Author: festreviews

2019 TIFF Movie Review: FIRST LOVE (HATSUKOI) (JAPAN/UK 2019)

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First Love Poster
A young boxer and a call girl get caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme over the course of one night in Tokyo.

Director:

Takashi Miike

Writer:

Masa Nakamura

Stars:

Becky, Sakurako Konishi, Masataka Kubota

A boxer, Leo who has just lost an important bout saves a kidnapped drug addict on the street end up as crossfire between two drug gangs one Chinese and the other Japanese.  An undercover cop also comes into the picture.  All this is an excuse for lots of gore and blood letting violence found in a typical Yakashi Miike (13 ASSASSINS, ICHI THE KILLER) movie.  

The jokes are fierce and plentiful and totally irrelevant.  For example, during a shoot out, a thug suddenly stops running screaming: “I got a leg cramp!” or during a boxing match, a big knockout punch sees the opponent’s head rolling into the street.

The whole exercise is totally silly, loud, annoying and unless one is a Miike fan – like the guy sitting beside me laughing his head off, non-stop – the entire film is a waste of time. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XBBGjUf63E

2019 TIFF Movie Review: BEANPOLE (Russia 2019) ****

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Beanpole Poster
1945, Leningrad. WWII has devastated the city, demolishing its buildings and leaving its citizens in tatters, physically and mentally. Two young women search for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins.

Director:

Kantemir Balagov

Writers:

Kantemir Balagov, Aleksandr Terekhov

Stars:

Konstantin Balakirev, Andrey Bykov, Olga Dragunova

A harsh movie using 140 minutes about harsh conditions in Leningrad post war in 1945.  Based on the 1985 book “The Unwomanly Price of War”, the film sees the struggle of two tenacious women, one a nurse, Iya and the other a soldier, Masha as they share an apartment.  Masha, infertile convinces Iya to bear a child for her, but with disastrous results. 

 If there is a film at TIFF about women in power over men, BEANPOLE is the one.  Iya exhibits gay feelings towards Masha.  The film has echoes of D.H. Lawrence’s novella “The Fox” where a man enters the two women farm though the results are different.  

Balagov paints a bleak look of poverty in Leningrad especially with the poor hospital conditions and the tended wounded soldiers recuperating.  An accomplished piece of filmmaking though not always an easy watch.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfWhQXg4GrA

2019 TIFF Movie Review: BLOOD QUANTUM (Canada 2019)

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Blood Quantum Poster
The dead are coming back to life outside the isolated Mi’gMaq reserve of Red Crow, except for its Indigenous inhabitants who are strangely immune to the zombie plague.

Director:

Jeff Barnaby

Writer:

Jeff Barnaby

Stars:

Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Forrest Goodluck

The term BLOOD QUANTUM comes from a blood measurement system that is used to determine an individual’s indigenous status.  It is always someone or other against the indigenous people.  This time around in Jeff Barnaby’s BLOOD QUANTUM, it is the plague, particularly the white man who have contacted the plague who are invading the Indian Reservation. 

  Director Barnaby attempts some cultural and social critique.  Should the Indians offer refuge to the white men who have stolen their lands?  But the film deteriorates into the typical zombie movie (full of cliches) with limbs flying, bodies gutted with blood flowing everywhere. 

 The males get to fight the zombies with swords and assorted weaponry while the women stand around, scream or deliver babies.  I expected more from the Indigenous zombie more that was chosen to open TIFF’s Midnight Madness Program, but no such luck.

 

2019 TIFF Movie Review: 1982 (USA/Lebanon/Norway/Qatar 2019)

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1982 Poster
During the 1982 invasion of Lebanon at a private school on the outskirts of Beirut, 11-year-old Wissam tries to tell a classmate about his crush on her, while his teachers on different …See full summary »

Director:

Oualid Mouaness

Writer:

Oualid Mouaness

Stars:

Nadine Labaki, Mohamad Dalli, Ghassan Maalouf

This war drama is set during the Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon at a private school on the outskirts of Beirut.  The protagonist is 11-year-old Wissam (bright eyed Mohamad Dalli) who  tells a classmate about his crush on a girl, while his teachers — on different sides of the political divide — try to mask their fears, in this poignant debut feature from Oualid Mouaness.  

