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#1344: DENIS, Claire: Chocolat (1988)

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DENIS, Claire (France) Chocolat [1988] Spine #1344 4K Claire Denis immediately revealed her command of cinematic form with her debut feature, drawn from her own experience of growing up in French colonial Africa. After many years of living in France, a white woman (Mireille Perrier) returns to the town in Cameroon where she spent her childhood. There, she reflects on her past, including her relationship with Protée (Isaach de Bankolé), a Black servant with whom she formed a friendship while not fully grasping the divides that governed their worlds. Already displaying many of Denis’s artistic signatures—including an immersive sense of place; an elliptical approach to storytelling; and an interest in complex dynamics of race, sex, and power— Chocolat is an evocatively impressionistic yet piercingly precise examination of the psychology of colonialism. 104 minutes Monaural Color in French 1:66:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writer Claire Denis  was 42 when she directed Chocolat ....
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#1343: LEIGH, Mike: Career Girls (1997)

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LEIGH, Mike (United Kingdom) Career Girls [1997] Spine #1343 4K The inimitable filmmaker Mike Leigh’s affection for spirited, irrepressible figures whom society too often overlooks shines through every frame of this wonderfully tender, bittersweet ode to female friendship and hard-won inner growth. Born out of the singularly collaborative, improvisational rehearsal methods that give Leigh’s characters their multidimensional richness and unforgettable spark, Career Girls features vividly idiosyncratic performances from Katrin Cartlidge and Lynda Steadman as former roommates who reunite in London six years after striking out on their own. Over the course of a weekend full of laughter, tears, memories, and chance encounters, they confront what it means to revisit the past—in the form of both wounds that haven’t fully healed and bonds that can never be broken. 87 minutes Stereo Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writer Mike Leigh  was 54 when he wrote and directed Career Gi...
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#1342: BOORMAN, John: Deliverance (1972)

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BOORMAN, John (United States) Deliverance [1972] Spine #1342 4K The ultimate odyssey into the untamed wilderness of the supposedly civilized heart, John Boorman’s shock to the pop-culture consciousness follows four friends from Atlanta—played by Burt Reynolds (in his breakthrough role), Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox—on a weekend canoeing trip in rural Georgia. What they encounter there—startling, brutal, and unforgettable—has unsettled viewers for more than fifty years. Shooting on location in Appalachia to achieve scenes of almost mythic resonance (including the iconic dueling-banjos sequence), Boorman constructs one of the most harrowing survival thrillers ever made and a potent, daringly ambiguous deconstruction of masculinity on the edge. 109 minutes Monaural Color 2:39:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writer John Boorman  was 39 when he directed Deliverance . Screenplay by James Dickey . Based on the novel by Dickey. Other Boorman films in the Collection: #1306: Poin...
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#1341d: BEYZAIE, Bahram: The Stranger and the Fog (1974)

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BEYZAIE, Bahram (Iran) The Stranger and the Fog [1974] Spine #1341d 4K Forged in rhythm, ritual, and mysticism, this masterwork by Iranian New Wave legend Bahram Beyzaie is a transfixing allegory shot through with the fear of a mysterious, encroaching force. When a boat carrying a severely wounded man (Khosrow Shojazadeh) drifts onto the shore of a small coastal village, most of the community regards him with suspicion. But the quietly confident Rana (Parvaneh Massoumi), whose husband disappeared a year ago at sea, finds herself drawn to the outsider. The Stranger and the Fog, which was banned in Iran following the 1979 revolution, is a film of overwhelming power, possessing both the epic dimensions of myth and the hallucinatory atmosphere of a dream. 146 minutes Monaural Color In Persian 1:37:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writer Bahram Beyzaie  was 36 when he wrote and directed The Stranger and the Fog . Other Beyzaie films in the Collection: #1050: Downpour (1972) The Film...
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#1341c: BASSORI, Timité: The Woman with the Knife (1969)

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BASSORI, Timité (Cote d'Ivoire) The Woman with the Knife [1969] Spine #1341c 4K Equal parts symbolist psychodrama and shamanic ghost story, The Woman with the Knife delivers a surreal investigation of fractured identity. The sole feature by trailblazing Ivorian filmmaker Timité Bassori stars the writer-director himself as a bourgeois intellectual whose life is thrown into turmoil after he experiences a disturbing vision of a mysterious, knife-wielding woman—the beginning of a crisis that forces him to confront his deep-seated sexual repression and social alienation. Capturing the streetscapes of 1960s Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in New Wave–cool black and white, and set to a dreamy mix of American jazz and West African pop, this touchstone work of African cinema is a daring and complex journey into the postcolonial unconscious. 77 minutes Monaural Black and White In French 1:37:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writer Timité Bassori  was 36 when he wrote and directed The Woman with t...
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#1341b: PERSON, Luiz Sérgio: Sáo Paulo, Incorporated (1965)

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PERSON, Luiz Sérgio (Brazil) Sáo Paulo, Incorporated [1965] Spine #1341b 4K Writer-director Luiz Sérgio Person’s debut feature is a masterly vision of existential unrest in Saõ Paulo amid the mass industrialization of the 1960s. This bracingly modernist, puzzlelike film follows Carlos (Walmor Chagas), a middle-class auto-industry employee, as he questions his relationships with romantic partners past and present (played by Darlene Glória, Ana Esmeralda, and Eva Wilma), as well as his participation in the transforming economy. A kind of city symphony filled with striking, dynamic images of a rapidly changing urban landscape, São Paulo, Incorporated is a cry of rebellion against a suffocating push to modernize, and one of the landmark works of Brazilian cinema. 107 minutes Monaural Black and White In Portuguese 1:66:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writer Luiz Sérgio Person  was 29 when he wrote and directed Sáo Paulo, Incorporated . The Film The Extras The Booklet Commentary Vide...
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#1341a: GOMES, Flora: Mortu Nega (1988)

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GOMES, Flora (Guinea-Bissau) Mortu Nega [1988] Spine #1341a 4K A soulful, bottom-up portrait of a country finding its postcolonial identity, Mortu nega follows the determined Diminga (Bia Gomes) as she journeys to the front lines in search of her soldier husband during the final days of Guinea-Bissau’s war for liberation from Portugal. After freedom is won, Diminga and her compatriots must maintain a steely resolve in the face of a host of daily challenges: accessing health care, navigating the state bureaucracy, and confronting a devastating drought. Directed with fierce commitment by Flora Gomes, a student of anticolonial leader Amílcar Cabral’s, Mortu nega offers a clarion call for strength and healing through unity. 96 minutes Monaural Color In Kriolu and Portuguese 1:66:1 Criterion Release 2027 Director/Writers Flora Gomes  was 39 when he directed Mortu Nega . Scenario by Gomes and Manuel Cicilia Fonseca . Adaptation and dialogue by Gomes and David Lang . The Film The Extras...
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