this week in film and television

DAYVEON

An adolescent (Devin Blackmon) is haunted by his big brother’s death in Dayveon

DAYVEON (Amman Abbasi, 2017)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Wednesday, September 13
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
filmrise.com/dayveon

“Everything stupid,” thirteen-year-old Dayveon (Devin Blackmon) says at the beginning of Amman Abbasi’s impressive debut film, Dayveon. Dayveon lives in a rural Arkansas town, where he is having a hard time overcoming the recent shooting death of his beloved older brother, Trevor (Errick Tillar). The wayward, disillusioned adolescent lives with his sister, Kim (Chasity Moore), and her gentle giant of a boyfriend, Brian (Dontrell Bright), but when Brian reaches out to him, Dayveon runs off. He is taken in by the local Bloods gang, led by Mook (Lachion Buckingham, who also served as a producer) and Country (Marquell Manning), who take him and his best friend, Brayden (Kordell “KD” Johnson), on a convenience store robbery that goes wrong, but even that does not deter Dayveon from staying on the bad track, angry at a world that has let him down. Despite knowing better, Dayveon continues hanging out with the gang, leading to a moment of truth that will determine his future.

Dayveon (Devin Blackmon) gets sucked into gang life in rural Arkansas in Amman Abbasi’s impressive debut

Shot by Dustin Lane in a cinéma vérité style using natural sound and light and handheld cameras, Dayveon was partially inspired by the HBO documentary Gang War: Banging in Little Rock and Abbasi’s experience working on Craig and Brent Renaud’s four-part Al-Jazeera series Fight for Chicago. Abbasi, who cowrote Dayveon with Steven Reneau and composed the score, did extensive research for the project, workshopping script ideas at a boot camp for troubled youth and casting nonprofessional first-time actors who collaborated on the mood and dialogue to enhance the reality of the story. The danger is indeed palpable; the gunshot wound that Brayden shows Dayveon is not fake, as Johnson actually got shot away from the set during the making of the film. The seventy-five-minute film, which follows in the tradition of such poignant dramas as David Gordon Green’s George Washington and Lance Hammer’s Ballast — in fact, Gordon Green is an executive producer on Dayveon, along with James Schamus (Ang Lee, Todd Haynes) and Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals), among others — moves at a slow, deliberate pace, with Blackmon adding mumbled voiceover narration that further reveals his frustrations, living in a society that offers little hope. Abbasi, whose Pakistani family settled in Arkansas when he was nine, goes slightly astray in the film’s last fifteen minutes, falling into a trap that is too simplistically resolved, but Dayveon is still a tense, involving tale with a unique and compelling personality.

YEAR BY THE SEA

Joan Anderson (Karen Allen) tries to find herself in sentimental drama in Alexander Janko’s Year by the Sea

YEAR BY THE SEA (Alexander Janko, 2017)
Lincoln Plaza Cinema
1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts.
Opens Friday, September 8
212-757-2280
www.lincolnplazacinema.com
www.yearbythesea.com

Longtime writer and composer Alexander Janko’s directorial debut, Year by the Sea, is a Hallmark Hall of Fame-type drama that ebbs and flows with the tide, mostly treacly and predictable but led by a lovely, understated performance by Karen Allen. Allen plays real-life writer Joan Anderson, author of the film’s source book, A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman. After her older son, Andrew (Tyler Haines), gets married and her husband, Robin Wilcox (Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cristofer), gets transferred to Wichita, Joan suddenly decides to set off on a new adventure by herself, moving to a ramshackle house in Cape Cod that is reachable only by rowboat across Narragansett Bay. She quickly gets a job working for fishmonger John Cahoon (Yannick Bisson); becomes friends with the impulsive, free-spirited Joan Erikson (Olivier Award winner Celia Imrie), who is married to famed developmental psychiatrist Erik Erikson (Alvin Epstein); and tries to help Luce (Monique Curnen), who is in an abusive relationship with Billy (Kohler McKenzie). Meanwhile, Judy (Jane Hajduk), who is married to John, is suspicious of how close Joan A. and her husband are getting. And then Joan’s agent, Liz Bloomington (S. Epatha Merkerson), arrives, trying to get her client back on track with her next book.

