New Director/New Films
March 26-April 6
at the Walter Reade Theater Lincoln Center
If the point of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films series, running March 26-April 6 at the Walter Reade Theater, was to herald the arrival of talent as a single, staggering unit, somebody would have to clean up the mess of wrong intentions. In the 26 features and seven shorts from 17 nations, no single thematic trend unites the selections. The directors vary in age, and not everyone is making a debut. Nevertheless, there’s a common tone of desperation shared by many of the entries that confront personal alienation—whether as a result of class struggle, gender confusion or simply growing old.
Frozen River, the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival this year, dives headfirst into topicality with a messy plot centered around illegal immigration. An angry single mom (Melissa Leo, frightening at times) abruptly falls into the smuggling trade while desperate for cash; driving across a Mohawk reservation to Quebec and back to New York state, she puts her family’s future on the line to make immediate ends meet. As if to highlight the dog-eat-dog scenario, the story has her become a part of the unlawful industry after getting held up at gunpoint by a Mohawk local whose problems aren’t too different from her own. Frozen River works best when it stays away from the awkward dialogue of culture clashes and focuses on the general conflict of trying to stay afloat in life.
As an interesting contrast, Lance Hammer’s directorial debut, Ballast, also tackles poverty woes; but in this case, the emotional turmoil is evenly distributed among three members of a wounded family unit. After an opening suicide attempt by Lawrence (Michael J. Smith Sr.) following his brother’s own self-inflicted demise, the lonely man decides to take a fatherly role toward his rebellious nephew (Jim Myron Ross), while assisting his fiery sister-in-law (Tarra Riggs) to pick up the shards of her fractured reality. Shot along the Mississippi Delta, Ballast has a gorgeous green palette discomfortingly muted by the barren landscape and the tendency for the characters to talk less and look often. The faces in Ballast—almost all black—carry wonder and sadness, but it’s only once we fully accept their vanity that Hammer allows for a sliver of hope.
In Momma’s Man, another Sundance hit, punk filmmaker Azazel Jacobs belts out a paean to nostalgia. Whereas his amusing Jim Jarmusch–like The GoodTimesKid, shot on stolen 35mm, carried a sense of freedom, the new work focuses on social entrapment: Mikey (Matt Boren, clearly playing Jacobs’ alter ego) stays with his parents in New York during a business trip, and afterward he can’t get himself to leave the city and return to his wife out west. Shrinking back to his childhood, Mikey finally gets saved from his box by two very observant comrades-in-arms: Mom and Dad. There lies the true power of Momma’s Man, for Jacobs has cast his own parents, noted avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and his artist wife, Flo. And their performances never seem forced or extravagant—just real. Ken Jacobs has a single moment of fury in his eyes that transcends acting, and I imagine most parents can relate.
Other entries deal with more generalized difficulties involved in fitting into communal norms. Jellyfish, an adaptation of several short stories by the Israeli writer Etgar Keret co-directed by Shira Geffen, primarily focuses on a young woman in Tel Aviv unable to find a young girl she was supposed to care for; however, in searching for the girl, the woman discovers herself. Other vaguely connected stories are peppered throughout in an Altman-like fashion, but Jellyfish primarily succeeds as a story of reawakening, and the scenes by the beach are genuinely awesome. (No such luck for The Toe Tactic, an admirable but miscalculated look at a woman dealing with the death of a loved one while mystical animated creatures take bets on her next move.)
My own favorite of the outsider tales at the festival this year would have to be Water Lillies, a Cannes success story from last year from French director Celine Sciamma. Coming-of-age dramas usually don’t feel this fresh. The story of two young girls unable to match the slutty standards of the popular high school swim team, Water Lillies has an ironic title, because we’re asked to sympathize with the two girls who aren’t part of it. It works like the best uncensored episode of Freaks and Geeks that never was: Honest, funny and completely believable. Trouble the Water, meanwhile (another Sundance winner) is one of those documentaries that almost seems unbelievable, despite every indicator to the contrary. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal direct this survey of a rap performer whose house is submerged during the 2005 onslaught of Hurricane Katrina; not only does she capture key moments on her personal camcorder, but she continues her career in the aftermath with zest. Looking sharp in its 37th year, the same could be said for New Directors/New Films.
March 26-April 6
at the Walter Reade Theater Lincoln Center
If the point of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films series, running March 26-April 6 at the Walter Reade Theater, was to herald the arrival of talent as a single, staggering unit, somebody would have to clean up the mess of wrong intentions. In the 26 features and seven shorts from 17 nations, no single thematic trend unites the selections. The directors vary in age, and not everyone is making a debut. Nevertheless, there’s a common tone of desperation shared by many of the entries that confront personal alienation—whether as a result of class struggle, gender confusion or simply growing old.
Frozen River, the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival this year, dives headfirst into topicality with a messy plot centered around illegal immigration. An angry single mom (Melissa Leo, frightening at times) abruptly falls into the smuggling trade while desperate for cash; driving across a Mohawk reservation to Quebec and back to New York state, she puts her family’s future on the line to make immediate ends meet. As if to highlight the dog-eat-dog scenario, the story has her become a part of the unlawful industry after getting held up at gunpoint by a Mohawk local whose problems aren’t too different from her own. Frozen River works best when it stays away from the awkward dialogue of culture clashes and focuses on the general conflict of trying to stay afloat in life.
As an interesting contrast, Lance Hammer’s directorial debut, Ballast, also tackles poverty woes; but in this case, the emotional turmoil is evenly distributed among three members of a wounded family unit. After an opening suicide attempt by Lawrence (Michael J. Smith Sr.) following his brother’s own self-inflicted demise, the lonely man decides to take a fatherly role toward his rebellious nephew (Jim Myron Ross), while assisting his fiery sister-in-law (Tarra Riggs) to pick up the shards of her fractured reality. Shot along the Mississippi Delta, Ballast has a gorgeous green palette discomfortingly muted by the barren landscape and the tendency for the characters to talk less and look often. The faces in Ballast—almost all black—carry wonder and sadness, but it’s only once we fully accept their vanity that Hammer allows for a sliver of hope.
In Momma’s Man, another Sundance hit, punk filmmaker Azazel Jacobs belts out a paean to nostalgia. Whereas his amusing Jim Jarmusch–like The GoodTimesKid, shot on stolen 35mm, carried a sense of freedom, the new work focuses on social entrapment: Mikey (Matt Boren, clearly playing Jacobs’ alter ego) stays with his parents in New York during a business trip, and afterward he can’t get himself to leave the city and return to his wife out west. Shrinking back to his childhood, Mikey finally gets saved from his box by two very observant comrades-in-arms: Mom and Dad. There lies the true power of Momma’s Man, for Jacobs has cast his own parents, noted avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and his artist wife, Flo. And their performances never seem forced or extravagant—just real. Ken Jacobs has a single moment of fury in his eyes that transcends acting, and I imagine most parents can relate.
Other entries deal with more generalized difficulties involved in fitting into communal norms. Jellyfish, an adaptation of several short stories by the Israeli writer Etgar Keret co-directed by Shira Geffen, primarily focuses on a young woman in Tel Aviv unable to find a young girl she was supposed to care for; however, in searching for the girl, the woman discovers herself. Other vaguely connected stories are peppered throughout in an Altman-like fashion, but Jellyfish primarily succeeds as a story of reawakening, and the scenes by the beach are genuinely awesome. (No such luck for The Toe Tactic, an admirable but miscalculated look at a woman dealing with the death of a loved one while mystical animated creatures take bets on her next move.)
My own favorite of the outsider tales at the festival this year would have to be Water Lillies, a Cannes success story from last year from French director Celine Sciamma. Coming-of-age dramas usually don’t feel this fresh. The story of two young girls unable to match the slutty standards of the popular high school swim team, Water Lillies has an ironic title, because we’re asked to sympathize with the two girls who aren’t part of it. It works like the best uncensored episode of Freaks and Geeks that never was: Honest, funny and completely believable. Trouble the Water, meanwhile (another Sundance winner) is one of those documentaries that almost seems unbelievable, despite every indicator to the contrary. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal direct this survey of a rap performer whose house is submerged during the 2005 onslaught of Hurricane Katrina; not only does she capture key moments on her personal camcorder, but she continues her career in the aftermath with zest. Looking sharp in its 37th year, the same could be said for New Directors/New Films.
