*begin transmission* …Is this thing on?
We made it to Toronto for our third trip to the Toronto International Film Festival. We’ve been deep in the trenches watching multiple films a day, some of which are vying for slots in this year’s awards season while others are still in the hunt for distribution deals. Periodically over the next few days, I’ll be logging in with some brief thoughts on the films we catch…depending on the movie, some of these will be of greater brevity than others. Here are my truncated thoughts on the first four movies we saw:
North Star (dir. Kristen Scott Thomas)
The first of many actor turned director debuts of the fest. Sadly, this initial film was also our first walk-out. While the story is clearly one that’s very personal to Thomas as it’s a fictionalized take on her own childhood experience of losing both her father and step-father in separate militar air crashes, it’s also a really dreadful film. I half expected Colin Firth to show up in this as it’s the kind of corny Brit family pap he would star in whenever he needed to pay off a tax bill. You know it’s slim pickings when this is playing opening night of the fest.
The shot to shot continuity is a mess. The script is aimless with the actors trying to collectively overcompensate for the rote dialogue and characters they’ve been handed. And there are animated interstitials that are supposed to be a stylistic choice but they really just play like an attempt to put more meat on ScarJo’s character and they didn’t want to pay for additional shooting days. The less said about her British accent, the better.
At least Lifetime movies are more slickly produced. If I see a worse effort this week, it’s going to take some doing.
The Boy and the Heron (dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
The supposed final film of Japan’s greatest master of animation. Though now everyone is telling me he *isn’t* retiring once again. Jesus, Hayao, you’re gonna die at the drawing board man!
To no one’s surprise, this was excellent. In recent years, I had become disenchanted with Ghibli, between the passing of Isao Takahata (who was the creative force behind some of the studio’s more fascinating and challenging efforts) and a succession of lesser projects in the wake of The Wind Rises, it felt as if that reliable old imagination engine in the outskirts of Tokyo was starting to shudder. Well, nevermind because as it turns out that long separation from Ghibli provided a firm reminder just how much better what Miya-san produces is than anything else in the medium.
A stirring and rich fantasy world that doubles as a master filmmaker’s final statement on his career and the future of animation. The entire time watching I was struck by the thought: “why is no one else doing this? Or telling animated stories with the same purpose and confidence in its material and audience?” But I realize that this is akin to asking “why aren’t all filmmakers Scorsese?” The reinvigoration I felt when the credits rolled imbued me with a creative energy that I haven’t felt in a good long while.
For broad comparison-sake: think Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. The Boy and The Heron is in the same adult-leaning fantasy ballpark. While it takes some inspiration from the canon Japanese novel How Do You Live? and the book plays a small but vital role in the narrative, this is resolutely not an adaptation of that work. Instead it’s a tale of a young boy named Manitoba who loses his mother in a hospital fire. In order to find normalcy, his father decides to marry Mahito’s aunt (who looks just like his lost mother) and they move into her familial home in the countryside. Then a heron shows up that keeps uttering the same final words of his mother, beckoning him to venture into the kind of strange new reality that only Miyazaki could conjure. It’s best you experience the rest for yourself. It’s exactly what you expect and nothing like you imagine.
I’ll never look at parakeets the same way again.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (dir. Radu Jude)
Another year, another Romanian film with its eye pointed inward at the country’s societal structures. This time instead of the poignant dramaturgy of Cristian Mungiu, it’s the satirical bent of Radu Jude that took center stage. Hailed for his previous efforts I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (which earned him a cult audience through the Vinegar Syndrome crowd) and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, the latter ending up a surprise critical favorite at the end of 2021. His newest production is centered on two larger cultural struggles: the plight of the low rung worker who serves a mega-conglomerate and how for women in Romania there is the added conflict of day to day aggressions and abusive attitudes that worsen this environment. And there’s a heaping helping of political corruption and dictatorial leanings that are worsening the region that get their own highlight.
This is a complex film that is backed up by an adventurous structure. The main narrative thrust is centered on a production assistant named Angela and her recruitment of blue collar workers who have experienced workplace accidents for a safety video. This journey is interspersed with snippets of a 1981 Romanian film entitled Angela Goes On, these moments acting as the counterpoint by which much of the film’s arguments originate. But that film is also, in a twist worthy of Godard, part of the film we’re actually watching’s past history…and then Uwe Boll shows up. And then there’s a 5 minute divergence about the dangers of Romanian roads. And that’s only scratching the surface.
Had it cut to black at around the 2 hour-plus mark, it would be an absolute triumph. But it’s final half-hour becomes a stress tester that goes just past bearable with an unneeded fine tuning of its messaging. Alas!
The Dead Don’t Hurt (dir. Viggo Mortensen)
Between Garrett Dillahunt as a mustache twirling bad guy, W. Earl Brown slingin drinks behind the bar, and Ray McKinnon yammering about god, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a lost episode of Deadwood. Instead, Viggo Mortensen’s second directorial effort is destined to be that movie you see on Amazon Prime and say “hey! Viggo made a cowboy movie with that Phantom Thread lady. What else is on?”
A thinly written cheapie caked in western romance with its twists and turns foretold in advance. The kind of movie where the bad guy says stuff like “this town is our honeypot!” and it’s never again explained.
I really wish Mortensen had gotten Solly McLeod (who I spent the whole movie convinced was Jack Reynor) to tone it down a bit.
As a bonus, I saw David Cronenberg in the audience. He did not stick around through the credits.
See you next time gang!
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