EL DEPENDIENTE
Dir. Leonardo Favio, 1969.
78 min. Argentina.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 7:30 PM

Next month we launch our third annual Best of Spectacle, a look back at some of our highlights from the previous year. In anticipation, we revisit a gem from 2012 that didn’t make last year’s series.

Despite being considered by a handful of Spectacle programmers as one of the greatest movies we’ve ever shown, El Dependiente played to empty houses: here’s your chance to catch up with a guaranteed mindblowing, where-has-this-movie-been-all-my-life experience.

El Dependeinte is the third feature directed by Leonardo Favio, Argentina’s own Gainsbourgian renaissance man with the dual distinction of being a ’60s and ’70s pop icon and accomplished filmmaker. Whereas his first two features bear out of the influence of his mentor, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, and Robert Bresson (and Crónica de un niño solo strongly suggesting Vigo’s Zéro de conduite), El Dependiente is another beast entirely that can perhaps only be compared to the startlingly similar Eraserhead (1977) in its suffocating portrayal of abject dread brutally punctuated with disturbing, absurdist humor.

Walter Vidarte plays the title clerk, who works in a hardware store in a desolate provincial town. He ashamedly finds himself indulging in fantasies of the accidental death of his kind employer so that he one day might inherit the store. Each night on his way home he becomes transfixed by a gorgeous young woman lurking under the street light. His approaching her eventually leads to a string of muted nocturne encounters in the girl’s dilapidated coutryard that grow increasingly anxious under the auspices of her doting, manically overbearing mother.

Filmed in a stark chiaroscuro rife with vast, empty spaces, eerie ellipses and an almost palpable sense of the forlorn curdling into a brooding menace, El Dependiente is, despite its considerable humor and charm, an ever-tightening knot in the stomach and one of the most abstruse, perplexing anti-date movies ever made.

WORKING GIRLS
Dir. Lizzie Borden, 1986
USA, 93 min.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 10:00 PM

Independent filmmaker Lizzie Borden, director of the underground feminist classic BORN IN FLAMES (1983), directed her next feature WORKING GIRLS in 1986. Taking a more widely accessible approach in style and story structure, WORKING GIRLS follows three prostitutes working in an upscale brothel through one long day at work. The film is told largely through the eyes of Molly (Louise Smith), a woman with an Ivy League education who’s lying to her live-in girlfriend about her new job. Gina plans to open her own beauty salon when she’s saved enough money, and Dawn is a young law student trying to finish her homework in between clients.

Borden spent six months interviewing prostitutes in various economic situations to find out about the conditions in which they worked and how they felt about their jobs. WORKING GIRLS was made partly in response to some feminists’ anti-pornography stance and the Canadian documentary/exposé NOT A LOVE STORY (1981) which condemned pornography and, in Borden’s view, made many women working in the sex industry feel bad about their choices.

In this culture one hears constantly about the sacrifice you have to make for doing prostitution. I’ve been attacked by everyone: by feminists who say, ‘You’re soft-peddling prostitution; prostitution is wrong’; and by spiritual women who say you can’t have all these sexual encounters without doing damage to your soul. But nobody criticizes the forty-hour workweek. Nobody criticizes the fact that for the most part people are trained into positive thinking about jobs that don’t make use of half their talents. There are bad things about prostitution, but they’re not the ones you see in the movies.

Incredibly smart and insighful WORKING GIRLS is a film about a group of women choosing prostitution as a means to support themselves, and it succeeds at expressing a message that is neither pro- nor anti-prostitution. Through its screenplay (co-written with Sandra Kay), direction and camerawork, it reveals sex work as a normal job for many, with long hours, less than desired pay, a ringing phone, and a micro-managey boss (Madam). (Can work ever be sexy?) In addition, it consciously attempts to shift the camera-eye from a male gaze by avoiding voyeuristic approach in the cinematography.

There’s no shot in the film where you see Molly’s body the way a man would frame her body to look at it, except when she’s looking at herself that way…

WORKING GIRLS is the realest movie about sex work (and perhaps work under capitalism) we’ve seen in awhile — by no means an erotic film, it will likely make you blush and laugh awkwardly for its directness.

