Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2015 6:14 am 
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SURVEYING THE SERIES.

Again New Directors/New Films lives up to its name with solid offerings. And perhaps in the view of some more edgy, provocative material than before. That is, if the dog torture in White God; wicked mute youths in The Tribe; vile standup comic of Entertainment; chopped up immigrants of Haemoo; 15-year-old having sex with mom's adult boyfriend in Diary of a Teenage Girl; tortured mother in the Austrian Goodnight Mommy may be so viewed. These are much talked about, not so successful as films, except that actually Goodnight Mommy is some of the most elegant filmmaking in the series.

Debates over provocation aside, clearly outstanding films of the series are: Yury Bykov's intense, involving Russian working class-bureaucratic corruption drama The Fool (a good companion piece to Leviathan); Chaitanya Tamhane's astonishingly richly observed judicial malpractice Indian film Court; Nadav Lapid's confusing but assured and forceful film treatment of going nuts over poetry, The Kindergarten Teacher; the Ross brother's solid, saddening documentary study of Tex-Mex border violence Western. Despite trawling personal tapes, Stevan Riley's Showtime documentary of Brando Listen to Me Marlon isn't very innovative but it is extremely informative. French director Sarah Leonor's The Great Man is a touching Claire-Denis-esque study of estrangement and fatherhood. New names to remember: Byokov, Tamhane, Leonor; Bill and Turner Ross; Fiala and Franz.

Those are more conventional successes. But it wouldn't be New Directors without more innovative or fringe discoveries like the off-kilter Québecois slacker girl picture Tu dors Nicole; the depressed yet visually stunning Paranoid Park-knockoff Violet; the cheerful French gay romp Fort Buchanan ; the Mongolian Kafka remake K; studies of Christmas-tree selling in Brooklyn and living homeless with dogs in the pampas; several others, which, though none of them really huge successes, all add just a bit to our range of the cinematically possible. Onward!

(Sorry not to have seen more of Film Comment Selects but Lopes-Curval's High Society doesn't totally disappoint, and Petzold's Phoenix is superb, a strong affirmation of the German director's enormous talent. Of New Directors we were able to see all but Naji Abu Nowar's Theeb, and reviews of them are linked below.)

LINKS:

Christmas, Again (Charles Poekel 2014)
Screening with Going Out (Ted Fendt 2014, 8 mins.)

Court (Chaitanya Tamhane 2014)
The Creation of Meaning/La creazione di significato (Simone Rapisarda Casanova 2014)
Diary of a Teenage Girl, The (Marielle Heller 2014)
Dog Lady (Laura Citarella, Verónica Llinás 2015)
Entertainment (Rick Alverson 2015)
Fool, The/Durak (Yuriy Bykov 2014)
Fort Buchanan (Benjamin Crotty 2014)
Screening with Taprobana (Gabriel Abrantes 2014, 24 mins.)

Goodnight Mommy (Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz 2014)
The Great Man (Sarah Leonor 2014)
Haemoo (Shim Sung-bo 2014
High Society/Le beau monde (Julie Lopes-Curval 2014)--FCS
Los Hongos (Oscar Ruiz Navia 2014)
K (Darhad Erdenibulag & Emyr ap Richard 2015)
The Kindergarten Teacher (Nadav Lapid 2014)
Screening with: Why? (Nadav Lapid 2015, 5 mins.)

Line of Credit (Salomé Alexi 2014)
Listen to Me Marlon (Stevan Riley 214)
Mercuriales (Virgil Vernierj 2014)
Ow (Yohei Suzuki 2014)
Parabellum (Lukas Valenta Rinner 2015)
Screening with Colours (2 mins.) (Evan Johnson 2014)

Phoenix (Christian Petzold 2014)--FCS
SHORTS Program 1
SHORTS Program 2
Theeb (Naji Abu Nowar (2014) - not screened
Tired Moonlight (Britni WesT 2014)
The Tribe (Miroslav Slaboshpitsky (2014)
Tu dors Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur 2014)
Violet (Bas Devos 2014)
Western (Bill, Turner Ross 2015)
White God (Kornél Mundruczó 2014)
SURVEYING THE SERIES.

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