Viva Lewes Issue #133 October 2017

ON THIS MONTH: CINEMA
Metropolis
People on Sunday
Film '17
Depot round-up
Lewes Depot Cinema prides itself on providing a
variety of films that suit all tastes, so while some
punters will be left cold by the fact that they’re
showing a season of German Weimar-era silent
movies in October, others will be grinning from ear
to ear in anticipation.
The four films are considered by many to have
defined a subsequent film genre. First up (Oct 8th,
3pm) there’s Fritz Lang’s classic Metropolis, the
mother of sci-fi films, an exhilarating 150-minute
experience, which is still influencing film-makers,
designers and artists. It’s the 90th anniversary of
the film’s release and this version, remastered in
2010, contains a 25-minute section once thought to
be lost to the world. Lang is also the auteur of the
very different M (15th, 3pm), starring a haunted
and terrifying Peter Lorre, often considered to be
the defining film of the thriller genre. And then
there’s People on Sunday (22nd, 3pm), directed by
Robert Siodmak and Edgar G Ulmer, co-written
by Billy Wilder, using non-professional actors in
real-life settings, a precursor to the Italian neorealism
movies. The fourth film which makes up
this influential quartet is FW Murnau’s Nosferatu
(29th, 3pm) a vampire movie which, predating all
the other vampire movies, is completely free of
clichés, and all the more terrifying for that.
Programme director Carmen Slijpen is not what
you’d call risk averse, and making one screening
of the film Step in August only open to females
created a heated debate in town. This move was
legal, apparently, because it was one of many
screenings of the movie, the others being open to
both sexes. One response from a number of men
was ‘you’d never put on a men-only film’, but they
were proved wrong when Carmen did just that, for
one of the screenings of prison documentary The
Work, as a balancing act. October sees a week-long
run (6th-12th) of the drama Daphne, a character
study of a thirty-something girl in London (Emily
Beecham) who is knocked for six after witnessing a
stabbing. One of the screenings (check lewesdepot.
org for details) is another female-only affair.
Everybody I’ve talked to who’s seen the trailer
of Borg v McEnroe, about the early 80s rivalry
between the two best tennis players in the world,
say the same thing: ‘what amazing casting’. Borg is
played by fellow Swede (of Icelandic origin) Sverrir
Gudnason, who is the dead spit of the country’s
best-ever tennis player; McEnroe, in an inspired
move, is played by troubled American actor Shia
LaBouef. It hasn’t had brilliant reviews (‘game, set
and almost a good movie’ wrote one reviewer) but
for those of us of a certain age it will recall one of
the most enthralling sporting events of our lifetimes
– the 1980 Men’s Wimbledon Final – which
provides the finale of the drama.
Of course, there’ll be much much more on the
three screens of the Depot; most programming
isn’t set in stone until a week or two before the
movies are shown. Check their website for details.
Dexter Lee
37