NYFF 63 (c) The Interested Bystander
Artistic Director Dennis Lim has curated his third New York Film Festival with some exciting new films that premiered in the summer festivals (Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto) as well as a few world premieres of its own. Although never explicit in its programming, New York is the last major film festival before Oscar season and films that have benefited from their appearance in recent years include Nickel Boys, No Other Land, The Tragedy of Macbeth and The Irishman.
So here are five films that are in the festival I was able to catch. Most of them will open in the next two months. And at least one (I believe) will be a no-brainer Oscar Best Picture nominee along with contenders that have already opened: Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.
After the Hunt (c) Amazon MGM
After the Hunt
Opening October 10
This year’s opening night film was Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, which centers around Yale college professor Alma (Julia Roberts), whose loyalties are pulled in separate directions when her teaching assistant and biggest fan, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), accuses one her best friends and fellow professor Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault. Starting with the title, with its violent imagery, and (no joking) the presentation of the main titles, which mimic Woody Allen’s opening credit font and jazz music, there is no subtlety about predatory men here. Also, while every interaction between the characters are in themselves filled with drama and manipulation, the basics of the assault are never dealt with in any believable way (no medical doctors or police appear in this film), with the specifics of the actual crime only vaguely hinted at. The film is more interested in Alma’s actions and reactions to each new tidbit of info sparsely handed out by the screenplay. Everything is talked about in the abstract, and to exasperate my frustrations even more, Guadagnino’s directorial flourish keeps everything at a distance and aloof. The only element that works is Julia Roberts. She commits totally to Guadagnino’s vision, which makes Alma a more complex character than usual. Roberts works very hard, switching from her usual acting style (she does that classic surprise laugh at one moment in a bar scene), writhing without ego in pain (from a medical condition we find out about late in the film) with an intense believable agony. The rest of the film leaves a lot of interesting topics left unexplored and makes the film frustratingly incomplete.
A House of Dynamite (c) Netflix
A House of Dynamite
Opening October 10
Director Kathryn Bigelow, who won the Oscar for directing The Hurt Locker, is back in the realm of war with her first film in eight years. A House of Dynamite imagines a scarily realistic, no-win scenario in which a nuclear missile is launched at the United States and how each government department reacts, as it is repeated often, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. From FEMA to a Missile Defense Battalion to the Department of Defense (I guess in this fictional future, they changed the name back) to the President (Idris Elba), we see how they hear and react to the news and ultimately their decision-making process in the face of WWIII. Bigelow is skillful at ramping up the tension (with a major assist by DP Barry Ackroyd) within each department as well as in the conference video call where each decision affects other arms of the military. There are a lot of A-list actors in small roles throughout with nobody really taking the lead, not even Elba, who makes a personable president facing an impossible decision of retaliation before more attacks are launched. Other actors that make an impression are Rebecca Ferguson as the center of one of the control rooms; Gabriel Basso, the National Security Advisor Deputy who is suddenly making life and death decisions as his boss is having a colonoscopy and, most impressively, Tracy Letts as a general whose day started with disbelief at a baseball game the night before and now has to advise the president about possible nuclear war. This is all power stuff, but the film loses some intensity because of a narrative trick that happens twice. And while the film is suitably tense, it’s essentially the version of WarGames where we focus on the government instead of the high school kid who accidently plays chess with the NORAD computer.
