Film: New York Film Festival -- Perceptive Persepolis Wows Closing Night Crowd

Persepolis

The night ended with a standing ovation at Lincoln Center's cavernous Avery Fisher Hall as the lights went up following the premiere of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's animated adaptation of her acclaimed graphic novels. The ovation was well deserved as Persepolis is one of the best films of the year, funny, moving, disturbing and entrancing in turn. The autobiographical story follows a young girl growing up in late 70s Iran under the Shah, and then later after the Islamic revolution. The girl, Marjane, is a precocious Bruce Lee fanatic who absorbs information like a sponge. She has an indomitable spirit and a sharp tongue which she soon learns is a familial trait. As she gets into banned music and fashions her run-ins with the religious enforcers become more serious. There is an outstanding sequence where she goes to buy black market tapes, passing buy vendors one by one until one whispers "Iron Maiden". When they challenge her "Michael Jackson" pin she claims that it's actually a picture of Malcolm X. As Iran becomes more hostile to the free thinking and to women, her parents send her to Vienna to study but Marjane discovers that Europe brings its own set of challenges along with freedoms.

There is something here that will bolster the political opinions on both the right and on the left. Seeing the oppression of the Iranian people certainly sharpens the desire to want to help them throw off the theocracy they live in. The horror of Saddam Hussein's ruinous war against them also engenders great sympathy from the audience. However the images of the war deliberately echo those early images from Gulf War II of "smart bombs" and tracers over a city at night, and the devastation of war is heartbreaking. Persepolis doesn't flinch from the complicity of the west in supplying the arms for these wars, or in setting the corrupt Shah on his throne in the first place (shown in a very funny sequence).

Still the center of the film is Marjane's relationship to her family and to her heritage. This is all embodied by her beloved, outspoken grandmother. Even when she is away from her, she imagines what her grandmother might think of one or another action she takes.

The animation, primarily in black and white, hews to the imaginative and stark design of the graphic novels. Echoes of Edvard Munch, Edward Hopper, and Persian art abound. Also notable is the wonderful music by Olivier Bernet which sets the mood expertly -- save for a great sequence set to Survivor's "Eye of The Tiger". Satrapi and co-director Vincent Paronnaud have brought an indelible creation to the screen, a must see for all film lovers.

Here's a teaser trailer below:




Persepolis rates five out of five headscarves:

Film Review: Darjeeling Produces Limited Returns

Waris Ahluwalia, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman debate moustache vs. beard

I had an interesting conversation with a filmgoer this weekend at the New York Film Festival. We had both seen Darjeeling Limited, the new film by Wes Anderson. He had been disappointed by it and I too was a bit underwhelmed. I compared Anderson to the Ramones in that their first few albums/films heralded an exciting new voice, but then everything after that were just variations that appealed to fans but had little impact outside of their followers. So it is with Darjeeling, a film I find myself growing more fond of as it recedes into memory. Memory is, after all, a central touchstone of Anderson's work. His characters often seem to be shell shocked, grappling with the aftermath of the offscreen death of a loved one, as in Rushmore or The Royal Tennenbaums. Their lives are a nostalgia tinged retreat from the world into Anderson's meticulously detailed universe, where a dead father's sunglasses, car keys and luggage can act as talismans.

Darjeeling has two sets of monogrammed luggage -- the aforementioned set that the characters lug around in a bit of obvious symbolism and the set that comes with star Owen Wilson. Wilson is at his best in this film, turning down some of his surfer drawl to find an uptight control freak inside. Yet much of the press around the film centers on his recent suicide attempt rather than the fineness of his performance. This is only excacerbated by his apperance here, bruised and bandaged from an accident that has a whiff of Willy Loman about it. He is joined by fellow Wes Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman who similarly gives one of his least mannered portrayals. Newcomer to the Anderson world Adrien Brody slots in seamlessly and the nuances in the relationship of the three men, who play brothers, is one of the pleasures of the film.

As is the scenery, shot in with Anderson's usual fondness for the 70's style telephoto zoom. A good chunk of Darjeeling Limited takes place on the titular train and was shot on an actual moving train in India. Though some critics have complained that Anderson is racist in his use of India as background (notably Jonah Weiner in Slate) and his treatment of non-white characters I think it's churlish to expect him to go to India to make a Satyajit Ray film.

The three brothers travel through India in an attempt to reconnect with each other that also turns out to be an attempt to reconcile with their mother and with the world around them. The devastating death of their father and their abandonment by their mother has left them bereft. Ultimately the setting adds the novelty that makes this reshuffling of standard Anderson motifs seem different. This still falls short of his early glory though, something his characters are all-too familiar with.

Darjeeling gets three out of five pieces of monogrammed luggage:

New York Film Festival: Blade Runner : The Final Cut

Blade Runner's dystopian future

I had the pleasure of watching the so-called "Final Cut" of Blade Runner Saturday as part of the New York Film Festival. The film was shown at Rose Hall, part of Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Time Warner building which meant a massive screen and stunning surround sound. The film, even 25 years later, is spectacular.

It's hard to comprehend the influence, from fashion to architecture to other films of this movie, and yet it's many followers do nothing to diminish the impact of the original. Perhaps the first science fiction film to fully envision a dystopian future, the grungy gritty neo-noirness still seems prescient. The streets of Los Angeles are a hodge podge of ethnic diversity, animals are scarce and people are fleeing earth if they can afford it or can pass the physical requirements to get away from the ecological and social disaster that the planet has become.

This is, at least for the time being, the definitive cut, replacing 1992's Director's Cut. I had a hard time spotting any major differences and was only enlightened by the Q and A session after the screening with the production designers and the archivists over seeing this restoration. The differences come down to things like digitally replacing Harrison Ford's lips with those of his sons in a minor scene to sync up the sound properly and making the unicorn's horn less wobbly in the unicorn dream sequence.

The seamlessness of the changes are a good thing as the film itself has aged remarkably well, taking on added resonance. Harrison Ford's performance as a bounty hunter of humanoid robots known as a blade runner is among his best, full of subtle shading and humor. The removal of the awful and redundant studio imposed voice-over in the 1992 edition helped things tremendously and it continues to be m.i.a. Also intact is the restored ending from 1992 which is more stunning, bleak and fitting than the original happier ending. Sean Young is gorgeous and icily aloof and Rutger Hauer is chilling and ultimately heartbreaking as the leader of the android pack.

The re-released film, in a sharp print that does justice to some of the most amazing production design and cinematography in cinema history, will only be playing in New York and Los Angeles starting October 10th, but there will also be an overkill 5-disc special edition DVD coming out in time for Christmas. I say overkill because who needs the voice over version, the 1992 version, this new one, and the work print with temporary score and a set of deleted scenes. I mean other than a film geek like myself.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut gets five out five unicorns -- it's a classic: