[19:30] LA PLANETE SAUVAGE,1973 + [21:00] THE LAST COMMAND,1928 + A KITTEN FOR HITLER, 2007
 

19:30
LA PLANETE SAUVAGE   1973
(La Planète sauvage)
Directed by Rene Laloux
72 minutes
In French with English subtitles

This mesmerizing psychedelic sci-fi classic is spellbinding. The Terry Gilliam/Monty Python-esque animation is totally stunning. Imagine rough South Park type of animation, using simple cut-out paper images which are "animated". But the effect in this film is much more haunting....and it becomes clear that this so-called primitive style of animation actually reveals a kind of beauty or poetry that is extremely rare these days with computer generated movement. In other words, this is definitively anti-pixar. In fact, this Czech-French co-production took a painstaking five years to complete.

Fantastic Planet tells the story of human-like creatures who are kept as domestic pets by an alien race of blue giants called "draags." Is this our planet or another? Is it set in the past or the future? Everything about this film is left open to the imagination and interpretation.

The biggest quality of the film is that it is profoundly disorienting... much like David Lynch's Eraserhead, it keeps us suspended in an overall feeling of other-worldliness. I have heard of people doing extremely strange things after watching this film... and I have heard of people who have been spellbound by it, dreaming about its strangeness for years. It transports the viewer into a world that is a bit like entering a delirious Hieronymus Bosch painting. It also has a trippy 70s prog-rock soundtrack by Alain Goraguer who had also composed music for Serge Gainsbourg.

This cult-classic, created along with surrealist illustrator Roland Topor, still remains a landmark of European animation. Fantastic Planet won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973.
 
This will be a high-definition projection.

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21:00
THE LAST COMMAND   1928
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
88 minutes
Silent with inter-titles and musical score
 
The pretext of this insane flick hinges on two historical moments of change - the Russian revolution, and the birth of Hollywood. Our story begins with Imperial General Serguis Alexander, who is commander of the entire Russian army. His job is to defend the decadent Czarist monarchy and he viciously whips down the revolutionary peasants as best he can. When the revolution succeeds and everything collapses in 1917, he skedaddles off to the United States. We pick up the thread of his life ten years later: he is now working as a Hollywood extra, and when he finds himself cast in a big production to play a military General in the Russian Revolution, his past and present become deranged and he begins to lose his grip on reality.

This movie absolutely explodes with intelligence and imagination. We see the Hollywood extras treated like sheep, waiting in breadlines, just like the peasants had been in Czarist Russia. The Last Command can also be interpreted as a sharp criticism of Hollywood filmmaking, which encourages people to lose their sense of reality, just like our main character. This movie can also be viewed as a commentary about the plight of refugees everywhere, and their difficulty to adjust to a new world.
 

This is a silent film with orchestral musical score, made before the director and lead actor worked together on The Blue Angel. Emil Jannings shines in the lead role, and he won the very first Academy Award for Best Actor for this performance. Directed by the great Josef von Sternberg, this is a movie with wit and elegance, along with glowing cinematography. And what's more, it's actually inspired by a true story.

This will be a high-definition screening.

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Short film:
A KITTEN FOR HITLER    2007
Directed by Ken Russell
8 minutes
In English
 

After the great Ken Russell had been thrown out of the film industry, and no one would give his risk-taking projects a cent anymore, he ended up making his last movies in his garage with his neighbors. What did they look like? Here is one of the last films he made, and it's a Christmas film!

How did this provocative, highly controversial, politically incorrect flick come about? Russell had a discussion about censorship with BBC commentator Melvin Bragg who challenged Russell to think of a movie that he himself would ban. Russell came up with the idea for this movie and Bragg responded "Ken, if ever you make this film and it is shown, you will be lynched."