Judging Lynch: Beat Film Festival made the master's work the main theme

Over the past few years, the Beat Film Festival has turned into a unique event, it is definitely more than just "another festival". There is no such documentary film program anywhere else in Russia, almost every film here is a participant in Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Sundance. And although the fest is claimed to be a "cinema about a new culture" format, in reality the films here are about the "old" culture, about outstanding personalities, and about the most important problems of modern humanity. Izvestia chose something from the program that should definitely not be skipped.

Lots of David Lynch

This year, the creativity and personality of the great director is the main theme of the festival. In the collection "Lynch: The Beginning", Lynch's short films will be shown in a separate session, which are well known to cinephiles, but rarely appear on the big screen. Fans of the director well remember the film "David Lynch: A Life in Art" (David Lynch: The Art Life), which was released in Russia a few years ago. This time it will be shown again, and, most likely, the audience will come again. Another popular film, Lynch/Oz, has not previously been shown in Russian cinemas, but is available in subscriptions on online platforms.

But the main highlight of this section of the festival is the latest "Welcome to Lynchland" (David Lynch, une énigme à Hollywood), a French doc that just premiered in Cannes and was presented at the Croisette by the director's son. Of course, no one has seen this picture in Russia yet, and it is of particular value in the eyes of those for whom Lynch has always been more than just another American director. And as we understand it, there are many of them. Among the speakers in the film are Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern and Isabella Rossellini, stars with cult status, who many associate primarily with Lynch's cinematography. They say the tickets for these sessions are already half sold out.

The Beatles: What New York Said (Things We Said Today)

No one will be surprised by the "revival" of the chronicle today, and if director Andrei Uzhika had simply cleaned up the old footage and sound and added noise to them, maybe this film would not have received its premiere at the last Venice Film Festival. Although it's still a chance to travel by time machine and end up in 1965.

The Beatles come to New York dazed by their fallen glory, crowds of female fans try to break through to their idols, and journalists shout out tricky questions. But the city lives its own life, there are so many things on the streets that the concert of the world's most popular band recedes into the background. And the Horror comes up with two fictional characters, in the film they are simply drawn and voiced right in the middle of the chronicle. Moreover, one of these heroes has magical access to the Beatles, he can be right next to them, which millions of girls could only dream of then. But he's still a bit of a ghost and enjoys his freedom. If he wants, he finds himself almost in the same car with the Beatles, if he wants, he walks around the city, enjoying summer, youth, and the bitter feeling that all this will disappear, remaining only on film and in his memory, as fictional as himself.

Anselm. The Noise of Time (Anselm — Das Rauschen der Zeit)

The German classic Wim Wenders has been successfully combining work in feature films and documentaries for many years. Moreover, with age (and Wenders will turn 80 this year), he does not reduce his creative intensity. In 2023, the director presented the film "Perfect Days" in Cannes, which won the award for best actor (Japanese actor Koji Yakuse). And at the same screening, he showed a doc about the artist Anselm Kiefer.

The first tape reached us last year, the second — just now. But if "Perfect Days" is no worse perceived when viewed at home, then "Anselm. The Noise of Time" was created, of course, with an eye to the big screen. Kiefer is the author of huge canvases and large—scale installations. This is an art that, for all its drama and sometimes painfulness, gives a purely visual pleasure. And Wenders masterfully transfers this effect into his work. He creates his own film poetry based on Kiefer's images. And yet, compared to the pioneering "Perfect Days", "Anselm. The noise of time" seems very traditional. Let's be honest: there are fewer Wenders here than there are Keefers. However, meditativeness, melancholy and wisdom are equally inherent in two geniuses.

Chain Reactions

Another film from the Venice program. What do "City Lights," "The Wizard of Oz," "Nosferatu," "Grave of the Fireflies," "One Missed Call," "Mad Max," the comedies of Buster Keaton, "Bambi," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" have in common? Oddly enough, quite a lot. Director Alexander O. Philip has created more than just a cinephile product with talking heads and classic footage. He turned out to be an anarchist audiovisual essay, where the low-budget horror "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is located in the chronological center of the history of cinema, like a spider in the middle of a spider's web. As a system of images, he reproduces ready-made archetypes, generating new ones, creating a specific space of film mythology.

Among the director's interlocutors are writer Stephen King and director Takashi Miike, each of whom builds their own horror system, but at the heart of this system is necessarily the "Chainsaw Massacre." It's clear that this is a polemical device, a joke for geeks, but there is so much love for cinema in it that I want to believe in this crazy idea for at least an hour and a half. And the girl with the bare back comes up to the house again and again in the iconic "Massacre" scene — and this is not just a fragment of horror, but the poetry of cinema in its purest form.

Anderson's Tale: the "Phoenician Scheme" presented in Cannes

Mark Edelstein joined the Hollywood superstars on the red carpet.

Predators

Maybe American viewers are used to this, but for Russian it definitely looks a bit exotic. It turns out that 20 years ago, the popular true-edge show "Catching a Predator" aired on NBC. The format was like this. Adult actors posed as minors and lured pedophiles to "their" home with correspondence and calls. The house, of course, was studded with hidden cameras. The structure of the show was the same. Here a "teenager" gets involved with a pedophile, here he arrives, sees a child in front of him, flirts with him. The "child" invites an adult into the house. And then the "child" suddenly leaves the room, and the host of the show comes in instead. They say, hello, my dear, here you are. The shocked criminal usually ran out of the house after that, and the police were already waiting for him there. The TV audience was delighted.

Years passed, and the authors of the film "Predators" decided to conduct an audit. They found a now middle-aged actor who was a decoy in the show, playing a "boy." We met with the very presenter who effectively went out to pedophiles. And we decided to reflect on what it was. About the psychological traumas suffered by the young actors. That pedophiles might never have shown their inclinations if they hadn't been so masterfully "seduced" by in-house psychological experts. About which audience instincts this show was actually appealing to. The conversation turned out to be sad and thoughtful. After a bright premiere at Sundance, the film is moving towards the Oscar and has a good chance of getting it.