THE timing of the release of “The Ides of March” could not possibly be a coincidence.
Adapted from the Beau Willimon play, Farragut North, the film opens in the United States today after making its North American debut at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. It had its world premiere at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Brian Prize.
“The Ides of March” more or less chronicles the political baptism of idealistic, young campaign manager Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling). Stephen works for presidential hopeful Mike Morris (George Clooney), is fired and then rehired with a promotion after he learns and applies the tricks of this dirty trade to his advantage.
Underway amid the staffing snafus during a very competitive Ohio presidential primary is the usual political horseplay: backroom deals, backstabbing, blackmail, blackmail in reverse, betrayal, leaks, lies, damn lies and a death – political or otherwise.
No doubt distributor, Sony Pictures Entertainment, is betting that audiences won’t be too disgusted with the current little horse-and-pony show on the road – the one known as the runup to the Republican presidential nomination – to pony up $10-plus for its little attraction. (How many more skeletons are rattling in Rick Perry’s closet).
Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) finds himself in a political whirlwind in "The Ides of March." Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
GC also gets a producer, director and screenplay credit for "The Ides of March.” Aside from RG he has surrounded himself with strong support, including Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood and Jeffrey Wright. GC friend and colleague Leonardi DiCaprio is also one of the producers.
“The Ides of March” is rated R for pervasive language.
The double entendres fly when Brandon (Michael Fassbender) and Marianne (Nichole Beharie) order dinner in "Shame." Photo from Fox Searchlight Pictures.
STEVE McQueen and Michael Fassbender are on trend to forming the sort of director-actor collaboration shared by John Ford and John Wayne, Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant and more recently Tim Burton and Johnny Depp as well as Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz.
The duo’s first outing was 2008’s much-acclaimed and decorated “Hunger” about the 1981 Irish hunger strike lead by Irish Republican Army volunteer Bobby Sands. MF gave an electric, stunning performance as Sands. Incredibly, the film was his first major role and SMcQ’s directorial debut of a feature-length film.
Three years later, the two team up for another fine drama with a one-word title, “Shame.” It makes its U.S. debut today at the 49th New York Film Festival and is scheduled for a wider U.S. release on 2 Dec.
The shame of the title is Brandon’s (MF) sex addiction. The guy just can’t get enough. He has sex at least once a day and if he is not having it he is imagining it, masturbating between meetings in his nondescript corporate office or watching the huge supply stored on his home and office computers, as well as myriad mags stored in his kitchen cupboards.
Of course, this all sounds rather sordid and seedy. And it is. Those salivating at the thought of copious coupling in “Shame” will be disappointed, though. SMcQ wisely suggests a lot more than he shows, which is far more powerful. After all it is not a sex film, “Shame” is a film about a man’s whose sickness is addiction to sex, the more varied the better. The sex that is visible is not so graphic as to warrant an X rating. In fact, it is aloof whether shot in dreamlike sequences or with a long lense. It is appropriate considering that Brandon spends a fair amount of time fantasizing about sex and has no emotional connection to his partners or the sex he witnesses.
The lone instance when the camera hovers is during the love scene with a colleague to whom Brandon has an attraction. The night before he got rid of all of his smut, even his personal computer containing myriad bytes of it. He craves a chance at true intimacy. Determined to have normal sex with Marianne (Nicole Beharie), he spirits her from their office to a hotel room at The Standard Hotel and its breathtaking view of southern Manhattan. The camera is like a slow-moving probe, recording every move, sigh, divestiture of clothing. Is this going to be a long scene reminiscent of the one in “Hunger” between the priest and Bobby Sands? It is as uncomfortable for the viewer as it is for Brandon.
Outwardly Brandon is a handsome, well-adjusted, respectful Yuppie type – and he really is but for his shame. As Sissy (Carey Mulligan), Brandon’s equally troubled sister who may or may not be involved in an incestuous relationship with her sibling points out, “We’re not bad people, we just come from a bad place.”
It is not clear whether Sissy means Ireland where they were born or New Jersey where they grew up. Or whether it’s just their highly dysfunctional family. SMcQ doesn’t explain much. He said during a Q&A after a press screening of the film, “I wanted it to be familiar because everyone brings their own baggage to the film."
The director is British and his lead actor is German-Irish, yet “Shame” is set in New York. There is a simple explanation, “No one in London wanted to speak about it [sex addiction],” SMcQ said. In New York, the reaction was rather the opposite, making it a logical venue to shoot "Shame," which is laden with double entendres that add levity to the subject matter.
