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DAYS 日子 (Tsai Ming-liang 2020)
Long slow looks at a lonely, ailing rich man in Taiwan and a youth in Bangkok. Then they briefly come together for a massage in a hotel room. It's much more moving than you would expect. Tsai's aging muse Lee Kang-sheng is joined by Thai newcomer Anong Houngheuangsy for this film.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-01-2020 at 08:04 PM.
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NOMADLAND(Chloé Zhao 2020) Centerpiece
Big role for Frances McDormand as a widow forced off the grid who chooses to stay there, with a lot of real characters met on the road. Have to say I still much prefer Zhao's debut feature THE RIDER. This is already a festival darling and spoken of as Oscar material.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-03-2020 at 01:29 AM.
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ISABELLA (Matías Piñeiro 2020)
Another graceful, many-layered and pretty opaque riff off Shakespeare (this time Measure for Measure) by the long-haired young Argentinian wunderkind, who now lives in New York but went back to Buenos Aires and Argentina's Córdoba Province for this one. The second time he has been included in the NYFF Main Slate.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-01-2020 at 08:03 PM.
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HOPPER/WELLES (Orson Welles 2020)
Footage shot for Welles' last unfinished film OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND but never used, in which he questions and provokes Hopper, unseen. It's raw, jerky footage and hard to watch, but I admire Hopper for how well he keeps his cool.
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THE SALT OF TEARS/LE SEL DES LARMES (Philippe Garrel 2020)
The distance between Philippe Garrel and his son Louis, now also a director, seems vaster than just one generation, but both have collaborated with the prolific screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, now 89, on their latest films. A tale of an attractive and irresponsible young cabinetmaking apprentice who flits from one woman to another. His one serious relationship is with his aging carpenter father.
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THE DISCIPLE (Chaitanya Tamhane 2020)
Second film by the very talented, smart Indian director of Court is a fantastic, complex and unexpected film, full of sharp truths and ironies, about now threatened Indian classical music and the challenge of a severe tradition for a young acolyte. He seeks to be a Khayal singer of Hindustani music but is challenged all around, by his guru and the impossible standards of his guru's guru, and by the debasement of the music today, or lack of interest and appreciation. Is India collapsing and losing its age-old culture? Tamhane is a brilliant new figure on the world scene.
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SWIMMING OUT TILL THE SEA TURNS BLUE/一直游到海水变蓝(Jia Zhangke 2020)
A rather draggy documentary by Jia Zhang-ke about four well known Chinese contemporary writers, one dead, and one woman, all of whom came from villages and lived through the Cultural Revolution or its aftermath. Mostly talking heads, and likely more interesting to locals, but with some touching moments.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-03-2020 at 01:18 AM.
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I CARRY YOU WITH ME/TE LLEVO CONMIGO (Heidi Ewing 2020)
A gay immigration movie about a Mexican couple that makes its points forcefully. The timely themes and a radical modulation from actors to the real people at the end may explain inclusion in the NYFF Main Slate.
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MANGROVE (Steve McQueen 2020)
Another stunning segment from McQueen's "Small Axe" BBC mini-series, also to be on US's Amazon Prime in November. This is about the "Mangrove Nine" trial that led to "the first judicial acknowledgment of behavior motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police." Keen BLM relevance, and a great watch.
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RED, WHITE AND BLUE (STEVE MCQUEEN 2020)
John Boyega of Star Wars is excellent as real English person Leroy Logan, who joined the London police in the eighties to combat institutional racism from the inside. Arguably a harsher watch than either of the two other films in the five-film "Small Axe" BBC (and Amazon Prime) series films by McQueen included in the Main Slate and perhaps even more relevant than Mangrove.
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You may like to watch this virtual Q&A for David Byrne's American Utopia (2020) between Dennis Lim of FLC, Spike Lee and David Byrne. Lee's film based on Byrne's Broadway show growing out of his album was included in the NYFF's Spotlight series.
THE Q&A
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-05-2020 at 11:10 AM.
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THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS (Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw 2020)
It's the white truffles of Italy, and the cranky old men of Piedmont who hunt for them with their very specially trained and beloved dogs, an activity impinged upon by greedy capitalists, for these are rare tubers of great price, a very special delicacy. An artful, meandering documentary that will appeal to devotees of sophistication and oddity. And with its opera arias, very Italian, though from the American makers of 2018's The Last Race.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-06-2020 at 09:46 PM.
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ATARRABI & MIKELATS (Eugène Green 2020)
A Basque fable of good and evil brothers, and recreated in modern dress by eccentric expatriate Eugène Green in teh Basque language. So, strange. But beautiful. From the maker of previous NYFF film Le Fils de Joseph.
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NOTTURNO (Gianfranco Rosi 2020)
Turning from the refugee issue of his FIRE AT SEA (NYFF 2016) Rosi, one of the world's great documentary filmmakers, take long, haunting looks at life during and after wartime as seen in a three-year period on the borders between Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. A masterpiece.
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TRAGIC JUNGLE/SELVA TRAGICA (Yulene Olaizola 2020)
Set in the 1920's on the border between Mexico and British Honduras, men cheating each other over rubber and and updating of the myth of the seductress Xtabay. But the wandering ardond and around in the jungle turns into a mess.
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