NYFF ’14: Foxcatcher

The du Pont family has a rich history, including such accomplished leaders as former Gov. Pete du Pont and the original chemist-industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. John E. du Pont was definitely their black sheep. Yet, filmmaker Bennett Miller unequivocally assured those assembled for the NYFF press conference the du Ponts never tried to interfere with the film. In general, they were not exactly thrilled, but several family members were surprisingly helpful, as were most of the surviving witnesses of his downfall. Miller rewarded their trust with a brooding psychological study, resisting lurid sensationalism throughout Foxcatcher (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

Both Mark Shultz and brother, Dave, won wrestling gold medals at the 1984 Olympics. They hope to repeat in 1988, but they do not have much support. At least Dave has the encouragement of his family and a natural affinity for coaching. Mark on the other hand, is something of a lost soul. Initially, the offer to come train at du Pont’s Foxcatcher Farm estate seemed like a blessing. He would finally have the resources and structure the younger Shultz brother so obviously needed. However, the power dynamics with his patron are problematic from the get-go.

Although Du Pont styles himself a wrestling coach, he really needs someone with Dave Schultz’s expertise to drill and instruct the Foxcatcher team. Yet, unlike his impressionable brother, Dave Schultz is not over-awed by du Pont’s wealth and elitist demeanor. Eventually, this will lead to tragedy.

In many ways, Foxcatcher is a fascinating true crime story, but Miller determinedly freezes out any potential fun. Instead, he offers heavy-handed commentaries on the American patriotism and exceptionalism extolled by du Pont, contrasting them with the depressing meanness of Mark Schultz’s circumstances. In one representative scene, Schultz receives a paltry twenty dollar check from a middle school principal for addressing her disinterested student body, while a photo of Pres. Reagan beams down from the wall (after all, unionized public school administrators formed the core of the Gipper’s support, right?).

Still, that is all ironic garnish. The fundamental problem with Foxcatcher is the portrayal of Mark Schultz. In all fairness, it could well constitute a career best from Channing Tatum, who must express most of the inarticulate Schultz’s angst through body language. Clearly, the film suggests the younger Schultz is at most a half-formed personality, who has considerable difficulty navigating life away from the wrestling mat. The audience sees du Pont identify and exploit his under-developed psyche, yet it never acknowledges the host of attendant issues that would logically follow for Schultz, even before he arrives at the estate.

Nevertheless, there is something genuinely touching about Channing’s hulking vulnerability. Likewise, Mark Ruffalo is terrific as the ever-protective big brother, somehow keeping him just on the believable side of saintliness. On the other hand, even though Steve Carrell is receiving mucho Oscar buzz for his turn as du Pont, it is surprisingly schticky work, largely consisting of him literally looking down his prosthetic nose at people. It is really the amalgamation of visual symbolism rather than a performance.

It has been a rough stretch for Team USA grapplers, considering wrestling was dropped as a “core sport” from the 2020 games (just barely making it back in through the backdoor as an elective) and now having the dirty linen of their greatest benefactor aired in public. It will find plenty of champions for its class conscious polemical excesses, but it never gets a consistent handle on just who Mark Schultz was and is. Too long and too over-stuffed with a sense of its own self-importance, Foxcatcher is not recommended when it screens again this afternoon (10/11) at Alice Tully Hall, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Hiroshima Mon Amour

In the late 1950s, Japan was still digging out from the devastation of WWII, while France was struggling with the lingering guilt and shame of the German occupation. A man and a woman representing their respective national psyches will come together in one of the greatest cinematic one night stands to ever carryover into the next morning. “He” and “She” (or rather “Lui” and “Elle”) find brief solace in each other’s arms during Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour (trailer here), which screens tomorrow as a revival selection of the 52^nd New York Film Festival, in advance of its theatrical re-release next Friday.

She is a French actress who has been shooting a so-called peace film in Hiroshima. He is a Japanese architect, whose wife is usually out of town for extended periods of time. They are both attracted and lonely, on a deeply profound level, so things take their course. However, matters get rather complicated during the afterglow of passion. Despite his apparent contempt for her peacenikery, He has a hard time letting go. She is more inclined to make a clean break, yet she is clearly conflicted. They are both haunted by the past, but her ghosts are especially thorny, rooted in the morally ambiguous era of the National Socialist occupation.

HMA was largely shot in Japan, but it is one of the truly defining films of the French Nouvelle Vague. The long opening sequence plays out like an avant-garde documentary, contrasting newsreel-like images of Hiroshima survivors and the memorial museum with the refrains of an apparent lovers’ quarrel, albeit a rather politicized one: “You saw nothing in Hiroshima, nothing. I saw everything in Hiroshima, everything.”

Eventually, Resnais shows the lovers intertwined, generating eroticism, while also evoking the images and textures of the tragically fused bodies of the Hiroshima atomic blast area or Pompeii. Over fifty years later, HMA is still aesthetically bold, yet somehow Resnais’s radical stylistic shifts are never jarring, rather feeling like they are part of a cohesive whole. It also has a powerful sense of place. By the time it ends, viewers will feel they know Her severely appointed modernist hotel better than their own apartments.

As the lovers rouse themselves, HMA almost segues into film noir, following their impossible courtship through a series of late night bars and deserted streets. It all looks eerily beautiful thanks to Michio Takahashi’s arresting black-and-white cinematography. Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada also look like they were chiseled out of Roman statuary marble expressly for this film. They develop some scorching hot chemistry, but also dramatically convey the persistent pain they continue to bear inside. Indeed, HMA is a brutally realistic depiction of the push-me-pull-me dynamic. He and She are trying to use each other to forget, but they perversely spur each other to remember with uncomfortable clarity.

