Award season. Films reviewed: The Secret Agent, Eternity, Hamnet
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
One of the nice things about Toronto is the huge variety of people, music sports and culture. Imagine what mash ups they can generate! I just saw a show called Opera Mania, which combined actual singers from Opera Revue and genuine tag-team pro wrestlers! We were literally in ringside seats, arms-length from fighters body-slamming to the romance of Carmen’s Toreador and opera singers bouncing off the ropes while warbling flawless arias! All on a real-live wrestling ring. Never in my life…
This week, I’m looking at three new movies that played at TIFF this year and are finally being released theatrically. There’s an action thriller set in 1970s Brazil, an historical drama in Elizabethan England, and a rom-com set somewhere this side of heaven.
The Secret Agent
Wri/Dir: Kleber Mendonça Filho
It’s the 1970s in Brazil. Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a bearded, bushy-haired prof heading north from Sao Paolo — where he’s lived for many years — to Recife. He’s trying to keep a step ahead of the authoritarian government’s agents and to make sure his son is being safely taken care of. What he doesn’t realize is a pair of ruthless hitmen have been hired to rub him out. He shows up at Dona Sebastiana’s home, which she has transformed into a safe haven. It’s a place where political activists (like Marcelo), dissidents, leftists, refugees from Portuguese speaking Angola, gay men, and other persecuted individuals can find a safe place to hide. Because of the importance of secrecy, they only use code names. And everyone is a bit wary of strangers. Marcelo changes both his name and his look, from hippy to clean cut, with an official-looking moustache, and lands a job at the highly corrupt local police force. They take a liking to him and place him in plain view at the station. He uses his job to look for his late mother’s missing papers, to clear up a long-held mystery. He also gets to see his son, who is staying with his late wife’s dad who runs a movie theatre. Can Marcelo 
secure his son’s safety, discover his family history, and keep his identity a secret from the two men who want him dead?
The Secret Agent a taut action thriller set in 1970s Brazil, before the fall of the military dictatorship. Always exciting and fast-moving with a complex plot, it’s full of disguises, bugging, lurid newspaper headlines, chase scenes and shootouts. Lots of blood. The plot is revealed both through flashbacks and flash forwards — strange scenes where unexplained present-day researchers are looking through old files to find out what really happened in this case. Wagner Moura is a total movie star, who switches identity more times than you realize over the course of the film. Now, I can’t help comparing this to last year’s stunning Brazilian drama I’m Still Here, also set during the dictatorship, but they are very different movies. This one is mainly there for the entertainment, sort of an I’m Still Here-lite.
But this is not a complaint — I loved this movie.
Eternity
Co-Wri/Dir: David Freyne (Review: Dating Amber)
Larry and Joan (Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen) are a happily married elderly couple, heading to a grandchild’s birthday party. Sure, they argue all the time, but that’s because they know each other so well. And they have to deal with Joan’s cancer.. But when Larry chokes to death on a pretzel at the party, he suddenly finds himself in a strange new world. It’s like Grand Central Station, with trains departing every few minutes. Is he in Heaven? No, it’s a way-station called The Junction, where you choose where to spend eternity. And to help with that decision, there’s a huge convention space with hundreds of booths, each catering to specific tastes. Maybe you like museums, or the great outdoors, or lying on a beach. Or maybe you want to spend eternity as a tourist in 1960s Paris, where everyone speaks English but with a heavy French accent. There’s something for everyone, and you have a week to decide. But Larry wants to wait for Joan, so they can choose a place together. Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is his AC (afterlife coordinator) who is supposed to help him on his way, but doesn’t approve of him sticking around. Luckily he finds a sympathetic ear in Luke, a handsome young bartender (Callum Turner) to whom he pours out all his troubles.
He finally consents to leave the Junction, when… he sees Joan just arriving! She’s young and beautiful, in her early 20s (Larry is in the body of his 35-year-old self; when you die you revert to your favourite age.) Now that all his troubles are solved, he’s ready to leave with Joan. But not so fast! Joan was married before she met Larry and her husband died in the Korean War. And it just happens that her late first husband is none other than Luke, the Bartender. He’s been waiting for 
Joan in the junction for 60 years. Will Joan choose to spend eternity with Larry, her long time partner? Or with her first true love?
Eternity is a fantasy/ romantic comedy with an unusual view of the afterlife. It’s a “high concept” movie with a simple question: should you choose a lifelong partner, or a passionate lover? And there are some fun parts: I liked the cheesy convention centre, the commuter train motif, and the Archives they visit (no spoiler). But they don’t do much with it; it devolves into a very basic rom-com, barely exploring the potentially fun aspects of the story. A former teen idol, Miles Teller plays his role as a grumpy old man trapped in a younger man’s body, but he does it in a most unappealing way. Callum Turner as Luke is also uninspiring, and while Elizabeth Olson is better as their object of interest, there’s still not much to go on. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early provide much-needed comic relief as the ACs, but you can’t rescue a ship that already sank.
I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with any of them.
Hamnet
Co-Wri/Dir: Chloe Zhao
(Reviews: Songs My Brother Taught Me, Nomadland)
It’s England in the late 16th century. Will (Paul Mescal) is a part-time tutor expected to follow in his family business as a glover. But his Dad is nasty and cruel, so he wants to get as far away from him as he can. One day he meets a young woman named Agnes (Jessie Buckley), like no one he’s ever met before. She’s a witch and a healer who knows how to make poultices and tinctures, and carries a trained falcon on her arm. She knows all the secrets of the forest, including the sacred caves and ancient trees, passed on to her for generations. She is suspicious of Will’s worth, but eventually he proves his love, they marry and have children. Although he spends much of his time in the city, when he’s home he loves playing with the twins, especially his son Hamnet whom he teaches how to defend himself with a wooden sword. So Will and Agnes are crushed when Hamnet succumbs to the plague while Will is away writing. 
How will they deal with the death of their young son?
Hamnet is a lovely, rich and extremely moving film about William Shakespeare, his wife and the death of their son. It’s based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell. It starts as a slow-moving historical romance, with lots and lots of details about daily life in Elizabethan England. You almost think — what’s the point of this movie? But then it turns into an amazing, emotional story, culminating in a no-holds- barred performance of Hamlet, which Will wrote about their son. (Noah Jupe, the actor who plays Hamlet in the play-in-the-movie is the real life brother of Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet). Paul Mescal is appropriately restrained as Will, but Jesse Buckley holds nothing back, she puts her heart and soul into this role. If you’re not gushing tears by the end of this movie, I don’t know what to say.
Hamnet is a must-see.
Secret Agent, Eternity, and Hamnet are all playing right now in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
It’s dangerous! Films reviewed: Daniela Forever, Apocalypse in the Tropics, We Were Dangerous
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Guillermo del Toro, the celebrated director who splits his time between Mexico and Canada, has curated a series of classic Canadian horror movies called From Rabid to Skinamarink: Canadian Movie Madness, playing at the TIFF Lightbox this weekend. I happen to have seen everyone of them myself, and I totally agree with del Toro’s selection. You can catch Canadian gems like the feminist werewolf drama Ginger Snaps, Vincenzo Natali’s cult-hit Cube, Kyle Edward Ball’s experimental Skinamarink, and many more.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies from abroad: a surreal fantasy from Spain, a politically documentary from Brazil, and a period drama from New Zealand.
Daniela Forever
Wri/Dir: Nacho Vigalondo
It’s present-day Madrid. Nicolas (Henry Golding: Crazy Rich Asians) is a popular DJ at the city’s hottest nightclubs. But he is thrown into a deep depression when his girlfriend, an artist named Daniela (Beatrice Grannò: The White Lotus) is killed by a negligent driver just outside his home. But things take a turn for the better when a good friend of his, Victoria (Nathalie Poza), tells him of a new, experimental drug that might be just what he needs. But it’s top secret, filled with non-disclosure clauses, and requires regular visits to the pharmaceutical labs. The scientists there tell him each pill, if taken just before bed, will produce lucid dreams, real visions where he can control the content and won’t forget about them when he wakes up. This means he can bring Daniela back to life, at least while he sleeps. But he soon discovers its limitations: he can’t dream about something he’s never seen. If he turns down an ally he’s never visited, it will be covered in unformed, writhing grey matter. Kinda creepy.
Daniela seems artificial at first, but as time progresses, she starts turning real. She even produces creative ideas and thoughts that he doesn’t remember ever experiencing in the awake world. And far from seeming etherial, his lucid dreams are now wide- screen images in living colour, while awake 
time is small and drab. He can take Daniela to new places just by thinking about them and opening a door, and change the city of Madrid into something out of one of her paintings. But he soon realizes, not everything is going the way he planned. And when things from his dream world start appearing in awake time, he has to wonder what is real? Can he be in love with someone who doesn’t exist? And can she ever really love him if she’s just a figure of his imagination?
Forever Daniela is a highly- creative science fiction romance about love, death and reality. While it sounds like a Black Mirror jump-scare thriller, it actually avoids most “bad” things except for the sadness of mourning. It also has a very surprising twist at the end (no spoilers). The film is Spanish, but most of the dialogue is in English. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) is appealing as the leading man, but runs into a bit of acting trouble when he tries to do a full-fledged meltdown. The special effects are excellent, fooling around with unusual concepts like daytime light and shadows in a nighttime environment. I quite like the writer/director Nacho Vigalondo
for the way he incorporates horror movie elements within an otherwise realistic context (like his film Colossal a few years ago.) So if you’re looking for something that’s surreal and supernatural but told in a positive, though bittersweet, way, I think you’ll like Daniela Forever.
Apocalypse in the Tropics
Wri/Dir: Petra Costa
Brasilia — a capital city designed, planned and built from the ground up — was meant to be modern, secular and democratic. But after a coup-d’etat in 1964, Brazil became something other than democratic: a military dictatorship which ruled for the next two decades. So when a new, populist right-wing leader with military ties emerged in the 2010s, many Brazilians were wary of democracy falling again. But Jair Bolsonaro was different, a politician who changed his power base when he forged ties with evangelical Christians.
Apocalypse in the Tropics traces Brazilian politics over the past decade and the rise in religion within government policies. It also gives background, from the building of the capital, through the military coup, American evangelist Billy Graham, the return to democracy, and more recent developments. It uses beautiful period footage, lush music and symbolic paintings — like Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — as a metaphoric portrayal of millenarian changes in Brazilian politics. It is narrated by the filmmaker and includes her one-on-one interviews with Bolsonaro, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the wildly popular televangelist, Silas Malafaia, who served as 
Bolsonaro’s right-hand man. We witness Malafaia’s sermons before huge crowds — shouting his opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and feminism — as well as intimate conversations aboard his private plane. The doc also shows new footage of the beloved capital Brazilia occupied and trashed by massive demonstrators, who called for a coup after Bolsonaro’s defeat.
Apocalypse in the Tropics is a follow-up to Petra Costa’s 2019 film The Edge of Democracy with similar footage, style, and topic but concentrating this time on religion’s role in government policies. I’m not sure if this is a sequel, a reshoot or a continuation, but either way, it’s as aesthetically beautiful as it is disturbing.
We Were Dangerous
Wri/Dir Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu
It’s the 1950s on a small island somewhere off the coast of New Zealand, where three girls share a cabin: Daisy, Nelly and Lou (Manaia Hall, Erana James, and Nathalie Morris). They were sent there by the authorities or their parents. Te Motu is a school for “incorrigible” girls or, as the administrators call them, “whores, queers, delinquents and sexual deviants.” Many are orphans or runaways caught stealing food, like Daisy or Nelly. Lou is the exception. She comes from a rich family but was caught making out with her (female) tutor. The school operates under the strict rule of Matron (Rima Te Wiata), who has a cruel streak a mile long. Raised by nuns, she feels the only way to cure these girls’ bad attitudes is through the bible and the lash. Naturally the girls all want to get the hell out of there, but it’s hard to escape from an isolated island in the south pacific. The purpose of the school is to turn bad girls into happy homemakers. They are given lessons in diction and manners but not reading or math. 
Matron is frustrated by their outcome: She says they are “too stupid for school, to uncivilized to be maids and too barbaric to work”. Every so often, Matron is visited by men in suits from the mainland, one of whom suggests a horrifying treatment. But when Nelly find out, the three girls decide they have to do something to stop it.
We Were Dangerous is a moving, coming-of-age story about girls surviving in 1950s New Zealand. It’s bright and exuberant, full of playfulness and dancing, Haka and history, and though fictional, it tackles the very real issue of the mistreatment of indigenous girls. The acting is excellent all around, full of subtle clues and delightful details. For a first film, Stewart-Te Whiu avoids many potential stumbles and instead gives us a solid film that’s fun to watch. It played at ImagineNative this year, and is definitely worth seeing.
