Aurelia Butler

The first feature from Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation”) arrives in a remastered version on streaming services.The debut feature from the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, “Dancing in the Dust” never received a proper release in the United States. Now, 20 years after it was first shown, it is surfacing in a remastered version on streaming platforms. Two of Farhadi’s subsequent features (“A Separation” and “The Salesman”) won the Oscar for what was then called the best foreign language film, and he has become a reliable, methodical specialist in a certain brand of domestic drama. In Farhadi films, right and wrong are never clear-cut, and the suspense is intertwined with mounting moral complexities.The opening scenes of “Dancing in the Dust” find the filmmaker already operating in his signature mode. Nazar (Yousef Khodaparast) loves his wife, Reyhane (Baran Kosari), but salacious rumors about her mother — which Reyhane won’t confirm — lead him reluctantly to seek a divorce that neither wants. Reyhane won’t agree to forget her mother, and Nazar can’t disobey his parents, even if a divorce might ruin his wife’s life.Regardless, Nazar doesn’t have the money he is supposed to pay her, and he has also defaulted on a loan for the marriage. To avoid arrest, he runs away, hiding in the van of a cantankerous snake catcher (Faramarz Gharibian), who sets upon him once they are in the desert. At this point, “Dancing in the Dust” becomes something less familiar from Farhadi, but familiar from other movies: a two-hander with temperamentally opposed men — one who won’t stop talking and one who rarely speaks — in a hostile environment where abandonment could mean death.How the pair resolve their impasse does not offer any major surprises, but “Dancing in the Dust” shows Farhadi’s early confidence with using framing and cutting to create tension and parallels — skills that would serve him later.Dancing in the DustNot rated. In Persian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More

Over 230 pieces went under the hammer, including sculptures by Rodin. The French actor — now dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct — once played the artist in a movie.The near-entirety of an art collection belonging to Gérard Depardieu, the prolific French actor whose career was clouded in recent years by accusations of sexual assault and harassment, was sold at a two-day Paris auction this week that brought in 4 million euros, including fees, or about $4.2 million.Over 230 items went under the hammer on Tuesday and Wednesday at a sale organized at the Hôtel Drouot by the Ader auction house, including paintings by Alexander Calder and sculptures by Auguste Rodin, whom Depardieu played in the 1988 movie “Camille Claudel.”About 100 people crammed into the auction room on Tuesday night for the sale of the collection’s most prominent items, including a small oil painting of a flower vase by Odile Redon, which sold for €50,000, and the three small Rodin sculptures, which sold for €15,000 to €65,000.The star of the night seemed to be a 4.5-foot enlargement of “Walking Man,” a bronze sculpture originally made by Germaine Richier in 1945. The enlargement, which used to dominate Depardieu’s living room, was hammered up to €510,000 — but the auction house said in a statement Wednesday that the actor decided at the last minute not to sell the sculpture, and withdrew the lot.“This is a serious collection,” David Nordmann, one of the two auctioneers at Ader in charge of the sale, said in an interview. “This is not the collection of a celebrity who bought artwork just to show off.”“The Walking Man” by Germaine Richier, which once stood in Depardieu’s living room.Adagp, ParisNordmann had previously worked with Depardieu when the actor sold off the contents of a Parisian fine dining restaurant that he owned. The two men stayed in touch and discussed the sale his art collection. Depardieu gave the go-ahead in early 2023, and let the auctioneer pick the pieces and set the prices.“He loved to collect,” Nordmann said, recalling how Depardieu spent hours telling him about Matisse’s superiority to Picasso the first time he entered the actor’s home. But “at some point,” he added, “he reached the end of that process.”He has also faced a growing number of sexual abuse accusations. In interviews in April with Mediapart, an investigative news site, 13 women — actresses, makeup artists and production staff — accused Depardieu of making inappropriate sexual comments or gestures during the shooting of films released between 2004 and 2022. Two other women made similar accusations against him in interviews this summer with France Inter, a radio station. Depardieu declined to be interviewed for this article, but has always denied any criminal behavior.The turmoil in his personal life might have factored into his decision to sell, Nordmann said, “but not in the sense that he is trying to prove a point” or distract from the accusations.“He wants to move on,” he said.Some items sold at prices much higher than expected, including a 1928 portrait by Christian Jacques Bérard that sold for €55,000 euros, 11 times the low estimate, and a monochromatic ink composition by Jean Arp that sold for €20,000. But most pieces sold within the estimated range.The collection, which skews heavily toward postwar abstraction and contemporary art, includes widely recognizable names — a Duchamp collage; several pieces by Miró. Depardieu appears to have favored rugged compositions, bold colors, thick brushstrokes and raw materials, in keeping with his larger-than-life personality, Nordmann said.He refused to lend pieces for shows, Nordmann said, including the Richier sculpture, which was recently requested for a show at the Centre Pompidou.Depardieu in the Netflix TV show “Marseille.” The actor has appeared in over 250 movies.Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe sale did not include any Depardieu memorabilia. But it attracted unusually large crowds, both during the sale and beforehand, as thousands of curious visitors crowded the Hôtel Drouot to get a peek at the actor’s collection before it was snapped up.Depardieu is one of France’s most prominent and prolific lead actors, an internationally recognized figure who has played in the last 50 years in more than 250 movies, including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask,” and in TV shows like “Marseille.”Over the past decade, though, Depardieu’s popularity has waned as personal scandals overtook his acting career. He became a Russian citizen in 2013 to avoid taxes in France, and has expressed a strong friendship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, although last year he denounced the invasion of Ukraine.But the accusations of sexual abuse against Depardieu have been more damaging. He has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations.But Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault in a case involving Charlotte Arnould, a French actress who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in Paris in 2018, when she was 22, during informal rehearsals for a theater production. Prosecutors had initially dropped that investigation in 2019, citing of a lack of incriminating evidence, but it was reopened in 2020.The French movie industry has grappled with several high-profile accusations of sexual abuse in recent years and taken steps to address them. But mixed reactions to the #MeToo movement in France — which has also given a warm reception to artists accused of abuse — exposed sharp cultural divides between France and the United States.Juliette Guéron-Gabrielle More

This month’s picks include an Argentine documentary about reproductive justice, an uproarious Tamil riff on superhero movies, a visual essay about Ireland and Britain, and more.‘Vicenta’Stream it on Ovid.In 2006, Vicenta, a poor and illiterate domestic worker in Buenos Aires, discovered that her 19-year-old daughter, Laura, who had a developmental disability, was pregnant; she had been raped by her uncle. Darío Doria’s gutting movie relates the Kafkaesque torment that followed as the family tried to get Laura an abortion. A network of doctors, lawyers, social workers and judges became embroiled in a case that surfaced the misogyny and ableism in Argentina’s legal and medical system. As Vicenta and Laura navigated this bureaucratic labyrinth — which went all the way from the local police office to Argentina’s Supreme Court to, eventually, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights — the clock ticked on, making it harder for Laura to terminate her pregnancy safely.Rather than relay this tale as a traditional documentary, Doria employs an ingenious formal conceit. The entire film is visualized using Plasticine models, with a poetic voice-over that dramatizes Vicenta’s inner monologue. The figurines and sets are crafted with beautiful, painstaking detail, but they’re immobile; Doria creates the impression of movement through the use of light, sound and camera tricks, and embeds archival news footage within Plasticine TV sets to offer framing context. The result is an incredibly expressive yet unsentimental film that vividly captures the terrible process of a woman’s dehumanization.‘Maaveeran’Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.This ironic Tamil riff on superhero movies is the kind of genre film that’s rare in Hollywood these days: a populist picture about people power. Madonne Ashwin’s superbly inventive caper revolves around a cartoonist, Sathya (Sivakarthikeyan), who lives in a slum in Chennai, in South India, with his mother and sister. He is the ghostwriter of a comic strip about a brave warrior, “Maaveeran,” that runs in the local newspaper, though his own personality is in marked contrast to his creations. When a local politician razes Sathya’s slum and moves all its dwellers into dangerously shoddy high-rises, our protagonist, to his feisty mother’s great chagrin, prefers to make do meekly than fight back.All that changes when Sathya suffers an injury and begins to hear a voice that narrates his life and controls his actions — except the narrator makes him out to be a courageous hero rather than the coward he is. Reluctantly but helplessly, Sathya begins to battle the corrupt overlords. What ensues is an uproarious film, brimming with action, laughs and foot-tapping music, that doubles as a whip-smart inquiry into the very nature of heroism. As Sathya discovers, it is often those with nothing to sacrifice but themselves who are burdened with changing the world for the better.