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Here we are again - at the New York Film Festival. This is my third time at the festival, but it marks my first time as official press. My screening schedule is listed below. Reviews will be posted on a regular basis over the course of the next three weeks of screenings.
LAST YEAR'S FESTIVAL REPORT
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The Queen
Directed by Stephen Frears
65 out of 100
Opening upon the election of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the soon after death of Princess Diana, Stephen Frears' The Queen takes a look at the week following the death of the former Princess of Wales and the conflicting reactions to said death from the royal family and the prime minister's office.
Attempting to juxtapose the stuffy priveledged attitude of the Queen, her husband Prince Philip and the Queen Mother against that of the "modernist" Blair - with a fretful yet hapless bonnie Prince Charlie trying to swim the waters in between - Frears ends up perhaps making as much a mockery of the whole shebang as the royals themselves did.
Sure, the leads are great. Helen Mirren in her sure-to-be Oscar nominated role as Elizabeth II takes on the haughty role with great aplomb and a smartly-played subtleness and Michael Sheen grins his way through the role of Blair (whom he also played in a recent BBC mini-series) like the perfectly-coifed cheshire cat. Yet when it comes to the supporting roles, James Cromwell as Prince Philip and Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mum, seem no deeper than sit-com caricatures and the story itself (although surely risque in Frears attempt at showing the actual sitting royal family in an English film) plays out as typical stock storytelling.
Metaphors aside, the film never delves any deeper than the tabloids Frears is mocking in the first place, yet still, Mirren's performance saves the film (getting almost unanimous advance praise) from falling too far down the well of stereotypical behaviour. Of course, considering the lack of personality in the royals themselves, perhaps the blandness is not all that far from the truth - possibly making this not that bad of a film after all.
* opens on October 6, 2006 in New York
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Marie Antoinette
Directed by Sofia Coppola
92 out of 100
What does one get when one combines postmodern pop sensibility, French Nouvelle Vague philosophies and eighties new wave music and pour it all into an 18th century period piece already stuffed fat and full with ravishing costumes, luscious set pieces and sexually decadent behaviour? One gets Sofia Coppola's best film yet!
Booed by many at its Cannes premiere (which should not come as that great a surprise considering the mostly French audience and Coppola's rather sympathetic take on the teen queen) and panned more aoften than not by those critics in attendance, Coppola's Marie Antoinette (adapted from Lady Antonia Fraser's book) is already shaping up as on eof those love it / hate it kind of films (there is already a he said / she said scenario happening over at the New York Times).
My opinion? I suppose it is pretty obvious from my opening salvo, but to delve a bit deeper, Coppola's third film is resplendent with a certain chutzpah that makes everything just seem to work, when at first glance you think it may not. The music - about two hundred years out of time - works perfectly with each scene, as if New Order or Gang of Four were the hottest new bands of the 1780's. Frivolity underscored with seriousness, Marie Antoinette is a tale of a lost eden - one not-so secured in the hands of children with great power and wealth (Marie was just fourteen when she first married the Dauphin of France, Louis XVI) - Coppola has outdone herself with this visually stunning masterstroke pomo biopic.
A longer, more in depth review will be coming in two weeks, once the film is about to open.
* opens on October 20, 2006 in New York
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Syndromes and a Century
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
74 out of 100
Just as the nearly unpronouncably named Thai auteur, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (call him "Joe" - really, he says that) has done in his past films, his latest, Syndromes and a Century, is seperated in to two seperate but equal parts. Each part represents the filmmaker's parents just before they met and fell in love.
The first part - in both perspective and disposition, a woman's tale - is the story of Dr. Toey (Nantarat Sawaddikul), a young female doctor at a rural hospital where she treats patients in exchange for bags of roots and herbs (although I am sure some patients pay with bahts). It is also the story of a dentist who dreams of being a folk singer and his patient, a monk, who dreams of being a rock and roll deejay. Part two - in a more male turn - is the story of Dr. Nohng (Jaruchai Iamaram), a young male doctor just coming on staff at a large, state-of-the-art medical research facility.
