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.

Fresnadillo tediously intertwines the story lines, as Mia and her father John (Clive Owen) have seen this monster come out of her closet while his wife Susan (Carice van Houten) betrays him to psychiatrists investigating Mia. There's symmetry, however, when Juan's mother consults a priest (Daniel Brühl with a perfect Spanish accent) who has been curious about them since the mother's behaviour at confession. The priest eventually visits her, hoping to discover why the mother and son are acting very strangely. 

Intruders also suffered from a strange message. It's almost as if it's condeming the adventurous and imaginative streak in these children, Juan haunted by the monster because he keeps conjuring it and Mia enduring the same because she rediscovers and rewrites Juan's story. In present day England, John tries to protect her as a parent would, but the only way to save her is for him to both discover and flush out the monsters from the very spoilery past. 

Pariah

Kim Wayans of In Living Colour fame plays a supporting role in the Sundance favourite Pariah as a middle class Brooklyn mother named Audrey anxious about her seventeen year old tomboy daughter, Alike (pronounced ahLEEkay and played by Adepero Oduye). The film started worrying me as it starts with a strip club scene where the women dance to a one hit wonder song by Khia. Eventually we discover that there aren't any men in this club and if there are 'men,' they're women dressed in baggier clothes, as Alike dos. But what thankfully follows are specificities going against stereotypes, encapsulating these women's 'other lives' - Audrey listening to Klezmer music, Alike putting on more fitted clothes to appease Audrey, being bashful about getting 98% in assignments, listening to underground hip hop music and of course, being a closeted lesbian.

Alike and her best friend Laura's (Pernell Walker) lesbian relationships come into full view in the film just as, coincidentally, Audrey's seemingly perfect relationship with her husband Arthur (Charles Parnell) begins to fall apart. Though one can't immediately call this a flaw, it's a bit distracting that Queer Cinema, especially in films depicting lesbian narratives, often uses the destructively dysfunctional straight marriage as a foil. 

Pariah's unique, multifaceted depiction of black characters also portrays various stances towarsd or awareness of LGBT identities. Each of Alike's family and friends have different reactions to her and their own identities.  Alike's sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse)  even weighs in on what she thinks she knows about the lifestyle that the former is slowly embracing. The family never represents outright violent homophobia, but they're very hesitant to accept their growing, head strong daughter.

I would like to give a full disclosure that I grew up with girls like Alike and Laura, their clothing and mannerisms playing on the dualities of masculine and feminine, harsh vulnerability and mask-like bravado. Audrey's increasing hostility towards her daughter as well as the latter's redefined approach to heartbreak gives me a new perspective on my long-lost classmates and friends.

Comments

[Ivonne]

The cast of Intruders sounds very exciting, thanks for your review of the film