Nyff 2011

[Chris Knipp]

INDEX OF LINKS TO REVIEWS

4:44 Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26824#post26824)
Artist, The (Michel Hazanavicius 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26903#post26903)
Carnage (Roman Polanski 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26830#post26830)
Corpo Celeste (Alice Rohrwacher 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26800#post26800)
Dangerous Method, A (David Cronenberg 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26867#post26867)
Descendants, The (Alexander Payne 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26904#post26904)
Dreileben (Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, Christoph Hochhäusler 2011) [NYFF Special Events] (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3121-Nyff-2011&p=26814#post26814)
Footnote (Joseph Cedar 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26889#post26889)
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26805#post26805)
Goodbye, First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26893#post26893)
Kid with the Bike, The (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26873#post26873)
Le Havre (Aki Kaurasmäki 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26798#post26798)
Loneliest Planet, The (Julie Loktov 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26794#post26794)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26871#post26871)
Melancholia (Lars von Trier 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26811#post26811)
Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26828#post26828)
My Week with Marilyn (Simon Curtis 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26884#post26884)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26850#post26850)
Pina (Wim Wenders 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26878#post26878)
Play (Ruben Östlund 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26895#post26895)
Policeman (Nadav Lapid 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26882&posted=1#post26882)
Separation, A (Asghar Farhadi 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26838#post26838)
Shame (Steve McQueen 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26875#post26875)
Skin I Live In, The (Pedro Almodóvar 2011) (Opening Night:
Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski (France/Germany/Poland)

Closing Night:
The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne (USA)

Centerpiece:
My Week With Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis (UK)

Gala Screenings:
A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg (UK/Canada/Germany)
The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain))
Sleeping Sickness, The (Ullrich Köhler 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26848#post26848)
Student, The (Santiago Mitre 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26844#post26844)
This Is Not a Film (Jaafar Panahi 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26865#post26865)
Turin Horse, The (Bela Tárr 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26822#post26822)
We Can't Go Home Again (Nicholas Ray 1972/2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26799#post26799)


Today press releases for the Nyff 2011 began with the following. This will begin the comments and links thread for Filmleaf's 2011 New York Film Festival coverage. The reviews thread begins here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26691#post26691)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/3417/nyff2011lockup.jpg

PRESS RELEASE

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER announces
the North American Premiere of Roman Polanski’s CARNAGE
as Opening Night Gala selection
for the 2011 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

New York, NY, July 29, 2011 - The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that Roman Polanski’s CARNAGE will make its North American Premiere as the Opening Night film for the upcoming 49th New York Film Festival (September 30 – October 16).

"From KNIFE IN THE WATER (which screened at the first edition of NYFF in 1963) to REPULSION to THE TENANT, Roman Polanski has shown himself to be an absolute master at making the most restricted spaces come to dramatic life. In CARNAGE, aided by four remarkable performances, he has reached a new pinnacle in his already extraordinary career," says Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Based on Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage”, the 2009 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, CARNAGE follows the events of an evening when two Brooklyn couples are brought together after their children are involved in a playground fight. Produced by Said Ben Said, the Sony Pictures Classics release stars Academy Award winners Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz and Academy Award nominee John C. Reilly.

Commenting on the Opening Night Selection, Rose Kuo, Executive Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, said, "We are delighted to kick off the festival with a quintessential New York story featuring superb performances from a quartet of the finest actors working today. The film will certainly provoke the kind of discussions about contemporary issues that guarantee a memorable night."

The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring top films from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Peña also includes: Melissa Anderson, Freelance Critic; Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center; Dennis Lim, Editor, Moving Image Source & Freelance Critic; and Todd McCarthy, Chief Film Critic, The Hollywood Reporter.

General Public tickets will be available September 12th. There will be an advance ticketing opportunity for Film Society of Lincoln Center Patrons and Members prior to that date. For more information visit www.Filmlinc.com/NYFF (http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyff.html) or call 212 875 5601.

[Chris Knipp]

Another press release from the FSLC.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4049/galasblog.jpg

[In part]

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER announces
the addition of Two Special Gala Presentations
for the 2011 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
with David Cronenberg’s A DANGEROUS METHOD
and Pedro Almodovar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN

New York, NY, August 15, 2011 - The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the first-time addition of two Galas to join the Opening, Centerpiece and Closing Night Galas for the upcoming 49th New York Film Festival (September 30 – October 16) with David Cronenberg’s A DANGEROUS METHOD set to screen on Wednesday, October 5 and Pedro Almodovar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN on Wednesday, October 12.

"We’re delighted to be welcoming David Cronenberg to the festival for the first time and to be welcoming back one of the NYFF’s closest friends, Pedro Almodovar,” says Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center. “It’s a special pleasure to introduce our audiences to exciting new work by two of contemporary cinema’s most challenging artists.”

For more information go to the FSLC website here (http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/a-dangerous-method-and-the-skin-i-live-in-announced-as-galas-of-the-new-yor)

Almodovar and Croonenberg will be available to the press in connection with these films and events.

[Johann]

Another NYFF thread!
woo-hoo!

Bring the CARNAGE!!!!!

[Chris Knipp]

Yes! I'm ready and curious to find out what the other selections will be.

So far we now know:

MAIN SELECTIONS

David Cronenberg’s A DANGEROUS METHOD
Roman Polanski's CARNAGE
Pedro Almodovar's THE SKIN I LIVE IN
Simon Curtis' MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

MASTERWORKS SERIES (including in part)

Japanes classics from Nikkatsu Corporation
William Wyler's BEN HUR
Nicolas Ray's WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4001/nicholasrayswecantgohom.jpg
Nicolas Ray in YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN

I'll be seeing Lars Von Trier's MELANCHOLIA in a preview on the West Coast so it doesn't have to be included, but it may be

The full lineup will be announced next week.

For currently available information about the NYFF see the Filmlinc page for it here. (http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011)

The P&I screenings will probably begin around the week of Sept. 12th.

[oscar jubis]

I am interested in any specifics about the Ray film, in which he plays himself. His students edited a version to show at Cannes '73 but Ray didn't like it. He re-edited the footage himself in '76 but it is unclear whether he completed the process to his satisfaction.

Criterion released a box of Nikkatsu films as part of its Eclipse series. It's called Nikkatsu Noir. I wonder if NYFF will show titles other than the ones in this boxset.

[Chris Knipp]

WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN: The film has been restored by EYE Film Institute Netherlands and reedited in collaboration with Ray's widow by someone I know who was a student and longtime friend of Ray and appears in the film. Ray himself never finished the reediting. The new version will premiere at Venice, and this will be its American premiere. More about this will be found on the Ray website here. (http://nicholasrayfoundation.org/press.html)

I don't know what other Nikkatsu titles will be shown. The complete Nyff program is to be released net week and you will probably find out then.

[oscar jubis]

Given my interests, the screening of what amounts to a 3rd version of We Can't Go Home Again is the most exciting event of the NYFF.
Thank you very much for the info and for the link.
It's going to be great fun to read your reports and reviews.

[Chris Knipp]

I hope you'll continue participating actively in this thread too. I'll bear in mind your interest and keep you updated on the Nicolas Ray film, which I hope will be easy to see. I'm not sure whether or not it will be included in the P&I screenings but it might be. My friend who did the reediting will also be in town for this and of course so will Mrs. Ray so I may see him and get to meet her. But I won't be at the public screenings, which take place somewhat later so we'll have to see.

[Chris Knipp]

THE FESTIVAL SELECTIONS

Wed., Aug. 17, 2011. The main slate has been announced today (earlier than I thought). You can find it with links to a festival still and blurb for each title on the Filmlinc web page here. (http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/blog/49th-new-york-film-festival-the-main-slate) There are 27 titles in all. Nothing new from the Far East. Germany and France are heavily represented with some participation in 11 of the titles, and there are two titles from Iran and two from Israel. I'll have seen The Kid with the Bike and Melancholia but all the rest will be new to me.

The Filmleaf Festival Coverage section reviews thread for NYFF 2011 begins here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26691#post26691) My reviews will start appearing here in mid-September.

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Still from Melancholia

49th NYFF: Main Slate
4:44: Last Day On Earth, directed by Abel Ferrara (USA)
A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)
Corpo Celeste, directed by Alice Rohrwacher (Italy/Switzerland/France)
Footnote, directed by Joseph Cedar (Israel)
George Harrison: Living In The Material World, directed by Martin Scorsese (USA)
Goodbye First Love, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve (France/Germany)
Le Havre, directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland/France/Germany)
Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed by Sean Durkin (USA)
Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier (Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany/Italy)
Miss Bala, directed by Gerardo Naranjo (Mexico)
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)
Pina, directed by Wim Wenders (Germany/France/UK)
Play, directed by Ruben Östlund (Sweden/France/Denmark)
Policeman, directed by Nadav Lapid (Israel/France)
Shame, directed by Steve McQueen (UK)
Sleeping Sickness, directed by Ulrich Köhler (Germany/France/Netherlands)
The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius (France)
The Loneliest Planet, directed by Julia Loktev (USA/Germany)
The Kid With A Bike, directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Belgium/France)
The Student, directed by Santiago Mitre (Argentina)
The Turin Horse, directed by Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky (Hungary/France/Germany/Switzerland/USA)
This Is Not A Film, directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Iran)

PLUS:
Opening Night:
Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski (France/Germany/Poland)

Closing Night:
The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne (USA)

Centerpiece:
My Week With Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis (UK)

Gala Screenings:
A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg (UK/Canada/Germany)
The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain)

[Chris Knipp]

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4057/90425540.jpg
THE WARPED ONES (Koreyoshi Kurahara 1960)*

Here is the Nikkatsu lineup:

Nikkatsu 100th Anniversary Retrospective Lineup
AKANISHI KAKITA (1936) 77min
Director: Mansaku Itami
THE BURMESE HARP (Biruma no Tategoto) (1956) 115min
Director: Kon Ichikawa
CHARISMA (Karisuma) (1999) 103min
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
COLD FISH (Tsumetai Nettaigyo) (2010) 144min
Director: Sion Sono
A COLT IS MY PASSPORT (Colt ha Oreno Passport) (1967) 85min
Director: Takashi Nomura
CRAZED FRUIT (Kurutta Kajitsu) (1956) 86min
Director: Ko Nakahira
DANCER IN IZU (Izo no Odoriko) (1963) 87min
Director: Katsumi Nisikawa
A DIARY OF CHUJI’S TRAVELS (Chiji Tabi Nikki: Part 1 and Part 2) (1927) 107min
Director: Daisuke Ito
EARTH (1939) 92min
Director: Tomu Uchida
GATE OF FLESH (Nikutai no Mon) (1964) 90min
Director: Seijun Suzuki
THE HELL-FATED COURTESAN (Maruhi: Joro Seme Jigoku) (1973) 77min
Director: Noboru Tanaka
HOMETOWN (1930) 86min
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
I LOOK UP WHEN I WALK (aka KEEP YOUR CHIN UP) (Uewo Muite Arukou) (1962) 91min
Director: Toshio Masuda
INTENTIONS OF MURDER (Akai Satsui) (1964) 150min
Director: Shohei Imamura
INTIMIDATION (Aru Kyohaku) (1960) 65min
Director: Koreyosji Kurahara
LOVE HOTEL (1985) 88min
Director: Shinji Somae
MADE TO ORDER CLOTH (aka JIROKICHI THE RAT) (Oatsurae Jirokichi Koshi) (1931) 70min
Director: Daisuke Ito
**Screening with:
JIRAIYA THE NINJA(Goketsu Jiraiya) (1921) 30min
Director: Shozo Makino
MUD AND SOLDIERS (Tsuchi to Heitai) (1936) 120min
Director: Tomotaka Tasaka
THE OLDEST PROFESSION (Maruhi: Shikiyo Mesu Ichiba) (1974) 83min
Director: Noboru Tanaka
PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS (Buta to Gunkan) (1961) 108min
Director: Shohei Imamura
A POT WORTH A MILLION RYO (Tange Sazen Hyakuman Ryou no Tsubo) (1935) 92min
Director: Sadao Yamanaka
RETALIATION (Shima ha Moratta) (1967) 94min
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe
RUSTY KNIFE (Sabita Knife) (1958) 90min
Director: Toshio Masuda
SEASON OF THE SUN (Taiyo no Kisetsu) (1956) 89min
Director: Takumi Furukawa
SINGING LOVE BIRDS (Oshidori Uta Gassen) (1936) 69min
Director: Masahiro Makino
STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER (Noraneko Rock: Sex Hunter) (1970) 86min
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe
SUN IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE SHOGUNATE (aka Shinagawa Path) (Bakumatsu Taiyoden) (1957) 110min
Director: Yuzo Kawashima
SUZUKI PARADISE: RED LIGHT (Suzuki Paradise: Aka Shingo) (1956) 81min
Director: Yuzo Kawashima
TAKE AIM AT THE POLICE VAN (Jusango Taihisen Yori: Sono Gososha wo Nerae) (1960) 79min
Director: Seijun Suzuki
THE TATTOOED FLOWER VASE (Kashinno Irezumi: Ureta Tsubo) (1979) 74min
Director: Masaru Konuma
TEN NIGHTS OF DREAMS (Yume Juya) (2007) 110min
Director: Various
TILL WE MEET AGAIN (Ashita Kuru Hito) (1955) 115min
Director: Yuzo Kawashima
TOKYO DRIFTER (Tokyo Nagaremono) (1966) 83min
Director: Seijun Suzuki
THE WARPED ONES (1960) 108min
Director: Koreyoshi Kurahara
THE WOMAN WITH RED HAIR (Akai Kami no Onna) (1979) 73min
Director: Tatsumi Kumashiro
A WORLD OF GEISHA (Yojyohan Fusuma no Urabari) (1973) 77min
Director: Tatsumi Kumashiro

*From Nihon Cine Art. (http://eigageijutsu.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html)

[oscar jubis]

The breath of the Nikkatsu retro is impressive but what makes me truly happy is to witness the awesome response of world cinephilia to the Panahi Affaire. Fests like Cannes and NY selecting Panahi's new "non-film" is a huge gesture that reflects the vigorous response to his imprisonment and silencing by the Iranian government. This is a video made with a consumer camera in a couple of hours while Panahi was out on bail, at home waiting to be tried. Its inclusion is a major sign of respect for a great artist. I just rewatched his The Mirror (1998) last night...

[Chris Knipp]

Netflix has The Mirror, also Five, by Kiarostami, but starring Panihi. I will certainly see the new collaborative Panahi one, but can't guarantee I'll see any of the Japanese films unless they are included in the P&I screenings; just reviewing all the main slate films keeps me busy. However I'll have to see the Nicolas Ray film since my friend Richard Bock worked on the restoration and was also one of the original actors in the film.

[oscar jubis]

Actually, the Kiarostami picture in which Panahi appears briefly as himself and served as assistant director is Through the Olive Trees, not Five (dedicated to Ozu).
I've seen only five of the Nikkatsu films to be screened, lamentably not including Mizoguchi's Hometown.

[Johann]

NYFF's line-up looks excellent.
Kaurismaki, the Dardennes, Trier and Bela Tarr!
and new works by Wenders and Scorsese. yessir. Wish I was in New York...

Ottawa now has it's own international film festival. (OIFF)
It started as a joke, and now it's being held at the Empire theatre cinemas.
They say within ten years it will compete with other major film festivals.
Write-ups on OIFF have been appearing a lot this summer. Ottawa is trying so hard to play with the big cities..

[Chris Knipp]

oscar jubis
Actually, the Kiarostami picture in which Panahi appears briefly as himself and served as assistant director is Through the Olive Trees, not Five (dedicated to Ozu).
You are right. Netflix appears to give the wrong information in saying Five stars Panahi. A YouTube entry and a Wikipedia article on Panahi confirm that a young Panahi worked as assistant director on Through the Olive Trees, not Five. IMDb lists Panahi as an uncredited cast member in Through the Olive Trees. Five is a documentary consisting of landscapes and doesn't have any cast members listed on IMDb.

Anyway, Netflix has Five and The Mirror available for rental but their listing Five as a "Jafar Panahi movie" doesn't make any sense as far as I can see now. They do not have Through the Olive Trees.


Johann
NYFF's line-up looks excellent.
Kaurismaki, the Dardennes, Trier and Bela Tarr!
and new works by Wenders and Scorsese. yessir. Wish I was in New York...

Yes, I'm looking forward to it as usual. Due to the circumstances of viewing and the selectivity the NYFF P&I screenings are great. I am also particularly looking forward to the Mia Hansen-Løve, the Garardo Naranjo (much praised by Mike D'Angelo in his AV Club Cannes dispatch), Steve McQueen's Shame (his Hunger was a previous NYFF highlight), the usually droll Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist -- a hit at Cannes, Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia -- a hit and much debated title at Cannes, and the new directors I don't know about yet. There are a few Cannes titles I wish were there, such as Drive and We Need to Talk About Kevin, but those two have US theatrical releases coming.

[Chris Knipp]

As I mentioned I will have seen Melancholia and The Kid with the Bike. I'm seeing a preview of Melancholia here next Tuesday. I saw The Kid with the Bike in Paris in May and described it in my Paris Movie Report (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3065-PARIS-MOVIE-REPORT-(May-2011)). However Melancholia is probably worth pondering through a second viewing and the Belgian French of the Dardennes' film wasn't easy so watching it with subtitles will be nice too.

PS: I now havee seen Melancholia and I very much liked it. So that's good.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/1979/smallnyff2011logo.jpg

Here are thumbnail descriptions of the NYFF 2011 main slate films from the FSLC:

49TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
Films & Descriptions

4:44: LAST DAY ON EARTH
Abel Ferrara, 2011, USA, 82min
How would we spend our final hours on Earth? And what does how we choose to die say about how we have chosen to live? In the hands of the inimitable Abel Ferrara (Go Go Tales, NYFF '07), this thought experiment takes on a visceral immediacy. With the planet on the verge of extinction, a New York couple (Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh) cycle through moments of anxiety, ecstacy, and torpor. As they sink into the havens of sex and art, and Skype last goodbyes in a Lower East Side apartment filled with screens bearing tidings of doom and salvation, the film becomes one of Ferrara’s most potent and intimate expressions of spiritual crisis. An apocalyptic trance film, 4:44 is also a mournful valentine to Ferrara’s beloved New York: the director’s first fiction feature to be filmed entirely in the city in over a decade, and coming 10 years after the September 11 attacks, a haunting vision of doom in the lower Manhattan skyline.

THE ARTIST
Michel Hazanavicius, 2011, France, 90min
An honest-to-goodness black-and-white silent picture made by modern French filmmakers in Hollywood, USA, “The Artist” is a spirited, hilarious and moving delight. A sensation in Cannes, Michel Hazanavicius' playful love letter to the movies' early days spins on a variation on an “A Star Is Born”-like relationship between a dashing Douglas Fairbanks-style star (Jean Dujardin, who won the best actor prize in Cannes) whose career wanes with the coming of sound and a dazzling young actress (Berenice Bejo) whose popularity skyrockets at the same time. Meticulously made in the 1.33 aspect ratio with intertitles and a superb score, “The Artist” has great fun with silent film conventions just as it rigorously adheres to them, turning its abundant love for the look and ethos of the 1920s into a treat that will be warmly embraced by movie lovers of every persuasion. With James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller and John Goodman as a definitive cigar-chomping studio boss. A Weinstein Company release.

