Fashion in Film: Wong Kar Wai

February 7 - 28, 2006

This program is co-presented with The Thread Counts Project, coordinated by Luanne Stovall and Leila Lee Mitchell for Gallery Artists Studio Projects. The project's opening reception will be held February 24 as part of the College Art Association's annual conference in Boston. For detailed information, please visit www.threadcountsproject.com

February 7 (Tuesday) 7pm
February 14 (Tuesday) 7pm

In the Mood for Love (Hua yang nian hua)

Directed by Wong Kar- Wai
France/Hong Kong, 2000, color, 98 min.
With Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung
Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles

A swooningly cinematic unfolding of romantic desire, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love paints the industrious world of 1960s Hong Kong in luxuriant color, texture, and sound. This paean to love follows two lonely professionals from the same apartment building who circle each other romantically after they begin to suspect their spouses are having an affair. At once restrained and sensual, the film layers detail upon detail to create a ravishing, hypnotic portrait of urban desire. Print courtesy of Swank.

February 21 (Tuesday) 7pm

2046

Directed by Wong Kar Wai
China / France / Germany / Hong Kong , 2004, b/w, color, 130 min.
With Tony Leung, Li Gong, Faye Wong
Cantonese, Japanese and Mandarin with English subtitles

Wong Kar-Wai's eagerly awaited and critically acclaimed sequel to In the Mood for Love features - like its predecessor - opulent production design, beautiful camera movement, a perfectly chosen soundtrack, and a melancholy mood. Tony Leung reprises his role of Chow Mo Wan, a man living in the mid-1960s who has a number of relationships with a series of gorgeous women while at the same time trying to write a science fiction novel set in the year 2046. The film intercuts Chow's love affairs with scenes from his novel, superbly demonstrating how Chow's life, emotions, memories, and dreams are allegorized in his writing.

February 28 (Tuesday) 7pm

Eros

Directed by Wong Kar Wai, Michelangelo Antonioni and Steven Soderbergh
USA / Italy / Hong Kong / China / France / Luxembourg / UK , 2004, color, 104 min.
With Robert Downey Jr., Li Gong, Chen Chang
English / Italian / Mandarin with English subtitles

In Eros, three acclaimed directors - Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Antonioni - each direct a short film on the subjects of love and sex. Wong's The Hand features typically gorgeous cinematography in its tale of unrequited love between a tailor and a call girl in the 1960s. Soderbergh's witty Equilibrium stars Robert Downey, Jr. as a hardworking advertising executive who discusses with psychiatrist Alan Arkin possible connections between work stress and a recurring erotic dream. Finally, Antonioni's Il Filo pericoloso delle cose uses the coast of Tuscany as a backdrop for a sensuous ménage-à-trois and its repercussions.

February 28 (Tuesday) 7pm

Emak-Bakia

Directed by Man Ray
France, 1926, b/w, 17 min.

This prototypical example of Dadaist surrealism suggests the structure of a woman's dream but with some of Man Ray's most radical techniques in play, the film defies synopsis. The title comes from an old Basque expression which loosely translates to "don't bother me."

February 28 (Tuesday) 7pm

Puce Moment

Directed by Kenneth Anger
USA, 1949, color, 6 min.

Thanks in part to his California upbringing, Anger's quintessentially underground films often engage in a subversive dialogue with Hollywood. Puce Moment, a fragment of an incomplete film titled Puce Women, follows the fetishistic dressing ritual of a glamorous woman as she prepares to walk her dogs. The short film demonstrates Anger's preoccupation with classic Hollywood as he both laments its decline and provides a tongue-in-cheek exploration of Hollywood iconography.

February 28 (Tuesday) 7pm

Lines Horizontal

Directed by Norman McLaren and Evelyne Lamart
Canada, 1962, color, 6 min.

MacLaren and Lamart give their unique interpretation of visual music in this animated short. A series of horizontal lines come to life with the accompaniment of an absorbing score by folk artist Pete Seeger.

February 28 (Tuesday) 7pm

You Be Mother

Directed by Sarah Pucill
UK, 1990, color, 7 min

Sarah Pucill questions the traditional female role as provider in society in this experimental work in which she creates a collage of domestic objects to reflect her modest heroine's interior struggle.