Four outstanding international films will be presented on Friday nights during fall semester by the College of Lake County Center for International Education. There is no charge for the films, which are screened at 7 p.m. in room A162 (Anderson lecture hall) on the CLC Grayslake Campus, 19351 W. Washington St.
The films are subtitled when necessary, have adult content and are not suitable for children. The fall films are “Duck Season” on Sept. 10, “Revanche” on Oct. 8, “The Pool” on Nov. 5 and “Mother” on Dec. 3.
“Duck Season” (Mexico, 2004) on Sept. 10 is set in a Mexico City apartment where two boys alone at home surround themselves with soda and video games to wallow in the perfect day of leisure, but a power failure quickly disrupts their plans. Instead, ensuing comic encounters with neighbors draw them out of their comfort zone and into a greater awareness of the mysterious world around them.
“Revanche” (Austria, 2008) on Oct. 8, was Austria’s nominee for foreign language film at the 2009 Academy Awards®. This thriller combines a familiar crime scenario with issues of fate and spirituality to such a degree that one critic called it a mix of “Crime and Punishment” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”
“The Pool” (USA, 2007) on Nov. 5. “It might seem odd for the International Series to show a film by Wisconsin-based filmmaker Chris Smith (‘American Movie,’ ‘The Yes Men’), but ‘The Pool’ is an unusual film,” said CLC film professor Christopher Cooling. “Moving from acclaimed documentaries to fiction, Smith chose to adapt a short story about an Iowa man
obsessed with swimming in a pool owned by inaccessible neighbors and then Smith decided to set the film version in India, filming with local cast and crew despite not knowing a word of Hindi. The experiment paid off with a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and a place on many Ten Best lists.”
“Mother” (South Korea, 2010) on Dec. 3. The latest film by Bong Joon-Ho (“The Host”) features suspense and dark comedy, artfully blended in a film that honors a genre while exploring its conventions. This murder mystery centers on a developmentally disabled man accused of killing a young girl; the man’s mother takes it upon herself to uncover the truth. The New York Times’ Dana Stevens called the film “a Hitchcockian murder mystery that unfolds into a maternal melodrama worthy of Joan Crawford, shot through with bursts of black humor.”
The International Film Series is presented by the CLC Center for International Education. For more information, contact Christopher Cooling, CLC film instructor, at (847) 543-2623 or via e-mail at ccooling@clcillinois.edu.
