Title: La Femme de L'aviateur (The Aviator's Wife)
Language: French. Caption: Chinese
In this first film in Eric Rohmer's cycle of "Comédies et proverbes," François (Philippe Marlaud), a young student working nights as a postman, is in love with a slightly older woman, Anne (Marie Rivière). One day, he sees Anne's former lover, a pilot named Christian (Mathieu Carrière), leaving Anne's apartment in the morning. Despite Anne's explanation that Christian is now married to another woman and simply dropped by to talk, François becomes jealous. He starts spying on Christian in order to find out if his rival secretly sees Anne. Though François sees Christian meeting a different woman, he keeps following the pair. His pursuit leads him to a park where he meets up with a vivacious teenage girl named Lucie (Anne-Laure Meury), who becomes curious about his motives and agrees to help him in his detection.
Date: 13, November, 2010
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Venue: Physics 1520
Title: La double vie de Véronique (The Double Life of Veronique)
(My first movie screen in AU)
Language: French. Caption: English / Chinese
The film follows the lives of a young woman first in Poland, Weronika, and then a young woman in France, Véronique, both played by Irène Jacob. Though unrelated, the two appear identical, share many personality traits, and seem to be aware of each other on some level, as if they are doppelgängers; but except for a brief glimpse through a bus window in Kraków, they never meet. After Weronika sacrifices everything in the pursuit of a singing career, Véronique abandons her own similar goal because of poor health and attempts to find an independent course for her life, while becoming involved with a manipulative man who is fascinated by clues to her double nature. The man is a puppeteer and maker of marionettes, helping raise the questions that are central to the film: is there such a thing as free will, or is it up to a creator of some kind, or is it just a matter of chance that one acts and thinks as one does?
Date: 23, October, 2010
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Venue: Physics 1520
Title: Conte d'automne (Autumn Tale)
(My farewell movie screen in HKUST)
Language: French. Caption: English
Magali (Béatrice Romand), forty-something, is a winemaker and a widow: she loves her work but feels lonely. Her friends Rosine (Alexia Portal) and Isabelle (Marie Rivière) both want secretly to find a husband for Magali. It is one of Rohmer's best.
Date: 30, July, 2010
Time: 9:00 - 11:00 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: Ma nuit chez Maud
Language: French. Caption: English
The narrator (Jean-Louis), a devout Catholic, moves to a provincial town and vows to marry Francoise, a pretty blond he notices at mass. Vidal, an old school friend, invites him to visit the recently divorced Maud, and the narrator ends up staying the night, having philosophical discussions in her bedroom. Next morning the narrator engineers a meeting with Francoise.
Date: 23, April, 2010
Time: 9:00 - 11:00 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray)
Language: French. Caption: English
The movie opens at the start of Delphine's summer vacation. Her travel companion has ditched her and she mopes around Paris, depressed and self-pitying. Her friends urge her to get out there and meet new people. She visits several locations, but can never seem to find what she wants: happiness and true love. At Biarritz train station she meets a young man who is travelling to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. She goes with him and together they fall in love in front of the warm glow of sunset; and le rayon vert (the Green flash).
Date: 22, April, 2010
Time: 9:30 - 11:10 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: Tess
Language: English
Tess is a 1979 English language romantic drama film directed by Roman Polanski, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It tells the story of a strong-willed, young peasant girl who finds out she has title connections by way of her old aristocratic surname, who is seduced by her wealthy cousin, whose right to the family title may not be as strong as he claims. The screenplay was by Gérard Brach, John Brownjohn, and Roman Polanski.
Date: 8, April, 2010
Time: 8:30 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: La règle du jeu
Language: French. Caption: English
The Rules of the Game (original French title: La Règle du jeu) is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II. Renoir's film is in part an adaptation of Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne, a popular 19th-century comedy of manners; Renoir takes the film far beyond the pleasantries of a typical comedy of manners, creating instead a biting and tragic satire that captured the frenetic emotions of France on the cusp of World War II. The Rules of the Game is often cited as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. A poll of critics by the Sight & Sound magazine in 2002, placed it behind Citizen Kane and Vertigo.
Date: 7, April, 2010
Time: 9:30 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: 8 1/2
Language: Italian. Caption: English
Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director, is suffering from "director's block". Stalled on his new science fiction film that includes veiled autobiographical references, he has lost interest amid artistic and marital difficulties. As Guido struggles half-heartedly to work on the film, a series of flashbacks and dreams delve into his memories and fantasies; they are frequently interwoven with reality.
Date: 4, April, 2010
Time: 8:30 - 11:00 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: Seven Samurai
Language: Japanese. Caption: English
Introduction: A 1954 Japanese film co-written, edited and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film takes place in Warring States Period Japan (around 1587/1588). It follows the story of a village of farmers that hire seven masterless samurai (ronin) to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
Date: 1, December, 2009
Time: 9:00 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: L'avventura
Language: Italian. Caption: English
Introduction: It is the first of a "trilogy" by Antonioni, followed by La notte (1961) and L'eclisse (1962). L'avventura has a narrative structure in which an apparently important central mystery is gradually forgotten and left unsolved.
Date: 23, November, 2009
Time: 9:00 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: Citizen Kane
Language: English
Introduction: Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, and the first feature film directed by Orson Welles. The story is a roman a clef that criticizes the life and legacy of William Randolph Hearst, an American newspaper magnate, and Welles' own life. There is a semi-official consensus in film circles that Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made, which has led Roger Ebert to quip that: "So it's settled: 'Citizen Kane' is the official greatest film of all time."
Date: 9, November, 2009
Time: 9:30 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: L'Atalante
Language: French. Caption: English
Introduction: L'Atalante (also released as Le chaland qui passe) is a 1934 French film directed by Jean Vigo and starring Jean Daste, Dita Parlo and Michel Simon. It has been hailed by many critics as one of the greatest films of all time.
Date: 29, October, 2009
Time: 10:00 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: La Belle Noiseuse
Language: French. Caption: English
Introduction: La Belle Noiseuse is a 1991 film directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, and Emmanuelle Beart. Its title means "The Beautiful Troublemaker". The film is loosely adapted from the short story "The Unknown Masterpiece" by the nineteenth-century French writer Honore de Balzac.
Date: 23, October, 2009
Time: 9:00 - 11:00 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: A bout de souffle / Breathless
Language: French. Caption: English
Introduction: Godard's first feature-length film is among the inaugural films of the French New Wave. It derived from a scenario by fellow New Wave director, Francis Truffaut, and the film was released the year after Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour. Together the three films brought international acclaim to the nouvelle vague. At the time, Breathless attracted much attention for its bold visual style and the innovative editing use of jump cuts.
Date: 15, October, 2009
Time: 9:30 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: La Peau Douce / Soft Skin
Language: French. Caption: English
Introduction: The story revolves around Desailly's character, Pierre Lachenay, a successful writer and director of a literary magazine. At the beginning of the movie, he flies to Lisbon to give a conference about "Balzac and money".
Despite being married, he becomes involved with a stewardess and what was a one night stand becomes a long-term relationship. Torn between his wife and child and his younger lover, his life rapidly becomes unbearable. Finally, he takes the decision to leave his wife but she takes revenge by shooting him in a Parisian cafe.
Date: 13, October, 2009
Time: 10:00 - 12:00 pm
Venue: 4219
Title: Dekalog 9-10
Language: Polish. Caption: English/Chinese
Introduction: The Decalogue (Polish: Dekalog) is a 1989 Polish television drama series directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski and co-written by Kieslowski with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, with music by Zbigniew Preisner. It consists of ten one-hour films, each of which represents one of the Ten Commandments and explores possible meanings of the commandment -- often ambiguous or contradictory -- within a fictional story set in modern Poland. The series is Kieslowski's most acclaimed work and has won numerous international awards, though it was not widely released outside Europe until the late 1990s. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick wrote an admiring foreword to the movie in 1991.
Date: 17, September, 2009
Time: 9:30 - 11:30 pm
Venue: 3219