NYFF '24: “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” sings an unusual song

by Nick Taylor

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire presents the most concrete details about Suzanne Césaire's life - perhaps the only concrete details about her life - in its opening title cards. Born in 1915 in Martinique, Césaire was a poet and essayist who began publishing her essays in 1941. Her work was heavily influenced by feminism, communism, and anti-colonial theory, and she achieved a degree of sociocultural prominence before 1946 when she vanished from the literary circles she'd held so dear. One character, an actress playing Césaire in a film about her life, wisely notes, "We're making a movie about a woman who didn't want to be known." And this sentiment informs this thesis in a nutshell. To compensate, director Madeline Hunt-Ehrlich has nestled her work in a metafictional story around a largely fictionalized treatise on Césaire. It's a strange proposition, but is it an effective one? Let's talk about it...

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NYFF '24: "Rumours" serves political satire à la Maddin

by Cláudio Alves

Rumours is probably Guy Maddin's most accessible film, flirting with the mainstream in ways most of his work never did. That's relative, however, and one shouldn't presume the Winnipeg-based auteur has defanged himself in some desperate attempt to score the public's approval. This G7 pitch-black comedy is still weirder than your favorite Hollywood directors' wildest swing, keeping true to Maddin's cinema of transgression. It involves, among other things, bog body zombies that jack off until they explode, a giant brain with a horny aura, the pedophile-tracker-like ChatGPT taking over the world, and Cate Blanchett playing the Hetalia version of Germany by way of a SNL Angela Merkel…

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NYFF '24: All hail "Pepe," the audacious!

by Cláudio Alves

How does one even start to describe Pepe? Or make sense of it? Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias's latest feature is many things – the biography of the first and last hippo to be killed in the Americas, an oblique look at Pablo Escobar's legacy and impact, an experimental travelogue, a political reckoning with the scars of colonialism in Colombia, a non-fiction and narrative hybrid, an ethnography, a poem, a thesis on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It's everything, everywhere, all at once, an audacious piece of cinema that doesn't lack ideas or ambition, so multifaceted as to leave one dizzy. Somehow, it all works. I'd go as far as saying Pepe is one of the year's best and most essential films…

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NYFF '24: "Afternoons of Solitude" is a Barbaric Beauty

by Cláudio Alves

When I was very young, I remember being besotted by bullfighting. Around where I grew up, the so-called art of the "tourada" was fundamental to the local culture, a noble practice to be celebrated. My parents were a tad horrified by my interest, and I was an ignorant child. For some reason, I had never realized what was happening in the arena, too blinded by the matador's glamorous figure, the dance-like spectacle, and the thunderous applause. But seeing it live and then watching TV recordings, I realized something. What I thought were theatrical tricks and mud were actual violence and blood splatter. Back then, I dreamed of being a vet, so the thought of all that animal pain made me feel nothing but revulsion for what I once found beautiful.

I was reminded of this while watching Albert Serra's Afternoons of Solitude, a documentary on Peruvian-born "torero" Andrés Roca Rey which earned the Catalan director the biggest prize at this year's San Sebastián Film Festival. For once, I saw some of the beauty again, along with the brutality and the horror. I felt tears in my eyes and nausea erupt from within. Quite the cinematic experience…

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NYFF '24: "bluish" paints post-COVID malaise in many shades

by Nick Taylor

A quick note of appreciation: I am so excited to have received press accreditation to digitally cover this year’s New York Film Festival. This is pretty amazing! Even if I’m sitting at home, nestling with my man and our cats for a good movie rather than sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Payal Kapadia and Mati Diop, this is a version of a dream fulfilled. Honestly, being able to appreciate a film festival without being separated from the kids might even be the preferable option? Much to consider.

But enough about me! Instead let’s talk about bluish, the very first film I watched as part of this NYFF coverage. Directed by Milena Czernovsky and Lilith Kraxner, bluish follows two unnamed young women played by Leonie Bramberger and Natasha Goncharova, navigating life in an Austrian metropolis that should feel more lively than it is. The city and the protagonists are stumbling through a post-lockdown balance of intimacy and isolation. There’s still noise and color and motion, but it all feels so fragile now, so much harder to participate in. bluish is a sad film, but it’s also one of the most evocative portraits of trying to reintegrate into society and full personhood in the wake of COVID (which is still happening, by the way!!) I’ve seen yet...

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