NEW YORK FILM
FESTIVAL
2012 – 50th
Festival
The 2012 NYFF ended on 14
October. This excellent Festival—the 50th anniversary edition—was
fabulous: films from all over the globe,
from young directors and old, ones that delighted and ones that challenged,
ones that made us laugh and ones that made us cry—and mostly intense, rich
experiences that one would be unlikely to have anywhere other than at the New York Film Festival. There were films about coming of age, set in
virtually every decade from the 60s to the present, and there were films about
aging and dying; there were appearances by just about every famous French actor
in film history—including several giants from the New Wave
(two of whom appeared in an Austrian’s film).
It was terrific in all the ways the NYFF can be: there were not a lot of films I knew about in
advance or was particularly looking forward to (the main exception being Sally Potter's GINGER AND ROSA,
which we had seen an early version of at a focus group the Film Society had done for it
during its post-production process); the
film I realized I was most excited about seeing was not even in the NYFF proper (there were 33 films
chosen to be part of the “Main Slate”
that constitutes the heart of this year’s festival)—it was in the Special
Events part of the Festival, and was the 25th anniversary, screening of
THE PRINCESS BRIDE!
(q.v., below); there were films I
knew little about from filmmakers I have loved for as long as I can remember (e.g., Alain Resnais), and several from
filmmakers I have come to love over our decades of going to the NYFF (Abbas Kiarostami,
Olivier Assayas,
Noah Baumbach,
Michael Haneke, Léos Carax,
and Ang Lee);
and then there was the very special assortment of films from directors I didn't
know at all (Song
Fang, Miguel
Gomes, Noémie
Lvovsky, and Paolo and Vittorio Taviani [whose films, I am
embarrassed to admit, I had never seen--but which Nancy and I have been happily
devouring ever since]) and whose films I should never have had the opportunity
to see were it not for the Festival (seeing these unexpected gems is always the
very best part of the NYFF experience).
There was also a smattering of more commercial, Hollywood fare
(relatively rare in the NYFF) which, given my preferences, was predictably
disappointing.
So as not
to bury the lede, I’m going to put a list of the
films I saw here, as well as below (the name of each film is linked to my
review of it, below, if you’d like to jump ahead):
THE MAIN SLATE of FILMS IN THE
FESTIVAL
YOU AIN’T SEEN
NOTHIN’ YET (VOUS N’AVEZ ENCORE RIEN VU)
CAMILLE REWINDS
(CAMILLE REDOUBLE)
SOMETHING IN THE
AIR (APRÈS MAI)
CAESAR MUST DIE
(CESARE DEVE MORIRE)
MEMORIES LOOK AT
ME (JI YI WANG ZHE WO)
NIGHT ACROSS THE
STREET (LA NOCHE DE ENFRENTE)
BEYOND THE HILLS (DUPA˘ DEALURI)
SPECIAL EVENTS
In
the end, of the 22 films I saw, there were eight that I thought were wonderful,
five I felt were really good, five I thought were quite watchable and at least
OK, and four I strongly disliked—not bad for a festival that is dedicated to
taking chances and that tries to present a broad range of things it feels have
artistic merit in a number of directions.
(That’s 60% that were films I’d thoroughly recommend as being between
“really good” and “wonderful,” and over 80% that I felt were at least “quite
watchable”! And two of the four I really
disliked I should have known in
advance to avoid, so they were my fault.)
A
wonderful part of the NYFF is its series of HBO Directors Dialogues.
These are separate events in which a professional critic does what is
mostly an extended (usually hour and 45 minutes) one-on-one interview with a
director. Although they open the floor
at the end to questions from the audience, the extended interview format sets a
tone that for the most part encourages the audience questions to be
considerably less annoyingly obnoxious than in the Q&As that follow the
screenings themselves. I saw three
directors dialogues: an absolutely marvelous one with Abbas Kiarostami, moderated by Phillip
Lopate; a very interesting one with Robert
Zemeckis, conducted by Richard Peña;
and an informative one with Noah
Baumbach and Brian De Palma
(most unusual, in that there has never been one before done with two directors;
and these are two about whom I have enormously different feelings: I actually
very much like Baumbach almost
exactly as much as I dislike De Palma),
in which I was interested in trying to understand the fact that I had just
learned that the two very different directors were good friends.
An
even more wonderful facet of the NYFF experience is getting to share it with a
group of other cinephiles. At the
Festival, we get to talk with lots of other people who, as we, are having their
own, intense, personal reactions to these incredibly provocative films. Some are people we bring with us (the NYFF
provides us with an opportunity to connect with people we don't otherwise get
to see often); some are other members of the Film Society whom we have come to
know over the years; some are just random film lovers we are sitting or
standing near; and some are the filmmakers themselves, as the NYFF provides
many informal opportunities to interact with directors, actors, and those in
the business that make it all possible (a particularly attractive perk or
becoming a Patron of the
Film Society is access to the Patrons Lounge in Alice Tully during the
Festival: it is not only a comfortable, beautiful
place to hang out between films, it is a place that one has unusually good and
intimate access to members of the film community). So, become a Member, or, better yet, become a Patron of this excellent
organization, and enjoy next year's NYFF in style—and avail yourselves of the
year-round benefits of membership (q.v.,
the Film
Society's website).
The NYFF provides a wealth of riches each year—going far beyond the the approximately 30 films of it Main Slate. This year there were some terrific Special Events: a series of “Special Screenings,” which included the screening of THE PRINCESS BRIDE (mentioned above); and a series called, “Cinema Relected” (described in the program as, “documentaries and essay films about movies and the men and women who make them”), including Liv and Igmar by Dheeraj Akokar, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out by Marina Zenovich, Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay by Bernstein and Edelstein, and The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America by Jeff Kaufman. There was also an impressive Masterworks series, which included the 1969 Fellini Satyricon, the 1965 The Rolling Stones - Charlie is my Darling, the 1962 Lawrence of Arabia, and a new director’s cut of the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors. As always, the NYFF included its fabulous Views from the Avant-Garde series, curated by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith. For the first time this year, there was a series of free interview sessions at the Auditorium of the Elinor Bunan Monroe Film Center entitled NYFF Live. These session involved dialogues with major filmmakers whose work was part of the NYFF (including Lee Daniels, Barry Levinson, Palo Larrain and Gael Garcia Bernal, Roger Michell, Sally Potter, and Richard Peña, just to mention a sampling. They also were streamed live (via YouTube), and many are still available online at http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/series/nyff-live. Unfortunately, it was just a case of too many riches: while I saw 22 films, two Gala Tributes, and three Directors Dialogues, neither Nancy nor I were able to avail ourselves of any of these other swonderful opportunities.
