Icarus Films will be
teaming with the KimStim Collection for the Oct. 17 DVD release of Quebec-based
writer/director Dennis Côté’s Boris Without Beatrice.
The prolific Côté takes
us in a slightly different direction this time out with an interesting
character study of a deeply flawed, but nevertheless powerful businessman
played by James Hyndman (the Boris of the title). Côté quickly outlines Boris’ character with
several vignettes (hint: he’s not all that likeable) and then we get to the
second half of the film’s title, Beatrice (Simone-Élise Girard), who has had an
emotional breakdown and is now bed-ridden.
There are many clues as
to the why of her condition. Her stepdaughter,
Justine (played by Laetitia Isambert-Denis), is a shrew, who views her father
with contempt and his “trophy” bride as nothing more than a decoration. Being around such a hateful snob (of wealth
and privilege) would be enough to depress anyone.
Add to this, we learn
that Boris is a serial philander, but he may actually be in love with his wife
despite all of his indiscretions … during the course of the film he manages to
squeeze in two more affairs while his wife is bed-ridden. How does one remain sane with such mixed
signals?
If you follow the films
of Dennis Côté’ (especially Vic + Flo Saw a Bear and Our
Private Lives) you know to expect the unexpected. There is that, the unexpected, here as well
with the sudden introduction of a mysterious stranger (played by Denis Lavant)
who both lectures Boris and offers insights to a path forward that might serve
to resolve the conflicts of an ailing wife, an untenable relationship with his
daughter and a mother (Louise Laprade) whose vocabulary does not include the
word “love.”
Boris Without Beatrice is presented in French with English subtitles.
The following week, Oct.
24, Icarus Films returns with the DVD release of Portraits of America: Two films
by Natalie Bookchin. Included
here are two short “performance” films … Bookchin is an artist whose work is
beyond the bounds of traditional art motifs.
Here she works with film
as her expressive medium and Icarus presents us with Long Story Short — over
100 homeless people throughout Los Angeles tell of their experiences in a
multi-screen presentation, with their “unique” experiences and the expressions of
how they feel, overlapping with the same sentiments of the others … parallel
worlds intersecting, meeting and dancing away.
A shared experience presented from over 100 different points of view.
The second short film,
titled Now, he’s out in public and everyone can see,
was initially viewed as a
multi-television presentation in an art gallery venue — talking heads on TVs throughout
the room whose stories were collected over several years from internet blogs
all voicing their opinions on the same subject.
These video blogs have
been combined into a multi-screen presentation for the DVD presentation and is
downright creepy. All of the
video-bloggers posted their rants separately over several years and they had
nothing in common with each other, except their subject, which was an unnamed
“black” friend or acquaintance.
The
sameness of their comments, their denials and their disclaimers all combine to
create a narrative that is nothing short of disturbing.
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