A Few Selections from NYFF Currents (Patreon)

I've been meaning to jot down a brief word about these films for nearly a month now. At a certain point I stopped watching the available screeners for NYFF's Currents selection, mostly out of a stultifying sadness. I recognize that the world of art changes around us, and we either change with it or lapse into obsolescence. But the headlong dive of the "avant-garde" into safe-as-milk, grant-panel-approved Statement Art has been depressing. Phil Coldiron displayed some serious backbone by taking this trend (and some specific films) to task. 

But as Phil himself noted, there were a few films that had something: an engagement with sound and image that wasn't beholden to a hectoring explanatory voiceover; a willingness to follow the material into surprising, unanticipated places; and sometimes, a sense of fun, or of danger.

As far as other Currents titles I liked, I plan to write about Ross Meckfessel's film at length another time, and although I did appreciate Kevin Everson's newest films, I'm not sure I have anything to say about them.

Ungentle (Onyeka Igwe and Huw Lemmey, 2022)

Or, in a world of Hito Steyerls, be a Patrick Keiller. The spirit of Keiller and his unique brand of British political landscape cinema hovered over Ungentle quite clearly, but lost no power or insight in the comparison. To the accompaniment of a seductive first-person narrative about gay university misfits being lured into Soviet spycraft, Igwe and Lemmey show us the varied faces of Britain: castles, council flats, industrial areas, city streets, and of course the plummy facades of Oxbridge, the citadel of the upper class. In weaving this story (written by Lemmey, read by Ben Whishaw), the film creates an unnerving constellation between gay male desire and an equally "perverse" hatred of the British class structure that, by and large, had nurtured these young men. Ungentle suggests that political action, the kind that can get you killed or hanged for treason, can never be simply a matter of theoretical belief. There has to be some libidinal excess, something driving otherwise ordinary people past the limits of the cultural hegemony that formed them. And although an orthodox Marxist (or Freudian), I'm sure, could carefully disentangle communism from homosexuality, Ungentle shows that it's a lot more provocative to keep them in a knot.

False Wife (Jamie Crewe, 2022)

Although False Wife is not an entirely successful film, it displays a kind of daring misbehavior that is in short supply in the sphere of "moving image art." A fifteen-minute bombardment of images and text, False Wife does not so communicate its ideas as much as it throbs, pulses, sending them across in intermittent waves. Much of the time, an image is gone before you can really register exactly what it was. The voiceover, as read by a droning computer voice, is a fragmented prose-poem about desire and obsession, the fear of as well as the desire for an erotic force that obliterates one's sense of self. It is, unavoidably, an experimental art version of hypno-porn, that faux-brainwashing material that poses threats the user cannot truly believe. It's a BDSM game for the mind, and given the formal overlap between its rapid-fire delivery of non-narrative images and a certain tendency in the avant-garde (from Bruce Conner and Paul Sharits up to Ryan Trecartin), a film like False Wife was utterly inevitable. If Crewe's approach has a flaw, it's the meticulous abstraction of his text, which is strong enough but in this context suggests a distrust of pornography, as a bad object or simply declassé. Why gaze into the abyss with a harness?

Intersection (Richard Tuohy and Dianna Barrie, 2022)

The Australian duo of Tuohy and Barrie are absolutely consistent in their craft. They fully understand the formal vernacular of experimental cinema from Brakhage onward, and although I usually appreciate their films, I've found them a bit antiseptic in the past. Despite their quick edits and Constructivist rhythms, something didn't seem quite right, like they were trying to squeeze a joyful spirit out of essentially technical exercises. Intersection may in fact be the same, but I guess it's just dancing in my zone. Observing urban street life in a manner reminiscent of Ernie Gehr and especially Jim Jennings, but organized a bit like an 80s Abigail Child film, Intersection is a symphony of shadows and asphalt, crosswalk lines and upright bodies on the go. It gels, it bobs and weaves, and even if it stakes out no new ground, it's pleasurable, something not to be taken lightly, especially now.

Unhappy Hour (Ted Fendt, 2023)

For all the complexity of Ted Fendt's featurettes, this miniature, just under ten minutes, captures an entire universe of broken connections, lapsed bonds, and plain old bad timing. Two friends, Claudia (Mia Sellmann) and Franza (Hanna Döring), seem to meet up at randomly inopportune moments. Claudia is locked out of her place, but Franza can't stop to chat. They meet up later at Franza's place, but she's in the middle of a grant application that's due the next day, so Claudia has to just amuse herself. Eventually, the two women have a brief heart-to-heart about their apartment woes, ex-partners, and the general uncertainty that comes with life in your thirties. As they part, they both express a desire to meet up another time for a "real talk," and even though it's hardly certain that they will not meet again, both of them evince an awareness of that possibility, that they have timed out of each other's lives and are bound only by politeness. Fendt's formal control, an unexpected combination of Bresson and Akerman, just seals the deal. As Bilge would say, "good movie."