NYFF ’13: Tim’s Vermeer

The sheer scarcity of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings is guaranteed to maintain the art world’s fascination.  It was partly why the notorious forger Han Van Meegeren was able to pass off a reportedly terrible fake on his National Socialist buyers—demand always outstrips good sense. However, one entrepreneur might just stand the polite art world on its ear when he suggests he can paint brand new Vermeers using Seventeenth Century technology.  Jenison’s buddy Penn Jillette basically dared him to prove it for posterity. Jenison’s results are duly documented in Teller’s Tim’s Vermeer (trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Building on the research of artist David Hockney and academic Philip Steadman, Jenison argues it is simply impossible for the human eye to perceive the photorealistic detail that distinguishes Vermeer’s paintings. Using the scientific process circa 1650, Jenison develops a method to duplicate the Vermeer look.  It is complicated, but like the best magic, it involves the use of mirrors.

Both Hockney and Steadman agree Jenison is on to something, but to really prove the point, he embarks on an audacious experiment.  He will recreate the setting of Vermeer’s The Music Room in a San Antonio warehouse, where he will use his proposed technique to recreate rather than forge the Vermeer masterwork.  However, what started as an intellectual pursuit becomes an endurance challenge over time.

Director Teller and producer-narrator Jillette strike a shrewd balance throughout Tim’s Vermeer, injecting enough caustic humor to satisfy their fans, but never upstaging Jenison’s story. Frankly, it is a surprisingly provocative film that questions many widely held assumptions regarding the nature of art.  Hockney’s participation is a particular coup.  When he more or less buys into Jenison’s system, it carries considerable weight.

Essentially, Jenison argues Vermeer was the original photographer.  The composition of The Music Room is still a work of art.  He simply used a somewhat mechanical method to render it on canvas.  Of course, he still had to do the work, which Jenison proves is a painstaking process.

Thanks to the developments in digital video, Teller and his associates were able to take an eccentric idea and fully follow through on it.  It might shake up stodgier Academy members to hear Penn & Teller tipped for Oscar consideration, but they deserve to be in the mix.  Consistently entertaining and rather shockingly erudite, it proves documentaries can cover prestigious subject matter, but still be fun to watch.  Recommended for Penn & Teller fans and fine art connoisseurs, Tim’s Vermeer screens again this Wednesday (10/9) as an “Applied Science” documentary selection of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Real

Overlooked in the only Jurassic Park that matters, the pleisiosaur finally gets its big screen close-up, courtesy of the other Kurosawa.  Initially, it is only a metaphor, but it becomes significantly meaningful and pressing to the young lovers in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Real (trailer here), which screens tonight at the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Initially, Koichi Fujita and Atsumi Kazu look like the ideal couple.  Kazu seems perfectly sweet, but the comic artist specializes in grisly serial killer mangas.  Unfortunately, while suffering a persistent case of writers block, Kazu tried to take her own life, falling into a coma instead.  Hoping to assist her recovery, Fujita has agreed to a new procedure known as “sensing,” by which he will enter her subconscious. 

If Fujita gently probes the circumstances surrounding her attempted suicide, he can encourage her conscious mind to re-awaken.  The early sessions go relatively well, but Fujita is increasingly alarmed by the residual phantom images intruding on his reality as a result of the sensing.  He also carries back a concrete mission to perform in the real world.  Kazu yearns to see the pleisiosaur drawing she gave him while they were both children living on the provincial island of Hikone.

As Kurosawa’s title suggests, there will be many questions about the nature of reality throughout Real.  However, every twist and revelation serves to advance the story (adapted from Rokuro Inui’s novel), so they never feel cheap or forced.  While perhaps less of a departure for the horror auteur than his previous outing, the dark family drama Tokyo Sonata, Real is best considered in the tradition of Richard Matheson writing in his What Dreams May Come and Somewhere in Time bag.  In fact, what is most striking about Real is how deeply Fujita and Kazu feel about each other while being so reserved in the manner they express it.

Frankly, Takeru Sato’s work could be uncharitably categorized as a bit stiff or awkward, but to be fair, Fujita is supposed to be a step slow in the intuition department.  On the other hand, Haruka Ayase’s performance as Kazu is acutely sensitive.  In fact, she handles her game-changing pivot with considerable grace.  It is also a bit surprising to see a major star like Miki Nakatani (truly mesmerizing in Memories of Matsuko) in the comparatively straight forward supporting role of Dr. Eiko Aihara, but she makes the most of it.

Real is a text book example of how special effects can and should be subservient to story and character development.  There is plenty of head-tripping and reality-bending, but it is the love story drives the film.  Nicely supported by Kei Haneoka’s elegant musical themes, Real is far more accessible for general audiences than most of Kurosawa’s films.  Highly recommended, it screens tonight (10/7) at Alice Tully Hall as a main slate selection of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Whiplash (short)

He is a big band director who out Buddy Riches Buddy Rich. While Rich’s band members always contended the famous drummer’s profane bark was worse than his bite, Fletcher is a dread terror with a baton.  One freshman drummer learns this the hard way in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, which screens as part of Shorts program 3 at the 51^st New York Film Festival.

It is Andrew Neiman’s first day with the jazz orchestra of an elite conservatory.  He will do newby stuff like tuning the kit and turning pages, but he will also get a turn with the sticks. It will be a real trial by fire.  Before he even gets his shot, Neiman will witness one band-member getting the public ax.  The choice of tune will not do him any favors either.  It will be Hank Levy’s “Whiplash” (which Don Ellis recorded on his Soaring album).  An arranger and composer for the Ellis and Stan Kenton big bands, Levy often experimented with odd time signatures, while delivering the big sounds those leaders were known for.  Good luck, kid.

