TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews

TIFF 2018 Review: SPLINTERS (Canada 2018)

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Splinters Poster
Two decades after his inspired feature debut The Hanging Garden won best Canadian Feature at TIFF, Thom Fitzgerald again explores interconnections of sexual identity, family, and small-town…See full summary »

Director:

Thom Fitzgerald

Writers:

Thom Fitzgerald, Lee-Anne Poole (based on the stage play by)

Stars:

Deb Allen, Gil Anderson, Sofia Banzhaf

Nova Scotian Thom Fitzgerald hit it big with his first feature THE HANGNG GARDEN.

Once again, Fitzgerald again explores interconnections of sexual identity, family, and small-town Nova Scotia life, in this intimate drama about a young woman reassessing her relationship with her mother following the death of her father.  The film opens with Belle returning to her town for her father’s funeral with lacklustre greetings by family and friends. 

 Nobody is really glad to see her again, less her mother who seems to be Mrs. Grumpy from start to finish.  Unfortunately, the film is about Belle’s relationship with her mother.  Belle is then unexpectedly visited by Rob who is revealed to be her boyfriend.  But Belle has come out before as a lesbian and is also shown in a lesbian love-making scene. 

 It is difficult to see the reason Belle’s boyfriend Rob falls for her or what he sees in her.  The story, based on the stage play by Lee-Anne Poole is puzzling and really leads nowhere, and nowhere very slowly.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=QpBtcwX_HCw

TIFF: 2018 Review: LES SALOPES or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin (Canada 2018) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Les Salopes or The Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin Poster
Revealing women, showing men Dermatology professor Marie-Claire is embarking on a new project linking skin cells and sexuality, when unexpected events disrupt her professional, family and intimate life.

Director:

Renée Beaulieu

Writer:

Renée Beaulieu

Stars:

Vincent Leclerc, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Charlotte Aubin

 

Soft porn, art movie or soft porn art in the guise of an art movie?  Marie-Claire (Brigitte Poupart), in her mid-40’s is a professor of dermatology, embarking on a study of how skin cells are affected by desire. 

Director Beaulieu also puts in her two cents worth about the sex theory.  Meanwhile, promising student Sofia (Charlotte Aubin) hopes to find tangible proof of love on the cellular level.  Director Beaulieu gives Marie-Claire a loving family, a sexy and loving husband (who still have sex with her) and two children.  Things get to a boil when they find out what mummy is up to.  Beaulieu’s film is more intriguing than it sounds as her subject faces different situations resting fro her sexual promiscuity. 

 As expected, there are lots of erotic and sex scenes.  Brigitte Poupart is winning as the film’s subject.

Trailer: (unavailable)

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TIFF 2018 Reviews: LIGHT AS FEATHERS (Netherlands 2018) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Light as Feathers Poster
15 year old Eryk lives with his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother in a small village in Poland. He has a too intimate relation with his manipulative and dominant mother. Eryk is in …See full summary »

Director:

Rosanne Pel

Writer:

Rosanne Pel

Stars:

Erik Walny, Ewa Makula, Klaudia Przybylska

LIGHT AS FEATHERS is heavy family drama done minimalist style with the audience left to interpret the incidents happening on screen as to cause and effect.  The film’s setting is a Polish village with the characters speaking Polish despite the film being a Dutch production.

The film centres around a young impressionable youth Eryk (Eryk Walny) who lives with with his dissatisfied mother (she complains about how life is leading her nowhere at the start of the film), Ewa (Ewa Makuula) and grandmother in a Polish village.  Eryk plays rough games like wrestling with the other boys while having his neighbour Klaudia (Klaudia Przybylska) as his girlfriend.  

Things are not going too well with the family especially for Eryk – no ambition, no career guidance and no male role model.  Things come to a boil when Eryk gets Klaudia pregnant.  Pel’s film is brutal too watch with some mean dialogue spoken as well.  Mother to Eryk” “I regret giving birth to you.”  Pel gets her message of youth confusion across but does not offer any solutions.  

Eryck is at least showing signs of maturity towards the film’s end.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/253635858

 

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TIFF 2018 Review: KINGSWAY (Canada 2018) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Directed by Bruce Sweeney

This dysfunctional comedy is done with much of the Bruce Sweeney wit that viewers of his previous films DIRTY, LAST WEDDING and EXCITED are used to.  And it is bitingly funny.  Take the first scene with Matt (Jeff Gladstone) in his psychiatrist office. “I am better.  I don’t need to be here and I can leave.” 

