UP NEXT AT PINK FLAMINGO:
MAY 17 – JUNE 28: LET’S MAKE HISTORY
Past, present, and future collide. Six films showcasing history as it happens and how we see it happening, from blood soaked battlefields to sweat drenched dance floors to the very limits of time and space.
Weekly on Wednesdays. All starting times 8pm (doors 7:30pm), tickets $10 on the door.
| FLESH + BLOOD WEDNESDAY MAY 17TH (1985, dir. Paul Verhoeven, 126 min. English language) The tail end of the middle ages brought to life on the screen as the violent, lustful, pox ridden mess that so much of it undoubtedly was. Following a band of mercenaries turned raiders, legendary director Paul Verhoeven’s first English language feature depicts the savagery of a savage time with a coy lens that expertly contextualises the violence and horror without taking away any of its on screen presence and power, along with injecting his own special brand of rippling dark humour into the mix. See Rutger Hauer in the role that inspired Kentaro Miura to create Berserk’s Guts. Audience note: this film contains depiction of sexual assault |
| CARAVAGGIO WEDNESDAY MAY 24TH (1986, dir. Derek Jarman, 93 min. English language) A lush, painterly interpretation of the Baroque master’s life, playing fast and loose with historical “realism” and conceptions of truth. Jarman evokes Caravaggio’s theatrical chiaroscuro sensualism in every frame, following his rise from penniless street rat to bad-boy bisexual superstar of the late Renaissance. Desire, the artistic urge and identity all combine in a stunning synthesis of Jarman’s fascinations— also featuring the film debut of his future faves Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton. |
| RAVENOUS WEDNESDAY JUNE 7TH (1999, dir. Antonia Bird, 101 min. English language) Pitch black comedy set on the final frontier of the American West, where man finds he has nothing left to devour except man. Antonia Bird’s literally gut busting period piece explores the idea of manifest destiny run and the pathological need to consume that have come to be the ethos of the western world playing out to their grisly conclusions. Featuring brilliant undersung performances from Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle and one of the best minimalist scores ever composed for a film. |
| 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE WEDNESDAY JUNE 14TH (1986, dir. Michael Winterbottom, 117 min. English language) The shaky birth and spiralling death of Manchester’s famed Factory Records as seen from inside the skull of its thought leader and chief proprietor Tony Wilson. Michael Winterbottom recalls the history of the label and the scene it sought to capture as a temporal experiment that sees Steve Coogan as Wilson step out of the film and critique his own perspective as he proselytes it. Witness the birth of Post Punk and Madchester dance played against the ruinous turmoil of industrial decay, all set to the immortal tunes of Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays. |
| FRESH KILL WEDNESDAY JUNE 21ST (1994, dir. Shu Lea Cheang, 80 min. English language) The eco-cyberparanoia-apocalyptic-hacktivist-romance you never knew you always wanted! A young scrap-salvaging couple raising their daughter on polluted Staten Island are doing their best to Live Laugh Lesbian in peace when they are drawn into a corporate conspiracy of subterfuge and radioactive fish. Experimental digital/new media pioneer Shu Lea Cheang envisions a very plausible future of multinational exploitation and environmental disaster, with powerful themes of resistance and arguably the most erotic use of an accordion in cinema. |
| SPACE IS THE PLACE WEDNESDAY JUNE 28TH (1974, dir. John Coney, 82 min. English language) Sun Ra (and his Arkestra) have set their cosmic sights on the miserable planet Earth, travelling back in time to offer her Black inhabitants a chance to resettle in a utopian paradise among the stars. In order to deliver them through the power of free jazz, Ra must evade murderous NASA goons and convince Oakland residents that Space IS The Place. An extraordinary visual and musical experience led by one of the 20th century’s greatest avant-garde artists that defies easy categorisation, a landmark work of Afrofuturism and a manifesto for limitless possibility. |