With A QUIET PASSION, Terence Davies has given us his masterpiece (so far, at least)...

... as well as gifting that fine actress Cynthia Nixon with the opportunity to shine brightly in the best role she's had thus far. So very good is Ms Nixon that her work bears comparison with that of last year's best actress, Rebecca Hall. In A QUIET PASSION -- which tells the story of one of America's greatest poets, Emily Dickinson -- writer/director Terence Davies has found the subject and the means to express it that puts into play all of what is best about his work (his great feeling for period style, speech and behavior) and none of what sometimes mars his efforts (extremely slow pacing in which meaning can disappear into the too lengthy moment). Here, everything works together to form what seems to me very close to film perfection. 

Most surprising of all is how wonderfully funny, genuinely witty and humorous so much of his movie turns out to be. (The filmmaker is shown at right.) Could Emily Dickinson have been this charming and delightful? I hope so, for together Ms Nixon and her director certainly make the poet seem so. And very believably, too. Granted, hers is very dry wit, but that would seem to befit the time and place --Massachusetts in the mid 1800s -- and Davies' dialog is endlessly enriching. Really, we hang on every word as we savor the humor, anger and, just as often, the surprise.

Dickinson was an original, a quiet rebel who simply stood her ground, as we note from the film's first scene, in which the head mistress of a girls' school gives the younger version of Emily (played by Emma Bell, above) a good dressing down -- at which our young poet stands her ground and gives us an appropriate taste of what is to come.  Mr. Davies has always preferred quiet, smooth elisions to any flashy effects in his films. Here his flashiest and most remarkably effective is a family photo session in which the younger Emily morphs subtly into the older Ms Nixon, below. This is brilliantly, beautifully handled, and I'd watch the entire film again just to see it once more.

The entire Dickinson family, in-laws included, is brought to wonderful life by the ace cast Mr. Davies has assembled. Keith Carradine (below) seems to grow into a better and stronger actor as he ages. This may be his finest hour playing Emily's stern but loving father who, as much as he is troubled by her behavior appears to somehow secretly treasure it. How Carradine exhibits this is one of the film's wonderful and most subtle accomplishments and also provides the chance for the actor to show a delightfully stern comedic sense. (His "I am smiling" is perhaps the movie's most hilarious line.)

The lovely Jennifer Ehle (below, right) plays Emily sister, Vinnie, with such graciousness and joy that you'll want a sister so tender but honest, while Duncan Duff handles the brotherly duties with typically patriarchal entitlement -- a state against which Emily smartly and rightly railed for most of her life.

Even the sad sister-in-law Susan (a fine turn by the splendid Jodhi May, shown below right) is given her due, in one scene in particular, in which sapphic love is alluded to but not directly addressed.

This seems wise, as -- from what we can tell by Davies' interpretation of Dickinson's life -- the poet would have wanted a heterosexual love but due to a combination of her moral stringency, fear of intimacy and health problems both physical and mental (very possibly a kind of agoraphobia or even something a bit bi-polar), any love relationship beyond that of her immediate family was not to be.

Throughout his movie, Davies intersperses Dickinson's poetry, as appropriate to the theme of the moment. This should send both newcomers and lovers of her work back to the source. The cinematography, too (by Florian Hoffmeister), as per usual for a Davies film, is first-rate.

But family -- ah, what that appears to have meant to Emily! The movie captures this as well as any film I've seen, yet without the usual attached sentimentality (think Little Women in any of its incarnations). There is a stringency here that befits Dickinson so very well, and there is marvelous good humor, too. There is also a coming-to-terms with sickness and death that's appropriate to a tale like this and characters such as these.

I would say that A Quiet Passion is a masterpiece of biographical film-making. But that is too puny. Let's just call it a masterpiece, period. From Music Box Films and running two hours and five minutes, the movie opens this Friday, April 14, in New York City (at the newly re-opened Quad Cinema and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema) and at three venues in Emily's home state of Massachusetts. On April 21 the film hits Ann Arbor and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal), and from there it will soon open across the entire country. Here in South Florida, it opens on May 12 at the AMC Sunset Place, South Miami; the Living Room Theaters, Boca Raton; and the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and venues.click here, then scroll down and click on THEATERS. 