Arguably, you could not make HMA as is, in this day and age. Even though Hiroshima is still acceptable fodder for an anti-nuclear message, the concerted efforts to woe the gatekeepers responsible for Chinese film import quotas would probably demand equal time for Japanese atrocities in Nanjing. Honestly, there are only so many guilt trips one can take in a single film. Fortunately, there are many ways to relate to HMA beyond its anti-nuclear raison d’être. In fact, it is one of the great ships-passing-in-the-night films of all time. Highly recommended for patrons of French and Japanese cinema, the newly restored Hiroshima Mon Amour screens tomorrow (10/10) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYFF, with a proper theatrical release to commence next Friday (10/17) at Film Forum downtown and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center uptown.

NYFF ’14: The King and the Mockingbird

It is loosely based Hans Christian Andersen’s The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, but it includes elements of dystopia and steampunk long before they were cool. When production began in 1948, it was supposed to be France’s first animated feature (and it sort of was), yet it would take three decades for it to be completed to its creators’ satisfaction. You might think you have seen it, but if you have only seen the unfinished cut released by the producer under the title The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird, you really haven’t seen Paul Grimault’s complete and restored The King and the Mockingbird (trailer here), which had a special screening at the 52^nd New York Film Festival, in advance of its premiere American release this November.

In the kingdom of Takicardia, it is good to be the king, at least until the tyrannical Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI is deposed by his own portrait come to life. However, the monarch is so unpopular and self-absorbed, nobody notices the change. He is not the only painting at large in the towering palace. The Shepherdess and her true love, the Chimney Sweep, have escaped the walls of the King’s private quarters to escape her forced marriage to the King’s portrait. They will find a resourceful ally in the Mockingbird, who rather resents the King’s attempts to hunt his young hatchlings. Fortunately, Charles V etc is a blasted poor shot.

Written by Grimault and celebrated poet-screenwriter Jacques Prévert, Mockingbird is a kitchen sink movie that includes disparate elements, such as the Metropolis-like castle, with the King perched up top and the proles buried down below. There is also a trenchant commentary on personality cults, most vividly realized in the steampunky factory, a veritable mass of gears, cranking out busts of the despised king. Grimault even delivers a kaiju fix when the King’s portrait unveils his secret weapon: a giant killer robot.

Yet, most importantly, Mockingbird is great fun, featuring a sly sense of humor and a gentle pure-hearted sensibility. There are some pretty profound stakes in the film, but it is never too intense for young tykes. In fact, the Mockingbird is a wonderfully reassuring father-figure, in addition to being an anarchic rebel.

Grimault’s animation is also pure joy to drink in. He inks some striking visuals, especially the action sequences set on precarious ledges around the castle exterior. However, there is an elegant simplicity to his hand drawn figures that is refreshingly nostalgic. While viewers can occasionally see the seams where the work from various years has been married together, the restoration gives it all a nice, clean spit polish.

Grimault’s definitive Mockingbird represents quite a tenacious victory for artistic integrity and creative control. Decades after it was completed for the final time, it still feels oddly contemporary, while evoking the joys of old school animation. Enthusiastically recommended for all ages, the complete and restored The King and the Mockingbird returns to the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center on November 21^st, following its special screening at this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Life of Riley

George Riley is dying, but don’t worry, you will not get too attached to the old playboy. In fact, the title character never appears in Alan Ayckbourn’s play, but we hear plenty about him from his friends. It is exactly the sort of sly theatrical device that would appeal to the late great Alain Resnais. For his final film Resnais went back to the Ayckbourn well a third time, adapting Life of Riley (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Colin and Kathryn are rehearsing for their roles the latest production of their amateur theatrical company (Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking, naturally enough), but he is clearly preoccupied. Kathryn quickly extracts the truth from her doctor husband: their beloved friend Riley has less than a year to live. In violation of his professional ethics, the couple discusses his condition with their mutual friends, Jack and Tamara, deciding the play is the thing to keep Riley’s spirits up.

They also resolve to broker some sort of rapprochement with his estranged wife Monica, who has taken up with Simeon, a considerably older gentleman farmer. Despite their history together, Monica is not sure she can handle a reunion with George. Yet, she suddenly agrees to comfort her not quite ex-husband in his final hours, when it becomes clear Kathryn and Tamara might harbor eleventh hour romantic interests in Ayckbourn’s absent character.

Indeed, it all sounds like the stuff of midsummer French farce—and French it is indeed, even though Resnais retains the English trappings and Yorkshire country setting. He emphasizes the theatricality of it all with conspicuous fabric backdrops that look deliberately stagey, but give the film a rich, warm vibe thanks to the bold saturated colors. The cast of Resnais regulars hold up quite well in this slightly surreal environment, embracing their characters’ broad bourgeoisie anxieties. While everyone projects to the back row, so to speak, Sandrine Kiberlain and Hippolyte Girardot still manage to really connect on an emotional level, as Monica and Colin, respectively.

Of course, verisimilitude was never an obsessive preoccupation for Resnais, who throws it completely out the window in Life of Riley. Instead, he offers us the elegant illustrated transitions sketched by French cartoonist Blutch and X-Files composer Mark Snow’s uncharacteristically nostalgic soundtrack. There is even an apparent tip of the hat to Caddyshack (in did-I-just-see-that moments nearly as random as Wild Grass’s closing scene). In short, Resnais was not long for the world, but he was still having fun.

Indeed, that is the key to understanding Riley. On paper, the masterful You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet would seem to be the perfect career capstone, given its elegiac tone and its pseudo-resurrection made possible through the power of art. However, like George Riley, Resnais went out on his terms, having one last romp, damning the expectations of others. The result may not be a great film, like the late career masterwork YASNY, but it is a good film, which is always a welcome thing.

