TIFF 2024: Day Six

Back to work.

Sep 11, 2024

Had my first screener disappear yesterday. Went to watch it and it was gone. Seems the studio asked the publicist to pull all the links they had already sent out. Still have a few active ones in my inbox, though. And I might send emails to a couple publicists and request a “dealer’s choice” if they are looking for more press on certain titles.

When awards get handed out this weekend, the emails about those titles will start arriving for last minute coverage too. A festival’s work is never done until it’s done.

I’ll try to get to two a day if possible depending on the day job. The one thing about having to quarantine in the attic post-TIFF, though, is that I have plenty of time at night even if work proves busy during the day.

REVIEWS:

THE ASSESSMENT

(World Premiere - September 8th - UK/Germany/USA - English)

“Regardless of whether THE ASSESSMENT bit off more than it could chew, I did still enjoy it. The themes are sound, if also somewhat overt. The production design is amazing. And the acting keeps us engaged throughout.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

THE BALLAD OF SUZANNE CÉSAIRE

(Canadian Premiere - September 10th - USA - English/French)

I often struggle with TIFF Wavelengths titles and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s THE BALLAD OF SUZANNE CÉSAIRE is no exception. To fit in that program means to be abstract. Experimental. Non-narrative. And while all those things are fine—my brain simply can’t always get onboard. This is especially true when the work is so esoteric and open-ended that I can’t for the life of me understand what’s really going on until I read the synopsis and/or director’s statement to explain what it is the film itself does not.
To go in blind is to see what appears to be two actors playing two characters: Zita Hanrot as Suzanne Césaire and Motell Gyn Foster as her husband Aimé. To keep watching, however, past all the gorgeous visuals and wonderful soundtrack (courtesy of Sabine McCalla), is to find the camera expanding the frame beyond the fictional. Suddenly Hanrot and Foster are speaking in their own voices. Or reading from pages strewn about the jungle. We see a production truck. Watch crew members take light readings. And meet a crying newborn baby. The blurring lines between performance and documentary demand guidance.
Maybe that’s just me, though. Only when I read how it depicts “an actress and new mother haunted by voices as she embarks on inhabiting the role of Suzanne Césaire” do I even start to see the connections. It still doesn’t quite help everything gel, but I finally have some footing with which to begin to interpret the whole as more than just disjointed vignettes of Césaire’s words and those of the filmmaker. Without it, the film proves to be little more than vibes to me. And that’s okay too. I know a lot of people who love this type of formal experiment to dive into, it’s just not my cup of tea.
It's ultimately a very personal piece of art that depicts Hunt-Ehrlich's relationship with Césaire's writing and life. A look into her mind to get to the heart of her experience with it and its resulting meaning and impact. So, I’d recommend hearing her contextualize it first before viewing. Much like an art exhibit comes with a booklet of intent and purpose. Without that it’s just an effective sensorial event that disappears from my consciousness the moment it’s complete.

THE COURAGEOUS

[Les Courageux]

(World Premiere - September 10th - Switzerland - French)

