Part of "Worlds Apart: The Films of Athina Rachel Tsangari," a retrospective of the Greek director's films presented by Acropolis Cinema and MUBI and running from April 17 through mid-May at 2220 Arts + Archives, Vidiots, and the Los Feliz 3
In its irreverent use of (new) Nouvelle Vague, musical, melodrama, and nature documentary, Attenberg symbolically visualizes a change in generation and perspective as a father and daughter gently negotiate their individual rites of passage. The film follows a visionary architect who has come home to die in the vanishing industrial town that is his legacy to his daughter. Meanwhile, his daughter (played by Ariane Labed, in a performance that won her the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival) is exploring the mysteries of kissing with her girlfriend, and the beyond with a visiting engineer. Tsangari’s film—with a soundtrack featuring Françoise Hardy and Suicide—is poised between sincerity and hilarity, tradition and experimentation. (Film at Lincoln Center)
TRT: 97 min
In person: Athina Rachel Tsangari
"A cracked coming-of-age tale." —Karina Longworth, The Village Voice
"Attenberg is a three-layered love story, anatomizing the mysterious emotions of grief, friendship and erotic attraction." —A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Offers its audience a mordant commentary on modern Greece and affects a serio-comic, quasi-anthropological detachment." —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"Using occasional song-and-dance numbers with a melancholy Godardian kick, [Tsangari] creates a world that's off-center and alive with loneliness." —Sheri Linden, The Los Angeles Times
"[With Attenberg,] Tsangari distinguishes herself from her predecessor's freak-show formalism with an underlying humanism and freewheeling playfulness." —Eric Hynes, Time Out New York
(Available to download after screening date)