New York Film Festival 2019 (forum)

[Chris Knipp]

BACURAU (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles 2019)

Humans hunting humans for sport in a rural northern Brazilian town stands for the brutality of the current right wing regime, American imperialism, and other unsavory aspects of Brazilian politics and history. A surprising genre-blurring mix (Wikipedia calls it "a Brazilian Weird Western") that would benefit from more dramatic tension and tighter structure, but good enough to include in 31 international festivals and be co-winner of the 2019 Cannes Jury Prize. Coming later to US theaters.

[Chris Knipp]

Marco Bellocchio’s THE TRAITOR,
History-Making True Story of the Man Who Betrayed the Sicilian Mafia;
Movie Has US Theatrical Premiere Friday, January 31 [2020] at Film Forum
- press release.

Filmleaf NYFF review of THE TRAITOR HERE. I may have been hard on it but the film is a one-of-a-kind Italian epic tragicomedy of the country's struggle with that alien cancer, La Camorra, Cosa Nostra.

THE TRAITOR played at the 2019 Cannes, Toronto, New York and AFI Film Festivals and was Italy’s official submission to the 2020 Academy Awards® for Best International Film. It was nominated for four 2019 European Film Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.

THE TRAITOR will open Friday, January 31 for an ongoing engagement at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street (west of 6th Avenue), with screenings daily at 12:45, 3:35, 6:30 & 9:20. Release in selected US theaters will follow.

[Chris Knipp]

Bellocchio's The Traitor holds up.

Just rewatched THE TRAITOR/IL TRADITORE (Marco Bellocchio 2019) at home, on a screener. More and more it seems to mea film that's epic in many aspects. The "maxi-trial" sequences are its most unique, and they too are grand and impressive in scope even in their uniquely Italian jaw-dropping chaos and raucous name-calling. But all the sequences have sweep - and great variety. If I were making an annual "Better-Than" list like Armand White, a big line would definitely be: THE TRAITOR > [BETTER THAN] THE IRISHMAN. It's more rich, varied, authentic and interesting by a mile than Scorsese's overlong and monotonous latest gangster chronicle.

IL TRADITORE AKA "LE TRAÎTRE" opened in France October 31, and it got an AlloCiné press rating of 4.3. This is equivalent to a numerical 86%. The Metascore of 57% is incomprehensible for such a well-made and relevant film.

Coming to the US after Jan. 31, 2020.

Note: White has two "better than's" for The Irishman:

Dragged across Concrete > The Irishman

Richard Jewell > The Irishman

He accuses The Irishman of "decadent commercialism" and "baroque dishonesty."

A friend just referred me to a podcast of
featuring intimate conversation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Very revealing, informal chat, great interview with both, and Brad speaks of his great admiration for Richard Jewell and its lead performance by Paul Walter Hauser.

Check out that podcast (NB: the conversation really starts at 14 mins.).
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0wS...R2eFgRgOE0zN_w

[Chris Knipp]

BACURAU (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles 2019)

US theatrical distribution by Kino Lorber began Mar. 13, 2020, but due to general theater closings caused by the coronavirus pandemic the company launched a "virtual theatrical exhibition initiative," Kino Marquee, with this film from Mar. 19, so you can all watch it at home now - for a fee, part of which will go to aid empty movie theaters.

I have many reservations about this movie, but it can be the subject of endless debate. Indeed, Film at Lincoln Center set up a series of films and discussions built around it called Mapping Bacurau, which they have had to cancel due to the coronavirus.

[Chris Knipp]

ZOMBI CHILD (Bertrand Bonello 2019)

Oscillating between Haiti and Paris, Bonello weaves a story about girls in a very posh Parisian school for the children of Legion of Honor recipients and people in Haiti involved in voodoo and zombiism. And the two connect in ways that are haunting, mysterious, and beautiful. For all that, this isn't Bonello's best work, but it's typically sexy, lush, and as usual supplied with a fine musical socre that the director himself largely composed.

[Chris Knipp]

63 UP (Michael Apted 2019)

Just re-watched this film - the "Up" series, for me, never grows old, though its subjects do - and realized it could be included in this thread, because it's one of the 57th NYFF (2019) Documentary series.

They began as a program for Granada Television in 1964 when 20, no 14 English kids of different classes were interviewed at age 7, when Apted was just a 21-year-old researcher, but he became the guiding force between its continuation as eight more feature films reviewing these seven lives every seven years. Great sociopolitical interest maybe, but mainly the fascination and emotional richness of following real lives in real time and seeing where they go. Roger Ebert chose this as one of the ten most important 'films' of all time, and it really is a vast, awesome project. If you care about lives, at least. I do.

You can watch #1, 7 Up, on YouTube, and the next few on Netflix, and it's a good idea to watch at least the first and a couple of the next ones to prepare for 63 Up.

[Chris Knipp]

New on Film at Lincoln Center Virtual Cinema


THREE SHORT FILMS (Sergei Parajanov 1966-1986)

FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt 2019)

Set in 1820 on the Oregon frontier, this is a dreamy, cramped, primitive, sad scene of hostile people scrambling... slowly... to survive. It focuses on a cook and an educated Chinese man who start living together and sell cakes, which turns out to be dangerous. One of Reichardt's tough, minimalist films that held me, even if sometimes it bored me. The hushed, smothering intensity of this situation haunts and lingers.

This film is newly available on Lincoln Center Films Virtual Cinema. That was my NYFF thumbnail review(the title links to the Festival Coverage review0 The thumbnail may sound lukewarm, but I remember this film fondly; it's a keeper, like most of Reichardt's other features.

Also new on Lincoln Center's Virtual Cinema now:

*BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS (Bill & Toby Ross 2019) - a much talked about staged bar doc
*FOUR SHORTS by Miguel Gomes
**JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE (2020 Dawn Porter) - Much recommended at reviewed here
*HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD (Bora Kim 2018) - also reviewed recently on Filmleaf
*THREE SHORT FILMS (Sergei Parajanov 1966-1986)

https://www.filmlinc.org/series/film...-cinema/#films