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<p align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span style='font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>2000 - 38th Festival<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p>This year's NYFF has just ended what was a spectacular collection of movies:
although a tough set of films (many disturbing and many quite long), there were
virtually no losers in the almost twenty Nancy and I saw, all but one falling
somewhere between good and unbelievably wonderful.</p>
<p>The truly WONDERFUL films:</p>
<p>CHUNHYANG. This one was the biggest positive surprise of the NYFF for us: Im
Kwon-Taek is a prolific Korean film maker; but I do not know a single one of
his ninety-odd films other than this newest one. CHUNHYANG is a most unusual
movie. Set in the 18th century, it is essentially the traditional Korean folk
tale of a young son of a provincial governor and the girl he falls in love with
--the daughter of a former courtesan. The entire movie is done against the
background (and sometimes foreground) of a Pansori singer, chanting the same
story with the accompaniment of a single drum. Director Im explained that his
intention in making the movie was as much as anything to make accessible the
traditional art form of Pansori to the uninitiated viewer. The rhythmic chants,
guttural whoops, and emotional range of the Pansori singer were truly breath
taking. (Nancy whispered to me during the movie, "He's a Korean Tom
Waits!") Interspersed with the visual presentation of the story (which
often has the Pansori singing in the background), we also get to see this
Pansori singer himself, on stage, performing the story. In the opening
sequence, and throughout the early part of the movie, we see him head on, in
traditional dress. In the latter part of the film, we see him from behind
--revealing the modern audience (which we have heard, at times, earlier) to
which he is performing. It is a little like a Black Gospel meeting --and, in
fact, Pansori has been described as "Korean Blues": the audience
replies to the story, yells out, claps, and generally becomes actively
involved. The visual narrative itself is stunningly photographed: the beauty of
the two lovers is matched and enhanced by the beauty of the scenery, which is
ravishing. The interplay of the Pansori with the showing of the narrative
action works beautifully and powerfully, with the simplistic turns of plot
being made acceptable by the obvious folk tale context. This is a movie that is
beautiful, funny, brutal, tender, sexy, and uplifting; it made us laugh and it
made us cry. (You see, we really didn't like it all that much.) It may not be
for everyone, but it is wonderful for those of us whom it is for! (To my
industry friends out there: I'd LOVE to get my hands on a DVD or even VHS of
this one...) IDK if it's going to get released in the US, but look for it if it
does.</p>
<p>POLLOCK (the Centerpiece of this year's NYFF). Ed Harris produced, directed,
and stars in the title role of this powerful biography of Jackson Pollock.
Although Harris is an actor we have long admired and whose work we have greatly
enjoyed, POLLOCK is his first attempt at directing ---and what a triumph! It is
magnificently and masterfully done. It is beautifully photographed as well; but
it is not a pretty film, as Pollock's life was simply not pretty. The
alcoholism, despair, anger, and brutality are all quite directly portrayed,
along with the brilliance and creativity. Pollock's struggle with critics (even
his champion, Clement Greenberg), his sense of intellectual inferiority (as
with de Kooning, played by Val Kilmer), and mostly his wrenching and
unsuccessful struggle to deal with the love of his artist wife, Lee Krasner
(played marvelously by Marcia Gay Hayden), and his losing fight with alcohol
are all painful to watch. But Ed Harris has made a movie that really works. And
this one will be released! (BTW, fans of "Harold and Maud" might want
to keep an eye out for Bud Cort in this one, in the role of Howard Putzel,
curator for Peggy Guggenheim --it's a bit of a shocker.)</p>
<p>CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (closing night). In case you haven't read all
the extraordinary press this one has been generating, Ang Lee's ("The Ice
Storm," "Sense and Sensibility") martial arts film (yes...this
IS a Kung-Fu movie) is truly incredible! Lusciously photographed, brilliantly
conceived, superbly acted, perfectly executed, this movie is a totally
rewarding and fun experience. It is funny, exciting, touching, and completely
engaging. From its marvelous fight scenes, choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping, who
did the fight scenes in "The Matrix" (can you picture the
sophisticated NYC crowd watching this in Avery Fisher Hall and breaking out
