Queer storytelling is front and center at New York's premier film fest
The New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center will include Cate Blanchett in Tár and Timothée Chalamet in Bones and All.
Now that awards have been handed out in Venice, Telluride and Toronto, it’s time for New York’s annual celebration of cinema, which descends on Lincoln Center for more than two weeks, beginning Friday. For many of the New Yorkers and the others who travel to the city for the screenings, the festival provides a first glimpse at several of the year’s most significant films, making post-screening chatter a bellwether for awards season prospects.
This year, as movie lovers spill out into the bars, restaurants and after-party venues near the Upper West Side performing arts destination, many of the biggest films up for discussion put queer storytelling front and center. From the heartbreaking to the utterly confounding and intoxicating, there’s an abundance of can’t-miss LGBTQ-inclusive films scheduled to play at the 60th annual New York Film Festival, which runs Friday to Oct. 16.
In an interview for the entertainment site IndieWire, Dennis Lim, the festival’s artistic director, summed up the 60th edition’s marquee offerings: “If there is one takeaway from this year’s Main Slate, it is cinema’s limitless capacity for renewal. … Collectively, the films in the program suggest that this renewal takes many forms: breathtaking debuts, veterans pulling off new tricks, filmmakers of all stripes seeking new and surprising forms of expression and representation.”
Perhaps the most exciting queer — or otherwise — film of the festival, which certainly speaks to Lim’s description, is Todd Field’s “TÁR.” The film, which was written specifically for star Cate Blanchett, is Field’s first since 2006’s “Little Children,” and it is packed with surprises.
Cate Blanchett as musician Lydia Tár in "TÁR."Focus FeaturesFor one, despite a perhaps purposefully misleading official description, “the iconic musician Lydia Tár” at the center of the film is a fictional character. For another, although queer audiences will find plenty to drool over in Blanchett’s womanizing composer, “TÁR” is less a sapphic love fest and more an elusive psychological thriller. But that doesn’t make Field’s return to the big screen — and his stars’ performances, including stellar showings by Noémie Merlant and Nina Hoss — any less of a tour de force. In fact, many have predicted that Blanchett’s silver medallion and best actress wins at the Telluride Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, respectively, are the first of many awards she’ll be taking home for the role.
Rating: 5