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For this Sunday Kino Night, first up is King Lear (1970), a Soviet adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Director is Grigori Kozintsev, whose Hamlet (1964) we previously watched. An elderly king decides to ensure a peaceful succession to his rule by diving his lands among his three daughters. When his youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses to kiss his butt, he cuts her out of his will entirely, and the two remaining daughters (Regan and Goneril) immediately begin fighting over the now-vacant share. The situation unravels from there as war breaks out and everyone begins dying. This is one of the most acclaimed works in the history of theatre, and this version is one of the highest-rated Soviet films on Letterboxd, so let’s check it out.

After that is Housekeeping (1987), a comedy about two sisters who go to live with their eccentric aunt in the 1950s Pacific Northwest, following the death of their mother. Her strange behavior both upends social norms in what critics describe as a “feminist version of Huckleberry Finn”, among other things; one sister finds the aunt endearing, and the other finds her embarrassing. Some family bonding and coming-of-age heartwarming may be in store. Just a light little feel-good movie that has received great reviews. We previously watched director Bill Forsyth’s small-Scottish-town comedy Local Hero (1983), and this is arguably even more acclaimed than that.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Blorptube, right here:

https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Be there, comrades!