Who: Ramy Youssef, Hasan Minhaj What: Recanati-Kaplan Talks, Ramy screening and discussion Where: Kaufmann Concert Hall, 92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. between Ninety-First & Ninety-Second Sts., and online When: Friday, October 14, $20-$45 in person at 8:00, $25 online at 9:05 Why: In April 2019, the first season of Hulu’s Ramy began streaming, an unusual semiautobiographical comedy about an Egyptian-American ne’er-do-well and his family, trying to make a life for themselves in New Jersey, balancing tradition with contemporary mores. The very funny, often cringy show was created by Ramy Youssef, who also serves as star, writer, and executive producer. The series, which launched its third season on September 30, features Youssef as Ramy Hassan, who is searching for love and faith, with Hiam Abbass as his mother, Amr Waked as his father, May Calamawy as his sister, Laith Nakli as his uncle, and Mohammed Amer and Dave Merheje as his best friends. On October 14, Youssef will be at the 92nd St. Y to discuss his life and career with Peabody-winning American comedian and political commentator Hasan Minaj (The Daily Show,Patriot Act with Hasan Minaj). In-person tickets are $20-$45 and include a screening beginning at 8:00; online tickets are $25 and start at 9:05.
All That Breathes explores the fate of black kites in India as representative of so much more
ALL THAT BREATHES (Shaunak Sen, 2022)
New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center
Tuesday, October 11, Walter Reade Theater, 6:30
Wednesday, October 12, Howard Gilman Theater, 9:00 www.filmlinc.org www.allthatbreathes.com
Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes opens with a long shot of rats scurrying about a filthy New Delhi area, then follows a man carrying four boxes with holes in them into a dingy, crowded basement garage. One starts to rock and falls awkwardly to the floor. The man walks over and takes out an injured bird. As Mohammad Saud, Nadeem Shehzad, and Salik Rehman examine the injured creature, they speak of a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
“What’ll happen to the birds if there’s a nuclear war?” Rehman asks. “We’ll all die. Where will they go?”
A moment later, a young boy searches for a bullet, an announcement from the street advises, “We don’t want any harm to any public property,” and a black kite, a bird of prey that migrates to New Delhi every year, grips a small branch and then accusingly stares directly into the camera. Later street announcements declare, “This is a fight for empathy and unity! The Constitution has to be saved!” regarding the treatment of Islamic citizens.
For several decades, Indian Muslim brothers Saud and Shehzad have been rescuing and healing kites that have fallen from the sky, victim to pollution and the cotton threads of kites that slice their wings. “When we got our first kite . . . I’d stay up at night staring at it,” Shehzad says in voiceover as a lone kite soars in the air, the moon at its left. “It looked like a furious reptile from another planet. It’s said that feeding kites earns ‘sawab’ [religious credit]. When they eat the meat you offer, they eat away your difficulties. And their hunger is insatiable.”
When the brothers were teenage bodybuilders, they encountered their first injured kite. A bird hospital refused to help because the species is not vegetarian, so they used their own knowledge of flesh, muscles, and tendons to repair it. They’ve been rescuing and repairing hurt birds in their highly unsanitary quarters ever since.
Amid the social unrest and their legitimate fears of being turned into refugees because of their religion, Saud and Shehzad continue to fix the birds, as if fixing themselves as they worry about losing their freedom. Over one dinner they discuss with their families what they might do if the government kicks them out of the country. Meanwhile, the brothers are desperate to get a grant to keep their Wildlife Rescue operating.
“I’ve devoted my entire life to this. But this doesn’t feel enough to me,” Shehzad explains. “Things are getting from bad to worse here. Birds are plummeting from the sky. Delhi is a gaping wound. And we’re a tiny Band-Aid on it.”
Cinematographer Ben Bernhard focuses in on nature, from an icy river to an owl to dozens and dozens of kites filling the sky, set to a gentle yet ominous score by Roger Goula. Director and producer Sen (Cities of Sleep) is not just making a film about kites in India; he is accusing the world as a whole of misusing resources in ways that threaten the existence of such living creatures as kites and damage the planet’s ecological system.
“Man is the loneliest animal,” Saud says.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary (World Cinema) at Sundance and the L’OEil d’or for Best Documentary at Cannes, All That Breathes is screening at the New York Film Festival on October 11 and 12, with Sen on hand for Q&As after both shows. The film opens theatrically October 21 at Film Forum, with Sen participating in Q&As following the 7:00 shows on October 21 and 22.
