A blurred movie year comes into focus at New York Film Fest
A movie year of fits-andstarts, delays and reversals has sometimes been difficult to track. Knowing just where and how a new movie premieres has become a sport of its own. Even for those closely following new films, it’s been a sometimes exhilarating, sometimes befuddling half-virtual, half-in-person year of moviegoing.
But at the 59th New York Film Festival, which began Friday, an abnormal movie year comes into sharp focus. The New York Film Festival, which is put on by Film at Lincoln Center, isn’t the sum total of everything worth seeing in 2021, but it’s about as close as most festivals get. Over the next two weeks, 32 feature films will unspool in New York’s main slate, along with companion sections, revivals and tributes.
“The mandate of the festival has always been to take stock of the year in cinema,” said Dennis Lim, the festival’s director of programming. “Besides being a strange year, I think it was also a really strong year.”
The premiere of Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, kicked off the festival Friday at Alice Tully Hall. The film, to be released by a24 in theaters on Dec. 25 and on Apple TV+ on Jan. 14, is the biggest event of the festival, which adds to the growing revival of the arts in New York.
While some films, like “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” will be debuting, the New York Film Festival is a highly curated collection of films that have been standouts at other festivals this year. That includes Jane Campion’s gothic Western “The Power of the Dog”; Pedro Almodóvar’s tender motherhood tale “Parallel Mothers”; and Joanna Hogg’s exquisite memory piece “The Souvenir Part II.”