There
were two Gala
Tributes in this year’s NYFF, and these we were able to attend: the first honored Nicole
Kidman (featuring a reel of clips from her movies and an on-stage
conversation,
followed by the U.S. premiere of her latest film, THE PAPERBOY); the second honored Richard
Peña,
who is reaching the end of his unprecedented 25 year tenure as the Film Society’s Program Director and Chairman
of the Selection Committee of the New York Film Festival (it was a
well-deserved, wonderful tribute to this man who has used his encyclopedic knowledge
of and extraordinary taste in world cinema to enrich and expand the scope of
film shown in the NYFF—and in the US as a whole; and who is perhaps one of the
greatest interviewers of filmmakers anywhere—not to mention that he can often
serve as translator for them in the process, in several languages!)
Once again this year, there was a Surprise Screening in which the NYFF screened a major, unfinished film—without announcing beforehand what that film was going to be. This year’s Surprise Screening was Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner, which played to a packed Alice Tully Hall, and was followed by a Q&A.
For
those who are interested, the entire Main Slate of the 2012 NYFF and the
Film Society descriptions of each event can be found at www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/series/50th-new-york-film-festival.
My reviews of past years of the NYFF can be found at www.RLRubens.com/nyff.html.
This
50th NYFF was the product of the second successful year of the leadership of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s
Executive Director Rose Kuo and her
increasingly excellent team. So, brava...and thanks, Rose!
For those of you who over the years have not noticed my subtlty in this—and who can be blamed for not looking to me to be subtle about my judgments about anything—I thought I might mention again that I have always placed my reviews of these films in approximately descending order of how much I liked them. (Had I chosen to include it along with those in the Main Slate, THE PRINCESS BRIDE would have been high on this list.)
The
list is composed of active links, and clicking on a title will take one to the
review of that film. All films are dated
2012.
THE MAIN SLATE of FILMS IN THE
FESTIVAL
YOU AIN’T SEEN
NOTHIN’ YET (VOUS N’AVEZ ENCORE RIEN VU)
CAMILLE REWINDS (CAMILLE
REDOUBLE)
SOMETHING IN THE
AIR (APRÈS MAI)
CAESAR MUST DIE
(CESARE DEVE MORIRE)
MEMORIES LOOK AT
ME (JI YI WANG ZHE WO)
NIGHT ACROSS THE
STREET (LA NOCHE DE ENFRENTE)
BEYOND THE HILLS (DUPA˘ DEALURI)
SPECIAL EVENTS
YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET (VOUS N’AVEZ ENCORE RIEN VU) (France) Alain Resnais,
who had a film (Muriel) in the very first NYFF, returns at 90 to the 50th
NYFF with his amazing YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET. This giant of French cinema (Hiroshima Mon Amour [1959], Last Year at Marienbad [‘61]) and NYFF regular (1998 NYFF, Same Old Song, and 2006 Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs), and one of our very
favorite films from the 2009 NYFF, Wild Grass (Les Herbes
folles)), has created a cinematic masterpiece based on two
works by the playwright Jean Anouilh.
The overall construct of the film is based on Anouilh’s 1969 Cher
Antoine ou l'Amour raté:
the friends of a playwright, Antoine (played by Denis Podalydès),
are informed that the author has died and are summoned to a mountain chateau to
hear the reading of his will. The film
opens with each of the incredible real-world actors (including some of the
greatest actors in France: legends like Michel Piccoli, Pierre Arditi,
and Resnais-regular Sabine Azéma, and current mainstays of French cinema
like Mathieu Amalric; vide, IMDB for a complete
listing of this amazing cast) receiving the identical phone call, inviting
them, named as the actors they actually are, to come to the reading of
Antoine’s will at his mountain estate in Peillons. Once they are all at the chateau, the butler
plays a video of Antoine in which he asks that they view and evaluate a recording of
an experimental theater company performing his Eurydice—a play by Antoine which we
learn all of the assembled actors appeared in over the years. The plot of Antoine’s Eurydice is roughly that of Anouilh’s 1941 play by the same
name—which itself is a somewhat surrealistic, contemporary retelling of the
classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (most commonly known in its Roman form, à
la Virgil). As the
assembled actors watch the “Compagnie de la Colombe” perform
the play onscreen, one by one they begin to recite the lines from the roles
they had played in it along with their youthful onscreen counterparts. Before long we are seeing an incredible
intermingling of three distinct productions of the play: two in which an older
(Pierre Arditi and Sabine Azéma) and younger (Lambert Wilson
and Anne Consigny) set of Orphées and Eurydices lead productions
utilizing combinations of the other assembled actors, the third being the
onscreen version by the Compagnie de la Colombe. It is interesting to note that
psychiatrically people’s relationship to reality is measured in their degree of
orientation in three realms: person (does one know who one is), place (does one know where one is), and time (does one know when it is). In
this film, all three dimensions of orientation (and disorientation) are triply
complicated: there are three Orphées, three Eurydices—a very young onscreen set of actors, and
an older and younger set of actor-friends in the chateau; actions take place in
three different universes (the industrial set which is the world of the
onscreen production, the room in the chateau in which the filmed version is
being viewed, and sets from what must have been one of the earlier
productions), and there are three different time frames (the most recent—yet
removed—time frame of the onscreen production, and the more and less distant
time frames of the two earlier productions by Antoine’s friends). Within this complex matrix, Resnais
plays out the Orpheus and Eurydice themes of devoted love and hateful jealousy,
friendship and betrayal, and ultimately life and death. At the risk of being a spoiler, I cannot help
but mentioning that there are also three endings—and a final twist that engenders
an entirely other layer to the already complex layerings of realities. The Orpheus and Eurydice myth is about love
that goes through stages of death, a return to life (after Orpheus is permitted
to bring Eurydice back from the underworld), and a return to death; and Resnais
deals with every aspect of this throughout every part of the incredible
film. I cannot wait to see it again!
