The Makioka Sisters
Saturday , August 10 at 7pm THE JANUS COLLETION The Makioka Sisters dir . Kon Ichikawa , Japan , 1983 , 35mm , Japanese with English subtitles , 140 min .
This lyrical adaptation of the beloved novel by Junichiro Tanizaki was a late-career triumph for director Kon Ichikawa . Structured around the changing of the seasons , The Makioka Sisters ( Sasameyuki ) follows the lives of four siblings who have taken on their family ’ s kimono manufacturing business , in the years leading up to the Pacific War . The two oldest have been married for some time , but according to tradition , the rebellious youngest sister cannot wed until the third , conservative and terribly shy , finds a husband . This graceful study of a family at a turning point in history is a poignant evocation of changing times and fading customs , shot in rich , vivid colors .
Nostalghia
Wednesday , August 14 at 7pm SERGEI PARAJANOV : SURREALIST POET OF SOVIET CINEMA
Nostalghia – New 35mm restored print ! dir . Andrei Tarkovsky , Italy / Soviet Union , 1983 , 35mm , Italian and Russian with English subtitles , 125 min .
“ As my teacher I consider an absoIuteIy young and amazing director , Tarkovsky , who even didn ’ t reaIize himseIf what a genius he was in Ivan ’ s ChiIdhood .” — Sergei Parajanov
We salute the friendship and cinematic kinship between Sergei Parajanov and Andrei Tarkovsky by beginning our series with a new 35mm restoration of one of Tarkovsky ’ s lesser-seen classics .
Exiled from the USSR , consummate film poet Tarkovsky ( Solaris , Stalker ) poured his stirrings of homesickness into this spectrally beautiful , metaphysical exploration of spiritual isolation and Russian identity . While researching the turbulent life of a 17th-century composer in the perpetually mist-shrouded Tuscan countryside , a soul-sick Russian poet ( Yankvosky ) forms an unusual kinship with an apocalypse-obsessed local madman ( Josephson ). Tarkovsky evokes the textures of dreams and memories through ravishing monochrome and sepia-toned reveries and flashbacks , while conjuring the hushed and haunted tone of a trance in this latecareer masterwork . — BAM
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