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New York Times
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
At New Directors/New Films, the Faces Tell the Story
In 'Familiar Touch,' Kathleen Chalfant plays a woman whose inner life alternately burns bright and suddenly dims. Her character, Ruth, has an inviting smile and natural physical grace, though at times she falters midstep. A former cook and a cookbook author now in her 80s, she lives alone in a pleasant modern home cluttered with shelves of books and just-so personal touches that convey the passage of time in a full, well-lived life. Ruth seems thoroughly at ease in her own skin when she first appears, bustling in her kitchen. She's preparing lunch for a visitor who, you soon learn, is the son she no longer recognizes. Written and directed by Sarah Friedland, 'Familiar Touch' is the opening-night selection Wednesday in the New Directors/New Films festival and a terrific leadoff for the annual event. Ruth's openly loving and hurting son soon hurries her to his car — she thinks that they're en route to a hotel — and into an assisted living facility. There, she settles into a new reality as she struggles with her memory, connects with other residents and finds support among the staff. In Chalfant's mesmerizing, eloquently expressive face, you see both Ruth's piercing loss and a soul safely settling into the eternal now as her past, present and future fade away. Chalfant's is just one of the memorable faces in the annual New Directors/New Films series, a collaboration of Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art that gathers movies from around the world. Established in 1972, the event was designed to draw attention to the kind of nonmainstream work that didn't always make it into commercial theaters. That's one reason that I always look forward to it; the other is that its programmers take film seriously. That's clear throughout the lineup, which could use more genre variety, yet, at its finest, offers you personal, thoughtful, imaginative, adult work of the kind that plays in art houses and on more adventurous streamers. These are movies made and chosen by people who love the art. That love is also evident in the great diversity of men, women and children in the program, a variety that underscores the centrality of the human face as the great cinematic landscape. This year, partly because of the dystopian chatter about A.I., I was struck anew by the deep, signifying power of smiles, frowns and sneers, and how watching movies usually means watching other people. No matter if their directors tug at your heart (as in the documentary 'Timestamp') or keep you at an intellectual distance (the drama 'Drowning Dry'), these movies present an astonishment of humanity. In selection after selection, old and young visages, some untroubled and others wrenched in pain, bring you face-to-face with the world. That world is rarely more anguished than it is in 'Timestamp.' Directed by Kateryna Gornostai, this Ukrainian heartbreaker offers a nonfiction portrait of the nation through its children. Violence is ever-present — in safety precautions, ruined buildings, worried adults — but mercifully there are no hospital scenes or screaming kids, just sorrow. In the northeast city of Kharkiv near the Russian border, cherubs attend a school in an underground subway station while in the central city of Cherkasy, high schoolers prepare for graduation, a rite of passage that becomes progressively melancholic. Not all these children will reach adulthood. We are so habituated to watching large, looming faces — thanks in part to TVs love of yammering bobbleheads and now smartphones — that their onscreen absence can be striking and even disorienting. That wasn't always the case: In early cinema, such close-ups didn't necessarily function the way we're accustomed to now. The historian Eileen Bowser, for instance, points out that the 1907 comedy 'Laughing Gas,' about a woman who goes to the dentist, opens with a close-up of her wincing with a bandage around her head and ends with another of her laughing and bandage free. The close-ups amplify the story, yet in contrast to the way filmmakers soon began to employ them, they're not part of the actual narrative. The faces that beguiled early-cinema audiences begot the old star system and its striking, primped and retouched glamour pusses. Independent film tends to foreground more ostensibly authentic faces, but even these need to signify. A pretty face can by turns seduce, distract or terrify, one reason that the lovely, fiercely eyebrowed actress Dolores Oliverio makes such a formidable central attraction in Laura Casabé's sly, delectably creepy Argentine freakout, 'The Virgin of the Quarry Lake.' Oliverio's brooding looks speak volumes as does the lightly rubbery visage of the gay dad in Fabian Stumm's German comedy 'Sad Jokes' and the vulnerably open one of a bullied Hungarian boy in Balint Szimler's 'Lesson Learned.' In Rohan Parashuram Kanawade's gentle, low-key charmer 'Cactus Pears,' a gay Indian man (a quietly sympathetic Bhushaan Manoj) travels back to his childhood home and reconnects with an old lover who's had a life our hero didn't have, made choices he didn't know he could make. You watch the protagonist watch others and, as you do, discover how he sees himself. You don't learn nearly as much, by contrast, about the characters who drift in and out of Alexandra Simpson's 'No Sleep Till,' an engrossing, teasingly fragmented portrait of different Floridians readying themselves (or not!) for a coming hurricane. As palm trees shudder against the ominous sky, these weather-watchers seem like emissaries from the apocalypse. The Lithuanian director Laurynas Bareisa doesn't explain much in his intriguing puzzler 'Drowning Dry.' Instead, he builds the story's tension steadily with unsettling surveillance-like shots (who's watching whom?) and by keeping you at a remove from the characters. Although he sprinkles in a few close-ups of faces early on, most offer just partial views or are almost too teasingly brief for you to get a bead on the different personalities. Deep in the story, though, amid unfolding tragedies, he cuts to a woman (Gelmine Glemzaite) while she's setting a table. She seems happily preoccupied with her task, yet as Bareisa holds on her face and she turns her profile to the camera, the pieces of this fractured story begin sliding more clearly into place and you see what happiness looks like before it disappears. There are notably few early close-ups of faces in the exuberant, formally assured 'Mad Bills to Pay (Or Destiny, dile que no soy malo),' a festival standout. Fast-paced and crackling with energy, it tracks the adventures of Rico (Juan Collado, wonderful), a 19-year-old Bronx charisma bomb trying to figure out life. So it's telling that he looks asleep in the first shot, a nice setup for his coming of age. Amid the loving, at times combative clamor of his home life, Rico tries to do the right thing (Spike Lee's influence is conspicuous), makes bad and funny choices, and wins your heart. It isn't until the end, when reality and adulthood hit, that the director Joel Alfonso Vargas — remember this New York kid's name — truly narrows in on Rico's soft, tender face and you see what it looks like when a child needs to become a man.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Timestamp' Review: Powerful Ukrainian Documentary Captures Both Pain and Resilience of Children During Wartime
When one pictures a war, it's mostly scenes of blood, guts and glory. But wars, including major ones like the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, don't usually happen throughout the whole land. There are established frontlines and battlefields, buffer zones and areas that have been temporarily evacuated. Meanwhile, the rest of the country tries to go on living: The elderly stay at home, adults head off to work and children keep going to school. The latter group are the focus of Kateryna Gornostai's powerful new documentary, Timestamp (Strichka Chasu), which chronicles how Ukraine's educational system functions in the midst of a full-scale invasion. Capturing scenes of school life on all levels, from kindergartners all the way to high-school seniors, the movie highlights the resilience of students who continue to press on as their country defends itself, and teachers trying to make the most of a catastrophic situation. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Holding Liat' Review: Emotional Darren Aronofsky-Produced Israeli Hostage Doc Doesn't Shy Away From a Complex Situation 'Kontinental '25' Review: Romanian Auteur Radu Jude Delivers Another Caustic Modern Morality Tale 'After This Death' Review: Mía Maestro and Lee Pace in a Dud Follow-Up to Lucio Castro's Transfixing 'End of the Century' Eschewing classic talking-head interviews or archive footage from news reports, Gornostai's approach recalls the work of Frederick Wiseman and other documentarians whose methods are much more about showing than telling. While onscreen titles detail the names of cities and their respective distances from the front, the rest of Timestamp simply immerses us in various settings, observing kids of different ages doing the things kids tend to do in school: study, play, learn, hang out and get bored. But nothing is normal in a country mobilized for battle, and Gornostai reveals the different ways Ukrainians have adapted since Russia invaded back in February 2022. Classes closer to battle lines are taught via Zoom, while those farther away can go on like before, though they often get interrupted by air raid sirens driving everyone underground. In one sequence, an art teacher has transformed a basement into a colorful studio for students learning to paint and draw. Elsewhere, an entire subway platform has become a makeshift schoolhouse, complete with blackboards, desks and learning material. Because the war has been going on so long, the children appear to be unfazed, though every so often we focus on a kid who's clearly been traumatized. In one unforgettable scene, a little girl heads into her school library for a reading session, only to break down when she sees a photo of her dead father alongside portraits of other fallen soldiers. And yet minutes later she's managed to pick out a book and get to work. Timestamp reveals many things during its captivating two hours, and one of them is that kids — even those who've been through hell — have short memories, which is what helps them to keep going. As for the teenagers, they're growing up in a war-torn country where they may be next in line for the draft. High schoolers are taught how to fire rifles or apply tourniquets to wounds — the film's title refers to a timestamp measuring how long human tissue has been deprived of blood — and many see a future in which they'll soon be fighting themselves. But they're also just trying to be regular teens, making TikTok videos with friends or practicing dance routines for a graduation ceremony that closes the movie. Gornostai and cameraman Oleksandr Roshchyn capture these moments in gracefully composed widescreen shots filled with youthful bodies, whether its preschoolers scurrying down to a bomb shelter or adolescents shooting hoops in a gym that's been partially destroyed. The orchestral and choral score by Alexey Shmurak adds an epic quality to the imagers, as if we were watching the birth of a new nation rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Indeed, there's an undoubtedly nationalistic aspect to Timestamp, fostered by scenes of students singing patriotic hymns or saluting the dead during moments of silence, as well as in the lessons teachers give them about Ukrainians bravely resisting Russian invaders. (One can only imagine what's being taught in schools on the opposing side.) Such patriotism, whether you like it or not, is another facet of a long and devastating conflict that has altered so many lives when it hasn't completely wrecked them. And yet Gornostai's absorbing portrait is ultimately one of promise: of the durability of children who keep persisting despite awful circumstances, and of a time when they'll no longer have to do so. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time Dinosaurs, Zombies and More 'Wicked': The Most Anticipated Movies of 2025 From 'A Complete Unknown' to 'Selena' to 'Ray': 33 Notable Music Biopics
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Timestamp' Review: Kateryna Gornostai's Extraordinary Doc Takes Us Inside The War On Ukraine And Its Children
There can't possibly be a more timely film in the Berlinale lineup this year than Kateryna Gornostai's Timestamp, an extraordinary deep-cover documentary about the effects of war in everyday Ukraine that, despite the harsh front-page relevance of its subject matter, has a beautiful old-fashioned formalism in its editing and composition. But like the wartime films of Humphrey Jennings — notably Fires Were Started and London Can Take It! — it is also a celebration of national character, depicting a generation that has only known conflict and yet, somehow, refuses to be defined by it. Walter Salles' Oscar nominee I'm Still Here dramatizes a similar story of resistance, but Timestamp is all the more remarkable for capturing the real thing, and in real time. Shot between March 2023 and June 2024 Gornostai's film takes us on a whirlwind tour of Ukraine, to towns and cities both near to and far from the front line. The number of destinations we visit is dizzying given the sheer size of Ukraine (and the blitz of very brief intertitles can be distracting), but it soon becomes clear that this is a very large country tied together in the most tragic way conceivable. In fact, the opening moments play out like an elegy for the whole nation: a school boarded up, with empty corridors and empty classrooms. What ought to be the safest, most sacrosanct place in any sane society has been trashed — and to what end? More from Deadline Berlinale Grappling With Fresh Israel-Palestine Controversy After Hong Kong Filmmaker Is Investigated By Police For Speech Exploring 'Other People's Money': Jan Schomburg Talks Tax Fraud Drama Series Ahead Of Berlin Film Festival World Premiere Berlin Film Festival 2025: All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews But the school is not entirely empty, and this is the world that Timestamp is about to take us into, a place where, astonishingly, life goes on. We never see the war, but we often hear it; very early on, a children's pageant is disrupted by an air-raid siren, and the youngest are taken down into a shelter. Gornostai's camera follows them in, and the scenes are unbelievable: teachers desperately leading singalongs to take everyone's minds off what might be happening outside, and the children merrily joining in. Only the terrified face of a crying little girl reflects the enormity of what this all represents. But this isn't even the half of it. Though it deals with the aftermath of airstrikes — 'This is our kitchen,' a woman tells us from the blackened wreckage of a civilian housing block — Timestamp is more concerned with the way war destroys innocence as surely as it tears apart bricks and mortar. We see teenagers handling firearms, being taught to use tourniquets (which gives the film its rather oblique title) and lectured on the hazards of 'bleeding out'. Smaller children, meanwhile, are taught what to pack in their overnight bags in case of evacuation — and, more frighteningly, to stay away from discarded toys that may have been boobytrapped with bombs and mines. Interestingly, though there is a great love of country here — Gornostai's camera lingers on a pair of blue and yellow socks, and during one of its many festive scenes shows a little boy in a Spider-Man outfit rubbing shoulders with little girls in national costume — there is more of a sense of national pride than ironclad patriotism. Teachers persistently warn their pupils against joining the military, and some have even written a passionately pacifist song that goes, 'I hate you, war… I don't want to shoot at people… I beg you, don't play war.' In fact, even a visiting soldiers paints a harrowing picture of life during wartime, days, weeks and months spent freezing, starving and loading up corpses for burial. In spite of all this, Gornostai paints a surprisingly optimistic portrait, building towards a prom party where a bunch of teenage girls finish up their funny little TikTok movie with an Abba soundtrack. By this time, we feel as welcome in their world as the director clearly does, and the footage she gets is as close as you could possibly find to a NatGeo study of human wildlife (Nicolas Philibert's intimate 2002 film Etre et Avoir must surely have been an influence here). It sometimes meanders, but then, that sometimes feels like it's part of the point: when things become too comfortable, too cozy, too normal, a siren sounds and reminds us where we are. Should the war in Ukraine seem too far away for your sympathy, Timestamp is a reminder — and a warning — that it can come to all of us. Title: TimestampFestival: Berlin (Competition)Director-screenwriter: Kateryna Gornostai Distributor: Best Friend ForeverRunning time: 2 hrs 5 mins Best of Deadline The 25 Highest-Grossing Animated Films Of All Time At The Box Office Everything We Know About '1923' Season 2: Release Date, Cast & More A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media
