Review of Welcome to New York (2014) by Matthew F. J — 28 Oct 2015

Ferrara delivers a film of intense sobriety and complete refusal to fall into an over-dramatization of one of the most memorable episode of the French political world. A few years ago DSK was accused of molesting a cleaning lady in his NYC hotel.

The scandal that followed ruined his ambitions to become the next French president of the Republic. Was it a set up from his opponents? Was it self destruction? Or pure excess of lust in the long career of this 'womanizer' for whom enough was never enough.

Power & money can be the perfect ally to perversion as the movie brilliantly show. Depardieu is shot like an ogre, a Gargantua of epic proportions grunting and breathing hard, almost at the end of his own rope, but still indulging into group sex and other lusty activities that make him feel young as he explain to his wife during one of their heated conversations.

The film analyses the dynamic of this couple for whom affection has replaced love a long time ago. Both are driven by power it's obvious and have found in each-others a mean and a way to achieve their mutual ambitions.

This is not a film that will appeal to everyone and I can see a lot of people being rebuked and offended by the complete lack of remorse of the main character who pushes some of our own buttons throughout the film by denying guilt and salvation.

In all it's perversion and ugliness, the film manages nevertheless to be well shot, with moments of pure beauty and poetry, as if Ferrara was able to see beauty in the most uncanny places and people, understanding far too well that monsters do not exist, they are merely the the mirror of our own torments, too human to be hated and too vile to be loved.

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