LIKE SOMEONE IN
LOVE (Japan/France; Sundance Selects) Just the
opposite from our reaction to THE PAPERBOY (q.v., below), our appreciation for this marvelous new
film from Abbas Kiarostami became increasingly more positive as we moved
further from having viewed it—and it started out extremely high to begin
with. LIKE SOMEONE IN
LOVE is an incredibly well-done
film from this Iranian virtuoso, whose works we have grown to love over the
last decades at the NYFF. Set in
Japan—and in Japanese, a language he does not speak—the film continues Kiarostami’s exploration of other
cultures and other settings. In this
film he goes further than he did in his wonderful last film, Certified Copy (Copie conforme), our very favorite film from
the 2010 NYFF, which, while set in Florence, used actors who were French and
English. All of the actors in LIKE SOMEONE IN
LOVE, from the beautiful young
woman Akiko (Rin Takanashi) to the
81 year old Professor Takashi (Tadashi
Okuno, who was astounding, although he had never before had a major role in
a film) spoke only Japanese; and the settings and themes of the film were
deeply Japanese. Saying anything about this film risks spoiling the exquisite
experience of having this master filmmaker reveal in his own elegant fashion
and own carefully chosen time each aspect of who his characters are and what is
actually happening in his story; so I shall confine my comments to the earliest
moments of the film—although even this will not completely avoid the problem. The story begins in a lively bar, where we
hear a female voice, which we only eventually realize has been one side of a
mobile phone conversation, spoken by Akiko, whom we do not see for many minutes
as the camera takes in other patrons of the bar. It eventually turns out that Akiko, a
high-end call girl who is also a sometimes sociology student (both facts we
only learn in stages later) was speaking to her jealous and controlling
boyfriend, Noriaki (Ryo Kase, whom
we only meet the next day). His jealousy
seems insane—or is it? While Akiko yells
at one point, “I am not lying!”; she clearly is. When the owner of the bar (and the manager of
her escort dealings) pushes her to ignore the fact that she is supposed to meet
her grandmother in order to go to a client he has arranged, she screams that
she will not do it; but she goes. (The
grandmother interlude is a complex thing of beauty and poignancy all its own,
even though it occupies only minutes of the film.) And these are only the opening minutes of
this amazing work of art. Akiko ends up
at the apartment of Takashi, the aging professor who is to be her client; and
the next day they both end up meeting her boyfriend. Along the way we end up seeing a bizarrely
out-of-sync pair of intrusions into events by a female neighbor of the
professor (once as just a disembodied voice, and once as a face in her
window)—incomprehensible in terms of story line, but crucial in terms of
mood…although one does not know this at the time. The title, LIKE SOMEONE IN
LOVE, comes in part from the title
of one of the many Ella Fitzgerald songs playing in the professor’s apartment,
but it also alludes to a very fundamental question in describing each of the
main characters in the complex tapestry of human interaction. The reason it took some time to realize how
fully deeply I loved this film relates to a disturbing turn the film takes—one
which only becomes understandably part of the entire fabric of the film in
retrospect, as one settles in to realizing all of what one has absorbed along
the way. But enough…see it for yourself
and think about it. This one is a true
gem!
GINGER AND ROSA (UK; A24 Films)
Sally Potter has made some
very interesting and powerful films (her 2000 The Man Who
Cried, 1996 The Tango Lesson, and her 1992 film Orlando), but GINGER AND ROSA is her most totally successful, lovely, moving, and important film to
date. It is the story of two 16 year old
British girls, connected since their mothers' pregnancies, coming of age
together as best friends in 1962. The
main character, Ginger (Elle Fanning,
only 14 years old—and only 13 when the film was shot—did a simply fabulous job
playing this complex teenager; and her performance may well put her in
contention for an Oscar) is dealing with the disintegration of the marriage of
her disturbingly narcissistic, but deeply loved parents (well-acted by Alessandro Nivola and Christina Hendricks), and eventually
the increasing strain in her devotedly loving relationship with her friend Rosa
(Alice Englert), whose combination
of sexual precociousness and immature religiosity clash painfully with Ginger's
adolescent innocence and anxiety in social relationships and her hyper-serious
devotion to things artistic, intellectual, and political. As she is horribly betrayed by those she
loves the most, Ginger experiences her terror about the destruction of her
relational world as if it were all about the physical destruction of the larger
world in which she has become politically involved: Ginger has become active in the Ban the Bomb
movement, and the story is taking place against the backdrop of the Cuban
Missile crisis—a moment in time when political narcissism threatened physically
to destroy the world in a nuclear way that parallels the emotional holocaust Ginger
is in the midst of. Ginger is a
wonderfully complex character, and Fanning
is amazingly successful bringing her to the screen. But, most of all, Sally Potter has created a major masterpiece:
GINGER AND ROSA works enormously well on so many levels—from the
intimately private to the grandly political, from issues of childishness to
maturity (as both are to be found and not found in young people as well as in
nominal adults [interestingly, the only truly adult support Ginger receives is
from a gay couple—Mark and Mark 2, Timothy
Spall and
Oliver Platt—who are friends of her family]), from personal
striving to interpersonal responsibility, from raw feelings to lofty intellect,
and from the challenge of thought-provoking issues to just plain entertaining
experience. Brava, Sally! And how lucky we all are to
have this film to see.
AMOUR (Austria/France/Germany; Sony Pictures Classics) Haneke
is a tough filmmaker: his film from the 2009 NYFF, The White Ribbon (Das
Weiße Band), was very good, gripping but
very harsh, and the one from the 2005 Festival, Caché (Hidden) was equally gripping and harsh, if somewhat less
good. With AMOUR, which won this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes this writer/director
enters an entirely new realm: while as
powerful and devastating in its emotional intensity as any of Haneke’s
earlier works, this film is also tender and loving in a way that adds a balance
and depth to the film I did not find in his other works. It is a profoundly successful, moving story
of an aging French couple, Georges (played incredibly by Jean-Louis
Trintignant, an 82 year old French actor who was discovered by Roger Vadim
[and appeared in his 1956 ...And
God Created Woman and in his 1959 Les liaisons dangereuses], but is best-known for his
starring role in Claude Lelouche’s 1966 A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme)) and his wife of many
years, Anne, (played by the fabulous Emmanuelle Riva, who, at 85, is
best known as the star of Alain Resnais’ 1959 Hiroshima Mon Amour). In addition to these two giants of French
cinema, the unbelievably excellent cast of this film includes, at the other end
of the age spectrum, the incomparable Isabelle Huppert (who has starred
in films of directors from Goddard to Claire Denis), who plays the couple’s
daughter. Haneke presents us with
a vivid but loving close-up examination of the effects of age and illness on
this amazing couple, in their lovely Paris apartment (the strong presence of
which functions almost as another actor in the wonderful cast). Georges loves and is devoted to Anne, and yet
he cannot quite fully be what she needs, despite his Herculean efforts. AMOUR presents insights into the
profound emotional realities of love and relationship, death and
dying—including the profound swings of of tenderness
and anger, patience and frustration, hope and despair that actually are
involved if one has the courage to look below the surface of what is going
on. This is a masterpiece of filmmaking,
and an incredibly powerful experience.
CAMILLE REWINDS (CAMILLE REDOUBLE) (France)
Noémie Lvovsky stars in this
completely hilarious, surprisingly moving, and thoroughly enjoyable French
re-working of Peggy Sue Got Married which she directed and co-wrote with Maud Ameline, Pierre-Olivier Mattei, and Florence
Seyvos. Starting out in current day
France as a middle-aged woman who is looking old beyond her years, showing the
ravages of her drinking and the pain of being left by her husband of 25 years (Samir Guesmi), Camille passes out at a
New Year’s party with old friends, and then wakes up as a high school senior in
1985, surrounded by these same friends in their earlier friendship
together. Her first appearance in the
garb of an 80’s French teenager alone is worth the price of admission! Lvovsky is extraordinary in the
role—touchingly vulnerable, bitingly funny, and so, so French. She, of course, knows all that is about to
transpire in this life that she has already lived; and her commentary on it as
she once again meets and falls in love with the man who will become her
husband, the father of her child, and who she knows will eventually abandon her
is the most amazing part of this fabulous film—especially in the scene where
she knows she is about to have her first kiss with this young man. There is a wonderful small part perfectly
played by New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud (the boy in Truffaut’s 1959
classic, The 400
Blows—and
who has made several delightful appearances in films in recent NYFF’s,
including last year’s wonderful Le Havre by Aki Kaurismäki, and in
Tsai Ming-liang’s extraordinary 2001 What
Time Is It There) as a watchmaker—which may have some quite deep
significance in a film about dislocations in time. This film is a fun experience you will not
want to miss.
FRANCES HA (USA) Noah Baumbach’s newest film, co-written by
and starring Greta Gerwig as
Frances, is a completely fun, clever romp through the scene of New Yorkers in
their mid-20s. The film begins with
Frances giddily happy, ensconced in her Brooklyn apartment with her roommate,
Sophie (played by Mickey Sumner)—more comfortable and loving with Sophie
than with her boyfriend, and pursuing a career as a modern dancer—more invested
in it than talented at it. Nevertheless,
Frances is having a wonderfully good time.
Before long, however, both her roommate and her internship have
disappeared, and Frances is progressively faced with the necessity of dealing
with life in a more realistic way. Can
she do it without losing the vitality and joyfulness that has characterized her
earlier existence? Well, not without making a lot of mistakes and
missteps. It is a beautifully filmed
study in black and white, powerfully rooted in specific parts of the fabric of
New York City (the segments are even labeled with explicit street
addresses). The music for the film was
fun—especially the wonderful instrumental pieces from the great Georges
Delerue (there was something about hearing the theme from de Broca’s King of Hearts (Le Roi de coeur) that simply made me smile
happily). This film is full of youthful energy and good natured humor. And while I did not find it to be nearly as
deep as Baumbach’s earlier works (his NYFF appearances, Margot
at the Wedding in 2007 and The Squid and the Whale in 2005, and even his 2010 Greenberg) it is totally enjoyable and
worth seeing.
BARBARA (Germany; Adopt
Films) In BARBARA, Christian
Petzold has written and directed a film of impressive sophistication. The title character, beautifully played by Petzold regular, Nina Hoss, is a physician in East Germany in 1980 who has
been punished for her earlier political activities, dismissed from her fancy
East Berlin hospital, and whom, at the outset of the film, we see arriving at
the small provincial hospital to which she has been exiled. Barbara remains withdrawn and cold around her
colleagues, even with André (played by Ronald
Zehrfeld), the head doctor on her service, who seems to be very warm and
welcoming toward her. On the other hand,
we see her reacting in a concerned and involved fashion with her patients—and
particularly with Stella (Jasna Fritzi
Bauer), a young girl whose illness she recognizes and treats (after the
chief doctor had misidentified her meningitis as malingering), and with whose
plight as a politically persecuted and abused person she identifies. On some levels, BARBARA is an exciting Cold-War thriller, while on other
levels it is a deeply human drama. Petzold won the Silver Bear for Best
Director at Berlin Film Festival for this film, and it deserved it: the film is an absorbing, fast-paced,
powerful yet subtle work that will keep you riveted.
SOMETHING IN
THE AIR (APRÈS MAI) (France; Sundance Selects) Olivier Assayas is a great filmmaker: his Carlos was our second favorite film in the 2010 NYFF, and his Summer Hours (L’Heure d’été) was wonderful; and he had a long
history of other films, including his 1996 Irma Vep (also in the NYFF). SOMETHING IN
THE AIR,
which he wrote and directed, is a beautiful film, in the way Olivier is so good
at making a film beautiful: it has an
emotional tone that elegantly permeates the telling of the story, and it is
visually gorgeous, even when dealing with ugliness. (The
cinematography by the amazing Eric Gautier [who was the eye behind his Summer Hours (L’Heure d’été), as well as the recent films of Alain Resnais {q.v., above} and Arnaud Desplechin] captures the beauty of the outdoor
scenes in a way the that has a typically of Assayas’ painterly, almost impressionistic visual quality—even when
they in fact are chase scenes of young people escaping violent confrontations.) It is the
somewhat autobiographical story of French high school students in the 60s
(which, we all know, began in 1967 and continued until sometime after 1973),
involved in their own, peculiarly French brand of Marxist political activism
and anarchistic social rebellion—in this case largely played out in angry acts
against the repressive structure of their high school, but with grand
aspirations about its broader societal implications. The original French title, APRÈS MAI. refers to the student revolt in Paris of May 1968; the film
itself begins in 1971. Gilles (played by Clément Mettayer) is
attempting to balance his political aspirations with his growing interest in
painting and eventually filmmaking, and at the same time balancing all of that
with his relationship to his girlfriend, Christine (Lola Créton)—and
that with his love for a former girlfriend Laure (Carole Combes), who seems to move in and
out of his life, and life in general.
What is so exceptional in the film is the way it captures the tone and
feel of that time in the life of the youth of France—its aspirations and
frustrations, idealism and immaturity, passionate commitment and puerile acting
out, its look and its sound (the period music is wonderfully evocative,
particularly the rendition of a Phil Ochs ballad). It is a terrific film, and I was deeply
caught up in it in a powerful way; nevertheless, the pace flags a bit, and I
didn’t feel that the film was completely successful in carrying me through its
two-hour length—although it was a film that I felt increasingly positive about
as I moved away from it…and I ended up feeling it was quite wonderful.
CAESAR MUST DIE (CESARE DEVE MORIRE) (Italy; Adopt Films) Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, NYFF regulars
over the decades, who wrote and directed the wonderful 1982 The Night of
the Shooting Stars (La Notte di San Lorenzo), and the amazing 1977 Padre Padrone), have created a most unusual and unusually
fabulous film in CAESAR MUST DIE, which won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. It is a documentary, actually shot in a
maximum security prison in Rome, using serious criminals incarcerated there,
who are in the process of preparing and staging a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
It is far more than a documentary, however: the movie-making genius of the Taviani
brothers transforms the auditions and rehearsals in the cells, corridors, and
courtyards of the prison into moments of high dramatic intensity and tension—in
a way that the few moments in the film of the actual final production never
even approach. The real-world
aggression, anger, and emotions of the actors flare at times with an intensity
that reveals the well-spring out of which the best moments of the individual
performances are drawn. I do not believe
I would have wanted to see the actual stage production these convicts put on;
but the riveting intensity of emotional expression that the Taviani brothers
capture on screen in their film creates a tableau of Julius Caesar which is deeply true to the feel
of Shakespeare’s play, and at times quite worthy of fine, accomplished
Shakespearean actors . The pure entertainment experience of watching CAESAR MUST DIE is a joy not to be missed.
TABU (Portugal;
Adopt Films) TABU was one of those
real NYFF treats: it was from a director we had never heard of, it is a film
that has little chance of much of much commercial existence, and it was an
unusual and exhilarating treat. There
are three distinct sections to this black and white film, which by the way, was
the only film in the NYFF to have been shot on celluloid! The first, a sort of prologue, is what Is essentially an old-time silent film (with an energetic,
early-cinema musical accompaniment, and lugubrious voice overs in place of
written titles) in which a Portuguese explorer is seen journeying through some
part of 19th century Africa.
It is actually quite purposely funny in the absurdity of is
self-seriousness, as the man, despondent over the death of the woman he had
loved (whose presence keeps appearing to him and haunting him; the only spoken
dialogue in this segment is from the apparition), struggles through the jungle
(aided by an entourage of Black porters), and eventually ends his life by
feeding himself to a crocodile—who is said to appear thereafter to others as a
haunting presence in the jungle, a “sad and
melancholy crocodile.” It turns out that
this movie is being watched by a middle-aged woman Pilar
(Teresa Madruga),
alone in a theater in current-day Lisbon, where the second section of TABU, actually titled, “Paradise Lost,” takes place. Here Pilar looks in repeatedly on her aged,
dementing neighbor Aurora (Laura Soveral)
and her Black caretaker, Santa (Isabel
Cardoso). Isabel is tormented by
delusions persecution and guilt—and visions of crocodiles hiding in her
apartment. Her dying request to Pilar is
for her to contact a man named Ventura for her.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Ventura (Henrique Espirito Santo) not only turns out to exist, but is an old
lover of Aurora’s from when she lived as a young woman in Portuguese colonial
Africa. The tale he tells is the final
section, “Paradise,” set in the mid-twentieth century—and in which all of the
main players, including a crocodile, have new actors and vibrant new
stories: Ana Moreira plays a beautiful, fiery young Aurora, Carloto Cotta a handsome, swashbuckling
Ventura…and I don’t know who plays the baby crocodile. Every segment is enriched by a humorous
appreciation for absurdity, but each is also charged with extreme emotion;
every section moves energetically forward with a storyline, but everywhere the
plot content is outweighed by surreal evocation of underlying themes—magic and
religion, love and lust, friendship and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, profound
issues of melancholia (including the “slight bipolarity” that is said to
describe one of the character’s early years), and, pervading all, the
persistent but never mentioned issues of race and colonialism (e.g., everyone in every section is taken care of by Black people). His handling of the formal aspects of cinema is
every bit as clever, inventive, and
wonderful as his handling of story element:
for example, he uses the combinations of sound and silence
exquisitely—from the apparently silent film of the first section (with a lively
soundtrack), to the mixtures in the third section ranging from total silence
(anytime someone is in a film or photograph) to times when the characters are
totally silenced even though they are obviously speaking, and all the audience
hears is background (either just background noises, like animal noises or wind,
or musical soundtrack); he does similar things with visual elements (e.g., the transition from second section, which ends in the tropical
rainforest garden that is part of the restoration of the interior of a major train
station in Lisbon, to the tropical vegetation of Africa in the third section—an
effect that is enhanced by the fact that the soundtrack from the African
portion is already playing at the end of the Lisbon garden scene). Miguel Gomes has made a fabulously sophisticated and successful film—profoundly
thought-provoking yet thoroughly entertaining. TABU won
the Alfred Bauer Prize for a work of particular innovation—something which I
feel it completely deserved.
HOLY MOTORS (France; Indomina) HOLY MOTORS opens with a pajama-clad man
(played by the film’s writer/director, Léos Carax) trying to sleep in a modern hotel
room, who eventually uses a surrealistic finger/key to open a secret panel in
the room which leads into a dark hallway, which leads into the balcony of an
old movie theater, showing an old, black and white film, and then segues into
the film itself—which “begins” (but who is to say here anything begins or ends within this world
Carax has created) with a well-dressed man, Monsieur Oscar (played wonderfully
by Denis Lavant), saying goodbye to his family and being picked up by a
white stretch limo, chauffeured by Céline (Edith Scob; who starred in Eyes
Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) by Georges Franju [best known as co-founder in 1937 of the
Cinematheque Française, the famous French film archive], and who appears in the
publicity photos for HOLY MOTORS
wearing a mask that is a direct reference to that 1960 horror classic. More than incidentally, there are many wonderful references to other
films within HOLY MOTORS). In case this description of the beginning
moments of the film does not adequately clue you in, what ensues is a
fabulously and intricately layered journey of dreamy exploration of what is
film and what is reality, what is acting and what is living—with twists and
turns and recursive references that will thrill you and keep you off balance
throughout this incredible experience.
So as not to diminish the thrilling experience of having this all play
out fresh for you when you see it, I should probably only quote what he said at
Cannes to describe HOLY MOTORS: “a film about a man and the experience of
being alive.” But I cannot help risking
telling you that during that single day M. Oscar inhabits 11 different
characters, described as “M. Oscar / Le banquier / La
mendiante / L'OS de Motion-Capture / M. Merde / Le père /
L'accordéoniste / Le tueur / Le tué / Le mourant / L'homme au foyer.” And in all
these personas, Levant interacts with some spectacular other actors in
addition to Edit Scob: Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue, Michel
Piccoli, and Geoffrey Carey, to name a few. This film is incredibly interesting, although
I have to acknowledge that I felt that Carax was not completely able to
maintain its sublime excellence all the way through to the ending, which was
something of a disappointment.
MEMORIES LOOK
AT ME (JI YI WANG ZHE
WO) (China) This is the
exceptional first film written and directed by Song Fang, whom we previously only had known as the actress who played the nanny and aspiring
filmmaker in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon (NYFF 2007). MEMORIES LOOK
AT ME is a
tender, beautiful story about Song Fang
traveling from her home in Beijing to Nanjing for a visit with her family. It is a created, fictional story, but it
involves Song’s actual parents and brother and his family, all of whom
play themselves on screen, in her parent’s actual apartment in Nanjing. The film has a slow, intimate pacing to it,
as the unmarried daughter in her mid-30s reconnects—sometimes awkwardly,
sometimes poignantly—with her parents, who seem quite old and decrepit in their
60s. There are wonderful moments of
domestic life—including some filial grooming of her parents, many intimate
silences (some warm, some sad; all tender), wonderfully good-natured
interactions, and uncomfortably rejecting parental comments on the problems of
not having a life partner (some blatantly directed at Song, some seemingly
about other relatives, but obvious in their suspended implications). The family is living in cramped, not
luxurious quarters—although there is a beauty to their apartment that is
strongly emphasized in the cinematography by the almost painting-like, gorgeous
visual framing, often involving views out the windows and down halls. There is a subtle level of social commentary,
presented with only the lightest of touches:
What in the family’s status is the effect of there being two children?
What is the role of the father being a doctor?
What does it mean for Song to be single?
And what actually is life in China all about? (In one of the most humorous but touching
scenes, one of his patients presents his wife with a live chicken in return for
medical help she cannot pay for; and Song is unable to touch the chicken, even
though her mother needs her help with it.
Our friend from Taiwan who saw the film with us said it was exactly like
an incident she had experienced with her mother—only 30 years earlier…also,
perhaps, some implicit social commentary.)
We loved the title, by the way:
the ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings of it—depending on how one
chooses to punctuate it and scan its meaning—seemed to reflect a similar
quality in the film itself. (We were
told that the exact same issues pertain to its Chinese title.) It is not a perfect film, as, even at its
appropriate 91 minute length, it at times felt too long—but I would not have
wanted to do away with the film’s pacing, as it was, on the whole, extremely
successful. I don’t know whether it will
get distribution, but it is one of those very special things we love that the
NYFF gives us the opportunity to see—and, should it become possible, I’d
recommend that you see it, too.
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON (UK; Focus
Features) This film was actually one of
the Festival’s surprises: we had seen a trailer for it last summer and had
thought it looked dreadful, and we were so pleased to find that it actually
was quite good. Roger Michell (not a director we know) has directed a quite
enjoyable film in HYDE PARK ON
HUDSON.
Although I am a great fan of Bill Murray,
I did not expect that he would be able to play the role of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt in the powerful and successful way he did—it was truly a bravura
performance. The main storyline—which
is, unfortunately, rather disappointingly thin and, in my opinion, ultimately
unsatisfying—involves FDR’s romantic relationship with his distant cousin,
Margaret “Daisy” Suckley (wonderfully played by Laura Linney), against the background of his multiple other
long-standing romantic liaisons (including the one with his secretary, Missy,
played by Elizabeth Marvel)—and, of
course, against the deeper background his relationship with his wife (played by
Olivia Williams, whom Wes Anderson
fans will remember—but likely not recognize, because she manages convincingly
to look like Eleanor Roosevelt—as the teacher Rosemary Cross and Jason
Schwartzman’s love-interest [and Bill Murray’s] in Rushmore), and his mother (Elizabeth Wilson), who actually runs
the show at her Hyde Park country estate.
The most successful part, of the otherwise not terribly well-written
storyline, involves the visit to the upstate NY estate by King George VI
(rather movingly played by Samuel West)
and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman)
on the eve of World War II, to plead for US help in the approaching
hostilities. This central segment is
what gives the film what substance it has—and, within that, the central
late-night one-on-one between FDR and “Bertie” is the real emotional crux of
the film—albeit that the director may not himself have realized this. (Why this monarch is the subject of so much
interest at our particular moment in history is a question worth pondering…and
I am eagerly open to suggestion! As an aside, it is more than mildly annoying
to realize that the position of FDR to the King in the film probably lacks any historical validity; but it does not really
interfere in the experience of this most enjoyable and moving part of the
film.)
NOT FADE AWAY (CENTERPIECE, WORLD PREMIERE; USA; Paramount Vantage) The Sopranos creator
David Chase has written and directed as his first feature film this
coming-of-age portrait of high school students in the mid-1960s in New Jersey
forming a rock band. One young man,
Douglas (John Magaro), discovers that while his talent as a drummer is
minimal, his abilities as a singer and song-writer are far more
successful. The sound track for NOT FADE AWAY (produced by Steven Van Zandt)
is quite good, and the look and feel of the film is of very high quality. The film suffers mightily, however, from a
thinness of plot and a shallowness of emotion.
A lot seems to be happening; but, in the end, it doesn’t seem like much
actually does. Douglas is in a trite
rebellious relationship with his very stereotyped, working-class father (James
Gandolfini), who can’t seem to abide his long hair or non-lower middle
class values; he also just can’t seem to get it right with his sometimes
girlfriend, Grace (Bella Heathcote); and while the kids struggle to make
it in the music world, they don’t really have what it takes to pull it
off. It is a pleasant enough film to
watch, well-made, and with some good moment; but it is ultimately not very
fulfilling. Unfortunately, it seems a
lot like what is bad about watching TV drama—and I am not referring to the experience of
watching things like The Sopranos.
The NYFF write-up said this film, “might be the best coming-of-age movie
since Barry Levinson’s Diner—and one of the best rock movies
ever.” Don’t believe it.
ARAF – SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN (Turkey/France/Germany) ARAF is a
film that captures something deeply important about a side of life in modern
Turkey, where the pressures of modernization grindingly affect the lives of
people who reap almost none of that modernization’s benefit. (It totally avoids, by the way, the important
issue of the increasingly rapid growth of religious fundamentalism in the
country. While this simply is not the
subject of this movie, its total absence seems unrealistic in a way that
motivates me to refer you to a piece I wrote a couple of years ago about the Current Political Situation in
Turkey.) Set far away from the
cosmopolitan center of Istanbul, or even from any of Turkey’s second level
cities, ARAF takes place largely at a highway truck stop, where
the main character, a young girl named Zehra (Neshlihan Atagül), works incredibly long hours behind the cafeteria
counter. As the film opens, she moves
back and forth only between work and her repressive home in the small town to
which she travels each day by bus. In
Zehra, new filmmaker Yeşim Ustaoğlu, has created a very
sympathetic and appealing character—responsible and clearly bright—who is
moving toward adulthood, but who has no path forward that shows the slightest
signs of promise. ARAF is ultimately a
brutally harsh film, because it is not reductionist in its treatment of the
terrible futility of all Zehra efforts to move out from her situation—and this
is a virtue, as the paths she attempts are ultimately sadly horrible. Nevertheless, the director goes to some
visual extremes in the brutality of her own visual presentation which actually diminish the success of the film. Some of the imagery is
just too much; and there is just too much of the whole thing—the two hour
length of the film makes its harshness unpleasant, and unnecessary. It would have been a much more successful
film were it somewhat less overdone.