Joan Anderson (Karen Allen), Liz Bloomington (S. Epatha Merkerson), and Joan Erikson (Celia Imrie) set out on a mini-adventure in Year by the Sea

Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Starman), who won acting awards at six film festivals for the role, is charming as Joan, her eyes fraught with emotion yet now open to new possibilities ever since her husband asked her, “Why can’t you ever be satisfied with what we have?” She balances determination and uncertainty with a graceful ease. Despite being based on fact, the film’s narrative struggles to avoid clichés, with sappy, overly sentimental dialogue that often devolves into New Age speak and silly plot twists relating to freedom and finding one’s true self. Even the score, which was composed by Janko (Anastasia, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), is cloying, as are the original songs by indie duo the Weepies. The Cape Cod setting is beautiful and it’s heartwarming to see three key roles for women over sixty, but that’s not quite enough to hold it all together. Year by the Sea opens September 8 at Lincoln Plaza, with Janko, Allen, and producer Laura Goodenow participating in a Q&A following the 7:20 show that evening.

SCHOOL LIFE

John Leyden teaches music to Headfort students in the extraordinary School Life

SCHOOL LIFE (Neasa Ní Chianáin & David Rane, 2017)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, September 8
212-924-7771
www.schoollifefilm.com
www.ifccenter.com

I never went to boarding school, but if I had, I’d like it to have been at the Headfort School in Kells, County Meath, Ireland, which promises “an education that lasts a lifetime.” The institution, founded in 1949 in a two-hundred-year-old building, is highlighted in the extraordinarily enchanting documentary School Life. Director and cinematographer Neasa Ní Chianáin and director and producer David Rane focus on the daily exploits of husband and wife teachers John and Amanda Leyden, who have been at Headfort for more than forty-five years. The film follows them from their quaint house to their classrooms and special projects: John, tall and thin, with an acerbic wit and scraggly white hair on the back of his head, is putting together the school rock band, while Amanda, short and stout with an infectious enthusiasm for life, is staging Hamlet with a handpicked group of students. Headmaster Dermot Dix, who attended the school himself and had the Leydens as teachers, gives them a wide berth, and they are allowed to be themselves, questioning the existence of a supreme being and supporting same-sex marriage; in fact, everyone at Headfort, from the teachers to the students and the administrators, is encouraged to be themselves, rather than pigeonholed into standard, uniform expectations. Dix even considers it a place where students can “horse around” and “get mucky and muddy”; at one point John, who also teaches math and Latin, is outside in the forest, pushing one of the girls on a makeshift swing. Previously titled In Loco Parentis — “in place of parents” — when it was a hit at Sundance, School Life rarely shows any mothers or fathers, which is extremely refreshing in this age of helicopter parenting. Ní Chianáin (Fairytale of Kathmandu, The Stranger) also avoids talking heads, instead opting for a fly-on-the-wall style that puts us right in the middle of things, without so-called experts explaining to us what is happening and why it’s all so engaging.

Amanda Leyden gets students excited about Shakespeare in Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane’s magical School Life

John and Amanda can be brutally honest when it comes to their students’ artistic talents — witness John’s interaction with a new girl who had stopped coming to the music room — but they care deeply about the kids, discussing them at home to figure out if they were too hard on someone or whether a specific child needs special attention. They both also know that this is what they were meant to do, and that they are still at the top of their game. “I wouldn’t be wasting their time if I was no good,” Amanda says. Meanwhile, John opines, “What else would you do all day?” As the end of the school year nears and the graduating students start receiving acceptances from their next institution of higher learning, there is a heart-tugging cathartic pain as they contemplate saying farewell to their Headfort friends, and particularly John and Amanda. You’re likely to feel the same way, having gotten to know such unique kids as Eliza, Florrie, Ted, Megan, Charlie, and Olivia while falling under the spell of the Leydens. “Remember me,” Ted shouts in the play, portraying the ghost of Hamlet’s father. After watching School Life, you’ll never forget the extraordinary John and Amanda Leyden and everyone else at Headfort. Is it too late to go back to boarding school?

