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Forthcoming films
(see below for more info)
20th January 2012 - The Great White Silence
17 February 2012 - Undertow
16 March 2012 - A Separation
20 April 2012 - The Wasteland
11 May 2012 - AGM - The Artist
15 June 2012 -Incendies
6 July 2012 - Life Above All
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Screenings
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January 20
• The Great White Silence • UK • 1924 • Cert U
Departing from Lyttleton on New Zealand’s South Island in 1910,
pioneering director Herbert Ponting was charged with keeping a
detailed cinematographic record of the fateful British Antarctic
expedition fronted by Captain Scott and his hearty entourage.
Ponting’s varied photographic findings coalesce into an
awe-inspiring silent (that’s been beautifully restored by the
BFI) which, like the works of filmmaker-ethnographer Robert
Flaherty, appears to allow elements of fiction and performance
to filter into the straight scientific findings. |
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February 17 • Undertow • Peru • 2009 • 100
mins • Cert 15
In world cinema terms, you can’t get much further off the beaten
track than this extraordinary Peruvian drama. And it’s a tribute
to the film-makers that nothing about it feels all that strange.
The setting is almost abstract: a fishing village with a clear
sea, rocky shore, humble shacks, sunbleached boats and little
else. Miguel appears to be a pillar of this community; popular,
pious and soon to be a father. But he’s conducting a secret
affair with Santiago, the local outsider artist.
Just when this is looking like a routine, if distinctive, study
of a sexual identity in a conservative community, though, a
tragedy occurs (it’s better as a surprise) and the story takes
on a curious supernatural aspect. |
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March 16 • A Separation • Iran • 2011 • 122
mins • Cert PG
An unhappily married couple break
up in this complex, painful, fascinating Iranian drama by
writer-director Asghar Farhadi, with explosive results that
expose a network of personal and social faultlines. A Separation
is a portrait of a fractured relationship and an examination of
theocracy, domestic rule and the politics of sex and class – and
it reveals a terrible, pervasive sadness that seems to well up
through the asphalt and the brickwork. Farhadi, like Haneke,
takes a scalpel to his bourgeois homeland. |
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April 20 • The Wasteland • Brazil • 2010 •
99 mins • Cert PG
The production notes for Lucy
Walker’s excellent documentary, though not the film itself,
include a celebrated quote from Eliot’s “The Waste Land” (“What
are the roots that clutch, what branches grow/ Out of this stony
rubbish?” etc) that throws light on the work of Vik Muniz, the
New Yorkbased Brazilian sculptor, artist and photographer. Born
to an impoverished family in São Paulo in 1961, Muniz transforms
apparent rubbish and other discarded materials to comment on the
waste, exploitation and hidden beauties of life, and Walker
follows one of his most ambitious projects.
The subjects are sensitively observed and the process of the
work lucidly explained. Muniz is a gifted, modest and altogether
delightful man, and his project is both aesthetically
fascinating and philosophically stimulating. |
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May 11 • AGM • The Artist (tbc) • USA • 2011 •
100 mins • Cert U
Not only is “The Artist” one of
the best films of the year, it is also one of the most unique
and beautiful films of the past decade. Sure it’s a silent film
-- and black and white to boot -- but you’ll love the “The
Artist” because it’s made up of the best movie ingredients like
classic Busby Berkeley-styled dance numbers, car chases, sword
fights, epic and sweeping romantic scenes and Chaplin-esque
slapstick moments, all neatly tied together in one delightful,
simple story with one of the best film finales in recent years.
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June 15 • Incendies • Canada • 2010 • 130
mins • Cert 15
The new film from Canadian
director Denis Villeneuve is based on Wajdi Mouawad’s 2003 play
Scorched. It’s an image of women and children slaughtered on a
burning bus during the Lebanese civil war in the 70s, and the
image extends to the incineration of history, of memory, and the
bitterness of revisiting the charred remains of violence and
tragedy. Villeneuve’s movie speaks of the transgressive
obscenity of war, particularly civil war, and how its survivors
must come to terms with having been shaped by atrocity. As a
cinematic prose-poem, it has undoubted force. |
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July 6 • Life Above All • France • 2010 •
100 mins • Cert PG
Oliver Schmitz’s film sets out as
a character-driven film about one of the nearly one million
children orphaned by AIDS in South Africa but its schematic
structure oversimplifies the drama, despite an interesting,
mostly debut cast.
Fear, of course, is the driving force behind any taboo, and fear
of AIDS on a continent that has been decimated by it, where a
cure is still nearly impossible, is understandable.
Subsequently, the film’s hopeful but formulaic ending - that
lessons of forgiveness and acceptance are quickly learned -
undermines its very premise. If it were that easy to change
people’s minds about AIDS, it wouldn’t be taboo anymore. |
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Reviews are
taken from a variety of sources including the Guardian, FilmWeek
and IMDb |
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Information
Unless otherwise stated, films are on Friday evenings starting at 7.30pm, in
Lecture Theatre A, Somerset College, Wellington Road, Taunton. Doors open 30
mins earlier. The screenings are only open to Members or their
guests. There’s no pre-booking - there should be plenty of space for all.
Please see our Membership page for further information. Subtitles will
always be shown when possible, even on English speaking films. Films shown
are subject to availability and substitutions will be made -
you can confirm the film by contacting David Ross on 07927 401 410 a few
days beforehand.
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