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ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (India/France/Lux/Neth 2024) ***½

Directed by Payal Kapadia

 

A female film all the way directed by also by a female,  The hit at this year’s Cannes is a hazily lit, dreamy and idyllic-looking feature bringing together three women, each of whom have their own problems.  Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are roommates and nurses at a Mumbai hospital. Prabha is married, but her husband went abroad to work many years ago. Now drifting into middle age, she focuses on her job. Anu, by contrast, is young and full of dreams for her future, which she hopes will include the handsome Muslim boy she’s secretly seeing. Prabha initially regards the potentially scandalous affair as an annoyance, but she comes to sympathize with Anu’s passion, perhaps because she, too, feels the tug of frustrated ardour, thanks to the attentions of a poetry-writing doctor.  When Prabha’s friend Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is evicted from her home by heartless developers, she decides to return to the coastal village of her youth. Prabha and Anu tag along for a holiday. Far from the city’s perpetual clamour, the women’s feelings and sense of life’s possibilities are given free rein.  The film celebrates womanhood, showing how each needs to support another in the face of male-related problems.  In unity, females can face the world with strength and resilience—great shots of Dubai life and the beautiful Indian beach areas.

 

ANORA (USA 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Sean Baker

 

ANORA, the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes is the well-deserved prize winner that honours the sex worker.  Baker believes sex work should be "decriminalized and not in any way regulated because it's a sex worker's body and it's up to them to decide how they will use it in their livelihood.  Mikey Madison plays a sex worker named Anora, or Ani as she prefers to be called.  She may live in a shabby Brooklyn apartment above the rattle of the subway, but every night, Ani glams up and puts on a flirty smile for the men at a local club.  Between myriad lap dances, Ani finds herself talking to Vanya, a young Russian boy who joyfully throws around his parents’ money. His innocence charms Ani, and the two fall into a comfortable rhythm.  The two get married but soon discover the husband to be the rich, spoilt and immature partying son of wealthy Russian parents who fly immediately to NYC when they correct the affair when they hear the news.   Dramatic, hilarious and moving, ANPRA is Baker’s best film to date, aided by sincere powerful performances by Mikey Madison in the title role.

 

ANYWHERE ANYTIME (Italy 2024) ***
Directed by Milad Tangshir

 

Fired by his previous employer, Issa (Ibrahima Sambou), an illegal alien in Italy finds work as a food-delivery rider, thanks to a kind friend (Moussa Dicko Diango). The arduous job requires the employee to provide their own means of transport, and soon Issa’s newly gained stability collapses when, during a drop-off, the bicycle he has just spent all his money on is stolen.  The story is of course, reminiscent of the Italian 1946 neo-realist classic BICYCLE THIEVES, and needless to say, it cannot match up to those nights, director Tangshan’s film still has its charms.  Director Tangshir convinces his audience what really means to be down on one’s luck, especially also losing the only means like BICYCLE THIEVES, of one’s only means of making a living.  One feels for Issa right down to the film’s last reel, the ending of which will not be revealed in this review.

 

THE ASSESSMENT (UK/Germany/USA 2024) ***
Directed by Fleur Fortune

 

In the spirit of films like Michael Campus’ Z.P.G. (1972) which stands for Zero Population Growth and Michael Anderson’s 1976 LOGAN’S RUN arrives a film about population control set in a dystopian future.  Only THE ASSESSMENT takes things weirder with a big twist in the story at the end, though the ending requires a bit of examination to comprehend.  In order to control the population, every couple wanting a child needs to undergo an assessment.  Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) are nervous about their application to become parents, but they have everything going for them. They live in a peaceful, secluded home where Aaryan has a studio for his genetic research and Mia maintains a greenhouse as part of her work as a botanical scientist. The two are assigned an assessor named Virginia (Alicia Vikander), who comes to evaluate them in their home over seven days.  The film however is a slow burn with a few ambiguous segments that might test one’s patience.  Great sets and locations give the film the futuristic look it needs.

BABYGIRL (USA 2024) **

Directed by Haline Rein

 

If a film is supposed to be politically correct, the film has a strong female slant, an LGBT+ subplot (Romy’s daughter is gay) and Romy’s colleague is coloured.  When Romy (Nicole Kidman) meets Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an impertinent intern at her company who can intuit more about her than she intends to share — and who’s happy to take control — it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves in a seedy hotel together. They wrestle, literally and figuratively, over a twisty power dynamic. Romy’s age and position give her an advantage, but as Samuel reminds her, he could ruin her life with one phone call.  If anything else, BABYGIRL is a female sex fantasy.  Romy gets what she wants her sexual fantasy despite all the risks she takes of family and career.  All the males end up in her power and an office sex predator is told by Roy to f off near the end.  A bit too much, this supposedly erotic thriller with Kidman embarrassingly moaning half the time.

BIRD (UK 2024) ***
Directed by Andrea Arnold

 

Director Arnold makes excellent gritty movies involving females who stand up for what they believe is right.  In her latest BIRD, surrealism is added to the real and gritty, which does not really work as it undermines the credibility and emotions of the story that have already been carefully built up.   Twelve-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her father Bug (a devoted but emotionally chaotic Barry Keoghan) in a graffiti-strewn tenement. When Bug informs her that he’ll be marrying his new girlfriend soon, Bailey is furious and hurt, for what will become of her? Her mother lives with a violent, cruel man, and while Bug sports a ferocious love for his daughter, he can be oblivious to the needs of a fledgling teenage girl.  As she often does, Bailey retreats to the open fields on the outskirts of her hometown to seek comfort. It is here she is most herself, with an uncanny ability to communicate with animals and experience nature in a profound way. It is on one of these walks that Bailey has a mysterious, yet deeply meaningful, encounter that helps her when she must force a confrontation with her mother’s vicious partner.  Oscar nominee Keoghan and newcomer Adams both deliver outstanding performances that elevate the film.

BOONG (India 2024) ***½

Directed by Lakshmipriya Dev

  

Schoolboy Boong (Gugun Kipgen) is living with his mother as his absent father has disappeared while working in another state.  He wishes to give his mother, Mandakini (Bala Hijam), the best surprise gift ever: bringing back his father, Joykumar.  After leaving their home city of Manipur, India for the border city of Moreh, near Myanmar, in search of better job opportunities,  Joykumar has stopped communications with the family.  With rumours spreading about his father’s death, Boong refuses to accept that grim possibility and teams up with his best friend, Raju (Angom Sanamatum), an outsider from Rajasthan, to search for the truth.  The film is both a coming-of-age story of BOONG and a reflection of life in Manipur.  Manipur is an Indian state that is bordered by India and Burma resulting in racial tensions.  The issues of female and class also come into play as the story unfolds seen from the point of view of Boong.  BOONG is the schoolboy’s nickname in the film.  BOONG, from first-time director Dev is a light, breezy and entertaining film illustrating that current world issues can also be examined without being heavy and overdramatic.

BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY (Ireland/UK 2024) ****
Directed by Sinead O’Shea

One of the best biopics to be seen, BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY tells the story from child to death of Irish writer Edna O’Brien BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY with candid interviews right up to her death at the age of 94 in 2024.  Filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea taps into a wealth of material including unpublished diaries, decades of television appearances, and new interviews with O’Brien, in her 90s and as incisive as ever. There are interviews with her sons Carlo and Sasha about their unconventional upbringing with a divorced mother whose house guests included Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, and Paul McCartney.  The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne explains how O’Brien broke taboos while writer Walter Mosely describes how she changed his life as his teacher.  Her reflections on her life and what she has learned are most moving.  She says in her final interview that she wishes to be buried when she dies.  A remarkable candid and riveting portrait of the life of the Irish writer given the highest honour of ‘wise one’ in Irish Literature.

BRING THEM DOWN (UK/Ireland 2024) ***½

Directed by Christopher Andrews

 

Shot in rural Ireland, this intense and depressing film displays the hardships of sheep farming with the added stress of feuding neighbours.  Michael (Christopher Abbott) tends his family’s sheep business entirely on his own. His father (Colm Meaney) is disabled, and his mother died years ago in a car accident in which Michael was the driver.  Michael has lived with guilt ever since — as well as a secret he hopes will never come to light.  Michael’s ex, Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone), was also in that car accident and has the scars to prove it. She wound up marrying Gary (Paul Ready), another sheep farmer. Near the start of Bring Them Down, Caroline and Gary’s son, Jack (Barry Keoghan, also at the Festival with Bird), claims that two of Michael’s prize rams were found dead on his family’s property.   Michael’s suspicions are aroused, old wounds are opened, and the two families, with neither willing to stand down, find themselves on a perilous collision course.  The film repeats a few scenes resulting in a disordered chronological order, but the narrative is still easy to follow,  A solid climax brings the riveting film to an unexpected end.