LIFE OF PI (OPENING NIGHT, WORLD PREMIERE; USA; 20th Century Fox) I am a great fan of Ang Lee’s films—The Wedding Banquet (’93), The Ice
Storm (’97), Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon (‘00), Brokeback Mountain,(‘05),
and Lust,
Caution (’07) are not only incredible
films, they also reveal the amazing versatility and depth of this fabulous
director; and The Ice
Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon played important roles in past NYFF’s.
His masterful visual sense and profound story-telling ability invariably
create powerfully engaging films of great intensity and beauty, and LIFE OF PI is no exception: this 3-D film is completely gorgeous and deeply
involving. Unfortunately, it was—for
me—horribly off-putting in its soppy sentimentality and romantic
religiosity. And this unpleasant
emotional tone was announced during the opening credits—and unfortunately
carried throughout the film—by the horrendously maudlin soundtrack. From what I can tell from people I respect
who liked the bestselling book by Yann Martel, the adaptation of it by David
Magee on which the film was based is a big part of what I did not
like. And, in the end, while I did enjoy
the experience of watching the film, I painfully did not like the film. LIFE OF PI is the story of a young Indian boy, Pi Patel, (quite wonderfully played
by Suraj Sharma, in his first screen role) who survives a shipwreck and
subsequent 227-day journey aboard a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger as his
fearsome and, ultimately, cherished companion.
The cast also includes two great actors (who played the parents in Mira
Nair’s The
Namesake), Irrfan Khan, who plays
the adult version of Pi, and Tabu, who plays Pi’s mother). So, the acting in this film is also wonderful. Ang Lee manages successfully to deal with all
of what should have been insurmountable technical and artistic obstacles to
bringing this story to a cinematographic reality; but he (and, from what Mr.
Lee said in introducing the film, he does
bear a big share of the blame for this) and the writer of the adaption rather
ruined the experience for me by introducing its heavy overlay of simple-minded
religiosity. Even the potentially
meaningful philosophical twist in the story is undercut by the added soppy
religious overtones. It is too bad; it
could have been a very interesting film.
There are many who will enjoy it, however.
FLIGHT (CLOSING NIGHT, WORLD PREMIERE; USA; Paramount Pictures) Robert Zemeckis has made some wonderful films.
Well, not the sort that appear at the NYFF, but ones I have really
enjoyed, going all the way back to his 1984 Romancing the Stone and 1985-90 Back to the Future series (I, III…and even II, a
bit)—and even his 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit;
they are just plain fun movies. (I have completely disliked, however, his films since: 1994 Forest Gump, 1997 Contact, 2000
Cast Away; they may have had good special effects, but, to me, they are
offensively mindless.) So, I was
expecting good special effects from the airplane crash film—and got them; I was
not expecting much more—and my level of expectation was on target. FLIGHT deals with a very real problem:
there is an alarmingly high rate of alcoholism among commercial airline
pilots, and this is an extremely scary reality.
(Fortunately, commercial jets can practically fly themselves.) Not yet asleep from a night of debauchery
with one of his very sexy flight attendants (Nadine Velazquez, whose beautiful naked body we get to see an
amazing amount of in the opening moments in the hotel room), pilot Whip
Whitiker (Denzel Washington) rouses
himself from his drug and alcohol induced stupor by snorting cocaine, so he can
get to the airport to fly his 9 AM flight to Atlanta. Whip is an amazingly good pilot, if not much
of a human being. In a crunch, he
functions in a way not most pilots can—even sober. The series of inflight mishaps in the first
twenty minutes of the film are portrayed on film by Zemeckis with terrifyingly effective skill—they are wonderfully
done. Whip is incredible in his handling
of the emergencies; and Washington
is very good portraying this alcoholic hero.
The other two hours of the film,
however, deal with the human drama that ensues around the question of Whip’s
alcoholism and how that is going to play out in the investigation that follows
the incident; and on this end, neither Zemeckis
nor Washington is anywhere near up
to the task. John Goodman is totally wasted (in more
ways than one) in this film (I loved his “Walter Shobchak” in The Big Lebowski, but it really seemed out of place in FLIGHT)—the whole thing would have
been better off without him. Aside from
the disaster scenes, the best thing about the film is that it’s a reasonably
great advertisement for Alcoholics Anonymous.
As for a treatment of the complex emotional issues it is trying to deal
with, FLIGHT is a train wreck…oh, no…wait:
it’s an airplane disaster!
THE PAPERBOY (USA; Millennium Entertainment) This film by Lee
Daniels (whose Precious: Based on the Novel
“Push” by Sapphire was a surprise hit of the
2009 NYFF) was shown as part of a Gala Tribute—one of two in this year’s
NYFF—to its star, Nicole Kidman.
THE PAPERBOY is based on a novel by Pete Dexter, who, along with Daniels,
wrote the screenplay. I do not like Nicole
Kidman, but she did do a reasonably good—albeit meaningless—job in
portraying the brazen floozy, Charlotte.
(There is a strange, Noah Baumbach twist here, not unlike with the De
Palma film, q.v., below: the only other film in which I have in any way liked Kidman
was Baumbach’s Margot
at the Wedding, which was shown in the 2007
NYFF.) The story is set in Moat County,
FL, where two brothers, Jack (played by Zac Efron) and older brother
Ward (Matthew McConaughey) each have returned home to work on their
father’s newspaper (the younger essentially as a delivery boy, the other as a
reporter). Ward and his Black co-writer
Yardley (David Oyelowo) are covering the attempt to get death row inmate
Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack) pardoned; Charlotte is planning to
marry him (after a lurid prison letter-writing relationship). Cusack is incredibly impressive in
playing against type in this film: he
plays a completely shallow (and perhaps marginally retarded), stony-faced,
violent, psychopath—and he does it with amazingly convincing power and
depth. This is one of those films that
seemed increasingly bad the further we got from the experience of viewing
it: in the moment, it was hard not to be
caught up in the swirl of intense emotion, terrifying action, and dramatic
tension. In the end, the more we
reflected on it, the more the emptiness and meaninglessness of the whole thing
bothered us. THE PAPERBOY
trots out endless, intense themes (family rivalries, racial prejudice,
unprincipled ambition, sexual perversions, backwater poverty and ignorance,
journalistic integrity, distorted marital relationships, etc., etc.) and repeated shocking images (everything from brutal murders and
slashings to rather un-erotic but pornographic sex acts and Kidman
pissing on Zac Efron’s face); it puts the viewer through an assaultive
barrage of emotions and visceral reactions; but, in the end, one realizes that
there is really no point—all of it goes absolutely nowhere. And the more that the
pointlessness of all this violence, madness, and brutality becomes apparent,
the less I liked having been subjected to it. It just isn’t worth having to go through it.
