TIFF: Vignettes with Mike Leigh

Nathaniel's adventures at TIFF. Day 2

Day 2 was just magical from start to finish with 3 great movies and 1 solid one. Two of the films you've already read about here in Sweden's stellar Oscar submission Force Majeure and Norway's Out of Nature about one man hiking around in the wilderness on a long weekend. I like to think of the latter as Norway's counterpart to Reese Witherspoon in Wild - which I'll be seeing soon - though I doubt Reese takes her clothes off for a wank and runs around starkers. Day 2 was something of a vignette day since I will remember it primarily as the day I saw Mike Leigh twice and hid from the rain with him (long story - save it for the podcast!), the day I scarfed down melted cheese sandwiches with Nick & Joe in an highly unglamorous take-out setting, and a day of not one but 2 great movies composed of vignettes.

WILD TALES. an amazing Argentinian delightVignette films, like their cousin the omnibus, are tough beasts to pull off because you're essentially asking the audience to reinvest in the movie every 20 minutes or so, as if they've stumbled into a short film festival. They're also bound to feel uneven with some segments much richer than others. But here's two films that pull it off with real aplomb...

Argentina's Wild Tales is directed by Damián Szifrón but produced by TFE's favorite Pedro Almodóvar who I imagine is just thrilled with the results. It seems like a movie he would love what with its colorful characters, amusingly melodramatic and twisty stories, and at least three vivid female characters though it's not as actressy as his movies. Let's just say everyone in this six story movie is ...on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, and not just the women. Wild Tales was a big hit at Cannes earlier this year and it might possibly be Argentina's Oscar submission. It's easy to see why since the title is accurate. You feel like anything could happen primarily because not so very many minutes into the terrific opening vignette, it does. It starts just like any movie might with a beautiful woman being chatted up by a handsome older stranger as their flight takes off. But then they realize they have an acquaintance in common. Another passenger overhears them, interrupts and...

No, I shan't tell you more because this movie is best seen cold as the surprises are half the fun. Let's just say this free-fall into insanity sets the tone for the whole film which plays like a highwire act of dark comedy, violent thrills, and romances gone awry. Of the six segments, of which only one is just "good" (that'd be the one starring Argentinian cinema's Mr Ubiquitous Ricardo Darin), I had two favorites. The third vignette takes place on a long stretch of dusty highway where two men piss each other off while driving. Neither of them can let any affront go. It's a stretch of cinema that should make the majority of the world's action directors ashamed of themselves for not bothering to pack in as many thrills and cleverly choreographed beats into 2 hours that Szifron manages in 20 minutes. The final sequence centering on a wedding reception that goes sour and descends into utter chaos is also pretty damn great, and funny too. Don't read anything more about it and if gets released, jump in. A-

VENICE GOLDEN LION WINNER!
Sweden's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence comes from one of Mike Leigh's favorite directors Roy Andersson. Hence the first Mike Leigh sighting of the day since he came to the show with Mr Turner's primary non-Timothy Spall Oscar contender Marion Bailey. The room was jam-packed with press many of whom were laughing out loud and very frequently which is not all that common in critics screenings, I have to tell you.

A Pigeon... which does indeed include pigeons sitting on branches (albeit mostly offscreen),  bills itself as the final part of a trilogy of what it means to be human. And it starts with three short scenes called "Three Encounters With Death" which are beyond hilarious. I will never forget the ancient little lady hanging tightly on to her purse because she wants to take it with her when she goes. Every scene in the film is its own little continuous shot vignette in which the camera does not move but the things within the frame do, albeit sometimes very slowly. The two most frequently recurring characters are gag salesmen who keep announcing that they're there to help people have fun but are the glummest downers you ever did see, perpetually frowning, failing, frumpy and shuffling as if they're zombies across Andersson's often brilliant mise-en-scène . Not that anyone in the frame looks "alive" per se, since Andersson's figures are nearly all chalky white with a touch of ginger in their hair. The salesmen turned out to be my least favorite running gag in the movie and definitely wore out their welcome a bit though they're super funny at first. My favorite recurring bit was the generic repetitive dialogue heard whenever anyone onscreen answers a telephone. As if all the disconnected oddness weren't perplexing enough, there are three amazing period piece scenes involving warring soldiers, a musical number in a diner, and a slave ship (a very disturbing sequence).

