NYFF ’15: Miles Ahead

Miles Davis was like Picasso. He had highly influential, readily identifiable periods. Each of Davis’s stylistic shifts usually heralded the birth of a new trend in jazz. However, in the late 1970s, Davis was in the midst of his “silent” period. Withdrawing from public performances and recordings, his reclusive hedonistic lifestyle further fueled fans’ obsession with the Miles Davis mystique. An aspiring music writer tries to snag the interview everyone wanted, but gets pulled head-first into the chaos of the Miles Davis experience in Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead (clip here), which premiered as the closing night selection of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

If you can’t tell it is the late 1970s from Davis’s wardrobe, you’re never going to figure it out. Earlier in the decade, Davis released some of his most commercial recordings ever with Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson (heard prominently early on), but everyone still prefers his classic stuff, like Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain. After several years away from the studio, Davis has finally cut a new session, but he refuses to relinquish the tapes. This rather irks Columbia Records, since they paid for it, but considering how much they make off his back catalog, Davis does not feel he owes them anything.

Due in part to his heavy cocaine use, as well as his self-imposed state of isolation, Davis might be losing his grip on reality. He frequently experiences visions from his earlier life, particularly his marriage to first wife Frances Taylor (that’s her on the cover of Someday My Prince Will Come). Yet, his erratic behavior will make him even more formidable when an unscrupulous agent steals the master he has been so closely guarding. Pressing would-be journalist Dave Braden into his service, Davis lights out after the ambiguously mobbed up talent manager—and Hell follows after them.

As an actor, Cheadle channels the mannerisms, voice, and most importantly the attitude of Davis so well, it is truly eerie. In contrast to the secluded years of the 1970s, Davis was true media presence in the 1980s, even appearing in an episode of Miami Vice and a commercial for Honda Scooters. We know exactly what he looked and sounded like around this time—and Cheadle nails it completely.

As a director and screenwriter, Cheadle’s choices will be more controversial, but they are mostly defensible. Everyone can probably agree the traditional short pants to long teeth bio-picture approach really does not fit a Miles Davis. Sort of like Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, Cheadle uses the flashback structure to hopscotch back and forth in order to get at the essence of the musician’s life. It works for the most part, but the central fictional narrative following madcap scramble for his mystery master tape is pretty bogus.

Frankly, it is impressive how well Cheadle and his co-screenwriters understand his music, yet it is somewhat frustrating how much they cover through cinematic shorthand. Most Miles fans well understand what a substantial role producer Teo Macero played in shaping his fusion sessions, but he only gets name-checked. Likewise, you just have to know Cannonball Addderley and John Coltrane are the saxophone players on the sextet sessions, but Davis’ relationship with Trane was one of the most significant associations of his career. Still, Cheadle earns major credit for a scene showing Davis' close collaboration with arranger Gil Evans (nicely played by Jeffrey Grover) on the Miles Ahead sessions. (To this day, many fans do not realize the extent of the uncredited work Evans did on innumerable Miles Davis albums as an unclassifiable musical fixer.)

The choice of Robert Glasper to adapt the classic Davis music to fit within the film’s dramatic framework and to compose original tribute-ish themes with Cheadle was also inspired. Not only is Glasper comfortable with modal, fusionistic, and bop-based forms of jazz, he also has an ear open to contemporary forms of music. He is precisely the sort of musician Davis would be working with today if he were still with us.

Cheadle’s work as Davis is genuinely award-caliber and Emayatzy Corinealdi gives a strong, forceful performance as Taylor (one wonders what Cicely Tyson will make of the film, but you can’t please everyone). However, Ewan McGregor is basically dead weight as Braden, while Michael Stulhbarg makes an embarrassingly lame villain as the exploitative agent (is there any other kind?).

Regardless, Cheadle’s go-for-broke ethos is definitely cool and he shows unerring good judgment with respects to music placement. You will get the essence of Davis from the film, which is saying something. It might take fans a bit of time to chew on what is and is not incorporated into the film (no Charlie Parker, but the scandalous police assault outside the Vanguard is dramatized, with surprising restraint), but it is worth wrestling with. Recommended with largely good feelings, Miles Ahead is scheduled to open in spring 2016, following its closing night screenings at the 2015 NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Carol

Ironically, one of the most literarily significant lesbian novels of the pre-Stonewall era was written (pseudonymously) by a notorious anti-Semitic mystery and suspense novelist. Yes, the same difficult mind that created the talented Tom Ripley also gave birth to Carol Aird. Journey back to Manhattan in the early 1950s, when Madison Avenue wasn’t so mad yet. Lesbianism might have been a love that dared not say its name, but the sophisticated Aird is still not one to mince words in Carol (trailer here), Todd Haynes’ adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53rd New York Film Festival.

Therese Belivet is a mousy but proper young woman working in a Manhattan department store, while secretly harboring ambitions of a photography career. When assisting Carol Aird schedule a delivery, she is quite taken by the older woman, in an uncertain kind of way. After she haltingly reaches out to Aird, she is surprised and pleased when Aird reaches back. Soon, they are spending more and more ambiguous time together. However, the development of their relationship is complicated by Aird’s messy divorce proceedings with her future ex, Harge, who still refuses to let go. (With a name like Harge Aird, he must be Ivy League, possibly even a future CIA director.)

In order to win her back, Harge is willing to play dirty. That includes calling out Aird’s past fling with Abby Gerhard, her childhood friend and now platonic confidant. Feeling overwhelmed by the tawdriness of it all, Aird packs up Belivet for an impulsive road trip. Naturally, further complications will ensue.

Cineastes generally get Haynes’ affinity for the era and its attendant angsts, but the quality of Carol’s period details are still impressive in their seamless accuracy. As we see, this is a time that predates the LP, when music stores stocked ten inch records in brown paper sleeves. The film also has the good taste to prominently feature Billie Holiday’s rendition of “Easy Living,” recorded with the great Teddy Wilson. In fact, Holiday is a rather fitting choice, given the film’s themes. However, it should also be noted the uncharacteristically lush orchestral score is one of Carter Burwell’s best.