Just as Tropical Malady mirrors itself in its dual rural/urban landscape, so too does Syndromes and a Century. Just as Tropical Malady tells a very personal tale (of Mr. Weerasethakul...er, I mean Joe's relationship with his lover), so too does Syndromes and a Century (his growing up in a hospital atmosphere). Full of haunting images (and droll, funny ones as well), Apichatpong's bifuncturated filmmaking style, at it again in Syndromes and a Century pulls off a magic of sorts, - an otherworldly socio-politically nuanced mood piece mirrored back upon itself. In fact time wraps back around upon itself as if a karmic nesting doll. Reflectionary and an obviously strong believer in transmutation, Apichatpong may very well be the child of - surprising or not - Maya Deren, especially in his longing of memory and both auteur's dreamlike trance.
* no US release date at press time
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Volver
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
56 out of 100
I have always been rather coy toward the films of Pedro Almadovar (ever since first seeing Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in one of my first looks at foreign cinema back in 1988). Usually enjoying all the bells and colours and whistles of his production, but never becoming too invested in the stories themselves, with the noted exception of All About my Mother, the one piece of his ouevre that comes closest to what one might call a masterpiece. Volver is no different.
Fun and free but nothing to write home about - like riding a moped or perhaps the saying that goes along with - Volver is solidified in its cast. Penélope Cruz is both beautiful and mystifying in the lead role of a youngish Spanish woman trying to keep her family - and her sanity - together. Yohana Cobo is a scowling force as her teenage daughter and Lola Dueñas is a mocking Keatonesque harumph in the role of Cruz's spinster sister.
Just like Talk to Her and Live Flesh, Almadovar's newest feast for the eyes is all it's cracked up to be, but not much more than what one could expect from the king..er, queen of intense yet shallow beauty. The eye of the beholder delves not deep, but somehow it doesn't matter all that much here.
* opens on November 3, 2006 in New York
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Woman on the Beach
Directed by Hong Sang-soo
74 out of 100
Hong Sang-soo's tryptich of images that is his latest film, plays itself off as possibly the Korean auteur's best film yet. Never having been aboard the bandwagon that is the Hong Sang-soo show (most critics that I admire have likened him to the far superior Hou Hsaio-hsien), deciding instead to watch from along the parade route, Woman on the Beach nevertheless sucked me into its sometimes humourous, sometimes tragic (many times those opposing forces played out simultaneously) romantically-triangled interplay.
Strongly from the point-of-view of the female part of the aforementioned triangular situation, Hong takes his normally misogynistic filmmaking style, which is always repleat with some sort of duality or triality in imagery (something that can make him more comparable to Weerasethakul than to Hou - althouh Hou's latest is a film in three parts, so who the hell knows) and handed it from the men (Turning Gate and Tale of Cinema) to the woman (on the beach) to be that final image of independence we see on the screen as the film ends.
* no US release date at press time
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Offside
Directed by Jafar Panahi
68 out of 100
Just like in his best film, The Circle, Jafar Panahi again takes upon himself the mantle of women's rights in the Muslim world as his soapbox du jour. A politically unsound argument to make in modern day Iran - an argument that has made Panahi very unpopular with the non-secular government and its censors (actuall pretty much two organizations that are essentially one-in-the-same) and has led to Panahi never having even one of his films play in his home country. Luckily for we cineaphiles, the festival circuit has not been near as militant.
Taking the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain as his backdrop, Panahi shows how women must attempt to pass as men in order to enter the stadium to watch the game. This particular story is about six young women who try that very thing, only to get caught and placed in a makeshift jail cell just out of eyeshot of the match. Both funny and tragic, Panahi shows the absurdity of such a law (the men claim it is for the "protection" of the women - for fear they may hear swearing or get sexually ogled) with a straight-forward message movie that never seems like anything of the kind.
One of the girls, near the end of the film (which was shot right in the epicenter of the actual city-wide Tehran celebration of Iran's victory), announces that she went to the match for her friend who died in the Iran-Japan soccer match where seven fans were killed in an overly exhuberant crowd (egged on by the military and police many claim). When the incident happened only six of the seven killed had their photos and names released. Many, including Panahi, claim this seventh victim was a girl disguised as a boy.
With all this in mind, and the documentary feel to the film (which is standard fare in Iranian cinema), Panahi has created a touching piece of art disguised itself as a at-first-sight-fluffy sports movie. Perhaps not quite to the level of Kiarostami (the Orson Welles of Iranian Cinema?), the final twenty minutes or so of the film is an emotional marvel to behold.