Andersson strikes me a singular director, but there is one comparison point I feel comfortable sharing. I kept thinking of Jacques Tati, because the longer you stare at the sometimes crowded sometimes spare shots, the funnier they become and the bigger their comic payoffs whenever anything changes within the frame you've been visually searching for more things to discover or giggle about. I'm still scratching my head over this film but I'm already kicking myself for having missed Andersson's previous films. Several people have told me that I would love them. They were right and I am a fool for taking so long to get to them. A-

one of many screamingly funny but morbid scenes in "A Pigeon..."

Can you tell that I'm having a great great festival this year?

Venice Film Festival Winners

Manuel here to catch us up on the winners of the 71st Venice Film Festival.

The big story (as far as US-based coverage goes) is the "shutout" of Alejandro González Iñárritu Birdman. As it turns out, the Alexandre Desplat-led jury went with another feathered-titled film. Find the full list of winners below.

Golden Lion: A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence by Roy Andersson
Grand Jury Prize: The Look Of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer
Silver Lion (Best Director): Andrej Koncalovskij, The Postman's White Nights
Best Actor: Adam Driver in Hungry Hearts
Best Actress: Alba Rohrwacher in Hungry Hearts
Marcello Mastroianni Award (Best Young Actor): Romain Paul in Le Dernier Coup De Marteau
Best Screenplay: Rakhshan Banietemad and Farid Mostafavi, Ghesseha (Tales)
Special Jury Prize: Sivas by Kaan Müjdeci

An Emmy nomination. A Venice Film Festival Award. A plum role in an iconic franchise's upcoming entry. A couple of ensemble films opening at the Toronto Film Festival. It's a great time to be Adam Driver, don't you think?

Horizon Awards:

Best Film: Court by Chaitanya Tamhane
Best Director: Naji Abu Nowa, Theeb
Special Jury Prize: Belluscone. Una Storia Siciliana by Franco Maresco
Best Actor or Actress: Emir Hadžihafizbegovi in These Are The Rules
Best Short Film: Maryam by Sidi Saleh

Venice Classic Awards

Best Restored Film: Una Giornata Particolare, Ettore Scola
Best Documentary on Cinema: Animata Resistenza, Francesco Montagner and Alberto Girotto

Which of these films are you most excited about? Just as Hungry Hearts shot up on my own list of "look out for" films following its pair of awards, I'm sure there are others inching up on people's lists of Fall Season films to catch before year's end (it's around this time that my own pretty much looks thrillingly overwhelming).

TIFF: Mommy = Xavier Dolan's Best

Nathaniel's adventures at TIFF. Day 1

Technically speaking day 2 has just ended and it was an incredible day with consistently great films and memorable offscreen moments. But one day at a time. Day 1's highlight was the Cannes holdover Mommy from Xavier Dolan.

It's attention-grabbing from its first frames with an unusual aspect ratio. Technically speaking it's a 1:1 but if that means nothing to you (I'm not an aspect ratio geek either) know that it's square. Since square is not our beloved and horizontally familiar widescreen, the image feels alarming vertical, more akin to a cel phone shape. This description helps convey the movie's undeniable modernity but it doesn't convey it's lush beauty. (I've heard Mommy knocked as 'the first instagram movie' but, hey, Emmanuel Lubeszki is on instagram so let's not knock it as a Beauty Delivery System.) 

Technical film geekery aside, know this: the screen can barely contain the movie's explosive feelings. Hell, the aspect ratio can't even contain this movie's explosive feelings in one of its own best and most atypically tender jokes. 

