TIFF '23: "Not a Word" finds mother and son at the world's edge
Monday, September 11, 2023 at 12:00PM 
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…