If the larger film festivals around the world are competitive workshops for filmmakers willing to fight for distinction, the New York Film Festival (Sept. 28-Oct. 14) is the class assembly—a place where only the finest craftsmanship gets a spot on the stage. That’s the idea, anyway, but it’s worth noting that this year’s rich program at Lincoln Center has traces of unconditional love for old-school talent, as though elders of the art form gain inclusion simply for their perseverance.
Case in point: The festival apparently requires French New Wave representation, even though there’s no longer anything “new” about it: Last year it was Alain Resnais’ Private Fears in Public Places, and now comes the double threat of Eric Rohmer’s foolishly anachronistic adaptation of Honoré d’Urfé’s novel The Romance of Astrée and Celadon, and Claude Chabrol’s characteristically naughty erotic thriller A Girl Cut in Two.
Another octogenarian in the line-up refuses to be pigeonholed as a director with a signature style, preferring each entry in his breathtakingly impressive filmography to speak for itself, which it mostly does: Sidney Lumet, the man behind Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico and countless other theoretically unrelated masterpieces, emerges from a successful run in Toronto with his sleek crime drama Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. What the movie loses from a muddled structure, it makes up in startlingly intense performances from Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as burglarious siblings.
Lumet has a penchant for staging illegality, but Abel Ferrara is cinema’s king of the underworld. His wittily erotic ensemble piece, Go Go Tales—centered on the crazed after hours of a Chelsea strip joint—was a favorite contrarian choice at Cannes. It generated much chatter for the scene showing Asia Argento locking lips with her pooch, but the movie’s real triumph is Willem Dafoe as the jubilant club owner. The man can wiggle out of any jam, and at one point he convincingly speaks Chinese.
But there’s more than a few lines of dialogue to give the festival its Far East angle. From Japan, Masayuki Suo creates an intelligent, mannered examination of the country’s miscalculated judicial system in the leisurely paced drama I Just Didn’t Do It. Suo’s provocative story about a man unfairly accused of sexual assault succeeds as a study in frustration, but it’s got nothing on the deeply contemplative look at theological wrangles and psychological decomposition in the festival’s Korean contender, Secret Sunshine. Director Lee Chang-dong constructs a sprawling tale of a lonely woman whose religious propensities in the wake of tragedy devolve into tumultuous bouts of depression.
Wes Anderson nails the aura of a distinctive locale in The Darjeeling Limited, but his accomplishments are minor compared to Carlos Reygada’s fantastically lyrical scrutiny of natural wonder, Silent Light. Opening with the whispering nuances of wilderness before focusing on a farmer’s marital discomfort, Reygada’s brilliant canvas is what big screens were made for. But the festival isn’t all swooning visions of alienation. Joel and Ethan Coen adapt Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men with incessantly ominous action sequences featuring a killer (Javier Bardem) gradually dismantling old world Americana. And in another nifty visual production, French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi’s graphic nonfiction novel Persepolis translates well into the animated format. Based on the author’s experiences growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, the story unfolds in a nonlinear fashion, contrasting stark black and white drawings with the protagonist’s yearning for freedom of expression.
Accompanying Persepolis in an unofficial category of troubled youngster plights, Gus Van Sant’s clever combination of minimalist techniques and adolescent solemnity, Paranoid Park, complements his recent low-key creations. Rounding out the category, Cristian Mungiu’s Palme D’Or-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days follows two girls in a risky operation to arrange for an abortion amid the perils of late-1980s Romanian communism. The movie’s real-time structure culminates in a suspenseful climax that emerges from the visceral subject matter.
Other throwbacks to bygone eras included in the festival don’t rely on realism for their impact. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel’s evocative recreation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s experience being “locked in” after suffering a stroke, poeticizes the physical phenomenon. It’s a sad tale that gets sadder with the expressionistic makeover.
But mood swings loom especially large in Todd Haynes’ quasi-biopic of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, a weirdly engaging study of the singer’s sources of identity that casts eight varied performers (including Cate Blanchett and Christian Bale) in the lead role. It’s a surreal, affectionate hagiography, no matter what literalists have claimed. Haynes’ otherworldly panache explores creative counterculture without patronizing it, which makes it a most appropriate summation of the festival’s apparent intentions. In other words, class dismissed.
Case in point: The festival apparently requires French New Wave representation, even though there’s no longer anything “new” about it: Last year it was Alain Resnais’ Private Fears in Public Places, and now comes the double threat of Eric Rohmer’s foolishly anachronistic adaptation of Honoré d’Urfé’s novel The Romance of Astrée and Celadon, and Claude Chabrol’s characteristically naughty erotic thriller A Girl Cut in Two.
Another octogenarian in the line-up refuses to be pigeonholed as a director with a signature style, preferring each entry in his breathtakingly impressive filmography to speak for itself, which it mostly does: Sidney Lumet, the man behind Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico and countless other theoretically unrelated masterpieces, emerges from a successful run in Toronto with his sleek crime drama Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. What the movie loses from a muddled structure, it makes up in startlingly intense performances from Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as burglarious siblings.
Lumet has a penchant for staging illegality, but Abel Ferrara is cinema’s king of the underworld. His wittily erotic ensemble piece, Go Go Tales—centered on the crazed after hours of a Chelsea strip joint—was a favorite contrarian choice at Cannes. It generated much chatter for the scene showing Asia Argento locking lips with her pooch, but the movie’s real triumph is Willem Dafoe as the jubilant club owner. The man can wiggle out of any jam, and at one point he convincingly speaks Chinese.
But there’s more than a few lines of dialogue to give the festival its Far East angle. From Japan, Masayuki Suo creates an intelligent, mannered examination of the country’s miscalculated judicial system in the leisurely paced drama I Just Didn’t Do It. Suo’s provocative story about a man unfairly accused of sexual assault succeeds as a study in frustration, but it’s got nothing on the deeply contemplative look at theological wrangles and psychological decomposition in the festival’s Korean contender, Secret Sunshine. Director Lee Chang-dong constructs a sprawling tale of a lonely woman whose religious propensities in the wake of tragedy devolve into tumultuous bouts of depression.
Wes Anderson nails the aura of a distinctive locale in The Darjeeling Limited, but his accomplishments are minor compared to Carlos Reygada’s fantastically lyrical scrutiny of natural wonder, Silent Light. Opening with the whispering nuances of wilderness before focusing on a farmer’s marital discomfort, Reygada’s brilliant canvas is what big screens were made for. But the festival isn’t all swooning visions of alienation. Joel and Ethan Coen adapt Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men with incessantly ominous action sequences featuring a killer (Javier Bardem) gradually dismantling old world Americana. And in another nifty visual production, French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi’s graphic nonfiction novel Persepolis translates well into the animated format. Based on the author’s experiences growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, the story unfolds in a nonlinear fashion, contrasting stark black and white drawings with the protagonist’s yearning for freedom of expression.
Accompanying Persepolis in an unofficial category of troubled youngster plights, Gus Van Sant’s clever combination of minimalist techniques and adolescent solemnity, Paranoid Park, complements his recent low-key creations. Rounding out the category, Cristian Mungiu’s Palme D’Or-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days follows two girls in a risky operation to arrange for an abortion amid the perils of late-1980s Romanian communism. The movie’s real-time structure culminates in a suspenseful climax that emerges from the visceral subject matter.
Other throwbacks to bygone eras included in the festival don’t rely on realism for their impact. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel’s evocative recreation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s experience being “locked in” after suffering a stroke, poeticizes the physical phenomenon. It’s a sad tale that gets sadder with the expressionistic makeover.
But mood swings loom especially large in Todd Haynes’ quasi-biopic of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, a weirdly engaging study of the singer’s sources of identity that casts eight varied performers (including Cate Blanchett and Christian Bale) in the lead role. It’s a surreal, affectionate hagiography, no matter what literalists have claimed. Haynes’ otherworldly panache explores creative counterculture without patronizing it, which makes it a most appropriate summation of the festival’s apparent intentions. In other words, class dismissed.
