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NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2000 (PART I) Send This Review to a Friend
No prizes are given by the New York Film Festival, but if I were to pick the favorites of those that I saw at the year 2000 event, its 38th edition, I would award the top three spots in the following order to FAITHLESS, THE TASTE OF OTHERS, and POLLOCK, which is not to say that much praise isn't due numerous other selections to be duly cited here.
In general, films from abroad were those that scored most impressively among the Festival choices. Also showcased at the Toronto International Festival and at Cannes, the Swedish FAITHLESS, with a script by Ingmar Bergman and direction by Liv Ullmann, is a stunning exploration of relationships that digs profoundly into desires and frailties. Its creativity stems from the type of art long delivered by Bergman, and the basis here is his knowing script, which depicts a writer named Bergman (one therefore assumes references to his own life in the screenplay), who is recalling characters whom he wants to commit to paper. Ullmann, who was so close to Bergman both in his films and in their personal lives, is the right choice as the screenplay's interpreter. In addition, she brings her own wisdom and penetrating style to the eloquent and elegant material.
Veteran actor Erland Josephson is exactly right to play the relfective Bergman. But the film's greatest performance belongs to the remarkable actress Lena Endre, who plays Marianne, a wife who slips into a turbulent and emotionally costly affair with a family friend, David, expertly and vividly played by Krister Henriksson. It is Endre who merits every award in sight for her complex, searing portrait that expresses a range of feelings and conflicts. She has one particular monologue that reaches extraordinary acting heights and Ullmann focuses on her much the way Ullmann had been highlighted by Bergman in films in which she appeared. Another strong performance is contributed by Thomas Hanzon as Markus, the betrayed husband.
"Faithless" is steadily intense, drawing one into its emotional orbit. It is due for commercial release next year, and is definitely a film worth waiting for.
A French film about relationships, THE TASTE OF OTHERS is an ultra sophisticated work by Anges Jaoui, who co-wrote the script with Jean-Pierre Bacri, her husband, with whom she has worked previously. Both also star in the film, Jaoui as the independent-minded Manie, and Bacri as Castella, a businessman who is looked down upon for his lack of knowledge about the arts and his lack of sophistication. Jaoui has assembled a fascinating group of characters and an excellent cast for this incisive story of the efforts to find the right person in life and the problems of committing. The film is rich in humor and witty observations, all blended with precisely the right tone that informs us without clobbering us. "The Taste of Others" is delightful and in the tradition of the best in French filmmaking, from Renoir to Rohmer.
POLLOCK, a labor of love for Ed Harris, inquires into the life of the late, emotionally scarred artist Jackson Pollock. In the drama that was also offered at the Toronto Festival, Harris plays Pollock and also directs. His acting is deep and affecting as he dramatizes the artist wrestling with his demons in self-destructive outbursts, with the implication that one such outburst while behind the wheel led to his untimely death in an auto accident. Harris directs with great respect for his subject and concentrates on trying to frame both the artist as a creator and as a flawed human being.
What gives the film extra dimension is the superb performance by Marcia Gay Harden as artist Lee Krasner, who falls in love with Pollock and nurtures and encourages him through his moods and periods of defeat. Her own work plays second fiddle to his, and she was to gain the recognition that she finally did after his death. Harden is a believable, dynamic force in the film. There are occasional moments that seem contrived, such as Pollock's accidental discovery of his drip method of painting--a little like a composer hearing a bird chirp and getting the inspiration for a symphony. But that's a quibble. This is a smashing biography of a renowned painter by an actor-director who is proving himself to be an important film artist.
Let's get to other favorites among films that I caught. Agnes Varda, the New Wave director still at the top of her craft, presented THE GLEANERS AND I, a creative documentary in which she explored people who live by scavenging in various ways. What makes the film so outstanding is the context in which she places the various individuals whose lives she hones in on, and her witty asides that she contributes by including herself and her comments in the film. Thus she seizes a subject and takes it far beyond what a less creative director might have seen as the potential. As well as being informative about various aspects of our society, Varda's film is pleasingly entertaining.
I admired the boldness of the Festival in selecting for its opening night Lars von Trier's DANCER IN THE DARK, a film bound by its very nature to divide audiences into admirers and haters. I was fascinated by the daring film. (See review in the Film section or under Search).
Iranian films have been exceptional lately, and two in the Festival, THE CIRCLE, Jafar Panahi's, somwhat enigmatic but engrossing film about the plight of women in Iran, and SMELL OF CAMPHOR, FRAGRANCE OF JASMINE, Bahman Farmanara's inventive take on restrictive life in Iran, are strong justification for the Festival being attuned to films from that part of the world.
The effort to film all of Samuel Beckett's works has yielded productions of Atom Egoyan's KRAPP'S LAST TAPE and Neil Jordan's NOT I. John Hurt, consummate actor that he is, interprets the role of Krapp with the requisite mix of regret and resignation, and the humor inherent in Becket'ts play comes through when it should. Watching Hurt in anything is a treat, and this is no exception. As for "Not I," Julianne Moore is simply magnificent providing the mouth and the voice in this 13-minute rapid-fire monologue spanning a woman's emotions and her life. It is a mistake to show the actress full figure entering and sitting down before all is confined to her mouth. In the plays that I have seen, one only observes the mouth, which is the point of it all. I thought Neil Jordan's decision was unwise and unnecessary. But otherwise, all was letter perfect and the film has one advantage over the play. The mouth can be photographed from so many angles, which makes the speech become even more alive and intimate.
Julian Schnabel's BEFORE NIGHT FALLS is a gripping recounting of the life of Cuban dissident writer and homosexual Reinaldo Arenas, played so movingly by Javier Bardem. The viewpoint is vigorously anti-Castro and makes no allowances for anything good that exists under the Castro regime, but the imprisonment of dissidents and gays in Cuba has been documented, and therefore needs to be exposed, as Schnabel does with his passionate drama that follows Arenas in his effort to get his writing out and to personally find peace.
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, a film from Hong Kong written and directed by Wong Kar-wai is a delicate tale of married individuals who, knowing that their spouses are embroiled in affairs with each other, fall in love but are under the constraints of convention. There is no heavy breathing in this film, only hints of the emotions so strongly felt, with Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Maggie Cheung Man-yuk underplaying their feelings as the lovers. CHUNHYANG, from South Korea, is a love story in a classical tradition. Directed by Im Kwon Taek, it is gorgeously filmed with an 18th century setting as a story-teller holding an audience spellbound recounts a tale that we see enacted. The story-teller is loud and grating in his own enthusiastic dramatization although importantly part of the overall impact, but the love story that unfolds is mesmerizing.
I'm not much of a martial arts fan, which explains why I'm less than enthusiastic about Ang Lee's new CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. But I do admire the way he tells his story, with mostly women fighters, lavish settings and most striking of all, special effects that enable the combatants to fly over rooftops and treetops in using their wiles and weaponry. This bids to become a cult film for fans who eat up such stuff, but personally, a little of it goes a long way no matter how accomplished the filmmaking.
A major festival choice of a different sort was BOESMAN AND LENA, directed by the late John Berry, who went to work abroad after being blacklisted in the McCarthy days. His adaptation of Athol Fugard's play grimly explores the toll taken by racism in South Africa on one mixed-race couple as they wander the countryside homeless and try to reconcile the love they once felt for each other with the traumas they constantly face. Danny Glover is heartrending as Boesman, and Angela Bassett pours her actor's heart out as the resentful Lena. Her performance needs more nuance as it is stridently one-note no matter how passionately felt but it is a major opportunity for Bassett. One of the most moving scenes is the inter-cutting of Boesman and Lena when they were young and in love. This is yet another work that demands to be seen.
I saw KIPPUR, the Israeli film by Amos Gitai, before all hell broke loose recently between Israelis and Palestinians, so its anti-war message looms even larger than before. Gitai dramatizes the battleground in the 1973 Yom Kippur war as he follows medics in their assigned tasks of rescuing the wounded while under fire themselves. The personal stories are minimal; the film is confined mostly to the details of the mission, but after a while the point has been made and the film becomes tiresome despite the good intentions. There is a very pretentious beginning and a finale consisting of the protagonist and his woman smearing themselves in paint and rolling around in it, which doesn't seem to have much point other than to be artsy.
The expanded horizons of the Festival also excitingly included a retrospective showing of Oscar Micheaux's 1925 BODY AND SOUL, starring legendary Paul Robeson in two roles. The film was screened to the accompaniment of a fresh score played by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the event proved to be a programming highlight. Also to be appreciated was the parallel series titled PASSION AND DEFIANCE: SILENT DIVAS OF THE ITALIAN CINEMA, which included a remarkable collection of silent films from Italy that enabled audiences to become acquainted with many stars of whom they had not been aware.
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