The Way Things Go / Der Lauf der Dinge
30 min / USA / Switzerland, 1987
a short documentary film by
Peter Fischli and David Weiss


Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss have collaborated on kinetic installations since 1979. All of their work to date, whether in photography, film, drawing, or sculpture, has demonstrated a deep interest in the mechanisms that animate the universe of objects.

Fischli and Weiss remove these things that surround us from their contexts in our daily lives, and then restructure their relationships to one another. The artists aim neither to glorify nor to alienate these common objects, but merely to create new references in which they might be considered.

THE WAY THINGS GO - without narration or interviews - simply records the self-destructing performance of Fischli's and Weiss' most ambitious construction: 100 feet of physical interactions, chemical reactions, and precisely crafted chaos worthy of Rube Goldberg or Alfred Hitchcock.

5/12/2006 Fahrenheit 451

MOVIENIGHT XV Tuesday 5/12/2006 screening of:

Fahrenheit 451 (UK, 1966)
a film by François Truffaut



Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film of a dystopian future, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury.
The central character, Guy Montag, is a firefighter who lives in a totalitarian and isolated society where books have been outlawed by a government fearing an independent-thinking public. It is the duty of firefighters to burn any books on sight or said collections that have been reported by informants. People in this society including Montag's wife are drugged into compliancy and get their information from wall-length television screens. After Montag falls in love with book-hoarding Clarisse, he begins to read confiscated books. It is through this relationship that he begins to question the government's motives behind book-burning. Montag is soon found out, and he must decide whether to return to his job or run away knowing full well the consequences that he could face if captured.

About the book:
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) is a fiction novel by Ray Bradbury. The main themes in the book are the Individual Vs. Society, the Importance of Literature, Propaganda and Censorship, Techonology, Animal Imagery, Paradoxes, Religion and Knowledge Vs. Ignorance.

28/11/2006 De Zee die Denkt

MOVIENIGHT IV Tuesday 28/11/2006 screening of:

De Zee die Denkt / The Sea that Thinks (2000, Netherlands)
a film by Gert de Graaff



The Sea That Thinks is a surprising film about itself. A film overflowing with twists and turns and new angles. It focuses on Bart, a scriptwriter who is writing the script for this film. In the film, Bart himself plays the scriptwriter writing the script of The Sea That Thinks. He types what he does and does what he types. In his film, he finds the answer to the urgent question: How do we find happiness? He uses stunning examples to show us that our world is only to be found in our consciousness. What is real and what is illusion? Do we believe in our dream world while we dream? Do we believe in the reality of film while we see it? And why? His combination of pictures and text has a hypnotic effect on the viewer. It provides an exciting, dislocating and humorous adventure. Later it also becomes apparent that the film is not about this tormented scriptwriter at all. In a game filled with optical illusions and continually changing points of view, the surprised viewers gradually find out they are looking at themselves: How do I observe? What do I assume to be true? What do I think I see? What do I think I am? The viewer turns out to bear a striking similarity to the Sea that thinks it's a Tree.

Die Zee die Denkt (2000)
Awards: 6 wins & 1 nomination
Joris Ivens Award 2000. IDFA (Nederland)
Nomination for the European Discovery Award 2001, European Film Academy
Best First Feature Film Award, Experimental Feature DIFF Award (US)
Grand Prix Best Experimental Feature, Experimental Feature DIFF Award (US)
Golden Key Award for Best Camera en Special F.I.C.C. Jury Award (Slowaakse Republiek)
more info: http://www.dezeediedenkt.nl/

21/11/2006 The Holy Mountain

MOVIENIGHT XIII Tuesday 21/11/2006 screening of:

The Holy Mountain (1973 Mexico / US)
a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky


La montaña sagrada (The Holy Mountain, reissued as The Sacred Mountain) Is a cult film written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky who also participated as actor, composer, set designer, and costume designer. The film was produced by Allen Klein & John Lennon after Jodorowsky scored an underground phenomenon with El Topo (1970). It was shown at various international film festivals in 1973. However the film was never given wide release.

A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide (the alchemist, played by Jodorowsky) who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide's assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal.

