TIFF '23: At the Crossroads of Old and New

by Cláudio Alves

During my days at the festival, I've found TIFF can be a place of great discovery, full of small titles coexisting with big ones, often besting them from a disadvantageous position. Discovery can also exist in the dialogues established between programmed projects, threads of shared ideas and ideals linking works of distinct artists from all over the globe.

Because of its status as Bhutan's Oscar submission and Pawo Choyning Dorji's follow-up to his nominated Lunana, I would always see The Monk and the Gun. However, the conversations it shares with other, less high profile films, were a welcome surprise. Despite their disparate genres (comedy, character study, tragedy) themes of encroaching modernity within traditional communities of mountainous Asian nations echoed back from the Nepalese A Road to a Village and the Mongolian City of Wind...

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TIFF '23: “Youth (Spring)” brings notes of optimism to Wang Bing’s cinema

by Cláudio Alves

Over a decade ago, Wang Bing’s first film explored the decline of an industrial district, state factories dying away as privately-owned businesses took over the Chinese economy. Since Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks, the director has applied the same ‘fly on the wall’ technique to various other projects, each growing in size until his filmography resembles a collection of non-fiction epics. The 2002 picture clocked at over nine hours, edited down from 200 hours of footage. For his most recent endeavor, Wang recorded 2,600 hours of material, deciding to present it as a trilogy named after one of the most exploited demographic in the nation’s industry – Youth. The three-and-a-half-hour Youth (Spring) represents the first chapter in the director’s new opus, introducing new tonalities to his work…

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TIFF '23: Shadows of Our Violent Past

by Cláudio Alves

Examining troubled history through art can be a necessary confrontation, even a search for catharsis. You can't move into a brighter future without acknowledging the shadows lurking in the past. It's no wonder, then, that countless filmmakers use their skills to make these excavations on the dig site of the screen. For all that Shinya Tsukamoto's Shadow of Fire and Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers tackle their respective countries' histories, they're not traditional period pieces content to passively restage yesteryears. They bear the weight of an artist's singular vision…

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TIFF ’23: In “Monster,” we’re all alone and that’s beautiful

by Cláudio Alves

Part of being alive is coming to grips with some harsh truths intrinsic to the human condition. For instance, we’ll never know the other, not entirely, no matter how hard we try. Even mothers can’t hope to fully grasp their children’s interiority, each human being a galaxy unto themselves. You can either fight against that notion in fruitless despair or accept it. We’re all alone, trapped in the mystery of ourselves, but so is everyone else. Reach out, and you’ll come close to the infinite unknown. Look at it right, and you’ll see beauty beyond belief.

The cinema of Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda has long reflected on such ideas, but Monster is still a high mark of cinematic compassion in his filmography. Penned by Cannes Best Screenplay-winner Yuji Sakamoto and set to the sound of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s last score, this film broke my heart…

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TIFF '23: "Concrete Utopia" is an earth-shaking blockbuster parable

by Cláudio Alves

Genre cinema has long been the home of social critique through allegory. Think back to Godzilla's reflection on Japan's atomic trauma or Night of the Living Dead's invention of the zombie movie as the place to study civilization's collapse. South Korea's new Oscar submission, Concrete Utopia, follows the tradition. Though, here, you'll find no Romero undead or radioactive kaiju to distract and reflect human folly at the viewer. Instead, Tae-hwa Eom's latest tackles the precepts of the disaster flick with a dash of post-apocalyptic dystopia, showing Humanity's self-made ruin in the aftermath of a massive earthquake that renders Seoul a wasteland…

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