Another Year . . .

Yes, this blog is a year older. I wish I could say I had something planned to celebrate. The best I can do is to eat a large pile of cheeseburgers in a salute to the news that Ronaldo -- the Brazilian one, not the skinny one at Real Madrid -- has announced his retirement.

Gluttony aside, allow me to direct your attention to my latest raft of verbiage for Jewish Week. There's the semi-annual film preview, with something old, something new and something pale blue. If that doesn't whet your interest, you should also see the list of other film events for the spring.

And you should take a gander at my piece on the Film Comment Selects series. I haven't had the time to see much of what is on offer, but the two films I covered are both worth a look.

I know I promised to say something about the Red Riding trilogy. First, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed all three films and if it is possible and your mind and backside can stand it, by all means see them in a single sitting. A lot of the work's power comes from the cumulative effect, which I suspect will be severely dissipated if you spread out the experience over three or more days. Those of you who know me will understand that it is not faint praise if I say that the three films are on a par with the best of the dark British TV procedurals, things like The Vice, Wire in the Blood, Waking the Dead, Murphy's Law and Prime Suspect. Believe me, in our house that's high praise. I think Anand Tucker's contribution, the last of the trio, is the weakest, partly because of the necessity of tying up loose ends, partly because the film suffers from somebody's need to provide a redemptive ending, which Tucker positively feasts on. (Surely you didn't expect subtlety from the director of Hilary and Jackie and Leap Year?) To be absolutely fair, though, it's not a disgraceful ending to the trilogy. And the first and second films, by Julian Jarrold and James Marsh, respectively, are dark, brooding neo-noirs that seem to have a much better grip on the tone of the original noir than their American counterparts. (Don't get me started on the failures and dishonesties of the neo-noir; that's an extremely long essay for another time.) At any rate, all three films are worth seeing, especially if American re-makes are in the works. (No names attached yet, but I shudder to think who could be involved. One thing for sure: the three British films have brilliant original scores and make minimal but highly effective use of period music; you can count on the opposite being the case in any American re-make. Gotta squeeze them cash cows till their udders bleed.)

A Quick Additional Note on Ajami and a Very Important Retrospective

Just got an e-mail about a special screening of Ajami, to which I want to draw your attention. The Other Israel Film Festival, of which I have written frequently, is presenting a special evening at Film Forum featuring a showing of the film and a discussion of the state of Israeli cinema as depicted therein on February 15 at 6:30 p.m. If you were planning to see the film anyway -- and you should -- here's an opportunity to do so while helping out a worthy film event. Advance tickets can be purchased here; the special discount price attached to this offer is only good for advance tickets.

(And I can't believe I actually used the word 'therein.')

Elsewhere in town, hold some days and evenings free in early March. The Museum of Modern Art is presenting a mid-career retrospective of the films of Jia Zhangke beginning March 5. Jia will be attending a Monday night event, the star of The World, Zhan Tao will introduce a showing of that excellent work, and the program will include all of Jia's films to date. In little mor than a decade, with only eight features and a half-dozen shorts to his credit, Jia has re-invented Chinese cinema. At a time when Zhang Yimou can honestly say with a straight face that he is still an independent director -- as if the maker of the odiously Stalinist apologia Hero were some kind of dissident -- it is nothing less than thrilling to see work like Jia's and be reminded what a really beautiful risk-taking and fearless film looks like. I hesitate to recommend any of the films to the exclusion of the others, but if you can only see a few, you should definitely get to Platform, The World and Still Life. The last is a sublimely contemplative and deeply felt work, a stunning rebuke to the Chinese leaders who preach fealty to the past while destroying material reminders of it.

A Busy Fortnight

Well, we've been a busy boy lately. Lots of Jewish-themed goodies in town, so you can find me all over the place at Jewish Week. This year's Oscar-nom Israeli-Palestinian film Ajami is definitely worth a look; my review is here. The 14th annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival has a strong slate of documentaries. And Anthology Film Archives has resurrected the rarely shown Susan Sontag docu about Israel, Promised Lands. In some ways, the last is the most interesting, for reasons I note in my review.

