New York Film Festival #46 Sept. 26-oct. 12, 2008

[Chris Knipp]

INDEX OF LINKS TO REVIEWS

24 City (Jia)
Afterschool (Campos)
Ashes of Time Redux (Wong)
Bullet in the Head (Rosales)
Changling (Eastwood)
Che (Soderbergh)
Chouga (Omirbaev)
Christmas Tale, A (Desplechin)
Class, The (Cantet)
Four Nights with Anna (Skowlomowski)
Gororrah (Garrone)
Happy-Go-Lucky (Leigh)
Headless Woma, The (Martel)
Hunger (McQueen)
I'm Gonna Explode (Naranj0)
It's Hard Being Loved by Jerks (Leconte)
Let It Rain (Jaoui)
Lola Montes (Orphuls)
Night and Day (Hong)
Northern Land, The (Botelho)
Serbis (Mondoza)
Summer Hours (Assayas)
Tokoy Sonta (Kurosawa)
Tony Manero (Larrain)
Tulpan (Dvortsevoy)
Waltz with Bashir (Folman)
Wendy and Lucy (Reichardt)
Windmill Movie, The (Olch)
Wrestler, The (Aronofsky)

THE COMPLETE SLATE FOR THE NYFF 2008.

The FSLC festival page is here.

In future reviews and information on the NYFF 2009 will appear in the Filmleaf Festival Coverage section starting here.

August 12, 2008
The Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC) announced the festival slate today. Here it is, with their press release blurbs to describe the films. The NYFF is highly selective, so this is it, 27 films and one retrospective film. I expect to review them all for you. There will be some sidebar series too.

The Class / Entre les murs
Laurent Cantet, France, 2008; 128m
A tough, lively and altogether revelatory look inside a high school classroom, enacted by real teachers and students.

CENTERPIECE
Changeling
Clint Eastwood, USA, 2008; 140m
Angelina Jolie is a single mother whose troubles are just beginning when her son goes
missing in Clint Eastwood’s majestic fact-based period drama.

CLOSING NIGHT (AVERY FISHER HALL)
The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky, USA, 2008; 109m
Mickey Rourke gives the performance of a lifetime in Darren Aronofsky’s raw and raucous new movie.

24 City / Er shi si cheng ji
Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong/Japan, 2008; 112m
The rise and fall of a Chinese factory town is chronicled in this film, straddling the border between fiction and documentary.

Afterschool
Antonio Campos, USA, 2008; 122m
When two students at a posh prep school accidentally overdose, a student filmmaker struggles to create an appropriate tribute for them.

Ashes of Time Redux
Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong, 2008; 93m
The final, definitive version of Wong Kar Wai’s modernist take on the classic Chinese martial arts tale.

Bullet in the Head / Trio en la cabeza
Jaime Rosales, Spain/France, 2008; 85m
A powerful, engrossing meditation on politics and the contemporary cult of surveillance.

Che
Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain, 2008; 268m
Steven Soderbergh’s two-part Spanish-language epic about Che Guevara’s revolutionary military campaigns in Cuba and Bolivia features a brilliant lead performance by Benicio del Toro.

Chouga / Shuga
Darezhan Omirbaev, France/Kazakhstan, 2007; 91m
A Kazakh, minimalist adaptation of Anna Karenina.

A Christmas Tale / Un conte de Noël
Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2008; 150m
Arnaud Desplechin’s grand banquet of a movie brims with life, as Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos and the other members of a marvelous ensemble cast come home for Christmas.

Four Nights with Anna / Cztery noce z Anna
Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France, 2008; 87m
This visually mesmerizing tale of a shy man and his obsession with the woman across the way marks the triumphant return of Polish maestro Jerzy Skolimowski.

Gomorrah / Gomorra
Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2008; 137m
A blistering version of Roberto Saviano’s modern true crime classic about the modern-day Neapolitan mafia.

Happy-Go-Lucky
Mike Leigh, UK, 2008; 118m
An affectionate portrait of an unattached, 30-something London schoolteacher coming toterms with the fact that she’s no longer young.

The Headless Woman / La mujer sin cabeza
Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain, 2008; 87m
Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s powerful third feature takes us into an altered perceptual state with a woman who hits something with her car.

Hunger
Steve McQueen, UK, 2008; 96m
British visual artist Steve McQueen’s feature film debut is an uncompromising look at the hunger strike led by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands in 1974.

I’m Going to Explode / Voy a explotar
Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, 2008; 103m
Two Mexican teenagers go into hiding to see the reactions their disappearance will get from relatives and friends.

Let It Rain / Parlez-moi de la pluie
Agnès Jaoui, France, 2008; 110m
A portrait of a rising feminist politician may be the ticket to fame and jobs for two aspiring filmmakers.

RETROSPECTIVE
Lola Montès
Max Ophuls, France/West Germany, 1955; 115m
The life of the legendary courtesan and circus performer—lover of kings, knaves and Franz Liszt—is presented in its definitive, restored version.

Night and Day / Bam guan nat
Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2008; 144m
When his life in Seoul becomes too complicated, an artist hightails it to Paris—but things don’t get any easier.

The Northern Land / A Corte do Norte
João Botelho, Portugal, 2008; 101m
A woman searches for the truth about her life in the stories of ancestors and the distant manor house they inhabited.

Serbis
Brillante Mendoza, Philippines/France, 2008; 90m
A family tries to quell the tensions tearing it apart while it struggles to keep the family business—a porn movie theater—afloat.

Summer Hours / L’heure d’eté
Olivier Assayas, France, 2008; 103m
Juliette Binoche is one of three siblings brought face-to-face with time and mortality by the sudden death of her mother in this moving new film from Olivier Assayas.

Tokyo SonataKiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan/Netherlands, 2008; 85m
A Japanese family struggles to re-define itself after the father loses his corporate job.

Tony Manero
Pablo Larrain, Chile/Brazil, 2008; 98m
In the dark days of the Pinochet dictatorship, a John Travolta wannabe blazes a murderous trail through the back alleys of Chile.

Tulpan
Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Kazakhstan/Poland/Russia/Switzerland, 2008; 100m
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Tulpan charts an aspiring herdsman’s efforts to win the attention of his intended.

Waltz with Bashir / Vals in BashirAri Folman, Israel/Germany/France, 2008; 90m
Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s haunting autobiographical memory piece about his experiences as a soldier during the 1982 war in Lebanon are given a hyper-real spin by state-of-the-art animation.

Wendy and Lucy
Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2008; 80m
In Kelly Reichardt’s follow-up to her acclaimed Old Joy, Wendy (Michelle Williams) searches for her dog Lucy. The troubled spirit of modern America is beautifully evoked along the way.

The Windmill Movie
Alexander Olch, USA, 2008; 80m
Filmmaker Alexander Olch, using material left by the late filmmaker Richard Rogers for a never completed film autobiography, attempts to make sense of the life of his former teacher and friend.

[Chris Knipp]

NYFF Sidebar Material:

Views from the Avant Guard

Guy Debord, In girum imus nocte et consummimur igne

In the Real of Oshima

Listed so far:

The Ceremony
The Man Who Left His Will on Film, AKA The Battle of Tokyo or He Died After the War

[Chris Knipp]

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced "Special Events" to accompany the festival including a "variety of dialogues, panels, anniversary and special event screenings, and an inventive photographic exhibition."

These will include discussions variously involving Jia Zhangke talking about his influences with Scott Foundas of LA Weekly;, Darren Aronofsky with FSLC director Richard Pena; Arnaud Desplechin talking with Kent Jones; Martin Scorsese on Albert Lewin's Pandora and the Flying Dutchman; a panel on the French documentary about a controversy about Islam in France, "It’s Hard Being Loved by Jerks;" Wong Kar Wai talking about his working methods with J. Hoberman; "Prominent film critics from around the world" including Jonathan Rosenbaum, Cahiers du cinéma editor Emmanuel Burdeau, Film Comment editor-at-large Kent Jones, GreenCine Daily blog editor David Hudson, Argentine film critic Pablo Suarez, and others hashing over the future of film criticism. The photography show opening with the NYFF in the lounge of the Walter Reade Theater will be Brief Histories Of… and Correspondence Course(s) by filmmaker, author and visual artist Mark Rappaport.

Watch the Festival Coverage thread for the 2008 NYFF for more details--though since these events will not be freely available to press, I am not sure how many of them I will be able to attend. The directors mentioned will probably be appearing for Q&A's after press screenings.

[Johann]

Shouldn`t that be "Debord"?
Without the A?

Che sounds awesome..

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the correction.

Che was much discussed in relation to its Cannes presentation.

Toronto is coming up shortly. A lot of the key stuff will be showing there and much more. I haven't seen their lineup... We ought to give it a going over, Johann, don't you think?

[Johann]

Where`s Peter?
I need some admin.
Where`s some updated photos?
I`ll post whenever I can.
Right now I`m looking at new apartments.

[Chris Knipp]

As a THR article points out, the NYFF this year is particularly "well stocked with Cannes titles,": 17 of the 28 festival official selections for September-October 2008 were a part of the French fest. Refer to that THR article for details of the lineup. IFC has four of the titles, more than any other distributor: McQueen's HUNGER, Garrone's GOMORRA, Desplechin's A CHRISTMAS TALE, and Assayas' SUMMER HOURS. Sony Pictures Classics has three: Cantet's THE CLASS, Wong's ASHES OF TIME REDUX, and Folman's WALTZ WITH BASHIR.

Cantet's THE CLASS, Eastwood's CHANGELING, and Aronofsky's Mickey Rourke vehicle THE WRESTLER will be showing at the Zeigfield theater throughout the festival--a new wrinkle.

The press screenings this time include two showings of quite a few of the films, to allow journalists and industry people more schedule flexibility. I will plan however on attending the screening that include a Q&A with the director, when there is one, as much as possible.

THE LINEUP LISTED ALPHABETICALLY:

THE CLASS, Laurent Cantet, France (Sony Pictures Classics) [Opening night]
CHANGELING, Clint Eastwood, U.S. (Universal) [Centerpiece]
THE WRESTLER, Darren Aronofsky, U.S. [Closing night]
24 CITY, Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong/Japan
AFTERSCHOOL, Antonio Campos, U.S.
ASHES OF TIME REDUX, Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong (Sony Pictures Classics)
BULLET IN THE HEAD, Jaime Rosales, Spain/France
CHE, Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain
CHOUGA, Darezhan Omirbaev, France/Kazakhstan
A CHRISTMAS TALE Arnaud Desplechin, France (IFC Films)
FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA, Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France
GOMORRAH, Matteo Garrone, Italy (IFC Films)
HAPPY GO LUCKY, Mike Leigh, U.K. (Miramax)
THE HEADLESS WOMAN, Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain
HUNGER, Steve McQueen, U.K. (IFC Films)
I'M GOING TO EXPLODE, Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico
LET IT RAIN, Agnes Jaoui, France, 2008
LOLA MONTES, Max Ophuls, France/West Germany (Rialto Pictures) [retrospective]
NIGHT AND DAY, Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2008
THE NORTHERN LAND, Joao Botelho, Portugal
SERBIS, Brillante Mendoza, Philippines/France
SUMMER HOURS, Olivier Assayas, France (IFC Films)
TOKYO SONATA, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan/Netherlands
TONY MANERO, Pablo Larrain, Chile/Brazil
TULPIN, Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Kazakhstan/Poland/Russia/Switzerland
WALTZ WITH BASHIR, Ari Folman, Israel/Germany/France (Sony Pictures Classics)
WENDY AND LUCY, Kelly Reichardt, U.S. (Oscilloscope Pictures)
THE WINDMILL MOVIE, Alexander Olch, U.S.

[Chris Knipp]

The preceding alphabetical list indicates which NYFF titles already have U.S. distribution lined up. I counted 12 but there will surely be some more coming. They will be some of the more interesting theatrical openings in the latter part of the year.

In fact one more just came--CHE.--and now there are 13. CHE some were saying recently had a "last chance" at the NYFF and at Toronto to get US distribution. Magnolia Pictures has bought it now at Toronto and will give it a limited release in December and thereby qualify it for Oscar consideration. Its four hour and 20+ minute running time makes it a tough sell theatrically but it is capable of generating great interest, with Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro in the lead and another Oscar nomination most likely. It also has gone by the title GUERILLA.