 

CONCLAVE (UK/USA 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Edward Berger

 

Director Berger delivers another stunning and compelling drama CONCLAVE after his much-heralded Oscar Winner ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.  The CONCLAVE is the process where a new Pontiff is elected by the cardinals after one dies.  It is an elaborate process as Berger illustrates.  Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) oversees the proceedings, assuming that the contest will come down to a battle between the reactionary, openly racist Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) and the liberal progressive Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci). And matters soon turn complicated as rumours circulate, secrets emerge, and acts of sabotage are undertaken.  Adapted by Peter Straughan (GOLDFINCH) from the Robert Harris much-acclaimed novel, and lensed by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (the Vatican is displayed in all its splendour), the film is a masterwork of drama and relevance.  The ultimate choice of the new Pope comes as an unexpected twist at the end.  Performances are top-notch all the way around.    The musical score by Volker Bertlemann is necessarily intense, to the point of almost overdoing it. The Best of TIFF so far.

 

LES COURAGEUX (The Courageous)(Switzerland 2024) ***

Directed by Jasmin Gordon

 

 

Shot in French and set in the idyllic town in the stunning Valais region of Switzerland — known for its proximity to the Matterhorn, Alpine resorts, and upper Rhône river valley vineyards — 40-year-old Jule (Ophélia Kolb) is a single mother dreaming of a stable existence for her young family. Her children — 10-year-old Claire, eight-year-old Loïc, and six-year-old Sami — have learned to take care of one another, and, while the whereabouts of their gregarious mother are sometimes a mystery, the siblings know that she always returns to their home with a smile and a fantastic explanation.  Director Gordon’s feature is impressive, though not without faults.  At its best, Gordon is able to grab and maintain her audience’s attention to worry and care about what happens to the family - more of the children than of the mother.  Her film omits Juke’s past likelier arrest and details of the children’s father, who one assumes could be of more than one, from the looks of the children.  Jule does what she wants, breaking all the rules and expecting society to look after her.  Society does not work that way and it is hard to feel sympathetic for her.  But the sympathy is all for the children who are at a loss in terms of respect and doing the right things.

 

DAUGHTER’S DAUGHTER (Taiwan 2024) ***

Directed by Huang Xi

 

The film is pretty much a Sylvia Chang vehicle, she starred and produced it with Heavyweight Hou Hsiao-Hsien.  The film is of a dysfunctional family dealing with family relationships of mother and daughter and perhaps another daughter.  A good thing going for it is that the story is fresh and different and has not been dealt with before.  Aixia (Chang) has two daughters, but Emma (Karena Lam), who grew up in New York, and Fan Zuer (Eugenie Liu), who grew up in Taipei, never knew about each other until well into adulthood. When Zuer and her partner (yes, the gay theme here)decide to try and get pregnant via in vitro fertilization, they wind up travelling to the US for treatments. Tragically, the couple dies there in an accident, but their embryo remains alive and well — and Aixia is left as its legal guardian.  Arriving in New York overwhelmed with grief, she is faced with the choice of 4 options, to donate, terminate, or find a surrogate for the embryo. But after a life spent feeling like she’s fallen short as a mother, who is she to decide what to do with her deceased daughter’s unborn child?  An engaging, brave and gripping film by director Huang Xi.  The film is told in chronological order with the use of flashbacks.

DEAD TALENTS SOCIETY (Taiwan 2024) *
Directed by John Hsu

 

DEAR TALENTS SOCIETY pays tribute, very badly to the Asian horror films where female ghouls terrorize the living, and in this case via urban legends.  Nothing makes sense as the film toggles among the different characters all poorly acted by the stars who just act silly most of the time.  The story involving rules of ghosting like disintegrating after a period of time is all unbelievably made up.  A meek and newly dead teen (Gingle Wang) learns from an undead diva (Sandrine Pinna) how to haunt the living, in this bloody and hilarious supernatural comedy from writer-director John Hsu (Detention).  Souls are supposed to have a finite shelf life after death, and must regularly spook up the mortal realm as a curse or urban legend in order to secure a “haunter’s license,” a renewable reprieve from total oblivion.  While such macabre machinations are no sweat for those who lived boldly in life, for the meeker variety of newly dead, it promises a second death sentence.

DISCLAIMER (UK 2024) ***** Top10

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Who would ever imagine that a Primetime series would be the best thing to be seen at this year’s TIFF?  TIFF managed to get the full 7 episodes at the last minute to ‘wow’ audiences with the most exciting and suspenseful psychological thriller that makes compulsive watching from start to end, all 6 hours of it.  Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), receives lewd photos of his wife (Cate Blanchett) from a man (Kevin Kline) whose son drowned from saving Robert’s son.  The man wants retribution as the drowned son apparently had an affair with Robert’s wife.  Excellent career-best performances all around from Kline, Blanchett and surprisingly Cohen, in dead serious mode.  A few reminders of Carol’s genius as in the drowning scene that is reminiscent of a seaside segment in ROMA. and the way he comfortably switches the drama among the characters so effortlessly.  I don’t normally review series, but the film was so compelling, that I stayed all 6 hours of the running time, skipping my next planned film.  A definitely MUST-SEE!

DON’T CRY, BUTTERFLY (Vietnam/Singapore/ Philippines/Indonesia 2024) *
Directed by Dương Diệu Linh 

Although Tam works at a wedding hall, she’s no romance expert. In truth, her personal life is far from rosy. After another hard working day, her daughter Ha delivers the shocking news that Tam’s husband is having an affair. To make matters worse, his misconduct was caught live on TV, and now the whole world knows of Tam’s misery. As if to mirror her state, a leak in the ceiling of her aged flat grows out of control. To turn things around, Tam consults the “Master” to find ways of bringing her husband back to her through mystical means.   The film is well shot with excellent production values and candid use of its surroundings depicting how Vietnamese people live and love.  But the film is all over the place, bouncing between the one between the mother and her affair with the daughter and her teenage crush.  The surrealism with the leaking ceiling does not aid much either, not to mention the open-ended ending of the film.

EDEN (USA 2024) ****
Directed by Ron Howard

Arguably Ron Howard’s best and most different to date, EDEN is a historical thriller based on true events set in the Galapagos Islands.  The romantic idyllic paradise where fresh fauna, birds, fish and animals inhabit are dashed with new settlers trying to etch out a living amidst the lack of fresh water, wild boars that raid the vegetable patches and wild dogs.  But the greater enemy of the ssttlers is other human beings that want to settle and invade with tourist hotels.  The story involves  Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his partner Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) flee their native Germany in 1929, repudiating the bourgeois values they believe are corroding mankind’s true nature. On the isle of Floreana, Friedrich can focus on writing his manifesto, while Dora resolves to cure her multiple sclerosis through meditation. Their hard-won solitude, however, is short-lived.  They are joined by Margaret (Sydney Sweeney) and Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Bruehl), who prove to be earnest, capable settlers.  But it is  Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) a self-described Baroness, the latest settler that creates the new hell that will break loose.   Jude Law’s German-accented English is distracting though Bruehl gets away with it because he is German.  Still, EDEN is as marvellous a film as its setting.

DEAD MAIL (use 2024) ***
Directed by Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy

When an ominous cry for help on a blood-stained scrap of mail is clocked by the staff of a country post office in the American Midwest, it spurs an investigation that circuitously reveals the sordid story of a struggling synthesizer engineer (Sterling Macer Jr.) and his possessive benefactor (John Fleck). Shrewdly set at the precipice of the digital age — that nebulous twilight between the late 1970s and the early 1980s — this analog-textured thriller borders its central psychodrama within an idiosyncratic community of amateur gumshoes who all keenly contribute to cracking the case.  The most immediately prominent sleuth is Jasper (Tomas Boykin), a diligent mailroom clerk with a knack for rectifying “dead letters,” to use the parlance of the postal service. Aided by his two plucky colleagues (Micki Jackson, Susan Priver) and a Scandinavian hacker (Nick Heyman) thus ensues a genre-bending caper.  The lack of blood, gore and voice is compensated by the weird way in which lost items and dead mail can be traced - all of which could be either true or made up.  The ambiguity of the situation is heightened at the end with notes of what has happened to each of the story’s characters - which re too odd to be believed.  The setting, and cinematography on scratchy deliberately scratched and blurred film mark this film above others in the genre.  No big-name stars in this low-budget horror, if one wants to call it that.

EDGE OF NIGHT (Germany 2024) ***
Directed by Türker Süer

The fictional tale is set on July 15, 2016, taking place mainly in the EDGE OF NIGHT, with beautiful night cinematography. when a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces attempted a coup against the democratically elected government, citing the erosion of secularism, and elimination of democracy.  Brothers Kenan (Berk Hakman) and Sinan (Ahmet Rıfat Şungar) Yeşilyaprak, both officers in the Turkish army, have been conflicted since birth.  Their father was a prominent — later persecuted — general and their mother a member of the oft-discriminated-against Kurdish minority.  Sinan, now a rising young lieutenant, has been summoned to hand over Kenan to a military court for a trial that will likely lead to a very long prison sentence for his actions against state interests. Navigating a long journey through a divided land and an ever-shifting landscape, the brothers are unaware that a storm is underway. democratic rule, and disregard for human rights,   This is a film of the relationship of the two brothers told in the setting of a political turmoil.  Director Türker Süer keeps a tight pace in his film with all the incidents revealed clearly, except for the open-ended climax.

 

ELSE (France/Belgium 20245) *
Directed by Thibault Emin

 

Playing like an experimental rather than horror film,, but with impressive special horror effects, this time in the form of melting humans into a molten mess, ELSE is, unfortunately, lacking a solid story base makes the entire exercise seem long and ineffective.  Introverted and uncomfortable in his own skin, Anx (Matthieu Sampeur) does not consider himself an obvious partner for Cass (Édith Proust), the feisty whirlwind of confidence he finds himself waking up alongside after a presumed one-night stand. And yet a romance begins to bloom.  However, the nascent relationship is threatened when a strange disease spreads throughout the world, gradually causing the infected to merge with whatever they touch. Finding themselves quarantined to Anx’s claustrophobic apartment, the couple is soon besieged by their very surroundings, which have begun coalescing with their neighbours into a spongy new life form that seeks to add the lovers to its mass.  At best, the film captures the Pandemic atmosphere of dread and the worst is that nothing happens after.

EMILIA PERES (France 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Jacques Audiard

 

There are many reasons to make EMILA PEREZ compulsive viewing.  For the younger audience, Selena Gomez has a solid supporting role, while Zoe Saldana delivers also a riveting performance.  But mostly, it is another film from French auteur Jacques Audiard (UN PROPHET, RUST AND BONE) and this is arguably the best trans movie there is currently out there or has been out there prior.  Though essentially a French film, the film is shot in Spanish and set in Mexico City where drug kingpins rule.   The film is about one successful, in fact very successful one, who trans and repents his ways.  Rita Moro Castro (Zoe Saldaña) is a Mexico City defense attorney whose brilliant strategies have kept many murderous but wildly affluent clients out of jail. Her reputation draws the attention of Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón), a notorious kingpin, who is secretly transitioning. He hires Rita to arrange an itinerary of under-the-table procedures with the world’s best surgeons, while making a plan for the wife (Selena Gomez) and kids he is leaving behind. The process is a success, Manitas’ murder is staged, and Emilia Pérez is born. This new identity affords Emilia the ability to create a whole new life for herself, but the past begins to creep back, threatening to undo everything she and Rita have worked so hard to achieve.  It is a brave and progressive film with the script co-written by Audiard covering key issues like retribution, LGBT+ issues and the drug cartel problem in Mexico.  The film bears several parallels with Audiard’s best film UN PROPHET.  There are the main characters leading a new and better life. prison scenes and innocence lost.  The story contains twists that arrive every 30 minutes or so, unexpected to any audience.  Yet, the film feels believable.  There is suspense, melodrama, and thrills with a bit of violence that was also present in UN PROPHET.  Though the ending can hardly be called a happy one, it is a satisfactory, credible and effective one.  The film is one of the best at TIFF 2024, which also premiered at Cannes this year.

THE END (Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, Sweden 2024) **
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer

It is the end of the world though the dystopia is not the focus of the film, which is neither explained nor elaborated in detail.  George MacKay plays the naive young man who was born in this bunker. In his 20 years of life, he has only heard stories of the outside world. He spends his days working on a dubious book with his father (Michael Shannon), a former energy tycoon, while his mother (Tilda Swinton) frets over the upkeep of the many priceless paintings and artworks adorning their walls. It’s the semblance of a normal (albeit affluent) life. But when a woman (Moses Ingram) from the outside arrives at their doorstep seeking refuge, the family’s delicate dynamic begins to crumble. There exists sufficient and gourmet food, again unexplained where these come from.  Director Oppenheimer’s (the acclaimed ART OF KILLING which I never liked) film is a long, tedious and occasionally unwatchable epic, which is as cold as its central character, Swinton.  The film is also all over the place, with a few odd musical and dance numbers that seem out of place.  A cold film on a cold topic in a film that lasts too long at 2 and ¾ hours.

ERNEST COLE: LOST AND FOUND (France 2024) ****
Directed by Raoul Peck

Director Raoul Peck’s (I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO) latest doc is a mind-blowing one that won the Best Doc Prize at Cannes this year.  As the title implies, the doc would not have been made if not for the revelation in 2017, when 60,000 unknown negatives of Ernest Cole’s work were discovered in a Swedish bank vault.  Through all his adversity, Cole never lost his power to take stunning pictures, trying to see those who spend their lives going unseen. “It’s a matter of survival,” he wrote, “to steal every moment.”  Director Peck tells Cole’s story, like a biopic mainly through voiceover using mostly the photographs he took in South Africa and the United States.  the plight of the black men and all the adversity is vividly portrayed and deeply and emotionally put across to audiences in what might be deemed a must-see well-crafted documentary.

 

THE FRIEND (USA 2024) ***½
Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel

Scott McGehee and David Siegel (SUTURE, MONTANA) deliver another wise, insightful character drama, this time on man’s best friend in the form of a Great Dane.  Dog lovers (myself being a big breed owner) will love the film as it includes the behaviour of dogs with respect to their owners and differing situations.  Iris (Naomi Watts) has had a long, complex friendship with Walter (Bill  Murray, shown in flashbacks). Walter is an irresistible charmer, a brilliant author, a lover of many women, and a master at letting down loved ones. When he dies suddenly, Iris is left to deal with all he left behind — three ex-wives with unfinished business, his interrupted literary legacy, and his beloved beast Apollo (Bing).    The film shows how dogs calm down and form companionship with human beings like many doggie movies, and turns out to be quite a tearjerker.  And the dog steals the show.

FRONT ROW (Algeria/Saudi Arabia/France 2024) ***
Directed by Merzak Allouache

 

A comedy from Algeria that showcases the beach culture of the seaside holidayers has on its outset, two feuding families led by their matriarchs clamouring for the front row at the beach so that they can get a good view of the sea,  Up bright and early with their pet in tow,  Zohra Bouderbala (Fatiha Ouared) and her five children are heading to the beach. This is not a drill! In Algiers, the coveted front-row spot waits for no one, but it’s not this family’s first time having to beat the summer seaside crowds. The unmotivated and out-of-luck masses who arrive too late will be left to a viewless laze in the sun, the alleged horizon blocked by a fortress of parasols and flowing canopies.  With their site secured, and their watermelons buried, relaxation is a near promise. That is, until Hakim (Nabil Asli), the uptight though easily influenced beach attendant dares to place the late-arriving Kadouri family right in front of the Bouderbalas. This absolute declaration of war sends Zohra and her neighbourhood nemesis, Safia Kadouri (Bouchra Roy), into a passive-aggressive tailspin that eventually almost leads to the matriarchs being arrested in prison.  Meanwhile, right under their noses, the schemes of star-crossed teenagers will test the waters of emerging autonomy.  Light, funny and entertaining, director Merzak Allouache delivers. forgetful fluff in his 19th feature,

GULIZAR (Turkey/Kosovo 2024) ***
Directed by Belkıs Bayrak

 

A minimalist film with little dialogue that still gets its message across.  Yet another film bout female empowerment  Twenty-two-year-old Gülizar (Ecem Uzun) was raised in a loving if strict Turkish home full of taboos and expectations for women and men alike. Longing to experience what lies beyond the only world that she and the women around her have ever known, Gülizar believes her forthcoming marriage and the promise of a new beginning over the horizon will herald a brighter future. Betrothed to her beloved Emre (Bekir Behrem), she is eager to leave behind her family and her homeland for Kosovo. Gülizar’s fairy tale, however, tragically turns into a nightmare when she is sexually assaulted en route.  There are 3 parts in the movie.  The first is Guzzler’s bus trip that involved her rape which changes her happy hopes for the wedding, the second is how the couple copes with the incident and the third is the redemption as she finds her rapist who also attends the wedding.  Each part is equally absorbing and riveting!