Even if Life of Riley is not Resnais’s greatest film, it might be perfectly representative of the auteur’s motifs and strategies. Regardless, it is appealingly wry and sophisticated. Recommended for fans of Resnais and Ayckbourn, Life of Riley screens this Friday (10/10) at the Walter Reade and Saturday (10/11) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Clouds of Sils Maria

Taking stock of German filmmaker Arnold Fanck is a rather complicated business, considering he was a close associate of Leni Riefenstahl. Still, he remains one of the most accomplished mountaineering filmmakers of the silent era, so it is not outrageous when his documentary short Cloud Phenomenon of Maloja assumes a prominent place in Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Marria (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Fanck’s silent film never ceased to fascinate the soon-to-be-late Fassbinder-ish Wilhelm Melchior, who titled his most famous play The Maloja Snake in reference to the serpentine cloud formation it documents. Maria Enders’ career ignited when she appeared in the film version, also directed by Melchoir, playing a ruthlessly manipulative young woman engaged in a lesbian relationship-slash-power struggle with an older, more sophisticated woman. Although many years have passed, she is reluctant to accept the more mature and tragic role, for a variety of reasons rooted in insecurity and superstition (the actress who starred opposite her died shortly thereafter). However, her personal assistant Val thinks it is a fine idea, because of her respect for the innovative director, Klaus Diesterweg, and her prospective co-star, the Lindsay Lohan-esque Jo-Ann Ellis.

Val and Diesterweg apparently prevail, but Enders constantly threatens to pull out of the production. She is profoundly uncomfortable with the different meanings she finds in the text after her reversal of roles. In fact, it seems to speak directly to her relationship with Val, especially when they rehearse her lines. The tabloid circus following Ellis also spooks the extremely guarded Enders.

If the Weinsteins had picked up Clouds, Juliette Binoche would have been an instant Oscar frontrunner. It is a performance of strange and understated power, befitting the character clearly modeled to some extent on herself. The implied self-referential nature of the film thereby makes her scenes with Kristen Stewart’s Val feel even bolder and revealing.

Unlike the clumsy play-that-becomes-real in Polanski’s wildly over-praised Venus in Fur, Assayas stages the uncomfortably charged rehearsal sequences with such subtle ambiguity, we often lose our narrative bearings within the film, despite being on guard against that very contingency. Of course, everyone has known Binoche is one of the best in the business for some time, but the degree to Stewart matches her intensity is almost revelatory. It is an especially bold performance for her, given the added meta-dimensions, such as Ellis’s affair with a married writer that echoes certain media feeding frenzies Stewart would probably like to forget.

While the film works best as a two-hander, Hanns Zischler is devilishly effective as the older actor with whom Enders once had an ill-advised affair, whereas Chloe Grace Moretz looks the part, but never really adds to our understanding of a hot mess like Ellis. Arguably, the third act is somewhat flat compared to the action that came before, in large measure due to Val’s deliberately mysterious exit. Yet, it is still fascinating to see Binoche’s Enders navigate the world of international celebrity they both know so well. While all signs seem to indicate her time in the spotlight is coming to a close, the Ellises of the world might just be playing Enders’ game after all.

Even with its late pacing issues, Sils Maria is a quite a wry valentine to actresses and the personal assistants who put up with their diva-ness. It is unusual when a film this smart is also so forgiving of human weaknesses. Helmed with considerable sensitivity, it also represents a return to form for Assayas after the messy and somewhat didactic Something in the Air. Recommended for fans of Binoche, Assayas, and Stewart (which really ought to cover just about everyone), Clouds of Sils Maria screens this Wednesday (10/8) and Thursday (10/9) at Alice Tully Hall, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Inherent Vice

Without question, the Thomas Pynchon character that most persistently arouses reader fascination is Pynchon himself. Already, we are seeing reports Pynchon makes a brief cameo appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of his 2009 mystery novel (for lack of a more precise term) and attended the New York Film Festival’s press screening. Of course, it is dashed difficult to verify any of that, since nobody knows what he looks like. Regardless, Anderson’s Inherent Vice (trailer here) is guaranteed to be obsessively analyzed and debated after it screened as the Centerpiece of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

A woman furtively walks into stoner-detective Larry “Doc” Sportello’s beachfront crash-pad, but this is no lady. She is Shasta Fay Hepworth, the ex-girlfriend he still carries a torch for. She has need of his professional services, but would rather their meeting look like an assignation. Currently the kept woman of real estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann, Hepworth has been approached by his wife Sloane to co-conspire in a plan to have said sugar daddy committed. Soon thereafter, Sportello is serendipitously hired by Black Panther Tariq Khalil to collect a debt owed by Aryan Brother Glen Harlock, who now works as Wolfmann’s bodyguard.

Unfortunately, things really get complicated when Sportello is waylaid in brothel, waking up next to Harlock’s dead body and surrounded by a circle of cops, most inconveniently including his old nemesis Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen. Yes, Inherent is a film that prompts run-on sentences. It also has more name characters than Gone with the Wind and Berlin Alexanderplatz combined, nearly all of whom have back-stories. As Sportello works his vaguely defined case, he crosses paths with a missing musician forced to be a federal informer, his presumptive widow, a maritime attorney, a sex worker, the sexpot daughter of a former client, a lethal loan shark, a shady rehab clinic, multiple G-Men, and the drug-addled Dr. Rudy Blatnoid, DDS, played by the scene-stealing Martin Short.

If you can make heads or tails of the plot, you are doing better than Anderson, but he certainly captures the story’s inherent Pynchon-ness. You have the liberal supply of nicknames, the obsessive telling of tales, and the ever deepening but never illuminated mythology (but Pig Bodine is M.I.A.). Anderson also has a strong sense of the 1970s vibe and attitude, marking something of a return to his Boogie Nights roots. In fact, Vice comes across as so of the era, it ironically feels dated. The frequent but clumsy swipes at Pres. Nixon, Gov. Reagan, COINTELPRO, and Dirty Harry-style policing seem rather quaint and nostalgic now that we have the NSA rifling through our email and social networks.

Inherent certainly works to an extent, but it represents a triumph of form over substance. Anderson constantly proves just how much he gets Pynchon, channeling his breakneck anarchy. Although Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu is a vastly superior work, they are alike in that every scene of each film has its own unique significance. In the case of Inherent, sequence after sequence further deepens the mythology and features their discrete mini-arcs.

Unfortunately, the major principals are hard to fully embrace. Doc Sportello was clearly formulated for maximum likability, but the undeniably gifted Joaquin Phoenix often looks like he is uncomfortably laboring to let his freak flag fly. Instead, he makes a broody Lebowski. Frankly, Josh Brolin is even shtickier as Bjornsen, recycling all the worst elements of his turns in Men in Black III, W., and Gangster Squad. Fortunately, there is a rich feast of colorful supporting performances to keep things lively, including memorable contributions from Short, Jena Malone, Owen Wilson, Eric Roberts, Hong Chau, Bernicio Del Toro, and Serena Scott Thomas.

Considering how much works in Inherent, it is frustrating that the parts do snap together into a more satisfying whole. The period details crafted by the production design team are spot on and cinematographer Robert Elswit bathes it all in a noir Chinatown glow. At times, Thomas’s approach is inspired, particularly his narration, but key on-screen personnel do not always best serve the film’s interests. Recommended for Pynchon fans and those who appreciate self-consciously intricate noirs, Inherent Vice opens December 12^th, following its premiere as the Centerpiece of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Queen and Country

In 1952, the commanding Winston Churchill was back in 10 Downing Street and war once again entangled the Allies, this time in Korea. He may not have understood it at the time, but the Korean War was a positive development for John Boorman, because it eventually provided the inspiration for his follow-up to the Oscar nominated Hope and Glory. Nine years later, Bill Rohan commences his compulsory military service in Boorman’s Queen and Country (trailer here), which screens as a special Film Comment presentation at the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Nine year old Rohan would never say the National Socialists never did anything for him, after an errant bomb destroys his school in the end of Hope and Glory. Q&C picks up at that point, rapidly fast-forwarding to his service years. British troops are shipping out to Korea, but through a twist of fate, Rohan and his volatile mate Percy Hapgood are assigned to clerical duties on the base.

While this posting suits Rohan far better than the Korean Peninsula, he still has to contend with Sergeant Major Bradley, a by-the-book stickler, who is constantly bringing Rohan and Hapgood up before the increasingly weary Major Cross on minor rules violations. While Hapgood and the scrounging Private Redmond plot against the Sergeant Major, Rohan pursues an aristocratic beauty in town, whom he will call Ophelia until she corrects him. Scandals and controversies will erupt on the base as England prepares for the coronation of a new monarch, signifying the beginning of a new era.

While Q&C is rather episodically structurally, Boorman really ties it all together in the closing scenes. Clearly, the film is suffused with unabashed nostalgia, but there are also moments of grace and beauty. It is the sequel nobody was expecting, but it leaves us anticipating a third installment of the Rohan chronicles.

While we did not realize it when Hope and Glory was nominated for five Oscars, Rohan may now be aptly compared to Neil Simon’s Eugene Jerome. Just as Hope and Brighton Beach Memoirs cover their surrogates’ formative years, Q&C and Biloxi Blues follow their military stints. Of course, Jerome finds success as comedy writer in Broadway Bound, whereas Rohan’s fascination with the Shepperton film studio not far from his family’s new home seems to foreshadow much.

Unlike the genial wise-cracking Jerome, Rohan is undeniably the blandest figure in Q&C, but that is understandable. We always see ourselves as dullest person in our own stories. We are the workaday pluggers and everyone else must be the cut-ups and cads. So it is with Boorman and Rohan, played serviceably by Callum Turner. In contrast, a nearly unrecognizable David Thewlis delivers a truly year’s best, Oscar worthy performance as the tightly wound Sergeant Major. Although he bears the brunt of most of the film’s comedic jibes, he also is its most potent source of pathos.

Frankly, Q&C is blessed with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to its supporting cast. Richard E. Grant is a delight as Major Cross, doing his usual sly, sophisticated thing, except even more so. Caleb Landry Jones’ Hapgood serves as a suitably destabilizing wild card, while Vanessa Kirby projects the allure and world weariness one could only expect from a young woman who had lived through the emotional travails of war.

Yes, Q&C is old fashioned, but it is wholly satisfying. It is a lovingly crafted period production that perfectly recreates the still distressed look of post-war Britain. It is also a pleasure to watch the accomplished ensemble bring their humanly flawed characters to life. Enthusiastically recommended, Queen and Country screens this Tuesday (10/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Mr. Turner

Some of J.M.W. Turner’s most famous subjects include Hannibal traversing the Alps and a study of sea-monsters (or perhaps just fish, as the Tate prosaically insists), but he is best known for the maritime scenes that are now considered an early bridge to Impressionism. He was widely celebrated in his own lifetime, yet popular and critical opinion varied considerably, especially in his twilight years. Mike Leigh and his frequent ensemble player Timothy Spall lovingly paint a portrait of the artist’s irascibility in Mr. Turner (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

By the late 1820s, Turner was a recognized master, who could get away with considerable eccentricities during the Royal Academy of Arts’ annual exhibitions. Despite a brief affair yielding two illegitimate daughters he had no use for, Turner was not much of a ladies’ man. He lived a bachelor life with his doting father, up until the senior Turner’s death, occasionally exploiting the unrequited affections of their housekeeper, Hannah Danby, the niece of his former mistress.

However, a halting romantic relationship slowly develops between Turner and Mrs. Booth, the twice widowed proprietress of a lodging-house in Margate, the coastal village that inspired many of Turner’s paintings. They find some late-life happiness secretly cohabitating, even while Turner struggles with his declining health and the sleights of the jealous establishment and fickle public.

Structurally, Mr. Turner initially seems rather episodic, skipping somewhat haphazardly down the last two decades of Turner’s life, but a bigger picture slowly slides into place. Granted, there is still a lot of character development coloring in the one hundred forty-nine minute running time, but those are usually the best parts.

J.M.W. Turner might well be the role Spall is forever linked to, like Sir Ben Kingsley and Gandhi. It is a virtuoso performance, but it is also great fun, especially when Turner slyly hams it up at Academy gatherings. Inevitably, someone will edit together a master-cut of all his grunts and guttural noises, which are rather eloquent within the film’s dramatic context.

Marion Bailey also takes an exquisitely sensitive and dignified turn as Mrs. Booth and Dorothy Atkinson piles on the pathos as poor cast-aside Hanna Danby, but after the contributions of Spall and Leigh, it is the work of cinematographer Dick Pope that most defines Mr. Turner. At times, the characters walk through landscapes that shimmer like Turner canvases, bringing to mind Lech Majewski’s The Mill & the Cross.

Obviously, Mr. Turner is more closely akin to Leigh’s Gilbert & Sullivan bio-pic Topsy-Turvy than his stridently class conscious films. There is even a pronounced strain of elitism to be teased out of Turner’s story, yet it is consistently forgiving of human foibles. It rather logically follows Mr. Turner is also one of his most inviting and accessible films. A strong Oscar contender for Spall (and probably for Pope too), Mr. Turner is recommended for patrons of fine art and British cinema when it screens again this afternoon (10/4) at Alice Tully Hall as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Red Army

Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov remains one of the most celebrated players in the history of Russian hockey, but he was also the closest thing to a Curt Flood among Soviet hockey players. With his best friends, he made up a legendary five man line, but his place in the thorny legacy of Soviet is particularly complicated. Logically, Fetisov serves as the focal point when Gabe Polsky chronicles the Soviet hockey machine’s history in Red Army (trailer here), which screens during the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

When Stalin identified sports as key propaganda tool in the coming Cold War with the free world, Anatoli Tarasov was tapped to build the Soviet hockey system. In just a few short years, the Red Army team dominated international competitions. Beloved by his players, most definitely including Fetisov, Tarasov would have been a hard act for any coach to follow, but the Politburo-connected Viktor Tikhonov would command little respect and no affection from his teams.

Frankly, it is rather odd watching a hockey doc in which the “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid is treated by most participants as an inconvenient speed bump to get over. It was Fetisov and Tikhonov’s first crack at Olympic glory, but Herb Brooks and squad of college players had a different plan (if you really don’t know what happened in that semi-final, watch the final minute here). Unfortunately, the embarrassment of their Olympic defeat gave Tikhonov an opportunity to purge the coaching staff and institute a ridiculously stringent training regimen.

With Putin prosecuting his military campaign against Ukraine, it definitely feels like an inopportune time for Soviet nostalgia, especially considering Polsky’s own Ukrainian heritage. However, Polsky presents a somewhat balanced portrait of the era, addressing the systemic scarcity and control over the individual that defined life in the USSR. In many ways, Tikhonov the martinet becomes the personification of the Soviet system, as well as the story’s unambiguous villain.

Clearly, there is no love lost between the former national coach (who declined to participate in the film) and Fetisov. With fair justification, Fetisov blames Tikhonov for blocking his attempts to accept the lucrative offers from American professional team. Essentially, he waged a battle in the Glasnost-thawed press to allow a sort of free agency among Soviet players, but unlike Flood, he would eventually reap the benefits of his efforts.

Still, Polsky seems to have hipster fascination with Soviet iconography and a pronounced timidity with respects to the human rights violations that were being committed by the Soviets and their proxies during the period in question, most notably the imposition of martial law in Poland. Nevertheless, the film raises a number of issues that merit further exploration, starting with the treatment of the players themselves, who really got a raw deal compared to the life of privilege afforded to East Germany’s Katarina Witt.

Although they were athletes, the hockey team really served as propaganda pawns. As a result, there are clearly still a lot of mixed feelings about their glory years, including pride in their accomplishments and resentment of Tikhonov and the high level Party members who enabled him. It is not a perfect film but it peals back the curtain far enough to give viewers an intriguing peak into the Soviet sports program. It is all briskly watchable thanks to the era-evocative graphics and the whiz-bang editing of Eli Despres and Kurt Engfehr. Recommended for experienced amateur Kremlinologists, Red Army screens today (10/4) at the Walter Reade and tomorrow (10/5) at the Gilman, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: The Iron Ministry

Anyone who still held to the illusion the People’s Republic of China was a classless society will stand corrected by the extreme economic stratification of the nation's rail travel. There is a very definite class hierarchy and the respective accommodations vary accordingly. The train is kind of-sort of a metaphor, but it is also a rather cinematic setting for J.P. Sniadecki’s observational documentary The Iron Ministry (clip here), which screens during the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

In many ways, Ministry functions as a perfect companion film to Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home, but it is not nearly as depressing. Granted, there are literal throngs of people crammed into the lowest class compartments, many of whom are likely facing some pretty grim circumstances. The conductors also uniformly seem to be officious jerks. However, there is a whole lot of life going on throughout the trains Sniadecki filmed.

In fact, some of the most fun seems to be going on where the lower middle class meets the upper rabble. For a fly-on-the-wall ethnographic film, Iron is surprisingly funny, especially the devilish kid cracking morbid jokes about the government’s population control policies. If he is the future, the Party is in trouble.

Frankly, it is hard to say whether the film inspires optimism or not. In one scene, an informal group of passengers start to criticize the corruption and control of the Communist government only to somewhat walk it back shortly later and then creep it forward a little. At least, Sniadecki captures a sense of the country’s cultural and religious diversity, broadening viewers’ perspective in small but telling ways.

Filmed on a fleet of trains over a three year period, Iron is an immersive sensory experience, but in this case that is not code for dull and depressing. It is a rather sly film that earns kudos for its correct Queen’s English usage of the word “inflammable” in the subtitles. The Mandarin speaking Sniadecki also deserves credit for getting bounced out of the upper class carriages. Livelier than you would expect, The Iron Ministry is recommended for anyone who wants to experience a slightly claustrophobic transcontinental Chinese rail journey from the comfort of the Upper Westside when it screens this Sunday (10/5) at the Gilman, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Letters to Max

It is a would-be separatist state, born out of ethnic cleansing. At least, that is OSCE’s judgment and the UN somewhat mutedly concurs. Tellingly, only human rights-challenged Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua as well as foreign aid-seeking Nauru officially recognize the Georgian breakaway territory. Yet, somehow Parisian-based American expat filmmaker Eric Baudelaire struck up a correspondence with former Abkhazian foreign minister Maxim Gvinjia, using their exchanges as the structure of his docu-essay Letters to Max (trailer here), which screens as a Projections selection at the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Frankly, Abkhazia does not even meet the dubious separatist standard asserted by the majority Russians in Ukrainian Crimea. Before the 1992-1993 separatist war, Abkhazia’s population was roughly fifty percent ethnic Georgian and only one quarter ethnic Abkhazian. Of course, that would change drastically. Eventually, Baudelaire will ask Gvinjia tough questions about the expulsion of Georgians, but he starts with a full hour of softballs.

It is clear why Gvinjia was relatively successful in politics. He is a natural story teller, blessed with a reassuring voice. According to the film’s meta-conceit, Baudelaire sent Gvinjia a letter, just to see whether it would reach him. In turn, Gvinjia responded with the first of the audio tapes heard throughout the film, which Baudelaire later married up with appropriate travelogue video of Abkhazia.

We hear a bit about Gvinjia’s war experiences and his nostalgia for the old Soviet Union, somewhat more about his family life, and revisit the watershed day Russia formally announced their recognition of Abkhazia. He also recounts the first official Abkhazian state visit to Nicaragua and Venezuela. Honestly, it is nice to know, as late as 2008, there was still a bureaucrat in the State Department with enough gumption to freeze Abkhazia’s funds in the U.S. after they spent a daylong stopover in Cuba.

In all fairness, Baudelaire deserves credit for seriously raising human rights issues in the last fifteen minutes. He does not merely ask a one-off question about the forced expulsion of Georgians just so he can say he did it. He has real follow-ups as well. He even challenges the appropriateness of the lack of Georgian voices counterbalancing Gvinjia, but he picks the darnedest time to raise doubts about his fundamental concept. Arguably, these exchanges should have come up front, to provide context for everything that would follow. Even so, Baudelaire never really delves into graphic reports of ethnic cleansing massacres.

All this probably makes Letters sound far more provocative and extreme than it really is. It shares no kinship with Triumph of the Will. However, it certainly offers a dubious political entity an opportunity to try to score propaganda points. Highly problematic, Letters to Max is not recommended when it screens this Saturday (10/4) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Timbuktu

They are the new racist imperialists. When Islamist jihadists overran large swaths of Mali, they ravaged the centuries old World Cultural Heritage sites and imposed a rigid yet arbitrary form of Sharia Law on the hitherto tolerant Muslim population. The enormity of the resulting occupation is captured on a personal, gut level in director-co-writer Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu (trailer here), Mauritania’s first official foreign language Academy submission, which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Despite the efforts of the local Imam, a man of good conscience, the occupying jihadists enforce a severe brand of Islamic law. Music is prohibited, women’s dress must be modest, and young girls are to be awarded to faithful enforcers, as if they are simply another kind of plunder. Unfortunately, Sharia Law is quite a handy tool for those bearing a grudge, like the widow of the fisherman Kidane accidentally killed in an argument. Despite their increasing sympathy for the dedicated husband and father, the ruling council will impose the unyieldingly harsh judgment their religious ideology dictates.

Sadly, it is not just Kidane who will suffer the Islamists’ wrath. Many residents who always considered themselves good Muslims will face torturous sentences. Yet, despite the outrages it vividly dramatizes, Timbuktu is an eerily quiet film. In a sublimely beautiful, tragically brief episode, a group of young Malians join together for a moment of musical respite. It ends heartbreakingly badly, in a scene reminiscent of The Stoning of Soraya M.

Not only should Timbuktu be a contender for the foreign language Oscar (given Sissako’s considerable international reputation), it also deserves a look for Sofian El Fani’s unsettlingly gorgeous cinematography. Frankly, Ibrahim Ahmed also deserves to be in contention for his deeply humane, unflaggingly intense portrayal of Kidane, but that is probably pushing it.

In many respects, Timbuktu is a true work of art, but it is also timely cinematic journalism, exposing the Islamist crimes against man and culture that were woefully under-reported in the western press. Sissako dramatically captures the intolerance and arrogance that led to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by their like-minded brethren. In all honesty, you almost need to watch Timbuktu twice, because the first viewing is so overpowering. Fortuitously, Cohen Media Group will be releasing Timbuktu in the near future, following its screenings tonight (10/1) at Alice Tully Hall and tomorrow (10/2) at the Gillman, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Li’l Quinquin

It’s not Broadchurch and it’s certainly not Gracepoint, thank heavens. Murder will plague a provincial northern seaside village and deep secrets will be revealed, but everyone largely takes it in stride. This is especially true of the young troublemaking protagonist of Bruno Dumont’s Li’l Quinquin (trailer here), a four part French miniseries that screens in its entirety as a special presentation at the 52nd NewYork Film Festival.

The small but forceful Li’l Quinquin is more Napoleon than Huck Finn, but he is sweet and gentle with his girl friend Eve. She certainly appreciates the attention, because most of the town is focused on her teenaged sister’s audition concert for a French reality show. At least that was the big story around town, until a dead cow was improbably found in a remote WWII bunker. It happened to be a mad cow, with people parts inside it. That person was Madame LeBleu, the wife of a well to do farmer, who was having an affair with Bhiri, a kosher butcher for the local Muslim immigrant community. He too soon turns up dead, under similar circumstances, but he will not be the last to meet a premature end.

Captain Van Der Weyden will investigate the crime as best he can, but it is hard to imagine a flatfoot who inspires less confidence. A twitchy, socially dysfunctional bumbler prone to Tourrete-like squawking, Van Der Weyden is out of his depth, but he never passes up a chance for an annoying Colombo-like confrontation. Naturally, Li’l Quinquin rubs him the wrong way—and the feeling is mutual.