One of the world's smartest, most talented provocateurs is back: Jafar Panahi's TAXI

In his home country of Iran, filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who has given us some of the best Iranian movies -- hell, best from anywhere movies -- has, for some time now, been banned from making them by his country's powers-that-be. Still, he soldiers on. His latest provocation, and perhaps his most charming/scathing/endearing endeavor is called TAXI, and in it, Mr. Panahi plays (or maybe is) a taxi driver in downtown Tehran.

Panahi (shown at left with what looks like maybe his Golden Bear award from this year's Berlin International Film Fest, where he also won the FIPRESCI Prize) usually uses a documentary style, and his films often look like they are indeed documentaries (especially his last one, This Is Not a Film). Hardly. They are planned and plotted as tightly as the best of mysteries, making use of everything from irony to subtlety to quiet drama and on-the-fly humor. Yet they appear to be near improvisation, spinning outward into greater meaning and importance as they cleverly unfurl.

The movie begins with a panorama of Tehran traffic. Hey, we're just driving around; what's wrong with that? We'll soon see, as Panafi's new movie adds another link to the chain of work from this talented, put-upon man. (Under house arrest for some time, he is still banned from filmmaking.) Slowly, the soundtrack offers some music (the first notes of which may put you in mind of I Love Paris) and then dialog begins, as the taxi driver picks up passengers, one of whom is a blowhard whose dialog about the need for capital punishment for thieves causes the other passenger, a woman, to argue heatedly against this idea.

By the time the man has left the taxi, the first of many ironies to come has made itself plain -- and surprising, even funny.When at last we are allowed to see Panafi -- who's driving that cab, the effect is terrific. What a face this guy has! He might have become an actor (well, he is one, here), his visage is such an effective tool. In fact, this movie ought to have rightly been called Taxi Driver -- had that title not already been commandeered.)

Panafi's next fare recognizes him -- it's an black-market video dealer (above, left) from some time back, who used to provide the filmmaker with banned movies he craved to see. The guy is still up to those same old tricks, and we learn something of Panafi's taste in film (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and Midnight in Paris). A wounded man and his wife must suddenly take over the cab -- and Panafi's cell phone -- for a video of the guy's last will and testament. Later two middle-aged ladies carrying fish in a glass bowl (below) plead for and receive a ride -- until the needs of the filmmaker's own niece (in the penultimate photo) supersede.

These little vignettes and those that follow -- all staged brilliantly to effect a reality that stings -- take in everything from politics to economics, crime, culture, tradition, belief, age, maturity, "rules" for movie-making, law (in the form of a lovely lawyer, below), prison, torture, voice recognition, and so much more. Further, these incidents seem to mirror each other in ironic ways, and while the movie looks like simplicity itself, its content is anything but.

Taxi is Panafi's most charming, plaintive, complex and inventive work to date. This man ought to be considered a national treasure rather than some kind of criminal. But there you go. How he has been getting away with these provocative little gems of cinema -- in Iran, yet! -- without losing his license, if not his life, is troubling to consider. (You fear for, not just the well-being of the filmmaker, but also for any of the actors/people he uses in his films.) This is "heroic" cinema of the highest order, every bit as entertaining and well-crafted as it is righteous.

Panahi's finale proves a mitzvah filmed with rare sweetness and subtlety -- which is then immediately leavened with an ironic touch of exactly the opposite. If Taxi isn't a cinematic masterpiece (and that's a word I almost never use), I sure wouldn't know what is.

The film -- from Kino Lorber, in Farsi with English subtitles and running just 81 minutes -- opened yesterday, October 2, in New York City at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and will grace Los Angeles next Friday, October 9, at various Laemmle theaters. In the weeks to come, TAXI will have opened in 25 cities across the USA.  Click here and scroll way down to see all currently scheduled playdates. 

At FIAF's CinéSalon, a month of the films of the late Alain Resnais: Time, Memory, Imagination

In the spirit of French ciné-clubs and literary salons, FIAF’s CinéSalon program -- pairing an engaging film with a post-screening wine reception, with each evening screening thoughtfully introduced by a high-profile personality in the arts -- will begin a new series on September 30 (continuing throughout all of October) that honors the late, great filmmaker Alain Resnais (shown, right, at work toward the end of his career, and below in former times). M. Resnais, who died earlier this year just short of his 92nd birthday, while a seminal figure of the French New Wave, was not, like so many of his contemporaries, an alumnus of the film journal Cahiers du Cinema. In the words of the CinéSalon literature, Resnais "existed closer to Left Bank intellectualism, well outside of the sphere of filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and Jacques Rivette, with a dedication to formalism, modernist concerns, and social and political issues not found in the work of his fellow innovators. Focusing repeatedly on themes of time and memory, Resnais drew from the well of serious literature to offer a singular philosophical and artistic vantage point, employing enigmatic narrative structures, lush cinematography, and lyrical editing patterns to create some of the most provocative and controversial work of the period."

TrustMovies has now seen just about every film -- save most of the early documentaries -- that this fellow made, and has looked forward to each new one with great anticipation. Resnais never made an uninteresting movie; even his least successful -- try 1989's I Want to Go Home, written by Jules Feiffer! -- were crazy, fascinating fun. With the new restoration of his second masterpiece, Hiroshima Mon Amour (Night and Fog was his first), together with his newest (and last) work, Life of Riley,(Aimer, boire et chanter) both about to make their U.S. debut during the current New York Film Festival, this proves a most opportune time for a mini-Resnais retrospective.

Even more important, to celebrate Resnais, the five films to be shown at FIAF's Florence Gould Hall could not have been better chosen to give a sense of the breadth and depth of this man's work. Below is a listing of the films -- with FIAF's comments on the films followed by short paragraph with TrustMovie's take on each --  together with the date and times of their screenings. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to discover, or more probably view again, five true masterworks.


Alain Resnais: 
Time, Memory & Imagination

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Je t’aime je t’aime 

Tuesday, September 30 at 4 & 7:30pm 

35mm 1968. Color. 94 min. With Claude Rich, Anouk Ferjac, Olga Georges-Picot, Alain MacMoy. In French with English subtitles. 

Claude Ridder has nothing left to lose when two strangers recruit him to be the first human participant in their time travel experiment. Sent back one year Claude revisits a past love. But reality becomes opaque as his vague memories mesh with his current experiences in Resnais’ ahead-of-its-time drama. “One of Mr. Resnais’s lesser-known masterworks”—The New York Times

TrustMovies had not seen this relatively early Resnais until now, and what a "find" it is. What fun it is, too, seeing actor Claude Rich (above and below) again as a young man. Here, M. Resnais, always the playful guy, had quite a novel idea about time travel: Going back to the past is simply a matter of accessing memory! The time travel involves the workplace and vacations, loneliness and solitude, even suicide, murder and -- yes -- mice! Mostly, though, it's about guilt, and that utterly messy situation we call love. A film that was way ahead of its time, Je t'aime, je t'aime will still keep you alert and jumping as you watch it today.
A free wine reception following each screening.

The 7:30pm screening will be introduced by director Radley Metzger.
About Radley Metzger: Writer, Producer, Director Radley Metzger was most recently the subject of a retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which included his cult classics Score, Camille 2000, The Image, and many others. Metzger also received a retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image. He has lectured at the Museum of Modern Art, and at Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

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Mon oncle d’Amérique 
Tuesday, October 7 at 4 & 7:30pm 
35mm 1980. Color and B&W. 125 min. With Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, Roger Pierre, Nelly Borgeaud. In French with English subtitles.