A father (Paul Mescal) and daughter (Francesca Corio) bond in Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun
AFTERSUN (Charlotte Wells, 2022)
New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center
Saturday, October 8, Alice Tully Hall, 12:00
Sunday, October 9, Alice Tully Hall, 9:00
Monday, October 10, BAM Cinemas, 7:00
212-355-6160 www.filmlinc.org
At one point in Charlotte Wells’s hauntingly beautifully debut feature, Aftersun, a divorced father, Calum (Paul Mescal), and his eleven-year-old daughter, Sophie (Francesca Corio), are standing in the mountains, arms stretched to the sky as if the world is limitless for them, but nearby is an old, rotting sign that announces, “We know the perfect place,” once upon a time offering visitors “paradise.” The two are on vacation on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, a bonding trip during which Calum assures Sophie, “You can live wherever you want to live. Be whoever you want to be.”
It is apparent that Calum and Sophie have not spent a lot of time together of late, as Calum has left their home country of Scotland following the divorce. In Turkey, they experience a warm and loving bond, as Calum learns how to be a father again and Sophie begins her transition into adolescence, neither one knowing exactly what comes next. Calum is watching his daughter grow up right in front of him, and he doesn’t always know quite how to react; as Sophie hangs out with a group of older teens as well as a boy her own age who has a crush on her, Calum allows her a freedom that threatens to be too much, sometimes acting more like a big brother or friend than a father. But as we discover, Sophie is an extraordinary capable young girl, coming of age in a world that is not a paradise for everyone.
Aftersun is a captivating adventure in which Scottish NYU grad Wells plays with genre tropes, gently turning them inside out as she makes the audience reevaluate their expectations from both real life and fictional drama. Many of the scenes are set up in a way that you anticipate a certain outcome — usually a dangerous one — but the bad result never happens, and we are disappointed in ourselves for having imagined a different conclusion.
The film is very much an extension of Wells’s early shorts, Blue Christmas,Laps, and Tuesday, in which she deals with such subjects as sexual abuse, the loss of a parent, and mental illness that threatens to tear a family apart. Wells favors a realistic pace, moving at the speed of life, with an expert sense of composition and a knack for avoiding unnecessary dialogue or explication while often using a handheld camera to keep things slightly off balance. We also get to see brief hints of Sophie as an adult (Celia Rowlson-Hall), thinking back on this critically formative vacation.
In Aftersun, Wells and cinematographer Gregory Oke incorporate pixelated digital shots and occasional grainy textures amid gorgeous images of the Turkish coast, lovingly edited by Blair McClendon and accompanied by a wistful score by Oliver Coates. The Irish Mescal (Normal People,The Lost Daughter) fully embodies the role of a father trying to redefine what’s important to him, while Corio, in her first film, having been chosen from a casting call of more than eight hundred actresses, is charming and delightful as Sophie; her eyes light up the screen with their sense of wonder at what awaits her, and us.
Aftersun is screening October 8-10 at the New York Film Festival with Wells participating in Q&As after the noon screening on October 8 (joined by Corio) and the October 9 show at 9:00; Wells will also take part in a free talk with Mia Hansen-Løve (One Fine Morning) on October 8 at 4:00 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center amphitheater. The film opens at Lincoln Center on October 21.
Filmmaker Ondi Timoner says goodbye to her father in Last Flight Home
LAST FLIGHT HOME (Ondi Timoner, 2022)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, October 7
212-924-7771 www.ifccenter.com www.interloperfilms.com
Filmmaker Ondi Timoner and her family say goodbye to their beloved patriarch in the remarkable Last Flight Home, an honest, deeply human example of how we face death. At the age of ninety-two, Eli Timoner, husband, father, grandfather, friend, boss, and patient, decided that it was time for him to die. “I’ll always be looking down on all of you. Help me go there and end all this agony,” he says from his bed in his California living room.
Eli had spent the previous forty years partially paralyzed, having suffered a debilitating stroke at the age of fifty-three shortly after getting his neck cracked by a masseuse. Because of his disability, he ended up losing his business — he had been the president of Laura Lee Candy and later founded Air Florida — but still managed to put his three children, Rachel (a rabbi), David, and Ondi, through Yale.
The Timoner clan very carefully follows California’s End of Life Option Act, which specifies a fifteen-day period in which the patient goes through a series of medical tests and legal requirements that will allow him to die with dignity, in this case at home surrounded by family. During this time, friends and relatives visit Eli, in person and online, as it is February 2021 and the Covid-19 pandemic is raging. Most of these meetings are warm and happy; everyone is extolling Eli’s life, not mourning his coming passing.
