Intercepted (2023) NDNF 2024

The weight of what we see and hear in INTERCEPTED will crush you. While the film is not graphic in a typical war documentary, the weight of the words will pulverize your soul.

The film is footage of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people after the Russian invasion. We watch as they go through their daily routines in a country at war. Yes, we see the destruction, but also, we see children playing, the people repairing damage, farming, driving. Everything that people do in peaceful time. Over the images we listen to the intercepted cellphone calls that Russian soldiers made to their loved ones. They speak of the terrible things that they have done and experienced in the war. We also listen to them have very human conversations about their lives as well.

The mix of life and death is jarring. At first it kind of seems a clever game, and then the enormity of what we are seeing and hearing begins to hit home and root itself in our souls. The unseen violence begins to carve us up. The sadness that it brings weighs us down. You will become confused as you realized that one group of humans sees another as less.

I did not expect my ass to be kicked this badly.

In an age when we are flooded with films on Ukraine to the point that many blend together, INTERCEPTED stands out and reveals itself to be one of the best films on the war and the tragedy it has brought.

Recommended.

A Journey in Spring (2023) NDNF 2023

An older couple go through out their day. She works, he repairs the sink at home. When she passes away, he tells no one and remembers their past.

This is a memory play where everything is told in the physical actions rather than the words. Dialog is at a minimum, largely in the flashback memories, so what we are clued into the feelings and emotions is all through how the characters move. Any dialog ends up being commentary on the emotions of the largely wordless now sequences. (Though at the end we realize that everything but the beginning and end is a memory)

This is a beautiful looking and very deliberate film which you will either love or hate depending on your feelings toward the pacing and reflective nature of the film. This is where not a lot happens even though a lot of emotion is kicked up as one man contemplates his relationship to his wife. For some this is going to be manna from heaven and for others this is going to be close to watching paint dry. This is best described at moving at the speed of life.

For me the film was a mixed viewing experience. While I was okay with the pacing, my feelings for the film dissipated toward the conclusion. I say this because there was this moment toward the end where I realized that this was not going to have a big pay off. Emotionally there isn't enough here.

The problem is that the film plays as if it's a feature version of a short story. Short stories, and short films, have a rhythm all their own. Because of their brevity they can  show us moments, or pieces of a story, or even have endings that leave us hanging. Watching A JOURNEY IN SPRING I frequently could hear the voice of a short story narrator telling us the story. The ending, when it came could have been dead on perfect for a film a third of the film's length but not for something running 90 minutes.

Mirroring a short story in a feature can work, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's EVIL DOES NOT EXIST is a cinematic short story in feature form and it works with devastating power. However it takes more than simply stretching  a story to feature length.

While there is much to love in the film, the look and performances, A JOURNEY IN SPRING is a film best seen by an audience who can connect to it's deliberate pacing.

MEEZAN (SCALE) (2023) NDNF 2024

Shahab Mihandoust’s portrait of the fishing industry in Iran’s Khuzestan province is a stunner. A three part tale the film follows what happens on the boats, on the wharf where they doc ans in the processing lpant where the fish ends up.

This film is a visual and audio stunner. I described the film as one of the most "you are there" films I've ever run across. Mihandoust’s puts us in the thick of things, do so in a way that doesn't make us just an observer but a participant. 

As for the audio, it's as environmentally perfect as they come. What makes the film so special is that we don't have the absolute pinpoint perfection of most films, you know where every sound is perfectly placed and so it creates an unreal world. Here instead is soundtrack that puts us in a place. I mention this because when I asked about getting access to the film I received an email from Mr. Mihandoust who told me if I did not see the film in a cinema I absolutely must wear headphones. He was dead on right. Never have I ever experienced a place via audio quite like this. I actually replayed several sections of the film just so I could close my eyes and really take in the sound. This needs to be in the Oscar race for best sound design.

Technical achievements aside the film is magnificent. If documentaries are supposed to show us things we never knew, this film does it in spades. Sure I've seen films, both documentary and narrative on fishing, but never have I understood how it all fits together. Additionally this is a film that really puts s into the lives of everyone on screen.

This is one of the best films at this year's New Director's New Films and one of the most amazing films I've seen in 2024.

Go see this big and loud and be amazed.

Brief thoughts on Malu (2023) NDNF 2024

Yara de Novaes stars as an actress who is constantly at war with the world.  Living with her religious mother, she is headed for an uncertain future. And now her daughter has returned from France.

The reason to see this film is Novaes. Giving one of the best performances you will see all year (and destined to be ignored by Oscar) this is a performance that is going to haunt you. Portraying a character who is not entirely likable Novaes gives us someone who is unforgettable. 

See this for Novaes because she is just that good.

DREAMING AND DYING (2023) NDNF 2024

After years apart three school friends meet and consider their lives and relationships. 

Odd off kilter and magic realist drama  is an art house film full of long silence, meaningful sighs and sad looks. It is a film that is full of self importance and unspoken meaning.

