[SkateDC] Double Feature on a Rainy Sunday Afternoon [Off Topic]

Sun Nov 1 08:14:58 PST 2009

Although I forgot to mention it, both films are free.  All films shown at the Freer and NGA are free.

--- On Sun, 11/1/09, George Marinkovich <skatewash at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: George Marinkovich <skatewash at yahoo.com>
Subject: [SkateDC] Double Feature on a Rainy Sunday Afternoon [Off Topic]
To: "WAR Skate List" <skatedc at www.skatedc.org>
Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 11:12 AM

Two very good films will be shown this afternoon:  The first, "Border Café," screens at 2 PM in the Meyer Auditorium of the Freer, and the second, "Accident," screens at 4:30 PM in the East Building Auditorium of the National Gallery of Art.

REMINDER: Daylight Savings Time ended 2 AM this morning, when clocks should have been set back one hour.  Hope everyone remembered to set their alarm clocks for 2 AM to wake up and accomplish this important civic duty!

Border Café 
Sunday, November 1, 2 pm
Meyer Auditorium, Freer 
(http://www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp)

A recently widowed woman battles Iran’s often strict rules about women’s roles in society in Kambozia Partovi’s elegant drama. Refusing the demands of her late husband’s family that she move in with them, she defiantly reopens the café he once ran—a rest stop near the Turkish border that brings together long-haul truckers and other travelers—and the possibility of a new love for the film’s determined heroine. Iran / 2005 / 105 min. / Persian with English subtitles.

"Cafe Transit [aka Border Café] follows in the footsteps of Big Night, Babette's Feast, Tampopo and other excellent movies made particularly memorable for their integration of food as a focal point in the story. It is also one of the best, relatively mainstream, movies to come out of Iran in the last few years.

Its central theme is the role of women in male dominated societies. Its heroine, Reyhan, has just become a widow, with two small children to take care of. Her deceased husband's brother, Nasser, offers (in the local tradition of that part of Iran) to look after her by taking her as his second wife. Reyhan, however, is an independent woman and, spurning Nasser's offer, decides instead to re-open her husband's unsuccessful truck stop café. This puts her in direct competition with Nasser, who owns a much bigger and successful truck stop restaurant. As her café gradually builds up a fervent following, the tension between her and Nasser rises; particularly when a Greek truck driver takes a liking to Reyhan.

Cafe Transit is full of interesting characters and situations. It is the feature film debut for famed Iranian screen writer Kamobozia Partovi (The Circle, Taraneh Who is 15 Years Old). Fereshteh Sadr Orfani (Partovi's real life wife) is outstanding as Reyhan (she won a best actress award from Tehran International Film Festival) and the leading Iranian actor of the current Iranian cinema, Parviz Parastoui, is, as usual, excellent as Nasser.

What really separates Cafe Transit from other worthwhile Iranian movies is the way it depicts Reyhan's skills at cooking and transfers the appreciation of her cooking to the audience without us even tasting the food! Don't miss this movie if you get a chance!" -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477585/

FOLLOWED BY...

Accident
preceded by First on the Road
November 1 at 4:30PM
East Building Auditorium, National Gallery of Art
(http://www.nga.gov/programs/film/losey.shtm#accident)

Introduction by Jay Carr

A recently restored Joseph Losey–Harold Pinter collaboration, Accident's chain of interlocking events is set in motion by Dirk Bogarde as an Oxford don mired in emotional conflict with a group of friends and faculty. "As simple, as bafflingly perfect, and as difficult to take apart as a circle…[Six characters] tear each other to pieces amid the droning calm of an English fall"—Tom Milne. (1967, 35 mm, 105 minutes)

First on the Road is Losey's unusual promotional short for the Ford Motor Company. (1959, 35 mm, 12 minutes)

"If you like Harold Pinter then you will find this film appealing. His influence in the screenplay and dialogue is strongly evident with typically long pauses and an emphasis on suggestion. When you team these up with Losey's gritty unconventional direction you end up with an interesting yarn about an insecure University Professor who gets himself into a complicated web of adulterous affairs which indirectly lead to tragedy. Bogarde, as the professor, essentially plays a womanising, chauvinistic toad. However, because he plays the character with the unforgettable Bogarde charm, you can't help but feel sorry for him, and almost forget that he has had an affair with a student, rekindled a romance with an old flame and appears unconcerned that his pregnant wife has prematurely given birth.

The film is wonderfully picturesque, being almost entirely set in Oxford during the height of a hot summer. Losey captures both the oppressiveness of the heat and the uncomfortable situation brilliantly, especially during the scene of the drunken Sunday lunch that Bogarde's character hosts some way into the film. There are some very good supporting roles in the form of Stanley Baker and Michael York and even a cameo appearance by Pinter himself. It's a film that you have to think about and make your own mind up about the characters and their importance to the plot."
-- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061328/usercomments

Enjoy,
George

_______________________________________________
SkateDC mailing list
SkateDC at www.skatedc.org
http://lig.net/mailman/listinfo/skatedc