Who are the bright young hopes of the international film world? Of the hundreds
of eager first-time directors who shows the most promise? The answers to
these questions are likely to be found at New Directors/New Films. For the
annual film series, which is being presented at the Museum of Modern Art
through April 7, is considered a prime showcase for budding talent.
The program, which is co-sponsored by The Film Society of Lincoln Center,
is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In that time it has helped
to launch the careers of such directors as Whit Stillman whose charming
comedy of upper-class manners, METROPOLITAN, instantly captivated the audience
at a New Directors screening.
It's true the selection committee, which is composed of the curatorial staffs
of MOMA and the Film Society, does not always appear to choose wisely. This
year committee members looked at over 300 films before whittling down their
list to 21 presentations. Just why they chose certain films remains a mystery.
HEARTBREAK ISLAND, for example, tells in gloomy detail the story of a young
political activist who, upon leaving prison, discovers that her fellow radical
and former lover has become a married yuppie who's enjoying the economic
prosperity of present day Taiwan. Unfortunately director Hsu Hsiao Ming
lacks the verve of his fellow countryman director Ang Lee. His insistence
upon filming nearly every move of his morose, single-minded heroine soon
exhausts the audience's patience.
Then there's Christopher Munch's COLOR OF A BRISK AND LEAPING DAY. It's
easy to see why it won the cinematography award at Sundance this year in
that its black-and-white Ansel Adams-like shots of the Yosemite Valley are
truly arresting. But the stilted dialogue and monotone acting leave one
feeling totally detached from the story of a young Chinese American who
attempts to revive an abandoned railroad.
By contrast Karim Dridi's BYE BYE is full of emotional intensity and it
succeeds in capturing the volatile atmosphere of the French port city of
Marseilles as it is experienced by two sons of North African immigrants.
Ismael, the oldest boy, is continuously brooding over some tragic family
accident which Dridi fails to fully explain.
Ireland's Gerard Stembridge shows obvious potential in GUILTRIP, a gripping
study of marital abuse. Andrew Connelly displays chilling detachment as
a smoldering Army corporal who issues daily marching orders to his browbeaten
wife, played appealingly by Jasmine Russell. The husband, however, is such
a one-note villain that the film turns into just a basic TV melodrama.
There were some outstanding selections. Argentine director Marceloi Pineyro
displays both wit and originality in the exhilarating WILD HORSES. It's
full of unexpected twists as a Buenos Aires yuppie and a world-weary ex-anarchist
bolt for the wilds of Patagonia only to find themselves transformed into
media folk heroes.
Written and directed by Fernando Perez MADAGASCAR uses magic-realism to
reveal the stagnant atmosphere of Castro's Cuba. It poignantly examines
the inner feelings of a successful college professor whose sense of contentment
is shattered when her teenage daughter insists upon dropping out of school.
Nicole Holofcener's WALKING AND TALKING explores the reactions of two women
whose friendship is threatened when one of them becomes engaged. The material
may be sketchy but the dialogue is up-to-date and quite amusing. Leading
ladies Catherine Keener and Anne Heche are also delightfully natural.
Actors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott are the co-directors of a delicious
treat- BIG NIGHT. Tucci and Tony Shalhoub both endear themselves as two
brothers trying to introduce the more refined Northern Italian cuisine to
spaghetti-and-meatball loving Americans in the '50's. The climatic parade
of exquisitely prepared Italian dishes is as triumphant and mouth-watering
as a similar celebration of the art of cooking in BABETTE'S FEAST.
WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE is a devilishly funny pitch-black comedy that gleefully
exposes the extreme cruelty of adolescents. Played hilariously by Heather
Matarazzo the bespectacled poker-face Dawn Wiener (or Wiener-dog as she's
known around school) is subjected to the constant insults of her classmate.
Worse still she's stuck with a pretty little sister whose compulsive ballet
practicing only a mother could love.
Lili Taylor is totally compelling as the self-consumed Valerie Solanas,
the increasingly paranoid heroine of Mary Harron's I SHOT ANDY WARHOL. As
Solanas befriends the terminally vague Warhol Harron succeeds in recreating
the giddy, druggy world of the late pop artist and his hangers-on. Stephen
Dorff is especially effective as Candy Darling, one of Warhol's manufactured
stars.
PARADISE LOST: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills is easily the most
fascinating and provocative film of the lot. This time the creators of
BROTHERS KEEPER, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, examine in disturbing
detail the savage Arkansas murder of three eight year old boys and the subsequent
trials of their accused murderers. The result is an emotionally shattering
depiction of small-town America. The film is deliberately ambiguous, forcing
the viewer to decide whether the accused teenagers were simply the victims
of a modern day Salem witch-hunt or whether they are truly guilty.
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