The Cinema, Inc.
PO Box 20835
Raleigh, NC 27619
(919) 787-7611

2007-08 Season

SOLD OUT!
The Rialto Theater, Raleigh (map), 7 PM, the 2nd Sunday of each month

We proudly invite you to join us for our
42nd year of screening great films!

October 14, 2007 – Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
U.S., 1989, Color, Not Rated, 90 Minutes.
Directed by Charlotte Zwerin. Documentary.

Produced by jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood, Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser is an intelligent portrait of Thelonious Monk centered on lost footage that was rediscovered in the 1980s. The footage was shot by cinematographers Michael and Christian Blackwood during six months in 1967-68, and reveals a lot about Monk’s personality, including his dramatic mood swings, eccentric behavior, and keen sense of humor. The Blackwoods followed Monk “behind the scenes” in the studio and on tour in Europe. The generous video catalogue of Monk songs is alone worth watching, but the film is rounded out with interviews with Monk’s friends, family, and fellow musicians, giving us a glimpse at the private life of a legendary jazz artist.

November 11, 2007 – Battle of Algiers
Algeria/Italy, 1965, Black and White, Not Rated, 120 Minutes, Subtitled. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo.
Starring Yacef Saasi, Jean Martin, Brahim Haggiag, Tommaso Neri, Samia Kerbash.

Exploring the Algerian people’s struggle to liberate themselves from France between 1954 and 1962, many themes of this film have relevance to the current day. The Boston Globe said of Battle of Algiers, “The chafing, mutually uncomprehending collision of Western occupiers and Muslim occupied has never been captured with such dispassionate, thrilling clarity.” Director Gillo Pontecorvo creates a stunning illusion of realism by combining actual newsreel footage with staged sequences featuring amateur and professional actors playing characters based on real people. The film’s depiction of violence, political torture, insurgency and counter-insurgency was revolutionary at the time, and just as startling today as 40 years ago.

Spirited Away is the animated tale of Chihiro, a young girl who embarks on a strange adventure while moving with her parents to a new home in an unfamiliar town. Reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Spirited Away’s stunningly beautiful handcrafted animation reveals a cast of fascinating characters and surreal settings that follow a bizarre yet engaging logic. In 2002, Spirited Away overtook Princess Mononoke, also directed by Hayao Miyazaki, to become the most successful film in Japanese cinema history.

To Be and To Have is a beautiful and inspirational film concerning a dedicated and gifted teacher whose world is a one-room schoolhouse in the French countryside. It charts the teacher, George Lopez, and his class over the course of one academic year, and takes a warm and serene look at the primary education process at its best. Director Nicolas Philibert’s camera is a casual observer, choosing to capture, in an unfettered manner, Lopez’s special way with the students – whether teaching math or mediating shoving matches. To Be and To Have is ultimately a stirring and bittersweet portrait of Lopez, a 20-year teaching veteran on the verge of retirement. Critic Andrew Sarris said that the film “contains some of the most stirring footage I have ever seen on the act and art of teaching children.”

February 10, 2008 - Delicatessen
France, 1991, Color, Rated R, 95 Minutes, Subtitled.Directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Starring Dominique Pinon, Marie-Laurie Dougnac, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Karin Viard, Ticky Holgado, Anee Marie Pisani, Edith Ker.

Both directors Caro and Jeunet were successful TV commercial and music video directors before their feature-film debut of Delicatessen. Their flair for visual communication and humor shows through in this bizarre, dark comedy. The story is of a post-apocalyptic society where food is so valuable it is used as currency, and people sometimes turn to cannibalism. Louison, a sweet-natured clown, moves into a run-down apartment building with a deli on the ground floor, and falls in love with the butcher’s daughter, Julie. When it turns out that Julie’s father is butchering human beings and selling the meat to the tenants of the building, Julie must decide if she will remain loyal to her father’s business or save Louison from becoming the next victim. Director Jeunet continued his very visual style in other somewhat more conventional movies, most notably 2001’s Amelie, but Delicatessen was his most influential, spawning a wave of directorial imitators (see the visual styles of Like Water for Chocolate or Death Becomes Her).

March 9, 2008 – Moolaade
Senegal, 2004, Color, Not Rated, 124 Minutes, Subtitled.Directed by Ousmane Sembene.
Starring Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Helene Diarra, Salimata Traore, Dominique Zeida.

Washington Post film critic Desson Thomas wrote, “ In Moolaade, six African girls refuse to undergo ritual clitoridectomy and unwittingly cause a revolution in their village. In Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene’s hands, what could have been merely exotic spectacle becomes something astonishing, timely and deeply moving.” Sembene is thought of as the father of African cinema, and Moolaade is his crown jewel. He filmed it at the age of 81, and he imbued it with the strong feminist consciousness that marks his other works, most notably Faat Kine in 2001. While the subject matter of Moolaade may repel squeamish viewers, skipping it would be a missed opportunity to experience the embracing, affirming, world-changing potential of humanist cinema at its finest.

April 13 2008 – Gallipoli
Australia, 1981, Color, Rated PG, 111 Minutes.
Directed by Peter Weir.
Starring Mark Lee, Mel Gibson, Bill Kerr, Robert Grubb.

The films of Peter Weir are often studies of male bonding, men in danger, and anxiety over the violence that those men commit against one another. Witness, Master and Commander, The Year of Living Dangerously, and, especially, Gallipoli, illustrates these points. Gallipoli relates the events surrounding the ill-fated World War I battle of the same name, in which Australian and New Zealand troops set out to capture Istanbul. We follow the characters of Archy and Frank before the war and during the battle that becomes a disaster for the Allies. Gallipoli’s depiction of the horror, senselessness, and confusion of war (not to mention its movie poster) makes one believe that the film was very influential to other war movies, such as Oliver Stone’s Platoon.

This exquisitely simple movie was filmed at a single location – a remote and picturesque mountain lake in a South Korea wilderness preserve. In five sharp, concise vignettes that correspond to the seasons of the title, director Kim Ki-duk manages to isolate something essential about human nature. The narrative of the film concentrates on the relationship between a Buddhist monk and his young protégé, characters whose names are never spoken. Critic A.O. Scott said, “The subject of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring is spiritual discipline, which the older monk distills into a set of lessons that are, like the film, self-evident and enigmatic. They also reflect aspects of Buddhism not always sufficiently appreciated in the West, often witty and occasionally harsh.” The beautiful cinematography and attention to visual detail (such as using a different animal as a motif for each segment) complement the patient and gentle pace of the screenplay, creating a very original yet universal story of human nature.

Based on the Franz Kafka novel of the same name, The Trial follows the story of Joseph K., who wakes one morning and finds the police in his room. He is arrested and put on trial, but no one will tell him what he is accused of.  Director Orson Welles provides the opening voiceover for the film, intoning,  “It has been said that the logic of this story is the logic of a dream, of a nightmare…” It is the nightmare quality that Welles is emphasizing. Filmed in shadowy black and white, with angled close ups, film noir-like compositions, cluttered and surreal interiors, and a plot that involves sinister authority figures and instruments of torture, The Trial is undeniably vivid and scary.

Rope marked a number of landmarks for Alfred Hitchcock: it was his first film in color, it featured two obviously gay lead characters, and of all his films it was his personal favorite. But these characteristics only scratch the surface of a unique Hitchcock masterpiece. Loosely based on a true story, two rich young men murder a colleague for the sake of the intellectual challenge of committing the perfect crime. To add to the amusement, they hide the body in a trunk that will serve as the dinner table for a party honoring the deceased. The film uses very long takes, with no close-ups, that both draw the viewer in to the dinner party and draw out the suspense. Rope was an experiment to Hitchcock, who was trying to find the cinematic equivalent of a play. That he could turn out brilliance while he considered himself to be merely playing around is a testament to Hitchcock’s genius.

The plot is straightforward enough: Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator, is trying to find the man who killed his wife. Complicating matters is the fact that Leonard suffers from short-term memory loss due to a head trauma. He knows everything up to the point of his brain injury, but can only remember everything after his injury for a few moments. Further complicating the story is the tour-de-force narrative style director Christopher Nolan brings to the movie: The story is told backwards. We see segments of the film in reverse chronological order, so that, like Leonard, we don’t know the events that have preceded what is currently happening, and must figure things out on the spot. This unique movie will have you guessing until the surprising ending that is, in fact, the beginning.