The Harvard Film Archive returns from its winter break with a lengthy and overdue tribute to one of the great actors of world cinema. Though perhaps less heralded than such peers in the French New Wave as Jeanne Moreau or Anna Karina, Delphine Seyrig starred in a remarkably diverse array of landmark works by some of the most renowned filmmakers of all time. “The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig,” which kicks off Friday and runs through the beginning of March, frames Seyrig’s career in multiple acts: first as the leading lady in films by the canonical (read: mostly male) “great directors,” then as a trailblazer who sought out cutting-edge female filmmakers before stepping behind the camera as a director in her own right.
The series begins, appropriately enough, with Seyrig’s breakout performance in Alain Resnais’ international smash “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961). “Marienbad” is, in many ways, the art house film of the 1960s, deliberately oblique and hypnotically dreamlike. It consists of a series of fragmented scenes, recurring lines and head-spinning Steadicam shots; at the center is Seyrig, in a series of increasingly extravagant Chanel gowns, and two men who may or may not be her lovers. Saturday brings two of Seyrig’s collaborations with the great Marguerite Duras, “India Song” (1975) and “La Musica” (1967, co-directed by Duras and Paul Seban). “India Song” plays again Sunday, along with Luis Buñuel’s scathingly satirical “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972), in which Seyrig plays one of a group of airheaded aristocrats whose absurd dilemmas perpetually prevent them from sitting down for a meal. The series will spin even further out from here, but these titles alone give one a sense of Seyrig’s bold and unpredictable career.
This week, The Brattle Theatre begins its annual “(Some of) The Best of 2024” series, which brings together more than two dozen of last year’s most acclaimed, and at times overlooked, features, often paired in inventive double features. The series begins Thursday with the surprise Oscar-winning sensation “Godzilla Minus One,” which was technically a 2023 release, but was scuttled out of theaters so quickly that many didn’t get to see it in all its Tokyo-stomping glory. On Saturday and Sunday, be sure to catch Vera Drew’s madcap “The People’s Joker,” which uses its anarchic sense of humor (and lawyer-baiting use of DC Comics’ intellectual property) to frame a strikingly sensitive and personal trans coming-of-self story. Also on Sunday is a truly bonkers double feature of “Rumours,” the surrealist political satire from Winnipeg oddballs Guy Maddin and Evan and Galen Johnson, and “Megalopolis,” the near-indescribable passion project of Francis Ford Coppola (though I will add that “Rumours” would also make a perfect double header with “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” if you don’t mind dashing across the square to the HFA between films). These are just a few highlights of the series, which even in this first week alone is too expansive to properly do justice in this space; for the complete lineup, be sure to check out The Brattle’s website.
Young and adventurous cinephiles could hardly do much better than Belmont World Film’s Family Film Festival, which once again presents a dazzling array of family-friendly feature films from across the globe. Following opening night festivities at the West Newton Cinema on Saturday and an afternoon of children’s literary adaptations at Arlington’s Regent Theatre on Sunday, the festival reaches Cambridge on Monday with a day’s worth of matinees at The Brattle. First up is “Toopy and Binoo: The Movie,” based on the beloved Quebecois book series, followed by the Brazilian animated feature “Teca & Tuti: A Night at the Library.” The proceedings switch to live action for the German “The Flying Classroom,” based on the 1933 novel by Erich Kästner, and “Lars is LOL,” adapted from the sensational Norwegian bestseller of the same name. If your little budding movie fanatic still wants more, you’re in luck – the festival returns to the Regent on Jan. 26 for one more day of fantastic programming.
The Landmark Kendall Square Cinema’s ongoing series “And the Best Picture Goes to …” continues Tuesday with one of the most uncompromising films ever to win the big award. Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978) was one of the first American films to dramatize the war in Vietnam, and it remains one of the most brutal. The film follows a group of working-class Philadelphia buddies, including Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and the late, great John Cazale, as their world, and indeed their entire beings, are turned inside out by the brutal realities of the conflict. “The Deer Hunter” is as controversial now as when it was released, both for its indelicate portrayal of Vietnamese combatants and for its harrowing scenes of Russian roulette, which have been linked to multiple real-life fatalities over the decades. But there is no denying either the power or the strange beauty of Cimino’s images. The performances, too, are beyond reproach – particularly Walken, who won an Oscar for his role and perfected the chilling, otherworldly presence which would become his trademark. Few who have seen it will ever shake the expression on Walken’s face in his final scene – as potent a symbol as any for the effects the Vietnam War had on the American psyche.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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