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<title>2002 - 40th Festival
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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'>2002 - 40th Festival<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p>The recently ended 40<sup>th</sup> Edition of the New York Film Festival was
even more uniformly interesting and worthwhile than usual. (I once again urge
all of you in the NYC area to join the <a href="http://www.filmlinc.com/">Lincoln
Center Film Society</a> and attend the NYFF next Fall.)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>While there were fewer blockbuster hits than
in some years, there was an unusually wonderful array of fascinating films�US
and foreign, some that will be released and some that will not, and all
rewarding viewing. Here is a description of some of the highlights and films to
be on the lookout for. I have placed in bold type the films that already are
scheduled for release in the US and have given release dates where they are
currently available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(For those who are
interested, the entire 2002 NYFF program and the Film Society descriptions of
each film can be found at <a
href="http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyfffilms2002.htm">www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyfffilms2002.htm</a>)</p>
<p><u>MY FAVORITES (wonderful, well-made, enjoyable films):<o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p><b>TALK TO HER. </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">��</span>(Closing Night;
Spain; to be released <b>22 November</b> by Sony Pictures Classics).<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>This was my very favorite of all the films
in this year�s NYFF.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Pedro Almad�var,
whose �All About My Mother� was one of the great films from the �99 Festival,
has created a mature masterpiece in this latest film.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>�Talk to Her� is funny and moving, sad and uplifting, perverse
and loving, sensual and surprising�and all without the jarring shifts of many
of his earlier films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Almad�var moves
back and forth in time and imagery, exploring love and connection, frustration
and isolation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>We are led to see and
feel the beauty in what we would be certain we would find repulsive, and the humor
in what we would expect to find only heartrending.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>The story languorously revolves around Benigno (Javier C�mara), a
male nurse lovingly caring for a young dance student, Alicia (Leonor Watling)
who is in a coma, and Marco (Dario Grandinetti), a writer in love with Lydia
(Rosario Flores), a female bullfighter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>At the beginning of the film, in one of its many chance encounters, the
two men are seated next to each other at a dance performance, and then their
lives proceed to repeatedly intersect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>In addition to the beauty of the cinematography, Almad�var has created a
deeply gorgeous artistic tapestry, using the singing of Caetano Veloso and the
dance of Pina Bausch�and the wonderful silent film-within-the-film adds yet
another, comic dimension to the fabric he has woven.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>�Talk to Her� is incredibly well-acted, beautifully photographed,
and a totally engrossing artistic experience.</p>
<p><b>ABOUT SCHMIDT.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(Opening
Night; USA; to be released <b>13 December </b>by New Line)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Alexander Payne (�Election� and �Citizen
Ruth�) has done an impressive job of bringing to the screen the script he and
Jim Taylor wrote, loosely based on the novel by Louis Begley.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>It is the story of Warren Schmidt, a
just-retired insurance executive in Omaha (the setting for all of Payne�s
films), whose already limited and constricted life (he urinates sitting down
because his wife has insisted that he always do it that way)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>becomes increasing devoid of anchors and
meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>He sets out on a voyage in a
huge mobile home (which he hates), partly to go to (or perhaps to prevent) the
marriage of his somewhat-estranged daughter to someone he totally disapproves
of�and partly to find himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>While
not perfect, the movie generally succeeds in blending the struggle and pain of
this pathetic main character with an unexpectedly warm, comic counterpoint in
his correspondence to a six-year-old African orphan he has taken on as a
long-distance foster child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>What makes
the film extraordinary, however, is the incredible performance by Jack
Nicholson in the title role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Looking
sad, bloated, pathetic, and totally without the spark of devilishness so
typical of his other roles, Nicholson gives what many (himself included) have
called the performance of his career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>His toast at his daughter�s wedding is a true tour de force.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Kathy Bates is also wonderful�and incredibly
daring�in her role as Schmidt�s daughter�s mother-in-law to be.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Schmidt�s isolation and disconnection from
life comes to a curious point in the film�s effective ending.</p>
<p>A wonderful moment from opening night: after Alexander Payne spoke about the
film, he introduced the cast, ending with Nicholson.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>Nicholson came on stage�looking his handsome, devilish self,