Then there's the rest of the film world. As usual, I'll skip anything that has Luc Besson's name attached to it, but the Red Riding trilogy is quite an interesting experiment, rewarding in all sorts of ways that I'll talk about later today.

"A Lie That Speaks the Truth"

Andre Techiné is quite simply one of the best filmmakers working regularly in the world today. His films are methodical, deliberately paced and highly intelligent. He takes on important issues but doesn’t let them force him to oversimplify or preach.

His latest film, The Girl on the Train, opens Friday and it is a must. I had a brief phone interview with Techiné last week and the article that resulted can be found here.

New York Jewish Film Festival, Round Two

My second piece on the NYJFF is already up on the Jewish Week website. This has been a particularly rich festival, and several of my favorite films are opening theatrically very soon. Eyes Wide Open, which I wrote about last week, opens in NYC on February 5 at the Cinema Village. The festival itself is just starting, and I highly recommend a trip to the Walter Reade, the Jewish Museum and the JCC in Manhattan.

Incidentally, one of the most interesting documentaries in the series didn't make the cut in the edited version of my piece, so let me draw your attention to "Gevald!" Co-directed by Ron Ofer and Yohei Hakak, the 49-minute film is a rare look at the vehemently anti-Zionist Haredim, as exemplified by Shmuel Chaim Pappenhym, a newspaper editor and activist who we see urging Orthodox Jews not to vote in the 2006 Israeli election. The film smartly counterposes Pappenhym, chubby, boyish, earnest, guileless and hopelessly awkward, with the late Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, a Knesset member for 20 years. Ravitz is warm and fatherly (and his American-born wife is a pistol!), but makes no effort to disguise the nature of political horse-trading in a modern parliamentary body. Absolutely riveting and, as far as I can recall, unique.

Also well worth a trip to midtown Manhattan, Amos Gitai's newest film, Carmel, is going to play at MoMA for a week. My review is here, and the film is quite fascinating, particularly if you are a follower of Gitai's work.

On the Barricades

It is frequently remarked that because it takes a year or so for a feature film to make it from conception to completion that it's not a great medium for addressing the issues in that morning's newspaper. Of course, there is some truth to that, but with the rise of HD video and so on, a filmmaker can be more timely in her responses than was the case in years past. I offer, for your delectation, a piece from the New York Times showing how Iran's filmmakers have taken the point in the march against their fraudulent "elected" leaders. And even though the old year has ended and you can't claim donations on your 2009 taxes, I urge you to contribute to organizations that fight for freedom of expression.

Some Year-End Housework

No, I'm not posting my ten-best list. Those of you who are frequent readers know that I won't do that until just before the Ira Awards, so you'll probably be waiting for a few months. Same thing with my ten-best films of 2009. Courage.

But I do want to draw your attention to a couple of non-film items of interest. As regular readers know, I am a firm believer in and on-line champion of non-English literature in translation. Of course language in translation accounts for about three percent of the American book market, which is why any sign of movement in a positive direction is cause for celebration. I have frequently drawn your attention to Words Without Borders, which does a splendid job of disseminating new writing from around the world. I want to add a few more webpages to your bookmarks/favorites file on the subject before the year ends:

The Literary Saloon --a literary blog attached to the excellent Complete Review website. Both are excellent sources of information and reviews on contemporary writing in translation from just about anywhere you can imagine. As a clearinghouse alone, Saloon is an absolute necessity.

Open Letter Books -- a new publishing venture supported by the University of Rochester, specializing in literature in translation. There's a nicely judged piece on the press by Larry Rohter of the New York Times that sets the tone. Open Letter's subscription plan is an innovative way of selling their wonderfully variegated list, too. They also have a blog, Three Percent.

African Writing Online -- a web journal of new writing from a region that has yet to experience a much-deserved and -needed equivalent of the Latin American "boom" of the 1970s. Covers the whole impressively wide range of African literary writing and darned well. Issue 8 is currently up.

Now, goddamit, go buy some books for the new calendar year. Buy 'em from an indie bookstore near you.