Even though the portrait of Rich hanging above him would seem to signify good luck, Neiman is in for it. However, Whiplash has already had considerable good fortune.  An expanded feature film version is proceeding on track after it won the short film jury award at this year’s Sundance. While high profile executive producers like Jason Reitman and Jason “Insidious” Blum did not hurt, its real trump card is the jaw-dropping work of J.K. Simmons.

Recognizable from jillions of supporting parts (including J. Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman franchise), Simmons calls and raises both Buddy Rich and former Drill Sergeant R. Lee Ermy.  As Fletcher, he is certainly intimidating, but also disturbingly manipulative. Yet, viewers cannot write him off completely, because there is very clearly a passion for the music burning within him.  Regardless of what you make of the character, it is a tour de force performance from Simmons.

The late Hank Levy also deserves credit for helping Whiplash the movie work.  Even (or especially) to a non-musician, his composition sounds hard to play and the chart looks impossible.  Yet, the Hank Levy Legacy Band still swings it hard for the film’s soundtrack.

Musician turned filmmaker Chazelle is clearly intimately acquainted with this world.  His stylish feature debut, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench also employed jazz, while shrewdly examining the private lives of musicians. He also co-wrote the screenplay for The Last Exorcism Part II, so there’s range for you.

The eighteen minute Whiplash might feel like a brief episode in a longer story (because it more or less is), but it is an encounter that will resonate deeply for many former music students (and they have our sympathies).  However, everyone should be able to appreciate Simmons’ virtuoso turn and anyone with open ears can dig the use of the title tune.  Highly recommended in its short film form, Whiplash screens this Thursday (10/10) at the Howard Gilman Theater, as part of the 2013 NYFF’s Shorts Program 3.

NYFF ’13: Gloria

Gloria is a musical name.  Hip readers will know Umberto Tozzi was topping the international charts long before his pop song was drastically re-written for Laura Branigan. The bittersweet lyrics of love heard in Tozzi’s original version will nicely suit the protagonist of Chile’s latest foreign language Oscar submission.  However, Van Morrison’s “Gloria” never factors in Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria (trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Gloria Cumplido is no stranger to discos.  She often haunts them during singles nights.  The fifty-eight year-old divorcee always finds a dance partner for the night, but she is looking for something more substantial.  She thinks she might have found it in Rodolfo Fernández.  They catch each others’ eye across the dance floor and one thing duly leads to another. 

Happily, his charm does not evaporate in the morning.  In fact, he is rather determined to pursue a relationship with Cumplido, but he has issues.  His ex-wife and grown daughters are still unhealthily co-dependent and he continues to enable their behavior.  At least, that is the charitable interpretation.  Regardless, he gets distinctly flaky at the most inopportune times.

Gloria is small in scope and thin in narrative development, but it has a dynamite lead in Paulina García’s Cumplido. Refreshingly, she is nobody’s victim.  She is a woman of a certain age with a reasonable degree of sexual confidence, trying chart a third act for her life, now that her grown children are preoccupied with their own lives. García brings out her vulnerability, but consistently plays her smart and resilient, so we never lose patience with decisions.

There are a few laughs here and there (most memorably the odd cat creation story her housekeeper spins out of Noah’s Ark), but Gloria a serious film by-and-large, because it addresses some serious business—love and aging.  At times, Lelio is far too enamored with the daily routine of his central character, but he has a keen sense of how to use music.  When he finally unleashes Tozzi’s hit tune, it makes the moment.  He also shrewdly incorporates a rendition of Jobim’s “Waters of March,” whose lonesome imagery and hopeful spirit nicely reflects her alone-in-a-crowd experiences.

Lelio’s one hundred ten minute running time is far longer than it needs to be.  We would most likely get it just as well somewhere closer to ninety.  He probably fell in love with his character and lead actress, which is understandable.  She carries the film with her boldly revealing performance.  Those who have a phobic reaction to unvarnished nudity should be forewarned, but it will strongly resonate with viewers who identify with mature characters and their emotional circumstances.  Recommended respectfully (but not wildly enthusiastically) for the target audience, Gloria screens tonight (10/6) at the Walter Reade and tomorrow (10/7) at the Francesca Beale as a main slate selection of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Butter Lamp (short)

He is like an Old West daguerrotypist capturing the faces of the vanishing frontier, except this barnstorming photographer travels through Tibet. Viewers will watch him work in Hu Wei’s Butter Lamp (trailer here), which screens during Shorts Program 2 at the 51st New York FilmFestival.

At first it looks rather surreal.  A quick succession of Tibetan nomads assembles for family photos shot in front of the photographers wildly anachronistic fake backdrops, such as Disneyland and the Great Wall of China. Every time the shutter clicks Hu skips ahead to the next family. The older nomads still don traditional formal dress and wield their prayer wheels, but in each subsequent photo sessions, the younger, impatient generation more frequently wears blue jeans and western sportswear.

While the format is simple, Butter offers a shrewd commentary on globalization and the deliberate marginalization of Tibetan culture. While an elderly woman will prostrate herself before the image of Potala Palace, most of the photographer’s customers chose something reflecting a more consumerist lifestyle. Yet, some customs are still observed. 

Straddling the boundaries between dramatic narratives, documentaries, and cinematic essays, Butter Lamp is visually inventive and decidedly zeitgeisty (particularly at a time when the Tibetan language is struggling for survival, per government policy).  Patrons on a New York budget may not feel Hu’s fifteen minute film alone justifies the price of a ticket, but it is an accomplished production, well worth acknowledging.  It screens this Sunday (10/6) and next Thursday (10/10) as part of the 2013 NYFF’s Shorts Program 2.

