TIFF 2024: Day Nine
Final weekend begins.
I didn’t hear back from many of my emails yesterday, so it looks like tomorrow will put a cap on my TIFF coverage. Good timing too as the awards will be announced later today to really close the book.
I’m honestly not sure what to guess for the People’s Choice Award. No one was really talking about anything specific while I was in Toronto. Everyone in the press loved THE BRUTALIST, but will that carry over to audiences? Maybe WE LIVE IN TIME? Maybe SATURDAY NIGHT, which didn’t screen until I was already gone?
Should be interesting to see the results.
REVIEWS:
THE EXILES
[Los Tortuga]
(World Premiere - September 6th - Spain/Chile - Spanish)
Spending summer in Jaén to harvest the olive trees her father left her in his will, Anabel (Elvira Lara) is working through her emotions with family to cope. Her aunt Inés (Mamen Camacho), the deceased’s sister, does her best to help by bringing her niece into their spiritual traditions to keep his memory alive. Anabel takes to this practice of acknowledging his loss—something her Chilean mother (Antonia Zegers’ Delia) cannot. When the latter arrives to take her daughter back to Barcelon at the start of her new college semester, she struggles with their desire to not let go. Delia is still angry and trying to keep a roof over their heads. It’s easier to just pretend he never existed than to constantly feel his absence.
THE EXILES focuses on this disparity between mother and daughter. Directed by Belén Funes and co-written with Marçal Cebrian, it takes us back to the city to experience the avoidance at play. We move from a very loving and caring environment in Jaén with Inés and the extended family to a cold, emotionally stunted apartment in Barcelona where the two barely see each other let alone talk. Most nights keep Delia sleeping in her taxi cab—as much a business maneuver to be on-site for more fares as it is an excuse to get away from her husband’s ghost. Anabel tries to live her life with school and friends, but it’s impossible to ignore her mother’s anguish. Something must give.
So, when they receive an eviction notice and discover every potential landing spot requires two paychecks as proof of financial stability, Delia is left not knowing what to do. Anabel tells her mom to sell her cab and get a different job so they can afford to move. Delia tells her daughter to sell the olive trees for the same reason. Add college tuition to the mix and the right thing to do becomes murky in the sense that it starts seeming like the present cannot survive unless the past is left to die. The only way forward is to confront their sorrow and move together. To speak aloud that he’s gone and not coming back. Their next chapter cannot begin with it.
This is a deeply felt drama that doesn’t shy away from their individual and shared pain. We can see how much they love each other, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Both are too headstrong to share what they’re feeling and end up showing it via temperamental acts of impulsive rage. Yes, they ultimately show contrition, but it’s hard to accept when this cycle keeps repeating itself. So, they fight. They leave. They pretend with others like everything is okay. And then Delia’s dementia-riddled mother jumps on Skype asking about her husband because no one has told her he died. You can understand the desire to not want to keep reliving that moment, but saying it once might bring some closure.
Both Lara and Zegers are wonderful. Their performances are lived in and complementary. So often we see them looking at each other from across the room with a sweet smile that they can’t quite seem to maintain once they’re thrust into a conversation together that inevitably devolves into argument. That’s what happens when you refuse to tackle something as devastating as grief head-on. Everything you want to say gets caught in your throat because you don’t want to make things worse than they already are. You can’t therefore blame Anabel for opening up to Inés. Jaén becomes a safe place devoid of judgment while Barcelona starts feeling like a prison devoid of escape.
THE EXILES is able to focus on this struggle of place and identity by keeping the narrative itself simple: life is no longer affording Delia and Anabel the room to avoid their truth. The former can’t keep distracting herself from her emotions by worrying about their money issues and the latter can’t keep ignoring their money issues to work on her emotions. In a perfect world, the two would have pressed pause on one to deal with the other, but this death was too sudden to allow for rational thinking and now they’re too far removed from it to admit where they went wrong until the choice is taken out of their hands. As long as they stick together, though, they can endure.
- 7/10
SABA
(World Premiere - September 7th - Bangladesh - Bangla)
The options are dwindling for Saba (Mehazabien Chowdhury) to keep her mother (Rokeya Prachy’s Shirin) alive. We don’t yet know how long she’s been without the use of her legs nor how long her heart has been failing—just that her daughter is desperate to get her the care she needs all on her own. Saba’s father is out of the picture. She’s just lost her job. And now she’s calling an ambulance to save Shirin from a heart attack only to discover it will all be for naught if they don’t schedule an unaffordable surgery within the month. That’s not an easy proposition to tackle since Shirin won’t sign off on what’s necessary for the appointment.
Saba is thus operating from a belief of having nothing to lose. She’s already given up the last few years of her own life to be Shirin’s caregiver, so why not risk everything else too? They’ll need to sell the house to raise the money, but Shirin already rejected an offer and her absent husband’s siblings don’t want to be jerked around facilitating a new sale only for it to also not go through. So, Saba scours Dhaka for employment, leveraging her authentic sob story into a job at a hookah lounge to secure whatever other funds she can. And all the while she’s arguing with her mother just to give her a bath and eat according to the doctor’s orders.
Directed by Maksud Hossain and co-written with his wife Trilora Khan, SABA is inspired by what they experienced first-hand when her father-in-law passed to leave her paraplegic mother in need of care. It’s that mix of duty, love, resentment, and guilt wherein frustrations are quick to take control whenever the patient’s willfulness appears to get in the way of their wellbeing. The best example is Shirin's wish to go outside. She’s only been out of the house to rush to the hospital these past years. Yes, Saba is correct in not wanting to damage her heart further by exposing her to too much stimuli, but so is Shirin when she says “breathing isn’t the same as living.”
No one knows this more than Saba’s new boss and fast friend Ankur (Mostafa Monwar). He’s experienced this impossible dynamic and made similar choices only to regret them. It’s that tragic question about whether to live happily for a brief time or unhappily for a long time. Either way, Shirin is fading. She knows it and Saba knows it—even if the latter won’t admit as much. Why spend their last days together eating porridge and fighting bed sores when they can wheel around the park and enjoy kachchi (Bangladeshi biryani)? There needs to be a compromise between quality of life and length, but finding one is as much Shirin’s responsibility as Saba’s.
This is a Muslim country with certain expectations for its women, after all. And a mother has certain wishes when it comes to her daughter too. Shirin would love to find Saba a husband and know she’ll be safe once she’s gone. She’d love for them to still own this house so Saba’s new family will have a place to lay their heads. Both of their actions are thus about protecting the other. Saba tries to secure her mother’s present while Shirin attempts to facilitate her daughter’s future. Unfortunately, Dhaka is hardly the place for them to achieve those goals in tandem. The sad truth of poverty is that sacrifice proves unavoidable.
So, we watch them stand at the precipice of oblivion before jumping headfirst. In many ways Shirin is saying she’ll die to save her daughter. And Saba is saying she’ll live in the street without a taka to her name to save her mother. The difference between them is that one has the means to actively pursue their quest while the other does not. Shirin can passively eat badly and neglect hygiene to gradually worsen her condition, but it’s Saba who finds herself confronting situations where she can make a choice that leverages her security (or the security of others caught in the wake) for the prospect of earning one more day.
Chowdhury, Prachy, and Monwar deliver heartfelt and nuanced performances that portray the complexity of this situation. Because there are no correct answers. Yes, there’s a definite difference between marriage and death, but why does Saba get to tell her mother “No” in response to the one and not let Shirin say the same about the other? That’s where the mixed emotions come in because both women are trying to do something for the other out of love only to act in defiance as though the real intent was selfishness. It’s a tenuous line to toe—one that causes a lot of strife as circumstances arise to betray others in their pursuit. And the result is often wholly out of their control anyway.
- 7/10
SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON
(World Premiere - September 13th - India - Hindi)
Prince’s Movie House is losing money by the hour and Nihal (Gyanendra Tripathi) pushes hard on his younger brother Nasir (Adarsh Gourav) to find a solution. Since their competition is playing all the same stuff they are, it’s tough to stand out. Until Nasir learns he can edit supercuts by connecting two VCRs together to fast forward and record. The result is a hit. Bruce Lee and Chaplin spliced together with Keaton and Jackie Chan. It’s wall-to-wall action and laughter to keep audiences coming back for more. Except, of course, it’s also piracy. And since 1997 India probably isn’t concerning itself with “fair use” laws, the police come to smash everything. Nasir’s only shot at redemption is to therefore make a movie himself.
There’s no need to secure rights if the movie you’re showing is owned by you and, unless you grant permission to the other theaters, no one else can play it. This isn’t Mumbai, though. It’s Malegaon. In order to make it work, Nasir must rely on his friends to help carry the load. Farogh (Vineet Kumar Singh) is desperate to be treated like a “real” writer, so he agrees to work on the script. Akram (Anuj Duhan), Irfan (Saqib Ayub), and Aleem (Pallav Singh) are ready to edit, act, and do whatever else is necessary. And Shafique (Shashank Arora), despite constantly being pushed aside when all he wants to do is perform, realizes the ride is enough. It gets him out of the loom factory and onto a movie set. It’s a dream come true.
Reema Kagti’s SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON (co-written with Varun Grover) isn’t all dreams, though. Yes, this group of friends is doing what everyone told them they couldn’t, but it won’t be an easy road and things will only grow harder once success is found. Because art and commerce have never been a simple marriage. Nasir wants to be famous and earn enough money to never worry about the police raiding his family’s cinema again. Farogh wants respect and will only compromise his integrity so much before quitting the dog and pony show for true artistic merit. At some point, the high of having fun must be replaced by the logistics of sustainability. Those willing to front the money towards that pursuit sadly won’t do so for free.
This true story spans thirteen years and three productions. In 1997 the guys spoof SHOLAY with a Malegaon flavor—their planned calling card before pivoting to original work until Nasir decides to double-down on populism instead. In 2004 we find Farogh attempting to make his own way in Mumbai while Nasir and the rest hope to maintain their momentum at home on the coattails of the famous Asif Albela (Yash Yogendra). And in 2010 the bottom has officially dropped out to the point where petty grievances have all but torn this troupe apart. It’s only when they realize what it is they lost that they find the forgiveness and humility to rally around a tragedy and remember friendship was the reason they took this leap in the first place.
There’s a lot going on with a lot of characters. Subplots about love and marriage are juxtaposed with others about metamorphosis, grief, and divorce. Nasir versus Farogh is a big part of the whole, but their parallel journeys are more about the fact that those in power will always dismiss them regardless of whether they try to play the game or reinvent it. That fracture is the start of the drama while Shafique’s loyalty is the beginning of reconciliation. Add Manjiri Pupala’s Trupti as the boys’ bona fide star who always comes back and sees the genuine love they share regardless of their jealousies and you really get a sense of what it means to pursue art in a world that too often rejects its value.
It’s why this story is so inspirational. Even though they lose their way in the middle, their genesis was about brotherhood and pride in their hometown. It’s those same things that drive their eventual reunion too once they resign themselves to the fact that they don’t need international acclaim to prove their worth. One can be a hero to one’s friends and family and have that be enough. They can carve their place in cinematic history, invent a local industry, and still laugh with each other at dinner knowing their legacy is cemented for those who matter most: each other. Because the moment you start doing things for the wrong reasons is the moment you lose the magic. Luckily, Nasir and company are able to get it back.
Kagti does a great job capturing that do-it-yourself aesthetic and energy with an abundance of humor and heart. She creates that chip on both Nasir and Farogh’s shoulders too with both seeking to overcome lost love (of a girlfriend and father respectively) by devoting themselves to a singular mission that clouds their ability to listen. Gourav and Singh’s performances are paramount as a result, but it’s Arora who shines as their selfless heart who never forgets what’s really at stake. His Shafique must bide his time while suffering injustice, but he never lets it negate everything great they’ve accomplished. Maybe they don’t get rich and nobody outside of Melagaon knows their names, but they still lived out their dream … together.
- 7/10
TODAY’S SCHEDULE:
ESCAPE FROM THE 21ST CENTURY, d. Yang Li