➤ NYFF, from p.14
ambition. Just as narrative fi lms
released under COVID like “Tenet”
and “I’m Thinking of Ending
Things” question the linear nature
of time, Bradley does so in a far
more politicized way. It collapses
several different stories, all overlapping
but taking place in different
time frames. In the present, Sibil
Fox Richardson’s hopes that her
husband, imprisoned for 21 years
after committing a robbery, will
be granted release by a judge. But
Bradley edited new footage with
rough-looking mini-DV videos shot
over the much longer period where
she struggled to free him and raise
her family.
The entire fi lm is in black-andwhite.
The common notion that
incarceration of Black men is a
modern-day form of slavery gets
brought up several times, putting
the Richardson family’s sorrows
in a much larger context. Even
the score, composed by Jamieson
Shaw and Edwin Montgomery,
makes a link to the past via Thelonious
Monk-infl uenced solo piano
passages.
Like Khalik Allah and RaMell
Ross, Bradley makes documentaries
that implicitly question the
ability of conventional fi lm form to
render Black life truthfully. (Her
2019 short “America” made such a
splash that it got a week-long run
at BAM, and MoMA is presenting
a retrospective of her work, which
includes multi-channel installations,
in November.)
The editing of “Time” is impressionistic
and subjective, instead
of telling Richardson’s story from
start to fi nish with no digressions.
By all measures, she made a success
out of her life, raising a son
who graduated high school at 16
and got accepted to a prestigious
college. “Time” asks what she —
and other Black women — could
have done without the immense
burden of American racism and its
enforcement via the carceral system.
“Time” streams Sept. 20 at 8
p.m. through Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. It
also plays the Brooklyn Drive-In
coinciding with its streaming premiere.
It will then become available
on Amazon Prime in October.
With “I Carry You With
Me,”director Heidi Ewing makes
Lee kang-sheng in Tsai Ming-liang’s “Days.”
her fi rst step into the world of narrative
features. (Its Spanish title
“Te Llevo Conmigo” also appears
onscreen.) This love story between
two Mexican men, Ivan and Gerardo,
contains a strong element of
non-fi ction, with actors playing the
main characters as children and
young men and years’ worth of real
footage of them in present-day New
York edited together.
I would love to say that Ewing’s
venture away from her comfort
zone — together with her fi lmmaking
partner Rachel Grady, she’s
been making acclaimed documentaries
since 2005 — paid off, but
“I Carry You With Me” is only really
successful when she works
with the real Ivan and Gerardo.
The script she wrote with Alan
Page Arriaga stuck closely to their
lives, but paradoxically, reality can
play as a series of clichés about
homophobia and xenophobia when
turned into fi ction. (For instance,
one can guess that Gerardo and
his transgender friend will eventually
get gay-bashed while walking
down the streets of their town long
before it actually happens.)
The constant use of Jay Wadley’s
ambient score feels manipulative,
even if the actual music is fairly
quiet. Ewing’s style relies on handheld
close-ups, with her camera
sticking to the actors. The fi lm
does bring a welcome warmth to
these immigrants’ stories, but until
it arrives in New York, its juggling
of time frames and actors is more
awkward than lyrical. Part of the
issue may be that Mexican movie
stars Armando Espitia and Christian
Vazquez, cast as the 20-something
GRASSHOPPER FILMS
Ivan and Gerardo, can’t help
bringing glamour to a story otherwise
striving for grit and realism.
The real Ivan and Gerardo are simply
better at performing their lives
for Ewing’s camera. But “I Carry
You With Me” does become a great
deal more ambiguous and lyrical
in its last half hour than one might
expect from its unpromising start.
“I Carry You With Me” plays at
the Queens Drive-In at 8 p.m. on
October 2 and streams on that day
from that time until midnight. It
will open in January 2021.
Taiwanese director Tsai Mingliang’s
fi lms have always offered
a gloomy — and often downright
bleak — view of humanity’s ability
to transcend our individual selves.
His latest fi lm, “Days,”is no different.
At fi rst, its two characters
act out disconnected lives in two
separate cities, coming from different
countries. The muse for Tsai’s
entire career, Lee kang-sheng
plays a variation of himself (suffering
from his real neck pain problem)
in Hong Kong. “Days” also
traces Laotian immigrant Anong
Houngheuangsy’s life in Bangkok.
Tsai’s version of slow cinema is
ill-suited to viewing on a laptop (although
seeing a fi lm this oblique
and austere at a drive-in sounds
like a joke from a John Waters
fi lm), with Houngheuangsy posed
at the back of the frame in long
shots.
But “Days” uses sound design
brilliantly to create variation in
long, Warholesque close-ups of its
two actors and to suggest a thriving
urban landscape beyond its
characters’ small worlds. When
they meet up, the fi lm fi nally develops
an emotional pull.
Even more so, “Days” becomes
one of Tsai’s most sexually charged
fi lms. (The director’s images of
Lee receiving a massage ending
with anal sex are as erotic as the
male gaze ever gets.) The kind of
isolated urban spaces depicted in
“Days” existed long before COVID,
but the desperation on Lee and
Houngheuangsy’s faces has a new
urgency now that the chances to
make connections outside online
spaces have dried up.
“Days” plays the Brooklyn Drivein
at 8 p.m. on September 25 and
streams at 8 p.m. from September
25-30. It will be released next
year.
58TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
| Through Oct. 11 | Streaming
at https://virtual.fi lmlinc.org/ ;
screening at Brooklyn Drive-In at
the Brooklyn Army Terminal, 80
58th St.at First Ave.; Bronx Drive-
In at the Bronx Zoo, 2300 Southern
Blvd. at E. 182nd St.; Queens Drive-
In at the New York Hall of Science,
47-01 111th St.
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