New York Film Festival 2023

[Chris Knipp]

ERROL MORRIS: THE PIGEON TUNNEL (2023) - NYFF 'SPOTLIGHT'


DAVID CORNWELL/JOHN LE CARRÉ IN ERROL MORRIS' THE PIGEON TUNNEL

A last interview with the prince of spy novelists, John le Carré (David Cornwell)

"I look at you as an exquisite poet of self-hatred," Errol Morris says to Cornwell, known as John le Carré and the celebrated the author of over two dozen matchless works of spy fiction including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener, with many film adaptations and TV series including the timeless Alec Guinness performance as le Carré's central figure, George Smiley.

Le Carré/Cornwell does not take this Morris sally amiss. He smiles his quick twinkle and says, "I would go with that." It's a disarming exchange indeed toward the end of a long string of them in what is one of Morris' most amiable, rich, and free-flowing of his famous studies of men. Though the time has been short, in ninety minutes the writer has made a searching exposition of his life and career, notably of the most seminal aspect: growing up as the son of the endlessly duplicitous, double-dealing Ronnie Cornwell, who's been described as "an epic con man of little education, immense charm, extravagant tastes, but no social values."

Le Carré describes here how even after he had become a rich and famous author, at the Sacher Hotel restaurant in Vienna Ronnie still essentially attempted to con him out of an outrageous sum of money, ostensibly to set up a pigs and cattle farm in Dorset - and how, when le Carré flatly refused, offering only a property and a stipend, Ronnie threw a terrible scene, letting out repeated loud howls of anger and protest that could be heard halfway down the street.

It's an extraordinary story, and certainly not the only one. The son had to grow up living in constant uncertainty, sharing in the deceptions, going on the run with his father who was always escaping from discovered deceptions and mountainous debts. Ronnie, le Carré says, came within a hair of great success, but always managed to slip into financial trouble again, seeming to thrive on risk and danger - just as, he also says, spies do.

Those of us who have read le Carré's own book about his life and his father know this story. But it's better to hear it in the master's own voice. Those who have listened to the author's masterful audio performances of his own books, especially the last ones - he seemed to get better and better, well into his eighties - know how good that voice is, the range of accents and voices - perhaps a hint at what a master of deception father Ronnie may have been, transferred to the master of invention and storytelling the son became.

There are reviewers who describe this interview as "contentious." There is no truth in this. In fact compared to other Errol Morris portraits this is a harmonious one. There is a sweet complicity, an understanding. Le Carré puts himself willingly in Morris' hands from the outset, declaring himself willing to tell all and be as honest as he can, and there is no reason to think this insincere. Le Carré has grown milder by this time, near the end of his life, than he was earlier in the two decades after 9/11, when he could be harshly critical in public both of England, which he'd come to see as a pathetic little empire hiding from its own decline, and America, the belligerent and dominant world empire. Here, instead, he chooses to talk about himself, about his father, about the schools that gave him upperclass manners and accent but never the will to think himself upperclass. He speaks also of the inspiration for his work that he found in the traitor, Kim Philby, and his path from working for espionage organizations to being suddenly a writer about espionage whose first book sold 12 or 13 million copies worldwide.

This film may not really tell us anything significant that is new. But it serves as a rich live-voice valedictory self-portrait. It serves a kind of ceremonial, farewell purpose. What it does also do is to tell us a little more each time, or more vividly, about what we already knew, with the filmmaker illustrating everything elegantly, with seamlessly introduced short reenactments of moments from the life, illustrated by an astonishing number of actual photos and film clips, thought none of these are ever intrusive and each of them always comes at the right moment. Morris sometimes speaks to le Carré, but never seems to be doing so too often. The whole thing is splendidly done, a treat for fans.

There is also a little more: because subtly Morris teases out, or partly just witnesses, le Carré's awareness that in his fertile inventions he was somehow always to some extent exploring his own pain, and each time he invented a new story or a new character he was discovering something new in himself. It's obvious, perhaps, but worth the sense it gives of pulling tings together as a wonderful life and impressive body of work are quietly summed up. And yet with an edge, as of one never at home anywhere, never knowing himself, finding the "inmost room is bare," as with the hidden safe of the head of MI5, where nothing but a pair of trousers is found. This rich exploration still leaves us haunted, hungry, ready to go for the real treasures, which are the books. David Cornwell died in December 2020 at eighty-nine, but his books will be alive for as long as English books are read. Wikipedia sums him up as "a sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer" - you better believe it! "he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era." And now he is.

The Pigeon Tunnel, 93 mins., debuted at Telluride Sept. 1, 2023, also show at Toronto, Camden, Aspen, New York Sept. 30, Palm Springs, BFI London, and Chicago. Released on the internet in many countries Oct. 20, 2023. Metacritic rating: 81%.

[Chris Knipp]

SAMUEL KIRCHER, LÉA DRUCKER IN LAST SUMMER

CATHERINE BREAILLAT: LAST SUMMER (2023)

A forbidden affair, with a big age difference

How does a 52-year-old woman, Anne (Léa Drucker) get sexually involved with her husband's 17-year-old son Théo (Samuel Kicrher, in his debut, the younger of two sons of Irène Jacob), by an earlier marriage, right in the middle of their home? Mutual attraction, of course, and the point is clearly made: young guys like older women. This is a provocative subject, somehow ideal for veteran French filmmaker Catherine Breillat.

