New York Film Festival 2018 (forum)

[Chris Knipp]

A FAITHFUL MAN/L'HOMME FIDÈLE (Louis Garrel 2018)

Garrel's second outing as director (and star) throws caution to the winds and freely adopts French New Wave mannerisms, voiceovers, Paris settings, cafes, apartments, love affairs - and it works delightfully, thanks to a kid who manipulates the adults (Joseph Engel), and the appeal of the three adult stars, Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp, Louis Garrel. This goes forward from the young men fighting over a woman in Garrel's first film The Two Friends and deals with a widow and a disappointed man, and a girl who's become a woman and gives in to a crush. Garrel was on hand for a lively Q&A, talking a blue streak in his somewhat makeshift but highly articulate English. Almost as good as the film, as can happen, but doesn't always.

SHOPLIFTERS (Hirakazu Koreeda 2018).

This relates to NOBODY KNOWS and Kurosawa's DODESKADEN because it's about Tokyo poverty and desperation and kids, but its focus is on an ersatz family of marginal people that grows warm and real, but hangs by a thread. It came from behind to win the top award, the Palme d'Or, at this year's Cannes. Subtle and insinuating. Certainly one of Koreeda's best - and Japan's Best Foreign Oscar entry. No Q&A. Koreeda sent only a brief subtitled video intro from Tokyo.