Brian De Palma has always been fascinated by contrasting points of view, and by the way the media frames and filters complex events to serve its own purposes. His new film, Redacted, which got the sixty-seven-year-old director his first invitation to the New York Film Festival, is based on an actual atrocity committed by American soldiers in Iraq; it tells its story through mock-documentary footage, YouTube and video blog postings, and one soldier's video diary. It's clearly a staged and acted film; De Palma isn't out to fool anybody, though there have still been reports of walkouts during a couple of key, horrific moments. But the movie ends with a brief montage of actual photos of carnage from Iraq, photos that look like scenes that have come before them, yet are so much worse that they put the whole film into perspective.

De Palma has great faith in the power of images to change the world; after Redacted won him the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival, he confidently told reporters that "The pictures are what will stop the war," and he's chastised the media for not showing Americans the full awfulness of what has been unleashed against the Iraqi people. So it's an oddly apropriate sick joke — a De Palma-esque joke — that Redacted itself is being, as its director says, redacted: the movie's producers are insisting on "protecting" the anonymity of the dead and wounded in the photos by placing black bars across their faces, as if they were in a vintage stag film. De Palma has been using the bully pulpit of the NYFF stage to complain about this, and even to publicly argue with his backers. Blogger and critic Jurgen Fauth has posted video of a recent Q&A here. — Phil Nugent

There were times this summer when I desperately scanned movie listings for something to lead me out of boredom and into air conditioning, only to find some very slim pickings. I thanked God for Netflix and moved on. But after spending the better part of this month trying to take advantage of all the New York Film Festival has had to offer, I suddenly find myself with an overwhelming backlog of must-see films.

I’ve yet to see Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited or Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. The Assassination of Jesse James is surely not going to be the same movie on DVD as it is on film. Michael Clayton would normally be a solid contender for a trip to the movie theater. And how could I possibly pass on the black and white Ian Curtis biopic Control? I’m certainly curious about the Ryan Gosling vehicle Lars and the Real Girl, as well as Noah Baumbach’s sophomore effort, Margot at the Wedding. I was lucky enough to have seen an advance screening of Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone, and you will not want to miss that sure-footed, tightly woven drama. But somebody is going to lose here, and the Times seems to agree with my sentiments.  

I understand Oscar strategy, and the sad tale of the early-season release forgotten, but honestly, how does this make any sense? A couple of these films will likely still be in theaters a month from now, but a greater number will see their runs shortened by the surplus of other options. Not all of these scheduling decisions are based on awards positioning — some tie into film-festival premieres or distribution-company calendars —  but if some had been released during the last few months, they would have had a much better chance of getting attention. For the moment I’ve got to determine which one of these movies I’m going to see first. — Bryan Whitefield

From the mid-1950s to 1964, two companies in the highly competitive Hong Kong film market reigned supreme: the Shaw Brothers, and Cathay, headed by the ambitious and urbane Loke Wan Tho. While the Shaws concentrated on serving as Hong Kong's cinematic candy counter, serving up the popular action melodramas that would shape Western notions of what Chinese movies are all about, Cathay prided itself on its prestige productions and sophisticated comedies and musicals that its chief executive saw as part of an effort to modernize Chinese society. Sadly, Loke Wan Tho died in a 1964 plane crash that also took the lives of several of his top executives, and Cathay never recovered from the loss. In its final week, the New York Film Festival is honoring the memory of the studio's golden period with Chinese Modern: A Tribute to Cathay Studios, running October 10 through the 16. Grady Hendrix writes that the program doubles as a tribute to Chathay's great forgotten star, Grace Chang. She was the beneficiary of Cathay's special interest in providing strong opportunities for actresses, creating a new model of independent women for Chinese audiences. One film here, the 1957 Mambo Girl, reportedly grew out of Loke Wan Tho's seeing the actress dancing in a nightclub, and deciding that the sight was too good to not build a movie around.) For an actress like Chang, the downside of working at Cathay may have been the lack of anyone to play against; according to Hendrix, "Actors at Cathay were an endless gallery of nobodies, with the faces of civil servants and spines of spaghetti, no match for the radiant screen goddesses who surrounded them." One sad effect of the Cathay retrospective is that it shows how many vibrant, talented Chinese actresses were left stranded when Cathay was no more and the macho Shaw Brothers aesthetic became the dominant flavor out of Hong Kong. — Phil Nugent

On the surface, French provocateur Catherine Breillat’s latest film is nothing like the nine before it. Her first attempt at adapting material not her own is also a period piece, heavy with intricate costumes and poetic dialogue. Yet its spirit is unmistakably modern, and centers on the same amour fou or mad love that all of her films have dealt with in one way or another. Asia Argento plays Vellini, a Spanish woman of questionable nobility, who has stolen the heart of a young Parisian playboy and held it captive for some ten years. The story begins and ends in the present tense but breaks in the middle as the young man reveals the secrets of Vellini’s hold on him to the grandmother of his future bride.

 

Asia Argento is not necessarily beautiful by Hollywood standards, but she has an undeniable presence on screen, and she inhabits this character with an abandon that is completely believable. Breillat’s confidence as a director translates beautifully. With the help of the rich source material, she's made her most fulfilling film yet.

 

During the post-film Q&A Breillat said that she identified heavily with the male novelist on whose book the film is based, as he was heavily censored and she has always felt herself pushed to tell stories in their most raw form. She revealed that in order to achieve this raw feeling, everything in the film was kept real from jewelry to costumes to locations (no easy feat). When asked about the heavy role sex plays in her films she commented that she once observed, looking on the face of an actress, "something ecstatic and sacred at the same time when a woman is at the extremes of passion." She went on to talk about seeing this same effect in certain classic paintings, and used that idea as way to tell a timeless story of romantic consumption in the film’s nineteenth-century setting. — Bryan Whitefield

Let it not be said that I don’t respect Sidney Lumet. I read his book Making Movies and found it both practical and enlightening. I loved Dog Day Afternoon (who doesn’t?) and Running on Empty. But let’s face facts. Lumet is eighty-three. He made 12 Angry Men in 1957 — fifty years ago!  When you receive a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars, you can probably read that as Hollywood’s polite way of saying, "It’s a wrap." Apparently Mr. Lumet is hard of hearing.

Read More...

 

If there is one thing you can say for 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, it's that there's no debating the film’s effectiveness in recreating the living hell of obtaining an illegal abortion in late '80s Romania. Still up for debate, however, is why someone would feel compelled to make this film — and why an audience should force themselves to endure this truly disturbing piece of work. As bleak, anxiety-inducing and horrific as any movie I’ve ever seen, Cristian Mungiu’s grim procedural only adds tension with its interminable long shots, and doesn’t allow the viewer a single moment of relief. In a strange sense, that's a compliment, since tension is clearly the film’s intent. The performances, especially from Anamaria Marincaare, are admirable in their authenticity and complete disregard for vanity. But because of the desolation and utter joylessness at this film’s heart, I can’t remember feeling more relieved to see a credit sequence since Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. The last line of the film translates to, "This is what we're going to do: we're never going to talk about this again." I'm guessing there are more than a few audience members who feel exactly the same way. — Bryan Whitefield