Anyone who has seen Dumont’s last four or five films would not have thought comedy was part of the severe auteur’s skill set, but he uncorks a genuine surprise with Li’l Quinquin. Of course, by comedy, we mean humor that is very dark and very dry (isn’t that the best kind?), punctuated by moments of almost slapstick absurdity. Yet, it still bears hallmarks of Dumont’s signature style, such as the lonely windswept vistas, the striking long takes, and the unsettling feeling that evil exists and its proximity is uncomfortably close.

As the title character, Alane Delhaye is hilarious, scary as heck, and more than half credible as a leading man. He is unusually expressive—you might even say his expressions are bizarre, but he commands the screen. Frankly, the film/mini-series would have been a train-wreck without him. However, Bernard Pruvost is almost just as weirdly effective as Van Der Weyden, a veritable bundle of tics and inappropriate comments, whose face appears to be about ninety percent eyebrows.

Despite its length (a mere two hundred minutes), Li’l Quinquin is Dumont’s most accessible work, by a country mile. The vibe roughly feels like he remade Hors Satan (his best recent prior film) with the Little Rascals. While some heavy-handed statement making regarding the town’s racist attitudes towards their unassimilated immigrant population adds a bit of unnecessary clunkiness, Dumont’s idiosyncratic humor still makes the considerable running pass quite swiftly. Highly recommended for fans of slightly surreal mysteries in the Twin Peaks tradition, Li’l Quinquin screens tomorrow (10/2) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Sauerbruch Hutton Architects

Architecture is a funny business. Often commissions are determined through open competitions, judged by bureaucrats, politicians, and philistines. Nevertheless, the architectural partnership of Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton has had remarkable success building high profile sustainable, post-postmodern structures. For three months, the late Harun Farocki documented their work in Sauerbruch Hutton Architects (trailer here), which screens as a Projections selection at the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Farocki had certain ground rules, such as no editing out of actual chronological sequence and absolutely positively no talking head interviews. The office simply goes about their business as usual. One thing that will immediately strike viewers is the genuine collaborative nature of the work. Both name-on-the-door architects are open to a lot of bouncing ideas around and challenging viewpoints. A winning competition entry might not be the work of Sauerbruch or Hutton alone, but the fruits of the entire office’s labor. Promising associates even get their own assignments, like the designer dauntingly tasked with reinventing the folding chair.

Farocki also shows us the audience the joys of up-managing clients, particularly local governmental bodies. When a key decision-maker suddenly balks at the settled color scheme for a new university building in Potsdam, Hutton looks ready to strangle her on the spot, but she maintains her composure and negotiates a livable compromise.

Clearly fitting Farocki’s “Direct Cinema” rubric, SHA is definitely fly-on-the-wall observational cinema. Given its aesthetic kinship to Frederick Wiseman’s work, it seems rather arbitrary the Titicut Follies documentarian’s latest three hour study is included in NYFF’s Documentary Spotlight, but Farocki’s manageable seventy-three minute SHA is relegated to the vaguely avant-garde Projections section, but as a Marxist like Farocki must know, life is not fair.

For architectural nerds, the must see film of the fest is Eugène Green’s La Sapienza. While Green’s film is like a master class with reincarnated Baroque architect, Farocki’s doc is more of an office internship largely centered around the copy machine. Still, there are telling things to observe if one is receptive. Recommended for ardent admirers of Sauerbruch Hutton and Farocki, Sauerbruch Hutton Architects screens this Saturday (10/4) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Pasolini

In 1926, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s father foiled an attempt to assassinate Benito Mussolini. Unfortunately, there would be nobody to intercede when Pasolini fils was murdered, most likely by a gay hustler, but the Italian auteur’s death has almost spawned as many conspiracy theories as the Kennedy assassination. The filmmaker’s final days are now the subject of Abel Ferrara’s speculative passion play, Pasolini (trailer here), which screens during the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Ferrara’s affinity for Pasolini makes perfect sense, given the penchant they share for sexually and religiously charged subject matter. As Ferrara’s film opens, Pasolini is wrapping post-production on his Marquis de Sade opus, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. To this day, it remains one of the most controversial and difficult films ever produced by a prestige filmmaker. Of course, Pasolini was always an extreme figure, politically and aesthetically (holding the dubious distinction of having been expelled from the Italian Communist Party on moral grounds).

Ferrara builds an atmosphere of foreboding and paranoia, clearly inviting the audience to suspect anyone so uncompromising must be a danger to the powers that be. Yet, Pasolini recklessly indulges in the hedonistic lifestyle that will ultimately kill him. Ferrara intercuts his prowling about Rome’s seedy night spots with scenes from the outlandish allegory that would have been his next film: Porno-Teo-Kolossal, a sort of riff on the Biblical Three Wise Men, in which an old Holy fool’s pilgrimage takes him to Sodom’s traditional orgy, where the city’s gays and lesbians come together to procreate.

Truly, Pasolini reflects both the absolute worst and best of Ferrara’s instincts. It is talky, pretentious, and features more explicit gay sex than any non-homophobic straight cineaste ever needs to see. Yet, the operatic sweep of it all is rather overwhelming. Ferrara creates a pungent sense of 1970s Rome, simmering with crime and ideology. Dark and sleazy, it all radiates malevolence thanks to cinematography Stefano Falivene.

Frankly, Willem Dafoe, a frequent Ferrara co-conspirator, makes a downright spooky Pasolini stand-in. He is so gaunt and dissipated looking, the audience might throw him an intervention if he appears at a screening. Watching him play out Pasolini’s final days is like watching a ghost. For better or worse, it is his film and perhaps his career role, but it is also quite eerie to see Pasolini favorite Ninetto Davoli wayfaring through the “Maestro’s” unmade film.

