NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2022 (Mar. 29-Apr. 1, 2023)

[Chris Knipp]

GENERAL FILM FORUM THREAD

LINKS TO REVIEWS

Absence (Wu Lang 2021)
Almost Entirely a Slight Disaster (Umut Subaşi 2023)
Arnold Is a Model Student (Sorayos Prapapann 2022)
Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation (Youssef Chebbi 2022)
Astrakan (David Depesseville 2022)
Autobiography dir. Makbul Mubarak
Chile ’76 (Manuela Martelli 2022)
Coconut Head Generation dir. Alain Kassanda
Disco Boy dir. Giacomo Abbruzzese
Earth Mama dir. Savanah Leaf / OPENING NIGHT FILM
Face of the Jellyfish, The dir. Melisa Liebenthal
Family Time dir. Tia Kouvo
Gush dir. Fox Maxy
Have You Seen This Woman? dir. Dušan Zorić, Matija Gluščević
Joyland dir. Saim Sadiq
Leila’s Brothers dir. Saeed Roustaee
Maiden, The (Graham Foy)
Maputo Nakuzandza dir. Ariadne Zampaulo
Metronom dir. Alexandru Belc
Milisuthando dir. Milisuthando Bongela
Mutt dir. Vuk Lungulov-Klotz./ CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Pamfir dir. Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
Petrol dir. Alena Kodkina
Remembering Every Night dir. Yui Kiyohara
Safe Place dir. Juraj Lerotić
Tommy Guns dir. Carlos Conceicao
Tótem dir. Lila Avilés

[Chris Knipp]

WU LANG: ABSENCE (2021)



Sad poetry

Cinematography by Wang Jiehong is the chief star of this symphony of sad stoicism following the doomed idyl of a returned ex con and the hair dresser who has waited ten years for him, an affair that suffers the drawback of a fraudulent building scheme.

Lee Kang-sheng, best known for his indelible starring roles in the films of Tsai Ming-liang over more than 30 years, holds the screen with his customary stoic vulnerability in this stirring feature debut from Chinese director Wu Lang. Here he plays Han Jiangyu, who has returned to the island province of Hainan after a long stint in prison, endeavoring to reconnect with his former girlfriend (Li Meng), a hairdresser, and the little girl who might be his daughter.

At the same time, he must navigate the difficulties of a new job in construction while the country’s real estate boom begins to unravel. Wu eludes cliché, using the camera in continually gorgeous and unexpected fashion in this story about the slow process of rejoining a world that seems to have irrevocably moved on. A possible problem for the viewer is that the slow-cinema beginning fades off into fantasy toward the end as the unfinished apartment complex becomes flooded below and then is occupied by a herd of sheep. The images of the couple playfully occupying an apartment in a derelict space with no services, then gesturing to adopt a last baby sheep feel just a little too fanciful and fey. We Lang, who has a background as a sculptor, is more a visual poet than a storyteller.

Absence/Xue yun, originated as a short film at Cannes in 2021, its feature film form debuted at the Berlinale, Feb. 21, 2023. Screened for this review as part of New Directors/New Films at MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center Mar. 29-Apr. 2023.

Sunday, April 2
3:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Wu Lang)
Monday, April 3
6:00pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Wu Lang)


LEE MENG, LEE KAI-SHENG IN ABSENCE

[Chris Knipp]

UMUT SUBAŞI: ALMOST ENTIRELY A SLIGHT DISASTER (2022)



Dry urban social comedy of twenty-somethings adrift in Istanbul

"Four twenty somethings in contemporary Istanbul: Zeynep is a student who feels distressed from following daily news. Her housemate Ayşe tries to flee abroad because she cannot see a future for herself in Turkey. Mehmet is a married engineer who is never satisfied with his above-average life, while unemployed Ali feels stuck living with his parents. Coincidences bring them together in a playful manner. Almost Entirely a Slight Disaster explores the anxieties faced by the new generation with its humorous and intertwined ways."

This is an effort to present contemporary urban Turkish life in a dry, ironic manner. It may work for some localsmore than for those from other climes. It is frankly hard to see where the disjointed little scenes are going. An effort is made at coldness. Settings are drab, with a repetitious little piano theme. The scenes and costumes and color coding are blue, gray, and a little beige. In the first half, there are numerous jump-cuts in which the various characters are shown sobbing privately: we get that theya re much less happy than they appear - not that they seem very upbeat. Some repetitions or overlapping sequences, such as going to tourist spots or a game where the other person is supposed to copy hand motions, are hard to make sense of. There is a theme of asking for money, asking for a recommendation for a job, paying money back; horoscope, the zodiac, the lottery, the stars. Some of the people speak English to each other and one claims to be visiting from Afghanistan. Two of them almost go to a hotel together, but the girl changes her mind.

At the end, the four principal characters unite and drink cups of Turkish coffee in someone's home. Later, the two young women send the two young men packing. This is a highlight;, a coming together.

Someone is looking for poetry, for excitement, for romanticism. Someone takes a personality test and it shows her to be not very romantic. And there are the sudden, private, inconsolable sobs.

With Mert Can Sevimli, İbrahim Arıcı, Melisa Bostancıoğlu, and Melis Sevinç.

Tuesday, April 4
6:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Umut Subasi)
Wednesday, April 5
8:45pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Umut Subasi)

[Chris Knipp]

SORAYOS PRAPAPAN: ARNOLD IS A MODEL STUDENT (2022)



School revolt in Thailand

This is a clinically cold, rather naive piece of filmmaking, doubtless meant to be dry and satirical, but in its implications no doubt deadly serious for those concerned. Its primary inspiration and purpose is to depict the "Bad Student" movement in Thailand (largely led by young girls!) in opposition to authoritarianism and excessive discipline, including caning, in Thai schools, and it's inspired by the movements A Manual on How to Survive School. It takes place since the pandemic, so at least at first, everyone is wearing masks. It includes real material as well as fiction.

It's a little hard to see how Arnold (Korndanai Marc Dautzenberg) fits into this picture. He is a high school senior who has won a math prize and is very smart and has spent 15 months studying in the United States but he could care less about school and is defiant to the chief disciplinarian of the school, the plump Mrs. Wanee (Niramon Busapavanich) , who canes students and also checks their clothes, hair length, etc. at the school entrance. She cuts hair that's too long, a violation of privacy and rights.

School is completely corrupt. Parents bribe the teachers as a matter of course so their kids pass.

The tall, confident and shaven-headed Arnold is expecting to go to college abroad on a scholarship (a complicated project the film neglects to depict), yet he sleeps in class, vapes and smokes, and collaborates with Mr. Bee (Winyu Wongsurawat), the owner of a cram school, providing a false endorsement for money, then helping rich students cheat for money. When the student movement against school "dictatorship" comes, Arnold doesn't participate. Given his lack of motivation it's hard to see him as a star student, but heh's not a rebel either.

The school principal is a bland Machiavellian who only wants to maintain the school's high reputation and good enrollment. Mr. Bee of course is a lower level mercenary, a more open part of the corrupt system. Arnold isn't really a model student but just a smart kid who's directionless, who cheats, drinks, and smokes and is without future plans. But he decides not to be a "signaler" for Mr. Bee again, and it beginning to be discontented. His conscience is awakening, partly because his own father – a French citizen, – was sent into exile for publishing satires of the government.

As John Bleasdale notes in a review for BFI, the tone is mixed here, the humor and dryness countered by images of red wounds on kids' legs from caning and real images of government repression.

This is a film about an important subject whose chilly mise-en-scene, amusing performances and colorful inter-titles recommend it particularly to the interest of all those concerned about human rights and democratic edcucation.

Arnold Is a Model Student, 83 mins., debuted at Locarno Aug. 5, 2022 and has shown at many other international festivals. Screened for this review as part of the Mar. 29-Apr. 9, 2023 New Directors/New Films series at MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center.

Saturday, April 8
2:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Sorayos Prapapan)
Sunday, April 9
7:30pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Sorayos Prapapan)

[Chris Knipp]

YOUSSEF CHEBBI: ASHKAL: THE TUNISIAN INVESTIGATION ASHKAL أشكال (2022)



The fire next time

A vast semi-abandoned construction site in a northern suburb of Tunis known as The Gardens of Carthage is the location for a series of lonely, haunting murders or suicides by fire in this moody, well-shot film from Tunisia. It will not satisfy police procedural fans, but those who like sophisticated horror movies may very well be intrigued by its roiling atmosphere of political corruption, scary magic and inexplicable evil slowly growing out of control. In the center of it is an appealing young woman investigator, Fatma Fatma Oussaifi), the only cop honest or persistent enough to carry on when one death leads to another, then two more, and the supervisor wants it hushed up and some powerless "suspects" put away.

Things are coming to a boil here and nothing is ever resolved; that is the point. Tellingly a starting point - an event locals would inevitably think of - is the 2010 death of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, who set fire to himself to protest exploitative economic conditions and thereby started the "Arab Spring" suite of revolts throughout the Middle East. An implication is that those revolutions curdled, leaving a suicidal madness. But the history is alive and present because while Fatma is of the new regime, her older associate goes back to the old, corrupt one. On the current agenda, mistreatment of migrants is alluded to, as well as radicalization spread by social neetworks.

A pulsating sound design and nervous score are central; so are beautifully composed images of the empty building sites and half-completed buildings by cinematographers Hazem Berrabah and Amin Messadi. They are frankly gorgeous and we could lose ourselves in them and in the moody atmosphere, which never lets up. It's rather bold, not to say dangerous, of the filmmaker to include scenes of prayer in a mosque and suggest that an evil-doer may be a worshiper there. (It also seems there are posh hotels in the area now, whose management might not like this film.) With that this is a highly urban, chilly and alienated atmosphere, and a lot of the shots of people are from a considerable distance.

