#tiff 16

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: La La Land Viewed: September 18, 6:00PM (Peoples Choice screening)

Guys I’m here to talk to you about one last TIFF film, this year’s winner of the People’s Choice award, which historically speaking means it’s probably gonna get an Oscar nomination. It’s called La La Land and yeah it looks like a boring white cishet romance blah blah blah SHUT UP IT’S AWESOME.

I mean my new working theory as to why your least fave movie romance seems to be lacking in chemistry is because Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have all of it. Just... all the chemistry, for the entire world, forever. They are so natural in this movie, and their relationship progression feels real and honest and just.

I really love this movie, guys.

ALSO. It’s a love letter to Old Hollywood but at the same time an honest, retrospective look and admission that HEY YOU GOTTA MOVE ON FROM THAT.

BUT!!! Do you love old movie musicals? Are you still a sucker for Gene Kelly in Singin’ In The Rain/in general? CONGRATULATIONS, NOW YOU LOVE RYAN GOSLING. This movie is part tribute and part revival of classic movie musicals, about two struggling artists (Emma Stone’s actress and Ryan Gosling’s slightly pretentious jazz pianist) and their developing relationship and how that conflicts when one career seems to take off, it’s about chasing (and losing) dreams, it’s about love and loss and nostalgia and moving forward.

HONESTLY YOU GUYS. I really, really loved La La Land. It’s not quite as heavy as the People’s Choice runner up (Lion, which I also loved), but it’s so good, I need the soundtrack, and the last scene is such :) a :) fucking :) punch :) to :) the :) gut :)

I’m gonna go see it again in theatres in December.

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: Colossal Viewed: September 17, 8:00PM

This is it, this is the movie I’m still writing these reviews because I want to talk about. I can’t find an actual trailer for it so here’s an interview of Anne Hathaway talking about it at the festival. It got picked up by a Chinese distribution company at the festival and I’m SO EXCITED for it to be released. I love this movie, I’m ready to fight over this movie, it’s ridiculous and wonderful and perfect and I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Anne Hathaway stars as Gloria, whose life is spiraling out of control until she goes back to her hometown, reconnects with a childhood friend (Jason Sudeikis) and discovers she might be responsible for the giant monster that starts materializing in Seoul, South Korea.

“Wait, what?” you’re probably asking. “That sounds absolutely bonkers.”

“I know,” this movie is ready to say back. “But trust me, just go with it.”

Colossal knows exactly the kind of movie it is, and that makes it so much easier to accept the really bizarre premise of the film. Just let it happen, you’ll enjoy the ride.

It’s fun and sometimes silly and doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but there’s also so much to talk about with it. Jason Sudeikis is the most thoroughly established “nice guy” I’ve ever seen on screen. The film could so easily serve as a jumping-off point for discussions of abusive relationships and dynamics, male entitlement and female empowerment. All of that in a goddamn monster movie. I want this movie to be out in theatres like NOW so everyone else can see it and talk about it with me.

I’m so excited about Colossal you guys.

It was so great.

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: Nocturnal Animals Viewed: September 16, 5:45PM

I saw this late into the festival, and all I heard about it all week from people who saw it was basically “I liked it, but...” which is a pretty solid summary of the film. I like it, but it probably needs like eight kind of trigger warnings. I liked it, but a couple of scenes made me super uncomfortable. Also I feel like I need to admit that I just figured out right now while going over the IMDb page to refresh my memory on character names, that Isla Fisher is in it and it’s not actually Amy Adams in a dual role. Listen, I’m still not convinced they’re not the same person.

So anyway, Susan (Amy Adams) is married to Hutton (Armie Hammer) and runs a successful art gallery (with a questionable opening in the film’s first shot that I still don’t know how I feel about), but still feels generally empty. Out of nowhere, she receives a package from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal): a manuscript of the novel he’s finally written.

In a coinciding plot, Edward’s novel plays out: Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal, actually in a dual role), his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and daughter India (Ellie Bamber) start a roadtrip through Texas one evening when they encounter Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his friends on a dark highway in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t go well, Laura & India are abducted, and the rest of the novel follows Edward’s search for them with a local sheriff played by Michael Shannon.

This movie is very highly stylized, in true Tom Ford fashion, but the stylization is very deliberately vapid, echoing Susan’s somewhat shallow life. As she gets emotionally invested in Edward’s novel, we learn more and more through flashbacks about their relationship and what ultimately broke them up.

This movie is really intense, and violent, and looks beautiful, and Michael Shannon is a GIFT.

I was a little unsure how I felt about the movie as a whole. As stylized and thematically dark while visually colourful and intense and dramatic and sometimes over the top as it is, the ending is so elegantly simple. It’s such a perfect conclusion, if you can call it that. 

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: The Promise Viewed: September 16, 9:15PM

I know no one is even reading these reviews but whatever I’m gonna keep doing them because I’m almost up to the movie I really wanna talk about like SO MUCH. But first, The Promise, which I also wanna talk about.

