NYFF: "Martha Marcy May Marlene"

Her name is Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) but we first know her as Marcy when she slips quietly out of a crowded farmhouse where women much like her sleep in huddles, like a happy litter of puppies. Her absence is quickly noted by one of the men on the farm named Watts (Brady Corbett) and Marcy hides in the forest while her once slumbering sisters and their men search for her, continually calling out "Marcy May." Once Marcy has reached a neighboring town, she makes a trembling entirely inarticulate phone call. An unidentified woman answers:

Martha, is that you?" 

Marcy Doesn't Live Here Anymore

We know instinctively that she is, though we know little else in these first few minutes of writer/director Sean Durkin's feature debut Martha Marcy May Marlene. 

The woman on the phone is Martha's estranged sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) who whisks the young woman away from the mountains to the even more idyllic river side landscape surrounding the far less crowded summer home Lucy shares with her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy). What's comforting to us in their recognizable domesticity, is obviously alien to Martha. The narrative is all friction between the past (Marcy) and present (Martha) and shifts between them sometimes imperceptibly and other times forcefully. The past scenes become in essence an unlocking of the puzzle of Martha's life on the farm with the father/husband figure and shepherd (John Hawkes, Winter's Bone) and his free love flock (to the movie's credit the word "cult" is never uttered). These revelations about Martha's previous life have the pesky tendency to lead the moviegoer to yet more disturbing questions which will probably not have answers.

Patrick sings an entranced Marcy a song he wrote for her.

Martha... possibly hits a few of its scariest notes too obviously, but mostly it's a model of restraint and cool control. That's particularly true of Elizabeth Olsen's interiority as the title character. She's trusting that her blurry contradictory identity -- an uncomfortable mix of rigid thinking, moral confusion, and open physicality -- will be enough to sell this lost woman. The fine ensemble cast is also a boon: Hawkes brings his Winter's Bone friction of menacing stranger and filial protector and Corbett and the other cult members are a believable mix of old phantom selves fading into shadows of Patrick. In the present tense scenes, which could almost read as a satire of stories about obnovious in-laws if it had anything like a sense of humor, Paulson and Dancy sketch in a realistic background marriage that's challenged by the needy relative in the foreground. But it's the writer/director that's the movie's true star. Durkin's screenplay's rich subtext that neither Martha nor Marcy are anything like their own woman, no matter the surroundings, shines. He also makes several smart choices in the filmmaking, often eschewing the comfort of close-ups and traditional scoring, to build a quiet cumulative menace. The cinematography in particular by Jody Lee Lipes is just right with its diffuse earthy warmth as seductive blanketing for a story that's anything but.

Elizabeth Olsen and Sarah Paulson in "Martha Marcy May Marlene""What's in a name?" the doomed Juliet once asked, trying to argue their meaning of Romeo's away. But her efforts were in vain. None of us initially choose the names we're given but as we move through life, plenty of us make small adjustments, concessions, and shifts along the way to shore up our increasing ownership of self.

Before seeing Martha Marcy May Marlene, I liked its "name" a lot. Having now seen the film it's representing, the title vaults over into a thing of pure genius. Film titling is an undersung artform. You could theoretically call this movie about a somewhat nondescript girl haunted by her former life in a cult in New York's Catskills Mountains just about anything. But "Martha Marcy May Marlene" is the perfect, yet far from obvious, choice. It's a riddle, an incantation, a theme. What other name but a series of them could so accurately capture the mystery, simplicity, and loss of self, that's the haunted vacuum center of this stunning debut? A-

Previously on NYFF
The Kid With a Bike races into Kurt's hearts.
George Harrison: Living in the Material World is music to Michael's ears.
A Separation floors Nathaniel. A frontrunner for the Oscar?
The Student makes Nathaniel cram for quizzes that never come.
Carnage raises its voice at Nathaniel but doesn't quite scream.
Miss Bala wins the "must-see crown" from judge Michael.
Tahrir drops Michael right down in the titular Square.
A Dangerous Method excites Kurt... not in that way, perv!
The Loneliest Planet brushes against Nathaniel's skin.
Melancholia shows Michael the end of von Trier's world. 

NYFF: 'The Kid with a Bike'

Kurt here. In The Kid with a Bike, the near-immaculate latest from the Brothers Dardenne, 11-year-old Cyril (Thomas Doret) is constantly on the move, chasing any possible shred of the father (Jérémie Renier) who recently dumped him in a Belgian orphanage and sold the family's belongings (including Cyril's precious bicycle) to pursue his culinary goals. It doesn't take long for Cyril to reclaim the bike, as it makes its way back to him thanks to the efforts of Samantha (Cécile de France) a kindly stranger Cyril literally latches onto during one of many attempts to escape his current guardians. Getting his father back, however, proves much less feasible, and Cyril's aching, at-all-costs need for paternal love and acceptance is what makes this sublime movie hurt so good.

Cyril's fervent drive also provides the film with a surprisingly brisk pace, ultimately aided further by a concise running time of 87 minutes. Even when he starts spending relatively quiet weekends with Samantha (who, without any explanation other than de France's actions and expressions, eagerly steps into a motherly role), the boy is never without telling, tireless propulsion. He and Samantha eventually find his father, and after a tedious attempt to get themselves noticed at the estranged man's workplace (a fortress-like eatery and the setting for a grating game of so-close-yet-so-far-away), Cyril gets a few moments with him that just kill you. Astutely filmed in one uninterrupted take, there's a kitchen scene that sees Cyril insist upon giving his dad a pass for every wrongdoing, and insist even more upon connecting with him in any possible way. He practically forces his dad to jot down a cellphone number, then squeezes in to help stir sauce while the father wants nothing but to get Cyril out of his way.

As they have surely been known to do, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne exhibit an extraordinary grasp of youthful mindsets and sensations, from the thrill of popping a wheelie to the willful romanticizing of adults. The extent of the realism with which they are able to express Cyril's feelings is such that, at one very alarming point, I was brought directly back to a darker stage of my adolescence, specifically a Friday night when I knocked my father halfway down the stairs so I could leave the house. The confused rage of a child is not something easily articulated, but the Dardennes make it look easy. They also bring a youthful, crayon-box palette to the look of the film, effortlessly joining blue walls and yellow hallways and brightly-colored buses and parks with costume design that's defined by single-hued T-shirts (Cyril's red top is practically the movie's emblem). In the subtlest of ways, it's the cinematic equivalent of color-blocking, and it's just effective enough to be thematically supportive without force or pretense.

Amid being repeatedly shunned by his father, and systematically let down by another male authority figure – a local gang leader – whose surrogate approval he blindly seeks to the point of criminal acts, Cyril clings to his bicycle, a symbol of his parental and familial ideals that he must repeatedly retrieve from thieves (yes, Bicycle Thieves is evoked, but surely not for reasons so literal). Much of the story's emotional truth is made to work because of the stellar central performance from first-time actor Doret, who, along with Brad Pitt, Michael Shannon and Michael Fassbender, will likely make my personal Best Actor shortlist. With young skin and old eyes, this ridiculously naturalistic kid puts forth the ideal blend of the unexperienced and the weary, and he shows about as much consciousness of the camera's gaze as Cyril's father does of his son's existence. I won't tell you that The Kid with a Bike rides to a place of improvised-family acceptance, as that would grossly undersell it as something run of the mill. Instead, I'll say it ends on a note as perfect as Cyril could hope for, with an almost magical reassurance that the love he stumbled upon, and not the love he hopelessly pursued, is indeed his salvation.

Enlinkened

TV|Line Madonna may be this year's halftime performer at the Superbowl
The Oreo Experience. An amusingly provocative (and depressing) look at fall movie trailers and what the white and black characters get to do in them. 
My New Plaid Pants on Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus... coming soon. I'll admit a lack of familiarity with this particular Shakespeare play, too. 
ioncinema Andrew Haigh, the writer/director of Weekend names his ten favorite films. I asked him a similar question (which I didn't include in the published interview) and he only mentioned three of these: Don't Look Now, Last Night and Some Like It Hot.

Natasha VC on best uses of music in a Martin Scorsese film
Movie|Line Netflix Ten Most Rented Movies. An Interesting and Irritating List.
Shock Till You Drop asks David Cronenberg about his future projects including sequels (?) to Eastern Promises and The Fly. I spoke with Cronenberg today (interview coming eventually) but I didn't have time to talk up future theoretical movies since my predilection is always towards actual existing movies. Crazy, I know. I feel so lonely sometimes since most people only seem to care about future movies... though obviously I would be quite happy to see either of those imaginary movies as I'm a fan of both originals.

New York Mag talks to Laura Dern (Enlightened) who is my new hero for saying this:

I’m becoming fluent in French so I can go to France and make French films when I’m 60."

I have been suggesting this to actresses since I started writing a decade ago and finally someone is smart enough to take my advice. (okay okay. Maybe Laura doesn't read The Film Experience but let me have my fantasies. Shut up!)

Finally, Sasha over at  Awards Daily sounds off on the old complaint/notion that talking Oscar sucks the air out of the film room... particularly during the fall when we should be talking about how good the movies are. I'm in complete agreement here about film advocacy being the thing people are missing when they bitch about the Oscars. I discovered my cinephilia through the Oscars (as have several other people I've been lucky enough to meet over the years through my writing). They're two separate things now -- as they should be but all things take time -- but I take no issue with them sharing space each year.