Chebbi works things up to more and more of a fever pitch. When some humble workmen (about the be jailed for one of the deaths, but innocent) tell Fatma the mysterious man seen with several of the victims - who appear to strip naked and die of immolation without a fight - has "given them fire," rather than "set them on fire," we begin to know there is something supernatural - enough said. It's essential to keep the mystery.

An excellent, highly sophisticated cross-genre film, fine if we accept that there is a visionary climax rather than a solution to the riddle. It's a little more atmosphere than substance but that atmosphere rich and well sustained.

أشكال / Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation, 94 mins. debuted at Cannes Directors Fortnight May 25, 2022; Neufchatel, Lisbon, Toronto, Naumur, and a dozen other international festivals followed. It won the main prize at the Pan-African festival in Ouagadougou. Released in France Jan. 25, 20223, AlloCiné press rating 3.7 (74%).Screened for this review as part of New Directors/New Films (NYC), 2023. A Yellow Veil Pictures release.

Tuesday, April 4
8:30pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Youssef Chebbi)
Wednesday, April 5
6:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Youssef Chebbi)

[Chris Knipp]

DAVID DEPRESSEVILLE: ASTRAKAN (2022)


MIRKO GIANNINI IN ASTRAKAN

A boy's life in rural French foster care

Astrakan concerns Samuel (Mirko Giannini), a boy of 13 in foster care in Le Morvan. This is a poor region of France where people raise money by taking on paid foster care. Such is the case of Marie (Jehnny Beth) and C. (Clément: Bastien Bouillon), who receive money for raising Samuel (they have a boy of their own). Depressoville's account is no-holds barred string of incidents without fanfare, from good to bad. It's a rural situation. We don't know what Sam's past is except that his father was shot and killed "accidentally" by the police and about his mother nothing is said. The situation is fundamentally flawed for the adopted child. Jean Genet was raised this way, by an older couple that it's said was very kind; he still engaged in a lot of petty thievery and irregular behavior. This is a poignant subject that allows us to see boyhood and family life with new eyes. One French critic called this film "ambitious but maladroit." Maybe; but with the maladroitness comes originality and surprises.

Sam has some nice moments and some bad ones. Marie is not always uncaring, but C. beats him more than once. Hélène (Lorine Delin), a neighbor girl his age, invites him over. She shows him her dad's secret girly mag and he bolts. Another time she seduces him with a risqué movie and undresses, he makes out with her, her father comes in, and he gets blamed, and beaten by C. Marie puts up the money for him to go to ski camp (viewers may remember Claude Miller's 1989 Classe de neige), and the girl kisses him on the bus coming back. It's a great time; but it soon ends when Hélène invites him to a movie and on the way he's menaced by some rude boys. In the cinema they attack him and the girl bolts and later ditches Samuel for one of the boys. Meanwhile Samuel goes to gymnastics class - another thing Marie, with some difficulty, gets together the money for - and he's good. In the competition he takes second place.

He smokes when he gets the chance, and openly. He has a problem with defecation. He can't go and instead soils underpants. There is trouble with Marie's brother Luc (Théo Costa-Marini), who is damaged in some way and lives with their parents some distance away. When Samuel pulls a nasty trick, she takes him to stay with her parents and he muss sleep with Luc, whose pedophle tendencies he has become aware of. He runs home the next day.

They take him to church; everybody's there. At Luc's place an old man teaches him to say the Rosary and says he's a "good boy." Well, he's not always a good boy. Through a final montage reviewing earlier moments and culminating in a riverside picnic where Marie takes a black baby sheep to her bare breast, thanks to a long passage of lovely sacral choral music the film takes on a quality partly surreal, partly perhaps even Catholic. There is definitely a sense in which the film confronts love, sin, and forgiveness.

Astrakan examines a boy's life and in a sense life itself in a fresh, raw way; "maladroit," if you will: there is a little of the early Bruno Dumont here. A French critic cited on AlloCiné, Michaël Delavaud, speaks in Culturopoing.com of the writing as "zigzagging deftly between its violence and its softness." This keeps us feeling surprised. The actors and settings feel very authentic and there is a classic and timeless feel. Neil Young in his review forScreen Daily called this debut "an engrossing exercise in emphatic humanism, unhurried and uninflected."

Astrakan 104 mins., debuted at Locarno Aug. 9, 2022, with nine other festivals listed on IMDb. Screened for this review as part of the New Directors/New Films series of MoMA and Film at LincolnCenter (Mar. 29-Apr. 14, 2023).

Altered Innocence release in theaters and VOD Sept. 1, 2023.