Kino Update

Lots of celluid have past through the reels of the Wenzel office these past few weeks, beginning with an aborted attempt to watch the 1950s French classic Les Diaboliques. Unfortunately, twenty minutes into the suspensful boarding school murder, the DVD refused to play. However, plenty of other cinematic opportunities have presented themselves, some high, some low.

Beginning with an excursion to our local theatre, we viewed Stranger than Fiction with Will Farrell and Emma Thompson. Thompson plays a writer, narrating the death of her main character, played by Farrell. Unfortunately, Farrell's character is an actual person quite taken aback by the news of his impending doom. Reprising a character similar to his role in I Heart Huckabees, Dennis Hoffman provides some memorable insight into the nature of literature and the quiet heroism demanded by everyday life. Douglas Adams is probably smiling.

Endgame, a political murder mystery starring Cuba Gooding, JR and James Woods left us somewhat cold. Since seeing Scorsese's The Departed, it takes a lot of work to keep us guessing.

Bassano del Grappa was very pleased to have tracked down a DVD version of Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped at Eboli, a look at the internment of a northern Jew in Southern Italy during the Second World War. The carefree, almost whimsy of his imprisonment is in stark contrast to that of Life is Beautiful which takes place later in the war. In Christ Stopped at Eboli, Levi's character is permitted to roam about the small town almost at will. Of course, to be any sort of outsider in rural Italy is to be under constant surveillance as it is. Furthermore to be a professional, let alone a doctor, is to be vaulted into a very public position. The movie is filled with the tensions of contemporary Italy - North vs. South, urban vs. rural, modern vs. pre-modern, scientific vs. religious/folk tradition, middle-class vs. peasant, etc. Many of us had read the book in high school, and a few of us have crossed through it's Calabrian locale on the train to Brindisi, via Rome, making this one something of a nostalgic venture.

Fateless, which also dealt with the Jewish experience during WWII, looked at the experiences of a Hungarian boy who is sent to Auschwitz, and the strategies he and his compatriots must emply to survive, including sleeping next to his bunkmate's corpse so that he can gain an extra ration of food for two days. Interestingly, the film also follows his release from the camp and attempts to re-integrate into Hungarian society.