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2007 NY Film Fest Roundup

By: Kevin Filipski

Saturday October 06, 2007

The 45th New York Film Festival will premiere 28 films when it runs September 28 - October 14 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
For better or worse, the New York Film Festival is firmly entrenched as one of the most influential platforms for movies hoping to get recognition at awards season or, at the very least, limited U.S. distribution (which leads to an eventual DVD release). If some festival picks are head-scratchers—including the Opening Night choice—there are some good movies on display also. I’ll report on the second half of the festival soon.

Opening Night Film –

The Darjeeling Limited - Amazingly, this is Wes Anderson’s third film in the New York Film Festival, and if The Darjeeling Limited is marginally less bad than Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums (not to mention the debacle of The Life Aquatic), it’s still a stretch to call this worthy of any Opening Night slot. A comic study of three estranged brothers on a spiritual train trip through India, the movie is weighed down by its remarkable unsubtlety (their many pieces of luggage equals the amount of emotional baggage they carry, natch) that it remains another fey, precious Wes Anderson movie–manna for some, a desert for me.

It’s typical of Anderson’s lack of imagination that, after nearly an hour of their sparring on the train, the brothers get booted off, only to see three kids drowning in a river: they dive in after them, but one dies, which gives the movie automatic—and definitely unearned—“tragic” heft. Later, when the movie goes slack again, Anderson desperately throws in a long, unfunny flashback to the brothers’ dad’s funeral. Of the brothers, only Adrien Brody scores, possibly because he’s new to Anderson’s annoying style and comes to the material fresh. Paradoxically, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman are obnoxious from the outset.

The 13-minute short preceding the feature, Hotel Chevalier—also made by Anderson and starring Schwartzman—is notable only for Natalie Portman’s cute behind.

Other films (alphabetically) –

The Axe in the Attic - Jim Pincus and Lucia Small were mad as hell after witnessing the destruction and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, so the filmmakers decided to travel from the Northeast down to New Orleans, with many stops along the way to witness first-hand how those who were displaced by the storm and by the Bush administration’s ineptitude are handling the loss of their very existence (home, valuables, family and friends). When they arrived in New Orleans, they find very brave (and foolhardy) people trying to rebuild their wrecked lives.

To their credit, Pincus and Small don’t overplay the racist angle–several black families are chronicled, but so are affected whites, and the filmmakers never coddle to one or condescend to the other, since Katrina made them equally worthless to FEMA. The duo also daringly—and reluctantly—bring themselves into their film, not as Michael Moore-type grandstanding but as filmmakers used to documentary “objectivity” and “evenhandedness” now being drawn into these lost souls’ plight. There’s an amazing scene after Pincus hands one man $10 and Small simply walks away because she’s furious that he broke the silent code of documentary ethics– she earlier refused to loan another man bus fare when he asked.

That there are no revelations in The Axe in the Attic misses the point: it’s an account of the devastation wrought by Mother Nature and the Bush administration. Pincus and Small don’t hammer this over our heads either; a few people bring up Bush and his FEMA cronies, but it’s their will to survive that’s most fascinating about this movie: even after they’ve lost everything–which we hear described in ever more harrowing terms–people still thank God and Jesus that they pulled through. This almost derails the movie, since non-believing, philosophical Pincus is flabbergasted, but he soon realizes that this helps people soldier on in the face of unspeakable disaster.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead - Sidney Lumet may be 83, but his high New York energy remains in his new movie, a would-be tragic crime drama that begins splendidly before succumbing to blatant illogic in its last reels.

Two brothers with varying financial difficulties who decide to rob a local jewelry store not only see it go spectacularly awry but also spin their–and their family’s–lives out of control. Screenwriter Kelly Masterson is good with the set-up, and shopworn devices like jumbled chronology and showing the same scene from different angles (literal and figurative) are used with stunning effectiveness.

Lumet and cinematographer Ron Fortunato also find new ways to shoot an overphotographed Manhattan, and the actors–Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris and Marisa Tomei–are excellent, both individually and collectively. (A special kudo to Tomei, who has never been sexier–or more naked.) Yet, halfway through the movie, the wheels start coming off, and by the incredible Oedipal ending (the twist is stupidly telegraphed, and the ending is shot hamhandedly by Lumet), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead has jumped the proverbial shark. Still, Lumet’s gleeful diving into this story is infectious and, even with all its flaws, this is a first-rate Saturday night popcorn flick.

Blade Runner - Ridley Scott has released what he’s calling the “final cut” of his 1982 sci-fi drama, which will be part of a five-disc DVD boxed set this Christmas. Blade Runner is not the usual frivolous space opera: it’s actually got “ideas,” even a few intriguing ones. Harrison Ford plays a rogue cop assigned to kill rogue “replicants,” or robots designed to be nearly human. The year is 2019, and for no good (or explained) reason, L.A. is perpetually dark and rainy. The film has a gloriously unique set design, and even the effects hold up over the past quarter-century; the script, however, isn’t clever enough dealing with the themes of memory, human vs. android and fear of death. Scott has made a visually impeccable film–and with the tweaking he’s done, it looks amazing–but at bottom, Blade Runner lacks the heart it needs to be a true masterpiece.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Julian Schnabel’s piercing drama is based on the biography of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who at age 43 suffered a massive stroke and lost complete muscular control over his body–except for his left eye, which he used to blink “yes” or “no” answers. With the help of incredibly patient, thoughtful hospital workers and others, Bauby “wrote” a book about his experience, an international bestseller. Schnabel opens the film as Bauby awakes from his three-week long coma, and we see everything from his groggy POV: at first, it seems like the entire movie will be a visual stunt, of actors talking to the camera (to Bauby). But Schnabel has matured deeply as a director since his two interesting but failed bio-pics–Basquiat and Before Night Falls. Schnabel varies the pacing and rhythm throughout, juxtaposing brutally direct sequences of Bauby’s slow non-recovery with episodes from his pre-stroke life that almost play as dream sequences, including a wonderful scene with his grumpy father (played to grizzled perfection by Max von Sydow) and a stunningly-shot reenactment of his stroke, while Bauby was driving his son through the countryside.

