TIFF 2024: Day Eight
The screeners continue.
My last few reviews are hitting today and tomorrow and I only have two screeners left, so my TIFF may be over shortly.
I have a couple emails out to try and snag a few more titles, but no guarantees they come through now that producers are pulling links and going into hiding until their theatrical dates arrive.
Fingers crossed!
REVIEWS:
DAUGHTER’S DAUGHTER
[女兒的女兒]
(World Premiere - September 12th - Taiwan - Chinese/English)
Mother and daughters come in many forms and Jin Aixia (Sylvia Chang) is one half of many of them. We meet her at the hospital in 2018 after breaking her leg the day she’s supposed to start caring for her recently-diagnosed-with-dementia mother (Alannah Ong’s Shen Yan-Hua). The latter has just returned to Taipei after spending time in New York City where her granddaughter Emma (Karena Ka-Yan Lam) lives—Ai’s biological child, but not her daughter since she was given to a family friend. The three wait for Fan Zuer’s (Eugenie Liu) arrival, Ai’s second biological child who was raised by her too. It’s the first time they’ve ever all been together and ultimately will also prove to be the last.
DAUGHTER’S DAUGHTER then fast-forwards to the present-day. Ai is enjoying her independent life in Taiwan with dance classes alongside her best friend and regular outings with her mother. She and Zuer have gotten closer in the six years since the prologue (wherein the two were very much at odds), but it’s time for the latter to start her own family alongside her partner Jia-Yi (Tracy Chou). They’ve decided to do so in New York, utilizing fertilization specialists to help them conceive before returning to Taipei. It’s all smiles and laughter (and happy tears) between them until a phone call leaves Ai in a panic. Zuer and Jia-Yi have died in a car crash and their viable embryo, ready to be implanted, is now under Ai’s guardianship.
Writer/director Xi Huang has thrown the kitchen sink of maternal possibilities at us with Ai serving as the nexus point. Here she is simultaneously mourning, revisiting her past, and deciding what to do with a third child. She wasn’t ready when she had Emma at sixteen. She was when she had Zuer (even if she wonders whether she failed as a mother). And now she’s not ready to do it all again in her sixties. Could she go the adoption route despite the mixed emotions of reuniting with Emma after so many years? Can she terminate the embryo this time despite not being able to then? Or will she honor her daughter’s hope of motherhood by finding a surrogate to let that dream live in her arms instead?
The film is a sort of “this is your life” episode wherein Ai must weigh the pros and cons of these alternatives by reliving the choices she’s already made. We get flashbacks to Zuer’s quest through IVF and her mother’s obvious disapproval in the thought that she isn’t ready. We watch Ai endure that same disapproval courtesy of her own mother’s ailment making it seem like she’s back in time telling her she’s not ready too. And then there’s the constant present-day fights with Emma as Ai uses her as a sounding board to cut through the fear and figure out whether she made the correct decision then and if it’s the same now. Is it selfish to want to walk away? The answer is complicated.
It’s a very emotional journey. Between the whiplash of finding out she might be a grandmother soon to suddenly having no one and the recoil of going from there to being responsible for another potential life, you can’t fault Ai for being on-edge. Not only is she thinking about blame for letting Zuer go to New York in the first place, she’s dreading what Jia-Yi’s parents might think of her for the same thing. The notions of fate and intent intersect to jumble what was a very regimented list of priorities in Ai’s head. And seeing Emma only confuses matters more since her existence is a direct result of a similar situation … although also very different considering the technological advancements in how this particular embryo will gestate.
There’s also something else going on to make Ai’s conflict even more uncertain. One could say she’s actually fighting against her own guilt in the pursuit of an outcome—both as a mother and a daughter considering how alike she and Zuer were as young women attempting to carve a path for themselves. And it all comes to a head with a poignantly authentic answer to Emma’s question: “What were you thinking when you gave me up?” It hits harder too because it comes after we’ve already seen Ai sign the fertility center’s paperwork. We don’t yet know which option she picked, but we know this moment of clarity has the same odds of confirming it as it does filling her with regret.