into spontaneous applause after each martial arts encounter?), to the music by
Tan Dun, some played for the sound track by Yo-Yo Ma, this movie is a joy. We
sat through the whole thing with smiles on our faces. It manages in every way
to confound your expectations by its novelty and originality --but it does it
in a way that you can only sit back and rejoice in. It was the singly most
successful movie of this year's Festival. Sony Classics will be releasing it;
and, unless they have completely taken leave of their senses, it will get a big
release and will be a huge hit. Whether you are an aficionado of the Honk Kong
action movies or have never seen one in your life, look for this movie and see
it!</p>
<p>The films that were just "GREAT": </p>
<p>CIRCLE. This powerful Iranian film by Jafar Panahi ("The White
Balloon") presents a disturbing look into the position of women in modern
Iran. Following the intersecting "circles" of the events in a brief
moment in the lives of three young women, all in trouble in ways that are only
eventually and partially made clear, Panahi presents an impressionistic, rather
than narratively coherent, collage of the life of women and of the
"outsiders" in general. Recurrent themes like the prohibition against
women smoking in public and the inability of women legally to travel
unaccompanied by a man drive the message home in a visceral way. There is no
attempt to place these women in a broader context-- not even within the history
of their own lives, nor is there any attempt to idealize or even to justify
them or their actions. Panahi wants to give an even larger sense of the
"circles" that are involved in human lives --beyond just those of
women, or lower classes, or even of Iran; but the film is most powerful where
it is closest to the immediate experience of these particular women.</p>
<p>FAITHLESS. Directed by Liv Ullmann, this screenplay by Ingmar Bergman is a
vaguely autobiographical look at his own life and work. The film is a look at
the central figure, an aging filmmaker named Bergman (wonderfully and
powerfully played by Erland Josephson), confronting his past and eventually
himself. It progresses through an interaction with a woman, Marianne (Lena
Endre --a stunning performance by this beautiful, sexy, and talented actor),
whom he "conjures up" in the film in order to imagine or, more
probably, relive his past. The narrative centers on the affair between Marianne
and Markus, the close friend of Marianne and her conductor husband, David,
which has a devastating effect on all concerned, but particularly on the young
daughter of David and Marianne. (The figure of Bergman periodically keeps
looking painfully at the photograph of the young child he has in a drawer in
his desk.) Ullmann explained at the NYFF that Ingmar Bergman saw this
screenplay as his confrontation with the one episode in his own life, 45 years
ago, about which he was truly guilty and pained. The film is even broader than
that, however, as it has the sense of his confronting the larger questions of
his life. Ullmann has succeeded in directing a truly Bergmanesque work here
--including the fact that it is two and a half hours of emotionally painful
soul-searching. Beautiful, powerful, but extremely difficult.</p>
<p>SMELL OF CAMPHOR, FRAGRANCE OF JASMINE. In this Iranian film, the main
character, Bahman, is an film director who has not been allowed to make films
in Iran for the past twenty years. While the story itself is not
autobiographical, the director, Bahman Farmanara (who also does a magnificent
job of playing the role of Bahman in the film), is someone who was a key figure
in pre-1979 Iranian movie making, and who is making a return to film making
after a twenty-four year absence. Bahman, desperate to make a film of some
sort, has apparently accepted an assignment to make a documentary for Japanese
television about Iranian funeral rites. The story begins to be about his own
funeral and about his obsession with his own death. Interspersed with
declamations about funeral rites from a dour Imam, we see Bahman going through
the upheavals of his life. Although the film makes an intensely powerful
political statement, it does so through a story that is amusing and
entertaining. There is anger and bitterness, but also wisdom and acceptance.</p>
<p>THE TASTE OF OTHERS (Le Gout des Autres). Written by Agnes Jaoui and
Jean-Pierre Bacri (the same collaboration that produced the screenplay for
--and acted in-- Alain Resnais' "Same Old Song," which was such a hit
at the 1998 NYFF), and ably directed by Jaoui, this film was something of
anomaly at this year's NYFF because it was simply so light-hearted! The film is
buoyant, funny, and tender, without overlooking the fact that things do not
