Sunday afternoons are special at the Rio. The Double Bill Matinees are a chance to see two brilliant recent, classic or special release films at excellent value – two for the price of one! That’s two films for just £7.50 (£5.50 Concs). A perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Sun 4 Jun • Double bill

LE CORBEAU (PG) 1.30

(France 1943) dir.Henri-Georges Clouzot 91m. Subtitles.
Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Héléna Manson.

“In a provincial French town, 'The Raven' is at work, delivering poison pen letters to the local dignitaries. The main focus of the letter writer's attention is the town's doctor, Remy Germain (Pierre Fresnay), a man with a shady past, haughty air, and secretive manner. Accused of being an abortionist and adulterer, Germain is on the verge of being chased out of town... unless he can discover The Raven's true identity. With its misanthropic vision of human backbiting, this grippingly acerbic film gives no quarter, particularly not to the town's apparently respectable bourgeois clique of doctors, lawyers and politicians, all of whom end up being stained with the indelible ink of moral corruption. In Clouzot's vision, innocence is ephemeral and guilt is eternal. Far from being a pro-Nazi film, LE CORBEAU captures the reality of the Vichy regime and the paranoid culture of self-serving informing that it encouraged. It's a subversive work and masterful suspense thriller that's the equal of anything Hitchcock ever put his name to.”
(Jamie Russell BBCi Films)

+ THE ARMY IN THE SHADOWS (L’armée des Ombres) (12A) 3.20

(France 1969) dir.Jean-Pierre Melville 143m. New Print. Subtitles.
Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann.

“Discretion is the better part of valour, they say. And you couldn’t imagine a more discreet tribute to the heroes of the wartime French Resistance than this terrific late-’60s thriller by the ex-Maquis member Melville. Tracing the self-sacrificial exploits from October 1942 to February 1943 of a small group of field operatives – the acerbic Lino Ventura’s ex-engineer, Simone Signoret’s iron-nerved Mathilde among them – Melville’s film adopts a formal essentialism to outline the codes and manners of impassive-looking ‘warriors’. Of the themes with which the director deals so superbly – disguised emotion, organisation, trust, quiet courage, betrayal and grief – the most important is that of loyalty. The film boasts a startling visual quality, and it is laced with moments of dry, sardonic wit that serve only to emphasise its devastating emotional core even more. Superb.”
(Wally Hammond, Time Out)

Sun 11 Jun • Double bill

JUNEBUG (15) 2.45

(US 2006) dir.Phil Morrison 106m.
Embeth Davidtz, Amy Adams, Ben McKenzie, Alessandro Nivola, Celia Weston.

“Chicago art dealer Madeleine meets her husband's North Carolina family for the first time but she can't quite leave her urban sensibilities or professional ambitions behind. A slow-paced but witty character study, this is Phil Morrison's first feature which takes the staid family reunion theme and gives it a shine with fresh insights and wry observations. There's a bittersweet tang here too, heightened by Amy Adams' Oscar-nominated performance as a naïve young mother-to-be. George hasn't seen his family in three years and for most of the time he lurks in the background, mentioned more than seen. So the focus is on the budding relationship between Madeleine and sister-in-law Ashley, another outsider sucked into the family by marriage to Johnny. Adams' star turn of hyperactivity and eternal optimism shrieks out, the polar opposite of Davidtz's trying-too-hard nervous tension. Writer Angus MacLachlan has spun a script of one-liners and heartfelt emotion that draws the ties and tensions between the family members with unerring accuracy.”
(Jamie Woolley, BBCi Films)

+ THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (15) 4.50

(US 2006) dir.Noah Baumbach 81m.
Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, William Baldwin.

“Hilarious and humane, this is a terrific tragi-comedy exploring the fall-out from a mid-80s divorce. Drawing on his own background, writer/director Noah Baumbach brings an unflinching ring of truth to this tale of two Brooklyn brothers struggling to come to terms with the acrimonious break-up between their writer parents. From self-delusion to self-abuse, Baumbach captures his characters' traumas to a tee. All the performances hit the mark, but special praise has to go to Daniels for bringing a bedraggled pathos to the astoundingly pompous Frank, a figure who'd be flat-out hateful in another actor's hands. Baumbach nails the period perfectly with nods to everything from Tangerine Dream to Blue Velvet; but this is just the icing on a cake that's stacked with layers of bittersweet empathy. You'll laugh, you'll wince, you'll wonder why films twice this long are rarely half as good.”
(Matthew Leyland, BBCi Films)

Sun 18 Jun • Rumer Godden double bill

BLACK NARCISSUS (U) 2.30

(UK 1947) dirs.Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger 101m.
Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Kathleen Byron, Jean Simmons.

