{"id":12346,"date":"2025-09-12T19:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/12346\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T19:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:20:10","slug":"movies-are-meeting-the-moment-but-distributors-are-scared-of-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/12346\/","title":{"rendered":"Movies Are Meeting the Moment but Distributors Are Scared of Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article is an excerpt from the new edition of \u201cIn Review<\/a> by David Ehrlich<\/a>,\u201d a biweekly newsletter in which\u00a0our Chief\u00a0Film<\/a>\u00a0Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the site\u2019s latest reviews and muses about current events in the movie world.\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a> to receive the newsletter in your inbox every other Friday.<\/p>\n

Ahoy, mateys! And welcome to another thrilling installment of \u201cIn Review.<\/a>\u201d Over the last two weeks I have journeyed far and wide across this land to bring you the hottest takes on the fall\u2019s most exciting new movies, even if the best of them \u2014 by some distance \u2014 was the one I saw at the exotic AMC 34th Street (more like One Escalator After Another am I right?).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ONE<\/a> \"US<\/a> <\/p>\n

Here are five things I learned on my travels:<\/p>\n

Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet Are Re-Writing the Rules<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018The Testament of Ann Lee\u2019<\/p>\n

When \u201cThe Brutalist\u201d stormed the festival circuit around this time last year, it seemed like something of a unicorn \u2014\u00a0as well as an almost impossible sell. Twelve months, 10 Oscar nominations, and one rapturous quasi-musical later, it feels like a new kind of recipe for success. How do you follow an epic historical drama about a traumatized European who sails to America and builds their own church? You make another one, of course.<\/p>\n

The parallels between Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet\u2019s future projects may not rhyme quite as clearly as those between \u201cThe Brutalist\u201d and \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee,<\/a>\u201d but the most exciting thing about this one-two punch isn\u2019t their thematic overlap so much as it is their shared sense of scale and self-possession. At a time when Hollywood is both deathly allergic to risk and physically incapable of making anything that costs less than $100 million, the fact that Fastvold and Corbet have now both directed gorgeous, sweeping, and creatively unbound movies for a fraction of that cost in Hungary feels like a new way forward. Sure, that model requires the kind of zeal and asceticism more associated with a religious movement than a film set, but \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d is nothing if not an ideal example of how it\u2019s done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Passion Projects Are a Double-Edged Sword<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Frankenstein\u2019<\/p>\n

