December 6, 2024

Welcome to TFCA Friday, a weekly round-up of film reviews and articles by TFCA members.

We are now accepting applications for the Telefilm Canada Emerging Critic Award! Deadline is Dec. 30 at 6:00 PM EST.

In Release this Week!

Biggest Heist Ever (dir. Chris Smith)

“Biggest Heist Ever is a must-see, not that it is the best doc ever made, but that it covers one of the most important media of exchange that has  affected or will affect everyone sooner or later,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The doc, like cryptocurrency, is scary as it is complicated and weird but the doc is both informative, educational and intriguing.”

The Children’s Train (dir. Cristina Comencini)

“The recent Steve McQueen’s movie Blitz and The Children’s Train…tell the same story of children separated from their families because of the war,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “While Blitz takes the route of the mother searching for her lost boy, The Children’s Train looks at the 7 year old’s point of view as he is forced to evaluate his choice of where his life will lead.  Bothe are excellent films and The Children’s Train has the emotional impact from the child’s point of view that Blitz lacked. The Children’s Train arrives on Netflix this week without much fanfare but deserves my high recommendation as an excellent beautifully crafted and performed emotional drama.”

La Cocina (dir. Alonso Ruizpalacios)

“The music, the soundtrack is genius, captivating, dirge-like, in direct contrast to the jolts-per-second action. Its intense and dense takes its chances being 139 minutes long, every second a high pitch besides which it’s stagey and stilted at times and in sum, utterly exhausting,” notes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “However, having said that, it spotlights the plight of undocumented immigrants trying to make a wage, avoid capture and deportation but the focus is the chaos.”

“Though never stagey, La Cocina does feel theatrical, with set-piece scenes and monologues that break out from the central stage of the kitchen, as the film’s momentum moves through peaks and plateaus,” says Liam Lacey at Original Cin. “The breakout scenes include a tryst in the walk-in refrigerator, women bantering as they change in the locker room, and the arrival of a homeless man (Canadian actor John Pyper-Ferguson) looking for a handout, who pointedly claims that he was once a banker.”

“La Cocina is necessarily depressing with hardly any light touches, the climax being an all-out hell broke loose in the kitchen,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Still, La Cocina breaks the heart in a story in which nobody wins in a country where everything is a business with no heart.”

Drive Back Home (dir. Michael Clowater)

“Arguably, the script falls into the trope that being gay means being silly,” observes Liam Lacey at Original Cin. “Perley wears a fuzzy fur hat, matching coat, and carries about his taxidermied pet pug, Brownie. But Cumming carries off the character persuasively, with a sort of forced cheerfulness that intermittently breaks down. When Perley gets emotionally agitated, he sheds his mid-Canadian accent for salty Maritime obscenities.”

“The film contains well-conceived and delivered segments—even inspiring—covering key issues like gay rights, small-town prejudice mentality, and the triumph of the human spirit against diversity, all in a Canadian context,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

“Writer/director Michael Clowater has created a memorable, complex and loving work of art based on a true story. The film takes its time as we relish the silences and the simplicity of its message, and its goodness bursting forth from its nightmares,” writes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “Being true to oneself, no matter the cost, the effect we have on others, suffering and redemption, death and mercy make a strong brew, kind of a bumpkin Gothic realist film about the human condition. Both Cumming and Creed-Miles are Brits but nail the eastern Canadian accent and are brilliantly at home in their Maritime world.”

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (dir. Raoul Peck)

“Additional context about the Apartheid system, from books detailing specific required behaviours, to footage of Biko, Mandela, and so on, provide not only the examination of the man, but also the society that birthed him,” says Jason Gorber at POV Magazine. “Like Cole’s photographs, in just about every frame of the documentary, there’s more to see in Peck’s telling. This combination of the aesthetically rich and the politically nuanced sets the film apart. Ernest Cole, Lost and Found truly is a treasure beyond the images that miraculously survived, and none is better equipped to tell this complex yet revealing story than Peck himself.”

“Raoul Peck, the director of the extraordinary James Baldwin feature doc portrait, I Am Not Your Negro, the anti-colonialist series Exterminate All the Brutes and two films about the assassinated Congo leader Patrice Lumumba has made a brilliant doc about the photographer, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” says Marc Glassman at Classical FM. “Using archival photos in imaginative and powerful ways, Peck demonstrates that Cole didn’t lose any of his artistic insights as a photographer when he arrived in America. The film and subsequent photo exhibitions curated through Magnum demonstrate that Cole’s work deepened in significance after he spent time in the States.”

“It’s a story of triumph, sadness, and posthumous vindication. Born in 1940 in Pretoria, Cole began taking photographs as a child. In his late teens, he was hired as a photo editor’s assistant by the magazine, Drum, and by his early twenties, was freelancing his work to various publications,” says Liam Lacey at Original Cin. “There are pluses and minuses to Peck’s hybrid of narrative and documentary approach…Here, the voiceover of the subject’s supposed voice, in Stanfield’s distinctly American accent, can sometimes be distracting, particularly in sequences when Cole seems to be instructing from beyond the grave on how to interpret photographs that speak eloquently for themselves.”

“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,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “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.”

At POV Magazine, Marc Glassman interviews director Raoul Peck and learns what happened to photographer Ernest Cole: “He suffered from being in exile. That’s the centre of it. When he came to America, he didn’t want to be a Black photographer. He wanted to be a photographer. His icon was Cartier-Bresson. Like him, he wanted to go everywhere, to capture stories, faces, situations,” says Peck. “That’s the freedom he thought that he deserved. And he didn’t get it. He said, “I don’t want to become a chronicler of misery.” That’s profound. He didn’t want to go to the American South and show tragic people. What happened to Cole takes place with many artists: Black artists, Latino artists, LGBTQ artists, et cetera. They are pigeonholed.”

Get Away (dir. Gordon Green)

“There is a huge twist in the story midway,” cautions Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Unfortunately, the film goes haywire from this point.  Even in an insane movie, there must be some point of sanity for things to make sense.”

The Girl with the Needle (dir. Magnus Van Horn)

“The Girl with The Needle is a harrowing drama based on real-life crimes that took place in Copenhagen around 1920. Directed by Magnus von Horn, the film is beautiful to look at but difficult to watch — this is dark, gripping, Bergman-esque fare,” raves Liz Braun at Original Cin. “Events slowly and quietly become horrific in The Girl with The Needle, but it’s not as if a viewer is unprepared — every element of the film works in Machiavellian harmony to create an atmosphere saturated in dread. Shot in extra-bleak black and white and set to Frederikke Hoffmeier’s anxiety-provoking score, the film tells a devastating tale — that is nonetheless mesmerizing to experience.”

“For all its bleakness and depression, The Girl with the Needle is a compelling film with strong performances and stunning cinematography and production values, marking it as one of my Top 10 international films list of 2024,” declares Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

Porcelain War (dir. Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev)

“While it is remarkable to think how well these civilians-turned-amateur-soldiers have faired against the highly trained Russian army, Leontyev’s proximity to the unfolding war tends to skew how it is presented in the film,” says Courtney Small at POV Magazine. “Flying a little too close to the sun at times, the documentary walks a fine line between praising the resilience of Leontyev’s people and serving as a propaganda tool for the Ukrainian army.  At one point, even Anya remarks that it is the ‘soldiers holding the umbrellas over us’ as she reflects on the citizens’ ability to live a semblance of a normal life as terror rains down on them.”

“This film is an undeniable testament to the human spirit and the importance of art in the face of human tragedies like the war in Ukraine,” writes Dave Voigt at In the Seats with… Voigt also speaks with director Brendan Bellomo and producer Paula Depré Pesmen about their portrait of artists at the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

“Porcelain War is sometimes heavy-handed in spelling out its own higher meaning, but it is a rare look at the reality of war and the ordinary people compelled to defend their freedom and their way of life,” writes Liz Braun at Original Cin. “The transformative power of art, however, is small consolation to the families of the dead. That’s always the problem with material pertaining to the indomitable human spirit, isn’t it? To be unyielding requires something dreadful to be unyielding against, the invasion of Ukraine being a prime example. And it’s easy to anticipate, following the U.S. election, that the situation in Ukraine will only get worse.”

At POV Magazine, Pat Mullen speaks with director Brendan Bellomo and producer Paula Depré Pesmen about putting the cameras in the hands of their participants. ““Each story asks those who tell it what form it should take, and in this particular circumstance, we were discussing things at the very beginning of the war. Slava felt that it was incredible that so many western journalists had come to Ukraine to observe what was going on and share this story with the world, and that was very vital,” says Bellomo. “And yet it was not a complete perspective. There was a perspective that was missing from within Ukraine: that of an artist. As porcelain artists as ceramicists, they create these figurines, different animal forms, but they paint on them the stories of their lives—the narratives of their past and their peaceful time in Crimea before it was annexed to Russia during the initial part of this long conflict in 2014—what they’re going through in the present, the first days of the invasion.”

