The festival continues from Friday, October 22, through Sunday, October 24, with screenings at the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport. Tickets can be purchased at the box office an hour before show time; they’re also available by phone (for a service charge) at 559-1212 and 644-3456. General admission is $7; $6 for students and seniors; $5 for Cinema/Chicago members. Shows before 6 PM are $5, $4 for students, seniors, and Cinema/Chicago members. For more information call 644-3456 (644-FILM). The reviews were written by Zbigniew Banas, Peter Brunette, David Overbey, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Barbara Scharres.
Farewell My Concubine
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Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, which has been called the Chinese Gone With the Wind, is an intelligent film concerned with complex issues of human behavior, artistic values, and historical interpretation; it is also absolutely accessible and richly entertaining. A film of epic sweep, portraying the turbulent period of Chinese history between 1925 and 1977, it is an intimate, passionate, sensitive love story focused on the full-throated emotions of three intense, tempestuous characters. At the beginning of the film Beijing is in the hands of warlords. The Kuomintang can do little to control them, and life is chaotic–except for the Peking Opera and its beloved stars. Two boys, best friends, are placed in training at the opera school, one destined to play female roles, the other male roles. Douzi at first resists a love affair with Shitou, who’s effective in heroic masculine roles but has neither the imagination nor the artistic drive of Douzi. As adults they become major stars in an opera called Farewell My Concubine, set in 200 BC, in which the faithful concubine dies for her king. The opera becomes the center of Douzi’s life, and he expects his onstage devotion to be returned by Shitou offstage as well. Shitou, however, never understands the vital connection that’s necessary for their emotional health and survival as men and as artists. He marries a prostitute who shares Douzi’s love for Shitou but isn’t capable of understanding the importance of the opera. The rest of their story is full of jealousy, betrayal, and sacrifice, as they’re swept into the upheavals of the world outside the opera, where betrayal and sacrifice are the order of the day. The three principal actors are faultless, but Leslie Cheung walks away with the film. (DO) This film is being shown again as the festival audiences’ favorite. (Music Box, 9:00)
A program of prizewinning shorts in the following categories: student comedy (Brian Boyle’s The Toe Heel Polka), short drama (Steven D. O’Connor’s A Dark Dark Night), student animation (Jamie Maxfield’s Above Average), student drama (Josie Keys’s The Door), and animation (Nick Park’s The Wrong Trousers). (Music Box, 3:30)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24
The Piano
