Woody Allen's films to satisfy movie buffs
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Allen Stewart Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen, is considered one of the most productive directors of today, who has directed more than 37 films and has written more than 50 films since 1966.
Always with the humor and the wit that made him hugely popular in The Tonight Show in the 1970s, many of Allen's movies are semi-autobiographical, exploring themes of romantic angst, drugs, death, anti-Semitism, and psychosexual frustrations.
After a hiatus of five years, Teater Utan Kayu in East Jakarta will again screen Woody Allen's films for this month's film screening and discussion.
Six of Allen's best works from between 1977 and 2002 will be screened over the weekend: Annie Hall, Another Woman, Husbands and Wives, Deconstructing Harry, Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Annie Hall and Another Woman were screened Friday, while the remaining films will be screened on Saturday and Sunday.
Allen's 1992 film Husbands and Wives emerged in the midst of the Woody-Mia-Soon Yi scandal and many felt it did not get the recognition it deserved, as many avoided seeing the film in reaction to Allen's personal problems.
However, www.blockbuster.com called it a "moving examination about marriage and divorce", and described it as one of Allen's best "serious" films, "one that captures the pain and sorrow of a dissolving marriage".
Husbands and Wives casts Allen and Mia Farrow as a couple who are shocked by their best friends' -- played by Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis -- separation and begin to speculate about the future of their own relationship. Allen starts a serious flirtation with his student, Juliette Lewis, and Farrow develops a crush on Davis's new love, Liam Neeson.
Roger Ebert said at www.suntimes.com that what the film argues is that "rational" relationships are not as durable as they seem, because "somewhere inside every person is a child crying, me! me! me!"
"We say we want the other person to be happy. What we mean is, we want them to be happy with us, just as we are, on our terms," he said.
In regards the 1997 feature Deconstructing Harry, people have wondered how much of Woody Allen there is in Harry Block, the title character.
www.finelinefeatures.com said that Allen was evasive in his answers to this question, and repeatedly stated that while there may be some similarities, the movie is a work of fiction and that Harry is nothing more than a fictional character.
Harry is a world-famous, bestselling author who writes thinly- veiled autobiographical tales about his relationships with his three ex-wives. The film is about Harry's trip to upstate New York, where a college that expelled him as an undergraduate now wants to honor him as a distinguished alumnus. Meanwhile, Harry is looking to overcome a severe case of writer's block. Along his travels, viewers get to know him through flashbacks of events from his life, as well as through anecdotes from his books.
Deconstructing Harry doesn't tell a straightforward or linear story, but it uses a fairly unremarkable plot as a springboard for comic vignettes that gradually answer questions about Harry's identity, finelinefeatures said.
Allen and Tea Leoni star in the 2002 feature Hollywood Ending, about a onetime hot director Val Waxman (Allen) who is fired from a deodorant commercial in the frozen north. When at last he is offered a deal, it is from his producer ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni) and her lover Hal (Treat Williams).
Val is persuaded to take the offer but is struck with psychosomatic blindness on the eve of production.
www.rottentomatoes.com describes Hollywood Ending as "a funny, poignant look at a filmmaker fighting public and professional scrutiny to craft his art, not unlike what Allen himself has gone through in his career, especially in the 1990s".
The last film to be screened at Teater Utan Kayu is the 2001 release of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion starring Allen, Dan Aykroyd, Charlize Theron, and Helen Hunt.
Allen stars as C.W. Briggs, a set-in-his-ways old-time insurance investigator who refuses to get along with the bright new efficiency expert, Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), brought in to streamline his business operations.
When a magician, played by David Ogden Stiers, hypnotizes them as part of his stage act, Briggs unknowingly becomes a jewel thief while falling in and out of love with the increasingly confused Fitzgerald, who is carrying on a secret affair with the married head of the company (Dan Aykroyd).
"The Curse if the Jade Scorpion is part screwball romantic comedy, part 1940s noir detective story, and part ingenious heist film," rottentomatoes said.
Screening times:
Saturday/Nov. 16 4:00 p.m. Husbands and Wives 7:30 p.m. Deconstructing Harry
Sunday/Nov. 17 4:00 p.m. Hollywood Ending 7:30 p.m. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
For further information, contact Teater Utan Kayu (TUK), Jl. Utan Kayu 68H, East Jakarta 13120. Telephone: (021) 857 3388.