Panida hosts weekend of diverse entertainment

From war photography to Shakespeare, it’s a diverse weekend of entertainment at the Panida.

“Louder Than Bombs”

In “Louder Than Bombs”, the first English-language feature from Norwegian director Joachim Trier, he calls “the incomparability of pain,” the phrase “louder than bombs” perfectly sums up this intriguingly off-kilter oddity, a quiet tale of battlefields at home and abroad.

The film revolves around war photographer Isabelle Joubert Reed (Isabelle Huppert), whose life and work is to be the subject of a major exhibition and newspaper retrospective, and whose ghostly presence (she is seen in flashbacks) now haunts the conflicting memories of her husband (Gabriel Byrne) and sons (Devin Druid and Jesse Eisenberg). Isabelle’s widower is a former actor who has recently found new love with his younger son’s teacher, Hannah (Amy Ryan), but who seems a bit out touch with the troubled teenager.

By night, Conrad (Devin Druid) locks himself in his room with the fantastical online war games that prompt older brother Jonah (Jesse Eisen-berg) to ask only half-jokingly: “You’re not going to shoot up a school, are you?” Yet Jonah himself is in retreat from the “real” world, running away from the birth of his daughter to bury himself in the unravelling secrets of his mother’s darkroom.

Everyone seems to be leading at least two lives at once, all constantly feeling that they’re “in the wrong place.” Isabelle ‘s contrast between domestic life and a potentially deadly profession is difficult for her family. “After this, I’ll slow down,” Isabelle promises Gene, without conviction. The moral quandaries of her job, expressively describing the tension of balancing responsibilities of someone whose art and livelihood are based upon recording and selling the tragedy of others.

Yet for all its international photojournalist trappings, “Louder Than Bombs” is more concerned with issues closer to home. We also get multiple views of the crash that killed Isabelle, each one subtly changing the trajectory of her death, realigning the fragmentary shards of accident and intent. In one scene which neatly blurs the line between imagination and reality, Conrad’s desire for the classmate with whom he is infatuated seems to manifest itself becomes a part of the second life of that character.

Unsettling musings upon the strange ways in which everybody hurts mixed with Jakob Ihre’s cinematography gives the exceptional cast plenty of space, but Trier is not afraid to linger on close-ups of faces and emotions. The phrase, “louder than bombs,” emphasizes the tensions and contradictions at the heart of his film. Past and present combine in sharp focus as the surviving Reeds come to terms with love and loss — locating in memories both painful and joyous the skills they need to soldier on …

The film is rated R for language, some sexual content, nudity and violent images. It is showing at the Panida on Saturday, May 28, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 29, at 3:30 p.m.

A summer with Shakespeare

It’s the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the Panida is honoring his genius with a film series of celebrated titles from the BBC and then ending in dramatic fashion with the movie “West Side Story”. Best of all it’s free to attend.

Donations to cover theater expenses will be gratefully accepted.

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him.

In a parallel, Lear’s loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar.

Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

King Lear portrayed by Sir Ian Holm is an Academy Award-nominated British film and stage actor who was a star of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and played more than 100 roles in films and on television.

The series will be every two weeks on Sunday nights at 6:30 p.m.

n May 29 — “King Lear” (1998)

n June 12 — “Shakespeare & Us” (2012)

n June 26 — “Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1971)

n July 10 — “Taming of the Shrew” (2005)

n July 24 — “As You Like It” (1963)

n Aug. 7 — “West Side Story” (1961)

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts” and the Panida invites you to relive some great classics on the magic of the big screen.