Two years ago, director Gavin Hood, then unknown to North American audiences, premiered a film called Tsotsi at the Toronto International Film Festival. Toronto’s audiences fell in love with his little, South African gangster film and gave it the People’s Choice Award. Five months later, Tsotsi won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Now Hood returns to the festival’s red carpet, this time at Roy Thomson Hall, with a bigbudget, star-studded feature called Rendition. Hood’s career has come full circle at TIFF and represents what the festival is all about: discovering new talents and welcoming back its past champions. With the 2007 TIFF—featuring 349 films—well underway, here’s what’s caught the Varsity’s eye so far.
Rendition (Dir. Gavin Hood)
Although it’s a slightly overpopulated and overzealous affair, Gavin Hood’s Rendition makes for an effective political thriller. The title references a cloak-and-dagger U.S. tactic that extradites terrorist suspects to foreign locations in order to maneuver around anti-torture laws.
Secretly abducted while en-route from South Africa to the U.S., Anwar El-Ibrahim (Omar Metwally) becomes subject to this seemingly routine procedure after he is dubiously connected to a suicide-bombing in Egypt. Overseeing Anwar’s torture is Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), a doubting CIA analyst who has few questions for the suspect but plenty more for his superiors in Washington. All the while, a subplot races forward in which an Egyptian teenager is prepped for what might be another bombing.
Since the film deals with themes like counter-terrorism tactics and homeland security, it’s understandable how it could get overheated. However, Hood’s direction gets too caught up in the thrill of the chase, and sometimes forgets to keep things within the boundaries of believability and, succumbs to manipulative Hollywood clichés. That being said, there’s a terrific ensemble cast that keeps the film grounded, with terrific performances by Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Meryl Streep in particular.—RS
Rating: VVV
Control (Dir. Anton Corbijn)
In this haunting, black and white bio-pic, Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn presents the tortured and all-too-brief life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. For years, fans and rock critics alike have wondered what could have brought Curtis— the twenty-three-year-old singer in what would become one of the most influential rock bands of all time—to hang himself on the eve of Joy Division’s first North American tour. The film follows Curtis (played so brilliantly by Sam Riley it feels like a documentary) from the age of 16, through the formation of Joy Division in Manchester in 1976, to his suicide in 1980, and paints the picture of a young man who, while following his dreams, finds himself incredibly unhappy, and increasingly desperate. Fans of Joy Division’s gloomy post-punk songs will be impressed by the casting (all four band members look nearly identical to their namesakes) and by the fact that shots of the band playing live are backed by versions of their songs recorded by the actors themselves. This could have been the recipe for a cheesy disaster, but Riley and Co. pull off complex gems like “Disorder” and “Transmission” with astonishing fidelity. Co-produced by Curtis’s widow and Factory Records head Tony Wilson (who sadly passed away last month), Corbijn has created the most fitting elegy possible. Dark, enlightening, and at times quite funny, Control is a must-see for fans of this amazing band.—JB
Rating: VVVVV
Eastern Promises (Dir. David Cronenberg)
You have to give screenwriter Steven Knight credit for being able to shine within one of director David Cronenberg’s strongest films to date. Knight gets help from a strong cast, including Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts, in this dark, blood-curdling tale set in London’s creepy, Russian underbelly.
Mortensen plays Nikolai, a rising henchman in the age-old criminal dynasty Vory V Zakone, the members of which can be identified by their elaborate tattoos. Nikolai’s allegiances become divided when a British mid-wife named Anna (Watts) confronts the Vory with the diary of an exploited 14-year-old Russian immigrant who died giving birth to a now-orphaned baby. The British-born infant with Russian blood seems to be the only link between two very disparate worlds, one that the Vory would like to see severed at any cost.
Knight depicts London as a secretive and decaying hub of immigrants (as he did in 2002’s Dirty Pretty Things), a place where Russians build businesses and families but never truly find a home. Indifferent to British citizenship, the only thing the Vory identify with is their tattoos, which are permanent “passports” to a hidden world far from Anna’s quaint existence.
As intelligent as it is spine-tingling, Knight guides the viewer through dark back alleys while Cronenberg shines a light on the dark recesses within.—RS Eastern Promises opens in theatres this Friday.
