[
Money for Nothing (English subtitles; 104 min.)
Landmark’s E Street Cinema
Opens Fri., Sept. 13
★★★★✩
]
[
Thérèse (Thérèse Desqueyroux)
]
(French with English subtitles; as well as current Chairman Ben Bernanke, 111 min.; scope) who’s become quite prominent for his outLandmark’s E Street Cinema size role reacting to contain the global financial crisis of 2008. ★★★★✩ Enlightening interview subjects include a distinguished roster of government finanChanel”) plays a likable protagonist cial officials including Volcker, current Vice with whom viewers can empathize Chair of the Fed Board of Governors Janet greatly.The elegant script is focused on Yellen, former Vice Chair of the Fed Alan a upper-class woman who suffers Blinder, CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and John through the situation life has dealt her, Mauldin of “Thoughts from the Frontline.” like the classic literary characters The release of “Money for Nothing” is Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, especially timely when the selection prountil she experiences a transformative cess for the next powerful chair of the awakening. Federal Reserve has become so unusually Photo: MPI Pictures In 1926, affluent young woman public and politicized. A leading candidate French film star Audrey Tautou, right, plays a woman trapped in a loveless, domineering marriage in Thérèse (Tautou) enters into a strategic to replace current Bernanke, who’s nearing “Thérèse.” marriage with her neighbor Bernard the end of his second five-year term, is cur(Gilles Lellouche), heir to a massive rent Fed Vice Chair Yellen, a Berkeley econwomen in science, promoted the deregulation of the U.S. omist who’s a main character in the film. Yellen is report- financial system that may have precipitated its collapse in family fortune earned from the lush pinewood forest of edly competing for the position with Harvard economist 2008, but he has largely deflected blame over his role in the southwestern France. An artistic free spirit, she suffocates being stuck in the conservative, rigid life that is expected Larry Summers, former treasury secretary under President crash. from her by her family and society. Her chauvinistic husBill Clinton. band constantly dismisses any of her thoughts. But when The contest has stirred up recriminations over past finanBernard’s younger sister Anne (Anaïs Demoustier),Thérèse’s cial crises and how Summers and Yellen would handle Unfulfilled ‘Thérèse’ “Thérèse,” the last film of director Claude Miller (“A closest friend, enters into a forbidden love affair with a future crises. Yellen, now No. 2 at the Fed, has been largely correct in her predictions over the last six years. If she suc- Secret,” “The Best Way to Walk”), serves as a fitting coda to Portuguese hunk of a lower social class, Thérèse realizes ceeded Bernanke, she would become the first woman to the French helmer’s distinguished career, deftly adapted what her life has been lacking. head the central bank. Summers, who was forced out as from François Mauriac’s famous novel. As usual, fetching Harvard president after questioning the capabilities of French movie star Audrey Tautou (“Amélie,” “Coco Before Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.
Repertory Notes
by Washington Diplomat film reviewer Ky N. Nguyen
Please see International Film Clips on next page for detailed listings available at press time.
Goethe-Institut The German film retrospective “Women in History as Played by Barbara Sukowa: Films by Margarethe von Trotta” features “Marianne and Juliane” (Mon., Sept. 9, 6:30 p.m.); “Hannah Arendt” (Mon., Sept. 16, 6:30 p.m.); “Rosa Luxemburg” (Mon., Sept. 23, 6:30 p.m.); and “Vision” (Mon., Sept. 30, 6:30 p.m.). Sukowa speaks in person in the program “Discussion: Interpreting History on the Screen – An Evening with Barbara Sukowa” at the German Historical Institute (Tue., Sept. 17, 6:30 p.m.). Also catch the film and discussion “Willy Brandt: Ostpolitik of Understanding and Rapprochement” (Tue., Sept. 10, 5 p.m.) and “Almanya,” introduced by Asiye Kaya of Georgetown University (Thu., Sept. 12, 6:30 p.m.).
Accompanying the exhibition “In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall,” the National Gallery presents films with themes that artist Marshall felt are related to his show: Michael Roemer and Robert M. Young’s “Nothin But a Man” (Sat., Aug. 31, 2 p.m.), Brazilian director Marcel Camus’s “Black Orpheus” (Sun., Sept. 1, 4:30 p.m.) and Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (Mon., Sept. 2, 2 p.m.). “Ciné-Concert: Abstract Animation Since 1970” shows abstract animations curated by artist Sharon Louden, who appears in person with her new work, accompanied by a live performance of original music by composer Andrew Simpson (Sun., Sept. 8, 4:30 p.m.). (202) 842-6799, www.nga.gov/programs/film
American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theatre
(202) 289-1200, www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/kue/flm/enindex.htm
The perennial favorite “2013 AFI Latin American Film Festival” (Sept. 19-Oct. 9) returns with films curated by the cultural attachés of Latin American embassies in Washington, D.C.
National Gallery of Art
The Silver Theatre’s 75th Anniversary (Sept. 13-18) offers $5 shows to five 1938 films, including master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock’s British mystery “The Lady Vanishes” (Sept. 13-17.)
The “From Vault to Screen” preservation series boasts French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s “Le Petit Soldat” (Sat., Sept. 7, 2:30 p.m.) and French filmmakers Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s “Le Joli Mai” (Sat., Sept. 24, 4:30 p.m.).
Continuing series include “Ozploitation: Australian Genre Classics” (through Sept. 9); “Scandinavian Crime Cinema” (through Sept. 18); “70mm Spectacular, Part 2” (through Sept. 2); “Ernest Borgnine
September 2013
Remembered” (through Sept. 18); and “Totally Awesome 7: Great Films of the 1980s” (through Sept. 14). (301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver
Freer Gallery of Art The new series “Pages of Beauty and Madness: Japanese Writers Onscreen” features director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s and writer Kobo Abe’s “Woman in the Dunes,” adapted from Abe’s own novel (Fri., Sept. 8, 7 p.m.); “Sound of the Mountain,” Mikio Naruse’s adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunori Kawabata’s novel (Fri., Sept. 13, 7 p.m.); director Teinosuke Kinugasa and writer Kawabata’s “A Page of Madness” with live accompaniment by Tatsu Aoki’s Miyumi Quartet, introduced by author Aaron Gerow of “A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan” (Fri., Sept. 20, 7 p.m.); “The Makioka Sisters,” adapted from Junichiro Tanizaki’s novel “Sasameyuki” (Sun., Sept. 22, 2 p.m.); “The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea,” Lewis John Carlino’s adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s novel (Fri., Sept. 27, 7 p.m.); and Martin Ritt’s “The Outrage,” a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” adapted from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short stories — followed by a book club talk with the Smithsonian’s Noriko Sanefuji (Sun., Sept. 29, 2 p.m.). (202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp
The Washington Diplomat Page 45