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A restored Egyptian film shown at Cannes this year is a sometimes beautiful if overwrought study of a topic dealt with often in Egyptian dramas: the morally dubious role of the villagers who are custodians of ancient Pharaonic temains but also steal them to sell and live off the proceeds.
Shadi Abdel Salam: The Mummy/The Night of Counting the Years (1969)
"With this new film, Michael Haneke returns to his classic themes of guilt, denial and violence as the mysterious symptom of mass dysfunction. The White Ribbon is a period film set in a secluded northern German village on the eve of the first world war, shot in a pellucid monochrome, impeccably acted, and directed with this film-maker's icily exact rigour and severity."--Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK).
Michael Haneke; The White Ribbon (2009)
'"Since the triumphant 'All About My Mother,' Pedro Almodovar has spent the last 10 years making middlebrow melodramas and noirs. . . His latest, the Penelope Cruz-vehicle 'Broken Embraces,' is yet another middlebrow melodramatic whodunit."--Martin Tsai, Critic's Notebook.
Pedro Almodovar: Broken Embraces (2009)
Some summing-up of NYFF 2009
My Antichrist review is also published on Cinescene. In his dismissive Cannes report Rex Reed sneered ofYeah, go Rex! Have fun with it. I enjoy provocative writing even when it's a bit scattershot (Gainsbourg is a handsome woman,a sweetie-pie, and an icon in France, but she does look a bit embalmed at times). Unfortunately the reality of festival films and pleasure vs. pain is more complicated and it was the subject of some interesting speculation in a thoughtful article in the NYTimes by A.O. Scott: "The constricted and forbidding program [the NYFF] offers is not — or not only — due to pusillanimous judgment. It is, rather, a symptom of the divided, anxious state of American, and indeed of global film culture." Both Scott and Stephen Holden (also of the Times) wrote NYFF rounduop pieces discussing the grimness of the fare, and it's true, the NYFF was less fun this year than in 2005, '06,'07, and '08, and maybe not quite as good a slate, though there are blips and triumphs every time. I suggest A.O. Scott's piece for an understanding of how the 2009 NYFF main slate read to an expert.Quote:
another loathsome barf job by Danish wacko Lars von Trier called Antichrist, in which pickle-faced Charlotte Gainsbourg, who always looks embalmed, prunes away her genitalia with garden shears. Naturally, it will show up shortly in the New York Film Festival, the official depository for movies nobody wants to see, where torturing the audience has become an acknowledged priority.
ANTICHRIST is in limited US release since October 23. Other titles that, like it, I highly recommend from the NYFF are the following. Unfortunately theatrical release is scheduled for only three out of six:How could I choose such stuff as my favorites? I guess maybe Rex Reed is right, and I enjoy being "tortured," because the hardest to watch of the NYFF, and/or the most provocative, films proved to me to be the strongest and the most memorable -- though of uneven merit; i would not equate Precious or Trash Humpers with the superb craft of Life During Wartime or the absolute mastery of The White Ribbon. I was especially surprised by Life During Wartime, which though it has disturbing content, actually was for me often a pleasure to watch, and occasionally hilarious.Quote:
HADEWIJCH (BRUNO DUMONT)--NO DISTRIB.
LIFE DURING WARTIME (TODD SOLONDZ)--NO DISTRIB.
THE WHITE RIBBON (MICHAEL HANEKE)--US RELEASE DEC. 30 FF. (L)
PRECIOUS (LEE DANIELS)--US RELEASE NOV. 6 (L)
TRASH HUMMPERS (HARMONY KORINE)--NO DISTRIB.
Not in the Rex Reed dismissable category, but NYFF films that fans of the directors and of European (and Asian) arthouse cinema will not want to miss:All of these are excellent in their way and doubtless well worth seeing, but do not represent (or in the case of the two documentaries/analyses, refer to) the filmmakers' best work. The first ones, I can't get out of my head. I applaud their vigor, rigor, energy, and originality.Quote:
JACQUES RIVETTE: Around a Small Mountain
CATHERINE BREILLAT: Bluebeard
PEDRO ALMODOVAR: Broken Embraces
MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA: Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl
CLOUZOT: Henri-Georges Clouzot's 'Inferno' (Bomberg, Medea 2009)
BONG JOON-HO: Mother
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI--The 'Rage' of Pasolini (Pasolini, Bertolucci, 1963, 2008)
ANDRZEJ WAJDA: Sweet Rush
CLAIRE DENIS: White Material
ALAIN RESNAIS--Wild Grass
For exceptional cinematography, you will also want to watch out for:The documentaries were interesting this year; Zhao Dayang's Ghost Town was too long a slog for me but he may prove a standout documentarian nonetheless. The audience doc favorite was apparently the one about the hijacking of the Barnes Foundation collection,Quote:
INDEPENDENCIA (RAYA MARTIN)
NE CHANGE RIEN (PEDRO COSTA)
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THE ART OF THE STEAL (DON ARGOTT)
I am convinced LIFE DURING WARTIME will be picked up for distribution in the States soon. It is showing on Nov. 8th at the American Film Market in Santa Monica where many distribution deals are made (it is the main purpose of this industry festival). I am also convinced distributors have already made offers to the producers, who are probably holding out until they get a deal they like. It seems interest in the film has continued to build after several festival screenings.
