The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, December 2-8
Late August, Early September (1998)
Directed by Olivier Assayas
Ennui reaches middle age in Assayas’s conversation-laced portrait of 30- and 40-something Parisians. Adrien (Francois Cluzet), an author of under-read books, is terminally ill and dating a teenager. His friend and sometimes admirer, Gabriel (a wide-eyed Mathieu Amalric), strains to hold on to what he’s got (Gabriel, friends, his girlfriend) at the same time that he goes on skirting stability and commitment. Mixing handheld camerawork and close framing, Assayas tries to evoke the peculiar state of being in a rut. Like its title, Late August, Early September is about being ambiguously in-between (between jobs, certainty, love, and life). Life is strange when time has taught you decades of lessons and it’s not enough to help. Jeremy Polacek (December 8, 4pm, 7:30pm at FIAF’s Amalric tribute)