DEKALOG 10     1988. Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. 59 minutes. In Polish with English subtitles.

In 1988, Polish director Kieslowski set out to make ten one-hour movies loosely based on the Ten Commandments. Kieslowski himself wasn't religious, but he used each commandment as a theme to reflect upon philosophically. Stanley Kubrick would conclude that they were the only example of a cinematic masterpiece he had ever seen.

Tonight we will screen Dekalog 10, "Thou shalt not covet" which is about two sons, one of whom is a singer in a rock group called Death City. When their father dies, the two sons are reunited after not seeing each other for years. When they find a rare stamp collection in his old apartment, their lives get turned upside down in this black comedy farce starring Jerzy Stuhr.

This will be a high-definition screening.

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21:30
MEDEA   1988 Directed by Lars von Trier. 75 minutes. In danish with English subtitles

This film is visually stunning, and is considered to be among the director's very best....a magnificent tone poem which captures the dread of Medea's fate in a way that few films could ever hope to match. Medea is expressionist, meaning the subject’s visceral emotions mirror the atmosphere. In this version of the story, Von Trier replaces the setting of Greece with the cold, windy marshes of Scandinavia (think of the dark hidden world of the hospital's past in Von Trier's The Kingdom, but expanded into an entire landscape). In these foggy marshlands, there is a castle that looks more like a sewer. A tale of mythology that is visually rich, dark, and exact.

It is this film about the plight of Medea, which would influence the films von Trier would be making for the next decade...most specifically Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. In retrospect, we can see that the story of Medea was a perfect vehicle for Von Trier. He claimed to have been in constant telepathic contact with another Danish filmmaker, the great Carl Theodor Dreyer, who wrote the script but was unable to film it before his death in 1968. The film also stars Udo Kier (Andy Warhol's Dracula & Frankenstein)

"The Bottom Line: Ancient Greek tragedy (Medea) filtered through a double dose of Danish genius – Carl Theodor Dreyer's unrealized script, and Von Trier's robust, grainy re-imagining. A searing, memorable experience."