New Directors/New Films and Film Comment Selects 2014 General Forum thread

[Chris Knipp]

YOUTH (Tom Shoval 2013)--ND/NF

Another strong visceral film from an Israeli flimmaker, a new one. Israeli writer-director Tom Shoval's debut feature YOUTH brings up hot national issues like economic injustice, alienation, violence, sexism, and diminished expectations, but that wouldn't count for much if he had not crafted an intense, suspenseful story about a crime that is all the more visceral and shockingly physical for being done by a pair of young testosterone-fueled amateurs. -- good Israeli family boys turn into criminals.


STORY OF MY DEATH/HISTÒRIA DE LA MEVA MORT (Albert Serra 2013)--ND/NF

Sometimes maybe it makes sense just to hang out with famous people in period costume (Cassanova in this case) to get the feel of what they might have been like, and there are some beautiful painterly images, but also note what Cahiers du Cinéma says: "These two hours and a half of deadly (we insist: deadly) boredom will be the despair of those who love the films of Serra and will want to die when they see this gross caricature of radical chic cinema which is as pretentious as it is insignificant." It won the grand prize at Locarno though, so there you go.