“Run, don't walk to see this 1947 classic from Powell and Pressburger. It's an all-time top 10 favourite of mine and seeing it digitally restored on the big screen brings a sugar-rush of pleasure. The co-directors created from Rumer Godden's novel an extraordinary melodrama of repressed love and Forsterian Englishness – or rather Irishness – coming unglued in the vertiginous landscape of South Asia. Kerr is the sister superior leading a kind of expeditionary force of nuns who hope to establish a new order of Christian industry in the Himalayas. The film looks more beautiful than ever.”
(Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

+ THE RIVER (U) 4.35

(France/India 1951) dir.Jean Renoir 99m. New Print.
Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields, Suprova Mukerjee, Thomas E. Breen.

“Shot on location in 1951, this adaptation of Rumer Godden’s semi-autobiographical novel was Renoir’s first excursion into colour – and not the least of its pleasures are visual, its gently idealised Bengal rendered in redolent muddy ochres and dappled greens by cinematographer Claude Renoir. It’s a slight story that details the 14-year-old narrator and her two rivals’ reaction to the appearance of a dashing but melancholy war veteran – but it encompasses the whole cycle of life and is told with a stoic wisdom and simplicity that’s as beautiful as it is moving.”
(Wally Hammond, Time Out)

Sun 25 Jun • Hackney Refugee Week double bill

IN THIS WORLD (15) 1.45

(UK 2003) dir.Michael Winterbottom 90m. Subtitles.
Jamal Udin Torabi, Hiddayatullah, Yaaghoob Nosraj Poor, Imran Paracha, Hossain Baghaeian, Ghodrat Poor, Kerem Atabeyoglu, Erham Sekizcan, Nabil Elouahabi.

“Winterbottom's film is distinguished by its simplicity. Two Afghan refugees from a teeming camp in western Pakistan make an illicit, expensive and incredibly arduous overland journey towards a prospective new life as asylum seekers in Britain. The widescreen DV camera records it all, as they evade Iranian security forces, trek over snowy mountains into Turkey and brave a nightmare passage in a container ship across the Mediterranean. Knowing we're watching genuine Afghans playing themselves intensifies sympathy for their plight, though wondering whether this evidently compassionate production is exploiting their situation for dramatic effect slightly nullifies the film's piercing effectiveness. An eye-opener none the less.”
(Trevor Johnston, Time Out)

+ GYPO (15) 3.35

(UK 2006) dir.Jan Dun 99m.
Pauline McLynn, Chloe Sirene, Paul McGann, Rula Lenska, Freddie Connor, Olegar Fedoro.

“Britain’s first Dogme-95 vow of chastity approved movie, this tells – from three points of view – a tale of Margate life as experienced by a second-generation Irish family and the disruption and change within it when a beautiful Czech Romany refugee comes into their lives. It’s a well-meaning exploration of familial tensions, marital stasis and the everyday practice of racism.”
(Wally Hammond, Time Out)

Sun 2 Jul • Double bill

THE RED SHOES (U) 1.00

(GB 1948) dirs.Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger 136m. Re-release.
Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Leonid Massine, Albert Basserman.

“In outline, a rather over-determined melodrama set in the ballet world: impresario 'discovers' dancer, and makes her a slave to her art, until young composer turns up to offer her a lifeline back to reality. But in texture, it's like nothing the British cinema had ever seen: a rhapsody of colour expressionism, reaching delirious heights in the ballet scenes, but never becoming too brash and smothering its own nuances.”
(Tony Rayns, Time Out)

+BALLETS RUSSES (PG) 3.35

(US 2006) dirs.Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine 119m. Documentary.

“To those, like me, who know nothing about ballet, this is unexpectedly riveting stuff: the story of how the world's greatest ballet company carried on after the death of Serge Diaghilev in the 1920s, and how great performers, musicians, designers and choreographers took the message of ballet all around the world. Basically, the brand-name splintered: two opposing impresarios managed the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo and the ‘original’ Ballet Russe. One ran out of money; the other shrewdly hired American dancers and gained a foothold in Hollywood. Both companies found that they were inspiring other, competing outfits everywhere, which undermined their monopoly. This movie has wonderful, moving interviews with the elderly dancers now – sprightly in their 80s and 90s and still passionate about their art.”
(Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

Sun 9 Jul • Double bill

TRANSAMERICA (15) 1.45

(US 2005) dir.Duncan Tucker 103m.
Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan, Elizabeth Peña, Graham Greene.