TROPHY

Trophy explores hunting and conservation of wild animals in African in surprising and complex ways

TROPHY (Shaul Schwarz & Christina Clusiau, 2017)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, September 8
www.trophyfilm.com
quadcinema.com

In 2015, Minnesota dentist Dr. Walter Palmer shot and killed the beloved Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, setting off international outrage about trophy hunting. Director Shaul Schwarz and codirector Christina Clusiau explore the much-reviled sport, with surprising results, in Trophy. The film, beautifully photographed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia by Schwarz and Clusiau, can be extremely difficult to watch, but it is a must-see even though it includes several scenes of brutal animal shootings, including the harrowing killing of an elephant that cries out after it falls to the ground, its family nearby. But what starts out as a horrific look at hunters who pay seemingly ridiculous amounts of money to hunt the Big Five — it can cost upwards of half a million dollars to shoot a buffalo, leopard, elephant, lion, and rhino — quickly turns into a compelling study of conservation, poaching, and sustainability. “I know that a lot of people are confused how hunting and conservation go together,” Safari Club International Foundation president Joe Hosmer says. Despite a serious decline in the number of lions, elephants, and rhinos in the world since 1900 — the film points out that sixty percent of all wild animals have been lost since 1970 — some argue that hunting is necessary and that breeders are helping keep these animals from disappearing from the planet, while others claim just the opposite. “There’s a big industry in our country, not just the crocodiles — the lions, the sable, the buffalo. Everything has been bred for a purpose,” says Christo Gomes, hunting outfitter for Mabula Pro Safaris. “So, yeah, sure, some of them will be hunted. We as humans are going to eat it, we are going to use the skins; that’s the cycle of life.” Born Free USA CEO Adam Roberts explains, “You can just pick whatever animal you want from the menu that they offer you, see the price, and book the kill.” Ecologist and author Craig Packer sees both sides of the issue but can’t escape the basic idea that “canned hunting [is] not sport; it’s just killing.” South African Predator Association president Pieter Potgieter complains, “If we can’t get hunters to hunt our lions, we slaughter the lions and sell their bones.” Somewhere in the middle is South African wildlife officer Chris Moore, whose job is to find a balance between canned hunting, poaching, and animals that can destroy local families’ livelihoods. “Every single morning I look in the mirror because we’ve got to make sure that we don’t cross the bounds . . . that we can’t lose our humanity for humanity,” he says, acknowledging that some hunting is absolutely necessary to help both the animal population and the people, who are desperately poor, but adding, “We have to keep this fight going.”

John Hume is on a virtual one-man crusade to protect the rhinos in Trophy

One of the central figures in the film is Buffalo Dream Ranch owner John Hume, the world’s largest rhino breeder, who has been selling off his vast assets to maintain the species. Every two years, Hume shaves off his rhinos’ horns so poachers won’t kill the animals in order to get the valuable objects; he firmly believes that the legalization of the rhino horn trade is essential to the survival of the animals. “The odds are stacked against them, and I’m always for the underdog. But more to the point, I got to know them, and they are the last animal in the world that deserves the persecution,” he says. “They don’t deserve it. They are the nicest, most user friendly animal that wants to stay this side of extinction.” Schwarz and Clusiau also follow Texas sheep breeder Philip Glass, a Bible thumper who comes from a hunting family and is seeking to score the Big Five. In describing a kill, Glass says, “And then you pull the trigger, and boom! You got him. And then all of that anticipation changes into a different emotion, of joy, and relief, and excitement, and anticipation, because you want to go over to him and see, what does he look like. What does he feel like. Where did he fall.” But it’s hard to feel much sympathy for the hunters as they clean up their kill, cover up the blood, and then pose for photographs over their trophy. As professional hunter Gysbert van der Westhuyzen, who leads trips in Namibia, says, “You have to work for your trophy. We believe here that if you want to hunt, it’s all in the foot, it’s walk and stalk. It’s also giving the animal a chance.” But he then tears up and heads off camera when asked if he ever gets attached to any of the animals he ultimately releases to be hunted. “There [are] animals you can’t let go of. You know, you will be playing with them and they become like a friend.” The film also includes a breeding auction, a look inside the Safari Club Convention in Las Vegas, a heated court case, and an intense debate over conservation between Hume and Born Free Foundation CEO Will Travers. But then you watch a hunter shoot a crocodile and yell, “It’s party time!” and it’s hard to think of anything other than what’s right in front of you. Schwarz (Narco Cultura) and Clusiau, who previously collaborated on A Year in Space and Aida’s Secrets, have done an outstanding job examining all sides of a surprisingly complex issue, which is about a lot more than just a dentist shooting a gorgeous beast and proudly posing with his victory. Trophy opens September 8 at the Quad with a series of Q&As with Schwarz and Clusiau on September 8 at 6:50 joined by producer Chris Moore and editor Jay Sternberg, September 9 at 6:50 with Time magazine photo editor Kira Pollack, and September 10 at 4:20 and then 6:50 with New York Times international photo editor David Furst.

COMPANY TOWN

Crossett, Arkansas, pastor David Bouie leads fight against Koch Industries over environmental injustice and corporate accountability in Company Town (photo by Nicolaus Czarnecki)

COMPANY TOWN (Natalie Kottke-Masocco & Erica Sardarian, 2016)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, September 8
212-529-6799
www.companytownfilm.com
www.cinemavillage.com

In Company Town, director, writer, and producer Natalie Kottke-Masocco and codirector, writer, and producer Erica Sardarian investigate the cancer cluster affecting Crossett, Arkansas, which has experienced an alarming number of men, women, and children suffering from the disease. Pastor David Bouie and others firmly place the blame on illegal dumping and sewage wastewater from the local Georgia-Pacific paper and chemical plant, which was purchased by Koch Industries, owned by controversial billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, in 2005. Kottke-Masocco and Sardarian spent nearly four years in Crossett, documenting the town’s fight against big business, an uphill battle all the way as it makes its case to the EPA, the Crossett Water Commission, ADEQ (Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality), the Arkansas Department of Health, and other organizations that are responsible for public health issues. “Koch Industries is one of the all-time champions of using the levers of political influence throughout the nation . . . and, yes, including Arkansas,” says investigative journalist and professor Charles Lewis. Former Obama administration environmental adviser Van Jones adds, “This is happening all across America; this is not just about one town. This is about a whole series of small towns in vulnerable neighborhoods that are being preyed upon by economic power and big polluters. They think they can get away with this. It is a century-defining problem, but it’s going to be resolved by little towns like Crossett fighting their way to some kind of justice.” The fight is led by Pastor Bouie, who refuses to take no for an answer as Crossett, the Forestry Capital of the World, uncovers the abuses by Georgia-Pacific and the “door-to-door cancer” occurring in the town of about 5,500 people, primarily of African-American heritage. Among those residents willing to go on camera and speak out against the plant that is also the financial lifeblood of the community are Jessie Johnson, Hazel Parker, Leona Edwards, young child and cancer sufferer Simone Smith, and former GP contractor Ken Atkins. They are joined by environmental scientist (and folk musician) Barry Sulkin; Elaine Shannon, editor in chief of Environmental Working Group; Huffington Post reporter Paul Blumenthal; research scientist Anthony Samsel; chemist Wilma Subra of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network; whistleblower Diki Guice, who only reveals his identity after he loses his job at GP; environmental law and policy expert Heather White; and Ouachita Riverkeeper Cheryl Slavant, who declares, “Everyone who lives in Crossett or works in Crossett is in danger.”

A community comes together to fight environmental and corporate injustice in Company Town (photo by Nicolaus Czarnecki)

Company Town is one of those documentaries that reveals mind-boggling injustice, where the average person seemingly has no recourse against corporate greed and a government turning its back on them. When regional EPA administrators finally do come to Crossett to check out the residents’ claims firsthand, it is clear that Georgia-Pacific, which did not respond to requests from the filmmakers to participate in the film in any way, was warned in advance and has made some changes that last only a week. Despite evidence that families in eleven of fifteen homes on one block have members who have died from or are battling cancer, the various government organizations don’t find that unusual. Pastor Bouie, who is also a former GP employee and reserve deputy sheriff, is determined to never give up. “How many of us that have worked to keep the company going, keep the company in business, how many of us have to die? How many of our children and family members have to die in order to keep one job at this plant?” he says. And his wife, Barbara Bouie, states the situation very succinctly. “They know what they’re doing is wrong, and they need to correct it.” Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go. The film opens September 8 at Cinema Village, with the 8:00 shows Friday and Saturday night followed by Q&As with Kottke-Masocco and Sardarian along with producer Adam Paul Smith and cinematographer, editor, and producer Edgar Sardarian. The Friday night discussion will also feature New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman and members of the cast.

PLUS ÇA CHANGE: FRENCH NEW WAVE IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Good luck figuring out what Godard’s Film Socialisme is about

FILM SOCIALISME (Jean-Luc Godard, 2010)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, September 8, 7:00 & 9:30
Series runs September 8-17
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the French New Wave exploded around the world, redefining cinema through independent production and the auteur theory, led by such innovative directors as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, and Jacques Rivette. Fifty years later, several of these filmmakers were still creating outstanding motion pictures, as evidenced by the BAMcinématek series “Plus ça change: French New Wave in the New Millennium,” running September 8-17. The twelve-film festival kicks off September 8 with Godard’s highly contentious and polemical Film Socialisme, his first work to be made fully in high-definition digital video. After watching the 2010 film, I was not quite sure what I had just witnessed. There was beautiful imagery shot by Fabrice Aragno and Paul Grivas, pretentious and funny literary dialogue and narration taken from such writers as Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Walter Benjamin, appearances by punk icons Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, and archival footage from old movies, divided into three sections: The first (“Such Things”) takes place on a cruise ship (that capsized a few years later), the second (“Our Europe”) at a gas station, and the third (“Our Humanities”) a trip through the Mediterranean, with stops at Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples, and Barcelona. There’s bullfighting, Stalin, Hitler, soccer, a llama, war, cats on the internet, and a girl reading Balzac’s Lost Illusions. There’s also anti-Semitism, with parts of the film inspired by Léon Daudet’s Le Voyage de Shakespeare and Godard using the name Palestine instead of Israel. In doing research on Film Socialisme to try to find out what I had seen — not usually a good sign for a movie — I found lavish five-star reviews, angry one-star condemnations, and a series of fascinating essays by Richard Brody in the New Yorker discussing, among other things, Stalin looting the Spanish treasury, Godard’s fondness for tennis, and the strange story of Willi Münzenberg. And of course, there are statements about life and cinema, truth and fiction. “You see, with the verb ‘to be,’ the lack of reality becomes flagrant,” one character says. “Liberty is expensive. But one can’t buy her with gold, and not with blood but with cowardice, prostitution, and betrayal,” another says. Film Socialisme comes to an abrupt end as the words “No Comment” take over the screen in a stark, bold sans serif font. ’Nuf said.

