EXCLUSIVE FIRST RUN “Outstanding ... Leaves one traumatized, uplifted, and utterly breathless.” GIOVANNI MARCHINI CAMIA, FILM COMMENT
“Sublime ... Côté once again demonstrates his mastery of teasing out the fascinating in the banal – to unnerving effect.”
“It’s a challenging piece of work. It’s also brilliant ... A phenomenal performance by Robitaille.”
CRAIG TAKEUCHI, GEORGIA STRAIGHT
BRENDAN KELLY, MONTREAL GAZETTE
SAW A BEAR (Vic + Flo ont vu un ours)
VANCOUVER PREMIERE “The world wasn’t ready for this film in 1979, and it still may not be. Regardless, we are ecstatic to be able to reintroduce cinema’s most colossally bizarro achievement. Ever.” EVAN HUSNEY, DRAFTHOUSE FILMS
“Holy cow, what a weird movie! Instantly earning a place in my personal ‘WTF Hall of Fame,’ The Visitor is a work of cracked genius.”
“Ladies and gentleman, this is the Mount Everest of insane ’70s Italian movies.” NATHANIEL THOMPSON, MONDO DIGITAL
PETER MARTIN, TWITCH
(St ridulum)
Canada 2013. Director: Denis Côté Cast: Pierrette Robitaille, Romane Bohringer, Marc-André Grondin, Marie Brassard, Georges Molnar
USA/Italy 1979. Director: Giulio Paradisi Cast: John Huston, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Joanne Nail, Paige Conner, Mel Ferrer, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters
There’s good reason Denis Côté (subject of a Cinematheque retrospective last March) is one of Canada’s most internationally-admired filmmakers. The New Brunswick-born, Quebec-based director impresses and surprises again with Vic + Flo Saw a Bear, his latest – which also screens, deservedly, in our Canada’s Top Ten program (see page 11). Vic is 61-year-old lesbian Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille), just released from prison and trying to start life anew in rural Quebec (Côté’s favoured setting). Flo is Florence (Romane Bohringer), Vic’s lover, who also enjoys a fling or two with men. Keeping a close eye on things is Guillaume (Marc-André Grondin), Vic’s young, well-meaning parole officer. As ghosts from the past emerge to disturb the tranquility, Côté’s slow-burning, sumptuously photographed film shape-shifts from moving middle-aged love story into something much more menacing and dangerous. Like Curling, Côté’s previous drama, Vic + Flo reveals a terrific eye for quirky details and a Coen Brothers-like affinity for blending eccentric humour and cruelty. “Bizarre and original ... Vic + Flo Saw manages to mix the drollery of Wes Anderson, the genre swagger of Tarantino or the Coen Brothers, and the opaque narrative of a Bruno Dumont in one intriguing package ... A rich, humane, surprising film” (Lee Marshall, Screen International). Colour, in French with English subtitles. 95 mins.
“An intergalactic warrior joins a cosmic Christ figure in battle against an 8-year-old girl, and her pet hawk, while the fate of the universe hangs in the balance!” The latest cult-film rescue, restoration, and re-release from Austin, Texas’s Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Drafthouse Films – who last year boggled our minds (and then some) with Miami Connection – is this phantasmagorical 1979 mash-up of sci-fi, horror, action, and, uh, basketball, set in Atlanta, Georgia. The Visitor plays like some demented fusion of The Omen, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Birds, Rosemary’s Baby, The Fury, and Star Wars. Almost more baffling than the WTF plot – which could have been penned by L. Ron Hubbard – is the unlikely all-star cast, headed by Hollywood legend John Huston and including Glenn Ford, Shelley Winters, Lance Henriksen, Franco Nero, Mel Ferrer, and Sam Peckinpah! Producer Ovidio G. Assonitis (Tentacles), working here with Italian director Giulio Paradisi (credited as Michael J. Paradise), was part of a ’70s wave of Euro producers who came to America to make exploitation-picture knockoffs of Hollywood hits for the export and drive-in markets. “Contains the highest JDPM (jaw-drops-per-minute) ratio out of any movie we have ever encountered ... Truly one of the most joyfully delirious theatrical experiences we’ve unleashed on our audiences” (Evan Husney, Drafthouse Films). Colour, DCP, in English. 108 mins.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18 – 8:30 PM (Canada’s Top Ten) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22 – 6:30 PM & 8:30 PM THURSDAY, JANUARY 23 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, JANUARY 26 – 8:30 PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23 – 8:30 PM FRIDAY, JANUARY 24 – 8:30 PM SATURDAY, JANUARY 25 – 8:30 PM WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29 – 6:30 PM FRIDAY, JANUARY 31 – 9:35 PM
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