Authors — Vadim Rizov
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Watch: Arnaud Desplechin on Notting Hill’s Perfect Metaphor for Cinema
Director Arnaud Desplechin (A Christmas Tale, the excellent forthcoming My Golden Years) is a voraciously catholic viewer in his tastes; see, for example, this recent interview where he talks up the virtues of Superbad and Dazed and Confused relative to French coming-of-age films. So it’s not necessarily surprising that he’s a Notting Hill fan, but his explanation of how one scene uses Julia Roberts’ hidden nudity as a metaphor for cinema itself (!) will definitely throw you for an interpretive loop.
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 20, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Junun
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to speculate that any director, following his second ambitious, divisive high-profile theatrical underperformer/probable money-loser (or anyone fresh off a recently completed production, really), might generally welcome a chance to get out of town. It’s unclear how far in advance Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood planned to go to Rajasthan to collaborate on an album with Israeli-born, Indian-residing Sufi convert Shye Ben Tzur, or whether Paul Thomas Anderson initially committed to tagging along; regardless, it seems to have been restorative fun. Junun is a 54-minute music doc in which Anderson shoots whatever he wants, however he wants to. There are five credited camera operators, including Anderson […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 8, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: The Sky Trembles and The Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers
The Sky Trembles and The Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers (you can memorize the title after reciting it enough times — don’t fret) opens with a small fleet of ’80s Mercedes-Benz coupes, trailed by dune buggies, speeding across a desert. A chase scene entered in media res? The armed-escort arrival of dubious capitalists on the trail of some as-yet-underexploited resource? (Is there any more potent symbol of ostensibly removed colonialism’s lingering presence than the unkillable, diesel-fueled Mercedes that still stalk the globe?) As the sun sets and the caravan moves closer, the camera inches from a far-off, locked-down wide lens perspective to closer […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 2, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: De Palma
Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma is a fans-only interview session with the director. Straightforward, even staid in its construction, it consists almost entirely of two shots of a seated De Palma — one in medium close-up, the other presumably punched-in in post — and appositely illustrative clips and stills. The film currently only has two credits: the opening all-caps title “DE PALMA” scrolling left to right in lurid red, and a closing copyright credit (hard-working editors will, presumably, be thanked at a later date). Interlocutors Baumbach and Paltrow are never heard; according to this useful interview, they never even considered […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 30, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: Carol and The Assassin
At no point in Todd Haynes’ Carol is the word “lesbian” heard — nor “homosexual,” the now-arcane “homophile” or any other period-appropriate descriptor of the LGBTQ spectrum. This is the love that literally dare not speak its name, a conspicuous absence viewers will automatically fill in (especially after seeing dozens of headlines and articles bluntly/reductively identifing the film as a “lesbian drama”). Depending on your POV, this resistance to labeling is either an accurate depiction of period repression, or oddly up-to-the-minute given increased aversion to categorical sexual labels and regular terminological resets. As in Safe, Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 28, 2015 -
Everyday Is Like Sunday: Soon-Mi Yoo’s Songs From the North
Soon-Mi Yoo’s Songs From the North joins a small group of recent films that attempt to understand North Korea despite a lack of readily available resources. (The Interview will not be mentioned except just this once, because c’mon.) Jim Finn’s The Juche Idea combines real North Korean footage with CCTV-level, rigorously stilted fake propaganda and musical numbers of the director’s own puckish division, attempting to define something about the nation by producing materials ostensibly following the titular gibberish ideology; Mads Brügger’s annoying and unlightening The Red Chapel sends the Danish provocateur to the DPRK along with comedians to find out What’s Really Happening, mostly by […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 18, 2015 -
Watch: $5.15/Hr., Richard Linklater’s Rejected HBO Pilot From 2004
HBO is normally very serious about making sure no commissioned and rejected pilots ever make it into public view, so I’m not sure how Richard Linklater’s rejected 2004 pilot made it to Vimeo or how long it’ll stay there. $5.15/Hr. was, per its title, intended to be an immersion into the lives of underpaid restaurant employees slacking around Austin. I recall seeing an uncharacteristically acerbic Linklater presenting the pilot at SXSW in 2004, with the words “You know how they say it’s not TV, it’s HBO? It’s TV.” If only television had been so good in those days as it reportedly […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 15, 2015 -
“We Were Doing a Scene Without a Camera”: Five Questions for Mustang Director Deniz Gamze Ergüven
The story of five young sisters locked up by overprotective guardians with predictably dire consequences, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s first feature Mustang has prompted inevitable widespread comparisons to The Virgin Suicides. Despite the plot-level resemblance (Ergüven has said she’s both read the book and seen the movie but it’s not a meaningful influence), Mustang is its own distinctive debut, contextualized by a virulently patriarchal culture that barely disguises its controlling nature. After an afternoon frolic on the beach with male friends, five sisters arrive home to find themselves rigorously interrogated by their grandmother about what kind of sluttish hijinks they’ve been up to. In a scene resembling […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 15, 2015 -
Watch: Tony Zhou’s “Vancouver Never Plays Itself”
Vancouver is the third-biggest filmmaking city in North America, and yet it’s always a stand-in for somewhere else: New York, Shanghai and San Francisco are all possibilities. What does it mean to be “ubiquitous and invisible” at the same time? In his latest video essay, Tony Zhou examines the many tricks used to disguise the city (from planting USA Today newspaper stands everywhere to making sure the camera looks down outside, lest it accidentally capture mountains that don’t belong to the city), then issues a stirring call for Vancouver to, for once, play itself.
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 15, 2015 -
TIFF 2015: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution, A Clean Sweep of Body-Horror Tropes and Imagery
I’m not sure where to start with Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution, if only because I struggling to recall another director in the time since I started keeping up with movies intensively (the last 15 years, more or less) who dropped an immensely promising debut feature, then took 11 years to deliver a follow-up. My expectations were high, met, and possibly subject to confirmation bias; still, I’m very glad she’s back. Hadžihalilović’s Innocence followed a group of young women being schooled in etiquette, beauty et al. at a vaguely sinister private institution, preparing themselves to be sexualized for a lifetime before an implicit male gaze; […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 14, 2015
