At this point in the festival, it’s hard for me to make room in my schedule for films screening purely in the market when there’s competition stuff to see at the same time (although I did see Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours today, and that was totally worth it––more later). And so on Thursday morning, I’ll be watching Philippe Garrel’s Frontier of Dawn during the sole screening of Able Danger, a neo-noir “spoof” of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. We turn, once again, to the official Marche du Film guide for a synopsis:
Even in Brooklyn, they don’t know exactly what happened on 9/11. But that the truth is not what we were told is obvious in this spoof. Satirical conspiracy thriller disguised as a film noir, full of attractive fast-talking babes, spectacled activists and fetishistic neo-Nazis. Thomas Flynn runs a left wing (’radical’) café/bookstore and is the writer of a conspiracy exposé about 9/11. He suddenly finds himself the focus of attention of a beautiful Eastern European femme fatale (played by the unique Elina Lowensöhn), who is fleeing the architects of a worldwide cover-up of 9/11. Thomas does everything he can to find out what really happened and soon has to cycle like a maniac when the first dead bodies start raining down around him.
The film stars Adam Nee, who co-wrote, co-directed and starred in The Last Romantic, which premiered at SXSW in 2006. Able Danger premiered earlier this year at Rotterdam, where Twitch published a not entirely coherent guest review declaring it “the best left wing inspired movie” at the festival. Variety was, um, somewhat less kind, with the words “sophomoric” and “dud” making it into the first sentence of Jay Weissberg’s review. Of course, there’s a trailer, complete with ominous Lou Dobbs soundbites and a hipster getting tazed in the back of a taxi. It doesn’t feel very “spoofy”––it fact, it feels like it takes itself really, really seriously. But maybe I’m just not used to seeing 9/11 cover-up fictions rendered in anything artsier than standard YouTube language.
If you’re in New York and curious, you can see for yourself––Able Danger is opening the Brooklyn International Film Festival next Friday.
2 Comments
Yeah, I didn’t make the connection that the movie you were writing about was the same as that trailer. Where’s the spoof?
On the other hand: Elina Löwensohn! I guess she works a lot, but I haven’t seen her since “Nadja.” And I wish that weren’t the case.
Looks like a compelling movie. Cannes is the ultimate.
Snapbomb.com has an opportunity for entertainment blogs to write about Cannes and get paid. Spreading the word about Cannes is fun and great for everyone!