Director
Marawan Hamed

Country of Origin
Egypt

Language
Arabic w/English subtitles

Year/Time
2006/162m

NOTE: This film is almost 3 hours in length. It also contains mature subject matters and may not be suitable for children.

February 04

YACOUBIAN BUILDING

Note early start time: 6.45pm

Review from the LA Times...

Erected in downtown Cairo in 1934, the Yacoubian apartment building was one of the largest, most luxurious edifices of its day. Over the years, however, the building fell into disrepair, and the rooftop dwellings that had been used as servants' quarters were rented out to the destitute and downtrodden. Torn between attempts to modernize and entrenched Islamic tradition, Egypt saw soaring poverty.

Much as the edifice named for its Armenian builder came to represent a cross-section of Egyptian society, "The Yacoubian Building" weaves narrative strands into a dense, diverse tapestry, and the film by the young director Marwan Hamed serves as a commentary on contemporary Egypt — with salient debates about religious fundamentalism, gender roles, tradition versus modernity, homosexuality, political corruption, even abortion. Coming from a culture where many of these topics are taboo, it's nothing short of groundbreaking.

It's perhaps appropriate that a film about the residents of one of the most expensive buildings of its era also happens to be the costliest Egyptian film. Just 28 when he made this, his first feature, Hamed assembled a cast of some of Egypt 's most celebrated actors (albeit largely unknown to Western audiences). The script, adapted by veteran screenwriter Waheed Hamed (the director's father) from the popular novel by Alaa' Al Aswany, follows several disparate characters.

The Yacoubian's residents include Zaki Pasha (Adel Imam), an over-the-hill playboy evicted from the family apartment by his overbearing sister (Issad Younis); Hatem Rasheed (Khaled El Sawy), a gay newspaper editor who seduces a handsome young soldier (Bassem Samra); Haj Azzam (Nour El Sherif), a sexually frustrated, outwardly religious millionaire who takes a young widow (Somaya El Khashab) as a second wife but exposes his selfishness and hypocrisy when he forces her to have an abortion; Taha (Mohamed Imam), a roof-dwelling youth who turns to religious extremism. Bridging the tales, the lovely, desperately poor Bosnaina (Hind Sabry), leaves her first love, Taha, when he becomes obsessed with Islam and finds a job working for Zaki, who, newly chastened, is the first man to treat Bosnaina with respect.

Hamed balances these story lines with skill, elicits credible performances from his cast, and deftly handles variations in tone and scale. At times, the film, Egypt 's official Oscar submission, is epic in scope. At others, it's intimate and tender. At more than 2 1/2 hours, "The Yacoubian Building" is nothing if not long. But it's a window into a culture that few of us get to see.

location: ILC 130

Country of Origin
Israel

Language
Hebrew, German w/English subtitles

Year/Time
2004/103m

March 04

WALK ON WATER
(Lalekhet Al Ha'maim)

This enthralling award-winning film by internationally-acclaimed director Eytan Fox explores the motives, strengths, and, ultimately, the humanity of an Israeli assassin sent to rectify a wrong committed five decades earlier.

Eyal is a top assassin in the Israeli secret service. He has killed terrorists before, but this time he is sent to eliminate an aging former Nazi war criminal. During his mission, Eyal meets his target's granddaughter and grandson, who inadvertenly help him uncover his own troubled history and face his demons, while they discover the ugly truth their family has hidden from them for decades. What began as a straighforward mission has suddenly escalated in intensity and complexity, thrusting three very different people into a thrilling triangle of murder, friendship and fate.

location: ILC 130

Country of Origin
Iran

Language
Persian w/English subtitles

Year/Time
2004/115m

April 01

LIZARD
(Marmoulak)

Review from the BBC:

Courting both success and scandal in its native Iran , The Lizard is a winning religious satire. Its title character is Reza (Iranian comedy god Parviz Parastouie), a professional thief who's sent to a jail where the warden intends to put him on 'a spiritual diet'. However, our anti-hero finds enlightenment on his own terms when he flees prison in 'borrowed' robes and winds up as prayer leader in a village - which is where this farcical but thoughtful film delivers some divine laughs.

The scenes in which the new imam about town preaches to a rapt audience are the movie's funniest, as Reza tackles everything from space travel to Pulp Fiction and uses a burglary metaphor to illustrate his point that there are many paths leading to God ("If you don't have a master key you may climb the wall and use a rope").

Such irreverence drew the anger of Iran 's clergy, who pressured the government to ban the picture. Yet, like Monty Python's Life Of Brian, The Lizard isn't so much mocking religion as attitudes towards it, especially hardline ones. Everyone should have access to the Lord, the film says - even fugitive con artists.

What's more, with its breezy pace, engaging turns and steady stream of quality gags, the movie makes a spirited bid to broaden Iranian cinema's international appeal beyond the arthouse. While it might not seem so outrageous to Western viewers, fans of thought-prodding comedy shouldn't let The Lizard slither away.

location: ILC 130

Director
Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Country of Origin
Turkey

Language
Turkish w/English subtitles

Year/Time
2008/109m

May 06

Three Monkeys

Üç Maymun ( Three Monkeys ) is this year's Turkish submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. It has yet to be released in the United States. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival it won the Best Director Award for Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Servet (Ercan Kesal) accidentally runs over a man after falling asleep at the wheel. A politician, he is concerned with the effect this incident will have on his upcoming election. He asks his driver, Eyüp (Yavuz Bingöl), to turn himself in for the crime in exchange for hush money. The struggling family man accepts the offer, hoping his son Ismail (Ahmet Rifat Sungar) will capitalize on this opportunity and try to get accepted into the University. But he is ignorant of the added burden he has placed on his wife, Hacer (Hatice Aslan). And the pressure drives her to commit a fateful betrayal.

Aslan is fascinating to watch as Hacer, the linchpin of this minimalist neo-noir. Hacer is a fading beauty, fading even faster under the burden of holding the family together under their miserable circumstances. Unable to fully control her son from hanging around with the wrong friends, she resigns herself to sleepwalking through her husband's jail time. It is only when she receives a modicum of sexual attention, from an unlikely source, that she is shaken from her reverie. After this, Aslan seems to undergo a physical transformation from handsome woman to quiet femme fatale. In a film almost totally devoid of colors outside the earthy palette, Hacer is suddenly wearing a seductive red nightshirt that even catches her newly-released husband off-guard.

Review excerpted from: http://www.cinemaviewfinder.com/2009/01/movie-review-maymun-three-monkeys.html