My Brother's Wedding + Charles Burnett Short Films

Screening: Monday 7 July, 6:30pm

My Brother's Wedding:

Charles Bunett, USA 1983/2007

Burnett's follow-up to Killer of Sheep joined the ranks of cinema's “lost” films made by important artists that for varying reasons never really saw the light of day. Film critic Armond White called the failure of Wedding to secure a theatrical release “a catastrophic blow to the development of American pop culture.”

After a rough cut was shown at the New York film festival, My Brother's Wedding didn't receive distribution, and is only now being released, nearly twenty-five years later, following a new edit by Burnett, a restoration by the Pacific Film Archive, and the efforts of Milestone Films.

Adopting a more narrative approach than Killer, the film centres on Pierce Mundy, an intelligent but disaffected young man working in his parents' dry cleaning shop, acutely aware of his dim future prospects. Challenging narrative conventions at every turn with its touching digressions on quotidian experience, the film displays the elusive brilliance that characterizes Killer, including Burnett's uncanny ability to pair images together in inspired edits whose mysterious power lingers long after they've faded from the screen.

(DVD, 85 minutes, colour)

Several Friends (Charles Burnett, USA 1969, 21 minutes)

This rough-hewn short, Burnett's first film, is a must for Killer of Sheep fans, as the seeds of that film are easily found in Several Friends. An episodic jaunt through working class life in South Central LA, the film paints a neorealist picture of these friends' frustrations, foibles, and resilience. Nearly as affecting as Killer, Friends forecasts the genius to come in its economical structure, freedom of form, and authenticity of setting.

The Horse (Charles Burnett, USA 1973, 13 minutes)

This strange short film is a wonder, an idiosyncratic little tale about a group of men and a young boy awaiting the arrival of the boy's father to put down a horse. The film demonstrates Burnett's remarkable ability to create an uneasy, ambiguous mood through careful attention to visual details, sounds, and ostensibly trivial gestures. The Horse won First Prize at Oberhausen's short film festival.

When It Rains (Charles Burnett, USA 1995, 13 minutes)

Jonathan Rosenbaum chose this punchy short as one of the Ten Best Films of All Time in a 2002 Sight & Sound poll and called it “a near miracle.” Set in Watts during the Sixties, When It Rains follows its protagonist's attempts to stave off eviction for a mother and her kids by appealing to the good will of disparate members of the community. A beautifully spun, hopeful parable about humanity trumping the system.