Kristina Buozyte’s THE COLLECTRESS (Lithuania)

Gene Siskel Film Center - Saturday, 5:30pm and Thursday, 8pm
The voyeuristic tendencies of humanity are spilling themselves all over the web as you read this. Cell phone footage of violence and misery are as instantly disseminated and have replaced the daily newspaper of the 20th Century. No longer do we wait for tomorrow, and no longer do we take time to process the events we hear about through the media. Or in our own lives. The immediacy of the mass recounting of history has lead to a numbing of our emotions and a disconnection from others. Or so the argument goes. In one of the smartest films about the continuing intrusion of technology in our lives, the ability to document experience is posited as the only means for reconnecting with emotion. After the death of her father renders speech therapist Gaille void of feeling, she stumbles upon a drunken auteur disguised as a low-grade video editor. Living amongst filth and bottles of vodka, he turns weddings into farces, where brides are ugly and guests gorge on reception food like pigs. He edits some footage of Gaille working for her to present at a conference, and she realizes that only through seeing herself on tape does she reconnect with her feelings. She begins to have herself taped as she engages in a variety of stunts. The pranks begin harmlessly enough, with the taping of Gaille crashing a wedding and kissing the unexpecting groom, but she needs to keep upping the ante. Of course this self-reflexive voyeurism has a price to pay, and Gaille systematically severs her connections to everyone around her. Although comparisons to VIDEODROME are not unfounded, where Cronenberg tried to shock us into agreeing with his thesis, Buozyte uses her video sequences to humanize her characters. This film shows a deft eye for visual style and a light touch in pacing, somewhat remarkable for an MFA thesis film. Expect more from Buozyte in the future. (2008, 84 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Videos by Lynne Sachs (Experimental Documentary/Narrative)

Chicago Filmmakers - Friday, 8pm
Film Studies Center - Saturday, 7pm
For twenty-five years Lynne Sachs has been making work that seek to explain the universal elements of human experience that emerge from documenting first person perspectives. History, or at least the knowledge of historical events, shapes how each of us views life, and it is this connection between past and present that remains central in her newest works. Her films acknowledge the limitations inherent in the documentary genre, and perhaps no more so than in her decade-long five-film series I AM NOT A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER. This weekend she will present the most recent installment in the series, LAST HAPPY DAYS (2009, 37 min, DVD), at Chicago Filmmakers and the Film Studies Center at University of Chicago. Sachs paints a picture of a distant relative whose life story encompasses both the best and worst qualities of life in the twentieth century. Originally a doctor in his native Hungary, Sandor Lenard fled the Nazis in 1938, first to Rome where he worked for the US Army reconstructing the bones of dead soldiers. Eventually he settled in the Brazilian Amazon and gained brief fame after translating Winnie the Pooh into Latin. Reflecting on our collective obsession with genealogy, Sachs approaches her portraiture as an essay on the horrors of war as well as the motivation behind artistic practice. To complete each evening, Chicago Filmmakers pairs this film with Sachs first narrative film, WIND IN OUR HAIR (2009, 42 min, DVD), inspired by the writings of Julio Cortazar, and the FSC pairs it with a new piece about Iraqi burial rituals translated into Latin, COSMETIC SURGERY FOR CORPSES (2010, 10 min, DVD). Lynne Sachs in person at both screenings. JH - Cine-File.info

Hellmuth Costard's FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE (Documentary Revival)

Hellmuth Costard's FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE (Documentary Revival)
White Light Cinema at The Nightingale - Friday, 8pm
The most apparent truth conveyed in this film is that, for George Best, being a professional athlete was a serious, patient, isolating, and precise occupation. The more poignant truth is that the core of all rituals infused with mysticism is the interplay of rhythm and duration, syntax and meaning. Best is ostensibly the star of the film as he paces like a caged tiger while someone off screen sets up a free kick, jogs casually upfield as spectators yell insults, waits on the wing with his hands on his hips like a bored schoolboy, and sprints hard for a slide tackle while supporters chant sing-songy rhymes. All the while Costard's six cameras keep him in their sites, and use Best as a puppet in what is truly a remarkable attempt at making cinema that exists outside the language of narrative. Never do we get a cutaway, an insert shot, or a reaction. As the game unfolds in real time we are unaware of score or the flow, left alone with Best to ponder the action, save for the few moments when the ball comes to him and gets passed away. Despite the apparent voyeurism of the approach, this "actor" is not a star we get titillation from gazing upon, nor is the camera's eye that of the unseen "other." From our usual perch above the playing field we are alone with an image of Best and his shadow, surrounded by the field, and the constant sound of the crowd. All attempts to engage with the game are thwarted by the cameras' unrelenting focus on one individual, for a story needs characters, and characters need conflicts to keep us interested. Finally, with a few minutes left in the first half, there is a moment of tension. Best dribbles across the top of the box, and launches a missile across his body towards goal, only to summersault to the pitch. Emotion threatens to make an appearance as the crowd cheers Best's effort, but we are not allowed to share in it: we are not participants in this spectacle. We are participants in the ritual of cinema, but removed from the expected syntax of hero and exposition we cannot recognize the structure and rhythm. In a typical film we are presented with a plausible reality on the screen, and we can predict what will happen, or at least be surprised by it. In our lives we place these waking daydreams of narrative artwork into a category called illusion. But when a graphic appears to show the score still standing at 0-0, Costard reminds us that in cinema, reality is always an illusion. (1971, 105 min, 16mm on DVD) JH - Cine-File.info