Alejandro Jodorowsky or Alexandro Jodorowsky born in Tocopila, Chile in 1929, is an actor, director, writer, producer, composer, mime, comic book writer and psychotherapist with parents of Russian origin. He is particularly known for having directed a handful of esoteric, surreal and shocking films, and for having written several comic books.
The revered cult filmmaker once stated, "I ask of cinema what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs." He is also a New Age spiritualist, and one of the world's leading researchers of the Tarot. Jodorowsky has lately committed a lot of attention to developing a psychological therapy called "Psychomagic" which aims to heal the psychological wounds suffered in the early stages of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Jodorowsky

14/Nov/2006 Week End

MOVIENIGHT XII 14/11/2006 screening of:

Week End (1967)
a film by Jean-Luc Godard



A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations. Week End was made at a time when many people felt the world was just about to change for the better. The civil rights movement was going on in America and the uprising of May '68 was just around the corner in France. Godard seems to be making the film for the disenchanted, but then refuses to meet their expectations.

6/Nov/2006 Tarnation

MOVIENIGHT XI - 06/11/2006 screening of:

TARNATION (2003)
a film by Jonathan Caouette.




Part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip. A psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. The story begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Renee, has overdosed on her lithium medication. He is catapulted back into his real and horrifying family legacy of rape, abandonment, promiscuity, drug addiction, child abuse, and psychosis. As he grows up on camera, he finds the escapist balm of musical theater and B horror flicks and reconnects to life through a queer chosen family. Then a look into the future shows Jonathan as he confronts the symbiotic and almost unbearable love he shares with his beautiful and tragically damaged mother.

October 2006

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MOVIENIGHT VI 02/10/2006 screening of:

Songs From The Second Floor (2000)
Directed by Roy Andersson



A film poem inspired by the poet Caesar Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.


MOVIENIGHT VII 09/10/2006 screening of:

Salvador Allende (2004)
A Documentary by Patricio Guzmán



Using rare archival footage, family photos, interviews with Allende's friends, professional colleagues, his daughters and other relatives as well as UP militants, workers, journalists, his personal secretary and Edward Korry, former U.S. Ambassador to Chile, SALVADOR ALLENDE portrays the life, times and political formation of the Valparaiso-born doctor who was active in Socialist Party politics as a senator and who ran unsuccessfully for President three times before finally being elected in 1970.

MOVIENIGHT VIII 16/10/2006 screening of:

MEAN CREEK (2004)
Directed by Jacob Aaron Estes



It all begins in a small Oregon town, when shy Sam confesses to his protective older brother Rocky that he is getting pummeled daily by the towering school bully, George. Together, they plan the perfect payback, inviting George on a birthday river trip tailor-made to end in the bully's humiliation. Rocky's pals Clyde and Marty and Sam's budding girlfriend Millie also join the journey, which starts almost immediately with misgivings. Seeing George in a new light, as a lonely kid desperate for friendship and attention, Sam wants to call the whole thing off. But the boat and the plot are already in motion, and no one can foresee the surprises and accidents that are to come.


MOVIENIGHT IX 23/10/2006 screening of:

TUVALU (1999)
a film by Veit Helmer



Eine Reise in die Welt der Träume

The film evolves into a girl-meets-boy odyssey with a plot and acting style which often invites comparisons
with Jacques Tati, Edward Scissorhands and Eraserhead. The acting is not grounded in realism, but is extremely
theatrical in nature. Every activity is expressed in a heightened and accentuated form.

MOVIENIGHT X 30/10/2006 screening of:

The Root of all Evil? (2006)
a documentary by Richard Dawkins



Part 1: The God Delusion &
Part 2: The Virus of Faith

is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion. The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45 minute episodes, on Channel 4 in the UK. Dawkins has said that the title "The Root of All Evil?" was not his preferred choice, but that Channel 4 had insisted on it to create controversy. His sole concession from the producers on the title was the addition of the question mark. Dawkins has stated that the notion of anything being the root of all evil is ridiculous.

Richard Dawkins is the author of a number of internationally best-selling books about evolutionary biology including The Selfish Gene (1976; second edition, 1989), The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), and Unweaving the Rainbow (1998).

August/September 2006

MOVIENIGHT
28/08/2006 - The Corporation (2003)
a documentary by Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott

MOVIENIGHT II
04/09/2006 - El Topo (1970)
a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky



MOVIENIGHT III
11/09/2006 - Los Lunes al Sol (2002)
a film by Fernando Leon de Aranoa

MOVIENIGHT IV
18/09/2006 - The Cook, the Thief his Wife and her Lover (1989)
a film by Peter Greenaway

MOVIENIGHT V
25/09/2006 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
a film by Jim Sharman

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