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Which near-future dystopian city would you rather live in — the rainy, colorful Los Angeles of “Blade Runner” or the black-and-white chic of Paris?
Decide for yourself as Ridley Scott’s influential vision serves as a warm-up for Jean-Luc Godard’s bizarre and intriguing experiment. Both are great, but hey, if you have to live in a dark totalitarian society, this might as well be the place with good coffee and baguettes.
“Alphaville” (1965) is a French New Wave version of a parody of James Bond. Secret agent 003, aka Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), must kill a fascist dictator (Howard Vernon) and destroy his computer, the Alpha 60, which provides one of the weirdest narratives in movie history.
Caution is aided by a sexy sidekick (Anna Karina) and Raoul Coutard’s sparkling black-and-white cinematography, which uses glass and mirrors to create alienation and distance in a society where all emotion is forbidden.
—G. Allen Johnson
More information
“Blade Runner” and “Alphaville”: 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 23. $13. Castro Theater, 429 Castro St., SF 415-621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com