This movie is already not super popular with the Turkish government, or Turkish people in general. In fact, the director said in the q&a after this screening that the morning after its first screening at Roy Thomson Hall earlier in the festival -- its world premiere -- it had like 10,000 1/10 votes on IMDb. Roy Thomson Hall, I’d like to point out, seats like 1,400 people.

Anyway, the reason this movie isn’t very popular is because it’s about the Armenian genocide, which the Turkish government still won’t admit was a thing they did. They refer to it as a “relocation.” Sure, Turkey.

The Promise starts shortly before the genocide started and follows Michael (Oscar Isaac) as he gets engaged in order to use his fiancee’s dowry to pay his way through medical school in Constantinople. There, he falls in love with a fellow Armenian, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), but doesn’t want to break his promise to his fiancee back home. Also Ana has a boyfriend (Christian Bale) who is an American journalist, but that’s not important.

So then war happens, and Armenian people start getting rounded up, and Michael ends up separated from Ana and Chris and tries to make his way back to his village. There are some very powerful and very horrific scenes depicting what the Turkish government and military did to the Armenian people. It’s a hard film to watch in a lot of places, but an important one, because how often is this actually talked about in popular culture?

And yes, there is a romantic subplot and love triangle in this movie but it’s actually handled SO WELL. Like it’s almost an afterthought for these characters. They exist to move through important elements of the genocide (the transportation of thousands of people by train, forced labour camps, and the eventual evacuation of over 3,000 Armenians by the French navy. Those are the important events of the movie, and the three main characters (Michael, Ana and Chris -- Michael’s fiancee is absent for a lot of the movie, but she’s perfectly likable) never forget it. Despite the tension between the three of them, they never forget what they’re going through. Usually in love triangles, it’s obvious who “belongs” together, and the “other” one is clearly a terrible person. That’s not true in The Promise, where everyone is perfectly likable and, because it’s obvious who would be the “villain” in most other movies I’ll just say it, Chris is nice enough, loving towards Ana, and never lets pettiness get in the way of making sure Ana & Michael don’t get fucking murdered.

If I had to pick a downside though, it’d be how in-your-face Chris’s “American-ness” can be. There’s a sense of “I’m an AMERICAN and a journalist and because I’m AMERICAN you can’t STOP me and I’ll write about this and I’m the ONLY ONE because I’m AMERICAN so I’m going to STOP IT.” And like.... oooooh my goooooood I’m just sick of the “America saves the world” narrative in literally every war movie ever, y’know? 

So, yeah, The Promise is a really, really powerful movie but I still kinda wanna punch Christian Bale even though he’s not even American and also kinda think Chris and Michael should date maybe.

[chaos-and-recover]

Film: A Monster Calls Viewed: September 16, 5:45PM

Hey do you like Liam Neeson’s soothing voice? Do you like giant anthropomorphic tree monsters? Do you like UNCONTROLLABLY SOBBING IN A DARK THEATRE? Then A Monster Calls is the film for you!

12-year-old Conor (Lewis MacDougall) inadvertantly summons a monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) to help him cope with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) impending death.. The monster tells him three stories, each with a moral about the complexity of humans designed to help Conor come to terms with his father’s (Toby Kebbell) absence and having to live with his overbearing grandmother (Sigourney Weaver). After the three stories, the monster demands one from Conor in return -- his “truth.” 

Conor’s “truth” isn’t that shocking. It’s not a huge plot twist, but it is heartbreaking. It’s very clear through the telling of the story what Conor’s truth is, it’s an understandable and common truth for anyone in his situation, but it’s not often spoken aloud. 

For the last 40 minutes or so, all sound in the theatre was punctuated by sniffles and outright sobs -- not just from me, either, this movie is heartbreaking but beautiful.

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: Lion Viewed: September 15, 9:00PM

This movie was my prediction to take the People’s Choice award until everyone wouldn’t shut the fuck up about La La Land (more on that later, because; SAME). It’s SO GOOD, it’s SO GOOD AND I LOVED IT. Pop quiz, in this movie Dev Patel is a) a megababe, b) totally heartbreaking??? c) probably gonna get an Oscar nomination, or d) all of the above.

OBVIOUSLY THE ANSWER IS D YOU GUYS HE’S SO GREAT IN THIS MOVIE.

Anyway, if you didn’t watch the trailer or didn’t get enough information from it: it’s based on a true story about an Indian man adopted from Calcutta by an Australian family when he was five. 25 years later he has an epiphany -- he wasn’t from Calcutta at all, but ended up there through a series of mishaps when he was little. Of course by then we already know this because the whole first act of the movie is about 5-year-old Saroo and his odyssey -- how, exactly, he ended up 1600km from home, and then in an orphanage, and finally adopted.

So once Saroo realizes this about himsef, he starts on a quest to find home, by using Google Earth, the fragments of memory he does have, and math (yuck, right?) This could’ve so easily turned into a gross advertisement for Google but it didn’t, so don’t worry about that. Dev Patel’s performance is devastating and powerful and intense -- one climactic moment where you just don’t know if he’s ever going to find home is so, so powerful -- BUT the little boy playing his younger self, Sunny Pawar, preeeeeeetty much steals the movie from him. Like, y’know last year when I was obsessed with Jacob Tremblay after Room (STILL AM BY THE WAY AND SO BUMMED I DIDN’T GET TO SEE HIS MOVIE)? Yeah. It’s like that with Sunny, because he’s just SO SMALL and SO CUTE and SO GOOD in this movie. 

Oh and Nicole Kidman plays Saroo’s adoptive mother, and there was a s u p e r awkward moment at the press conference for this movie where someone referenced a scene where she and Saroo talk about adopting vs having biological kids and asked her if she’s ever had a similar talk with her own adopted kids and her response was a very measured and classy “I’m not gonna answer that.”

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: In Dubious Battle Viewed: September 14, 9:15PM.

So. Okay. This is James Franco’s adaptation of a John Steinbeck novel I’ve never read (I mean I’ve never read any Steinbeck) because he has a boner for him, I guess? I chose this movie because I have to make my fucking mind up about James Franco. And I think I have. My final Franco verdict is: he thinks being prolific is the same thing as being good. I mean, this film isn’t bad, it’s just very safe. 

But here are some observations about the movie that I made: -Selena Gomez’s character is described as London’s (Vincent D’Onofrio, who is excellent in this movie) daughter-in-law, but the absentee father of her baby is never described as his son... and we only ever see that he has a daughter so it stands to reason... -The general plot is basically Newsies for grownups: day laborers receive an unfair pay cut and go on strike. In Dubious Battle has a lot more murder and arson, but listen, London is literally just Jack Kelly as an adult. And just like in the 1992 Newsies movie, Robert Duvall plays the corrupt, greedy company owner, so obviously they’re the same movie.

[chaos-and-recover]

Title: Sami Blood (Sameblod) Viewed: September 14, 6:45PM

This Swedish movie is about something I have to admit I knew next to nothing about before seeing it -- the Swedish residential school program for their indigenous Sami people, the horrible discrimination and abuses they suffered, and the lasting effects it’s had on Sami culture and Swedish society. I didn’t really know anything about this, but as a Canadian it’s all very, very familiar. So a lot of what I have to say about this movie is going to be couched in what I know about the Canadian version of exactly this thing.

First of all this movie is very, very good. It’s the first feature for the director, who’d previously made a series of shorts, one of which contained footage that became the beginning and end of this movie, when the lead character is older, and deals with the aftermath of the residential schools and how she feels about her own people. The end of this movie particularly is very abrupt but very, very powerful. And most of the Sami children in this movie had never acted before, including the sisters who play the sisters Elle-Marja and Nenna on screen. They were great.

After the screening I was at, there was a q&a with the director, which was fascinating but unfortunately I had to leave halfway through to get to my next screening. But I did stay around long enough to hear one person in the audience ask if sexual abuse, which was rampant in the Canadian residential school system, existed in Sweden as well. The director (Amanda Kernell, who is Sami) said that, frankly, she didn’t know, because literally no one has spoken about it. She elaborated that nothing has really been said or written publicly about the residential schools until a year ago, and that in her family, no one said anything about sexual abuse, so she doesn’t know, and she left it out of the movie.

Now, there is one scene in the movie which is, arguably, abuse of a sexual nature -- it certainly deals with stripping children of their bodily autonomy, and is extremely difficult to watch. But no, we don’t get any indication that Elle-Marja, Nenna, or any of the other children were molested. We do, however, watch them be physically abused, examined by racist phrenologists (it’s set in the 1930s so phrenology was A Thing), suffer acts of violence from Swedish locals and be actively told they’re not good enough for Swedish society while also being told they have to adapt to mainstream Swedish society.

Which is the real horror of these schools and where, I think, we as Canadians fail at talking about them. When we start a dialogue, it always 100% comes back to the abuse, which was, of course, a travesty we as a nation can never fully atone for -- but focusing on that and that alone, I think, also absolves us of having to deal with the fact that the whole system was an abusive travesty and a tragedy. The sexual abuse was not a sign that the residential school system was broken and no one was held accountable. The system operated exactly as it was supposed to: it took Native children from their homes and communities, stripped them of their language and culture and traditions, tried to assimilate them into a society that wouldn’t have them, then told them they were not good enough for not excelling in that society. The idea of the Canadian residential school system was to “kill the Indian in the child,” and we did that, and that’s left out of so much of the narrative about these schools.

Sami Blood does an incredible job of bringing all of that to light. It’s a great film.