Day: September 29, 2011

Libertas @ The 2011 New York Film Festival: Melancholia

By Joe Bendel. It is the end of the world or the end of Lars von Trier’s career. Whichever it is, it will finish with a bang. After this year’s Cannes, Melancholia is probably carrying more baggage as well as more laurels than a porter in the Roman Senate. Yet, it is worth considering von Trier’s Melancholia (trailer here) separate and apart from extraneous controversies when it screens during the 49th New York Film Festival.

Frankly, Justine would probably welcome the apocalypse on her wedding day. Hours late to her own reception, family tensions are already boiling over. Her hotelier brother-in-law John resents footing the bill for the lavish shindig when she does not even appear to take it seriously. Her very divorced parents are eager to start clawing at each other again, while her crude boss chooses the ostensibly happy occasion to play a weird round of mind games with his newly promoted employee. Claire, her slightly less highly strung sister, tries to hold the night together, but chaos is inevitable.

As Melancholia’s second part opens, Justine is now a basket case, having driven her adoring new husband Michael away. Through Claire’s insistence, she is staying her sister’s family, acting weird and getting on John’s nerves. In addition to her family drama, Claire is increasingly anxious over doomsday scenarios regarding Melancholia, a hitherto unknown planet projected to cross quite close to the Earth. As an amateur astronomer, John assures her she should not pay attention to such media claptrap, but it is clear viewers should give her concerns credence.

Melancholia has been dubbed Another Earth’s evil doppelganger. To an extent, this is a valid analogy, particularly in the manner both films use science fiction concepts in what are otherwise very personal and intense human dramas. Yet, the comparatively free-wheeling first half of Melancholia feels more closely akin to fellow Dogma 95 filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration. Indeed, it is a joy (though perhaps a slightly sadistic one) to watch Melancholia’s top shelf cast tear into each other.

The Best Actress winner at Cannes, Kristin Dunst really is quite unsettling as Justine. The term ‘hot mess’ could have been coined with her in mind, yet she is never excessively showy in the role. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland might sound like the most unlikely of couples, but they are quite convincing together as Claire and John (though at times we would not mind watching him open up a can of Jack Bauer on sundry family members). Not surprisingly, the old pros Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt nearly upstage everyone as the bickering exes, luxuriating in their tart sarcastic zingers. They also look perfectly cast as Gainsbourg’s parents (though maybe not so much for Dunst). Yet, the biggest laughs (and they are considerable) come from von Trier regular Udo Kier as the snippy wedding planner.

In the moodier, more impressionistic second part, Gainsbourg and Sutherland largely shoulder the dramatic burden, which they handle quite adroitly. In fact, Sutherland’s nuanced work might be the biggest surprise of the film. The notorious von Trier also stages the end of the world quite inventively, employing a simple but cinematic device to depict the rogue planet’s advancing approach.

Though accessible for general audiences, Melancholia is not the sort of film one can give a pat nutshell response to. Rather, it is the sort of film one studies and revisits over a period of years. A fascinating example of big picture movie-making on an intimate scale, Melancholia is the cineaste event-film of the year. Highly recommended, it screens this coming Monday (10/3) and Thursday (10/6) at Alice Tully Hall as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival.

Posted on September 29th, 2011 at 1:14pm.

Watch the Premiere Episode of Homeland; Show Debuts on Showtime Sunday, 10/2

By Jason Apuzzo. I mentioned Showtime’s new Homeland series in our first Terror Watch update; Showtime recently made the entire first episode of the series available free on-line and I’ve embedded it above.

Having watched the episode, what I can tell you is that the series appears to be a somewhat clunky updating of The Manchurian Candidate for the era of the War on Terror, with some extraneous melodrama mixed in. Frankly, given the comments the producers have been making about the series of late (see here and here), I was expecting a somewhat more politically aggressive, stridently left-of-center show. There are certainly hints that the show may head in that direction in the future, but so far what we’re getting here instead is something more ambiguous and interesting (whether it’s entertaining is another matter). And, much to my pleasant surprise, the villains of the piece are actually Al Qaeda! Fancy that. I wasn’t sure Showtime had it in them.

