TIFF: A Funny Man, Love and Bruises,... Anatolia

Amir, here, back with more coverage of new TIFF films. The Toronto International Film Festival is winding down but luckily I have a couple of big name movies still scheduled. Here's a few from the last two days.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
This Cannes grand prix winner is a slow-paced police procedural in which a doctor, a prosecutor and a group of other police agents drag an alleged murderer along with them in the rural Anatolia region of Turkey so he can show them where he’s hidden his victim’s body. More than half of this gorgeously shot film is spent during the night and I for one wished the morning never came. Gokhan Tiryaki’s impeccable lighting and the varied range of shots he creates in the limitless but monotonous locale of the film easily tops my personal list of best cinematography of the year. 

There’s more to the film than the actual nightly search as Ceylan gives us indications that we should question the nature of the crime. Supernatural observations, spirituality and religious themes of guilt and faith all play a part in this hypnotic film. At two and a half hours, Anatolia won't be for everyone, but if you’re willing to go along with Ceylan’s delicate look into the social structure of Turkey and his humanistic approach to this crime tale, the end result is incredibly rewarding.

The cast of "A Funny Man" (Nikolaj Lie Kaas in the center)

A FUNNY MAN (dir. Martin Peter Zandvliet) 

The director’s follow-up to Applause (for which Paprika Steen was a medalist right here in Nathaniel's film bitch awards) is a biopic about Dirch Passer (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), one of Denmark’s best known comedians. Once again, Zandvliet has given us an insightful look into the troubled life of an artist, one who’s always faced with the struggle of transitioning his successful comedic career into that of a serious dramatic actor. Much of the film is similar to what we often see in biopics that cover the bulk of the protagonist’s life, but don’t let that throw you off. A Funny Man is an emotional film that can make you laugh, cheer and cry at the same time and there are truly great performances in it. Nikolaj Lie Kaas (of Brothers and The Idiots fame) is a marvel as the late Passer and embodies both his comic genius and his dramatic talents to the same effect. Even better is Lars Ranthe as his partner Kjeld whose subtle turn in this demanding role is sensational. Both actors would have been easy gets for Oscar nominations had this film been in English. The film’s real champ for me, however, is Sune Martin, whose soothing, gentle score is even better than the eccentric work he did for Applause.  

LOVE & BRUISES (dir. Lou Ye)

This was the beginning of my most disappointing day at TIFF. I was excited to see this for Tahar Rahim (Un Prophete) but my enthusiasm died down just a few minutes into the film. Ye’s hollow and underdeveloped love story between Hua, a Chinese teacher (played by Corinne Yam) and Mathieu, a French construction worker (played by Rahim) who meet by accident on the street of Paris was anything but lovely. One-dimensional characters, a sexist and judgemental view of relationships and an inconceivable plot make it one of the weakest scripts of the year.

Rahim tries but the script gives him very little to work with. Worse still, the film gives us a whopping total of ZERO reasons to like Hua’s character who’s inexplicably adored by almost every man she meets. Though, I'd add that my reasons for disliking Hua all relate to how flatly written the character is which is entirely different from the misogynistic reasons the film itself seems to hate her. Lest you think sexism is the film’s only fault, its on-the-nose depiction of social class division is surprisingly even more distasteful. I’d give this film a straight "F", but I’d probably listen to Peyman Yazdanian’s score out of context, so a "D-" would be fair. 

CUT (Amir Naderi)

I’d like to say it was the after-effect of the previous screening that made me abandon this halfway through, but Cut was no masterpiece either. The film opens with a sequence that begs for our sympathy as a cinephile walks the street yelling “they’re killing pure cinema. Today’s films are only for entertainment” into a megaphone. Then, in a contrived turn of events, he becomes a human punching bag for inexplicably violent men in order to pay his deceased brother’s debts. The film’s subpar production values and mediocre acting weren’t helping its cause but I shouldn't express opinions on a film I haven’t watched in full. Perhaps a miracle of improvement happened after I left?  

>Final Weekend: back-to-back screenings of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis follow-up and Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights which has just been picked up for distribution (albeit in 2012), actressy musicals and Joachim Trier still to come.

 

TIFF: Fonda Plays a Hippie, Jennifer Sculpts "Butter", Viola Talks "Dark Girls"

Paolo here again to discuss three new films.

Peace Love and Misunderstanding
Bruce Beresford's new film begins with a table full of stuffy bourgeois lawyers taking down Pulitzer-winning playwrights. They seem like the kind of people the audience would like to become when they're older, having real opinions about theatre and the other high arts. This party takes place despite the Reaganite hostess, Diane Hudson (Catherine Keener) considering a divorcing from her husband (Kyle McLachlan). She takes her kids Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen) and 'documentarian' Jake (Nat Wolff) to the legendary Woodstock, New York to see their hippie grandmother (Jane Fonda). Fonda's character's presence thus questions one's notion of adulthood, as she is older yet free as the grandmother we wish we had.

Divorce and the other conflicts pop up one after another only to be resolved, a tricky comic tone to maintain. This light freedom is also evident in one scene when a chicken practically blocks our view of a character adding to the chaotic yet natural energy in this home and town. Every member of the household gets to hook up, Diane with a local musician (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), vegetarian Zoe's surprise match with a butcher named Cole (Chace Crawford) and Jake with a barista.

Fonda was the master of modern American elocution and we still hear that when she fires off the script's great one liners. But even Fonda can't help when her character turns into a Kristen Wiig caricature. Chace Crawford, capably evokes the heavy air that comes with a young man who has grown up in a rural area. And since I might not get to catch Martha Marcy May Marlene at the festival, watching Olsen's supporting work here is a decent consolation prize. She performs Zoe just as intelligent and emotionally sound as the script suggests.

Butter
This comedy about the world of butter sculpture competition in Iowa centers around Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner), a sculptor's wife who takes on her husband Bob's (Ty Burrell) job after he is forced into retirement. Quirk topic with the strangest case of a joke bombing in a movie... (more on Butter and the documentary Dark Girls with Viola Davis after the jump.)

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TIFF: ALPS, Edwin Boyd

Amir reporting again from The Toronto International Film Festival where I saw something I frankly can't recall ever seeing on the big screen before: Toronto history.

EDWIN BOYD
I’d watched Edwin Boyd only a couple of hours after Rampart (covered yesterday), but the review had to wait.  Scott Speedman plays the titular character, a serial bank robber in the post-war Canada of the 50s. Boyd, if you haven’t heard of him, is something like a Canadian John Dillinger figure. But I assure you this film is miles better than Public Enemies.

I’d heard the film was a total crowd-pleaser and the reports were true. It’s a clichéd film that uses all the tricks of the gangster genre – bursts of action sequences, romantic subplots, pretty girls, crazy sidekicks – but it doesn’t misuse them. Sure, you’ve seen this stuff before, and yes, the film feels too self-aware of its cinematic qualities as many genre films do, but the two hours go by like two minutes as Speedman charmingly reincarnates Boyd. This version of Boyd’s life is extensively romanticized and many details of his life have been completely eliminated, but from a purely cinematic standpoint, Edwin Boyd was a pleasure.

ALPS
The most significant film of the past two days was my personal most anticipated of the festival, Yorgos Lanthimos’ ALPS (If you’ve ever stumbled upon my blog, chances are you already know the extent of my affection for his last film, Dogtooth.) The good news is that ALPS totally lived up to my expectations. Though it’s hard to imagine Lanthimos finding new fans with this film - I’ve even encountered a few Dogtooth fans who were left cold by it - this signature work moved me in ways I did not expect and it stands high above the lot as the festival’s best offering so far.

ALPS is about a group of four people who get paid to substitute for the recently deceased to comfort their families. No information is given to us about the personal lives of three of them, but for the fact that one is the gymnastics coach of another. The fourth person, Monte Rosa (played by the brilliant Aggeliki Papoulia) is a nurse who’s also taking care of her aging father at home.

Peppered with absurd comic situations and brutal violence similar to what we saw in Dogooth, and boasting even bolder stylistic choices, ALPS reaffirms Lanthimos as a distinctive voice in today’s cinema and a visionary storyteller. He’s maintained his confident directorial control, only this time he adds a more poignant and heartfelt dimension to the film. And partnering with a new cinematographer here, he plays beautiful games with camera focus that he admitted (during the Q&A) weren’t always thought of in advance, but feel so right on the screen.

The real strength of the film however, lies in its script. If Dogtooth raised essential questions about the nature of identity, ALPS asks us to reconsider our perceptions of the identity of those around us. It will leave you thinking about the authenticity of your relationships and wondering how strong the bases of our interactions really are. How difficult is it to really replace someone? On what basis are relationships formed anyway? Do we maintain them by habit or will anybody do, if they wear the right clothes and repeat the same sentences? And so on. These questions are masked by Lanthimos’ surreal approach to storytelling but if you dig deep enough, ALPS is a layered and rich psychological study.