NYFF ’13: About Time

Ginger-haired Tim Lake is about to learn he was born into a family of Quantum Leaping time travelers. According to his father, it only applies to the men, so his mother and sister remain oblivious to their theoretically great power.  Like Scott Bakula, they can only jump backwards within their own lifetimes.  There will be only one hard and fast rule for them to follow when Four Weddings and a Funeral director Richard Curtis gets his Groundhog Day on with About Time (trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

When Lake’s dad drops the H.G. Wells bomb on his 18^th birthday, the shy teen assumes it is a joke.  Obviously, romantically challenged, Tim’s tries uses the family talent to woo his free-spirited sister Kit Kat’s hot houseguest, Charlotte.  Yet, she is not having him, regardless of how many do-overs he takes. He will have better luck Mary, a Yank who you could definitely bring home to meet the family.

Eventually, he does just that. Domestic bliss and moderate professional success seem to be well within the adult Lake’ grasp, but he worries about his increasingly depressed sister.  When he tries to prevent her meeting Mr. Wrong, he discovers the one big catch of time travel. When asked, it turns out his exceptionally laidback father has one or two more revelations in store for him.

Everything surrounding About Time, including Curtis’s reputation, screams romantic comedy, but that simply is not the case.  Granted, the first act is devoted to Tim’s clumsily courtship of Mary, but that is simply a way to establish the parameters of the time travel system (only to break them shortly thereafter). About Time is really a father-son relationship dramedy, but a pretty good one.

Probably the most popularly accessible film at this year’s NYFF, About Time is not exactly awards bait per se, but any Oscar campaigner worth their salt should be willing to take a shot with Bill Nighy. As usual, he is a model of wit and sophistication, but he delivers the big fatherly pay-off in spades. Yet, still he maintains that understated persona, foreswearing mawkish sentiment.

Domhnall Gleeson is appealingly earnest as Lake, plus he has red hair. However, Rachel McAdams looks rather out of place as Mary, not that it matters. Women in general are rather passive in About Time, essentially playing the role predestined by their time traveling men. Even Lindsay Duncan, the dread terror from Le Week-End, plays a decidedly subordinate role as Tim’s mother.

Still, like Curtis’s past crowd pleasers, About Time is peppered with colorful supporting turns and near cameos, notably including Richard E. Grant and the late great Richard Griffiths as two hammy stage actors. Surprisingly, British TV veteran Richard Cordery steals the show when we least expect it as Lake’s eccentric Uncle Desmond. Pan Am’s Margot Robbie certainly looks the part of Charlotte the temptress (which adds entertainment value). On the other hand, Tom Hughes is conspicuously miscast (again) as Kit Kat’s bad boy boyfriend Jimmy Kincade.

About Time bends its own rules left and right, but viewers will just have to deal with it. (This is fantastical time travel rather than the science fictional variety.) Curtis is more interested in building to emotional moments, which resonate considerably more deeply than one would expect. Recommended for fans of Nighy and mainstream relationship-driven fantasy, About Time screens tonight (10/1), tomorrow (10/2), and Sunday (10/6) as a Main Slate selection of the 2013 New York Film Festival.

NYFF ’13: Burning Bush

Tourists visiting Prague’s Rudolfinum concert hall will find themselves in Jan Palach Square.  The newest public square in the Old Town quarter, it was known as Square of Red Army Soldiers during the grim era of Communism.  An earnest university student, Palach sacrificed his life to re-awaken opposition to the Soviet occupation of 1968 (those very same Red Army Soldiers), eventually becoming a galvanizing symbol of the Velvet Revolution.

Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland was also studying in the then Czechoslovakia when Palach self-immolated on Wenceslas Square.  She shared the feelings of inspiration, frustration, and rage that swept across the country in the days that followed.  The tenor of those oppressive times is masterfully captured in Holland’s Burning Bush (trailer here), a highly cinematic three-night miniseries produced for HBO Europe, which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Watching a man ignite himself into flames is a disturbing sight, as Holland shows viewers in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, Palach does not die immediately, but lingers on life support for three days. Having left multiple letters of protest, there was no question why Palach did what he did. As he hoped, the student movement is emboldened to call for a general strike. The government swings into full panic mode, fearing more will follow his example. The Party’s heavy-handed techniques do not sit well with Police Major Jireš, but his ostensive subordinate is more than willing to do the dirty work he assumes will advance his career.

As months pass, Palach’s fragile mother, Libuše Palachová, becomes the target of a ruthless harassment campaign. When a hardline member of parliament publicly slanders Palach at a regional CP conference, the Palach family decides to file suit, but finding a lawyer willing to accept their case is a difficult proposition. Eventually, Dagmar Burešová agrees to take the case, but it will cost her family dearly.

Although Palach appears relatively briefly in Burning Bush, his absence is felt keenly throughout.  He is the missing man—the ghost at the banquet. However, his mother and her advocate are very much of the world as it was, and must carry on as best they can. Frankly, Burning Bush will be nothing less than revelatory for many viewers.  Typically films dealing with the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion end in 1968, with a happier 1989 postscript frequently appended to the end.  However, Holland and screenwriter Štĕpán Hulík train their focus on the nation’s absolutely darkest days.

A onetime protégé and close collaborator of Andrzej Wajda, Holland has vividly addressed the Communist experience with films like The Interrogation and To Kill a Priest, while also finding tremendous American success directing leading-edge HBO programs like The Wire and Treme. On paper, Holland sounds like the perfect director for this project, yet she manages to exceed expectations with a clear-cut career masterwork.