Chang is wonderful in the role. She gets a few tender moments (like the poster image of her resting her head on a sleeping Emma), but her Ai is more often than not lost in a sense of pragmatism that erases any potential for tenderness at all. This is why the character is so captivating and resonant, though. Her ability to understand her own desires and, for better or worse, projecting them upon those around her either by trying to change their minds or proving she won’t change hers is what makes her human. It’s why whatever she decides doesn’t matter because we know it won’t be taken lightly. Every choice she’s made to that point has been hers and none render her less of a person … or a woman.
- 8/10
THE SWEDISH TORPEDO
[Den Svenska Torpeden]
(World Premiere - September 12th - Sweden - Swedish/Danish/English)
It starts with failure. Sally Bauer (Josefin Neldén) is foiled by the cold, cutting her crossing of the Kattegat short and forcing her to return home with no other options but to begin housewife school so her mother will continue paying her rent. She needs that money after losing out on the swim’s prize because she’s raising her young son Lars (Arthur Sörbring) alone. He doesn’t mind, though, because he’s proud of her and knows she’ll defeat both it and the English Channel soon. Even so, that pride only goes so far when her drive always seems to come at his expense. Especially when her mother and sister (Lisa Carlehed’s Carla) refuse to let her forget it.
The biopic director Frida Kempff puts on-screen via THE SWEDISH TORPEDO (co-written by Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten) is “inspired by true events” with the stipulation that some scenes and characters have been created to do so (a very carefully worded introductory frame that can’t help feeling like a response to the BABY REINDEER controversy). It’s an inspiring tale not only because of the swim (similar to NYAD from last year) and the era wherein doing this type of thing as a woman proves infinitely more impossible than as a man, but also because of the backdrop of WWII. If Sally waits too long, she might never have another chance.
Drama is heightened too by these social circumstances. Sally is pretty much told she’s a bad mother by her own, guilted into believing it too since Carla “would make such a good one” if she weren't a victim to miscarriage. Her love (and Lars’ father) is a married man (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard’s Henry) who adores her yet cannot muster the courage to do something about it while also proving her best shot at swimming due to his job as a sports writer supplying the necessary connections to legitimize the event and enlist sponsors. And trying to survive as a single mother in the late 1930s means relying on women who won’t also emotionally blackmail her for the trouble—a short list.
A lot is covered in these two hours, some of which can feel rushed (like her tragic friendship with Electra Hallman’s Karin). Scenes like the sexist display of men deciding where to put their logos on her body might hit home politically, but they also feel forced in context with the more personal story beats. THE SWEDISH TORPEDO is never better than when Sally is made to stand up for herself whether opposite her disapproving mother, conflicted sister, ashamed lover, or frightened son. Not only because this is where we see her fight most (the swimming scenes are brief), but also because it renders the stakes much higher than notoriety. Although being an inspiration for women is no small feat itself.
The best moments are with Lars because you recognize the cost of this pursuit through him. He craves being her cheerleader, yet he’s too young to reconcile that desire with the hope for her survival. Because death is a real risk. When she takes him to help her practice and the mood strikes her to float in the water and lose herself to time, Lars must assume she’s drowned. Forgiveness isn’t easily won upon her return either since there’s truth to loved ones imploring her to accept she has responsibilities to uphold. Should they come so much further forward than the swim to render it an unworthy lark? That’s for Sally and Sally alone to decide.
Neldén delivers a fine performance that reminded me of Sandra Hüller with a burning tenacity to drag everyone else into the fight with her considering Sally can’t do this alone despite how much it seems like she is. Henry is crucial to pointing her in the right direction. Carla is necessary as a loving aunt and championing sister without falling prey to the prevailing thought she’s stealing her child. And Lars is as much a reason to keep going as the young woman who asks for an autograph since this type of feat is nothing if not an example for the next generation to realize their dreams are attainable. Even on the brink of war.
- 7/10
TODAY’S SCHEDULE:
THE EXILES, d. Belén Funes
SABA, d. Maksud Hossain