New York Film Festival 2006 Preview
The 44th annual festival offers royalty and refinement, plus an unexpected mix of monsters, mobsters and anime.
By Aaron Hillis
Ravenous cineastes like myself often concur that the Film Society of Lincoln Center consistently programs the most urbane fests in the country, and the 44th New York Film Festival (September 29th — October 15th, 2006) might be one of their richest line-ups in years based on the sweeping diversity of its 35 hand-picked features. If you're close enough to breathe its air of cozy sophistication, please don't panic over any dust kicked up by that construction pit shrouding the regular plaza entrance to Alice Tully Hall. For the next 17 days of filmgoing bliss, the show will go on in the Upper West Side's spacious auditorium and its little brother upstairs, the Walter Reade Theatre. With a sampling this choice, good luck getting tickets:
You couldn't find a better way to experience regality than the opening-night gala of Stephen Frears' The Queen, starring Helen Mirren as Her Majesty, Elizabeth II. Set during the immediate aftermath of Princess Diana's death, this caustically funny dramatization gives a throne's eye view of the Royal Family reacting to the tragedy and media spectacle. Two centuries earlier and a country away, Kirsten Dunst embodies Marie Antoinette in Sofia Coppola's follow-up to Lost in Translation, which observes the blinders of luxury and naïveté worn by the famously guillotined French queen. Further proving this to be a great year in women's roles, Penélope Cruz headlines the Cannes award-winning female cast of the fest's official centerpiece, Volver, a kitchen-sink melodrama with supernatural undertones from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar.
Danny Glover has a cameo in Bamako.
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In the "haven't we seen you somewhere?" section, faces from cinema's past return in three new features. Only a couple years away from his centennial birthday, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira revisits two characters from Luis Bunuel's erotic 1967 classic Belle de Jour in the twilight comedy Belle Toujours. (Though Catherine Deneuve has been replaced by Bulle Ogier in this pseudo-sequel, the original film's Michel Piccoli is on-hand here and in Otar Iosseliani's eccentric comedy Gardens of Autumn... in drag!) Also exploring the complexities of growing much older is Michael Apted's 49 Up, the latest in his landmark portrait series that has been documenting the lives of the same British folks every seven years since they were 7. While it's not necessary to see every film in the Up series, viewers would be wise to track down Election (no, not the Reese Witherspoon movie) before facing the vicious gangster politics of Triad Election, from one of Hong Kong's most audacious genre filmmakers today, Johnnie To.
There's plenty more representing the best in East Asian fare, from an intelligent South Korean monster movie (Bong Joon-ho's The Host) to a spiritual drama based on the Chinese prodigy who invented a well-known Japanese boardgame (Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Go Master), a Japanimated mindbender about a psychiatric device that can enter people's dreams (Satoshi Kon's Paprika), a sensitive exploration of the self-destructive male psyche from a truly underrated South Korean auteur (Hong Sang-soo's Woman on the Beach), plus a rare screening of the 1976 Fassbinder-esque melodrama that became the first Filipino film to play at Cannes (Lino Brocka's Insiang).
Hellboy's Guillermo Del Toro returns with Pan's Labyrinth.
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Pouring out the contents of the remaining mixed-bag of goodies reveals Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako's compassionate exposé of underdevelopment, Bamako, featuring a cameo by co-producer Danny Glover; Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Connelly costarring in the dark suburban dramedy Little Children, from the director of In the Bedroom and the screenwriting novelist behind Election (yes, the Reese Witherspoon movie); French master Alan Resnais' intertwining ensemble and meditation on Private Fears in Public Places; the long-awaited Inland Empire, a three-hour digital opus of guaranteed high weirdness from Mulholland Dr. auteur David Lynch; and Guillermo Del Toro's gothic horror fable set in fascist Spain, Pan's Labyrinth, which is nothing less than an inspired closing-night selection.
But wait, don't forget about the sidebars and retrospectives! Besides the brand-spanking-new 35mm print of Warren Beatty's Reds to celebrate its 25th anniversary, don't miss the 1962 Italian comedy classic Mafioso, or the one-two punch of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, each a gonzo helping of mystical surrealism from the inimitable Alejandro Jodorowsky (who has confirmed to make a special appearance). The tenth anniversary of "Views From the Avant-Garde" will spotlight new experimental works from Jean-Luc Godard and Bruce Conner, as well as Guy Maddin's latest — Brand Upon the Brain! — a faux-autobiographical puzzler that will be presented with a live orchestra and in-person narration by Isabella Rosselini. Still not enough for you? Then gorge yourself on the thirty international classics scheduled for the 50th birthday celebration of Janus Films. If you haven't seen Antonioni's L'Avventura, Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, or any of the other Renoirs, Hitchcocks, Truffauts, Bergmans, Mizoguchis and Fellinis here projected on a huge screen, you can't fully appreciate the modern arthouse cinema. To those who are convinced that those Criterion Collection DVDs will suffice, at least be sure to catch the rarer screenings like Dusan Makavejev's WR: Mysteries of the Organism, Victor Sjöstrom's The Phantom Carriage (featuring live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin), or Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain.
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