An Ode to Kiarostami: Abbas Kiarostami Retrospective at IFC 7/26 - 8/15

In celebration of Abbas Kiarostami Retro at IFC Center starting this weekend, I present you something I wrote about the master a while ago. Please visit IFC website for schedule

   
   
        Abbas Kiarostami, an Iranian master filmmaker, painter, photographer, and poet, passed away from gastrointestinal cancer in Paris in 2016. As an avid fan of his humanistic, genre transcending films, I can say with a certain conviction that we've lost one of the greatest artists in the world of cinema.

        My introduction to Iranian cinema came when a good friend of mine introduced me to Mohsen Makhmalbaf's films (on bootlegged VHS). Soon I was enamored by anything Iranian. It was a spur of the moment decision that led me to check out The Wind Will Carry Us in theaters in 2000, not knowing anything about the film other than it being from Iran. And what an experience it was! Its elegant simplicity and great eye for landscapes impressed me greatly. Seeing Wind Will Carry Us (1990) was also a watershed moment in my cinematic education. I’ve never seen such a truthful observation of human life before and it made me a life long devotee of his work. What's most striking about Kiarostami’s artistry is his effortless, seamless quest for truthful representation of human conditions on film. Whether they are shot on 35mm or with a consumer grade handy-cam, the inquisitive interactions of non-actors with their natural dialogue often imply that there is no real distinction between cinema and reality.


   
        It was Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1997 that introduced his poetic, meta-fictional cinema to the world and put many of his contemporaries on the world cinema map. And yet, when the director first burst onto the world cinema stage, critics didn't know what to make of his films: Roger Ebert gave Taste Of Cherry one star, calling it “excruciatingly boring” (Ebert, Taste of Cherry Review, RogerEbert.com,1998), while Jonathan Rosenbaum desperately tried to find some sort of reference in Western cinema tradition in his films by comparing Godard’s early work to Kiarostami’s in terms of reflecting society in certain periods or suggesting the similarities between Close-Up and John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation which later was adapted into a film. (Rosenbaum, 2001, 2) But as Kiarostami himself says in 10 on Ten (2004), a documentary on his reflection on the techniques he used on his 2001 film, Ten, he believes that simply showing austere reality with an open ending can entice audiences to reflect on their own lives. I can't think of a higher compliment to the audience than what Kiarostami bestows upon us with his films.

        Kiarostami’s main themes throughout his filmography are Children facing and overcoming harsh reality, Time Passing/Fleeting Nature of Human Existence, and the Perceived Notion of Truth and Reality. His observations of children, for example, date back to 1970s when he helped establish the filmmaking department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in Tehran. There he made a series of documentaries and shorts concerning school children. Kiarostami's depiction of children, from his Kanun days (The Bread And The Alley, Break time, The Traveler) to later films (The Koker Trilogy, ABC Africa, Ten) is that of a nondisciplinarian in that he simply observes children being children. Often, these films are about children facing harsh reality (Soltani, The Child Heroes of Abbas Kiarostami’s Films, Movie Mezzanine, 2016). In his feature documentary, Homework (1989), for example, it is obvious that the educational system in Iran is too strict and puts a lot of pressure on children, both in school and at home. It's revealing that all the children interviewed for the film know what “punishment” means but don't know the meaning of the word “praise.” Parents, as well, say that the system is too harsh on the children; that it kills their creativity and ends up producing a generation of mindless drones. The director seems to be agreeing with this sentiment: “I tried to look at the world from a child’s point of view” (Jones, Children of the Revolution, Guardian, 2000).



        Children facing harsh reality is the theme of his films, later known as the Koker Trilogy. Kiarostami made three films set in Koker village in Gilan Province, an area of Northern Iran lying along the Caspian Sea. Where is Friend’s Home? (1987) was the first of the three, and is about a boy trying to deliver a notebook that belongs to a friend who lives in the next village. The second one, Life and Nothing More… (1992), was made after the devastating earthquake in 1990. A middle aged man and his young son are on the road to Koker, a northern rural village leveled by the devastating earthquake. They spend most of the film's running time in their car. It is only revealed later on that the man is a film director (a Kiarostami stand-in) who is looking for a child actor who starred in his previous film, Where Is Your Friend's Home? Through The Olive Tree (1994), completes the trilogy. A fictional 'making-of' Life And Nothing More, the film is a beautiful film that shows resilience of children after a life altering disaster.

