Film
In Conversation
IT’S ALRIGHT, WILLIAMSBURG
(I’M ONLY BLEEDING)
SU FRIEDRICH with Cynthia Lugo
Gut Renovation chronicles the rapid transformation of Williamsburg as well as Friedrich’s memories of a place she can no longer call home.
The Many Hindrances of STEPHEN DWOSKIN
By Max NelsonStephen Dwoskin contracted polio at age nine. He would rely on crutches for the rest of his life; eventually he would be confined to a wheelchair. For this man who could never ignore the limitations of physical life, memory, work, leisure, relationships, and above all love became bodily functions, all touched by illness and subject to its constraints.
ROOMS OF MELANCHOLIA
Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills
By Ricky D'Ambrose
The title of Cristian Mungiu’s new film has the glint of a blighted promise—the ultimate tease. A huddled coldwater monastery is the setting of an ordeal ensnaring former orphan Alina, who has just returned to Romania in a stunted effort to defrock childhood friend Voichita. There are sins to absolve, demons to exorcise.
NOTHING’S HAPPIER THAN HAPPINESS
Pablo Larraín’s NO
By José Miguel Palacios
“What you’re about to see is part of the social context of today’s Chile.” In NO, René Saavedra says these words every time he shows his commercials to clients—three times, to be precise. I’ll return to those instances later, but for now, allow me to spend a moment with two words of René’s mantra—social context.
FROM A DARK ROOM
SANDRA GIBSON AND LUIS RECODER with Genevieve Yue
For their first public art commission, Brooklyn-based artists Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder conceived Topsy-Turvy, a cylindrical camera obscura in Madison Square Park that projects on its interior walls an upside-down image of the Flatiron district
