Recap: 43rd Annual New York Film Festival

Beyond the Rocks 
A Sam Wood silent from 1922 that was thought lost but is now restored for only the cinema completionists. The cheesy soap opera of a story concerns a young woman (the creepy-looking Gloria Swanson) married off to an old tycoon, yet is truly in love with a heroic Lord (Rudolph Valentino). If you must, avoid the soundtrack score that includes every Foley effect possible, and see it with a live orchestra instead.

Screening:  Oct. 5, 8:30 pm, Walter Reade Theatre

The Hidden Blade 
One of the highlights of this year's special sidebar The Beauty of the Everyday: Japan’s Shochiku Company at 110, showing selections from the company's century of cinema from 1921's Souls on the Road up to this, the latest from Yoji Yamada. Taking place around the same time as Ed Zwick's The Last Samurai, but pleasantly void of Tom Cruise, the film centers on a samurai questioning his position and honor as he is forced to battle an old friend and simultaneously falls in love with his servant girl. The occasional comedic bits are too silly, but the story is compelling for anyone who prefers less action in his samurai pics.

Screenings:   Sept. 24, 7pm; Sept. 25, 6pm, Walter Reade Theatre. 
The Shochiku retrospective continues throughout the festival, ending Oct. 20. 

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu 
Extremely long but feels even longer thanks to the claustrophobic settings and mostly real-time pacing, Cristi Puiu's Cannes-winner isn't nearly as humorous as it claims to be. Though it is a dark comedy satirizing the medical world of Bucharest, I find it far too depressing to laugh at all, even with the jokes poked at TV hospital shows (notice how every doctor is a beautiful young woman). As the title-character in his last suffered night on Earth as he's passed from one unconcerned ER to the another, Ion Fiscuteanu gives one of the bravest performances of the year.