The 58th New York Film Festival - Week 2 (Her Name Was Europa, Red, White and Blue, The Truffle Hunters)
It's a double dose of docs and a triple dose of Steve McQueen in this week's coverage of NYFF58!
I did end up going to the drive-in!
Oh hai Eugene.
That’s a fun little reference to my coverage from last week, which you should check out if you haven’t already. I actually ended up going to the Queens Drive-in twice, the first of which is pictured here and the second of which…well, we’ll get to that a bit later.
Apologies for the delay in coverage everyone! Though I made no promises, normally blogs are posted every Tuesday. However, sometimes there are just so many films to see that ya boy needs an extra day to catch-up. That being said, in the words of the great novelist Garth Greenwell, “a great deal of pleasure is in delay.” He was...mostly referring to sex stuff, but it applies here too. I think.
Anyhow, onward!
Her Name Was Europa
The aurochs were a breed of wild cattle indigenous to Europe, North Africa, and Asia. Extinct since the early 17th century, these majestic, horned beasts have long held a mythological status, believed to embody supernatural powers. In the early 20th century, German scientists began a series of attempts to resurrect the species under the auspices of the Nazi regime; such experiments continue today in various forms.
Out of every film I’ve seen from NYFF58’s newly established Currents section thus far, none have engaged me more than this fascinating documentary. In what is bound to be one of the festival’s most overlooked gems, directors Anja Dornieden and Juan David González Monroy take a wholly unique subject and excavate its richly bizarre history whilst uncovering its place in the present. Because of their ties to the Nazi regime, any and all modern attempts to resurrect the Auroch species unearths its complicated history. And…yeah, it initially feels kinda gross, but the filmmaking acknowledges this and keeps your view thoroughly from the outside looking in.
Told through tactile 16mm cinematography, as well as the smoothest and most clever use of baked-in subtitles I have ever seen on film, we find a relevant (if a bit otherworldly) commentary on how man’s abuse of nature can often be sugarcoated in the name of science. Sure, it’s nice to see the fostering of new ecosystems using the Auroch population, but you can’t help but feel as though it is clinging to a silly mythology that was already vague to begin with. How far can we go with myth and legend until it begins to disrupt reality? This is at the heart of what Her Name Was Europa wrestles with, including one particular sequence in which the filmmakers metatextually admit to writing a fictional finale to the film you’re currently watching (!!!) that was ultimately scrapped in favor of what was right in front of them.
At times poignant, at other times poetic, this unique specimen of a film is a perfect festival discovery; I doubt I’ll be seeing this arthouse oddity on National Geographic anytime soon, so I’m glad NYFF’s melting pot exposed me to this supernatural twist on the nature doc.
Red, White and Blue (from the Small Axe anthology)
John Boyega plays real-life figure Leroy Logan, a member of the London Metropolitan Police Force who both witnessed and experienced firsthand the organization’s fundamental racism. Set in the ’80s, McQueen’s film captures Logan’s growing awareness of a system that he would one day try to dismantle from the inside, while also centering on his relationship with his father, a victim of white police brutality who initially refuses to accept his son’s decision to enter law enforcement.
Steve McQueen returned to NYFF in a big way this year with the first three films (at least the first three that have been finished) in his Small Axe anthology all appearing on the festival’s Main Slate. I waited patiently for the encore screenings of both Lovers Rock and Mangrove so I could pair them with the premiere of Red, White and Blue, making for a full day of films from one of the best working directors today. I can confidently say that I saved the best for last and, potentially, so did McQueen. Red, White and Blue is intended to be the fifth and final film in the Small Axe chronology––Mangrove is the first and Lovers Rock is the second––so, assuming the missing third and fourth entries fall in line, this final installment will cap off the experience quite nicely.
For the record, I enjoyed all three films but in different ways. Mangrove has everything you want in a great court drama, but balances a few too many characters to keep it all contained. Lovers Rock is a major departure for McQueen tonally and stylistically––it is as sensual as it is indulgent, intentionally lacking much narrative direction––which makes for a fun experience that simmers quickly. But it’s in Red, White, and Blue that we see McQueen at his most focused without sacrificing the style and polish we know and love. It centers on real-life figure Leroy Logan, portrayed by the astounding John Boyega, and covers just the beginning of his story, which allows the film to tackle the deep personal complexities of a character study without meandering.
It also helps that, given its exploration of a black community’s rocky relationship to its police force, it packs the strongest and most relevant political punch of Small Axe thus far. While Mangrove approaches this topic as a protest film, Red, White and Blue looks at the conflict more methodically by including the intersection of blackness and law enforcement; whether the fight for change comes from inside the system or outside of it, the film suggests both efforts aim toward the same goal, sharing in its successes and, more importantly, its failures. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more nuanced, multi-faceted look at this conversation in any film from the previous decade, suggesting this conversation has evolved greatly and will continue to evolve, so long as talented filmmakers like Steve McQueen explore it further.
The Truffle Hunters
This engaging and beautifully filmed documentary immerses the viewer in the forests of Northern Italy, where dogs, accompanied by their elderly, often irascible human owners, scraping by on modest means, seek the precious white Alba truffle.
Onto much, much lighter matters…
Though I visited the Queens Drive-in first to see The Disciple, I bought tickets to see The Truffle Hunters there first, as it was one of my most anticipated films of NYFF58. Turns out it was well-worth the trip.
Much like Her Name Was Europa, Truffle Hunters gives you access to such a singular world that instantly engages you all on its own. However, while Europa keeps your presence at a distance, Truffle Hunters invites you to get up close and personal with its wonderful cast of characters. Unlike many overproduced documentaries, sporting cheap graphic templates and basic talking head interviews, the cinematography takes an observational approach made up of mostly static, expertly framed long takes. Combined with a narratively edited structure, this fly-on-the-wall style takes the audience on a relatively breezy, joyous experience that, filmically, features unprecedented access and realism. Basically, think if Wes Anderson made Honeyland––it's any film buff’s dream come true!!
...is that too inside baseball? Eh, who cares. I think it’s clever.
Though an adorable and disarming film, Truffle Hunters is not without commentary. The most obvious dichotomy at play is the wholesome, elusive lives of the hard-working hunters and the opportunistic corporate and culinary worlds that often take advantage of them. However, I don’t really think that’s the film’s grand takeaway; after all, every rose has its thorns. What I really latched onto was the mortality of the hunters and of the hunt itself. Every major character interacts with their future in different ways: some attempt to ignore it, working through their old age against all odds, while others have already abandoned hunting altogether. The film intertwines these arcs, with a few twists and turns thrown in, to explore each facet of the lifestyle, good and bad. Though it doesn’t provide many definitive moments to complete these arcs, perhaps this is to further imbue the story with hope and opportunity. Maybe these hilarious geezers really do have a few more good years left in them. Maybe, just maybe, the spirit of adventure, not to mention the love of man’s best friend, can cheat death.
…well ain’t that just some good old-fashioned wholesome energy? It’s the kind of 2020 antidote we need right about now, which has me excited for The Truffle Hunters’ future beyond the festival circuit.
And there you have it! Another round of thoughts and musings from yours truly. Stay tuned for next week, when we recap my final week of the festival. As of writing this, there is already some stiff competition.
Mmmmmm we love a good tease, but my final week is packed so, honestly, who knows what you’ll be reading about next time.
If you want to place your bets early, you can follow me on Twitter and Letterboxd to see what I’m watching when I’m watching it. And, better yet, you can subscribe to this blog and get a fresh email sent right to your inbox once my next post goes up.
NYFF58 has treated me so well. Let’s hope it goes out with a bang! Until then...I dunno, *finger guns*? Whatever.