A cafe owner who has spent an hour watching three young children steadily lose their composure to boredom asks if their mother often abandons them like this. The eldest, Jasmine Kalisz Saurer’s Claire, says she never has. Not before. Not now. But despite intentions and as yet unknown context, that is exactly what Jule (Ophelia Kolb) did. She brought the kids to this diner and ordered a single lemonade before they could even sit down, knowing the act of becoming a paying customer allows for a certain amount of leniency when she ultimately disappears. It’s an intriguing opening scene because it forces us to judge this character without allowing her space to defend herself. We concur with the woman left babysitting.
Let’s just say this presumption of who Jule is doesn’t objectively change as a result of her actions in the aftermath either. Director Jasmin Gordon and screenwriter Julien Bouissoux (the two share a story credit) are dealing in nuance with their film THE COURAGEOUS. Rather than feed into the superficiality of stereotypes, they lean into the complexities beneath the façade. Yes, Jule left them to fend for themselves in that diner without knowing if she’d be able to return when needed. But who’s to say she didn’t do it for them? Yes, Jule has obviously moved them around and changed their schools too many times to count. But is the alternative better? Should she split them up? Put them into foster homes? When does the system hold blame?
Therein lies the substance within the story on-screen. It’s less about what Jule does and more about why she does it. Because she’s definitely not winning any “mothers of the year” awards for what she’s doing. She lies to everyone around her to save face, but she’s also desperately trying to construct an illusion of normalcy to ensure her children don’t realize the damage being wrought. Jule is a criminal adorned with an ankle monitor who is banned from the local supermarket and can’t find full-time employment. She’s three months behind on rent, berates those trying to assist her for not doing enough, and finds the mounting anxiety crushing her soul has made it so she doesn’t know the only thing her kids really want is her.
That’s the real tragedy. A parent stretched so thin that she cannot see what truly matters. So, Jule spends all her time and energy chasing a house she can’t afford. She’s constantly leaving the children alone to the point where Claire catches on that something isn’t right. The younger Loïc (Paul Besnier) and Sami (Arthur Devaux) aren’t oblivious—they merely don’t understand the depths of what’s happening and can flip that switch from sadness to joy quicker due to impulses overpowering senses. Claire can’t anymore and she makes it known by stopping herself long enough to ask her mother what’s wrong. But instead of making Jule see she must slow down, that question conversely speeds her up to make things right.
Everything is therefore a con. Even going to the beach. Jule is taking cues from everyone else because she’s lost the plot on simple happiness in pursuit of a larger happiness beyond her means. And it’s not entirely her fault. Society is built in such a way that it will always be easier to fall from grace into poverty with no way of escaping than it is to rise above working poor status into financial stability. One hiccup is all it takes to set off a chain reaction that leaves her running from one potential solution to the next. And if none of those pan out, she has no choice but to take greater risks and make worse mistakes. Not because she doesn’t love her children. Precisely because she does.
It’s difficult subject matter matched by a difficult central performance. Because despite not liking what Jule does, we must still empathize with who she is. All the credit goes to Kolb for allowing this character the strength to fight and the vulnerability to fail. There aren’t many wins here—and those that do exist don’t last for long. But Jule is trying. She won’t give up. And if anyone dares to assume she’s selfishly neglecting her kids, she won’t think twice about putting that person in his/her place (Michel Voïta’s school principal deserved a lot worse than he gets after what he implies more than once). When you’re backed against the wall with avenues for help more often than not making things worse, what else is there to do?
Despite the success of Kolb’s portrayal and the themes inherent to it, however, THE COURAGEOUS still frustrates in the way it’s constructed. I’m on the fence about the breadth of unanswered questions because I love being thrown into drama to see how characters react, but there’s a point where knowing things becomes necessary to invest in those reactions. In many ways we’re watching the film through Claire’s eyes (understanding the macro issues at-hand without grasping the finer details leading to them) yet following Jule outside of the girl’s vision. The latter demands we want to know more. The former refuses to allow the possibility. So, this push and pull can minimize the stakes. Thankfully Kolb rarely lets us forget them completely.
- 6/10

HERETIC

(World Premiere - September 8th - USA - English)

“Credit the strength of Grant's performance too—a fork-tongued vaudeville act meant to distract us as much as his victims. HERETIC might not be as smart as it thinks, but boy is it fun.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

QUOTA

[Quotum]

(Short Cuts 5 - September 10th - Netherlands - English)

It’s always the same sentiment: I don’t need to worry because it doesn’t affect me. This is especially true in our current cable news era now that everything has been politicized for profit. Watching a person being persecuted should ignite you to action because injustice never stops. As long as that door is opened, it will swing wider and wider until you become the next victim to be ignored. And the same is true for the planet. Thinking that you can do whatever you want with complete disregard for its impact on a future you won’t be alive to witness only works if you’re dead before the bill comes due.
We’ve been kicking the can of climate change for so long that the end of the road has finally arrived. It’s not an issue for your kids and grandkids to solve. There might not even be a solution. And it’s difficult not to laugh considering I’m old enough to remember what environmental protections and scientific responsibility can achieve. All anyone talked about thirty years ago was the hole in the ozone layer and we collectively repaired it by agreeing with the truth that we could. Global warming had that same potential. There was a hardline temperature threshold to avoid and we did nothing. More than nothing. We made it worse.
And because we’re still doing it despite the increase in extreme weather phenomenon and melting ice caps, it’s only fitting that the Oscar-nominated Dutch animation trio of Job Roggeveen, Joris Oprins, Marieke Blaauw would lean into the absurdity of our complicity in our own self-destruction via their short film QUOTA. They not only skewer our indifference to the problem, but also our vain addiction to social media. Because it’s one thing to intentionally act as though none of the obvious signs matter. It’s another to want to tell the world you do while leveraging that apathy into views.
The characters are therefore both laughing at the premise of a new app that counts down their carbon footprint from 100% to zero and disregarding its impact on their own lives until the constant beeping becomes white noise. Little do they know, however, is that their own personal hardlines aren’t set to just stop that sound. Think of it instead as Mother Nature holding their feet to the fire: shape up or suffer the consequences now rather than pushing them off for the next generation. Because it’s only when the hurt hits home that we take notice. Sometimes that revelation provides room to improve. Sometimes it comes too late.
Anyone who’s a fan of Job, Joris & Marieke’s previous work will have a good idea about which is true here. They wield humor in a way that ensures the viewer recognizes the stupidity of their actions isn’t simply “cute” like the cubist-style humans acting as our placeholders on-screen. Our disregard for science is literally walking us towards a hellscape we cannot avoid. So, we laugh at the inevitable screams and blood because it’s funny, but also take pause in the realization that the scenario isn’t the joke here. We are.
- 8/10

RELAY