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12:30 PM Showtime
The Eclipse (2009 IRE): Director-writer Conor McPherson’s The Eclipse is almost impossible to classify: blending elements of drama, romantic comedy, and horror, it offers appeal to a wide range of film fans. It stars Ciaran Hinds as Michael Farr, a world-weary widower raising two children alone after his wife’s untimely death. Michael is a full-time woodworks teacher, amateur writer, and volunteer at the annual literary festival in his home town of Cobh, County Cork. With the festival underway once again, he’s called upon to transport and care for several of the writers in attendance.

One of his clients is American novelist Nicholas Hodges (Aidan Quinn); another is British writer Lena Morelle (High Fidelity’s Iben Hjejle), who’s previously been involved with Nicholas and has unwittingly committed adultery with him. Nicholas is eager to pick up where they left off, Lena less so, and Michael completes the triangle by bonding with Lena, whose tales of the supernatural resonate with the nightmare-stricken Irishman.

While the cast are excellent, The Eclipse wouldn’t work as well as it does without Fionnuala Ni Chiosain’s elegiac score. Relying primarily on piano and strings, Ni Chiosain’s music never overwhelms the proceedings and supplies touches of dread dissonance during the film’s tensest moments. It’s all shot beautifully by cinematographer Ivan McCullough, who takes full advantage of picturesque Cobh locations without resorting to the postcard-perfect laziness that frequently hobbles Irish films (think Waking Ned Devine). Also airs at 3:30 PM.

10:30 PM Sundance
Septien (2010 USA): I’m usually pretty leery about contemporary American indies, but this one’s a cut above the rest. Directed by Michael Tully and shot on a shoestring in Tennessee, Septien tells the episodic tale of three very odd redneck brothers. It sounds like a recipe for a Harmony Korine mumblecore joint - in fact, the film even stars Harmony’s wife Rachel - but the film is considerably more ambitious than, for example, Trash Humpers. Tully’s stated goal was to create a unique blend of southern Gothic (ala Tennessee Williams), horror, and TV Movie of the Week-histrionics, to which I can only say - job well done.

Friday 12/9/11

6:30 PM Showtime
Rubber (2009 FRA): And if Septien wasn’t weird enough for you, consider this little gem. Rubber is an absurdist comedy directed by French polymath Quentin Dupieux, otherwise known as techno musician Mr. Oizo. (Presumably any resemblance to Exit Through the Gift Shop’s Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash, is purely coincidental).

Dupieux previously produced Nonfilm, a movie in which the lead character is an actor playing a character in a film within Nonfilm who accidentally kills the film within Nonfilm’s crew but carries on production regardless, even though he has neither a script nor a camera with which to do so. Got that?

Rubber explores similar meta-territory. A car meanders slowly down a desert road, methodically knocks over two dozen folding chairs, and comes to a halt. The trunk pops open, and out clambers Police Lieutenant Chad (two-time Tony Award-winner Stephen Spinella, a long way indeed from Angels in America).

Looking directly into the camera, Chad breaks the fourth wall and poses a series of questions about the nature of cinema. Why is E.T. brown? Why did the characters in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never wash their hands or go to the bathroom? Why, in Oliver Stone’s J.F.K., was President Kennedy assassinated by a complete stranger? In each case, the answer is the same: no reason. And then the real story - about an animate tire with a lust for killing - gets underway.

As this prologue makes clear, “all great films contain an element of no reason”, which probably means that Rubber is the greatest film ever made. I absolutely adore its Theatre of the Absurd pretensions, and if you’re an admirer of Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, or Spike Milligan, you probably will, too. Also airs at 9:30 PM.

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