The Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look Festival is a welcome post-Oscars tonic, a chance to bask in original films, many accessibly avante garde. I only caught a sliver of the 40-something films, but from the selection I saw I noticed a similar undercurrent similar running through them: each work was collage-like, holding a tactile melange of textures.
For example, in SOLARIS MON AMOUR (dir. Kuba Mikurda), black and white footage from Polish educational films are layered with voice over of a radio broadcast of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris. The footage is quite expressive and beautifully shot film (less like public tv docs and more like, well moody Eastern European cinema) rife with archaic devices and obsolete science equipment, which alternates with images of space. It’s mournful and mesmeric, taking inspiration two seminal works (the other being the Renais film Hiroshima Mon Amour) built around the themes of memory and trauma.
Sara Summa’s ARTHUR & DIANA combines 16mm and miniDV footage to create something like vintage-by-way-of-2000s that is refreshing, rather than cliched. Diana, her brother Arthur, and her toddler son (played by Summa and her real life family) embark across Europe in a compact Mercedes van, starting in Berlin, and setting out for France. They hit all sorts of parties, campouts, along the way, mainly just hanging out. The charms of this road movie are as undeniable as its particulars, like time and place, are muddled. Summa divorces these casual bohemians from the present day by having them camp for shelter and texting on old cell phones, making it hard to discern the year and the pecking order of these siblings. Their emotions are subtly charged, but the nimble movie never gets bogged down in them.
The pleasures of Arthur and Diane are a slow-drip, while those of EVENING SONG (THREE VOICES) are more like a quick injection. An ethereal, lushly layered melodrama banded with gothic flair presents itself immediately as visual dazzlement. It concerns an urbane writer couple—one esteemed, one not—who become unexpectedly and amorously entwined with their new maid, drawn to her meek and alluring inexperience. Set in the Midwest in 1939, it is a simple story done up with cinema magic, full of superimpositions and dissolves, and the frames severely vignetted. Filmmaker Graham Swon and cinematographer Barton Cartwright used a clever combination of digital camera and large format photography camera to create this waxing gibbous of a frame that evokes a deep secrecy that parallels its characters. The three of them are never not talking either to each other, or narrating some of their cloistered contemplations, and its this literary opining that moves the plot forward. Each of their voices smoothly pick up where the other left to create one unified, mellifluous bedtime story—while still remaining discrete. The cast of this very NYC-indie film is stellar as expected: Hannah Gross, Peter Vack, and Deragh Campbell, who is, as ever naturally even and curious.
THE FEATHERWEIGHT is a small but impactful film of fleet ingenuity, not unlike its title. This debut feature by Robert Kolodny’s (cinematographer of Procession) is a sports biography, done up like the Maysles Brothers. Taking as its subject the real life Connecticut boxer William Pep (James Madio) one of the greatest, though virtually unknown, featherweight boxers of all time, the faux-documentary aspect is so meticulously crafted and unfathomably real that I thought I was watching an actual piece of cinema history—until Ron Livingston slid into the frame, splintering the verité veneer, and cluing us onto Kolodny’s genius. The boxer’s scrappy tenacity and nostalgia for his winningest past suffuses and and matches the film’s entire look and full. Beyond that it’s also proves a compelling story of a rough-around-the-edges underdog.
TENDABERRY is another assured debut and quiet marvel that shifts in and out of different registers. It’s the story of a twenty-something Dakota (Kota Johan) navigating her young adult life in South Brooklyn as she falls in love, contends with apartment troubles, works at the dollar store, and busks on the subway. Filmmaker Haley Elizabeth Anderson reinforces the film with poetic narration footage from the video diaries Nelson Sullivan, who captured the city in the 80s. As we get a mini-lesson on Coney Island’s changing landscape over time, we also see Dakota change through the seasons, contending with hardship, friendship, loss, and more. Even with its woozy atmosphere and glint of sunlight, the film skillfully resists nostalgia and imprints Dakota onto the history of the changing city.
Where to eat near Museum of the Moving Image
Ruta Oaxaca
Ceviche, cochinta pibil tacos, and mole, mole, mole!
Sarajevo Grill
Ground beef molded into varying shapes is the star at this Bosnian standby. A cevapi platter comes with ten little links, nude, no casing. There’s no way to eloquently describe sausage in a manner that tempts you towards hunger, so I won’t try. Suffice it to say they are less sausages than they are ground beef kebabs. Scoop them into the pockets of somun (a fluffier, yeastier pita) supplied with squares of chopped onions, and spread them with avjar, the smoky red pepper sauce that I want on everything. Do not be dismayed by what might feel like the desolation of the silent dining room.
Cerasella
I’ve written about this micro italian-bakery before, which is a little Sicilian oasis underneath the train tracks. The prices have climbed, but maybe if i can get enough people to go we can change that by overwhelming their demand. A square slice of ricotta e pera is the move. A crunchy almond cake layered with ricotta and bits of pear has the most elegant pebbled texture. I also like the cannolis, whatever hazelnut concoction is on offer, and flourless chocolate cake.
They put everything to go on a little gold tray and wrap it in red paper. The simple Italian sandwiches on foccaccia are good, too. Whatever you do, don’t get a chocolate chip cookie. (But you wouldn't have done that, right?)
Sami’s Kebab House
I’ve only ever managed to come during Ramadan, which it coincidentally is now, when the staff may be harried and the restaurant appropriately swamped. Though to make up for lagging in service they sent me home with dessert—firnee, cardamom and rosewater pudding. More than kebabs, I’m drawn to the stews here, and always the Uzbek style pulao (rice and lamb, slivered carrots, raisins. Divine). And get dumplings.
Djerdan Burkek
For a neutral, carby snack, I still frequent this burek shop even if it may be hit or miss now that they’ve expanded heavily into frozen goods. I like the traditional pies, with easily peelable layers of dough, better than the spiraled ones. The mantija, are a Balkan pigs-in-a-blanket that are perfect next party.( Just make sure you have a hot sauce, which is not supplied here.) If you come early you might see the owners in their sweats and sleeping caps having their coffee in the backroom.
Caravan Chicken
This Chinese-Peruvian spot may or may not be related to the one in Flushing that also sells juicy rotisserie meats, fried rice, lomo saltado, and other Peruvian classics. If you like chicken, get chicken, if you prefer ribs, get ribs. They’re shellacked with a desirable layer of carmelization. Take everything for a plunge in the green sauce, which here is more piquant and peppered than at Peking BBQ—the dining room is more hospitable, too. Fried rice achieves what is always wanted to— the risotto-esque texture of one for all and all for oneness.