"Serbis" Distribution and Trailer

Good news to report! Brilliante Mendoza's Serbis, one of the most provocative films at this year's New York Film Festival and #7 on my Festival Top 10, has been picked up by Regent Releasing. It will open in New York on January 16, 2009 (update) January 30 at Cinema Village, a theater I am all too familiar with. I assume that means it will have a limited release in other major markets as well. A lot of critics dismissed the film rather quickly, but I think there is a lot more to it than most are giving it credit for. Moreover, its playfully experiments with a classically melodramatic structure by placing it in a movie theater and creating ruptures in its melodramatic system by featuring a boisterous atmosphere, real sex, family lawsuits, and, yes, even goats. It won't be everybody's cup of tea, but I think, for any adventurous moviegoer, it is well worth checking out if you have the opportunity. Check out the trailer below.



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NYFF 2008- Wrap Up and Top 10

Well, I just haven't the time to write up everything I saw at NYFF. Amidst my attempts I realized that most of the films I was writing about will get released sooner rather than later, and my reviews would all benefit from second screenings. So, instead of attempt to write a bunch of short reviews, I am substituting that for this wrap up list of my favorite films at the festival this year.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, a lot of the films this year seemed middle of the road. There was only one film I felt like I really hated (Tony Manero) although even it has its defenders. Aaron Hillis and Andrew Grant named it their favorite film of the festival. Others I have talked to had a similar response to me. Undoubtedly, it is a divisive film. I found it rather soulless, tepid, cold, and, worst of all, horribly uninteresting. Apparently it is supposed to be a black comedy (as you might assume from the synopsis) but I sure missed the boat on that. I understand that being cold, damp, and unsympathetic is part of the point, as the film reflects suppression of...everything... in the Pinochet era, but all it made me want to do was walk out of the theater.

But I digress. After the break, I'm going to be a list-a-holic to at least put the films into some sort of category. I know I am short changing many of them that deserve write ups, but I promise to give them when the films gain wide releases. I'll only list films (besides the top 10) that I have yet to write about. Maybe it will build some anticipation for later reviews.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and for reading these NYFF posts. The festival was a great experience and, assuming I'm in New York next year, I'll be back with a new strategy for trying to write about as many films as possible! Special thanks to Nathaniel R. at The Film Experience and Nathan Lee for talking to me at press screenings.

Top notch films: Wendy and Lucy, The Wrestler, The Headless Woman

Films with issues that are still worth seeing: 24 City, Serbis, Four Nights With Anna (despite its overwhelmingly egregious score), Gomorrah, Mock Up On Mu, Tokyo Sonata

Films with too many issues to overcome: The Windmill Movie, Tony Manero, I'm Gonna Explode, Changeling

My NYFF Top 10

1. The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain)
2. Che (Steven Soderbergh, Mexico/USA)
3. Afterschool (Antonio Campos, USA)
4. Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, USA)
5. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, France)
6. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, France/USA)
7. Serbis (Brillante Mendoza, Philippines/France)
8. Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK)
9. Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Kazakhstan/Poland/Russia/Switzerland)
10. Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, Italy)
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New York Film Festival 2008- Cannes You Dig It?

Most of the reports out of Cannes this year said it wasn’t such a strong year for film. While many big name directors were present, they were turning in middle of the road work, neither masterpieces or disasters. With over half of the NYFF films coming from Cannes, I was hoping to find that most critics were giving the festival a hard time. That with high expectations come slight disappointments and they things were blown a little out of proportion. Nevertheless, I have been having a similar NYFF experience and, with only one week of screenings left, it seems like things won’t change too much. It isn’t that most of the films are bad; it’s just that they have only been good, not great. But, as NYFF selection committee member Jim Hoberman reported, a festival can only be as strong as what is out there. What’s out there, so far, are a lot of good movies, a couple great ones, and a lot of technically accomplished films with some severe issues. I always try and be fair when it comes to expectations, and, considering how little I have known in advance about the films that were screening, I think I’ve given all these films a fair shake. Granted, a lot of the films I’ll complain about are better than most of what I’ve seen this year (it’s been a weak year, eh?) so I’ll be sure and call myself out on unfairness when/if I see the films a second time come their wide release.

Let’s start with the good stuff.


One of the few all out, balls to wall triumphs thus far has been Steven Soderbergh’s 262 minute, two part Che, a film greeted at Cannes, and now in New York, with violently mixed reactions. For the life of me, I straight up don’t know how or why anyone would HATE Che. And while the few lukewarm reactions I have read are perfectly sensible, but they seem to have complaints that have nothing to do with the film. (Glenn Kenny recently wrote about Che and his biggest movie-response pet peeve being when people complain whether films make them care or not. I agree with him, but the reaction that really chides me the most is when people reject the film asking why it was made. This necessity complaint drives me right up a wall and is one I have heard quite a bit regarding Che from plenty of critics I admire.)

So why do I love Che? Technical accomplishments aside (I can’t say anything more, or say it better, than Amy Taubin did in the most recent Film Comment) Che is likely the only film at NYFF that works within the confines of genre and not only reworks them (as did Afterschool, The Class, Gomorrah, A Christmas Tale, Serbis, Hunger, I’m Gonna Explode, and, to a lesser extent, Changeling, and The Wrestler) but also restructures, resituates, and reconceptualizes each genre as well. What makes Che so dynamic is the genre triptych it works under. Che reframes the biopic within the action genre (The Argentine- part one) and thriller (Guerilla- part two), and uses these techniques as a way to problematize and challenge the person, icon, and symbol that is its protagonist. The elliptical, distanced storytelling, especially in The Argentine, recalls Malick’s best work. Che doesn’t ask for the audience to root for Che, but only to exist and flow moment to moment with the events in the film. Many critics have complained that this distance from the characters makes the film tedious, boring, uncaptivating, and unwatchable. This response really baffles me. Che, and its incredibly nuanced camerawork, keep this distance precisely so the audience can hold its own position within the film and the dialectical debate created between the two parts. It is as if we can only drop in on key moments and can only be so close to the action, the characters, and the historicized world of Cuba and Bolivia. This position is affirmed by Mr. Soderbergh when, in a post-film press conference, he stated, “I’m obviously not a communist...there was no place for me to exist in Che’s world.” The artist, and even the audience, can only get so close to that world, that history, that icon. This is an idea that, and one executed on every level, that of all the biopics ever made, only Che seems to comprehend.


Leading me to believe that I might be insane (although it's something I've noticed for a while), I constantly love uber-art house fair that most others dismiss. Anytime I hear "Cannes walk-out champ" (as Jim Hoberman called Pedro Costa's incredible Colossal Youth) my ears tend to perk up. Antonio Campas’s Afterschool, a film greeted with very hostile reactions at the festival, may not have been the walkout champion, but it appears to be the most aggressively disliked at the festival (other than maybe A Bullet In The Head, a film I have yet to see, and Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman. I'll have more to say about the Martel in my next post.) I was talking the film up immediately after its press screening, but, other than Mike D’Angelo and Dennis Lim, I haven’t read, or heard, (m)any positive reviews of the film. I can understand complaints to some extent. Afterschool is, without a doubt, ruthless, risky, cold, and bold. Still, detractors are dismissing the film far too quickly in labeling Campos a mini-Michael Haneke with some Gus Van Sant thrown in. While these comparisons are fair, and, to my mind, positive, they quickly abandon the originality of Campos’s use of alternative media and some down right amazing camerawork. Oh, but that’s pretentious, right? Too ambitious for its own good? Slant goes so far to call Campos a “borderline con artist” (they lump in Lucrecia Martel as well.) Well, haters, I’m sorry if Afterschool is full of mundane characters and preoccupations. Sure, the camerawork “calls attention to itself”, but who can complain when it is done at such a high level? Or is that precisely why there have been so many complaints? Is it really so egregious today to display some ambition today? Maybe the film is shallow compared to best Haneke or Van Sant films, but I don’t think so. It works within a category that either of those great directors have yet to confront. Afterschool isn’t just another movie about postmodern alienation and voyeurism, although it is about those things too. What Afterschool displays is a digital world so full of “real” images that the borders of reality and fantasy have almost completely broke down. The struggle to differentiate between the two creeps into every facet of life. Afterschool is beautifully rendered and each subject is handled with a muted delicacy that makes the film, despite its obvious ambition, so authentic.


Speaking of films that a lot of people think is ambitious but, unfortunately, takes a third-act turn to the typical, Turner Award winning video artist Steve McQueen’s Camera d’Or winning film Hunger has some really incredible images, some great, tough scenes, but its last third keeps the film out of masterpiece territory. Hunger tells, or, more appropriately, shows in great detail, the story of IRA member Bobby Sands who wages a hunger strike to improve living conditions among fellow prisoners. Hunger is sharp and precise throughout in highlighting how the prisoners live and survive. There are some really brutal scenes that aren’t for the faint of heart, most of which come in the first and last third of the movie. What comprises the middle is essentially two scenes, which are the two best in the entire film. One is a soon-to-be-famous 25 minute long scene (done almost completely in one shot...the use of cigarettes blew me away); a fierce debate between Sands and his priest discussing the meaning, purpose, and decision to pursue the hunger strike. This is followed by an very long shot of a guard sweeping the hallway clean of the urine that is dumped underneath the doors of the prisoner’s cells. These two scenes together are totally electrifying, and I have to be truthful here in saying that I thought that point was the end of the film. One super long, but extremely riveting scene followed by an incredible metaphorical shot. It’s all I needed and wanted. Not kidding, I wrote in my notebook “What a fucking incredible last shot.” Maybe I was thinking that I was in a Bela Tarr movie and got too hopeful in thinking that we wouldn’t see the hunger strike. That it was about the why more than the gruesome how. Given the importance of showing the beatings and abuse in the first part, I thought it had made the point. We know, at this point, that Sands will not falter. That he will go through with the strike and die for this cause. If it ended there, Hunger would likely be one of my favorites of the year. But it continues on to show, in even more precisely gruesome detail, Sands’s deterioration and death. Hunger loses some emotion and narrative drive in the last third and starts feeling a little too much like The Passion of the Christ rather than the unique and biting critique that the first two sections display. There are scenes and images from Hunger that I won’t soon forget (and it’s still a very good movie), but I’ll remember just as strongly the slight frustration I have knowing how great the film could have been.


Similarly frustrating, but even moreso, is the Israeli animated documentary Waltz With Bashir. Waltz With Bashir follows director Ari Folman’s journey to recover his suppressed memories from the 1982 war with Lebanon. From stories and personal testimony, the film locates these memories and presents them within the scope of what Folma calls “the historical imagination.” I have always been a fan of infusing animation into other filmic forms and how important this can be for showcasing that animation isn’t just something for children. Waltz With Bashir sounded like a huge step in the right direction and, for a lot of the film, it seems to be. Even though I found the much of the film not all that enthralling or meandering, what made it interesting was the animation and the experimenting with different colors (and entirely different color pallets) for returning memories and dream sequences. The lively and distinct colorizations create a distinction between all these different aspects of memory and history. I’ll feel like to much of a spoil sport if I go into much detail here (I’ll have more to say when the films gets it wide release) but I really believe that the final sequence undercuts the entire process and progress that Waltz With Bashir tries to make. What is this sequence doing in here? Why did they choose to show it this way? While it doesn’t remove or change what Folman is trying to say, this last sequence is a total reversal and blatant contradiction of the importance of how it should be said. And, for a film so invested in its technique, this is a gigantic and unforgivable misstep.


But at least I have feelings about that, right? The same can’t be said for my reaction to Chouga, a film from “Kazakh master director Darezhan Omirbayev”. I put that in quotes because I don’t know this director and can’t confirm his mastery. Chouga, a very truncated version of Anna Karenina, shows strong formal elements and has some interesting ideas, but I just can’t work up a reaction. It seems like a perfectly acceptable movie that probably loses a lot in translation. It feels a little flat and has some long lifeless sections, but there are some nice scenes and moments that make the film worth seeing, if only to say you saw a Kazakh movie this year.


You saw a Kazakh movie this year, you say? Haha! I saw two! And if you only see one, it should be Tulpan. “Kazakh master documentarian” Sergei Dvortsevoy’s first feature film Tulpan won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this year, which was a good sign going in, and I have to say if his earlier work is anything like this then I definitely need to see them. Tulpan tells the story of Asa, a young man who recently completed his naval service and returns to the Kazakh steppe to live with his sister and her herdsman husband. Although Asa dreams of having a herd of his own, he must marry before this can happen. Unfortunately, in the desolate steppe, there aren’t many women around. The only one is Tulpan, but she doesn’t like Asa because of his big ears. Asa refuses to give up on his dream. This is a nice little description and hints at some of the comedy infused throughout the entirety of the film. With some really great performances, particularly by Asa’s boob-loving friend Bali, it’s easy to invest in the people that Dvortsevoy’s film presents. Moreover, the real images that are captured are breathtaking and oftentimes funny. (Tulpan was shot in a very remote section of Kazakhstan called Betpak Dalla.) A dog sits with lightning striking in the background. Dust storms arise in the middle of herding. A ram enters a shack to give solace to a weakened man. A sheep struggles to give birth. There is much more to the images than mere description can provide (the scene with the lamb’s birth is the most important scene in the film) but they all match one another to make one hell of a debut feature. Dvortsevoy’s combination of fiction and reality is fresh. No matter the kind of film he makes, Dvortsevoy is a filmmaker to watch, and Tulpan is a film you should see.

by James Hansen
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Darren Aronofsky Poll Results

Thanks to everyone for voting in our most recent poll selecting your favorite Darren Aronofsky film so far. The poll was inspired by Aronofsky's soon to be released new film The Wrestler, which is the Closing Night film at this year's New York Film Festival. I saw the film this week and, to really get the buzz really going, I have to say that The Wrestler is his most simple, straight-forward film but also his strongest. (Note that I voted for Pi in the poll as I find Requiem to be a one-time, one-trick pony and The Fountain totally ridiculous. I'm not saying that to knock The Wrestler though. Just admitting that I have liked simple more than flashy Aronofsky, and that trend for me here.) I'll save further analysis and discussion for my NYFF write-up and for when the film opens in wide release December 19th. I don't want to raise everyone's expectations too much, but The Wrestler is, without a doubt, one of the strongest American movies this year and should be a sure-fire Oscar contender.

Now on with the poll results! It was surprising to me how well The Fountain did in the poll (almost pulling a major upset!) Apparently many of them film's (small number of) advocates are dedicated readers here! Or am I just being mean? Do more people out there like The Fountain than I think? Even though I don't like that film at all, I'm glad you are all here reading and voting! We had one big time lover and hater of Aronofsky, which are always fun votes to see as well. Anyways, I'll stop explaining the results. You can see them yourself after the break.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DARREN ARONOFSKY FILM THUS FAR?

Pi- 8 (20%)

Requiem for a Dream- 16 (41%)

The Fountain- 13 (33%)

I don't like any of them- 1 (2%)

I love all of them- 1 (2%)
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New York Film Festival 2008- A Rendevous with French Cinema

I was going to write an opening to talk about the 46th Annual New York Film Festival and to put it in some sort of framework. How the festival runs from September 26- October 12 and how the screening schedule and tickets can be found online. How Lincoln Center is under construction and how awesome seeing these films at a gigantic, classic theater like the Ziegfeld will be. (Most of the press screenings are at the Walter Reade Theater which is damn good in my book. Luckily, we got to see Che at Ziegfeld, so I can say first hand that the Ziegfeld owns.) How 16 of the 28 films selected come from the Cannes Film Festival, and ponder why so many people see this as a bad thing. How the press screenings are a totally different festival experience, and how lucky I am to be a part of the experience to begin with. Alas, it seems like most of the coverage is saying the same thing and since I am late in writing about some of these films (a few have already shown at the festival and are not showing again), I figure I might as well just write about the movies and save my ruminations on the festival for my festival wrap up entry. Let’s do that, eh?

As I am late into writing, I’m not going to go through the films in the order I saw them, which was my original plan. This first entry has a film I saw on the first day of screenings, nearly two weeks ago, and a film I literally saw today. While these films do have a common characteristic, don’t expect it from future entries. At four films, France has the most films of any country at the festival this year, so when I started writing it seemed appropriate to write about them together. I’ll try and create a flow between the films in future entries, but the broad taste in world cinema that the New York Film Festival displays it becomes increasingly difficult. So, let’s just talk about the movies. There are some good ones, maybe some great ones, and, sure enough, some films that I didn’t/won’t respond to. Still, it’s a lot of fun to stumble into a theater at 10 AM trying to remember which films it is I am about to see. (Seriously. I went into a screening last week knowing that there was something I meant to see. I thought it was Hong Sang Soo’s Night and Day. Then starts the Mexican teen crime-ish film I’m Gonna Explode. Not exactly the same thing. Everything is a blur!) Anyways, I promised not to blab and now I’m doing just that. On with the movies!


Laurent Cantet’s The Class, the Opening Night Selection of the 46th New York Film Festival and winner of the Palm d’Or at this years Cannes Film Festival, reworks the typical classroom drama in a very refined way yet remains just as crowd pleasing as the ever popular, sentimental American classroom film. Starring a real teacher with his actual students all from the same school in France, teachers, students, and administration all play fictionalized versions of themselves that is enhanced by Cantet’s handheld digital camerawork. Although The Class creates an insane amount of nervously excitable classroom energy, a truly magnificent achievement, it is safe and breezy even in the most dire of situations. While the film’s inspired fact/fiction hybrid makes everything more authentic, even in the film’s most heavily scripted situations, The Class is a little too self-satisfied to be as affective in really analyzing the never-changing problems of globalization, cultural diversity, and power “between the walls” (the original French title of the film and the autobiography on which it is based) of a school. This makes it sound like I didn’t like The Class very much, which, believe it or not, is far from the truth. There is just a difference between the inciting and provocative foreign films that I tend to prefer and ones that are a little more standard are are highly likely to be Best Foreign Film Oscar nominees. The Class is France’s Official Entry for the Oscars with good reason. Still, I wish it would have taken more risks given its subject matter and willingness to experiment with this genre.