Professor Henri Laborit uses the stories of three people—René, a manager at a textile factory; Janine, an actress; Jean, a writer and politician—to explore issues such as survival, combat, punishment, and anxiety in this didactic comedy that earned Resnais the Grand Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. “An exhilarating fiction!”—The New York Times

One of my favorite of all the Resnais films, I've seen this several times over the decades. It's so full of ideas and humor and surprise that everything seems to tumble over itself into strangeness and delight. A good cast help things, too, and yes, there are mice once again. Not to be missed if you haven't seen it; and if it's been awhile, you'll probably want to give the film another viewing,

Free wine reception following each screening.
7:30pm screening will be introduced by neuroscientist Leah Kelly.
About Leah Kelly: New York-based neuroscientist Leah Kelly is currently at Rockefeller University where she uses electrophysiology and optogenetics to map the neural circuitry underlying appetite. She has consulted and spoken on various projects at the intersection of art and science for organizations including the Palais de Tokyo and Villa Gillet, and is currently making a short film about synesthesia.

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Wild Grass 

(Les Herbes Folles)

Tuesday, October 14 at 4 & 7:30pm 

35mm 2009. Color. 104 min. With André Dussolier, Sabine Azéma, Emmanuelle Devos, Anne Consigny. In French with English subtitles. 

Wild Grass tells the story of Georges, a middle-aged married man with a fixation on the attractive, mysterious Marguerite. Adapted from the novel by Christian Gailly. “An extravagant, self-deconstructing, hugely entertaining story of unrequited love.”—The Independent 

My favorite of Resnais' recent work, this adorable, bizarre, challenging film is chock-a-block with ideas and imagination, and is especially gorgeous visually. My original review of the film can be found here, and if you managed to miss its theatrical run or the fine Blu-ray disc, then by all means get to FIAF for a look-see.

Free wine reception following each screening.
The 7:30pm screening will be introduced by Lucius Barre, a colleague of Alain Resnais.
About Lucius Barre: An expert on strategic planning and management of promotional campaigns for new films, filmmakers and companies, Lucius Barre has worked with renowned filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar, Errol Morris, and Luc and Jean Pierre Dardenne. He worked closely with Alain Resnais for the Cannes premiere and US release of Wild Grass.

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Muriel (Muriel ou le temps d’un retour)
Tuesday, October 21 at 4 & 7:30pm 
35mm 1963. Color. 117 min. With Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein. In French with English subtitles. 
Historical trauma is synonymous with personal intrigue in the coastal town of Boulogne when Hélène is visited by a past lover, Alphonse, and her stepson Bernard is haunted by the memory of a girl named Muriel, whom he encountered while doing military service in Algeria. “Subtle, precise, and wrench-ing”—Chicago Reader

When I first saw Muriel at the time of its initial U.S. release, I found it slow and confusing. I was far too young and untutored and thoughtless, really, to deal with a movie this good. When I saw it again, 30 years later, I was overcome. What a film! It may be the filmmaker's best. Dealing with memory and history, and featuring a landmark performance by one of the great actresses of our time, Delphine Seyrig, the film is a keeper in, oh, so many ways.

Free wine reception following each screening.
The 7:30pm guest speaker remains to be announced.

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Providence 

Tuesday, October 28 at 4 & 7:30pm 

DCP 1977. Color. 99 min. With Dirk Bogarde, Ellen Burstyn, John Gielgud, David Warner and Elaine Strich. In English. 

On the eve of his 78th birthday, Clive Langham conceives his last novel as he reminisces about past experiences with members of his family. But is Clive more accurately depicting others or himself? “Splendid and elliptical”—The New York Times Winner of 8 César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay

Providence is another of Resnais' movies that I have not seen since it first opened in the USA. (I have been told that the quality of the video reproductions were simply not good enough for this beautifully shot and produced movie, so I am eager to view the new DCP version that FIAF will screen.) What I recall best about this film are its superb performances from the spectacular cast (listed above) and how it so masterfully weaves present and past. I am most eager to see and savor this film once again.

Free wine reception following each screening.
The 7:30pm screening will be introduced by author, Olivier Barrot.
About Olivier Barrot: A prominent figure in French culture, Olivier Barrot is a journalist, author and television personality. He hosts the daily literary program “Un livre un jour” on France 3 and TV5. His most recent books are Ciné Club (2010), Tout feu tout flamme, La Revue Blanche, and Le Fils Perdu (all in 2012). For the past six years, he has hosted French Literature in the Making at New York University.

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Related Events 

Hiroshima Mon Amour
Friday, October 10, 6pm, Walter Reade Theater 
(165 West 65th Street, north side, upper level) 
DCP Alain Resnais, 1959. Black & White. 92 min. With Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada. In French, Japanese, and English with English subtitles.  

From the FIAF Press release: This modernist masterwork began as a documentary commission from Daiei Studios, secured for Alain Resnais by producer Anatole Dauman. Resnais decided that the bombing of Hiroshima and its impact needed fiction, brought Marguerite Duras onto the project, and worked with her to create a story—of a French film actress (Amour Oscar-nominated Emmanuelle Riva) who goes to Hiroshima to make a film and has an affair with a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada)—that would exist “in two tenses… the present and the past coexist.”

Few films have had such a lasting, wide-ranging impact. Hiroshima, mon amour is a devastating experience on every level: visually, sonically, emotionally, intellectually. Thanks to a new 4K restoration, it can now be seen and heard, once again, in its full glory. Restoration by Argos Films, Fondation Groupama Gan, Fondation Technicolor, and Cineteca Bologna, with support from the CNC. A Rialto Pictures release.

US PREMIERE The Life of Riley
(Aimer, boire et chanter)
Friday, October 10, 9pm, Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, north side, upper level) Saturday, October 11, 2pm, Francesca Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street, south side) DCP Alain Resnais, 2014. Color. 108 min. With André Dussolier, Sabine Azéma, Michel Vuillermoz, Hippolyte Girardot, Sandrine Kiberlain, Caroline Silhol In French with English subtitles. 

I'll havesomething to say about this film during the week of its theatrical opening. Meanwhile, here's the FIAF "take" on it: Adapted from Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking, Life of Riley, the final work by Alain Resnais, is the story of three couples in the English countryside who learn that their close mutual friend is terminally ill. Yet that story is only half the movie, a giddily unsettling meditation on mortality and the strange sensation of simply being alive and going on, feeling by feeling, action by action.

The swift, fleeting encounters between various combinations of characters (played by Resnais regulars André Dussollier and Sabine Azéma—the director’s wife—along with Michel Vuillermoz, Hippolyte Girardot, Sandrine Kiberlain, and Caroline Silhol) take place on extremely stylized sets, and they are punctuated with close-ups set against comic-strip grids, and broken up by images of the real English countryside. Funny but haunting, Life of Riley is a moving, graceful, and surprisingly affirmative farewell to life from a truly great artist. A Kino Lorber release.

Both films are presented as part of the 52nd New York Film Festival.
For more information, visit filmlinc.org.

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En coulisses Cinema Workshops 5:45–7:15pm
To complement the series, FIAF’s Language Center is pleased to offer En coulisses, a series of film appreciation workshops before each 7:30pm screening. After the workshop, students view the film and enjoy a post-screening get-together with a glass of wine. For more information visit: www.fiaf.org/frenchclasses/frenchworkshops-film.shtml

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About FIAF
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is New York’s premiere French cultural and language center. FIAF's mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression. www.fiaf.org Merci! Special thanks to Anne-Catherine Louvet (Institut français), Mathieu Fournet (Cultural Services of the French Embassy), Michael Piaker and Michael Di Certo (Sony Pictures Classics), Laura Coxson (Janus Films), and Jake Perlin (The Film Desk). CinéSalon is made possible by the Institut français, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy & the NY State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo & the NY State Legislature. CinéSalon is sponsored by Air France and Delta Air Lines, BNP Paribas, Nespresso, and Sofitel. Wine courtesy of Xavier Wine Company, the exclusive CinéSalon wine sponsor. FIAF Fall 2014 Season Sponsors: Air France and Delta Air Lines, the official airlines of FIAF; Cultural Services of the French Embassy; Florence Gould Foundation; Institut français; National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works; New York State Council on the Arts; NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; French-American Fund for Contemporary Theater, a program of FACE; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; and Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.

