TIFF 2019 Movie Reviews

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)

2019 TIFF Movie Review: PORTRAIT DE LA JUENE FILLE EN FEU (PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE) (France 2019) ***

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Portrait of a Lady on Fire Poster
Trailer

On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

Director:

Céline Sciamma

Writer:

Céline Sciamma (screenplay)

Stars:

Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami

Set in 18th-century Brittany, Portrait of a Lady on Fire follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), an artist commissioned by an Italian noblewoman (Valeria Golino) to paint a portrait of her reclusive daughter Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who is soon to be married. The peculiar conditions of this assignment, however, require that Marianne never  announce to Héloïse the objective of her visit.  

Instead, Marianne is to escort Héloïse on walks, posing as a hired companion while closely observing her subject so as to render her likeness on canvas in secret.  

Though nothing much happens, the film includes scenes of exquisite beauty courtesy of the cinematographer  Claire Mathon who did STRANGER BYTHE LAKE back in 2013.  The shot of the facial expressions of the three women playing cards and the one with the household breaking into a chorus of song are incredibly moving.  

It takes 3/4 of the film before the two women embrace, and the segments are executed with grace and erotic taste.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64QcwARoZAM

2019 TIFF Movie Review: WHITE LIE (Canada 2019) ***

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White Lie Poster
Trailer

A popular undergrad faking cancer struggles to maintain her secret.

Directors:

Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas

Writers:

Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas

Stars:

Kacey Rohl, Amber Anderson, Martin Donovan

This odd feature centres on Katie (Kacey Rohl), a young woman who has become a literal poster child on her university campus: recently diagnosed with cancer, she’s the focal point of an online funding campaign for both herself and other cancer-related causes.  \

The only problem is, it is all built on a lie.   Katie isn’t sick but gets the money she raised for cancer for herself.  When the campus asks for her medical reports, things start spiralling for the worse when she needs money for forged papers.  She lies to everyone including her ever-loyal girlfriend.  The trouble with this film is the indecision of the directors on whether to have the audience like or dislike the protagonist.  

Though one might root for her keeping her secret, Katie is quite the nasty person with hardly any scruples.  Only her father (Martin Donovan who steals the show) calls her bluff.  Just like Katie, WHITE LIE is a difficult film to like especially since it leads nowhere though Rohl is quite convincing in the role. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6146a_vM0HU

2019 TIFF Movie Review: LA BELLE EPOQUE (France 2019) ***

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La belle époque Poster
Trailer

A couple in crisis. He, disillusioned, sees his life upset the day an entrepreneur offers him to plunge back into the time of his choice.

Director:

Nicolas Bedos

Writer:

Nicolas Bedos

Stars:

Daniel Auteuil, Guillaume Canet, Doria Tillier

A high concept comedy that turns out to smart for its execution, This French comedy follows an old fashioned cartoonist, Victor (Daniel Auteuil) no out of work as print makes way to  websites that do not favour cartoons.  To make matters worse, his wife, Marianne (Fanny Ardant) is totally modern with her self driving Tesla, virtual reality and artificial intelligence and bored with him.  Victor engages in a service called ‘Time Travellers’ that take client their past historical moments.

  Victor hicks 1974 where he meets and falls in love with his wife when they first met.  Writer/director Bedos (MR. & MRS ADELMAN) creates an original premise blending modern technology with old-fashioned French romance.  Bedos edits his film really  quickly at quite the manic pace so that the audience has hardly any time to breathe, often forgetting the simplicity of comedy.  

Still this is Bedos’ unique style that is still entertaining with this film demanding a Hollywood remake int he future.  Auteuil and Ardant are a delight to watch on screen,

Trailer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9172422/videoplayer/vi3889675289?ref_=tt_ov_vi

2019 TIFF Movie Review: THIS IS NOT A MOVIE (Canada/Germany 2019) ****

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This is Not a Movie Poster
The groundbreaking and often game-changing reporting of legendary foreign correspondent and author Robert Fisk is profiled in the latest from acclaimed documentarian Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze).

Director:

Yung Chang

Writers:

Yung Chang, Nelofer Pazira

Stars:

Robert Fisk, Amira Hass, Nirmeen Hazineh

This doc for on foreign reporter Robert Fisk is designed  to arouse emotions.  It begins with the reason or reasons Fisk decides to become a reporter. This Chang (UP THE YANG-TSE) does by including a clip of Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense thriller FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.

The hero inspired Fisk, and another inspiration is described by Fisk as a fireman falling to his knees crying while putting out a fire in Belfast when he saw part of a body by the fire hose  Chang evokes the raw emotions of both Fisk at that time transported in time to the present. Chang creates an eye opening vivid account of Fisk at work with his camera following Fisk on his assignments, particularly in Syria in the present. 

 Like a film within a film, this is a director reporting a reporter.  Director Chang also instills the truth that reporters have the duty to tell – especially in the times of fake news.  In the inspiring words of Fisk himself recorded by Chang: “If you do not go the front lines and see what is happening how can you see what the truth is?”  

A remarkable and  unbelievably inspiring doc!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftjkRxikuO4