Maybe you missed it when it first came out, or maybe it was so good that you have to see it again. In either case, we’re here to help! This summer Cornell Cinema brings back the best of arthouse cinema from the past year.
We begin with the charming debut from Eran Kolirin, The Band’s Visit. An Egyptian military band travels to Israel to play a special concert, but they take the wrong bus, end up in a dusty old town in the Israeli desert, and are taken in by a sultry café owner. “Eran Kolirin's debut film is about the comedy and tragedy of the things that separate people: borders, religions, languages, loneliness. It’s a small, profoundly satisfying movie that keeps echoing long after it's over.” (Ty Burr, Boston Globe) Then we present Todd Haynes’s Dylan biopic (kind of…), I’m Not There. Dylan is portrayed through six avatars, and each shows different sides of the enigma wrapped in a mystery that is Bob Dylan. Next it’s on to My Blueberry Nights, in which the luminous Norah Jones plays a lovesick wanderer seeking confectionary solace in Wong Kar-wai’s mouth-watering English-language debut.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu makes his debut with the haunting 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Winner of the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, this film tells the story of two college roommates seeking an illegal abortion in the bleak underbelly of Ceausescu’s Romania. Set in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and its aftermath, Persepolis, based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels, follows a young girl as she comes of age and tries to come to terms with the ideology of her homeland. “A dazzlingly smart and entertaining animated feature...a black-and-white graphic novel come to life.” (Wall Street Journal) Errol Morris documents the Abu-Graib prison scandal à la The Thin Blue Line in Standard Operating Procedure. Interviews with the American military involved, dramatic reenactments of events, and explicit images of torture raise provocative questions about the power of the image in desperate times.