I found it very ironic that the New York Film Festival coincided perfectly with the collapse of the American Stock Market. As the nation’s economy, and thus the global economy, continued to plummet, New Yorkers were submitted to a group of 28 eclectic films (I saw nine) that truly represented the same sort of ideas. Often dark films about reality, shot in documentary-like style, made up much the main slate. It seems that many of the directors are all holding to the same principles.
The best of the films was one that did not deal with the problems of today. Steven Soderbergh’s Che was truly an epic film; 4 and a half hours long, with a half hour intermission, Soderbergh created a film that looked at the instability of revolutionary fever, through two diversely different films about Che Guevara’s revolutions in Cuba and then Bolivia. What Che speaks to today is about the pure luck that most things are balanced on. Were we simply lucky in Afghanistan and unlucky in Iraq (or both?), or is anything is this world really stable.
More after the jump
Many other films used the past to explain the future as well, including Steve McQueen’s brutal yet polarizing Hunger, Ari Folman’s documentary Waltz with Bashir, and Clint Eastwood’s Changeling. Yet all use a different type of filmmaking to get to their point. Hunger is very controlled, and uses the power of the image to control the screen. Folman uses a unique animated style. Eastwood’s of course is the most conventional of the three (and probably the entire festival), but still uses deep shadows and wonderful contrasts to set the stage.
All these films, and in fact most of the entire festival, is about people who are changed by the state. People like Wendy who can’t find their dog from Wendy and Lucy, or the kids who fall into the mafia of Gomorrah, or defiantly Francois of The Class. The films of the festival seem to ask us about our own controllability on our lives. Are we simply being piloted down a path, led to destruction. Or, as in the case of Ms. Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh’s brilliant Happy-Go-Lucky, can we maybe change our attitude and live above the society we see ourselves in?
It is not that these films are necessarily depressing they are simply asking us about how our world works. The depressing thoughts come from our reflection on the films. When a festival opens with a film about children in Paris, attempting to grab all the power they can in a state that denies them freedom, and ends with a tragedy about a man forced to the bottom of society, the connections are made. NYFF 46 is a beautiful and touching look at how the state controls each of us, and the insignificance each of us has. It’s a sad idea, but a truth we all must face in harsh times.
ALL NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL COVERAGE
• Discussion with Kent Jones, Selection Committee Member (Full Interview Here)
• Opening Night: The Class
• Happy-Go-Lucky and Wendy and Lucy
• Hunger
• Waltz with Bashir
• Gomorrah
• Centerpiece: Changeling
• Che
• Closing Night: The Wrestler