Lithuanian Film Week
From November 9 through November 15, the Gene Siskel Film Center, in collaboration with the Lithuanian Consulate General in Chicago and the Lithuanian Institute, presents Lithuanian Film Week, a three-film sampling of one of Eastern Europe’s liveliest new cinemas.
A recent addition to our European Union Film Festival lineup, Lithuania has provided two of that festival’s best reviewed and attended entries of recent years: Janina Lapinskaite’s LAND OF GLASS in 2006 and Arunas Matelis’s BEFORE FLYING BACK TO EARTH in 2007, both presented with the directors in person.
Since 1990, when Lithuania reestablished its independence, Lithuanian cinema has produced two distinct and somewhat divided generations of filmmakers. The first generation, gaining prominence in the 1990s and headed by Sarunas Bartas, fashioned an abstract, art-house cinema strongly influenced by metaphysical Soviet directors such as Tarkovsky and Sokurov.
In 2006, a group of younger Lithuanian directors issued a manifesto evocative of the New German Cinema’s 1962 “Oberhausen Manifesto” and the Danish cinema’s “Dogme 95.” More likely to be influenced by Tarantino than by Tarkovsky, these mavericks have called for a cinema that is less rarefied, more plot-oriented, and more dynamically attuned to the fluidity of contemporary Lithuanian society.
The three films in this series offer a cross-section of the conflicting currents in contemporary Lithuanian cinema. SEVEN INVISIBLE MEN is the most recent film by Sarunas Bartas, the leading figure in the independent Lithuanian cinema. DIRINGAS is a cheeky satire by Ignas Miskinis, one of the most outspoken signatories of the 2006 “Kino Manifesta.” Kristijonas Vildziunas’s YOU AM I, with its mixture of topicality and fable, represents a synthesis of the two trends.
Special thanks to Arvydas Daunoravicius, Consul General, and Tadas Kubilius, Assistant, of the Consulate General of the Republic of Lithuania in Chicago; Irma Simanskyte, Lithuanian Institute.
-- Martin Rubin
DIRINGAS
2006, Ignas Miskinis, Lithuania, 95 min.
With Dainius Gavenonis, Neringa Varnelyte
This biting satire of advertising and image-making marks an auspicious feature debut for former adman Miskinis. A handsome opportunist (Gavenonis) uses a bout of bathroom sex to gain entry into the advertising world, where he entices eager execs with his fabulous new project “Diringas.” Soon the race is on to get this hot new brand on the market, but nobody seems to notice that “Diringas” (a nonsense word signifying nothing) is a flashy trademark without a product, all sizzle and no steak. In Lithuanian with English subtitles. Beta SP video. (MR)
Friday, November 9, 8:00 pm
Monday, November 12, 6:00 pm
SEVEN INVISIBLE MEN
(SEPTYNI NEMATOMI ZMONES)
2005, Sarunas Bartas, Lithuania, 116 min.
With Dmitrij Podnozov, Rita Klein
Bartas is the most renowned Lithuanian director, an uncompromising artist whose austere, haunting allegories are widely shown on the film-festival circuit. SEVEN INVISIBLE MEN, his eighth feature in fifteen years, follows a fugitive in a stolen car to a remote outpost in the Crimea, where he joins the other outcasts of the film’s title. As in other Bartas films, the dialogue is sparse and the landscapes are stunning. In Russian with English subtitles. Beta SP video. (MR)
Saturday, November 10, 5:00 pm
Tuesday, November 13, 8:00 pm
YOU AM I
(AS ESI TU)
2006, Kristijonas Vildziunas, Lithuania, 90 min.
With Andrius Bialobzeskis, Jurga Jutaite
Vildziunas’s second feature is a striking modern-day fable loosely based on Italo Calvino’s novel The Baron in the Trees. Fed up with the rat race, an architect retreats into the deep woods, where he builds an amazing glass tree-house. There he lives a life somewhere between Thoreau and Tarzan, but loneliness drives him to join a group of weekend partiers, including a novelist who may be him -- or is it vice-versa? In Lithuanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)