Cultural Mining

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Great directors tend to make great movies. So this week I’m looking at the latest works by two famous filmmakers. There’s a family trying to replace a lost child with a robot, and a young man who finds himself as a disposable sex partner.

But first, some movies coming to the Toronto International Film Festival  by well-known filmmakers.

International Directors at #TIFF16 

Here are some features coming to TIFF by famous international directors (no Canadians, I’m doing that later) whose past movies I’ve liked. I haven’t seen any of them yet, but they all have something about them that might be worth checking out.

All of a Sudden is by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi a great, experimental Japanese director who did Drive my Car and Evil Does Not Exist.

Being Heumann is by Siân Heder who directed CODA, which I haven’t seen but it’s a biopic about the pioneer disability and accessibility rights activist Judy Heumann — and that’s what excites me.

Bitter Christmas is a time shifting comedy drama about an ad exec’s turbulent Christmas. And it’s by Pedro Almodóvar, whose movies are always worth watching.

Bunker is the work of Florian Zeller, who is hit and miss; I liked The Father, but hated The Son. But Bunker stars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, so, yeah, could be good.

Everest: The Other Side: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi — who fall in that unusual niche of docs about mountain climbing — not my favourite topic — but they made Free Solo, which was just so good. 

Fjord is by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), and it is set in Norway and stars Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Values).

Growth of the Soil is by Hans Petter Moland. I like this Norwegian director’s action thrillers (In Order of Disappearance, and Cold Pursuit, his American remake) but I really want to see it because it’s based on a novel by Knut Hamsun whose “Hunger” is one of the most powerful books I ever read.

I know nothing about Ink but it’s by Danny Boyle who brought us  Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later. That should be enough.

Look Back is Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film, and all his movies are good. (I’ve interviewed him here many times in the past, and I’ll be reviewing his previous film in about one minute — below.)

Minotaur is by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev who made the earth shattering Leviathan and Loveless about which I interviewed him on this show.

Possible Love is by the fantastic Korean director Lee Chang-dong, who brought us the stunning Burning just a few years ago.

English director Mike Leigh has said Tender Loving Care is probably is probably his last film, and all of his movies  — Secrets and Lies, Hard Truths, Happy-go-lucky — all his movies are impeccable. So I can’t wait to see this one.

These are just a few films by great directors coming to TIFF in September. 

Sheep in the Box

Wri/Dir: Kore-eda Hirokazu

It’s the near future in a small, seaside town near Kamakura, Japan. Otone (Haruka Ayase) and  Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto) are an attractive, childless couple in their thirties who own Tama-Ken construction, a small business — about 20 employees —  that builds houses to order, by hand. She models the architectural design, while he heads the construction, using traditional Japanese methods and materials.  In their free time, she putters around the house and tends to the garden. He likes going drinking with his mates or playing pachinko. But something is missing. Their lives came to a standstill two years earlier when their 5-year-old son Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki) died in a terrible incident. 

They could try for another baby, but Otone isn’t ready to start all over again; she doesn’t want to throw away all his stuff. Too soon. Kensuke keeps all his guilt and anger inside — but he’s torn apart that he wasn’t there that day to pick him up from school. But it’s not like they can get Kakeru back again… right.  Until she receives an odd little music box with. Hologram message sent by a big tech laboratory with an offer. 

They can make a humanoid duplicate, powered by AI, that looks like him, walks like him… even thinks like him, with all his good memories intact. And they’re giving these robots away for free, to families whose kids died in accidents or as a victim of crime. And if things don’t work out, they can always return him. 

They decide to give it a trial run, and Otone is shocked how close he is to the real Kakeru; it’s uncanny. He’s affectionate and shy, plays tricks on his parents, and is constantly asking them questions. He also consumes books at a superhuman speed, building up his AI content exponentially. 