There is considerable scale to Burning Bush, but it is intimately engrossing. Viewers acutely share the fear and pain of the Palach family and marvel the Bureš family’s matter-of-fact defiance. Somehow Holland simultaneous builds the suspense, as Burešová methodically exposes the Party’s lies and deceits, as well as a mounting sense of high tragedy, as secret police rig the system against her.

Jaroslava Pokorná’s turn as Palach’s mother is not merely a performance, it is an indictment viewers will feel in their bones. It is a convincingly harrowing portrayal of a woman nearly broken by the Communist state.  Likewise, Petr Stach conveys all the inner conflicts roiling inside Jiří Palach, the brother forced to hold himself together for the sake of his family (and arguably his country). Ivan Trojan’s increasingly disillusioned Major Jireš adds further depth and dimension to the film. Although it is the “glamour” role, Tatiana Pauhofová still scores some impressive moments as Burešová, particularly with Jan Budař as her husband Radim Bureš.

Chosen by the Czech Republic as its official foreign language submission to the Academy Awards, Burning Bush is either excellent cinema or outstanding television, depending on how chose to categorize it. Although its 234 minute running time might sound intimating, it is a blisteringly tight and tense viewing experience.  An important but deeply moving work, it is the one true can’t miss selection of this year’s NYFF, especially since its length makes it such a challenge to program.  At this point only stand-by tickets are available, but it is worth trying your luck when the exceptional Burning Bush screens this Friday (10/4) and the following Wednesday (10/9).

NYFF ’13: Alan Partridge

Alan Partridge could be described as the Ted Baxter of North Norfolk, except he is more self-centered and less self-aware.  The alter-ego of comedian Steve Coogan is wildly popular in the UK, but more of a cult thing here in America. Regardless, cinema obviously represented the next logical step for the name brand franchise established through radio, TV, books, and webisodes. North Norfolk’s smarmiest broadcaster finally gets the attention he craves with Declan Lowney’s Alan Partridge (a.k.a. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

As fans know all too well, Partridge currently hosts Mid-Morning Matters on North Norfolk Digital with Sidekick Simon. Initially, the shallow blowhard thinks little of it when a Clear Channel-like conglomerate acquires the station, rebranding it the “SHAPE.” However, when Partridge agrees to speak to the new management on behalf of his nervous colleague, Pat Farrell, he learns either he or his supposed friend will face the corporate axe.  Of course, Partridge unsubtly stabs Farrell in the back.

The pink-slipped Farrell takes the news rather badly, returning to the station with a shotgun for a spot of hostage taking. Assuming the best of his two-faced pal, Farrell demands Partridge act as the go-the-between as a police stand-off ensues. Finding himself in the media spotlight, Partridge is determined to capitalize on this career opportunity, but as always, he fumbles and bumbles at every step.

If you like Partridge, the Partridge film delivers plenty, but the laugh lines are pretty much exclusively reserved for Coogan’s signature Character. It is often very funny, but it very definitely stays within the Partridge Zone.  After all, satisfying the existing fan-base is the most pressing objective for any TV franchise crossing over to the big screen, which should certainly be the case here. Fear not, Partridge never develops a conscience or any sense of decorum.

Co-written by Coogan and his frequent collaborator Armando Iannucci, with Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, and Peter Baynham, the film raises the stakes from previous Partridge outings, what with the hostage crisis and all, while staying true to its roots.  Naturally identified as conservative in past incarnations (because that is so conducive to success with the BBC), the big-screen Partridge wisely eschews politicized humor in favor of broad physical comedy and the comeuppance of public humiliation.

Coogan still clearly enjoys the Partridge shtick and Lowney maintains a snappy energy level throughout. Although Colm Meaney gets second billing as Farrell, he does not have much opportunity to exercise his considerable comedy chops (ironically showcased quite nicely in Terry George’s hostage comedy renamed The Stand-Off, post-Tribeca). It is Partridge’s show and don’t you forget it. Enjoyably shameless overall, Alan Partridge is recommended for series fans when it screens again next Monday (10/7) at Alice Tully Hall as a main slate selection of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Le Week-End

Thanks to the Chunnel and relaxed EU customs, it is relatively easy for a late middle-aged British couple to pop over to Paris for a romantic getaway—unfortunately.  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, but they make the trip nonetheless.  The pent-up resentment will flow freely in Roger Michell’s Le Week-End (trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Old lefty lit professor Nick Burrows’ only success in life was marrying his wife Meg, but she never lets him forget she was and still is well out of his league. The magic ran dry quite a while ago, but recent pressures have only made matters worse. For Nick, this sentimental trip will be a desperate attempt to renew their relationship, but his wife may have different ideas. Probably the last person he needs to run into would be Morgan, his vastly more successful former hipster protégé, yet that is exactly what happens.

Week-End is very definitely a writer’s film, completely driven by its often caustic dialogue. It seems like screenwriter Hanif Kureishi takes sadistic pleasure from old put-upon Nick’s discomfort, forcing him into one dignity-stripping conversation after another.  This necessarily means Meg gets most of the film’s sharpest wince-inducing lines.

Frankly, you have to sympathize with poor Nick on some level. A mere ninety minutes of Meg’s withering banter is exhausting, so the prospect of a lifetime of marriage with her makes the head reel.  Still, Kureishi maintains the consistency of their voices and scores a number of rueful laughs.