MORE...

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TIFF: Charlie's Country

Nathaniel's Adventures at TIFF. Day 1

There's nothing like the fresh smell of na movies in the morning. Or the coffee while watching the movies. I love starting the day with a movie. Always have. It's easy to do that at TIFF where things start rolling at 8:30 AM. So I popped out of bed and hit the theater. At my second movie at 11 AM, two filmmakers in the seats next to me joked that the fairly robust attendance on the first morning of press & industry screenings was because late night boozing hadn't begun yet. "Not so," I interjected, having been to a pre-TIFF party the night before and spotting some familiar faces. "I know for a fact that someone here has a hangover." They laughed and I realized, too late, that it probably sounded like a confession. T'was not, I swear! I left that pre-TIFF party sober and l-o-n-g before I hear it wound down. 

CHARLIE'S COUNTRY [Australia]
Time has been good to aboriginal actor David Gulipil's face. His first starring role was in Walkabout way back in 1971, but four decades later when you see him on screen in historical films like Ten Canoes (2006) or epics like Australia (2008) his shock of tangled grey and white hair and those visible years on his skin have granted his memorable face even more big screen potency. It's a great face to spend time with and the Dutch-Australian director Rolf de Heer knows it, often just leaving the camera on him for long stretches when not much is actually happening. His latest collaboration with Gulpilil (they co-wrote the film) is a character drama about an old man named Charlie who longs for the "old ways" and resents white Australia and all the policies of "The Intervention".

I know absolutely nothing about Australian politics that I didn't learn from the movies. No two ethnically and morally fraught political situations are exactly comparable -- I don't mean to be reductive --  but what we see in Charlie's Country (and every politically or historically minded Australian film before it), reminded me so strongly of America's own often shameful history and treatment of Native Americans that it was easy to be quickly engrossed without actually understanding details. Much of Charlie's struggles and personal setbacks are a complicated result of a mixture of that politically stacked deck, hopeless self-sabotage, and his respect for "the old ways" that feels both completely genuine and goosed up for whenever he wants feel righteously offended. Charlie longs to track and hunt but isn't allowed to have weapons, he hates fast food but that's all his community has easy access too. The film's best moments are when Charlie's natural sense of humor and feisty spirit busts through the sad political reality: Charlie pretending to be a better tracker than he is; the joy of cooking in nature's "supermarket"; Charlie's friendly antagonistic relationship with both the local cops (they greet each other with "white bastard / black bastard" bickering) and his own community. 

I'd like to heartily recommend Charlie's Country but the truth is it aggravated me as often as it moved me. The pacing is strangely glacial and some of its most superb moments are ruined by goosing them too far. Take for instance a tough scene in a hospital where a doctor asks Charlie if he can just call him that because "foreign names are hard for me to pronounce." If you're paying any attention at all the moment arrives like a cold hard slap. It's enough to enrage you on Charlie's behalf but he underlines it himself with a muttered "so now I'm a foreigner?" He rubs the sting away with his own vocalized indignation, no longer requiring yours. Worse yet is the repetitive (if thankfully sparse) musical score that sounds exactly like a Clint Eastwood parody. Eastwood shouldn't even score his own movies, let alone other people's! There's a wonderful moment late in the film in which Charlie remembers a dance performance from his youth and you hear, all too briefy, the thrilling indigenous didgeridoo. Why not use that for scoring since the movie's heart, like Charlie's, longs for the old country. B-/C+

Also at TIFF: A Little Chaos, Wild, The Gate, Cub, The Farewell Party, Behavior, The Theory of Everything, Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, Song of the Sea, 1001 Grams, Labyrinth of Lies, Sand Dollars, The Last Five Years, Wild Tales, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Force Majeure, Life in a Fishbowl, Out of Nature, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, and Mommy

Off to TIFF: Nathaniel's Journey Begins

For the curious among you this is my very tentative list of films on my very jam-packed schedule at TIFF. This will be the 10th anniversary of my very first trip to TIFF from which my fondest memory was sitting behind Gael García Bernal and Javier Bardem for the premiere of The Sea Inside (the fondness of the memory is due to the view, not the movie). I haven't been attending annually but perhaps last year's short trip was the start of a tradition?

