NYFF 2012

We arrive, once more, at the end of another full year, another year in which myself and fellow Flickfeasters have cast our eyes over far too many movies to count. But, fool that I am, I thought I'd give it a go anyway. What follows is an…

The experience of attending the press and industry screenings of the 50th NYFF at Lincoln Center was clubby and collegial, and this was my eighth consecutive year, though some of my colleagues have attended all fifty. It's all in the Walter…

Man, dog, and closet An aging, long-in-the-closet gay man, a no-go love affair, and a dying dog make this touching film with veteran star Eddie Garcia whom director Lana has described as "the Clint Eastwood of the Philippines." Let's…

TV that matters No, by Chilean director Pablo Larraín (Tony Manero, NYFF 2008; Post Morten, NYFF 2010), is the richly imagined account of an ad campaign, one that happens to have a peculiar significance, because it led directly to voting…

Letting things go too far Our Children/À perdre la raison, starring Émile Duquesne, Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup is the slow-burning story of a family that gradually descends into hell. Elements of colonialism, gender roles, and…

Merde, etc. Holy Motors is a phantasmagoric, eccentric and wonderful trip film that depicts the course of a single long day in the life of Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant), who travels around Paris by white stretch limo for a series of…

Changed perceptions Sometimes a director transplanted to another culture might lose his identity but Abbas Kiarostomi does very well in Like Someone in Love, his study of fantasies and miscalculations shot in Japan. Notably, he combines…

Shooting back in time to an exotic forbidden love The title the director Migues Gomes has given his third feature, Tabu, alludes to a fictitious mountain in an undesignated Portuguese African colony in the 1960's. It's also an allusion…

Into the net From a Locarno debut, this grueling but beautiful documentary film by Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) about fishing on a big vessel with giant nets. The filmmakers had lost all their equipment and went back with tiny…

Shakespeare in a Roman prison The prolific Taviani brothers (of Padre, Padrone and Night of the Shooting Stars) focus on the theme of a prison theatrical production in this emotionally strong documentary that focuses on rehearsals, the…