always work out. In it, various segments of Parisian society intersect,
interact, and have an impact on each other in amusing and unexpected ways. The
acting by the entire ensemble was wonderful: Bacri masterfully plays a wealthy
industrialist named Castella who is doing an important deal with some Iranians
and falls in love with an actress in a terrible play; Anne Alvaro is excellent
as Clara, the actress; Jaoui herself plays Manie, the beautiful and sexy
hashish dealing bartender who unexpectedly turns out to have some form of
relationship with virtually all of the other characters; Brigitte Catillon does
a remarkable job of playing Castella's very unlikable wife, who is a decorator
who never works, for a very good reason; and I'm not sure who played the wife's
dog. (It may be the only film in history, however, in which I was hoping the
dog would get run over by a car in the end...) The characterizations are not
necessarily deep, but they are telling --and very amusing. The plot requires
one to accept a rather unbelievable degree of development in Bacri's character,
but it ultimately works --just like the flute playing of the chauffeur. It is a
fun film; I hope it gets distribution in the US. </p>
<p>Films that were very good:</p>
<p>BEFORE NIGHT FALLS. This film, directed by Julian Schnabel, is an
interesting and emotionally moving montage about the life of Reinald Arenas,
who has been described as "one of the major talents to have emerged from
the Latin-American literary boom of the 1960's... and who ran afoul of the
Castro regime as both a political dissident and an openly gay man." It is
a beautifully photographed film (at least in parts), and in that sense demonstrates
some of Schnabel's visual talent as a director (even if I have never really
appreciated him as a painter). Schnabel also made some interesting directorial
decisions about language, which I found very effective: although it is an
American movie, much of it is done in Spanish with English subtitles, and much
of the English is done with a heavy Cuban accent. This both created an
effective mood which he manipulated quite well, and it gave him the ability to
utilize some of the poetry of Arenas in its original form. The acting was very
good, with Javier Bardem (a very successful Spanish actor) giving an inspired
performance as Arenas. (There were also some very interesting cameos-- one by
Sean Penn [which, while rather extraneous, was fun if only because I always
love to see him act in anything!], and two [or should it be considered as one?]
by Johnny Depp.) I was expecting to like this one much more than I did,
however; and I think there were two problems (possibly related) that I had
trouble with. First, I realized that the film did not succeed in making me
accept Arenas as the literary genius he was presented as being. Now, in fact,
he may be; but I don't know it. And, although the film assumed it and was built
on it as a given, it did nothing to establish it. We were not particularly
impressed by the writing as presented, and it was difficult to differentiate
between his being a sympathetic and romantic but rather pathetic figure, and
one whose stature gave his struggle a more tragic dimension. (It was actually
hard to buy the notion of his promiscuity as a political act, for example;
while it was easy to understand and be sympathetic to his victimization for
being an openly gay man under a totalitarian regime.) Second, I felt that some
of Schnabel's shallow superciliousness and pretentiousness (so obvious in his
speaking at the NYFF) came through in the film and importantly undermined some
of its potential. (It is even possible that that adversely affected my ability
to embrace Arenas as having sufficient stature.) Still and all, it is a
powerful and interesting film, worthy of your consideration.</p>
<p>CHRONICALLY UNFEASIBLE. Directed by and, in part, written and produced by
Sergio Bianchi, this is an extremely disturbing, difficult, depressing, but
amazingly powerful and passionate indictment of Brazilian society (and, more
broadly, the problems in that society that are ubiquitous in the modern world
outside of Brazil as well). It ranges widely over all corners of Brazil's
geography and spins its way through all levels of its socio-economic and
regional stratification and tensions; yet it revolves loosely throughout around
a Sao Paulo restaurant --the film's six main characters being management, staff
and customers of that establishment. Rather than progressing through a coherent
dramatic narrative, the film takes up intersecting vignettes that in aggregate
create the meaning. Some of these vignettes go back and repeat a nearly
identical scene with some alterations in the details of the participants or the
meaning --simply inserted as alternative possibilities or revisited themes.
