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The Play's the Thing Dates and Venue 3 -5 Nov 2014 | Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St., Vancouver Reviewer Ed Farolan November marks the 25th anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s 1989 Velvet Revolution, the non-violent uprising that ended four decades of Communist rule and brought about a rapid transition to democracy. To commemorate the occasion, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington, DC, has organized The Play’s the Thing: Václav Havel, Art and Politics, a film series devoted to one of the central figures of the Velvet Revolution and the artistic and political milieu from which he emerged. All films screen in Czech with English subtitles; many have been translated into English for the first time. Last November 3rd, I watched three films, two of them documentaries and the third, the only film which Havel actd and directed in together with his wife, Dagmar Havlová. The first film Who is Václav Havel… is a short propaganda film, 11 minutes, produced for the Communist regime in 1977 by Helena Matiášová, showing that Havel came from a rich family and that his plays went against the policies of the Union of writers. The film showed interviews with the theatre director and other members of the Union disparaging Havel and his Charter 77 protest.dealing with human rights. The next film was a 1996 documentary by Olga Sommerová showing two productions of Václav Havel’s The Beggar’s Opera (a non-musical adaptation of of the 1728 musical by John Gay) revealing the political dynamics of the former Czechoslovakia before and after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The dress rehearsal of the play’s world premiere in 1975 captures the stress of artists who conspired through theatre against the totalitarian regime. The production is contrasted with the relaxed atmosphere of the dress rehearsal of the play performed again in 1995 by the theatrical group Divadlo Na tahu at Havel’s cottage in the village of Hrádeček. Informal dialogue among the artists, Havel, and his first wife Olga offers an intimate view of the changing tides. The last film is the only film written and directed by Václav Havel, Leaving, an absurdist, tragicomic tale of a national leader leaving office. The star-studded Czech cast includes Josef Abrhám and Dagmar Havlová, Havel’s wife. The film was nominated for 12 Czech Oscars (winning for screenplay and editing) and premiered shortly before his death in December 2011. As the action unfolds on a rural estate, comparisons to Havel’s own life become clear: ‘Before the 1989 Revolution, I had an idea for a character like King Lear, who loses power. It might have been the influence of the 1968 generation — the people who had been party members ... After ’68 they were thrown out and started to live ordinary lives, and pretended they didn’t mind, but they did’” The film has influences from Kafka and Fellini, with quirky characters, and costumes galore. The Chancellor and his family are dressed in aristocratic early 20th century costumes, while his rebellious daughters are dressed in modern costumes. One daughter is dressed like a dominatrix and her albino husband in gym clothes stutters when he talks. The other daughter is with her ipad and cell phone, typical of teenagers today. The Vice-Premier is dressed in a 1970s funky outfit. And in the end, we have a Mel Brooks coach from Blazing Saddles where the family enter with all their belongings as they leave the presidential estate. And the last comic gesture to the film before the credits are shown is Havel himself, his head popping out of the pool, telling the movie audience that they can now turn on their cell phones because the film is over.
Jodoworsky: El Topo and Holy Mountain Dates and Venue 11- 19 July 2014 | The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe Street Reviewer Ed Farolan Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky came out with these two signature films in the early 1970s. He directed, wrote and acted in these films. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has had a following among cult cinema fans including John Lennon and George Harrison, because of his violent surreal images, blended with mysticism and religion where he combines Eastern mysticism with Catholic rituals. In El Topo (The Mole) produced in Mexico in 1970, he satirizes Spaghetti Westerns. Clint Eastwood had already filmed The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and we see a tongue-in-cheek version of this genre. Jodorowsky plays El Topo, the mysterious leather-clad gunslinger who rides into a corpse-strewn desert town and then in sections titled Genesis, Prophets, Psalms, and Apocalypse embarks on a quest for revenge and redemption. His second film The Holy Mountain (La montana sagrada), he was funded by John Lennon to produce this insane, absurd film which ends in another tongue-in-cheek fashion when his characters finally reach the Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky himself plays The Alchemist.where he converts human feces into gold. Really crazy, and some members of the audience were laughing at the absurdity of it all. This is indeed something unique in filmmaking, and in those years of hallucinatory, hallucinogenic counterculture, he did have quite a cult following. © 2014 Ed Farolan
A Hard Day's Night Dates and Venue 4 - 10 July 2014 | The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe Street Reviewer Roger Wayne Eberle There is nothing easy about sitting through A Hard Day’s Night. At 87 minutes it is nearly an hour and a half too long. When one is not stifling yawns at the pimped-out-precocious antics of the Sixties antidote to artlessness—a double dose of artless guile—one is fighting back the nausea over seeing frenzied teenage fans (mostly girls) losing their battle with self-respect as they go Ga-Ga over the Fab Four. It is hard to say what is worse: the hiss-hiss-histrionics of the Beatles as they peddle their cutesy personas to the gullible masses or the ho-hum-hysterics of their none-too-subtle fans. This movie is merely one long series of inter-related music videos: short on plot, long on catchy-if-your-bitten-by-the-Beatle-bug singles. The music admittedly makes viewing this movie feel a little less like an endurance test. But not much. There are to be sure a few good comic touches. Paul’s stand in gramps and his tomfoolery is not one of them. George’s amusing derogation of the ‘trendsetter’ hired by a local fashionista who mistakes him for a male model is a droll piece of meta-ironic humour. But most of the attempts at cleverness don’t come off as well. It’s like John’s one-liner response to the touchy conservative fall guy on the train who says he fought in the war for the likes of them: “Bet you wish you lost.” The truculence of this flippant insouciance may be pretty close to who John really was, and then again, there but for the touch of fame goes a public persona smothered in some kind of smarmy but biting satire. Don’t go to
this Hard Day’s Night expecting anything more than a
feast of gags and shenanigans served up as groovy gravy for groupies,
because this is nothing more than an immature response to ample doses
of adolescent adulation. And I take that back about the music. These
are only a few good songs enlisted in the aid of a bad cause, prompting
this reviewer to make a snappy rejoinder to John’s previously-mentioned
curt come-back: “Bet you wish you had all become brick-layers.”
Then again, maybe that’s the kind of response John and the boys
had in mind all along. Maybe now that John knows the answer to the question
about whether the Beatles were ever more popular than Jesus, he’s
now a Roger Waters fan. Because all in all, A Hard Day’s Night is just another brick in the wall. © 2014 Roger Wayne Eberle
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Austeria 
Curse of the Golden Flower 
Persona 
Hiroshima, Mon Amour