Nestled in the middle of the New York Film Festival, the Views from the Avant-Garde program, now in its thirteenth year, has become something of a lightning rod for experimental work. For better or for worse, the rare, uncategorizable, and often difficult films it features are crammed into a dense, two and a half-day screening schedule that challenges the endurance of even the most seasoned viewer. In previous years programmers Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith organized their selections with session titles and descriptions, but this edition, which did away with both, left the work of finding the underlying logic up to the audience. Though this may seem an unremarkable omission, the lack of a suggestive framework for viewing meant that a number of experimental mainstays got lost in the fold, and the works that could otherwise stand alone, namely ethnographic excursions and understated essay films, were the ones that received the most attention.
If nothing else, however, the emphasis on documentary indicated an important trend in an ever-expanding idea of what constitutes avant-garde practice. Giuseppe Bertolucci’s La Rabbia di Pasolini, a liberal reconstruction of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1963 short, Rage, was one such film. Click here to read the rest of Genevieve Yue’s coverage of the 2009 edition of Views from the Avant-Garde.
The horrific bedtime story of Bluebeard is so ready for feminist subversion that news of Catherine Breillat’s tackling it almost arrives as something of a punchline. Often read to girls at an early age, this cautionary tale, about the ogre-ish nobleman who turns out to be a serial wife-killer, becomes fertile ground for exploring the seeds of Western sexual politics—recall the interlude in Jane Campion’s The Piano in which a stage production of the story, acted in frightening silhouette, causes shocked Aboriginal audience members to brutally retaliate, while the whites look on unashamed. At its core a disturbingly instructive narrative about the importance of trust within male-female relations, the tale of the nefarious Bluebeard ultimately lays the blame for violence at the wife’s feet—if only she hadn’t unlocked that one forbidden room the poor heroine could have saved her sweet neck. It’s not just a matter of curiosity killing the cat but also of the woman not fulfilling her nuptial duties; regardless of her husband’s barbarism, it’s unlikely that murder would have befallen her if she had done as he asked. Click here to read the rest of Michael Koresky’s review of Bluebeard.
If he weren’t so damn likable and talented, it would be tempting to begrudge Pedro Almodóvar his success. Almodóvar—always a gifted visual stylist—turned an artistic corner a decade ago with All About My Mother and its follow-up, Talk to Her. To the eye-popping color, self-conscious deconstruction of genre, and playful performativity that had characterized his earlier work, those films added an emotional maturity and clarity that his previous movies only hinted at. They were serious, and they were seriously fun to watch. Since then, Almodóvar has honed a brand of cinema that weds respectability and commercial viability so seamlessly that Cannes invites and U.S. distribution now come pro forma. That bankable Almodóvar brand, coupled with his larger-than-life personality, has made him one of the few breakout directorial stars of contemporary international cinema. People and critics love to love him and his movies. As a result, he’s difficult to criticize. Click here to read the rest of Chris Wisniewski’s review of Broken Embraces.
Claire Denis’s films usually stray so widely from anything resembling newsworthy topics that her new White Material, an experiential foray into a contemporary African crisis, risks being categorized as merely “topical.” This might not sound so damning a criticism generally, but Denis’s devoted followers tend to most admire the French director’s unassailable focus on corporeality and unerring ambiguity, and perhaps implicitly her ability to remain untethered to the issues of the day. The fact that the subject matter of White Material sounds instantly quotable (hence reducible)—a white plantation owner living in an unnamed African country suddenly finds herself amidst civil war and must decide whether to evacuate as the violence escalates—has already gotten a handful of die-hard Denisians’ backs up. Rather than an ethereal globe-hopping adaptation of writings by a French theorist (L’Intrus) or a personal, insular rumination on a one-night-stand (Friday Night), this is a fleshly, concrete dramatizing of a time and place, and, yes, it’s capital-R relevant—yet since it’s a Denis film, it’s hardly a conventional “social problem” picture or even a linear narrative. Instead, it’s yet another emotionally complex study in character identification. Click here to read the rest of Michael Koresky’s review of White Material.
If he were the incisive social critic he thinks he is, there’d be a case to be made for Todd Solondz. In the age of Little Miss Sunshine and Juno a healthy dose of savage, dark humor would serve American independent film well in challenging liberal complacency and political correctness—given the infrequent cinematic output of Terry Zwigoff, bitter, parodic, button-pushing misanthropy is rarely represented at the local art house. But Solondz has not helped fill the void. If anything, he precipitated it. Click here to read all of Michael Joshua Rowin’s review of Life During Wartime.
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