Faustin Linyekula’s MORE MORE MORE… FUTURE has its New York premiere at the Kitchen this week as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival (photo © Agathe Poupeney)
The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
October 12-15, $15, 8:00
212-255-5793
www.fiaf.org
Part of the “Endurance/Resistance/Inspiration” section of FIAF’s ninth annual Crossing the Line Festival, dancer/choreographer Faustin Linyekula’s more more more… future examines the past, present, and future of life in his native Democratic Republic of Congo. “We deserve more than the vanishing shadows of delusions. We deserve more than headlines and media compassion,” he writes about the evening-length piece, having its New York premiere October 12-15 at the Kitchen. “More than the false happiness that blinds our minds. More than assistance, we deserve justice. More than money, we deserve dignity. More than a glorious past, we long for a future.” Wearing colorful, oversized, enveloping costumes created by Lamine Badian Kouyaté/Xuly Bët at the very last minute, three dancers, including Linyekula, move to live music played onstage by a five-piece band led by music director and guitarist Flamme Kapaya, set to poems by political prisoner Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, a childhood friend of Linyekula’s. “To be positive is the most subversive. Celebrating is a way of resisting,” Linyekula notes.
In his hysterical 2001 black comedy The Royal Tenenbaums, eclectic indie auteur Wes Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox) created one of the kings of dysfunctional film families. Directly inspired by J. D. Salinger’s Glass clan (Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam), the Tenenbaums of New York City have more than their fair share of distress. After being kicked out of the house for being a lousy father and husband, Royal (Gene Hackman) returns, claiming he is dying of stomach cancer. His wife, noted archaeologist Etheline (Anjelica Huston), is now seeing her accountant, the straitlaced Henry Sherman (Danny Glover). Finance wiz Chas (Ben Stiller) is having difficulty getting over his wife’s death in a plane crash, becoming absurdly overprotective of his two young sons’ (Grant Rosenmeyer and Jonah Meyerson) safety. Tennis prodigy Richie (Luke Wilson) is recovering from a very public breakdown and soon has to admit to himself that he is madly in love with his adopted playwright sister, Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is married to strange neurologist Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) and having an affair with longtime family friend and Western novelist Eli Cash (cowriter Owen Wilson). Narrated by Alec Baldwin, The Royal Tenenbaums completed an impressive opening hat trick from Anderson, who had previously made Bottle Rocket (1996) and Rushmore (1998). The marvelously funny flick — which had its premiere at the 2001 New York Film Festival — is having a special tenth-anniversary screening October 13 at the forty-ninth annual New York Film Festival, followed by a discussion with the cast and crew, including Anderson and many of the stars. Additional tickets have just been released, but you better act fast if you want to see this unique event.
Returning to her small hometown of Hancock in Northern Michigan, documentarian Heather Courtney (Letters from the Other Side) wanted to make a film about the Upper Peninsula area and its residents, and she came up with quite a story. For several years, Courtney followed a group of young men who had enlisted in the National Guard because they either didn’t have enough money for college or didn’t know what else to do with their lives; she then traveled with them as they got called up and sent to fight the war in Afghanistan. Dominic Fredianelli, Cole Smith, and Matt “Bodi” Beaudoin never fully considered what they were getting into when they signed up; they clearly did not join up merely for patriotic reasons, so it doesn’t take long before they start questioning what America is doing over there. The three men, along with their families back home, allowed Courtney remarkable access, holding nothing back as they share their bittersweet emotions, their politics, their fears, and their overwhelming confusion. The men’s National Guard unit is assigned to an IED sweeper team that goes out in heavily protected vehicles, searching for and detonating hidden improvised explosive devices, but even carefully monitored explosions take their toll on the soldiers, not to mention the surprise bombs that nearly blow them to pieces. Courtney, who served as producer, director, cinematographer, and coeditor, does not add any voice-over narration or accumulate facts and statistics; instead, she lets the story tell itself, avoiding propaganda and grand statements. At first it is hard to have much sympathy for Dom, Cole, and Bodi, who should have thought a lot more about their decision to join the National Guard, but as they and their families get more deeply involved in the war, Where Soldiers Come From grows ever-more poignant and frightening.