The 43rd annual Chicago International Film Festival continues through Wednesday, October 17. Following are selected films screening Friday through Thursday; for a complete festival schedule visit www.chicagofilmfestival.org.
R America the Beautiful
Rouben Mamoulian’s 1935 film was the first feature shot in the three-strip Technicolor process. It isn’t all that impressive in the dim, smudgy color prints that have been in circulation–Mamoulian’s congenital heavy handedness seems particularly problematic in an adaptation of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair–but final judgment should, of course, be reserved for the unique opportunity to see this restoration by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. With Miriam Hopkins, Frances Dee, Cedric Hardwicke, Billie Burke, Alison Skipworth, and Nigel Bruce. 83 min. (JR) a Sat 10/13, 2:30 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre
R The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
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Julian Schnabel’s skill as a painter informed his previous two films, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, and it’s even more evident in this profoundly moving adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s best-selling memoir. A celebrated editor for French Elle, Bauby suffered a stroke that left him completely paralyzed except for his left eye, and he learned to communicate again only by blinking the letters of the alphabet, a method devised by his physical therapist. For the movie’s first half Schnabel shows everything from the invalid’s perspective, using a warm color palette for flashbacks of his family and glamorous lifestyle and a combination of bleached colors and stark lighting for the hospital scenes. As Bauby, Mathieu Almaric makes an astounding physical transformation; the strong supporting cast includes Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie Josee-Croze, Max von Sydow, Niels Arestrup, Isaach de Bankole, and Olatz Lopez Garmendia. PG-13, 112 min. (AG) a Fri 10/12, 7 PM, River East 21.
Salif Traore brings both vigor and subtlety to this Malian debut feature, a contemporary fable about rural Africa in transition. A successful urban engineer (Fili Traore) returns to the village of his birth, but because he’s the illegitimate son of a village elder his mother still refuses to identify, the residents consider him an affront to their river deity. As the village women start demanding their rights, discord grows and the river gets angrier, while the visitor’s life is threatened by the chief’s henchmen. In Bambara with subtitles. 96 min. (AG) a Sat 10/13, 12:15 PM; Mon 10/15, 4:45 PM; and Tue 10/16, 7 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre.
R Honeydripper