This film didn't really work for me. From the opening image of a woman sitting by a statue of a hand this film felt off. It wanted me to know it was going to be about something. However as time went on I never clicked with it. In large part this was due to my not understanding why these three were together for any length of time. Yes. there are reasons, but at the same time there wasn't enough to propel even a 75 minute film.

This film missed for me.

LOST COUNTRY (2023) NDNF2023

 

Stefan is a teenage boy whose mother is the public face for the Milosevic regime. As the political situation begin to crumble and the people begin revolting Stefan is forced to confront the fact that life is not as his mother says it is and that his childhood is over.

One of the best films at this year's New Directors New FIlms is a stunning mediation not only the history of Serbia but also the state of the world today. In a world where everyone is being fed a steady stream of echo chamber pablum from their choice of news source, we all are running into possible danger about what is really going on catching up with us.

On a smaller scale this is simply a great little drama. It is beautifully acted to such a degree that by the time the final images are flickering on the screen we are broken. In a festival full of cold artistic turns LOST COUNTRY is a film with a beating heart.

A must see.

Cu Li Never Cries (2024) NDNF 2024

A woman returns to her home town to spread the ashes of her ex husband, deal with the pygmy slow loris she inherited and to reconnect with her niece who is getting married and seems doomed to relive past mistakes.

An intriguing drama is turned into an art house meditation on the lives we lived, the ones we left behind and the ability to control the future. It's a film full of moody black and white images and silences that are supposed to portend something.

Somewhere into the early part of the film I began to wonder if all of the artistic flourishes were really needed. Would this have been a better film had the story had been simply told? Somehow I think it would have been better had the camera not lingered and a few more things actually had been spelled out. 

Please forgive me for seeming to be a Luddite but there is enough here in the basic tale that dressing it up raises the stakes and the expectations higher than they should be.  For me there was no grand revelation.

A miss.

BLAGA'S LESSONS (2023) NDNF 2024

A retired woman who is trying to get a burial plot for her recently deceased husband is scammed out of her savings. She then tries to track down the scammers and ends up morally bankrupt herself.

This is a bleak black tale of life in the Balkans. There is no hope just people screwing each other. The film is profoundly sad as our heroine’s soul is crushed to dust.

I found the film difficult to watch. You don’t want to see someone we like sink, but that is pretty much the case here.

The real bright spot in the film is Eli Skorcheva) as Blaga. This is a glorious performance that gets under your skin moves you. In an age where many performers are phoning in their turns or going for big where small is required Skorcheva moves things along exactly as needed. It’s a performance for the ages. If you see this film do so for Skorcheva. She gives an Oscar worthy performance that Oscar completely ignored (this was an entry for best International Feature)

I should mention that this film is a kind of dark sister to a recent film that played Sundance called THELMA. That film is much lighter and life affirming even though it’s charting a similar narrative line. I am mentioning it because I was, unfairly thinking of THELMA while watching BLAGA.

Grace (2023) NDNF 2024

Unnamed father and daughter travel across Russia living off the grid and grow farther apart.

Long takes and pregnant silences fill this road trip on the fringe of society. An example of the  Slow Cinema genre this is a great looking film that you either love or hate.

I loved the look. I loved some of the discussions but at the same time I hated that this film insists on meandering all over the place, the camera seemingly lagging behind some of the action. Yes, the silences and long tracking shots give us a sense of time and place but at a certain point I just wanted to reach for a remote and scan to when something was actually happening.

Decidedly not my cup of tea

Of Living Without Illusion (2023) NDNF 2024

An actress with an imploding relationship  rehearses a play with her ex-husband and tries to hold her life together.

Echoing the work of filmmakers like Chantel Ackerman who would use long takes to make us an observer from just out of a moment n real life, OF LIVING WITHOUT ILLUSION ups the ante by adding "deep and meaningful" dialog in an attempt to give meaning to the film. It’s a ploy that pushed me away as the film seemed intent on stating what we are supposed to be feeling in the dialog instead of showing us in the action.

I grew wary from the second scene where several of the characters sit around a table and discuss the meaning of film and how we are supposed to watch them. There was a Statement about how films are not for everyone, and it made my warning sensors going up since the statement and the conversation seemed intent on taking a stance in order to prevent us from poo pooing the film. The film seems to be taking a stance that it and its filmmakers are better than the audience.

The pretensions are wrapped around the broken relationships of the characters. While there is something there, the film is trying so hard to get us to connect to the people but the intellectual discussions overwhelm the emotion and it somehow feels artificial. The emotions being expressed don’t feel  as though they are being felt by anyone on screen but being expressed as an acting exercise, or more often just stated in the dialog rather than expressed in the performance. We can see  director Katharina Ludin moving her characters around.  

I want to apologize for expressing my feelings but the truth is that half way into the film I realized that the emotional core of the film, the actual story, the characters, the situations actually pack an emotional punch if you can strip the artistic artifice that Ludin has buried them in. If this was a less an art house film it would kick your ass. It doesn’t need the pauses and the silences and the camera always standing outside the action. This is a film that needs to be in the room where it’s all happening and getting up in all the actors' faces, something Ludin refuses to do.

