October 12, 2006
New York Dispatch. 9.
From the New York Film Festival, running through Sunday, Andrew Grant on the latest film from Alain Resnais.
It's a shame that Alain Resnais's producers have chosen to release his latest film stateside under the ever-so-British moniker Private Fears in Public Places, especially when Resnais's preferred title, Coeurs, is as succinct and poetic as the film itself. This is Resnais's second interpretation of an Alan Ayckbourn play, though, unlike 1992's five-hour double feature Smoking/No Smoking, which took great pains to capture its Yorkshire roots, screenwriter Jean-Michel Ribes has managed to transpose this English comedy of manners into a decidedly Gallic drama.
A dark doppelgänger to 1997's On Connaît la Chanson, Coeurs also follows the lives of loosely connected Parisians worrying about real-estate and relationships, but without the recourse of having the same old songs to fall back on. This is a portrait of loneliness - of six melancholic characters desperate to connect, but trapped by obligations, illusions and their own long-standing solitude. It's somehow apropos that the film is set in Bercy, the vastly renovated and modernized Paris district that lacks the sense of history one normally associates with the city of love. It's an area where new walls divide old spaces - factitious separations that serve to keep people apart. A chilly environment rendered even colder by a never-ending snowstorm.
Of the six actors in the film, all but two have a history with Resnais, and the film is a reminder of his strength as a director of actors. A true ensemble piece, no one performance outshines another - even the often-stiff Lambert Wilson turns in a remarkable performance as a career soldier whose relationship is crumbling due to alcoholism and malaise. As his forty-something fiancée who is unable to comprehend (let alone accept) the gravity of her situation, Laura Morante brings a heartbreaking sense of pathos and desperation to the role, which more than once resulted in some serious welling up.
Renais regulars Pierre Arditi and Sabine Azéma surpass their performances in Smoking/No Smoking, here portraying a stoic bartender caring for his dying father, and a seemingly chaste Bible-reading real estate agent who also works as a night nurse for the dying man. She seeks strength from her religion, but her loneliness leads her to a unique interpretation of Christian charity. Veteran actor Claude Rich plays Arditi's father, though we never actually see him - as if Resnais is refusing to accept his own mortality. Rounding out the cast is André Dussollier and Isabelle Carré as a brother and sister who seemed destined to fail at finding romance.
Though an adaptation of a stage play, there's an undeniably cinematic quality to Coeurs, even if the action is contained to a small handful of sets. Resnais's camera moves gently and gracefully through scenes, and cinematographer Eric Gautier's use of Cinemascope in such tight spaces is masterful. The dissolves to snow at the end of each scene (with fades to black saved for act changes) give us a sense of omniscience - as if we were viewing these characters in a massive snowglobe.
At 84 years old, it's hard to say how many more films Alain Resnais has in him, but Coeurs shares the same elegiac tone as John Huston's cinematic farewell, The Dead, which similarly ends with a snowstorm. His best director nod at Venice this year is a perfect bookend to his 1961 Golden Lion for Last Year at Marienbad. Alain Resnais, once a purely idea-driven artist, has now become a master of la comedie humaine.
The gaggle of young 'uns I saw the film with had little use (and borderline contempt) for the film, and found themselves lacking empathy for the woes of a half-dozen forty- to sixty-somethings. (In their defense, I must admit that fifteen years ago I might have found this equally as insufferable.) Yet is it an age thing? I can't say for sure, but Coeurs is the only film at the festival that managed to provoke tears, and it left me emotionally drained. This is Resnais at the top of his craft - a somber, beautiful, mature work that ranks among his best.
Posted by dwhudson at October 12, 2006 5:52 AM
Hello - to cleanse the celluloid palate after NYFF, you should know that the Woodstock Film Festival bows this evening...
Let It Roll: Woodstock Film Festival 2006 Preview
by Jay Blotcher
Even those wags returning from Park City, Utah, with brimming swag bags are beginning to slam the Sundance Film Festival, the head honcho of indie-film gatherings. For the past few years, Robert Redford's showcase in the wilderness for bold filmic voices has become a playground for studio suits in slacker mufti; folks who fancy themselves outsider hotshots because they've created a boutique section for quirky pseudo-indie releases with studio-sized budgets. The rising dissent over what Sundance has devolved into means that the Woodstock Film Festival joins an ever-narrowing group of festivals that offer substance over mere style.
Now in its seventh year, The Woodstock Film Festival (October 11-15) clings with quiet pride to its slogan, "Fiercely Independent." In an era when international strife continues to rip at the seams of humanity, and when artists seeking to tell the truth are often cowed into silence, the event has not wavered from its pledge to exhibit films that focus on politics (mostly of the progressive stripe), music, and the myriad joys—and challenges—of counterculture living. Over the course of four days, festival stalwarts and newcomers alike will attend the cinematic stories of people as disparate as a female suicide bomber, the creator of hot rods, an Israeli soldier, a master tango composer, lost souls, would-be guitar heroes, and three outspoken Texan women who remain at the top of George W. Bush's shit list.
