University of Delaware
Fall 1998 International Film Series
Featuring 35mm prints exclusively:  screening on
Sundays at 7:30 pm (additional screenings as indicated)
in the Trabant Center Theater.
Free and open to the public.

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Fireworks, The Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day, Men with Guns, Character, Smoke Signals, Push! Push!, A Taste of Cherry

Fireworks

Japan 1997 --  103 min. Two Thumbs Up! (Siskel & Ebert) In Japan, Takeshi Kitano is best known for his best-selling books and eight TV comedy programs (that's eight per week). In the U.S., he's best known for writing, directing, and starring in offbeat, existential gangster movies: Fireworks is his funniest, saddest, most brutal, and tenderest film yet. Kitano plays Nishi, a police detective who blames himself for the death of a young policeman. As his final act, he takes his wife on a second honeymoon, funding the trip with a casually-executed bank robbery. Welcome to the cool comic world of Takeshi Kitano! Kitano is the reservoir where they make the dogs.  (Anthony Lane, The New Yorker)

September 27th -- 7:30 PM

The Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day

USA 1996 -- 87 min. Extraordinarily eloquent and pure.  (Janet Maslin, New York Times)  Stunning black-and-white images of the Yosemite Valley earned this film the award for best cinematography at Sundance in 1996. In the years following the Second World War, a young man undertakes the quixotic task of keeping the Yosemite Valley Railroad running. Brisk and Leaping Day also features the film-acting debut of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe. From the director of The Hours andTimes. Sublime... one of the ten best films of the year.  (Gavin Smith, Film Comment)

Men with Guns

USA 1997 -- 127 min. In an unnamed Central American country, a wealthy doctor journeys into the rain forest to check on the progress of the young doctors he has sent out to do good work. He soon discovers that men with guns -- sometimes soldiers, sometimes guerillas -- have killed many of his students and brutalized the villagers and farmers scattered across the country. So begins his quest to find a mythical town that men with guns have not visited. Writer & director John Sayles's follow-up to Lone Star.

October 18th  -- 7:30 & 9:30 PM

Smoke Signals

USA 1998 -- 88 min. The audience favorite at the 1998 Sundance film festival, Smoke Signals is billed as the first feature film to be produced by Native Americans. Two young men, Victor and Thomas, venture off an Idaho reservation to retrieve the body of a man who has touched both their lives -- Victor's alcoholic father. Will tough guy Victor succeed in transforming Thomas's geeky image, or will Thomas's gentle soul touch the rage in Victor's heart? Warm, funny, and uncommonly affecting. A shrewd portrait, sly, casual yet palpably authentic... a sweet freshness in its voice that's worth heeding. (Richard Schickel, Time Magazine)

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October 25 --  7:30 PM & 9:30 PM

Push! Push!

Korea 1997 -- 95 min. East Coast Premiere! Korean director Chul-Soo Park reteams with the stars of the controversial 301/302 for a black comedy set in a maternity ward run by two women who must negotiate changing expectations about motherhood and sexuality in modern Korea. The film ricochets from comic scenes to graphic footage of c-section births. This is a rare opportunity to see the latest film from one of contemporary Korean cinema's most creative filmmakers; this is the U.S. theatrical premiere of a film that has thus far only been screened three times in West Coast film festivals.

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A Taste of Cherry

Iran 1997 -- 95 min. Palme d'Or, 1997 Cannes Film Festival. A middle-aged man has an unusual problem: he must find someone who can bury him after he commits suicide. Virtually all of the dialogue in director Abbas Kiarostami's (Through the Olive Trees and The White Balloon) consists of our protagonist's attempts to persuade strangers to assist him. Knowing, poignant, as simple and universally significant as an Aesop fable.... a suspense thriller cast as a Socratic conversation. (Richard Corliss, Time Magazine)

 November 8th - 7:30 PM (Rescheduled from October 11th  -- 7:30 PM) 

Character

Netherlands 1997 -- 124 min. 1998 Academy Award, Best Foreign Language Film. In 1920s Rotterdam, Jacob's mother has refused to marry his father, who remains a distant, mysterious figure in young Jacob's life. As the film opens, Jacob arrested and interrogated by the police -- his father has just been murdered. Has Jacob succeeded in life despite adversity -- or have his father's obstacles built up his character? Terry Gilliam meets Franz Kafka... (G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Examiner)

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The film series, coordinated by Prof. Peter Feng,  is sponsored by
the Faculty Senate Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events, Women's Studies,
University Honors Program, East Asian Studies, and  the English Department Film Program.
Call 302-831-4066 for more information.

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