Kader Attia’s film “La Valise Oubliée” (2024) cracks open a well of family memories, employing photographs and archival materials buried in three suitcases to unpack stories about the history of the Algerian independence struggle. The question of cultural memory—and its theft—is raised in a series of collages that accompany the film, in which images of West African sculptures are rent apart—as if blown up by the explosive violence of colonialism—and cobbled back together with images and text from European art catalogues. These works bear an ineluctable and intentional resemblance to European art traditions indebted to African sculpture (e.g., Picasso and Braque). But the script has been flipped; the right to memory, to cultural inheritance, is already a shard.—Zoë Hopkins (Lehmann Maupin; through Dec. 20.)
Dance
Dutch National Ballet performs Ted Brandsen’s “The Chairman Dances.”Photograph by Marc Haegeman
For the Dutch National Ballet’s first major tour to New York since the eighties, they’re bringing a chef’s selection, including works by Jiří Kylián, Ted Brandsen—director since 2003—and the South African choreographer Mthuthuzeli November, unknown in the states, as well as a trio of works by the company’s éminence grise, the ninety-three-year-old choreographer Hans van Manen. Alexei Ratmansky, a fellow-choreographer, has become an associate artist there, and his new “Trio Kagel,” set to accordion music by the Argentinean composer Mauricio Kagel, appears on one program, along with Jerome Robbins’s intimate Chopin suite “Other Dances,” performed by the soulful Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi, both of whom left the Bolshoi at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.—Marina Harss (City Center; Nov. 20-22.)
Movies
When the filmmaker Charlie Shackleton was unable to get rights to a true-crime book he was planning to adapt as a documentary, he did the next best thing: he made a film about the film he would have made. The result, “Zodiac Killer Project,” is both a fascinating view of an actual investigation and a wry critique of true-crime documentaries’ predominant clichés. The book in question, by Lyndon E. Lafferty, recounts the author’s daring efforts to solve the infamous case. Shackleton’s voice-over monologue about what he’d have filmed is linked to canny images of relevant places and objects, sketching Lafferty’s wild story while avoiding infringing on the book. With its cagey pursuit of impossible dreams, Shackleton’s hypothetical method, both copious and withholding, is a leap ahead in first-person cinema.—Richard Brody (Opening Nov. 21.)
Bar Tab
Taran Dugal enjoys a three-course liquid meal, then dinner, on the Lower East Side.
Illustration by Patricia Bolaños
Manhattan’s novelty bars age in dog years. What starts with hype and exaltation often peters out with a sense of resigned familiarity. Double Chicken Please, an inventive Lower East Side cocktail lounge that opened in 2020, is an exception—most nights, lines still stretch down the block. On a recent evening, a pair of newcomers were seated at the bar in the Coop, the establishment’s luxe back room, replete with mid-century-modern furnishings and bass-heavy house music. Pink lighting shone over the chicken-themed décor, a humorous touch to the otherwise elegant space, which was packed with talkative hipsters. The duo opted for a three-course meal from the drink menu, featuring twelve cocktails designed to recall classic dishes. Their appetizer, the Japanese Cold Noodle, was sweet and frosty, with pleasant umami undertones; the main, the Cold Pizza, tasted unnervingly like its namesake, a heady mix of tequila, tomato, and basil. Dessert, however, blew everything out of the water: the French Toast, a vodka-based delight served with a homemade cookie sandwiching chocolate-coffee ganache, was creamy and frothy, with a slight note of bitterness that reminded them that this was, in fact, a cocktail, not a milkshake. With the liquid meal done, they started on some real food: the goopy, satisfying “bolognese grilled cheese” chicken sandwich, and “Le Big Mac,” a treat constructed like a burger with chocolate ice cream, macaron, yuzu, and mochi. As the night stretched on, a festive atmosphere took hold; one table whooped as an erstwhile fastidious bartender joined them for a shot and returned to the counter, high-fiving his colleagues. Another guest downed her French Toast, and, licking her lips, voiced the cliché on others’ minds: “Man—we’re so fucking lucky to live in New York.”
P.S. Good stuff on the internet:
