| The Bronx Journal
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No Snow, no sand, just celluloid
Bob Ivry
There are so many film festivals around the
world that they read like the stickers on Hope and Crosby’s luggage --
Toronto, Telluride, Santa Barbara, Venice, San Sebastian, Berlin, Fort
Lauderdale, Montreal, Seattle. And that’s just a small slice of what’s
out there. Geez Louise, even the Hamptons have a film festival.
It’s chic to consider the Sundance Film
Festival, held every January in snowy Utah, and the Cannes Film
Festival, the annual springtime southern France frolic, as the reigning
800-pound gorillas of the category. I submit to you, however, that the
influence of Sundance -- which has done us all the favor of boosting the
profile of independent films -- is waning in the wake of Hollywood’s
co-optation and the insistence of indie filmmakers to churn out
self-indulgent trash. And Cannes has always been more glitzy than
groundbreaking, a chance for American film folks to cavort on the Cote
d'Azur on the studios’ -- or media outlets’ -- dime.
Which brings us to the 38th New York Film
Festival, kicking off Friday with the much-anticipated "Dancer in
the Dark" and culminating Oct. 9 with Ang Lee’s "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The festival includes 36 features and shorts
from 22 countries.
The New York Film Festival combines the
best of Sundance and Cannes (but, alas, without the wonderful
fluffy-powder skiing of Sundance and the sunny topless beaches of
Cannes, unless you count Sandy Hook, which I wouldn’t). New York, like
Sundance, offers independent cinema at its best. Its selection committee
apparently is allergic to the self-serving dross that routinely makes
its way to Mormon country. And New York, like Cannes, offers a fine
assortment of international cinema without being seduced even a little
bit by Hollywood -- a Cannes blind spot.
In fact, the opening-night film,
"Dancer in the Dark," won the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at
Cannes and also copped the best actress award for Bjork, the diminutive
singer from Iceland.
Bjork stars as a European refugee living in
the United States and going blind; she seeks solace in her love of
Hollywood musicals. Before you come to the conclusion that "Dancer
in the Dark" is a corn fest, consider that it was directed by Lars
von Trier, the Dane most responsible for the Dogma 95 vow of chastity
among filmmakers. "Dancer in the Dark," which features a score
written by its star, is not a Dogma film, but Von Trier used a system of
100 minicams stationed on the set to record the film.
Von Trier’s work may not be everybody’s
bag of tea -- his credits include "Breaking the Waves" with
Emily Watson and "The Idiots" -- but he’s always
provocative.
With films like "Sense and
Sensibility" and "The Ice Storm" (and the criminally
overlooked "Ride With the Devil"), director Lee returned to
Taiwan to make "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It stars Chow
Yun-Fat as a retiring martial arts master, Michelle Yeoh as his lover,
and Zhang Zi-Yi as his potential disciple.
Lee has always had a knack for visual
poetry, and it’ll be exciting to see how he treats sword dances
performed against mystical backdrops. The film is in Chinese with
subtitles, and if that deters anyone, take a gander at Lee’s two
immensely satisfying pre-Western films, "Eat Drink Man Woman"
(1994) and "The Wedding Banquet" (1993).
Another can’t-miss is
"Pollock," which stars Ed Harris in his directorial debut.
Just to see the cast will be worth the ticket.
Supporting Harris, who plays the
self-destructive abstract expressionist painter, are Val Kilmer as rival
painter Willem de Kooning, Jeffrey Tambor as art critic Clement
Greenberg, and Marcia Gay Harden as Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock’s
wife.
 
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