Rating: VVVVV
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Dir. Julian Schnabel)
The delightful and inspiring true story of former Elle editor Jean- Dominique Bauby is given the right treatment in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. After a stroke leaves him completely paralyzed, Bauby (Mathieu Almaric) has only his dreams and memories for comfort. Visitors only imprison Bauby in a perpetual state of being talked to, as he apparently lacks the ability to respond to them in any way. Director Julian Schnabel takes pains to focus on the discomfort and awkwardness in these one-sided interactions. However, hope arrives by way of a nurse (Marie-Josee Croze) who develops a method of communication that utilizes the one function Bauby still has command over: blinking.
Often shooting from Bauby’s perspective, Schnabel sympathetically brings the audience face-to-face with the frustration and anger that burns inside of his incapacitated subject. Yet Diving Bell manages to stay optimistic and humourous, largely in keeping with Bauby’s own personality.—RS
Rating: VVVv
The Edge of Heaven (Dir. Faith Akin)
Gorgeously photographed and filled with awkward and endearing moments, Faith Akin’s The Edge of Heaven feels a tad too plotted to match the rash, offthe- cuff nature of its characters. Dealing once again with cross-cultural relations between Germany and Turkey (the director has roots in both nations), Edge has an almost tiresome familiarity to films like Babel, which undermines what would otherwise be a fresh and enjoyable film.
Akin’s characters include a sex-obsessed widower and his Professor son, a prostitute and her political-activist daughter, along with the daughter’s German lover and his conservative mother. Over the course of three morbidly-titled chapters, these characters seek each other out to fill personal voids but are frequently disappointed, missing one another in their hurried travels between Germany and Turkey.
Both countries become characters in their own right, as Akin invests a lot in the political relationships between the two, and consistently relies on location photography to capture a unique feel for each place. It’s a pity that it ends up feeling like a place we’ve seen before.—RS
Rating: VVV
The Banishment (Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev)
This brooding and atmospheric work from the director of The Return has so much style he should have traded some of it off for characters that are more believable.
The film follows a family of four as they retreat from an industrial wasteland to the pristine countryside. Things take a turn for the worse when the mother’s many indiscretions begin to surface, forcing the father to make a difficult choice: forgiveness or revenge?
The Banishment’s magnificently shot compositions and endearing performances (particularly that by Maria Bonnevie) are deceptive in the way they lure an audience into the film’s elusive direction. It’s only near the end of the film’s 150 minutes that we realize it’s a total tease.—RS
Rating: VV
Starting Out in the Evening (Dir. Andrew Wagner)
Adapted from Brian Morton’s novel of the same name, Andrew Wagner’s Starting Out in the Evening is an exercise in restraint and subtlety. It’s a film about people who have lived quietly, and find their world altered by a series of events that come late in the day, so to speak.
Frank Langella plays Leonard Schiller, a mostly forgotten novelist whose comfortably dull existence is stirred when Heather, a graduate student writing her thesis on him (played with slick confidence by Lauren Ambrose), foists herself into his life. Contrasted against this relationship is the one between Leonard and his daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor), a woman who has learned to compromise what she really wants for familiarity’s sake. As Heather prods at Leonard’s reserved manner, she unintentionally leaves herself stranded within the consequences of her own self-interest. The results are not jarringly climactic, but realistically understated.
Not exactly blink-and-miss, the grace of this film lies in the delicacy of the realization. Starting Out is a moving exami- nation of complacency and desire, maturity and youth and also offers rare glimpses of Manhattan that are usually only found in Woody Allen films. Langella gives an outstanding performance that indicates his vast theatrical experience, and is supported admirably by Ambrose and Taylor. Kudos to Wagner for coaxing such an elegant story out of seemingly ordinary material.—NS
Rating: VVVVv
No Country for Old Men (Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
A stash of drugs, $2 million in cash, a handful of bullet-ridden trucks, and several torn corpses all lay cooking under the Texas sun. This is merely the pretext to the Coen Bros’ No Country for Old Men. It’s a set-up that one character describes as “a mess.” Another responds: “If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here.” Sure as John Wayne is dead, that mess most certainly arrives in this layered, ultraviolent, neo-Western.