CARNAGE
Roman Polanski, 2011, France/Germany/Poland, 79min
Summoning up the sinister from beneath the veneer of normalcy has always been Roman Polanski's specialty, so it's no surprise that the great director does such a smashing job of putting Yasmina Reza's 2009 Tony-winning play “God of Carnage” on the screen. With the expert cast of Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christopher Waltz and John C. Reilly, Reza's explosively comic X-ray of the anger and venality lying just under the surface of the outwardly civilized behavior of two New York City couples has been fully realized. Returning to the New York Film Festival with a feature for the first time since he presented his debut work, Knife in the Water, at the very first festival in 1963, Polanski pries open the true nature of these characters in something of a companion piece to his previous New York-set film, “Rosemary's Baby.” Although it was filmed in Paris, the Brooklyn locale is as convincingly rendered as are the alternately uproarious and devastating revelations of human nature. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

CORPO CELESTE
Alice Rohrwacher, 2011, Italy/Switzerland/France, 100min
“Seeing the Spirit is like wearing really cool sunglasses,” according to the instructor of 13-year old Marta’s (Yle Vianello) catechism class. Such observations introduce Marta to the religious climate in the small seaside Calabrian town to which she, her mother and older sister have just moved from Switzerland. Marta is sent to the local church to prepare for her Catholic confirmation and (hopefully) make some new friends. But the religion she finds there is mainly strange: the way it dominates people’s lives is unlike anything she’s ever experienced. Alice Rohrwacher’s extraordinarily impressive debut feature chronicles Martha’s private duel with the Church, carried out under the shadow of the physical changes coursing through her. Rohrwacher is not interested in pointing out heroes and villains, but instead in offering a perceptive look at how the once all-powerful Church has dealt with its waning influence. A Film Movement release.

A DANGEROUS METHOD
David Cronenberg, 2011, France/Ireland/UK/Germany/Canada, 99min
David Cronenberg, a filmmaker with a peerless grasp on the mysteries of the mind and the body, turns his attention to a seminal chapter in the founding of psychoanalysis. Adapted from Christopher Hampton’s play A Talking Cure, A Dangerous Method charts the relationship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and his protégé turned dissenter Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), as it was shaped by the case of Sabine Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a young Russian Jewish patient of Jung’s. Cronenberg brilliantly dramatizes not just the rivalry and rupture between two pioneers who defined a field but also the birth of their groundbreaking theories of the unconscious and the forces of Eros and Thanatos. Featuring an electrifying trio of lead actors, who turn near-mythic figures into flesh and blood, this is a film of tremendous vigor and ambition, a historical drama that brings ideas to life. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

THE DESCENDANTS
Alexander Payne, 2011, USA, 115min
In his first film since the Oscar-winning Sideways, writer-director Alexander Payne once again proves himself a master of the kind of smart, sharp, deeply felt comedy that was once the hallmark of Billy Wilder and Jean Renoir. Based on the bestselling novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants stars George Clooney as Matt King, the heir of a prominent Hawaiian land-owning family whose life is turned upside-down when his wife is critically injured in a boating accident. Accustomed to being “the back-up parent,” King suddenly finds himself center stage in the lives of his two young daughters (excellent newcomers Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller), while at the same time being forced to decide the fate of a vast plot of unspoiled land his family has owned since the 1860s. Rooted in Clooney’s beautifully understated performance, Payne’s film is an uncommonly perceptive portrait of marriage, family and community, suffused with humor and tragedy and wrapped in a warm human glow. A Fox Searchlight release.

FOOTNOTE
Joseph Cedar, 2011, Israel, 106min
Thanks to a clerical error, Eliezer Shkolnik, a respected if little-known Talmudic scholar, is informed that he’s won the coveted Israel Prize; in truth, the prize was meant for his son, Uziel, a much more flamboyant, widely-read Talmudist. The authorities ask Uziel to help them rectify the situation, but Uziel argues the case for his father’s deserving the honor; meanwhile, Eliezer plans to use the occasion as an opportunity to intellectually take down his son and the whole generation of a la mode Talmudists. Winner of the prize for Best Screenplay at Cannes, New York born-and-trained Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar has here created the wryest of Jewish comedies, an emotional competition that pits father against son, built around the understanding of sacred texts. Rarely has the weight of a culture’s intellectual past been depicted so forecefully, nor shown to be as vibrant. A Sony Pictures Classic release.

GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
Martin Scorsese, 2011, USA, 208min
Rich in mesmerizing archival footage, Martin Scorsese’s expansive documentary on the Beatles’ lead guitarist—and of one of the greatest musicians of the 1960s and ’70s—traces in detail all aspects of Harrison’s professional and personal life. Friends (Eric Clapton, Eric Idle), family (wives Patti Boyd and Olivia Harrison), and band mates (Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr) reflect on Harrison’s mid-’60s embrace of Indian mysticism and music, which forever changed the sound of the Fab Four. Harrison’s spirituality also defines his masterful solo work, especially the 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass, produced by Phil Spector, another subject interviewed in depth. Until his untimely death in 2001, Harrison remained fiercely committed to his music and other passions (including film producing), earning the admiration of all who were lucky enough to work with him. Courtesy of HBO.

GOODBYE FIRST LOVE
Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011, France/Germany, 108min
In her exceptional third feature, writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve (The Father of My Children, ND/NF 2010) shows once again her talent for capturing the agony and the ecstasy of adolescence. Besotted teenagers Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky) and Camille (Lola Créton) struggle, as all couples must, with a painful push-pull dynamic, heightened by the young man’s decision to leave Paris and travel through South America. Over the course of eight years, we watch Camille, initially devastated by her boyfriend’s departure, emerge with new passions, intellectual and otherwise. Touchingly illuminating the indelible imprint that first romance leaves, Hansen-Løve’s film also explores the hard-won satisfaction of leaving the past behind. A Sundance Selects release.

THE KID WITH A BIKE
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2011, Belgium/France, 87min
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the latest film by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne centers on Cyril, a restless 11-year-old boy (terrific newcomer Thomas Doret) placed in a children’s home after being abandoned by his father. Unwilling to face the fact that parents are imperfect people, Cyril runs away to his former apartment block in search of both dad and his abandoned bicycle. Instead, he meets Samantha (the excellent Cécile de France), a kind hairdresser who helps to retrieve his bike and eventually agrees to become his weekend guardian. But literally and figuratively, Cyril isn’t out of the woods just yet. Shooting once more in the Belgian seaport town of Seraing, the Dardennes have created another poetic, universally resonant drama about parents, children and moral responsibility. A Sundance Selects release.

LE HAVRE
Aki Kaurismäki, 2011, Finland/France/Germany, 103min
The latest deadpan treat from Aki Kaurismäki (The Man Without a Past, NYFF '02) was inspired, the director has said, by his desire to have been born a generation earlier, so that he could have witnessed the Resistance during World War II. Thus Le Havre abounds with sly references to classic Resistance dramas from Port of Shadows to Casablanca as it tells the whimsical tale of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a noted Parisian author now living in self-imposed exile in the titular port city. Dividing most of his time between his neighborhood bar and caring for his bedridden wife (longtime Kaurismaki muse Kati Outinen), Marcel finds himself alive with a new sense of purpose when he comes to the aid of a young African on the run from immigration police and trying to reunite with his mother in London. Beautifully shot in Kaurismaki’s signature shades of muted blue, brown and green, with scene-stealing appearances by French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud and a dog named Laika, Le Havre is a gentle yet profound comedy of friendship, random acts of kindness and small acts of revolution. A Janus Films release.

THE LONELIEST PLANET
Julia Loktev, 2011, USA/Germany, 113min
This staggeringly acute examination of the fissures that develop between couples from Julia Loktev (Day Night Day Night, ND/NF 2007) proves that even the most wide-open spaces can feel suffocating during romantic discord. Nica (Hani Furstenberg) and Alex (Gael García Bernal), a few months away from their wedding, take a hiking trip in the Caucasus in Georgia, led by tour guide Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze). Nica and Alex appear to be completely in-sync partners, wildly attracted to each other and sharing the same interests. But a split-second decision by Alex proves horrifying to Nica and sets off impenetrable, stony silences. In a film in which so much is communicated nonverbally, Furstenberg and Bernal astoundingly uncover the toxic, erosive effects of disappointment and resentment.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
Sean Durkin, 2011, USA, 101min
Sean Durkin’s haunting first feature, about a young woman’s halting attempts to undo the psychic terror of the cult she’s just escaped, heralds the arrival of a remarkable new talent. Fleeing a Manson-like Catskills compound at dawn, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen, leading an excellent cast) reconnects with her older sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), a bourgeois New Yorker who takes in her sibling at the Connecticut country house she shares with her husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy). Lucy remains unaware of exactly what happened to Martha over the past few years—details that Durkin slowly but powerfully unveils in uncanny, disorienting flashbacks. The film’s gorgeous, painterly compositions have the chilling effect of suggesting that even our worst nightmares still retain a seductive allure. A Fox Searchlight release.

MELANCHOLIA
Lars von Trier, 2011, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany/Italy, 135min
The end of the world—and the collapse of the spirit—has never been depicted as beautifully and wrenchingly as in Melancholia, the latest provocation from Lars von Trier (Antichrist, NYFF '09). The title refers both to a destructive planet “that has been hiding behind the sun” and the crippling depression of new bride Justine (a revelatory Kirsten Dunst, rightful winner of the Best Actress award at Cannes this year), whose mental illness is so severe that she drives away her groom during their disastrous wedding reception. As the extinction of the planet looms ever larger, Justine is desperately tended to by her sister, Claire (an equally magnificent Charlotte Gainsbourg), herself gripped by anxiety over the impending doomsday. Melancholia’s premise may be science fiction, but the feelings of despair it plumbs are the most heart-felt human drama. A Magnolia Pictures release.

