Spring
2004 International Film Series
Featuring 35mm prints exclusively:
Screening on Sundays at 7:30 pm in the
Trabant University
Center Theater
All foreign-language films are shown with subtitles.
Admission is free and open to the public.
House
of Sand and Fog, Songs from the Second
Floor, Elephant, America So
Beautiful, The Flower of Evil,
Casa de los Babys, Girl
with a Pearl Earring, Osama
March 7 House of Sand
and Fog
(USA 2003) 126 Minutes
A grief-stricken woman (Jennifer Connelly)
fights to regain her home from the proud man (Ben Kingsley) who sees it as
his chance to restore his family's fortunes. 4 Stars from Roger Ebert (Chicago
Sun-Times); with Oscar-nominated supporting actress Shohreh Aghdashloo.
March 14 Songs from the Second
Floor
[Sånger från andra våningen]
(Sweden 2000) 98 Minutes
This "beguilingly entertaining absurdist comedy"
(Elvis Mitchell, New York Times) offers vignettes in a city approaching
Y2K, in the tone of Kafka at his funniest, Monty Python at their most profound.
Filmmaker Roy Andersson is a "slapstick Ingmar Bergman" (J. Hoberman,
Village Voice).
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March 21 --
No Screening
March 28 Elephant
(USA 2003) 81 Minutes
Palme d'Or, 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
Gus Van Sant's film, cast with non-actors and largely improvised, is inspired
by the Columbine shootings and offers "no pat or easy answers...
a must-see movie" (David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor).
When no one talks about the elephant in the room, then no one can say
what makes one day in high school unlike any other. "Unique and unforgettable"
(Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).
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April 4 America So Beautiful
(USA 2001) 91 Minutes
Los Angeles, 1979: an Iranian immigrant's dream of opening a disco slips
away during the early days of the Iran hostage crisis. The tragic events
of 9/11 (which followed the film's completion) underscore both its pathos
and its relevance.
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April 11 The Flower of
Evil
[La Fleur du mal]
(France 2003) 104 Minutes
Claude Chabrol's 50th film is "another
tastefully baroque roasting of petty bourgeois rites within suffocating
domestic environs" (Jessica Winter, Village Voice). The
tale of political corruption, incest, adultery, and exploitation in
a French country house bears entirely unveiled contempt for the children
of Vichy.
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April 18 Casa
de los Babys
(USA 2003) 95 Minutes
John Sayles contributes the "incisive
writing" and Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Steenburgen, Lili Taylor, Maggie Gyllenhaal,
and Rita Moreno provide the "strong performances" (Glenn Kenny, Premiere).
Six American women in an unnamed Latin American country cool their heels while
waiting to adopt in this "scrupulously suds-free examination of motherhood"
(Stephen Holden, New York Times).
April 25 Girl
with a Pearl Earring
(UK 2003) 95 Minutes
Master cinematographer Eduardo Serra (The
Widow of Saint-Pierre, The Wings of the Dove, The Flower
of Evil) fulfills the cliché that photographers "paint with
light" in this story of the housemaid who could have inspired Vermeer's
finest paintings. "The upstairs-downstairs soap opera [provides the]
excuse to elaborately stage ...a gallery of sumptuous still lifes" (William
Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
May 2 Osama
(Afghanistan 2003) 82 Minutes
"Gripping, timely, and revealing"
(David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor). The first film to
be shot in Afghanistan since 1996 (when the Taliban came to power) is also
the Golden Globe Winner, Best Foreign Film. A young girl attempts to pass
as a boy named Osama in order to support her family, but it isn't long before
she is discovered. "Tough-minded, lyrical, and not at all sentimental...
instead, it is beautiful, thoughtful and almost unbearably sad." (A.O.
Scott, New York Times).
Sponsored
by the Faculty Senate Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events,
the Office of the Provost, and the English Department’s Film Program.
Co-sponsored by the Art History department, the Center for American Material
Culture Studies, and the Women's Studies Program.
Call
302/831-4066 (mailbox 3) for more information.
Director:
Peter X Feng / Assistant: Kate Newell / Manager: Linda Russell / Publicity:
Diana Simmons
International Film Series (Previous Showings)
Department
Calendar
UD English Home Page
This page was updated
on February 20, 2004.