TIFF 2023: Day Nine, Ten & Eleven
Final weekend
The awards are out. Congrats to Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION for winning the People’s Choice—a surprise for me considering I never heard it mentioned once while in Toronto and the only email I have is its inclusion in its publicity firm’s initial pre-fest blast. Definitely has me excited because it appears it didn’t win on buzz alone. The audiences really just loved it.
Robert McCallum’s MR. DRESSUP: THE MAGIC OF MAKE-BELIEVE won Documentary and DICKS: THE MUSICAL won Midnight Madness. Platform went to Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s DEAR JASSI. Best Canadian to Sophie Dupuis’ SOLO. And the FIPRESCI and NETPAC to Meredith Hama-Brown’s SEAGRASS and Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s A MATCH, respectively.
All in all I got through 32 titles with only a couple true clunkers. Only one true “best of the year” contender too, though. The full, unranked collection is at Letterboxd and my ranked Top Ten is the following:
WIDOW CLICQUOT, d. Thomas Napper
HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON, d. Ariane Louis-Seize
HIS THREE DAUGHTERS, d. Azazel Jacobs
THE KING TIDE, d. Christian Sparkes
DAYS OF HAPPINESS, d. Chloé Robichaud
LOST LADIES, d. Kiran Rao
THE TEACHER, d. Farah Nabulsi
SEAGRASS, d. Meredith Hama-Brown
RUSTIN, d. George C. Wolfe
DEAR JASSI, d. Tarsem Singh Dhandwar
The rest of my TIFF reviews are below. So long, Toronto!
REVIEWS:
FRYBREAD FACE AND ME
(international premiere)
“Luther therefore deals with some heavy-ish subject matter throughout without shining too bright a light on it. The film is playing with familiar tropes along a formulaic path, but it’s simply too endearing to dismiss outright.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
MADEMOISELLE KENOPSIA
(North American premiere)
Kenopsia (noun): The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
You won’t get a better review of Denis Côté’s MADEMOISELLE KENOPSIA than the literal dictionary definition of the word. It’s an eerie film bathed in the quiet, abandoned liminal space occupied by our lead (Larissa Corriveau) and the cavernous building within which she resides—if, of course, mentioning both separately isn’t redundant since they are really just one and the same.
For seven minutes the screen simply sifts through static images of the building’s empty rooms. That’s when Corriveau comes on-screen with a loud, unknown bang. She calls her boss (Hinde Rabbaj) about it. She calls her about many things, but mostly to consider the weight of existence and the relationship between past, present, and future.
Twenty-seven minutes in and those empty rooms are suddenly filled by (mostly) abstract projections (the outlier is a crab) and piped in noise. An intruder comes to smoke a cigarette (Evelyne de la Chenelière). A handyman comes to install a security camera (Olivier Aubin). Corriveau’s excitement to interact with both is extreme. She yearns for the connection even if she’s also fine with the silence (and phone calls to break the monotony).
Add a dream of being surrounded by people on Spring Break (Or is it a metaphorical memory of when her hallways teemed with visitors?) and you get the gist of what Côté has created. Like the smoker once heard: film shouldn’t be about life itself. It should be about the space between. Well, here it is. An excruciating experience for some. A blissful sojourn through enlightened philosophical being for others. Not my cup of tea, but certainly effective enough to be another’s.
- 6/10
SEAGRASS
(world premiere)
“An intriguing over-arching unease gives the whole some extra atmosphere as things rapidly devolve towards a point of no return. But it's also an education.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
SMUGGLERS [mil-su]
(North American premiere)
With newly opened factories killing marine life off the coast of a seaside village in South Korea circa 1970, local haenyeo (women free divers) are forced to look for work elsewhere unless they’re willing to break the law procuring a new inhabitant of the water: crates full of contraband. Currently sunk to the ocean floor, their owners are willing to pay fishermen top dollar to retrieve them when customs officials aren’t looking. Dive down, haul up, and pass off in the night.
It takes some cajoling, but Jin-sook (Yum Jung-ah) and Choon-ja (Kim Hye-su) finally get the former’s father to agree at the start of Seung-wan Ryu’s SMUGGLERS. And for a spell, they seem untouchable. That’s what makes the sudden arrival of Chief Lee (Kim Jong-soo) so impossibly unexpected. By the time the dust settles, two members of the crew are dead and the rest in jail—all except Choon-ja, who barely escaped. Was it luck? Or planned?
Fast-forward two years and some heavy drama necessitates a reunion. Desperate to save her own hide, Choon-ja (now in Seoul) tells a ruthless smuggler (Zo In-sung’s Kwon) about her old stomping grounds and how they’re the perfect spot for underwater exchanges. Knowing the other women—especially Jin-sook—believe she informed on them, it’s not a simple matter of picking up where they left off. With her old protégé Hammer (Jeong Min Park) now in charge, he can hopefully become a buffer to smooth things over.
A lot can happen in such a short time, though. Hammer can lose himself to his new power. Lee can consolidate his own with a greedy streak of self-indulgence. Even Boon (Min-Si Go) evolves from waitress to tearoom owner. The only thing that remains the same is the village’s poverty. Maybe that will be enough to make Jin-sook be civil. She needs Kwon’s job as much as Choon-ja. The question is whether these women can find a way to trust each other again since they have the ability to pit everyone else against themselves while grabbing control together.
The opening act’s exposition can be somewhat of a slog, but that’s to be expected when you’re talking about a two-hour-plus film. Afterwards, however, the entertainment level and pace pick up without ever slowing back down. Zo helps as an electric villain whose smile only grows as the violence escalates—especially during an extended, close-quarters hotel knife brawl. An underwater action sequence fails to match that fight’s energy, but it bridges the gap with climactic tension once a shark gets thrown in the mix.
Besides those two extended sequences, SMUGGLERS is otherwise dialogue-driven with a healthy dose of secrets and betrayals as Jin-sook and Choon-ja position themselves to control their own fate. Pulling for them is easy too considering they never compromise their priorities: life above money. The journey proves an effective popcorn flick with nice production value (the period aesthetic is a highlight) that only falters when some water scenes expose green screen limitations (if such issues weren’t the screener’s fault).
- 7/10
SONGS OF EARTH [Fedrelandet]
(North American premiere)
Margreth Olin’s SONGS OF EARTH is a love letter to her mountain valley home in Norway through the eyes of her parents (Jørgen and Magnhild) and a history that goes back generations. It’s also a love letter to them via the serene vistas of nature’s wondrous landscapes—leaves and ice fading into and out against the cracked skin of farmhands that have known no other place.
How have people impacted the region through its seasonal changes (the towering Spruce planted by Jørgen’s ancestor)? How has the volatility of time impacted them (whole families wiped off the map by landslides)? Olin showcases the beauty of both the creation and destruction wrought by our symbiotic relationship with the Earth, taking us on a journey through gorgeous sights and sounds that, like her mom and dad, might not remain much longer.
It’s therefore as much a spotlight as it is a memorial. “Our first love was nature” and yet here we are letting it die. The film’s success is thus tied to what you’re willing to give it. Do you share or ignore these sentiments? Is it confirming your truth or falling on deaf ears? In the end, regardless of its message for the future or its personal ode to Olin’s heritage, you cannot deny the breathtaking imagery, effective score, and soulful delivery. If nothing else, its aesthetics will astound.
- 7/10
THANK YOU FOR COMING
(world premiere)
“The film intentionally plays with preconceptions and cultural imperatives to shield us from a third and more important conclusion: that happiness isn't dependent on anyone other than yourself.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
WIDOW CLICQUOT
(world premiere)
“So, while the film is still a love story and biography, it's also a process-driven historical document. And Bennett is wonderful as always. Her ability to show strength through vulnerability is unparalleled.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.