Carol looks great and sounds great it is not quite the instant classic some represent it to be. Despite the breathless plaudits it has generated, there is something rather affected about Cate Blanchett’s performance as Aird. Instead of truly submerging herself into the character, she looks and sounds like she is doing Aird as if played by Joan Crawford or Rosalind Russell. Still, who wouldn’t like to see either of them dig into such a juicy role?

In contrast, Rooney Mara delves inward for an unusually brittle and disciplined turn. You would half expect her to shatter if she tipped over. However, Sarah Paulson steals scene after scene as the earthy, no-nonsense Gerhard, while Kyle Chandler manages to humanize square old Harge remarkably well.

As a recreation of the 1950s, Carol is richly realized, but it is less convincing as a relationship drama. Nevertheless, it takes viewers to a specific time and place, where it duly scores it points. Earning a moderate recommendation for its technical merits, Carol screens tomorrow (10/9) and Saturday (10/10) at Alice Tully Hall, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: The Assassin

The cinematic tradition of the butt-kicking woman wuxia warrior can be traced directly to Red Heroine from 1929. It might date back even further, but sadly few Chinese silent films survived Mao’s many destructive mass campaigns. In the succeeding years, Michelle Yeoh and Cheng Pei-pei made their legendary careers playing such characters. However, they never had the sort of exquisitely lush backdrops afforded to Nie Yinniang, the titular anti-heroine of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s long-anticipated first wuxia film (and Taiwan's official Academy submission), The Assassin (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

As child, Nie Yinniang was promised in marriage to her cousin Tian Ji’an but scandal tore those plans asunder. After an ill-fated episode trespassing in a rival family’s palace, Nie is trundled off to Jiaxin, a martial arts nun, who trains her to be the perfect assassin. At twenty-three, her education is complete, but she still shows traces of a conscience. After sparing her most recent target out of sympathy for his young son, Nie is sent home, ostensibly to visit her parents. However, her next assignment will be the very same Tian Ji’an, who is now the headstrong military governor of Hebei Province.

To further complicate matters, Tian Ji’an is openly plotting against Tian Xing, one of his military commanders, who also happens to be a distant relative. Nie Yinniang might just be inclined to intercede on Tian Xing’s behalf, but that is decidedly not what Jiaxin had in mind.

Frankly, Hou’s narrative (also credited to three co-screenwriters) is rather murky and elliptical. Wuxia fans simply have to be content knowing some kind of intrigue is going on, even if the who’s and why’s are a tad tricky to follow. Instead, this is a film meant to wash over viewers. Even at the deliberately confined Academy ratio, The Assassin is a staggering sight, often resembling traditional Chinese watercolor scrolls, with one lone figure (usually Nie) tucked away in the corner of a sprawling landscape. Mark Lee Ping-bin has been one of the best cinematographers not named Christopher Doyle for years, but The Assassin is his finest work yet. Not to belabor the point, but the film is gorgeous.

Having Shu Qi as the lead does not hurt either. In fact, the film would not have worked without her. As a standout in previous Hou films (remember the opening tunnel scene in Millennium Mambo), she can withstand his close scrutiny, quietly projecting a host of emotions with power and economy. Yet, she also has legit action chops forged in films like Journey to the West. In contrast, Chang Cheng looks ill at ease as Tian Ji’an, even though he certainly knows his way around a wuxia film. However, as Jiaxin, Sheu Fang-yi (also excellent as a very different teacher in Touch of the Light) is a wonderfully ambiguous antagonist and a fitting equal to Shu Qi’s Nie.

Martial arts fans might well be put off by Hou’s approach to the fight scenes. For the most part they are executed spectacularly quickly, but that is how an assassin like Nie Yinniang would want to take care of business. It will likely prove divisive among genre diehards, but it is worth experiencing just to see how Hou’s aesthetic translates in a wuxia setting. Recommended for its remarkably accomplished artistry and what may very well prove to be an iconic turn from Shu Qi, The Assassin screens this Friday (10/9) at Alice Tully Hall and Saturday (10/10) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYFF, in advance of its October 16th New York opening at the IFC Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

NYFF ’15: Right Now, Wrong Then

Ham Chun-su is definitely the sort of director who needs more than one take. That is just as true of his own life as it is with his films. Strictly speaking, he will not know he is replaying his visit to a modestly prestigious film festival. The ultimate results will not vary so drastically either, but sweet regrets are much nicer than sour ones in Hong Sang-soo’s Right Now, Wrong Then (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

Through miscommunication, Ham has come to Suwon one day before his film screens, but we doubt he had anything better to do. While killing time, he finds himself drawn to the shrine at Hwaseong Haeng-gung palace, possibly because Yoon Hee-jung is also a frequent visitor there. Despite his awkwardness, Ham strikes up a conversation, learning she is a former model who has forsaken her former life to become a fulltime painter. She is therefore impressed to learn he is an art-house film director transparently based on Hong.

Ham manages to spend the rest of the day and most of the night with her, but the drunker he gets, the more he sabotages himself. What was once a reasonably pleasant ships-passing encounter turns out to be rather disappointing and uncomfortable for all parties. Take two. Everything happens more or less the same, yet it is different. Yoon initially seems sadder, but Ham is more honest. Of course, since this is a Hong Sang-soo film, he gets just as drunk.

If you enjoy Hong’s films, you will flip for RNWT, because it represents the filmmaker at his Hong Sang-soo-iest. On the other hand, those who are not so into him might still give it a shot, because it is much less mannered and considerably more resonate than many of his prior films. Still, all his hallmarks are present and accounted for. It is a defiantly talky film, featuring a filmmaker protagonist and a bountiful stream of booze—so what’s not to like?

As the smitten Ham, Jang Jin-regular Jung Jae-young shows he also has the stuff to hang in Hong’s neurotic world. It is fascinating to see how dramatically he alters the colors and shadings of his performance with one small twist of the dial. While Kim Min-hee is just as understated, she lights up the screen with her sensitive, luminous presence. It is a wonderfully wise and sad performance that gets richer the second time through, even though her character remains in essentially the same headspace.

In RNWT, Hong captures the impressionistic sense of a late night spent with an almost complete stranger that you wish would never end almost as vividly as Zhang Lu’s Gyeongju (which is an absolutely terrific film). As with his previous film Hill of Freedom, Hong engages on an emotional level in RNWT, rather than just playing narrative games and reveling in clever banter. Bittersweet and subtle (two qualities that do not go together so often), Right Now, Wrong Then is recommended for those who appreciate mature relationship dramedies when it screens this Friday (10/9) at the Walter Reade and Saturday (10/10) at the Beale, as part of the 2015 NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Bridge of Spies

In 1986, Soviet Refusenik Natan Sharansky gained his freedom through the final Cold War exchange conducted on Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge. Brooklyn attorney James B. Donovan found himself negotiating the first. At trial, he had represented convicted Soviet spy Col. Vilyam Fisher, a.k.a. Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent, who had narrowly escaped Stalin’s purges during his time with the NKVD. Presumably, the Russians will want him back, just as America wants Francis Gary Powers safely returned. To negotiate the deal in his unofficial capacity, Donovan navigates the murky political waters of Berlin during the final days of the construction of the Wall in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53rd New York Film Festival.

Donovan the kind of stickler lawyer you do not want to be haggling with. Since he was also a junior member of the Nuremberg prosecution team, the Brooklyn Bar helpfully nominates him as Abel’s attorney. Although not thrilled, Donovan does his duty more diligently than anyone anticipates. Nevertheless, Abel is convicted, but conveniently not sentenced to death.

Sometime after U-2 pilot Powers’ capture and show trial, Donovan receives a strange overture from East Germany. With the CIA’s blessing but no official portfolio, Donovan tries to negotiate an Abel-for-Powers deal, but it is complicated by the arrest of American economics student Frederic Pryor on transparently bogus espionage charges. Suddenly the dodgy Wolfgang Vogel representing the GDR wants to swap Pryor for Abel, while the Berlin KGB station chief is willing to deal Powers for Abel.

While there is a bit of le Carré equivalency baked into screenwriters Matt Charman and Joel & Ethan Cohen’s depiction of the respective intelligence agencies, there is no denying the oppressive bleakness of East Berlin. Production designer Adam Stockhausen’s team vividly recreates the rubble strewn streets, bombed out blocks, and ominously imposing Berlin Wall. To his credit, Spielberg also shows exactly what happened to those who tried to scale it.

Of course, Donovan is exactly the sort of exceptional everyman that has become Hanks’ specialty. While he brings an instant credibility and a certain comfort level to the character, he never delivers any surprises—only sniffles as Donovan endures an awful cold. On the other hand, Mark Rylance is weirdly mesmerizing as the off-center Abel, precisely because of his restraint. It is like his face is a Rorschach test, which you cannot stop staring at.

For traditional villainy, Sebastian Koch chews plenty of scenery as Vogel, but he gets somewhat shortchanged on screen time. However, nobody is as embarrassingly unnecessary as Amy Ryan, playing an underwritten Mary Donovan, whose sole function in the film is to hassle her husband to bring back Harrods marmalade from his supposed fishing trip to Scotland.

Thanks to Stockhausen and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, Bridge looks terrific, but it is relentlessly over-scored by Thomas Newman. Instead of evoking a noir atmosphere, he indulges in symphonic sentimentality. Granted, it is a Spielberg movie, but it sounds too much like a Spielberg movie. Just imagine what could have been if someone like the great Tomasz Stanko (a Krzysztof Komeda protégé) had composed its themes instead. Regardless, there is plenty of striking work on view, including that of Mr. Dreamworks himself, who still has eerily keen instincts for maximizing the emotional impacts of his shots. Recommended for reasonably enthusiastically for fans of Spielberg and espionage movies, Bridge of Spies screens again tonight (10/5) at Alice Tully Hall as part of the 2015 NYFF, in advance of its October 16^th theatrical release.

NYFF ’15: Steve Jobs

He was a horrible boss and a problematic parent. Even by his own admission, Steve Jobs’ greatest talent was for using people. Yet, probably no other corporate executive ever enjoyed such an intense popular following. He has become iconic through his celebrated product launches, which in retrospect, were just as effective crafting Jobs’ image as they were at introducing new Apple products. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin starts with the familiar image of Jobs the showman, but pulls back the curtain to show all the personal and professional chaos roiling in his wake throughout Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs (trailer here), the Centerpiece selection of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

It turns out Ridley Scott has two films at this year’s festival. In addition to the sneak peak of The Martian, we will also see his celebrated 1984 Apple commercial heralding the coming of the Macintosh personal computer, in its entirety. It has just caused a sensation airing during the Super Bowl and it duly whips Jobs’ audience into a frenzy. However, the backstage vibe is hardly one of triumphalism. We quickly learn technical problems threaten to sabotage the Mac’s unveiling, but when informed of the glitches, Jobs is his usual motivating self.

To be fair, he is under a great deal of pressure. He has had a rough time of it in the press recently, thanks in large part to Chrisann Brennan, the high school girlfriend who recently won the paternity suit she filed against him. She is also present, with Lisa, the daughter he still refuses to recognize in tow, hoping to secure greater financial support. At least the new Apple CEO John Sculley has his back, right?

Boyle and Sorkin then flashforward to 1988. Ousted by Apple, Jobs is about to launch the first cube-like personal computers of his new venture, NeXT. Jobs needs to make a perfect pitch, because the word on the street is spectacularly bad. Yet, he seems to have a secret ace up his sleeve, which both encourages and irks his loyal marketing director, Joanna Hoffman. Once again, like Scrooge on Christmas Eve, Jobs is visited backstage by ghosts from his, including Sculley and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as well as Lisa and Chrisann Brennan.

This pattern will repeat again in 1998. Through a combination of luck and guile, Jobs returned to Apple just in time to right the sinking ship. He is about to introduce the iMac, sparking one of the greatest corporate comeback stories in business history. However, the indulgent Hoffman finally puts her foot down, insisting Jobs man-up and set straight his messy personal life.

Probably no screenwriter has as many annoying hang-ups as Sorkin, but his triptych take on Walter Isaacson’s biography is kind of inspired. He literally takes the image of Jobs the pitchman that we have in our mind’s eye and turns it inside out. While everything in the film is constructed around the three big media events, we never actually see them happen. After all, they are just elaborately orchestrated hype sessions. The real drama Jobs cannot control—and it clearly vexes him.

Although he is hardly the spitting image of Jobs, Michael Fassbender connects with the arrogant, insecure, borderline Asperger’s essence of the man. It is a cold, clammy performance, yet we can see how Jobs maintained such Svengali-like control over everyone in his orbit. His emotional detachment makes everyone crave his approval even more. This probably goes without saying, but he puts Ashton Kutcher to shame.

Frankly, Steve Jobs the film deserves to be in the running for every best ensemble award because it is fully loaded with rich supporting turns, starting with the selflessly glammed-down and spot-on Kate Winslet as Hoffman. She lives up to Hoffman’s reputation as the only Apple employee who could stand up to Jobs. Getting serious, Seth Rogen aches with geeky dignity as Wozniak. Working as a battery of Lisa Brennans, Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, and Perla Haney-Jardine all withstand Fassbender’s withering Mephistophelean presence, each developing some intriguing chemistry with his Jobs. You might expect these sequences to be hopelessly manipulative, but they are quite the contrary (at least until late in the third act).  

However, probably nobody does as much to rebuild their characters’ reputations as Jeff Daniels, who elevates Sculley’s stature to tragic levels nearly commensurate with that of Jobs. Again, their ruptured surrogate father and son relationship might sound like cheap armchair psychiatry, but the restraint of Daniels’ performance and the sharpness of Sorkin’s writing makes it work relatively well.

Given its structure, Steve Jobs could easily be reconfigured into a stage production, but Boyle’s dynamic visual flair prevents it from ever feeling stagey. While it is light years removed from hagiography, it is still rather hard to fathom why current Apple CEO Tim Cook felt compelled to engage Sorkin in the press. Despite the character flaws it so deliberately establishes, the film is ultimately quite forgiving of Jobs. Smart and bracingly honest, it is the best shake the Apple co-founder has had from the cinematic world since Noah Wylie played him in the TNT movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, but Boyle incorporates it in a much more stylish and sophisticated package. Recommended for old school Mac partisans and Fassbender fans, Steve Jobs opens this Friday (10/9) after playing to packed houses as the Centerpiece of the 2015 NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words

It is to believe now what a scandalous figure Ingrid Bergman was in 1950. The Kristen Stewarts and Lindsay Lohans of today should bow down to Bergman, both in recognition of her vastly superior talent and in gratitude for all the heat she took, helping normalize their chaotic private lives in the years to come. It was a profoundly difficult time for Bergman, but she never stopped being a grand movie star. To commemorate her centennial, Bergman tells her own story through home movies, private letters, and the diaries she kept nearly her entire life in Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words (trailer here), which screens as part of the Spotlight on Documentary section of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

Björkman immediately establishes how deeply unhappy Bergman’s early childhood years truly were. Her mother died before she ever really knew her and her beloved father passed away when she was only twelve. Subsequently, her caretaker maiden aunt also died not long after taking her in. Although Björkman and some of Bergman’s children speculate Bergman sought to find the love and acceptance she longed for as a child through her acting career, many viewers will just figure she deserved a break during the Rossellini-Magnani “War of the Volcanoes” feeding frenzy.

Björkman chronicles her career as an extra beaming out crowd scenes, her initial Swedish success, the Hollywood glory years, her difficult collaborations with her second husband Roberto Rossellini, and her triumphant return to America cinema. She may well be the only screen thesp who worked with Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Jean Renoir, George Cukor, and of course, Rossellini. It also shows how some films appreciate over time, whereas others depreciate critically. Bergman won an Oscar for Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express (her third), but it gets scant mention here.

While Björkman worked closely with Isabella, Ingrid, and Roberto Rossellini, Bergman’s three adoring grown children with Rossellini père, he still assembles a remarkably balanced profile. Arguably, the most revealing interview segments are with Bergman’s eldest daughter, former New York arts correspondent Pia Lindström. It is not that she is critical or resentful, but she clearly has a more complex and nuanced perspective on the mother she rarely saw during her formative years.

Much of the archival photos and video of Bergman is quite stunning. This is Ingrid Bergman, the woman millions of people start each New Year with as part of the annual Casablanca re-watching tradition, enjoying family celebrations in their Italian villa or jockeying for the camera’s attention as a young drama student in Stockholm. Yet, she has the same look that tormented Bogart and seduced Cary Grant.

Somehow Björkman nimbly walks the fine line, crafting a balanced enough portrait to avoid charges of white-wash, while sufficiently capturing his subject’s charm and warmth to satisfy her family. It is also worth noting, Alicia Vikander, the current Swedish toast of Hollywood, narrates the extracts from Bergman’s journals and correspondence, which probably resonate with tremendous meaning and irony for her. Regardless, Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words is an intimate but classy doc that should well please her fans when it screens this coming Monday (10/5) at the Walter Reade and Tuesday (10/6) at the Gilman, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Les Cowboys

The “Love Jihad” or “Romeo Jihad” phenomenon, in which young Muslim men seduce non-Muslim women and teens, enticing them into marriage and conversion, culminating in emotional abandonment and in some cases outright exploitation, has been hotly debated in India, but there are precedents in the West, as well. Betty Mahmoody’s ordeal documented in Not Without My Daughter could be considered an early example. Such is also the case when Alain’s daughter elopes with a budding jihadist, irrevocably fracturing his French family in Thomas Bidegain’s Les Cowboys (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53rd New York Film Festival.

Alain, his wife Nicole, sixteen year-old daughter Kelly, and young son “Kid” are French western aficionados, who enjoy kicking up their heels and singing cowboy songs at hoedowns. However, this 1994 round-up will be their last as a family. Much to their shock, Kelly has planned to elope with her secret boyfriend, Ahmed, the radicalized son of assimilated parents. With the help of his Islamist network, they cover their tracks quite thoroughly.

For years, Alain tirelessly searches for them, dragging the obedient Kid along to watch his back. Riffing on John Ford’s The Searchers and Paul Schrader’s Hardcore, Bidegain and co-screenwriter Noé Debré will take Alain into dangerous “No-Go Zones,” before the media was denying their existence. Ultimately, the relentless quest will eventually destroy Alain.

The Kid will duly pick up his standard, but he will try to be smarter about it. Nevertheless, Kelly’s reported proximity to radical Islamist circles greatly alarms him following the World Trade Center bombings and the London 7/7 attacks. Eventually, he will join an NGO relief organization active in the Middle East, hoping to glean information regarding her whereabouts. A mysterious American ransom-fixer might be able to help, but he demands the Kid ride shotgun on his latest dodgy mission first.

Les Cowboys looks like it might be the sort of film the director lost control of, in a good way. Like John Wayne in The Searchers, Alain is intended to be a portrait of corrosive obsession, but François Damiens (playing radically against his lumpy comedic type) humanizes him too effectively. Likewise, everything we learn about Kelly’s subsequent life suggests it is one of profound misery and regret. Sure, there is some kneejerk “Islamophobia” directed at Shahzana, one of Ahmed’s subsequent wives, forced by circumstance to accept sanctuary with the Kid in France. Yet the scene is question comes across as a clichéd and obligatory tack-on. However, their evolving relationship is arguably rather bold and touching, in a haram kind of way.

Those who know Damiens from frothier films like Heartbreaker or Delicacy may not recognize him as the grizzled Alain, but his performance deserves to be an award-winning career turning point. Finnegan Oldfield’s performance as the older Kid is also quite accomplished, depicting the maturation process with rarely seen complexity and sensitivity. Yet, the chemistry he develops with the arresting Ellora Torchia’s Shahzana is the film’s real knockout punch. As an additional bonus, John C. Reilly hams it up just enough, but not too much as the American security contractor.

Bidegain crafted Les Cowboys with unusual subtly. Details like when and where Kelly and Shahzana wear bandanas and headscarves have real significance. It is an uncompromising family tragedy, but it still manages to be deeply satisfying. There are several scenes that truly stay with you. Surprisingly highly recommended, Les Cowboys screens tonight (10/1) at Alice Tully Hall and tomorrow (10/2) at the Gilman Theater, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Mountains May Depart

Evidently, in Chinese discos around 1999, “Go West” was like “The Final Countdown” in Czech dance clubs. When they played it, everybody hit the dancefloor. However, when you heard the Pet Shop Boys’ cover, you knew it was 12:00 sharp, the start of a new day. It heralds the dawn of a new era, but not necessarily a better one in Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart (clip here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

Shen Tao and her friends are going to party like it is 1999, because it is. New Year is approaching, when she will once again sing Fenyang’s big celebratory song. Obviously, the school teacher is the village sweetheart, but the well-heeled wheeler-dealer Zhang Jinsheng and her dirt poor childhood chum Liangzi are particularly smitten. A traditional love triangle forms, but Shen is (perhaps willfully) unaware how dirty Zhang is willing to fight.

By most objective measures, she makes the wrong choice and deals with the consequences in the second act set during 2014. Divorced from Zhang, Shen lives a comfortable life as Fenyang’s leading patroness, but it is a lonely existence without her seven year old son Dollar, as his father insisted on naming him, which pretty much tells you what you need to know about Zhang. However, she gets a poignant reminder of what might have been when the long absent Liangzi returns to Fenyang with his family and a nasty case of black lung.

The 2014 arc concludes with Shen attempting to make some sort of peace with Dollar before he immigrates to Australia with Zhang and his trophy wife. Flashing forward to 2025, the eighteen year-old can hardly remember his mother. Zhang’s dodgy dealings have caught up with them, causing no end of embarrassment for the son. For obvious Freudian reasons, Dollar explores an ambiguously romantic relationship with his professor Mia, a Hong Kong immigrant (by way of Toronto) who happens to be about Shen’s age.

Both the 1999 and 2014 sections include documentary footage Jia shot before knowing they would have a place in Mountains, but not the 2025 segment, at least not as far as we know. Frankly, the opening scene of Jia’s muse and now wife Zhao Tao leading a “Go West” get-down is so infectious, it demanded a film be crafted around. Yet, following its sheer retro joy, the rest of the film down-shifts, maintaining an exquisitely bittersweet vibe.

To match his vintage footage, all of the 1999 scenes are in boxy Academy ratio (as per the state of digital cameras at the time) and feature vivid saturated colors (especially the crimson reds of Shen’s wardrobe). In accordance with technological advances and increased pollution, Jia cranks up the 2014 scenes to standard ratio and dilutes the colors, while the 2025 Australian sequences are shot in sterile looking widescreen. You can also notice the population density of the streets and the screen precipitously decline.

It is all rather fitting and clever as a commentary on the impact of technology on human relationships, but what really sticks with you is Jia’s characteristic use of pop songs, which has never been as poignant. In addition to The Pet Shop Boys, HK Cantopop superstar Sally Yeh’s love songs rouse all kinds of sentimental and nostalgic feelings, in the way only effective pop tunes can.

Zhao Tao is absolutely perfect for Shen Tao. She truly looks ageless and timeless, yet she can eerily convey so much through so such subtle expression. Probably nobody working in film today can hold an audience rapt with a silent close-up as long as she can. Your heart aches for her, but you have to respect Shen for accepting responsibility for her mistakes and carrying on with dignity.

Zhao brings more than enough presence for any film, but Mountains also has the revered Sylvia Chang, hot on the heels of Office after a five year absence from film. Few people have her combination of maturity and sensuality that is so aptly suited for Mia. Think of her as a potential HK Helen Mirren, in a few years’ time. There are no end of pitfalls to depicting May-Septemberish relationships, but she develops convincingly imperfect chemistry with Dong Zijian’s Dollar that makes it work in dramatic terms.

The more you think about Mountains, the more it gets into your head and your soul. It is the sort of film that might break you out in tears later in the night rather than while you are in the theater, which is rather considerate of it, really. It is also further proof that Zhao Tao is the finest screen actress of our generation, bar none. Very highly recommended, Mountains May Depart screens again tonight (9/29) at the Beale Theater, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Chums from Across the Void

Is one of Enver Hoxha’s infamous Albanian bunkers your idea of a happy zone or a safe space? Then let Jim Finn whisk you away Calgon-style with his self-help program for Reds weary in their nonexistent souls. However, only Trotskyites need apply for Past Leftist Life Regression Therapy in Finn’s short experimental essay film Chums from Across the Void, which screens all day Friday as part of Projections Program A at the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

It is time to get in touch with your past Bolshevik lives, with the help of stylized stroboscopic cinematography and suitably distressed-looking archival imagery. Perhaps you were Maria Spiridonova or “Little” Karl Radek. In any event, you came to a bad end, but that is to be expected. By now, we all know Revolution devours it children. So let the soothing Socialist visuals wash over you and try to make something of it all.

Finn digs his Commie iconography, but in past films like The Juche Idea it has been hard to determine whether this is hipster kitsch or slyly subversive irony. However, Chums rather seems to lean towards the latter, given the painful fate some of our Bolshevik spirit guides met at Stalin’s hand. The Albanian bunker motif is also a possible “tell,” considering how wasteful and absurd the “bunkerization” campaign was for the isolated Marxist state.

Arguably, you could consider Finn the filmmaker most closely akin to Guy Maddin who still maintains a distinctly idiosyncratic identity. Based on some of his other projects, it is hard to make a hard and fast conclusion regarding his politics, but in the case of Chums, it will probably be most enjoyed by unreconstructed Cold Warriors with a healthy sense of irony, which is cool. Recommended for the aesthetically adventurous with seventeen minutes to kill, Chums from Across the Voids screens this Friday (10/2) as part of the continuous Projections Program A loop, during this year’s New York Film Festival.

NYFF ’15: Arabian Nights Vol 1-3

It is a cold, hard, immutable fact of life that any nation surrendering control over its monetary policy must therefore use fiscal means to solve its fiscal problems. However, Miguel Gomes simply cannot grasp this self-evident principle. Unfortunately, in this case ignorance does not produce great art. Instead, Gomes proves the folly of didacticism with his three-film cycle, Arabian Nights (trailer here), a haphazardly assembled grab bag of leftist tropes and half-baked literary archetypes that screens as three misguided Main Slate selections of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

In his initial intertitles, Gomes warns us his Arabian Nights has nothing to do with the traditional Arabic folk tales, even though it appropriates the title, as well as the use of Scheherazade as the narrator. These are episodes of woe resulting from Portugal’s austerity policies, allegedly passed by “a government seemingly devoid of social justice.” Of course, the Greek Syriza government has social justice coming out of its nose, but they passed an even more stringent austerity package. That is what happens when you can no longer devalue your way out of debt.

Be that as it so obviously is, Gomes is determined to score his ideological points as best he can. After a haltingly Godardian preamble in which Gomes literally runs away from the supposed ambition of his film(s), Scheherazade commences the motely tales of Arabian Nights: The Restless One. The first is a representationally inconsequential sketch about politicians and their erections.

Gomes then segues into the meat of the film, “The Cockerel and the Fire,” one of the least political charged fables of the cycle. When an annoyingly shrill rooster is put on trial, a Dr. Doolittle-like judge is sent to hear his defense. It turns out, he is trying to warn people of future disaster resulting from a love triangle, which we then watch as a tale within the tale. In fact, the jealous lover’s morality play is reasonably diverting and incorporates texting in an unusual clever fashion. Sadly, the film loses all momentum with the didactic and repetitive “Magnificents,” in which a handful of structurally unemployed relief-seekers recount their sorrows in obsessive detail, before taking the plunge in a union-sponsored Polar Bear-style swim.

Vol. 1 is a problematically mixed bag, but there are elements here and there that give cause for hope. Nonetheless, Arabian Nights: The Desolate One is basically more of the same, even starting with a jokey, slightly grotesque warm-up. However, Desolate’s centerpiece, “Tears of the Judge” is by far the high point of the entire pseudo-trilogy. It also features a genuine, engaging performance from Luisa Cruz as the judged tasked with getting to the bottom as an increasingly outlandish house-that-Jack-built chain of crimes. It would be a winner if Gomes had spliced it out and sent it into the world as a short. Unfortunately, Desolate peters out during “The Owners of Dixies,” a true shaggy dog story that shows initial promise but drags on interminably.

Nonetheless, Desolate is easily the most watchable of the feature triptych, so it is not so random that Portugal chose it specifically as its official foreign language Oscar submission, at least if these were the only three films released in the country this year. Sadly though, all hope is quickly abandoned once Arabian Nights: The Enchanted One starts. Finally, Scheherazade appears in her own story, but it never really goes anywhere.

Yet, it looks downright plotty compared to “The Inebriated Chorus of the Chaffinches,” a nearly eighty minute observational pseudo-documentary about rugged bird trappers. No, seriously. These rustic gentlemen might be fascinating, but Gomes shows little confidence in them. Instead of letting them speak on camera, everything is explained through Scheherazade’s on-screen text, making Enchanted a mighty chore to sit through.

Briefly, it perks up with “Hot Forest,” a tale within the non-tale, narrated by a Chinese exchange student who visited Portugal and became the kept woman of a rugged cop who sympathizes with the anti-austerity rioters. This might have amounted to something if Gomes had embraced the irony of a socialist demonstrating against exploitation, who turned into an exploiter himself, but Gomes just isn’t in the irony business. It is also another awkward example of how Gomes casually equates Asian women with sex objects, like the twelve Chinese “mail order brides” who turn up in “Tears of the Judge.”

Let’s not mince words. I am here to tell you the emperor has no clothes. Gomes’ Arabian Nights has no business being at the New York Film Festival or any half-serious fest. In any merit-based universe, it would be spell the end of Gomes as a filmmaker worthy of serious press attention, but critics have fallen in line behind it, intimidated by its leftist screeds. Nevertheless, as a viewing experience, it is sorely lacking. The narratives of the constituent stories are fragmentary at best, character development is almost nonexistent, and it all has a dingy, pedestrian visual style. Don’t buy the hype. There is no there there.

The Enchanted One is so lifeless and contemptuous of the viewer’s time, it drags down the previous two installments in retrospect. If you are dead set on getting a taste of Arabian Nights it should absolutely, positively be The Desolate One, but even that is not worth any great effort. They certainly do not need to be seen in a block to inform each other. There are only a handful of call-backs throughout the entire cycle and they are each mere throwaways. None of them are really recommended, but The Enchanted One should be resolutely avoided. For those who need to take their penance, The Restless One screens this Wednesday (9/30) at the Walter Reade, followed by The Desolate One on Thursday (10/1), and The Enchanted One on Friday (10/2), as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Cemetery of Splendour

Believe it or not, the Thai government might have picked the absolute worst place for its new military clinic. It only just opened, but its future is already in doubt thanks to the ominous excavation going on around it. In fact, the land in question holds secrets that date back centuries. Still, as one patient observes in a rare moment of lucidity, it is a nice place to sleep. Sleep they will in Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour (trailer here), which screens during the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

This is no ordinary satellite clinic. The patients here all suffer from a severe form of narcolepsy, presumably resulting from shellshock, frequently manifesting in a near catatonic state. They are here to sleep and Jenjira has joined her old friend (and onetime care-giver) Nurse Tet to volunteer. Along with Keng the psychic, she will mostly just sit by their bedsides, tending to their needs should they happen to wake. Despite his unconscious state, she feels increasingly “synchronized” with the still vital looking Itt. When he suddenly rouses, he confirms their connection.

While there are mildly erotic overtones, their relationship is essentially one of surrogate mother and son. After all, Jenjira is quite happily married to the shy but affable American Richard Widner. She devoutly prays for all three of them, leaving offerings at the shrine of two legendary Laotian princesses. They so appreciate her efforts, they come alive to visit Jenjira, warning her the hospital is built atop the burial ground of ancient Thai kings. This is not Poltergeist, but that sort of mixed land use is usually problematic. However, Weerasethakul maintain an ambiguous perspective on potential spirit interference with the living, albeit extremely sleepy patients.

Without question, Cemetery is one of Weerasethakul’s most accessible films to date. Unlike his over-hyped Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, it is fully stocked with richly developed characters and engaging situations. This time around, his forays into natural realism are—dare we say it—quite charming. Yet, there is still that seductive otherworldly vibe and the arresting use of the surrounding landscape.

The cast, led by Weerasethakul regular Jenjira Pongpas Widner, also contributes remarkably subtle and finely calibrated performances. Pongpas is wonderfully warm and earthy as her namesake. She develops some fascinatingly ambiguous chemistry with Banlop Lomnoi’s Itt, whose hesitancy and gentleness is strangely poignant. As Nurse Tet, Petcharat Chaiburi nicely balances strength and sensitivity, while Sujittraporn Wongsrikeaw and Bhattaratorn Senkraigul add grace and a spirit of enjoyment as the goddess princesses.

Sort of like the scene of the catfish ravishing the princess in Boonmee, Cemetery has a roughly analogous centerpiece in which attention is lavished on Jenjira’s badly swollen leg. While that was about all Boonmee had going for it, Cemetery needs no such provocative indulgences. In fact, it is an unnecessary distraction from the film’s full-bodied characterizations and redolent sense of place. Despite that misstep and a noticeable third act slackening, Cemetery is a deeply humanistic and surprisingly satisfying excursion into the mystical mysteries hidden in everyday plain sight. Highly recommended for those who appreciate the obliquely fantastical, Cemetery of Splendour screens this Wednesday (9/30) at Alice Tully Hall and Thursday (10/1) at the Beale Theater, as a Main Slate selection of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: De Palma

Brian De Palma’s career is marked by distinct streaks of good and bad luck, but he could never complain about his score composers. He worked with John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Pino Dinaggio, Mark Isham (on The Black Dahlia), and most notably Bernard Hermann. Probably no other director so self-consciously tried to process and build on Hitchcock’s visual kitbag for building suspense, so it is fitting two of Hermann’s final scores were for De Palma’s psychological thrillers. The brand name director surveys his filmography, film by film, in Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow’s De Palma, which screens during the 53rd New York Film Festival.

De Palma sits in a comfortable chair and basically tells us how it all went down. It is a straight forward approach to documentary filmmaking, but his stories have a lot of zing to them, so it largely works. Reportedly, De Palma has been regaling his young colleagues for years, but now they have finally convinced him to do it on camera.

To an extent, your enjoyment of De Palma the film will depend on how much you appreciate his movies. Still, there are lessons learned here that would apply to any aspiring filmmaker. De Palma does not reminisce about each film’s production dramas. He dishes on their messy development processes too. He seems to remember exactly how much each and every film was budgeted for, which is a lesson in itself.

There is also a good deal of time devoted to his student work and early independent films, most of which will be entirely new material for a lot of his casual fans, who may not know De Palma gave Robert De Niro his first featured role in his very independent Greetings. Frankly, you can largely judge what De Palma thinks of a film by the amount of time allotted to it. For instance, he probably talks at greater length about Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” video than Passion, his unnecessary remake of Alain Courneau’s Love Crime. He is even reasonably forthright revisiting the notorious disaster that was Bonfire of the Vanities.

However, in a glaringly conspicuous (yet convenient) omission, there is no acknowledgement of the controversy surrounding his graphic anti-American anti-war film Redacted. Although it is now generally accepted Arid Uka was motivated by the 2007 film’s violent rape scene, taken out of context and represented on youtube as actual video footage, when he shot and killed U.S. Airmen Nicholas Alden and Zachary Cuddeback in the Frankfurt Airport. Let’s not mince words. Ducking a controversy of that magnitude is just gutless.

Of course, acknowledging De Palma’s polemics evidently played a significance role in such a senseless tragedy would also be a real downer. Baumbach & Paltrow clearly prefer to keep things light. As a result, De Palma the movie is breezily entertaining. It does indeed make you want to revisit some of his classics (like The Untouchables) or catch up with intriguing early films. Recommended for fans of De Palma and 1970s and 1980s genre filmmaking, De Palma screens this Wednesday (9/30) at Alice Tully Hall, as a special presentation of the 2015 NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Jia Zhangke, a Guy from Fenyang

Like many filmmakers selected for this year’s New York Film Festival, Jia Zhangke gets more distribution internationally than in his native country. However, in Jia’s case, it is not because he is an elitist or lacks a popular following. In fact, many of his films have been widely seen through bootleg copies. It is simply a matter of government censorship. Despite his uncertain status with the official state film establishment, Jia is received like a favorite son when he revisits his home town and other scenes from his resolutely independent films in Walter Salles’ documentary, Jia Zhangke, a Guy from Fenyang (clip here), which screens during the 53rd New York Film Festival.

The concept behind Guy from Fenyang is hardly a new one. Damien Ounouri essentially did the same thing in his hour-long documentary Xiao Jia Going Home from 2008. However, a lot can change in seven years, especially in today’s China. Nor is Jia one to be idol for long. Indeed, as Salles’ doc opens, Jia and actor Wang Hongwei walk through the streets of Fenyang that were lined with karaoke bars when they made their earlyfilms like Platform, but are ominously shuttered now.

For someone who cannot get his films approved for Mainland theatrical distribution, Jia sure has a lot of people approach him on the streets. Yet, he is always gracious about it. He also seems like a dutiful son when he visits his mother and eldest sister. In somewhat oblique fashion, Salles reveals the importance of family to Jia, especially with respects to his father. As a university faculty member, who had the profound misfortune of keeping a diary since his teenage years, the Cultural Revolution was especially difficult on Jia’s dad. It was also hard on his grandmother, who was the widow of a land-owning doctor. Clearly, his family’s experiences have influenced his work, most notably Platform, but there is a nonconformist humanist perspective reflected throughout his work. Of course, that is exactly why he has such trouble with the censors.

In addition to Jia, Salles also talks to several of his key collaborators, notably including his wife, muse, and frequent leading lady Zhao Tao, who explains how her life inspired The World. In accordance with Jia’s democratic spirit, Salles also elicits insights from his frequent cinematographer Yu Lik-wai and sound designer Zhang Yang. Fittingly, he liberally illustrates the film with clips of Jia’s work, but none are as evocative as the visually striking (and perhaps comparatively underrated) The World.

Picking up on Jia’s concerns regarding overdevelopment and callous demolition, Salles often compares and contrasts the locales of Jia’s film as they were then with their present radically altered conditions. It is hard to miss the devastation wrought on working class neighborhoods. Although Jia never gets explicitly political, we get a clear idea of the social inequities that distress him.

At one point Jia suggests he makes films about average people living common lives. That is sort of true, but it is nearly impossible for anyone to be average or common during a period of hyper-reality. Jia captures that zeitgeist with vivid directness (see A Touch of Sin for a particularly blistering example). Salles provides the cultural and political context necessary to understand Jia’s significance in contemporary China, while conveying a sense of his resilient personality. Recommended beyond Jia’s admirers for anyone interested in independent Chinese film and culture, Jia Zhangke, a Guy from Fenyang screens this Wednesday (9/30) at the Beale and Thursday (10/1) at the Gilman, as part of this year’s NYFF.

NYFF ’15: Journey to the Shore

Mizuki and Yusuke never actually use the “g” word. It carries too much baggage. After all, Yusuke still has physical form. He can walk around during daylight hours and be seen by others. It just so happens that Yusuke drowned three years ago. However, there are still rules to his current state of being, but Mizuki will accept them as best she can, to reacquaint herself with her dead husband in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Journey to the Shore (clip here), which screens during the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

Since Yusuke’s body was never recovered, Mizuki never had the closure she needs. However, when Yusuke suddenly appears, she sees it as an opportunity to renew their relationship. In a situation like that, you might as well be optimistic. Rather than fall into their old rut, Yusuke convinces her to take a road trip with him, visiting all the good decent people with whom he spent considerable time as he worked his way back to Tokyo from the coastal scene of his demise.

Most of them will be living, but some are also spirits, like Shimakage, the provincial newspaper distributor, whose persistent guilt for mistreating his wife keeps him tethered to the terrestrial world. It is all very instructive for Mikuzi, especially when she learns Yusuke worked as a cook in the traditional take-out restaurant owned by the very much alive Jinnai and Fujie. Yet, the latter is also profoundly haunted by mistakes from the past. Unfortunately, as they travel on, Mikuzi will start to understand their extra time together is probably not sustainable when she meets a similar couple suffering from supernaturally and stress-induced forms of mental instability.

Journey is an achingly delicate, profoundly humanistic film that will choke you up several times over. It is all about forgiveness and acceptance, fully understanding there are no easy answers in life (or death). It is doomed to be compared to Kore-eda’s Afterlife, but with good reason. Both present an unfussy vision of the afterlife limbo, finding acutely human drama in such a metaphysically significant situation. They are both just great films that renew our faith in cinema without resorting to any special effects or gimmickry.

Although, strictly speaking, she is the one being haunted, Eri Fukatsu is absolutely haunting as Mizuki. It is a performance of quiet power and maturity, the likes of which we rarely see. She also develops believably complex and ambiguous chemistry with Tadanobu Asano’s Yusuke. However, her most emotionally devastating scene probably comes opposite Nozomi Muraoka as the guilt-ridden Fujie. (It is so overwhelming in its simplicity and honesty, it almost unbalances the narrative flow.)

Journey is a spiritually and psychologically intelligent film, featuring a terrific lead performance from Fukatsu and scores of accomplished supporting turns. Kurosawa never sets out to dazzle, but there are numerous scenes that sear themselves into memory. You could say it lives up to the unfulfilled promise of the disappointing screen adaptation of Matheson’s What Dreams May Come. Very highly recommended, Journey to the Shore screens Tuesday (9/29) at Alice Tully Hall and Thursday (10/1) at the Gilman Theater, as a Main Slate selection of the 2015 NYFF.