Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair - Year 2

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL:

The American Cinematheque is thrilled to present its second annual ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair,’ a weeklong festival that spotlights some of the greatest films from around the world that explore the darkest sides of humanity, as well as some of the bleakest points in human history. A harrowing, yet powerful lineup of films defined by stark imagery, unimaginable tragedies, existential fear, nihilism and shocking acts of brutality, this series features the world’s leading filmmakers who wholly embrace a cinema of despair in pursuit of unpleasant truths and raw empathy.

This year’s lineup includes 35 films of a variety of genres and time periods from 20 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK, USA and West Germany. Legendary Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr will attend the festival as the guest of honor, for special Q&As and introductions, beginning on Tuesday, June 6th at the Aero Theatre, with the West Coast Premiere of the new 4K restoration of WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2000) from Janus Films. The festival will close on Wednesday, June 7th with Tarr’s THE TURIN HORSE (2011) and a Q&A.

“Hi LA! It will be nice to see you again, after a very long time. I am curious how you are now and what is going on in the town! I hope we will have a good meeting and we will spend a good time together. See you there!” said filmmaker Béla Tarr regarding his upcoming in-person retrospective.

Tarr’s groundbreaking work serves as the inspiration for the opening night selection at the Los Feliz 3, beginning with Gus Van Sant’s GERRY (2002), the first in the director’s “Death Trilogy,” which features homage to Tarr’s style. Later that evening, the new 4K restoration of TWILIGHT (1990), directed by Hungarian auteur and regular Béla Tarr collaborator György Fehér, will make its West Coast Premiere, courtesy of Arbelos Films.

At the Aero, the festival begins with a special screening of Sydney Pollack’s 1969 depression era masterpiece, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY?, followed by a Q&A with actor Bruce Dern. The event is a fitting tribute to Pollack, one of the original founders of the American Cinematheque in 1984. Pollack’s grueling portrait of 1930s America is mirrored by Leo McCarey’s surprisingly bleak 1937 MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, a film that Orson Welles famously said, “would make a stone cry.” The lineup includes another classic of American cinema with the 50th anniversary of THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, which screens alongside Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s FOX AND HIS FRIENDS (1975), making up a double feature about some of cinema’s most infamous friendships.

Fassbinder is joined by several other arthouse masters including Kenji Mizoguchi, whose THE LIFE OF OHARU (1952) chronicles the unbearable struggles of a women’s life during the Edo period in Japan. Social injustice likewise determines the tragic fates of the protagonists in Ousmane Sembène’s groundbreaking “Borom Sarret” (1963) and BLACK GIRL (1966), two harrowing portrayals of the supposedly postcolonial world of the 1960s.

Mexican auteur Arturo Ripstein makes his Bleak Week debut (as part of the AC’s ongoing ‘The Latin American Canon of Cruelty’ series) with his 2015 BLEAK STREET, which follows two elderly prostitutes on the lam after an incident involving twin wrestlers. Similarly, Mikko Niskanen’s rediscovered 1972 5-hour Finnish masterpiece EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS examines impoverished farmers in conflict with oppressive law enforcement, resulting in brutal consequences. Bleak Week is also proud to spotlight the films of Catherine Breillat (FAT GIRL, 2001), Warwick Thornton (SAMSON AND DELILAH, 2009), Samira Makhmalbaf (BLACKBOARDS, 2000) and Tsai Ming-liang (THE RIVER, 1997), each of which depicts the modern alienation and trauma experienced by youth around the world

Elem Klimov and Larisa Shepitko make their return to Bleak Week with the annual double feature of COME AND SEE (1985) and THE ASCENT (1977), two of the most viscerally devastating films ever made. Pier Paolo Pasolini and Ingmar Bergman also return to this year’s lineup with two of their most uncompromising works—TEOREMA (1968) and CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972)—which tear apart two bourgeoise families in excruciatingly precise detail. These themes are explored further in Lucrecia Martel’s visionary debut LA CIÉNAGA (2001), in which a stagnant family begins to rot at its core during a sweltering summer.

Several other esteemed contemporary filmmakers are featured in the festival, including Austrian director Michael Haneke, who joins for a live virtual career conversation prior to the exceedingly heavy double feature of THE PIANO TEACHER (2001) and AMOUR (2012). Later, Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov joins for a virtual conversation to discuss his acclaimed MOTHER AND SON (1997) and THE SECOND CIRCLE (1990), which take on the tragic experience of losing a parent in ways that are breathtakingly beautiful yet overwhelmingly depressing. And lastly, Cristian Mungiu joins to discuss his timely work in the Palme d’Or winning 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (2007), which follows the horrifying process of obtaining an illegal abortion during the final days of communism in Romania.

This year includes a selection of horror films that push well past the boundaries of the genre’s sense of entertainment. David Fincher’s ALIEN³ (1992) is a shockingly nihilistic installment to its franchise, setting the action on a desolate wasteland and delivering fatal trajectories for its beloved characters. French horror film BAXTER (1990) inserts the viewer into the mind of a murderous bull terrier through a journey of pure animalistic rage. In DER TODESKING (1990), Jörg Buttgereit compiles a series of existential vignettes that make up a tortured fabric of death and despair. And perhaps most shockingly, Agustí Villaronga’s infamous IN A GLASS CAGE (1986) follows a former Nazi child-killer who survives a suicide attempt, finding himself in an iron lung and at the mercy of one of his previous victims.

Finally, dark satire plays a key role in this year’s lineup with films from the US, UK and Russia. The elderly English couple at the center of Jimmy T. Murakami’s animated WHEN THE WIND BLOWS (1986) are comically oblivious to their impending demise from a nearby nuclear blast. Aleksei German’s delirious black comedy KHRUSTALYOV, MY CAR! (1998) is an absurd journey through the Stalinist Soviet Union that gradually becomes an apocalyptic nightmare. And Lindsay Anderson’s BRITANNIA HOSPITAL (1982), a savage satire about the surreal events surrounding a British hospital, pairs on a double feature with a film it inspired, Boots Riley’s equally scathing and visionary SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (2018).