Claus Mueller

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Not offering any awards, outlandish social events and a sales market the New York Film Festival remains one of the most important US film festivals following its unique strategy of programming demanding artistic films as well as excellent movies which meet commercial demands.  As the main selection, the retrospective,   the revival, and Spotlight on Documentary programs and side bars demonstrate the fest has retained its appeal for cineastes as does the inclusion of first rate films from other major established film festivals. The Projections and Convergence programs included experimental crossover approaches with digital technologies often blurring traditional boundaries.  It is noteworthy that four of the current highest scoring seven films were shown at the festival and that the festival has a newly stablished Industry Membership program. Thus closer relations with commercial film making are fostered. This and the increased emphasis on social media such as using the YouTube as a primary platform should enlarge the audience for the fest.

CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras, USA, 2014

Executive produced by Sheila Nevins, HBO, this documentary generated a strong public reaction and was praised in a Wall Street Journal write up as an extraordinary documentary ranking among the best produced over the last 20 years. The documentary was a last minute addition to the NYFF program and is considered an Oscar front runner. 

Under the cover of CitizenFour Edward Snowdon, approached   filmmaker Laura Poitras who had produced films touching on National Security Agency issues and could keep their communication secure given her encryption expertise. CitizenFour    was mostly  filmed  during a week Snowdon spent in a Hong Kong hotel, but also included  brief segments covering  his Moscow press conference,  the Guardian’s  London office where Pointras associate Glenn Greenwald worked (which was forced the UK government to destroy  copies of Snowdon’s data), the  Berlin  hearings about  NSA  techniques and Merkel’s cell phone tapping as well as interviews with former senior officials of US intelligence agencies.

For a documentary we have unique real time recording with the director becoming a principal collaborator though not protagonist of the evolving story. CitizenFour is a real life suspense thriller which reveals Snowdon as a man of principles who acts out of conviction and conscience. As he suggests his actions were prompted by the NSA’s betrayal of the American public with approval by senior levels of the Obama administration. What Snowdon’s documents reveal is that the National Security Administration engages in the massive accumulation of data from all sources. This includes the largest internet firms covering audio and video content, amassing phone records and the recording of communication of non-resident individual for which no warrants are needed. For US residents they are pro forma necessary yet overridden by NSA and its sub-agencies’ actual practice. NSA has tapped into all fiber optic cables & networks.

It is clear from the NSA documentation Snowdon made available to the public that the information gathering has little to do with national security concerns.  Instead   the NSA surveillance covers economic and corporate communications, technologies, politicians, research, and exchanges by politicians from friendly and unfriendly countries. The NSA's data collection is guided by senior levels of the US government. CitizenFour points out that there are 1.2 million individuals on the NSA watch list, surveyed on a regular basis. At the end of the film Glenn Greenwald surprises Snowdon by revealing that there is now a new high level whistleblowing source of information at the NSA.

CitizenFour may very well be the most important documentary of 2014 given its scope,   collective relevance, cogency and evidence.  No other production has shown the extent to which there is in the US such a massive violation of civil rights, evaporation of privacy and thus freedom of speech. Large amount of funds are now used by the NSA to break encryption techniques used by parties NSA is surveying. Proceedings against Snowdon are based on an obscure WW I law classifying as espionage any unauthorized use of data no matter whom they are released to.

IRIS,    Albert Maysles, USA, 2014

Maysles presents a perceptive and commanding portrait of Iris Apfel who comes across in this stimulating documentary as an original individual with a highly personalized way of being, full of energy and wit. She is 94 year old and has been in the fashion business for the last 75 years. Iris is one of the most influential professionals, collector, decorator and designer whose work ranges from white house assignments to teaching design students and advising many established fashion figures and writers.

Shows of her collection have been staged at Metropolitan and Peabody Museums. She amassed an extensive collection of accessories and haute couture fashion from trade shows but also acquired many items at flea markets and general shops. Guiding by an eye for the unusual she has been collecting for all of her professional life. Maysles provides a perceptive portrait of a stimulating figure whose great sensed of humor is expressed in comments like “it is better to be happy than well dressed”  “‘if you cannot be outside of the box you better jump into it” and “A woman is as old as she looks…A man is old when he stops looking” to quote but a few.

SILVERED WATER: SYRIA SELF PORTRAIT,    Osssama Mohammed & Wiam Simav Bedirxan, France-Syria, 2014

Silvered Water is an extraordinary moving and perceptive documentary about the Syrian civil war with an original documentary cinema of realism approach and a unique structure. It includes many  persuasive visual segments which were spontaneously recorded  on cell phones and small video cameras, selected from thousands of online videos by the Paris based Ossama  and  footage  shot by  Bedrixana in the beleaguered Syrian city Homs. The material reflects the war, chaos and suffering of the victims of the conflict. Outstanding elements of the documentary are the poetic commentary by the Syrian producer Ossama about the meaning of the footage and the original music soundtrack. Images of relentless death and destruction, of children playing and dying in this war and of animals wounded and killed in the fighting, echo in the viewer long after the film is over.  This Syrian self-portrait was among the strongest in the documentary selection

Tales of the Grim Sleeper, Nick Broomfield, USA/UK 2014

Tales was the only documentary   in the main selection.  The Los Angeles APD knew by the late 1980s that a serial killer was killing prostitutes working in the Afro-American south central Los Angeles neighborhood strangling or shooting them. The department had an eyewitness sketch of the suspect Lonnie Franklin and   the license plate number of the alleged killer. But information about the case and investigation were not made public and for twenty years the killing continued. The first recorded murder was in 1985. Thirty five years later Franklin was arrested. DNA analysis links him to ten murders, but there are probably many more since pictures of 200 different women were found in Franklin’s house.   

The investigation was not pursued since black women, mostly street walkers and drug addicted were killed, thus the serial killer’s action “of cleaning up the streets’’ were welcomed by many cops. Deep distrust by the Afro American residents of the police prevailed and was met conversely by hostility by the forces of order towards the crack ridden black community. The filmmakers were able to generate  more information bearing on the case than police did in the prior decades, including the discussions with one principal witness who escaped the killing  attempt  and six other women brutalized by the serial killer.

Engaged in effective story telling with an ethnographic approach, the film makers did not work with a script and relied instead on much spontaneously recorded material.  In Broomfield’s words”Reality speaks for itself and does not require a script”. His detached naturalistic approach followed the footsteps of Jean Rouch cinema verity style productions. Broomfield’s success was possible since the film maker gained trust of the community with the guidance of a former prostitute from the community who set up the interviews the police never bothered to carry out.

NATIONAL GALLERY, Frederick Wiseman, USA/France, 2014

As most of the Wiseman’s documentaries, this production is a low key comprehensive over view of London’s National Gallery involving virtually all aspects of its offering and work. Wiseman follows programs for children, the blind, dance performances, workshops for upscale visitor groups, and interpretation of masterpieces by Caravaggio, Turner and Titian. Installation of shows, restauration, lighting, budgeting issues and other important activities are also covered. Wiseman’s superb exploration of the inner working of the National Gallery is a welcome learning experience with endless revelations of how the galleries functions and startling portraits of visitor’s reaction to the art they view.

The 2014 New York Film Festival with its programs, sidebars, and seminars was an unquestioned success and one hopes that this performance can be repeated in next year’s edition.

Claus Mueller  filmexchange@gmail.com