By MILAN PAURICH
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
For a while there, it looked as though the 36th edition of the New York Film Festival (NYFF) might not happen at all.
In light of the traumatic events in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, something as frivolous as a film festival seemed at best irrelevant, at worst in very bad taste.
Fortunately, common sense prevailed and The Film Society of Lincoln Center decided to forge ahead with their annual event. Anyway, isn't art always the best weapon against tyranny in a free society?
Here, then, is a brief look at some of the brightest moments from a somewhat guilt-tinged immersion in world cinema on New York's Upper West Side:
"Deep Breath" ***1/2
A bored, affectless teen (impressive newcomer Pierre-Louis Bonnetblanc) learns to become a man on his uncle's farm. In first-time director Damien Odoul's alternately lyrical and savage black-and-white film, that's not necessarily a good thing.
"Fat Girl" ***1/2
The sibling rivalry between an obese 12-year-old girl and her beautiful, willful 15-year-old sister comes to a boil one summer. Director Catherine Breillat's shocking exploration of adolescent female sexuality is told with unflinching naturalism.
"I'm Going Home" ****
Moving on after a terrible tragedy is the theme of the moment and the subject of 92-year-old Manoel de Oliveira's glorious new film about an actor (the incomparable Michel Piccoli) who perseveres after suffering great personal loss.
"In Praise of Love" ****
The great Jean-Luc Godard tackles the weight of history versus the elusive, ephemeral nature of memory: quite possibly the most beautiful film of his 40-year-plus career, and certainly the most moving.
"Italian for Beginners" ***1/2
A sunny Danish romantic comedy shot under Dogma-95 constraints (all natural lighting, hand-held cameras; etc.) with just enough dark edges to remind you that you're not watching a Nora Ephron movie: a crowd pleaser of the first magnitude.
"La Cienaga" ***
Bunuel meets Almodovar: wild kids and careless adults on a family vacation go a little loco in Lucrecia Martel's vividly realized debut film. You can practically feel the tropical heat of a sultry Argentinean summer.
"The Lady and the Duke" ****
81-year-old Eric Rohmer, arguably the world's greatest living director, enters the digital age with this lush, visually stunning, and typically literate retelling of the French Revolution as seen through the eyes of a British expatriate (Lucy Russell).
"Mulholland Drive" ****
Hollywood will never be the same after David Lynch's Tinseltown deconstruction in another mesmerizing if willfully opaque "mystery" whose clues matter less than your perception of them. After 1999's poignant and heart-felt "The Straight Story," Lynch is back to his old hallucinatory, reality-shifting ways.
"The Royal Tenebaums" ****
Wes Anderson follows up his 1998 masterpiece, "Rushmore," with this deliciously skewed, pricelessly funny, and unexpectedly touching dysfunctional family chronicle starring Gene Hackman (in a career performance certain to be remembered at Oscar time), Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ben Stiller: I haven't experienced this much pure joy at the movies all year.
"Silence ... We're Rolling" *1/2
An Egyptian diva (Tunisian superstar Latifa) experiencing career and relationship problems is the subject of screen legend Youssef Chahine's hackneyed, turgidly-paced homage to vintage Hollywood movie musicals: so bad it doesn't even qualify as camp.
"Sobibor, October 14, 1943,4 P.M." ***
The date in the title refers to an uprising by Jewish prisoners at a WWII concentration camp: director Claude Lanzmann's film-length interview with Holocaust survivor Yehuda Lerner stands as an eloquent bookend to his 1985 documentary milestone, "Shoah."
"The Son's Room" ****
Only the most stone-hearted will fail to be moved by Nanni Moretti's austere tearjerker in which parents mourn the loss of a teen-aged son. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes this May, Miramax is planning a domestic release next year to coincide with Oscar season.
"Storytelling" ****
Todd Solondz, provocateur of "Happiness" and "Welcome to the Dollhouse," strikes again with his most disturbing and accomplished film yet. Divided into two parts ("Fiction" and "Non-Fiction"), it's liable to have audiences talking -- and split down the middle -- for years to come.
"Time Out" ****
A middle-aged corporate drone (Aurelien Recoing in a bravura performance) loses his mind trying to keep up appearances after getting sacked: "Human Resources" director Laurent Cantet's stunningly realized character study exerts the same vise-like grip of the best thrillers.
"Va Savoir" ****
Notoriously difficult French New Wave pioneer Jacques Rivette opened the festival with his most accessible work to date, a romantic roundelay that's impeccably acted and buoyantly charming: an invigorating tonic to beleaguered spirits everywhere in these dark days.
"Waking Life" ****
A twentysomething's search for the meaning of life is the subject of this Generation-Y "My Dinner My Andre:" director Richard ("Slacker") Linklater "painted" live-action footage through an "interpolated rotoscoping" process, resulting in one of the most gorgeous animated films ever.
"Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" ***
Another of Shohei Imamura's perverse folk tales about a woman with an unusual way of expressing "pleasure" and the man who loves her. Imamura's films are always a joy to watch, but this one suffers slightly from a "seen-it-before" quality.
"Y Tu Mama Tambien" ****
Alfonso Cuaron ("The Little Princess") returns to his native Mexico for an irresistible road movie about two teen-age buddies and the unhappily married woman who becomes their traveling companion and lover. Earthy, unapologetically raunchy, and ultimately wrenchingly sad, this feels like a new classic.