Perfect Days—Thursday, April 11, 2024, 7:00 pm @ the Film House

Wim Wenders began his career as a filmmaker in the late 1960s in West Germany, where he quickly became a leading figure in the New German Cinema movement of the 1970s and 1980s, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Margarethe von Trotta, and Volker Schlöndorff. Films like The Goalkeeper’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972), Alice in the Cities (1974), Kings of the Road (1976), and The American Friend established Wenders’s reputation as director with a particularly sensitive understanding of West German culture and its ambivalent relationship with American culture. These films also brought Wenders widespread acclaim on the international art house film circuit.

Wenders reached directorial superstardom in the 1980s with films like Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987). The former, which starred Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski, captured Wenders’s fascination with America, with American stories, with American landscapes, and with American music (especially the country blues stylings of Ry Cooder) at its strongest yet. The latter, which starred Bruno Ganz (one of the stars of the New German Cinema) and the newcomer Solveig Dommartin, alongside a particularly memorable turn from Peter “Columbo” Falk, playing an unnamed American film and television star much like himself, was one of the definitive portraits of the divided city of Berlin in the period immediately preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was during this era—the 1980s—that Wenders began to make documentaries with frequency. He would go on to make such celebrated documentaries as The Soul of a Man (2003), about the blues, Pina (2022), a highly ambitious 3D film about the dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, and The Salt of the Earth (2014), a powerful film about the famed Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, but his most famous nonfiction film was Buena Vista Social Club, the behind-the-scenes story of how the beloved Cuban jazz all-stars album was orchestrated and recorded by Ry Cooder, and then taken on tour to perform before adoring audiences in Europe and America.

The documentary that is most relevant here, however, is Tokyo-Ga (1985), a film about Wenders’s love affair with Tokyo, but especially about his love affair with the Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu, whose subtle, measured treatment of contemporary life in the Japanese capital in films like Tokyo Story (1953) was such an inspiration for Wenders and others.

Now, with his latest film, Perfect Days, Wenders has returned to Tokyo to tell a tale of contemporary Tokyo that focuses on a particularly humble, diligent, kind-hearted, and enlightened Tokoyite, played by Koji Yakusho. The role won Yakusho the Best Actor Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It is exactly the kind of subtle, nuanced role that Ozu would have appreciated greatly.

The Brock University Film Society (BUFS) has been bringing the best in independent and art house cinema to St. Catharines and the Niagara region for well over 40 years. The society is supported by the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Brock.

BUFS screenings take place in the state-of-the-art facilities of the Film House inside the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre (250 Saint Paul Street). These screenings occur on Thursday nights at 7:00 p.m. throughout the school year, and they often feature introductions, short presentations, prize giveaways and other surprises.

“BUFS is a pillar of the Niagara cinephile scene, and it has been since 1975. BUFS screenings have a wonderful energy to them, one that comes from the combination of artful, thought-provoking films, eager, savvy audiences, and a premium theatre experience. This is film culture the way it was meant to be, with animated discussions continuing long after the credits roll, and spilling out onto the streets of St. Catharines.”

— Anthony Kinik, Film Professor

Tickets
Tickets are available at the Film House on the evening of screenings. General admission is $9.50 or $7.50 for Film House members / 13 and under.

Memberships are available through the Film House website.

Season
BUFS kicks off Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023. 

Prizes
Chance to win film-related prizes every BUFS screening.

Ratings
Ticket sales will be subject to enforcement of Ontario Film Review Board ratings. Please have photo identification ready.

Accessibility
BUFS is proud to be part of Brock’s university-wide commitment to provide facilities, programs, and services in a way that respects the dignity and independence of persons with disabilities. Learn more about accessibility at BUFS.

Contact
Anthony Kinik
Associate Professor
akinik@brocku.ca