Through the prism of SMcQ’s lense, New York is a dark, dystopian, soulless place where people “live and work in the sky.” At night, they prowl like vampires in lowlit clubs and back alleys. Brandon is soulless, too, and full of longing and melancholy. He wants better but doesn’t know how to go about it. His quiet desperation is palpable and most obvious when Sissy is having sex with Brandon’s boss (James Badge Dale), only hours after meeting him. The noises coming from Brandon’s bedroom are tortuous. He seems to go through a range of emotions: rage, envy, desire, excitement, revulsion.
A scene from Kon Ichikawa’s "The Burmese Harp," which was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film. It is included in "Velvet Bullets and Steel Kisses: Celebrating the Nikkatsu Centennial." Photo from 49th New York Film Festival.
It is another stellar performance by MF and it won him a best actor award at the 68th Venice Film Festival. (The actor also appears in “A Dangerous Method,” which also played Venice and debuted in New York on Wednesday, http://www.bit.ly/nInHX3).
Audiences who appreciated “Hunger” will probably embrace the psychological drama that is “Shame.” In the former film, the protagonist dies. In “Shame,” he also seems to die a sort of death. There is nothing shameful about that in the least.
Other screenings and events today at NYFF include “The Warped Ones,” “Crazed Fruit,” “Suzaki Paradise: Red Light, ” “The Burmese Group,” “Willem Dafoe at the Apple Store” and “The Kid With a Bike.”
Visit http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/schedule to learn more about the 49th New York Film Festival: including schedule, repeat screenings, ticket and venue information.
Egon Di Mateo and Thomas Doret as Cyril in "The Kid with a Bike." Photo by Christine Plenus.
ADULTS who wish to see mature films are not usually drawn to ones that star children, and logically so.
This is not the case for "The Kid with a Bike." In fact, it is very much an adult film, though the stars are a child and his reliable transport.
Thomas Doret gives a command performance as the title character, Cyril, who has to accept love from alternate sources in Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne's modern-day fairytale. The film premieres today at the 49th New York Film Festival.
Cyril lives in an orphanage to which his down-on-his-luck father has abandoned him. Everyone seems to grasp the situation except the child. And who expects him to? Children don’t tend to believe such terrible things about their parents. What plays out is a tale of a boy on the cusp of adolescence who is cast off and doesn’t know how to express his hurt and dismay – at least not in a constructive way. He rejects love from a source that will nurture him while at the same time is attracted by one – for fairly obvious reasons – that will destroy him.
One reason that the directors chose TD for the role of Cyril is because of his fragile looks. This is especially true during one scene in which it appears that he is done for. Quite the opposite is true, however. The young actor delivers a very convincing physical performance. When he’s not riding like the wind, he is running, whether to escape the authorities or to get somewhere quick, fast and in a hurry. (See trailer below).
In this fairytale, co-director LD said in a press conference after the press screening, Amanda (Cécile De France) is the fairy godmother. It is she to whom Cyril literally attaches himself after he makes an escape from the orphanage to return to the apartment his father rented. After that incident she returns to the orphanage with his bike and agrees to let him stay with her on weekends. The forest where Cyril has some bad experiences, including with a young drug dealer type (Egon Di Mateo) reminiscent of Bill Sikes in “Oliver Twist,” represents evil.
Through “The Kid with a Bike,” the viewer is afforded glimpses into the operation of Belgium’s orphanage system. It seems very civilized, allowing for weekend foster parents. Most illuminating is its treatment of problem children. Cyril’s behavior would not be tolerated with such tender understanding, indulgence and patience in the United States.
A scene from the restored version of “You Are Not I.” The eerie film is a product of New York’s post-punk downtown scene that played the festival circuit in the 80s. A salvageable version was thought lost forever until a print was unearthed among Paul Bowles’ belongings in 2009 in North Africa. The film is adapted from the PB 1948 short story of the same name. Photo from 49th New York Film Festival.
“The Kid with a Bike” is an engaging love story that doesn’t try to manipulate the heartstrings, though the subject matter lends itself to such a machination.
"The Kid with a Bike" is in French with English subtitles.
Other screenings and events today at NYFF include "Dreileben, Pt. 3,” “Till We Meet Again,” “A Diary of Chuji's Travels,” "The Burmese Harp, "20 Years of Art Cinema: A Tribute to Sony Pictures Classics" and “You Are Not I.”
Visit http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/schedule to learn more about the 49th New York Film Festival: including schedule, repeat screenings, ticket and venue information.
Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) following a moment of complete ecstasy in "A Dangerous Method." Photo from HanWay Films.
SABINA Spielrein did not come between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; the germs of a rift were already present before she entered their sphere.
The general scuttlebutt around “A Dangerous Mind,” which makes its U.S. debut today at the 49th New York Film Festival, is quite the opposite. But as presented in the film, the men’s respective egos were the trigger. Like the works it is taken from – Christopher Hampton’s The Talking Cure play based on John Kerr’s book, “A Most Dangerous Method” – “A Dangerous Method” chronicles the birth of pyschoanalysis through the professional and personal relationship of Freud and Jung. (See trailer below).
Naturally, the film version takes a few more leaps of imagination with the personal lives of the three main characters. It is clear from the first meeting of Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Jung (Michael Fassbender) that theirs will be a high-maintenance association both personally and professionally. At dinner at Freud’s house Jung, while talking glibly about the intersection of sexual proclivity and mental instability that Freud advocates, is helping himself to a rather larger portion of the food on the dinner platter while Freud’s stunned family looks on mutely.
Freud is merely middle class, while Jung unapologetically lives high on the hog, owing to the immense wealth of the wife (Sarah Gadon) whom he does not love but is necessary for the lavish life he enjoys to the full. A brilliant man, Freud has a complex around his Jewishness, no doubt from the larger society that won’t let him forget it. On more than one occasion he makes reference to it while pointing out Jung’s Aryaness. Freud is a little envious of Jung and Jung is a little insensitive to Freud, obliviously so.
The film seems to make the point by simplying showing that no matter how brilliant, rich or celebrated we are, we never rise above our baser impulses to lie, cheat, steal and envy.
Sabina (Keira Knightley) is a patient of Jung’s whom he has been treating with the talking cure advanced by Freud before either doctor or patient meet the great man. After Sabina, now a student of pyschoanalysis, reaches out to Freud further fissures in the men’s relationship develop but not because of anything she has done.
David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is an intelligent and beautifully shot film, set in various civilized milieux. It is also an actor’s film with copious amounts of smart, witty, arch dialogue. Indeed, the bulk of the action is in the dialogue, which engages the viewer from the first. The credit for this goes to CH, a natural choice for the screenplay since it is based on his play.
The actors, too, deserve praise for delivering CH’s line with proper credibility. Vincent Cassel almost steals the movie as the brilliant and sadistic Otto Gross, an early disciple of Freud who ultimately seduces Jung into throwing off his chain of repression.
Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Freud (Viggo and Mortensen) have a meeting of the minds before they part ways in "A Dangerous Method." Photos from HanWay Films.
KK is required to be the most physical as the hysterical Sabina, a role she handles well, though at times the bearing of teeth and jutting of the jaw threatens to be – well – hysterical. Her turn as Sabina with a passable Russian-sounding accent, though, will help her define herself beyond “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Also playing at NYFF today in is North American premiere is Abel Ferrera’s scatterbrained take on world’s end, “4:44: Last Day on Earth.” The 4:44 of the title is the exact time the world is supposed to end. The film opens on the evening before in the Lower East Side apartment shared by Cisco (Willem Dafoe) and Skye (AF’s real-life girlfriend Shanyn Leigh).
In AF's meditation on the end, the last day is no different from any other. Life is still going on as before – at least in the United States, at least in New York City. An eerie calm has settled over the town. Cisco and Skye’s apartment is equipped with the latest techological gadgets, including Skype and a flat-screen TV. On the tube the Dalai Lama is discussing various issues, including the importance of some money. Al Gore addresses the global warming that has contributed to the end that is now imminent. New York’s News 1 anchor Pat Kiernan wisely suggests that everyone should be with their loved ones as he plans to.
Cisco (Willem Dafoe) and Skye (Shanyn Leigh) during one of several close encounters in “4:44: Last Day on Earth.” Photo from 49th New York Film Festival.
It is not clear what is the message in “4:44,” or is it? Is it that we are so locked into technology that even an event as momentous as the last day can’t break our cycle? Is it about last meals - Chinese - and performing an act of kindness such as giving the Chinses food delivery guy a huge tip and allowing him to use your Skype to say goodbye to his family? Do you create several graffiti-type paintings? Visit former drug addict pals who are engaged in a pseudo intellectual conversation? What of changing clothes several times, though you don’t leave the apartment? Do you watch a classic NFL football game while plundering with your fingers the buttocks of your girlfriend who is young enough to be your granddaugther? Do you have sex several times with the aforementioned girltoy? Perhaps one's last day can be as mundane and routine as he wishes it to be.
