Mr. Naves is an artist, teacher and critic based in New York City. His writing…
Director Sébastien Marnier’s picture is standard-issue mystery material, albeit one that is less indebted to ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ than the unseemly machinations typical of the novels of Ruth Rendell.
Set pieces are the sum of this film’s parts: ‘Delicatessen’ is less a sustained narrative than a run of impeccably orchestrated outrages.
The idea does make sense: H.C. Westermann wasn’t only three-dimensional but kaleidoscopic, a cigar-chomping contrarian with an aesthete’s taste for form and a carpenter’s love of a finely grained chunk of wood.
The filmmaker, Christine Yoo, says she learned from the running club at San Quentin State Prison ‘that it’s possible to change lives, to make a lasting impact.’
The picture brings to mind not the works of filmmakers but of a painter: Johannes Vermeer. Like the Dutch master, the director privileges quietude over drama and favors stories whose logic is held at arm’s length.
Works by such mainstays as Sandy Skoglund, Jim Nutt, John Lees, and Jane Dickson are among the many reasons to make time for some exhibitions this autumn.
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