New York Film Festival62 Offers a Diverse, Global Cinema Snapshot

The 62nd New York Film Festival offers a diverse range of film styles and issues, a delightful world cinema snapshot. With entries from Singapore and Georgia, China and Japan, France and Palestine, South Korea and Portugal, any attempt to synthesize the myriad issues and themes is futile, albeit tempting, for all touch on weighty issues, even the more amusing ones.

Of the eleven films I saw during the preliminary Press and Industry screenings, writer/director/star Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” (which I first saw at Telluride) prompted the most laughter. In a dynamic pairing of Yin and Yang, Eisenberg’s David Kaplan and his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) travel to Poland to find their recently deceased grandmother’s original home. Amidst very funny banter and a clash of personalities, the two visit a Polish Jewish cemetery and a Holocaust camp, adding significant weight to this sugar-coated reminder of past tragedy and the importance of remembrance.

By contrast, several narratives maintain a solid, formidable dramatization of social issues. The most relevant, tragic, and heartbreaking is “No Other Land,” which documents the recurring destruction of Palestinian homes and schools in the occupied West Bank during the six years before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Palestinian activist Basel Adra, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, Israeli cinematographer Rachel Szor, and Palestinian photographer Hamdan Ballal jointly record the Israeli military’s brutal, forced expulsion in order to create tank training zones.  

An equally repressive scenario unfolds in Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” through a microcosm of intolerance and violent retaliation. Anchored in his Tehran family, Iman earns a promotion to investigative judge in the Revolutionary Guard Court, an advancement welcomed by wife Najmeh. Meantime, their teenage daughters Rezvan and Sana become involved, through a schoolmate, in violent protests challenging repressive head coverings. Bureaucratic and interpersonal intimidation, demands for unquestioning compliance, paranoia, and sadistic retaliation all materialize as the metaphor of the sacred fig tree that strangles its host suggests a chilling comparison.

Slightly more optimistic though also warning of intrusive, visual scrutiny, set in a near-future Tokyo high school, Neo Sora’s “Happyend” chronicles Kou and his school friends, on graduation eve, confronting retaliation for a silly prank. Taking advantage of an intolerant, hierarchical environment, the principal introduces AI surveillance that further enrages students. Tension builds, confrontations escalate, and each student must decide what values will guide significant decisions for their future advancement or failure.

Singaporean writer/director Yeo Siew Hua’s “Stranger Eyes” also heightens surveillance paranoia after young Little Bo disappears from a playground with her father nearby. In a plot that zig zags its way through disconnected events, Bo’s parents frantically pursue leads, complicated by DVDs pushed under apartment door on several occasions. The content depicts the couple’s most private and some public moments. A hunt for young Little Bo and the voyeuristic culprit leads to a supermarket supervisor, a Winter Park playground, and a suspect’s apartment, with stalking turned on its head. Somewhat disconnected with conclusions to incidents occasionally left hanging, nevertheless the unnerving voyeuristic design feels thoroughly real and haunting.

In contrast to the crowded Singapore world, Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Harvest” watches as an isolated community in an unnamed, old English village self-destructs. Based on Jim Crace’s 1913 novel, adversity comes in the form of natural and manmade disasters emanating from within the village as well as through outsiders, including a mapmaker and an aristocrat claiming the land, intent on transitioning from farming to sheepherding. Watching the men and women navigate charges of witchcraft, sorcery, scapegoating of strangers, intolerance, and murder reveals the essence of destructive society. Set in the distant past, the parallels to contemporary ills are not difficult to recognize.

Less grim, “Grand Tour” plays with contrasting convictions through civil servant Edward’s and his fiancée Molly’s travels or, more accurately, flight and pursuit. Set in 1918, the film’s first half follows Edward’s attempts to escape Molly after seven years of engagement. Fleeing Rangoon the day he is meant to reunite with her, Edward negotiates skirmishes from Burma and Saigon to Bangkok and Manila, a mere one step ahead of Molly. For the second half of the film, her determination to rendezvous with Edward drives her (and the plot) through another series of cultural, fanciful adventures. Interjected into the couple’s events, all presented in black and white, are shadow and three dimensional puppet performances in beautiful color. Edward remains a cipher, Molly benefits from more complex development in this intriguing, unusual tale.

In a somber story, the Georgian film “April” demands tolerance of graphic live birth footage in the opening shot and a less explicit, but still upsetting, abortion scene late in the narrative. Though admirable for its endorsement of women’s health care and safety, the film relies on long shots and long takes that become tiresome in a two and a quarter hour running time. Even longer, at three and half hours, “The Brutalist” requires surrender to its rollicking roller coaster ride through post-WWII Hungarian Jewish immigrant and architect László Tóth’s whiplash life. As Tóth, Adrien Brody gives a mind-boggling, magnificent performance as László’s life ricochets through repeated failure and success in equal measure as his arrogant inflexibility invites many of his self-made troubles. A complex coterie of men and women both complicate and champion his architectural talent. Shot in Vista Vision by cinematographer Lol Crawley, the film is visually sumptuous with striking, interpretive music by Daniel Blumberg. “The Brutalist” lingers in the mind for the many chances it takes and the powerful impact it makes.

More straightforward and entertaining, “Misericordia” watches as the adult Jérémie returns to his childhood, isolated mountain village of Saint-Martial for the funeral of his mentor, a baker of whom he was enamored. True to the cliché that you can’t go home again, Jérémie confronts resentment, curiosity, homophobia, and mild romantic acceptance by the man’s widow Martine. The local priest, the outraged baker’s son, and a prior friend all factor into the disappearance of one man and the involvement of the others. By turns amusing, mysterious, and surprising, “Misericordia” burrows into the lives of this small locale and some equally small-minded individuals. Finally, for now, more complete reviews will follow as each of these films is released. Kudos to the New York Film Festival for curating these diverse, stimulating films.