The Return (dir. Uberto Pasolini)

“Shot in Corfu and the Peloponnese, The Return is a stripped-down, rugged take on the epic poem, all caves and firelight, mud and sackcloth,” says Johanna Schneller at The Globe and Mail. “Fiennes plays Odysseus as a wraith with haunted eyes, and Binoche uses silence to convey Penelope’s icy anger. Though the king does eventually string his mighty bow and shoot an arrow through a dozen axe heads, there’s no thrill of victory, only the agony of fresh bloodshed. Though the stately pace can be frustrating, its anti-war stance ultimately feels modern and urgent. Near the end, Penelope delivers three lines that offer a way forward after any war: ‘We will remember,’ she says. ‘Then we will forget. Then we will live.’”

“For his part, Fiennes transforms both physically and emotionally as the battle-worn king. Adept at fighting men much younger than his battered Odysseus, there is some physical action here interspersed with the weighty dialogue. It is through these dialogue-driven scenes of classical Greek drama that Pasolini is truly effective as a director,” writes Rachel West at That Shelf. “While the action scenes are competently filmed, the quieter moments of The Return are its strength. Pasolini emphasizes emotion over brutality in The Return, and Fiennes rises to meet the challenge in exemplary form. With another superb turn in Conclave, Fiennes is in top form in 2024, delivering two masterful and controlled performances.”

“The milieu of the time, primitive, primal ways but with a system of law and order in place, in which men don’t recognise the concept of evil in themselves is interesting,” notes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “And life in the fortress becomes an endless massacre. Extraordinarily bloody, horrific and deeply dramatic, the stuff of myths – power struggles, heroes, users, and the striking contrast between knowledge, enlightenment and animalism. Wow.”

“Even as the film heads towards the contest and its ensuing violence, there is much less of an emotional impact than in a more conventional mainstream movie. That may be the film’s weakest point. At the same time, it may be that Pasolini wants us to look more thoughtfully at the story of Odysseus and how war and the years of being away from his home have affected him,” observes Karen Gordon at Original Cin. “Pasolini has taken a classic, set thousands of years In the past, and very subtly pulled out themes about masculinity and power, about the psychological and emotional toll of war and PTSD, and its way of changing a person’s way of being. These are things that, unfortunately, still speak to the modern world.”

“Despite the 3000 age old story, director Pasolini and the script makes the story relevant, with meticulously calculated dramatic and action set-pieces.  The drama comes from the family relationships,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The climax of the film has an all-out battle with Odysseus killing off all his enemies.  The ultimate questions whether the Queen can still love the same man who has left her for 20 years.”

“[Binoche] is absolutely on the mark as Penelope, an aristocratic presence made to put up with too much from suitors beneath her station. She may be finally persuaded by Fiennes’s Odysseus, but there’s a lovely reserve that marks her as someone who will never fully accept a man who could leave her for the best twenty years of her life,” says Marc Glassman at Classical FM. “The Return a truly unique film.”

That Christmas (dir. Simon Otto)

“That Christmas is an entertaining enough festive fare with adorable characters of varying ages in inter-twins stories with a British fare,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “[Both] are voiced provided by Bill Nighy, Brian Cox and Fiona Shaw.”

Werewolves (dir. Steven C. Miller)

“Miller’s direction is energetic, with an appropriate amount of showboating. Slow motion is employed sporadically, but judiciously; ditto the strategic use of smoke and flashing lights sources to increase tension,” says Joe Lipsett at Queer Horror Movies. “Thankfully, the editing is also restrained so the action is easy to follow and while the film isn’t incredibly gory, when Miller does indulge, the goopy, bloody effect is wonderfully visceral. Bonus points for an exceptional decapitation, as well as unexpectedly killing a character in the first act and punitively using the body later (the film actually uses bodies as shields and weapons several times and it’s always a delight).”

“The movie uses mostly practical effects for its creatures, but that ends up reminding us that An American Werewolf in London did an equally good job more than 40 years ago. (Although it did only have to make one werewolf.) But we’re also reminded of Alien and Jurassic Park, courtesy of far too many stolen shots to chalk it up to homage,” writes Chris Knight at Original Cin. “Werewolves most resembles the kind of creatures-attack feature that would have once gone straight to video, and it’s a surprise to see it being released in theatres. Released? I think it escaped!”

Y2K (dir. Kyle Mooney)

“A comedy like this only comes along once in a thousand years. Alas, that might be about 976 years too often for Y2K, set in those long-ago days of dial-up internet and video stores. It tries to mine humour and a bit of horror from the era but fails to make much of an impact in either genre,” says Chris Knight at Original Cin. “But there’s just not enough in the script, which merely imagines that on the fateful calendrical rollover night of December 31, 1999, everything containing a microchip turns evil. Yes, dishwashers too.”

“Y2K the film works best when it recalls the nostalgia of the turn of the century,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “As shown in the film, lots of email users were using AOL with messages like: ‘You Got Mail’ still heard over the speakers of their PCs.  At its worst, the film morphs into an outer zombie movie, as if the Y2K scare was real with the fix of the problem at the end of the film totally unbelievably stupid.”

Your Tomorrow (dir. Ali Weinstein)

“Though the film concentrates on Ontario Place’s current limbo state, Weinstein doesn’t stick to the present tense,” writes Susan G. Cole at POV Magazine. Cole also gets some words from Ali Weinstein about telling the story of Ontario Place. “And it’s next to impossible to tell a true history when there are fewer people to explain what was once there. So, for example, I couldn’t include the marina, which had a vibrant community of boaters, because by the time I was shooting in 2023, the marina was gone,” Weinstein tells Cole.

“Filmmaker Ali Weinstein spent three months filming at Ontario Place, capturing summer students, concertgoers, and a ragtag group of artists, birders, nature enthusiasts and others who tried to stop Therme, an Austria-based multinational, from moving in to re-develop the already developed land. Spoiler alert: They tried in vain,” notes Chris Knight at Original Cin. “She trains her eye dispassionately on all these people and more, crafting an even-handed portrayal of a land in flux. To give viewers who don’t have their own memories of Ontario Place in the old days a sense of “before,” she occasionally cuts to grainy footage of the old grassy bowl that was The Forum, or the candy-coloured Children’s Village playground, or just the crowds that used to bedeck the retro-futuristic architecture on a sunny summer weekend in the 1970s.”

“The whimsical but unmistakably forthright doc Your Tomorrow from Ali Weinstein profiles the place, its regulars and natural inhabitants – a dreamy, charming, slightly eccentric take on the provincial government’s betrayal of the people of Toronto,” observes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “We meet groups who come to sit and gaze at the lake, or run, swim, watch the birds, grow little gardens and experience it as they’ve done for five decades. A dog that’s walked the trail for years cries when fences are erected, one person says they were ‘saved by the ducklings’ there; each person has an Ontario Place story.  But the province continues to mess with city matters. Now young kids doing PR work for the new and improved Ontario Place that’s on the horizon, have no memory or knowledge of what it has meant to the city.”

File Under Miscellaneous: Award Season Chatter

At That Shelf, Pat Mullen gets some words from Amy Adams on her career-best performance in Nightbitch and learns how the film’s empowering portrait isn’t exclusive to parents. “The idea of tapping into an animal instinct, it’s not just in parenting, but it’s to bring us closer to ourselves,” Adams says. “It removes all of the expectations and the Instagram filters and the veneer of perfection that there’s only one way to do something. It’s like getting back to a basic understanding of identifying your needs, your partner’s needs, and your child’s needs in a really organic way, instead of trying to meet the needs of the pressure of the world around you.”

On the TFCA blog, Marriska Fernandes chats with Nightbitch writer/director Marielle Heller about tackling the transformative power of motherhood with darkness and depth: “A part of it was about loss of identity, feeling invisible, and feeling like you’ve lost yourself and you’ve become a new person,” says Heller. “This concept of ‘where is the old me?’ is brought up a number of times. She brings it up where she says, “The old me is down inside my intestine, my spirit.” And he says, ‘Where’s my wife?’ And she says, ‘She died in childbirth.’ That gave me goosebumps when I wrote it. We’ve just got to be selfish. You’ve got to wake up in the morning and do the things you need to do and put your own needs first. And when that’s gone, there is grieving. So it was about that central idea of loss of identity.”

At That Shelf, Pat Mullen speaks with Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón about her breakout turn in the acclaimed/controversial. Gascón tells how living in Mexico with her family helps inform her performance. “I think if I hadn’t lived in Mexico for as long as I did, I would not have been able to interpret this character as well as I did,” says Gascón. “I’m familiar with the idiosyncrasies, the vocabulary, and certain words that they use. I’ve done wonderful things in Mexico, but I have also seen a lot of things that I didn’t like. I know what it’s like to be there, and I think that definitely has an added value to the character and to the production. I don’t think that I would have been able to create a credible Manitas [Emilia’s name pre-transition], a credible Emilia if I didn’t have that Mexican baggage with me.”

TV Talk/Series Stuff

At What She Said, Anne Brodie says to clear your calendar for Black Doves: “To juxtapose the deceit, devious plots and gunplay with Christmas décor, a brightly lit city and parties is sly – it’s been done before, Bruce Willis’ Die Hard, Black Christmas, and dozens more – but Black Doves bests them all in its complex psychological and political weight. Once started the series can’t be ignored, binge you must!” Meanwhile, Holmes vs. Doyle “offers a unique take on the famous detective created by author Arthur Conan Doyle and the relationship between the man and his muse who made him a sensation, even as their relationship soured.”