New York Film Festival 2007, Post 1

Many people have asked me over the years to write semi-regular film reviews, given my background as a film critic/historian.

Well, now I’ve finally decided to start such a dialogue, with comments and reviews on recent films.

This year’s New York Film Festival has motivated me to comment on a number of films that have yet to reach wide release.  The 45th edition of what has become, to me, a “cineaste’s Olympics,” the New York Film Festival has never been more communal.  This year’s festival has moved its screnings to the fabulous Rose Cinemas in the Time Warner Center, itself a fabulous centerpiece of the never-ending renaissance of Manhattan.  As Alice Tully Hall, the Lincoln Center concert hall that has been the perennial venue for the festival, is under renovation, the Rose Hall, on the 5th floor of the Time Warner Center, has stood in very well.  This means that there is more elbow-rubbing with the general crowd (Willem Dafoe is all over the place, although I don’t believe he has a film showing in the fest) than at Alice Tully, and a greater overall buzz.

The films this year have been better than in the past six or seven years, ending what seems like a long drought of “must-see” films. 

This evening, we saw Noah Baumbach’s ‘Margot at the Wedding,’ which is an overt homage to Eric Rohmer’s classic ‘Pauline at the Beach’ (one of the lead characters, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s wonderfully ditzy sister to the eponymous character, is named Pauline).  This is a very personal film, shot in handheld cinema verite style, with numerous jarring cuts, that focuses on Nicole Kidman’s Margot heading to the family home to essentially disrupt the pending wedding of her sister to a ne’er-do-well played by the ruthlessly scene-stealing Jack Black.  The film’s keyhole effects are balanced by the lighter comedy that is played out amongst the parents and children.  Baumbach combines elements of Lars von Trier’s ‘Anniversary’ and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s own (excellent) film, ‘The Anniversary Party’ in a film that witnesses Margot’s destructive interactions with her oddly estranged husband (John Turturro), her lover-cum-collaborator (Ciarin Hind), and her family. 

Baumbach coaxes amazing performances from the mostly unknown cast of teenagers playing the children of untethered and boundary-less artistes.  His setting, a rambling country house in the Hamptons, has touches of Chekhov (in a hilarious scene, Jack Black cuts down a cherished tree, with less-than-successful results), and easily pulls in the viewer.  The tensions and slightly passive-aggressive behaviors of all involved are somehow comfortably resolved throughout, and Baumbach creates a wistfully sentimental, and somewhat anachronistic, setting (Margot’s son, in one touching scene, sings ‘Sunday Girl’ into an old Realistic tape recorder, which most likely belonged to Margot).  The music, hairstyles, and dress all seem to point to a late-’70s/early ’80s milieu, where writers and their freewheeling kin are part of a world away from a different kind of madness (despite a passing nod to recent events, a passing parade/Iraq war protest late in the film that mirrors the growing clash within the family).

Baumbach has a firm directorial hand on a film that is paced breezily and effortlessly.  Many decisions and moments, however, seem to be scotch-taped into conversations, inserting further cues to the narrative without real motivation.  Margot’s character seems to erode as she becomes distanced by events that she can no longer control (and it is revealed that she has used her family, her sister in particular, as lurid fodder for her short stories and novels).  Her final wanton act, putting her son on a bus to Vermont to spend the summer with his father, is complemented by her leaving her purse and sweater behind as she sprints to board the bus.  Baumbach’s diaristic touches are genuine, and are not blasted by voice-overs or bombastic music score.  The music that is played throughout is natural, and emanates from the character’s moods. 

 The festival has several other masterpieces, including the Coen Brothers’ ‘No Country for Old Men, ‘ which is an adaption of a Cormac McCarthy novel about a West Texas bounty hunter and the people who get in his way.  Though not their best work by far, ‘No Country’ is as fresh a film as anything on the American scene today, and finds the Coens still combining beautiful cinematography (Roger Deakins films a gorgeous New Mexico landscape as the Texas setting), rip-saw editing, and cheeky cartoon imagery into a story that is breathtaking, even in some of its less articulate moments.  The Javier Bardem character will doubtless become a cult classic icon of sadistic irony.  His portrayal of a seemingly psychotic, yet oddly philosophical, killer is wonderfully juxtaposed by Tommy Lee Jones’ sheriff character, who provides the setting for the story and is the moral underpinning of a Texas that has always been wild, but is about to get completely out of control (money, drugs, and illegal immigration all mixing into a story that very quickly explains the meaning behind the film’s title).  This may be Tommy Lee Jones’ finest performance, and in a long line of lawmen roles, it is his most poetic.  His exchange with Barry Corbin, who plays his wheel-chair bound father, toward the end of the film reveals a man who is helpless to stop the madness ahead of him, and mindful of his place in society as the last line of three generations of country sheriffs.  The cast is, as with all Coen films, first-rate, yielding brilliant performances from Kelly McDonald, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, and Garret Dillahunt. 

We saw ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ on opening night of the festival and, yes, it is a masterpiece.  This is an infectiously touching, and humorous, look at three brothers’ attempts to reconnect in a strange world (India) that, in the end, is able to absorb their discordant egos and reassemble their common humanity.  Their ability to selflessly save two of three downing boys while traversing the Indian countrsyide is quintessentially American; a passing nod to Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence of Arabia saving a Bedouin who is “fated” to die in the desert.  Only three “lost” American souls in India could seek to save strangers while fighting amongst themselves. 

Director Wes Anderson, he of ‘Rushmore,’ ‘Life Aquatic,’ and ‘Royal Tennenbaums’ fame (not to mention a very cheeky American Express commercial), has homages to many films in ‘Darjeeling,’ but he seems most in love with cinema itself.  His playful camera, brilliant use of stop-motion and vintage music (again, the Kinks and other English ’60s and ’70s gems) are part of a non-stop ride to the quirkiest family reunion ever filmed.   The film is blissfully, and blessfully, short (unlike his other features) and will become a heavily-referenced work, not just for its cast (the unlikely trio of Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson), but for its brilliant use of setting and its dry wit.  Only Anderson could have Bill Murray dressed as a 1950’s businessman make a non-speaking cameo, while revealing Anjelica Huston as the main characters’ mother, a free-spirited Catholic missionary in the middle of India. 

The above represent the better-known films at the festival so far (I will post some capsule thoughts on some of the others).  I will try to write some fuller reviews of some of the less ballyhooed films (which, hopefully, will be playing near you soon).