Perhaps the viewers’ best friend during Week-End is Jeremy Sams, whose elegant jazz-influenced score (featuring trumpeter Freddie Gavita) gives us something warm and agreeable to hold onto.  Even though they are radically dissimilar films, the combination of muted trumpet and Parisian streets by night immediately calls to mind Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows and its Miles David soundtrack.

As Meg Burrows, Lindsay Duncan wields Kureishi’s cutting lines like a scimitar. Yet, Jim Broadbent’s hang-dog face draws Michell’s focus like a magnet. They spark like crazy together, but it is still hard to believe the extreme emotional disparity of their union.  To lighten the mood, Michell turns Jeff Goldblum loose as Morgan, lifting all restraints on his schticky mannerisms with rather amusing results.

It is pleasant to soak up Weed-End’s Paris locations while listening to the moody but swinging score. In a way, it provides a tart rejoinder to films like Marigold Hotel and Quartet, reminding audiences seniors are not always cute. Well crafted but somewhat over-written, Le Week-End is recommended for fans of talky relationship films when it screens tonight (9/29) at Alice Tully Hall and Monday after next (10/7) at the Walter Reade Theater, as a Main Slate selection of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Captain Phillips

In 2009, when the MV Maersk Alabama was hijacked by Somali pirates, it was carrying 5,000 tons of African relief supplies.  No matter how desperate the poverty of its outlaw assailants might have been, waylaying the ship would not make the world a better place. This detail is acknowledged (but hardly belabored) in Paul Greengrass’s serviceable Captain Phillips (trailer here), which opened the 51^st New York Film Festival last night.

The facts of the Maersk Alabama case are well known and Greengrass sticks to them relatively faithfully.  Although an experienced merchant officer, Captain Richard Phillips is a little uneasy about his Oman to Mombassa cargo haul, for good reasons.  Their route will take them past the Somali coast, soon after the release of a heightened piracy advisory.

Of course, the ship is attacked by pirates—twice.  The first time, Phillips’ well drilled crew foils their assault through evasive maneuvers and improvised trickery.  Unfortunately, they cannot shake Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse and his three criminal accomplices the next day. However, the crew fights back admirably, preventing the pirates from assuming operational control of the vessel.  Yet, in a frustrating twist of fate, Captain Phillips is taken hostage aboard the Maersk Alabama’s lifeboat.

As a tick-tock hijacking thriller, CP is not bad at all, but it suffers when compared to Tobias Lindholm’s recently released A Hijacking, which is superior film in every respect.  Frankly, Greengrass’s film can be divided into two halves, the first be considerably stronger than the second.  CP is indeed quite riveting when following Phillips and his hidden crew as they sneak about and devise ways to communicate with each other.

Oddly though, the film slackens somewhat once the action moves to the lifeboat.  The tension ought to increase in such a considerably more confined space, but Greengrass cranks up the deterministic angst to such an extent, it starts to undercut the suspense.  Captain Phillips almost serves as a Greek chorus, warning Muse it will all end in tears.

Still, Muse’s already much quoted and scoffed at rejoinder “maybe in America” (as in maybe you western capitalists have other options besides piracy) poorly serves the rest of the film.  It is not nearly as didactic as that soundbite suggests, making its inclusion in trailers an utterly baffling marketing decision.  Greengrass bends over backwards to portray Muse and his cohorts as the pawns of shadowy masterminds, who have abandoned them to their fate.  Somehow though, he never spells out their possible connection to al-Qaeda linked al Shabaab and he certainly isn’t about to get into the whole Islam thing.

Despite an inconsistent New England accent, Tom Hanks finds the appropriate balance of world weariness and Yankee gravitas for the title character.  He goes all out down the stretch in hopes of another little gold statue with interesting if imperfect results.  Barkhad Abdi also deftly walks his tightrope, expressing Muse’s erratically violent nature as well as his metaphorical (and literal) hunger pains. 

Yet, the real stars of CP is the imposing Maersk Alabama (or rather the nearly identical Maersk Alexander, which serves as its stand-in) and the U.S. Navy.  The ships (including the USS Truxtun doubling for the USS Bainbridge) look awe-inspiring and the Navy Seals are cool, calm, and deadly professional.  Even though the Navy employs forms of deception, not once will reasonable viewers question the actions they take.

Greengrass shows a tremendous facility for shooting in and around the hulking ships and making the complicated chain of events perfectly clear and easy to follow.  As a technical feat, the movie is hugely impressive.  Yet, it lacks the insight and soul-draining intensity of its Danish counterpart.  Reasonably taut and tight, Captain Phillips is still a good sight better than Green Zone would lead you to suspect.  Recommended on balance, Captain Phillips opens wide October 11^th, after kicking off this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Fifi Howls from Happiness

Given his darkly surreal imagery and his penchant for destroying his own work, there is definitely something Kafkaesque about the late Iranian expatriate artist Bahman Mohasses. For years he had removed himself from the world. Yet, he was ready, perhaps even eager to talk when Mitra Farahani tracked him down for her documentary profile, Fifi Howls from Happiness (trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Mohassess is clearly out of step with the current Islamist regime in Iran.  It seems his large scale nude statues were not compatible with the post-Revolutionary standards of “decency.”  He also happened to be gay, but in a defiantly politically incorrect way (marriage was not exactly a priority for him).  However, his first extended period of self-imposed exile began shortly after the Shah’s ascendency.

Eventually, Mohassess returned to his homeland, where the Shah’s wife became one of his leading patrons. A far cry from a fundamentalist, Mohassess still gave the Islamic Revolution a fair chance, but eventually tired of the gauche scene.  Before he left, Mohassess destroyed a significant portion of his oeuvre, taking only a few pieces with him (most notably including the painting that supplies the title of Farahani’s film).

On one hand, Mohassess’s actions echo the existential self-negation of a Dostoyevsky character, yet at other times one suspects it is all a calculated attempt to create mystique.  It almost seems like Mohassess has been waiting for someone like Farahani to take his bait.  Regardless, she develops a considerable rapport with the artist, but never sounds nauseatingly fawning.

While not quite deleted from Iranian history books, Mohassess’s place in the nation’s collective consciousness is decidedly ambiguous, which makes Fifi a valuable cinematic record.  Clearly, there are still Mohassess collectors, like Rokni and Ramin Haerizadeh, prominent Iranian artist-brothers working in Dubai.  Through Farahani, they visit Mohassess to commission what may or may not be his last great artistic statement.

Since Fifi is almost entirely shot in Mohassess’s residential hotel, the film is visually somewhat static. Still, it is fascinating to see the stills of his work, accompanied by his artist commentary, especially considering most of said pieces no longer survive. Farahani cleverly incorporates her subject’s unsolicited directorial advice, ironically following it to the letter. Her extended allusions to Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece and Visconti’s The Leopard are also add literary flair.

Indeed, Farahani earns great credit for working with and around Fifi’s inherent limitations. Mohassess is a difficult subject, who never sounds like he is really “for” anything or anyone, not even himself. Yet, Farahani does him justice, convincing the audience he is an odd character to visit, but one well worth saving from the memory hole.  Recommended for connoisseurs of art documentaries and Mohassess’s work, Fifi Howls from Happiness screens tomorrow (9/28) and Tuesday (10/1) at the Gilman Theater as part of the Motion Portraits section of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: Afternoon of a Faun—Tanaquil le Clercq

She changed the way George Balanchine thought about ballerinas.  Essentially, that means she changed ballet.  Tanaquil Le Clercq’s life took a unfortunate turn worthy of her tragic characters, but she would have a third act.  Nancy Buirski surveys her entire life and art in Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil le Clercq (trailer here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

A cosmopolitan prodigy, Le Clercq was discovered by Balanchine while she was a difficult student at School of American Ballet.  According to her friends, the legendary choreographer first encountering her sulking about the halls after her teacher ejected her from class.  Her sophisticated looks certainly caught his eye.  Although her height and long limbs were unusual for dancers at that time, Balanchine started tailoring his ballets to her strengths.  Soon she was his featured dancer and wife.  Then disaster struck.

Ironically, Le Clercq had danced in a special polio-themed March of Dimes fundraiser performance shortly before she was stricken with the disease herself.  She would never dance or even walk again.  However, she would eventually re-emerge as a teacher at Dance Theatre of Harlem.  As for her relationship with Balanchine—it was complicated.

Frankly, it would have been easy for Buirski to cast Balanchine in a villainous light, but Faun is rather remarkable for its evenhanded and forgiving treatment of the dance titan.  Taking its lead from Le Clercq’s closest friends, Faun gives him credit for supporting her when she most needed help and eventually re-starting some sort of intimate relationship with his former muse.  It was indeed complicated, but maybe not so much for Jerome Robbins, her fair weather ambiguously romantic friend.

Buirski’s sympathetic depiction of Balanchine reflects the humane spirit of film as a whole.  While it is eventually destined for American Masters, the elegant and often elegiac dance footage elevates its cinematic-ness.  Buirski calls on a relatively small cast of talking heads, but they each clearly knew Le Clercq very well.  Perhaps most moving are the remembrances of Jacques d’Amboise, Le Clercq’s partner for many of her defining performances.

Viewers will be surprised at the emotional punch Faun packs.  Granted, Buirski follows the tried-and-true documentary filmmaking approach, but she marshals all her elements with considerable style and understanding.  The participation of co-producer Ric Burns and project advisor Martin Scorsese should further reassure film snobs.  A satisfying viewing experience, Afternoon of a Faun is recommended for dance connoisseurs and anyone with a taste for cultural documentaries.  It screens this coming Monday (9/30) at the Walter Reade, as well as the 11^th and 13^th, as part of the Motion Portraits section of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: The Missing Picture

According to estimates, the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime executed ninety percent Cambodia’s creative artists and performers.  During their reign of terror, the nation’s once thriving film industry was also literally decimated.  Decades later, a filmmaker and a sculptor combined their talents to chronicle Cambodia’s years of madness with unusual power and grace.  Rithy Panh is arguably the foremost documentarian chronicling the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, but to tell his family’s story he enlisted the skills of French Cambodian artist Sarith Mang.  Where once there were no surviving images, Mang’s carved figures bring the tragic past back to life in Panh’s The Missing Picture (clip here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

While the Khmer Rouge churned out plenty of propaganda, they were more circumspect in documenting their own crimes.  That left plenty of holes for Panh to fill in, as his title suggests.  With the help of Mang’s course yet eerily expressive clay figurines, Panh recreates the torturous conditions he somehow lived through, but claimed the lives of his parents, nephews, and little sister, one by one.

Panh’s decision to use Mang’s figures and richly detailed diorama backdrops might sound bizarrely hyper-stylized, but it is shockingly effective. Frankly, the scenes depicting the horrifying death of Panh’s sister are nothing less than devastating.  It is an unlikely approach, but it directly conveys the emotional essence of the circumstances.

To better understand the extent of what was lost, Panh periodically looks back at happier, pre-Khmer Rouge days as well.  Again, he compellingly evokes of tactile sense of those innocent times.  Viewers can practically smell the spices at the neighborhood parties as they listen to a hip local rendition of Wilson Pickett’s “Midnight Hour.”