Most good movies take a hot minute to get made, but this fall saw the premieres of several films \u2014\u00a0surely more than I\u2019ve made room to mention here \u2014 that were marinating for decades. I mean, Guillermo del Toro was probably pitching his \u201cFrankenstein\u201d to the other kids in the middle of class during first grade, where his teacher forced him to write \u201cI will not be sympathetic toward monsters\u201d on the blackboard 100 times as punishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But timing is everything, and it often only appears as if all of the pieces are falling into place. On the one hand, Park Chan-wook was duly rewarded for waiting 20 years to direct \u201cNo Other Choice,<\/a>\u201d as his Donald Westlake adaptation\u00a0\u2014\u00a0about a man so desperate for another job in his field that he murders the other candidates \u2014\u00a0is perfectly suited for the worldwide pivot to AI. Ditto Laura Poitras, who\u2019d been trying to make a Seymour Hersh documentary since at least 2005, but didn\u2019t manage to wear him down until world events \u2014\u00a0specifically the genocide in Gaza \u2014\u00a0had provided her the material she needed to paint her subject\u2019s career as an investigative journalist into a broader and more damning portrait of American malfeasance.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, del Toro has not been done any favors by dreaming of \u201cFrankenstein\u201d for so long; his love for the material is sacred and unimpeachable, but it comes through more palpably in how he talks about Mary Shelley\u2019s novel than it does in any part of the movie he\u2019s made from it. Soapy, broad, and so chintzy-looking despite its budget that it was difficult for me to appreciate the tragic beauty of Frankenstein\u2019s monster (I weep for how tactile this film might have been had del Toro made it before teaming up with cinematographer Dan Laustsen for \u201cCrimson Peak\u201d and committing himself to a series of increasingly garish digital veneers), this most passionate of passion projects would be so easy to mistake for any of the other gothic CGIsores from the last 25 years that it might as well be stitched together from the leftover parts of \u201cVan Helsing.\u201d I think there was a time when del Toro would have recognized as much, but the money and technology at this disposal has caused him to lose sight of the human element that drew him to this story in the first place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most Distributors Are Still Scared of Palestine<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018The Voice of Hind Rajab\u2019<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer, I wrote about the fate of Nadav Lapid\u2019s \u201cYes,\u201d and how its post-Cannes disappearance appeared to suggest that festivals<\/a> and distributors were afraid of films that dared to confront the most transparent moral atrocity of our times: the genocide in Gaza (Kino Lorber has since acquired U.S. rights for \u201cYes,\u201d and will release it here in early 2026<\/a>). Did Telluride<\/a>, Venice<\/a>, or TIFF<\/a> do anything to improve the situation? Well, yes and no.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Telluride, a wonderful festival whose need to appease its patrons has seen it become subtly but worryingly less adventurous in its programming, neglected to screen many of the recent films that feature the genocide as their primary subject (\u201cCover-Up\u201d touches on Gaza with great purpose, but only in passing). Amid a lineup that was absolutely bursting with documentaries about everything from the American Revolution to the making of \u201cMegalopolis,\u201d and everyone from E. Jean Carroll to Elie Wiesel, I was disappointed not to see \u201cPut Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,\u201d and only took an uncertain measure of consolation in the fact that Telluride chose to screen Netalie Braun\u2019s \u201cShooting,\u201d a self-reflexive Israeli film about how the country\u2019s unchecked militarism has poisoned its cinema (I wasn\u2019t able to see it myself, but the movie\u2019s Letterboxd reviews make it sound appropriately damning).\u00a0<\/p>\n

TIFF, which stepped on rake after rake in the process of premiering \u201cThe Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,\u201d an \u201cinspiring\u201d documentary by TIFF donor Barry Avrich about an Israeli man who saved his family from the violence of October 7, at least provided a venue for the North American premieres of Venice standout \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d as well as Locarno highlight \u201cWith Hasan in Gaza\u201d and the rousing historical drama \u201cPalestine 36.\u201d The festival also, if not on its own accord, played host to a loud and defiant protest in front of the Lightbox last Sunday night, which did more to make TIFF seem relevant and in conversation with the world than most of the movies I saw there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yet, of all these films, only \u201cPut Your Soul\u201d and \u201cPalestine 36\u201d have distribution, but Kino Lorber and Watermelon Pictures \u2014 the latter of which almost exclusively releases movies from or about Palestine \u2014 can\u2019t be expected to be American cinema\u2019s sole lifeline to the country. (\u201cThe Road Between Us\u201d is being released on more than 1,000 screens in October.) Fingers crossed that \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d \u201cWith Hasan in Gaza,\u201d and \u201cCover-Up\u201d will all find proper homes soon, even if only under the auspices of awards season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ambivalence Is Out, Emotion Is In<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Hamnet\u2019<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to make any sweeping pronouncements based on anecdotal evidence, a tiny sample size, and my own personal biases (just kidding, I\u2019m a film critic, that\u2019s pretty much my favorite thing to do), but at a time when being numb to the world is at once both a survival mechanism and a moral abdication, the festivals made it seem as if there\u2019s a newfound premium on movies that make you feel anything strongly \u2014\u00a0even if only through brute force.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an introverted cynic whose love of movies can probably be explained on some level by the fact that sitting in the dark allows me to be present but not perceived, I naturally struggled with Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s insistence on leading every \u201cHamnet\u201d premiere audience in the same mindfulness routine that she conducted for the cast and crew on set every morning. Taking deep breaths, looking the person next to you in the eye, putting your hand on your heart, that sort of thing. I\u2019m not proud to say that it had the opposite of the intended effect on me, making me more guarded and self-conscious rather less (though as someone who\u2019s been prescribed stimulants to make myself less hyper for the last 20 years, I\u2019m used to that sort of counter-intuitiveness).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Less than an hour later, I was sobbing so hard that the woman next to me started to look worried. Maybe it was the mountain air, or that I missed my kids, or that \u201cHamnet\u201d resonated with me as the story of a writer who goes on a work trip that leaves him unable to stop or bear witness to a tragedy back at home (Tweeting about movies in Telluride is basically the same thing as scripting \u201cMacbeth\u201d in 17th century London and don\u2019t you dare suggest otherwise), but I forgot myself for the rest of the film. <\/p>\n

