STREAMING CINEMA
Must Film Have Communal Viewing?
NY Film Fest this year is part streaming, part drive-in
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Way back on March
8, Leigh Whannell’s
“The Invisible Man”
was the last fi lm I
watched in a theater. Knowing how
the following months would pass,
its conceit of an invisible villain
stalking a woman who can’t rely
on authority fi gures for protection
proved resonant in ways even the
enthusiastic reviews it received in
the spring couldn’t predict. Over
the past six months, horror fi lms’
vision has generally rung truer to
me than the world views of our
politicians or media.
Most of the fi lms that hit home
in 2020 had some connection to
the circumstances under which
we have to watch them now. For
instance, Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m
Thinking of Ending Things” devotes
half of its time to a couple
arguing while trapped in a car
driving through a snowstorm. In
10 years, this image will mean
something different, but who can
achieve some objective distance
from our altered sense of time and
atomized communities? Movie theaters
have re-opened in 70 percent
of the US, but not New York State.
Just before I began writing this
article, Film Forum joined with 16
other independent theaters in the
state to urge Governor Andrew
Cuomo to allow them to return to
business, arguing that their ability
to stay afl oat is on the line. But
where theaters were open even the
promise of Christopher Nolan’s
“Tenet,” touted as the fi rst post-
COVID blockbuster release, didn’t
seem to get audiences willing to
risk catching the virus for two and
a half hours of entertainment.
So what does it mean to mount
a fi lm festival under these grim
circumstances? If you’ve attended
enough arthouse screenings with
audiences that can be counted on
both hands and then come home to
see online discussion of the latest
Netfl ix hit, the idea that a meaningful
communal experience can
only be had in a theatrical space
has taken some blows.
Armando Espitia and Christian Vazquez in Heidi Ewing’s “I Carry You With Me.”
The 58th New York Film Festival
has turned to drive-ins as a supplement
to streaming. Oscar bait
is mostly missing from this year’s
programming. (For instance, they
passed on “Good Joe Bell,” in which
Mark Wahlberg acts up a storm as
the father of a gay teen who committed
suicide.) Film at Lincoln
Center and MoMA canceled their
New Directors/ New Films festival,
which was supposed to take place
last March. But in the absence of
name directors, the New York Film
Festival has made room for fi lms
that might play ND/ NF in an ordinary
situation, like Dea Kulumbegashvili’s
“Beginning” and Yulene
Olaizola’s “Tragic Jungle.”
NYFF also made a policy of opening
the Main Slate up to documentaries
rather than restricting them
to their own sidebar. Away from titles
likely to get mainstream press,
Simon Liu and Jennie MaryTai
Liu’s “-force-” is an outstanding
Hong Kong cyberpunk dystopia
short with blown-out colors and
a queasy vaporwave soundtrack,
playing on the “Free Radicals” program
in the “Currents” sidebar.
The programming this year refl
ects the world around it, where
Black Lives Matter protests have
been raging for the past few
months. (John Waters’ poster for
the festival alludes irreverently
to debates about diversity in fi lm
culture. He is also presenting a
SONY CLASSICS
drive-in double bill of Gaspar Noé’s
“Climax” and the gay director Pier
Paolo Pasolini’s infamous 1975
“Salò.” Take the whole family!) The
fi rst Black director to make a Best
Picture Oscar winner, Steve Mc-
Queen landed three-fi fths of “Small
Axe,” his BBC/ Amazon anthology
series about Britain’s Afro-Caribbean
community — “Lovers Rock,”
“Mangrove,” and “Red, White and
Blue” — in the festival.
The documentary selection includes
“MLK/ FBI,” which explores
the bureau’s harassment of the
now-sanitized civil rights leader,
“The Inheritance,” a hybrid fi lm
based on Philadelphia’s radical
Black MOVE collective, “Her Socialist
Smile,” which resurrects
Helen Keller as a leftist hero, and
“The Monopoly of Violence,” an
anarchist critique of the French
state’s authoritarianism.
Films by LGBTQ directors include
Tsai Ming-liang’s “Days,”
Matías Piñeiro’s “Isabella,” and
Pedro Almodóvar’s short “The Human
Voice.” Will the festival’s online
orientation this year make these
fi lms more accessible to audiences
who are more marginalized than
the well-to-do crowds who have
usually turned up for the festival’s
expensive in-person screenings?
The festival opened on September
17 with McQueen’s “Lovers
Rock.” Until now, his features
have all incorporated a large dose
of suffering. His work is fi lled with
a Catholic sensibility suggesting
that our bodies have to experience
pain, maybe even torture, for spiritual
progress. Set around 1980,
“Lovers Rock” goes in a new direction,
using the made-for-TV format
to work as a miniature and exuding
a warm, celebratory spirit.
Set over the course of 24 hours
and mostly taking place at an allnight
reggae dance party for the
Afro-Caribbean community in
a private house in London, it’s a
much more upbeat counterpart to
Olivier Assayas’ “Cold Water.” Although
told through medium shots
and close-ups, its cinematography
and direction are sensual and immersive.
A tension between an individual’s
story and a style more
concerned with collective experience
runs through it.
“Lovers Rock” follows Martha
(Amarah Jae St. Aubyn) through
the party as she rebuffs obnoxious
men and meets a potential lover
(Micheal Ward.) But its centerpiece
abandons narrative entirely
to show women dancing to Janet
Kay’s “Silly Games” for several
minutes and singing it acapella
after the DJ takes the record off.
Later on, the fi lm includes an allmale
variation on that scene, as
the room almost becomes a mosh
pit while dancing to the Revolutionaries’
harsh dub instrumental
“Kunta Kinte.”
British critic Ella Kemp responded
to it by simply writing “I
miss parties.” “Lovers Rock” fi nally
suggests a transcendence from the
pain depicted in McQueen’s earlier
fi lms, without dismissing the facts
of racism and violence.
“Lovers Rock” plays at the Bronx
Drive-In on September 23 at 8 p.m.
and will become available again for
streaming from the evenings of
October 3-5. McQueen’s entire series
streams on Amazon Prime in
October, as well.
The name of Garrett Bradley’s
documentary “Time” signposts its
➤ NYFF, continued on p.15
September 24 - October 7,14 2020 | GayCityNews.com
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