Nyff 2014

[Chris Knipp]

Alejandro G. Iñárritu: Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance) ( 2014)

The Closing Night film, a tour de force and a complete change of pace for the Mexican director, again as in GRAVITY working in English with an American cast. Still overly ambitious, maybe, but the heavy-handed "significance" of 21 GRAMS, BABEL and BIUTIFUL is gone in favor of humor and satire and the main actors, Michael Keaton and Edward Norton, had great fun with this material. Another of the New York Film Festival's many "New York movies" this year, shot almost entirely at the St. James Theater on 44th and Broadway, from whence Keaton wanders through Times Square clad only in his skivvies followed by the director's virtuoso dp Emmanuel Lubezki in one more of the film's seamless long takes accompanied by the beat of drums, a sequence that clinced my feeling this was somehow similar to Leos Carax's mind-bending HOLY MOTORS (NYFF 2012).

[Chris Knipp]

ROUNDUP: 52nd New York Film Festival 2014



ROUNDUP: 52nd New York Film Festival 2014

As usual, the New York Film Festival had depth and high quality. If there wasn't anything to sweep me away like Amour and Holy Motors, any amazing trip like Lif of Pi, anything as smart and witty as The Social Network or as profound as Sokurov's The Sun, this isn't the selection committee's fault, because this year seems a bit light on dazzlers. Personally I wasn't deeply impressed by any of the American features, but New York-related films came through strong with the street drug story Heaven Knows What, Gere's stunt as a homeless person Time Out of Mind, Perry's smart and mean Listen Up Philip, and Mexican director Iñárritu's Broadway theater tour de force Birdman.

Then we come to "foreign" films that were various kinds of delight. '71 is an intense historical thriller set in Bellfast at the height of the Troubles, and with it the French-born Yann Demaarge, who works in England, emerges as a world class filmmaker. The Film Society favorite Hong Sang-soo's Hill of Freedom is another disarmingly slight-seeming little gem. Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner is both grand and quiet, a marvel of acting and the recreation of period the Brits can do so well. Abderrahmane Sissako shows himself to be one of the world's great filmmakers in the serene, beautiful, memorable Timbukto, which, almost surprisingly, is about jihadist brutality and violence in northeastern Mali. It still seems like a visual poem. There were a number of smart and elegant French films (nothing great from Latin America, nor anything else from Asia): the one I liked best is Bertrand Bonello's dreamy and beautiful Saint Laurent, for which he was able to assemble some tolerably cool actors, to say the least. Graf's German historical film Beloed Sisters was rich and beautiful. It's almost a miniseries though. And why are so many features over two hours? Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria is an example of a serious art house film with ideas that overstayed its welcome because its editor put away his scissors too early.

The three "major" films idea, opening, centerpiece, and closing, is a bit phony from the cinephile POV, burt the Film Society's choices this year made sense. Fincher's big glitzy Gone Girl was an entertaining opener. I don't know what P.T. Anderson was doing with Inherent Vice, but he is a director I get excited about whose work gets into cineplexes. The closing film, Iñárritu's Birdman, is a welcome change of pace for him and a whild tour de force, if not as profound as it may think it is.

Below is a list I made up for a poll. Don't take it too seriously: five is an arbitrary limit, and I forgot to mention some things I liked, like the Hong Sang-soo, and made upt the list before seeing Iñárritu's Birdman, which clamors for award consideration in various categories. So apparently does Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher, but I found that film very unsatisfying, far too long and too one-note, despite how uneasy it makes you. Something of the same could be said of Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, which is clever and slick but makes no sense and misses its targets, its satire probably out of date. But as with some other choices (compare PTA), it's a film by a filmmaker whose failures you still have to see .

