Authors — Vadim Rizov
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“I Don’t Have to Pick Up a Gun, I Can Just Pick Up a Camera:” Jia Zhangke on A Touch Of Sin
“I really want to say that we are all connected,” Jia Zhangke said Monday night. “This is our issue.” If that makes his latest film, A Touch Of Sin, sound like some sort of Chinese Crash redux, it’s just a quirk of phrasing: the connection Zhangke’s thinking of is an epidemic of violence in China, which he describes as a response of the economically dispossessed trying to reclaim some form of dignity. Viewed as isolated actions, the four violent incidents dramatized in A Touch Of Sin might seem like singular occurrences; stitched together, they’re obviously connected symptoms of Chinese society […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 3, 2013 -
NYFF Critics Notebook: Manakamana, What Now? Remind Me, Norte, The End Of History
As the last stop on the fall festival circuit affecting awards season hysteria and odds, the New York Film Festival tends to draw most of its coverage for already-in-discussion main slate titles. This year there were a record 36 films in that section, with the expanded number seemingly designed to include more crowdpleasing filler (Richard Curtis’ About Time) and Hollywood titles that can serve as reliable draws (Nebraska, Inside Llewyn Davis). That’s not to say the festival’s 51st installment doesn’t still serve as a festival-of-festivals cross-section of notable recent titles of the hard sell type, but more of them than […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 26, 2013 -
“25 New Face” Rodrigo Reyes on Purgatorio (+ Trailer Premiere)
There’s no lack of films and TV shows focusing on Mexican-American relationships mediated by the border, their focus most commonly on the never-ending drug wars. On TV, The Bridge and Breaking Bad criss-cross between the two countries, mapping out mayhem and violence, as do recent documentaries like 2010’s El Sicario, Room 164, 2011’s El Velador and this year’s Narco Cultura. 2013 “25 New Face” Rodrigo Reyes’ Purgatorio is a different kind of border movie, beginning with footage of rural Mexico as the director urges us, in voiceover, to “try to imagine what the world was like, many, many years ago. Try to […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 6, 2013 -
“I Would Never Do This to a Friend”: Tobias Lindholm on A Hijacking
A Hijacking, Tobias Lindholm’s first feature as a solo director (his first film, 2010’s prison drama R, was co-directed with Michael Noer) begins before its title event, with cargo ship cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) calling home to his wife, and it ends after it’s all over. But the bulk of the film is a two-setting procedural, radiating verisimilitude both on-board and in the corporate offices, where a CEO (Søren Malling) personally conducts negotiations with hijackers. During an interview with Filmmaker, Lindholm spoke about the production in all its preparatory and practical aspects. Filmmaker: When I heard the sound of the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 13, 2013 -
“Someone Who’s Arrogant Who’s Being Killed:” Ben Wheatley on Sightseers
Ben Wheatley first gained attention with a nine-second video clip that went viral in the pre-YouTube era. In “Cunning Stunt,” a man successfully jumps over a moving car, celebrates, and is instantly wiped out by an unseen oncoming vehicle. It’s a funny, jolting gag restaged in Wheatley’s 2009 feature debut Down Terrace (a sick-funny look at a homicidal low-tier-criminal family bumping off everyone in their immediate circle). Death by vehicular homicide again makes for the first death in his latest film Sightseers. Chris (Steve Oram) just wants to take his girlfriend Tina (Alice Lowe) on a relaxing rural trip through […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 9, 2013 -
Ron Morales on Graceland
Ron Morales’ nifty second feature Graceland centers on Marlon Villar (Arnold Reyes), driver to corrupt senator Manuel Chango (Menggie Cobarrubias). The senator’s a pedophile with a penchant for underage hookers; Marlon — struggling to raise funds for an organ transplant for his ill wife — turns a blind eye. The two men’s daughters are friends, but when Marlon’s child is mistaken for the senator’s during a kidnapping, he has to lie his way into making sure the senator puts up the ransom funds. Running around Manila at the child-snatchers’ behest, Marlon and Morales take in a broad swath of pungent […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 26, 2013 -
True/False Film Festival 2013
This was my fourth year attending Columbia, Missouri’s documentary-oriented True/False Film Festival, which this time celebrated its 10th anniversary — a number calling for reflection, with the attendant risk of self-congratulation. A commemorative book was released, and nearly every screening had its reserved tickets sold out (ticket sales were up about 5,000 from last year, placing the festival at around 42,000 advance tickets sold), but signs of hubris or overcrowding and goodwill-fraying logistical problems were minimal. My attending experience has remained consistent: commendably adventurous programming during the day, a sort of free-for-all of critics, filmmakers and college students running around […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 23, 2013 -
Five Questions with Let The Fire Burn Director Jason Osder
Founded in 1972, the Philadelphia-founded black liberation group MOVE Organization (the capitals break down into an acronym) preached a return to nature, annoying their neighbors by having bullhorns broadcast their beliefs all night and letting garbage fester in their yard. On May 13, 1985, Wilson Goode — the city’s first black mayor — approved dropping a bomb on their house as part of an eviction effort. 11 MOVE members died, including 5 children, and destroyed 61 houses. Jason Osder’s documentary feature debut Let The Fire Burn resurrects the incident almost exclusively through archival footage of TV broadcasts, home movies and […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 19, 2013 -
Five Questions for The Genius of Marian Directors Banker White and Anna Fitch
Banker White’s first feature, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, followed the titular group of musicians from a refugee camp in Guinea to their home and back again; his second feature, The Genius of Marian, is much closer to home. After his mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, White came back home to help with caretaking. In 2009 he began shooting conversations with his mother for therapeutic purposes, eventually realizing he was working on his next project. Shot over three years, the resulting film was co-directed by White’s wife (then-girlfriend) Anna Fitch. Arriving in New York in advance of the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 18, 2013 -
Quentin Dupieux on Wrong and Wrong Cops
Many musicians have dabbled with movies, but few have stuck it out and become as well known separately for their film work as director/d.p./editor Quentin Dupieux. Formerly best known as electronica artist Mr. Oizo, Dupieux began making short films at age 15. His first two features — 2002’s Nonfilm and Steak — didn’t attract attention outside of France, but 2010’s Rubber introduced him to a wider audience. The film follows killer tire Robert’s deadly road trip across California, beginning with a direct-to-the-audience monologue from actor Stephen Spinella explaining Dupieux’s philosophy of narrative and his bizarre sense of humor. “In the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 27, 2013
