MANDERLAY
When we last saw Grace, she was leaving Dogville with her gangster father; as Manderlay begins, they’ve arrived in the Deep South. An African-American woman runs up to their car and begs for help; although her father warns her not to get involved, Grace is convinced that this is her next stop. Behind a high iron fence stands a classic, pillared mansion; within that house and on all the land it surveys is a world in which slavery still exists, 70 years after its abolition. Aided by four gangsters and a lawyer given to her by her father, Grace tries to end what she sees as a corrupt remnant of the past— but it soon emerges that both victims and victimizers have interests in the status quo. The ever-unpredictable Lars von Trier has assembled an extraordinary cast— Danny Glover, Lauren Bacall, Isaach de Bankolé, Willem Dafoe— for a controversial, unsettling exploration of race relations. And in Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays Grace, von Trier has discovered a major new talent. 139 min. Denmark/Sweden/France, 2005.
TALE OF CINEMA
Hong Sang-soo, one of cinema’s most original talents (Turning Gate, NYFF ‘02, Woman is the Future of Man, NYFF ‘04) continues his distinctly personal filmmaking with this wry story about sex, lies, and one-upmanship. The less successful of two film-school graduates is hung up on the notion that the other, more flourishing classmate had stolen elements of his life to make his first movie. As art and life keep twisting in a Moebius strip, the male psyche, South Korean version, is bared with detached amusement in all its doggedness, uncertainty, and will to power. The film has a fresh, New Wave physical charm, with Seoul standing in for Paris; a daring structural playfulness; and an audacious fidelity to the perverse, self-defeating impulses of human character. 90 min. South Korea/France, 2005.
THROUGH THE FOREST
Months after her boyfriend Renaud’s death in a motorcycle accident, Armelle still cannot get over him: she hears his voice and feels his bodily warmth next to her. Armelle’s sisters advise her to consult a medium, to see if there is some way of contacting Renaud in the beyond; that experience, although unsettling, leads her to Hippolite, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Renaud and is like him in many ways. But can great passion ever be re-lived? One of the most original voices in contemporary French cinema, Jean-Paul Civeyrac has constructed his new film in only ten exquisitely choreographed shots, moving effortlessly from the starkly material world to the spiritual and then back again. Boldly sensual, Through the Forest is a deeply felt ode to the power of desire. 65 min. France, 2005.
THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG
Bursting with the subversive glee of Dr. Strangelove or The Manchurian Candidate, Im Sang-soo’s scabrous black comedy turns a raucous eye on recent South Korean history: the 1979 assassination of dictatorial president Gen. Park Chung-hee by the head of his secret service (wonderfully played by Baek Yun-shik). Im is a natural-born troublemaker who’s not shy about being irreverent toward this defining event in the creation of a democratic South Korea. He gives it a wild spin, conjuring a world populated by self-loathing functionaries, good-time girls (and their difficult mothers), cynical KCIA agents, and politicians who womanize as if every bang is their last. The film provoked great controversy at home— Park’s family even sued to keep archival footage out of the film. But in treating the assassination as a grandiose farce, Im captures a profound truth often left out of academic textbooks: History isn’t neat. 104 min. South Korea, 2005.
WHO’S CAMUS ANYWAY?
Mitsuo Yanagimachi first played the NYFF in 1985 with Himatsuri (Fire Festival), a visionary work capped by a startling murder. Now he’s back with a radically different kind of film— a brainy, playful Altmanesque portrait of the psyche of modern Japan. Yanagimachi follows a group of film students (many played by hot young Japanese TV stars) as they prepare to make a movie about a seemingly gratuitous murder. As it examines the students’ bickering, betrayal, and sexual cruelty, the film offers a witty portrait of a younger generation so steeped in Western culture that its touchstones are film noir, Michel Houllebecq, and, of course, The Stranger. This brilliantly made film explodes with cinematic energy, from a sly opening sequence that riffs on The Player to a powerful finale that reveals depths as dark and mysterious as anything in Camus. 115 min. Japan, 2005.