walked up to Kathy Bates and kissed her hand while making the most overdone
courtly bow imaginable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>He then moved
to the next actor in line, embraced him, bent him over backwards, and proceeded
to kiss him passionately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Then,
declining the offer of a microphone, he proceeded to address the vast audience
at Avery Fisher Hall, saying, �Before you watch this movie, I want you to take
a good look at me so you�ll remember how good-looking I really am!�</p>
<p>CHIWASEON. (South Korea)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>An
absolutely achingly beautiful film by Im Kwon-Taek (director of �Chunhyang,�
one of our very favorite films from the 2000 festival�which is now available on
DVD).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Constructed around the life of
Jang Seoung-Ub, a 19<sup>th</sup> artist who is one of Korea�s most renowned
painters, the story is a bit like a Korea version of Ed Harris�s movie,
�Pollock,� in that Jang was an alcoholic, womanizing, rather inarticulate man
who was known to become violent towards both women and children.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Nevertheless, the paintings he produced were
exceedingly beautiful; and while we are carried along by his story, we are also
led through an exploration of the process of artistic creation.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>In �Chiwaseon,� Im has created a film that
is both about and is an example of the creation of art and beauty.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>His director of photography, Jung Il-Sung,
has one of the most artistic eyes in cinema today: the landscapes he captures
at times reflect the beauty of the paintings of the main character, and at
other times express an abstract beauty that transcends even that sublime
beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�� </span>I shall make it a point <i>never</i>
to miss any future work by Im, and �Chiwaseon� is a film I sincerely hope finds
a distributor.</p>
<p><b>THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>(Finland; to be released <b>Spring 2003</b> by Sony Pictures
Classics)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Aki Kaurism�ki�s filmmaking
reminds me of Jim Jarmusch�and to me, that is the very highest compliment:<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>it is a somewhat bizarre, dark, strangely
funny, off-beat film that succeeds in being hilarious and heart warming,
without ever becoming in any way sentimental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>The story is about a man, known only as �M,�<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>who has completely lost his memory after a brutal, random robbery
and beating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>The character sets out to
create a life for himself, along the way finding generosity, imperious
disregard, passion, and love�and always from the most unexpected sources. And,
under the surface of this entertaining and riveting film, there is a subtle
exploration of what a person�s character is really about.</p>
<p>-and one film we didn�t see, but heard was superb:</p>
<p><b>TO BE AND TO HAVE:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(France;
to be released <b>Spring 2003</b> by New Yorker Films)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>[Film Society Review:] One of today's most
sensitive and expressive documentary filmmakers, Nicolas Philibert crafts works
that have the elegance and emotional breadth of great fiction. TO BE AND TO
HAVE, which recounts a year in the life of a one-room schoolhouse in northern
France, is his most exquisite film yet. Philibert makes something momentous of
each interaction between the children and their ineffably gentle teacher, each
in his or her own way coming to terms with the reality of change. Tender, wise,
and lyrical, TO BE AND TO HAVE is heartbreakingly beautiful and uplifting in
the best sense of the word. Assigned viewing for anyone who has ever set foot
in a classroom.</p>
<p><u><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p><u>FILMS DEFINITELY WORTH SEEING (while not the complete, all-around
successes of the films listed above, these films are wonderful in their own
right and worthy of your attention):<o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p>THE MAGDALENE SISTERS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�� </span>(United
Kingdom)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Directed by actor Peter
Mullan, this film (his second as a director) is a gripping and powerful story
about the for-profit laundries run throughout Ireland until the mid-90s by the Sisters
of the Magdalene Order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Ostensibly
institutions for wayward girls, these laundries were essentially prisons,
utilizing the young women as slave labor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>The film follows the stories of three such women on their journey
through the bondage, degradation, oppression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>Just beneath the surface of this horror story lie questions about the
role of the Church and its �moral� position.</p>
<p><b>BLOODY SUNDAY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span></b>(UK/Ireland;
released <b>4 October</b>)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Paul
Greengrass�s film recounts the massacre of Irish protestors by English
paratroopers in what was supposed to be a peaceful civil rights march in Derry,
Northern Ireland, on 30 January 1972.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>The film movingly and disturbingly captures the sense of the inexorable
movement of the forces towards their horrible conclusion. Although a touch too
long, it is still a powerful, gripping, and well-done work.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(And, as I write this, an inquiry is
currently taking place in Great Britain in which testimony confirming the view
presented by the film is being given by at least one of the British
paratroopers who took part that day.)</p>
<p>TURNING GATE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(South Korea)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Written and directed by Hong Song-soo,
�Turning Gate� is simultaneously a story and an allegory, based on the Korean
legend of the turning gate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>An
unsuccessful actor sets out on a journey in which he joins an old friend and
becomes involved with two beautiful women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>It is a story of friendship and betrayal, longing and rejection, love
and despair�all intertwined, and far more complicated than they appear on the
surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>There is a comic sensibility
in this work, as well as a mystical one; and fate comes out a resoundingly
strong factor in the face of human striving.</p>
<p>FRIDAY NIGHT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(France)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Claire Denis (�Beau Travail,� NYFF �99) has
created an intensely sensual, engaging story about unexpected pleasure.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Valerie Lemercier plays a woman who is first
seen packing up the belongings in her apartment in preparation for her<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>move to the apartment of her boyfriend (whom
we never meet in the film).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>She
proceeds to get stuck in the worst traffic jam in the history of Paris.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>In the midst of the rich tapestry of the
sights and sounds of traffic in Paris, she has a chance encounter with a
stranger, Vincent Lindon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Perhaps the
most striking thing about the picture is how erotic Ms. Denis makes the
experience without ever becoming overly explicit. It is languorous, visual,
tender, and sexy�perhaps reflecting the fact that was created from a woman�s
perspective?</p>
<p>MONDAY MORNING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(France/Italy)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Georgian-born Otar Iosseliani has written
and directed a wonderful, comic exploration of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>the life of a welder in a factory�a middle class drone whose
repetitively patterned and controlled existence is an unbroken series of dreary
activities, punctuated only by the occasional cigarette, smoked in stolen moments
amid the non-smoking environments in which he exists.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>One day he decides not to enter the non-smoking factory to which
he commutes each day, and, leaving behind the children who ignore him and the
wife who seems mostly to assign him tasks, he suddenly leaves his home in
France and heads for Venice�where the fairytale feel of that city supports his
foray into the world of the pleasurable, at least for a time.</p>
<p><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><u>INTERESTING, IF FLAWED:<o:p></o:p></u></p>
<p><b>THE SON</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(Belgium/France; to
be released <b>13 December</b> by New Yorker Films) The latest film by the
Dardenne brothers (�La Promesse� and the controversial and much reviled winner
of Cannes, �Rosetta�), is an interesting if somewhat trite exploration of
revenge, forgiveness, compassion, and redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>The carpentry teacher in a program for recently-released young
offenders decides to take on a new apprentice�one with whom he clearly has some
unknown but highly charged relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>The boy, who knows nothing of the underlying relationship, looks to the
teacher as a father figure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>There are
some very gripping moments in the story, but in the end it remains rather
pedestrian and shallow.</p>
<p><b>RUSSIAN ARK.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>(Russia/Germany;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>to be released <b>6
December</b> by Wellspring Films)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>Russian director Alexander Sokurov filmed this 96 minute movie in one
single, unbroken, unedited, continuous take.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>The film is a dreamy journey through the spectacular halls of the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg, accompanying two ghost-like presences�the one a 19<sup>th</sup>
century diplomat whom we see on camera, and the other the eye through which the
experience is seen (in reality the voice and eye of the cinematographer,
Tillman B�ttner); but it is at the same time a journey though Russian history,
moving back and forth between current time and scenes from the past, including
appearances by the likes of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, and
culminating in a grand ball given by Nicholas and Alexandra on the eve of the
Russian Revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Unfortunately, as
novel as are both the format and premise of this film, it ultimately does not
work all that well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>As one of our
guests remarked, �This movie actually underscores the fact that there is a
strong case that can be made for editing!�</p>
<p><b>TEN</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(Iran/France; to be
released <b>Spring 2003 </b>by Paramount Classics)<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>Written, directed, and photographed by the Iranian filmmaker,
