It’s a delectable twin treat Suchitra Film Society has for film buffs. One is a wacky Western classic, the other modern day futuristic sci-fi musing on missed romantic connections. Winner of four Oscars, the 1969 Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, is a brilliant, bewitching saga of exploits about two bank robbers —  Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and his partner The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford). Paul Newman plays legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy — an eternal optimist and self-styled visionary full of ideas, conjuring dreams of banks ripe for picking. Robert Redford his more levelheaded partner, all action and skill, sharpshooting Sundance Kid.
Beginning as a freewheeling story about robbing trains, it turns into one gambol chase as relentless posse set on their trail, never letting them out of sight, over rock, through towns, across rivers. When they finally do give the slip, Butch comes with a brainer “Let’s go to Bolivia.” Directed by George Roy Hill, the film, about two buddies thumbing their nose at society, is an excellent cocktail of laughter and tragedy with brauvra performances by Newman and Redford. Yes folks, “Fuego!” (Fire) up, book your berth at 5 pm Sunday, as its teasing tagline goes Just for the fun of it! and you shall not regret it.
Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai’s ambitiously futuristic 2046 sets the maudlin mood for an evening of gorgeously melancholic fresco of love affairs and missed romantic connections on Monday. A loose sequel to his 1991 Days of Being Wild and 2000 In the Mood for Love, the film, revolves around the aftermath of unconsummated affair of a womanizing pulp-fiction writer in ‘60s Hong Kong whose fragmented memories shuttle between beautiful women in his life and includes sci-fi elements.
2046 is the number of hotel room in which he had met up with one of his flames and is a popular year and place to which people travel through time. The year has its own significance for Hong Kong. It is 49 years after handover of Hong Kong by the British on July 1, 1997. Known for his working in commercial cinema format and yet refusing to be shackled by traditional storytelling, Wong Kar Wai’s cinema are known for their creative, avant-garde, aesthetic experiments and visual images. Get set to travel in time literally 6.45 pm.
Screenings at Suchitra Film Society, Banashankari II Stage. For details call: 26711785.