—

Quotes from Lizzie Borden in “Interview with Lizzie Borden.” Author(s): Scott MacDonald and Lizzie Borden. Feminist Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2, The Problematics of Heterosexuality (Summer, 1989), pp. 327-245.

In the spirit of our annual Spectober horror film series, we present a retrospective on the Italian director Corrado Farina. Primarily known in his native Italy for his work as a novelist and a plethora of directing gigs outside of the film industry (television, news, documentary, industrial, advertising, etc), Farina also made two feature horror films in the early 70s that perfectly encapsulate the era’s counterculture headiness in surreal fashion.

Following a stint at an advertising agency as a copywriter and commercial director, Farina moved to Rome to concentrate on pitching films. THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE, his first feature, transported the Transylvanian Dracula myth to the Italian countryside for a scathing satire of ‘vampires-as-capitalists.’ His follow-up, BABA YAGA, was even more ambitious, adapting adult comic legend Guido Crepex’s surreal adventures of sexy Valentina and her be-witching compatriots to the big screen.

Farina faced difficulty in getting his third feature off the ground (the subject mater of his proposed third film- a variation on The Phantom of the Opera– eventually became his first novel, A Place In The Dark). Following his dissatisfaction, he soon returned to the world of advertising and documentary, and to this day remains active in Italy’s media landscape: in 2006, Farina and his son, Alberto, completed a documentary called “Motore!” designed to be shown in Turin’s “Museo del cinema” during the Winter Olympic Games!

His successful career notwithstanding, it’s a shame that Farina wasn’t able to secure financing for a third proper horror effort, as both THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE and BABA YAGA are unique anomalies in Italian horror. Less concerned with scares than exploring themes like anti-establishment and repressed sexuality, Farina employed the classic horror tropes of vampires and witches to channel the political, social, and sexual turmoil of early 70s Italy into two deliciously strange and subversive films.

Working with Italian distributor Videa CDE and US distributor Blue Underground, Spectacle is proud to present a two-film retrospective on a bold but neglected genre contortionist.

Special thanks to Corrado Farina, Alberto Farina, Federica Funaro, and William Lustig

THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE
(aka …Hanno Cambiato Faccia)
Dir: Corrado Farina, 1971.
91 min. Italy.
In Italian with English subtitles.

Special thanks to Videa CDE

U.S. PREMIERE!
WITH CUSTOM ENGLISH SUBTITLES CREATED BY SPECTACLE!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4TH – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20TH – 10PM

Mild-mannered Dr. Alberto Valle is a diligent but low-level employee of a car company. Out of the blue, he is summoned to the estate of Giovanni Nosferatu, the company owner, to discuss a potential large promotion. Following an encounter with a topless hippie hitchhiker, Dr. Valle arrives at the gothic mansion and exchanges pleasantries with Nosferatsu, but then the boss mysteriously disappears for large chunks of time, leaving Dr. Valle to enjoy the company of Nosferatu’s obedient, extremely pale secretary Corrina (played by Deep Red‘s Geraldine Hooper). Soon enough though, Dr. Valle discovers a casket crypt on the outskirts of the villa and a mysterious chamber with newborn children and a large book containing his own baby photo with an inscription: C.E.O.

Complimented by classic vampire film staples (endless heavy fog, superstitious villagers), Farina manages to breathe new life into the genre with a strong current of sly humor throughout the film, including an eerily foretelling running gag involving advertising slogans blasting through speakers whenever Dr Valle uses a household appliance. However, the film’s dark nature comes not from the amount of on-screen deaths, but its scathing political tone.

While infused with a devilish wit and satirical edge (including a showstopper boardroom scene that brilliantly riffs on organized religion, deceptive sloganeering, legalized drug use, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, AND Marquis de Sade), THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE unveils itself as a harsh critique of consumerism as vampirism, portraying corporate heads as bloodsucking capitalists hellbent on ensuring marketplace dominance and the eradication of individual freedom. Instead of biting necks to keep living, its to convert the free spirits to a submissive, business-minded lifestyle. Ultimately, Farina suggests the true horror is that the current system will never be defeated, but inevitably grow and accumulate more lobotomized victims.

Unreleased in America for over 40 years, Spectacle is proud to host the US premiere of a vital piece of 70s Italian horror cinema, complete with custom English subtitles created exclusively for these screenings!

BABA YAGA
(aka Kiss Me Kill Me)
Dir: Corrado Farina, 1973.
91 min. Italy.
Dubbed into English.

Special thanks to Blue Underground

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3RD – 10PM
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27TH – 7:30PM

Loosely based on the incredible black & white erotic fumetti comics of Guido Crepax, Farina brings to life the story of Valentina (doe eyed Isabella de Funes), a liberated fashion photographer who finds herself unwittingly thrown into a psychedelic nightmare of sapphic proportions.

On her way home from a soiree one evening, Valentina is almost struck by a vehicle while attempting to save a stray dog. It’s there she crosses paths with the peculiar Baba Yaga (legendary sex symbol Carroll Baker), a mysterious, brooding woman who soon fixates upon her. Unsettled by their encounter, Valentina begins to suffer a surreal collection of erotic and fetish-inspired dreams featuring executions, Nazi soldiers and dark holes with no bottom.

One of the most stylish and hallucinatory horror offerings of the 70s, BABA YAGA sees Farina trying out bold editing techniques (including a sex scene that incorporates Crepax’s comic strips) and interweaving Valentina’s reality with her dreams until their indistinguishable, leading to a kinky and mind-bending climax.

Awash in impeccable, zeitgeist-y costume design and a slick layer of soft core playfulness, BABA YAGA is Euro-mod-sleaze at its most entertaining and bizarre.

TIMELESS, BOTTOMLESS BAD MOVIE
Dir. Jang Sun-woo, 1997
South Korea, 144 min.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th – 8PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th – 8PM

The key is in the title, its praxis succinctly delineated in four words: Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie (Nappeun Yeongwha) is exactly what it suggests it is, a film purportedly unaffected by time and utterly bad. In this rabbit hole excursion into the urban topography of Seoul (the skirmishes in dark alleyways, the hazing in the high-school restrooms, sexual liaisons in karaoke bars, morning hangovers in motel rooms, the wasted hours spent in the video arcades), where the teenage street urchins of Seoul run amok and the old bums sit defiantly on subway floors, the film operates, as Nicole Brenez has pointed out, between the representational regimes of fiction and documentary.

Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie cares little for beginnings, ends, and all the particular concerns of a typical, narrative film; nor does it quite work as documentary, not when there are moments so patently contrived. The film was shot amongst three different camera operators working in several different formats (35mm, 16mm and digital video) and purports to bethe brainchild of the kids on screen. But don’t be fooled. The gaudy, ostentatious displays only belie the elaborate arrangement and direction behind it all. The ultimate “makeshift” film. Where are those kids now? Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie promises to be nothing more than what it says it is, really, truly bad.

Poster by Kim Westfall

Molodost: Films on Soviet Youth

“What do you want from life? What do you want from life?” “I just want to contribute to society.” A prominent subject of late-perestroika cinema was the molodezh or the ‘youth’ generation. Similar to current discourse surrounding the “millennial” generation, Soviet youth were often portrayed as either a symbol for hope and reformation, or as lost and apathetic. Disenchantment with old Soviet ideologies led to a questioning of authority, both in the political arena and the home. As the Soviet Union’s cultural symbols lost power, Gorbachev’s implementation of glasnost in the late ’80s simultaneously opened up a floodgate of western music, fashion, and movies, widening the communication gap between youth and authority. The new cultural influences led to various forms of agitation and rebellion: rock music, drugs, and civil disobedience. At the same time, however, it fostered inaction, indifference, and apathy. While perestroika-era films explored a new openness in social and civil critique, they were also overwhelmingly pessimistic and cynical. Paradoxically, and despite such portrayals, Soviet Union’s mainstream culture publicly accepted its youth subculture, and turned it into a symbol, if not an actual catalyst, for radical change. Molodost—meaning the time of youth— explores three different coming of age stories taking place on the cusp of the perestroika era, before the ultimate disillusionment of the Soviet Union. Assa, credited with bringing underground rock music into the mainstream, follows an underground rocker and his relationship with a girl, her Mafioso lover, and the police. Igla often described as a precursor for late Soviet/Kazakh new wave, and also featuring underground rock stars, is a surreal, postmodern cacophony of social collapse and drug use. Lastly, and perhaps the most sobering of the three, Kuryer tells the story of a high school graduate trying to make sense of his life. With no prospect for a college education, a grim mandatory military service awaits in his future.

ASSA
Dir: Sergei Solovyov, 1987
Soviet Union, 153 min.
Russian with English subtitles

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 – 8:00 PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – 8:00 PM
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 – 10:00 PM

Assa came to recognition and cult status as one of the first films to bring underground rock culture into the Soviet mainstream, featuring songs by bands such as Aquarium, Soyuz Kompozitorov, Bravo, and Kino (whose lead singer Viktor Tsoi, also featured in Igla, plays himself in the film). Assa reflected a time of change in the USSR, as emphasized in Tsoi’s song “We Wait for Change,” consequently adopted by the real-life Russian opposition movement Solidarnost as its anthem. Set in Crimea during the late 1980s, Assa follows the story of Alika, a young nurse who is romantically involved with Krymov, her much older patient and the leader of an organized crime group. Despite her relationship with Krymov, Alika starts falling for a young rock musician named Bananan (played by the avant-garde artist Afrika). Bananan introduces Alika to his countercultural world of music and art. When the jealous Krymov begins to notice a change in Alika’s emotions toward him, he stages a plan to eliminate Bananan from Alika’s life forever. Assa has a playful, absurdist touch, combining sober moments with dreamlike sequences. Experimental scenes of hand-painted abstract patterns and inter-titles explaining youth slang are interspersed throughout the film. One amusing subplot that develops follows Krymov reading a book of the assassination attempt on Russia’s Tsar Paul I—the “Mad Tsar”. As he reads, a fantasy reenactment plays parallel to the main story. Perhaps this text foreshadows the inevitable fate of the Union: according to the assassins, they were only abolishing a power from Russia that had gone mad.

IGLA (aka The Needle)
Dir: Rashid Nugmanov, 1988
Soviet Union, 81 min.
Russian with English subtitles

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 10:00 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – 7:30 PM

Igla is a disjointed, narratively unconventional film, and a precursor to the Kazakh new wave. Its beautifully austere and surreal scenes are set in the collapsing, virtually lawless Soviet Union. While Igla touches upon taboos and political subjects such as drug use and organized crime—two of perestroika’s biggest social afflictions—Rashid Nugmanov, Igla’s young Kazakh director, described the film as just a fun project made by a few friends, and more of an homage to “Soviet television” than a social critique. Viktor Tsoi, (Kino’s front man) plays Moro, a stoic and nonchalant young man. Moro travels to Almaty to collect an unpaid debt, getting into trouble with a local gang on the way. Eventually, he finds himself helping Dina, his morphine-addicted ex-girlfriend, and rescuing her from a drug ring led by an insidious doctor (played by Peter Mamonov, front man of the band Zvuki Mu). In an attempt to get Dina clean, Moro takes her to the dry Aral Sea in the Kazakh desert, where she suffers through withdrawal. When they return, however, Dina relapses and Moro confronts the doctor. In the end, Dina’s fate remains ambiguous, as does the direction of Moro’s own future. Igla launched Viktor Tsoi into the mainstream, and many of his songs used in the film became huge hits. His own untimely death in 1990 marked him as a cult icon and symbol for freedom and romance during the end times of the USSR.

KURYER (Courier)
Dir: Karen Shakhazarov, 1987
Soviet Union, 88 min.
Russian with English subtitles

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 7:30 PM

Largely ignored on release, Kuryer eventually came to critical acclaim over the years. Stylistically and narratively more straightforward than the other films in this series, Kuryer explores the frustration of being young and at a crossroads in life—especially if the roads lead to nowhere. It follows Ivan Miroshinokov, a clever young magazine courier struggling to find himself after his parent’s divorce and his rejection from University. Ivan’s admiration for his father begins to wane after he leaves his mother for a younger woman and goes off to Africa to pursue his dreams. Ivan is left to live with his mother, who has a difficult time dealing with the divorce. Through one of his deliveries, Ivan meets Katya, the daughter of an authoritarian professor. Ivan is forced to confront the expectations of Katya’s father and measure up to her elite group of friends, leading him to entirely re-evaluate his prospects in life. Grappling between unattainable dreams and a bleak reality, Ivan’s choices echo the rebellious lost generation, plagued by both their parents’ and their own disappointments with the collapsing Soviet existence.