Stories about slavery can be a tricky proposition, especially if your story is from the Caucasian point of view, because there is a delicate balance to be struck when considering the protagonist’s actions and motivations.
Civeyrac’s adaptation of Doris Lessing’s short story Victoria and the Staveneys has a soft charm to its story but finds itself hampered by its comparison to the source material.
A voyage beyond reality, constructing an alien atmosphere of indiscernible sounds and sights, Dead Slow Ahead is a new masterpiece of mood, and almost approaches the ever ambiguous concept of “pure cinema”.
Grief, depression, and loneliness. Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s first foray into English language film is rife with subject matter suited for a dour art house affair. Yet Louder Than Bombs is infused with a vibrant humanism that cares for its characters and has a firm grasp of cinematic language and exceptional editing which ratchets it up a notch past a typical prestige drama. It’s too subtle, too bold, too willing to reach into a grab bag of visual styles and character set pieces to care about falling into the right Hollywood genre.
Sleeping Giant should be a crowdpleaser, especially in Canada, since it is always an auspicious occasion when a new Canadian director’s feature is well received at Cannes and TIFF. Sleeping Giant is well written, technically proficient and kinetically paced.
This documentary centred around the Frank Furko, an odd octogenerian whose now deceased cat, Pudgie Wudgie, was a local celebrity in their hometown of Pittsburgh, manages to break the mold of imitative, stagnating docs that festivals often attract in droves. Massil and Alvarez-Mesa have found a perfect subject in Frank, and approach him with a natural, easy going camera: no talking heads and barely a shot of stock footage, just a wondering frame following Frank as he tells his stories to whoever will listen, and a sense of time travel via VHS footage Frank himself shot throughout his life.
Nick Citton’s low key dramedy feels all too familiar. Two siblings, Joni and Wes Carver, travel from Los Angeles to the tiny town of Story, Arkansas, when their estranged father passes away. While there, they make new friends, push each other to their emotional breaking points, and perhaps discover a new approach to life. It feels like a mainstay of the American indie scene, complete with quirky townsfolk, repressed emotional baggage revealed through unsurprising plot twists, and a heartfelt, bittersweet ending.
Hadwin’s Judgement Directed by Sasha Snow Documentaries are one of the veins through which VIFF’s lifeblood flows. Attracting large crowds of socially conscientious viewers, they are usually among the first films to sell out. Unfortunately, given their commercial appeal, many of them begin to mirror each other, turning into dull affairs filled with “talking heads”, bland …
A film which tugs on heartstrings like a puppeteer, The Devout is an emotionally resonant film which doesn’t fully connect its script with the finished product. Set in the bible belt of British Columbia, the narrative is nestled around a Christian teacher, Darryl, his wife Jan, and their daughter Abigail, who is dying of cancer. By itself, The Devout’s exploration of family dynamics amidst a slowly unfurling tragedy is compelling cinema
The Vancouver International Film Festival is just around the corner, to the delight of cinephiles who didn’t get their fill with TIFF. But with over 350 films, it can be overwhelming trying to sift through the dross and find films that will resonate with you, surprise you, and most importantly, have lasting impact past the festival.
