On a role

Another Look presents a restored view of European classics.

By HANNAH BROWN
Jacques Demy’s 1964 musical 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' (photo credit: PR)
Jacques Demy’s 1964 musical 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg'
(photo credit: PR)
For the fourth year, Another Look – The Restored European Film Project, is coming to Israel. A program of 10 classic movies that all touch on this year’s theme, “Role Play: Femininity and Masculinity on Film,” it will open on January 14 at the cinematheques in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Herzliya and Holon and run until mid-February.
The project presents a selection of films every year, one from each of the participating countries, in restored versions and high-quality formats. The project is an initiative of the European Union, in collaboration with local European embassies and cultural institutes.
This year, Another Look will include a digitally restored Israeli film, Uri Zohar’s Three Days and a Child. Although Zohar became famous as a comedian and a director of comedies, he made several more serious films, the most successful of which was this adaptation of a novella by A.B.
Yehoshua, about a young woman who asks the lover she jilted to take care of her child while she and her husband take university exams. This 1967 movie, which shows the influence of the French New Wave cinema on Zohar, was shown in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and its star, Oded Kotler, won the Best Actor Award at Cannes, the only Israeli actor ever to win this honor. About 10 years after making this movie, Zohar left the entertainment world to became an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.
At the Jerusalem Cinematheque, there will be a guided tour of the Israel Film Archive in conjunction with the screening of the film.
Another special event will be a screening of the new Israeli film Mountain by Yaelle Kayam, who was influenced by the 1975 movie Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels, which is being shown as part of Another Look. Jeanne Dielman, the story of a lonely widow played by Delphine Seyrig, was directed by Chantal Akerman, a frequent guest of the Jerusalem Film Festival, who passed away last October.
Catherine Deneuve became a star after she appeared in Jacques Demy’s 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in which all the dialogue is sung. It will be wonderful to see the gorgeous colors of this classic on the big screen in its restored version.
Werner Hochbaum’s 1935 Austrian film Suburban Cabaret tells the story of an architect who demands that his cabaret-singer fiancee abandon her career in Vienna and live with his parents in a suburb. The left-leaning director got into trouble with the Nazis, partly as a result of the themes and attitudes in this film.
The 1951 film Our Director by Jean Georgescu tells the story of the head of a Romanian factory who struggles to hang onto his privileges and is a critique of government corruption.
Juan Antonio Bardem’s 1955 Spanish film Death of a Cyclist is about a college professor who is having an affair with a married socialite. When the couple accidentally kill a cyclist, they cover up their involvement in his death and react in different ways to their guilt.
In The Green Years (1963) by Paulo Rocha, a young man and a woman from the country meet in Lisbon and fall in love. But while she thrives in the city, he pines for the village he left behind.
Marco Bellocchio burst onto the Italian film scene with his 1965 debut film Fists in the Pocket, about an isolated family suffering from various mental and physical disorders, where one son takes extreme measure to free the only healthy sibling from the burden of caring for the others.
Face to Face (1966) is Roviros Manthoulis’s look at decadence among the Greek bourgeoisie as a professor is drawn into intrigues within a wealthy family.
Vera Chytilová’s Daisies is a madcap feminist farce about two young women who embark on a series of destructive pranks, and was part of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s.
Camera Buff (1979) was the breakout feature film by Krzysztof Kieslowski, about an amateur filmmaker whose hobby gets him into trouble with his family and his employers. Kieslowski is best known for the Three Colors trilogy.
To see the schedule at all the cinemateques, go to http:// anotherlook.co.il/4/schedule/.