 So he gets up and leaves the office.  But Matt is not better but getting worse, even considering suicide.  It does not help that his wife, Lori is having and affair but worst of all, his dysfunctional family is butting in trying to do what they think is best for him – which is not.  The bossy sister, Jess (Camille Sullivan) and mother, Mary (Gabrielle Rose, who is always a pleasure to watch) will not leave Matt alone, even stooping so low as to confront Lori for him.  Director Sweeney knows how to tread the fine line between anxiety and crazy and often the line is blurred.  

One wishes that there would be something deeper in the story or some message  for the audience but Sweeney’s film is so entertaining, no one really cares for anything deeper.  The fantastic cast do a great a job as well.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ILcjp-x44

 

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TIFF 2018 Review: CONSEQUENCES (Slovenia/Austria 218) ***1/2

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Consequences Poster
After being sent to a youth detention centre, 18-year-old Andrej has to fight for his place within the group of inmates while getting closer to Zeljko, their informal leader, and struggling to keep his repressed secret in the dark.

Director:

Darko Stante

Writer:

Darko Stante

Stars:

Matej Zemljic, Timon Sturbej, Gasper Markun

“If you fuck up, there will be CONSEQUENCES.”  so says one of the supervisors at a youth detention centre to the youth under him, who obviously think it an idle threat.  CONSEQUENCES is the impressive directorial debut of Slovenian filmmaker Darko Štante centring on one such troubled youth, Andrej (Matej Zemljic).

  Andrej does not go to school, throws temper tantrums and is prone to anger, violence and lies.  His parents have given up on him and therefore send him to a youth detention centre where he survives the bullying and gangs, owing to the fact that he is strong and feisty enough to challenge whoever gives him a hard time. 

 The film does not delve into the reasons behind Andrej’s anger but shows him to be awkwardly sensitive in  few incidents.  He is kind to his pet rat and sympathetic to a family he is about to rob as they have a backward daughter.  The film is less a coming-of-age saga than an account of the youth’s self discovery. 

 The film is supposedly based on the director’s own experiences working with youth in a correctional facility and it shows.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W8v3feKptE

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TIFF 2018 Review: ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH (Canada 2018) ***1/2

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch Poster

Director:

Jennifer Baichwal

Star:

Alicia Vikander

 

Filmmakers filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier return with their latest and third of their trilogy after MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES and WATERMARK, entitled ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH.  

The doc, written by Baichwal and narrated by Swedish actress and Oscar winner Alicia Vikander is a disturbing doc that demands to be seen for it explores human impact on the Earth.  The film’s first scene is that of molten metal.  

The site on display is north of the Arctic circle in what Baischwal describes as Russia’s most polluted city.  This is where the world’s largest metal smelting industry is located.  Baichwal and her crew travel the world documenting evidence of human domination – from concrete seawalls that cover 60% of China’s mainland coast, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, to vast marble quarries in Italy, to surreal phosphate tailings ponds in Florida.  

ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH is a spectacular film – Baichwal’s best of her trilogy.  She has spent an immense amount of time on research and travels resulting in this magnificent educational documentary.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44RYqgKwfSQ

 

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TIFF 2018 Capsule Review: EL ANGEL (Argentina/Spain2018) ***1/2

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

El Angel Poster
Carlitos is a seventeen-year-old youth with movie star swagger, blond curls and a baby face. As a young boy, he coveted other people’s things, but it wasn’t until his early adolescence that…See full summary »

Director:

Luis Ortega

Writers:

Sergio Olguín, Luis Ortega | 1 more credit »

Stars:

Lorenzo Ferro, Chino Darín, Daniel Fanego

Not since THE OMEN has evil been given a more deliciously portrayal as in the angelic innocent face of Damien the satanic child.   Loosely based on the infamous Argentinian serial killer dubbed “Death Angel”, EL ANGEL (THE ANGEL) follows an innocuous-looking, all blond hair and cherubic face but deeply sinister thief whose lawlessness escalates exponentially when he takes up with a career criminal. 