Often times at major festivals, we hear that a screenplay or a director award is given to compensate when a great film misses out on the top prize. Rumours about ALPS’ screenplay win at Venice say the same, but in this particular case, I think we can reject the possibility. This script can stand on its own merits.

Still to come: Andrea Arnold, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Joachim Trier and Tahar Rahim to talk about, so stay tuned!

TIFF: Michelle, Andrea and Felicity in buzzy films.

Paolo here. Day 6 of TIFF brings movies about love and passion crossing borders and oceans or trying to, despite the difficulties. Ladies and gentlemen, bring your handkerchiefs or roll your cynical eyes.

THE LADY (Luc Besson)

Most of you must already know about detained Burmese President-elect Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh), but her unlikely entry into political life happened so long ago that we, especially the younger generations, forget a few facts. First, that she lived in Oxford and bore two boys for her husband Michael Aris (David Thewlis), a professor of Southeast Asian studies and that the reason for her untouchable status in a military dictatorship is her ties to England. Second, that the reason the university intellectuals have chosen her as the figurehead of the Burmese democracy movement is because her father, a general, fought for the same goals after World War II.

The story of her adult life is now adapted to the screen as The Lady directed by Luc Besson. This movie allows Besson to diversify his CV but I personally couldn't avoid looking for his trademarks. Suu is Besson's female heroine, Michael his the Tati-esque old man, and a superstitious general is the campy, quirky villain. Besson keeps the violence to a reverent level this time, even if Suu's father becomes a martyr in the film's first scene. The Lady also has a few montages which chronicle the news of Suu's planned rallies spreading throughout the streets of Rangoon. They went on a bit longer than necessary.

As biopics go, The Lady has a surprsing lack of naturalism. Take this paraphrasal of one of Suu and David's conversations:

'The world reveres you as someone with no negative qualities.'
'I will list my negative qualities right now.'
'Your negative qualities made me fall in love with you.'

But because I like this, I'll call it 'classic English dialogue', pulled off well by Thewliss and especially Yeoh who has perfected a politician-style elegance; in a festival full of misanthropy, characters who are 'too nice' are a welcome change.

W.E. (Madonna)

The title of Madonna's much-discussed new film, is an acronym for the most gossiped marriage in the past century between Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy). The couple belong to a story within the story, which is an obsession for  fairytale-stricken Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), who comes close to the couple's property six decades after their exile. Wally is bored of her neglectful husband while befriending a foreign Sotheby's security guard (Oscar Isaac). I'll assume that Madonna took on this story in engender her own so-called feminist perspective, and she brings a sympathetic and sometimes humorous light to the maligned woman. I would have preferred to see a movie based on "Famous Last Words," Timothy Findley's novel about Wallis.

More on what I liked about W.E. and disliked about Like Crazy after the jump.

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TIFF: "Rampart" Redux, "Intruders" and "Pariah."

Paolo here. Allow me to present a TIFF movie I really love with a misleading and inaccurate synopsis. "Rampart: it's Greenberg but like a paranoid neo-noir with police brutality." Amir has already eloquently written his reservations on Oren Moverman's sophomore work. Yes, I admit that the camera movements were at times self-indulgent and reactions towards the film at our screening were divisive. All of this just makes me more militantly "Pro" on this movie and I've also been tweeting about it. And besides, Woody has a better chance of winning Oscar gold than Fassy.

Robin Wright and Woody Harrelson in Oren Moverman's "Rampart"

After watching Rampart, the funniest police brutality movie ever, Toronto's international cinema transported me to two unknown European cities.

Joan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders intertwines two story lines between a Spanish family and an English one, both haunted by the same ghosts. Given that the movie that strictly follows the horror archetypes set by Guillermo del Toro, the monster has a tentacle-y jacket, leather gloved arms. Trees in this movie are equally anthropomorphic. The movie takes place at an English country house where 'Mia Farrow,' a twelve-year-old girl (another del Toro influence) discovers a strange boxed piece of paper containing a story about the monster with the juvenile name of 'Hollowface.'

Fresnadillo has an interesting filmmaking voice, filling his movie with more dated scares than cheap ones; he's probably the only horror director left in the world who still think that cats are scary! True to del Toro's brave heroine form, Mia climbs a tree - allowing her to discover the written story - and walks along town by herself. Her Spanish counterpart, Juan, climbs in and out of his window and walks through scaffolding to escape the monster.

More on INTRUDERS and the lesbian drama PARIAH after the jump.

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