The Fault in Our 'TÁR'

by Nathaniel R

Cate Blanchett as "TÁR" © Focus Features

The world famous conductor Lydia Tár is breathing strangely in the wings. As she inhales and exhales forcefully with tiny staccato bursts of her facial muscles, the image of a rock star hopping in place, self-hyping before their concert is conjured. Will Tár's elite audience devolve into a hysterical screaming teenager at the first sight of her?

Conductor as rock star? It's a rare and incredulous notion. Gone are the days of monoculture when a "Maestro" like Leonard Bernstein (emphatically name checked) could become a household name. But in Todd Field's TÁR we believe it, surely in part because one of the most famous movie stars in the world is playing her. In the year of our lord 2022, Cate Blanchett needs no introduction; Lydia Tár is a different story, and her introduction -- an exhausting recitation of her many diverse accomplishments as she turns 50 -- is a doozy...

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AFI Fest: Switzerland's Oscar Submission "My Little Sister"

by Christopher James

The first image depicts a frail woman in a hospital hooked up to an IV. The camera moves in and seems to fixate on the needle in her arm. For the uninitiated, this introduction feels almost parody-esque of an Oscar foreign language film. Are we in for a two hour depression porn where beautiful Europeans slowly die from cancer?

Luckily, My Little Sister, Switzerland’s Oscar submission, is more than meets the eye in that opening moment. Yes, it’s a cancer drama. However, it’s a more unorthodox exploration of a complicated sibling dynamic...

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"My Little Sister" and Switzerland at the Oscars

by Nathaniel R

We have our second contender for Best International Feature at the forthcoming Oscars. Poland was first to announce but now we also know which film Switzerland will send. They're going with My Little Sister which stars two familiar German greats Nina Hoss (Phoenix, Barbara, A Most Wanted Man) and Lars Eidinger (Never Look Away, Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sils Maria). Hoss and Eidinger are only six months apart in age in real life and early reviews of their performances are strong so we can't wait to see them as twins. The movie is directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, a directing duo that Switzerland submitted once before in 2010 for The Little Bedroom...

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TIFF: Nina Hoss in "Pelican Blood" and "The Audition"

Chris Feil takes a look at two performances by one of the greatest German actresses...

Katrin Gebbe follows her relentlessly grim Nothing Bad Can Happen with another slow-building horror-adjacent character study with Pelican Blood, a portrait of motherly conviction that love isn’t enough and hope is toxic. Nina Hoss is Wiebke, a skilled horse trainer and mother bringing a second adoptive daughter Raya (Katerina Lipovska) to her ranch. Shy at first, Raya quickly establishes herself as deeply troubled and a threat to her older daughter Nicolina (Adelia-Constance Giovanni Ocleppo). Misbehaving turns ominous, with Wiebke determined to show Raya the love she has been denied even as something evil within destroys Wiebke’s life...

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Interview: Christian Petzold on 'Transit', melodramas and the influence of Fassbinder and Ackerman

by Murtada Elfadl

Transit, opening this weekend in limited release, is the latest from the gifted German director Christian Petzold (Barbara, Phoenix). It is a haunting modern day adaptation of Anna Seghers 1942 novel "Transit Visa". The film stars Franz Rogowski (Happy End) and Paula Beer (Never Look Away, Frantz) as would-be lovers desperate to escape an occupied France. We got a chance to interview Petzold in January when he visited New York for a retrospective of his work by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. When we meet he informs us that he’s been up for more than 24 hours because of a flight delay, so he might struggle to find the words in English. But that's not what happens. There’s a translator but she only chimes in a couple of times in our half hour conversation. Perhaps delirious from no sleep, he’s in the mood to talk.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity...

Murtada Elfadl: How did you come to the decision to clash the contemporary setting with the period story. Can you talk about the choice for that dissonance?

CHRISTIAN PETZOLD: I started to write the script as a typical period picture, everything was set in 1942. I was with my son on a father / son journey through California and the writing was coming easy to me --  everything going well is not a good sign. My Mac notebook was destroyed by the sun when I left in the car. I didn't have any back ups. Actually I was relieved that everything was destroyed. Period pictures are mostly museum pictures as if you are going on a journey to old times, you get to see Sherlock Holmes or Keira Knightley in costume. I thought I’d have to cast Ben Kingsley in my movie...

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