As Bauby, Mathieu Amalric gives a miraculous performance: because of the actor’s excitable, natural energy, we see Bauby as literally begging to move, and the expressions Amalric coaxes from his eye are so perfectly controlled I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. The literal parade of women in Bauby’s life–mother of his three children, current squeeze, therapists in the hospital–is beautifully embodied by Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Anne Consigny and Olatz Lopez Garmendia (the director’s wife).

Schnabel’s film—which is, finally, a fitting testament to artistic achievement, no matter how laboriously or unusually realized—has a fittingly eclectic soundtrack, including music by Bach, U2, and Tom Waits.

Fados - Master filmmaker Carlos Saura, who has made a career out of his wondrous and unique hybrid of dance and film, beginning with his 1980s “Flamenco” trilogy, travels to Portugal to record various practitioners of a folk music called “fado,” often called the Portuguese blues. As he has done in recent music films like Iberia, Saura simply films the performers playing the music, but his innate feeling for the choreography of the camera and the rhythm of the editing makes Fados more exciting and satisfying than merely listening to each song. Saura utilizes two master cameramen: Jose Luis Lopez-Linares, who filmed the main sequences; and Eduardo Serra, who shot the infrequent inserts of a bustling Lisbon. If you don’t believe that watching a singer belting out in Portuguese could be enthralling, Saura will change your mind–each sequence has a singular “look,” whether it’s the use of dancers alongside or large video screens behind some performers, which presents double or triple images of their playing. At a tidy 90 minutes, Fados will not only win converts to this music, but also underscore the brilliance of its director, the greatest living Spanish filmmaker.

I’m Not There - For his latest film, Todd Haynes has made one of the most bizarre movie train wrecks ever—it’s about Bob Dylan, and contains many of his songs in their original recordings, but Haynes has transferred the singer’s life and personality to an array of fictional characters, each of whom apparently represents one strand of “The Larger Than Life Persona That Is Bob Dylan.” It’s possible that Dylan only let his songs be included if Haynes didn’t make a straightforward biography, and if that’s so, the director has responded by making a fatuous and endlessly cartoonish view of both Dylan and his era. There’s a lot here for those who want to hash through so-called deep meanings, philosophical undertones and psychological study; for those not under the spell of the overrated Haynes, there are a few good performances, notably from Christian Bale as the folkie-turned-Christian; Cate Blanchett has been getting raves for her performance, but it’s really just a stunt—more a Saturday Night Live impression than a real interpretation.

Haynes has checked off all the Big Events in Dylan’s life—the electric-guitar set that turned off the folkies, the near-fatal motorcycle crash, the conversion to Christianity, the pot-smoking tryst with the Beatles—all to no avail. He even rather desperately drags in an homage to Fellini’s 8-1/2, complete with Nino Rota’s music, along with some Godard allusions. At the press screening, I’m Not There was greeted with hosannas, if that means anything to anyone any more.

Redacted - Brian DePalma has entered the still-minuscule fray of filmmakers commenting on the current Iraq debacle with this harrowing re-enactment of an incident when U.S. soldiers raped and murdered an Iraqi teenage girl, then burned her body. Shooting in hi-def video, DePalma uses as a skeleton the videocam footage of a soldier–who fancies himself a future director–while intercutting all sorts of other footage, from news reports and security cameras to internet bloggers’ rantings and even a terrorist video of an IED blowing up one of our men. It’s cleverly, even artfully, put together, and even though DePalma has no new insights to bring to this war that’s been swallowing our country whole, his visceral, immediately impacting drama is a valuable document of most confused, confusing era.

The Romance of Astree and Celadon - At age 87, Eric Rohmer has made his newest (and supposedly last) movie, another talky snoozefest with an undeniable visual splendor that may be due more to the lovely region of France in which Rohmer shot. Still, give him credit for that.

Based on a massive 17th century novel by Honore d’Urfe about a romance set in the 5th century, Astree and Celadon is a fable about two young lovers separated by jealousy and death until they are reunited with the help of nymphs and a druid priest. It’s silly stuff, at times risibly so, but it’s possible that the novel’s treatment and descriptions paint an entirely different picture in readers’ minds than the ones Rohmer parade in front of his camera. And there’s no arguing that Rohmer’s actors are a paltry bunch, and when they spout poetry or break into earnest song, the effect has a certain initial charm, but it’s mostly labored.

I know Shakespeare always gets away with cross-dressing characters that easily fool others, but Rohmer is no Shakespeare: at least Shakespeare’s characters also get to speak sparkling dialogue; and in this film, Rohmer’s hero when dressed as a girl wouldn’t even fool a blind man, let alone the supposed love of his life. Finally, it’s nice that Rohmer spends so much time showing paintings in Astree and Celadon, giving the audience something beautiful to gaze at among the surrounding cinematic aridness.