* opens on March 2, 2007 in New York
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Bamako
Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako
45 out of 100
Not unlike more recent Godard, Sissako puts politics so far ahead of cinema, that all we are left with is a two hour diatribe on the unfair policies the west has waged upon struggling African nations - something that is mainly just preaching to the choir in the strongly left-winged NYFF screening room that is Walter Reade Theatre.
Not that it is all that bad. While the allegorical (or should I say wishful thinking) street theatre trial goes on (and on and on and on) it is the brief glimpses of the villagers surrounding the mock trial, who turn a wry chuckle now and then. As if surreal blips on the radar of what this film is. Perhaps it is just my own politically sympathetic sensibilities that give me pause in thinking this film tired and poor (quite as I alluded to in my opening salvo), but indeed Bamako is certainly a film worth the seeing, if only to let people see the atrocities the West is committing toward Africa and its proud people.
* no US release date at press time, but it has been picked up by New Yorker Films
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Jardins en automne (Gardens in Autumn)
Directed by Otar Iosseliani
54 out of 100
* no US release date at press time
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49 Up
Directed by Michael Apted
72 out of 100
If one were to watch the entire Up series back to back to back to back to back to back in just a few days (as this critic did in preperation for the latest installment, 49 Up) then it would probably not come as much of a surprise to find these dozen or so "experiments" in early reality TV stars as friends or even family. It is as if we know them better than we know ourselves - which of course is far from the truth since we only get to glimpse into their lives every seven years (and have been doing so since they were merely seven).
Now, with 49 Up (and after the original fourteen children have been whittled down to twelve with the refusal of two of the original participants) we may be seeing what could very well be the final installment in the series. Disgruntled, several of these kids-turned-adults now want out (at least three will surely not be back if Apted decides to make 56 Up) and one even verbally attacks director Apted on camera. Overall, Apted has created a documentary series that is both entertaining and enthralling (as one would perhaps not expect from such an experiment) and this critic hopes we see what happens to Bruce and Neil and John and Suzy and Paul and Lynn and Simon and Nick and Sue and Andrew and Jackie and Tony (and Charles and Peter) come age 56.
* opens October 6, 2006 in New York
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Little Children
Directed by Todd Field
77 out of 100
Layered with a perplexing novelistically manicured voice-over that makes the entire film seem rather otherwordly, but in such a way as to not be overpowering. The story of Sarah, a young lonely wife and mother (played with the sublime brilliance one would expect from Kate Winslet) who falls for Brad, a fellow traveler in an unsure marriage (played with a manly tenderness by Patrick Wilson). Sadly funny and giddily morose, Little Children is simultaneously a marvel to watch and a bewilderment to experience.
The story of these two lost souls is intertwined with that of Ronnie, a parolled pedophile trying to regain his life in an unwelcoming community - played with a marvel beyond expectation by former child actor (think Bad News Bears) Jackie Earle Haley and Larry (Noah Emmerich), the ex-cop out for revenge. A small scene between Haley's Ronnie and a blind date played by Jane Adams is especially heartbreaking to endure.
Although falling from the platform a few times, Little Children ends up being a concourse on desolation from the vantage point of each character. Is Ronnie really all bad as Larry says? Can Larry redeem himself by saving Ronnie? Is Brad really as lost as he thinks himself to be? Is Sarah searching for something out of her reach? It all comes down to the choices we make and the repercussions that follow them.
* opens October 6, 2006 in New York
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Pan’s Labyrinth
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
69 out of 100
Never a big fan of Del Toro (preferring the more abstruse of the Mexican New Wave auteurs) the one thing that strikes me here (which was confirmed by Del Toro himself in the after-screening Q&A) is how visually juxtaposed the dual world landscape is in this film. Visually layered down to the very essence of architecture, Del Toro's dualistic fable of a legendary princess of the underworld trying to find her way back to her throne and Fascist Franco government that eroded the rich heritage of Spain after World War II and the Spanish Revolution. Starring twelve year old Ivana Baquero as Ofelia, the titular lost princess, and Maribel Verdú (the eroticisized objet d'art of Y tu mamá también) as her wordly protectress - and revolutionary catalyst against the forces of Franco - Pan’s Labyrinth is both a much better film than I ever expected and a much lesser film than I had ever hoped for. In the end, even with its obvious likenesses to a certain US president and his current wordly agenda (a likeness that Del Toro makes well to mention in interviews), the less-than-subtle nuances of its predictability far outshine the vision that Del Toro has laid forth with his socio-political landscape.
* opens December 29, 2006 in New York
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