February 12th 2014. Pick of the Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
We got another short-lived lull on the rep film circuit this day. Today's lone series is MoMA's Auteurist History of Film. The slim pickings as follows;
Film Forum
ALPHAVILLE (1965) Dir; Jean-Luc Godard
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947) Dir; Orson Welles
MoMA
REPULSION (1965) Dir; Roman Polanski
MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT (1975) Dir; Lino Brocka
Today's Pick? Soup, blanket, Netflix queue.
Oh, you want today's outside Pick?
Well, let's show a little love to Lino Brocka's breakout work of World Cinema, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT, no small feat at a time when "President" Marcos had turned his beloathed Philippines ass-up for any outside exploit, from corporate savaging of his country's natural resources to, on a smaller but no less significant scale, his nation's film industry, a native David versus outside Goliath tale if ever one existed. For the bulk of the postwar era the Philippines had served as regulation-free and money-friendly setting for just about every z-movie production that found places like Australia too restrictive. Still, the sheer amount of film production served as a reputation laundromat for the insufferable tyrants who bludgeoned their own, and The Marcos' did their all to seize the potential spin. Rumor has it that Ferdy and his Shoe Queen Imelda were so hell bent on establishing a presence on the World Cinema stage that the hastily constructed Manila Film Center, built to accomodate then newly-concocted political vanity project the Manila Film Fest, saw an entire floor collapse on construction workers and trapping them in quick-drying cement, and that on being informed of this Ferdy ordered work to continue and any limbs still in inconvenient jut be macheted away. It's probably just an island legend. He seemed like such a sweet guy.
Out of all this hegemonic cruelty and wholesale desecration of national identity came our man Lino, who made as his very subject the woe visited upon the average Filipino by his own people, from the rural to the urban setting. Although the plights and blights visited upon lead charcater Julio (played by newbie Bembol Roco) are seemingly solely the doings of his fellow countrymen, the implicit air of the outside influence, the corporate venom from without that poisons all within, is pervasive; not a minute or moment of setback or tragedy visits our main character without the sense that his destiny, or that of those beset against him, is in its owner's hands. It's a transcendent work, fully worthy of its status, and did more to re-introduce the Philippines to the World Cinema community than Marcos' Manila Film Fest, where it was not even nominated.
Lino Brocka's MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT screens tonight at MoMA in a newly spit-shined DCP resto. I may attend just to watch a human being sweat, at the moment a seemingly impossible prospect in our frozen metropolis, once more.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in February '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then safe, sound, make sure the next knucklehead is too!
-Joe Walsh
P. S. Should you be feeling charitable during this harsh weather period please remember to check in with the good folks over at Occupy Sandy. Some of our NY neighbors are still feeling the effects of last year's hurricane. Be a mensch.
