TIFF15 REVIEW: Desierto [2016]

“Welcome to the land of the free” A tense thriller of survival set against a desolate landscape of quiet austerity until the deafening sound of our heroes’ pursuer returns after a brief respite allowing these strangers the time to emotively talk about their lives—no, it’s not Gravity. Filmmaker Jonás Cuarón certainly has a type, though, since his sophomore effort in the director’s chair Desierto has a lot of formal similarities to his and father Alfonso Cuarón‘s Oscar-winning ride. Thematically different since the whole exists in the wasteland battlegrounds of the…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: Gravity [2013]

“You should see the sun on the Ganges. It’s amazing.” Remember back in the 90s at the advent of IMAX technology how certain amusement parks would have a screen with some “experience” putting you “into the action”? Well Alfonso Cuarón has made one of those for the twenty-first century in Gravity. While I admit such a description may seem like I’m putting the film in a bad light—simplifying it to its basest aesthetic trait—I honestly mean it as a compliment. Space has always been one place to which only a…

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