In conjunction with caribbean matters: assemblage and sculpture by pablo delano, an exhibition on view August 11-December 14 at the Chazen Museum of Art, the Cinematheque will present two feature films at the Chazen, Med Hondo’s Soleil Ô and Claire Denis’ No Fear, No Die, that reverse the European colonial gaze. These are feature films that, in the spirit of Pablo Delano’s work, subvert longstanding stereotypes and question historical narratives. Also at the Chazen, two excellent examples of American Independent filmmaking made decades before the Sundance Film Festival began: Ida Lupino’s The Bigamist and Allen Baron’s “holiday noir,” Blast of Silence. Both films will be shown in archival 35mm prints! The Chazen Museum of Art is located at 750 University Avenue.
SUN, 9/21, 2 p.m.
NO FEAR, NO DIE (S’EN FOUT LA MORT)
France | 1990 | DCP | 90 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Claire Denis
Cast: Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Solveig Dommartin
Two Black immigrants—Dah from Benin and Jocelyn from the Caribbean—run an underground cockfighting ring at the mercy of a domineering white French gangster. Their uneasy authority over the roosters mirrors their own exploitation, caught in a system where power remains firmly in colonial hands. With its stark, unsentimental gaze, director Claire Denis turns the lens back on Europe, exposing how colonial violence mutates and persists within the so-called center of civilization. “The events that make up the action of No Fear, No Die are more than merely well imagined and plausible; they seem to have been excerpted from a fully realized world” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker). A new 4K DCP restoration will be screened.
SUN, 10/19, 2 p.m.
THE BIGAMIST
USA | 1953 | 35mm | 80 min.
Director: Ida Lupino
Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Ida Lupino, Joan Fontaine
When salesman Harry Graham (O’Brien) applies to adopt a child with his wife (Lupino), a routine background check reveals a shocking secret: he’s already married to another woman (Fontaine). As Harry recounts how emotional neglect and loneliness led to his double life, The Bigamist unfolds as a sympathetic yet sobering portrait of moral failure, emotional isolation, and the quiet desperation beneath domestic stability. Leading lady turned pioneering filmmaker Lupino, who was only the second woman to be admitted into Hollywood’s Director’s Guild, tells this marvelously melodramatic story with a rigorous confidence and a sensitive handling of the leading performers. A 35mm print from the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research will be shown.
SUN, 11/16, 2 p.m.
SOLEIL Ô
France, Mauritania | 1970 | DCP | 102 min. | French, Arabic with English subtitles
Director: Med Hondo
Cast: Robert Liensol, Ambroise M’Bia, Bernard Fresson
A landmark of anti-colonial cinema, Soleil Ô flips the colonial gaze to expose the hypocrisies of postcolonial France through the eyes of a West African immigrant (Liensol) looking for work in Paris. Confronted with exclusion, exploitation, and institutional racism, our hero navigates a surreal, often absurdist landscape shaped by celebrated Mauritanian’ filmmaker Med Hondo (West Indies). The director’s stylistically radical mix of New Wave experimentation, satire, and agitprop transforms personal disillusionment into a collective cry of resistance.
SUN, 12/7, 2 p.m.
BLAST OF SILENCE
USA | 1961 | 35mm | 77 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Allen Baron
Cast: Allen Baron, Molly McCarthy, Larry Tucker
It’s Christmas in New York City, but Frankie Bono (Allen Baron) is in no mood to celebrate the season. Frankie is a paid assassin from Cleveland just in town to carry out a hit, a man who prefers to remain anonymous and alone, even if friends from the past keep appearing in his path. Writer/director/star Baron presents a grim odyssey, aided by a jazzy score, a sinister voiceover (read by Lionel Stander) chronicling the laconic Frankie’s every despairing thought, and a fatalistic attitude as harsh as the film’s desolate, wintry atmosphere. Produced on a shoestring budget, Blast of Silence is a thrillingly bleak exercise in film noir style. (JM)