PASSION (USA) I have
never much liked the films of Brian De
Palma, and we chose to see his new one, PASSION, only because I had learned that Noah Baumbach,
whose films I do like, is a close friend of De Palma’s. (I went to an HBO On Cinema event which, for the first time this year,
featured two directors together—Baumbach and De Palma. During this event, I learned that not only
are they friends, but that they meet regularly together with Wes Anderson—whose
films I adore—to
discuss their work together. I did not
know that in advance of seeing PASSION, but if I had it would have provided even more
incentive to see it.) I was not happy that I did see it, however: I thought it was
terrible. De Palma is technically very adept; the film has excellent
production values and a very polished, slick feel. But it is hard to imagine more
empty, mindless garbage pretending to have some depth or even dramatic
meaning. It is a “thriller” (and the
music keeps telling us this is the case in a very heavy-handed way), with
unsuspected and clever twists of plot (all of which were completely predictable
and stupid). The story revolves about
the competition between two women, an ambitious, talented, and seemingly sympathetic
creative director, Noomi Rapace (who, at least, seems to do a good job acting her
part), and the rapacious, frighteningly narcissistic, unprincipled head of the
agency, Rachel McAdams (who, on the other hand, seems totally incapable
of acting at all). De Palma
creates numerous “surprises” and turns of plot, which, to quote the Bard in the
“Scottish Play,” turn out to be a lot of “sound and fury, signifying
nothing.” (And we know who is said to
have told that tale…)
NIGHT ACROSS
THE STREET (LA NOCHE DE
ENFRENTE) (France/Chile; Cinema Guild) I
do not remember who it was that recommended we see this last film by the
prolific Mexican director Raul Ruiz, who died last year after making NIGHT ACROSS
THE STREET, but
I am suspicious that perhaps I was mistaken that this was what the person had
recommended: I found this film to be
unbearable. In fairness, it was the 17th
film I had seen in 11 days, it screened at 9 PM on a Sunday in which we had
already seen one other film and a director’s dialogue, I was very tired, and I had had a margarita (Patron tequila
was a new sponsor of the NYFF this year).
Maybe I just couldn’t follow or appreciate the surrealistic symbolism of
the whole thing; but my experience of it was that this symbolism was trite and
amateurishly self-indulgent in the extreme.
I like films taking place in different time frames and at different
levels of reality and fantasy—all of which this was attempting to do; and I
like films with metaphoric meanings and philosophical musings. I am just afraid that the attempt at these
things in NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET lacked the depth, sophistication, and intelligence
to make it meaningful. To me, the point
of this film, like the journey to it, was painfully shallow, sophomoric, and
not worth seeing.
BEYOND THE
HILLS (DUPA˘
DEALURI) (Romania; Sundance Selects) I was hesitant to see this new film from
director Cristian Mungiu, as we had rather disliked his 2007 film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days when we saw it in an
earlier NYFF. I should have followed my
instinct, as we ultimately found BEYOND THE
HILLS to be dreadful.
The first several minutes of the film actually promised to be
interesting. The story involves a young
woman, Alina (Cristina Flutur) who arrives at a grim, remote monastery
to visit her friend Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), who had earlier been in
an orphanage with her, and is now a novice in a small, cultish group of pious
young nuns, toiling submissively under austere small-mindedness of an
authoritarian Orthodox priest whom they call “Papa” (Valeriu Andriuta).
The tension between the craziness and impulsivity of one of the young women and
the insanity and repressive control of the religious community leads to
endless, slow, heavy-handed emotional dramas—culminating in an exorcism. (The
film claims to have been inspired by a case of alleged demonic possession that
actually occurred in Romania’s Moldova region in 2005.) Unfortunately, the film’s pretentions far exceed everything about it other than its
unremitting bleakness and its ponderous 2 ½ hour length. It drags on endlessly in what is ultimately a
banal and shallow treatment of themes that it seems to be taking as profound,
using symbolism that is trite beyond all telling. BEYOND THE
HILLS is as bleak, grim, and boring as the rural
landscape in which it is set. I’d
suggest you not join this sect…and not see this film, either.
Special
Events:
THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987, USA) For the 25th anniversary of THE PRINCESS BRIDE,
the NYFF had a screening of it in Alice Tully Hall which clearly was the most fun event of the entire Festival! All of
the main people involved with the film (every
single one I mention below, with the exception of the three who are dead and
Christopher Guest, who was working on a film in the UK) were there and onstage
after it for the Q&A—which was hilarious as well as informative.
What is there for me to say about this amazing
film: if you know it, you love it; if you don’t know it, you should; if you
don’t like it, I don’t know how I can help you.
When it first appeared in 1987, it was a box office flop; only later did
it become a beloved favorite. It’s one
of those films I watch at least once a year.
(Nancy would say that this is a gross underestimate.) Based on a book by William Goldman
(who also wrote the screenplay) and directed by Rob Reiner, The film
begins with Peter Falk reading THE PRINCESS BRIDE to his 11 year old grandson (Fred
Savage). Soon we are in a fairy tale
with a handsome young hero (Cary Elwes) and a beautiful young maiden (Robin
Wright) who is being courted by an evil prince (Chris Sarandon) with
his even more evil assistant (Christopher Guest). An evil villain (brilliantly cast against
type, Wallace Shawn) hired with his two accomplices (a swordsman played
by Mandy Patinkin and André the Giant) to kidnap and kill the
princess… oh, well, you get the idea.
But the in the midst of this wonderful story are magnificent moments of
pure pleasure: a wedding ceremony
performed by an “Impressive Clergyman” (Peter Cook: “Mawwidge…” and
“Wove, twoo wove…”); the revival of the hero (who is “only mostly dead”) by Miracle Max (Billy
Crystal) and his wife Carole Kane—“Have fun storming the castle,
boys!”
Oh, hell…just go rent it and
enjoy it for yourself! (And, the studio
has just released a 25th anniversary Blu-ray edition, available on
Amazon.com: click here)