Did hubby get brainwashed by Al Qaeda?

Homeland follows the return of an American soldier back to the United States after the soldier’s 8-year captivity at the hands of Al Qaeda. Quirky, non-conformist CIA case officer Claire Danes has reason to believe the soldier may actually have been brainwashed by Al Qaeda for mysterious ends, although the producers of Homeland have hinted that the plotline will involve the soldier’s eventual run for political office. (My suggestion? He should run for Governor of California. We’d never know the difference.) The theme of the show is quite obviously ‘paranoia’ – i.e., when or whether it’s justified in the post-9/11 era. Thus far the answer from this series – one episode in – is a resounding ‘yes.’

Whether I’ll actually follow this series, of course, is another matter. Homeland thus far looks a little dry and conventional, and Claire Danes (who spends a lot of the first episode popping anti-psychotic pills) doesn’t really excite me very much, although it’s good to see V‘s alien queen Morena Baccarin back in a new series.

What made John Frankenheimer’s original Manchurian Candidate work, of course, was its razor wit, sophistication with respect to its depiction of the Cold War, extraordinary photography from Lionel Lindon – and some extravagant, signature performances from Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey and Khigh Dhiegh. It can safely be assumed we won’t be getting anything like that in Homeland, but you may want to give the show a whirl if you have a free hour and wouldn’t otherwise prefer The Playboy Club. Also: feel free to catch this interview conducted by The Wall Street Journal with Claire Danes, whose character in Homeland is apparently based on a real-life CIA officer she was able to meet at Langley.

Posted on September 29th, 2011 at 1:13pm.

Libertas @ The 2011 New York Film Festival: Le Havre

By Joe Bendel. As the home of smugglers and cutthroats, ports are always the perfect setting for hardboiled crime drama – not, however, Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre. It’s nothing like the French film noir cities of Henri-Georges Clouzot, perhaps because Kaurismäki is Finnish. Instead, these marginalized roughnecks of Le Havre inhabit a quietly whimsical and deeply humanistic community in Kaurismäki’s Le Havre (trailer here), which screens during the 49th New York Film Festival.

Marcel Marx works the streets as a shoe-shiner in the tradition of Jacques Tati. He never had much money nor any worries before his beloved wife Arletty is hospitalized. Shielded from her fatal prognosis, he is at loose ends puttering about the waterfront, until he chances across Idrissa, a young illegal African immigrant hoping to be reunited with his parents in England.

Initially, he merely leaves some food for the boy. Then he opens his home to the sad-eyed Idrissa. Before long, Marx (hmm, heavy name, that) and his salt-of-the-earth comrades are working in concert to help their furtive guest elude Monet, the dour flatfoot.

Granted, a thumbnail description of Le Havre probably sounds unappetizingly didactic. However, Kaurismäki astutely employs a light touch with the material, emphasizing the inherent innocence and charm of Marx and Idrissa. Unlike far too many filmmakers, he seems to understand the old adage about catching more flies with honey. He also recognizes and capitalizes on the considerable charisma of his proletarian leads.

The twinkle in André Wilms’ eyes could light up a city block, yet he still invests Marx with a wonderful sense of dignity and a genuine élan. In contrast, Jean-Pierre Darroussin is his near total inverse as Monet, projecting an exquisitely French fatalism. As a bonus, cinematic Francophiles should keep their eyes peeled for Truffaut and Godard regular Jean-Pierre Léaud in a brief but fittingly idiosyncratic cameo.

Yet, it is the look and feel of the city itself that will dominate viewers’ impressions of the film. Cinematographer Timo Salminen gives Le Havre a warm glow that is inviting and nostalgic, while the back alleys rendered by Wouter Zoon’s design team look ideally suited for dancing in the rain.

Though never tackily melodramatic or cloyingly quirky, Le Havre has to be one of the most heartfelt, unabashedly old-fashioned films to carry major festival laurels this year. Regardless of politics, it is hard not to be swept along by its effervescent spirit. Definitely recommended, it screens Sunday (10/2), Monday (10/3), and Wednesday (10/5) as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival.

Posted on September 29th, 2011 at 1:11pm.