The Falling
Set in 1969, in the physically intimate, emotionally claustrophobic hothouse of a rural English girls school, The Falling begins as pupils discover sex, poetry, pregnancy and death. And then it gets weird in Carol Morley’s fascinating film, which tugs at the edges of the medium as it tells its story of unaccountable coincidences, strange spasms and feinting spells. Is it collective hysteria or something to do with the mystical occult vibes of the era?
Living in Oblivion: The 20th Anniversary Edition
Filmed at the height of the ’90s indie film boom, Living in Oblivion (1995) is an affectionate insider’s spoof of the era’s modestly budgeted, outside-of-Hollywood scene. Writer-director Tom DiCillo nails the repetition of a movie shoot and the possibility that everything that can go wrong will. Living in Oblivion features two indie stars of the ’90s, Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener. The 20th Anniversary Edition includes interviews with members of the cast and crew.
Souvenirs of Bucovina
When esteemed music-documentarian Robert Mugge (Deep Blues, Hellhounds on My Trail) went to Romania, he brought his cameras and made a film. Music factors prominently, including melancholy local folk songs, the resonant chants of Eastern Orthodox priests, klezmer-accented accordion players and contemporary tunes by Romanian rock bands. Mugge and partner Diana Zelman seek out local artisans and historians, finding collaboration and resistance against Nazis and Communists, and the imprint of the past on the present.
Pitfall
In this 1948 film noir, Dick Powell plays an insurance executive with a loving wife (Jane Wyatt), adorable son and pleasant suburban home. A sleazy private detective and ex-cop with influence on the force (Raymond Burr) leads him to a femme fatale (Lizabeth Scott). And just when you think you know where it’s going, well, it goes there but gets complicated. Scott is sympathetic as a woman buffeted by a world of unreliable, unstable men.