"Many [festival] films are about individual reflections," said Meira Blaustein, co-founder of WFF with her husband, Laurent Rejto. (She is also the festival's director and programmer.) "Not individual struggles, but an individual looking for meaning and understanding and trying to come to terms with the world around them."
The most stunning example of this genre, and one guaranteed to stir debate on Tinker Street, is Day Night Day Night by Julia Loktev, which stunned the judges at Cannes, who gave it two awards. Day Night Day Night follows a 19-year-old woman from New Jersey to Times Square, a typical daily commute—except that this individual has a political agenda and a bomb strapped to her back. The cast includes Luisa Williams, Josh P. Weinstein, Gareth Saxe, and Nyambi Nyambi. Director Lokev, an émigré from Russia to the States at age nine, won the Directing Award at Sundance for her feature documentary, Moment of Impact.
Perhaps less incendiary, but just as compelling, are other films that deal with our collective social ills. Autumn's Eyes (directed by Paola Mendoza and Gabriel Noble) views the problem of poverty now affecting the third generation of a New Jersey African-American family. This documentary tells the tale in cinéma vérité style, bypassing overt politics and mawkish filigree, but it will easily break your heart. James D. Scurlock's muckraker, Maxed Out, dissects life on the installment plan in this debtor nation and chronicles how credit card companies delight in getting you to overspend. Rachel Libert's Beyond Conviction spotlights a program in Pennsylvania's correctional system in which victims and criminals are reunited for understanding and closure. Libert's harrowing documentary benefits from brave and eloquent people who demonstrate the humanity often obscured by an unforgiving penal system.
The Woodstock Film Festival grows quietly but steadily. Its screening venues sprawl across the region, encompassing Woodstock's Tinker Street Cinema and Bearsville Theater, Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, the Catskill Mountain Foundation Theater in Hunter, and the Rosendale Theater.
By design, WFF remains a home-grown affair, and the grassroots vibe is reassuring. The opening night party at New World Home Cooking remains modest. The same handful of sponsors underwrite the event (although showbiz magazine Variety is a new backer). Each year, filmgoers can expect that the small venues will be overcrowded, the microphones at industry panels will emit a piercing feedback squawk, and friendly interns will clumsily wrangle the audience lines that snake out onto the sidewalks. That is unlikely to change, Blaustein said: "The festival is strictly independent and still runs on a very low budget, and runs on volunteer power."
Another festival tradition is music. Despite its relocation to Bethel, the 1969 music and arts festival that defined a generation was originally slated to be held here. Blaustein and Rejto remain dedicated to showcasing music and films about music. Every festival opens with a concert that has a cinematic connection; in the past, headliners have included funkster Bernie Worrell and crossover banjo player Bela Fleck, both of whom were featured in documentaries those years.
A documentary that affirms the power of music is Si Sos Brujo: A Tango Story (If You Know Magic). Blaustein calls it "an Argentinean Buena Vista Social Club." Director Carolina Neal follows a group of young musicians from Buenos Aires intent on reviving the classic music created for the libidinous tango. They successfully coax maestro Emilio Balcarce, 87, out of retirement to tour the country.
The documentary Wetlands is an elegy for the Lower Manhattan music club that was a second home to the Deadheads and lefty political firebrands who partied and organized in the titular, tie-dyed cradle. Ilko Davidov's Unauthorized and Proud of It tells the story of Todd Loren, who fought and won a First Amendment rights case for the right to publish unauthorized comic-book biographies of rock stars. Unauthorized includes interviews with unabashed Republican Alice Cooper and the legendary Cynthia Plaster Caster.
The closing night film is catnip for cinephiles who crave a film in which music and politics collide loudly. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing dissects the fallout after one member of this chart-topping group verbally bitch-slapped the Chief Executive in 2003. Blacklisting from red-state radio followed. So did death threats. Shut Up is codirected by Cecilia Peck and veteran filmmaker Barbara Kopple.
Kopple is the recipient of this year's Honorary Maverick Award, a WFF distinction given for a body of work that marries film to progressive politics. A two-time Academy Award winner, for Harlan County, USA (1976) and American Dream (1991), Kopple also filmed the 1994 Woodstock concert in Saugerties. She currently serves on the board of the American Film Institute. Past recipients of the Woodstock Film Festival's Honorary Maverick Award include Steve Buscemi, Woody Harrelson, and Tim Robbins; documentarians D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Les Blank; and director Mira Nair. This year's Trailblazer Award, honoring an industry kingpin in indie-film circles, will recognize the Independent Film Channel's founder, Jonathan Sehring.
The festival will open with Infamous, the second recent film to dramatize the life of literary gadfly Truman Capote. Toby Jones and Daniel Craig lead a dream cast. Infamous is produced by indie veteran Christine Vachon. WFF's centerpiece film is After the Wedding, by Danish director Susanne Bier. This narrative film follows a man struggling to improve life for orphans in India. When funds dry up, he is offered $4 million, but with strings: He must return to Denmark and marry the donor's daughter. The film stars Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen, and Rolf Lassgård.
