGO plays like a dispatch from another world.
CHARLIE STEEL
Dir. Bevis Parsons, 1984
80 mins.
In Afrikaner English with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 10 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
DUMBASS FACEBOOK EVENT
Building on the momentum of JOE BULLET, Bevis Parsons’ CHARLIE STEEL plays like a page-turner in the spirit of E.M. Crumley or Charles Willeford, staring Sol Rachilo as a down-but-never-out private dick named CHARLIE STEEL. When the daughter of Charlie’s friend Dlamini is kidnapped by small-time hoods working under a mobster named Sonny, Charlie must infiltrate their inner circle in a daring attempt to bust her out – leading to a nailbiting showdown-cum-road trip in the forest outside Sonny’s headquarters. CHARLIE STEEL’s best moments are triumphs of no-frills, on-the-fly genre filmmaking. Despite some rough-hewn line deliveries and Parsons’ near-claustrophobic reliance on a handful of locations, the film plays it straight – climaxing in shocking acts of violence (ala JOE BULLET & BULLET ON THE RUN), AND buoyed by an unforgettable psych-rock soundtrack that screams out for a vinyl rerelease.
LOLA
Dir. Brett Owen, 198?
75 mins.
In Xhosa with English subtitles.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17 – 7:30 PM
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Brett Owen’s LOLA is the quietest of the B-Schemes presented in this series, concerning a volleyball team and its star player Lola (Constance Shangase) who must address a challenged proffered by a rival team. Shangase’s warm performance and the lilting group dynamics of the volleyball team make for a warm slice-of-life dramedy about a kind of social circle (complete with agonizing group discussions and a great makeshift nightclub scene) perhaps never before depicted onscreen, all-the-while asking a foundational question: Can LOLA have it all?
FRIDAY’S GHOST
dir. ????, 19??
72 mins.
In Zulu with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18 – 10 PM
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A paranormal chiller-comedy in the tradition of TRULY MADLY DEEPLY, THE LAKE HOUSE, WHITE NOISE, GHOST, FREQUENCY, STIR OF ECHOES and BEETLEJUICE, (director unknown)’s FRIDAY’S GHOST follows three friends – Simon, Friday and Ntombi – who come to terms with the fact that the house formerly owned by Simon’s late father is haunted by a ghost (albeit a genial-enough one, who kinda just looks like the deceased, albeit in facepaint and a bedsheet.) A local thug named Rufus with an unbeatable wardrobe becomes obsessed with Ntombi, and the trio must inevitably conquer their fear of the ghost in order to unlock an important lesson from the other side to preserve the family home and/or Ntombi’s dignity.
( poster by Tyler Rubenfeld )
JOE BULLET
dir. Louis de Witt, 1973
79 mins.
In Afrikaner English.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – MIDNIGHT
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The first South African film with an all-Black cast, JOE BULLET was shown twice before it was banned by government censors – producer Van der Merwe would later say that “in those days, it was taboo for a black man to have a firearm.” Anchored by the steely yet mega-charismatic performance of Ken Gampu, JOE BULLET is an apartheid-era answer to SHAFT and SUPERFLY, a must-see for any connoisseur of international action cinema. Gampu plays Joe as a karate master with a cocky sneer, an indefatigable wardrobe and an uncanny grip on logistics; his supervision of the safety of the neighborhood soccer team (The Eagles) runs him afoul of mobsters who want to bump off the top players, thus preventing the team from winning the championship. A number of run-ins ensue, dazzling miniature set pieces blending wooden acting with hushed asskicking (martial arts and otherwise), and fascinating snatches on-location naturalism. Among Gampu’s claims to fame was convincing the racist Afrikaner government to allow a stage performance of OF MICE AND MEN; he would later star in films including ZULU DAWN, Cornel Wilde’s THE NAKED PREY and THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY.
BULLET ON THE RUN
dir. Tonie van der Merwe, 1982
90 mins.
In Afrikaner English.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – MIDNIGHT
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