Rarely has a documentary ever been so exquisitely crafted. Each and every one of Mang’s figures is a work of art, perfectly lit and lensed by cinematographer Prum Mésa to bring out their full eloquence. Composer Marc Marder supports the visuals with what might be the most mournful film score since Schindler’s List.  It is a film that resounds with raw pain and defiant honesty (aside from a dubious bit of moral equivalence regarding western capitalism, probably tossed out to mollify festival programmers).  

Not a film to be shrugged off, The Missing Picture holds viewers completely rapt and haunts them for days after viewing.  Recommended for a considerably wider audience than traditional doc watchers, it screens this coming Monday (9/30) at the Beale Theater and Tuesday the eighth at the Gilman as an official selection of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: The Last of the Unjust

He was a figurehead in a Potemkin village.  Set up as a “model ghetto” to deceive the International Red Cross and the unaligned world at large, Theresienstadt hid its brutality from public view, but it was there just the same.  Benjamin Murmelstein had the dubious distinction of being appointed the third and final President of Theresienstadt’s Jewish Council, or the “Elder of the Jews,” as the National Socialists dubbed them.  A resourceful or perhaps expedient leader (depending on one’s point of view), Murmelstein remained a figure of controversy throughout his life.  Shoah director Claude Lanzmann returns to the hours of interview footage he shot with Murmelstein in 1975 for his documentary profile, The Last of the Unjust (clip here), which screens during the 51^st New York Film Festival.

When Murmelstein was appointed as the Elder of Theresienstadt, he did not have much say in the matter.  With no practical authority, Murmelstein did his best with his powers of persuasion, going toe-to-toe with an often manically demonic Eichmann—a far cry from what Arendt made him out to be. Murmelstein estimates he saved over one hundred twenty thousand lives during the war years by arranging mass emigration to what is now Israel.  On the other hand, the seventy-hour work weeks he instituted, in hopes of making the Theresienstadt prisoners too valuable to be “deported east,” was a double-edged sword.

In his lengthy discussions with Lanzmann, Murmelstein is both his best and worst character witness, but he steadily wins the documentarian over, at least to some extent.  Unquestionably, his testimony and Lanzmann’s supplemental evidence will help viewers understand the precariousness of his position.  Clearly, Lanzmann hopes viewers will speculate how they might respond if placed in similar circumstances.

Is Murmelstein worthy of an in-depth biographical treatment?  Without reservation, the answer is yes.  Nonetheless, at 218 minutes, the Spartan Unjust is a demanding viewing experience.  Even Lanzmann’s towering Shoah, with its considerably wider scope, is better digested in installments.

Unjust is rich with insight and offers more than a few eye-opening scoops.  However, Lanzmann makes the film longer and therefore more arduous than necessary by frequently including multiple accounts of incidents with little appreciable variation.  There is a personal quality to this film, which tested his editorial sensibilities.   Lanzmann admits right from the top Murmelstein’s story has haunted him for years.  Indeed, the contrast between Lanzmann in 1975, still quite the dashing figure at age fifty, and the gray-haired documentary statesman of today heightens the film’s keen sense of history.  Recommended for those who are prepared for its intellectual and aesthetic rigors, The Last of the Unjust screens Sunday (9/29) at Alice Tully Hall as an official selection of the 2013 New York Film Festival.

NYFF ’13: The Wind Rises

Jiro Horikoshi is a Studio Ghibli character Tony Stark would approve of.  He was the engineer responsible for designing Imperial Japan’s Model Zero fighters, but he dreamer rather than an ideologue.  At least, that is how Hayao Miyazaki re-imagined Horikoshi’s private persona in his fictionalized manga, which he has now adapted as his final film as a director.  Spanning decades of Japan’s tumultuous pre-war history, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises (trailer here) is also a deeply personal film that screens as a main slate selection of the 51st New York Film Festival.

As a young student, Horikoshi yearns to fly, but he realizes his spectacles make it nearly impossible for him to become a pilot.  Borrowing an aviation magazine from an encouraging teacher opens up a new path for the earnest lad.  Through its pages he learns of Italian aircraft designer Gianni Caproni, who becomes his inspiration.  Setting his sights on an engineering career, Horikoshi regularly meets Caproni in his dreams and reveries, where they share their mutual passion for flight.

Circumstances of history will conspire to make Horikoshi’s life eventful.  His first day as a university student is marked by the catastrophic earthquake of 1923, which will resonate profoundly with contemporary viewers.  Yet, out of that tragedy, Hirokoshi meets and temporarily loses the great love of his life.

Despite his intelligence, Japan’s stagnant economy offers few opportunities for Horikoshi when he graduates.  He joins Mitsubishi at a time when the company appears to be on its last legs. Gambling its future on military contracts, the company sends Horikoshi to Germany, hoping he can help them reverse-engineer whatever the Junkers will let them see.  Of course, he will be able to raise their game substantially.

In no way, shape, or manner does Miyazaki justify Japan’s militarist era, but he has still taken flak from both sides of the divide over Wind.  Frankly, it presents a gentle but firm critique of the Imperial war machine.  At one point, Horikoshi is even forced into hiding, designing the military’s fighter planes while he evades the government’s thought police.  Indeed, such is a common experience for the best and the brightest living under oppressive regimes.  Yet, Miyazaki is just as interested in Horikoshi’s grandly tragic romance with Naoko, a beautiful artist sadly suffering from tuberculosis.  Horikoshi makes a number of choices throughout the film, every one of which the audience can well understand.

