Rams √
Grímur Hákonarson is a relatively new Icelandic cinema voice and Rams is only his second feature. However, this tale of two feuding brothers who are both suddenly subject to the same crisis, which they can only resolve together, won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes. The trailer is extremely promising, both for its gorgeous visuals, but also for the storytelling which combines deadpan humour and everyday ordinary tragic situations.
Contemporary World Cinema
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Remember
Atom Egoyan's latest follows a holocaust legacy survivor (Christopher Plummer) as he fulfills a long-held promise to avenge family deaths during that unforgettable period of history. The challenge is his failing memory. Egoyan's work has been evolving in interesting ways of late, as he pursues more conventional narratives while retaining his own unique visual style.
Gala
* * * * *
Right Then, Wrong Now
I have a bizarre history of always really wanting to see the films of Hong Sang-soo and somehow always missing them. I did see Our Sunhi and liked it very much, but regret missing both In Another Country, largely considered his best work, and last year's Hill of Freedom. So this year I am absolutely determined to see this quirky and audience-pleasing film about a filmmaker and a painter who meet and spend a day together, and then meet and spend the same day together .... again. It won the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival.
Masters
* * * * *
Rocco and His Brothers
A long-time fan of the Italian neorealist, Luchino Visconti, I am excited to see this significant but rarely screened late work of the master, from 1960. Told in five parts, it follows each of the five sons of an impoverished Italian family as they try to improve their lives. Despite its split screens, the trailer is hypnotic.
Cinematheque
* * * * *
Room
This is one of those times when I wasn't sure that a good adaptation of a bestseller (by Emma Donoghue) was even possible, given how confined the playing space is. I have never seen the work of Lenny Abrahamson and my track record with this programmer is not great. But the teaser trailer utterly sold me - and that rarely happens for a movie I'm not already interested in. Now I very much hope to see this somehow.
Special Presentations
* * * * *
Sleeping Giant
Canadian Andrew Cividino's movie has had a near-perfectly paced emergence as a Canadian feature of significant presence this year. The short film version screened at TIFF14 and the feature bowed in off-competition at Cannes earlier this year. Featuring performances by new actors and locals of the area where the movie was shot, it profiles a trio of teenaged boys coming of age near Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, on the northern shore of Lake Superior.
Discovery
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Son of Saul
This first feature by Hungarian director and Béla Tarr protégé László Nemes was a sleeper hit of Cannes and won the Grand Prix Award. A holocaust drama about a man who is forced to remove the bodies of gassed victims at Auschwitz and in doing so uncovers a man he believes to be his own son, the movie won strong praise despite its very claustrophobic photography and relentlessly single point of view. I have heard the film praised highly but was also given a personal account by someone who saw it at Cannes and found it too weighted morally to the main character. I am curious to see how faith tradition works in the story, since the man spends much of the remainder of the film trying to find a rabbi who can cant a kaddish prayer for the dead. Is this kind of obssession delusion or salvation?
Special Presentations
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Song of Songs √
Another of the Israel/Palestine films on offer this year made by women. So many reasons I am drawn to this one, from its desire to portray life in a 19th-century Jewish shtetl, to its story of a friendship among a boy and a girl who must stare down the limitations of Orthodox custom, even as they are embracing them. Really looking forward to this new feature from Eva Neymann.
Contemporary World Cinema
* * * * *
Stonewall
Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall. We hear Obama's voice invoking these milestone locations of uprising for women, blacks and gays, respectively, right at the very beginning of this trailer. When I first read about this feature I was a bit worried that it might glamorize this episode in the history of gay rights in America. But the trailer has put me on track again and I am so glad that director Roland Emmerich wanted to finally give us a dramatic feature version of an event that fostered a courage that every gay person tips their hat to.
Gala
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Story of Judas
(trailer is in French with no subtitles)
So, as a biblical scholar, I have to be interested in this new film from Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche and I am, but I am a bit cautious about its premise. I am not troubled by the idea that Judas was friend and confidante whose role in Jesus' death has been over-simplified. What worries me is the storyline that he was seeking to destroy a gospel record transcribed by another early disciple, because Jesus didn't want his words written down and being distorted. There is so much to challenge in that premise, starting with the fact that the notion of distorting or manipulating scripted text is a very very modern idea and Jewish followers of Jesus in the first century would have understood written texts in a very different way that we do today. But I have to see it! And I am open to the possibility that it will challenge me in the best sense and get me thinking.
So, as a biblical scholar, I have to be interested in this new film from Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche and I am, but I am a bit cautious about its premise. I am not troubled by the idea that Judas was friend and confidante whose role in Jesus' death has been over-simplified. What worries me is the storyline that he was seeking to destroy a gospel record transcribed by another early disciple, because Jesus didn't want his words written down and being distorted. There is so much to challenge in that premise, starting with the fact that the notion of distorting or manipulating scripted text is a very very modern idea and Jewish followers of Jesus in the first century would have understood written texts in a very different way that we do today. But I have to see it! And I am open to the possibility that it will challenge me in the best sense and get me thinking.