‘The Great Seduction’Stream it on Netflix.Celso R. García’s sun-drenched comedy is more of an extended April Fools’ gag than a movie, yet it just may leave you grinning from ear to ear. The fable-like story takes place on a small Mexican island called Santa Maria, which over the years has become abandoned and isolated. Industrial developments in neighboring areas have wrecked Santa Maria’s ancestral fishing economy, forcing its residents to live off monthly dole checks or emigrate in search of work. But Germán (Guillermo Villegas), who has resided in the town his whole life, refuses to lose hope. When he hears that a fish-packing company might be enticed to set up shop if Santa Maria manages to employ a doctor, Germán enlists his whole community in a crazy plan.Enter Mateo (Pierre Louis), a city doctor who is banished to Santa Maria for a month as punishment for some drunk vandalism at his hospital. Led by Germán, the townspeople orchestrate a farce to convince Mateo that Santa Maria is the destination of his dreams. They pretend to play American football, learn how to make chicken tikka masala and even tolerate rock music. These high jinks may be simple and contrived, but they’re performed by a fantastic cast (including Yalitza Aparicio of “Roma” fame) that tenderly conveys the desperation of a forgotten town struggling to preserve its legacy as it is battered by the winds of change.‘The Future Tense’Stream it on Mubi.A border is never just a line in the sand — it is a rift through history, memory, even psychology, fundamentally shaping how we see and place ourselves in the world. This idea animates Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s dense, thrilling essay-documentary about the relationship between Ireland, where they are from, and Britain, where they’ve lived since the 1980s and raised their teenage daughter. Two journeys undertaken by the couple frame the film: a flight from London to Dublin, and a road trip through Ireland to scout locations for a film about Rose Dugdale, an English debutante who became an I.R.A. volunteer. Facing the camera, Christine and Joe read out ruminations about family and country triggered by these journeys, while archival footage, home video, interviews and more illustrate their monologues.Their narration is perfectly poised between droll and erudite, personal and political. Joe’s affecting recollection of his troubled mother’s life in the United States, Britain and Ireland is punctuated by ironic asides; at one point, he wonders facetiously whether the gap in his teeth had something to do with his family’s migrations across geographic and political chasms, as a pair of dentures slowly oozes out of his mouth. Elsewhere, the directors imagine a conversation between the mannequins of Queen Elizabeth I and the 16th-century Irish pirate Grace O’Malley at the Famine Museum in Louisburgh. Confronting a future that threatens to replicate a fraught past, the couple craft something that feels like a stand-up bit, an elegy and a wishful dream all at once.‘Magoado’Stream it on Tubi.There’s something strangely alluring about this skeletal Brazilian drama. Maybe it’s the incongruous combination of a flimsy narrative and gorgeous, intricate cinematography; or perhaps it’s the staging of soapy performances within a stylish, boxy frame that recalls silent films. We meet Peio (Diego Álvarez), a drunk, good-for-nothing fisherman in Santa Catarina in Brazil, as he lies passed out on the sand, lapped by ocean waves. He is a sorry sight, but the scene looks like a painting, dappled by sunlight and streaked with red and blue tints.Rubén Sainz’s feature mounts a simple, even trite tale: Peio is forced to take charge of his life when his estranged adolescent son is suddenly, mysteriously sent back to him. But this familiar narrative feels fresh and startling onscreen, rendered as it is with an extraordinary visual sensitivity. As the film unfolds, Peio’s miserable existence and cantankerous demeanor contrast with the serenity of the setting — until, by the end, our protagonist finally seems to see in his life the beauty that the camera sees throughout. More

Wildly original comedy-dramas, hair-raising horror and modest examinations of male tenderness are among the highlights of this month’s off-the-grid streaming recommendations.‘Stan & Ollie’ (2018)Stream it on Max.It’s no surprise that a biopic of the classic comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy didn’t exactly set the box office on fire eight decades after their heyday; their work has been all but forgotten in this what’s-new-and-is-it-streaming era. But the director Jon S. Baird — focusing on the pair’s tour of English music halls in the twilight of their careers — presents a compelling (if somewhat fictionalized) portrait of their affection, resentments and codependence, while Steve Coogan as Laurel and John C. Reilly as Hardy engagingly recreate the comedians’ old routines and characterizations. They’re fun to watch (and to watch together), and the pathos at the picture’s end is genuine, and earned.