Public EnemySep­tem­ber was sup­posed to be the sec­ond and con­clud­ing month of the Welling­ton Film Soci­ety sea­son of French films that “got away”.

But two of the sched­uled films did just that and we have had to find replace­ments. FORGET ME has been replaced by anoth­er French film from the same source, NIGHT SHIFT, but for UN AIR DE FAMILLE we have resched­uled THE PUBLIC ENEMY, which was in the draft sched­ule for about this time but replaced when the strong pro­gramme of French films was made avail­able through the French Embassy.

All films this month are for mem­bers only and screen at the Para­mount at 6.15pm on Mon­day nights. Now to the details.

First up on Mon­day 5 is THOSE WHO LOVE ME CAN TAKE THE TRAIN (1988). Direc­tor Patrice Chere­au fol­lows an ill-matched group of mourn­ers trav­el­ling by train from Paris to Limo­ges for the funer­al of painter, Jean-Bap­tiste Emmerich. It’s a trip the bril­liant, charm­ing and tyran­ni­cal painter spec­i­fied before he died, say­ing in effect that those who cared most about him would be will­ing to under­go the con­sid­er­able incon­ve­nience of a long jour­ney to pay tbeir respects. The ensem­ble dynam­ics con­cen­trate on the sun­dered rela­tion­ships around the Emmerich fam­i­ly and the com­pet­ing claims of friends and kin over the mem­o­ry of the dead painter.

The fol­low­ing week, Mon­day 12 Sep­tem­ber, the first replace­ment, NIGHT SHIFT (2001). Writer-direc­tor Phillipe Le Guay takes up the sub­ject of bul­ly­ing — not at school which gets most pub­lic atten­tion — but in the work­place. In a small French town the pleas­ant, reserved Pierre takes a night job on the pro­duc­tion
line at a small bot­tling fac­to­ry. On his first night a burly co-work­er nee­dles him over his prud­ery in remov­ing his pre­de­ces­sor’s nude pho­tographs from his lock­er door. Over the weeks the provo­ca­tions esca­late. In Pier­re’s trou­bled world going to work becomes hell.
He can’t explain things to his pre­oc­cu­pied wife and is dis­cour­aged by his col­leagues from bring­ing his boss­es into the affair. A taut, eco­nom­i­cal film.

On Mon­day 19 Sep­tem­ber, an unsched­uled break from French films as we turn to the Amer­i­can clas­sic THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). William Well­man’s film is one of the ear­li­est and best of the gang­ster films from Warn­er Bros. in the thir­ties. James Cagney por­trays the lead char­ac­ter as a sex­u­al­ly mag­net­ic, cocky, com­plete­ly amoral, emo­tion­al­ly bru­tal, ruth­less and ter­ri­bly lethal indi­vid­ual. How­ev­er he begins his life, not as a hard­ened crim­i­nal, but as a young mis­chie­vous boy in pre-Pro­hi­bi­tion city streets, whose ear­ly envi­ron­ment clear­ly con­tributes to the evolv­ing devel­op­ment of his life of adult crime and his inevitable grue­some death. The film exam­ines the social forces and roots of crime in a seri­ous way.

The final film of the month on Mon­day 26 Sep­tem­ber is also the final of the French sea­son. POSSIBILITIES (1996). In her “comédie dépres­sive” film­mak­er Pas­cale Fer­ran, one of France’s most promis­ing auteurs, con­fronts what it means to be in your ear­ly twen­ties as the end of the cen­tu­ry nears. Work­ing with ten actors study­ing at the Nation­al The­ater of Stras­bourg, Fer­ran cre­at­ed a script that explores the feel­ings of both antic­i­pa­tion and dread in the lives of young peo­ple who are strug­gling to write grad­u­ate the­ses or stuck in stag­nant ser­vice jobs or frus­trat­ed in unful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships. In a series of short, real­is­tic vignettes, cul­mi­nat­ing in a rev­e­la­to­ry par­ty that brings every­one togeth­er, the film uncov­ers the inter­lock­ing pas­sions and fears of Gal­lic twen­tysome­things who must decide who and what they want to become. Equal­ly charm­ing and philo­soph­i­cal.

That’s it for Sep­tem­ber. But don’t stop read­ing yet — there are sev­er­al film fes­ti­vals that deserve your atten­tion.

On the Fri­days and Sat­ur­days through­out the month, the 60th anniver­sary of diplo­mat­ic rela­tions between New Zealand and France is being cel­e­brat­ed at the Film Archive’s mediathe­atre with a sea­son called “Polar en tous gen­res (Who­dunits of all Sorts)”.

Com­menc­ing on Fri­day 2 Sep­tem­ber, the films include: GARDE A VUE (The Inquisitor)(Claude Miller, 1981), VIVEMENT DIMANCHE (Con­fi­den­tial­ly Yours!) (Fran­cois Truf­faut, 1983), INSPECTEUR LAVARDIN (Claude Chabrol, 1986), L627 (Bertrand Tav­ernier, 1991), REGARD LES HOMMES TOMBER (See How They Fall) (Jacques Audi­ard, 1994), LE COUSIN (The Informer) (Alain Corneau, 1997) and L’AFFAIRE MARCORELLE (Serge Le Per­on, 2000).

For fur­ther details of these and oth­er Medi­aplex events check the Archive’s events cal­en­dar

The Date Palm Film Fes­ti­val runs at the Para­mount from 8 — 14 Sep­tem­ber. Book­ings are now open. The films are: A MAN IN OUR HOUSE, an Egypt­ian clas­sic from 1961 set pri­or to the 1952 rev­o­lu­tion and star­ring Omar
Sharif. IN CASABLANCA, THE ANGELS DON’T FLY (Moroc­co, 2004), direc­tor Mohamed Asli’s imag­i­na­tive look at the
dream for a bet­ter life and the sac­ri­fices nec­es­sary to achieve it. Ital­ian direc­tor Save­rio Costan­zo’s PRIVATE (Italy/Palestine, 2004), win­ner of the Gold­en Leop­ard, the top award at the Locarno Film Fes­ti­val. MAMA’s GUEST (Dar­iush Mehrjui, Iran 2004), a com­e­dy about a poor fam­i­ly’s attempts to pull off a tra­di­tion­al ban­quet with the help of their neigh­bours.
ALI ZAOUA: PRINCE OF THE STREETS (Nabil Ayouch, Moroc­co 2000), which chron­i­cles the efforts of a trio
of friends to give their mur­dered com­pan­ion a decent bur­ial. As well there are three strong doc­u­men­taries which give insight into the cur­rent sit­u­a­tions in Iraq and Palestine/Israel.

Check details here.

New Zealand’s First Inter­na­tion­al Doc­u­men­tary Film Fes­ti­val runs in Auck­land 15–28 Sep­tem­ber, with a “best of” selec­tion screen­ing at the Para­mount in Welling­ton 29 Sep­tem­ber — 5 Octo­ber. The “Life Unscript­ed” brochure describ­ing all the films is avail­able at the Para­mount now.

The web­site is not of much help!

And keep sup­port­ing the Para­mount by attend­ing their reg­u­lar screen­ings. All three screens are now oper­at­ing. Com­ing up:

YOUNG ADAM (UK 2003). Two men and a woman on a barge. No one who has seen Jean Vigo’s famous film “L’Ata­lante” (1934) can watch “Young Adam” with­out feel­ing its res­o­nance. There can­not be peace unless the woman or one of the men leaves. In the Vigo film, new­ly­weds make the barge their occu­pa­tion and home, and the bride feels pushed aside by the crusty old deck­hand. In “Young Adam,” the chem­istry is more lethal. Opens 1 Sep­tem­ber.

Also start­ing 1 Sep­tem­ber is FESTIVAL EXPRESS (USA 2003). This last great rock­u­men­tary was kept out of sight by 30 years of legal wran­gling. The sur­viv­ing footage has been cut into fine shape by Bob Smeaton. It was in the 2004 Welling­ton Film Fes­ti­val and also in this year’s World Cin­e­ma Show­case. Now it gets the sea­son it deserves. Once again catch the train as Janis Joplin, The Band, the Great­ful Dead and oth­ers gig and par­ty across Cana­da in a rent­ed train.

Anoth­er musi­cal doc­u­men­tary opens on 22 Sep­tem­ber. DIG! (USA, 2004) traces the par­al­lel for­tunes of two promi­nent indie bands, The Dandy Warhols and The Bri­an Jon­estown Mas­sacre. The two bands start as mutu­al sup­port­ers, then drift apart as they strike dif­fer­ent deals with the sys­tem. From this year’s Welling­ton Film Fes­ti­val.

Again from this years Film Fes­ti­val is KEKEXILI: MOUNTAIN PATROL (China/Hong Kong 2004) which also opens on 22 Sep­tem­ber. This superbly pho­tographed eco­log­i­cal man­hunt movie has a spar­tan granduer that is thrilling. Direc­tor Lu Chuan cre­ates an aes­thet­ic so pow­er­ful and stark, so aware of human impo­tence, that he actu­al­ly tran­scends the obvi­ous moral dichoto­my between poach­ers and patrol­men.

There are still three New Zealand films to go in Lind­say Shel­ton’s selec­tion, screen­ing at the Film Archive, to mark the pub­li­ca­tion of his book “The Sell­ing of New Zealand Movies”. All are at 6.30pm on Wednes­day nights.

On 7 Sep­tem­ber: THE GOVERNOR, Episode One of the con­tro­ver­sial TV series.

On 14 Sep­tem­ber: OTHER HALVES (John Laing, 1984)

On 21 Sep­tem­ber: KING PIN (Mike Walk­er, 1985), the sto­ry of life inside a Social Wel­fare Boys’ Home.

As usu­al, check the Archive’s events cal­en­dar

Thanks to Wgtn Film Soci­ety Pres­i­dent David Lind­say for sup­ply­ing the details.