Recent festival-watching.
MAY 2018 CANNES PHOTO CALL FOR "DIE STROPERS" (THE HARVESTERS)
Maybe "winter doldrums" are gone now that the weather seems springlike, and after being in New York (not so spring-like then) for Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and New Directors/New Films. Anyway I'm into the San Francisco Film Festival now. I learn (though it happened a couple years ago, but nobody told me) that the SF Film Society has been "rebranded" with five or six color-coded divisions, and we're supposed to use "SFFILM" a lot and avoid the old "SFIFF" so I'm doing that. No problem, the "International" seemed unnecessary anyway; most festivals are international anyway.
Look at the list of SFFILM reviews I've put up so far - but some, ASAKO I & II, DR. RUTH, A FAITHFUL MAN, HONEYLAND and THE LOAD, I watched earlier and reviewed in connection with the NYFF or New Directors. I don't guess BELMONTE is Veroij's best, but it's stylish and moody.
THE CHAMBERMAID is a terribly grim slog but also hypnotically immersive. I was asked not to write a full review of it, anyway, as is the case with several others, including the terrific THE HARVESTERS, an intense moody depiction of a gay young man in a horrifically unfriendly environment of machismo and ultrareligionsity in the vanishing world of white Afrikaners.
CLOSE ENEMIES is a thing I love, a French "polar noir," a cop thriller, and it's an excellent if not groundbreaking one. I love A FAITHFUL MAN but I'm not watching it now (maybe I will see it again soon). It was in the NYFF Main Slate last fall. I have to admit I haven't (yet) made it through FIRST NIGHT NERVES. It seems very gay and very campy, a theatrical Hong Kong drama about prima donna actresses, and ridiculously complicated and over-plotted. Fun for some.
HONEYLAND is a great observational documentary I reviewed for New Directors. IN MY ROOM is wholly new to me. It's a Berlin School film by Ulrich Köhler, the husband of Maren Ade (of TONI ERDMANN) and I get what he's doing this time: it's the end of the world and a shlub becomes a self-sufficient macho guy, a mansch. This is a very interesting film. THE LOAD isn't for everyone, a moody, stylish, minimalistic (too minimalistic maybe) study of the periphery of a Kosovo 1999 massacre.
I'm waiting to get a screener of LORO. There are supposed to be two parts, LORI I AND LORO II, and I don't know which this will be. This may not be Toni Servillo and Paolo Sorrentino at their best, but being their take on Silvio Berlusconi, it has to be interesting.
SFFILM 2019 reviews posted so far:
Asako I & II/寝ても覚めても (Ryusuke Hamaguchi 2018) NYFF
Ask Dr. Ruth (Ryan White 2019)
Beast in the Jungle, The (Clara van Gool 2018)
Belmonte (Federico Veiroj 2018)
Chambermaid, The /La camarista (Lila Avilés 2018)
Close Enemies/Frères ennemis (David Oelhoffen 2018)
Faithful Man, A/L'homme fidèle (Louis Garrel 2018) NYFF
First Night Nerves/八個女人一台戲 (Stanley Kwan 2018)
The Harvesters (Etienne Kallos 2018)
Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov 2018) ND/NF
In My Room (Ulrich Köhler 2018)
Load, The/Teret (Ognjen Glavonić 2018) ND/NF
Coming soon:
Loro (Paolo Sorrentino 2018)
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