Impressions Of The 52nd New York Film Festival – Part 3

PASOLINI is the second new Abel Ferrara film I’ve seen this year, following the Stauss-Kahn-inspired WELCOME TO NEW YORK.  Set during the days leading up to Italian filmmaker-poet-novelist-public intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini's tragic murder, PASOLINI combines verbatim reenactments of interviews he gave and visualizes moments from both a prose piece (Petrolio) and an unrealized film project (PORNO-TEO-KOLOSSAL). Most provocatively, the film presents his murder as a hate crime, as opposed to a political conspiracy. This creative decision lead to a testy back-and-forth between Ferrara and a member of the audience that dominated a substantial portion of the post-screening Q&A.

I don't feel a great appreciation for biopics in general, since so many feel straightjacketed from having to follow the same structure. But I didn't fear a conventional effort from Abel Ferrara, whose work has evolved from the exploitation cult favorites of his early years into his own mini-genre of sleazy, hazy English-language art films. My first impression is that it is not as great film as I’d hoped, but still a sincere and interesting one.

Willem Dafoe plays Pasolini, and he gives a compelling performance, both subtle and charismatic.  For a film about one iconoclast made by another, the film is a subdued, thoughtful work that will likely underwhelm viewers expecting something shocking or challenging. While the film doesn’t shy away from depicting Pasolini’s sexual behavior as somewhat predatory, PASOLINI is a mostly reverent homage to one of Ferrara's heroes. While not timid in depicting the rentboy culture that attracted Pasolini, nor are the sexual aspects of Petrolio and PORNO-TEO-KOLOSSAL downplayed, viewers expecting a more raucous exploration of (or reveling in) decadence may be taken aback by the contemplative mood Ferrara goes for.

Fans of Pasolini’s movies may be disappointed to find they receive little mention in PASOLINI. Only his notorious SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM makes a brief appearance, but neither the film nor its controversial reception is explored in any detail.

It might be worth mentioning that when Pasolini speaks in English, Dafoe does not employ any hint of an Italian accent. During the Q&A, Dafoe said they never thought of this during the shoot.  Whether or not this creative decision was as careless as Dafoe makes it sound, I personally didn’t find it distracting. 

Mia Hansen-Løve’s EDEN feels like a movie Harvey Weinstein would have rushed to acquire in the past: a sexy foreign film with a rising American star (Greta Gerwig) in a supporting part (perfect for a misleading poster), a soundtrack that could generate a useful genre-overview compilation album (recently assembled into a Spotify playlist), and a running time that might suggest further trimming might be in order. I was already an admirer of Hansen-Løve’s earlier FATHER OF MY CHILDREN and especially GOODBYE FIRST LOVE, so I was unsurprised at how much I enjoyed it. 

EDEN is a 1990s-set account of the rise and fall of a young DJ who pioneers a French strain of the house music style known as Garage, and whose story overlaps at times with Daft Punk’s. The film vividly recreates a time and place without affixing it to anything resembling a tight narrative. But ever-present electronic dance rhythms give many of the individual scenes their own infectious energy, the cast (lead by newcomer Félix de Givry) is appealing, and for all of the soap opera clichés it meanders into, I still found the level of detail about this musical subculture compelling enough to elevate the whole thing. It’s almost like the house music equivalent of the first act of Ernest Dickerson’s JUICE, before all of the gunplay takes that film's story into thriller territory. 

I went into Lisandro Alonso's JAUJA feeling some trepidation, since I was still undecided about Alonso as a filmmaker based on what little I’d seen.  And all I knew about this new one was that Viggo Mortensen was in it, and that it was set in the 19^th century. I feared a slow-paced art film with an English-speaking movie star looking lost at sea in an exotic locale. And I wasn’t entirely wrong. However…

Winner of the FIPRESCI Award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the story of JAUJA concerns a Danish engineer and his teenage daughter, who are traveling with the Argentine army. When his daughter runs off with one of the soldiers, Mortensen’s character journeys off to find her.  While said journey does lead to strange encounters and sights, and even a scene of graphic violence that produced audible sounds of horror from the unsuspecting Lincoln Center audience, the primary focus is on Mortensen’s travels through an imposing environment that feels both ancient and strange.

Alonso shoots in the square 1:33:1 aspect ratio, often filling the top third of the frame with a bright blue sky, and employs a vibrant color palette that I found reminiscent of Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s GABBEH for some reason. I don't know how this film's effect will translate to home video (let alone anyone who attempts to watch it on, say, a laptop), or how it will play on a second watch, but I look forward to seeing this one again in January. A film this slow-paced and devoid of action will try the patience of many viewers. Indeed, it prompted a number of walkouts, the only ones I witnessed during the festival. But to the type of viewer that enjoys old Monte Hellman westerns, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jarmusch's DEAD MAN, and Herzog's AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD, this film is a travels into similarly heady terrain. This is one of my favorites of 2014.

Alex Ross Perry’s LISTEN UP PHILIP plays like a variation on Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE (self-involved Jason Schwartzman befriends an older man who would appear to be father figure, but revealed to be an equally immature peer), if it were remade by Noah Baumbach circa MARGOT AT THE WEDDING.

Utilizing a voiceover technique that echoes Baumbach’s MR. JEALOUSY and Anderson’s THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (both of whom were already borrowing from Woody Allen and Francois Truffaut), the film concerns an obnoxious young novelist (Jason Schwartzman) and his unhealthy relationships, primarily with a girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss) and an arrogant literary hero (Jonathan Pryce) who views Schwartzman as his protégée. It's a film where nearly every scene involves characters saying rude and hurtful things to one another, some of it funny. The most extreme and potentially off-putting version of the narcissistic jerk-centered indie comedy, it’s like the logical dead end for the misanthropic comedy-drama style Baumbach was exploring in the three features preceding FRANCES HA. You may find the whole affair compelling if the repellent characters don't cause you to walk briskly into oncoming traffic.

This film improves upon Perry’s earlier feature THE COLOR WHEEL, where amateurish performances and a few too-calculated shocks undercut the elements that worked. Despite feeling more derivative of other filmmakers, LISTEN UP PHILIP is more successful as a movie on every level. The film contains uniformly strong performances, and has a nervy energy that serves the material. The narrative even makes an intriguing detour when exploring the Elisabeth Moss character independently of Schwartzman's for a time, allowing some breathing room before the focus eventually reverts back to him.