This list is highly subject to change - there are always cancellations, late starts, pop ups which all throw off schedules, you can try to follow the critical buzz which will throw off the schedule, you can meet with friends for food and conversation which will throw off the schedule, and you can sleep which will throw off the morning screening schedule. It's a madcap journey: eye strain, memory loss, and international film culture await up north. Some of these films are scheduled because I'm dying to see them, others less so because they fit exactly into the proposed schedule at an opportune moment. I'm going to try to skip some "must sees" like Maps to the Stars, Clouds of Sils Maria and more but 'WHY?' you shout in anger? Here's why: ten or so mouthwatering titles from TIFF's abundance are part of the New York Film Festival and those screenings begin in NYC literally the day after TIFF wraps. 

on my tentative schedule
1001 GRAMS (Norwegian Romantic Drama)
BANG BANG BABY (Canadian Musical)
CHARLIE COUNTRY (Australian Drama)
CUB (Belgian Horror)
DUKTHAR (Pakistani Drama)
FAREWELL PARTY (Israeli Drama, Ophir Nominee)
FORCE MAJEURE (Swedish Oscar Submission)
FOXCATCHER (Channing Tatum in a singlet. I think other people and things are in it, too.)
THE GATE (Cambodian/French from the director of "Indochine")
THE GOLDEN ERA (Chinese epic starring Tang Wei from Lust, Caution)
A HARD DAY (South Korean drama)
IMITATION GAME (Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing breaks the enigma code)
IN HER PLACE (I already forgot what this one is)
KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND SADNESS (Documentary)
THE LAST FIVE YEARS (Musical)
LABYRINTH OF LIES (German Drama)
LIFE IN A FISHBOWL (Icelandic Oscar Probability)
A LITTLE CHAOS (Kate Winslet back in corsets. Whoooo)
LOS HONGOS (I already forgot what this one is)
MARGARITA WITH A STRAW (Indian, LGBT)
MISS JULIE (Jessica + Colin)
MOMMY (new Xavier Dolan) 
THE NEW GIRLFRIEND (new François Ozon)
OCTOBER GALE (from the director of "Cairo Time" starring Patty Clarkson again)
OUT OF NATURE (Norwegian Drama)
PHOENIX (German)
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON ITS EXISTENCE (Swedish Oddity)
THE PROPHET (animated)
RED AMNESIA (Chinese Thriller)
RETURN TO ITHACA (from the director of "The Class")
THE RIOT CLUB (from the director of "An Education")
SCARLET INNOCENCE (I already forgot what this one is)
SHREW'S NEST (Spanish Thriller)
SONG OF THE SEA (from the filmmakers behind "The Secret of Kells")
STILL ALICE (indie Julianne Moore drama)
THEORY OF EVERYTHING (Eddie & Felicity court each other and Oscar)
TODAY (Iranian drama)
THE TRIBE (Ukranian Oscar Probability) 
WILD (Reese hikes toward Oscar #2?)
WILD TALES (Argentinian comedy) 

Anna Kendrick with the brilliant composer Jason Robert Brown ("The Last Five Years")

That's 40 films and I can guarantee I won't actually see that many and it's unwise to if you hope to remember any of them. But wish me luck in staying very roughly on track. Remember this: comments and retweets and shares are helpful fuel for those on the run from screening to screening. Follow Me on Twitter and Instagram if you want smaller and more frequent updates in addition to the reviews I'll be offering here.

What About the Blog? 
I'll try to get you one TIFF diary a day. Meanwhile the team has some fun stuff planned for you while I'm up North including more "back to school" pieces, a Team Top Ten and a mini fest celebrating the centennial of Robert Wise.