Far AwayApo­lo­gies, a bit slow on film soci­ety news this month… I’m post­ing this too late to cov­er Place Vendome, but what remains is well worth see­ing.

JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY (1998). At first glance, Olivi­er Ducastel and Jacques Mar­tineau­’s
film appears to be a rel­at­ively tra­di­tion­al French melo­drama about AIDS – well acted and intel­li­gently writ­ten, but noth­ing spe­cial. But this is the first time that the sub­ject mat­ter has been used as the found­a­tion for a music­al and trans­formed into an irrev­er­ent, enjoy­able and com­pletely unex­pec­ted motion pic­ture exper­i­ence.

This screen­ing will also fea­ture an extra. Lind­say Shelton, a past pres­id­ent of the Film Soci­ety and found­ing dir­ect­or of the Film Fest­iv­al before becom­ing the first Mar­ket­ing Man­ager of the NZ Film Com­mis­sion, will speak briefly before the film. Cop­ies of his book, “The Selling of New Zea­l­and Movies” will be avail­able before and after the film (at a spe­cial price for Film Soci­ety mem­bers). He may even auto­graph your copy!

Monday 15 August, 6.15pm at the Para­mount

SAME OLD SONG (1997). Alain Resnais’ affec­tion­ate trib­ute to Eng­lish dram­at­ist and screen­writer Den­nis Pot­ter uses frag­ments of old record­ings to have his char­ac­ters burst into lip-synched song to express their inner lives and reveal truths that they struggle to con­ceal or deny. The story fol­lows six char­ac­ters as they nego­ti­ate their rela­tion­ships and cov­ers top­ics such as real estate, agora­pho­bia, hypo­chon­dria and Parisi­an tour­ist land­marks.

Monday 22 August, 6.15pm at the Para­mount

FAR AWAY [Loin] (2001). Tak­ing place over the course of three days, Andre Téch­iné’s film explores top­ic­al issues of illeg­al immig­ra­tion and drug smug­gling with a high degree of clar­ity that also extends to the impas­sioned love story at the film’s centre. French truck driver Serge recon­nects with estranged girl­friend Sarah, who runs a fam­ily hotel in Tangi­ers, and with Saïd, his Moroc­can friend who’s des­per­ate to start a new life in Spain (with­in view­ing dis­tance of his town’s shore, but inac­cess­ible due to immig­ra­tion laws).

Monday 29 August, 6.15pm at the Para­mount

Oth­er movies at the Para­mount this month…

Fritz Laing’s METROPOLIS (Ger­many 1927). The beau­ti­fully restored print by the Murnau Found­a­tion, with its newly-recor­ded score, screened at the 2003 Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al. The cel­eb­rated silent film about a futur­ist­ic soci­ety that des­cends into chaos, is a clas­sic of a curi­ous kind, a movie with visu­als so strange and majest­ic they leave you breath­less.

Com­men­cing August 11, for one week only

HEIGHTS (USA 2004). Chris Ter­ri­o’s movie (pro­duced by James Ivory and Ish­mael Mer­chant) takes place over 24 hours and
fol­lows five cent­ral char­ac­ters who are involved in each oth­er­’s lives, if only they knew it. We know, and one of our pleas­ures is wait­ing for the pen­nies to drop. Watch­ing their slow real­iz­a­tions and reac­tions to what is going on around them is a voyeur­ist­ic pleas­ure. Glenn Close has nev­er been bet­ter.

From 18 August

THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (USA/Vietnam 2002). With a cast includ­ing Nick Nolte, Temuera Mor­ris­on, Tim Roth, Bai Ling, and Dami­en Ngy­uen, dir­ect­or Hans Pet­ter Mol­land’s film deals with the life of a Viet­nam boy with an Amer­ic­an fath­er. The heart-rend­ing story of the young Amer­asi­an man’s quest to find his long-lost fath­er is a sor­row­ful yet ulti­mately hope­ful film made with impec­cable artistry and emo­tion­al tact.

Open­ing on 25 August