movie

Jeffrey Babcock curates and hosts a double feature of rarely-screened gems. Titles and descriptions TBA in our newsletter. 

Francois and Therese (real life couple Jean-Claude and Claire Drouot) live a life of tranquility, happiness, and Sunday picnics in the countryside with their children. When Francois initiates an affair with the lovely Emilie (Marie-France Boyer), their domestic bliss seems unaffected—but is it? Cinema legend Agnes Varda’s first experiment with color—influenced by the Impressionist painters who had beautifully portrayed the Île-de-France—immerses us in an mesmerizingly lush idyll. But this “beautiful summer fruit” as Varda described the film, has “a worm in it.”  What is happiness? What happens when our desires lead us to unintended cruelty? Can we trust the rules of the traditional family, and the cliches of happiness constructed by our society?

At the end of the Civil War, Sukhov (Anatoly Kuznetsov), a Red Army solider trudges along the shore of the Caspian Sea, longing to be reunited with his wife. But his journey home is interrupted when he's charged with protecting the freed harem of Abdullah (Kakhi Kavsadze) a ruthless bandit. Vladimir Motyl's beloved "Eastern"—a Soviet spin on the Western genre—is one of the most celebrated and quoted films in Russian history. With its rousing and bloody action, wry humor, and unflappable hero, White Sun of the Desert has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood Western. Yet, the film's focus on Russian empire building in Central Asia strikes an ambivalent tone, at once nationalistic and fatalistic.