The September issue of Interiors, the “monthly journal where we analyze and diagram the space of certain films,” is given to a scene from Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967).
“In the 21st century, [Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Red Desert [1964]) still lurks in Europe’s subconscious, haunts the gutted Ukrainian tenements of [Ulrich Seidl‘s] Import/Export, finds expression in the immigrant tensions of Haneke‘s Code/Unknown. Europe remains its own conundrum.” Richard Kovitch in 3:AM Magazine.
“Could it be that the yuppie is finally dying?” asks Film International editor Daniel Lindvall. “And does that mean that the eighties are over? Is it a burial ode that David Cronenberg has given us with his latest film, Cosmopolis?”
New at the Chiseler: Imogen Smith on “Two Sound Films by Jean Epstein,” Mor’vran (1931) and Le Tempestaire (1947) and David Cairns on Irving Lerner’s City of Fear (1959).
In other news. Curator Susanne Gaensheimer raised a few brows when she invited artist and filmmaker Christoph Schlingensief to represent Germany at the Venice Biennale in 2011—and raised a few more when the German pavilion won the Golden Lion. Today, as Holger Liebs reports for Monopol, Gaensheimer has surprised again, selecting four artists from four nations for next year’s pavilion: German filmmaker Romuald Karmakar, renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, South African photographer Santu Mofokeng, and Indian photographer Dayanita Singh.
“A Charlie Kaufman-scripted stop motion film has raised a record $406,237 (£250,600) via the crowdfunding website Kickstarter,” reports the Guardian‘s Ben Child. “Kaufman’s project is an animated adaptation of his play Anomalisa.”
Andrew Mack at Twitch: “As our North American contingent of writers prepare to descend on Austin, Texas this weekend in a wave of drunken debauchery”—Fantastic Fest, you see, opens tomorrow and runs through September 27—”our more sophisticated brethren and sister over in Europe are preparing for the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia in the beginning of October.” He’s got the highlights and the link to the full lineup.
New York. “Aiming to stoke outrage through observation and first-person testimony, not via overheated rhetoric, Tears of Gaza documents the Israeli offensive in the eponymous territory during the winter of 2008 and 2009 with a relentlessness rarely seen from the overly conciliatory strain of current-event docs.” Andrew Schenker in Slant: “There’s no coddling the audience in Vibeke Løkkeberg’s verité heave of disgust as the full consequences on the Palestinian people of Operation Cast Lead are made sickeningly clear.” More from Nicholas Bell (Ioncinema; “more chilling and definitely more visceral than any fictional horror you’re apt to see”) and Jeannette Catsoulis (New York Times; “a tapestry of human misery that’s impossible to shake off”). At the Cinema Village.
“Radio Unnameable, Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson’s documentary portrait of long-time late-night free-form radio personality Bob Fass is at once a flavorsome local history, a celebration of the broadcast medium, and a movie that approaches the tired subject of the ’60s counterculture from a fresh angle,” writes J. Hoberman at Artinfo. “Each show was unpredictable but, throughout the ‘60s and later, Fass was reliably heavy on folkie performance. Bob Dylan was a fixture in his ‘Positively 4th Street’ days, as were fellow coffee house luminaries Phil Ochs and Dave Van Ronk. Arlo Guthrie first performed ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ on Fass’s show; the movie excerpts tapes in which Fass introduced then unknowns Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon to New York. Radio Unnameable was also something of a clubhouse for the New Left’s greatest showboats: Paul Krassner and Abbie Hoffman were regulars. Fass broadcast live from the streets outside the 1968 Democratic Convention and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the subsequent trial of the Chicago Seven.” More from Melissa Anderson (Voice), A.O. Scott (NYT), Matt Singer (Time Out New York, 3/5), Ryan Vlastelica (L), and Bill Weber (Slant, 2.5/4). At Film Forum through October 2.
San Francisco. The South Asian Film Festival opens today and runs through Sunday; Frako Loden previews the lineup at the Evening Class. And Brian Darr has another big, big roundup on local goings on.
Liverpool. Sky Arts Ignition: Doug Aitken – The Source, part of the 2012 Liverpool Biennial, is an installation on view at the Tate through January 13. It features interviews with Jack White, Tilda Swinton, and several others, all discussing creativity.
Berlin. Doku.Arts opens tonight at the Zeughauskino and runs through mid-October.
Ottawa. The International Animation Festival runs from today through Sunday.
Viewing (2’19”). The second trailer for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
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