In the end, “4:44: Last Day on Earth” is a muddle spiked with gratuitous sex and an incongruous freak-out moment that do not assist the general comprehension.
Other screenings today at NYFF include ”Dreileben, Pt. 2,” “Invasion,” “Earth” and “Le Havre.”
Visit http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/schedule to learn more about the 49th New York Film Festival: including schedule, repeat screenings, ticket and venue information.
Kirsten Dunst as a bride who is not happy about the life ahead in "Melancholia." Photos courtesy of the 49th New York Film Festival.
JUSTINE (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are two sisters who could not be more different but whose love for each other is unshakeable.
It is on their relationship that Lars von Trier’s ethereal “Melancholia” turns. The film makes its North American premiere today at the 49th New York Film Festival. It is one of several films in the festival that has an end-of-the-world theme.
Melancholia of the title is both a planet near the sun that threatens all known life and an apt characterization of the condition afflicting Justine. It opens with a dreamlike sequence featuring Justine that morphs into her motoring to her wedding reception with her groom, Michael (“True Blood’s” Alexander Skarsgard comporting himself competently).
From the start things seem off-center as the newlyweds’ hired car gets stuck in the mud and each replaces the driver at the wheel in an attempt to free the vehicle. When they finally arrive at the lavish reception financed by Claire and her harried husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland), at a swanky private club with a golf course and stables, they are about four hours late. Though she has kept her guests waiting, an oblivious Justine insists on introducing Michael to her horse. Incredibly, guests appear to have been awaiting their arrival with congenial patience. (See video below).
Doom is palpable, and Justine is hanging on by the flimsiest of threads. It is rather obvious that this marriage will not survive the reception. The only question is how will it end. KD, who won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is transportive and gives a transcendent performance as a bride who is out of it. She’s all vacant stares and empty smiles, gading about the reception, grounds and main house as if she has smoked the best hashish or marijuana on earth. All the while the planet, Melancholia, is threatening to burst from behind the sun and take everyone with it. This latter event unsettles Claire.
“Melancholia” can be viewed as two films in one. The first is about the destruction of a marriage caused by a woman’s uncontrollable demons within. The second is about the destruction of the planet and the outward anxiety and helplessness of woman in the face of it. In Part 1, Claire is the rock that gets Justine through a wedding reception that she cannot otherwise bear. Justine in the second part provides some comfort for an inconsolable Claire.
KD's Justine is utterly believable as a woman who can’t face her own fate but in her quiet way helps her beloved sister to do so. CG doesn’t fair as well. Claire has it so together in the first part of the film that it is difficult to accept that she is coming wholly undone later on. Her disquiet is not resonant. Still, hers is a strong performance to a large degree because she has such a commanding countenance. She effortlessly conveys a plethora of emotions with a cocked head or open stare.
Tomotaka Takasa's "Mud and Soldiers" (1939) is one of 37 films in "Velvet Bullets and Steel Kisses: Celebrating the Nikkatsu Centennial."
LvT (“Dogville”) has assembles a strong cast for his latest out-there piece of filmmaking. KS delivers an acceptable performance but is terribly miscast as Claire’s slightly uptight husband. John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling, however are sublime in small roles as the womens’ over-the-top, dysfunctional parents.
Other screenings today at NYFF include “Capricious Young Man,” “Susan Orlean: Rin Tin Tin, the Life and the Legend,” “George Harrison: Living in the Material World,” and “Mud and Soldiers.”
Visit http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/schedule to learn more about the 49th New York Film Festival: including schedule, repeat screenings, ticket and venue information.
Protesters at Cairo's Tahrir Square in "Tahrir." Photos courtesy of New York Film Festival.
THE world watched in shocked astonishment as protests erupted, seemingly out of nowhere, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Egyptians from many spheres of society congregated to voice their frustration with a government that had neglected their welfare for far too long.
At the time of the protests Stefano Savona was in Paris working on a film. He, too, was fascinated by the incredible scene unfolding in Egypt. “I just had to go,” he said during an interview via Skpe after a press and industry screening of the film for the 49th New York Film Festival. He boarded a plane to Cairo with a small camera so as to avoid detection, got himself to Tahrir Square and just followed the people.
The result is “Tahrir,” which joins the protesters in the square on 30 Jan. 2011, the sixth day of the revolution. The documentary makes its world premiere today at NYFF.
“Tahrir” is riveting. It is also surreal because it is current history so familiar to the world because it played out in old media, New Media and Social Media in a 24-hour, continuous news cycle. Post-revolutionary aspirations and notions are still being arrived at. Unlike newcasts, which tend to provide mere snippets of such goings-on, “Tahrir” takes the viewer directly into the belly of the beast, so to speak.
