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Movies Arts and Entertainment

 

Listings for Friday, July 4, through Thursday, July 10, 2008

Critics Choice

Forever
Veteran documentary maker Heddy Honigmann haunts the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, contemplating the voluptuous statuary and interviewing people who've come to pay their respects. Most of them are visiting the grave of a beloved artist--Frédéric Chopin, Marcel Proust, Maria Callas, Jean-Auguste Ingres, Amadeo Modigliani, Sadegh Hedayat, Simone Signoret, Georges Méliès--and their emotional relationships to the artwork are as idiosyncratic as the people who created it. (In one sequence a pair of blind men listen to Signoret's performance on a home video of Diabolique; in another an embalmer makes up a young woman, citing as his inspiration the calm faces in Modigliani's paintings.) Though simple in its conception, this 2006 Dutch film is gracefully executed, quietly weighing the power of art over death. In French with subtitles. 95 min. -- J.R. Jones

This movie is currently playing at: Facets Cinematheque

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