This fall marks my 8th consecutive visit to the New York Film Festival. For those not already in the know, the program is somewhat distinctive; the city’s relative newcomer Tribeca is much closer to the regional fest norm. Positioned more or less at the end of the festival calendar, the NYFF aspires to offer the very best of the year’s films—thus, the no-fat 25-title line-up. In some sense, the final selection functions as a “Best of Toronto” for culturally inundated Manhattanites. This fall marks my 8th consecutive visit to the New York Film Festival. For those not already in the know, the program is somewhat distinctive; the city’s relative newcomer Tribeca is much closer to the regional fest norm. Positioned more or less at the end of the festival calendar, the NYFF aspires to offer the very best of the year’s films—thus, the no-fat 25-title line-up. In some sense, the final selection functions as a “Best of Toronto” for culturally inundated Manhattanites. Also worth noting, this represents the 7th straight year I’ve covered the fest for the Scene. As most cineastes already know, festival coverage is something of a necessary evil—information rich if sometimes monolithic, too often a series of undernourished blurbs strung together by the loosest of narratives. So, this year I’ve attempted a change-up: a festival tour diary, to give a sense of how one feature informs the next and how inevitable festival fatigue distorts and colors anticipation and response. 9/23: The official festival kickoff… Before the morning’s press screening, I caught up with Nashville’s irrepressible, irreplaceable Jason Shawhan; he’d already been in town for about a week. His take so far: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s L’Enfant, handicapped as a pre-fest sure thing, proved fatally compromised, while Capote was likely the program’s most consistent offering—hardly the Oscar-baiting, by-the-numbers biopic I feared. So what do I know? George Clooney’s self-deprecating remarks and well-turned Halliburton dig helped diffuse the usual star worship (honestly, they’re better than real people) surrounding opening night. Informed by a similar matter-of-fact tone, his estimable sophomore effort Good Night, and Good Luck. retells the mid-50s Edward R. Murrow-Joseph McCarthy saga. Austere, brave and uncommonly literate—and to be honest, a bit pat—the film’s true measure may be its cultural impact. Can a stylish historical docudrama rouse a narcoleptic populace or shame a craven fourth estate into action? Either way, it’s always nice to see a fellow Cincinnati boy do good. Even stronger, if less “significant,” the morning feature, Noah Baumbach’s Sundance favorite The Squid and the Whale, unpacked the wreckage of his parents’ failed marriage. Always blessed with a gift for language, the director’s sharp comedies of manners have too often devolved into highbrow gamesmanship. Not so his latest, an altogether stronger, more emotionally rich effort. Here, his deft comic sketches are suffused in melancholy and undercut by real pain. Favorite moment: a transition from dad’s house to mom’s, mirrored on the soundtrack by a fade from Loudon Wainwright III’s “Lullaby” to his ex Kate McGarrigle’s “Heart Like a Wheel.” 9/24: Blame my indifferent response on exhaustion (late nights and early screenings don’t mix) or hunger (I rarely eat enough during the fest), but Philippe Garrel’s chronicle of the late-‘60s Paris youth movement, Regular Lovers, seemed unaccountably flat and aimless. Compared to Murrow’s grim war of ideas, the New Wave-besotted film’s would-be artistes registered as little more than overprivileged do-nothings—no doubt, intentionally. Still, though Baumbach’s on-screen father Jeff Daniels might label me a philistine, I prefer Bertolucci’s (humorously name-checked) much-maligned slice of Eurofluff The Dreamers, which handles similar material with more economy and wit. Oddly enough, then, Cristi Puiu’s bleak, sardonic verite-styled depiction of the intricacies and inefficiencies of the Bucharest hospital system, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, qualified as an up. The titular widower, a garrulous drunk complaining of persistent headaches and nausea, endures an Odyssean evening-long trek from emergency room to emergency room, ferried by the caustic but roughly compassionate 911 med-tech Mioara. This remarkable tour de force recalls the work of Jafar Panahi (in its suggestion of an entire social order from a series of well-orchestrated episodes) and of Frederick Wiseman (in its detailed, documentary-like portrait of an institution’s inner-workings). Highest praises, and a must-see. 9/25: Jason Shawhan was right—at least insofar as L’Enfant registers as a less vital, compelling work than the Dardennes’ inspired prior works. Splitting its focus between two principals, the film is by design less immediate, more removed. But in terms of content, with its familiar themes of redemption, society’s dispossessed and capitalism’s alienating effect, it remains of a piece. Its protagonist Bruno is a charismatic hustler operating almost wholly on instinct with little time (or use) for introspection. As his actions plunge him ever deeper into peril, it becomes clear that the child alluded to in the title is the Dardennes’ petty thief, not the baby he attempts to sell on the black market. Press notices inevitably focus on the festival’s “boutique” leanings, but the admittedly select main program is supplemented by director discussions, revivals and several choice sidebars. Not the least of which is the Walter Reade’s 44-film celebration of Shochiku Company, home over the years to a who’s who of Japanese masters: Mizoguchi, Oshima, Naruse, Imamura, and of course Ozu. The retrospective began with the studio’s first flowering, 1921’s seminal Souls on the Road. Director Minora Mureta’s parallel tale of a prodigal son and two released convicts, featuring expressive in-camera editing, is solid and entertaining, but its lasting import is likely as a founding text. That said, the framing Gorky quote, “There is a time for compassion,” could serve as a fest tagline. One of the New York Film Festival’s chief pleasures is New York itself, a city that effectively offers a year-round festival. Sadly, a choice between the NYFF’s reportedly provocative Israeli doc Avenge But One of My Eyes and an Anthology Film Archives retrospective of Jean Vigo’s essential filmography isn’t really much of a choice. There’s no disrespect in noting that Truffaut spent the bulk of his career attempting to approximate the anarchy, poetry and joy of Zéro de Conduite’s final moments, and the impossibly lyrical L’Atalante remains one of cinema’s most romantic, intoxicating fables. I enjoyed my afternoon busman’s holiday at Anthology. 9/26: A jump-off day: a mid-fest return to Nashville to tackle vacation backlog and get some much needed rest. The day’s press screenings proved enjoyable if hardly revelatory. The first, Who’s Camus Anyway?, is an art-school Day for Night featuring an especially unsettling final sequence that deconstructs our notions of identification and on-screen violence. The afternoon feature, Something Like Happiness, is a sprawling, emotionally messy Czech multi-family drama that becomes stronger and more compelling as its focus narrows. Of the “current” features sampled over my extended weekend, only A History of Violence seems canon bound. Tellingly, the film has already inspired some of the year’s best writing, most of which inevitably indulges the “reference game” (for the record, my short-list includes Unforgiven, Out of the Past and Dogville). Too often a lazy reflex-action, in this case, the familiar critical shorthand seems more meaningful. Cronenberg’s noir-western is so assured, so in command of its medium, that from its chilling opening shot, it effectively enacts an insightful, penetrating dialogue with the entire history of cinema—which, as Godard might claim, is also the history of violence. Of the festival titles, Lazarescu is definitely a contender, and L’Enfant and The Squid and the Whale are certainly worth a second look. Also, with much-hyped offerings from Aleksandr Sokurov, Patrice Chereau, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Michael Haneke still on deck, I suspect the schedule is back-loaded. Several weeks ago, Jim Ridley opened his coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival with the lyrical query, “Is that all there is?” If that’s all there is in New York, my friends, then I’ll keep watching.