Throughout the year, Blaustein travels to film festivals and cherry-picks the films that reflect WFF's agenda. In addition to fundraising, she also schedules screenings, in addition to operating the Woodstock Film Commission, which woos film makers to shoot in this region.
"Our goals keep on expanding," Blaustein said, "and the job grows with it." Asked to describe how an ideal festival would play out, Blaustein said it occurs when "everyone walks away feeling more empowered than when they came in; that's really what it's about."
The Woodstock Film Festival never courts glitz; visiting celebrities possess more art-house appeal than Hollywood wattage. Attendees have included Parker Posey, Matt Dillon, Frances McDormand, the Coen Brothers, and local residents Aidan Quinn, David Strathairn, Tim Blake Nelson, and Ethan Hawke. This year, Timothy Hutton, who appears in a couple of films in competition, is slated to appear.
While she takes chances with film topics, Blaustein vows to keep the Woodstock Film Festival of modest size.
"Paris Hilton is not going to come to the festival," she said. Blaustein pauses and reconsiders her comment, the adds, "If she does, she will be very dressed down, I'm sure."
ALSO ROLLING...More Woodstock Film Festival Highlights
FORGIVENESS. DIRECTED BY UDI ALONI. In Forgiveness, director Udi Aloni doesn't shy away from the big issues: the Holocaust and the quest for a Palestinian homeland. David Adler is the son of a camp survivor, living in Brooklyn. Against his father's wishes, he joins the Israeli army, but the brutalities of war eventually unhinge his mind and land him in a mental hospital. Aloni overloads his script with plot twists and magic realism that beggar credibility, but still delivers emotional highs. Forgiveness is also unexpectedly sexy, featuring a hypnotic musical score and a stand-out dance number with Israeli soldiers.
TALES OF THE RAT FINK. DIRECTED BY RON MANN. American drag racing is powered by a combination of gasoline and testosterone. The reason is explained lovingly and irreverently in the documentary Tales of the Rat Fink, directed by Ron Mann. Through an explosion of archival footage, vintage music, and mind-bending animation by Mike Roberts, Rat Fink canonizes Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, a wiseacre-genius from the 1950s responsible for designing hot rods and even the first message T-shirt. Narrated by John Goodman.
AIR GUITAR NATION. DIRECTED BY ALEXANDRA LIPSITZ. Only a handful of us ultimately achieve rock-star status. But in our metaworld, even the pretenders have a shot at fame, as proven by Air Guitar Nation (directed by Alexandra Lipsitz), a documentary that follows a pair of stateside practitioners of air guitar—known by the tongue-in-cheek stage names of C-Diddy and Bjorn Turoque—when they head for the 2002 championships in Oulu, Finland. Air Guitar celebrates underdogs and the power of make-believe so exuberantly that you'll be holding your lighter high by the finale.
OFF THE BLACK. DIRECTED BY JAMES PONSOLDT. Perhaps you recall the subplot in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird where Jem falls into the clutches of the irascible Mrs. Dubose and is forced to perform chores for her: After she dies, he realizes how much he helped her. That plot line is echoed in Off the Black, the debut feature by James Ponsoldt. Nick Nolte plays a dissipated small-town umpire whose home is vandalized by disgruntled high schoolers. He nabs one kid and forces him to fix the damage. The two eventually form a heartwarming bond. Nolte's and Timothy Hutton's naturalistic performances as tortured souls are unable to cut through the schmaltz.
TEN CANOES. DIRECTED BY ROLF DE HEER & PETER DJIGIRR. An Aboriginal legend from Australia's remote Arafura Swamp is brought to life in Ten Canoes by writer Rolf de Heer, who codirected with Peter Djigirr. Hypnotic and primitive, the film is narrated by David Gulpilil, the memorable lead in the Nicolas Roeg 1971 classic Walkabout.
THE ORANGE THIEF. DIRECTED BY BOOGIE DEAN, VINNIE ANGEL & ARTHUR WILINSKI. The title The Orange Thief suggests de Sica neorealism, but this comedy's tone recalls Wertmuller's brutal send-up of the Italian social order. The eponymous fruitpoacher (played by Andrea Calabres) steals as a way to thumb his nose at the wealthy. He always ends up bloody, unbowed, and incarcerated. During one prison stay, a cellmate offers him a new life as landed gentry if he can accomplish a mission when he's sprung. This shaggy-dog tale was shot on location in Lucca-Sicula, Italy, by three Brooklyn directors—Boogie Dean, Vinnie Angel, and Arthur Wilinski—in an exquisite-corpse style. And the results are indeed exquisite, right down to the poetic cinematography and an intoxicating musical soundtrack.
—JB
FOR SHOWTIMES, VISIT WWW.WOODSTOCKFILMFESTIVAL.COM
Posted by: Jay Blotcher at October 12, 2006 8:05 AM
Subscribe to GreenCine Daily RSS
Subscribe to GreenCine Daily by email
