TIFF: "Himizu," "Lovely Molly," "...Nightmare" and "Union Square."

Paolo here, back with yet more TIFF films from the final weekend.

The first film today is Sion Sino's HIMIZU, using the backdrop of the March 11 earthquake to tell the story of fifteen year old Yuichi Sumida's (Shota Sometani) violent dreams and reality. One of his dreams puts him in the Fukushima rubble, where he finds a pistol inside a washing machine and when he wakes up, he checks his own washer to see if it's true. What ensues is school absenteeism, stalking from a lovesick and excitable girl, abuse from his father (who tells him he should drowned him in a river) and beatings from Yakuza loan sharks. 

At one point he has convulsions, a reaction to his unbelievably painful life. It's a raw and forceful performance from Sometani that might be ignored by larger audiences because of world cinema ghettoization. Sino's approach in telling Sumida's story meanders after the point when Sumida stands up to get revenge from these adults.

I feel snobby when I miss films from TIFF's Midnight Madness programme but fortunately, they play them again days after their premieres. Yesterday brought us LOVELY MOLLY from BLAIR WITCH director Eduardo Sanchez. It starts with the young titular character (Gretchen Lodge) explaning, teary eyed, that the actions that her body is committing is not really her. Her seemingly perfect marriage and childhood home disintegrate because of an incubus that haunts her. It is a competent horror film with the occassional excellent moment, especially those in which Lodge confronts her inner monster or becomes one. Lodge, in a debut performance, commits to the role with both eloquence and ferocity.

The transitions between regular film and video cam equipment are smooth.The scares aren't cheap but the intervals between them are far too long. While we're waiting for either the invisible ghost or Molly to attack, we're left with watching close-ups of furniture while eerie music plays on the background. The film can't rely only on great sound design to make its house look creepy. And why does the house have a security system but not proper lighting?

New Isabelle Huppert and Mira Sorvino movies after the jump.

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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.

 

France Declares War... (Not That Kind).

If France worries about such thing -- which they probably don't given their justifiable pride in their celluloid history -- they'd probably be frustrated by now that that 10th Oscar win for Best Foreign Language Film continues to elude them. It's now been 19 years since they've managed a win (Indochine) in the Oscar category they once owned. Their best shot since then (Amélie) suffered a surprise loss. Their best nominated film in many years (Un Prophete) had the misfortune of arriving in an atypically strong year for the category. Then just last year they missed what most expected was an easy-get nomination for the international hit Of Gods and Men. It all adds up to a strange golden drought given their much-statued history; they've received the most Best Foreign Language Film Nominations in history (36) but Italy still surpasses them in wins (10). 

Valerie Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm in "War is Declared"

Oh yes, the news...

France announced this morning that they will submit La Guerre est déclarée (which I've heard translated as both "War is Declared" and "Declaration of War" for international title purposes) for this year's Oscar race. It's a true story medical drama about a couple who fought to save their two year old son from a brain tumor. Here's the interesting angle: the writer/director is the mother Valérie Donzelli of the actual child (who survived) and she and her partner Jérémie Elkaïm are the lead actors, so essentially they've made their own family's biopic even though they've fictionalized it a bit (they have different names in the movie). The title, in case you're wondering, has a double meaning. The family obviously waged a war against the tumor and on the morning of their son's first operation they awoke to news of the Iraq war being launched. 

TFE reader Frédéric who send the news (merci!) says he's seen the film twice already and it only opened two weeks ago in France... though it actually premiered at Cannes. In other words, he really loved it. Here's the trailer.

The film has won many admiring reviews, Variety's among them. They wrote:

What sets "War" apart from other countless disease-of-the-week movies is that it tells its heartfelt story in a lively and energetic style. Donzelli and Elkaïm, who made the film on a small budget and with a tiny crew, not only follow in the free-spirited footsteps of New Wavers such as Truffaut (who, in "Jules and Jim," made a tragic menage a trois feel like a lighthearted romp) but also manage to cram in many small, authentic-feeling details. 

In nearby and somewhat surprising news, BELGIUM is sending the crime drama Bullhead rather than the latest acclaimed Dardenne Brothers film The Kid With the The Bike. Here's the international trailer for that one which is about illegal cattle hormone trading or some such, farmers and the mafia.

BULLHEAD - international trailer HD from Savage Film on Vimeo.

