"The Strange Little Cat" Returns to FSLC

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 28 July 2014 16:38

Written by Jack Angstreich

The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be running Ramon Zürcher's quizzical The Strange Little Cat, from Germany, for a one-week exclusive engagement beginning on August 1st, 2014. The film had its local premiere earlier this year at the New Directors, New Films Festival.

The events of The Strange Little Cat take place over the course of a single day and evening, culminating in a family dinner party — almost all the action occurs within the confines of this single, urban apartment but there is hardly any narrative at all in conventional terms — a glass breaks, the youngest daughter cuts her finger picking it up, a rat is seen scurrying outside, a ball gets thrown through the window, an old woman dozes off, etc. There are a few brief sequences outside the apartment as well as a handful of almost dreamlike cutaways to scenes recalled by characters — these inserts introduce a novel, defamiliarizing texture into the experience of the film. The Strange Little Cat is remarkable for the degree to which it risks being purely inconsequential by merely observing the quotidian details of one ordinary family's day but it also manifests a notable singularity of focus and sensitivity to the peculiar qualities of generally overlooked minutiae.

Zürcher's eccentric and abstract realism generates a minimal, almost antiseptic, visual style, somewhat reminiscent of that of Michael Haneke but without the latter's relentlessness or sense of menace. (The subtle patterning of repetitions recalls the "parametric form" championed by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson — comparisons to the films of Jacques Tati and Chantal Akerman are not inapposite.) Presented in DCP, the digital format here is uncompromised by the usual problems with the range of contrast consequent upon shooting in bright light, although the austerity of Zürcher's approach might have yielded even richer rewards if he had had access to the more sensual qualities of 35mm (the film seems like it may be in an unusual ratio — at the press screening, the right and left sides of the frame were, regrettably, unmasked — I hope this can be corrected for the opening).

The Strange Little Cat is an unusual but strikingly accomplished work and one looks forward to future films by Zürcher, who is well-served here by his excellent, if unfamiliar, ensemble cast. I applaud the Film Society for taking a chance on such a seemingly uncommercial prospect.

The Strange Little Cat
August 1st, 2014

Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023

For more information, go to: www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

Joanna Hogg on 'Exhibition' at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 16 June 2014 22:34

Written by Jack Angstreich

On June 20th, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will open Joanna Hogg's impressive film, Exhibition — which had its local premiere at last year's New York Film Festival in its Emerging Artists sidebar and which I previously reviewed here — for a two-week exclusive run. In conjunction with the release of Exhibition, beginning on June 27th the Film Society will also be screening Hogg's two previous features, Unrelated and Archipelago, for a one-week exclusive run. 

Unrelated is centered upon a middle-aged London woman who goes on holiday in Italy, staying at a villa with an old friend and her family, developing a crush on her friend's son, played by Hogg's remarkable discovery, a very young Tom Hiddleston, who went on to appear in her other two features. For those that have seen Exhibition, one can recognize the distinctive cinematic vision of that film in the very first shots of the earlier one. Hogg's films are precisely observed, confidently combining a non-classical visual detachment with oblique storytelling, her sensuous minimalism evincing an unexpected emotional plangency. The director's documentary realism attains a dialectical force in being embedded within a rigorous formalism that is reminiscent at times of the work of Peter Greenaway.

Hogg attains uniformly convincing, naturalistic performances from the rest of her unfamiliar cast, including what appear to be several non-professional actors, while Hiddleston's good looks and charisma stand out, explaining his current Hollywood fame for playing Loki in the Thor and Avengers movies. (He had a delightful star turn in Jim Jarmusch's latest feature, Only Lovers Left Alive, which also had its local premiere at last year's New York Film Festival and recently concluded a run at the Film Society.)

The cool interiors of Exhibition were better suited to the digital format than the sunlit exteriors of Italy are in Unrelated — the latter film's not inconsiderable visual power would have been significantly enhanced had Hogg been able to shoot it in 35-millimeter, whatever other economic or practical advantages that digital may have afforded her. Despite this deficiency, Unrelated is a very engaging, memorable work, well worth a look.

Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023

For more information, go to: www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

Lincoln Center Presents "Norte, The End of History"

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 16 June 2014 00:04

Written by Jack Angstreich

The 1980s inaugurated a series of cinematic New Waves that continues into the present — Taiwan, Iran, Korea, Thailand, and Romania, for example, have all arisen as major sources of outstanding films and now several younger directors from the Philippines have brought that country to the attention of festivals and enthusiasts. To judge by his latest feature, the momentous Norte, the End of History, one might reasonably conclude that Lav Diaz —who is being honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the most complete retrospective of his work to date — will endure as the leading figure amongst these filmmakers.

Norte, the End of History is something of an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic novel, Crime and Punishment, set in the contemporary Philippines. The book has been the basis for several distinguished films — one might cite, for example: Joseph von Sternberg’s 1935 version, mainly notable for the extraordinary performance of Peter Lorre; Aki Kaurismäki’s Bressonian first feature, the 1983 Crime and Punishment; and Francisco Lombardi’s 1994 Sin Compasión, set in Peru. Robert Bresson’s 1959 Pickpocket is surely the greatest of these adaptations, and it in turn inspired Paul Schrader in several screenplays, such as those for Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, and Light Sleeper. If one sometimes detects the influence of Bresson in Diaz’s film, it seems to be more for his final, nihilistic feature, L’Argent, than the redemptive Pickpocket.

In Norte, Diaz eschews melodrama for a slow-moving, meditative style. The director shoots in long-takes, forgoing cutting within scenes, and favors the long-shot to the point of exclusivity. His treatment of extreme brutality is unflinching but not without a measure of detachment, recalling the work of Michael Haneke. The offhand mention of the Anglophone, analytic meta-ethicist, Derek Parfit, is indicative of the peculiar intellectual texture that animates this film. Over the course of more than four hours, Norte accumulates an incredible emotional force and is never less than engaging. The work is handsomely shot in widescreen in the HD format, although the bright sunlight of the Philippines proves to be something of liability in many outdoor scenes — one can imagine how much more remarkable the film might have been if it had been shot in 35-millimeter.

Norte will have an exclusive, one-week engagement at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 W 65th St, New York, NY 10023), running from June 20th to the 26th. The retrospective will launch on June 22nd with a screening of the seven-and-a-half-hour Melancholia from 2008 and will continue with one screening per month between August 2014 and February 2015. 

For more information, go to: www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

Norte, The End of History
June 20 - 26, 2014

Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 W 65th St, New York, NY 10023