“Huffman, best known as the Desperate Housewife, has now given a miraculously relaxed and witty performance as Bree, a man-to-woman pre-op transsexual tensely waiting for her therapist to sign off on crucial permission to have the final surgery performed on her penis. On the very eve of this procedure, she receives a phone call from a New York police station, asking if she will stand bail for a young man she fathered by a one-night stand 17 years ago. So Bree is forced to travel to New York to get Toby out of jail, and travel with him cross-country to Los Angeles. The film is an absolute delight, and Huffman is a treat.”
(Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

+ ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES (15) 3.45

(US 2005) dir.John Turturro 106m.
James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken.

“Turturro’s third film as a writer-director, is one of the most personal, deliciously fresh American films of recent years. The theatricality, complete with characters breaking into dance is appropriate, even though the protagonist, Nick, is a New York ironworker who shares his unremarkable suburban home with wife Kitty and three grown-up daughters. Appropriate because for Nick life has become all about performance: when Kitty finds he’s having an affair and his family turn against him, there’s the matter of whether he’ll be able to act his way out of trouble. Turturro pulls off a very tricky balancing act, by trusting in the expertise of his performers and by infusing the whole film with energy and affection.”
(Geoff Andrew, Time Out)

Sun 16 Jul • Double bill

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VÉRONIQUE (15) 2.00

(France/Poland 1991) dir.Krzysztof Kieslowski 98m. Subtitles. Re-release.
Irène Jacob, Halina Gryglaszewska, Kalina Jedrusik, Aleksander Bardini.

“The sheer, heart-stopping beauty of Irène Jacob is what shines out from this welcome revival of Kieslowski's great movie from 1991. This is the enigmatic story of doppelgängers: Weronika and Véronique are two young women in Poland and France, both singers, the same age and physically the same in every respect, unaware of each other's existence, yet unconsciously sensing a spectral companion. And both of course are played by Jacob, though Weronika's Polish dialogue is dubbed. As beautiful and mysterious as a poem, the film’s formal elegance and conviction are unarguable.”
(Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

+ HELL (L’enfer) (15) 4.00

(France 2005) dir.Danis Tanovic 102m.
Emmanuelle Béart, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain, Carole Bouquet, Guillaume Canet, Jacques Gamblin, Jacques Perrin.

“The late Kieslowski's last testament was an idea for a projected trilogy – Heaven, Purgatory and Hell – devised jointly with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, who has written the three finished screenplays. Young Bosnian director Danis Tanovic has tackled HELL. The result is a scintillating triumph and by any standards an exhilarating, poised movie. The story is set in Paris, and the acting has that superbly finished, pristine quality I associate with the best French cinema. HELL is inhabited by three sisters: Sophie, Céline and Anne. Each is locked in her own unhappiness, nursing a secret flower of misery, the seed for which was planted by their late father with a terrible incident in their girlhood. A worthy addition to the Kieslowski canon. What will PURGATORY be like?”
(Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

Sun 23 Jul • Double bill

ALPHAVILLE (12A) 1.30

(France/Italy 1965) dir.Jean-Luc Godard 99m. Subtitles.
Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon, Akim Tamiroff, Laszlo Szabo.

“One of Godard's most sheerly enjoyable movies, a dazzling amalgam of film noir and science fiction in which tough gumshoe Lemmy Caution turns inter-galactic agent to re-enact the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice by conquering Alpha 60, the strange automated city from which such concepts as love and tenderness have been banished. As in Antonioni's THE RED DESERT (made the previous year), Godard's theme is alienation in a technological society, but his shotgun marriage between the poetry of legend and the irreverence of strip cartoons takes the film into entirely idiosyncratic areas. Not the least astonishing thing is the way Raoul Coutard's camera turns contemporary Paris into an icily dehumanised city of the future.”
(Tom Milne, Time Out)

+ PARIS NOUS APPARTIENT (12A) 3.30

(France 1961) dir.Jacques Rivette 141m. New print. Subtitles.
Betty Schneider, Giani Esposito, Francoise Prevost, Daniel Crohem, Francois Maistre.

“As a harbinger of Rivette’s unique cinematic concerns and a time-capsule of Left Bank Paris,this film remains a fascinating artefact. We’re in the realm of corduroy, pipe-smokers and print dresses as a group of intellectuals circulates between parties in tiny apartments, a theatre director rehearses his no-budget production of Shakespeare’s ‘Pericles’, and a student ponders the connection between her neighbour’s disappearance and the suicide of an avant-garde guitarist much admired by this social circle. An auspicious beginning to Rivette’s monumental œuvre.”
(Trevor Johnston, Time Out)