But the richest offering might be ACTO DE PRIMAVERA|RITE OF SPRING (1963; March 23 at 9 pm), which looks sideways toward Jean Rouch and ahead to Abbas Kiarostami in its use of a northern village’s denizens, whom Oliveira has re-enact their annual day-long Passion Play for the cameras. Neither a documentary nor fiction, the movie is equal parts religious action, masquerade, Kenneth Anger–ish rite, home movie, dissection of moviemaking itself, and, of course, bio-pic of Christ, performed with sacred, clumsy fervor by hundreds of raw worshippers. It’s one of the best films about Christ, because it’s about devotion — its beauties and idiocies — on every level, and it reflects on the dramatic impulse behind religious feeling to boot.
Related:
Waved off, Iron Man, Autumn of the patriarchs, More 
- Waved off
Ah, Eurocinema, the blood and backbone of film culture as it grew from out of the Hollywood shadow in the post-war decades — the Godards, the Bergmans, the Antonionis, the bristling Hungarians, the mordant Poles, the café-dawdling French!
- Iron Man
Though a Marvel Comics fan, I never thought much of Iron Man.
- Autumn of the patriarchs
Maybe one shouldn’t judge a country by its movies. What if the US were to be evaluated by the standards of the top 10 films at the box office?
- Last man standing
In his 1954 novel I Am Legend , Richard Matheson conjured up a terrifying scenario: a man-made plague has killed most of humanity.
- This Christmas
Christmas movies have always meant boring white people going home to settle lifelong resentments and eat ham.
- Keeping It Real
We’ll get used to it, I suppose, this new category of moviegoing distress. Sooner or later, we get used to everything.
- Belle Toujours
Manoel de Oliveira made this long-range sequel to Buñuel’s 1967 fetish classic Belle de jour .
- The sensation of sight
The crew of DARIUS talk about the idealism of their project. Rob Moss and Peter Galison show clips and discuss their work in progress, SECRECY. Producer Ted Hope advises audiences about how to keep independent film alive, and Aaron J. Wiederspahn, director of THE SENSATION OF SIGHT, describes the sensation of having your first film project be a feature.
- Opening Night
Independent Film Festival of Boston Vodcast: A daily immersion in the IFFB experience.
- Perversion, introversion
Slavoj Zizek, the fuzzy-bearded Slovenian philosopher, seems a fun guy.
- The Hills Have Eyes II
This quickie sequel to last year’s remake of The Hills Have Eyes promises that “the lucky ones die fast.”
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Features
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