NYFF: The Human Body tenderized in 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica'

by Jason Adams

Do you ever find yourself zoning out to one of those surgery shows they sometimes have on basic cable? Titles like Botched or Plastic Surgery: Before and After where they stick their reality-show cameras into people’s literal guts and poke around? Yeah me neither. A lurid dramatization like the series Nip/Tuck I could handle, but the real stuff’s always been a bridge too far. But then I’ve always had that line drawn in the sand when it came to Horror Movies as well – I’ll watch all sorts of gruesomeness as long as I know it’s fake but you’d have to tie me down to get me to watch one of those Faces of Death videos. 

So why then did I find myself so lulled into hypnotic contemplation by directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s surreal-ish surgery documentary De Humani Corporis Fabrica (meaning “Of the Structure of the Human Body” and named after the legendary 1555 anatomical texts) at the New York Film Festival this week?

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NYFF Lineup Announced for 2022

by Nathaniel R

Jeremy Pope is a gay marine in "The Inspection"

The 60th Annual New York Film Festival runs September 30th through October 16th (passes are already on sale) and as per usual the festival will have a couple of premieres but the bulk of titles are cherry-picked from the Big Five: Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Sundance, and Toronto. Because of that practice this is a superb festival to catch up with if you don't have the funds to travel to the other festivals. And on that note, disappointment for those hoping for / expecting Tchaikovsky's Wife, Broker, Close, Women Talking or The Fabelmans (a.k.a. me!). But perhaps there will be last minute additions? After the jump the main slate titles this year....

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NYFF: "Întregalde" Slashes Old Habits For Something Fresh

by Jason Adams

Tell me if you've heard this one before -- a group of young people get lost in the woods. They pick up a stranger, and he's acting really weird. They lose their phone signals because of how remote they are in the wilderness. Their car breaks down. The group starts separating, one by one. Even more strange-behaving men show up. There are tales of an abandoned building in the mist-shrouded woods, and everybody starts wandering around trying to find it. One of them falls and hurts their leg. Night falls and their flashlight beams scatter in the darkness, no safe haven in sight. Snow begins to fall on a mysterious little shack. 

If you think I've just described the latest schlock horror flick to hit movie theater screens I wouldn't blame you, but this is actually the latest serious-minded art-house film from Romanian director Radu Muntean (Tuesday, After Christmas), who proves that there's nothing more enlivening than watching somebody serious-minded renegotiate the same old same old elements into something new, strange, and hypnotic. Întregalde is a low-key astonishment.

You can see the warning signs accumulating early on...

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NYFF: I Remember "Memoria"

by Jason Adams

You can quite literally say that Memoria begins with a bang, as its inciting incident is just that -- a loud noise waking someone from sleep. But as far as it ending with a whimper, well, the only whimper its end will summon will be your own, as the lights come up and you realize your mind's been blown and that you're desperate to get back into the zen dream-state that Apichatpong Weerasethakul and his on-screen co-conspirator Tilda Swinton have lulled you into. I've spent the past week since seeing the film in just such a state of want. And so the news of the film's not-normal release pattern (which was weirdly the film headline I saw upon exiting the film -- further proof this movie actually transports you into its own reality?) has brought me both joy and sadness. A melancholia of its own.

In case you missed the news Memoria will travel the country, one art-house theater to another, only screening on one screen at a single time and never, not ever they say, hitting streaming...

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NYFF: "C'mon C'mon"

by Jason Adams

Mike Mills, the maestro of what actually matters, strikes excellence yet again with C'mon C'mon, his latest film screening at NYFF this week. How in the ever-loving world is this only his fourth -- yes you read that right, his fourth! -- feature film? The math don't lie: Thumbsucker, to the grand Beginners, to the masterpiece 20th Century Women, and now C'mon C'mon, and Mills' ability to laser right in on the emotional truth of any and every moment remains unparalleled. Jettisoning all the Joker toxicity from his body, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix, thankfully in his sweet smiling airiest tender boy mode. This is the Joaquin I personally signed up for, whispering his feelings into a telephone with wet eyes. What a heartfelt symphony this whole experience is; a gift..

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