Oscar Submissions: Spain, Iran, Lebanon, Portugal, The Phillipines and Finland

This just in... well, actually it's been burning a whole in my inbox for a day or two. SPAIN, no stranger to Oscar glory with 19 nominations and 4 wins behind them, have narrowed their Oscar list down to 3 films.

It's a fairly standard choice facing Spain. They've got a Pedro Almodóvar film (The Skin I Live In), which automatically assures high profile discussions and viewers in the States even if the film isn't particularly Oscar-ready competing with a lesser known film which is more loved at home (Agustí Villaronga's Pa Negre or Black Bread) and a new film that not a lot of people have seen that hasn't even been released yet (Benito Zambrano's La voz dormida). The latter film is based on a novel and about women who were jailed during the Franco years. 

I'm guessing they go with Pa Negre (which translates to Black Bread) since it made such a very impressive showing at the Goyas this year taking Best Picture and eight more trophies along with it. The film is set in rural Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War and features Sergí Lopez (Pan's Labyrinth) and I hear that the child actors, one of whom discovers a dead body in the forest, are just great in it. I posted the trailer some months ago. [UPDATE 09/28/11: Yes, it was selected. See the Oscar Charts]

UPDATE: In confusing official and then not official but maybe possibly official eventually news...

IRAN (1 nomination) supposedly submitted Asghar Fahradi's A Separation, (pictured left) which is already an award winning film, a marital drama with a high international profile. Sony Pictures Classics will distribute. I immediately put it in my prediction list. But supposedly Iran wasn't happy that this news rushed out and it wasn't official official. Distinctions! So it might be A Separation but they're now considering Ahmad-Reza Motamedi's Alzheimer's, Bahram Tavakkoli's Here without Me, Ali-Reza Davoudnejad's Salve and Rambod Javan's No Men Allowed as well.

In more official news

FINLAND (1 nomination) has gone with Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre as everyone suspected wish is about a shoe shiner who befriends an immigrant. Kaurismäki gave Finland its only nomination with the dry funny The Man Without a Past some years back. 

LEBANON (never nominated) has submitted the musical that's now playing at TIFF, Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now? which is from the director of Caramel.

PORTUGAL (never nominated) will submit José & Pilar, which is a documentary by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes about the bestselling novelist José Saramago (Blindness) and his wife as well as the friction between private artists and their public lives. Sounds interesting. Guess what? Actor Gael García Bernal and director Fernando Meirelles (who were of course both involved in the Blindness film adaptation) also appear in the film.

This just in...

THE PHILIPPINES (never nominated) are submitting Woman in a Septic Tank which sounds really interesting. I'm also in love with the poster.

It's a comedy about the making of a movie as three filmmakers meet in Starbucks, call on their lead actress (played by Eugene Domingo as both herself and the character in the movie) and plan their poverty drama's shoot which will take place in a garbage dump. The movie gets reinvented several times over and changes genres and form in their imaginations.

TIFF: Alois Nebel, Good Bye and anticipation for Fassy

Amir, reporting on my third day at TIFF. It wasn't as exciting as the first two, though I did get to talk to two directors, Jason Reitman and Mohammad Rasoulof, in person. Reitman wasn’t promoting a film, but only walking around the Bell Lightbox building – his father, Ivan, donated the land on which the festival’s home is built – and Rasoulof, who I’d assumed was detained somewhere in Iran had gained permission to leave and promote his film in person. The fourth day is bound to get better with a premium screening of Steve McQueen’s Shame on the plate but for now, let’s get to yesterday’s films.

The big one was Alois Nebel, a much anticipated Czech animated film by first time director Tomas Lunak. You might remember Nathaniel highlighted the film among his sixteen suggestions too but sadly, it did not live up to my expectations at all. I must admit however, the black and white rotoscope animation is absolutely gorgeous too look at. The filmmaking team has spent years creating this beautiful imagery from live-action footage they filmed in 35 days and the result of their work is a collection of stark images that puts you right in the atmosphere of the film. Equally impressive is Alois’ edgy and moody sound work which as Lunak explained, has taken just as much time to materialize as the film.

Alois Nebel is about the eponymous train dispatcher at a border town whose humdrum life is changed with the entrance of a strange mute man to the small community he lives in. It’s a revenge story that has roots in Czech’s involvement in World War II and the Cold War but these roots are unfortunately the film’s biggest problem for me. I was actually a bit relieved to find out during the Q&A session that I wasn’t alone in my confusion about the back story... 

Alois Nebel

More after the jump ... plus Best Actor anticipation

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