MISS BALA
Gerardo Naranjo, 2011, Mexico, 113min
One of the most exciting young talents around, the Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo (I'm Gonna Explode, NYFF '08) approaches the hot-button topic of drug violence through the perspective of an unlikely, unwitting heroine: a Tijuana beauty pageant contestant (Stephanie Sigman) who stumbles into the path of ruthless cartel operatives and corrupt officials. Although inspired by a true story, Miss Bala avoids docudrama cliches and tabloid sensationalism, and instead evokes the pervasive climate of fear and confusion that has enveloped daily life in some increasingly lawless pockets of northern Mexico. Using long takes and fluid, precise camera work, Naranjo fashions a highly original thriller: an anguished and harrowing mood piece with an undertow of bleakly absurdist humor and moments of heart-stopping action. A D Squared Pictures release.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
Simon Curtis, 2011, UK, 96min
One of the most exciting actresses working today, Michelle Williams accomplishes the near-impossible—portraying Marilyn Monroe as an actual person, not just an easily caricatured icon—in this charming bio-pic centering around the production of Laurence Olivier's film The Prince and the Showgirl. Based on two memoirs by Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who worked as an assistant on Olivier’s film, My Week With Marilyn depicts Monroe’s numerous clashes with her imperious, classically trained director (played with great relish by Kenneth Branagh), maddened by his star’s method acting and her ever-present drama coach, Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker). Williams captures not only Monroe’s notorious fragility, both on-screen and off-, but also her magical, unclassifiable charisma. A Weinstein Company release.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011, Turkey, 150min
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest begins as a small caravan of cars snakes its way through the nocturnal countryside, looking for where a murdered man was buried. Yet every time the confessed killer points out the grave, the gravediggers come up empty; much of the landscape looks alike, it’s dark out, and anyway the killer claims he was drunk. As the increasingly frustrating investigation wears on, far more is revealed than where the body is buried; through quick looks, furtive gestures and offhand bits of dialogue, Ceylan ("Climates" (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?1851-Ny-Film-Festival-2006&p=16048#post16048), NYFF 2006) reveals in this seemingly pacific Turkish outback a festering world of jealousies and resentments, as the story behind the murder gradually emerges. Impeccably photographed (by Gökhan Tiryaki) and with a stand-out performance by Taner Birsel as a police inspector, this is Ceylan’s most impressive film yet. A Cinema Guild release.

PINA
Wim Wenders, 2011, Germany/France/UK, 106min
Here revolutionizing the dance film just as he did the music documentary in Buena Vista Social Club, Wim Wenders began planning this project with legendary choreographer Pina Bausch in the months before her untimely death, selecting the pieces to be filmed and discussing the filmmaking strategy. Impressed by recent innovations in 3D, Wenders decided to experiment with the format for this tribute to Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal; the result sets the standard against which all future uses of 3D to record performance will be measured. Not only are the beauty and sheer exhilaration of the dances and dancers powerfully rendered, but the film also captures the sense of the world that Bausch so brilliantly expressed in all her pieces. Longtime members of the Tanztheater recreate many of their original roles in such seminal works as “Café Müller,” “Le Sacred du Printemps,” and “Kontakthof.” A Sundance Selects release.

PLAY
Ruben Östlund, 2011, Sweden/Rance/Denmark, 124min
A deliberately provoked racial incident, based on numerous similar real-life transgressions, is played for all it's worth in “Play.” Swedish writer-director Ruben Östlund has developed mesmerizing visual strategies based on long takes and fixed camera positions to relate a disturbing tale of how five savvy African immigrant boys in Gothenberg take advantage of the liberal guilt and placating temperament of three local kids to rob them and take them for a ride to unknown destinations. Social, racial and political credos are twisted, pulled inside out and stood on their head by this bracing and confronting work, which will challenge the assumptions of many a viewer. Dazzlingly shot on the new Red 4K camera, “Play” is a considerable achievement both formally and dramatically that poses more questions than it answers as it lays bare attitudes lurking beneath the surface tranquility of Scandinavian life—a peacefulness that, as we have seen of late, can sometimes be tragically shattered.

POLICEMAN
Nadav Lapid, 2011, Israel/France, 100min
A boldly conceived drama pivoting on the initially unrelated activities of an elite anti-terrorist police unit and some wealthy young anarchists, “Policeman” is a striking first feature from writer-director Nadav Lapid. Provocatively timely in light of recent unrest tied to social and economic inequities in Israel, this is a powerfully physical film in its depiction of the muscular, borderline sensual way the macho cops relate to one another, as well as for the emphatic style with which the opposing societal forces are contrasted and finally pitted against one another. Although the youthful revolutionaries come off as petulant and spoiled, their point about the growing gap between the Israeli haves and have-nots cannot be ignored, even by the policemen sent on a rare mission to engage fellow countrymen rather than Palestinians. A winner of three prizes at the Jerusalem Film Festival and a special jury prize at Locarno.

A SEPARATION
Asghar Farhadi, 2011, Iran, 123min
A critical and audience favorite at this year's Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Golden Bear as well as acting prizes for all four lead performers, A Separation is an Iranian Rashomon of searing family drama that turns into an unexpectedly gripping legal thriller. The film, directed by Asghar Farhadi, begins with married couple Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moadi) obtaining coveted visas to leave Iran for the United States, where Simin hopes to offer a better future to their 11-year-old daughter. But Nader doesn’t feel comfortable abandoning his elderly, Alzheimer’s-stricken father, and so the couple embark on a trial separation. To help care for the old man, Nader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a pregnant, deeply religious woman who takes the job unbeknownst to her husband (Shahab Hosseini), an out-of-work cobbler. Almost immediately there are complications, culminating in a sudden burst of violence that constantly challenges our own perceptions of who (if anyone) is to blame and what really happened. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

SHAME
Steve McQueen, 2011, UK, 99min
In his much-anticipated encore to his superb first feature, "Hunger," (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2339-New-York-Film-Festival-2008&postid=20763#post20763) (NYFF 2008), British artist Steve McQueen reunites with the extraordinary Michael Fassbender in the ferociously sexual drama "Shame." An explosive portrait of a sex addict walking a tightrope between presentable respectability and the wild side, this incendiary drama captures the anger and the ecstasy of its anti-hero's incessant drive for conquest in contemporary New York, where any woman he meets he believes is ripe for the taking. Madly attractive but with cruelly cold eyes, this compulsive Casanova finds his style cramped by the abrupt arrival of his unstable sister (Cary Mulligan), whose insecurities crack open issues of his own. Daring, stylistically brilliant and erotically charged, McQueen's heady, beautiful and disturbing film seems as determined to leave the viewer unsettled as it will surely serve to further propel Fassbender into the front ranks of contemporary screen actors.

SLEEPING SICKNESS
Ulrich Köhler, 2011, Germany/France/Netherlands, 91min
This remarkably assured third feature by the young German director Ulrich Köhler—winner of Best Director at this year’s Berlin Film Festival—transports us to Cameroon, where German doctor Ebbo (Pierre Bokma) and his wife have spent two decades combating an epidemic of sleeping sickness in the local villages. Soon, they will return to Europe and to lives long ago put on hold, and this has created a crisis for Ebbo, who, like Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz, has spent too much time up river to ever come back down. Meanwhile, a young black doctor—a Frenchman born to Congolese parents—travels to Africa to evaluate the efficiency of Ebbo’s program. But when he arrives, nothing goes according to plan, and despite his heritage, he feels very much a stranger in a strange land. Finally, the two subjects of this haunting meditation on Africa’s past and future dovetail—effortlessly, seamlessly—and the cumulative impact is stunning.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN
Pedro Almodóvar, 2011, Spain, 113min
At “The Cinema Inside Me” program at the 2009 NYFF, Pedro Almodóvar surprised many when he spoke of his great love for American horror and science fiction films—a clue, it turns out, to what he was then just planning. With his new film, Almodóvar ventures headlong into those very genres. Dr. Robert Ledgard (a welcome return for Antonio Banderas) is a world famous plastic surgeon who argues for the development of new, tougher human skin; unbeknownst to others, Dr. Ledgard has been trying to put his theory into practice, keeping a young woman, Vera (Elena Anaya), imprisoned in his mansion while subjecting her to an increasingly bizarre regime of treatments. Fascinated by the thin layer of appearance that stands between our perception of someone and that person’s inner essence, Almodóvar here addresses that continuing theme in his work in a bold, unsettling exploration of identity. A Sony Pictures Classic release. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

THE STUDENT
Santiago Mitre, 2011, Argentina, 110min
Politics is a game, a seduction, and a vicious cycle in Santiago Mitre’s gripping, fine-tuned debut, the story of Roque (Esteban Lamothe), a university student who falls for a radicalized teacher and organizer (Romina Paula) and soon finds himself entangled with Buenos Aires campus activists, in a world as heated and byzantine as the one inhabited by the student revolutionaries of the mythic 1960s. Anchored by Lamothe’s nuanced, charismatic performance, The Student complicates the classic bildungsroman narrative of education and disillusionment, emphasizing the endless adaptability—or malleability—of its protagonist. An urgent attempt to grapple with the legacy of Peronism in present-day Argentina, the film abounds with telling details and rich local color. But it’s also a truly universal political thriller, one that illuminates the conspiratorial pleasure, the ruthless hustle, and the moral fog of politics as it is practiced.

THIS IS NOT A FILM
Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, 2011, Iran, 75min
Accused of collusion against the Iranian regime and currently appealing a prison sentence and a ban from filmmaking, Jafar Panahi (a four-time NYFF veteran with films like Offside and Crimson Gold) collaborated with the documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb on a remarkable day-in-the-life chronicle that, as with many great Iranian films, finds a rich middle ground between fiction and reality. Shot with a digital camera and an iPhone, the movie is almost entirely confined to the director’s apartment, where he discusses his films and an unrealized script, while the outside world imposes itself through phone calls, television news, a few comic interruptions, and the sound of New Year’s fireworks. Far more than the modest home movie it initially seems to be, This Is Not a Film is an act of courage and a statement of political and moral conviction: surprising, radical, and enormously moving.

THE TURIN HORSE
Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky, 2011, Hungary/France/Germany/Switzerland/USA, 146min
After witnessing a carriage driver whipping his horse, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche ran to the scene, threw his arms around the horse and then collapsed; he would spend the next, final ten years of his life in almost total silence. Focusing not on Nietzsche but on the driver and his family, Béla Tarr (Satantango, NYFF 1994) and his longtime collaborator Agnes Hranitzky, working from a screenplay by Tarr and novelist László Krasznhorkai, create a mesmerizing, provocative meditation on the unsettling connectedness of things, in which the resonance of actions and gestures continues long after their actual occurrence. Beautifully photographed (by Fred Kelemen) on the austere, unforgiving Hungarian plain lands, The Turin Horse challenges us to enter into a world just beyond the one we experience daily. Winner of the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. A Cinema Guild release. (Bela Tarr's "The Man from London" (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2121-New-York-Film-Festival-2007&p=18576#post18576) was in the 2007 NYFF.)

[Chris Knipp]

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The FSLC has now announced a series of special events that will accompany the NYFF this year, including a restoration of the original version of Chaplin's Gold Rush, a restored version of the film of Paul Bowles' You Are Not, revivals of The Exterminating Angel, The Royal Tennenbaums; Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away; ten exciting new documentaries; various special events; and much more, too much to mention here, really. But since this is the 112th anniversary of Jorge Luis Borges' birthday, let's give the details about an historic Borges film:


Masterworks: INVASIÓN
A little-known classic of Latin American cinema, INVASIÓN (1969) was the first work conceived specifically for the cinema by the great Jorge Luis Borges, in collaboration with his friend Adolfo Bioy Casares. A kind of updating of The Illiad that breathlessly morphs from police thriller to dream-like fantasy, the film is set in Aquiléa, a city that looks a lot like Buenos Aires currently under siege by sinister forces. A group of middle-aged men, led by a somewhat older man, resolve to mount resistance to the invaders. Meetings are held, maps are studied, strategies are proposed—but can the invasion really be overcome? A former assistant to Bresson here making his feature film debut, Hugo Santiago with INVASIÓN created a work that is lyrical, unsettling and infinitely suggestive.

All the special events can be found on the FSLC website here. (http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/blog/paradise-lost-and-its-new-ending-lead-roster-of-special-events-at-2011-nyff)

[Johann]

Where's the review of Conan the Barbarian? LOL
I thought that was your most anticpated film of 2011?
I need your review!
:P

Excellent stuff on New York, btw

[Chris Knipp]

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GRAHAM LEGGAT 1960 - 2011

My focus today isn't on bad movies about musclebound comic book killers but the passing of Graham Leggat, the dynamic director of the San Francisco Film Society, whose resignation due to cancer I reported a few months ago in the 2011 SFIFF thread. I've now posted the SFFS's obituary. There were facts about his life I didn't know and it's a remarkable one. This is a sad and premature event: he was only 51. But he has left a legacy of high accomplishment and set an example of elegance and passion. Peter Wilson knew him, because he was at the Film Society of Lincoln Center when he was art director there. The SFFS obituary is on Filmleaf here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3053-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2011-%28year-54%29/page4#post26740)

[Johann]

Tremendously sad news everywhere this week.

The new Conan is abominable. Avoid it like the black plague. All you need is a quick look at that Conan/Fabio and know that it just don't work.
Arnold was Conan for all time. That scene in Milius's movie where he's swinging that sword over his head...YEAH.
Arnie looks and ACTS how Conan should in the original.


Sorry to hear about another good man going before his time. This year is bizarre to me. Anyone else getting that?

[Chris Knipp]

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PRESS SCREENING SCHEDULE Sept. 16-Oct. 14, 2011


Friday September 2, 2011

All screenings and press conferences will take place in the Walter Reade Theater, (165 West 65th Street) unless otherwise noted
Wednesday September 14th Noon-5pm -- credential pick-up

MONDAY SEPT 12-THURSDAY SEPT 15
NO PRESS & INDUSTRY SCREENINGS
OCT 6
FRIDAY SEPT 16
10AM-11:13AM THE WOMAN WITH RED HAIR (73 min) (Nikkatsu Centennial)
11:45AM – 12:50PM INTIMIDATION (65 min) (Nikkatsu Centennial)
1:30PM – 3:30PM MUD AND SOLDIERS (120 min) (Nikkatsu Centennial)

MONDAY SEPT 19
10AM-11:53AM THE LONELIEST PLANET (113 min) *Press conference to follow
1:00PM- 1:48PM YOU ARE NOT I (48 min)


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FURSTENBURG, G. BERNAL, GUDJABIDZ,LONELIEST PLANET

TUESDAY SEPT 20
10AM-11:43AM LE HAVRE (103 min)
12:15PM – 1:48PM WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN (93 min)
2:30PM- 4:10PM CORPO CELESTE (100 min)

WEDNESDAY SEPT 21
10AM-1:43PM GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (208 min)
*Intermission for 15 minutes
2:15PM- 3:43PM MUSIC ACCORDING TO TOM JOBIM (88 min)

THURSDAY SEPT 22
10AM-12:15PM MELANCHOLIA (135 min)
1:00PM-2:22PM PATIENCE (82 min)
3:15PM- 4:45PM TAHRIR (90 min)

FRIDAY SEPT 23
DREILEBEN – Part 1, 2 and 3 (88, 89, 90 min)
10AM- 11:29AM PART 1
11:45AM-1:14PM PART 2
1:45PM-3:15PM PART 3
3:45PM-5:10PM ANDREW BIRD: FEVER YEAR (80 min)

MONDAY SEPT 26
10AM-11:26AM TWO YEARS AT SEA (86 min) (Views From the Avant-Garde)
12:00PM – 2:26PM THE TURIN HORSE (146 min)
3:00PM- 4:25PM 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH (85 min)

TUESDAY SEPT 27
12:30PM – 2:23PM MISS BALA (113 min)
*Location: Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street)
**Press conference to follow
3:30PM – 4:50PM CARNAGE (80 min)

WEDNESDAY SEPT 28
10AM – 12:03PM A SEPARATION (123 min)
*Press Conference - TENTATIVE
1:15PM- 3:04PM TWENTY CIGARETTES (99 min) (Views From the Avant-Garde)

THURSDAY SEPT 29
10AM-11:50AM THE STUDENT (110 min)
12:30PM- 2:04PM RETALIATION (94 min) (Nikkatsu Centennial)
2:45PM-3:50PM OPENENDED GROUP: UPENDED IN 3D (65 min) (Views From the Avant-Garde)

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ESTEBAN LAMOTHE IN THE STUDENT

FRIDAY SEPT 30
10AM-11:31AM SLEEPING SICKNESS (91 min) *Press conference to follow
12:30PM – 3:00PM ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (150 min)

SATURDAY OCT 1
10AM - 1:43PM GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (208 min)
*Location: Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street)
**Intermission for 15 minutes
***Press conference to follow

MONDAY OCT 3
10AM-11:39AM A DANGEROUS METHOD (99 min)
*Press conference to follow
1:00PM-2:36PM MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (96 min)

TUESDAY OCT 4
10AM-11:15AM THIS IS NOT A FILM (75 min)
12:30PM- 2:11PM MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (101 min)

WEDNESDAY OCT 5
10AM-11:27AM THE KID WITH A BIKE (87 min)
*Press conference to follow
1:00PM- 2:46PM PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY (106 min)

THURSDAY OCT 6
10:00AM-11:39AM SHAME (99 min)
12:30PM – 2:16PM PINA (106 min)
3:00PM-4:40PM POLICEMAN (100 min)

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NICOLE BEHARIE, MICHAEL FASSBENDER IN SHAME

FRIDAY OCT 7
NO SCREENINGS

MONDAY OCT 10
10AM – 11:46AM FOOTNOTE (106 min)
*Location: Gilman Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street)
**Press conference to follow

TUESDAY OCT 11
12PM -1:57PM THE SKIN I LIVE IN (117 min)
*Press conference to follow

WEDNESDAY OCT 12
10AM-11:35AM CORMAN’S WORLD (95 min)
*Press conference to follow
1:00PM-2:33PM VITO (93 min)
*Press conference to follow

THURSDAY OCT 13
10AM – 11:50AM GOODBYE FIRST LOVE (110 min)
*Press conference - TENTATIVE

FRIDAY OCT 14
10AM-11:40AM THE ARTIST (100 min)
*Press conference to follow
1:00PM- 2:55PM THE DESCENDANTS (115 min)

[Chris Knipp]

Julia Loktev: THE LONELIEST PLANET (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26794#post26794)

A young couple soon to be married hike with a guide in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. Something goes awry, and the dynamic is forcibly changed. The Russian-born American director Julia Loktev directs Hani Furstenberg and Gael García Bernal.

Click on the title above for the Filmleaf Festival Coverage review (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26794#post26794l). (First main slate press & industry screening day of the 2011 NYFF.)

See Mike D'Angelo's Toronto note (http://www.panix.com/~dangelo/tiff11.html) on the film ("Is there a more exciting. . .voice than Loktev right now?").

"powerful, exquisitely lensed third feature." -- Leslie Halperin, variety (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945802/)

[Chris Knipp]

Today's screenings:

TUESDAY SEPT 20

10AM-11:43AM LE HAVRE (103 min)
Aki Kaurismäki, 2011, Finland/France/Germany
A marginal Frenchman in Le Havre with an invalid wife comes to the aid of an African immigrant.

12:15PM – 1:48PM WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN (93 min)
Nicholas Ray [restoration], 1972-2011
"Ray’s enormously ambitious, profoundly personal, wildly experimental magnum opus—a collection of notes on Vietnam-era America, the generation gap and the filmmaking process itself, conceived in a dizzying kaleidoscope of split screens, superimpositions and other radical image manipulations that anticipate later trends in video art and digital effects. "--filmlinc

2:30PM- 4:10PM CORPO CELESTE (100 min)
Alice Rohrwacher, 2011, Italy/Switzerland/France
13-year old Marta’s (Yle Vianello) private duel with the church when her family comes from Switzerland to Calabria. First feature by Rohrwacher.

[Chris Knipp]

Aki Kaurismäki: Le Havre (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26798#post26798)

A stylistically perfect and richly referential but feel-good version of the Finnish auteur's usual film that alludes to a lot of French classics in the course of a story about protecting an African immigrant that is meant to embody the director's love of World War II French Resistance films and his wish to have been from the previous generation so as to have been a Resistance fighter himself.

[Chris Knipp]

Nicholas Ray: We Can't Go Home Again (1972/2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26799#post26799)

A restoration of Ray's unfinished post-Hollywood magunm opus supervised by his widow, Susan Ray. Premiered recently at Venice.

[Chris Knipp]

Alice Rohrwacher: Corpo Celeste (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26800#post26800)

In this excellent Italian first film blending satire and documentary realism, a young girl's religious and sexual coming of age is simultaneously a critique of contemporary Italian Catholicism.

