FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN: In Memoriam Film Week at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi
Tuesday 9. June at 18:30 - 20:10
FOMO Secret Cinema, Tbilisi
This week I'm celebrating actors, directors, editors and artists who are no longer with us, but whose work continues to shape the films we watch and love. Some became icons. Others worked quietly behind the camera. Together, they helped make cinema what it is today.
I'm showing FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN in honour of both Paul Morrissey and Udo Kier who both passed in the last few years. Morrissey helped shape one of the most distinctive bodies of work to emerge from Warhol's creative circle, while Kier went on to become one of the great faces of international cult cinema. It's impossible to imagine this film working without either of them.
Paul Morrissey | 1973 | Italy, France, USA | 1h35m | Presented in the original English audio
In the early 1970s, Andy Warhol's name could be found attached to almost everything. Painting, publishing, music, performance art, fashion, photography, filmmaking. Somewhere amongst all of that, Warhol and Paul Morrissey managed to produce a lavish European Frankenstein film starring Udo Kier that combines horror, sex, satire, camp, comedy, and some truly outrageous dialogue.
Udo Kier plays Baron Frankenstein with absolute conviction. His version of the character isn't a tortured scientist searching for knowledge. He's an aristocratic maniac obsessed with creating the perfect human race, delivering every line as though the fate of civilisation depends on it. Watching Kier commit so completely to material this absurd is one of the great pleasures of cult cinema.
And I think that's what I enjoy most about FLESH, how it never winks at the audience. The sets are beautiful. The costumes are extravagant. The performances swing wildly between gothic melodrama and deadpan comedy. It simply throws itself forward with complete confidence and dares you to keep up.
When the film was released, many critics didn't know what to make of it. Some dismissed it as tasteless exploitation, but over the decades its reputation has steadily grown. Today it's widely regarded as one of the defining cult films of the 1970s, sitting comfortably alongside the strange and wonderful midnight movies that flourished on the edges of mainstream cinema.
FOOD AND DRINK POLICY: FOMO Cinema Lounge Bar opens 1 hour before the first screening of the day and closes at 02:00,.serving a wide selection of beer, wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic refreshments including coffee and tea, as well as fresh hot popcorn! Outside food is allowed in the bar but not in the cinema. No alcohol from outside allowed. All guests are invited to arrive early and stay late!
LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.
HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to Level 1. Signage on the door. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17933106294029235/
FOMO Secret Cinema • Bazari Orbeliani, 0105 Tbilisi, Georgia
