Magic Lantern fills niche for film fans

After months of speculation about its future, the Magic Lantern Theater, 25 W. Main Ave., recently announced that it was finally reopening this week, and the news inspired a sigh of relief among local film fanatics.

Movie theaters are overloaded with new releases in December and January, with all the Christmas blockbusters and Oscar-hungry prestige pictures fighting for audience attention. Theaters like the Lantern provide a much-needed middle ground, providing a platform for foreign films, indie productions, animated features and documentaries that typically bypass Spokane’s major theater chains.

To be fair, the AMC in River Park Square has done a good job of scheduling art house-friendly offerings. During the Lantern’s dormancy, they booked “Moonlight,” “Loving,” “Denial,” “Certain Women,” “Miss Hokusai” and “Train to Busan,” all more thoughtful fare than you’d expect from a mall megaplex.

But the AMC can’t play everything, and it frequently cuts smaller films from its screening schedule after a week. The Lantern often picks up those titles that AMC either jettisons early or lets fall through the cracks, a benevolent practice for those of us who prefer to see unusual, idiosyncratic cinema on a big screen.

Of course, there’s the misconception that all art house films are bitter medicine to be choked down, but crowd pleasers have always commingled with more outre selections on the Lantern’s screens. Consider “A Man Called Ove,” a comedy-drama from Sweden that opens at the Magic Lantern this weekend.

Based on Fredrick Backman’s bestselling novel, the plot concerns a widowed curmudgeon who regularly scolds the residents of his gated development for breaking a litany of minor rules. He plans to kill himself to be reunited with his dead wife, but his well-intentioned neighbors keep interrupting his suicide attempts to ask for help in their complicated personal lives.

The movie’s not nearly as bleak as it sounds: In fact, it’s as conventional and heartwarming as any Hollywood comedy, and it’s the kind of film that mainstream American audiences would likely eat up if only they knew it existed (and were willing to read subtitles). And “Harry and Snowman,” the heartwarming documentary about a champion jumping horse that also opens at the Lantern, is perfect viewing for older kids and their parents.

On Dec. 9, the theater will screen South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook’s erotic thriller “The Handmaiden,” which has received glowing reviews since premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Park, known for violent, highly stylized melodramas, is one of the most consistently interesting directors working today, and anyone who cares about international cinema should be grateful that Spokane has a venue where his films can play.

A movie theater can be as good a place as any to switch your brain off, but sometimes you need to be engaged, entertained and challenged. It’s rare that I leave a screening at the Magic Lantern without having been intrigued, provoked or moved in some way. I’m glad it’s back.

Current Magic Lantern showtimes are listed at magiclanternonmain.com.