[Chris Knipp]

Martin Scorsese: George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26805#post26805)

How involved Scorsese himself is in these music documentaries is debatable. Nonetheless he assembles a formidable team to do them and they have a great deal of gloss. This one lasts 208 minutes. There is a glossy coffee table book available to accompany it. Harrison is the Beatle who used LSD, Eastern mysticism, meditation, and Indian music, particularly the sitar, which he studied with the great Ravi Shankar (who became a great friend), in a lifelong search for inner peace and the meaning of life. For me the Dylan biopic, No Direction Home, is more interesting. But it's not like any fan of the Beatles, the Sixties, or pop music would want to miss this film. It is getting a few theatrical showings, and airs on HBO debuting October 5, 2011.=

Click on the title above in blue for the Festival Coverage review. This is a main slate selection of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center 2011.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks again for your excellent coverage of the NYFF Chris. I hope to get a chance to watch We Can't Go Home Again in a theater. The split frames seem to demand a large screen to truly appreciate it. Your review gives one a clear idea of what the film looks like and what it aspires to accomplish.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. Absolutely this must be seen well projected on a large screen, and with a good sound systesm as well. I hope you have also read Jonathan Rosenbaum's August 2011 blog discusssion (http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=21000), which relates this to other late Ray films. and gives personal recollections of Ray. Surely you have. And also his brief Chicago Review assessment. (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/we-cant-go-home-again/Film?oid=1050193)

[oscar jubis]

You are my window into contemporary film, Mr. Knipp. It's true, man! This is my busiest year, the last year I am a student and the first year I am a professor. Your reviews and comments are all I have time and energy to read about contempo cinema (except for reviews of the few movies that totally blow me away). I do check metacritic scores just to have an approximate sense of critical consensus. Haven't read Rosenbaum's blog in months.

[Chris Knipp]

Good, Oscar. I like having readers.

[Chris Knipp]

Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26811#post26811)

Part I is a very expensive and disastrous wedding. Part II is the end of the world. Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress at Cannes for her performance as Justine. As her sister, Claire, von Trier again features Charlotte Gainsbourg, who was central to Antichrist (NYFF 2009 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2644-New-York-Film-Festival-2009&p=23009#post23009)). Their obnoxious mother, Charlotte Rampling; father, John Hurt. Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård, father and son actors, play father and son in the wedding. Alexander is the groom. Kiefer Sutherland is the husband of Charlottes Gainsbourg. Wagner's Tristan und Isolde also plays a key role. This was my second time watching the film. This time seeing it at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, I coulld appreciate just how awesome the soundtrack of this epic film is. The Walter Reade is a great place to watch -- and hear -- a film. Some of us agreed that Part I outweighs Part II, but that's not to say Part II isn't gorgeous and terrifying.

The end of Peter De Bruge's review in VARIETY (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945258/):
For all the tyrannical disdain he's shown other filmmakers over the years, von Trier once again demonstrates a mastery of classical technique, extracting incredibly strong performances from his cast while serving up a sturdy blend of fly-on-the-wall naturalism and jaw-dropping visual effects. Given the film's high-concept premise, things could have been a lot different in the hands of another director, but with von Trier, it's just as Justine tells her exasperated spouse at the end of their chapter together: "What did you expect?"
My learned friend said I should have mentioned Tarkovsky. Yes, he is an influence too.

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1509/melancholia8535x229.jpg
MELANCHOLIA: FROM THE PROLOGUE

[Chris Knipp]

Note about tomorrow (Sept. 23, 2011). Three features from the New German Cinema will be shown the P&I screenings. One is by Christoph Hochhäusler, whose The City Below (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3054-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2011&p=26081#post26081), a story of corporate adultery told like a thriller, I loved at the SFIFF this year. These three films are combined under the title Dreileben, and are part of the Spotlight series of the festival. Dreileben was also a part of the Berlinale and Toronto.

They are actually more like three long short stories, or three linked short feature films. The FSLC webpage explaining, discussing, and promoting them is here. (http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/nyff-spotlight-dreileben)

I'll post some comments on Dreileben, but not a complete review because these posts are confined to the main slate. The Filmlinc information below should suffice and I will just give my views on the relative merits of the films. We'll just see if again Hochhäusler's isn't the high point.

You could also see them as analogous to the Belgian director Lucas Belvaux's 2002 trilogy An Amazing Couple / On the Run / After the Life. Or Laurence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.
Above all else, Dreileben is an engrossing and intensely watchable experiment in cinematic storytelling. Born of a correspondence between three key directors of the so-called “Berlin School” of German cinema, this trio of interlocking films revolves around a single event, the escape of a murderer and sex offender from a hospital in a small town in central Germany. In genre, style and tone, however, the three films could hardly be more distinct.

Christian Petzold’s Beats Being Dead (Etwas Besseres als den Tod) is a tragedy of young love between an orderly at the hospital with a promising future ahead of him and a down-and-out, and somewhat unstable, Bosnian refugee who works as a housekeeper at a nearby hotel. The manhunt that unites the three films is mostly relegated to the background as Petzold explores the romantic angst caused by the divergence in the young lovers’ weltanschauungs, only to rear its ugly head in a series of terrifying scenes at the film’s end.

Dominik Graf’s Don’t Follow Me Around (Komm mir nicht nach) brings the audience closer to the main event by following a big-city police psychologist brought in to help with the search for the escaped convict. However, we are quickly diverted again by her discovery of systematic police corruption in the area and her reunion with an old friend, with whom she is staying while in town. Over quite a few glasses of red wine, the two friends discover that they once dated the same man at the same time without knowing it, a revelation with distinct and important implications for each woman.

In Christoph Hochhäusler’s riveting thriller One Minute of Darkness (Eine Minute Dunkel), the audience is finally brought into the point of view of the escaped felon himself, as well as that of the gruff police inspector in charge of recapturing him. While the felon creates a surprisingly tender bond with a young runaway he meets in hiding, the inspector begins to question his guilt after studying the original case that landed him behind bars. Laced with visual callbacks to the first two films and a nail-biting concluding sequence, Dreileben’s final chapter delivers ample payoff on the audience’s investment in the series.
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/3905/1204iw.jpg
DREILEBEN: ONE MINUTE OF DARKNESS

[Chris Knipp]

Dreileben

I'm afraid aftter a day of watching these three interlocking films they turn out to be disappointing as a group. The highlight is definitely the first, the romance between the orderly and the hotel maid, which is shot in a cool, clean, elliptical style that makes nearly every single frame suspenseful and full of menace. Note that the FSLC summaries that are given in the post above tell you pretty much all you need to know about the basic plotlines of each of the three films.

Christian Petzold: Beats Being Dead (Etwas Besseres als den Tod) The essence of this piece is that we don't know much about anybody or anything at this point. We know there's a mad killer on the loose. We know Johannes has met Ana through two encounters with a group of scary bikers, during the second of which she seems their victim more than their accomplice and he befriends her, and they quickly become lovers. As they walk on country roads between the hotel where she works and the clinic where he's an intern, we never know if they'll get through alive. When he's lying naked on a riverbank at dusk after a swim, suddenly the bikers who have knocked him down reappear, terrifying him, accompanied by the girl. Toward the end of the film a party reveals that Johannes wasn't quite what he seemed to be, and Ana's fate is dire. The film ends with more questions than answers, but it makes a great beginning for a trio of interlocking films. Petzold made the admirable The Postman Always Rings Twice remake Jerichow that was included in the 2009 Film Comment Selects and I reviewed (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2473-Film-Comments-Selects-And-New-Directors-New-Films-2009&p=21453#post21453)it then.

Dominik Graf: Don’t Follow Me Around (Komm mir nicht nach) Graf adopts a noisy, messy, cluttered style and a screenplay that is as talky as Petzold's was spare and suggestive. We are talked to death as the wine glasses go down and the cigarettes get smoked, and the corruption investigation is another surprise, but it only adds to the clutter of a film that, after the first, seems more irrelevant than expansive, though a brief glipse of Ana and Johannes in a hotel room shows that the time shceme is indeed the same. A big letdown and a bore, desptie plot surprises of its own and foreshadowings of the last segment. Graf's credits go back to the late Seventies and he has worked a lot in German TV, including crime and police series. I don't know if I've seen anything by him before. His style seems less distinctively of the "Berlin School" than Petzold and Hochhäusler's, and the style of this film was a distinct disappointment. Though some found the lengthy exploration of a past love affair (two women friends find they were involved with the same man fifteen years earlier) and possible paternity, this felt like too much telling and not enough showing to me.

Christoph Hochhäusler: One Minute of Darkness (Eine Minute Dunkel) Hochhäusler, whose The City Below I admired so much and reviewed (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3054-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2011&p=26081#post26081)in this year's SFIFF, delivers a flm that, like Petzold's, is in the cool, spare, elegant New German manner, returning somewhat to the look of Beats Being Dead. However, it's a stretch to say this dogged pursuit of the deranged fugitive and the older inveestigator is in any way "nail-biting." On the contrary, by the end of the film we have lost interest in what was always a foregone conclusion: that the crime alluded to in the first segment was going to be on the surveillance tape. The style is nice here, but the narrative gets a little bogged down, despite the nice moment, too late, alas, when the fugitive is momentarily rescued by a boy who has run away from home.

There is much intricacy here, but it's only the clean, spare, dramatic unreeling of events in the first film that generates real interest and arouses our admiration.

[Chris Knipp]

Béla Tarr: The Turin Horse (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26822#post26822)

What happened to the horse Nietzshe embraced in 1889? A Beckettian grind. Tarr's first in four years, since The Man from London (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2121-New-York-Film-Festival-2007&p=18576#post18576) (NYFF 2007), and he says it will be his last.

[Chris Knipp]

Abel Ferrara: 4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26824&posted=1#post26824)

It's an eco-disaster that is bringing the planet and us to a sudden end. Exactly how, isn't made clear in this film about making peace with loved ones before the apocalypse -- which looks pretty flimsy compared to Lars von Trier's powerful depiction of planetary doom in Part II of his Melancholia.