I forgot that I was in public, and that leaving yourself completely open to the pain of others can be a paralyzing experience these days. I even forgot that Gracie Abrams was sitting right behind me. \u201cHamnet\u201d will never be accused of having a light touch (my review accused the tear-jerker of \u201cfarming viewers for moisture\u201d), but I found myself unexpectedly grateful for Zhao\u2019s refusal to hold back, and\u00a0 for how the almost pornographic sentimentality of her film invited its audience to participate in the same kind of emotional transference that Will Shakespeare and his poor wife Agnes experience towards the end of the story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that \u201cHamnet\u201d stayed with me \u2014\u00a0sank deeper into my bones, even \u2014 over the course of the days that followed, while the stiff upper lip of \u201cH Is for Hawk,\u201d the probing ambiguity of \u201cAfter the Hunt,\u201d and the inert wistfulness of \u201cLa Grazia\u201d made it that much harder to engage with those films on any level. There\u2019s a reason why the last five minutes of \u201cJay Kelly\u201d is one of the only memorable parts of that movie, just as there\u2019s a reason why \u201cRental Family\u201d loses points for not better weaponizing its treacle, and why the most interesting thing about \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d is how gingerly it navigates between pain and stability. It\u2019s never been more important to feel alive to the world, especially for those of us who are more inclined to be closed off, and it\u2019s the movies which dispossess people of their numbness that are poised to leave the biggest mark this fall.<\/p>\n

Movies Are Meeting the Moment<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018No Other Choice\u2019<\/p>\n

On a related \u2014\u00a0if somewhat perpendicular \u2014 note, it was also telling to see that several of the season\u2019s early standouts are movies that engage with our current moment head-on. That\u2019s most obviously true of Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d which towered over the festivals despite skipping all three of them, and, along with \u201cEddington,\u201d offered the most overt rebuke to\/apology for the prevailing wisdom that many of today\u2019s greatest filmmakers are more comfortable engaging with the past (more on that next week). But it was also thrilling to see Yorgos Lanthimos confront red pill conspiracy brain and corporate technocracy with \u201cBugonia,\u201d whose relevance to the present day was made all the more pronounced by the fact that it\u2019s a remake; \u201cBugonia\u201d might like the sweep and inventiveness of Lanthimos\u2019 best work, but sometimes a brilliant Chappell Roan needle-drop is all it takes to bridge the gap between any number of different worlds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No such luck in Park Chan-wook\u2019s \u201cNo Other Choice\u201d (which favors classic Korean pop ballads over the modern American kind), but none of the maestro\u2019s work has stung quite as hard as this one does in the pyrrhic victory of its final moments, when the film\u2019s \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d violence mournfully surrenders to a situation all too real. And while \u201cWake Up Dead Man\u201d might lack the fun and humor of the previous \u201cKnives Out\u201d movies (I found the mystery in this one labored, its major supporting roles underwritten, and Benoit Blanc\u2019s presence frustratingly ornamental), Rian Johnson\u2019s ensemble Netflix movie comes back to life whenever it refocuses its attention on the political underpinnings of its story \u2014\u00a0on charismatic demagogues, the self-serving cowardice that fuels their power, and the absurdity of the politics that bind them together. The least of Johnson\u2019s trilogy does the most to position it as a coherent treatise against the indecency of Trumpian narcissism, and as a bittersweet testament to the fantasy of solving it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following article is an excerpt from the new edition of \u201cIn Review by David Ehrlich,\u201d a biweekly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,2320,878,85,12964,46,397,12965,646,11652],"class_list":["post-12346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-film","tag-il","tag-in-review","tag-israel","tag-movies","tag-telluride","tag-tiff","tag-venice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}