        From the bustling bottleneck traffic of Tehran in The Report (1977) to Ten (2002), Kiarostami’s films remind us that life with its ebbs and flows is never stopping and always changing. This is never as apparent than in his masterpiece, Taste of Cherry. Inquisitive dialog scenes, just like intimate questionnaires in documentaries, are staged usually in moving cars (and after Taste of Cherry, interior driving scenes became synonymous with Kiarostami’s films). The beauty of Taste of Cherry lies in its simplicity: a man drives around looking for someone to assist him in his suicide. They don't have to do the deed; he will take sleeping pills and lie down in an already dug up grave. In the morning, they can put some earth on him if he's dead and they will be rewarded handsomely for doing so. First, a young soldier runs away after finding out what the man is up to. Second, a seminary student from Afghanistan objects because of his religious beliefs and tries to dissuade him. And finally, an old taxidermist agrees to it, because he has a sick child. He tells the suicidal man that he too, contemplated committing suicide. Adding that he abandoned the idea after tasting cherries.
  
        Kiarostami reminds us that we are watching a film throughout Taste of Cherry; for example, he inserts the footage of himself shooting the film into the narrative. The nameless protagonist does not exist in real life, that his moral quandary is an invitation for us to mull over. It’s Kiarostami himself who is asking us these questions directly. What makes him contemplate such thoughts? What would you do if you were asked to help him kill himself? With Louis Armstrong's St. James’s Infirmary Blues, a song usually associated with funerals, playing at the end over the image, he tells us that death is inevitable for all of us, and it makes us contemplate our own mortality. If the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky tried to make us feel the 'passage of time' with his virtuosic creeping camera dolly movements, framing and lighting, Kiarostami succeeds in astounding simplicity, in one hour and forty minutes- Life is a moving car. Done. The impact is still immense. It all fits nicely with his theme of life, death, blurring boundaries of cinema and reality.

        Kiarostami draws from many aesthetic sources. His admiration for Japanese culture, for example, can be seen in his haiku style poems and in Like Someone in Love (2014), which was set in Japan with Japanese cast. In an interview he said:

I am certain that my fascination with Japan has been with me forever, even before I got to go to Japan. Even my very first attempt at any kind of artistic expression, which were poems that I wrote when I was 20 years old, resemble haiku. I had no idea at the time, but I wrote poems that are very like haikus. And in my photography work, there are some kind of common forms found in traditional Japanese paintings. There is some sort of resonance in my practice and Japanese art. So there has always been real interests before my first visit there which was confirmed whenever I went back thereafter. I've been visiting Japan periodically over 20 years now. (Chang, We Are All the Same: Abbas Kiarostami Interview,Screen Anarchy 2013)

The influence of Japanese cinema is evident in Five (2003), in which Kiarostami pays homage to Yasujiro Ozu. The film consists of five segments set in a coastal area in Iran without any characters or dialogue. With zen-like simplicity, we are presented with five static shots of various lengths. The camera remains static, but birds, dogs and people are heard and seen, in and out of the frame. With each long take we observe nature and human existence for what they are. In the final part of Five, Kiarostami traces the reflection of the moon on the surface of a pond. We don’t really understand what we are watching for a while. It’s dark, and the black and white image is grainy. We then realize that it’s the reflection of the moon on water as it ripples from time to time. We watch it with the chorus of insects in its nighttime surroundings to the breaking of dawn. This entrancing, collective cinematic experience –of us the audiences staring at the screen silently for 7 minutes, to witness the every day miracle of sun coming up, realizing the smallness of human existence has been one of the most thrilling experience in the cinema of all time for me.

        It's only been the last couple of years that I've been writing about films seriously, realizing that film medium can go much further than just mere entertainment and that freedom from the dominant narrative structure can be exhilarating. Attending Art of the Real series showcasing non-narrative films at Film at Lincoln Center was an eyeopener for me because it exposed me to a current crop of shape-shifting postmodern cinema, which subverts the medium’s traditional narrative structure and characterization and tests the audience’s suspension of disbelief (the works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Miguel Gomes, José Luis-Guerrin, Lisandro Alonso and others), enticed me and pulled me into the very depth of the cinematic rabbit hole, and left me exhausted and confused and exhilarated at the same time. And this is where Kiarostami’s Close-Up (1990) serves as a precursor for these more contemporary filmmakers. In Close-Up, he returns to the idea of an imposter of a film director: a man swindles an upper middle class family by pretending he is a famous Iranian film director, Moshen Makhmalbaf. It’s a story of a movie fanatic who admired Makhmalbaf so much he wanted to be him, but without malicious intent. The film is based on a true court case, and everyone participating in the film are real life characters reenacting their ‘roles’ in Kiarostami’s film under his direction, including the imposter, who is questioned off frame in the courtroom scenes. The result is a touching, moving examination on 'life imitating art imitating life', rather than sensationalistic satire about fame and deception.

        There is no doubt Kiarostami’s success in the West has brought a spotlight to the Iranian cinema on the international stage and drawn attention to a second generation of Iranian New Wave with directors, such as Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi, and Asghar Farhadi. Kiarostami’s influences are quite palpable in younger generation of Iranian directors. Panahi started out as his assistant director, and many of his films take place in a moving car. Majid Majidi’s films usually deal with children’s flight and they owe a lot to Kiarostami’s Kanun films, Where’s Friend’s Home and Life and Nothing More…. and Asghar Fahadi’s elusive narratives and unreliable heroes in About Elly and A Separation owe a lot to Kiarostami’s convention subverting cinema.

        Unlike many other Iranian filmmakers who actively make political statements with their work (his former assistant Jafar Panahi being the most vocal one), many of Kiarostami's films can be seen as Iranian sociopolitical fables rather than overt political statements. But the given complexity of his work, the Iranian government has banned the exhibition of his films, fearing that there might be hidden subliminal messages. And unlike many Iranian New Wave filmmakers of his generation who fled the country after the 1979 revolution, Kiarostami stayed and kept making films exclusively in Iran. He accepted that restrictions and censorship were a part of life in a rigid theocratic society, but always had found ways to express himself in changing environs both before and after the revolution. The prime example of this would be The Report (1977). Firouzkoui (Kurosh Afsharpanah), the tax investigator, is perhaps the least likable character in all of Kiarostami's protagonists- he cheats, lies and abuses his position as a government official. After being accused of corruption and short on rent money, he resorts to beating his wife and neglecting his baby daughter. Kiarostami observes all this from a distance. Considering The Report was made before the Iranian Revolution in which the Shah wasoverthrown and The Islamic Republic established, the film is a snapshot of the state of Tehran of that era —women wearing revealing Western clothes, men drinking and gambling, gridlocks in the city streets, etc. The film is a report on petite bourgeoisie, steeped in selfishness and materialism.

        
Kiarostami made films exclusively in Iran until 2011. I reckon it was exactly that transcending subtle artistry that fooled the censorship for a long time. But during the conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure, he found practicing his craft in Iran increasingly difficult. Thankfully for us, it directly resulted in two international productions, Certified Copy (2011), set in Italy, and Like Someone in Love (2013), set in Japan. Even though the film’s settings are different and have international movie stars, his artistry hasn’t changed. His cinematic playfulness and his usual theme of perceived notion of truth and reality are there, even deepened and more sublime than before.

    
        Juliette Binoche, an internationally renowned French actress, stars in Certified Copy. It starts out with an Englishman James (William Shimel) giving a talk on his new book about the legitimacy of copies compared originals in art in picturesque Florence. As infatuated antique dealer (Binoche) picks James up and drives him around town as a guide, the film becomes something else: deconstruction of a relationship. Even though it's the first film set outside Iran, there are Kiarostami touches everywhere- long driving shots, actors talking while looking at you straight in the eyes, blurring the lines of what's real and what's not. As the couple discuss the legitimacy of a copy of a master painting, mirroring their relationship, as we witness the copy of the real married couple breaking apart. Is it any less humanistic because we are watching a film with big movie stars? Do our emotions feel false when we watch Binoche’s character suffering? Deceptively simple, yet as much complex as Close-Up and Taste of Cherry, Certified Copy doesn’t disappoint.
        

Like his other films about acting and being and perceived notion of truth and reality plays heavily on Like Someone in Love. The premise of the film is pretty simple: Akiko (Rin Takanashi), a pretty young Japanese college student doubling as a call girl meets an elderly professor Takashi (Tadashi Okuno) who takes a protective role in her life. But like Kiarostami’s other films, it ends in quite a different place than where it starts. Many scenes in the film are seen through the windows and the dialog spoken off frame or on the phone. Just like the technology being a hindrance to human connections in Wind Will Carry Us, the abundance of cell phones here sets people apart. The film’s three protagonists – Akiko, Takashi and Akiko’s overjealous boyfriend Noriaki (Ryo Kase) act and behave like they don’t know how to behave in each other’s company. Yet they are more frank about their secrets with total strangers than with their own families. And there are many clues that suggest the cyclical nature of love that we can chew over for a long time. It’s a harder puzzle than usual in Kiarostami’s oeuvre and more complex. Although the film is less optimistic than his previous films, one can tell that the master filmmaker is adventurously expanding uncharted territories both physically and culturally.
     
        Kiarostami's passing in 2016 was very unexpected. Among all the cultural luminaries who passed on recently, his death really saddened me in a very personal way. When I heard the news of 24 Frames, the film he's been working for three years and unfinished at the time of his death, was going to be released with the help of his son Ahmad, I was more than eager to see the late master's final work. The film is, in large part, a collaboration of Kiarostami and visual effects artist Ali Kamali. Based on Kiarostami's photographs and videos, Kamali was responsible for digitally creating multilayered images that (provide description here). Kiarostami's idea for 24 Frames is simple—try to bridge the gap between painting, photograph and moving pictures. That instant is frozen in time forever, but what about just before and after that moment? They are usually easily discarded from and forgotten in our memories. Cinema as we know it, can prolong that moment for a little longer, to help us in imagining the narrative, in contextualizing the content within the frame a little more. Comprised of 24 4-1/2 minute static shots, the film most resembles Five, where he held his camera to five static scenes in various length. And it's the same minimalistic approach without human presence(except for two scenes) he applies here.


