TIFF '23: A widow's plight is the nightmare of "Inshallah a Boy"

by Cláudio Alves

Some films are like nooses, rope around the neck, tightening exponentially with ever-strengthening pulls. Air runs out, suffocation on the horizon if not for the mercy of a final crack. Neck broke, the kiss of death at long last, and let the credits roll. The rope is tension born out of misery and misfortune, a path of escalating tragedy that can easily fall into cheap suffering for suffering's sake. We've all seen such films, bursting with good intentions but way too mired in the character's pain to ever look beyond it. What should be empath sours into pity. So, when an artist risks the noose without capitulating to its snags, it's cause for celebration.

Then, let's cheer for Inshallah a Boy, the first Jordanian production to screen at Cannes and a prime candidate to be the country's Oscar submission…

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TIFF '23: Love! Sex!! Cinema!!!

by Cláudio Alves

"The Beast"

So far at TIFF '23, no film has more stubbornly remained in my thoughts than Bertrand Bonello's The Beast, an ambitious genre-bending experiment with shades of Henry James' "The Beast in the Jungle" and incel rhetoric. You can't fault the French maverick for a lack of ideas, but I'm not sure they all coalesce. Still, it persists in the upper levels of my mind, nagging for reconsideration, spiking me with lost images I saw projected monument-like on an IMAX screen. Truthfully, I've never been as intimately acquainted with Léa Seydoux's face, and at times, she looked like a beautiful titan about to devour the audience, mayhap the whole universe.

The Beast's thoughts on love across the ages are especially fascinating in how they compare to other artists' visions of the amorous realm. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed and Fallen Leaves couldn't be more different, so let's talk all three after the jump...

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TIFF '23: "Not a Word" finds mother and son at the world's edge

by Cláudio Alves

It's always curious how shared themes and repeated motifs can spread through a film festival's program. At TIFF '23, motherhood is among the hottest topics, especially concerning the bonds and barriers between single mothers and their adolescent sons. Another more unexpected trend is how many titles enjoying their North American or World Premieres recall Todd Field's TÁR, as if that work had echoed a shape-shift sound through the art film scene. None of this means cineastes are copying each other or that festival programmers are indulging in redundancy. It's merely a thought-provoking coincidence that can lead the viewer down the road to comparison and offer new avenues of analysis. Amid the similarities, you may grow to treasure each project's specificity, their points of divergence.

Consider Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak's Not a Word, where a busy orchestra conductor raising her son alone is confronted with the boy's inherent unknowability…

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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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