Nadav Lapid
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“A Boxing Contest Between the Movie and the Viewer”: Nadav Lapid on Ahed’s Knee
Ahed’s Knee, Nadav Lapid’s latest feature, takes its title from the teenage Palestinan activist who became a media sensation (and was then imprisoned) for squaring off against Israeli soldiers in 2017. Heralded for his Gold Bear-winning Synonyms and The Kindergarten Teacher, a tw0-hander that produced a Netflix-distributed American remake, Lapid’s work remains consistently critical of, and in opposition to, the oppressive Israeli government. Even so, he remains, in J. Hoberman’s eyes, “the most internationally acclaimed Israeli filmmaker in recent memory…and perhaps ever.” While promoting The Kindergarten Teacher in 2018, Lapid was invited by Israel’s Ministry of Culture to participate in a […]
by Erik Luers on Apr 8, 2022 -
NYFF 2019: Oh Mercy!, Synonyms
Arnaud Desplechin’s returned to his hometown onscreen many times: “I still have to go back in my tracks, as a malediction—not as a dream, but as a curse,” he’s said of Roubaix, where My Sex Life and My Golden Years‘ protagonist stand-in Paul Dédalus hails from and where A Christmas Tale unfolds. Desplechin’s also shot digitally before, but this is the first time he’s ever aggressively leaned into it: like Tale, Oh Mercy! also starts during the holiday season, but—opening strings of Christmas lights over city streets aside—the dominant colors aren’t red and green but the familiar digital color-correction staples of orange and blue. […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 3, 2019 -
Dogged: An Initial Five Picks from New Directors/New Films
A hat tip to former telecritic Richard Roeper for his prescient 2003 book of silly lists called 10 Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed, and to the egghead resident who left a tattered copy on the giveaway table next to my building’s mailboxes. After many years and glib phrases covering New Directors/New Films — to my mind the most beguiling annual movie event in New York — I could not for the life of me figure out how to even begin another review. Now in its 44th edition, ND/NF is a showcase for the work of emerging talent carefully curated by […]
by Howard Feinstein on Mar 18, 2015 -
Acts of Rebellion: The Dialectical Cinema of Nadav Lapid
In Sergei Eisenstein’s seminal essay “A Dialectic Approach to Film Form,” the Russian filmmaker lays out the foundational theories for his radical political cinema. “Art is always conflict,” he famously writes. “(1) according to its social mission, (2) according to its nature, (3) according to its methodology. According to its social mission because: It is art’s task to make manifest the contradictions of Being.” Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid may not adhere to Eisenstein’s aesthetics of montage, but he appears to be directly influenced by the Russian’s dialectical philosophy of art. Lapid’s astoundingly assured two feature films, 2011’s Policeman (opening this […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jun 12, 2014
