Week Two of the NYFF and it was time for the stars to hit town. Wednesday saw back-to-back press screenings of The White Ribbon and Broken Embraces, with both Michael Haneke and Pedro Almodóvar giving Q&As afterwards, the latter in the company of the delectable Penélope Cruz.
It was my first viewing of Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner, and I would easily rate it the most complete achievement of the German director’s films. Haneke has toned down the cruelty of his previous films, but sacrificed none of his characteristic ambiguity and creeping sense of dread. The White Ribbon is a parable about a repressed German community which slowly begins to destroy itself in the months leading up to the start of World War I. But we should be wary about assuming too much, according to Haneke. “I try to arouse mistrust in the viewer,” the director told us afterwards. “I work against films that try to reassure or manipulate. I want to give the viewer the freedom to develop their own perspective.” Ironically, this film comes about as close to a stated resolution of the enigmatic events that occur within as any of his other films. But we shouldn’t forget the narrator’s opening lines, said Haneke. “He tells us he is not sure if he remembers correctly, or if what he is saying is hearsay. I am not offering a realistic depiction of events.” Are you a sad person, asked one audience member? “I don’t think I’m a depressive,” he replied, dourly. “But you’ll have to ask my wife.” Was that… a joke? I wouldn’t expect Haneke to direct a romantic comedy any time soon, though. “There are plenty of specialists who are better qualified to do that than me,” he said. “You wouldn’t ask a cobbler to make a hat.”
Where Haneke has attempted to alienate the viewer with the White Ribbon, Almodóvar has done precisely the opposite with Broken Embraces. Indeed, this is film-making to luxuriate in, whether it is the richly elegant production design or simply the luminescent beauty of Cruz. I won’t dwell on its qualities as it has been reviewed already in LWLies 25, except to say it was more soapy and predictable than I expected. The director was on typically auteurish form, donning a pair of sunglasses midway through his interview and slipping between English and Spanish with such frequency that his translator began repeating an English response at one point. Broken Embraces started life as an idea for a “pornographic film about a blind man with lots of girls,” we were told. Cruz did little except look dazzling and talk about the “sharing of an adventure” with her director. I asked if he, like Mateo in the film, would ever re-edit or remake one of his own films? “It’s not something I would think to do,” he said, at first, before going on to change his mind. “Perhaps if I could change… could go back and do one of my films better, it would be Kika or High Heels.”
It was good to hear Almodovar be so honest about Kika, his most famous misfire. Haneke, of course, remade his own Funny Games with American actors. I don’t think Almodovar will need to do the same with Broken Embraces though. There’s too much Hollywood in it already.
There was plenty more cinema to watch this week than simply The White Ribbon and Broken Embraces. Fans of Catherine Breillat might not know what to make of Bluebeard. The French director is known for her experimental psychosexual films Romance and Anatomie d’Enfer, but this historical metadrama is something of a departure. Reminiscent of the 1970s films of Walerian Borowczyk (but without the sex), the film flits between two prepubescent girls reading the story of the pirate Bluebeard and a retelling of the myth itself, complete with medieval costumes and locations. Breillat returns to the theme of sororal rivalry that A Ma Soeur! is centred around, but without the shock factor or suspense of that film. It’s not for kids, but not really for adults either. The Brothers Grimm might have enjoyed it.
Grim viewing was also the order of the day in Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, another festival circuit favourite. An unremittingly tense war film set during the early stages of the 1982 war between Israel and Lebanon, this Israeli film pulls off a remarkable trick by setting almost its entire action within the cramped interior of a tank. The only glimpses of the often horrendous violence happening around the tank are seen through the sights of its gun. I have rarely felt as uncomfortable and claustrophobic in a cinema as I did during Lebanon. Who needs 3D when you have sound editing and cinematography as immersive as this? Like last year’s Waltz With Bashir, which covered the same conflict, this film avoided making overtly political statements in favour of solid drama on the horrors of war. In spite of a cast of stock characters, it is a blisteringly visceral tour de force.
Now, in my blog last week, I said there were no surprises at the New York Film Festival. That wasn’t quite true, because I have to report that for me, the festival’s centrepiece Precious was one of the biggest surprises of the year.
Every cynical pore in my being predisposed me to hate Precious. It’s produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. Its cast includes Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey, for Christ’s sake. But, after about twenty minutes of this brutal, immediate film I was completely sucked in. Set in the bleak Harlem of the late 1980s, the film tells the story of the eponymous Precious, an obese teenager pregnant with her father’s child and mentally and physically abused by her monstrous mother. The film charts Precious’journey to something like normality after she begins taking classes at a state-assisted remedial school.
My expectations, like yours no doubt are, were of the cinematic equivalent of one of those misery memoir books that clutter up the bookshelves of WH Smith, all seemingly with the same front cover. But Precious never indulges itself in the depths of the abuse it documents, instead focusing – like its central character comes to do – on the positive that is just around the corner. It spurns melodrama in favour of honest realism, and addresses complex issues you might think would be beyond its remit. When, for example, the gargantuan Precious sees herself in the mirror as a tall, beautiful blonde, it says more about the self-negating identity crises of disadvantaged people than a thousand talk-show moments.
Director Lee Daniels, previously known best as the producer of Monster’s Ball, shows a genuine skill with actors whether it is the heart-breaking central performance by newcomer Gabriele Sidibe or the devastating turn by sitcom star Mo’Nique as Precious’ mother. Even Mariah does well, almost unrecognisable without make-up or hairpiece in a small role as Precious’ social worker. It will almost certainly be the big Oscar favourite next year, and it deserves all the praise it will get. Put aside your prejudices and go and see it.
