September at Hard Light: Beginners and the first Slow Sunday

Hey all, excited to be back and provide previews for our upcoming screenings this week! We have a lighter month ahead as we prepare for a busy October and a trip for some Hard Light Staff to the NYFF to scope out some new releases to potentially bring to Richmond next year. Despite that, we’re extremely excited by the two that we have: Beginners on Friday, September 5th at 7:30PM at Studio Two Three, and Syndromes and a Century on Sunday, September 7th at 2PM at the Main Branch of Richmond Public Library. Beginners is a staff pick for Hard Light staff member Kyle M-B and she previewed it below. I was happy to write on Syndromes and a Century which is the beginning of our upcoming “Slow Sundays” series at the library where we showcase the best in transcendental and slow-paced films.

Beginners (2010) dir. Mike Mills – Kyle M-B

Upon first glance, Beginners may seem like standard indie fare of the 2010s. Its simple yet clean presentation on the surface could easily invite a realm of thought that dismisses its emotional complexity and interest in human connection. So often in our current cinematic landscape, sincerity and earnestness on-screen gives way to a culture that has become increasingly isolated. A layer of irony and nihilism has continued to permeate our culture as we all continue to search for what defines us as people. Mike Mills proposes that it’s love for our community and the in roads we can make through grief and love that keeps us going as people.

Set in Los Angeles in 2003, the film flips between two timelines, both concerned with love and loss. We follow Oliver (Ewan McGregor) as he navigates the final years of his father Hal’s (Christopher Plummer) life, who has recently come out as gay. We also follow the developing love Oliver has for a woman named Anna (Mélanie Laurent) whom he meets at a costume party after Hal’s death.

Mills rolls these narratives into each other alongside other elements of flashback and archive montage to create a film in tune with humanity’s foremost emotional interests: grief and love. It’s also a film, like the title suggests, that is interested in beginnings. The beginnings of love, of a new life, or even for the end of your life. It’s not burned by the anxieties of these feelings, but in the freedom that they grant us. Just because we reach the end of our lives, doesn’t mean it’s the end. A new door opens, either for us or for those who love and cherish us.

The film serves as a beautiful backdrop for reflection. Mills serves up a series of visual meditations on what it means to live, to love, to find a community. At times the film reads more like a diary entry from his own life rather than a story he is trying to tell. The earnestness of his vulnerability through his characters and the story is beyond commendable. When looking at my own life and what I want in my own work, I can’t help being moved by his commitment to exploring the bonds that drive us.

Thinking about when I first watched the film years ago, I was far more preoccupied with how the film was constructed and put together. Its form, compositions, and use of character to drive the story had a profound impact on me. As I watch it now, having experienced new love, as I’ve watched my parents grow older, the film fulfills a far grander emotional purpose. It serves as a reminder to cherish the moments we have with people we love. To look at them and their lives and look for the connection points that bring us together and that grant us the strength to be vulnerable with one another. It stands as a powerful work of cinema that works to unite us in the one thing we all have in common: our want and need to connect with people we love.

I hope you all can join us at Studio Two Three on September 5th, for a screening of the film. Doors will be at 7PM with the film at 7:30PM. Tickets can be purchased through the website or at the door. More details or tickets here.

Syndromes and a Century (2006) dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul – Warner West

The most celebrated of all Thai filmmakers, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is the perfect fusion of mystery-box storytelling and arthouse “slow cinema,” and we’re excited to return to “Joe” (his nickname for Western audiences), after our April showing of Tropical Malady, with his follow-up Syndromes and a Century. “Joe” is a polarizing figure as he can be seen as pretentious or as the epitome of the arthouse as his films avoid easy explanation and often use myth or symbolism. He notably has told audiences that he’s okay with them sleeping during his films, and his recent film Memoria made headlines for going on a “roadshow” and played in only one location at a time for months. It’s easy to understand how he can come off as pretentious. Us though? Oh we love Joe.

Tarkovsky once said that if you make movies to bring in an audience, you’re making entertainment and not art; Apichatpong Weerasethakul undeniably makes art. Like with Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century is a bit of a love story split in the middle with two distinct halves that share features but are defined by difference. Not only is it a film based in small details and individual interactions, it’s also largely inspired by Joe’s own parents, and it’s a real treat for the full runtime leading to an ominous and thought-provoking ending. It even has a signature Weerasethakul needle-drop/dance number like the rest of his unique filmography!

Syndromes and a Century is probably the easiest “entry” to Apichatpong Weerasethakul, so don’t be afraid or intimidated by this one. Come and join us in the early afternoon at the library, let your brain rest a bit, and let the soundscape of a Weerasethakul film wash over you. Bring your friends if they’re Letterboxd users or care about Oscars/Palme d’Or or come by yourself and make new friends because if you’re willing to watch free slow cinema on a Sunday afternoon, we’d love to meet you and become your friend!

This screening will be the first of our Hard Light x RPL Slow Sundays for the Fall ‘25 semester, and we’re extremely excited for the programming to come, so join us for Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century and experience transcendental cinema at the Church of Joe. RSVP for this free and legal screening here, and we’ll see you on Sunday!

What’s Up Next?

September 5th: Beginners at 7:30PM at Studio Two Three.
September 7th: Syndromes and a Century at 2PM at Richmond Public Library.