FILM REVIEWS:
CURL POWER ( Canada 2024) ***
Directed by J, Anderson
CURL POWER follows a team of teenage girls as they pursue their unusual dream of becoming Canadian National Curling Champions, and seek out their own paths amid the legacies of their world champion mothers. Filmed over a three-year period, the documentary tells a story of angst and ecstasy, following the funny and tender evolution of five best friends as they reckon with their bodies, minds, and the great unknown.
The doc takes its time to establish its footing. It is not stated in the beginning where the film is set or which province, though it can be observed that it is about a team in Canada. One has to observe the footage and join the dots to figure out that the film is about a team in British Columbia.
Curling is a popular sport in Canada, though many have never played it. It would be good if director Anderson explained the sport a little so that the audience knows the ins and outs of the game and the intricacies involved in winning a match.
The curlers experience everything that teen girls face while growing up in Grades 11 and 12. There is the going up, where boys come into play. They worry about their bodies, that they do not put on weight, their depression (one of them takes antidepressants, and she talks candidly and bravely about that in the film), and also separation when one of them leaves for the University of Alberta.
The film also includes a touching moment in which a player talks to her mother, one of the team’s coaches who had played in the Olympics in her heyday. The mother wishes to keep the cancer a secret from others as she does not wish to keep receiving sympathy from others, something that makes perfect sense. In a room, the mother gives her daughter all the Olympic ware like the bag, cap, and jersey while the daughter regrets that the mother will not always be there to see her at the end of the game.
CURL POWER which rhymes with girl power is essentially a female film. It used to be a complaint in the past that females are underrepresented in film. The opposite, thankfully appears to be true these days in the film industry, CURL POWER is about a girl’s team in a sport dominated by males in a sports doc directed by a female director with an all-girl cast. Males are hardly seen in the film’s scenes.
Most sports documentaries end on a high note in which the team wins at the climax of the film. In CURL POWER, the opposite happens with the team ending in a losing game. But this is where director Anderson excels in her tale of her story of teen angst, ecstasy, and curling. The coach's words are inspiring: “When a team member misses, she has to be given an encouraging look and it is the next move that counts.” The coach also insisted that the team, though losing, would need to walk out of the arena together as one. Also, her important words are that one cannot win all the games. In the end, it should be remembered that it is the game that they all love doing and one that has brought all of them together.
Despite a few minor flaws, CURL POWER is an earnest and endearing look at curling and growing up from the girl’s team point of view - a doc that comes from the heart.
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ETERNAL YOU (USA/Germany 2024) **
Directed by Hans Block & Moritz Riesewieck
ETERNAL YOU involves immortality in the form of A.I. and thanabots. What if a person's death did not mean their end of life? What if their loved ones could still talk to them long after their body had been cremated or buried? What sounds like the scenario of a science fiction movie is already offered by AI startups today and ETERNAL YOU examines the story of people who are immortalized as “digital doppelgangers” allowing them to interact with loved ones.
The film begins with thanabots, courtesy of A.I. ChatGPT is making it possible to digitally resurrect the dead in the form of thanabots: chatbots trained on the data of the deceased.
A program called Project December already allows users to input information about a person and have a custom chatbot created for them based on that person. As Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft all store heaps of our digital communications, it’s conceivable that they all could create and sell thanabots in the coming years.
The doc then moves on to show a grieving mother saying goodbye to her deceased daughter. This is followed by a young man, Joshua grieving over his dead girlfriends Jessica.
Joshua: “Jessica, is that you?”
“Who else?” comes the answer.
The person in front of the computer communicates with the thanabot as if the loved one is still alive. The big question is whether this is a healthy situation. After all, thanabots will only be based on digital data — at least at first. We all know that people’s online lives can be very different from offline, so the thanabot may not accurately represent the person it was made to mimic. Moreover, thanabots may not provide the catharsis that users might hope for, and instead intensify feelings of grief and despair.
There are two fields of thought regarding a lengthy involved grieving over a loved one. One is to come to terms with a closure with the loss like saying what one had wanted to say to him or her, but never had a chance and now being able to do so. Thus, there is emotional satisfaction. The other is to forget the past and to move on, rather than mourning in a depressed state. In the 2022 drama film by Florian Zeller THE SON, Hugh Jackman seeks advice from his father played by Anthony Hopkins with regards to his suicidal son and how that is affecting his current life. The advice from the Hopkins character which is uttered three times in the film: “Fucking get over it!” These are two extremes and the documentary obviously favours the former as it deals with A.I. spelling with a grieving human being,
ETERNAL YOU is a well-shot documentary with some emotional segments in which a grieving person talks to his dead loved one as if still alive. But the doc gets monotonous with repetitive material and for audiences who are about ‘getting on with life’ that includes a Korean mother undergoing V.R, with her deceased daughter. The doc is also too biased towards favouring the topic,
A 2024 Sundance Grand Jury nominee and an Official Selection at numerous top-tier fests including Hot Docs, CPH: DOX and Sheffield, ETERNAL YOU invites audiences everywhere to ponder that thorny ethical question when it premieres on January 24 via VOD and all leading digital platforms including Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.
Trailer:
GRAFTED (New Zealand 2024) ***
Directed by Sasha Rainbow
The first 5 minutes of GRAFTED are set in a Chinese slum with a father and daughter speaking Chinese. Not to describe the first 5 minutes to spoil one's ‘pleasure’, (Hint: it has to do with the film’s title) but it would be a huge surprise if one does not winch due to the shock of what happens in that segment. If one can survive that first ordeal, then GRAFTED will provide more horrific entertainment, If not stay away!
Grafting is a plant growth process but in horror films, it refers to the process moved from plants to human beings.
Grafting a face has been a favourite hot subject in horror films. Ever since Georges Franju scared audiences with his 1960 horror masterpiece LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (EYES WITHOUT A FACE) and later with the tacky 1969 Peter Cushing horror CORRUPTION, the subject has always worked. GRAFTED from New Zealand is the latest venture taking a turn at the subject. It is always a disfigured face that has to be grafted with living tissue,
Chinese scholarship student Wei travels to New Zealand to study medical research at a prestigious university. Shy, introverted, and hiding a genetic facial birthmark, Wei is shunned by her social butterfly cousin Angela and her glamorous friends. Determined to change her fate, Wei immerses herself in her late father's research, working on a revolutionary skin grafting procedure that could cure her deformity. As her experiments take a dark turn, she becomes more dangerous and unhinged, willing to eliminate anyone who threatens her secret.
The film has the audience rooting for Wei, an underdog facing prejudice as a minority Chinese student in a white country. Cousin Angel is no help either and an all-out fight between the two girls does not help, especially when Wei stabs her in the eye during the struggle. Her aunt who appears to be hospitable enough to Wei is also an interesting character. The film also works with a comic g-of-age story of an awkward teen trying to cope with social acceptability and racial prejudice. Angela screams: “Take your weird Chinese shot and go home!”
GRAFTED shares a few common traits with last year’s horror hit THE SUBSTANCE. Both films deal with the desire for beauty at all costs, and both are by women directors, this one by Sasha Rainbow.
GRAFTED has a good build-up from the very start of the film. However, the momentum dies by the end with the film’s cop-out ending, unfortunately.
Director Rainbow does not skimp on the gory skin grafting scenes. In fact she seems to revel in them with extended almost too ghastly to watch skin grafting acts on screen.
Sasha Rainbow is an award-winning New Zealand-born director whose unique sensibility and vision are reflected in both her film and commercial work. Her documentary KAMALI, about a seven-year-old Indian girl skateboarder, was long-listed for an Oscar, nominated for a BAFTA, and was distributed through RYOT films.
GRAFTED will be streaming on Shudder on Friday, January 24th.
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