Pan Written by Jason Fuchs Directed by Joe Wright USA, 2015 Peter Pan gets the Star Wars treatment by way of Baz Luhrmann in Joe Wright’s Pan, an attempt at putting a somewhat original spin on a children’s classic. In true Hollywood style, however, the film is so hampered by studio notes that it almost …
The August bank holiday weekend in London is always cause for celebration for horror fans as the FrightFest horror and genre film festival rolls into the city’s Leicester Square for four days of blood-spattered cinematic mayhem. This year saw the arrival of horror icon and star of Re-Animator and You’re Next, Barbara Crampton, as the …
There are many names that come to mind when one looks back at the Japanese New Wave era: Nagisa Oshima, Koreyoshi Kurahara, Shohei Imamura, Masahiro Shinoda, and many, many more. The movement truly began with the adaptation of Shintaro Ishihara’s novel Crazed Fruit, released with the same name by director Ko Nakahira in his 1956 …
Asian Dub Foundation: THX 1138 Nationwide tour to 10 UK cities Musical innovators Asian Dub Foundation will perform their latest live soundtrack to George Lucas’ 1971 visionary cult sci-fi classic THX 1138 at ten venues nationwide in October 2015, following its UK premiere at the Barbican on 19th June. Retaining much of Lalo Schiffrin’s distinctive score …
Before 1979, Iran had a history of iconic female singers. Qamar al-Molouk Vaziri was in 1924 the first woman to sing in front of a male audience and still “retain her good reputation”. It was a time when “women wore burkas and men were on opium”, sighs one of the protagonists of the documentary from the Iranian Ayat Najafi. Singers such as Delkash and Googoosh, as well as Sayeh Sodeyfi, performing in the film, were widely listened to, but have since then been made illegal. After the revolution, female solo-singing in public was banned on the grounds of “exceeding a certain vocal range” and “sexually arousing men in the audience”, and thereby breaking the rule of decency and of not deviating from their normal condition.
It was 2004 and I was fifteen years old when I read Charles R. Cross’ Heavier than Heaven. I remember finishing the last chapters, sprawled on the floor of my family’s cottage as I cried so hard I started to dry heave. At the time I was unaware of the controversy that surrounded the adaptation, both in how Cross took liberties in certain facts (some information was later disproved, or at least not substantiated) and the decision he made to create what was ultimately a fictional take on Kurt’s final days up until the point he killed himself. Like many teenager before and since, Kurt Cobain represented a romantic and ultimately tragic figure to look up to – for better or for worse.
Le Chat Dans Le Sac Written and Directed by Gilles Grouix Canada, 1964 A movie that is difficult to find but well worth the effort, Le Chat Dans Le Sac captivates moviegoers through its hand held camera usage, John Coltrane soundtrack, twenty-something characters struggling with the world around them. You don’t have to be familiar …
Storm In The Andes Written & Directed by Mikael Wiström Sweden, 2015 After her death in 1988 the Guzmán family spoke little of Aunt Augusta, and before her passing she was rarely discussed in the family home. Along with her husband Abimael she was one of the founding members of Shining Path, the Maoist guerrilla movement who engaged in a long and …
Burden Of Peace Written & Directed by Joey Boink & Sander Wirken Netherlands/Guatemala/Spain, 2015 One of the centerpieces of this years London Human Rights Film Festival is the domestic premiere of Burden Of Peace – a behind the scenes, four years in the making biography of activist turned Guatemala Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz. Following the first …
Presented in the Bright Future Premieres programme section of IFFR 2015 as one of the nominees for the FIPRESCI prize of the festival, The Man in the Wall is a tense, excellently paced psychological drama with fleshed out characters that seem pulled on-screen directly from life itself. Although purportedly not (auto)biographical, the story nonetheless feels very personal.
Canadian cinema seems endlessly intertwined with the fringe appeal of horror genre. The first boom of horror happened in the 1970s when Canada’s tax policy allowed producers to take a fee of production costs before the film earned back its production costs (which is not allowed in the States), driving many low quality projects into theatres. Horror was always a safe bet because it was particularly cheap to make, and if they happened to land on a success the return on the investment would generally be a lot higher than for more “prestige” pictures. As that tax-shelter eventually closed up, there still remained a rather strong legacy of horror in Canadian cinema and to this day Canadian horror leans towards the adventurous and the innovative.
The dark unforgiving waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the mouth of the St. Lawrence river provide the backdrop to Les Loups, a beautifully crafted melodrama. Set in a small island Quebec town during the spring thaw, a stranger arrives during the height of the controversial seal hunts. Vibrant and mysterious, many suspect that Elie, the young woman from Montreal, is not who she says and is likely a reporter or an activist bent on portraying the townsfolk in a bad light.
Miraculum Written by Gabriel Sabourin Directed by Daniel Grou Canada, 2014 Daniel Grou (affectionately known as Podz by the Quebec public) got his start in television, directing a number of very successful shows for Radio-Canada, the national channel. In 2010 he made his cinematic debut with two films and has since been working exclusively for …