Athina Rachel Tsangari

DVD/Stream of the Week: CHEVALIER – male competitiveness, brilliantly skewered

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CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing
CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing

The San Francisco International Film Festival opens tomorrow night, so this week’s video pick is my favorite film from the 2016 SFIFF. One of the best films of the year, Chevalier is a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness, with the moments of drollness and absurdity that we expect in the best of contemporary Greek cinema. Chevalier is also now the Most Overlooked Movie of 2016, and I’m hoping that its popularity explodes now that it’s available on video.

In Chevalier, six guys are taking a holiday week on a yacht in the Aegean Sea. Each has his own stateroom, and the crew includes a chef. They spend their days scuba diving, jet skiing and the like. After a post-dinner game of charades, one suggests that they play Chevalier, a game about “Who is best overall?”. Of course, men tend to be competitive, and their egos are now at stake. The six guys began appraising each other, and their criteria get more and more absurd. “How many fillings do you have?”

In one especially inspired set piece, the guys race each other to construct IKEA bookcases, which results in five phallic towers on the boat’s deck (and one drooping failure). Naturally, some of the guys are obsessed with their own erections, too.

Director Athina Rachel Tsangari is obviously a keen observer of male behavior. Both men and women will enjoy laughing at male behavior taken to extreme. I sure did. Chevalier is perhaps the funniest movie of 2016, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2016 – So Far.

I saw Chevalier at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), where I pegged it as the Must See of the fest. (In 2011, Tsangari brought her hilariously offbeat Attenberg to SFIFF.) Unfortunately, in the Bay Area, Chevalier only got a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it release in June. Chevalier is now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society

DVD/Stream of the Week: CHEVALIER – male competitiveness, brilliantly skewered

by
CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing
CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing

One of the best films of the year, Chevalier is a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness, with the moments of drollness and absurdity that we expect in the best of contemporary Greek cinema. Chevalier is also now the Most Overlooked Movie of 2016, and I’m hoping that its popularity explodes now that it’s available on video.

In Chevalier, six guys are taking a holiday week on a yacht in the Aegean Sea. Each has his own stateroom, and the crew includes a chef. They spend their days scuba diving, jet skiing and the like. After a post-dinner game of charades, one suggests that they play Chevalier, a game about “Who is best overall?”. Of course, men tend to be competitive, and their egos are now at stake. The six guys began appraising each other, and their criteria get more and more absurd. “How many fillings do you have?”

In one especially inspired set piece, the guys race each other to construct IKEA bookcases, which results in five phallic towers on the boat’s deck (and one drooping failure). Naturally, some of the guys are obsessed with their own erections, too.

Director Athina Rachel Tsangari is obviously a keen observer of male behavior. Both men and women will enjoy laughing at male behavior taken to extreme. I sure did. Chevalier is perhaps the funniest movie of 2016, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2016 – So Far.

I saw Chevalier at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), where I pegged it as the Must See of the fest. (In 2011, Tsangari brought her hilariously offbeat Attenberg to SFIFF.)  Unfortunately, in the Bay Area, Chevalier only got a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it release in June.  Chevalier is now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society

Women Directors at SFIFF

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Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society

This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival  (SFIFF) includes movies from 50 women directors.  Some are high-profile (by indie standards):

  • Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple (Harlan County U.S.A.) brings Miss Sharon Jones!.  Sure to be a festival crowd-pleaser, this doc chronicles the salty Dap Kings frontwoman and her fight against cancer.
  • Oscar-nominated Chris Hegedus (The War Room), with her directing partner D.A. Pennebaker, has the animal welfare doc Unlocking the Cage; and
  • Elyse Steinberg’s Weiner was the top documentary hit at the most recent Sundance.

Among the foreign choices, the Must See is one of the funniest movies at the fest, the Greek comedy Chevalier from director Athina Rachel Tsangari. Obviously a keen observer of male behavior, Tsangari delivers a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness, with the moments of drollness and absurdity that we expect in the best of contemporary Greek cinema. This is Tsangari’s second visit to SFIFF – in 2011, she brought her hilariously offbeat Attenberg.

Other strong choices from women directors include:

  • NUTS! from director Penny Lane – a persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans.
  • Suite Armorcaine, the character-driven drama from French director Pascale Breton;
  • Five Nights in Maine, a showcase for David Oyelowo, Dianne Wiest and Rosie Perez from writer-director Maris Curran.

The 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) runs through May 5. Throughout the fest, I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my SFFIF 2016 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.

Here’s the complete list of women directors with entries at the 2016 San Francisco International Film Festival:

As I Open My Eyes, Leyla Bouzid, Tunisia/France/Belgium
Audrie & Daisy, Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, USA
Ayiti Mon Amour, Guetty Felin, Haiti/USA
Between Us: Experimental Shorts (Rock, Clay, Sand, Straw, Wood, Something Between Us, Starfish Aorta, Winter Trees)
Cameraperson, Kirsten Johnson, USA
Check It, Dana Flor, Toby Oppenheimer, USA
Chevalier, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece
The Fits, Anna Rose Holmer, USA
Five Nights in Maine, Maris Curran, USA
Granny’s Dancing on the Table, Hanna Sköld, Sweden/Denmark
haveababy, Amanda Micheli, USA
The Innocents, Anne Fontaine, France/Poland
Irving M. Levin Directing Award: An Afternoon with Mira Nair: Monsoon Wedding
Maggie’s Plan, Rebecca Miller, USA
Miss Sharon Jones!, Barbara Kopple, USA
Mountain, Yaelle Kayam, Israel/Denmark
National Bird, Sonia Kennebeck, USA
No Home Movie, Chantal  Akerman, Belgium/France
NUTS!, Penny Lane, USA
Operator, Logan Kibens, USA
Our Kind of Traitor, Susanna White, UK
The Return, Kelly Duane de la Vega, Katie Galloway, USA
Shorts 1 (In Attla’s Tracks, Seide)
Shorts 2 (Partners, The Send-Off)
Shorts 3: Animation (Edmond, Glove)
Shorts 4: New Visions (My Aleppo, False Start, Sept. – Oct. 2015, Cizre)
Shorts 5: Family Films (Bunny New Girl, The Casebook of Nips & Porkington, Mother, Welcome to My Life)
Shorts 6: Youth Works (Child for Sale, From My Head To Hers, I Don’t Belong Here Run, Run Away)
Sonita, Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, Germany/Switzerland/Iran
Suite Armoricaine, Pascale Breton, France
Thirst, Svetla Tsotsorkova, Bulgaria
Under the Gun, Stephanie Soechtig, USA
Unlocking the Cage, Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker, USA
The Watermelon Woman, Cheryl Dunye, USA
Weiner, Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg, USA
Wild, Nicolette Krebitz, German

Blogging from SFIFF: Attenberg

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Attenberg is a winningly offbeat original from Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari.  It’s about a 23-year-old who grudgingly decides it’s time for her sexual initiation.  Her oversexed friend (who dreams of trees fruited with hanging penises) gives her some pointers.  Hilariously awkward attempts at intimacy ensue.  She has a poignantly close relationship with her single dad, and their love of sarcasm and animal documentaries help them cope with his cancer.  As if this weren’t enough,  the film is randomly interspersed with Silly Walks by the gals that would impress John Cleese.

As the lead, Ariane Labed won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival.