The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, April 26-May 2
Night Catches Us (2010)
Directed by Tanya Hamilton
Hamilton shows the marks that both collective and personal traumatic memory leave on a young black couple in Philadelphia, 1976. The film opens on Marcus (Anthony Mackie), who returns to his neighborhood after his father’s passing. Over the course of the movie, we learn that Marcus is suspected of having betrayed a Panther comrade, resulting in his murder by police. The only person who has sympathy for Marcus is the widow Patricia (Kerry Washington). Their relationship develops slowly, in the spaces between what is said and what isn’t. Night Catches Us is a steady burn that manages to recreate moments within a period piece that feel eternal in their expression of yearning, anger, anxiety, and desire for a better future. Celina Reynes (April 30, 3:45pm at the Metrograph, with Tanya Hamilton in person)