Nouvelle Vague (c) Netflix
Nouvelle Vague
Opening October 31
Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague tells the 1959 story of a young Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), a film critic who is always on the verge of being a film director like his famous French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) friends François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. When he finally gets the chance to direct his first film, it’s the script-less and spontaneous Breathless. What is astonishing and surprising about the film is that I barely remember Breathless (I am not enamored of French New Wave, Band of Outsiders excepted) and yet I was invested and enjoyed every minute of the film, probably Linklater’s best. With an amazing assist by the cinematographer David Chambille (in gorgeous 4:3 ratio, black and white) and costume recreation by Pascaline Chavanne, the film is shot like a homage to Godard’s gonzo filmmaking style (Godard hid his cinematographer in a cart to get a naturalistic Paris scene, while also saving money on extras). Godard (Guillaume Marbeck in an impressive film debut) was, during the shoot, both frustrating and charming, usually only doing one take or stopping the shoot after two hours. This frustrates the producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Freyfürst) and crew, but most especially the film’s lead actress, American Jean Seberg (a revelatory Zoey Deutch), whose thoughts of Godard being a flake do not diminish as shooting continues. The lead actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin), on the other hand, seems to have the same c’est la vie attitude as Godard. So, like Ed Wood, we just witness the day-to-day shooting of the movie through the eyes of an idealistic director, whose actions puzzle everyone else. The only director I can think of that works this way today is Wong Kwar-Wai. Linklater, who has had a varied career of ups and downs, knows this world intimately, and this love letter to this era of filmmaking makes it an enjoyable ride.
Peter Hujar's Day (c) Janus Films
Peter Hujar’s Day
Opening November 7
Although I have heard the name Peter Hujar, I really didn’t know his story until Ira Sachs’ film, Peter Hujar’s Day, which not only gives the requisite biographical information of the talented portrait photographer, but also his life through the lens of one day in his life in 1974, exploring little and big moments and his thoughts of how they might affect his career. The conceit of the film is born out of the discovery of an audio interview Hujar gave to his friend Linda Rosenkrantz for a book project that was ultimately abandoned. While the content of the interview is a fascinating listen as Hujar goes through his frustrations, through the boring daily minutiae and appointments, how director Ira Sachs makes this visually interesting is what makes Peter Hujar’s Day so enjoyable. Also, it’s less than 80 minutes, which is enough time for the viewer to enjoy Hujar’s company before his eccentricities wear out its welcome. We are in the apartment of Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) as she and the openly gay Hujar (a sublime Ben Whishaw) bounce around, eating, listening to music, enjoying the view of the roof and lazily lying on her bed as the interview progresses. I assume this is all directorial liberties, and it does give the illusion of action to keep the audience’s attention in this visual medium. What is actually on the tape is immensely interesting, especially as Hujar complains about the insular art world he runs in being too inbred, name-dropping famous colleagues including a person named Topaz Caucasian, who may not really exist, and the main event of this particular day, taking a photo of the poet Allen Ginsberg for a New York Times profile. All this is fun to watch, although its My Dinner with Andre set-up may be a deterrent to the casual film fan.
Sentimental Value (c) NEON
Sentimental Value
Opening November 7
The best film I saw at the New York Film Festival is also probably the quietest (while packing an emotional wallop). Director Joachim Trier got much acclaim for his last film, The Worst Person in the World, which focused on a young woman trying to find her place but has debatable instincts in her decision-making. While I liked its tone and performances, I found myself really trying to connect with it. No problem with Trier’s latest movie, the deceptively titled Sentimental Value, in which a small family unit implodes from the weight of the past coming back to haunt them. Renate Reinsve, who was so good in Worst Person, is even better here as Nora, a well-known Danish stage actress with crippling stage fright, and if her character’s name conjures up Ibsen and Chekov plays, it’s all on purpose, especially when her father re-enters her life after the death of her mother. Her father Gustav is played by Stellan Skarsgard, in what is sure to be an Oscar-buzzed performance, and he is a famous (and slightly pompous) film director (a theme this year, perhaps?) who is coming out of retirement to direct one more movie and wants Nora to play the lead, loosely based on his mother. Nora coldly declines (in one of the film’s best and tensest scenes), which then leads Gustav to hire hot young American star Rachel Kemp (a very good Elle Fanning) in the part. Nora’s sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) tries to keep the peace between the two, especially when Gustav decides to film most of the movie in his late ex-wife’s house, a house that holds both good and bad memories for the sisters. There is such a generosity of spirit in Trier’s script and how he directs each scene, and the four lead actors are all on his wavelength. There is also a lot of humor in Sentimental Value, mostly surrounding Nora’s stage fright. This is certainly my favorite NYFF film and possibly one of the best films of the year.
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