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From September 8 through October 4, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents a retrospective of seven feature films of Polish director Lech Majewski, a poet, painter, composer, writer, director, cinematographer and producer who brings all these talents to bear in visually powerful work. He also directs for the stage and opera, and creates multimedia art for gallery exhibition. Polish by birth and education, Majewski might more accurately be described as a citizen of the world as a result of the vagaries of an international career and long residency in the U.S. and other countries. Despite many festival prizes and raves from critics, his work has not yet received wide exposure in North America.
Majewski’s films are distinguished by a dreamlike surreal quality in which the power of form, texture, color and gesture tell stories that become one with his cryptic narratives. The director’s deep knowledge of art history manifests itself in the sumptuous imagery of THE KNIGHT, inspired by 13th-century icons, or in GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS, in which a treasury of European art and architectural masterpieces provide rich delight within the context of his story.
Majewski has an affinity for landscape, seen to majestic effect in films including his brand new GLASS LIPS, and GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY, starring a young Viggo Mortensen. He is intrigued by mirror images, and by paradoxical manifestations: a forest growing in a living room (THE ROE’S ROOM); the furnishings of a suburban home set out on the desert floor (GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY). The dialogue in his films is deliberately sparse, for Majewski more often makes a highly meaningful use of music in place of language. He credits his viewers with a discerning intelligence by inviting them to interpret his imagery through their own vocabulary of dreams.
Lech Majewski will appear in person at screenings of his films on September 28, 29, and 30. Please check the film descriptions below for further details.
ANGELUS
2000, Lech Majewski, Poland, 103 min.
With Jan Siodlaczek, Pawel Steinert
"Stunning.
. . When it isn't exciting the eye with its precise, painterly imagery,
ANGELUS amuses in a dry, absurdist fashion."--Robert Koehler, Variety
Twentieth-century
history gets a fanciful twist in this imaginative historical fantasy
that combines mysticism, bawdy humor, and beautiful, illumination-like
tableaux. When a Silesian guru's first two prophecies--World War II and
Communism--come true, his disciples prepare for the third: a death ray
from Saturn. To forestall the apocalypse, they need a young male virgin
as a sacrifice. In Polish with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Sunday, September 16, 5:45 pm
Thursday, September 20, 8:15 pm
Lech Majewski in person!
GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
(OGRÓD ROZKOSZY ZIEMSKICH)
2004, Lech Majewski, Great Britain/Italy, 103 min.
With Claudine Spiteri, Chris Nightingale
"A luminous, highly erotic treatise on art, love and death."--Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
In
equal parts joyously playful and melancholy, GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
charts the final, bittersweet weeks in Venice of Claudine, a young
British art historian with cancer, and her new lover Chris, a nautical
engineer and filmmaker. Arresting views of Venetian vistas and of
richly hued masterpieces including Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of
Earthly Delights," with which Claudine is obsessed, make each of
Majewski's frames a treasury of visual delight. This is truly a Venice
film for the connoisseur: elegant, erotic, and steeped in the
mysterious beauty of the city. In English. 35mm. (BS)
Director Lech Majewski will be present for audience discussion at both screenings.
Friday, September 28, 8:00 pm Sunday, September 30, 5:45 pm
Chicago premiere!
GLASS LIPS
(aka BLOOD OF A POET)
(SZKLANE USTA)
2007, Lech Majewski, Poland, 100 min.
With Patryk Czaijka, Joanna Litwin
Incidents
in the life of a young poet now living in an asylum bubble to the
surface of his mind imbued with strange meanings and transformed in the
mind's eye to haunting tableaux, often with erotic import. The
manipulative cruelty of his father figures powerfully in these
increasingly dreamy and surreal memories. Majewski fashioned the film
from 33 video art pieces originally created for a gallery installation,
each one a striking gem. In Polish with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, September 22, 8:15 pm
Monday, September 24, 8:15 pm
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY
(aka DESERT LUNCH)
(EWANGELIA WEDLUG HARRY'EGO)
1992, Lech Majewski, USA/Poland, 88 min.
With Viggo Mortensen, Jennifer Rubin, Rita Tushingham
"The
director's maverick vision creates a metaphor for our times against a
barren landscape."--Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival
program
Once described as "a biblical soap opera," GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO HARRY opens with a portentous solemnity soon contradicted
by the skewed domesticity of what appears to be an open-air suburban
household set on the vast surface of the glittering California desert.
A pre-RINGS Viggo Mortensen stars in this post-Apocalyptic fantasy of a
faltering marriage complicated by the interference of a harridan
mother-in-law (60s icon Rita Tushingham) and Harry the tax collector.
In English. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, September 8, 5:15 pm
Monday, September 10, 7:45 pm
THE KNIGHT
(RYCERZ)
1980, Lech Majewski, Poland, 81 min.
With Piotr Skarga, Daniel Olbrychski
"Beautiful, mystical. . . rich, nightmarish images inspired by 13th-century icons."--Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Following
ritual combat, an idealistic young knight supplants his mentor as the
chosen one to undertake a mystical quest after a fabled golden harp
that will bring healing peace to his kingdom. In this first feature,
Majewski demonstrates what will become a trademark affinity for
startling composition and sumptuous imagery. Court ceremonies, the
gestures of courtly love and the perils of an open-ended journey into
the unknown are all rendered to stunning effect. In Polish with English
subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Friday, September 21, 8:00 pm
Sunday, September 23, 5:00 pm
THE ROE'S ROOM
(POKÓJ SAREN)
1997, Lech Majewski, Poland, 90 min.
With Rafal Olbrychski, Elzbieta Mazur
"Limpidly beautiful. . . One of a kind."--Gareth Evans, Time Out London
Majewski
directed, wrote, scored, and designed this "autobiographical film
opera" that stands as one of his most impressive achievements. With a
nod to Vivaldi, THE ROE'S ROOM follows the course of the four seasons
in an apartment building, centering on a young man who lives with his
parents. The film becomes more blatantly and spectacularly surreal as
the cycle of nature takes over the apartment, sending massive tree
trunks through the ceiling, grassy meadows across the floors, and deer
scampering from room to room. In Polish with English subtitles. Beta SP
video. (MR)
Sunday, September 9, 3:00 pm
Thursday, September 13, 8:15 pm
Lech Majewski in person!
WOJACZEK
1999, Lech Majewski, Poland, 89 min.
With Krzysztof Siwczyk, Dominika Ostalowska
"Just
as Wojaczek's nihilism has a core of passionate wit, so too does the
movie. . . The funniest scenes might have come from the imagination of
Jim Jarmusch or a young David Lynch."--A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Majewski's
most celebrated film is a haunting, unconventional biographical
portrait of Rafal Wojaczek, the brilliant Polish poet who died in 1971
at the age of 26. A kamikaze artist on the order of Jim Morrison,
Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kurt Cobain, Wojaczek makes his first
appearance in the film crashing through a cafe window. Photographed in
gorgeous, sharply-etched b&w, WOJACZEK follows the wandering poet
on his sexual escapades and drunken rampages in the days before his
death. In Polish with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
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