After sold-out showings of Godard and Rohmer (plus, well, Rohmer) my screening series Amnesiascope closes out this summer with a personal 2020s favorite that still demands proper place and consideration. On Wednesday, August 28––that’s eight days from now––the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research will present Slow Machine with filmmakers Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo in attendance alongside star Scott Shepherd (most recently seen in Killers of the Flower Moon and The Last of Us) for a post-screening Q&A.
Premiering at Rotterdam about a month before the onset of COVID-19, showing in a predominantly online NYFF, and given a hybrid theatrical-virtual release by Grasshopper Film during the pandemic’s waning days, Slow Machine has experienced a life cycle that’s made discovery somewhat difficult. But the work’s far from impenetrable, its many shapes––simmering thriller, Rivettian game of shifting identity, and musical documentary shot on 16mm that puts recent “gritty” indies to shame––impressing and lingering long after a 68-minute runtime closes out. (It also offers one of Chloë Sevigny’s greatest performances in just five minutes.) As Felten and DeNardo prepare to shoot a larger-scaled second feature (about which more during the Q&A session) now’s perhaps the ideal time to discover this gem from the 2020s’ first half.
Not that I’m the only one who feels so. As Glenn Heath Jr. said in his review, “If American cinema is ever going to transcend the banal and shapeless superhero fantasies that have occupied so much mental and physical space this past decade-plus, more films like Slow Machine will be needed to jar us out of our collective complacency. For those curious and willing, this is a beautiful reminder of what it’s like to be properly throttled by an unexpected cinematic jolt.”
Tickets are now on-sale and you can find the preview below:
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