Day three of the festival is marching along, so here's another brief collection of what the critics are saying about the NYFF films:
A. O. Scott rounds up the festival documentaries for The New York Times, including Stefano Savona's Tahrir:
“Stefano Savona’s 'Tahrir,' shot in Cairo this winter in the days leading up to the fall of Hosni Mubarak, evokes the on-the-ground, crowd-sourced video gathering that has become a tool of popular movements around the world. A triumph of tenacious camerawork and nimble editing, 'Tahrir' captures the spirit of the Egyptian uprising with remarkable immediacy. By listening to the voices of participants as they chant, argue and worry about the future, it also opens a window on the tensions and contradictions within the still incomplete revolutions of the Arab Spring.”
indieWIRE's blog The Playlist continues its coverage of NYFF with a review of Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World…
“Veering away from hagiography with balanced, candid testimonials and carefully chosen existing and unseen footage, if anything, 'George Harrison: Living in the Material World' should wipe away the idea of a quiet anyone. Instead, it replaces that outdated notion with one of an eager collaborator of ideas and a trailblazer willing to think outside Western world conventions and apply that philosophy into a way of life and a state of being, rather than a celebrity-in-crisis, Kabbalah-like fad. If anything, in the second half of Harrison’s career, the musician was saying a lot, the difference being he didn’t really care if anyone was listening or not.”
…and a review of the three-part Dreileben, which played back-to-back yesterday and will play across three afternoons October 4 — 6:
The trilogy’s connective tissue also goes deeper than wink-wink cameos and instead serve as metaphors of some kind. Coincidences are played with often (some big, some small, some even unnoticeable) and certain elements/traits, such as deafness, carry over to different characters and situations. Rather than composing a grand narrative, the directors went above and beyond to provide a wealth of substance and meaning—a near five-hour experience primed for dissection if you’re brave enough. It’s an intimidating undertaking, but you’re not likely to see something so accomplished and odd in a different package.
NY1 has another video from opening night, this one an interview with The Loneliest Planet director Julia Loktev:
“The crux of this story is this kind of test of manhood. So the story really turns on this question of what does it mean to be a man now,” says Loktev. “What do you expect from a man now? What can a woman expect?”
Stay tuned throughout the NYFF for more of what the critics are saying about festival films.
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