Film lovers in the Valley have always had a wide range of films at their disposal, even if that sometimes meant tracking down an obscure building on one of the many college campuses that pepper the area's map. This week, though, may trump all previous weeks as everything from a 3-D cartoon to a reinterpretation of the Bard makes its way through the region. Throw in a political documentary, Oscar-nominated short films, and the ongoing Jewish Film Festival, and it's an embarrassment of riches. Below is a walkthrough—arranged chronologically to prevent head-spinning—of the week's offerings.
On Thursday, Amherst Cinema offers collections of live action and animated short films from this year's Oscar race. Included in the live action group are Toyland—the eventual winner—a film about a German mother who lies to her son about the fate of their Jewish neighbors; and On The Line, a German/Swiss production about a lovesick security guard who allows a rival suitor to be attacked, with unexpected results. The animated series consists of 10 films, most of them under 10 minutes, including Presto (a stage magician's rabbit fights back), This Way Up (a funeral gone wrong), and La Maison en Petits Cubes (an old man fights to save his home from a rising flood by endlessly adding new floors), which took home the statue.
That same day, a stop at Hadley's Cinemark could mean seeing the 3-D version of Coraline, director Henry Selick's (The Nightmare Before Christmas) latest dark fairy tale. The story of a young girl trapped in a nightmarish alternate life, it was reviewed here as having "the lingering feel of a fever dream, one whose images are likely to reappear in that twilight just before sleep," and the 3-D version promises to plunge young minds that much deeper into the story.
On Friday night at 7 p.m., the Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq presents Why We Fight, a film that examines "the role of the military-industrial complex in manipulating U.S. policy and how the military has permeated American life." Rooted in the ideas voiced by President Eisenhower during a 1961 speech, it warns of what he called the "unwarranted influence" of the military-industrial complex and "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power" that accompanies it. The film shows in a free screening at the Media Education Foundation on Masonic Street and includes interviews with John McCain, Richard Perle and others.
Also opening Friday is Wendy and Lucy, a new film from director Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy). Starring Michelle Williams (Synecdoche, New York) as Wendy, a drifting young woman traveling to Alaska with her dog Lucy, it charts her surprisingly quick turn of fortune during a stopover in Oregon. Spare and heartfelt, it's a film for increasingly desperate times. (A full review will appear in Cinema Dope next week.)
On Sunday, two films, both with accompanying discussions, will duke it out at 2 p.m. in Amherst. Screening at Amherst Cinema is Throne of Blood, which is not the Norwegian death metal band one might think but an acclaimed interpretation of Macbeth by legendary director Akira Kurosawa (Rashômon). Combining Shakespeare's tragic story with the dramatic visuals of Noh theater, Kurosawa both updates the original and reinforces its timelessness. It appears as part of the Shakespeare in Film series presented by the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, whose director, Arthur F. Kinney, will introduce the film and lead a discussion after the screening, along with Nathaniel Leonard of the Renaissance Center Theater Company.
At the same time, and just down the road at the National Yiddish Book Center, a "film talk" event titled Great Cantors will be getting underway. In a review of the leading lights of hazanut (the traditional singing of cantors in Judaism), Cantor Murray Simon draws on rare and restored film footage from his two documentaries on the subject to illuminate the vocal art that captured the imagination of the early 20th-century Jewish-American community. (This and the following four films are part of the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival; more information and a complete schedule can be found at pvjff.org.)
If the busy weekend has worn you down, Monday is a good day to take five. The PVJFF picks up again on Tuesday with two documentaries. Citizen Nawi tells the story of Ezra Nawi, a Sephardic Jew living in Israel, where his tenaciousness as a social activist earns him the enmity of the police. Regularly clashing with the Israel Defense Forces as he fights for the rights of local Arab villagers, he also shelters a Palestinian man with whom he falls in love—a development perhaps even more controversial than his political views. It screens at Hampshire College with an accompanying talk from Aaron Berman, an expert on the Middle East and the dean of faculty at Hampshire.
At Elms College in Chicopee, The Optimists reveals the often overlooked Holocaust story of Bulgaria's Jewish community—or more precisely, the often overlooked story of their Muslim and Christian countrymen who worked together to save them from a terrible fate. Directed by Jacky Comforty—whose parents were among those saved—and produced with his wife, the film draws on over 200 hours of interviews, thousands of photographs, and rare film footage that documents the history of the only European Jewish community to escape the Nazis intact. In an era when the confluence of religious intolerance and cheap weaponry too often lead to bloodshed, the film's message is one worth noting. Leading a dialogue about the subject is Martin Pion, professor of religious studies at Elms College, and Rabbi Robert Sternberg.
Wednesday wraps up this week's offerings with two more films, one a documentary and one a lighthearted dramatic comedy (professional pride continues to prevent me from using the term "dramedy"). First is Blessed Is The Match, the life story of Hannah Senesh, a poet who became a paratrooper and resistance fighter in World War II-era Hungary. As recounted by Israel's President Shimon Peres—who, in the documentary equivalent of hitting the trifecta, actually knew Senesh in the 1940s—Hannah's actions were the stuff of legend. Parachuting behind enemy lines in what the film calls "the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust," Senesh risked everything, leaving the safety of Palestine to save people she never knew.
Finally—though if you think this sounds like a long week, just consider a seven-day stretch of reality TV—is The First Time I Turned Twenty; it screens at Showcase Cinema in West Springfield with a pre-show bagels-and-jazz reception hosted by local NPR affiliates WFCR and WNNZ. Something of a Cinderella story, the film follows Hannah, a young woman struggling to escape the expectations of her Parisian family—a doting mother, a blue-collar father, and two much thinner sisters. For the more voluptuous Hannah, the path to escape is a spot in her high school's jazz ensemble, even if it means overcoming the traditional all-male lineup of the group.
There it is: a snapshot of the Valley's varied film offerings. And with all that, I've left out the superhero flicks, the date-night comedies, the cheapo horror remakes. Still, you could see a film a day and not catch all of what's out there. The point is, there's almost always something out there for you, now matter who you are, or where you live. Just look.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
