Films this week 3/29 to 3/31/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 28th March 2024 | Gary's Corner
New Plaza Cinema this weekend is joining the US Premiere of a new French drama, Farewell, Mr. Haffmann, starring the Gallic great Daniel Auteuil (Jean de Florette, Les Voleurs, The Well Digger’s Daughter), and currently tracking at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Set in 1942 Paris, a talented jeweler faced with the realities of the Nazi occupation strikes up an agreement with an employee to keep his business running, one which over time will set in motion a series of fateful consequences. We’ve often worked with this film’s distributor, Menemsha, a specialist in Jewish-themed period dramas including 1945, Plan A, and Those Who Remained.
Our spellbinding screening earlier this month of Rashomon will be bookended on Sunday by Akira Kurosawa’s late-career epic Ran, starring Tatsuya Nakadai as a Lear-like potentate whose 16th-century kingdom is engulfed in fiery chaos. I’ll be around after the screening for some discussion.
We’re also pleased to be able to offer some additional screen time to one of my 2023 favorites, Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, set in modern-day Japan some five centuries after Kurosawa’s bloody fresco, with its beautifully subtle lead performance by Koji Yakusho.
Remembering Gene Wilder will return for two more shows this weekend, along with encores of The Teachers’ Lounge, the uproarious (and family-friendly) Hundreds of Beavers, and Nancy Savoca’s Easter Sunday-appropriate Household Saints.
Another American filmmaker’s singular chronicle of religious passion, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, will screen next Saturday. I’ll be joined afterwards by Scorsese biographer Mary Pat Kelly, who worked on the picture as a consultant during its various incarnations, for what I’m sure will be a “spirited” discussion.
Gary Palmucci. Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema