TIFF' 24: Three Documentaries, Three Portraits of Resistance

by Cláudio Alves

A moment of joyful defiance in SUDAN, REMEMBER US.

Documentary cinema tends to get the short shrift regarding festival coverage, unless one's dealing with a strictly non-fiction fest. It seems made-up stories and dramatized truths will always excite mainstream audiences in ways that documentaries won't. Perchance, it all comes down to the need for cinema as escape. Perhaps it's more about historical trends and industry prescriptiveness. Whatever the case, it's a pity because the medium's future is often found outside the confines of narrative filmmaking. Moreover, when looking at political cinema, the potential directness of documentaries cannot be overstated, charging at issues head-on rather than through the oblique avenues of fiction. 

At TIFF 2024, three documentaries felt especially urgent, even when regarding the historical past. They're stories of resistance in its many forms – Hind Meddeb's Sudan, Remember Us, Raoul Peck's Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, and Santiago Esteinou's The Freedom of Fierro…

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TIFF '24: For the Dead and the Dying and Those Left Behind

by Cláudio Alves

Vincent Cassel and Guy pearce in David Cronenberg's THE SHROUDS.

All of us are on a long journey into death, set on a collision course with the great end that nothing can entirely prevent and no one can avoid forever. Artists are no different, mere mortals like the rest of us. However, the nature of their work means those persons' relationship with our collective finality may take unexpected forms, many of them public. Whether a creator wants it or not, when the finish line comes into conscious sight, their creation shall reflect it. Mortality subsumes the art, even when buried deep within layers of escapism, deflection, and delusion. The brave ones disregard such distractions and stare at the monster head-on. For them, late style is a cinema of death.

Consider the most recent works from two of our greatest masters – David Cronenberg and Paul Schrader. The Shrouds and Oh, Canada are meditations on mortality, made for the dead and dying and, most importantly, those left behind, waiting for their own end…

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TIFF '24: "Mistress Dispeller" pours ice water over heated marital melodrama

by Cláudio Alves

Elizabeth Lo's latest documentary has one hell of a premise. In modern-day China, a middle-class, middle-aged couple is going through a commonplace crisis we've seen portrayed in cinema a thousand times before. Mr. Li is having an affair with a younger woman, becoming increasingly distant from his spouse. Faced with heartbreak, Mrs. Li won't take the situation with the resigned acquiescence of a long-suffering wife. She categorically refuses to. And here's where Mistress Dispeller takes an odd turn, for the jilted spouse hires the titular professional, Wang Zhenxi, who specializes in the dissolution of such affairs.

Infiltrating the family as a distant relative, the mistress dispeller spends months investigating and reconstructing a broken bond. And somehow, Lo's camera is always there to watch it unfold…

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TIFF '24: From the Lido to Lake Ontario

by Cláudio Alves

Dea Kulumbegashvili's APRIL won the Special Jury Prize in Venice.

For many critics who don't attend the big European festivals, TIFF marks their first chance to see some of the circuit's most talked-about titles. This year, I spent a good portion of my time in Toronto catching up with Venice films – the two events overlapped as they usually do – and managed to watch a whopping eleven titles from its official competition. Elisa already reviewed many of the big ones, and Abe also shared his take on Kill the Jockey, so I won't bother with those titles past a capsule. However, there's much to say about the yet-unreviewed April and Vermiglio, two Venice prizewinners that rocked my world. Dea Kulumbegashvili did it with a formalist assault, vicious and visceral, while Maura Delpero opted for a pastoral meditation, as peaceful on the surface as the gradual changing of the seasons…

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TIFF '24: "All We Imagine As Light" is one of the year's best films

by Cláudio Alves

France went with Emilia Pérez and Luxembourg chose not to submit a film at all. India was the last hope, but, as expected, went a different route, choosing a Hindi title, Laapataa Ladies, and ignoring the work of a director who's been outspoken against injustices in her country. Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light is officially out of the Best International Film Oscar race – a pity, for it's one of the year's best films, a miracle of grace that's as close to cinematic perfection as one can get. So much so that talk of awards feels improper, an anodyne aspiration in the face of what Kapadia unleashes on screen. Awards are too small to do this narrative feature debut justice. Even the Cannes Grand Prize feels insufficient, for All We Imagine As Light is one for the ages…

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