    
         In order to demonstrate the landscape frozen in time, 24 Frames’s opening frame is the famous winter landscape painting, The Hunters in the Snow, by Pieter Brueghel. Accompanied by the sound of hounds, wind, footsteps, and people playing on the frozen lake below, we see subtle animated movements - smoke billowing out of chimneys from down below, birds flying across the frame, one of the hounds coming alive and trots and pees on the tree, while certain elements stay frozen, like the hunters themselves and the pheasant flying across the sky. In this moment, Kiarostami offers us the chance to contemplate on various things—the power of our imagination, fleeting nature of time, immortality of art—.all in one frame. Kiarostami's love of nature and landscapes comes to the fore - deer, cows, various birds, dogs, horses, cats, snow, rain, wind, ocean, forests, and mountains.
        

        Windows figure heavily in the film as well, constantly framing the frame. If it's not windows, it is fences or columns. He wrote in 2009 about his photography:

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us unless it's inside a frame. (Kiarostami, Interview with Abbas Kiarostami, Guardian, 2009)

As he championed shooting from the moving car throughout his films, he uses car windows to frame images. One scene, for example, is dedicated to the snowy landscape outside the car window—a couple of horses run parallel to the moving car, we lose the sight of the horse as it lags behind. The car stops, the automatic window rolls down, the horses reappear. Now we are presented with two horses playing around in the blizzard through the car window. After a while, the car moves on. Humans are not in the frame most of the time. Kiarostami doesn’t necessarily makes a nuisance out of humans nor does he present them as a threat to nature. He seems to say that this is the life as is, with us in it. But as always the case with Kiarostami's films, 24 Frames is only deceptively simple.
        

        One moment in the film exemplifies this complexity. It consists of a group of Iranian family looking at the Eiffel Tower from a distance, with their backs toward the audience. At first we don't know if this frame is a photograph or not. The voices from the crowd, then people working by in the foreground follow. It's another intoxicating concoction by the master: mixing the idea of 'the window to Paris' and current climate of immigration in the first world since it's hard to determine where this scene takes place.



Accompanied by Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Love Never Dies," the last 'frame' is strikingly beautiful. We are presented with a frame within a frame – of a window. A girl, back to us had fallen asleep with her headphones at her desk in her room. Her laptop is playing some unidentifiable Hollywood movie where a couple slowly kisses. We see tall trees blowing in the wind through the window. With Weber’s lyrics tell ‘love conquers all, even death”, it’s a fitting send off to the culmination of Kiarostami’s artistry. It's even more sublime than the last scene of his film Taste of Cherry that ends with Louis Armstrong's "St. James Infirmary blues". His son Ahmad did an admirable job choosing these 24 out of 30 'frames' or so Kiarostami considered using in the film.

    Nothing is comparable to his artistry. As Asghar Fahadi told me last year about his death:

This was the bitterest occurrence that happened in the cinema past year, because he was one and only. There is no one like him. Many people tried to be like him or copy him but because their personalities are different from his, their films didn’t come out the way his films did. (Chang, Interview: Asghar Fahadi on His New Film Salesman, Screen Anarchy, 2017)

        Kiarostami was a true polymath. For those who are familiar with his artistry - his haiku inspired poetry, his minimalist landscape photography as well as his enigmatic films, 24 Frames represents the culmination of all his artistic practices. What make it so sad to me at least, is that there is no finality to the film. It's as if it can go on forever, completely consistent with what he had been doing all his artistic life. 24 Frames is a great testament to his being as an artist and as a person.
      
        I had an honor and pleasure to interview Abbas Kiarostami in 2013 when his film Like Someone in Love played at the New York Film Festival. As expected, he was the warmest, wisest, humblest, most thoughtful artist I've ever encountered in my short career as a film critic. This was his answer when asked about the universality of his films:

I think it's a lifetime practice, or habit or way of seeing things. I remember for a long time as a young man I wouldn't take what I see on TV for granted. I would never accept generalizing 'that's how Americans are,' or 'that's how Japanese are.' I was always much more interested in individuals rather than a culture or a country in general sense. This collective judgment or agreement on certain culture has always annoyed me. I deeply believe, excluding ideological positions, that we are the same. In details we can have our differences but in the main aspects of our lives -- our sufferings, joy and pain -- no matter if we are Japanese, American or Iranian, we are the same human beings. So if you have this as the principle of life and relationship, then it shows in your work.

        When I think about Kiarostami’s films, it’s not his style that strikes me the most. I think of his search for genuine human connections within the film medium, both among his characters and us the audiences and him the filmmaker. I think of his effortlessness in doing so. I think of his generosity and warmth when I got to meet him. As one critic said, postmodern need not mean post-human (Ebri, Post Modern Need Not Mean Post-Human: Abbas Kiarostami and the Paradox of Cinema, Village Voice, 2016). Everything he pursued in his paintings, poems, photographs, films, he found common ground in us as humans. Instead of spoon-feeding us in a didactic manner, the open-endedness of his work made us contemplate on our childhood, fleeting human life and the nature of reality. It’s that participatory aspect of his work I respond to the most and appreciate. He was really one of a kind. And I will miss him greatly.

….
Works Cited
Kiarostami, Abbas. Beard, Michael. (Translator)“Walking with the Wind” Harvard
University press, February 28, 2002
Chang, Dustin. “We Are All The Same: Abbas Kiarostami Interview.”
Screenanarchy.com, 14 Feb. 2013, https://screenanarchy.com/2013/02/abbaskiarostami-
interview.html
Chang, Dustin. “Interview: Asghar Farhadi on His New Film, THE SALESMAN.”
Screenanarchy.com, 25, Jan.2017,
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. “ABBAS KIAROSTAMI: A Dialogue Between the Authors
(Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa & Jonathan Rosenbaum).” Jonathan Rosenbaum.net, 7
Nov. 2001, https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2001/11/40847/
Kiarostami, Abbas. “Interview Abbas Kiarostami’s best shot.” Theguardian.net, 29 Jul.
2009, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jul/29/photography-abbaskiarostami-
best-shot
Ebert, Roger. “Taste of Cherry.” 27, Feb.1998,
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/taste-of-cherry-1998
Chang 15
Bilge Ebri, Post Modern Need Not Mean Post-Human: Abbas Kiarostami and the
Paradox of Cinema, Village Voice, 2016
Jones, Jonathan. Children of the Revolution, Guardian, 2000
Soltani, Amir. The Child Heroes of Abbas Kiarostami’s Films, Movie Mezzanine, 2016
References
Wikipedia contributors. “Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Jan. 2019

Digging for Cinema Gold

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) - Morrison

Bill Morrison, known for his beautiful, textural found footage films (Decasia, Miner's Hymns) accompanied by talented contemporary musicians' work (Philip Glass, Jóhann Jóhannsson, John Adams, Richard Einhorn, just to name a few), out-does himself with a mesmerizing, hugely entertaining new film Dawson City: Frozen Time.

It tells a truly fascinating bit of cinema history involving the Gold Rush at the turn of the 20th century in Dawson City, deep in the Yukon Territory. The two-hour film is filled to the brim with rich historical details which can be almost too much for a single viewing. Dawson City, with its clever, carefully constructed paralleling narratives of the prospecting and cinema, accompanied by wealth of archival and found footage, achieves something far greater than a historical documentary or an experimental art-house film ever can.

Dawson City starts with a prologue Morrison's appearance in some sport jock TV spot being asked about 1919 World Series footage. This is the year of the infamous "Black Sox" scandal where 8 of Chicago White Sox players took money from the East Coast gambling establishments to throw the game.

We move back to 1979, while digging for foundation behind Diamond Tooth Gerthie's Gambling Hole in Dawson City, townsfolk discovered hundreds of film reels buried under the permafrost. Local conservators and museum curators got a hold of these treasures which turn out to be rare silent films, 372 of them, thought to be lost forever.

Then it moves on to 'Film was born an explosive' segment, explaining the early silent films were shot on cotton based nitrate film stock which was highly combustible until the industry switched over in 1949 to a safer, acetate based stock.

And the credit starts to roll.

So how does these figure into the film? Beautifully. They all fit into the narrative of digging for gold leading to uncovering cinema gold.

California gold rush fever pushed prospectors further up the uncharted northern territories. After some found gold up in Yukon in 1895, many prospectors made a perilous journey to the land where the Klondike River meets the Yukon River. A lot of them perished or turned back along the way. The place was called Tr’ocheck and belongs to native Hän speaking people. Things changed quickly and the natives were forced down the river into a settlement. The newly arrived (re)named it Dawson City.

It grew and grew and by 1916, the peak of gold mining, the population of the city reached 30,000. The city built a large recreation center, called D.A.A.A., equipped with a swimming pool and doubled as a hockey link in winter, a library and a movie theater, hosting traveling moving picture show tropes.

As it was common in those early days where everything was built on woods, Dawson City burned down to the ground every year for first 9 years and had to be rebuilt. And nitrate films no doubt contributed to numerous fires.

As the gold mining lost its luster and the city grew smaller, so did the need for the reel entertainment. And because Dawson City was the last stop on the Hollywood film distribution route, for economical reasons, movie studios didn't want the film back by carrier. The duty of keeping them fell on a bank clerk who in turn kept them in the basement of a library first. But after they ignited and caused the fire, one of the bank managers decided to bury them in the now abandoned and drained D.A.A.A. swimming pool few blocks away.

Many more film reels were discarded indiscriminately, into the Yukon River and burned in a bonfire, according to the bank clerk's journal. But 372 survived, frozen under the permafrost all those years, preserving the nitrate negatives while all other known copies disintegrated over time.

Combining beautiful still pictures of prospectors from glass negatives by Eric Hegg which were also recovered in the 70s and those found silent films heavily damaged by elements over the years and archival footage and hypnotic music by Alex Somers, a musician known for producing Sigur Rós albums, Morrison concocts an engaging, entertaining art film that doubles as an intriguing slice of history of Americana.

For instance, we get to know that American old money came from the Gold Rush related businesses: Frederick Trump (Donald Trump's grandfather) made his family fortune by setting up brothels along the prospecting trails and the Guggenheim family bought the mining lands and created Yukon Consolidated Gold Company.

Many of the 'Dawson City Find' films and newsreels are featured throughout, often matching the historical events of the time - 1919 World Series, the rise of American Socialist Movement, Industrial Workers of the World, WW1, and so on.

Morrison also has fun with thematically and physically matching scenes from these damaged but remarkably preserved beautiful looking films. Some of the notable titles are: The Stolen Paradise, The Half Breed, The Social Buccaneers, The Salamander, The Unpardonable Sin and The Recoil.

Looking through all these buried treasures for the first time, Morrison must've been a happy camper. He does a fine job assembling these, weaving them into a hugely entertaining, concise historical narrative. Dawson City: Frozen Time is one of the best films of the year.

Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2015

Rendez-vous with French Cinema, a co-presentation of Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance Films, has become a de facto film festival for francophiles over the years. A showcase of contemporary French cinema, this year's lineup includes 22 features and four short films making their New York, U.S., or North American premieres.

Celebrating its 20th year, Rendez-vous opens with Benoit Jacquot (Farewell My Queen)'s 3 Hearts, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve and closes with Quentin Dupieux (Rubber)'s new film Reality. The returning notable directors include - Jacquot, André Téchiné, Cedric Kahn, Jean-Paul Civeyrac and Christophe Honoré. The ever-diverse lineup includes gritty policiers (The Connection, Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart, SK1), comedies (Gaby Baby Doll, Reality) and several films starring Catherine Deneuve (well, duh!).  Shedding a spotlight on women filmmakers, the festival showcases 4 shorts by emerging women directors as well.

Rendez-vous with French Cinema runs March 6 - 15, in three different venues throughout New York- FSLC, BAM Cinematek and IFC Center. Please click on each venue for details.

Being a francophile myself, the festival is always a treasure trove every year. I always find a couple of gems that end up on my year end top 20 films list from Rendez-vous without fail. These are the films I was able to see this year:

METAMORPHOSES

What fun! Honoré's interpretation of Roman poet Ovid's Greek mythic tale of gods and demigods starts out with a modern day hunter running into a flame haired nude transgender person who graces him with pixie dust and turns him into a deer. The hunter becomes the hunted. Filled with young nude bodies (usually full frontal), Metamorphoses tells a high school girl Europa being kidnapped by Jupiter in the form of a hunky, bearded truck driver. It's a sexual, spritual awakening for Europa, as she mingles with Jupiter, Bacchus and Orpheus. Story within a story within a story plays out, some funny, some dark but all enjoyable, with emphasis on sexual ambiguity and transformation in human beings. The film is like a dream of a horny teenager who has fallen asleep in literature class.

A couple of years back, I remember Honoré telling me when I interviewed him for his film Beloved, that he is not a type of director who'd want to make nice things to be remembered by his offspring. He'd rather make things his son would be ashamed of. Without any big name actors, he charges on bravely, with lots of raunchy images, tackling on today's rigid, conservative society with an ancient literature and reminds us that things were much more transgressive and transforming in 1 century B.C..

Metamorphoses is also a visual feast, not only because of all the young nudes, but also the under-water scene where Orpheus attempts to retrieve Eurydice from the underworld which is breathtakingly gorgeous. There are many idyllic nature settings, most of them near the water which is the running theme of the film.

Death of skateboarding Narcissus scene is an epitome/origin of many Honoré's love sick characters' demises, you find out. Playful, dirty, edgy and wondrous in its micro-economic way, Metamorphoses works as it is intended to- a beautiful, dreamy poetry in accordance with the spirit of French New Wave. One of my favorites from the festival.

3 HEARTS **Opening Night Film

Marc (Benoit Poelvoorde), a shlumpy tax investigator, just missed the train back to Paris. He meets and chats up lovely Sylvie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who seems a little troubled. They walk all night talking. In the morning, they promise each other, without exchanging the numbers, to meet in Paris in one week on Friday, near a famous fountain near the park. The encounter was so special, Sylvie decides not to move to the US with her current boyfriend as she's been planning. But the Friday comes and goes. Marc misses the rendez-vous because he gets delayed by clients and has a mini stroke from his stressful job. Heartbroken Sylvie leaves for the US with her boyfriend.

