Here's what I'm most looking forward to seeing at New York Film Festival this year

Fran Magazine: Issue #122

Sep 11, 2024

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Merch is coming (official)

This morning I clicked BUY NOW on a whole bunch of mugs (“Fran Mugazine”) to celebrate all that is the brand of Fran Magazine. NEXT WEEK, I will debut the design. THE WEEK AFTER, they will go up for sale. I’m doing a limited run so as to not go fully insane but if they sell out, we will do more. After literal years (1.8) of promising this, it is now finally happening.

Laura Dern voice

“I’m at the festival… the film festival” season is nigh, and with it, I’ll have to learn to wake up at 6:45 in the morning again. I sometimes think back to the summers of 2020 when I routinely woke up a little before 6 in the morning so I could run around the park in Jersey City half a dozen times before limping back to bed. In the interim years, even when participating in “running season,” my wakeup time crept later and later: 6:30 to 7 to 7:30 to 8. Obviously if I am teaching at 9am in the morning I am waking up early, but if left to my own devices, especially in this weeks of recovering from mono, waking up before 8am is kind of a joke. I used to be able to function on six or seven hours of sleep; if I don’t get a full eight hours now I am almost completely dysfunctional, moody, weepy, and incompetent.

When people have asked me about the forthcoming New York Film Festival and if I am excited to return, I’ve been a big grouch about it, mostly because to go back to press screenings and relentless film watching, I’ll have to start waking up before 7 again. I recognize the extent to which this type of work is a privilege, of course, and I want to make clear I don’t do this as, like, a hobby — but it’s still going to take a significant effort that’s otherwise gone towards “rebuilding my strength” in the face of a virus that most people get as children. I have loved milking it for everything that it’s worth, but come next Wednesday, I will have to feign normal amounts of energy again, and for that, I am a little bit terrified. I have a really packed slate, but even in years where I’m in perfect health, I only wind up attending about 70% of what I initially set out to see. I’m hoping this year to hit that similar number, but otherwise trying to prioritize the films I feel most excited about.

Inevitably, people near and far will ask what I am looking forward to seeing, and I like to make them a little list of movies they’re either aware of or not. Here is what I’m most eager to see in the coming weeks:

Hard Truths, Mike Leigh

I think Mike Leigh is probably the greatest living artist, or within the top three, and his latest film reunites him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the star of his Palme d’Or-winning film Secrets and Lies, in a movie that basically seems like “evil Happy-Go-Lucky.” I’ve written at length about my affection for Leigh’s work, and the early word that this new film was a “minor entry” has only encouraged greater excitement. Other minor Leighs might include, say, High Hopes or Life is Sweet, two films of his I absolutely love. On Monday night, Phil and I watched this documentary on Youtube about Leigh’s process: how he builds long-form improvisations into full-fledged narratives through what seems like profoundly tedious though imaginative explorations of character. That he was ever allowed to make films in the first place seems like an outrageous bit of fortune and I’m grateful he’s back this year, eager to start shit.1

Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes

I saw Miguel Gomes and Mauren Fazendeiro’s The Tsagua Diaries in the Currents section of the NYFF line-up in 2021. That film framed itself like a kind of pastoral, slow cinema, modern European type of thing before it devolves, basically, into petty little arguments about sending emails — one of my favorite subgenres. The Tsagua Diaries and Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn remain, to me, the two best films about how everyone went insane during COVID-era living.2 Gomes’s work gets slapped with adjectives like “whimsical” and “fanciful,” but to me these both feel like misnomers. I mostly think his work pays close attention to the crafting of image while not being completely humorless; in fact, he is pretty funny.

The Brutalist, Brady Corbet

I don’t really think Vox Lux is a good movie, therefore most of my appreciation for Brady Corbet comes from his brief appearances in Force Majeure and Clouds of Sils Maria.3 I did, however, like his wife Mona Fastvold’s movie The World to Come. I was moved, however, over the weekend at the video of him crying and sweating through his Venice acceptance speech which I watched on Joe Alwyn’s Instagram story. Actually it seemed like he was crying for all of Venice. Sometimes I am curious about something just because the person who made it seems happy to be there.

April, Dea Kulumbegashvili

For the past few months, Phil has been saying stuff like, “Dea Kulumbegashvili heads we are so back.” I have to admit this is the first time I’ve both heard of Kulumbegashvili or heard Phil talk about her4, and her new film April seems like “what if Vera Drake was scary?” I’ll let Phil share his two cents on why this is a movie to watch:

Kulumbegashvili’s 2019/2020 film Beginning is one of the most arrestingly conceived, morally complicated portrayals of stringent religious life put to film in recent memory, and were it not for it getting fucked by COVID-19, everyone would be talking about Kulumbegashvili as one of the most exciting talents emerging on the global cinema stage. It also has the best opening shot of the last 10-ish years. If that’s not enough to sway you, consider my other impeccable picks for guys Fran hadn’t heard me talk about before their new film played NYFF, but who I have long championed: Michaelangelo Frammartino (Il Buco, five stars from Fran), Mark Jenkin (Enys Men, 4 stars from Fran), and Aki Kaurismäki (Fallen Leaves, four stars from Fran). —Phil

Harvest, Athina Rachel Tsangari

It may or may not surprise people that I very rarely read the plots of films before I see them, especially in a film festival environment, if I can help it. Or maybe I skim them but immediately forget them. Unburdening myself from the tyranny of “caring about the plot” is one of the greatest things I’ve done for myself as a viewer and reader.5 That said, per the NYFF’s own description, the film “takes place in a remote village in medieval England marked by superstition and the scapegoating of outsiders” and per Variety, “it’s when one such building — the stable of the farmstead — is set mysteriously on fire one evening that things begin to go awry in this hitherto efficient, nameless village, cuing a long, tumultuous week of recriminations and revenge” are both “okay, sounds cool 👍🏻” enough to get me in the door.

Rumours, Guy Maddin

development.ltd

A post shared by @development.ltd

I love the work of Guy Maddin, who is funnier than most, if not all, “comedy filmmakers” working today, and possesses an admirable madness and capacity for the zany without grating. Rare feat. Zlatko Burić heads we are so back, etc.

Hellraiser, Clive Barker (maybe)

Do you think I am brave enough for the Hellraiser 4K?

Queer, Luca Guadagnino

I have to know why he made beautiful Lesley Manville look like this :(

Dahomey, Mati Diop

Every now and then one of those movie prompts makes its way around Twitter in which people ask for recommendations that you could show both, like, “people who like art house movies” and “normal people” alike, and everyone would find something to get out of it. I think this is disrespectful to people who like art house movies (most whom I know loved Trap) and normal people (most of whom I know thought Trap was stupid). That said, I think Mati Diop’s last film Atlantics is the type of work that is beautiful and challenging in a way that transcends a window through which you could view it, a film about globalization and grief and sexuality. I was sad to miss the film in its theatrical run. I’ll be happy to see Diop’s latest on the big screen.

Anora, Sean Baker

I saw Simon Rex, star of Baker’s vastly underrated and truly evil Red Rocket, in the East Village yesterday. He looked hot!

Caught by the Tides, Jia Zhangke

I quite liked Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, which played in “digital NYFF” in 2020, and served as an archive of both social change and literature in Shanxi, China. Coming out of grad school, I thought a lot about “national canons” in a way I hadn’t previously considered; I’ve possibly turned on the whole concept since then but it’s still a compelling question. I’ve never seen one of Jia’s narrative features though am hoping to remedy that in the few weeks I have ahead of the festival. Friends who were lucky enough to see his latest at festivals earlier in the year said it was one of his best yet.

Maria, Pablo Larrain

I like when PABLO LARRAIN films WOMEN doing A WEIRD VOICE even when it’s NOT VERY GOOD. The Larrain-Steven Knight collaborations are some of the best and strangest bozo films of our time. Steven Knight gets more opportunities than, like, basically any other person in Hollywood and he might be the dumbest person there, which is what going to film festivals is basically all about.

Anyway, there’s lots on my slate, some of which I’m a bit more apprehensive about and some of which I might have to miss due to scheduling conflicts. Maybe you are wondering: What about the Almodovar? What about The Nickel Boys? What about Eephus? Or maybe you are wondering something else entirely, in which you can articulate those thoughts below ahead of festivities.

Fran Magazine