The same could be said for Arnuad Desplechin’s latest film A Christmas Tale, a showcase of top notch filmmaking and acting, but ultimately disappointing in that it isn’t nearly as interesting or complex (at least on first viewing) as the other Desplechin films I have seen. Junon (Catherine Deneuve) is the family matriarch whose comically separated family is forced to reunite when she announces her life threatening illness. Inevitably, this event conjures up unhappy memories of the death of their young brother Joseph who died of leukemia when he was six. Fear not, French comedy lovers! This sweeping 150 minute film is full of life, spunk, and Bravura that crowds will eat up. Despite all it has going for it, A Christmas Tale is relatively slight. One character asks the question “Who has time to take life experience seriously?” With it playful mood and wild shifts in tone, addressed directly in its oftentimes brilliant score, A Christmas Tale wants to lighten the aura of death and enjoy the memories and experiences that each of us has. It is all too typical material for Desplechin to take on and is less focused in its fancy-free attitude to sustain itself for the lengthy running time. A Christmas Tale features, without a doubt, great filmmaking and acting. It’s just that when you expect gold and get myrhh, it can be a little disappointing.


Still, Desplechin’s film is a masterpiece compared to Agnes Jaoui’s Let It Rain, a film that desperately wants to be funny, only in the most human of ways. Let It Rain, as well as Jaoui’s 2005 feature Talk To Me (that, for the record, I also found vastly overrated), will satisfy the 50+ crowd, but I think most everyone else will find it inane. I don’t want to be too snarky here, but I think if you close your eyes and imagine a typical, petty French family comedy then you would likely imagine everything that happens in Let It Rain. The film does have some very honest, well done moments, most of which involve Mimouna Hadji, the only non-professional actress in the cast who plays the family’s maid and is Jaoui’s family’s maid in real life. Still, Let It Rain confronts many issues in this very tactical screenplay, but is mostly dull and rarely comes across as authentic.


So, is all lost for French cinema at this year’s film festival? Just when it looked like there would be no great French film this year, Olivier Assayas sweeps in to save the day with his magnificent Summer Hours, another French family film (can there ever be too many???) but the only full-fledged drama of the bunch. Assayas, ever the modernist, penned the script shortly before the death of his mother and admits that the film probably wouldn’t have been written post-her death. Although this extratextual bit of information doesn’t necessarily give the film more emotional weight, Summer Hours still seems more significant given that fact. Evaluating the value and worth of historical family objects, Assayas says that he wanted to reformulate the family genre by changing the focus from how to acquire certain things from family histories into how we let go and get rid of these objects. Ravishing filmmaking and cinematography aside, Summer Hours is quietly devastating and extraordinarily powerful in the way it shapes each character and highlights the difficult problems each has with family in a globalized modern world. However, Summer Hours makes clear that no matter how far you are away from where you come from, the separated loneliness can be felt just as strongly at home. Moreover, the film reflects the changing moods, attitudes, and memories of different eras and generations within given spaces. Just like a gallery space (Summer Hours was commissioned by the Musee d’Orsay), the space of the home can shift just as dramatically depending on who and what is in it. Summer Hours is not to be missed.

by James Hansen
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"Hunger" Trailer

To keep you all interested while I attempt to catch up on writing about all the films I have seen at NYFF thus far (expect my first entry in the next couple days...I've been sick and have fallen WAY behind on writing) here is a trailer for British video artist Steve McQueen's first feature Hunger which won the Camera d'Or at this years Cannes Film Festival and will show at the festival this week. I saw the film at a press screening last week, but you'll have to check back later this week for my second NYFF Entry to hear what I think. Oh, the anticipation!



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Darren Aronofsky Poll

With its win at Venice and purchase to Fox Searchlight, Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is quickly becoming one of the most anticipated films of the New York Film Festival and the winter film season. In honor of this, we might as well get the hype going by having a new poll! You just have to pick your favorite of the Aronofsky's three previous films (unless you don't like any of them or love them all, in which case I won't make you pick.) We can use the comments section of this post to discuss your selection. In case you haven't seen it, Jim Emerson has a review of sorts up on his site. Well worth checking out, as well as the rest of his coverage of the Toronto Film Festival. Now let's get the hype and some discussion going!

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