No Country stars Josh Brolin as the hard-headed yet resourceful yokel who stumbles upon the drug money, and Javier Bardem as the crafty, psycho killer who’s hot on his trail. In the middle of it all is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones in his element), who can’t quite believe the type of innovative blood-letting he’s witness to.
The film’s gravitational pull is Javier Bardem’s diabolical performance, which taps into fears that haven’t been felt since Anthony Hopkins first played Hannibal Lector.
An engrossing thriller featuring a sharp screenplay, No Country only lags during its final minutes which seem to blaze past major plot points. Overall the film is a welcome rupture in generic expectations that gives open range to interpretation.—RS
Rating: VVVV
4 Months 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Dir. Cristian Mungiu)
4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days is stripped down in both narrative and aesthetics. Set during Romania’s final days of communism, the film follows two university roommates—the headstrong and matter- of-fact Otilia and the spacey Gabita—as they set out to secure Otilia an illegal abortion. Shot with what appears to be a handheld camera and utilizing long takes, the film hovers uncomfortably over Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) while she scavenges through the worn corridors of Romania. Her preparations for her operation are frequently fumbled by Gabita’s own incompetence. Both find themselves in situations that become obscenely compromising.
Although the film doesn’t take a firm stance on the abortion argument, it certainly doesn’t shy away from depicting the subject. As much a film about living under a communist regime as it is about abortion, 4 Months keeps an open mind to desperate measures in desperate times.—RS
Rating: VVVVV
Sleuth (Dir. Kenneth Brannagh)
A ruthless power-play unfolds in Sleuth, a dark and prickly remake of the 1972 film of the same name about a crime novelist and the man who is boinking his wife. Michael Caine is absolutely ferocious as wealthy cuckold Andrew Wyke, who invites Milo Tindle (Jude Law in the role played by Caine in the original) into his lavish-yet-cold estate for some matters of business and pleasure. The two leads then embark on a homoerotic battle of wits at times fiendishly funny and at others somewhat repulsive.
The remake seems promising from the onset, with the screenplay’s razorsharp verbal blows not dulling over time, yet the film eventually winds down and has trouble shaking the 1970s air that hangs over from the original: even a reference to Dick Cheney feels out of place. See it for Caine’s performance, which alternates from devilishly witty to ultimately pathetic.—RS
Rating: VVV
Secret Sunshine (Dir. Lee Chang-Dong)
Don’t be fooled by the title. What at first seems to be a chipper and brightly-hued testament to moving on in life in this South Korean film soon drops off into the darkest wells of depression and psychological torment.
Jean Do-Yeon delivers a sweet and devastating performance as Shin-Ae, a mother who moves to the unappealing hometown of her late husband to start life over with her young son. Tragedy follows close behind in this uncomfortably funny and surprisingly intelligent film.
Unsatisfied with traditional portrayals of mourning, director Lee Chang-Dong crafts a film that dissects the countless stages of depression and anger that follow misfortune. The film builds a smart and daring critique of the popular therapies that offer dangerously temporary senses of healing.—RS
Rating: VVVV
Reservation Road (Dir. Terry George)
There should be no shortage of Kleenex at Roy Thomson Hall for the Gala screening of Terry George’s Reservation Road because, really, there’s really nothing sadder than watching beautiful celebrities cry. This floodgate of woe boasts remarkably sincere performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly in a tragedy that revolves around a child’s death.
Phoenix and Connelly play Connecticut parents Ethan and Grace Learner, whose postcard-perfect existence is disturbed when an SUV, steered by Ruffalo’s Dwight Arno, accidentally takes their son’s life. After Dwight flees the scene, Ethan—the film’s all-too-obvious equivalent to the impulsive revenge-driven post-9/11 America—barely gives himself time to mourn before engaging in a cat-and mouse hunt for his son’s killer.
There’s not much new to be found in this type of drama given that these themes have been recently mined by more accomplished filmmakers like Todd Fields (In the Bedroom) and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu (21 Grams). However, the director has the support of predictably good actors, particularly Mark Ruffalo who once again steals the show as a smug weasel who can still elicit sympathy when the proverbial noose tightens around his neck.—RS
Rating: VVV
