Welcome to Close-Up!
What's On
Tue 24 June, 8pm: Ash is Purest White
Visionary director Jia Zhangke’s mesmerizing, decade-plus spanning journey through China’s criminal underworld features a tour-de-force performance from his frequent star Zhao Tao as Zhao Qiao, the swaggering girlfriend of low-level gangster Guo Bin.
Thu 26 June, 8.15pm: The White Ribbon
Shot in austerely beautiful black-and-white and featuring a sprawling cast of characters reminiscent of a 19th century novel, The White Ribbon marks Haneke’s most ambitious – and unsettling – investigation yet into society’s hidden violence and the evils transmitted from parents to children.
Fri 27 June, 8.15pm: Funny Games
Haneke’s most notorious provocation, Funny Games spares no detail in its depiction of the agony of a bourgeois family held captive at their vacation home by a pair of white-gloved young men. With this controversial treatise on violence and entertainment, Haneke issued a summation of his cinematic philosophy, implicating his audience in a spectacle of unbearable cruelty.
Sat 28 June, 5.30pm: Happy End
Michael Haneke ingeniously reworks and updates the enduringly relevant themes of all his previous films in one brief, brilliant, sometimes slyly satirical gem. Though set in Calais, Happy End never shows "the Jungle", focusing instead on a construction dynasty seemingly blind to the unfortunates across town.
Sat 28 June, 8pm: The Piano Teacher
In this riveting study of the dynamics of control, Michael Haneke takes on Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s controversial 1983 novel about perverse female sexuality and the world of classical music.
Sun 29 June, 5.30pm: Time of the Wolf
Set somewhere in Europe in what appears to be the near future, Haneke's apocalyptic fable takes a rigorously realistic approach to material all too often compromised by hackneyed spectacle and sensationalism, simply tracing a family's attempts to survive in a countryside deprived (for reasons wisely left unexplained) of electricity and clean water.
Sun 29 June, 8pm: Fear and Desire
In this existential drama – which has the feeling of a waking dream rather than a conventional war film – four soldiers return to their senses after crash-landing in a forest behind enemy lines. Seven decades after its release, audiences can finally see Fear and Desire as it was first released and witness the first awkward blossoming of a 23-year old Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic genius.
Calendar
Tue 24 Jun 8:00pm
Ash Is Purest White
Ash Is Purest White
Thu 26 Jun 8:15pm
The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon
Fri 27 Jun 8:15pm
Funny Games
Funny Games
Sat 28 Jun 5:30pm
Happy End
Happy End
Sat 28 Jun 8:00pm
The Piano Teacher
The Piano Teacher
Sun 29 Jun 5:30pm
Time of the Wolf
Time of the Wolf
Sun 29 Jun 8:00pm
Fear and Desire
Fear and Desire