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JUST THE FACTS, PLEASE
What: CinéSalon: Alain Resnais: Time, Memory & Imagination
When: Times and titles detailed above. Where: FIAF – Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (between Park & Madison Avenues)
Admission: $13; $7 students; Free for FIAF Members Tickets: 800 982 2787
fiaf.org Information: 212 355 6160
fiaf.org Transportation: 4, 5, 6, N, R and Q to 59th Street & Lexington Avenue F to 63rd Street & Lexington Avenue; E to 53rd Street & 5th Avenue Bus - M1, M2, M3, M4, Q32 to 59th Street; M5 to 58th Street

DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming debut: Don't miss Giuseppe Tornatore's masterpiece BAARÌA

Single-handedly making streaming a necessity (unless you've got a Blu-ray player: in which case, order the movie that way), the recent addition of BAARÌA to DVD/Blu-ray/streaming capability is something for which great gratitude is called. The latest from Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, The Unknown Woman and other fine films), this modern masterpiece -- and I do not use that word lightly -- takes us to the writer/director's home town of Bagheria (for which, I am guessing, Baarìa is a kind of nickname) over a period that spans more than three generations.

Tornatore, shown at right, takes a major risk with this film by making it move so fast via very short scenes that often fly by and seem to last only long enough to provide content without any accompanying depth. This proves not true, however; that depth arrives as the movie grows and builds, and we become hugely involved with the three generations of the Sicilian family whose story is told here. Even the subsidiary characters take on surprising weight, and the movie's real themes -- class, Italian culture and mores, the uses of politics and the importance of family -- come quickly to the fore and stay there, accumulating both power and force.

The photography (Enrico Lucidi) is ravishing, the town and sets and accouterments are often eye-popping, and the lead performances from mostly unknowns (on this side of the Atlantic, at least) are stellar and on-point.

The movie begins in the time of Mussolini (above) and continues through to nearly present-day (below).

Tornatore uses a small child on an errand to begin his film, with a scene of running through the town faster and faster -- and then, in a feat of breathtaking beauty and surprise, lifts us-- and the film -- into the heavens and to an overview of life that it grasps and holds onto throughout.

Toward the end the filmmaker manages to combine present and past into a single unity that seems both bold and heart-breaking. He uses ancient customs -- broken eggs -- to herald events and even gives us a sweet look at how early Sicilian home cooling systems worked (at left). Tornatore uses place and character so keenly and poignant-ly that brief moments shown early come back to haunt us with surprisingly effectiveness.

We see and hear much about Italian political parties -- Communists, Socialists, Christian Democrats, reformists and more -- with the icing on the cake provided by one family, the father of which explains its voting process, guaranteed to render all votes useless.

This is the second time I've seen Baarìa; the first was two years ago when the film made its USA debut as part of the FSLC's Open Roads series. (Sadly, it never received a theatrical release here in the USA.) I found watching it again as riveting as the first time, with the overall mark it made as strong as ever, even though many specific scenes seemed new. I suspect the film will become one of those I will watch again every few years, experiencing its joy and pain anew. You should see it at least once.

Baarìa, at a speedy and gorgeous two-and-one-half hour length, is available now for sale, rental or streaming via Amazon, or for rental and streaming at Netflix, and for rental at Blockbuster.  I imagine you can find it elsewhere, too, but these three sources should give you a good start....

The photo above are from the film itself, 

except for that of Signore Tornatore, 

which comes courtesy of Exposay.com