October 24, 9pm
WANDA
‘She doesn’t know what she wants—but she knows what she doesn’t want. And she’s trying to get out of this very ugly type of existence. But she doesn’t have the equipment.’ Director, writer and star Barbara Loden’s recently restored 1970 American classic tells the sorry tale of its rather stupid protagonist’s battles with sex, violence, alcohol, men and crime in grim Pennsylvania mining country, without objectifying Wanda as victim nor as particularly feminist. Dismal and gritty, hard-going and decidedly downbeat, it is the best kind of indie, defiantly challenging Hollywood values and delivering rare realism with integrity. ‘The film is all the more impressive for its refusal to get embroiled in half-baked political attitudinising’ (Time Out). ‘Wanda is a small movie, fully aware of its limits, and within those limits lovely’ (New York Times).
November 6, 6pm
BORN THIS WAY
‘There are more arrests for homosexuality in Cameroon than any other country in the world. With intimate access to the lives of four young gay Cameroonians, Born This Way steps outside the genre of activist filmmaking and offers a vivid and poetic portrait of day-to-day life in modern Africa. Lyrical imagery, devastating homophobia, the influence of western culture and a hidden-camera courtroom drama mysteriously coalesce into a story of what is possible in the global fight for equality’ (official website).
ODEON Cinema
piazza Strozzi 2, tel. 055/295051
October 29, 9.30pm
VICTOR, VICTORIA
Blake Edwards’s double-cross-dressing musical farce is a rather lame vehicle for his wife Julie Andrews. A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman is a promising premise perhaps, but gays pretending to be straights pretending to be gays gets confusing. More of a treatise on sexual tolerance than a musical comedy, with clichéd cabaret acts, ‘showstoppers’ that fail to stop the show and generally mediocre song and dance numbers, with the exception of ‘Crazy World,’ which is able to set hearts aflutter with its winsome melancholy, and a short burst of Puccini to raise the tone. Andrews’ incorruptible wholesomeness makes her character less than believable, the film lacks any real edge, and there’s a little too much slapstick for comfort. Robert Preston camps it up nicely as the resident queen and a running joke involving a waiter may raise a giggle.
SPAZIO ALFIERI Cinema
Via dell’Ulivo, 6
October 30, 8pm
STRICTLY BALLROOM
Baz Luhrmann’s debut feature follows the career of wannabe-champion dancer Scott Hastings and partner Fran, whose maverick self-belief is a challenge to the orthodox and regimented world of dance competitions. Doesn’t put a foot wrong. ‘“Strictly Ballroom” is, in short, pure corn. But it’s corn that has been overlaid with a buoyant veneer of spangles and marabou, and with a tireless sense of fun’ (New York Times). ‘With its cutesy-poo, is-it-schlock-or-is-it-camp? gaudiness, the film puts quotation marks around ’80s clichés and then ends up wallowing in them anyway. It’s a low-rent crowd-pleaser the “sophisticated” audience can enjoy without feeling terminally déclassé’ (Entertainment Weekly).
November 6, 8pm
THE PIANO
1850s. From Scotland, a mute woman and her young daughter plus prized piano are sent to New Zealand for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner. A neighbouring settler, an aspiring pianist, wants lessons, but there are strings attached. ‘Campion’s beautifully crafted tale unravels in perpetually muddy, rain-swept environs in bold, tactile strokes, with occasional flashes of humour and an almost otherworldly quality. Delicate, sensitive and literate, this admittedly has a selective appeal, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more serenely sensual or visually ethereal film’ (Empire). ‘Campion, as always, works in a style of jagged, poetic hyperrealism, assembling images in an almost pointillistic fashion. There’s a touch of magic in the way she brings the primeval-forest setting to our senses—the mist and the rain, the psychedelic green moss, the thick, goopy mud along the pathways. What looks like a slightly off-kilter documentary, however, soon becomes a brooding romantic melodrama of almost classical grandeur’ (Entertainment Weekly).
BRITISH INSTITUTE of Florence
Lungarno Guicciardini 9
tel. 055/26778270
