February 3- 9, 2005

screen picks

Screen Picks

by Sam Adams

Experiments with Truth (Fri., Feb. 4 through Thu., Feb. 24) As gallery exhibition has replaced theatrical screenings of experimental film, cinephiles have become accustomed (if not resigned) to compromised viewing environments: film loops circulating endlessly on untended VCRs or projected on an undistinguished patch of wall in semi-darkness; vaguely related works crammed into the same high-ceilinged space, overlapping soundtracks competing for attention; dingy communal headphones that tend to function sporadically if at all. Although they're happy to use moving-image exhibitions to further their cutting-edge reputations, few museums are willing, or competent, to show them the proper respect.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum's "Experiments With Truth" is, mercifully, not that kind of exhibition. Open since December, EWT's padded labyrinth gives each projection its own discrete space. There's some disconcerting sonic overlap on the museum's fifth floor, with Glenn Ligon's chatty "Orange and Blue Feelings" echoing over Amar Kanwar's silent "To Remember," which explores the aftershocks of Gandhi's assassination, although the conflict between Ligon's therapeutic self-involvement and Kanwar's wordless elegy produces its own inadvertent commentary. But on the exhibit's more expansive sixth floor, each piece gets plenty of breathing room, from Zarina Bhimji's "Out of Blue," a haunting, depopulated commentary on Idi Amin's dictatorship, to Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi's "Frammenti Elettrici," four facing projections in which archival footage of white bodies cavorting on the beach squares off against displaced colonial subjects.

Like Isaac Julien's "Fanon S.A. 1997-2004," a two-panel video loop incorporating footage from his film Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (see review p. 34), Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi's installation provides a bridge to the screening portion of "Experiments with Truth," which begins Friday and runs through Feb. 24. (The Fabric Workshop exhibit remains open until March 12.) Although they seem more like filmmakers than gallery artists — I did my best to shut out peripheral distractions and watch each part of "Frammenti Elettrici" on its own — there's a sense in which their films are installations in time instead of space. Exhuming footage and constructing their own mythic histories, they leave conflicts unresolved, images face to face with their opposites. Images d'Orient — Tourisme Vandale (Wed., Feb. 9, 8 p.m., Connolly Auditorium, University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad St.) highlights colonial domination, while Oh! uomo (Thu., Feb. 10, 7 p.m., International House) completes their trilogy on World War I. (For the series, U Arts screenings are normally on DVD and free of charge; I-House screenings are typically on film and $6.)

Like "To Remember," Kanwar's A Night of Prophecy (Fri., Feb. 4, 8 p.m., U Arts; Sun., Feb. 13, 1 p.m., I-House), probes the lingering wounds of colonial violence on the subcontinent. Ranging from Mumbai to Kashmir, the film (shown with the short A Season Outside) catalogues the songs and poems that house feelings of loss and righteous anger, not to mention retribution and rebellion. Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner (Sat., Feb. 5, 7 p.m., I-House) retells an Inuit myth as present-day reality, while Pere Portabella's mystifying El Umbracle (Sun., Feb. 6, 1 p.m., I-House) mixes wartime melodrama with a critique of government censorship, joins Dadaist sound poetry to footage of silent film comedians, and features Christopher Lee (Lord of the Rings' Saruman) reading "The Raven" and singing in French. Described as a central figure in the Catalan avant-garde, Portabella will be featured twice more in the screening series; perhaps by week two we'll crack the code.

Burn! (Thu., Feb. 3, 7 p.m., free, Point of Destination Cafe, 6460 Greene St. ) Reelblack kicks off Black History Month with the first of four free showings at the Point of Destination Cafe, in the Upsal train station. This week's entry (shown on video) is Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn!, in which Marlon Brando is an Englishman sent to stir up a slave rebellion in a Portuguese sugar colony. Note that this is not Queimada, the newly restored version with 20 minutes of additional footage, but it does feature Brando speaking English instead of dubbed Italian.

Misc. Picks Speaking of Brando, the Colonial revives the compromised but indelible A Streetcar Named Desire (Sun., 2 p.m.). Tuesday offers a choice of classics: Breakfast at Tiffany's is the Bridge's monthly dollar matinee at 1 p.m., while the Chestnut Hill Film Group gets underway with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth (7 p.m., free).