1. … And God Created Woman (TIFF Lightbox)
The film that established Brigitte Bardot as a sex kitten and served as prototype for the French New Wave plays at Lightbox this Saturday as part of the A Man and a Woman: Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emannuelle Riva series. For years, Roger Vadim’s cut of the film was deemed too racy for North American audiences, but in decades past it has garnered a following that embraces its cheesiness as well as its taboo-breaking historical significance (Sat January 26th 7:30pm).
2. Krivina (The Royal)
Don’t miss Toronto-based filmmaker Igor Drljaca’s first-feature film Krivina — an ode to the cultural trauma experienced by Bosnians. The film, which debuted at TIFF this past year, concerns the journey of Miro, a Canadian resident who returns to his homeland in search of a friend who is wanted for war crimes (January 25th-February 1st, various showtimes).
3. Khrustalyov, My Car! (TIFF Lightbox)
A rare film by Aleksei Guerman that has screened exactly once before in our fair city, Khrustalyov, My Car! was once described by Jonathan Romney in Sight & Sound magazine as “Russian cinema’s answer to Finnegan’s Wake.” The film is a hallucinatory absurdist comedy concerning the Doctors’ Plot, the period in which Stalin was convinced Muscovite Jewish doctors were planning to assassinate the Soviet leader. Khrustalyov, My Car! is repeatedly described as feverish and nightmarish but it begs the question: Are there films about this era that are not either of those things? (Fri January 25th 6:30pm)
4. The Gold Rush (Revue)
The classic Charlie Chaplin film featuring the oft-referenced roll dance will have a late matinee screening at Revue Cinema this Sunday. Here are some facts you may not have known about The Gold Rush: 1) it’s the film Chaplin wanted to be remembered for; 2) it’s the highest-grossing silent comedy of all time; 3) it was once deemed the second-best film in history, at the 1958 Brussels World Fair, after The Battleship Potemkin (Sun January 27th 4:15pm).
5. Léon Morin, Priest (TIFF Lightbox)
Léon Morin, Priest may not be Jean-Pierre Melville’s treatise on la Resistance (that honor goes to Army of Shadows), but at the heart of this film — starring Emannuelle Riva and part of Lightbox’s A Man and a Woman series — is a similar thematic preoccupation: the elusive nature of moral clarity. Starring Riva as a widow who falls for a man she cannot have (Jean-Paul Belmondo as the titular priest), Léon finds the two characters sparring on religious matters whilst their sexual tension rises. Naturally, any film featuring Belmondo as a priest must make him a handsome and suave one at that (Sun January 27th 4:30pm).