Even as his body fades, his mind is still sharp as he shares memories, tells bad jokes, praises Joe Biden and Rachel Maddow — Eli is a fiercely dedicated liberal — and ponders regrets that haunt him. He gives words of wisdom to his children and grandchildren, who let him know how much they love him and how important he will always be to them, and he returns the love. “You give love, you get love,” he advises one of his grandsons.
“To know this is coming is a luxury,” Ondi says to the hospice nurse, Candice Carsey, and they take full advantage of that, putting together a farewell list, reviewing Eli’s obituary with him, and arranging for the burial plot and funeral. Two-time Sundance winner Ondi (We Live in Public,Dig!) was not initially planning to make a documentary about her father and his passing; she set up unobtrusive cameras to capture the events for herself because that is what she has always done, how she processes things. It wasn’t until her sister asked her to make a memorial video for a Zoom service that she realized the treasure trove of material she had amassed honoring her father’s life. Serving as writer, director, photographer, producer, and editor, Ondi intercuts archival material, including family photographs, home movies, and clips of Eli’s business successes. Her partner, Morgan Doctor, composed the moving score.
As the days count down to March 3, 2021, the viewer feels as if they have become part of the Timoners’ extended family, gaining understanding of the various characters and feeling their pain and love. The film goes beyond cinéma verité or fly-on-the-wall witnessing; it’s a privilege to be invited into what is normally such a private, personal experience. Death is something everyone has their own relationship with, but Ondi turns her father’s passing into a communal gathering that celebrates life as well as dying with dignity.
“Long time since I felt your warmth. I’m so glad to bathe in it,” Eli tells his former daughter-in-law, Felicia Park-Rogers, as they say goodbye to each other. With Last Flight Home, we all get to bathe in the warmth of an ordinary yet extraordinary human being.
Last Flight Home opens October 7 at IFC, with Ondi Timoner participating in Q&As with special guests following the 7:15 shows that night (moderated by Amy Berg) and October 8 (moderated by Sandi DuBowski).
Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) finds herself and her young son in danger in Ringu
RINGU (Hideo Nakata, 1998)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, October 7, $15, 7:00
212-715-1258 japansociety.org/events
In many ways, Hideo Nakata’s 1998 classic, Ringu, is the ultimate horror movie: a film about a film that scares people to death. But Ringu is not chock-full of blood, gore, and violence; instead it’s more of a psychological tale that plays out like an investigative procedural as two characters desperately search for answers to save themselves from impending death.
Journalist Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) and her ex-husband, professor and author Ryūji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), are both on tight deadlines — for their lives. After Reiko’s niece, Tomoko Ōishi (Yuko Takeuchi), suddenly dies, apparently from fright, Reiko discovers a rumor that Tomoko and some of her friends had watched a short video, then received a phone call in which an otherworldly voice told them they would die in a week. And they did.
Reiko tracks down the eerie videotape and watches it herself — a few minutes of creepy, hard-to-decipher grainy images — after which the phone rings, telling her she has one week to live. She shows the tape to Ryūji, who has extrasensory powers, and they start digging deep into who shown in the tape and what it is trying to communicate. As they begin uncovering fascinating facts, their son, Yōichi (Rikiya Ōtaka), gets hold of the video and watches it, so all three are doomed if they don’t figure out how to reverse the curse — if that is even possible.
Adapted by screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi from the 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki, Ringu is a softer film than you might expect, maintaining a slow, even pace, avoiding cheap shocks as the relatively calm and gentle Reiko continues her research and is able to work together with her former husband, who has not been a father to Yoichi at all. The film gains momentum as Reiko and Ryūji learn more about the people in the video, but Nakata, who went on to make several sequels in addition to Dark Water,Chaos,The Incite Mill, and the Death Note spinoff L: Change the World, never lets things get out of hand. The supporting cast includes pop singer Miki Nakatani as Mai Takano, one of Ryūji’s students; the prolific Yutaka Matsushige (he’s appeared in more than one hundred films and television shows since 1992) as Yoshino, a reporter who assists Reiko; and Rie Inō as the strange figure hiding behind all that black hair.
The 2019 twentieth anniversary digital restoration of Ringu is screening October 7 at 7:00 in Japan Society’s Monthly Classics series, which continues October 14 with Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg. Oh, and just for the record, a “homomorphism” — the word is written on Ryūji’s blackboard of mathematical equations — is a map between algebraic objects that come in two forms, “group” and “ring,” the latter being a structure-preserving function.
Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet) try to find love among so much blood in Bones and All
BONES AND ALL (Luca Guadagnino, 2022)
New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center
Thursday, October 6, Alice Tully Hall, 9:00
Saturday, October 8, Alice Tully Hall, 2:45
Tuesday, October 11, Alamo Drafthouse Staten Island, 6:00
Sunday, October 16, Walter Reade Theater, 5:45 www.filmlinc.org
Luca Guadagnino won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival for his horror/road movie/romance Bones and All, a Spotlight selection of NYFF60. The Italian director evokes Bonnie and Clyde and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry in the tale of two young people who were born with a taste for human flesh. But they’re not vampires; they don’t come out only at night, and they don’t just suck out their victims’ blood but go for a much heartier meal.
At a sleepover with a few girls from her new high school, Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) desperately wants to fit in, but things go astray when she starts munching on one of the girls’ fingers. Her father (André Holland), who has been shuttling her to small towns for years because of her needs, takes off, believing that he cannot protect her anymore, but he leaves behind a cassette tape in which he details her life; she listens to parts of the tape every day as her full story emerges.
On the run, she meets up with fellow cannibal and extremely creepy Sully (Mark Rylance), who is happy to have a companion and wants to become her mentor. But she eventually is back out on the road, hungry and desperate, not wanting to kill, when she meets up with cannibal drifter, Lee (Timothée Chalamet), who provides her with companionship, food, and love as they try to stay alive and not get caught.
Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet) take a rare break in new horror romance
Russell (Lost in Space,Waves), who won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for emerging actor at Venice, is captivating as Maren, who just wants to have a normal life. Her eyes are filled with both fear and wonder at the world that awaits her. Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name,Dune) is compelling as the raggedy would-be hero with puppy-dog eyes. Oscar and Tony winner Rylance (Bridge of Spies,Wolf Hall) nearly steals the movie as Sully, until a misbegotten late scene, while Tony and Emmy nominee Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man,Dopesick) is nearly unrecognizable as the wickedly devilish Jake. The film also features Oscar nominee Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don’t Cry,Big Love) as Maren’s mother, Anna Cobb as Kayla, Lee’s sister, Jessica Harper (Suspiria,My Favorite Year) as Maren’s grandmother, and filmmaker David Gordon Green (George Washington,Pineapple Express) as Brad, Jake’s friend.
Adapted by David Kajganich from Camille DeAngelis’s 2015 novel, Bones and All is riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies, asking the audience to suspend disbelief all too often, and its final scenes become clichéd and melodramatic, but it’s worth seeing for Russell’s performance alone, as well as the developing relationship between Maren and Lee, which is like a 1980s version of Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) or Mary (Susan George) and Larry (Peter Fonda), although bloodier in its own way. The soundtrack is a blast, with a score composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and such songs as Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker.” Guadagnino, Russell, and Sevigny will be at Alice Tully Hall on October 6 for a Q&A following the 9:00 screening.
Jean-Pierre Léaud stars in Jean Eustache’s New Wave epic The Mother and the Whore, screening in a new 4K restoration at the New York Film Festival
THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (LA MAMAN ET LA PUTAIN) (Jean Eustache, 1973)
New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center
Wednesday, October 5, Walter Reade Theater, 6:15
Thursday, October 6, Howard Gilman Theater, 6:30
212-355-6160 www.filmlinc.org
Jean-Pierre Léaud gives a bravura performance in French auteur Jean Eustache’s Nouvelle Vague classic, The Mother and the Whore, about love and sex in Paris following the May 1968 cultural revolution. Léaud stars as Alexandre, a jobless, dour flaneur who rambles on endlessly about politics, cinema, music, literature, sex, women’s lib, and lemonade while living with current lover Marie (Bernadette Lafont), obsessing over former lover Gilberte (Isabelle Weingarten), and starting an affair with new lover Veronika (Françoise Lebrun), a quiet nurse with a rather open sexual nature. The film’s three-and-a-half-hour length will actually fly by as you become immersed in the complex characters, the fascinating dialogue, and the excellent cast. Much of the movie consists of long takes in which Alexandre shares his warped view of life and art in small, enclosed spaces, the static camera focusing either on him or his companion. “I’m convinced all recent happenings in the world were meant against me,” he narcissistically says.
Léaud previously appeared in Eustache’ss Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus; the director also made My Little Loves, Numéro zéro, and Une sale histoire in a career cut short by his death in 1981 at the age of forty-two. A new 4K restoration of the nearly fifty-year-old film is being shown October 5 at 6:15 and October 6 at 6:30 as part of the Revivals section of the sixtieth New York Film Festival; Lebrun and restoration producer Charles Gillibert will be at the Walter Reade for a Q&A following the October 5 screening, while Lebrun will introduce the October 6 screening at the Howard Gilman.
