TIFF 50 | Reviews

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TIFF 50 content commissioned by Film East. Click on the images to view the original review.

ERUPCJA (dir. Pete Ohs)

Bethany (Charli XCX) brings her reliable, but slightly drab, boyfriend, Rob (Will Madden), to her beloved Warsaw for the first time. Having first visited the city when she was 16, Bethany finds a romanticism in Poland’s capital. Rob intends to propose to Bethany here, but little does he know, whenever Bethany returns to the city, she reconnects with Nel (Lena Góra) and a volcano erupts — literally and metaphorically.  

From the moment it opens, Pete Ohs’ Erupcja grips you with its bold and stylish editing, paving an uncanny path into the film’s slightly surreal and slightly magical world. Referencing Jacques Rivette and other French auteurs, Ohs uses cinematography, music and editing to craft a film that is uncanny yet familiar. The film’s distinctive aesthetic could have been at odds with the realism of the action, but it ultimately produces a spectacle that you can’t tear your eyes away from.

While all the performances in Erupcja are captivating — especially the emotional subtleties of Góra’s body language — the drawl of the cast is pop star Charli XCX in her fictional acting debut. There is effortless chemistry between Ohs’ fantastical mise-en-scène and Charli’s superstar persona. Ohs embraces the singer’s party-girl connotations and uses them to build an unspoken depth to Bethany’s character. While Charli’s acting isn’t perfect — Bethany’s initial reunion with Nel lacked believability — she still has a magnetism on screen. Her recital of Lord Byron’s poem at the conclusion of the pair’s affair was one of the most memorable moments of the picture. Charli clearly has a talent (and, importantly, a passion) for acting; it’s only a matter of time before she becomes indie cinema’s newest darling.     

The contrast between the improvisational, mumblecore-style acting, the Eastern European fable narration and Ohs’ intentionally dreamy editing results in a full-bodied, atmospheric film that captures your imagination like all good films should. — Review by Shelby Cooke

ROSE OF NEVADA (dir Mark Jenkin)

30 years after a fishing boat disappeared at sea, decimating its village’s economy, the Rose of Nevada mysteriously returns to its harbour. The villagers, eager to get the boat working again, employ two men — Liam (Callum Turner), a drunken stranger, and Nick (George MacKay), a family man in need of cash — as crew to take the boat back out on the open water. But when they arrive with their catches, Liam and Nick discover they have been transported back in time, and the town thinks they are the men who vanished at sea 30 years ago.

Mark Jenkin’s films are folk tales; they address pressing social issues as told through the grand spectacle of creative imagination. His stories are grounded in the real Cornish fishing villages where their characters exist, but their drama is elevated through genre and cinematic technique. Rose of Nevada is no exception to this, but perhaps more mystical than his previous works.

By shooting on a vintage Bolex camera using 16mm film, Jenkin has total control over the soundscape of the film, dubbing all voices and implementing all sound effects. Jenkin takes advantage of this, crafting an auditory experience that adds to the symbolic messaging of the film. The oppressive booming of the fishing boat vibrates through your chest as if you’re one of the boat’s deckhands, undergoing the rough ocean. The excessive compression of the dialogue tracks makes the character voices feel like they’re trapped far away, neither here nor there. Rose of Nevada’s sound design is bold and commanding, much like a grand action movie. But it’s also uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing. It immerses you physically in the uncanny world these characters inhabit; you’re unable to escape it, much like Nick and Liam’s own metaphysical situation.

Rose of Nevada is Jenkin at his most surreal and abstract, but also at his most narratively focused. The story is comprehensive and enticing, while still bubbling over with intentional subtext. It’s a film that established Jenkin as an auteur in his own right, showcasing how he can challenge the craft of cinematic artistry. — Review by Shelby Cooke

SENTIMENTAL VALUE (dir. Joachim Trier)

After the death of their mother, sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Anges (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) find their estranged director father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), back in their lives. Gustav asks Nora, an acclaimed theatre actress, to star in his new film, which appears to be a retelling of his mother’s suicide. After Nora’s rejection, Gustav invites American Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) to be in his picture instead.

Joachim Trier’s newest Oslovian feature, Sentimental Value, opens with an arresting sequence, which sees Nora succumb to a debilitating panic attack before going on stage to a full house. She hyperventilates, asks her co-star (and lover) Jakob (Anders Danielsen Lie)  for a passionate kiss and a slap before ripping apart her costume while evading the stage managers. When she is finally forced onto stage, she delivers a performance worthy of a standing ovation.

We never quite learn what triggers Nora’s fear, but it appears it happens often. In this moment, we become aware that unspoken struggles plague these characters, and it’s in this space between honest connection and repressed emotion that this complicated family lives. The longing each character feels for each other is palpable — Reinsve communicates soliloquies with her eyes without ever muttering a word, while Skarsgård’s warm distance captures his desperate desire to ensure his daughters know they’re loved. The ensemble delivers a tour-de-force performance (even Danielsen Lie’s limited screentime is memorable), revealing the full spectrum of their humanity for the audience’s catharsis (not unlike Nora’s own tumultuous relationship with acting). 
 
