REVIEW: Mommy [2014]

“A mother doesn’t wake up one morning not loving her son” If I can be justified in agreeing with all the praise after seeing just one of his films—his latest, Cannes Jury Prize-winning Mommy—twenty-five year old writer/director Xavier Dolan is every bit the wunderkind label that has been thrust upon him. Five films in six years all by the time he’s hit the quarter century mark with four debuting at Cannes and the other Venice? How can you not take notice of such accomplishments? Carrying the preconceptions a critical darling…

Read More

REVIEW: Réalité [Reality] [2015]

“The insides serve no purpose” This is what it’s like to go insane. Writer/director Quentin Dupieux loves the surreal and absurd, but Réalité [Reality] takes his penchant for humorous oddity to another level. With Philip Glass‘ “Music with Changing Parts” boring a hole into your temple and fluid sequences of characters meeting in real time or via some from of media projection (and sometimes both at once), the filmmaker revels in keeping his audience off balance and unsure. The beauty of it this time, though, is how he provides us…

Read More

REVIEW: Deux jours, une nuit [Two Days, One Night] [2014]

“You mustn’t cry” Leave it to Marion Cotillard to take an otherwise workmanlike film and make it into a must-see. On the surface Deux jours, une nuit [Two Days, One Night] is simply a series of emotionally reactive moments responding to a decision unfairly placed on the shoulders of blue-collar employees at the local solar panel plant. Would you rather collect your year-end bonus or watch as a senior co-worker, just recovered from a depression-induced sick leave, returns to her post by your side? Without a true human connection to…

Read More

TIFF14 REVIEW: Loin des hommes [Far From Men] [2015]

“I’m not taking you anywhere. Tomorrow you’re leaving.” Writer/director David Oelhoffen has a special film on his hands because its powerful tale begs audience members to learn more about the subject. I’m not talking about the fictional character of Daru (Viggo Mortensen) secluding himself in the mountains to teach young Arab children how to read while civil war wages on or his unwitting ward of the state Mohamed (Reda Kateb) awaiting trial in Tinguit for murdering his cousin. I’m talking about the backdrop—where those mountains are and the “why” of…

Read More

TIFF14 REVIEW: Samba [2014]

“Red paper. Then … no more.” Every movie should have a score by Ludovico Einaudi and it’s comforting to see Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano agree. After using his haunting music on the brilliant Intouchables, the duo take a few tracks from his album In a Time Lapse to enhance their latest work Samba. Another drama dealing with serious issues oftentimes handled melodramatically by Hollywood, they find a way to infuse each character’s hardship with a delightfully comic streak. The formula is similar to that Oscar nominee with its two…

Read More

TIFF14 REVIEW: Corbo [2014]

“Tomorrow the enemy will pay for our blood and tears” There’s ease to idolizing the IRA for rising against their British oppressors because the number of Irish descendants retaining a piece of nationalism at heart is huge. Movies deify them, bartenders make “Irish Car Bombs”, and the group remains in existence still hoping for the Irish Republic they proclaimed in 1916. To some the revolution and subsequent civil war were fought by heroes. To others the IRA is nothing more than terrorists. Either way, there’s substance to the effort that…

Read More

TIFF14 REVIEW: Mynarski chute mortelle [Mynarski Death Plummet] [2014]

“Save yourself” Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski is a bit of a legend in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba and it would appear his country of Canada as well. The last World War II airman recipient of the Victorian Cross—the British and Commonwealth forces’ most prestigious award for bravery—this hero valiantly attempted to save the life of fellow soldier Pat Brophy before succumbing to the flames of their crashing aircraft. Brophy would survive the ordeal and eventually relay the story of Mynarski’s selflessness, cementing a legacy of numerous honors donning his…

Read More

REVIEW: L’image manquante [The Missing Picture] [2013]

“Our only belonging was our spoon” How do you tell the story of something as horrific as Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge’s four-year rule over Cambodia after the Kampuchean Revolution when the only footage shot was that distributed by the regime itself? This is the problem director Rithy Panh faced, a teenager when war hit to disperse the citizens of Phnom Penh into work camps so they could build a newly “freed” land. He witnessed the atrocities and lived through the famine as party leaders and their dogs ate,…

Read More

REVIEW: Le passé [The Past] [2013]

“Some things can’t be forgiven” If A Separation didn’t cause writer/director Asghar Farhadi to be revered as an auteur who understood domestic strife and illness’ lasting effect on those left to pick up the pieces, you better believe he is now. Switching to France for Le passé [The Past], the filmmaker brings us into an interesting clash of worlds for Iranian Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returning after four years of estrangement from soon-to-be ex-wife Marie (Bérénice Bejo). This pairing of ethnicities underlies the action, especially with prospective fiancé Samir (Tahar Rahim)…

Read More

REVIEW: Avant que de tout perdre [Just Before Losing Everything] [2013]

“You have to do it, Miriam” Whoa. Xavier Legrand‘s screenwriting and directorial debut Avant que de tout perdre [Just Before Losing Everything] is a tense piece of filmmaking that will have you holding your breath throughout. It starts with a young boy walking the opposite way from school before being stopped by his teacher. He says he’s buying cigarettes for his father and will be in class soon, yet he’s seen waiting at a bridge upon her dismissal until a woman pulls up in her car. From here the two…

Read More

REVIEW: Vic + Flo ont vu un ours [Vic + Flo Saw a Bear] [2013]

“I cried so much while waiting for you” Writer/director Denis Côté‘s latest, Alfred Bauer Prize-winning (Berlin International Film Festival) Vic + Flo ont vu un ours [Vic + Flo Saw a Bear] is a mysteriously captivating creature. Looking from afar, you realize you know almost nothing about the circumstances thrusting his characters together. Yes, titular leads Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille) and Florence (Romane Bohringer) are ex-con lovers holing up in the former’s invalid uncle’s defunct sugar shack on probation and away from society, but we don’t necessarily know why. We infer…

Read More