In addition to the below films, the series includes Resnais’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet and Wild Grass, Chabrol’s The Girl Cut in Two, Varda’s The Gleaners & I, Rohmer’s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, and Rivette’s The Duchess of Langeais.

Jeanne Balibar is extraordinary in Jacques Rivette masterpiece

VA SAVOIR (WHO KNOWS?) (Jacques Rivette, 2001)
Saturday, September 9, 2:00, 6:30
www.bam.org

Jacques Rivette’s Va Savoir is a long, talky French movie about very beautiful, very complicated, sex-crazed men and women — and it just might be the master filmmaker’s crowning glory, a magnificent masterpiece that deserved its slot as the New York Film Festival’s opening night selection back in 2001. This erotically charged, very funny drama is set around a traveling theater company’s return to Paris to put on Pirandello’s As You Desire Me in the original Italian. Ugo (Sergio Castellitto), the director and costar of the play, is romantically involved with Camille (Jeanne Balibar), the lead actress, who visits her former lover Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé), a philosopher with a thing for Heidegger, who is now living with Sonia (Marianne Basler), a dance instructor who is being chased by Arthur (Bruno Todeschini), a ne’er-do-well whose half sister, Do (Hélène de Fougerolles), has taken a liking to Ugo and offers to help him find an unpublished ghost play by Carlo Goldini, which her mother (Catherine Rouvel) just might have. Every minute of this film is pure magic, and at the center of it all is the fantastique Camille, an instinctual, graceful actress whom everyone — men and women — fall in love with, played by the fantastique, instinctual, graceful Balibar, whom audiences will fall in love with as well. French film enthusiasts should watch for Claude Berri in a small role. Lovingly photographed by William Lubtchansky and edited by his wife, Nicole Lubtchansky, Va Savoir is screening at 2:00 and 6:30 on September 9 in the BAMcinématek series “Plus ça change: French New Wave in the New Millennium.”

Chris Marker goes in search of smiling felines in The Case of the Grinning Cat

THE CASE OF THE GRINNING CAT (Chris Marker, 2006)
Sunday, September 10, 2:00, 5:15, 8:30
www.bam.org

Legendary cat lover and filmmaker Chris Marker (La Jetée, Sans Soleil) goes on a search for a friendly feline in the slight, playful hour-long documentary The Case of the Grinning Cat. In post-9/11 Paris, when much of the world was proclaiming “We are all Americans,” Marker discovered a series of stenciled yellow cats showing up in odd places, from the sides of buildings to internet sites to classical works of art. After disappearing for a short time — causing Marker great frustration — they return as placards and masks at protest movements against U.S. imperialism and other causes. Although the film is fun to watch, it never quite connects all the dots. The Case of the Grinning Cat is screening at 2:00, 5:15, and 8:30 on September 10 in the BAMcinématek series “Plus ça change: French New Wave in the New Millennium.”

Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language speaks for itself

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (ADIEU AU LANGAGE) (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Saturday, September 16, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
www.bam.org
www.kinolorber.com

After the New York Film Festival advance press screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s 3D Goodbye to Language in 2014, a colleague turned to me and said, “If this was Godard’s first film, he would never have had a career.” While I don’t know whether that might be true, I do know that Goodbye to Language is the 3D flick Godard was born to make, a 3D movie that couldn’t have come from anyone else. What’s it about? I have no idea. Well, that’s not exactly right. It’s about everything, and it’s about nothing. It’s about the art of filmmaking. It’s about the authority of the state and freedom. It’s about extramarital affairs. It’s about seventy minutes long. It’s about communication in the digital age. (Surprise! Godard does not appear to be a fan of the cell phone and Yahoo!) And it’s about a cute dog (which happens to be his own mutt, Miéville, named after his longtime partner, Anne-Marie Miéville). In the purposefully abstruse press notes, Godard, eighty-three at the time, describes it thusly: “the idea is simple / a married woman and a single man meet / they love, they argue, fists fly / a dog strays between town and country / the seasons pass / the man and woman meet again / the dog finds itself between them / the other is in one / the one is in the other / and they are three / the former husband shatters everything / a second film begins / the same as the first / and yet not / from the human race we pass to metaphor / this ends in barking / and a baby’s cries.” Yes, it’s all as simple as that. Or maybe not.