Dealing with poverty, suffering, sexual mores, class struggle, and personal
struggle, it is most harsh in that it offers no answers to the problems it
confronts us with --and no particular sense of hopefulness that there are
answers to be found. It is a film that has engendered intense debate in Brazil,
but that raises questions that need to be considered by us all. </p>
<p>The one clinker we saw: </p>
<p>HOUSE OF MIRTH. I don't know, maybe I should recluse myself from comment on
this one, as I am not a big Edith Wharton fan to begin with. But...this is
Terrence Davies' adaptation of Wharton's first novel, set in New York at the
turn of the century. If the novel is as great as it is said to be, Davies did
bad things to it, rendering it slow, unappealing, and mannered. It was
beautifully photographed, but this fact, too, may have contributed to its being
too precious. It was most difficult for me to accept the stature of the main
character's quest and her suffering: rather than tragic, she seemed pathetic.
(On some level, it was hard for me to accept the notion that her great
misfortune was that she was not going to have the privileged life she aspired
to, even if it was unfair the way she was denied it. The low point for me was
when she was unable to keep her job as a milliner --and it turned out it was
not just because she was clumsy at sewing, but because her attendance at work
at been unacceptably poor.) Anyway, I hope the novel was better; the movie was
terrible.</p>
<p>Films we didn't see but heard were good:</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We did not go to the opening night presentation of
"DANCER IN THE DARK," partly because I still have not forgiven
director Lars von Trier for "Breaking the Waves," but mostly because
it was also the night of our friends' breast cancer benefit, Artists for the
Cure, at Carnage Hall (which turned out to be just as wonderful as anticipated,
BTW). As much as I am still angry about his last movie, I must report that the
word on "DANCER" is that it's worth seeing...difficult, disturbing,
and not great...but worth seeing. (It's already been released.)</p>
<p>"BOESMAN AND LENA," John Berry's version of Fugard's play is also
one we didn't see because of conflicting schedule (this time, the Broadway
version "THE FULL MONTY" --which is a MUST SEE, BTW). The report was
that it was good, but also depressing and difficult...and that there probably
was no reason to have made it into a movie, as it was better as a play.</p>
<p>"KRAPP'S LAST TAPE," the Samuel Beckett piece directed by Atom
Egoyan is said to be wonderful.</p>
<p>Edward Yang's "Yi Yi" is great by all accounts. The only negative
fact is that it's 3 hours long...but I'm told it is completely worth it. This
Taiwanese/Japanese film is playing the art house circuit in NYC (currently at
the Film Forum).</p>
<p>"AMORES PERROS," by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu is a Mexican film
that is said to be stunning.</p>
<p>"PLATFORM," a Chinese/Japanese film is also said to be a
masterpiece...although this one is almost 3 1/2 hours long!</p>
<p>NYFF SPECIAL EVENTS (I doubt that there will be a chance to see any of
these, but they were SO wonderful, I'm going to describe them anyway): </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>BODY AND SOUL. This 1925 silent film was produced and
directed by Oscar Micheaux, the African American filmmaker whose Micheaux Film
Corporation was the one successful Black cinema enterprise in the early years
of film. The film, while featuring a plot that was a melodrama in the manner of
filming of that time, delves more deeply into the question of race and human interactions
than most of his white contemporaries. The power of the film is enormously
enhanced by the performances given by its star, Paul Robeson (who in the film
plays twin brothers). Even without being able to utilize his world renowned
voice, Robeson creates a performance that is gripping in its power and depth.
