Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
When Mr. Beaks told me he wanted to cover the New York Film Festival, I didn’t have to think about whether or not it would be a good idea. I love reading reviews by Beaks. I think he’s a hell of a writer about film, even on those occasions where I don’t agree with him. I figure it’s everyone’s right to be wrong sometimes.
He kicked off his coverage with a few advance screenings last week, but tonight he’s back with the real stuff. I can’t wait, so let’s dig right in...
Thank Nipsey, last week is over.
Only two films – VA SAVOIR and WHAT TIME IS IT THERE – could be legitimately referred to as above-average (happily, they were triumphs, to boot), while the rest of the selections struck me as singularly uninspired. And then there was STORYTELLING, a film I detested so much, I might have a second go at in response to some of the insanely sunny write-ups the film has received. In the meantime, here is a rundown of some of the NYFF’s misses, all of which can be safely filed under “interesting failures”.
WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE (d. Shohei Imamura, w. Motofumi Tomikawa, Daisuke Tengan, Imamura)
The warm water of the film’s title flows from a very unusual source; it gushes forth from the sexy, yet mysterious, Saeko (Misa Shimizu) at the moment of orgasm, and trickles down from her house to the river below, sending the fish into a frenzy and into the nets of three very grateful fisherman. The entire village, in fact, seems to benefit from the sating of Saeko’s sexual appetite, while the film’s banks overflow with plenty of forced whimsy where the sheer wackiness of the proceedings are announced by an elbow-to-the-ribs soundtrack replete with a slide whistle. That the film doesn’t feature Little Jackie Wright being continually slapped on his bald pate, and end with a sped-up chase scene constitutes the biggest surprise within its punishing 119 minute running time.
The director, Shohei Imamura, is at his best when somberly examining the darker edges of the human experience, most notably in BLACK RAIN (being the 1989 film that doesn’t feature Andy Garcia getting decapitated by samurai sword-wielding bikers) and the Palme d’Or-winning BALLAD OF NARAYAMA. The mismatch of director to material here is perhaps akin to Ozu directing THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, which is not to say the entire film is a wash; Imamura’s exquisite framing and masterful use of long takes, particularly in a humorously protracted fight sequence, are mightily impressive, while the film’s Noto Peninsula setting is undeniably breathtaking.
I’M GOING HOME (d. & w. Manoel de Oliveira)
The most remarkable achievement of this otherwise languid meditation on the slow fade of old age, is that Manoel de Oliveira, at ninety-two years old, can still withstand the rigors of writing and directing a motion picture. This is a challenge, Billy Wilder. Get off your octogenarian ass, and give it one last shot.
Starring Michel Piccoli as a legendary French actor nearing the end of a celebrated career, I’M GOING HOME begins with a lengthy excerpt from the final act of Eugene Ionesco’s EXIT THE KING, which features a ridiculously old king stubbornly refusing to abdicate his throne. As Gilbert emotes onstage, three mysterious, suit-clad gentlemen gather like storm clouds backstage, bearing the news of an awful tragedy that has claimed that lives of Gilbert’s wife, daughter and son-in-law. This leaves Gilbert the sole guardian of his six-year old grandson, for whom he must care while he comes to grips with the sobering truth that the only roles available are written for younger actors. To further underline his dilemma, de Oliveira also places Gilbert in a production of THE TEMPEST. By the time Gilbert wanders off the set of a production of Joyce’s ULYSSES after continually flubbing his lines, de Oliveira has more than made his point that growing old is indeed an awfully slow process, where a gracefully quiet exit is the only dignified option.
LA CIENAGA (d. & w. Lucrecia Martel)
Emphasizing oppressive mood over anything resembling a conventional story, this debut feature from documentarian Lucrecia Martel succeeds marvelously at immersing the audience in the sticky, immobilizing heat of northwest Argentina. The opening sequence, depicting a group of grotesquely flabby middle-aged drunks scraping their patio furniture across the cement in a pathetically futile attempt to chase a non-existent sun, is strikingly original, preparing us for a socio-political polemic excoriating the country’s complacent upper-class that never arrives. Martel, it appears, is after something less tangible: a study of human beings struck inactive by the overwhelming presence of nature; an interesting idea, but not terribly cinematic.
Martel trains her camera on an extended family; one contingent taking up residence in a decaying, country mansion, with the others living in the nearby city. The film is most eventful at the beginning, where Mecha (Graciela Borges), the clan’s ever-inebriated matriarch, drunkenly stumbles and ends up with shards of broken wine glasses imbedded in her chest. Not surprisingly, there isn’t an adult fit to drive her to the hospital, so the task is left to one of the older children. Once in town, she is met by Tali (Mercedes Moran), Mecha’s far more responsible cousin, who is mother to two irrepressibly rowdy girls and one inquisitive, yet worrisome, son. The tragedy brings the entire family together, including Mecha’s oldest son, Jose (Juan Cruz Bordeu), who happens to be shacking up with his father’s former mistress.
Rather than engage in a conventionally wrenching, angst-laden melodrama, Martel maintains a doggedly detached approach; however, while she dodges the merest possibility of narrative coherence at every turn, she is guilty utilizing some pretty lumbering metaphors (e.g. the aforementioned decrepit house, as well as a bull left to die in quicksand intercut with a bedridden Mecha). Furthermore, she also stoops to a heavily foreshadowed third act tragedy, and closes with a final shot that makes a point – Mecha’s children are doomed to inherit her pathetically empty life – already hammered home in the film’s first half-hour.
Ultimately, LA CIENAGA’s biggest failure lies in Martel’s inability to make her characters as interesting as their surroundings, leaving one with the sense of having just sat through a stranger’s mundane, if surprisingly well-photographed, home movies.
Still to come: a newly restored NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS and the biggest surprise of the fest so far.
Faithfully submitted,
