Now that the broken sprocket holes have been swept off the projection room floors, and New York’s Village VII can go back to being a mediocre theater full of bloated summer blockbusters, let’s take a look at some of the cinematic highlights from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, shall we? While there wasn’t any of the Spider-Man 3 glamor or United 93 controversies, of recent years, there were enough quality films to keep our eyes from crusting over. After the jump, a list (in no particular order) of a few favorites that we hope will be coming to a theatre near you some time soon. Read More »
Asghar Farhadi’s fourth feature About Elly, which had its North American premiere this weekend at Tribeca, is a mirror of sorts to Michelangelo Antonini’s stylistic revolution, L’avventura. But like any image in polished glass, the message here is reversed. In Antonini’s cinema-as-architecture response to neo-realism, morality stands no chance against leisure; Farhadi’s protagonists try to use leisure to foster a quiet rebellion. Or at least his women do. The results might be the same in both pictures — the sea, be it the Caspian or Aeolian, is hungry for the innocent — but Farhadi’s characters are not ready to sulk off into the night, even if the situation is hopeless. Read More »