Another late item was Poitras' Citizenfour, which makes sense to include in the Main Slate though a documentary because of the outstanding importance of its subject, Edward Snowden at the moment of his NSA revelations in Hong Kong, and their meaning, but is also an exceptionally cleanly made film. The Festival had a lot of Spotlight on Documentary sidebar films and there were press screenings of some that showed merit, though mostly documentaries are something you watch if you're interested in the material, and they're rarely moving and unique as for example Man on Wire, To Be and To Have, or My Architect happen to be. Doc masterpieces are scarce as hen's teeth but "interesting" (to somebody) docs are very common and very available nowadays (a good thing, but a cause for festival jury reserve: for example, "Spotlight" NYFF film Merchants of Doubt was "interesting," but there are many films on closely related topics and the technique and look were boilerplate. Wiseman is an icon, like Maysles in his eighties still making documentaries and everything he does demands festival attention. But what a bore he can be sometimes! Let me mention Ethan Hawke's doc debut Seymour: An Introduction, a charming and informative film about a remarkable elderly New York piano teacher (another New York film!), very well made and not to be dismissed because its maker is a kind of celebrity.

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
You can vote for up to 5 films.
1. '71 (Jann Demange 2014)
2. Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh 2014)
3. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako 2014)
4. Two Days, One Night/Deux jours, une nuit (Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne 2014)
5. Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello 2014)
[6. Beloved Sisters/Die geliebten Schwestern (Dominik Graf 2014)]

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1. Citizen Four (Laura Poitras)
2. Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield 2014)
3. Red Army (Gabe Polsky 2014)
4. Seymour: An Introduction (Ethan Hawke 2014)
5. Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait/ (Ossama Mohammed, Wiam Simav Bedirxan 2014)
[6. National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman 2014)]

BEST DIRECTOR
1. Mike Leigh, Mr. Turner
2. Abderramane Sissako, Timbuktu
3 Yann Damange, '71
4. Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne, Two Days, One Night
5. Bertrand Bonello, Saint Laurent

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE
1. Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night)
2. Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner)
3. Jack O'Connell ('71)
4. Richard Gere (Time Out of Mind)
5. Ibrahim Ahmed (Timbuktu)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE.
1. Kristen Stewart (Couds of Sils Maria)
2. Hannah Herzsprung (Beloved Sisters)
3. Ben Vereen (Time Out of Mind)
4. Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher)
5. Carrie Coon (Gone Girl)

BEST SCREENPLAY
1. Timbuktu
2. Mr. Turner
3. Listen Up Philip
4. Gone Girl
5. Saint Laurent

BEST ENSEMBLE
1. Mr. Turner
2. Saint Laurent
3. Heaven Knows What
4. Two Days, One Night
5. Birdman [originally Foxcatcher]




---

[Chris Knipp]

The lists above were fitted to the template of an Indiewiere poll, whose "best picture" poll results are given below. Obviously I am on a a different wavelength, except that it's nice to see Timbuktu so much appreciated. I do not share the enthusiasm for Sils Maria, Whiplash, Horse Money, The Wonders, anything till you get down to nos. 13, 16, and 17. This is, obviously, also not just a list of Main Slate films but "best films" of the festival. In some of the other categories, my choices came up higher than here, e.g., the screenplay of Listen Up Philip. was in the top five. See full details of this poll go here.

Indiewire 2014 NYFF Best Picture poll

1. Inherent Vice
2. Timbuktu
3. Clouds of Sils Maria
5. Birdman
6. Whiplash
7. Gone Girl
8. Horse Money
9. The Wonders (2014)
10. Foxcatcher
11. The Blue Room
12. Goodbye to Language
13. Mr. Turner
14. La Sapienza
15. Maps to the Stars
16. Saint Laurent
17. '71
18. Heaven Knows What
19. Jauja
20. Listen Up Philip
21. Eden (2014)
22. Li'l Quinquin
23. Pasolini
24. CITIZENFOUR
25. Hill of Freedom
26. Beloved Sisters
27. Queen and Country
28. Hiroshima, mon amour
29. Eden
30. Time Out of Mind
31. Two Shots Fired (Dos Disparos)
32. Misunderstood