HAPPYEND (Japan/US 2024) ***
Directed by Neo Sara

 

HAPPYEND covers the major issue in society and in schools of security cameras.  With a system of total surveillance in schools, the freedom of the students is compromised.  Just as carting individuals by the police during protests or important summit meetings in a country, the process leads to the removal of freedom and promotes racism at the expense of safety.  Headphones permanently curled around their necks, Yuta and Kou are high schoolers who love to DJ.  The film begins with the friends participating in a secret party that gets busted by police. The party is just one of the ways that Yuta and Kou try to escape the cameras proliferating throughout the city, especially at school, where a new system monitors and instantly scrutinizes student behaviour, reporting demerits in its live feed for all to see.  Adults insist the system ensures student safety, but the kids feel they’re being treated like prisoners. They wonder whether there’s any point in seeking change, asking age-old questions about the efficacy of protests. Some resort to spectacular pranks, such as standing the principal’s sportscar on its boot, while others stage a sit-in.  There is no solution as the film HAPPYEND considers, as it examines both sides of the coin with the students protesting and and the principal explaining the reasons behind the security system.  But director Sara could have kept a tighter film instead of leaving his narrative loose, with the key message only coming through when the principal makes his speech or when certain incidents are concluded.

 

HARD TRUTHS (UK/Spain 2024) ****

Directed by Mike Leigh

 

British writer/director Mike Leigh makes the best films about quirky characters.  One of his best is HAPPY-GO-LUCKY where an ever cheerful but flawed character played by Sally Hawkins finds her way/  HARD TRUTHS is more likeable Unhappy-Go-Unlucky with a flawed and constantly angry and arguing woman played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivering a hilarious tour-de-force performance that one can laugh art and still feel sorry for.  Hypersensitive to the slightest possible offense and ever ready to fly off the handle, Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) does not ingratiate. She criticizes her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) so relentlessly that neither bothers to argue with her. She picks fights with strangers and sales clerks and enumerates the world’s countless flaws to anyone who will listen, most especially her cheerful sister Chantal (Michele Austin), who might be the only person still capable of sympathizing with her. Director Leigh steers his film to a climax in which the family reaches a breaking point.

HERETIC (USA 2024) **
Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

 

Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) cheerfully go about their mission to spread good news about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Working down a list of doors to knock on, they arrive at the quiet suburban house of Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who seems not only polite and hospitable but also genuinely fascinated by the history and teachings of Mormonism.  Mr. Reed is nothing that he might seem on the outside, and not turn out to have a hidden agenda, that is very sinister.  The sisters find themselves trapped and unable to escape in this chamber horror piece that stretches a bit too long with a plot stretched far too thin.  Despite Hugh Grant stealing the show, injecting humour amidst the horror, HERETIC just almost succeeds.

HOLD YOUR BREATH (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Karrie Crouse and Will Joined

 

In Dust Bowl Oklahoma of the 1930s, a mother (Sarah Paulson) nears the breaking point as she tries to protect her daughters from deadly windstorms and the impact of her own harrowing past.  When the older girl tells the legend of the Grey Man to the younger one, the story slips under the skin of the whole family. The Grey Man is a spirit carried like dust in the wind, breathed in, and never to be shaken.  The film is a psychological horror set in a western complete with a solitary ranch and a stranger (is he good or evil?) who suddenly invades the ranch.  The directors create an excellent atmosphere of dread complete with stunning cinematography of the sandstorms that arise ever so often.  The only problem is the too-frequent use of jump scares that otherwise would have made the perfect psychological horror.

ICK (USA 2024) **
Directed by Joseph Kahn

 

In the small American town of Eastbrook, nearly two decades after a viscous vine-like growth — colloquially referred to as “the Ick” — began encroaching on every nook and cranny, a nonplussed populous have found their lives seemingly unaffected by the creeping anomaly. Hank Wallace (Brandon Routh), a former high-school football prospect turned hapless science teacher, and his perceptive student Grace (Malina Weissman), who both regard the Ick with a suspicious scrutiny that is soon violently validated. Bursts of bloody bedlam and blasé attitudes ensue, cannily satirizing how a society can grow accustomed to living in a perpetual state of emergency.  There are too many things that go one too fast.  Most of ghettos scenes do not last more than 10 seconds without a cut or edit, feeling like a horror version of a Baz Luhrmann film.  The special effects are good but if only the narrative is better.  The alien vines are dormant only to suddenly sprout out to terrorize the heroes only to have them climb a high tower (“Reach for Higher Ground”) with the creepers reaching out for them and escaping in the nick of time.  It is the silliest extortion of suspense!  This nod to old horror classics like THE BLOB ends up more like The Botch.

I, THE EXECUTIONER (South Korea 2024) ***
Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan

 

Returning detective Seo Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min) now faces the challenges of fatherhood while grappling with the impact of his brutal job on his family. Joining him is rookie officer Park Sun-woo (Jung Hae-in), an ambitious young agent enamoured with the dark side of police work and the intoxicating power it has lent him. They team up to hunt a serial killer, a vigilante,  targeting criminals who have managed to escape justice.  The film covers the issues of vigilantism and the abuse of social media and its reflection on societal disillusionment with the legal system, but done in a light and often comical way.  The action scenes are well choreographed and the fight sequences are light, similar to the JOHN WICK films.  There is a segment where two fighters tumble down steps, reminiscent and totally recognizable from JOHN WICK 4

 

JULIE KEEPS QUIET (Belgium/Sweden 2024) ***

Directed by Leonardo van Dijl 

Julie (Tessa Van den Broeck), a highly promising 15-year-old player at a tennis academy, nervously faces changes in her training program after her longtime coach, Jeremy (never seen) is put on leave. The reason: allegations about his relationship with a former player, Aline (never seen) who has recently committed suicide.  Despite mounting pressure on Julie to share her own experience with her mentor, the taciturn teen directs her focus where she’s always been conditioned to: her game.  Yet, whether Julie acknowledges it or not, the unfolding crisis gradually compels her to emerge from the isolation that’s been imposed on her.  JULIE KEEPS QUIET.  There are only hints of what had happened and a surfacing video that is not shown to the audience.  The purpose is not the revelation of the incident but the trauma Julie faces as a result.  The tennis segments are very authentic and the trainees all play tennis really well as can be seen in many parts of the saga.

MEASURES FOR A FUNERAL (Canada 2024) **
Directed by Sofia Bohdanowicz

 

MEASURES FOR A FUNERAL  spotlights a young academic’s run towards one woman — acclaimed early 20th-century Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow — as she simultaneously flees from another, her failed musician mother.  Parlow is the subject of Audrey’s Ph.D. thesis and her research takes her from Toronto to London to Oslo and far away from her dying mother, who is bitter that she never got to pursue her own violin dreams while her husband did, a legacy that haunts Audrey.  Discovering a once-lost composition dedicated to Parlow, Audrey shoves aside her own personal problems to restage the opus.  Culminating in a final concerto that is layered in meaning and importance, this film brings to light a forgotten icon, while simultaneously reflecting on loss, regrets, and closure.  Director Bohdanowicz shows little of how the concerto is staged by Audrey.  They are not quite well put together so it comes across as confusing and unevenly paced.  The final concerto forming the climax of the film would delight music lovers.

 MEAT (Greece 2024) ***½

Directed by Dimitris Nikos

 

MEAT, from Greece, is a Greek tragedy in true form.  The film opens with a big fight between two neighbours involving property before the sone son of hurls a scrod at the vehicle of the other as it leaves.  Things \get worse in a suspense thriller as a murder ensues, followed by a proposed cover-up as tensions rise between the Greek family and the town.  In a village in the Greek countryside, 55-year-old patriarch Takis (Akyllas Karazisis) and his long-suffering wife Eleni (Maria Kallimani) have been fighting with their loud-mouth neighbour, who is laying claim to part of the family’s land.  As Takis prepares to open his new butcher shop, decades of accumulated tensions between the two foes bubble to the surface. On one explosive night, the neighbour is killed by Takis’s only son Pavlos (Pavlos Iordanopoulos), a fumbling and hotheaded overgrown child. The only witness to this carnal crime is Christos (Kostas Nikouli), a handsome and hardworking young man from Albania, whom Takis has employed — and in many ways raised — since adolescence. The murderer and the eyewitness initially bury the evidence of the brutal act, but as rumours swirl and a killer must be named, the truth begins to take many forms. Soon, Takis must face the reality of choosing the fate of both young men.  The film is gripping from start to finish, the only complaint being the constant use of a hand-held camera resulting in jerky and jittery, terribly annoying frames, though the techniques heighten the tension.

 

MEET THE BARBARIANS (France 2024) ****
Directed by Julie Delpy

 

Actress Julie Delpy (star of films by Godard, Kieslowski and Linklater) directs her own film proving herself totally apt and a force to be reckoned with.  She centres her sights on comedy with a message with a film that matters that she delivers in style with lots of hilarity, drama and a bit of satire.  The story is set in Paimpont, a small town in France preparing to welcome a Ukrainian refugee family and is surprised when a Syrian family shows up instead.  Every town has its patriots, loyalists and racists all of whom show their influence on the Syrian family, but that is not perfect as well.  Delpy shows the good and bad of both sides with a touching romance between the young Syrian teen in the family and a local French boy to bridge the gap of racism.  It might be too obvious but the ploy works.  And the town actually exists.  Paimpont sits nestled in Brittany, content with its centuries-old heritage, its crêpes (the Brittany people cook everything with lots of butter, which is also disincorporated in the script), and its flattering self-image. A marvellous surprise from Delpy.

MISERICORDE (France 2024) ****
Directed by Alain Giuraudie

 

MISERICORDE has the feel of a Claude Chabrol murder film in which the cat-and-mouse tale is mainly the mouse outwitting the cat with the aid of his cohorts.  The film is a prized twisted macabre tale with bouts of unexpected humour from the director of the 2014 gay hit L’CONNU DU LAC (Stranger by the Lake), this one with the fabulous Catherine Frot as a widow. who takes in Jérémie as a lodger whose sensual presence is immediately and progressively destabilizing to all around him.  Martine (Catherine Frot) happens to be the mother of his childhood friend, the brutish Vincent (fJean-Baptiste Durand). The duo’s interactions are terse and laden with resentment, but clearly erotically charged.  When a fight goes awry, Misericordia swerves into noir territory with absurdist undertones, and an ensuing investigation spirals around a loner neighbour, ineffectual gendarmes, and a nosy country priest — seemingly the only inhabitants in this dewy, mountainous village perpetually bathed in twilight.  No sex scenes but there are two with full penises on display, that are both erotic and hilarious.  MISEROCORDE, extremely well plotted and executed is a total wicked delight!

MISTRESS DISPELLER (China/USA 2024) **
Directed by Elizabeth Lo

 

A Mistress dispeller as the documentary shows is one hired to dismantle the mistress-husband apparatus.  In the doc, a wife discovers through texting that her husband is seeing another woman,  She hires a mistress dispeller and attempts to break up the husband’s relationship, without hurt to any party.  Filmmaker Elizabeth Lo gains the trust of everyone in this love triangle and with the mistress dispeller, Teacher Wang. We watch a prolonged intervention take place over several months. Teacher Wang operates far outside the boundaries of conventional couples’ therapy. She fabricates scenarios to meet the husband and his mistress so she can understand their points of view. The doc shows the sensitivity of this strange process and the difficulties encountered,  The doc feels very much like fiction which makes one wonder how many segments the director might have cheated in using re-enactments to pass for the real thing.  The novelty of the dispeller grows thin soon and what happens then after, well no one cares in a rather boring last third of the doc.

THE MOUNTAIN (NewZealand 2024) ***
Directed by Rachel House

 

A film about resilience told from a younger point of view - three kids.  Their aim to climb to the summit of a mountain, each for different reasons.   The brave trio trek on the journey of a lifetime, where they learn the true meaning of friendship and the power of their cultural legacy. The film has the blessing of New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi who serves as executive producer, the film contains bits of his quirkiness and odd traits.  Determined to beat the cancer she is fighting, Sam (Elizabeth Atkinson) escapes from the juvenile hospital ward to go on a potentially dangerous journey to climb Taranaki Maunga, the mountain that, as a Māori, she is culturally and personally connected with.  Meanwhile, Bronco (Terence Daniel), a proudly confident Māori boy feeling neglected by his single father, meets Mallory (Reuben Francis), who struggles with loneliness following the recent death of his mother. The two boys soon cross paths with Sam and need a little convincing to join her on the secret mission to reach Taranaki. They form a quick bond as their worried parents search for the trio, concerned for their safety and health.  Director House balances drama and comedy though one complain that there could be more of each.  Mildly entertaining!

 

Mr. K (Netherlands/Belgium 2024) ***

Directed by Tallulah

 

The film does not tell what the K in the film title stands for but the K would likely stand for the name Kafka due to the Kafka-ish influence of the plot.  Mr. K (Crispin Glover) is a traveling working magician who checks into a hotel to stay the night for a gig the next morning.  The illusionist meets his match in the hotel where nothing is what it seems.  Mr. K cannot find the hotel exit.  He meets strange guests like two old women who have lived in the hotel for ages, a marching band and a full kitchen staff.  The hotel occupants believe him to be ‘the liberator’ to help them escape.  Mr. K finds that the hotel is shrinking with the walls getting closer together.  Director Tallulah’s film is as mesmerizing as the film’s set and decor, the hotel looking somewhat like the famous New York’s Chelsea Hotel.  Mr. K is soon caught in a loop - Kafka style.  The film’s ending is not as satisfying as its build-up in itself is worth the price of the admission ticket.

OH, CANADA (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Paul Schrader

 

Based on the late (died 2023) Russell Bank’s novel, OH, CANADA reunites Richard Gere with director Schrader after their long tight AMERICAN GIGOLO almost 45 years ago.  It is a fictional biopic of Leonard Fife also played as a young man by Jason Elordi.  Fife left the US for Canada as a young man during the Vietnam War draft. Fife became an acclaimed documentary filmmaker in Montreal. Now, riddled with illness and palliative medicine, he allows former film students, led by Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), to interview him. Uma Thurman, playing Fife’s watchful wife Emma, stands guard to protect her husband’s legacy. But as Fife’s memories pour out to the camera and come to life in flashbacks, the great man’s official story fractures.  This is Gere’s career-best performance, which was heralded at Cannes this year.

THE PARTY’S OVER (Fin de Fiesta) (Spain 2024) ***1/2

Directed by Elena Manrique

 

 

 

 

 

 

A totally female take on the refugee situation in Spain.  After a horrendous journey by boat in which illegal refugees scatter away from local Spanish crossing guards and the police’s 19-year-old Bilal from Senegal hides in a gardener’s van while most of the others are captured.  The van takes her to a wealthy Spanish Lady, Carmina whose family is very established in the town and whose wealth she has inherited.  The story revolves around these two and the abused maid Lupe (“I can tell that you are uneducated; I will teach you how to appreciate good wine) and the beauty of his film is that one cannot foretell where the story will lead to.  Breezy, and funny while sticking true to the refugee crisis, THE PARTY’S OVER also benefits from the performance of Sonia  Barba as Carina, especially in the segment where she dances during her birthday party high on drugs and drunk on alcohol.

PAYING FOR IT (Canada 2024) ***1/2
Directed by Sook-Yin Lee

If director Sook-Yin Lee’s new feature PAYING FOR IT looks incredibly real, the reason is that it is based on the graphic novel telling the story of the author’s relationship journey with Lee.  This is the story of Chester Brown and Sonny (Lee’s alter-ego).  The film is bookended with the line: “I think I am falling in love with someone else.”  These words have repercussions and Sonny is paying for it after confessing the words to Chester.  While Donny embarks on new relationships, Chester satisfies his desires with prostitutes, getting close to a few of them.  What stands out in Lee’s film as well is the display of underground artists in the film - particularly the new bands performing in the music videos.  Lee’s portrayal of the ups and downs of relationships is raw and effective, complete with necessary nudity and biting dialogue.  The words PAYING FOR IT pay off for Lee with this remarkable Canadian entry at TIFF.

THE PENGUIN LESSONS (UK/Spain 2024) ***½

Directed by Peter Cattaneo

 

From the director, Peter Cattaneo of THE FULL MONTY comes arguably the most charming movie at TIFF.  In the spirit of films like TO SIR WITH LOVE and GOODBYE, MR CHIPS comes this endearing story of an English teacher working in a politically dangerous Argentina.  The year is 1976. Tom (Coogan) lands in Buenos Aires to take up a teaching position at a prestigious English boarding school. When a coup d’état shuts down the school, he hops next door to Uruguay to party. A romantic foray leads to a walk along the beach, which leads to the sight of a penguin drenched in oil from a spill. Against his better judgment, Tom rescues the bird, which unlocks its undying loyalty. He's forced to sneak the flightless beast back to Argentina and thus begins a strange and beautiful friendship.  Slow-moving, and never rushed, the message of humanity and kindness amidst a cruel world comes clearly across.

PRESENCE (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

 

Directed by Soderbergh and written by David Koepp (the big-budget movies like INDIANA JONES, JURASSIC PARK and THE MUMMY but also GHOST TOWN), the low-budget indie film is a haunted house ghost story with a PRESENCE as established by the gliding camera around the empty house at the film’s start.   A dysfunctional family moves in.  Though they appear to argue a lot with each other, the family bond is stronger than it seems.  Nothing is clear after that - who the presence of the house is; whether Ryan the sexy kid is good or bad; whether the psychic is for real; whether the daughter can really feel the presence and so on.  This distinguishes this ghost story from the run-of-the-mill, making the film intriguing and fresh from start to end. 

QUEER (Italy/USA 2024) **
Directed by Luca Guadagnino

 

Director Guadagnino's (CHALLENGERS) latest entry is based on William Buurrough’s novel, which in itself is a boring odyssey of a drug addict’s quest for an elusive drug in the Amazon jungles.  Lee (Daniel Craig) mingles with the expatriate set in postwar Mexico City, wandering its streets, frequenting its gay bars, and ingesting whatever illicit substances are available. He is a consummate raconteur who has no trouble finding an audience, but he is also a desperately lonely, middle-aged addict with an alarming fondness for guns.  Early in the film, Lee sets his sights on a journey to the Amazon in search of the potentially telepathic ayahuasca — and he wants handsome young bi-curious Oklahoman Allerton (Drew Starkey) to accompany him. Their travels will yield a string of unexpected encounters and provide Lee with sobering lessons in what Burroughs dubbed “the algebra of need.”  The choreography is stunning, and the camera work is admirable but the whole piece still ends up boring with nothing happening in the film’s lengthy over to hours running time.  Craig is showing his age and he portrays a decaying gay man who suffers from diarrhea, fever, and sweats had the time during his travels.

 

QUERIDO TROPIC (Beloved Tropic) (Panama City/Colombia 2024) ***

Directed by Ana Endara,

 

A strong female film with two female protagonists and a female director/writer, the film examines the estranged relationship between two women, an immigrant worker and the lady she is working for as a caregiver. v Ana María (played by Jenny Navarrete, The Other Son) is a Colombian immigrant facing status and financial challenges while harbouring a secret that is revealed only near the end of the film, serving also as a twist in the plot.  She is hired as a home caregiver for Mercedes, a high-class woman struggling with encroaching dementia that is slowly erasing her identity and past.  As their lives intertwine, Ana María and Mercedes embark on a journey of mutual discovery and support, delving into the fraught complexities of mother-daughter relationships. They navigate the challenges of caregiving and the profound need for connection, learning to care for one another amid their personal struggles.  If the film feels like a documentary, director Endara has her background in documentary-making, giving the film a more realistic feel to it, without any annoying cliches.

QUISLING - THE FINAL DAYS (Norway 2024) ***½

Directed by Erik Poppe

 

An important story that needs to be told - one that is unfamiliar to North Americans as the events deal with what Norwegians had gone through during WWII under the influence of a Hitler-backed head of state, who is receiving his trial.  Questions of justice and accountability permeate this bracing account of events following Norway’s liberation in 1945. With Quisling (Gard B. Eidsvold) awaiting trial, a pastor named Peder Olsen (Anders Danielsen Lie) begins a series of meetings that officials hope will extract a measure of contrition from the defiant politician.   Quisling maintains his bluster while concealing his fears about his fate, just like former  Trump believes he is the best President of the United States,  The film unfolds in a stern no-nonsense style historical drama.  The camera work is superb, with one scene shot showing the side caricature of Quisling giving him a resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

RIFF RAFF (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Dito Montiel

 

Lots of RIFF RAFF characters in this black comedy which can be best described as forgetful entertainment.  One-time criminal Vince (Ed Harris) turned his life around when he fell in love with Sandy (Gabrielle Union). Nearly 20 years later, the still-happy couple are looking forward to spending a quiet New Year’s Eve in their country home with their good-natured son, DJ (Miles J. Harvey). Then Vince’s other son, Rocco (Lewis Pullman), shows up unannounced with his pregnant girlfriend, Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), and Vince’s first wife, Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), in tow. Hot on Rocco’s tail is Lefty (Bill Murray), an aging mafioso with a score to settle regarding his own son. When Lefty catches up with Vince’s teeming clan, it seems likely that blood ties will yield blood spilled.  What is most entertaining in the film are the performances of the actors particularly Harris being deadly serious, Coolidge and Murray hamming it up and SNL’s Pete Davidson who is always a hoot to watch.  What is a family without murder and mayhem?

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (Spain 2024) ***½
Directed by Pedro Almodovar

 

Almodovar’s first English language film is a visually exquisite and intimate adaptation of What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. The film comes complete with the director’s trademark of bright Spanish colours, stylized set decor and a return of his signature humour, typical of his earlier films.  Cinematography, a huge factor in Almodovar’s films is by Eduard Grau.  Ingrid (Oscar winner Julianne Moore) is a bestselling author so famously afraid of death she has written a book about it.   When she learns that Martha (Oscar winner Tilda Swinton) — a former war correspondent — is ill, she visits her, reigniting a friendship from years past, when both were journalists.  Their pasts are re-visited as both come to death with the reality of life that includes death.

 

RUMOURS (Canada/Germany 2024) ***1/2
Directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson,

 

Out of this world are the words that can be used to describe this engrossing weird and absurdist satire, Guy Maddin style which is aided by performances of an impressive cast that includes Cate Blanchett as the German chancellor, inspired casting of heart-throb Roy Depuis as the Canadian Prime Minister and Charles Dance as the American President. The G7 leaders are gathered in order to issue a united statement on a world crisis.  The G7 leaders are so lost in working on this provisional statement filled with platitudes and nonsense that they don’t realize they’ve been abandoned by their servers.  It’s only then, when the cameras and aides have left, that things really go off the rails and each of their shortcomings comes glaringly into focus, not to mention a giant brain (that thankfully does not speak) and some zombie-like creatures.  Shot in colour and black and white (Maddin’s favourite) and filmed in English, French, German and Swedish.

RUSSIANS AT WAR (Canada/France 2024) ***
Directed by Anastasia Trofimova

 

Russian Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova’s gripping first-person documentary takes the audience beyond the headlines to join Russian soldiers, actually mainly medics, as they place themselves in a battle for reasons that become only more obscure with each gruelling day, each confusing command, each gut-wrenching casualty.  On a more personal note, the film follows a Ukrainian named Ilya, who is about to leave his family and go to war — for Russia. Trofimova, though lacking permission, joins Ilya and his supply unit as they make their harrowing journey to the front line. Many soldiers fighting alongside Ilya are very young. Some believe they’re going to vanquish Ukrainian Naziism.  If one wants answers to the reason for the fighting, the film provides none.  Rather, the film emphasizes the futility of war.  In a war, no one wins.  And in the doc, all the soldiers want to go home.  Unfortunately, some don’t and others return home wounded.  It is still an emotional doc, with one audience screaming during the screening that the film is all propaganda.  Whether it is or not, it is up to the individual to decide as the director takes no sides.  A disturbing g and gripping look at the casualties of war.

SABA (Bangladesh 2024) ***
Directed by Maksud Hossain

 

With her father missing, Saba (Mehazabien Chowdhury) is the sole caregiver to her paraplegic mother, Shirin (Rokeya Prachy), who suffers from acute heart disease. Although Shirin's condition binds them together, her frustration with their situation often manifests as bitterness and anger towards her daughter, so they live in their own separate worlds. When Shirin has a heart attack, Saba races against time to sell their home, lowering the price and even risking her burgeoning romance with her senior co-worker Ankur (Mostafa Monwar) — who dreams of starting a new life abroad — to pay for her mom’s heart surgery.  The film benefits from the honest and candid performances of the entire cast.  A dash of Bangladesh that is seldom seen is portrayed with all its poverty, warts and all.  It is a depressing but credible story the only slight flaw being certain parts falling into cliched territory like the segment in which Anwar aids Saba in bringing her mother out to the park.  The most interesting character also seems to be Anwar. why is he going to France?  When he says he is not like other men, does he meet that he is gay, though that part is never felt further with?

SAD JOKES (Germany 2024) ***½
Directed by Fabian Stumm

 

Writer/director/actor Fabian Stump’s second feature establishes himself as a quirky, fresh and queer talent to be reckoned with.  Just as the title of his film implies, the character exhibits emotions the equivalent of sad jokes.   A series of auto-fictional vignettes, ranging from the touching to the absurd, tells the story of Joseph (Stumm) and Sonya (Haley Louise Jones), close friends co-parenting a young child, Pino (Justus Meyer, whom Stumm parents with actor Susie Meyer in real life). While Joseph is wrestling with the concept of a new film — as well as his own ego — on the heels of a fresh breakup with his boyfriend Marc (Jonas Dassler), Sonya is in a clinic, suffering from deep depression. Five jokes appear at the start of the film (What do you call sad coffee?  Answer: depresso).  Not too funny but enough of a chuckle, but there is a solid laugh-out-loud sad joke in the middle of the film involving how to reply to a dating letter.   The film appears to reflect the director’s true personality which makes the film very personal and credible.  It also reflects relief and the emotions both funny and sad that one goes through.  Thoroughly watchable as director Stumm also creates excellent dramatic and quirky set pieces that altogether give his film an edgy and wonderful flavour.

SANTOSH (UK 2024) ****
Directed by Sandhya Suri

Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) is the widow of a police constable killed in a protest.  In a segment where she is disgraced as a widow for not taking care of her husband where there is no love in the household, she has no choice but to take his place in a police station,  a government procedure that supports killed policemen’s widows.  This is where the drama and the film begins.  Against Santosh’s urging, her superior cruelly dismisses a low-caste father’s attempt to file a missing report on his teen daughter.  The discovery of the girl’s body ignites protests in her community. In response to the negative publicity, the department recruits female inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) to lead the investigation. Santosh is immediately fascinated by Sharma’s ability to ingratiate herself into the masculine culture of the station while remaining a fierce advocate against gendered violence in public. Sharma, meanwhile, spots Santosh’s keen intelligence and ambition and offers to mentor her.  Nothing is what it seems in a fiction film that feels like a doc that follows the two sleuths around Indian villagers tackling Indian issues like the caste system, male chauvinism, police brutality and corruption and protests.  Director Suri does not shy away from extensive torture scenes and other violence.  Necessarily long at over two hours, SANTOSH is nevertheless a brave, insightful and riveting film.

 

 

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (Iran/France/Germany 2024) ***½

Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

 

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG is yet another film about women’s rights in Iran, a country that still forces women to wear face coverings.  A very strict husband and father, Iman (Misagh Zare) is an ambitious middle-class lawyer working for the Iranian government.  He has just been promoted to state investigator — the stepping stone to becoming a revolutionary court judge — and, alongside an increase in income and social cachet, his family has received clear instructions on what is required of them as Iman’s star rises in the eyes of the state.  His wife (Soheila Golestani) and adolescent daughters (the scene-stealing Setareh Maleki and Mahsa Rostami) must fall in line and never let anyone know of the father’s work lest the family get persecuted by activists.  When the father finds his gun missing, all hell breaks loose in the family tearing it apart.  The stakes get higher when social media learns of the father’s work and there is a post on the internet causing the family to leave the city.  The social and family drama works well in a gripping dramatic account but when it turns to a cat-and-mouse thriller at the end, the transition does not really work.  Still - the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

SEVEN DAYS

SHEPHERDS (BERGERS)(France/Canada 2024) ****

Directed by Sophie Deraspe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following a medical wake-up call, Montréal copywriter Mathyas Lefebure (Félix-Antoine Duval) abandons his life in Canada to reinvent himself as a sheep herder in the French Alps. After a rough start, he’s joined by Élise (Solène Rigot), a civil servant tempted by his stories of pastoral life, and together they commit to a summer on the mountainside. Just the two of them. And one border collie. And 800 sheep.  Though what might sound like a boring premise for a movie, SHEPHERDS is arguably the most charming and beautiful while at times harsh and gripping, film to be seen at TIFF this year.  Mathyas learns the harshness of a shepherd’s life, especially working for free for a very violent and angry boss, who would use his truck to run over the sheep that would not mount the ewes.  After quitting in disgust, Mathyas finally uses his learned skills to tend sheep in the mountain for a much more kindly couple.  The most moving scene involves Mathyas throwing a stone at Hola, the border collie for wanting to follow him to leave the farm. With a female director, the film also has a strong and positive female slant.

 

SHOOK (Canada 2024) 
Directed by Amar Wala

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filmed in and celebrating the neighbourhood of Scarborough in the east of Toronto, SHOOK shows more of Scarborough than the over-rated and awful SCARBOROUGH a few years back.  Struggling to sell his first novel and slightly adrift after his parents’ divorce, writer Ashish (Saamer Usmani) is thrown for several loops when he falls for Claire (Amy Forsyth) and learns his estranged father Vijay (Bernard White) has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.  Wala tries very hard to inject humour, spirit and freshness intones film, noticeably at the film’s start, which can be quite distracting.  The film thankfully eventually settles.  The family drama and antics of Ash fare better than the cliche-ridden romantic part of the story.  Still, SHOOK is an impressive fiction debut feature from Amar Wala.

A SISTERS’ TALE (Iran/Switzerland/France 2024) ***

Directed by Leila Amini

 

 

There are many restrictions for women in Iran.  It is up to the pioneers to break them.  These are the words spoken by Nareen at one point in the doc.  Director Leila Amini creates a stunning portrait of her sister Nasreen in her new doc A SISTERS’ TALE.  (the plural is used because the tale is told from two sisters and the singular article 'a' used as it is one story.  Nasreen pursues her difficult dream of becoming a singer in Iran, a country where women are banned from performing in public. Nasreen has starlike charisma and gives Leila access to all her highs and lows. She is always striving to fulfill her artistic ambitions while navigating the needs of her two children, her marital tensions, and patriarchal pushback at every turn. Nasreen frequently clashes with her husband over her music and his nighttime absences.  A simple-looking doc that took 7 years in the making that shows the resilience of the human spirit amidst gender prejudice.  Personally, I do not find the songs that spectacular but rather the courage and determination of the singer that shines.

 

 

THE SUBSTANCE (USA/UK/France 2024) ****
Directed by Coralie Fargeat

 

 

 

 

 

French director Coralie Fargeat wowed TIFF’s Midnight Madness crowd in 2017 with her breakthrough slasher revenge movie REVENGE, a movie that many will remember for her extremes in violence, blood and gore.  She returns with much more of the same violence, blood and gore in higher-budget horror satire with stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid adding to the mayhem.  Desperate to stay pretty as a fitness celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) purchases a black market substance that turns her into a younger and prettier double, calling herself Sue (portrayed by Qualley).  They are one body but have to switch every 7 days, old to new and back - NO EXCEPTIONS.  However, the younger Sue extends her 7 days with disastrous results that climax into a complete blood fest on New Year’s Eve.  The wild build-up to the climatic NYE show is excellently paced in this stylish fable of the strife for eternal beauty.  Super gory makeup and special effects have to be mentioned as well.

SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON (India 2024) 

Directed by Reema Kagti

 

Embargo lifted after Sept. 13th at 9:30PM ET showing

 

THE SWEDISH TORPEDO (Sweden 2024) ***
Directed by Freda Kempp

 

Running very much like the marathon swimming athlete NYAD with featured Annette Bening as NYAD and Jodie Foster as her friend and trainer, THE SWEDISH TORPEDO, appropriately titled is about the Swede equivalent and follows the true hero swimming the English Channel to fulfill her dreams.  Born in Helsingborg, Sweden in 1908, Sally Bauer began swimming competitively in her teens, soon developing a passion for long-distance swims. Yet by the time of the events in The Swedish Torpedo in the late 1930s, pursuit of her athletic dreams is taxing her both financially — since backers for her costly swims are always scarce — and personally. As a single mother meanwhile, Bauer faces burdens and stigmas that threaten her ability to achieve her goal: to swim the English Channel, a feat that will keep her in icy and treacherous waters for upwards of 15 hours.  The film also reveals the problems of financing her dream as well as the opposition not only fuelled by her family and son but from the inset of the start of World War 2.  It is a fictional retelling of the true story, made in a straightforward no-nonsense fashion, and effective in getting the tale told.

TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Tyler Measom

 

This is the story of Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman from Winnipeg who tells the stories of how he rose to the top of the charts with The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, married a Mormon, and launched an obsessive quest when his beloved Gretsch guitar disappeared.  The story is bookends with his tale of his guitar, whohche sleeps with, that is besides his heart when he pays it and sings into band within,  It is an orange 1857 Gretsch which was stolen from him and united at the end. the film also contains songs performed by The Guess Who, bringing audiences the nostalgia if the past.  This includes previously unseen footage from the ’70s and ’80s, and counterpoints from the people who know the man best, including his son Tal Bachman, who had his own pop hit in the late ’90s with “She’s So High”. What emerges is a portrait of a man who balances the wild excesses of chart-topping fame with wry, Prairie humour.

TATA (Romania/Germany/Netherlands 2024) ***

Directed by Lina Vdovîi and Radu Ciorniciuc

 

TATA means father in Romanian.  TATA is a documentary of a dysfunctional family filmed by Lina, the second daughter and her partner, Radu with whom she is having a baby.   Lina visits her father, now working in Italy as an immigrant worker and is abused by his boss.  Lina travels there to come to terms with TATA who beats her and her mother just too many times.  It is as if Karma has returned to bite him in his ass as he has to deal with his boss’ cruel abuse.  Filmed across Italy, Moldova, and Romania, TATA is a raw portrait of a family locked in a relentless struggle against toxic masculinity and the tale of a daughter’s poignant quest to break the cycle for herself, the next generation, and even for the one who hurt her.

Lina and her father have been estranged for many years. Like countless others, he left their impoverished homeland of Moldova in the 1990s for work abroad. Decades later, she is a journalist and settled with a good partner and a fine life in Romania.   The film delves deep into the causes and repercussions of family abuse and the harm that it causes.

THEY WILL BE DUST (Spain/Italy/Switzerland 2024) **
Directed by Carlos Marqués-Marcet

 

When Claudia (Ángela Molina) decides she doesn’t want to wait for her illness passively (she has cancer) to take away all of her agency, her longtime partner Flavio (Alfredo Castro) sets in motion their plan to end their lives together in Switzerland.   Soon, THEY WILL BE DUST as the film is titled.  The film follows the elderly couple right up to that moment, which despite its uncommon subject, is quite a bore from start to finish as the audience follows the couple complain and complain and of course also dealing with telling their children of their decision.  The addition of dance into the film makes the film look pretentious, despite the impressive second dance number done in the Busby Berkeley style and a silly dance number done in the mortuary. 

 

U ARE THE UNIVERSE (Ukraine 2024) ***

Directed by Pablo Ostrokov

 In the near future, Ukrainian space trucker Andriy Melnyk transports nuclear waste aboard his cargo ship to Jupiter's abandoned moon, Callisto. During a routine flight, the Earth suddenly explodes, but Andriy manages to survive. He becomes the last person in the universe until he receives a call from Catherine, a French woman on a distant space station. Despite the obstacles, Andriy decides to find her.  It is not the narrative of the film that is entertaining but rather the mechanics of being in space.  Andriy is given goods, a gym and mostly a computer (like HAL in 2001) that not only guards and protects the mother ship but tells Andriy’s jokes.  “What do you get when you pee in a vacuum?”  “Pee in a vacuum.”  Needless to say, Andriy is sick of the jokes and of course, being alone.  The film takes an hour before the French girl is introduced and here the film gets bogged down by the plot.  This film was shot in the Ukraine amidst the Russian invasion and looks super great with all the space stuff - credit given to the filmmakers.

VERMIGLIO (Italy/France/Belgium 2024) ****
Directed by Maura Delpero

 

Tragedy strikes the villagers of VERMIGLIO during the war.  And more so to the secluded village up in the mountains with the arrival of a stranger.  A young Sicilian soldier named Pietro has carried his injured comrade Attilio all the way back to his mountain home, much of the journey with his passenger on his back. Hailed as a hero, Pietro is furnished with the best the village can provide. As a rare newcomer (and a Sicilian, so an exotic stranger), Pietro is gossiped about a lot but keeps to himself. He catches the eye of Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the stern village schoolteacher (Tommaso Ragno), and soon the two are gently flirting and falling in love. This seemingly simple pairing of two young hearts sets off a sweeping series of events that shakes the village and a small town in Sicily, uncapping age-old misogyny, intolerance, and narrowness with tragic results.  Besides the romantic story, which has a twist after the couple is married with a child, it is the surroundings that make the highlight of the film, stunningly photographed looking something like an Italian Switzerland.  Male dominance is frowned upon in the film, from the bad choices made by the patriarch schoolteacher to the often drunken son Dino and ultimately the demise of Pietro.

WENT UP THE HILL (NZ/Australia 2024) **
Directed by Samuel Van Grinsven

 

A ghost story involving family drama and skeletons out of the closet during the funeral.  Jack (Dacre Montgomery) travels to a remote region of New Zealand to attend the wake of his estranged mother Elizabeth, a troubled architect who abandoned him as a child. Jack claims he was invited to the funeral by his mother’s widow, Jill (Vicky Krieps,), who has no recollection of contacting him.  Out of a sense of obligation to her late wife, Jill invites Jack to stay at their house until the funeral, intrigued, as he is, for them to learn more about each other. As Jack grapples with his complex emotions about his mother and the boyfriend he has left behind, his encounters with Jill begin as terse and sometimes tense affairs. Their lives are soon upended further when Elizabeth’s spectral presence makes itself known, inhabiting each of their bodies in turn but leaving no memories of what was said — or done — during the possessions.  Elizabeth’s spirit causes chaos, confusion, and fractures for Jack and Jill.   The film is an extremely slow burn coupled with appropriate music and sounds.  The film is ambiguously playful with what is happening in the story and one imagines deliberately intentioned to be that way, which can become frustrating.  A lot of loose ends like Jack’s gay relationship which is left up in the air.  The musical score by Hanan Townshend however, is excellent suited to the mood and atmosphere of the film,

WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS (Iceland/Netherlands/Croatia/France 2024) **

Directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson

WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS is about what happens with the grieving process when Diddi dies in a car accident.  Two students in their early twenties — Una (Elín Hall) and Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) — enjoy a spring sunset in Reykjavik and talk of their future together, a future that’s even brighter now that Diddi is about to break up with his girlfriend back home.  With the next day comes a tragedy. Reeling from grief,  Una navigates a series of charged interactions with others dealing with their own welter of emotions, all while struggling with whether his girl back home should be told the truth.  The film is a slow burn, made even more depressing because of the subject of death.  Though well shot and acted, WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS find it difficult to entertain.

WILLIAM TELL (UK/Italy 2024) ****
Directed by Nick Hamm

 

In the spirit of BRAVEHEART and the battle films celebrating fighting for land and freedom, WILLIAM TELL begins with the titular hero aiming a crossbow to shoot an arrow through the apple placed on his son’s head.  The film flashbacks to the events leading to this, and then the story goes on.  It is 1307, and a cruel Austrian Hapsburg king (Sir Ben Kingsley) occupies the bordering Swiss cantons. His tax collectors oppress and violate the citizens, driving one farmer to thoughts of murderous revenge.  Fleeing across a vast landscape, this farmer finds only one man who will come to his aid: William Tell (Claes Bang). Tell has returned home weary after fighting with the Knights Templar in the Holy Land. Now seeking only a quiet life with the wife he met there (Golshifteh Farahani), he’s nevertheless bound by his principles. When pushed beyond his limits by the villainy of the Hapsburg court, Tell picks up his weapons and rides into battle.   Great battle scenes, a great arousing musical score and brave performances all around all make WILLIAM TELL solid good old-fashioned battle entertainment.

THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT (Australia/Mongolia/Germany 2024) ***
Directed by Gabrielle Brady

 

This Mongolian fable contains scenes of stunning beauty - the sandstorm that changes the lives of a herding family; the barren Mongolian landscape; the delivery of a kid (young born goat) and a scene of Mongolian gers (yurts).  Among the effects that give the film a fable feel, are stories of old like the story that advises never to drink tea from a stranger in a yurt.  The film has a documentary feel as the camera closely follows this Mongolian family of 6 (parents and four children) who have to relocate near the city after the story's tragedies in which the herd is lost.  Born to generations of herders in Mongolia’s immense Bayankhongor region, young couple Daava (Davaasuren Dagvasuren) and Zaya (Otgonzaya Dashzeveg) are raising their four children as they were brought up: with an intimate connection to the land and the animals they share their lives with.  Pressing topics like climate change and urban migration are also drawn to the story.  Director Brady’s film captures the family's plight, especially when they start talking about how they miss the animals.