A miss.

Otro Sol (2023) NDNF 2024

Docu-fiction  about two men who investigate the myth of Alberto Cándia, a Chilean international thief who stole theCathedral of Cadiz in Andalusia in the late 1980s.

If you can click with this rambling little film you are going to have a good time. Leisurely paced and wandering off in all over the place, this meditation on the nature of truth, myth and reality has some compelling pieces. I loved the various stories we hear about treasure and the quest to find out about Alberto Cándia. The stories are told in such away that we feel as though we are sitting with the characters and tellers shooting the breeze. Its compelling and a great deal of fun.

At the same time I’m not sure the film really adds up to much. This isn’t to say the film is bad but more to state that the film is uneven. Blame some of the long sequences where nothing happens or no one speaks. For example the film begins with a monologue in the back of truck that ends and we are in the truck as it drives along and this drifts into following people as they walk down the road. “Quiet sequences” punctuate the  film and for me they stop the forward momentum. While I love the discussions I’m not certain about the rest.

While I think the film is uneven, I still think it’s worth seeing. There are some great pieces here. (I’m going to leave the question about which parts of this are real and what parts are made up to you)

Foremost By Night (2023) NDNF 2023

FOREMOST BY NIGHT is the story of mothers and children lost and found. The main focus of the film is a woman who was forced to give up her baby years ago and has spent the intervening years trying to find him. Along the way she meets a woman and her adopted son.

This is an incredibly hard film to pin down. It desperately wants to be in the form of a thriller but it doesn’t really work. The opening monolog suggests it’s really a horror film but I don’t see it. Much of the film is related in letters read over the images so we are told things instead of watching things transpire. The tone of scenes shift. Actions are often mannered. The narrative is partly fragmented. I’ve read that it is supposed to be an examination of the forced removals of children by the Franco regime, but had I not read that in an outside source I never would have known it.

I could  feel that director hammering the film using the best pieces that could be found. We can see what is being reached for, but at the same time the grasp doesn’t connect to the emotion. We can admire the craft but we can’t fully feel anything.

I really love a lot of the pieces, but I don’t love the whole.

I think it’s a miss but if the subject or expert filmmaking thrill you give the film a shot.

A Good Place (2023) NDNF 2024

Director Katharina Huber film is either going to be your favorite film at New Directors New Films or your least. A meandering tale set in an isolated community dealing with a mysterious disease that seems to kill some people or cause them to disappear, everyone seems not to do much except watch and listen to English broadcasts while speaking in German. There is talk of an upcoming rocket launch that will send people to the stars.

What does it mean? I have no clue.  There are hints at something but we don’t have all the answers. Huber said in an interview that she wants to give the audience room to piece together their own answers. I really don’t know if there is anything there other than what we bring to the table.

Shot to look like we are in an idyllic location the film looks and feels important. It will be up to you to determine just what is.

Unlike most people who seem to be split into rabid love for the film or a deep seated loathing, I’m somewhere in the middle. I like the look and feel of the film. I like it’s off kilter nature, but at the same time the lack of answers and it’s rambling nature really works against the film. There was a point where the rambling nature made me raise my hand and feel I was done.

If you are in a mood for a film with no answers and just lots of questions five A GOOD PLACE a try.

The New Directors New Films 2024 Curtain Raiser.

This year’s annual meeting of the Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center, New Directors New Films occurs this week. Highlighting the first works of up and coming directors from around the globe, the festival is a walk on the artistic side bringing a selection of soon to be art house favorites to the streets of New York.

Despte being connected to the Museum of Modern Art the festival doesn’t just highlight art films, this year’s opener is Aaron Schinberg‘s  A DIFFERENT MAN which was a huge hit at Sundance. In the past they launched the action classic THE RAID into the United States, but the truth is the fest does tend toward more upper crust films.  That may scare some people but good film  lovers almost always find something to fall madly in love with.

I love to see  as many of the films as I can. While I don’t always love everything I see, I do love the fact that I’m getting to see films that are more often than not giving us a new perspective on what cinema is. I love to get in on the ground floor of filmmakers who are going to be huge- and very often New Directors finds the next big director.

As this posts I've seen and written up 14 of the features screening and I may squeeze in a few more. I’ll have reviews dropping before the first screening of all the films so keep reading. If you are looking for some recommendations might I suggest

OMEN which is a supernatural tinged film about a man who returns home with his wife.

LOST COUNTRY a tale of lost innocence involving the son of the public face of notorious regime

OTRO SOL a good blending of truth and fiction about lost treasure and notorious thief.

MALU has an Oscar worthy performance by Yara De Novaes as a self-centered actress.

MEEZAN (SCALE) must be seen on  big screen with big sound. The story of the fishing community in city in Iran. This is as close to being there as you can get.

Take a look at the schedule and buy some tickets.