Given its elegiac vibe, Wind makes a fitting summation film for Miyazaki.  Covering the immediate pre-war decades, it compliments and engages in a wistful dialogue with Gorō Miyazaki’s post-war coming of age tale From Up on Poppy Hill (co-written by the elder Miyazaki).  One can also see and hear echoes of master filmmakers past, such as Ozu ad Fellini, throughout the film.  Any cinema scholar surveying Miyazaki’s work will have to deal with it at length, but it still happens to be a genuinely touching film.

After watching Wind, viewers will hope the real Horikoshi was a lot like Miyazaki’s (and the same goes for Caproni). Miyazaki seriously examines the dilemmas faced by his protagonist while telling a lyrical love story.  Visually, the quality of Studio Ghibli’s animation remains undiminished, but the clean lines of Horikoshi’s planes and the blue open skies lend themselves to simpler images than some of his richly detailed classics.  Regardless, The Wind Rises is an unusually accomplished film that transcends the animation genre.  Highly recommended for all ages and interests, it screens this Saturday (9/28) and next Friday (10/4) at Alice Tully Hall (stand-by only), as part of the 2013 NYFF.

NYFF ’13: A Touch of Sin

It is hard to imagine Jia Zhangke releasing a wuxia martial arts epic. Despite the hat-tips to King Hu (who directed A Touch of Zen), it would be more accurate to describe his latest film as a meditation on violence, offering a challenging glimpse into the heart of a lawless contemporary China.  American partisans on either side of the gun control debate could find themselves squirming at its morally ambiguous portrayal of a lone shooter as well.  Of course, Jia has never displayed a compulsive need to make things easy.  Nonetheless, A Touch of Sin (trailer here) may yet prove to be one of his most accessible films when it screens as a main slate selection of the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Right from the opening sequence, viewers will know they are in a different sort of Jia Zhangke film—one with a body count.  The mystery motorcyclist will reappear later.  Instead we will follow Dahai, a disillusioned labor leader, who returns home to stir up trouble for the corrupt village party boss and the new fat cat factory owner greasing his wheels.  Instead, it is Dahai who is beaten and humiliated.  Eventually, the mockery he endures pushes Dahai to the edge.

Without question, Sin’s first arc is its most unnerving.  Much like Rafi Pitts’ criminally under-appreciated The Hunter, Sin openly invites viewers to condone or at least mitigate a shocking act of violence.  Yet, the consistently contrarian Jia further complicates our emotional response by implying some of Dahai’s rage might be tragically misplaced.  It is keenly disturbing filmmaking, perfectly served Wu Jiang’s tightly wound performance.

Jia then shifts his attention to Zhou San, the sociopathic wanderer who started the film with a bang.  He has returned Chongqing, but his family is not too sure how they feel about seeing him again.  Zhou’s story holds considerable potential, given the sense of danger that follows the drifter wherever he goes, but it is not nearly as well developed as those that immediately precede and follow it.

The presence of Zhao Tao, Jia’s longtime muse and now wife, promises and duly delivers a return to form.  Zhao’s Zheng Xiaoyu is the receptionist at a half-sleazy sauna in Hubei, carrying on a long distance affair with Zhang Youliang, a factory manager in Guangzhou.  Unfortunately, the family of the betrayed wife discovers their furtive relationship, sending goons to rough up Zheng.  It will not be the only incident of injustice she witnesses first hand.  When an abusive sauna client tries to force himself on her, she finally responds in much the same manner as Dahai.

For the concluding segment, Jia shifts to Guangdong, where a rootless migrant worker takes a series of jobs, including assembly line work in Zhang’s factory.  However, it is Xiaohui’s experiences in the local luxury hotel-brothel that will be his emotional undoing.  Luo Lanshan and Li Meng are quite engaging, developing some touching chemistry together as Xiaohui and the young working girl he courts.  However, their storyline feels rather rushed (something you would never expect in Jia’s films), hustled to its untimely conclusion before all the necessary psychological bases have been touched.

Granted, A Touch of Sin is uneven, but it is major cinematic statement, spanning class and geography.  Without question, it is Jiang Wu and Zhao Tao who administer the arsenic with their fearless, visceral performances.  In fact, with her work in Sin, one can make the case Zhao is the definitive and defining actress of our day and age.  Don’t even counter with Streep.  Unlike her Rich Little impersonations that consistently pull you out of the movie, Zhao always draws viewers into her films and characters.  She is beautiful, but chameleon like, playing parts that are emblematic of globalism (as in The World) and Chinese social alienation (a la 24 City).  Yet, she is also achingly moving in a straight forward chamber drama like Jia’s short Cry Me a River.

It is hard to miss the implications of Sin.  Jia unequivocally takes the Chinese state bureaucracy and their corporate cronies to task for their pervasive corruption.  He also casts a disapproving eye on the burgeoning sex industry.  For all its trenchant criticism, Sin is arguably somewhat encouraging—simply because Jia was able to complete it as he intended.  Given his perpetually half pregnant state as a former independent filmmaker partially and uneasily incorporated into the state system, one always wonders if he will still be allowed to make his films according to his aesthetic and ethical principles.  A Touch of Sin might be something of a stylistic departure, but it is very definitely a Jia Zhangke film, which is happy news indeed. 

Even with its odd imperfections here and there, A Touch of Sin packs a whopper of a punch.  Highly recommended for China watchers and fans of social issue cinema, Sin screens this Saturday (9/28) at Alice Tully Hall and the following Wednesday (10/2) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF, with a regular theatrical opening to follow next Friday (10/4) at the IFC Center.