“I don’t give a shit about cinema any more” claimed Gérard Depardieu last year. Perhaps appearing in over 170 films over the course of his career has dulled some of his excitement, but Welcome to New York is as savagely vital as any of his earlier performances. In this not-quite-biopic, heavily inspired by the controversial trial of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011, Depardieu plays Mr. Devereaux, a self-destructive banker whose all-consuming sexual appetite slowly seals his fate. The first half hour is uncomfortable watching, as we are invited into Devereaux’s grotesque, frenzied night-life, but it is the ensuing fallout that earns the majority of director Abel Ferrera’s attention, combining actual news footage from the Strauss-Kahn trial with his own to deeply arresting effect. The subject of several attempts at repression by censors, festivals and Kahn himself, Welcome to New York was only screened in one mainstream cinema.
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