The director and his camera have unfettered access; viewers don’t see only what someone with an agenda wanted them to see. In the crowd are groups of people chanting various slogans, sundry speakers take to the makeshift podium to denounce the government and call for Hosni Mubarak to step down. Numerous conversations are in progress about a post-Mubarak Egypt. Surprisingly, a number of women is among the protesters – many taking part in the discussions about the future of their country.
A most impassioned speech comes from a 62-year-old man who SS says almost hijacked his camera. The gentleman would not be moved until he’d had his say about the ineffectual government. “I am a young Egyptian. I suffocated at home, here [in Tahrir Square] I can breathe ... They want the people to stay sleep doing such things as watching fools play football.”
He ticks off a long list of grievances against the government: girls without dowries, boys without jobs, cronyism, etc.
André Wilms and Blondin Miguel as comrades in "Le Havre."
“Tahrir” ends on a cautionary note but leaves the viewer with hope that the incredible events in Egypt that held the world captive for several weeks were not all for naught.
A film guaranteed to keep hope alive is Aki Kaurismäki’s award-winning “Le Havre,” which makes its North American premiere today.
The film is a reminder of the basic decency and goodness of people. It is revealed through the encounter between Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a Parisian author who has exiled himself to the port city of the title and Idrissa (Blondin Miguel in an understated, affecting performance) a young Gabon refugee who is being hunted by police.
AW is endearing as a man given new purpose and a new lease on life. Until Idrissa, his days were spent shining the occasional pair of shoes, sitting on a barstool at a neighborhood bistro and caring for and being cared for by his sick wife (longtime AK collaborator Kati Outinen).
Marcel’s cause is to deliver Idrissa into the bosom of the boy's mother in London. To do so requires a little detective work that finds Marcel in the office of a detention center where a relative of Idrissa’s is being held. In one of the funniest scenes in the film, Marcel accuses a prison official of racism and throws the good book (French constitution at him). That charge wins the writer an audience with the detained man who gives him the vital information he needs.
The film is at its best when it references Resistance dramas that have inspired the director. There is the neighborhood in solidarity against the authorities pursuing Idrissa so doggedly. Often, they look feckless, except for the brilliant inspector (Jean-Pierre Léaud) who has a flinty veneer. Underneath, though, is a soft heart and a strong sense of humanity. He warns Marcel often enough when danger is too near.
Shishido Joe (in foreground) will attend the screening of "Gate of Flesh" today.
“Le Havre,” which won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes Film Festival among other awards, is tender, profound and funny. It is another wonderful testament to the kindness of strangers.
Other screenings and events today at NYFF include “The 99-Unbound,” “Hometown,” “Julia Loktev in conversation with Melissa Anderson,” and “Gate of Flesh.”
Visit http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/schedule to learn more about the 49th New York Film Festival: including schedule, repeat screenings, ticket and venue information.
Stefan Kurt and Paraschiva Dragus in "Dreileben." Photos courtesy of New York Film Festival.
THE first full day of the 49th New York Film Festival opens ambitiously with the much ballyhoed digitally restored version of "Ben-Hur."
Warner Home Video undertook the restoration of the film, winner of 11 Oscars, to coincide with the 50th anniversary year (1959) of its release.
Not only does the audience get a treat in seeing such a visually superior version of "Ben-Hur," it will witness the introduction of the film by Catherine Wyler and Fraser Heston. They are the daughter of the director (William Wyler) and the son of the star (Charlton Heston).
The day continues with what are some of the strongest films in the festival: “Dreileben” Parts 1, 2 and 3), “The Loneliest Planet,” “A Separation,” and “Miss Bala.” Viewers who miss them today should not despair because most of the films in the “Main Slate” category will have multiple screenings.
Gael GarcÍa Bernal, Hani Furstenberg and Bidzina Gujabidze in "The Loneliest Planet."
Leila Hatami and Peyman Moadi in "A Separation."
Stephanie Sigman in "Miss Bala."
Visit http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2011/schedule to learn more about the 49th New York Film Festival, including schedule, ticket and venue information.
“The Ides of March” more or less chronicles the political baptism of idealistic, young campaign manager Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling). Stephen works for presidential hopeful Mike Morris (George Clooney), is fired and then rehired with a promotion after he learns and applies the tricks of this dirty trade to his advantage.
Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) finds himself in a political whirlwind in "The Ides of March." Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
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