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“An exotic and brilliant hothouse flower of a film,” Buñuel’s ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ is back in theaters this Friday.

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We are thrilled to open the new 50th anniversary 4K restoration of Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) this Friday at our Royal, Claremont, Glendale and Town Center theaters. The 1973 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film and 1974 BAFTA Award winner for Best Actress and Best Screenplay, Discreet Charm is one of surrealist master Buñuel’s late career triumphs, now fully restored and ready to meet a new audience craving the director’s particular flair for the anarchic skewering of ruling elites.

An ambassador and his bourgeois pals try to dine together again and again as circumstances, carnal and otherwise, intervene. Starring major French actors and Buñuel stalwarts Fernando Rey, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Stéphane Audran, Paul Frankeur, and Delphine Seyrig, with a screenplay written by Buñuel and long-time collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière (Diary of a Chambermaid, La Piscine), Discreet Charm brims with humorous satire and incisive criticism expressed in ways that can only be described as “Buñuelian.”

“Frightening, funny, profound, and mysterious…Luis Buñuel’s 1972 comic masterpiece, about three well-to-do couples who try and fail to have a meal together, is perhaps the most perfectly achieved and executed of all his late French films.” ~ Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

   

“Extraordinarily funny and perfectly acted.” ~ Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“Buñuel’s art is as insolent as ever. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a deeply funny movie, as a viewing experience it’s like walking across a perilous, sway little bridge whose guide rails periodically snatched away.” ~ David Denby, The Atlantic

“I had forgotten just how spooky the dream scenes are; Buñuel could have been a master of horror, or a great farceur. As it was, he was simply Bunuel, which is cause enough for celebration.” ~ Anthony Lane, The Independent

“Dreams nest within other dreams like so many Chinese puzzle boxes, while no dream belongs exclusively to a single dreamer, as though Bunuel were toying with the Jungian notion of the collective unconscious.” ~ Budd Wilkins, Slant Magazine

“An exotic and brilliant hothouse flower of a film.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Manages to be totally surreal yet totally approachable. Quite amazing.” ~ David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Take a look again at its dream sequences, especially the nocturnal one involving the young man in the side street, and you will see a master disturber still at work.” ~ Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture

“An absurdly comic assault on the meaningless social rituals and polite hypocrisies of the upper middle class.” ~ Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News

“This has to be one of the most completely realized comedies ever made, and, in its odd way, one of the most civilized.” ~ Charles Taylor, Salon.com

“Strange, wacky, funny, and tragic — and, on an incidental personal note, Discreet Charm is the movie that made me realize I was in love with movies.” ~ Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle

“It combines a masterful command of the medium with a mischievous, anarchic sense of imaginative freedom.” ~ A.O. Scott,  New York Times

“Boasts one of the best titles in movie history and a cast to match.” ~ J. Hoberman, Village Voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A3bnal75aY

Promote the general welfare: mask against COVID.

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From Laemmle Theatres President Greg Laemmle:

     As we are going to press with this week’s eNews, we don’t know what, if anything, will be mandated by the L.A. County Department of Public Health.  But we believe in the rule of law. And if the agency that is charged with protecting and promoting health in this county determines that indoor masking is required under the current circumstances, we hope that you will join us in respecting their knowledge and experience in the field of epidemiology, and comply with the regulations. Scientists aren’t infallible. But they know more about the subject at hand than some clown with a podcast.
     But beyond the question of mandates and their effectiveness as implemented in this country, let’s just consider some basic science about the spread of airborne viruses.
     We believe that wearing a proper-fitting mask does provide protection. Protection for the wearer. And ,perhaps more importantly, protection for others in the auditorium if the wearer is unknowingly infected.
     When I’m in a crowded theatre, I wear one. Ditto for when I’m on a plane or a bus. It’s really not a big deal.
     For most people, and especially those who are vaccinated and boosted, getting infected does not seem to lead to great risk of hospitalization or death. This is especially true given the availability of treatment options like Paxlovid. But the new variant is highly contagious, and there are still people who are getting ill and dying from this virus.
     Leaving aside the question of government intrusion on issues of personal health and safety (which necessitates opening up a huge can of worms these days), can’t we all just see that it would benefit the common good to help slow the spread of this disease?
     It’s right there in the Preamble. “…promote the general Welfare…” Yes, that’s a power that we entrust to the government that we are (deliberate use of present tense) establishing. But it’s also one of the prime reasons why we are agreeing to this communal endeavor that is the United States. Because we care about each other, and we can accomplish more and greater things as a country if we show that care and compassion.
     So mandated, not mandated, vaccinated, not vaccinated, whatever. If you’re in a theatre, and there are others close by, please mask up. Every little bit helps.

More on movie reviews: Ira Deutchman on “Seven Ways The New York Times Could Help Save Theatrical Moviegoing and Its Own Bottom Line.”

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     Last month we pleaded with the L.A. Times to restore its film section to greatness by again reviewing all theatrical releases instead of just the latest Hollywood blockbuster and occasionally one foreign, indie or documentary feature. The Times is, after all, our city’s paper of record. To earn and hold that title means thorough coverage of arts and culture, and the Times cannot claim to be a serious major daily if it gives short shrift to Los Angeles’ main artistic and cultural export.
     Since we spoke out, the Times has published some reviews of under-the-radar titles (like She Will and Murana) but ignored others that were just as worthy of serious critical attention (Olga and A Man of Integrity, for example). Film reviews are an essential aspect of film marketing to bring attention to movies released by distributors that don’t have the money to compete with major studio releases for people’s attention. The end result will be indie movie theaters like Laemmle going the way of small record shops and bookstores, diminishing cities’ cultural vibrancy. The Times has a major role to play here.
     Unfortunately, it looks like the problem is spreading to an even higher profile outlet, the New York Times. Ira Deutchman just posted a piece on his blog that’s worth a read. It’s headlined Seven Ways The New York Times Could Help Save Theatrical Moviegoing and Its Own Bottom Line. Ira is a long-time indie film executive who is also a filmmaker (Searching for Mr. Rugoff) and an associate professor of film at Columbia University so he has a unique and authoritative perspective on this topic and goes into much more detail with ideas beyond just maintaining the role of film criticism. We hope you’ll read Ira’s piece and share it with the L.A Times editors. It’s good food for thought and perhaps will instill in them a sense of civic responsibility.

Jewish Journal: “MY NAME IS SARA Depicts Jewish WWII Refugee in Ukraine.”

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This Friday at the Royal and Town Center, we open My Name is Sara, a drama based on a true story from the Second World War about a young Polish Jew who survived by taking refuge with farmers and passing as a Christian. The director, Steven Oritt, and leading actress Zuzanna Surowy will participate in Q&As Friday, July 22 after the 7 PM at the Royal; Saturday, July 23 after the 4 PM show at the Royal and after the 7:10 PM show in Encino; and on Sunday, July 24, after the 1:10 PM in Encino and the 4 PM show at the Royal. Executive producer Mickey Shapiro (the real-life Sara’s son) will join them for the Friday Q&A.

The filmmaker recently spoke with Brian Fishbach of the Jewish Journal:

Three dead people hang from a tree with a sign that reads “We hid Jews.” It’s a scene that encapsulates the fear tactics the Nazis used to deter anyone from assisting the Jewish people during World War II.

The film My Name Is Sara tells the true and arduous story of a Jewish girl who survived by pretending not to be Jewish. It shows how Sara Góralniak (Zuzanna Surowy), a 12-year-old living in Poland, took refuge on a farm in Ukraine for two years while hiding every aspect of her Jewish identity. Every second that she was there she knew that if she were found, she and the family that protected her would be murdered.

“She was constantly living on eggshells that entire time, which is an obviously awful environment to have to live under,” said director Steven Oritt.

Throughout the film, Sara endears herself to the family who allows her to work on their farm: Pavlo (Eryk Lubos), his wife Nadya (Michalina Olszańska) and their two young sons. Sara proves herself to be a capable farmhand and a non-Jew by reciting the Lord’s Prayer, eating pork, saying she’s 14 and even assuming a new name. She endures skepticism from the family that has taken her in, while also slowly proving herself useful and not threatening their safety.

There are scenes of animals being slaughtered, as is normal on any farm. But there’s humanity in those moments, which is in contrast to the graphic and sadistic threats and murders of the townspeople at the hands of the Nazis.

The ensemble is strong, making every peril Sara and the family confront vivid and poignant, their eyes and body language expressing the characters’ fear and determination. No moment illustrates this better than Sara, riding a horse drawn buggy into town with Pavlo and Nadya’s family, sees three townspeople hanging from a tree for hiding Jews. Both Nadya and Sara cover the two little boys’ eyes. Sara’s dreams of reuniting with her family turn to nightmares when their reunion is discovered by Nazis.

Surprisingly, the starring role of Sara was Surowy’s first time acting. Thrust into a movie set and working in English, which is not her first language, Surowy’s experience mirrors Sara’s. There’s a fear, a wariness, to her performance, that’s most effective when Sara, who had never worked on a farm or been away from her family, is forced to adapt to her new world.

“We weren’t going to make the film if we didn’t find somebody that we felt as though could pull it off,” said Oritt.

While the two previous films he directed were documentaries, this is the first scripted film Oritt’s directed. “When I first interviewed [the real] Sara, the first question I asked was ‘How does a child, a 12-year old, survive such a thing?’ Because it was an unimaginable event. How could she do this constantly, making the right choice happen? And she said immediately, ‘by listening and not talking.’”

Read the full piece on the Jewish Journal site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40UnffwvrP4

“Heartfelt charmer” COSTA BRAVA, LEBANON opens July 22 in Santa Monica.

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Costa Brava, Lebanon is the directorial debut of Lebanese actress and filmmaker Mounia Akl, starring Nadine Labaki (Capernaum) and Saleh Bakri (The Band’s Visit). A keen and darkly comic commentary on Lebanon’s waste crisis and unsettled political landscape, Costa Brava, Lebanon won the prestigious NETPAC Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Audience Award at the BFI London Film Festival. We open the film July 22 at the Monica Film Center.

The film captures the joys and frustrations of a close-knit family with an intimacy that feels startlingly natural, and sets them against a sharply drawn backdrop of environmental crisis. In the not-so-distant future, the free-spirited Badri family have escaped the toxic pollution and social unrest of Beirut by seeking refuge in an idyllic mountain home. Without warning, the government starts to build a garbage landfill right outside their fence, intruding on their domestic utopia and bringing the trash and corruption of a whole country to their doorstep. As the landfill rises, so does tension in the household, revealing a long-simmering division between those family members who wish to defend or abandon the mountain oasis they have built.

“A heartfelt charmer. The gentle wisdom it contains is attuned to country, family and lifestyle choices as abstract concepts, as all the things we mean by the word “home,” which is where Akl’s heart is.” – Jessica Kiang, Variety

“A stellar near-future family drama. Mounia Akl’s feature debut comfortably occupies a space between Beasts of the Southern Wild and Honeyland. Her film is partly magical, partly real, but total fiction, because fiction is the best way to capture the tragicomic clown show that unfolds throughout.” – Andrew Crump, The Playlist

“Something uniquely special and a perfect, alluring example of all that is wrong with the world we’re living in.” – Hanna B., Film Threat

“A terrific feature debut… works both as a compelling domestic drama and an elegant political allegory.” – Wendy Ide, Screen Daily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXEWqGJne2o

DREAMING WALLS: INSIDE THE CHELSEA HOTEL opens in Santa Monica and Glendale on July 8.

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The legendary Chelsea Hotel, an icon of 1960s counterculture and a haven for famous artists and intellectuals, has recently reopened after extensive renovations. Dozens of long-term residents, most in their later years, have lived amidst the scaffolding and constant construction for close to a decade. Against this chaotic backdrop, the new documentary Dreaming Walls takes us through the hotel’s storied halls, exploring its living body and the bohemian origins that contributed to its mythical stature. Its residents and the walls themselves now face a turning point in their common history. We are planning a sneak preview screening next week and open the regular engagement on Friday, July 8 at the Monica Film Center and Laemmle Glendale.

Co-directors Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier wrote the following about the film:

“The adventure of Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel began four years ago when we first walked along 23rd Street in New York City and discovered, hidden by a huge scaffolding, the famous façade of the Chelsea Hotel. The neon sign was still hanging there as Patti Smith had described it in Just Kids, a book that means a lot to both of us.

“As young filmmakers we idealized the artist’s life in the ’70s in New York, and the room of one’s own the Chelsea offered for penniless creators of all kinds, like Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Milos Forman, and so many others.

“When we entered this massive red brick building for the first time we had to negotiate going further as doormen were standing there to push back all curious people. The Chelsea was closed to the public because of major renovations. The plaster was falling off the walls. What we discovered was so far away from the ideal image of this mythical building we had in our minds.

“We first met Merle Lister, one of the residents, who immediately invited us into her room. She told us about her past and the difficult times she was having during the transformation of the Chelsea into a luxury hotel.

“Over two years we met and filmed other residents who still live and create among the chaos of construction. Like Merle, they are the Chelsea holdouts and have been living in the shadow of the more notable people who once lived there. Today they constitute the living memory of the hotel. They also remind us that the hotel, which might seem like a kind of punk hospice, is home for many people and not just a marketable vision of utopia.

Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt. All photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

“Dreaming Walls will open the back door of the Chelsea Hotel for you. We hope you will enjoy your stay!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZOq_pbDWc0

Claire Denis, Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon’s BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE opens July 8.

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The new erotic thriller by Claire Denis Both Sides of the Blade follows Sara (Juliette Binoche), who finds herself caught between two men: her longtime partner and an old flame (Vincent Lindon and Grégoire Colin). Before long, everything is in danger of spiraling out of control as the three find their lives intertwined years after meeting. We open the film at the Royal on July 8, the Glendale and Town Center July 15, and Newhall, Claremont and NoHo on July 22. (We also have Denis’ Stars at Noon to look forward to later this year.)
Praise for the Both Sides of the Blade:
“The silences that overwhelm the movie’s confrontational rages and the suppression of backstory details, underplaying motives and emphasizing action, thrust [the film] out of the realm of psychological drama and into shocking emotional immediacy.” ~ Richard Brody, New Yorker
“The studied ambiguity of what’s going on in Both Sides of the Blade doesn’t keep it from often achieving the suspense of an accomplished erotic thriller.” ~ Pat Brown, Slant Magazine

“As is often the case with Denis’ films, Fire grows more illuminating as it gets hotter; what starts like a constrained and unusually jagged French drama is eventually forged into an incendiary portrait of three people.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

“Binoche, typically, is on commanding form, working once more with a film-maker who seems intuitively aware of how to harness her every glance or grimace. ~ Kevin Maher, Times [UK)]
“Denis is a masterful director who always knows exactly what she’s doing.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“In this simultaneously small and cavernous love story, even a whisper echoes for days.” ~ Guy Lodge, Variety

‘1982,’ a love story set during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, opens June 24 at the Royal.

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1982 is a life-affirming coming-of-age tale set at an idyllic school in Lebanon’s mountains on the eve of a looming invasion. It unfolds over a single day and follows an 11-year-old boy’s relentless quest to profess his love to a girl in his class. As the invasion encroaches on Beirut, it upends the day, threatening the entire country and its cohesion. Within the microcosm of the school, the film draws a harrowing portrait of a society torn between its desire for love and peace and the ideological schisms unraveling its seams.

In his debut feature, director Oualid Mouaness delivers an ode to innocence in which he revisits one of the most cataclysmic moments in Lebanon’s history through the lens of a child and his vibrant imagination. The film demonstrates the complexities of love and war, and the resilience of the human spirit.

1982 won the Cannes Film Festival’s youth sidebar CANNES CINÉPHILES prize PRIX CANNES ECRANS JUNIORS 2021, the Toronto International Film Festival’s NETPAC AWARD, a FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at El-Gouna International Film Festival, and the UNICEF 2021 prize among numerous others. It was also Lebanon’s official submission to the 92nd Academy Awards and holds the Murex D’Or, Lebanon’s Best Feature Film honor of the last two years.

NPR just interviewed Mouaness about 1982:

Mouaness will participate in Q&As after the 7:20 PM screenings at the Royal Friday-Sunday, June 24-26, Tuesday, June 28, and Thursday, June 30. Director Aya Tanimura will moderate on the 25th, journalist Seth Abramovitch on the 26th, director Natalie Jones on the 28th, and producer Sara Mohazzebi on the 30th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeBx1C7aPzI