A place to think deeply about movies
We’re joined by Andrew Kendall to discuss the new German film Fabian: Going to the Dogs, directed by Dominik Graf, and how it portrays life in a totalitarian state.
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This episode presents our June masterclass with Agnieszka Holland. She discusses her body of work, what drives her, and her newest film, Charlatan.
On this podcast episode, we celebrate the work of great Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, focusing on Europa Europa, Washington Square, and Charlatan.
This episode is a Seventh Row members exclusive, as are all episodes older than six months. Click here to become a member.
This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Fiona Underhill, Editor-in-Chief of JumpCut Online.
A biopic of Jan Mikolásek, who becomes a rich man by diagnosing people’s urine and selling herbal remedies. His practice helps him survive the Nazi occupation and later the totalitarian Czech state. Late in his life, he’s arrested for being a ‘charlatan’ and must stand trial for murder, only to learn he’s being framed. The court case serves as a device to have him look back on his life story: how he became who he is today, learned his trade, and the relationships he had along the way.
Based on the true story of Solomon Perel, it’s the story of a German wish boy, Solek (Marco Hofschneider) who survived the Holocaust by pretending to be a Nazi German. After Cristallnacht, Solek and his family move to Poland, but when they discover the Germans are invading, Solek and his brother leave to escape to Russia. They’re separated, and Solek ends up in a Russian orphanage for several years. When it’s bombed by the Germans, he escapes and when is faced with the Germans who are asking who is Jewish, he makes a snap decision to pretend to be a gentile and finds himself working as a Russian-German translator for the Nazis, and finally, in a school for the Hitler Youth.
Europa, Europa is streaming on the Criterion Channel in Canada and the US
Based on the novella by Henry James, Washington Square is the story of Catherine (Jennifer Jason Leigh), an heiress who falls in love with a charming but poor man, Morris (Ben Chaplin). Her father (Albert Finney) disapproves and believes Morris is only after her fortune so he threatens to disinherit her should she marry against his will. He also separates them for a year, and through this and his suspicions, manages to kill off any love there was between them. Maggie Smith also stars as her aunt Lavinia.
Washington Square is available on VOD and streaming on Hoopla in Canada and the US
Jasmila Žbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida is one of the best films of the year. On this episode, we discuss it in context of Atiq Rahimi’s Our Lady of the Nile, another film approaching the theme of genocide with tremendous empathy towards the human cost rather than being a spectacle of suffering.
This episode is a Seventh Row members exclusive, as are all episodes older than six months. Click here to become a member.
