Arriving at the venue for The New Yorker Festival’s event with Owen Wilson and moderator Michael Specter, the first thing I noticed was the three chairs on stage, a signifier of a potential guest. My guess was either a Wilson brother or Wes Anderson, the director and co-writer with Wilson on some films including their first, Bottle Rocket, and their most recent, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. When Specter came out with both Wilson and Anderson in tow he joked he wasn’t even going to introduce the director but many in the audience played along. He later said Anderson was there to assist in the conversation with Wilson—which would have been great.

Specter acknowledged that he was not prepared for Anderson’s presence when he was finding clips of Wilson for viewing. Yet, Specter’s posture and questioning for the next hour distinctly leaned towards Anderson. The clips, some from Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and Fox all included Wilson, but the attention was given to Anderson more. Did we really need to know that there are people on the internet who are recreating the “whack-bat” game?

In his introduction, the director, Asghar Farhadi (About Elly) asked the audience to forget everything they had read or may previously know about his new film. Though I had read a previous review on PopMatters of the film at the Sydney Film Fest, I abided by dissolving any expectations since I came to the New York Film Festival to watch films I would not ordinarily find. This film, A Separation, is more than a simple family drama piece as it totally captures the viewer just as the entire cast is caught up. Husband Nader (Peyman Moadi) and wife Simin (Leila Hatami), at the center of the separation, stumble into a situation that challenges their Islamic beliefs and morals and those of another family, their friends and their young daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi).

Farhadi (the director) does not ever preach about or challenge Islam. He carefully shows how difficult believing and interpreting the faith can be in Iran. When Nader’s father needs to be cared for, the hired help Razieh (Sareh Bayat) has to phone her mosque to get guidance before helping the elderly man with Alzheimer’s. Later the shariah legal procedure throws each character’s actions into stark contrast as the judge is unwilling to change the charges to reflect people’s motivations. At the center of it all is Termeh who wishes to get her two parents back together.

The CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival continues to grow to epic proportions since its debut back in 1980. This year includes over 1,300 artist performances and dozens of cutting-edge films at 80 venues, nightclubs and theaters around New York City. Notable bands include Wild Flag, Neon Indian, Portugal. The Man., Active Child, Weekend and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. But it’s the bands you haven’t heard of that give this festival its raison d’ être.

There are also close to 70 panels, seminars and special events to keep things going around the clock. Topics include A&R, Artist Management and Publishing/Licensing as well as anything to do with social media. A CMJ Full Festival Badge costs $495 (with a CMJ Student Full Badge priced at $295) but new this year is a CMJ Show Pass for $149 which allows access to all CMJ Music Marathon Showcases and Film Festival Screenings—based on venue capacity on a first come first serve basis. For those not planning to attend, PopMatters will have a team spreading out across the city to bring the event to life online. More details at cmj.com.

INTO THE ABYSS
Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Richard Lopez, Michael Perry, Damon Hall, Lisa Stotler-Balloun, Charles Richardson, Jason Burkett, Jared Talbert, Amanda West, Delbert Burkett, Melyssa Thompson-Burkett, Fred Allen
Country: USA

Among the most beloved art house directors working today, Werner Herzog could make a movie about just about anything and the critics would fall over themselves praising it. Perhaps this is because there is a critic-proof quality to his work, so rife it is with broken rules, oddball flights of fancy, uncompromising artistry, and downright bizarre choices.

In his documentaries especially, Herzog throws the supposed regulations out completely, ditching any pretense toward objectivity or “documentation” for a decidedly first-person perspective. He doesn’t just interview his subjects, he debates with them. He asks surprising, heavily loaded questions of them. He is full of leading suggestions—at one point in Into the Abyss he asks someone to describe a gunfight: “And you arrived at the scene. Was it mayhem?”—and seems always as though he is literally directing the documentary while he is out there documenting it. As one reporter acquaintance of mine complains: “He does everything we are taught as reporters never to do, and all these artists think he’s a genius.” Well, yes.

SONS OF NORWAY
Director: Jens Lien
Cast: Åsmund Høeg, Sven Nordin, Sonja Richter, Tony Veisle Skarpsmo, John Lydon
Country: Norway

At the public screening for this Norwegian coming of age tale, former Sex Pistol and co-star Johnny Rotten was asked to introduce the film. “You’ll really like it,” he declared. “And if you don’t, you’re fucking cunts.” Well. Glad I liked it, I guess. Sons of Norway, mockingly named after a Norwegian cultural heritage preservation society, tells the story of the role punk music and culture influenced a young boy on the cusp of his adolescence in 1978.