The film will attract audiences for its main actress Nadine Labaki (she directed CAPERNAUM) who plays a schoolteacher Yesmine.  Mouaness occasionally captures the urgency of the evacuation of the school children, some fearing that their parents will not pick them up while others are just glad school might be closed for the next few days.  

Mouaness  provides little insight on the events nor on the history of the war.  Nothing transpired on screen is unexpected in a situation like this resulting in a  mediocre and often boring film.

2019 TIFF Movie Review: ZOMBI CHILD (France 2019) ***

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Zombi Child Poster
Trailer

Haiti, 1962. A man is brought back from the dead to work in the hell of sugar cane plantations. 55 years later, a Haitian teenager tells her friends her family secret – not suspecting that …See full summary »

Director:

Bertrand Bonello

Writer:

Bertrand Bonello (screenplay)

Stars:

Louise Labeque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Milfort

Accomplished film shot and set in Haiti based on local voodoo practices and folklore.  It is the 1960s Haiti as well as a boarding school in France where a schoolgirl, Fanny (Louise Labeque) dabbles in voodoo to settle her problems.  

The film begins with what is supposedly based on the real-life story of a Haitian who suddenly collapses on the street and turns into zombie when buried.  He is dug up and forced to work in a sugar cane plantation.  There is a preachy and lengthy segment at the start regarding colonialism and cultural mis-appropriation.

 It is a slow burn but director Bonello (born in Nice who also directed SAINT LAURENT) captures the atmosphere and superstition of the locals.  A sort of coming-of-age story mixed with a little horror and suspense that occasionally works.  A minot hit when the film premiered in Cannes this year.

Trailer: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gnky2

2019 TIFF Movie Review: LA VERITE (THE TRUTH) (France/Japan 2019)

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The Truth Poster
Trailer

About a stormy reunion between a daughter and her actress mother, Catherine, against the backdrop of Catherine’s latest role in a sci-fi picture as a mother who never grows old.

Director:

Hirokazu Koreeda

Writers:

Hirokazu Koreeda, Léa Le Dimna (adaptation)

Stars:

Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke

Japanese director Kore-eda’s (AFTER LIFE, THE SHOPLIFTERS. LIKE FATHER LIKE SON) first foray into a film shooting France in French with French stars outside his homeland of Japan sees mother and daughter played by Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche.  The pair come together after the mum, an actress of many films has written her memoirs in whcih she is the ideal mother.  

Daughter comes to town with husband played by Ethan Hawke and daughter in tow.  Family resentments and the past re-surfaces.  The film also comments on art imitating life.  The film feels and comes off as total fluff with a few amusing lines, particularly those written for Deneuve. 

 Hawke is not given much to do and it shows.  Kore-eda looks totally out of place in this really mediocre work from an artist who can do much. much better.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEVedePfqlY

2019 TIFF Movie Review: ATLANTIQUE (ATLANTICS) (France/Senegal/Belgium 2019) ***

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Atlantics Poster
Trailer

In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Suleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another.

Director:

Mati Diop

Writers:

Mati Diop (screenplay by), Olivier Demangel (screenplay by)

Stars:

Abdou Balde, Aminata Kane, Ibrahima Mbaye

Fleeing across the sea from Africa as refugees to Spain.  Things are hard for the young as director Diop tackles current problems like unemployment, abuse of local workers (unpaid wages by the exploiting rich) and arranged marriages.  The protagonist is a young girl who is in love with a local but forced to marry a rich man she does not love.  

Trouble is that the one she loves takes off in a raft for Spain leaving her to her own devices.  Director Diop paints a bleak bleak future for everyone.  The addition of the supernatural – the dead of the exploited workers that return from their graves does not really work into the story.  

Neither does the sick cop who threatens the young bride for burning her groom’s bed on the wedding night.  But the film came away wit a Grand Prix Winner at Cannes.

Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZuaXBQqFC4

2019 TIFF Movie Review: LES MISERABLES (France 2019) ***** Top 10

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Les Misérables Poster
Trailer

Television adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, which follows Jean Valjean as he evades capture by the unyielding Inspector Javert. Set against a backdrop of post-Napoleonic France as unrest begins to grip the city of Paris once more.

Stars:

Dominic West, David Oyelowo, Adeel Akhtar

A most arousing contemporary film set in today’s troubled world with a bonus message to boot.  What begins with the celebration of France’s World Cup eventually turns sour with the theft of a lion cub (that is the cutest and the real LION KING) from an East European circus by an African kid.  

Three Paris cops, a black, a white racist and a rookie attempt to calm the racial tensions in the Muslim neighbourhood where the thief resides.

  When the kid is flashed shot in the face, a riot on police brutality erupts.  Director Ly exhibits brilliant writing (he co-wrote the script) and excellent camera word while steering superlative performances from all his actors.  His totally gripping film will undoubtedly keep one on the edge of one seat right to be very end where surprises and twists in the plot abound. 

A truly remarkable feat in definitely my personal favourite film of the festival.  And wait for the Victor Hugo quote from LES MISERABLES at the film’s end to conclude the events.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5u-HKciyhM

2019 TIFF Movie Review: SO LONG, MY SON (China 2019) ***** Top 10

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So Long, My Son Poster
Two married couples adjust to the vast social and economic changes taking place in China from the 1980s to the present.

Director:

Xiaoshuai Wang

Writers:

Mei Ah, Xiaoshuai Wang

Stars:

Liya Ai, Jiang Du, Zhao-Yan Guo-Zhang

A three-hour film that though a little slow moving is so captivating a watch that no one will notice the time flying past.  Director Wang (11 FLOWERS) deals with the intimacy of 2 dysfunctional families in the setting of China’s one child nation. 

 The theme of the film is clearly guilt.  Guilt is piled upon guilt upon guilt and no character in the film is spared from this human fallacy.   The story deals with a married couple coming to terms with the untimely death of their young son in addition to the rapidly changing foundations of Chinese society. 

 The drama unfolds in a decade-spanning, highly personal, and ambitiously epic working the director’s ambitious 4-year project.  Wang paints a grand historical fresco about family and parenthood, the private and the political, and the process of mourning.  

There are powerful performances by Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei, winners, respectively, of the Best Actor and Best Actress Silver Bears at this year’s Berlinale.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbJi3YstBzE

2019 TIFF Movie Review: I AM WOMAN (Australia 2019)

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I Am Woman Poster
The story of 1970s musician and activist Helen Reddy.

Director:

Unjoo Moon

Writer:

Emma Jensen

Stars:

Evan Peters, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Matty Cardarople

I AM WOMAN is the famous female anthem that stands for woman’s rights and also Australian singer Helen Reddy’s most popular hit.  Moon’s film is part biopic part feminist movement set in NYC of 1966.  

It traces the difficult climb to fame of the talented singer at a time when women were fighting for their rights of equal pay, voice and employment.  Tilda Cobham-Hervey plays the 24-year old singer who starts making headway with the fiercely ambitious Jeff Wald (Evan Peters) who sweeps Helen off her feet and rapidly becomes both her husband and her manager.  

 Jeff’s dogged insistence ensures that Helen’s golden voice gets heard.  Every famous person has his or her downfall and Reddy’s takes the form of her coke snorting husband.  Wald is an easy target since the film promotes women and puts down men.  The film also stereotypes coke users and Wall is portrayed as a totally bad husband with no redeeming qualities.  

The film plays to the popular audience with lots of her popular hots (Delta Dawn, Angie Baby, I Don’t Know How to Love Him) and offers little new insight on the female movement.  Reddy can do no fault in the entire film.

Trailer: (unavailable)