‘Welcome to Me’ (2015)Stream it on Peacock.Kristen Wiig is at the center of this peculiar and risky character study as Alice Klieg, a perpetually luckless unemployed woman with borderline personality disorder who wins the California lottery and uses her newfound financial windfall to fund her own bizarre daytime talk show. The director Shira Piven and the screenwriter Eliot Laurence could have easily told this story as a broad comedy or a depressing chamber piece. They pull off something trickier, positioning the picture as a serious-minded but frequently uproarious tragicomedy, and it mostly works — thanks in no small part to Wiig, whose characterization is equal parts keenly observed, deeply disturbed and breezily funny.‘Cold Pursuit’ (2019)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.You might assume this is yet another of Liam Neeson’s late-career thrillers, considering it concerns an ordinary man out to avenge the death of his son. But there’s a grim joylessness to this man and his mission, and “Cold Pursuit” gradually reveals itself as a deconstruction of these movies, willing to grapple with the bleakness of death and revenge. Neeson’s snowplow driver just keeps pounding these guys for names, then moves up to the next one, methodically searching for the responsible party. It gets broader (and more obviously “Fargo”-influenced) as it goes, which is unfortunate. But the subtext is fascinating, and Neeson seems to revel in the opportunity to do some honest-to-goodness acting in one of these things.‘Cry Macho’ (2021)Stream it on Netflix.Clint Eastwood had just entered his ninth decade on earth when he directed and starred in this adaptation of N. Richard Nash’s novel, and he looks every day of it onscreen; this isn’t the robust Clint of “In the Line of Fire” or even “Million Dollar Baby,” but a fragile, aged man with a croak of a voice. Yet Eastwood the director has always known how to play up the strengths of Eastwood the actor, and the many miles of road behind him give extra gravitas to the wisdom his character, a onetime rodeo rider, imparts on the young man (Eduardo Minett) he’s been sent to Mexico to retrieve.‘Resurrection’ (2022)Stream it on Hulu.Rebecca Hall crafts an astonishing portrait of a woman in the grip of unceasing trauma in this horror-tinged drama from the writer and director Andrew Semans. Hall is the very picture of fierce independence as Margaret, a driven career woman whose carefully calculated life starts careening out of her grasp when a mysterious figure from her past (a devilish Tim Roth) reappears. The genre affectations are effective — particularly the jaw-dropping finale — but the real draw here is Hall’s showcase monologue, an emotionally devastating explanation of exactly who Roth is, and what he did to her.‘Strawberry Mansion’ (2022)Stream it on Mubi.Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney wrote, directed and edited this delightfully demented comic fantasy — a true indie with a look, sound and feel quite unlike anything else on this or any other list. Audley is also the deadpan leading man, a government auditor in a not too distant future, where citizens are taxed for the extravagancies of their dreams. It’s a digital process, so he meets a considerable challenge in the form of the batty Bella (Penny Fuller), whose dreams are still analog, leaving him with thousands of videotapes to watch and log. And that’s when things start getting really weird. Audley and Birney’s wild screenplay adroitly captures the touch-and-go intricacies of dream logic, the special effects are impressively D.I.Y. and the humor is deliriously cockeyed throughout.‘Love Is Strange’ (2014)Stream it on Max.The youthful subjects and ratings-busting sexuality of the recent cause célèbre “Passages” make it feel like the work of a newbie hotshot, but its co-writer and director, Ira Sachs, has been making thoughtful, poignant indies for years. This is one of the best, the tender and sometimes tense story of Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), who have loved each other and lived together for decades, only to find that finally making their marriage legal turns their entire lives upside down. Sachs’s portrayal of the frustrations of Manhattan real estate rings loud and true, and his entire cast is sturdy. But the real draws here are Lithgow and Molina, who invest their onscreen relationship with a lived-in authenticity.‘It’s Quieter in the Twilight’ (2023)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts in 1977, with the goal of gathering data from the orbits of the four outermost planets before continuing beyond our solar system. More than 1,000 people were involved in the project; when the director Billy Miossi shot this documentary about the mission between 2019 and 2021, that number had dwindled down to about a dozen lifers, many of them postponing retirement or declining other opportunities to instead stay with the Voyagers. Miossi’s film is modest, especially considering the grand ambitions of the mission, yet it’s a captivating portrait of these dedicated professionals, their inspiring work and the challenges of aging technology. 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