Laemmle's Royal Theatre

"You use big words to say simple things," says Augustine (Soko), an illiterate kitchen maid, to the esteemed doctor treating her for the distinctly female malady "hysteria." This would be a show of boilerplate feistiness in most films, but in... More »

"You use big words to say simple things," says Augustine (Soko), an illiterate kitchen maid, to the esteemed doctor treating her for the distinctly female malady "hysteria." This would be a show of boilerplate feistiness in most films, but in writer-director Alice Winocour's Augustine, it stands as a subtler, more complex victory. Having been largely silent or monosyllabic for much of the film, subjected to all manner of brutal poking and prodding in the name of science, the fact that she has spoken at all is something of a defiant act, a signal of her emerging sense of self. Augustine was a real life figure, subject of a case-study by Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, a pioneering 19th-century French neurologist who claimed Freud as a student. The doctor (played by Vincent Lindon) was a formidable man, a celebrity who revolutionized the ways patients were diagnosed and treated while also forging breakthroughs in conceptualizing the workings of the brain itself (thus setting the stage for modern neurology). But according to Winocour's film, his bedside manner was often unthinkingly cruel. Charcot's brusque manner, the way he ignores Augustine's questions and callously manhandles her nude body, underscores an imbalance of power that has everything to do with differences in gender and class. He wields that power in an especially punitive way once his sexual attraction to his star patient gets the better of him. Gorgeously shot, lavishly costumed, and well acted, Augustine is something of a paradox, simultaneously passionate and dispassionate, its ending tethered to both bruised triumph and a sense of things falling apart. « Less

(3:30 PM), 8:30 PM

Rama Burshtein's Fill the Void opens on green leaves, smiling faces, lush billows of fabric that when pieced together, the sensuous images accumulating into a fuller picture, become a wedding dress, tulle and silk diffusing the glow. Engagements,... More »

Rama Burshtein's Fill the Void opens on green leaves, smiling faces, lush billows of fabric that when pieced together, the sensuous images accumulating into a fuller picture, become a wedding dress, tulle and silk diffusing the glow. Engagements, weddings, births, and deaths: This film is a more traditional kind of marriage plot than you might expect in 2013, and Burshtein has cited Jane Austen as a major influence. Even within the sometimes intimate, sometimes suffocatingly close Hasidic Jewish community of Tel Aviv, where these life cycle events take place, love is not easy. And from the dense, textured carpet of her characters' emotions, Burshtein draws gorgeous threads and holds them to the light. The film centers around 18-year-old Shira (Hadas Yaron), who is about to be engaged when her older sister Esther (Renana Raz) dies in childbirth. Esther leaves behind a tiny son and a grieving husband (Yochay, played by Yiftach Klein); Shira's mother (Irit Sheleg) is unwilling to lose a grandchild to Yochay's inevitable remarriage, so she devises a plan to wed Shira to Yochay. A fumbling courtship follows. Shira's painful, tightly wound interactions with Yochay make clear that she’s still a child, unable to articulate what she wants or make herself vulnerable to him, while a weary Yochay desires only to be wanted and cared for in return. The Hasidic community is never shown interacting with society at large, only moving through it out of necessity. And that insularity-- the void-- results in deep psychic pain for the people trapped within its rigid structure, even as that structure supports them. « Less

(1:00 PM), (3:20 PM), (5:40 PM), 8:00 PM, 10:15 PM

"A great singer, chandeliers, champagne, and costumes—we see this at a distance," Jean-François Sivadier says deep into Becoming Traviata, a spare and ravishing doc that positions viewers in the rehearsal room in the weeks leading up to his... More »

"A great singer, chandeliers, champagne, and costumes—we see this at a distance," Jean-François Sivadier says deep into Becoming Traviata, a spare and ravishing doc that positions viewers in the rehearsal room in the weeks leading up to his minimalist production of Verdi's La Traviata. Sivadier is encouraging his star, Natalie Dessay, before a gutsy, scraping-out-the-soul performance of "È Strano" on a stage stripped of the usual operatic extravagance. His vision-- shared by the film's director, Philippe Béziat-- is of that distance obliterated, of arias and singers and feelings laid bare. Dessay, as much a trouper as she is a brilliant vocalist, puts her head in her hands and then digs deep, pulling from herself a bruised and gorgeous lament, each note-- each tortured misterioso-- a raw and gleaming pearl. The film celebrates the sweat and prep that goes into such performances, showing us the rich collaborative interplay between the director and the star, who for most of the film is dressed for the gym and accompanied only by duet partners and rehearsal piano. Time with Dessay is worth treasuring, even when she’s not singing. "The music is almost orgasmic," Sivadier enthuses. "For everyone but the girl singing it," Dessay says back, bringing the house down all over again. The film is strongly focused, covering little but their work and her singing; Béeziat understands that anything else would be a distraction. « Less

(1:20 PM), (4:10 PM), 7:00 PM, 9:55 PM

At last! A documentary about that underexposed group: the 1 percenters in their lair. In Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's, the storied store is presented in cinematic terms as ex-screenwriter Matthew Miele watches decorator David Hoey madly... More »

At last! A documentary about that underexposed group: the 1 percenters in their lair. In Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's, the storied store is presented in cinematic terms as ex-screenwriter Matthew Miele watches decorator David Hoey madly creating window displays of phantasmagorical "installation art" that moves. The film's climax is the famous annual holiday unveiling as the hoi polloi press their noses against the glass. Yet the long-term employees fascinate more than the clothes: They are beautiful gargoyles, true freaks of fashion. We don’t get interviews with non-celeb shoppers of the reticent monied class, but designers Manolo Blahnik, Jason Wu, Patricia Field, and others each give their rendition of "What Bergdorf's Meant to Me." Vera Wang nails it: Being obsessive is a given; the key is how you fit into the market. A one-size-fits-all documentary format includes a mini-history; apparently the founders weren't just in it for the money. Edwin Goodman was a tailor who knew how to cut and cared about quality. Yet this macchiato with 24-karat gold flecks may not be to everyone’s taste. Spending $7,000 on shoes is shrugged off, since here success is affording Bergdorf Goodman's. Without the dueling-divas drama of The September Issue, or the shiny dynamism of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, this doc, title taken from a remark by a wealthy European shopper and immortalized in a New Yorker cartoon, is fun and frothy, a fan's mash note. « Less

(1:00 PM), 6:00 PM