The film is remarkably successful and communicative, even 75 years later, to an
audience unaccustomed to viewing silent pictures. (There is in the film an
example of the one anomaly for which Micheaux has repeatedly been taken to
task: the heroines of all his films are invariably light skinned to the point
of looking White.) The film, which often had been shown in its day accompanied
by a jazz ensemble, was presented at the NYFF with a new jazz score, written by
trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. While there were many interesting elements in the
score, we did not find it successful as a score to accompany this particular
film --a problem exacerbated by the fact that the music, played by the Wynton
Marsalis' Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (a problem all its own, to those of us
who do not believe that this man's generic but soulless, technically adept but
lowest common denominator music ought to be what people should think of to
represent Jazz), was unnecessarily electronically amplified, and played at a
volume that distracted from the movie rather than supported it. It may be that
this film may get a release, and, if it does, it is very worth seeing. </p>
<p>PASSION AND DEFIANCE: SILENT DIVAS OF THE ITALIAN CINEMA.</p>
<p>This series of silent Italian films from the teens and twenties was a real
surprise. The unbelievably melodramatic story lines ("beautiful young
woman has to sell herself into prostitution because..." "beautiful
young woman is seduced and abandoned by an aristocrat who...") were
actually made into moving and powerful films that actually still work today. We
saw three --"ASSUNTA SPINA" (1915), "VEDI NAPULE E PO'
MORI" ("See Naples and Die," 1924), "LA STORIA DI UNA
DONNA" ("The Story of a Woman," 1920)-- and they were all
wonderful! And the live accompaniment provided by the pianist, Donald Eosin, at
each film actually worked well, in contrast to the score for BODY AND SOUL.)
The three "divas" involved in each --Francesca Bertini, Leda Gys, and
Pina Menichelli, respectively-- warranted the title: they were
"operatic" in their stature, in their posturing, and in their
emotions. A series of unexpected treats!</p>
<p>VIEWS FROM THE AVANT-GARDE. </p>
<p>We only got to see one of the four programs that were presented (it was at
the end of the 18 days of the NYFF, and exhaustion had set it), but it was
wonderful. Entitled "BENEATH THE SECOND HAND," it was a collection of
11 films, ranging in length from 2-22 minutes each. Experimental film can be
dangerous territory for the viewer, but every one of these was at least
interesting, and the majority were unbelievably good. To mention just some
favorites: We loved the opening piece, a light-hearted, two minute film by
Michael Snow entitled "PRELUDE." In it sex, food, violence, and music
occur as visual image, sound, and verbal discussion --but not in all three
forms simultaneously (I actually wondered if, like a crab canon in music, the
sound and the visual were moving in opposite directions from each end in time),
coinciding only at the middle of the film. The two films by Janie Geiser,
"SPIRAL VESSEL" and "LOST MOTION" were masterful: the first
an exploration of the body (especially the female body and motherhood) using a
puzzle from an old psychology test kit, old scientific drawings from chemistry
books, and textures and materials; the second using antique miniature figures,
doll house furniture, toy trains, and my old erector set (not really), to tell
the story of a man's psychological journey. "ZERO ORDER" was a wonderfully
inventive film by Bobby Abate --clever, humorous, painful, moving-- dealing
with homosexuality, sexuality, and identity, against the backdrop of and
interwoven with "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (can you imagine "Moon
River" played backwards?). Personally, it might have been my favorite had
its 34 minutes not been very overly long for what he was doing.
"BLITZE" by Dietmar Brehm and "SLOW DEATH" by Stom Sogo
were also good. The final piece, "IN ABSENTIA," a 22 minute
exploration of obsession and madness by the Quay brothers, stunningly filmed
mostly in black and white but at times in color, and always in CinemaScope,
with music by Karlheinz Stockhausen, was a marvelous if frighteningly painful
view into the world of a woman's psychosis. (It contains the most dramatic scene
of sharpening a pencil that will ever be done on film.)</p>
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