New York Film Festival Update #1
It has been a lively festival so far, and your faithful correspondent has been busy sitting and watching. All the movies so far have been engaging, and some were amazing.
AFTER THE HUNT (Luca Guadagnino) – Opening Night selection, and the weakest film so far. Performances are fine, the mise en scene precise and chilly, but the script tries to do too much, and have it too many ways. The withholding of information, and multiple possible motives/explanations presented are supposed to cultivate ambiguity, and they do–for a while (about three-quarters of the movie). But the film eventually collapses under the weight of its own indecision. Julia Roberts is fantastic in a role where she does not rely on her cinematic charm, but goes deeper, and masks her usual likeability.
PETER HUJAR’S DAY (Ira Sachs)–The simplest of premises: Sachs uses rediscovered transcripts from an unused 1974 interview between Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) and Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw), where Hujar narrates the events of the previous day in minute detail. But what is so simple in conception is richly superb in realization, as Sachs turns what was a 90-minute conversation across a table into a kaleidoscopic morning-into-afternoon-into-evening chronicle of queer New York City in the 1970s–capturing (in Sachs’ words) all that has been last, and all that remains. Whishaw and Hall are excellent. The film’s 76 minutes contain multitudes.
SECRET AGENT (Kleber Mendonça Filho)–A film about Brazil in the 1970s and the dictatorship that ruled the country, Mendonça provides a sharp depiction of life under tyranny, and methods of resistance. Wagner Moura is great as an ordinary research scientist turned by circumstance into an activist and fugitive. A great chronicle of life under oppression.
THE MASTERMIND (Kelly Reichardt)–Another 1970s film (seems to be a theme of the early part of the festival), Reichardt tells the tale of a modest art museum heist that goes very wrong. In the talkback, she said that she sees the film as an unwinding, and as the narrative unfolds/becomes undone, the surface of 1970s America unwinds, revealing the rot underneath. As with FIRST COW and SHOWING UP, the penultimate sequence brings everything together in the most powerful way possible. Reichardt is one the most interesting directors around in terms of narrative/cinematic structure.
LATE FAME (Kent Jones)–A winning trifle based on the Schnitzler novella, LATE FAME is a love letter to New York City (1970s again), and a raised eyebrow to its present. William Dafoe and Greta Lee are outstanding, and more than worth the price of admission.
ANEMONE (Ronan Day-Lewis)–It pays to be the son of Daniel Day-Lewis. R. Day-Lewis is a painter, and his first feature is very painterly, with compositions that are rich and compelling. Father and son developed the script over fours years, and it shows. D. Day Lewis’ performance reminds us what has been missing from the screen these last eight years. His monologues are some of the most powerful I have ever seen on screen. But those years of work also throw the film into imbalance: as good as the other actors are, they cannot compete with D. Day-Lewis’s talent, and having lived with the role for so long.
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (Kathryn Bigelow)–Bigelow’s return to the screen, and a tidy and timely thriller. A nuclear missle is launched at the United States from persons/county unknown. There are 18 minutes to respond. Bigelow goes over those 18 minutes three times from different perspectives, which astonishingly, increases the suspense rather then dilute it–the third sequences is the tensest of all. The acting from an impressive cast is superb.
BLUE MOON (Richard Linklater)–Lorenz Hart at Sardi’s for the opening night party of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” A superb script, with a phenomenal Ethan Hawke as Hart, and great support from Andrew Scott (Richard Rodgers) and Bobby Canavale (the bartender we all wish was our friend). Played out in real time, the film is an amazing amalgam of writing, acting, and mise en scene. Linklater’s hand is light, but firm, as he guides us through the evening, and the rollercoaster emotions of Lorenz Hart.
JAY KELLY (Noah Baumbach)–During then Q&A, Baumbach said that when George Clooney accepted the role, he told him that Baumbach was lucky Clooney said yet, since there were only three actors in the world who could play the role. And he was right. Clooney is magnificent, and matched/supported by Adam Sandler and Laura Dern. I have never enjoyed a Baumbach film this much, which may be attributable to the hand that Emily Mortimer had in the script. There is an openness and compassion here that is missing for me in his earlier films.
NOUVELLE VAGUE (Richard Linklater)–the second Linklater film of the Festival, this film tells the story of the making of BREATHLESS. In his film debut, Guillaume Marbeck is Jean-Luc Godard–or Godard as I imagine him to be (only saw him once in person at the festival, when he brought PASSION to be screened). It helps if you know the cinema landscape of the time, but even without that knowledge, the film is a black-and-white treat, showing how great art arises from artists going their own resolute way.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Joachim Trier)–Trier’s latest film (following 2021’s THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD), finds the director dexterously and exquisitely exploring the conflicted ways of an absent father his daughters (hello JAY KELLY). The father is an auteur filmmaker (Stellan Skarsgard), and one of his daughters is an accomplished stage actress (Renate Reinsve), and the other a therapist (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). Again, the script is wonderful, and the acting superb. The gentle, tentative reconciliation that closes the film feels true in the deepest ways.
I know that my precis may seem repetitive, but at all the talkbacks, the actors have spoken of the strength of the scripts, and the films so far have shined in the areas of writing and acting. They are also well-directed, but the visuals have not asserted themselves over the writing or performance (save for ANEMONE). I can recommend all these films as fine cinematic adventures to be savored and enjoyed.
. And for example the horses were really bad, they bounced around like rubberballs…I´m so picky about this film because i love the Parker novels and just like with Dirk Pitt or Travis McGee we fans weren´t bombarded and swamped with good adaptions so it just makes me sad when another mediocre to bad one comes around the corner