I personally don't give credence to anything Rex Reed writes or says.
I've made a couple of corrections above. I didn't mean to leave out Almodovar. He's a director people go to for the name. Again, this is not his best work, but his greatest fans may greatly enjoy BROKEN EMBRACES, where a lot is certainly going on. Some actually think the Rivette and the Resnais are among the directors' best work. I don't, but the films may provide useful insights into their cinema. I wish more room had been opened to younger directors, whose work might provide insights into the cinema to come.
I hope you're right about LIFE DURING WARTIME; I too noticed yesterday it was at the American Film Market. As for Rex Reed, he is I think largely discredited today among his peers, so the effort of dismissing him is unnecessary. But this is also true of Armond White, whose knowledge and independence of judgment are in another category and who needs to be watched for his moments of true insight. I go to Reed because his writing is amusing and expresses in sprightly fashion what a lot of people feel. `His view that the NYFF "tortures" its audiences is not far from the semi-official one of the NYTimes critics. I don't rule out anybody. I welcome writing that wakes one up and makes one think, or gives one perspective on one's own solemnities. I notice you have also forever banished Harmony Korine. That was a mistake.
My summing-up is also posted on the Festival Coverage NYFF 2009 Festival Coverage thread.
I wrote that Korine has "ceased to intrigue me" and that reflects only my own personal lack of interest in his films. J. Hoberman, who shares my opinion about him, apparently opines that Trash Humpers is better than his previous films. I have to see it to believe it.
"The fest doesn't lack for provocations, although von Trier's Antichrist strains, Breillat's Bluebeard is over-subtle, and Solondz's Life During Wartime waxes too philosophical. Bruno Dumont's humorless Hadewijch deserves to be rated PFC (pretty fucking crazy), but the wackiest transgression is Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers. I've always considered Korine an untalented poseur, but, as the poet said, a fool persists in his folly until he becomes wise." (Hoberman in The Village Voice)
I didn't expect to get so much response so quickly -- thank you.
Hoberman's comment on TRASH HUMPERS: That's one way of looking at it. But only vaguely appropriate really. Nonetheless Hoberman is an excellent film writer. Like Dennis Lim, he can do very smart analyses. His summings-up here don't seem to me particularly helpful, but then I'm not so much into summings-up anyway. I can understand your looking to Jim H. for views. Surely he's wiser than Chris K. And has a lot more cinema critic cred.
Notice that Rex Reed and Hoberman both resort to the word "wack" to describe a NYFF film.
Saying Antichrist "strains" is a laugh. That's putting it mildly. Rex Reed gets to the point better. Hoberman is right as far as it goes on Breillat and Solondz, too subtle or too philosophical; they do veer in those directions. His comment on Dumont is rude and pointless really. I don't really go for an older man's using profanity (PFC) to seem youthful or hip; it doesn't work, and is not worthy of him. You can call pretty much any avantgardist an "untalented poseur." There is some truth in it. Until it turns out to have been simply out of step. But the trouble with this self-justifying remark is that what Korine achieves in TRASH HUMPERS isn't as far as I can see anything you can construe as wisdom. His is the movie that's pretty fucking crazy. But crazy in a way that takes you in a new unexpected place. Dumont's makes plenty of sense within various traditions and systems of thinking. He goes in new places for him, but I see nothing wacky or wack job about the film. It actually has much beauty in it, so for an outsider who hasn't seen it, Hoberman's statement may not be particularly helpful (note you're quoting him without having seen the films yourself)l, nor is it altogether hellpful on the other films, though his coming around a bit to allow for Korine's having something there is of value and shows he's flexible.
Finally watched THE WHITE RIBBON a couple of nights ago and can't stop thinking about it. It is certainly "masterful" as you say in your review.
