NYFF Review: João Pedro Rodrigues’ Will-o’-the-Wisp Gives Wood As Good As It's Got

by Jason Adams

How many wood puns would a reviewer chuck into his review of a movie about wood puns? Admittedly not quite as tight a tongue-twister as the “how much wood would a woodchuck” original, but we work with what we’ve got. And I’ll try to rein myself in when it comes to queer sensualist and provocateur João Pedro Rodrigues’ Will-o’-the-Wisp (aka Fogo-Fátuo) as far as such woody things go, but when he’s got his own characters talking about the trees being “tumescent with sap” I can only be so discreet. But I know when I’ve been beaten, and this wood master already beat me at my own game. Point João once more!

At sixty-seven minutes Will-o’-the-Wisp is as slight as is its central figure, a dazzled Portuguese princeling named Alfredo (Mauro Costa) in an alternate-reality timeline...

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NYFF: Kelly Reichardt continues her perfect track record doing absolutely no wrong with the subtle marvel of 'Showing Up'

by Jason Adams

The worlds that writer-director Kelly Reichardt grants us access to with her movies are special places. Even if they’re filled with terrors, as they very often are – her wonderful 2013 eco-thriller Night Moves is not as out of place as it might initially seen – they’re all so delicately spun you might find yourself not breathing lest the spell be broken. The grace on display in her work is meditative, plaintive, lovely even in the most dire of straits. They are quite simply always one of my favorite places to visit. 

And her latest titled Showing Up, which reunites Reichardt with actress Michelle Williams for the first time since 2016’s Certain Women, is another wondrous, delicate world – one I know I’ll be returning to time after time, year after year, to soak in, to absorb whatever wonders and mysteries I can from someone whose view of existence I’m thankful for receiving every single damn time...

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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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