Year to year, the economic crises and competing, divisive nationalistic self-interests of the European Union nations rarely unite around much of anything.
But cinema is cinema: an international visual language. In any film festival, unity of vision has nothing on a rich plurality of viewpoints. And as moviegoers we long for work that teleports us somewhere new, the best of it leaving us saying to ourselves: Maybe we dreamed it.
That’s a line, in fact, from “Francofonia,” the latest from master ruminator Alexander Sokurov (“Russian Ark,” “Alexandra”). Sokurov’s fascinating and supple exploration of the Paris Louvre museum, particularly during the Nazi-occupied years of World War II, is one of 62 titles representing all 28 EU countries featured in the 19th Chicago European Union Film Festival, beginning Friday at the Gene Siskel Film Center downtown.
If you’ve seen “Russian Ark,” Sokurov’s unlikely art-house success dramatizing the artistic wealth inside of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the filmmaker’s interest in the Louvre won’t surprise you. The central relationship in “Francofonia,” to the degree its impressionistic strategy accommodates one, is that of Louvre head and Vichy collaborator Jacques Jaujard and Nazi officer and cultural point-man Wolff Metternich. The men shared an abiding interest in keeping the Paris museum’s priceless art and artifacts out of the hands of the Reich.
Sokurov appears as well; so does the ghost of Napoleon and the spirit of Marianne, the symbol of French freedom and brotherhood. Picked up for 2016 distribution by Chicago’s Music Box Films, “Francofonia” is unpredictable in form and efficient in length (under 90 minutes), and it works very differently than the stately, methodical one-take wonder “Russian Ark.” I found the new one to be a livelier, more stimulating investigation of history, the spoils of war and the way great art serves as a life raft on the rocky seas of our times.
The Chicago EU festival offers new work from other long-established directors, among them the Taviani brothers (“Wondrous Boccaccio”); Terence Davies (“Sunset Song”); and the late Chantal Akerman (“No Home Movie”). The festival also presents several different examples of archival footage put to uses both glamorous (“Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words”) and unnerving (“Forbidden Films,” sampling films in many genres produced under the Third Reich). There are award-winning performance showcases (“The Measure of a Man,” for which Vincent Lindon was given the best actor prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival) and lesbian romances (“Summertime,” with Cecile de France). The Netherlands, Spain, you name it, it’s represented.
This is just a start. As always with festivals of any size and scope, I suggest this approach: For every film you see because you’re interested in the subject, or the director, or the star, try two you know virtually nothing about. To that end, the Chicago EU fest offers six-movie passes for $55 (plus popcorn!). For more information, go to www.siskelfilmcenter.org. Happy dreaming.
March 4-31, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.
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