[Chris Knipp]

Gerardo Naranjo: Miss Bala (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26828#post26828)

Peter Debruge of Variety calls this a "blistering firecracker." But it is enveloping and sad. Through a distinctive style of long, virtuoso takes, it depicts the drug wars in Mexico from the point of a beauty pageant contestant who becomes unwittingly drawn into them.

[Chris Knipp]

Roman Polanski: Carnage (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26830#post26830)

A film version of the Yasmina Reza play with a new all-star film cast of John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet. Polanski's direction is well-modulated to build to the desired crescendo as the two polite couples gradually reveal their true hostilities, and the whole production is elegant and seamless. The gala opening night presentation of the NYFF.

[Johann]

You`re giving us fine refreshment Chris.
Jealous as hell you are seeing these films. (and relaying their content in fine style)

Kaurismaki, Tarr, Trier, Scorsese, Ferrara, Nick Ray- AWESOME choices.

[Chris Knipp]

Enjoy the reviews, and watch for some new names. Gerardo Naranjo is one. Probably Alice Rorhrwacher is another, so far.

[Chris Knipp]

Asghar Farhadi: A Separation (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26838#post26838)

A tangled web of accusations and lies. Winner of the big prize at Berlin, included in a raft of international film festivals and released in a dozen countries. Perhaps the quintessential Iranian film, and starting with the frustrated desire to leave the country.

[Chris Knipp]

Santiago Mitre: The Student (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26844#post26844)

I don't see this as "dry and inconsequential" as Mike D'Angelo did, writing from Toronto. But I can see his point. Mitre gets deep into the nittty-gritty of student politics in Buenos Aires. A "Latin American Aaron Sorkin," Indiewire says. Again, I see their point, but don't agree. A story of disillusionment.

[Chris Knipp]

Ullirch Köhler: Sleeping Sickness (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26848#post26848)

A black Frenchman out of his depth in Africa, and his opposite number, a European doctor who's practiced so long in Africa he can't go home. Good local color but a film that never comes together or builds this contrast between the two men.

[Chris Knipp]

Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26850#post26850)

A long and winding road to an autopsy. In Turkey. This shaggy dog auteurist police procedural was co-winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes, with the Dardennes' The Kid with the Bike.

[oscar jubis]

Enjoy the reviews, and watch for some new names. Gerardo Naranjo is one. Probably Alice Rorhrwacher is another, so far.

Naranjo is indeed a new name relative to the fillmmakers Johann mentions in the post that preceded the above quote. But I want to point out to readers that Naranjo is not a new name to you. One may say you've championed his work in this forums before, a testament of your dedicated, detailed coverage of festivals and new releases.We thank you.

[Chris Knipp]

That is true. But he is going to be more of an emerging name now internationally. People at the P&I screenings at Lincoln Center remember his I'm Gonna Explode and liked it, generally, but many are more impressed by Miss Bala. Some were saying the other day we'd like to see his first feature, the 2004 Malachance, made in LA, which I didn't know about till recently. I have been championing him at least since I'm Gonna Explode. He is an AFI graduate, which I've never mentioned.

The cinematographer Ed Lachman talked to me a couple of times about Miss Bala and how it was shot. He loves it and has watched it twice here now. It was given a repeat showing so more people could see it, because the first was in one of the new small theaters across the street.

Alice Rohrwacher, of Corpo Celeste, who is Italian (despite the German name) is a completely new name, and the quality of her film was I think surprising to most.

[Chris Knipp]

Jaafar Panahi: This Is Not a Film (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26865#post26865)

For a film about nothing that is not a film, this is pretty lively, and also pretty significant as a protest against the mullahs' repression of one of Iran's leading filmmakers made, with the help of a colleague, by the filmmaker himself while under house arrest at his apartment in Tehran. This is said to have been smuggled out of the country on a USB thumb drive in a loaf of bread to be shown at the Cannes festival in May.

[Chris Knipp]

David Cronenberg: A Dangerous Method (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26867#post26867)

A ceremonial festival gala film. Christopher Hampton's adaptation of his play adaptation of a book about Jung, Freud, and a Russian Jewish woman with daddy issues who somehow crystallized the two men's issues.

[Chris Knipp]

Sean Durkin: Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26871#post26871)

A talented newcomer has written and directed a classy horror film, a psychological thriller about a young women who escapes from a cult in the Catskills to the chilly world of her sister and her bourgeois, mercenary husband in Connecticut and in her shattered state, drifts back and forth from present to memories of her experience. The excellent cast is headed by another gifted newbie, Elizabeth Olson.

[Chris Knipp]

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne: The Kid with the Bike (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26873#post26873)

As I noted in the earlier review in my May Paris Movie Report, in The Kid with a Bike/Le gamin au vélo the Dardenne brothers are "on strong familiar ground," "depicting a troubled boy struggling to get attention from his derelict, immature dad and tempted to a life of crime by an older boy who exploits him." And the Dardennes' discovery, 13-year-old Thomas Doret, who plays Cyril, the 11-year-old reject, is "excellent, if quite uncharming and uncute." But what I ought to have noted was not only the incredible drive Doret has but the emotional wallop the film packs. I was more deeply moved this time, viewing the film again at the New York Film Festival -- and struck by the humanistic power of the occasional bursts of classical music, a rare gesture for the Dardennes.

Co-winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes, with Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (also a NYFF 2011 selection).

[Chris Knipp]

Steve McQueen: Shame (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26875#post26875)

Colder and less engaging than the riveting McQueen debut Hunger, (NYFF 2008) but still this shows the Turner Prize-winning British artist McQueen is Scorsese to Michael Fassbender's DeNiro. Despite my quibbles, this is powerful filmmaking. Carey Mulligan is also excellent as Manhattan sex addict Brandon's unhappy sister.

[Chris Knipp]

Wim Wenders: Pina (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26878#post26878)

Wenders' appropriately austere, stylized documentary celebrates the German dance master Pina Bausch, whose surreal style was an international influence. She died in 2009, suddenly after a cancer diagnosis, having collaborated on this film.

[Chris Knipp]

Nadav Lapid: Policeman (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26882&posted=1#post26882)

A structurally weak but provocatively themed Israeli first film about an macho antiterrorist police unit accustomed to killing Palestinians that is called upon to smash a band of young bourgeois Jewish revolutionaries who kidnap some billionaires at a wedding.

[Chris Knipp]

Simon Curtis: My Week with Marilyn (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26884#post26884)

Adapted memoir of the recollection of Colin Clark, son of famous art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, who had a mini affair with Marilyn Monroe during the 1957 shoot of The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) at Pinewood Studios. Michelle Williams as Marilyn, Eddie Redmayne as Clark, a host of good English actors and authentic production values enliven this entertaining nostalgia piece. It may draw some attention at Oscar time.

World premiere at the NYFF October 9, 2011, opening in US theaters November 4.

[Chris Knipp]

Pedro Almodóvar: The Skin I Live In (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26887#post26887)

From a 1995 French noir novel, the story of a sadomasochisic relationship between a plastic surgeon and his sex-changed victim/patient/lover, bringing back Antionio Banderas after 21 years, with Elena Anaya and Jan Cornet. B-horror made unspeakable beautiful and thematically (but not so emotionally) rich, my favorite since Talk to Me. One of the NYFF's gala presentations along with A Dangerous Method.

The other "events" of the main slate are Carnage, the opening night gala film; My Week With Marilyn, the Centerpiece; and Alesxander Payne's The Descendants, the Closing Night film.

[Chris Knipp]

Joseph Cedar: Footnote (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26889#post26889)

This drama about academic rivalries among Talmudic scholars and between a father and son might seem a brisk change of pace after Cedar's Silve Bear winning Lebanon war drama Beaufort (2007). But there's repressed violence and great suspense here too. Weak ending. But still a most interesting and original film. Winner of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes.

[Chris Knipp]

MUBI's 'NOTEBOOK' (http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/category/criticism)

MUBI (http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/tag/NYFF%202011?utm_source=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digest31) provides an aggregator site on the NYFF that summarizes some critical responses to the main slate and some of the sidebars. Their opening paragraph is below. Click here (http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/tag/NYFF%202011?utm_source=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digest31)for the pages.



THE AGENDA-SETTING NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

Anyone looking for a sneak peek at the year-end best-of-2011 top tens, and even to some degree the upcoming awards season, would best start with the New York Film Festival, whose lineup distills and extracts the best of Berlin, Cannes and Venice. Besides tracking what the critics have been saying about the main slate, we’ve also been posting our own reviews and interviews from the Views from the Avant-Garde program and the Nikkatsu Centennial retrospective. It’s all here.

But there are awards season items that are not at the NYFF -- MONDYBALL, for example, and TREE OF LIFE, and TAKE SHELTER, to name a few recent and past 2011 releases.

[Chris Knipp]

Mia Hansen-Love: Goodbye, First Love (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26893#post26893)

Two passionate young lovers separate when he is 19 and she is 15, and they are not reunited again till eight years later. Hansen-Løve's rather autobiographical third film isn't as complex as her wonderful The Father of My Children, the film based on the life and aftermath of the suicide of Hubert Balsam, but it is nonetheless a beautiful, admirably unsentimental film that further confirms her status as one of today's best young French filmmakers.

[Chris Knipp]

Ruben Östlund: Play (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26895#post26895)

A realistic and" formally interesting but overlong" (Leslie Felperin) recreation of an actual series of incidents in which black youths in Göteborg (Gothenberg), Sweden in their early teens victimized white boys using racial stereotypes to menace their victims without force and deprive them of their cell phones and other valuables, all the while enjoying the "play" of making their victims uneasy and scared.

[oscar jubis]

It am curious about the critical reception Melancholia will get when released in the US. The only von Trier film American critics have liked since the undeniable Breaking the Waves in 1997 is The Boss of it All (metacritic 71). I defended him when both Dogville (meta. 59) and Manderlay (46) were grossly underrated in our country. However, Antichrist was a big disappointment for me and felt it deserved the harsh criticism it received from a number of well-known critics (meta. 49). Trier will always be a "director to follow" for me. He's always...interesting, I'd say. But, after what I consider his second interesting failure in a row, I figure his best period may have passed. Antichrist and Melancholia, which I just watched, are indicative of a filmmaker who has run out of things to say, one shackled by a worldview that is too narrow, schematic and constricting. One major problem for me is that Trier has lost any interest in characterization, seems to have lost interest in human beings in all their nuance and complexity. There are always interesting moments in these films and images of awesome power but not nearly enough to sustain this viewer for the duration of the films. Predicted Metacritic score for Melancholia? 50.

