Nothing screams summer quite like a road trip. The pull of the open road, the freedom to choose this path or that, the small pockets of life one comes across on the way to the destination, the transformative experience of starting here and ending there and, naturally, the transportation — cramped interior spaces moving through a vast and sometimes dangerous exterior. All you need is a guide.
At the Dairy Arts Center’s Boedecker Theater this summer, your guide will be CU Cinema Studies professor emeritus Suranjan Ganguly for his six-week series, The International Road Movie.
For three Sundays in June and three in July, Ganguly will survey the road movie through disparate titles, each a straight-up classic of international cinema. And by opening the series with Dino Risi’s Italian odd couple comedy Il Sorpasso (June 16) and following it up with the jaw-dropping masterpiece from German auteur Werner Herzog, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (June 23), Ganguly underlines how the road does not always take the shape we might anticipate, and destinations aren’t always victorious.
Other titles in the series include the deliriously hypnotic Walkabout (June 30) from Nicolas Roeg, Agnès Varda’s magnificent exploration of a young woman refusing to live by societal norms in Vagabond (July 7), Abbas Kiarostami’s search for a lost boy inside a cinematic hall of mirrors in And Life Goes On (July 20), and Alfonso Curaón’s steamy, cross-country trek through Mexico in Y tu mamá también (July 28).
For those new to these films, Ganguly is a cherished guide. If you’ve had the pleasure of attending one of his introductions at the Boe or the International Film Series, then you know his ability to unlock the mysteries within the frame is unrivaled. Ditto for his ability to bring the behind-the-scenes stories to life in a way that informs without trivializing the off-screen obstacles and antics of the filmmakers and actors — his intro for Aguirre is sure to include a number of salacious tales about the making of that masterpiece.
And for those who have seen these movies before, you already know their majesty and probably cannot wait to see them again. Here’s your chance.
ON SCREEN: The International Road Movie with Suranjan Ganguly, select Sundays in June and July, Boedecker Theater, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder.