Authors — Howard Feinstein
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Moebius Unravelled: Magic Words (Breaking a Spell)
Inside out … Upside down … And round and round “Upside Down” (1980), Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards The wildly suggestive lyrics are sexy all right, but they also suit the vertiginous push and pull (sorry) of Mercedes Moncada’s intense cinematic duel between a) the history and legacy of the Sandinista movement in her native Nicaragua; and b) her recollection of the heavy emotional baggage she has carried since its inception. The description of a political event or a collective mood may trigger remembrance; inversely, affective recall might precipitate concrete reconstruction. The logic of memory rules, so that the order […]
by Howard Feinstein on Apr 30, 2014 -
She Said, She Said: The Galapagos Affair, Satan Came to Eden
Suffering is something to endure and learn from, the compact, muscular German expat physician Friedrich Ritter tells his MS-afflicted mistress and fellow exile Dore Strauch in Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller’s painstakingly executed, strangely fascinating documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden. The silent scene is taken from old footage left by a handful of German and Germanic settlers who attempted to eke out an existence far outside their comfort zones on the tiny, inhospitable Galapagos island of Floreana during the period of 1929-34. Strauch had dared to complain that the DIY lifestyle was too tough for her to […]
by Howard Feinstein on Apr 4, 2014 -
Club Med: New Directors/New Films (II)
Coincidence or zeitgeist? Three of the four outstanding films in the second, slightly shorter segment of ND/NF feature swarthy, sensuously handsome male protagonists who live and act out their dramas in sweltering countries with edges that kiss the cool yet uncomforting Mediterranean. And no, this is neither a projection nor an implication of selectors. Violence, be it palpable or discreetly off-screen, is a powerful element in all four. New Directors ends March 30; Part I of this review appeared last week. Four of 10 viewed (I missed centerpiece Obvious Child and closing nighter 20,000 Days on Earth)? A respectable proportion, […]
by Howard Feinstein on Mar 24, 2014 -
Pieces of Eight: New Directors/New Films (I)
Spring is a always a godsend, especially so after a harsh winter. For discerning cinephiles, it marks an end and a beginning. The exhausting awards season is over. It is followed in New York by a celebratory spring cleaning, a shift in priorities to some of the finest emerging directors from all over the world in the prestigious and prophetic New Directors/New Films, now in its 43rd edition (March 19-30). Not only do the principal artistic creators get their due, but, unlike the U.S.-centric January-to-March hyperamas, the pool of pictures is fiercely international. How does ND/NF’s focus on the filmmaker […]
by Howard Feinstein on Mar 18, 2014 -
Medieval Masterwork: Marketa Lazarova at BAM
In memory of Elliott Stein, the purest film maven I’ve ever known and the friend who first drew my attention to this film. The most familiar films of the Czech New Wave in the U.S. are most likely the dry dark comedies of Milos Forman and Ivan Passer; the diverse works of Jiri Menzel, Jan Kadar, Vera Chytilova and Juraj Jakubisko are recognized in more specialized circles. For Eastern and Central European cinephiles, however, the modernist historical drama Marketa Lazarova (1967), never lumped together with the movement, is not only the masterpiece of the era but also one of the […]
by Howard Feinstein on Feb 26, 2014 -
Fortnight at the Museum: MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight
Most doc venues and festivals serve up collections, films more alike than dissimilar. In fact, the principal variable tends to be content. Now in its 13th edition, Documentary Fortnight: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media (February 14-28) is breaking new ground in doc exhibition. I’m not certain that the museum’s honchos recognize what a coup they have in situ (P.S. 1 is another story), a boundary-pushing program where many of those who follow and determine artsy trending might not think to look. It’s taken far too long for documentaries to be considered hip, but to think of them […]
by Howard Feinstein on Feb 11, 2014 -
How Jewish Is It: Best of the NYJFF
Today it’s fairly easy to order films with Jewish subject matter from Eastern European countries — but think back 22 years. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a number of so-called Jewish films began production in the former Soviet Union and its satellites. In 1990 the huge San Francisco Jewish Film Festival successfully tested the waters of glasnost by holding the event in Moscow. As a result Wanda Bershen, then director of the broadcast archive at New York’s Jewish Museum, approached Richard Pena, who was at that time program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. […]
by Howard Feinstein on Jan 6, 2014 -
East of Eden: In the Name of
Toward the end of the potent In the Name of by Polish director Malgoska Szumowska (Elles, 33 Scenes From Life), about a country priest’s desperate efforts to repress the love that dare not speak its name, a glorious procession snakes through an empty meadow. All the residents of a nearby isolated provincial community participate, many holding icons in their hands or tall embroidered banners aloft, the pageantry proudly announcing the devout Catholicism that is their passion. Accompanied by what sounds like mellow English folk music, the lengthy sequence is more a holy entr’acte than a chunk of in-progress narrative. In […]
by Howard Feinstein on Oct 28, 2013 -
Good To Go: New York Film Festival II
Eclecticism governs the second half of the 51st NYFF just as it did the first. According to the Times, several common threads run through the week two batch, but these are little more than on-deadline segues. We could perhaps agree that all the films run at 24 frames per second. Below are recommendations I hope will sate the discerning ticket buyer. These are accomplished movies by directors who are not very well known in this country. Other films will sell out based on name recognition no matter the critical response, so, whether good, bad, or in-between, they will not be […]
by Howard Feinstein on Oct 2, 2013 -
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: New York Film Festival I
I have both good and bad news about the New York Film Festival (September 27-October 13). First, the good news: For the most part, the films in this impressive, carefully balanced program are very good. And the bad: The fest has become so expansive that quantity just may overshadow quality. A bright, high-energy, and well-regarded expert in all things cinema, Kent Jones debuts as head of the NYFF. For the first time in its 51 years, the composition of the selection committee has been, wisely, revised. Traditionally it was guided by the fest director, always a professional programmer, but rounded […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 26, 2013
