L'AVVENTURA 1960
Arguably one of the most significant provocations in film history, Antonioni’s sixth feature and existentialist masterwork helped to launch modern art cinema as we know it. Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), his girlfriend Anna (Lea Massari) and their friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) set out on a Mediterranean yacht trip to celebrate Sandro’s return from working abroad; Sandro and Anna’s relationship, meanwhile, has grown distant and tense for mysterious reasons. But when Anna goes missing on the trip, Sandro and Claudia search (however half-heartedly) for her, though a surfacing attraction between them threatens to overshadow Anna’s disappearance. An immaculate work of pacing and visual composition, L’avventura is rightly regarded as an epochal example of cinematic modernism. (FilmLinc)
Sunday, July 27
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Starring: Monica Vitti, Gabriele Ferzetti, Lea Massari
Runtime: 144 min., Italy
Language: Italian w/ English subtitles
HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND 1986
A tender and stylish blend of road movie and romance, HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND is a moving story of love and motorcycles from Japanese cinema magician Nobuhiko Obayashi (HOUSE). Aimless biker Ko finally finds purpose when he falls in love with Miyo, a young woman with an obsession for motorcycles. When she gets her own bike, Ko worries that her ravenous hunger for the road may lead to dire consequences. Shot in an evocative mix of color and black-and-white and threaded with wistful melancholy, feel your heart race on the stunning highways of HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND.
Sunday, August 3
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Starring: Riki Takeuchi, Kiwako Harada, Noriko Watanabe
Runtime: 90 min., Japan
Language: Japanese w/ English subtitles
MERMAID LEGEND 1984
Japanese cult filmmaker Toshiharu Ikeda (EVIL DEAD TRAP) brings his genre-bending vision to the world of revenge cinema in the melancholy and brutal MERMAID LEGEND. Framed for the murder of her husband and left for dead, diver Migiwa undergoes a dark campaign of subterfuge and violence to take her righteous vengeance against the ones who took everything from her. Loaded with gorgeous underwater photography, surprising environmentalist themes, and topped with a blood-soaked climax for the ages, revenge has never tasted sweeter than it does in MERMAID LEGEND.
Thursday, August 28
Director: Tohisharu Ikeda
Starring: Mari Shirato, Kentarō Shimizu, Jun Etoh
Runtime: 110 min., Japan
Language: Japanese w/ English subtitles