Abbas Kiarostami (�Taste of Cherry,� �TheWhite Balloon�), �Ten� takes place
entirely in the car of the main character�a woman who ferries her son, her
sister, and other random female passengers from place to place in Teheran.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>In the emotionally over-heated confines of
her automobile, we are led to feel an intense array of emotions�including, �Get
me out of this car!� The relationship between her and her young son�with her
incessant narcissistic haranguing of him (often centering on her insistence
that he acknowledge the badness of his father, from whom she is now divorced)
and his desperate but aggressively hostile yelling at her and venomous
rejection of her�is the most painfully difficult and provocative facet of the
film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Even with the progress she makes
over the course of the film and the apparent character development that occurs,
she is unable to keep them from slipping back into their old pattern.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Under this mother-child struggle, however,
is the hauntingly disturbing question of the role of women in Iran, and the
attitudes of Iranian males�very problematically embodied in the character of
the young son.</p>
<p><b>PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>(Centerpiece; USA; released <b>11 October by </b>Columbia Pictures)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>I must first confess that I am not a great
fan of P.T.Anderson (although I liked his �Magnolia� better than his �Boogie
Nights��both interesting films, but neither completely my cup of tea), because
I very much disliked �Punch-Drunk Love,� while several people I respect very
much felt the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>This movie
stars Adam Sandler (which also did nothing to help my opinion of it) as a
terribly insecure and out-of-control social misfit who falls in love with the
female main character, Emily Watson�and, for no reason that is anywhere
apparent in the film, she falls in love with him as well.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>(As little character development there is in
the film in general, this lack is particularly egregious with respect to her
character.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Although there were some
interesting moments and some off-beat views that were intriguing, I basically I
found the film shallow, trite, and generally annoying.</p>
<p><b>WAITING FOR HAPPINESS.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>(Mauritania/France;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>to be
released <b>Spring 2003</b> by New Yorker Films)<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>African filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako wrote and directed this
beautifully photographed but hard to follow montage of life in a small, seaside
West African village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Some of the
characters Sissako depicts are extremely fascinating, and there are moments of
real humor, emotion, and pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Nevertheless,<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>it was ultimately amazing how slow this
experience felt, given that it was only a 95 minute movie.</p>
<p><b>DIVINE INTERVENTION.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�
</span>(France/Palestine; to be released <b>Spring 2003</b> by Avatar
Films)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>I <i>really</i> wanted very much
to like this film written and directed by Elia Suleiman�and I did like it very
much at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>moments.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>It is at its very best when it is most
impressionistic and free, comically commenting on the surreal nature of Palestinian
existence under Israeli occupation: the scenes of the angry absurdity of
mundane life (like the neighbor throwing garbage in another�s back yard, or the
struggle over the maintenance and destruction of a narrow roadway, with its
bottle-throwing stand-off), or the marvelous beginning of the scene in which
the main male character, �E.S.,� played by Suleiman himself, releases a helium
filled balloon emblazoned with the face of Yassar Arafat to float past an
Israeli check point and into the city of Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">� </span>The hand-holding scenes between E.S. and the female lead, Manal
Khader were incredible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">�� </span>It ran into
trouble, however, where the surreal and the literal become uneasily juxtaposed
(as when the more caricatured version of oppression is paired with the all too
realistic scene of an Arab ambulance being stopped and searched at the check
point, while Israeli vehicles speed though in both directions).<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Moreover, the apparent subtlety of the
fabric that was being created faltered at moments when <i>all</i> of the
negative forces�including the people coming to repossess automobiles and household
items�were a bit too simplistic portrayed as Israelis.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>The film was most problematic where it
succumbed to arrogantly simplistic political triteness: the highly touted scene
in which a female Palestinian ninja takes on several armed Israeli rangers,
amidst a surreal array of religious symbolism, rather becomes something else
when, after she kills them one by one, the ground becomes a triumphant
Palestinian flag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">� </span>Despite the artistry
of parts of the film, it ended up feeling at times dangerously like a political
tract�and was reacted to as such by the audience.</p>
<p><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>
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