Pasolini is bold auterist filmmaking and a quality period production. It is also rather a mess, but it should not be lightly dismissed. Despite or because of Ferrara’s myriad excesses, when you walk out of his Pasolini, you know you saw a film. Recommended for fans of Ferrara and Pasolini at their most Ferrara and Pasolini, Ferrara’s Pasolini screens this Thursday (10/2) at Alice Tully Hall and Friday (10/3) at the Gilman, as Main Slate selection of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: ’71

Thanks to Scotland’s independence referendum, Northern Ireland will probably get a taste of Devo Max. The increased autonomy would hardly have satisfied the irrationally violent “Provisional” IRA in the 1970s. One British soldier stranded in the wrong neighborhood will try to elude the faction’s death squad, but there will be other interested parties also hunting him in Yann Demange’s ’71 (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

Private Gary Hook’s unit has been hurriedly dispatched to Belfast, which is just as much a part of the UK as Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square. Yet, it is most definitely dangerous duty. On his first waking day in Northern Ireland, Hook finds himself facing down a mob. Trying to build trust, the relatively green Lieutenant sent them out in berets rather than flak helmets. In retrospect, this was a mistake. As the chaos spirals out of control, Hook and his mate Thompson are separated from the unit. Thompson takes a bullet to the head from a Provisional assassin, but Hook is able to elude the gunman and his partner.

Hook finds a temporary refuge, but he has no idea how to reach his barracks. He is surrounded by a Catholic population that would either like to kill him or is too frightened of the various IRA contingents to protect him. Nevertheless, he finds guide in the form of the rabble-rousing seven year old nephew of a high-ranking Protestant paramilitary. Unfortunately, this only leads to more trouble, when Hook narrowly survives an accidental bomb detonation that could deeply embarrass a small detachment of sinister British intelligence officers. Hook’s death would be quite convenient for them.

’71 has an overpowering sense of place, but instead of Belfast, it was shot in Liverpool, Blackburn, Sheffield, and Leeds, which does not say much for those municipalities’ urban ambiance. It looks like the entire city is a housing project (or an estate in British parlance). As night falls, Tat Radcliffe’s cinematography becomes ghostly disorienting, perfectly mirroring Hook’s increasingly confused state and powerfully reinforcing the edgy vibe.

Rising star Jack O’Connell looks ridiculously young and lost in the grim, battle-scarred world, but that is the whole point. In fact, he is quite effective as an earnest and innocent POV figure for the audience to identify with. Many of the assorted combatants rather blur together, but David Wilmot stands out as Boyle, the local old guard IRA leader. Babou Ceesay (who deserves to become a series regular after his guest spot on last season’s Lewis) is also terrific as the hard but decent Corporal. However, Corey McKinley upstages everyone as Hook’s ferocious young ally (evidently W.C. Fields was right, even in Belfast).

Despite portraying some pretty savage behavior on the part of the IRA factions and their sympathizers, Demange and screenwriter Gregory Burke go out of their way to paint the British Army in a negative light. (I’d still trust the honor and professionalism of Her Majesty’s armed forces over any other military, aside from America’s armed services.) Regardless, Demange crafts a tight, tense white knuckle night of the soul. He certainly proves he can stage a riot. Although they are radically different in many respects, the one film ’71 consistently brings to mind is Carol Reed’s absolutely classic Odd Man Out, which is a heavy statement. Recommended on balance for patrons who appreciate gritty military thrillers, ’71 screens again tonight (9/28) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’14: Last Hijack

According to the Oceans Beyond Piracy project, over 1,000 international seamen have been held hostage by Somali pirates—roughly a third of whom were tortured and 62 died from a variety of causes. Yet, it sure is more convenient to cast the pirates as victims of colonialism, globalism, capitalism, and generally mean old westernism. However, films trying to advance that narrative have been less than convincing, despite the quality of their execution. Sort of picking up where Greenglass’s Captain Phillips left off, Tommy Pallotta & Femke Wilting offer a personal and figurative defense of high seas plunder in their animated hybrid documentary Last Hijack (trailer here), which screens today as a Convergence selection of the 52nd New York FilmFestival.

Former pirate Muhamed Nura pulled off a few big hijackings and lived to talk about. Unfortunately, he did not save any of his ransom money. Facing middle age with little prospects, Nura decides to assemble a team for one last job. However, times have changed and maritime security is much tighter. Everyone is against his plan, including his stern mother and his vastly younger fiancée. Nonetheless, he has no trouble lining up crew and financial backers.

Pallotta and Wilting clearly invite sympathy for Somali pirates, trying to position them as modern Jean Valjeans, but they bizarrely chose a distinctly unsympathetic POV character. During his screen time, Nura emerges as a rather rash braggart, who seems to have little concern for the consequences of his actions. Although he is supposedly in hard fiscal straights, he has a new wife and a new fixer-upper house, which does not look like such a bad situation.

In contrast, radio talk show host and anti-piracy advocate Abdifatah Omar Gedi cuts a more interesting (and more heroic) figure. During his on-camera sequences, Gedi’s cell phone never stops ringing, constantly receiving calls from strangers trying to determine his location. Frankly, viewers will quickly conclude Pallotta and Wilting choose the wrong person to build their film around.

At least, Nura’s hijacking exploits lend themselves to the animated bird of prey interludes that incorporate Hisko Hulsing’s striking paintings. Their symbolically charged look and feel recalls the vibe of Damian Nenow’s short Paths of Hate and select moments of the original Heavy Metal. They are effective, whereas many of the straight forward doc segments are often a bit sluggish—snoozy even.

Last Hijack makes some legitimate points here and there, but like Captain Phillips, it never pursues the shadowy moneymen underwriting the hijackings. As a result, the attempts to build empathy for Nura fall flat. Drastically uneven, it offers tantalizing hints of a better, deeper film that might have resulted from different decisions at several critical junctures. Perhaps audiences will get more of what might have been at Pallotta & Wilting’s presentation of the film’s online component. Regardless, Last Hijack is largely disappointing when it screens tonight (9/28) at the Gilman Theater as a Convergence selection of this year’s NYFF, in advance of its New York opening this Friday (10/3) at the Quad Cinema.