NYFF: Yulene Olaizola's "Tragic Jungle"

by Jason Adams

M. Night Shyamalan's name has become synonymous with cinematic puzzlery, but there can be a dulling obviousness to the way he approaches the concept of Mystery, at least in his weakest moments. He genuinely thinks he can explain the unexplainable. His "twists" mostly seem to mash the Unknown into tight little balls we can hold in our hand to exit the theater with. And so it's only the opening passages of his film The Happening, about Mother Nature seeking vengeance against the humans who've abused her so, that retain any sort of power -- Shyamalan spends the remainder of that film piling plot contrivances on top of his original interesting idea until it's the audience who can't breath from the sheer weight of nonsense pouring off the screen.

I'll admit I thought of The Happening while watching the breeze move gently through the rainforest trees of Mexican director Yulene Olaizola's captivating and hypnotic new film Tragic Jungle...

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NYFF: Dea Kulumbegashvili's "Beginning"

by Jason Adams

If you throw a ball, or even better a stick of dynamite, straight up into the air there is a moment of pause, of tranquility, at its peak, before it comes tumbling down. The apogee, as its known, is a fascinating word to me, close as it is to apology -- in my mind I always picture the shrug of the cartoon Coyote as he begins his plummet. Apogee, but whoops here I come. Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili's Beginning, as stunning a debut film as any I've seen, lingers in the feeling of that pause -- the world feels suspended, we're light of breath and danger is nigh, but man the view is something.

The film begins and we meet Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili, staggeringly good) and her husband David (Rati Oneli) as they greet parishioners inside their sparse, fresh-smelling new Jehovah's Witness church, and immediately we notice two things. First that the film was filmed in the squarish frame ratio that's become shorthand for art-minded movie-makers looking to quick express claustrophobia -- think First Reformed or The Lighthouse; right away we know that these are people who are stifled by their surroundings...

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NYFF: Steve McQueen's "Red White and Blue"

by Jason Adams

And so we come to the third piece that the New York Film Festival is screening out of Steve McQueen's "Small Axe" series of five total films -- if you missed my thoughts on Lovers Rock you can read them here and if you missed my thoughts on Mangrove you can read those right here. NYFF flip-flopped the screening order on the previous chapters and Red White and Blue, today's focus, jumps us to all the way to the final chapter of the series, and you can sense that about it. It has the feel of a breath, a pause -- a looking back upon itself and taking tenative, pained stock.

As with Mangrove we're focusing again on a true story. This time it's the 1980s and John Boyega plays Leroy Logan, a young man who was on track to become a forensic scientist until his father was assaulted by a couple of racist cops...

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NYFF: the queer slow cinema of Tsai Ming-liang's "Days"

by Sean Donovan

Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang’s brand has reached a point where any objections to his style seem of limited use or value. At this point in his career, Tsai is going to do what Tsai is always wont to do- which is make films composed of far less shots overall than most filmmakers working today, some stretching as long as 10 minutes, studies in slow repetition and urbane melancholy, sometimes touching on queer themes but just grazing them (Tsai himself is gay). When a filmmaker’s brand is so immediately recognizable it’s sometimes met with impatience and boredom by audiences, as if wondering ‘when are they gonna just get over this already?’ ‘How many lengthy shots of people doing housework is too many?’ Matías Piñeiro’s latest entry in the New York Film Festival, Isabella, received notices of exactly this kind from many critics, wondering what the balance is between honing a brand vs. refusing to develop creatively (I reviewed the film here for TFE to a similarly lukewarm shrug). 

Yet with Tsai Ming-liang I find myself not caring whatsoever about any criteria of versatility or artistic variance in his work...

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NYFF: Nicolás Pereda's "Fauna"

by Jason Adams

The title of Fauna, the latest film from Mexican-Canadian director Nicolás Pereda, turns out to be good enough a punchline that I'd never spoil it, but it's one of those punchlines where the characters themselves get to burst into laughter at it -- it's extra-textual enough for everybody to recognize its ridiculousness all at once, even as it exists within the narrative. There are many such laughs in the film but highlighting that distinction up-front matters. The space between the people on-screen and the people watching? Well, Pereda's having a heap of fun wigglin' all around in that uncanny void...

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