“Chevalier” (2015), directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, Film Society of Lincoln Center, IFC Center, opens May 27Fans of Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Attenberg” (2010) have been eagerly awaiting a follow up, and now one has finally arrived. The film, which premiered at Locarno International Film Festival and later screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival late last year, focuses on a group of middle-aged and older men who, while vacationing on a yacht, find themselves creating and participating in a series of competitions among themselves that will determine who is “the best in general.” For Tsangari, like her friend and sometimes collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos (she produced his films “Dogtooth” and “Alps,” and he has an acting role in “Attenberg”), there is an anthropological distance to how she approaches film. There is little warmth, or any kind of emotional compassion. But there is more to “Chevalier” than men behaving badly. Tsangari has constructed a funny and at times brutal film about power, ego, and class — its strangeness is intriguing rather than off-putting.“Jia Zhangke, A Guy From Fenyang” (2015), directed by Walter Salles, Anthology Film Archives, opens May 27Accompanying a retrospective of his work at Anthology Film Archives, this portrait of the Chinese director Jia Zhangke is a vital background document, and largely devoid of the unnecessary plaudits typical of this kind of work. Directed by Walter Salles, the film follows Zhangke as he wanders the streets of his hometown, stopping to address principal locations from his films and discuss his work, upbringing, and working methods. The space we’re moving through in the film is just as important as the figure we’re following — in fact, the strongest element in the film is how the two are intertwined. “A Guy From Fenyang” is strangely, but thrillingly, intimate, and works nicely for viewers both unfamiliar and engrossed with the work of Jia Zhangke. (You can read my interview with Jia Zhangke about his previous film, “Mountains May Depart,” here.)“Kaili Blues” (2016), directed by Bi Gan, Metrograph, currently runningBi Gan’s debut feature, which I wrote about last week, is a mischievously complex dream-film that is constantly rearranging itself as it progresses. The film, I noted, “sleepwalks to the drifting rhythms of poetry instead of prose” (the director’s own poetry is included in the film), and concerns a former criminal who, now running a clinic in Kaili, goes on a search for his missing nephew, who may have been sold to a watchmaker by his half-brother. There are tangents, autobiographical elements, and moments of bravura filmmaking. There is nothing like this film at all right now, and that should be enough to go see it before it’s gone.“Love & Friendship” (2016), directed by Whit Stillman, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Angelika Film Center, currently runningI’ve always been a little torn about Whit Stillman. I’ve never had a strong reaction to one of his films while seeing it for the first time, and I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe it’s class bias, since many of his characters exist at least on the periphery of a world I always have, and probably always will, feel a distance from. Nevertheless, I’ve warmed up to some of his work after repeat viewings, especially “The Last Days of Disco,” and this is all to say, in a roundabout way, that I was pleasantly surprised by his latest, “Love & Friendship.” An adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Lady Susan,” but filtered through Stillman’s meticulously mannered and passive-aggressive dialogue, where every seeming pleasantry has a meaner undertone bubbling to the surface, Kate Beckinsale stars as Lady Susan Vernon, who has arrived to stay with distant family members, daughter-in-tow, with the hushed plan to find a husband. But rumors circulate widely about her past dalliances, and the plot spins out of control as Lady Susan tries to come out the other end with everything working in her favor. Despite being Stillman’s most overt period piece, “Love & Friendship” is also his most accessible and represents a welcome return.“Une visite au Louvre” (2004), directed by Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, Museum of Modern Art, May 26, 27A companion to their film “Cezanne” (1989), which will also screen at the same time, this film takes the words of the same artist, as written in Joachim Gasquet’s 1921 memoir, and uses them to form a critique about how we both create and look at images. This is the last chance to see this film, or any of the work in what ends up being the most essential film series of the year, at least New York. (For more information on the series, here’s a piece I wrote about Straub and Huillet for ARTINFO.)
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