* * * * *
Summertime (La Belle Saison)
It is undoubtedly a banner year for love stories among women and adding to the mix is Catherine Corsini's 1970s story of two Parisian women who meet and fall in love in a context of feminist politics but whose relationship is supremely tested when one of them is forced back to her rural roots to face family expectations there.
Special Presentations
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Sunset Song
If this gorgeous image isn't enough to compel you, than let me tell you that it's been four years since we've had a new work by Terence Davies and like the beautifully moving films which came before, this meditation on a Scottish classic novel focuses on a dysfunctional family and a woman torn between a desire to leave and her passionate attachment to the land. Davies' earliest and most revered films were based on his own life and the stern, violent patriarchal father figure is present here too. And if you aren't already familiar with the lengthy takes and slow pacing that characterize his movies, keep in mind as you go that the emotional payoff is often profound.Special Presentations
* * * * *
The Treasure
A simple idea, the search for lost family wealth buried on the property during the Communist rule of Romania, is at the heart of this newest film by 12:08 East of Bucharest director Corneliu Porumboiu. But even in the trailer it's easy to see how much political symbolism may be at work here. As they always do, this treasure hunt requires some investment and putting all at risk in order to find more, is a classic structure of both comedy and tragedy. I have no idea which will govern here, but if the trailer is our clue, I would say we're meant to laugh.
* * * * *
Trapped
Icelandic auteur Baltasar Kormákur moves to television from movies to direct a series about a police chief who becomes trapped on a ferry in a snowstorm with the murderer he is looking for - he just doesn't know who that is. The new programme Primetime has as its strength a chance to preview work like this, which may not make its way on to Netflix for a while to come. There is no trailer, but there are many reasons to trust being put in the hands of this brilliant director, whose 101 Reykjavik has become an international classic.
Primetime
* * * * *
Trumbo
I am always interested in any story about the blacklist era of Hollywood and its arch nemesis The House UnAmerican Activities Committe. I was very influenced by stories told by my AFI screenwriting mentor, writer Al Leavitt, who was also blacklisted after having had a rising Hollywood career that included scripts for Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant, only to be out of work for a long period, and to also end up writing under an assumed name. Trumbo's story is his own, however, and the trailer gives away most of the essential plot points, including the way in which Trumbo managed to not only continue writing but win Oscars that others accepted for him. Jay Roach (of Austin Powers fame) normally makes lighter fare, and I hope that this doesn't become a comedy-driven piece but anything that has Helen Mirren playing a society columnist is bound to be worth it.
Special Presentations
* * * * *
Truth
It's hard for me to get excited about any other Cate Blanchett film when this remarkable actress is rumoured to be the reason we don't have Carol at TIFF. (See my addendum to this earlier blog.) And I am not that interested in the scandal that surrounded Dan Rather in breaking the post-millenium story that George W. Bush had once avoided being deployed to Vietnam, even if it did cost the noted CBS anchorman his career. So why is this film on my list? Well, I have always enjoyed movies about American politics and broadcasting, right from All the Presidents' Men, and since Spotlight, the other movie about journalism and scandal coming to TIFF, has had lots of buzz, I prefer to feature this one. Especially since James Vanderbilt's strong credits as a screenwriter should bode well for his feature directing debut.Special Presentations
* * * * *
Un Plus Une
I love Elsa Zylberstein, who rarely gets a feature role that we get to see in North America but whose work in Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) alongside Kristen Scott Thomas and her performance in La Petite Jérusalem have been under-appreciated. I also really enjoyed Jean Dujardin in The Artist. Put them together in a new film by legendary French New Wave filmmaker Claude Lelouche and what's not to be excited about? The premise, two people who meet at a state dinner and together explore India's spiritual pilgrimage sites, makes it even better!
Special Presentations
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Ville-Marie
Several storylines eventually overlap and converge at Ville-Marie Hospital in Montreal in Guy Édoin's new dramatic feature. Starring Monica Bellucci as a European film star shooting in Montreal, the movie apparently also offers us the movie within the movie that she is making. Relationships, distance and unresolved past events populate the movie's themes.
Special Presentations
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The Wait (L'Attesa)
Piero Messina.
See Part 1.
* * * * *
Women He's Undressed
Gillian Armstrong has given me so many wonderful movie experiences over the last thirty years. Who could forget My Brilliant Career, which helped to move the career of Judy Davis out of Australia and into the world? Mrs. Soffel, High Tide, Little Women, each a gem. Moving to documentaries, Armstrong turns her lens on Orry-Kelly, the Aussie in Hollywood's glory days who was one of the industry's most cherished costume designers. Life as a closeted gay man was not easy, even in a business and a profession highly populated by gay men. Armstrong's caring exploration will likely focus as much on the man behind the legend as the clothes on the screen.
Tiff Docs
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Youth
I have been resisting this movie, ever since reading about it for Cannes, in part because of this kind of image: senior men ogling a naked woman (it's the poster for the film, but does it really need to be the screen still for the trailer as well?). However, this latest from master Sorrentino has had such wonderful reviews and responses, including by women, and the trailer hints at something much more soulful than I had anticipated. So I will take the leap of faith.
Special Presentations
That's it! More coming on Wavelengths and then it will be time for TIFF and the first reviews!
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