Michael Haneke comes to the New York Film Festival riding a mountain of prestige—his film, “The White Ribbon”, is his first to win the Palm D’Or after coming close so many times. In many ways, it’s surprisingly his most cinematically conventional film—he never breaks the fourth wall, there are no references to cinema, and unlike so many of his previous works, it’s obvious what the final secrets of the film are, albeit to an audience with at least some intellect. But “The White Ribbon” is so much more than that—it’s a meticulously crafted experience, and thematically, his most complicated film.
(more…)
Posts Tagged ‘nyff’
NYFF Day 12—More than Troubled Childhoods
NYFF: Day 9 – Humpday
HENRI GEORGES CLOUZOT’S INFERNO
A behind-the-scenes picture from H.G. Clouzot's lost film "L'Enfer".
The biggest potential pitfall for any documentary and its filmmakers is the failure to spark an interest in the audience regarding the subject of the film. Though the director may find every nook and cranny of the focus of his documentary to be as fascinating as the meaning of life, his job, as a documentarian, is to not only engage an audience but also to convince them their subject deserves a 90 minute exploration. (more…)
NYFF: Day 8 – All You Need is Love…
ANTICHRIST
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe in the prologue to Antichrist.
First off, yes, all of the buzz and hyperboles surrounding Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist” are absolutely true. That now much talked about third act actually does draw yelps, screams, eye covering, squirming, and mass exodus’ to the door. Yet these reactions to the more envelope-demolishing aspects of the film are overshadowing what could potentially be one of most brilliant and thought-provoking films of the decade.
NYFF: Day 6 – Transvestites and Trash Humpers…’nuff said.
TO DIE LIKE A MAN
Tonia, the focus of "To Die Like a Man."
“This movie is hard to classify under one genre,” proclaimed one of the directors of the New York Film Festival in his introduction to Joao Pedro Rodrigues’ “To Die Like a Man.” While it’s true the film doesn’t conform to one genre, one word can define the film as a whole– train-wreck.
NYFF: Day 5 – What Is It Good For?
LEBANON
Joining the overflowing mass of recent war films, “Lebanon”, like most of its predecessors, brings nothing new to a genre that desperately needs either a rest or a potentially impossible new perspective.
NYFF: Day 4 – In the Name of the Will
THE ART OF THE STEAL
Dr. Albert Barnes, founder of the Barnes Foundation.
The automobile industry in Flint. A former US Secretary of Defense. The National Spelling Bee. A man who lives with Grizzly bears. A collection of paintings? Though they may not sound like much, each are the synopses of some of the most fascinating documentaries produced in the last 25 years. The last of which, referring to the controversial displacement of Dr. Albert Barnes’ historic collection of Post-Impressionist paintings from his country home at the private Barnes Foundation – where his will stipulates the collection was always to stay – to a public museum in Philadelphia, is a bare-bones summary of Don Argott’s ingenious documentary “The Art of the Steal”. (more…)