NYFF: "The Loneliest Planet" With Gael García Bernal

The first of the senses that writer/director Julia Loktev hits us with over the opening black screen is sound. We heara  rhythmic pounding/creaking/breathing that's hard to place (sex scene? construction work?). When the fade-up happens, you'd never guess what image is waiting for you. It's something both utterly mundane and alien and strange. This is only the first of the surprises that await you as you journey across the Georgian wilderness with Nica (Hani Furstenberg) and Alex (Gael García Bernal) in The Loneliest Planet. 

Hani Furstenberg could eat Gael García Bernal right up in "The Loneliest Planet"

Nica and Alex are madly in love both with each other and their mutual wanderlust. They're seeking an authentic travel experience beyond touristy paths before they marry. English is their common tongue (though neither of their native languages) and the film makes the very smart decision of subtitling nothing, as they attempt to communicate with the locales and teach each other a bit of their native tongues. They sign up with a local guide Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), the only other major character in the film, and they're off.

The Loneliest Planet ostensibly belongs to the arthouse school of contemplative "slow" films but there's actually quite a lot happening, as we observe Nica and Alex making love, absorbing nature alone or together and alternately building bonds with their guide and ignoring him. The space between each character is more geographically interesting than the landscape surrounding them. (Whether there's enough happening to justify its 113 minute running time is a separate question.)

The movies construction is such that you're climbing its mountain of details to the peak at Act One's curtain where "The Incident" takes place. And then you're climbing back down again in Act Two, with so much new to process in stunned silence.  "The Incident" (which is all I'll call it and what the director herself calls it) is a frightening and confusing moment that's also utterly believable and gorgeously acted. It's rendered all the more potent by the lack of constant cutting that mars so many pictures in the editing stage. The Incident is the movie's guaranteed conversation centerpiece which I fear most reviews with their lazy insistence on plot-plot-plot will give away. Loktev's mode throughout is observational and her refusal to offer up any commentary or (non visual) point-of-view on the matter will surely be counted as a detriment for some and a plus for others. Put another way she's masterfully collecting details but whether or not she has something to say about her treasured collection remains an open question to be answered by future films.

All movies engage your eyes and your ears by their very nature, but seize your visual and aural imagination only with skill. Loktev gently forces a third and dominant sense into the equation. Right from the very first startling image Loktev shows an extraordinary gift for the tactile. How many movies can you feel on your skin? Cold water, the brush of fingertips, a stone in one's shoe, hair violently tossing about in the wind and so many more sensations are beautifully captured. Most tellingly in The Loneliest Planet you can absolutely feel the warmth of a lover's touch and the unavoidable sudden chill whenever bodies separate.  B+ 

Previously @ NYFF
Melancholia - Michael gazes upon the end of the world with von Trier

NYFF: "Melancholia" This Is The Way The World Ends

[Editor's Note: Our NYFF coverage begins! You'll be hearing from Michael and Kurt and me. -Nathaniel]

Hey, everybody. Serious Film’s Michael C. here reporting from the New York Film Festival. I’m jumping right into the deep end of the pool with the first title so let’s get to it.

When the world ends in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia it is definitely going to be with a bang and not a whimper. The film opens with a stunning series of images centered around a rogue planet spinning out from behind the sun on a course to smash into Earth like a wrecking ball. It’s a dark nihilistic death dance, the B-side to Tree of Life’s sun-dappled song of life. The sequence alone is worth the price of admission.

From there the film splits neatly into halves. The first concerns the wedding of clinically depressed bride Kirsten Dunst to “aw shucks” wholesome groom Alexander Skarsgård. The second concerns Dunst and sister Charlotte Gainsbourg grappling with the whole possible destruction of the planet thing. Both halves follow similar arcs with characters hoping against hope that the worst case scenario can be avoided before remembering that this is, after all, a von Trier movie.

I’m not sure splitting up the stories was the wisest choice, since the second half never recovers the energy of the wedding scenes. I could write that the second half creaks under the weight of its symbolism, but if Von Trier is willing to fill the sky with an ominous death planet named after his own depression, who am I to point out that the whole thing is a bit "on the nose"?

Melancholia would have to qualify as a minor disappointment considering the shattering impact Von Trier is capable of, but still, it's an experience worth having. The whole cast is aces. Dunst rises to the occasion with a bone deep convincing portrayal of smothering depression, while Kiefer Sutherland, to my surprise, punches through in a big way as Gainsbourg’s wealthy put-upon husband. Best of all, is the wall to wall breathtaking cinematography by Manuel Alberto Claro, which, by the way, is probably the film's best shot at awards attention. The whole thing has a cumulative effect greater than the sum of its flaws.