[Chris Knipp]

Speaking of the fact that these US-release NYFF films--CHE, THE CHANGELING, THE WRESTLER, HUNGER, THE CLASS, A CHRISTMAS TALE, GOMORRAH, HAPPY GO LUCKY, SUMMER HOURS, WALTZ WITH BACHIR, WENDY AND LUCY will be among the more interesting of the fall and winter offerings stateside-- what else are people eagerly waiting for as 2008 winds down that may not have the Lincoln Center imprimatur? Any suggestions?

I'm guessing the following movies may be good or more than good or at the least fun to watch.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3, SENIOR YEAR (the series directed by Kenny Ortega with Zac Efron and other heartthrobs moved to the big screen); SUPERBAD and JUNO’s Michael Cera in NICK& NORA’S INFINITE PLAYLIST. This is director Peter Sollett's first film since RAISING VICTOR VARGAS. The now ubiquitous Seth Rogen is coming in in ZACH AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO, by good old Kevin Smith. Jason Mewes got his hair cut short for this one: a first!

On a more serious note, there will be Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic W, with Josh Brolin as Dubya; Gus Van Sant’s biopic MILK (with Sean Penn perhaps vying for an Oscar as Milk); and Jonathan Demme’s first narrative feature since his MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE remake, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, starring Anne Hathaway, about a dysfuncational family reunion (sounds like Noah Baumbach’s MARGOT AT THE WEDDING. but I hope it’s not).

Then there is ace screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s reputedly indigestible directing debut, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, and Aussie director John Hillcoat's filming of Cormac McCarthy’s powerful apocalyptic novel THE ROAD with Viggo Mortensen and the reputedly extraordinary child actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, and including Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron, and Robert Duvall in minor roles. I will be expecting wonders from that one.

In a less exacting mode comes the reunion of Pacino and DiNero as cops again (as in Michael Mann’s HEAT), in Jon Avnet’s RIGHTEOUS KILL; the trailers strive mightily to give away all the secrets of that one, alas. This time the two Italian Americans share the marquee with rapper 50 Cent. (Mann contemplates a sequel or remake of HEAT for 2009, by the way.) Ditto the Coen brothers’ new comedy with Clooney and Pitt,--like RIGHTEOUS KILL, destined to be totally overexposed in multiple trailers: BURN BEFORE READING—but it still looks like a romp and a good antidote to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, though probably not as brilliantly made.. Joe (ATONEMENT) Wright has an uplifting drama about skid row and classical music, THE SOLOIST, which has Robert Downey, Jr. in the lead and Catherine Keener and Jamie Foxx in supporting toles.

Other films predicted to be Oscar contenders:

--Sam Mendes' REVOLUTIONARY ROAD stars Leonardi DiCapro, Kate Winslet. Based on Richard Yates famous novel about the depression.
--Stephen Daldry’s THE READER from Schlenk’s WWII novel, starring Ralph Fiennes and again Kate Winslet.
--Baz Luhrmann’s AUSTRALIA with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, an “epic love story” of a journey across the Outback.
--David Fincher directs THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (a not-so-famous F. Scott Fitzgerald novel about a man who ages in reverse) with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, also Tilda Swinton (who’s to be seen in BURN AFTER READING). Fincher increasingly seems like one of our best directors, so this has to seem promising. (Thanks to the website OSCAR FRENZY for this last set of titles.)

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe not Oscar material here, but interesting titles coming out right in the month of September (for anybody not lucky enough to be going to a film festival full of Cannes selections):

GHOST TOWN. Ricky Gervais as a grouchy malcontent who 'dies' for seven minutes and as a result wakes up in an altered state so that he "Sees dead people. . .and they annoy him." A high-concept comedy about a man who has the power to help other people, but can't be bothered. With Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni. Maybe annoying, like the dead people; but Ricky Gervais could make it into fun.

CHOKE. A high-buzz-level Sundance (Special Jury Prize) item. This one directed by the actor Clark Gregg is the creation of Chuck (Fight Club Palahniuk from his book, and Sam Rockwell, an actor well adapted to crazy roles, is a sex-addict con man and medical school dropout who works as a historical re-enactor in a colonial Williamsburg theme park to pay the bill for keeping his insane mother--played by Angelica Houston--in an expensive sanatorium. His scam is getting in with rich people by letting them "save" him when he pretends to choke in pricey restaurants.

