Monday, June 14, 2021

What I Did on My Pandemic

Yesterday, June 13, 2021, I finally returned to a movie theater, the Paris in Manhattan, to revisit Chaitanya Tamhane's excellent Court (2014). The last movie I'd seen in a movie theater was in Cartagena, Colombia, on March 12, 2020 at FICCI: another fine film, Nicolás Rincón Gille's Valley of Souls (2019). Unlike many film buffs, I didn't go into theater withdrawal during those intervening 15 months, and actually quite enjoyed the liberty of dipping into reserves that get short shrift in peacetime because I run around to arthouses so much. I don't yet know how I'll adapt to the new world - assuming that the Delta variant doesn't shut us down again - but, for purposes of commemoration, here are the home screenings of new-to-me films that excited me most during the pandemic. I left out very new films that I would likely have seen anyway, and restricted myself to historical titles that did not wield the urgency of festival or theatrical or streaming release. In reverse order of release date:

  • Alice T. - Muntean - 2018
  • Aferim! - Jude - 2015
  • Beautiful Valley - Friedlich - 2011
  • The Beginner - Coccio - 2010
  • Tourists - Scherson - 2009
  • Kippur - Gitai - 2000
  • Aux Petits Bonheurs - Deville - 1994
  • Changeling - Saless - 1987
  • Les capricieux - Deville - 1984
  • The Willow Tree - Saless - 1984
  • Offre d’emploi - Eustache - 1982
  • Reifezeit - Saless - 1976
  • Street of Joy - Kumashiro - 1974
  • Memories of Helena - Neves - 1969
  • But What If This Is Love? - Raizman - 1962
  • Mashenka - Raizman - 1942
  • Le grand jeu - Feyder - 1934
  • The Murderer Dimitri Karamasoff - Otsep - 1931
Special thanks to pandemic all-stars Sohrab Shahid Saless, Yuli Raizman, and Michel Deville - the last still with us at age 90, doing well, I hope.

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