[Chris Knipp]

Sad FSLC note: R.I.P. Don Shul, Chief Projectionist, Walter Reade Theater
(Chief screening venue of the Film Society of Lincoln Center)



In Remembrance of Our Friend and Colleague Don Schul (1949-2014)

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has lost a longtime friend and admired colleague. Don Schul, who served as our Chief Projectionist and is recognized as a pioneering force in helping establish the Walter Reade Theater as one of New York's finest exhibition venues, died on Sunday, November 2, at his apartment in Greenwich Village. He was 65 years old.

A New York City native, Don Schul began work at the Film Society just as the Walter Reade Theater opened nearly 25 years ago. Prior to that he worked at the Magno Screening Room in Times Square where he developed a relationship with the New York Film Festival programming committee, including then Programming Director Richard Peña, who regularly viewed films at the venue along with former Film Society Executive Director Joanne Koch.

Hailed by his colleagues as "The Man Who Built the Walter Reade Theater," Don Schul was certainly responsible for building its reputation as a premier New York City cinema. REST OF ARTICLE

[Chris Knipp]

Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako 2014)

Now in theatrical release in the US Wed. 28 January 2015 starting at Film Forum, NYC. A Best Foreign Oscar nominee. Of my top five narrative feature choices of NYFF 2015 it's the mot unusual. A marvelous film. Don't miss it.



ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE!
Best Foreign Language Film

"CRITICS’ PICK. A rich evocation of daily life. A political film in the way that THE BICYCLE THIEF or MODERN TIMES is a political film. It feels at once timely and permanent, immediate and essential."
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Read the full review here.

"Gorgeous. Visually stunning."
– Violet Lucca, Village Voice

"Top 10 films of 2014"
– James Quandt & Amy Taubin, Artforum

[Chris Knipp]

[/URL]

TIMBUKTO is now showing in Northern California.

Abderrahmane Sissako: Timbuktu (2014)

Sissako's serene, poetic vision of jihadist oppression in northern Mali. Abderrahmane Sissako, born in Mauritania and educated in Mali, is an African director whose concerns and outlook are broader and loftier than most. In Timbuktu, when he looks at the way the temporary jihadist takeover of northern Mali by the Ansar Dine group in 2012 quickly undermines the human dignity and way of life of the people, he does so with a surprising serenity that is at once poetic, gently ironic, ferocious, all-encompassing, and brave.

New Yorker (Anthony Lane) review
NY Times review

[Chris Knipp]

Ethan Hawke's SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION is in limited US theatrical release. Highly recommended. If you love classical piano or if you love intelligent and wise maturity, this is a must-see. Landmark theaters. In the Bay Area at the Albany and Embarcadero Cinemas.


SEYMOUR BERNSTEIN IN SEYMOUR: AN INTROCUCTION

[Chris Knipp]

The Safdie brothers' HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT officially opens tomorrow Friday, 29 May 2015 (Landmark Sunshine NYC); actually started playing there Thursday evening.

Metiocritic rating 76% but based on 7 reviews.

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo is now (Labor Day 2015) listing the Safdie brothers'Heaven Knows What in his 2015 top ten.* It didn't grab me that way. I have better memories of the unexpected performance of Richard Gere (directed by I'm Not There script writer Oren Moverman) in a down-and-out-on-the-streets-of-NYC role in Time Out of Mind.Well, that one is opening in theaters Wed., 9 September 2015.

_____________
*The Duke of Burgundy
Right Now, Wrong Then
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Forbidden Room
Carol
It Follows
Breathe/Respire
Tu dors Nicole
Heaven Knows What
Mustang
(More info on this list here.)

[Chris Knipp]

Asia Argento's MISUNDERSTOOD/INCOMPRESA gets US release tomorrow, Fri., 25 Sept. 2015 - Metacritic rating 62..