 Carlitos (Lorenzo Ferro) has decent parents who discouragers him from stealing but Carlitos does so because he revels in it.  Trouble really begins when he meets Ramon (Chino Darín), the son of criminals, the attraction he feels (for both crime and also for Ramon as evident in one homo-erotic scene) causes him to up the ante and engage in more serious criminal activity.  Soon, the young men are killing.   

Director Ortega is surely fascinated with subject and the film shows mostly the glamour that goes with the killing and robbing.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfNtW7xkvzM

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TIFF 2018 Review: BIRDS OF PASSAGE (PAJAROS DEVERANO) (Colombia/ Denmark/Mexico,/France 2018) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Birds of Passage Poster
During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.

Directors:

Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra

Writers:

Maria Camila Arias, Jacques Toulemonde Vidal

Stars:

Natalia Reyes, José Acosta, Carmiña Martínez

 

BIRDS OF PASSAGE plays like a Colombian style GODFATHER epic.  Both films begin with a young couple’s love.  In BIRDS OF PARADISE, Raphayet (José Acosta) is captivated by Zaida (Natalia Reyes) at her “coming out” ceremony, and is determined to come up with the enormous dowry her mother and family matriarch Úrsula (Carmiña Martínez) demands.  This where the trouble starts.  He gets the dowry from drug money involving wats between clans that eventually is too difficult to solve.  The film is good study of how things get seriously totally out of control from a small incident which in this case is Rapha’s trigger happy outsider Moisés.

BIRDS OF PARADISE is a colourful film (though a lot of colour is blood red) showing Colobia as many have not seen before, especially with the indigenous Wayuu customs, traditions, and celebrations  In addition there is the classic tragedy  arising from pride, greed, and the clash between the old and new worlds.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cbzb4pXZT0

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TIFF 2018 Review: LET ME FALL (Iceland/Finland/Germany 2018) ***1/2

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Let Me Fall Poster
Drawing on true stories and interviews with the families of addicts, this harrowing portrait of addiction follows Stella and Magnea through the decades as precarious teenage years morph into perilous adulthoods.

Director:

Baldvin Zophoníasson

Writers:

Birgir Örn Steinarsson, Baldvin Zophoníasson

Stars:

Þorsteinn Bachmann, Atli Oskar Fjalarsson, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson

LET ME FALL follows the downward spiral of Magnea through decades from teenager to adult through drug addiction.  The trouble with Magnea is that she never ever genuinely wishes to turn her life around.  

She is happy to give blow jobs in to fat, ugly blokes in order to earn a fix.  In the film, there is an almost unwatchable scene in which she is forced to give one even before she showers and after that, gets punched up instead of him keeping his promise.  “Nobody wants you, you are ugly,” he says to her at another point in the film before throwing her out into the street.  One cannot but still feel sorry of Magnea.  

Magnea’s parents have given up on her because she has constantly lied to them and has failed to show any gratitude for their care.  LET ME FALL is understandably a very difficult film to watch.  It is set in the Icelandic capital of  Reykjavik.  Diretcor Baldvin  Z (LIFE IN A FISHBOWL) draws his film on true stories and interviews with the families of addicts.  Magnea and her friend Stella are portrayed by two different sets of actresses for their teen and adult years.  

The film alternates between their teen and adulthood, which sometimes  get a bit confusing.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO_-KcTMQnU

TOFF 2018 Review: ENDZEIT (Germany 2018)

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2018. Go to TIFF 2018 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

Ever After Poster

Director:

Carolina Hellsgård

Writer:

Olivia Vieweg

Stars:

Trine Dyrholm, Yûho Yamashita, Barbara Philipp

Carolina Hellsgård’s occasionally chilling second feature is a zombie philosophical film that follows two women fighting for their lives in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies.  

The voiceover informs the audience at the beginning that a plague has swept the world and that Weimar and Jura are the only surviving cities left.  The two women are Vivi (Gro Swantje Kohlhof), vulnerable and numb and Eva (Maja Lehrer), whose icy indifference make the two initial enemies that eventually bond because Vivi can repair cameras, having experience working on eBay.  It all sounds too silly. 

 The premise of the zombie-ed world is too far-fetched to be believable and who really cares about these two women anyway.  What about the rest of the surviving population?   The only thing going for the film is the cinematography by Leah Striker with nicely shot countryside landscapes.  

The zombie attack scenes are well done though.  The mix of horror and philosophy of friendship does not work.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nPQ4Inzbw

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