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe the answer to your dismissal is that Von Trier has not run out of ideas, but shifted to different ones. And, of course, as is well known, he has had a severe two-year depression. But it''s been a very productive depression and these two beautiful and thought-provoking films came out of it. Some of us feel he is at the top of his game as a filmmaker. As a provocateur, he has toned down this time. I'd like to discuss this further but I have to write reviews of The Artist and The Descendants while I remember them and before I leave New York for Paris again.

Most ratings are pretty arbitrary, and also culture-bound. It's more important just to know what's being done than to rate it.

[Chris Knipp]

Michel Hazanavicius: The Artist (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26903#post26903)

A black and white silent film about a silent film star whose life goes into decline when talkies take over. A new female star whom he got started rescues him. The male star, Jean Dujardin, won the Best Actor award at Cannes. A homage to silent films and to film in general, richly embellished and touching as well as funny, but a rather specialized item, despite its intended mainstream appeal. US release coming.

[Chris Knipp]

Alexander Payne: The Descendants (2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26904#post26904)

With George Clooney as the star and Hawaii as the setting, it might seem this, Payne's first since Sideways seven years ago, is an unnecessary item to include in the highly selective main slate of the NYFF, except that it turns out to be one of the best American films of the year. The story of a man from a patrician Hawaii family overburdened with decisions and new responsibilities, The Descendants succeeds on many levels.

[Chris Knipp]

This concludes my reviews of NYFF 2011 press screenings. Here is a link index to all my reviews in the Filmleaf Festival Coverage section. These include all the main slate films and Dreileben, a special event of three interrelated New German Cinema films.


INDEX OF LINKS TO REVIEWS

4:44 Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26824#post26824)
Artist, The (Michel Hazanavicius 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26903#post26903)
Carnage (Roman Polanski 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26830#post26830)
Corpo Celeste (Alice Rohrwacher 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26800#post26800)
Dangerous Method, A (David Cronenberg 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26867#post26867)
Descendants, The (Alexander Payne 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26904#post26904)
Dreileben (Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, Christoph Hochhäusler 2011) [NYFF Special Events] (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3121-Nyff-2011&p=26814#post26814)
Footnote (Joseph Cedar 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26889#post26889)
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26805#post26805)
Goodbye, First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26893#post26893)
Kid with the Bike, The (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26873#post26873)
Le Havre (Aki Kaurasmäki 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26798#post26798)
Loneliest Planet, The (Julie Loktov 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26794#post26794)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26871#post26871)
Melancholia (Lars von Trier 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26811#post26811)
Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26828#post26828)
My Week with Marilyn (Simon Curtis 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26884#post26884)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26850#post26850)
Pina (Wim Wenders 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26878#post26878)
Play (Ruben Östlund 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26895#post26895)
Policeman (Nadav Lapid 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26882&posted=1#post26882)
Separation, A (Asghar Farhadi 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26838#post26838)
Shame (Steve McQueen 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26875#post26875)
Skin I Live In, The (Pedro Almodóvar 2011) (Opening Night:
Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski (France/Germany/Poland)

Closing Night:
The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne (USA)

Centerpiece:
My Week With Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis (UK)

Gala Screenings:
A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg (UK/Canada/Germany)
The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain))
Sleeping Sickness, The (Ullrich Köhler 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26848#post26848)
Student, The (Santiago Mitre 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26844#post26844)
This Is Not a Film (Jaafar Panahi 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26865#post26865)
Turin Horse, The (Bela Tárr 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26822#post26822)
We Can't Go Home Again (Nicholas Ray 1972/2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26799#post26799)

[oscar jubis]

"Kaurismäki adheres strictly to his signature style here,... But there's something awry: the gloom is missing."

"For the dyed-in-the-wool Kaurismäki fan there are many little pleasures here but the big pleasure of bathing in a negativism so austere it makes you shiver -- that is totally lacking. "

"Everything he includes in a film becomes Kaurismäki. And there are those that will like the director even more with an ubeat, updated theme. However, it's really not the same without the pessimism. Without it, the drollness loses its edge. "
Quotes from Chris Knipp's review of Le Havre.


Chris, this time I object. I don't have a problem with your not thinking this film was worth including in the fest and your not thinking THIS film is all that good. I disagree but that is perfectly fine. The problem is that, in your review, you totally mischaracterize Aki Kaurismaki's vision as expressed in his long filmography. Negativism and pessimism are NOT characteristic of Aki's films. The Leningrad Cowboys series is full of good cheer. Of course, most of his films are about proletarian loners and oddballs living in lamentable conditions and then bad things happen to them. What happens next is that they find someone to love who loves them back. And music (usually rock 'n roll) or movies serve as sources of joy and inspiration. Towards the end of the typical Aki movie the characters find... happiness. Granted, often the loving couple has to leave Finland to live happily (to a place that is often Estonia, as in Shadows in Paradise, but it can be as far as Mexico, as in Ariel ). The disillusioned, unemployed couple in Drifting Clouds end up realizing their dream of owning their own restaurant with the help of a group of friends and people from the neighborhood. In The Man Without a Past, the homeless, destitute protagonist ends up falling in love with the lonely Salvation Army lady who helps him get on his feet. Proletarian solidarity and warm humanism are characteristic of Kaurismaki, not negativity and pessimism. Kaurismaki's films are about how people overcome, forgo or transcend negativity and pessimism.

*Your characterization of Kaurismaki fits only one Kaurismaki film, Lights in the Dusk (2006). The only other film I can think of that one may interpret as pessimistic would be The Match Factory Girl, although I'd argue that the protagonist ends up realizing her wish: to exact the cold revenge she deserves.

[Chris Knipp]

My review expressed my taste and was not meant to be a precise characterization of Kaurismäki 's whole oeuvre. If I implied that and was inaccurate about it, I'm sorry. I see you yourself do find two of his films fit my description, so I'm not wholly off base.

I ought not to have mentioned "selectivity" but I didn't mean to say this film was not worth including, only that I did not see the necessity of including it. I said some very favorable things about it, said it was a pleasure to watch Kaurismäki at work. Other reviews (doubtless by those more familiar with the oeuvre) suggest the positive thrust is greater than usual here.

A greater criticism is the lack of anything new, despite the French overlay. From MUBI an aggregation of comments includes this:

Fernando F Croce at the House Next Door. "The dangers of auteurs refusing to venture beyond their established styles and worldviews are on full display " There are compensations. But I felt unsatisfied. There is a patness in the pursuit of the signature style. But this film got raves here. No danger of my view prevailing. Write your own review.

[oscar jubis]

What's new here besides "the French overlay" is the inclusion of Asian and African characters.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes, and that is part of the new political element. But there's still the "patness in the pursuit of the signature style" and the pushing toward a positive outcome too early and too completely to fit with the deadpan and the gloom. If in fact Kaurasmäki is as upbeat throughout his oeuvre as you say, I may like him less that I thought.

Filmmaker Magazine (http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/10/aki-kaurismaki-le-havre/):
But this time, the sadsack aura of the Kaurismäki oeuvre gives way to a cheerier vision

A webiste, Filmophilia: (http://filmophilia.com/2011/09/28/riff-review-le-havre/)
The problem is mainly that Kaurismaki isn’t really doing anything new here, he’s basically been doing the same movie for nearly 30 years.
And that's despite the new elements. I suspect that just isn't going to be seen ultimately as one of Kaurismäki's best.

[Chris Knipp]

Though not one of my personal favorites, Bela Tarr's THE TURIN HORSE was one of the most admired NYFF 2011 offerings. And now as promised the FSLC is presenting a retrospective of Tarr's distinctive and influential work, followed by a theatrical release of THE TURIN HORSE.

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/2088/veshba.jpg
THE LAST MODERNIST: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF BÉLA TARR
February 3-8 Hungarian maestro Béla Tarr's final film and NYFF hit, The Turin Horse, will open theatrically on Feb 10th immediately following a complete retrospective of the filmmaker's work which includes his career-defining partnership with Satantango novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Read More (http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/the-last-modernist-the-complete-works-of-bela-tarr)

[Chris Knipp]

THIS IS NOT A FILM

Jafar Panahi's THIS IS NOT A FILM opens for a two-week run at Film Forum in New York on February 29, 2012, the US premiere (it has already shown in France (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=193541.html)). I should have included it in my2011 Best Lists somewhere but now it can go in this year's.


“The plainness of Mr. Panahi’s self-presentation – nothing to see here, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! – is the source of the film’s sly, subversive power and also of its formal ingenuity. Nobody who holds onto the faith that art can be a weapon against tyranny should miss it – here or anywhere else it turns up.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“A Kafkaesque comedy of anxiety and a tale of empty spaces gradually filled. A micro-scaled masterpiece.”
– Fernando Croce, Slant

[Chris Knipp]

NOTE:

CORPO CELESTE (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26800#post26800)will be shown at the San Francisco Film Society's Cinema on Post Street in San Francisco from June 29 to July 5, 2012.

Detalis here. (http://www.sffs.org/Exhibition/SF-Film-Society-Cinema/corpo-celeste.aspx)

1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)

[oscar jubis]

Our theatrical run of Corpo Celeste begins July 6th. Can't wait!

[Chris Knipp]

I recommend it highly and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Above all I am happy when there is a new talent making good and ambitious films in Italian, which are in too short supply these days. Unfortunately though it's gotten "generally favorable reviews" (Metacritic 66), less ambitious local products have a bit fared better than they seem to deserve, comparatively (Your Sister's Sister 71; Safety Not Guaranteed 72; Prometheus 65). For there to be only one point between Corpo Celeste and Prometheus would seem to show the power of expensive publicity campaigns and famous names.