Day: October 10, 2011

By Joe Bendel. Jafar Panahi will not be appearing at the 49th New York Film Festival. He was never expected. However, it was hoped Mojtaba Mirtahmasb would be able to promote his recent collaboration with Panahi on the international festival circuit. Ominously though, Mirtahmasb’s passport was confiscated just as he was leaving to attend Toronto and he was subsequently arrested, along with five other Iranian filmmakers. At least Mirtahmasb will have a good idea of what to expect. With Panahi, he co-directed This is Not a Film (trailer here), a documentary record of a day in life of the award winning filmmaker chafing under house arrest and a prospective twenty year ban on movie-making, which screens at this year’s NYFF.

For those unfamiliar with his story, Panahi and fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof were sentenced to six years in Iranian prison (a.k.a. Hell on Earth) and prohibited from practicing their art for two decades. With his appeal pending, Panahi is confined to his relatively upscale but not all that spacious Tehran flat on the eve of Persian New Year. Since he cannot make a film, he makes This is Not a Film, with the furtive assistance of Mirtahmasb, a digital video camera, and the odd handheld device.

Considering we are simply watching a man putter about his apartment (with Igi, the scene stealing pet iguana), Not a Film is surprisingly engaging. Even under extreme stress, Panahi is clearly a man of considerable wit and charm. We watch as he blocks out a film that might never be produced and listen as he cryptically discusses projects with Mirtahmasb in an effort to shield him from presumed eavesdroppers. These are the small, grimly fascinating day-to-day realities of artistic repression in Iran. Just in case any of the significance is lost on viewers, the blank closing credits ought to bring it all home.

Not a Film is a quiet film that resolutely avoids anything that might be deemed provocation. Frankly, the circumstances that gave rise to the not-film should never have happened. Yet, since it is here, in its way Not a Film is an inspiring example of the creative impulse as it flows like water through the cracks of an oppressive state. Indeed, it is already renowned as the film that was smuggled out of Iran in a cake.

To give credit where it is due, the international film festival network has done good work keeping attention focused on Panahi’s plight. The 2010 Cannes Film Festival pointedly reserved an empty chair for the filmmaker when he was not allowed to attend, even though he was chosen to serve on the jury. Earlier this year in New York, the Asia Society hosted a Panahi retrospective to further publicize his case. However, it is important to remember Rasoulof and now Mirtahmasb as well, who are also prisoners of artistic conscience, but might not have the same name recognition on the world stage. Highly recommended, Not a Film screens this Thursday (10/13) at Alice Tully Hall, as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival.

Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 6:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. Call it facial determinism. In Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Face of Another, a new “life-mask” countenance fundamentally alters the personality of a scarred businessman. With his latest film, Pedro Almodóvar addresses similar themes of appearance and identity, but dramatically raises the stakes for his experimental subject in The Skin I Live In (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, following Wednesday’s gala screening at the 49th New York Film Festival.

Dr. Robert Ledgard gave his mysterious “patient” Vera the face of his late wife, who was severely burned and disfigured in a fateful car crash. As a result, Marilia, his motherly housekeeper, worries the plastic surgeon is developing an unhealthy emotional attachment to his unwilling test-case. As flashbacks explain the chain of events that brought Vera to his isolated villa, we learn just how twisted their potential relationship would be.

Though billed as Almodóvar’s horror movie, Skin really constitutes a continuation of his noir-esque period begun with his previous film, the underappreciated Broken Embraces. Indeed, it is structured around a big twist, which makes it challenging to discuss its themes and motifs without getting spoilery. Frankly, just a few details are probably sufficient to give the game away. However, it is probably safe to say Ledgard nurses some serious grievances, while initial appearances are deliberately deceptive.

Though also undeniably restrained compared to the films that made Almodóvar’s reputation, Broken Embraces had a slow-burning undercurrent of dark passion. By contrast, Skin is a decidedly chilly film. Overtly voyeuristic, Almodóvar avoids delving beneath the surface of his characters, consciously concentrating his focus on the surface level instead. Still, he adeptly uses the Hitchcockian cinematic vocabulary as well as the claustrophobic setting to create a fairly creepy genre film.

Although he never truly unleashes his inner mad doctor, Antonio Banderas is certainly a severe presence as Dr. Ledgard. However, Elena Anaya is quite remarkable as the suicidal Vera, convincingly handling her character revelations, which are considerable. A tricky role to approach, she fully commits to it, providing the film’s only emotional center.

Skin is an intriguing film, but were it not for the vulnerability and immediacy of Anaya’s work, we would simply feel as though we were being played, rather than pulled inexorably into a dark morality drama. While the implications of Almodóvar’s screenplay (adapted from Thierry Jonquet’s novel Mygale), will stay with viewers, his execution will most likely leave them cold. A mixed bag, Skin is largely distinguished by Anaya’s performance. For Almodóvar fans, it screens twice this Wednesday (10/12) as a gala selection of the 2011 NYFF. Though only standby tickets are still available, it also opens theatrically this Friday (10/14) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 6:57pm.