Abel Ferrara’s adaptation of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn story comes to the Grand Illusion in its controversial American release version. Gérard Depardieu is the massive presence in the center (a performance that rivals only Timothy Spall’s in Mr. Turner as the gruntiest of 2014). He’s M. Deveraux, head of an international banking organization and potential future president of France with a prodigious appetite for sex. After an evening of debauchery, which Ferrara shows us in clinical, resolutely unsexy detail for the first 20 minutes or so of the film, Deveraux sexually assaults a hotel maid. He’s caught at the airport and just as exacting detail we follow the process of his arrest, booking and arraignment. The second half of the film, following Deveraux’s release on bail, is almost lyrical, as he and his wife (Jacqueline Bisset) argue over the fallout of what he’s done and what it means for their past and their future. Deveraux, a leftist economist, despite devoting his life to helping the less fortunate, is exposed as no less a Randian egotist than the worst right-wing cartoon: his utterly unshakeable belief in the inviolability of his own self-interest the only guiding principle of his existence. I had expected the film, when I first heard about it, to concern itself with the mystery of the crime itself. A did-he or didn’t-he exploration of the legal system and our attitudes toward powerful men who commit crimes against women. Ferrara, though, ditches all of that. We know he’s guilty right from the beginning, and the film becomes even more darkly political as a result. There’s no balance, no epistemology, no other side of the story: there’s the insular, protected, heedlessly destructive world of the super-rich and powerful (right and left) and everything else is the margin.
Month: April 2015
Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2003)
This Monday and Tuesday April 6th and 7th, Scarecrow Video will be hosting the final two shows in Seattle’s Hou Hsiao-hsien Retrospective, with free screenings of Goodbye South, Goodbye and Café Lumière, respectively. The first was Hou’s follow-up to Good Men, Good Women, a contemporary minimalist gangster hang out picture with Jack Kao, Lim Giong and Annie Shizuka Inoh that owes as much to the Hong Kong New Wave’s genre experimentations as theories of identity and Taiwanese political history. The second was a tribute to Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. The following is a slightly revised version of something I wrote about a few shots in Café Lumière back in 2012.
Friday April 3 – Thursday April 9
Featured Film:
Welcome to New York at the Grand Illusion
The controversial R-rated cut of iconoclastic auteur Abel Ferrara’s film “inspired by” the notorious case of Dominque Strauss-Kahn, the internationally-renowned economist and politician who was arrested and indicted on charges of sexual assault in 2011 plays this week at the Grand Illusion. Starring Gérard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset. Our Preview.
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Playing This Week:
Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Sat Only Our Preview
Cry-Baby (John Waters, 1990) Fri-Weds
Sleeper (Woody Allen, 1975) Fri-Weds
The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) Sun Only
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1963) Sat Only Laser Projection
Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore) Fri-Thurs
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Zombeavers (Jordan Rubin) Fri-Sat Midnight
Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) Fri-Thurs
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
’71 (Yann Demange) Fri-Thurs
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Occupy the Farm (Todd Darling) Tues Only
Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
Spring (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead) Sun-Tues Only
Wild Tales (Damián Szifrón) Fri-Thurs Our Preview
Cinemark Lincoln Square Cinemas:
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy (Dibakar Banerjee) Fri-Thurs
The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) Sun Only
Let’s Get Married (Liu Jiang) Fri-Thurs
How to Fight in Six-Inch Heels (Tran Ham, 2013) Fri-Thurs
’71 (Yann Demange) Fri-Thurs
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Vernae Fri-Sat Only Live Performance
St. Kilda Album Release Show Thurs Only Live Music
Queen and Country (John Boorman) Fri-Thurs
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) Fri-Thurs
Scarecrow Video Screening Lounge:
Seattle Screen Scene 