The couple has two little adopted daughters, Anne not being able to bear children. Théo was living with his mother, but gets into trouble, is arrested for assaulting a teacher. Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin), his father, Anne's husband, brings him to live with them in their very handsome, spacious suburban house for the summer. Pierre hopes belatedly to become a good influence on the youth. Théo accuses his father of having adopted the girls out of guilt for neglecting him. Théo considers his father a "vieux con," an old fool, an asshole. He tells him so. Pierre reports this to Anne. (Drucker, Kircher, and Rabourdin all deliver admirable and convincing performances.)

Théo is uncooperative and not very polite at first. But he likes playing with the little girls. This puts him close to Anne, for whom he has contempt at first. But he quickly becomes part of the family. He playfully persuades Anne to let him give her a tattoo.

Anne is a lawyer, who deals with ironically related cases, sex, teenagers, bad parenting, custody: a serious, important job. Pierre is involved in business, something corporate and wearying. But they make love, Pierre and Anne, and she tells him, when he presses, that she finds the body of an aging man touching.

The casting of Samuel Kircher is a choice here. He is an "éphèbe," the delicate French young male type, slim, pretty, long-haired, almost like a girl, but very much an attractive guy. He is not so much the handsome, muscular, masculine type, but more a boy-toy. Nor is Théo solid and responsible as a person. He seems to have no sport to play, no books to read, no skill to practice, save being pretty and provocative. And he turns out to be larcenous. In wanting to reshape him Pierre seems clueless. But Théo is ready for love, as soon becomes evident.

One day Anne and Théo are hot and close and start to kiss, and before you know it they're making love. It's natural, physical, erotic, but not romantic, and no erotic passion, no idyll, no Lady Chatterly's Lover affiar. It starts when Pierre is on a two-day business trip.

Anne's best friend is her sister Mina (Clotilde Courau), who is always around. Théo is excited, in lust, maybe in love, and can't leave off snuggling with Anne, embracing her, kissing her at every private moment. And on the edge of one such moment, Mina sees, and knows about them. From then on Anne starts ending the affair and demanding Théo's absolute silence. She insists that they must behave as if it never happened. But it's not so easy for him to turn off. But as time goes on it becomes clear that Anne means much, much more to Théo than his girlfriend, Amanda (Nelia Da Costa). Then, Pierre decides to take some time alone with Théo in their chalet, just the two of them, to get closer. To talk. And talk they do.

All this happens in a world of luxury and good taste, in very posh surroundings. Despite his history of trouble, Théo is a bourgeois bad boy, not a delinquent. This is a world halfway between Rohmer and Chabrol, but all Breillat, because this is her kind of situation. This is a sexual chronicle, not a thriller, and there's also very little discussion à la Rohmer: everybody has their mind made up already. Except that after the affair "ends" and the negotiation and the squabbling begin, the physical passion isn't over. Anne tells Théo "You are mad" and he says "You are mad, too...mad about me" but they are mad about each other. But the family goes on.

In a review of this film the chief New York Times critic Manohla Dargis describes Catherine Breillat as "a longtime provocateur who tests the limits of what the world thinks women should do and say and be." A critic cited on the French film website AlloCiné describes the filmmaker in more general terms, as "a master in the art of distilling trouble, [who] loves transgressing morality more than anything." This is another plot that people find uncomfortable: but while it is provocative, this is smoother and more palatable than Breillat's earlier films: the beautiful, posh setting, the good-looking people. Above all Léa Drucker has the slim blonde Parisian perfection of a French female movie star. This may make everything more palatable for some, but a recent related Times article about Breillat ("A Woman Sleeping With Her Stepson? This Director Knows It May Shock.") says the French cinema world has had little use for her, and she would have had no career were it not for her Anglophone audience. This is, indeed, her first film since Abus de faiblesse a decade ago. But this one's debut in Competition at Cannes suggests her status is pretty secure now.

Breillat is a helpful provocateur with a long career, but she doesn't do nuance. The characters in Last Summer shift rapidly from indifference to love to hate with a rapid edit. They don't converse; they negotiate. Once the affair is over, Breillat and her collaborator Pascal Bonitzer provide ingenious developments, but it seems what mattered was the affair, and to make the point that it is the young man who most wants it and only for itself. The point is made: young guys like older women. Not, after all, such a radical idea. But this is a very modern approach to it in what is acknowledged to be primarily a remake of the multiple prize-winning 2019 Danish film by May el-Toukhy, Queen of Hearts, a film that Peter Bradshaw said had him on the edge of his seat. This French version does that too.

Last Summer/L'Été dernier, 104 mins., debuted at Cannes in Competition, May 25, 2023. US debut NYFF Oct. 10, 2023. US limited theatrical release (NYC, LA, San Francisco) Jun. 28, 2024. Screened for this review Jun. 29 2924.