Home The Washington Diplomat January 2012 Films – January 2012

Films – January 2012

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Languages

Bosnian

English

Farsi

French

German

Norwegian

Silent

Turkish

Bosnian

In the Land of Blood and Honey
Directed by Angelina Jolie
(U.S., 2011, 127 min.)
During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who’s now a captive in his camp he oversees, but their once-promising connection has now become ambiguous as their motives change.
Area theaters
Opens Fri., Jan. 6

English

The Adventures of Tintin
Directed by Steven Spielberg
(U.S., New Zealand, 2011, 107 min.)
Tintin, accompanied by his dog Snowy, and Captain Haddock set off on a treasure hunt for a sunken ship commanded by Haddock’s ancestor, but someone else is in search of the ship as well.
Area theaters

Carnage
Directed by Roman Polanski
(France/Germany/Poland, 2011, 79 min.)
Two pairs of parents hold a cordial meeting after their sons are involved in a fight, though as their time together progresses, increasingly childish behavior throws the evening into chaos.
Area theaters
Opens Fri., Jan. 13

Contraband
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
(U.S./U.K., 2012, 110 min.)
In the cutthroat underground world of international smuggling — full of desperate criminals and corrupt officials, high-stakes and big payoffs — loyalty rarely exists and death is one wrong turn away.
Area theaters
Opens Fri., Jan. 13

A Dangerous Method
Directed by David Cronenberg
(U.K./Germany/Canada/France/Ireland, 2011, 99 min)
Zurich and Vienna on the eve of World War 1 is the setting for this thriller, drawn from true-life events, that explores the turbulent relationship between psychiatrist Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud, and the beautiful but disturbed young woman who comes between them.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

The Darkest Hour
Directed by Chris Gorak
(U.S., 2011, 89 min.)
In Moscow, five young people lead the charge against an alien race who have attacked Earth via our power supply.
Area theaters

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by David Fincher
(U.S./Sweden/U.K./Germany, 2011, 158 min.)
Based on the bestselling novel, journalist Mikael Blomkvist is aided in his search for a woman who has been missing for 40 years by Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker.
Area theaters

Kinyarwanda
Directed by Alrick Brown
(U.S./France, 2011, 96 min.)
Six different tales that together form one grand narrative are based on true accounts from survivors of the 1994 Rwanda genocide who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the imams who opened their doors to give refuge to the Tutsi and to those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.
West End Cinema

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Directed by Brad Bird
(U.S., 2011, 133 min.)
The IMF is shut down when it’s implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name.
Area theaters

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
(France/U.K./Germany, 2011, 128 min.)
Gary Oldman stars as British spy George Smiley, the brainy anti-James Bond hero of John le Carré classic novel who must outmaneuver his Soviet nemesis in a game of Cold War espionage. (English, Russian, Hungarian and French)
AFI Silver Theatre
Opens Fri., Jan. 6
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

War Horse
Directed by Steven Spielberg
(U.S., 2011, 146 min.)
Steven Spielberg’s epic adventure is a tale of loyalty, hope and tenacity set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during World War I, built around the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Farsi

And Life Goes On (aka Life and Nothing More…)
(Zendegi va digar hich)
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
(Iran, 1992, 95 min.)
Three years after Abbas Kiarostami filmed “Where is the Friend’s Home?” the Koker region was devastated by a massive earthquake. In this meta-fictional investigation of truth and representation, actors playing Kiarostami and his son return to Koker to track down the boys who starred in the previous film, mixing fiction and reality.
Freer Gallery of Art
Sun., Jan. 29, 1 p.m.

Circumstance
Directed by Maryam Keshavarz
(Frace/U.S./Iran, 2011, 107 min.)
A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenage girl’s growing sexual attraction to her female friend while her newly religious older brother, a failed musician and recovering drug addict, becomes obsessed with their relationship.
Freer Gallery of Art
Fri., Jan. 13, 7 p.m.,
Sun., Jan. 15, 2 p.m.

This Is Not a Film
(In film nist)
Directed by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Jafar Panahi
(Iran, 2010, 75 min.)
Secretly shot by co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb on an iPhone and smuggled into France on a USB drive hidden in a cake, this last-minute submission to the Cannes Film Festival depicts the sequestered life of famed director Jafar Panahi, whose 2010 arrest by Iranian authorities sparked an international outcry.
Freer Gallery of Art
Fri., Jan. 6, 7 p.m.,
Sun., Jan. 8, 2 p.m.

Through the Olive Trees
(Zire darakhatan zeyton)
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
(Iran, 1994, 103 min.)
An actor playing director Abbas Kiarostami looks for amateur actors to star in a film called “And Life Goes On,” but the couple he chooses has a history that humorously thwarts the filmmaker’s ambitions: The woman recently spurned the man’s marriage proposal and is forbidden by family and tradition from speaking to him — except within the fiction of the film.
Freer Gallery of Art
Sun., Jan. 29, 3 p.m.

Where is the Friend’s Home?
(Khane-ye doust kodjast?)
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
(Iran, 1987, 83 min.)
A young boy accidentally takes home a friend’s schoolbook and, afraid of being punished by his teacher, journeys to his classmate’s village to return it, encountering adults who alternately ignore, scold or assist him along the way.
Freer Gallery of Art
Fri., Jan. 27, 7 p.m.

French

Accusée, Levez-Vous!
Directed by Maurice Tourneur
(France, 1930, 110 min.)
Gaby and André, a knife-throwing duo of music-hall artists in the Folies Bergères, are torn apart when Gaby is accused of murdering Yvette Delys, the show’s star attraction.
National Gallery of Art
Sun., Jan. 15, 4:30 p.m.

Le Havre
Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
(Finland/France/Germany, 2011, 93 min.)
When an African refugee boy arrives by cargo ship in the French port city of Le Havre, an aging shoe shiner takes pity on the child and takes him in, standing up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Justin de Marseille
Directed by Maurice Tourneur
(France, 1935, 95 min.)
The murky atmosphere of the Marseille docksides provides a choice backdrop for this crime drama as a professional gangster concerned with imposing his rules of conduct on the underworld settles scores with small-time pimps who treat women badly.
National Gallery of Art
Sat., Jan. 7, 12:30 p.m.

Tomboy
Directed by Céline Sciamma
(France, 2011, 82 min.)
A 10-year-old girl, settling into her new neighborhood outside Paris, is mistaken for a boy and lives up to this new identity to keep her new friends, while being a girl at home with her parents.
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

German

Egomania – Island Without Hope
(Egomania – Insel ohne Hoffnung)
Directed by Christoph Schlingensief
(Germany, 1986, 83 min.)
The eerie, vampire-like baron Tante Teufel reigns on a bleak island in the Baltic Sea where peace and joy have been replaced by hopelessness and discord, but when true love suddenly threatens the island’s sadness, the baron starts to panic.
Goethe-Institut
Tue., Jan. 3, 6:30 p.m.

Menu Total
Directed by Christoph Schlingensief
(West Germany, 1985/86, 81 min.)
“Menu Total” doesn’t follow a narrative structure and challenges the viewer to generate a story on his own, as a young boy is transferred to a mental hospital where a doctor is vomiting incessantly and another person runs around in a Nazi uniform, while at an improvised picnic in a meadow, two people are pursued by white zombies.
Goethe-Institut
Mon., Jan. 9, 6:30 p.m.

Norwegian

King of Devil’s Island
(Kongen av Bastøy)
Directed by Marius Holst
(Norway/France/Sweden/Poland, 2010, 120 min.)
At a boys home correctional facility in early 20th-century Norway, a new inmate leads the boys to a violent uprising against the facility’s brutal governor.
West End Cinema

Silent

The Artist
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
(France, 2011, 100 min.)
Set in 1927, silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, as sparks fly with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break. (Silent with limited English and French)
AFI Silver Theatre
Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Turkish

Toll Booth
(Gise Memuru)
Directed by Tolga Karaçelik
(Turkey, 2010, 96 min.)
A taciturn 35-year-old tollbooth attendant shuffling between the home he shares with his ailing but domineering father and his monotonous work remains determined both to resist his father’s attempt to marry him off to a neighbor and to prove his worth by fixing his father’s idle old car.
Freer Gallery of Art
Sat., Jan. 14, 2 p.m.