Marc is in town again, looking for Sylvie. He ends up helping out distraught Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni), Sylvie's sister, with her business tax problems. The romance blooms. Eventually Marc finds out that they are very close siblings and whatever reason, he decides to avoid contacting Sylvie. Marc and Sophie marry. Marc and Sylvie avoid each other at the wedding. 3 years passes. The couple has an adorable son now. For the 60th birthday of the mother (Catherine Deneuve) of the sisters, Sylvie comes home. She and her boyfriend is not doing well and Marc and Sylvie's passion rekindles.

Not quite 'what if" story but 3 Hearts is full of regret and melancholy. It's a fluff in the vein of old Hollywood but with the help of todays gadgets - skype and cell phones, it works as a tension filled love triangle. You don't really believe two of the most alluring actresses of our time would fall for Poelvoorde's Marc, but whatever. It's a fun movie.

Director Benoit Jacquot has been busy. His new film Diary of a Chambermaid, a remake (of Renoir's classic in 1946, then again 1964 by Buñuel), starring Lea Seydoux just debuted at this year's Berlinale.

MAY ALLAH BLESS FRANCE

In light of Charlie Hebdo massacre, Congolese born French rap artist Abd Al Malik adapts his own autobiographical book Qu'Allah bénisse la France and shows yet another side of Muslims in France. Charismatic, clear eyed Marc Zinga portrays the rapper who was raised in a housing project of Neuhof, a surburb of Strasbourg. In the film, Al Malik (Zinga), whose given name was Régis before he converted to Sufi Islam, is a gifted student in Literature and destined to become a philosopher/poet. But his real passion is rap music and wants to overcome his underprivileged background and become a big star. With some of his friends, he practices and writes songs 2-3 hours at a time at a local community center where they have limited access to the gear and space. They pickpocket tourists to raise the dough but avoids dealing hard drugs unlike many of his friends and neighbors who are now incarcerated or dead.

It's neighbor's daughter Nawel (Sabrina Ouazani) who introduces him to Sufism, the spiritual side of Islam, and teaches him not to be a foreigner in their own country. Love blooms between them.

In May Allah Bless France, being Muslim is considered as an added responsibility that young people put on themselves. This means no drinking, no drugs, no disrespect towards women. The film's quite different from what you expect from the usual gansta movies. Al Malik restrains himself (to a fault) from going bombastic in style. It's shot in monochrome but the similarity with Mathieu Kasovitz's breakthrough 1995 urban drama La Haine ends there. The film almost too sanitized. The act of drive by shooting is never shown, Nawel and Régis never even kiss or show their affection out in the open until their eventual marriage. Sure some bad things happen to his friends and family members but everything is way too clean to be even a little bit affecting. Music is good though, especially Nina Simone sampled Gibraltar and Soldat de Plomb. Mireille Perrier (Chocolat, Boy Meets Girl) shows up as his school mentor, reminding him the past choice doesn't matter, it's the future ones that counts.

GABY BABY DOLL

Gaby (Lolita Chammah) is told by her doctor that she needs to learn how to be independent/self-sufficient. That she needs to let her neurosis go and get some much needed rest. So she arrives in a picaresque rural village with a group of friends. It's supposed to be a rustic vacation at a big house that belongs to her doctor. The trouble begins after her friends leave and her boyfriend detects that she doesn't really love him. So he leaves too, declaring that he will come back after the leaves on the tree in the front yard falls. Now left all alone by herself, she needs to find somebody to keep her company. She resort to a group of men in a local tavern every night to walk her home and stay the night, one by one. It's not like she wants to sleep with them, but she can't bear the thought of being alone. The words go around and she is banned from entering the pub ever again.

Then there is Nicolas (Benjamin Biolay), a bearded hermit who lives in an impossibly tiny shack with a friendly dog, outside of an abandoned castle. He is supposed to be the caretaker of the place. He has his set routine - long walks every morning and evening, collecting his thoughts, reflecting on life. He is a total opposite of Gaby. And she clings to him like a leech for company. Soon they are off to walk together and slowly, he teaches her to enjoy the solitude, just a little bit.

Sophie Letourneur's idiosyncratic romantic comedy rides heavily on the charm of baby-faced Chammah and she totally delivers. I get the Greta Gerwig comparisons but Gaby Baby Doll's success also has got to do with Letourneur's writing- nonchalant characters, unusual sense of humor.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

Director Bertrand Bonello (House of Tolerance, Saint Laurent) plays Bertrand, a film director who's trying to find one inspirational piece of art for his upcoming film about monstrosity. His supportive producer (Valerie Dreville) introduces him an art historian friend Célia (played alternately by Jeanne Balivar and Geraldine Pailhas) to help out finding an inspiration in various art museum trips. They see the paintings of Bacon, Caravaggio, Baltus, etc. Without any written dialog and clear direction, Bertrand is having a hard time explaining the project to his actors (Pascale Greggory, Sigrid Bouaziz). He also has a lot on his mind - his retrospective is coming up, a young, inarticulate interviewer keeps bothering him to meet up, Bertrand's stage actress/singer wife Barbe (Joanna Preiss of Siberie) is always on the road, mysterious Célia keeps changing her appearances while flirting with him. Then there is large red welts on his back that keeps getting bigger. Is it a sign of psychosomatic symptom or is it some kind of metaphor?

