SUNDAY JULY 14 DOUBLE FEATURE
LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD 2:20, 6:45 4K RESTORATION!
Not just a defining work of the French New Wave but one of the great, lasting mysteries of modern art, Alain Resnais’ epochal [film] has been puzzling appreciative viewers for decades. Written by radical master of the New Novel Alain Robbe-Grillet, this surreal fever dream, or nightmare, gorgeously fuses the past with the present in telling its ambiguous tale of a man and a woman (Giorgio Albertazzi and Delphine Seyrig) who may or may not have met a year ago, perhaps at the very same cathedral-like, mirror-filled château they now find themselves wandering. Unforgettable in both its confounding details (gilded ceilings, diabolical parlor games, a loaded gun) and haunting scope, Resnais’ investigation into the nature of memory is disturbing, romantic, and maybe even a ghost story. -Criterion Collection (1961, in French with English subtitles, 94 min, 4K DCP ‘Scope)
+ LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in 3D 4:10, 8:30
China's biggest arthouse hit of all time, Bi Gan follows up his knockout debut, Kaili Blues, with this noir-tinged stunner about a lost soul (Jue Huang) on a quest to find a missing woman from his past (Wei Tang, Lust, Caution). Following leads across Guizhou province, he crosses paths with a series of colorful characters, among them a prickly hairdresser played by Taiwanese superstar Sylvia Chang. When the search leads him to a dingy movie theater, the film launches into an hour-long, gravity-defying 3D sequence shot that plunges its protagonist-and us-into a labyrinthine cityscape. “Impossible to describe. And even more impossible to forget.” -Emily Yoshida, Vulture (2019, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 140 min, DCP ‘Scope)