This September, our local, alternative film-venues are sharing their love for the silver screen through their own selection of both new titles and films that you will not find in mainstream cinemas around town.
The films are listed chronologically and you can also find each screening in Saigoneer’s events calendar to check for future updates.
“Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this” (Martin Scorsese)
3rd September @ 8 p.m. – deciBel Lounge
Wayne’s World (USA 1994)
deciBel’s Lounge is all about indie, cult and world cinema, often including its regular audience in picking films. Its September programme starts with Wayne’s World, a film chosen by one the venue’s regulars. Starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, the film is inspired by the Saturday Night Live sketches, and it has become a phenomenon over the years for its ability to embody the essence of a portion of a nation (US). By many regarded as the best film ever to emerge from SNL’s stages, Wayne’s World is packed with funny yet demented moments that put Mike Myers (Austin Powers) on the map as a genius comedian.
4th September @ 8 p.m. – Saigon Outcast
Maleficent (USA 2014)
Saigon Outcast’s selection of films reflects the tastes/curiosities of the venue’s regulars, making its programme very much a choral effort, and therefore including all sorts of movie genres and formats. Disney’s Maleficent is a fairy tale that draws from other classic children’s stories, in particular the film focuses on Sleeping Beauty’s villain. The cast includes Angelina Jolie, in the role of Maleficent, and Elle Fanning playing the part of Aurora.
8th September @ 8 p.m. – The Cube
Rosemary’s Baby (USA 1968)
The Cube is dedicating the entire month of September to horror, through a selection of films that show some of the diverse tricks that filmmakers cleverly use to trigger audiences’ inner fears. The programme kicks off with Roman Polanski’s cult film Rosemary’s Baby which tells the story of a young couple – Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) who moves into a new apartment with bizarre and, soon-to-discover, creepy neighbours, paranormal pregnancies and an evil-baby. Polanski’s supernatural thriller is a unique example of the use subtleties and crescendos to strike fear and agony into the hearts of his viewers.
10th September @ 8 p.m.– deciBel Lounge
Blue Ruin (USA 2013)
Winner of the Fipresci Prize for best director at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, Jeremy Saulnier has constructed a pure revenge-thriller with an art-house touch to it. Macon Blair plays Dwight who sets out to revenge his own family. Blair’s engaging acting combined with Saulnier’s attentive development of the story which never portrays gratuitous violence, manage to instill fear in the audience but simultaneously to have them symphatise with the antihero protagonist.
11th September @ 8 p.m. – Saigon Outcast
Fading Gigolo (USA 2013)
This is the fourth directorial effort by actor John Turturro who originally conceived the film as a sketch and subsequently developed the story around its main character. Fading Gigolo relies on a stellar cast – Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and Liv Schreiber – in telling the story of an antiquarian bookstore dealer, Fioravante, who, to make ends meet, decides to start an escort service. The film was presented at the Toronto Film Festival last year.
15th September @ 8 p.m.- The Cube
The Thing (USA 1982)
When John Carpenter’s The Thing first came out in the early 80s, it was received with scepticism by critics, but time and audiences’ adulation forced the highbrow critics to admit that they had overlooked what now has become one of the great works of the decade. The force of the film is in its ‘monster’, the Thing, which we never see apart from the mutations it undergoes when entering other organisms. The stunning opening scene and the mounting paranoia have viewers paralysed and frightened by something that they themselves cannot explain. A pure thriller.
Related articles:
- 5 Great Ways to Watch Independent Films in Saigon
- [Video] Help Fund A New Documentary On Hanoi’s Zone 9
- [Video] Local Students Make Impressive 3D Film On Retro Saigon
17th September @ 8 p.m. – deciBel Lounge
Only lovers left alive(Germany – UK – USA 2013)
Who would have thought that the words ‘vampire’ and ‘Jim Jarmusch’ would be one day in the same sentence? Do not fool yourself, this is nothing like the Twilight series, it is….well, a Jarmusch-vampire-chic-film. The American director preserves his unmistakable indie-hipster touch in this ultimate vampire love affair, which sees the contagious passion between two vampires, Eve and rock musician Adam, superbly played by Tilda Swinton (Moonrise Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia and Michael Clayton) and Tom Hiddleston (Thor, The Avengers and War Horse).
18th September @ 8 p.m. – Saigon Outcast
City of God (Brazil 2002)
The most internationally renowned Brazilian film, City of God has it all – romance, gang-thrilling fights, friendship and social themes. The events take place in the favelas (slums) in Rio de Janeiro, where we follow the lives of a group of kids from the 60s to the 80s. Director Fernando Meirelles managed to assemble a rich, layered-story that captures the essence of the Brazilian social realities, in an electrifying film that could have easily become a stereotypical piece.
22nd September @ 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. – The Cube
The Innocents (UK 1962) / The Others (USA 2001)
Clayton’s (The Innocents) and Amenabar’s (The Others) films are adapted from and inspired by Henry James’s short story The Turn of The Screw. The two ghost stories revolve around a family living in an isolated sumptuous house in the countryside. A governess (played respectively by Deborah Kerr and Nicole Kidman) is hired to look after two young children, soon after she starts believing that ghosts of people that previously inhabited the house haunt the estate. Both films represent the quintessential ghost film but they both offer interesting views on how different directors utilise cinematographic tricks to deliver the scary plot.
24th September @ 8 p.m. – deciBel Lounge
Locke (USA 2014)
Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, and Bronson) as you have never seen him before. The English actor took on an evocative and low-key role charged with intimate emotions and human crisis. Director Steven Knight takes a bold approach in presenting the portrait of Ivan Locke, a man, who has spent his existence obsessing about doing the right thing, at a turning point in his life. It takes some guts to construct a picture around a single man driving around for almost two hours, but thanks to a touching and powerful performance by Hardy, Knight has successfully delivered an intriguing picture that resonates with audiences.
25th September @ 8 p.m. – Saigon Outcast
Lego Movie(USA 2014)
The long-lasting Danish game Lego has filled the hearts of many children over eight decades. Gladly screenwriters and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have managed to create a film that is both homage to the iconic toy as well as to the many people that have spent hours playing with it in their childhood (and let’s be honest, in their adulthood as well). The film follows the adventures of an unlikely hero, construction worker Emmet. The animation is sure to please the young ones and the non-so-subtle criticism towards conformism is society will entertain the adults.
29th September @ 8.p.m. – The Cube
Audition (Japan 1999)
Takashi Miike (Ichi the Serial Killer, 13 Assassins, The Happiness of the Katakuris) is well known for his gruesomeness and his unique visual approach to filmmaking. Audition is a shocking horror tale of obsession, in which we see an audition for possible future wives been orchestrated by a widowed TV producer. Mysteries and doubts about the protagonist’s chosen wife soon start to emerge but Miike lets the audience wait until the end before he delivers the big chills.