Director Antoine Barraud is not in a hurry to rush us out of the museums. He takes time for us to look at each of the painting Bertrand and Célia are looking at. And we observe them while they observe art in a quiet setting.

Portrait of the Artist is filled with beautifully photographed images and attractive actors (including Bonello, who wears sad, intelligent face very comfortably and has a strong screen presence). The film is not too concerned about one's artistic process or the end game. There is a pervading comfortable nonchalance: not silly but sophisticated and arresting. Even though it's not a puzzle piece, there are hints throughout the film that all the people surrounding Bertrand are reflections of himself - silly, shy, seductive, strange... that these are the overactive imagination of an artist. If a good cinema is nothing but the art of seduction, Portrait of the Artist would be it.

MY FRIEND VICTORIA

Jean-Paul Civeyrac's adapts Doris Lessing's novella, Victoria and the Staveneys. Narrated by her lifelong friend Fanny, the film chronicles passive life of a black girl.

Victoria, a girl growing up in the project, gets to experience how the wealthy white family (the Savinets) lives for one night when she was 8. The night and the handsome and gentle older son Edouard of the family make a lasting impression on her life. Later, she has a fling with the younger Savinet, Thomas, gets pregnant and decides to keep the child without telling him. She takes various low paying jobs because of lack of education, falls in love, raises two children by herself. Now her mixed daughter Marie is 7. Because Victoria doesn't want her daughter to end up like herself, she decides to contact the Savinets to reveal the truth. The whole Savinets are ecstatic except for Edouard, who asks for paternity test but then immediately regrets his decision. Being ultra liberal, the Savinets are crazy about this 'caramel colored girl' and pours all their affection to her. They even debate about if affection need to be shared by Victoria's other child, Charlie, by another father.

I loved Civeyrac's Through the Forest, part love story, part super-natual thriller, part musical. His light touch and technical daring do (Forest is consisted of 9 uncut, long shots). Here, he skillfully drives the film without making it all a case study for social observation. His filmmaking is fluid and light. Victoria is a beautiful character, trying to do right by her family and herself. Guslagie Malanga is terrific as the older Victoria, so as the narrator Fanny, played by Nadia Moussa and so as the Savinets, especially the warm, artistic dad and mom (Pascal Greggory and Catherine Mouchet).

It's interesting to see a film that shows as much about how well-to-do white liberals deal with minorities as about minorities themselves. It's an interesting window to see the race relations in post-Sarkosy, pre-Charlie Hebdo era France.

IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER

André Téchiné, the French master of subtle psychological dramas, tackles real life intrigue that took place in the French Riviera in the 70s. It is the esteemed director and Catherine Deneuve's 7th collaboration to date.

Deneuve plays Renée, a widow and owner of the last remaining casino that is not taken over by mafia. She is aided by her loyal lawyer Maurice (Guillaume Canet, respresenting two films at this year's Rendez-vous) to tread the troubling times. It's Maurice's cunning political maneuvering that makes Renée to take total control over the casino. But her daughter Agnes (Adèle Haenel, Water Lilies and this year's Cesar Award winner for Best Actress for Love at First Fight) arrives, expecting to cash in on her inheritance and set up a little business for herself. Athletic, sultry Agnes slowly but surely falls for studious Maurice who is married and also has a string of mistresses.

After getting rejected by Renée for advancement, Maurice, along with Agnes arranges for ousting of Renée from the leadership of the casino. Lovesick Agnes becomes completely dependent on him. But he tells her that he can never reciprocate the love she has for him. She becomes suicidal and one day disappears without a trace. Soon after, Maurice transfers all of Agnes's money to his account. Twenty years later, Maurice is flown back to France from South America where he lives now, to stand for the trial, accused of the murder and disappearance of Agnes, brought on by diligent work of Renée.

Building suspense or clear resolution is not what Téchiné's after. Despite its terrible American title (its original title is L'homme qu'on aimait trop which means 'The Man Who Loved Too Much' which makes much more sense in the film's context), the film is yet another great example of Téchiné's astute examination of unpredictability/duplicity in human nature that he is known for. All three principal actors are terrific against beautiful French Riviera setting, shot energetically by a veteran cinematographer Julien Hirsch (3 Hearts, Bird People, Godard's In Praise of Love and Notre Musique as well as Téchiné's Unforgivable and The Girl on the Train), the film is another strong outing from Téchiné.