Tonight the 46th New York Film Festival opens with Laurant Cantet's Palme D'Or winner The Class, followed by the annual opening night soiree at Central Park's Tavern on the Green. Today I caught up with Cantet for an interview in the upcoming issue of Filmmaker Magazine and reviewed the film over at Hammer to Nail. It is an essential film, fearless tackling the thorny intersection of race, class, modern education and national identity in an uncompromising fashion.
I tried seeing Carlos Reygada's Silent Light at this year's Hola Mexico Film Festival - as you can see from this Filmmaker Magazine blog entry, it didn't work out. I'll have another chance this week, as Reygada's newest film opens for a six day engagement at MoMA, one which includes his other two features, the superb and sublime Japon and equally enthrally Battle in Heaven, as well as Dane Carl Dreyer's 1955 film Ordet, a film that bore quite a bit of influence on Silent Light.
