Close Your Eyes is the new film from master filmmaker, Victor Erice, whose 1973 film, The Spirit of the Beehive, is considered by many to be the greatest Spanish film ever made, and it partly inspired Guillermo del Toro’s Pan's Labyrinth. And Beehive, certainly, is one of the most beautiful and profoundly affecting films I've ever seen. (I wrote a bit about it a number of years ago and recorded those thoughts here.)  Erice's filmography is small -- he made just a handful of films after Beehive -- but each film is luminous, and until now, it had been 30 years since he last directed a film. 

Suffice it to say, those who know Erice's incredible work have been eagerly anticipating this new film (which will likely be his last, as he's now 83) -- and it does not disappoint. Even though it obliquely references some of his earlier work (and the luminous 6-year old actress from Beehive, Ana Torrent, makes an appearance here as a middle-aged woman) and even though it is semi-autobiographical, following the story of an aging filmmaker who is asked to recount his memories of making an unfinished film, it will richly reward any lover of cinema. 

 It's a film about mortality and memory and a film about the way cinema itself reflects and intersects with those things. It's a truly beautiful work, and it has one of the most stunning and moving finales to any film I’ve seen in recent memory.  It's a film that asks for some investment in viewers at 2 hrs. 49 minutes, but every single minute rewards those who do make that investment. 

Erice is one of THE greats.  Don't miss this on the big screen.

Matt and Mara was one of the loveliest little discoveries from this year's TIFF for me, and it’s a delight to be able to share it with you so soon.

Though he's a multi-time nominee at Berlin for his short films and a nominee for previous features at TIFF, Canadian director Kazik Radwanski is a true indie filmmaker, working outside the norm in terms of production, style, and narrative, and the result is quite wonderful. His work is perhaps akin to films from the "Mumblecore" era, with a looser narrative, naturalistic dialogue, and an intimate sense of character, but there's also something of a European feel to his work that reminds me of the French New Wave, and there's also a kinship with British director Mike Leigh's films. 

Matt and Mara follows the story of Mara (Deragh Campbell), a creative writing professor in Toronto, who reencounters Matt (Matt Johnson), a writer and former close friend from her college days, and they rekindle their friendship -- and perhaps something more. Mara, however, is now married with a young child, and her relationship with her husband seems to be a happy one.  But Matt's entry back into Mara’s life brings with it elements of her past self: she can be someone with Matt who is she is not with her husband, and the associated feelings are thus . . . complicated.  

Radwanski's approach to storytelling is beautifully suited to such a story: at the TIFF Q&A this year, which he attended with Johnson and Campbell, Radwanski explained that he does not use a script. Much like Mike Leigh's approach, he has a story idea and scene ideas, and then he sets the actors loose in that story and those scenes. They improv the dialogue, reacting and responding naturally to each other, and then those filmed scenes become the final movie in the editing room. 

He said, in fact, he didn't know how the movie would end, but when he was filming one particular scene, he realized he'd found it.  And it is one of the most perfect endings ever, understated but exactly right. (It reminded me a lot of the perfect ending of Before Sunset, if you remember that one!) 

Like Close Your Eyes, Matt and Mara will be here only a week.  It's just an 80-minute film, but, like Close Your Eyes, worth every single second.

With us for just a few days, Friday through Sunday, we also have quite a special booking with the film Amber Alert, accompanied by a very special guest. 

In terms of genre, it is a film that is somewhat unusual for us: a straight down the line thriller. It's an enormously fun film, as the best thrillers should be: very effective with a high concept premise, a tightly constructed narrative and a 90-minute runtime, and strong performances from Hayden Panettiere (Remember the Titans, Heroes), Tyler James Williams (Dear White People, Everybody Hates Chris), and one of my favorite "that-guy" actors Kevin Dunn (you know him, even if you don't know his name!). 

The pleasures of the film itself, though, are not just in what we see on screen: the film is directed by Kerry Bellessa from Federal Way, WA (here’s a great recent piece on Bellessa in the Federal Way Mirror), and produced by Emmy® Award-Winning producer Tony Stopperan, who is one of our own, a Bellinghamster! 

We are honored to have Tony joining us for a Q&A on Friday evening. Tony’s previous extensive work in the film industry has included producing the wonderful Pig, starring Nic Cage, and the brilliant Passing, directed by Rebecca Hall and starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, Alexander Skarsgaard, and Andre Holland, and we’re eager to have him here to discuss this new film.  

Join us at 7:45 on Friday for an evening with Amber Alert and Tony! 

Finally, we have several other special events to highlight this week: 

First up is Coco. We’re delighted this month to be celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month with this gem of a film. And with the generosity of an anonymous donor, who has purchased the tickets and donated them to the community, we are able to offer this screening free of charge. 

Jia Tolentino wrote poignantly about Coco in The New Yorker back in 2018, noting that “it’s a movie about borders more than anything—the beauty in their porousness, the absolute pain produced when a border locks you away from your family. The conflict in the story comes from not being able to cross over; the resolution is that love pulls you through to the other side.” 

She also noted the unique qualities of the film, and that though it had a rocky start, it was ultimately the first Pixar film to have an all-Latino cast, and it became the “biggest blockbuster in Mexican history”: 

She writes, 

“Before Coco hit theaters, it was easy to doubt that the movie would present Mexican culture as expansively and gorgeously as it does, with such natural familiarity and respect. It is Pixar’s nineteenth movie, but its first with a nonwhite protagonist; Lee Unkrich, the director and creator of the initial story, is white. The movie’s working title was Día de los Muertos, and, in 2013, Disney lawyers tried, absurdly, to trademark that phrase. But Unkrich and his team approached their subject with openness and collaborative humility: they traveled to Mexico, they loosened Pixar’s typical secrecy to build a large network of consultants, and, after the trademark controversy, they asked several prominent critics to come onboard. Coco is the first movie to have both an all-Latino cast and a nine-figure budget. It grossed more than eight hundred million dollars worldwide, won two Oscars, and became the biggest blockbuster in Mexican history.”

Join us on Saturday at 1:30 pm! 

Second, we are also so pleased to present a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid this Sunday at 1:30 pm with tickets for just $7, and for those who come dressed as Charlie Chaplin, there will be a free kid-sized popcorn.  

September 29 is National Silent Movie Day, and with our own patron saint, Mary Pickford, as a star of the silent screen, we are all the more delighted to celebrate the gorgeous -- and often hilarious -- art of silent film.  

If you’ve never seen Chaplin’s The Kid, please do join us, and bring children, family, and friends! It is a film for every kind of audience, and I showed it to my own children when they were very young, and it was often the favorite film among my college students, when I taught Film History at the community college. They laughed the hardest at this film, more than any other, and at the climatic moments, it was inevitable that the tears would start running, too, and the tissues would need to be pulled from backpacks. 

There’s really nothing like Chaplin -- except perhaps Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd -- for the most wonderful of slapstick humor (the kind that eventually inspired Looney Tunes and the more recent Hundreds of Beavers), and there’s nothing like his particular combination of hilarity and pathos. 

It’s 53 minutes of pure, unadulterated delight