Indeed. I'm glad at least one other contributor has seen it and I hope eventually there will be many more. I've actually seen it twice, not my usual practice with new films. I'm also looking forward to seeing A Prophet/Un prophète by Audiard again, but couldn't make the FSLC preview today; it opens shortly, and I have lots of dialogue subtitles will clear up. Not the Corsican and Arabic -- the French subtitles made those clear -- but the slangy underworld French.Quote:
THE WHITE RIBBON . . .is certainly "masterful" as you say
The basic narrative structure in film (and literature) is erotetic. It sets the stage for a set of questions to emerge which are usually satisfactorily answered by the end of the film thus giving the audience a feeling of closure. The first question that THE WHITE RIBBON asks the audience to consider is: who placed a trip wire along the doctor's path presumably with the intent of causing him injury or death? It is the first in a series of "whodunits" in the narrative. I place Haneke's latest in a category of cinema in which the questions raised are either not answered, partly answered or answered ambiguously or vaguely. The oldest members of this category that I can recall are Antonioni's L'Avventura and Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad and the most recent one I have seen is Martel's The Headless Woman. This category of movies defy the erotetic model for a variety of purposes. They subvert our expectations in order to reveal deeper insights, lay bare reflexively the structures of narrative experience, and other interpretative and expressive purposes. What THE WHITE RIBBON suggests is that, at the historical moment in which the film is set, the repressive ideologies of the adult world created the conditions for the emergence of a generation of Germans willing to embrace a leader such as Hitler and carry out his malevolent intentions. Generally a whole society and, specifically, a certain generation was conditioned to execute a holocaust. The individual was lost in a collective subservient to Fascism or Nazism. This is why it is irrelevant for The White Ribbon to tell us precisely who set the trip wire and who blinded the mentally disabled boy (even though, in some instances, we get enough information to infer who is culpable).
Additionally, I see thematic parallels between The White Ribbon and Trier's Dogville and Manderlay, the two released films in a proposed trilogy he calls USA: Land of Opportunity. These films do not share Haneke's narrative strategy of erotetic defiance. What they have in common with Haneke's Cannes winner is that an isolated, small town serves as a microcosm of a nation in order to highlight and expose inherent moral flaws in its character.
Yes, that's putting in more academic terms just about what everybody agrees is going on in THE WHITE RIBBON. Of course it has way, way more of a textured feel of historical authenticity than anything Mr. Trier has ever done.I'd amend that to "to guess who might be culpable." There isn't enough information to infer who is. That's kind of been your point.Quote:
even though we get enough information to infer who is culpable.
Because of my projects, I am only watching about 2 new releases per week, usually something outside the mainstream. I have a lot of catching up to do if my list of favorites at the end of the year were to reflect what played in theaters in 2010. I have recently watched Everyone Else, a German film that played at the NYFF hence my posting here. This is drama in the tradition of The Mother & the Whore, as Hoberman mentioned. It deals with psychological minutiae most films don't dare to touch. One patron at the Cosford told me as she walked out into the muggy night that she really feels like she knows Chris and Gitti. Precisely the reaction writer/director Maren Ade seems to be striving to achieve. The movie is quite an accomplishment, very assured in tone, focused from beginning to end. I wonder how many good movies like this one I have missed.I missed A Prophet and Greenberg, for instance. Currently watching and rewatching Mizoguchi as preparation for a piece on Mizoguchi's feminism. Since my proposal for such a paper was accepted for presentation at a Film and History conference, it is foremost in my mind.
Everyone Else Probably I should have rerun that as a forums thread and then you could have responded directly to the Filmleaf Festival Coverage review. I assume you did read it though you don't respond to it, or to the many reviews that have appeared recently since it's been in theatrical release. * No, you restrict yourself to academic publications now and, it appears, have begun producing them yourself. Good for you. Press and industry response when I saw it seemed to be lukewarm and some thought it meandering and self-indulgent, but I found it pretty involving, like you. I commented on the "wonderfully natural acting," "continually interesting to watch," and said the "calibration is subtle, as with Jane Austen."
And that is all in my first paragraph! Any comparison with Jane Austen is as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned. Yet I didn't include this among my choices of the festival's best -- because as you may recall i tended to focus on some of the more provocative items -- WHITE RIBBON, HADEWIJCH, ANTICHRIST, and TRASH HUMPERS. Why exclude EVERYONE ELSE from that list? Well, apart from the fact that it doesn't knock you off your seat, there is the point I also make, that while "it's impossible not to conclude that Ade is doing something right, and has trod familiar paths but avoide""d cliche. She just needs to develop more faith in the value of the cutting room." We're justified in expecting good, maybe great, things from her in the future.
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*(In NYC anyway, from April 9; and then it was shown again at the SFIFF April 25.) Metacritic rating 74.