But Kakeru holds secrets of his own, disappearing for hours at a time, when they think he’s recharging, inert in his room. Is he human or just a machine? Can he permanently replace a dead child? And can his parents accept this new reality? 

Sheep in the Box is an intensely-moving story about family, death and remembrance. But it’s also science fiction, that takes off in totally unexpected paths. Kore-eda is a great director, who has done fantasies before but I think this is his first strictly science fiction movie. Doesn’t matter, he’s good in any genre. What sets him apart is the way he incorporates unusual details you wouldn’t expect. For example, one character goes on at length about how to saw and plane Japanese cedar. And that’s what makes it so good; he has a way of subtly circling the crucial topics without shoving them in your face, and in doing so, allows you into the souls of the characters. He also blends in diverse, seemingly unrelated references to Le Petit Prince, intrusive grandparents, train stops, mistrust of the police —elements you won’t find in typical science fiction movies. Because this is a movie about a family and and the tenuousness and fragility in their relationships.

Sheep in the Box is a lovely movie. I recommend it.

I Want Your Sex

Dir: Gregg Araki

Not too long ago, recent grad Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) lived an ordinary life in L.A. There was nothing unusual about him: average-looking, nothing special, no unusual events in his life. He had a supportive best friend and confident named Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) and a bored scientist/girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX) who was more into studying than having sex. So why is he being interrogated by two LAPD police detectives (Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho) who accuse him of murder. He was found, they say, incoherent and babbling at a crime scene where a famous woman drowned in her swimming pool. So he tells the police his story.

It all started when he applies for a job with a famous performance artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). Her name — along with her severe haircut and leather clothes — are well known, as are her audacious and provocative pranks and her highly sexualized works of art. These include a four letter word scrawled on a black canvas, and her current piece, a woman’s vagina constructed entirely of chewed-up, bubblegum wads. Modern art is a scam, she declares.

But when he shows up for the job interview he’s surrounded by other art school students who put him to shame, dressed to kill and exuding a blasé attitude. That’s why he is shocked when — along with some others — he gets the job. He’s in awe of Erica’s mystique, so he is easily drawn into her complex machinations. She flirts with him, threatens him, yells at him and eventually seduces him. But I already have a  girlfriend, he protests. This is just sex, she assures him. And the sex is like nothing he’s ever experienced. Domination and submission, strange toys and clothes, but he agrees to do whatever she demands. This is not a relationship, she reminds him, this is not love. 

Her astringent sidekick Vikktor (Daveed Diggs) warns Eliot she is just using him — and she’s not a nice person. His self-centred colleague Zap (Mason Gooding) warns him to look out. And his best friend Apple tries to set him straight. But the starry-eyed Elliot is infatuated with Erika, and allows her to drag him to ever deeper levels of degradation… until something snaps. What is Erika’s hidden agenda? Will she ever love Eliot like he loves her? And whose body is floating in the swimming pool?

I Want Your Sex is a brilliant, satirical look at the contemporary art scene in LA. It’s also a non-rom- com, a coming of age story about a naive young man discovering the world, and a twisted play on relationships. Cooper Hoffman and Livia Wilde are excellent as the mismatched not-couple. 

Gregg Araki was a pioneer California punk/surf/indie/queer director from the late 80s till the present day, notable for his unpredictable, sexually-charged, surreal adventures of nihilistic youth of the Doom Generation. Movies like The Living End, Nowhere,  and Mysterious Skin. I like pretty much all his movies, but he hadn’t directed his own stuff in well over a decade, so I was a bit nervous over what Give Me Your Sex would be like. Fortunately, fans of Araki will not be disappointed. It’s funny, playful and sexually extreme, while viewing contemporary culture through an acerbic lens. He knows how to grab onto trends and ideas, coining new catchphrases while piercing societal pretensions. 

He’s still got it. 

I Want Your Sex and Sheep in the Box both open this weekend; check your local listings. And tickets to TIFF will be on sale from mid-August. 

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website  culturalmining.com