Celebrate Valentine’s Day At BFI Southbank

Casablanca, L’Atalante, The Red Shoes, Heartbeats,
Picnic at Hanging Rock, To Have and Have Not

We’ll always have BFI Southbank

This Valentine’s Day take shelter from the storms and the bitter winds within the warm and welcoming walls of BFI Southbank and make it a night to remember! With the finest selection of films on offer, cinema-lovers can also spice up a hot date with a tasty meal or fine wine – this is the best place in London to enjoy the complete Valentine’s Day experience.
Nestled on the bustling South Bank, this vibrant venue is the only place in London where you can enjoy the beautifully restored Oscar-winning Casablanca (1942) – considered to be one of the most romantic films of all time. Watching this iconic classic on the big screen is really a unique experience – it is the perfect film and setting to impress. We’ll also be screening the noir classic To Have and Have Not (1945), where you can witness the dashing Bogart and the smouldering Bacall fall in love on and off set. And with screenings of the timeless French masterpiece L’Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo, you will be spoilt for choice.
There is something for everyone and with alternative tales of love and romance, we even have something for the cynics too! There are screenings of Powell & Pressburger’s fantastical The Red Shoes (1948) and a special Out at the Pictures with Peter Weir’s haunting and stunningly photographed Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). If you are looking for something more contemporary, there is the Canadian ménage à trois feature Heartbeats (Les amours imaginaires, 2010) which was a hit in last year’s London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
If all of this leaves you hungry for more, go to the stylish benugo Bar and Kitchen for the intimate dining experience and end an already perfect night with a cocktail or two at the Riverfront Bar and Kitchen overlooking the Thames. With it’s funky outdoor area, you can sit and enjoy the buzzy atmosphere, take in one of the most stunning views that London has to offer, or simply people watch.
Here’s looking at you kid!!
Casablanca

Had Casablanca turned out as Warner Bros originally envisaged, it would have been just another escapist wartime romance. But thanks to extensive rewrites and various happy accidents, it remains, 60 years after it was made, one of the best loved movies of all time.
Humphrey Bogart is in his element as Rick Blaine, defiantly ‘neutral’ proprietor of a popular Casablanca nightclub in the early years of World War Two. When a Czech Resistance leader fleeing from the Nazis turns up unexpectedly at the bar, accompanied by his wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) – a former lover of Rick’s – the embittered American finds his emotions in turmoil, his loyalties torn… A remarkable international cast (Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Claude Rains,), a script packed with lines so memorably witty that many became enduring catchphrases, and Michael Curtiz’s sumptuously stylish direction make for a thoroughly involving and iconic tale of passion, commitment, quiet courage and redemption. And it’s now been digitally restored – play it, Sam…
USA 1942. Dir Michael Curtiz. With Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Marcel Dalio, SZ Sakall, Dooley Wilson. 102min. Digital. U. Courtesy of Park Circus
Tues 14 Feb 18:30 NFT1 (Fri 10 – Thu 23 Feb)

L’Atalante

Funny, heart-rending, erotic, suspenseful, exhilaratingly inventive… Jean Vigo’s only full-length feature satisfies on so many levels, it’s no surprise it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.
When Juliette (Dita Parlo) marries and moves in with Seine barge captain Jean (Jean Dasté), their relationship soon shows signs of strain. Sharing the cramped boat with eccentric bosun Père Jules (Michel Simon), a cabin boy and a clutter of cats doesn’t help; nor do Jean’s jealous tendencies or the couple’s reluctance to compromise… To this simple story Vigo brings an extraordinary array of ideas and insights, while the lustrous lyricism of Boris Kaufman’s camerawork, injections of surrealism and the almost childlike innocence of the performances locate the film in a fertile territory between objective realism and subjective fantasy. In their scenes together (which include one of the most erotic in cinema), Dasté and Parlo reveal an achingly vulnerable intensity. No other movie matches its mix of playfulness, poetry, sensuality and tenderness; this masterpiece is truly timeless.
France 1934. Dir Jean Vigo. With Jean Dasté, Dita Parlo, Michel Simon, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefebvre. 89min. EST. Digital. PG. A BFI release
Tues 14 Feb 21:00 Studio (Wed 1 – Wed 29 Feb Extended Run)

The Red Shoes

One of Powell and Pressburger’s most enduringly popular films is a stunning exercise in colour, movement and a kind of romanticism that was unusual in post-war British cinema. Explaining the film’s success, Powell stated, ‘We had all been told for ten years to go out and die for freedom and democracy, for this and for that, and now that the
war was over, The Red Shoes told us to go out and die for art’.
UK 1948. Dir Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. With Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring. 135min. Digital. U
Introduction by Ian Christie – on this date?
Tickets £10, concs £6.75 (Members pay £1.50 less)
Tue 14 Feb 18:10 NFT3

Picnic at Hanging Rock

On Valentine’s Day in 1900 three school girls and their teacher disappear while on an excursion to Victoria’s Hanging Rock, splintering the lives and hearts of those left behind. Weir’s cinematic exploration of the Unknown is also a tender treatise on romantic friendship between young women. Lingering glances, gentle caresses and declarations of love from one student to another abound in this beautiful and stunningly photographed film.
Australia 1975. Dir Peter Weir. With Rachel Roberts, Anne-Louise Lambert, Vivean Gray. 115min. PG
Tue 14 Feb 18:20 NFT2

Heartbeats (Les amours imaginaires)

Actor-writer-director Xavier Dolan has created an affecting film dealing with a misshapen love triangle. Dolan plays Nicolas, a young gay man who shares the passion of his best girlfriend, Marie, for the cherubic hunk that is Francis. This beautifully constructed film is a sharp dissection of the joys and heartbreaks of love. It’s also a vivid portrait of different sorts of friendship and the subtleties of rivalry between close friends.
Canada 2010. Dir Xavier Dolan. With Xavier Dolan, Monia Chokri, Niels Schneider. 101min. 15. EST
Tue 14 Feb 20:40 NFT2

To Have and Have Not

As adapted by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman, Hemingway’s novel becomes a characteristically laconic and witty Hawksian romance, in which Bogart’s fishing-boat captain, working the waters around Martinique during World War Two, discovers a sense of moral responsibility thanks to the love of a good and very strong-willed woman (Bacall). That the two leads fell in love during the making of the film is marvellously apparent, bringing both sexual chemistry and emotional depth to the stirring intrigue and adventure.
USA 1945. Dir Howard Hawks. With Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael, Marcel Dalio. 99min. PG
Tue 14 Feb 20:45 NFT1