Welcome to New York (2014)

Too much of everything

Simply A Masterpiece

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Anyone acquainted with the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal that rocked international media would find Welcome to New York interesting. The movie gave us some time in private with the main protagonist, although it's clearly been a work of fiction, as the introductory notes underlined.In this movie the aesthetics of Abel Ferrara were put to gut use. As it usually has been the case with his movies, it was difficult to say whether the look and feel of a TV docudrama was intentional or the budget didn't allow a better postproduction. Either way, it sat well with Welcome to New York. It was a gritty insight into the daily routine of an important man who, after a hard day's work, relaxed in some debauchery.From there we go to a cordial welcome at NYPD until the big international capital intervened and charges were dropped. The last section of the movie, although the least exciting, gave the main protagonist the opportunity to spend some time under house arrest and open his heart. And it wasn't the possibility that both himself and Dominique Strauss-Kahn could have become "the future president of France" that made my stomach turn. It was rather his/theirs inability to perceive any wrongdoing and the unwillingness to repent.

"Welcome to New York" is based on a real-life "scandal" that involved the french diplomat Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was a member of french Socialist Party and also the Managing Director of IMF (Int. Monetary Fund) from 2007-2011 until he resigned due to allegation that he had sexually abused a hotel maid. Ferrara's "Welcome to N.Y." hands this affair in a masterful way, that you would find it hard to remove your eyes from the screen even for a second. This is not something Ferrara has done in the past - elaborate a certain real life event to the last detail. And for Ferrara this is just the right kind of stuff, cause he has been provocative for all of his carrier and he knows how to handle this kind of material.On the other hand, Dapardieu gives one of the best performances of his carrier. He's so convincing as Deveraux that one can say he's the real man (DSK). The script doesn't exaggerate, - written by Ferrara and Zois (who worked previously with Ferrara in "New Rose Hotel"),- it handles the story plain and proper for Ferrara to do his thing behind the camera. The best part of the movie is when he (Devereaux) boards the plane and then is asked to step out and the whole police procedure begins. Depardieu feels very comfortable during this complex scenes as does Ferrara, who doesn't hesitate even for a second to show us what the real man experienced. Ferrara goes as far as to treat yet another situation that Strauss Kahn found him self in. Ferrara's Devereaux after the N.Y. arrest tries to rape a journalist, in real life this allegation happened to Strauss-Kahn who was accused for such an act and is scheduled to appear in court for trial in 2015. Bisset plays Devereaux's wife and fulfills the other part of the story...Now i'll try and give you some reason why you should watch it or stay away from it: If you are familiar with the real life story of DSK then give it a shot, you wont be disappointed... If you are not an Abel Ferrara fan then skip it (it will be your loss)... If you want to see Depardieu on one of his best roles he has ever done then watch it, the man was the perfect choice for this role.Hope this helped.

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society is the real source of the evil.‎ The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organised political society." - Albert EinsteinIn May of 2011, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, presumptive French presidential candidate and head of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), was arrested at JFK airport following an alleged assault on a hotel housemaid. Strauss-Kahn denied violence but admitted "inappropriate" behaviour. The civil suit was later settled out of court. Directed by Abel Ferrara, "Welcome to New York" retells this scandal. It stars Gerard Depardieu as Devereaux (a stand in for Strauss-Kahn), a corpulent corporate-type who spends his days pommelling prostitutes, engaging in casual sexism and gorging on mountains of food. Devereaux, in short, is addicted to pleasure, power and excess. Emblematic of a ruling class which abuses its privileges, exhibits insensitivity toward others and remains protectively cocooned in its ivory towers, Devereaux is shocked when his attack on a lower class black woman gets him arrested. "I have diplomatic immunity!" Devereaux cries. Ferrara's recent films have all been about capitalism, addiction and their overlapping ills. In "Last Day on Earth" this results in ecocide, in "Go Go Tales" this results in a club owner developing gambling addictions in an attempt to "diversify" and "compete" on the market place, and in "R Xmas" a couple of upstart businessmen find their dreams of upward mobility shattered. In "Welcome to New York", we see the "cause" of such collapses and calamities. Entirely without empathy, self-knowledge, forever unable to distinguish between consecration and rape, and viewing everyone and everything as a possession or commodity, Devereaux is the product of a culture which glorifies and normalises sociopathic behaviour. "I don't have feelings," Devereaux tells a psychologist, "I don't give a s**t about the people!" "Welcome" is divided into three clear sections. In the first, we nosedive into Devereaux life of debauchery. Here, sex and nudity are presented without a hint of titillation, and all of Devereaux's sexual rendezvous are sketched as something pathetic and hollow. The film's second section then bluntly contrasts a dehumanising prison system with Devereaux's life of privilege, whilst its third and best segment finds Devereaux consigned to house arrest. During this segment, Jacqueline Bisset steals the show as Devereaux's ex-lover.Though well intentioned, "Welcome to New York" is mostly bad art. The film is packed with clichés, its dialogue is obvious and cringe-worthy, Ferrara's aesthetic is far too literal and the film climaxes with a hokey shot in which Devereaux looks at the camera in a moment of forced and failed profundity. Worse still is Ferrara's disinterest in embedding Devereaux's debauchery within a socio-political context. Ferrara, whose filmography is filled with films about addictions, seems interested in Devereaux only in-so-far as the man is held prisoner by his own body; consumed by consumption. The larger workings of the IMF – responsible for tens of millions of deaths, wars, coups (one currently going on in the Ukraine), the arming of terrorist and far-right groups, indebting countless countries etc – goes ignored. The dubious implication, as with most art which attempts some kind of economic critique, is that our system "works" if only people were a little more compassionate and a lot less greedy. Incidentally, the IMF's "Independent Evaluation Office" has recently admitted that, quote, "the IMF's advocacy of fiscal consolidation proved to be premature for major advanced economies". In short, the IMF is attempting to portray its recent disastrous policies, which saw austerity measures and bank bailouts occurring in most First World nations, as "blunders", rather than entirely deliberate. Many of these Strutural Adjustment Programs, imposed on countries to serve the interests of creditor banks and mega-corporations, were at the time being opposed by Strauss-Kahn, then the IMF's managing director. Judging by history, in which non-compliant types (Scott Ritter, David Kelly, William Colby, Michael Connell etc) are routinely suicided, assassinated, discredited or slandered, it's possible that Strauss-Kahn was framed so as to install a more malleable director. Time will tell. Which is not to say that Strauss-Kahn isn't a giant sleaze-bag, just that he's small fry. The monster runs deep, and its always sacrificing its own priests to keep the game alive.5/10 – See Passolini's "Salo", "Eyes Wide Shut" and Ivory's "The Remains of the Day".

A fascinating and uncompromising insight into the life of a man. Ferrara signs here one of its best ever movie and Depardieu reveals once again the full extent of his talent.The fall of the mighty sick of his sexual impulses (the film spares neither sex scenes priced nor the brutal attempts to put a woman in bed). The case itself and its judicial suites are underdeveloped. Abel Ferrara is particularly interested in conversations between the Devereaux couple (Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset) in the famous New York apartment where he was under house arrest, the ones everyone has imagined but never heard.A great movie.