Sentimental Value is more refined and deliberate when compared to Trier’s predecessor, The Worst Person in the World. It’s meticulous and intentional, draped in metaphor and rich in context, beautifully acted and exquisitely presented. It’s a film that displays Trier’s growth as a filmmaker and control over his vision. Because of this, it doesn’t pack as much of an emotional punch as The Worst Person in the World, but it doesn’t need to. Instead, it feels more mature in its execution and earns its place among the greats of Scandinavian cinema. — Review by Shelby Cooke

HAMNET (dir. Chloé Zhao)

The love between poet William (Paul Mescal) and naturalist Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is tested after their only son, 11-year-old Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), dies of the plague. With Agnes left in Stratford to hold together her grieving family, William escapes to London to channel his agony into his writing. Based on Maggie O'Farrell’s historical fiction novel, Hamnet dramatises the making of Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet. 

Chloé Zhao's Hamnet concludes with an explosion of catharsis, for both the characters and the audience. Furious when she discovers William’s new show is named after their late son, Agnes travels to London to watch, for the first time, one of her husband’s plays. As she stands in the front row of the Globe Theatre, immersed in the fictitious, royal world William created for their son, she understands how mourning can be translated through prose, and we, as the audience, get to experience that with her. 

Much like Shakespeare’s play, Hamnet is an exercise in catharsis: the audience is battered and bruised by the tragedy we watch unfold, allowing its sorrow to wash over us in an almost violent manner. While Zhao’s camera beautifully captures each scene — even the most distressing —  as if it were moving poetry, it’s her cast that triggers our emotional cleansing. Of course, Mescal thrives in the role of a tormented artist, but it’s Buckley’s turn as Agnes that steals the film. Her guttural unleashing of pain and bodily contortions bring you to your knees in sympathy.      

While there’s not much to fault in Zhao’s masterpiece, it could have used some more scenes to establish the family dynamics. The narrative could have lingered more on the quiet moments between Agnes and William or the parents and their children to add even more impact to Hamnet’s death. Plus, the use of Max Richter’s famous orchestration, “On Nature of Daylight,” during the film’s affecting climax is a bit distracting. Although the song is fitting for a story that depicts the unimaginable beauty of nature as well as its raging destruction, it ultimately pulls your attention away from Buckley and Mescal’s powerful performances. — Review by Shelby Cooke

GOOD BOY (dir. Jan Komasa)

Tommy (Anson Boon) is 19 years old and on a path of destruction, abusing hard drugs and fighting in the streets. After blacking out from a bender, he awakes chained up in a basement, held captive in an isolated estate home. His kidnapper, well-to-do father Chris (Stephen Graham), explains this is part of Tommy’s rehabilitation, taking drastic measures to turn him into a good boy.     

Jan Komasa’s Good Boy deregulates you from the second it starts. Opening with an abrasive montage of Tommy’s violent exploits, you’re immediately thrown into an unsettled state. It’s this anxiety that sits with you throughout Komasa’s film, constantly on edge for something more horrible to happen.        

But what makes this twisted story sing is its stars. Graham is transformative as the geeky, yet sombre, Chris, manipulating his body language to become almost unrecognisable. His cowardly, somewhat tender demeanour is quickly triggered into a frightening rage, capturing the dichotomy of a man supposedly guided by empathy. Anson Boon’s evolution from troubled menace to caring family man is captivating. He positions Tommy as an enigma that can’t be decoded. You can never quite decipher what Boon is thinking: is he playing dutiful big brother to increase his chances of escape, or is there really a part of him that values this imprisonment? And it’s not until the film’s final moments that his intentions are made clear (although, a less direct ending would have been more fitting for this story; it was unsatisfying to have Komasa leave things so plainly).       

Komasa plays on the audience’s psychology as much as he does his characters, constantly leaving you guessing what’s going to happen next in this house of horror. He forces you to confront difficult questions, asking you to sympathise with any one of these monstrous people. While all the performances in this twisted tale are superb, it’s Graham and Boon who deliver the film’s biggest chills. — Review by Shelby Cooke   

THE MAN IN MY BASEMENT (dir. Nada Latif)

Stuck in a rut and in need of cash, Charles Blakey (Corey Hawkins) is on the brink of defaulting on the mortgage of his family’s ancestral home. By almost divine intervention, a mysterious white man appears at his door and asks to rent his basement for the exact amount of money he needs to pay back the bank. Out of options, Charles invites the man, Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe), to stay, only to discover that Bennet wants more than he initially let on.   

Nadia Latif’s background as a theatre director shines through in her debut feature film. A large portion of her picture focuses on monologues and the subtle dynamics between her two leads. These scenes, under a less skilled director, could be dull and uninteresting, but Latif, with an understanding of how to make soliloquies flourish for an audience, stages these moments to make long swaths of text thrilling. 

The problem that arises with Latif’s film is that it doesn’t fully explore the metaphors it sets up. The themes established in Walter Mosley’s original novel — the subversion of racial power structures and generational racial guilt — are beautifully explored. But when it comes to the discussion of heritage and identity, things begin to get muffled. Latif establishes these ideas with great care: Anna Diop’s museum curator is introduced as a voice championing the importance of documenting ancestry to keep minority’s stories alive. Yet, instead of just letting Diop serve as a counter to Charles’ disinterest in his family’s legacy, she is demoted to the role of love interest. Additionally, the inclusion of horror elements feels unnecessary and confused, making you question where exactly this plot line is going.   

Latif gracefully tackles the vital conversation of America’s racist past and present, while still making the narrative fresh and interesting. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to fully develop the complex metaphors she sought to explore. But, even with its flaws, The Man in My Basement is a compelling debut feature that promises a bright future for Latif’s career. — Review by Shelby Cooke