Despite his already quite advanced age and a flurry of numerous publications about his unworthy behavior, Woody Allen does not change himself and still releases a new film every year. His film Rifkin’s Festival, 2020, was shot in Spain. This is a film of a cinephile in some way about cinema, but also about family relations between people, about the difficulties and disappointments in these relationships, as well as about life and a little about death, which even the name of the main character hints at. An elderly film critic, who previously taught film science, and now for many years unsuccessfully trying to write a book, named Mort Rifkin (Wallace Shawn) comes to the film festival in the beautiful Spanish (or rather Catalan) city of San Sebastian with his wife Sue (Gina Gershon), who owns a PR company and came here to promote their clients. In fact, she promotes only one young French director, Philippe (Louis Garrel), with whom she spends her time there not only for interviews and press conferences, but also for the rest of the time. Left to himself, Mort walks around the city and accidentally, complaining of malaise to one friend, gets an appointment with a local doctor Joe Rojas (Helena Anaya), who turns out to be a woman, and he is very cute, and he is a little carried away by her, especially since her marriage, like his marriage, cannot be called happy for sure. But the main thing in the film is not Sue’s romance with Philip and not the fleeting sympathy between Mort and Joe, but the thoughts that Mort visits and which often look like his fantasies on the themes of his (and Woody Allen himself) favorite directors and are decorated in the style of quotes from their films – “Citizen Kane”, “Eight and a Half”, “On the Last Breath”, “Jules and Jim”, “Man and a Woman”, “Seventh Seal”, “Person”, “Fighter Angel”, in which he and other people around him act. This, of course, a conversational film, going almost all the time in the form of a monologue on behalf of Mort Rifkin, visiting his thoughts do not pretend to supernatural depth, it is quite everyday thoughts that visit many people. In this short period of time, an important event in his life will have time to happen, but the end of the film, despite everything, inspires even some optimism. I love the movie, but I love Woody Allen movies. Of course, I was lucky that I watched all the films he cited, which is a prerequisite for recognition and understanding.
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