Even Osama Bin-Laden adores movies (I've heard Driving Miss Daisy is a particular fave around the Big O's cave), which is only one more reason why professing your love for cinema might not seem to account for much these days. Then again, some films inspire a movie-love that extends beyond seeing Star Wars for the 226th time – ambitious and often mysterious movies from other countries that immerse us in a sea of possibilities, opening our minds by pushing us into new and sometimes uncomfortable areas. Most movies offer gateways to other worlds – something that should certainly appeal to a guy living in a cave – but the films we're talking about also offer gateways into ourselves.
Once upon a time, you could see these challenging foreign films in just about every American city, but as multiplexes and even rep house programmers have grown ever more conservative, quality imports have become harder and harder to come by. Luckily, however, there's still one forum right here in the Bay area where hungry cinephiles can get their bi-weekly fixes.
Every other Friday night, some of the very best contemporary and classic films from around the world are screened at St. Petersburg's Eckerd College at the International Cinema Series, a remarkable program spearheaded by philosophy professor and film lover Nathan Andersen. Andersen chooses the films with care, leaning toward movies that have been critically acclaimed at international film festivals but that might never get booked locally, even in progressive venues like Tampa Theatre. He has skirted controversy by programming films from Iran and button-pushers like Fahrenheit 9-11 (which prompted a tsunami of negative feedback), tantalized viewers with the moral ambiguities of The Battle of Algiers, and brought in the only African films to be seen in the Bay area in over 10 years. The upcoming season of Eckerd College's International Cinema Series – which begins February 4 with Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene's brilliant new film Moolaadé – might just be its best yet. All films screen in glorious 35mm at 7 p.m. in Eckerd's newly renovated Miller Auditorium, and are free and open to the public.
The movies that Andersen programs are in the spirit of the films that first got him hooked on the stuff, back when he was a lowly undergraduate rushing out of classes to devour the imported classics being screened at a local film series much like the one he now runs. "I just got really excited by it all," he says, remembering his first tastes of Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky and Fellini. "I had always loved movies of all kinds, but suddenly I saw that films could be more than just a form of entertainment. I discovered in these films a lot of the themes I had found in great literature and even in philosophy, some careful and rigorous looks at ideas and how they're lived out."
You'll find old masters like Fellini and Bergman represented at the International Cinema Series, but you'll find new rising stars too, as well as everything in between. One of the hottest "new" directors is actually one of the oldest – octogenarian Sembene, who's often referred to as the father of African cinema. His Moolaadé is a wise, witty and richly nuanced slice of African village life that just incidentally tackles the immensely off-putting subject of female genital mutilation. This is one of the strongest statements yet from Sembene, an artist who has over the years dazzled us with his ability to make powerful yet entertaining cinema out of such topics as colonialism, class struggle and Islamic imperialism in Africa.
The other films in this season's line-up are equally intriguing, although very different from one another. Burn! is a provocative political allegory that's a sort of sequel to The Battle of Algiers, with additional Movie Star oomph provided by Marlon Brando. Seen here in a restored and expanded version, Burn! is a complex political fable about a cynical British agent sent to a Caribbean island to squash a revolution that he previously helped ferment. Takeshi "Beat" Kitano's breathtakingly beautiful Dolls elaborates on a famous Japanese tragedy about two doomed lovers, presented first as an ornate Bunraku puppet play, then by real actors, and then by dolls who magically come to life and wander the world seeking redemption. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) is one of the hottest filmmakers working today; his engagingly elusive Bright Future revolves around a pair of alienated slackers, one of whom is sent up for a senseless murder, leaving the other to tend to his estranged father and a poisonous pet jellyfish that eventually escapes, mutates and fades into the densely textured background of this hypnotic and oddly disturbing film.
The film that may confuse modern viewers most, but that may be the greatest of them all, is Robert Bresson's daunting and rarely seen 1966 masterpiece Au hazard Balthazar. Bresson is an acquired taste; his austere, uncompromising films distill narrative to a rigorous system of looks and gestures, featuring minimal camera movement, long silences and deliberately flat performances from non-professional actors (Bresson called them "models"). The main character of Balthazar isn't even human, but a donkey passed from cruel owner to owner, with the film taking on a profoundly elegant spirituality through its donkey's-eye-view of worldly sin.
What do all of these films have in common? They're all fascinating examples of other visions from other places, and you won't find any of them booked in local theaters. None of them is even available on home video, but Andersen doesn't see that as a problem. "The idea of watching films together is important," he insists. "Maybe you can get it on DVD, but watching a film together with somebody who's excited about it and ready to talk about it, that makes it a whole different kind of experience."
And that's exactly the sort of experience waiting for us at the international Cinema Series.
Moolaadé plays Feb. 4; Burn! plays Feb. 11; Au hazard Balthazar plays Feb. 18; Bright Future plays Feb. 25; Dolls plays March 11. All films presented by the International Cinema Series will be screened at 7 p.m. in Miller Auditorium at Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S, St. Petersburg, and are free and open to the public. Visit www.eckerd.edu/film for a complete listing of film screenings, show times and updates, or contact Nathan Andersen at 727-864-7551 or e-mail ic@eckerd.edu.
LANCE.GOLDENBERG@WEEKLYPLANET.COM
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2005.
