Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
December 2007 activity
Total Log Entries: 47
- Adam (6)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (3)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (8)
- Jenny (0)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (5)
- Megan (1)
- Rumsey (6)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (0)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (2)
Total Comments: 12
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (4)
- Zodiac (0)
- Charlie Wilson’s War (0)
- The Savages (0)
- Hell and High Water (0)
- The Witnesses (0)
- Keane (0)
- We Own The Night (0)
- The Golden Compass (2)
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (0)
- Michael Clayton (3)
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (0)
- Scrooged (1)
- Dangerous Days (0)
- Harvey (0)
- Blade Runner (0)
- The Passing Show (0)
- In The Line Of Fire (0)
- Peeping Tom (0)
- Control (0)
- Rescue Dawn (1)
- The Kingdom (0)
- Superbad (0)
- Mildred Pierce (0)
- Knocked Up (0)
- Beowulf (1)
- Now, Voyager (0)
- A Girl Cut In Two (0)
- Alexandra (0)
- Dune (0)
- Absolute Wilson (0)
- Berserk! (0)
- Fast Food Nation (0)
- Bewitched (0)
- Helvetica (0)
- Kind Hearts and Coronets (0)
- Love Songs (0)
- Lady Chatterley (0)
- No Reservations (0)
- Juno (0)
- Eastern Promises (0)
- Death Proof (0)
- Control (0)
- Southland Tales (0)
- Once (0)
- Blue Velvet (0)
- The Mist (0)
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The Witnesses / Les Témoins / France / 2007
I do admire the way André Téchiné has tried to chart a middle path through French art cinema, intelligent and conscious of formal concerns but still trying to connect with a larger audience with the emotional content of his films. True, this doesn’t always work (and his last film Changing Times seemed a particularly weak effort, with everything running on automatic, so to speak) but with The Witnesses he’s made one of his best films. It’s also the first time a gay theme — although present in earlier films — has been made the centre of the story. Set in the eighties just before the onset of AIDS, the first, very effective part works with fast-paced economy to sketch the central relationships. Things get more sombre and the light literally darker in the second part when Manu starts succumbing to AIDS and the other relationships start to fray in their own way, but Téchiné never overplays it, elliptical where another filmmaker would try to draw out the sentiment. He concludes the film with a nice conceit, a return to the summery setting of the first part but a setting from which Manu is now absent. It’s the other characters who remain as the “witnesses” of the title, witnesses to the mark Manu has made on the world and on their lives.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
30 Dec 2007 11:31 AM | Submit Comment