Jean-Luc Godard has fun with 3D in Goodbye to Language

Godard divides the film into sections labeled “La Nature” and “La Métaphore,” cutting between several ongoing narratives, from people reading Dostoyevsky, Pound, and Solzhenitsyn at an outdoor café to an often naked man and woman in a kitchen to clips of such old movies as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Snows of Kilimanjaro to Lord Byron and the Shelleys on Lake Geneva. Did I say “narrative”? It’s not really a narrative but instead storytelling as only Godard can do it, and this time in 3D, with the help of cinematographer Fabrice Aragno. Godard has a blast with the medium, which he previously used in a pair of recent shorts. He has fun — and so do we — as he toys with the name of the film and the idea of saying farewell (he plays with the French title, Adieu au langage, forming such puns as “Ah, dieu” and “Ah, dieux,” making the most of 3D layering); creates superimpositions and fast-moving shots that blur the image, making the glasses worthless; changes from sharp color to black-and-white to wild pastel-like bursts of red, blue, and green; evokes various genres, with mystery men in suits and gunshots that might or might not involve kidnapping and murder; and even gets a kick out of where he places the subtitles. These games are very funny, as is the voiceover narration, which includes philosophy from such diverse sources as Jacques Ellul (his essay “The Victory of Hitler”) and Claude Monet (“Paint not what we see, for we see nothing, but paint that we don’t see”). And for those who, like my colleague, believe the film to be crap, Godard even shows the man sitting on the bowl, his girlfriend in the bathroom with him, directly referencing Rodin’s The Thinker and talking about “poop” as he noisily evacuates his bowels. So, in the end, what is Godard saying farewell to? Might this be his last film? Is he saying goodbye to the old ways we communicated? Is he bidding adieu to humanity, leaving the future for the dogs, the trees, and the ocean? Does it matter? A hit at Cannes, Goodbye to Language is screening September 16 at 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, and 9:30 in the BAMcinématek series “Plus ça change: French New Wave in the New Millennium.” You can check out the NSFW French trailer here.

Agnès Varda takes an unusual approach to autobiography in THE BEACHES OF AGNES

THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS (LES PLAGES D’AGNÈS) (Agnès Varda, 2008)
Sunday, September 17, 2:00
www.bam.org

“The whole idea of fragmentation appeals to me,” filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist Agnès Varda says in the middle of her unusual cinematic autobiography, the César-winning documentary The Beaches of Agnès. “It corresponds so naturally to questions of memory. Is it possible to reconstitute this personality, this person Jean Vilar, who was so exceptional?” She might have been referring to her friend, the French actor and theater director, but the exceptional Belgian-French Varda might as well have been referring to herself. Later she explains, “My memories swarm around me like confused flies. I hesitate to remember all that. I don’t want to.” Fortunately for viewers, Varda (Jacquot de Nantes, The Gleaners & I) does delve into her past in the film, sharing choice tidbits from throughout her life and career, in creative and offbeat ways that are charmingly self-effacing. Using cleverly arranged film clips, re-creations, photographs, and an array of frames and mirrors, the eighty-year-old Varda discusses such colleagues as Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais; shares personal details of her long relationship with Jacques Demy; visits her childhood home; rebuilds an old film set; speaks with her daughter, Rosalie Varda, and son, Mathieu Demy; talks about several of her classic films, including La Pointe Courte, Cléo from 5 to 7, and Vagabond; and, in her ever-present bangs, walks barefoot along beaches, fully aware that the camera is following her every move and reveling in it while also feigning occasional shyness. Filmmakers don’t generally write and direct documentaries about themselves, but unsurprisingly, the Nouvelle Vague legend and first woman to win an honorary Palme d’or makes The Beaches of Agnès about as artistic as it can get without becoming pretentious and laudatory. The film is screening September 17 at 2:00 in the BAMcinématek series “Plus ça change: French New Wave in the New Millennium.”

SUMMER DOUBLE FEATURES! LITTLE FUGITIVE / SPEEDY

Joey Norton goes on the adventure of a lifetime in Coney Island in underground indie classic Little Fugitive

LITTLE FUGITIVE (Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, and Ruth Orkin, 1953)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, September 4, 12:30 & 4:00
Series continues through September 5
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Labor Day is the traditional end of summer, and Film Forum gets in on the fun with an inspired double feature of two Coney Island specials. Screening at 12:30 and 4:00, Morris Engel’s charming Little Fugitive is one of the most influential and important — and vastly entertaining — works to ever come out of the city. The underground classic won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1953, was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar, and was entered into the National Film Registry in 1997. Written and directed with Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin, Engel’s future wife, Little Fugitive follows the gritty, adorable exploits of seven-year-old wannabe cowboy Joey Norton (Richie Andrusco, in his only film role), who runs away to Coney Island after his older brother, Lennie (Richard Brewster), and his brother’s friends, Harry (Charlie Moss) and Charley (Tommy DeCanio), play a trick on the young boy, using ketchup to convince Joey that he accidentally killed Lennie. With their single mother (Winifred Cushing) off visiting her ailing mother, Joey heads out on his own, determined to escape the cops who are surely after him. But once he gets to Coney Island, he decides to take advantage of all the crazy things to be found on the beach, along the boardwalk, and in the surrounding area, including, if he can get the money, riding a real pony.

A no-budget black-and-white neo-Realist masterpiece shot by Engel with a specially designed lightweight camera that was often hidden so people didn’t know they were being filmed, Little Fugitive explores the many pleasures and pains of childhood and the innate value of home and family. As Joey wanders around Coney Island, he meets all levels of humanity, preparing him for the world that awaits as he grows older. Meanwhile, Engel gets into the nooks and crannies of the popular beach area, from gorgeous sunrises to beguiling shadows under the boardwalk. In creating their beautifully told tale, Engel, Ashley, and Orkin use both trained and nonprofessional actors, including Jay Williams as Jay, the sensitive pony ride man, and Will Lee, who went on to play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, as an understanding photographer, while Eddie Manson’s score continually references “Home on the Range.” Rough around the edges in all the right ways, Little Fugitive became a major influence on the French New Wave, with Truffaut himself singing its well-deserved praises. There’s really nothing quite like it, before or since. The 12:30 show will be introduced by Mary Engel, the daughter of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin.

Harold Lloyd has a crazy time in Coney Island in Speedy

SPEEDY (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, September 4, 2:00
Series continues through September 13
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

In between the two showings of Little Fugitive is another delightful treat, Ted Wilde’s Speedy, with live musical accompaniment by pianist Steve Sterner. Much like the end of the silent film era itself, the last horse-drawn trolley is doomed in Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. Big business is playing dirty trying to get rid of the trolley and classic old-timer Pop Dillon. Meanwhile, Harold “Speedy” Swift, a dreamer who wanders from menial job to menial job (he makes a great soda-jerk with a unique way of announcing the Yankees score), cares only about the joy and wonder life brings. But he’s in love with Pop’s granddaughter, Jane (Ann Christy), so he vows to save the day. Along the way, he gets to meet Babe Ruth. Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, Comedy, for this thrilling nonstop ride through beautiful Coney Island and the pre-depression streets of New York City. Film Forum’s second annual Festival of Summer Double Features continues through September 5 with such other sweet pairings as Panique and Peeping Tom, Point Blank and The Killers, and The Big Lebowski and The Last Picture Show.