THE DUCHESS. Keira Knightley wears dazzling outfits and wigs in this 18th-century extravaganza directed by Britisher Saul Dibb about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, with Charlotte Rampling as her mother and Ralph Fiennes as her dad. Ralph as the Duke is quite naughty, and Keira is the first "It girl" but also involved in Whig politics and some of her own naughtiness. References to Lady Di are not unintentional.

THE WOMEN. A remake of the 1939 George Cukor Classic with Meg Ryan, Annette Benning, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher and Debi Mazar. And no men.

Also:

THE LUCKY ONES. Neil Burger of The Illusionist directs Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, and Michael Pena in a drama about three returning Iraq vets who find themselves feeling out of place when they get back home.

LAKEVIEW TERRACE. Points of interest: directed by the brilliant playright Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men and Nurse Betty are two of his films), and starring Patrick Wilson of Little Children with Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Plot: ths is the tale of a couple hounded in their neighborhood for being racially mixed. They fight back, and things get out of control.

But don't forget the Coens' BURN AFTER READING. That is still promising in case these other ones don't pan out. But anyway it looks like the summer is really over with its blockbusters, crude comedies, and B-pictures.

[Chris Knipp]

This year if it comes to pass there will be directors on hand for 24 of the 28 films, along with some of the actors, including Mickey Rourke and Catherine Deneuve, and an impressive array of talent from Darren Aronofsky to Wong Kar-wai.

Take a look at the full listing on the NYFF Festival Coverage Thread press conference listing .

So if I neglect to mention them in describing the films, know that I was there and heard whatever they had to say.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
CHE some were saying recently had a "last chance" at the NYFF and at Toronto to get US distribution. Magnolia Pictures has bought it now at Toronto and will give it a limited release in December and thereby qualify it for Oscar consideration.

IFC Films will be the distributor. The film to be shown in theaters will be a "trimmed" version Soderbergh edited. One week run in NYC and L.A. in December to qualify for Oscars followed by a gradual commercial release in the rest of North America beginning in January.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the details. I think we shall be viewing the full version.

[Chris Knipp]

A sidebar to the NYFf is the series "VIEWS FROM THE AVANT GARDE." This includes the much heralded Guy Debord, whose name I hve spelled right this time, plus Bruce Conner, James Benning, Andrew Noren, Nathaniel Dorsky, Craig Baldwin. And films by artists such as Pat O'Neill, Ben Rivers, Michael Robinson, Julie Murray, Leslie Thornton, Ken Jacobs, Ernie Gehr and Lewis Klahr. Filmmakers being presented in the Walter Reade Theater venue for the first time include: Mary Helena Clark, Taylor Dunne, Chris Kennedy, Michael Maryniuk, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Joel Schlemowitz and Jessie Stead.

Views from the Avant-Garde is curated by Mark McElhatten and Film Comment editor Gavin Smith. About Debord the FSLC press release reads:

Filmmaker Olivier Assayas, writer Greil Marcus and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin will launch the weekend program by joining the Film Society for a panel discussion following a 30th-anniversary screening of Situationist International originator and founder Guy Debord’s landmark opus, “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni,” Friday, Oct. 3, at 6:30 p.m. The film re-uses images from magazines, comics and popular films—a technique defined by Debord as détournement—to critique image culture and media-dominated society. It is “an act of condemnation, but it is also an affirmation,” says Kent Jones, associate director of programming at the Film Society, “of our ability to build on the best rather than the worst in mankind, to create a true Utopia rather than a paltry counterfeit. Without exaggeration, this is one of the most provocative experiences you’ll ever have at the movies.”

How sad then that I probably won't get to see it, but that is because I am seeing all the NYFF selectons and reviewing them, and I can't do everything. I will catch something if I can. That day will include film showings and press conferences for Wong Kar-Wai and Hong Sang-soo.

The FSLC web page for VIEWS FROM THE AVANT GARDE IS HERE.

[Chris Knipp]

LAURENT CANTET'S THE CLASS REVIEWED.

The top prize-winner at the Cannes Festival this year, is the NYFF opening night film.

There was a press conference wih Cantet conducted by FSLC director and festival commitee chair Richard Pena with an interpreter.

All scenes were shot in the classroom with three digital cameras, one on the teacher, one on the person speaking, and the third on peripheral student reactions. The 20th Paris arondissement middle school provides a far richer experience, Cantet said, than his little school in the French provinces.