Rachel Allen

This summer, when her film “The Hurt Locker” was just beginning to make waves, alum Kathryn Bigelow (SOA ‘81) discussed the gender gap in cinema with the Spectator: “If the politics of gender are at work, I am not dignifying them or acquiescing to them—I’m just moving forward at what seems right.” Bigelow, whose film was nominated for an impressive 9 golden statues this morning,  is certainly moving forward — if she wins Best Director during this year’s telecast, she will be the first woman to ever win the statue.

The Hurt Locker, which follows an explosives tech squad in war-torn Iraq whose main goal is to deactivate enemy bombs, has been shocking and exciting audiences since its summer release, and hasn’t let go of the critics’ hearts since. Aside from the directing honor, The Hurt Locker has been nominated for Best Picture, Actor (the fantastically understated Jeremy Renner), Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

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“Women with Suitcases,” the mock film within Pedro Almodovar’s latest work “Broken Embraces” seems more like an Almodovar film than the film itself.  The closing night feature of this year’s New York Film Festival failed to amaze, breaking Almodovar’s streak of strong and unique cinematic experiences.

The concept of “Broken Embraces” is interestingly reflexive: a filmmaker, literally blinded as the result of an affair with the trophy girlfriend of a jealous millionaire, has to deal with the loss of the key to his art—sight.  This is such an interesting concept for a filmmaker to tackle, one Almodovar had been ruminating on for years, that it is unfortunate it did not reach its potential.

Just as there is a film within a film in “Broken Embraces,” there is a story within a story. Mateo Blanco (Lluis Homar) makes Lena (Penelope Cruz) the star of “Women with Suitcases,” and as they fall in love their worlds start falling apart. After the most tragic event of his life, Mateo Blanco becomes his screenwriter nom de plume—Harry Caine, and purposely gives up his true self. Only later in life, with the help of a surrogate son and an unexpected visitor from his past, can he reclaim his emotions, memories, and life’s work.

As the biggest name on the bill, Penelope Cruz doesn’t disappoint—the film is another love story to the unbounded beauty of Almodovar’s muse. Although less of a performance than in “Volver,” Cruz’s Lena ultimately captures the audience’s hearts as only a true screen siren can. Her character stands out, simply stated, from the somewhat boring and unremarkable performances of the rest of the cast.

Serious thought went into the film’s editing and symbolism, and maybe as a result Almodovar’s often unique creativity seems subdued. The screenplay is lackluster and sometimes even lazy—throwing in plot twists never explained—and the characters all seem like sketches never fully realized before put on the screen. “Broken Embraces” is certainly an interesting progression for dedicated lovers of Almodovar’s work.  But for those less invested, renting a classic like “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” which here is clearly parodied in Mateo’s film, is more worthwhile. Why see a formulaic parody when the original still stands?

Madness manifesting itself as passion, in "Antichrist"

“Antichrist”, the latest of Lars von Trier’s forays into sensationalist drama, if possible comes from a darker  and more graphic place than his previous films. Coping with depression for the duration of filming, von Trier crafted “Antichrist”’s script simply as a “routine, to convince myself I could still write.”

The film begins in a psychological wasteland, when an unnamed man (Willem Dafoe) and woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) lose their child, and too soon thereafter attempt to heal their broken spirits. The first two thirds of “Antichrist” are stunningly emotional, grippingly sexual, and well acted. It is when the film moves away from this desperate emotion and towards the supernatural that things get messy.

Though the film’s strong suit is its emotional strength, what von Trier set out to make was a horror film, not a psychological drama. The director himself acknowledged, in an exclusive Skype interview with NYFF press, that he failed in this sense. “I know it is not [a horror film].” In “Antichrist” he seems to have abandoned his Dogme 95 roots, creating one of his most cinematic films to date. During filming, he was “never really excited. Normally I’m extremely happy… I felt almost maybe human.” The self-proclaimed immortal admits he let things fall through the cracks that he normally wouldn’t allow in his masterpieces. Countless times he mentioned he was “not completely happy with the look of the film”, admitting about certain scenes and filmic symbols that “normally I would’ve taken all of this shit out.” This lack of care or attention to detail shows through in this disquieting work.

Despite any shortcomings, “Antichrist” will make you squirm and bite your tongue, or, on a deeper level, make you consider reevaluating gender, nature, and relationships. During the film’s talked-about violent conclusion members of the Cannes audience walked out in protest, but according to von Trier he likes having the label of provocateur: “if they don’t walk out, then I have failed”. Will audiences follow suit at NYFF? See for yourself at “Antichrist”’s last showing, this Saturday at 1pm.

87-year-old New Wave visionary Alain Resnais is most certainly not too old to be contemporary. Resnais’ most recent film “Wild Grass” is a triumph of style and cinematic innovation that proves he hasn’t lost his touch.

“Wild Grass” opens the 46th New York Film Festival tonight, and Resnais’s latest has clearly claimed the hearts of critics and festivals alike.

The film’s title derives from those displaced shoots of grass, which somehow manage to spring up amidst the concrete – in between the sidewalk cracks and areas that haven’t seen greenery in years. Resnais makes this point crystal clear in his cinematography, though the depth lies in how true this is of his characters – they themselves are displaced, where they shouldn’t be. Both protagonists are lost in a world they are a physical part of but strangely don’t belong in.

The weakness of the film, if any, lies in the treatment of the narrative — Resnais seems to let the stylistic devices and colors of the film speak for his characters’ emotions, rather than the acting. The plot itself surrounds Marguerite  (Sabine Azema) and Georges (Andre Dussollier), two middle-aged people, both inherently saddened by how life has turned out for the. When Marguerite’s purse gets stolen and Georges later finds it in a mall parking lot, their hopes, excitements, and obsessions arise – spiraling to a place neither can control.

The film is, as many have said of it thus far, a fresh and unexpected turn from Resnais, and certainly a film worth seeing simply for the challenge of understanding a true master’s work.

“Wild Grass” will be released by Sony in the spring.

Don Ready is not Ari Gold.

Jeremy Piven, star of the new movie The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, insists that his film fills this summer’s seemingly endless void of quality comedy—and promises that, despite some obvious comparisons, his new role is a completely different take on the antics that have characterized his infamous summer TV show persona.

“In this character of Don Ready in The Goods, he’s someone you might think is like Ari Gold, and he is a salesman, but he’s having a complete life crisis—he is a guy who has spent his life on the road eating breakfast in strip clubs and he finally comes to the reality that man, it might be time for him to possibly settle down.”

Breakfast in strip clubs? Self-titled “road dog” Don Ready is certainly more unrefined, and thus hopefully more interesting, than Piven’s other star character. (more…)