Apocalypse in the Tropics is playing this weekend at HotDocs and will be streaming on Netflix this coming week; Daniela Forever opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings; and We Were Dangerous is available now on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Disappeared. Films reviewed: Dark Match, I’m Still Here
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You may have heard about Sook-Yin Lee’s indie movie Paying For It, starring Dan Beirne as graphic novelist Chester Brown, and Emily Le as Sunny, modelled on Sook-yin herself as a TV VJ in the 1990s. It’s about their relationship after they broke up, when Chester decides only to sleep with paid sex workers. I interviewed Sook-yin and Dan way back in August on this show, and later ranked the movie on my Best-of-the-Year list. Well, good news: you can finally see Paying for It on the big screen starting this weekend. Check it out, it’s very cool, very indie and very local.
But this week I’m looking at two other new movies: a family drama set in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, during the military dictatorship; and a horror movie about pro-wrestlers in the sticks of northern Alberta in the 1980s.
Dark Match
Wri/Dir: Lowell Dean
It’s 1988, and a team of pro-wrestlers are getting ready for a big match in a small town somewhere north of Edmonton, Alberta. They’re there under the direction of a sleazy promoter named Rusty Beans (Jonathan Cherry). The wrestlers have worked together for years and know all the rules: the good guys win and the heels lose. This goes for men and women alike. And Nick — aka Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa) — doesn’t like it. She’s a damn good wrestler and wants some wins… along with a raise. But it’s always Kate the Great (Sara Canning) who gets the cheers while she gets the boos. The only ones she can complain to are the enigmatic Enigma (Mo Jabari) who never speaks or takes off his lucha libre mask… and Joe. She spends most of her off-time with Mean Joe Lean (Steven Ogg) a veteran wrestler, and a heel like her. It’s ambiguous whether they’re a couple or “friends with benefits”. Either way, they keep it on the down low. But (back to the story) everything went wrong when she lost her temper in the ring, which left her facing a pay cut and maybe losing her job altogether. Until, out of the blue, Rusty comes by with some good news for a change. They’ve all been offered a gig in a village they’ve never heard of somewhere up north. It pays really well, maybe even a cut of the door. It’s for a dark match — a special wrestling show, for their eyes only, with no cameras present. So they all pile into Rusty’s old rusty van and head into the sticks. When they get there, things seem a bit fishy. Joe think’s they’re all 
rednecks or Jesus freaks, led by a mysterious leader in a cowboy hat (Chris Jericho).
But hey, a gig’s a gig. Things get stranger the night before the big event. They stumble into some kind of weird orgy involving handcuffs, a hot tub, a threesome, a suckling pig, and some glowing green plonk. They wake up the next morning with aches and pains all over. But that’s just the beginning. The match is not what they’re used to. There are armed guards with AK47s standing outside the locked door of their green room. And the wrestlers aren’t coming back after their match! What’s going on… and why? Miss Behavin’, Mean Joe Lean and Enigma realize they have to do something… but can they stand up to a crowd of bloodthirsty satanic fans?
Dark Match is a horror movie about a wrestling match gone wild at the headquarters of a bizarre religious cult on the Canadian prairies. It’s bloody and gory with a hint of the 
supernatural at work. The cast is composed of both professional actors and pro-wrestlers (who, as we all know, do their own fair share of acting). It’s loaded with 80s music, big hair and grainy video footage with lurid red lighting. I was surprised how much I liked this sleazy, gritty B-movie, and I’m not even a wrestling fan. Of course you have to be comfortable with extreme violence, blood and death — it’s that kind of horror — but it’s also quite funny and goofy, too. So if you’re jonesing for some western-Canadian gore, Dark Match is it.
I’m Still Here
Dir: Walter Salles
It’s the early 1970s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Paivas are an upper middle class family who live so close to Leblon beach they can walk there barefoot. Eunice, their mom (Fernanda Torres) loves to float in the waves; she finds it relaxing. With five kids to take care of, she needs a bit of down time. Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), the dad, is an engineer and former congressman for the Labour Party. He loves whisky, cigars and playing foosball with the kids. His firm is working on a huge project, an underground tunnel. But they still find time to get together with their close circle of friends and families: intellectuals, journalists, artists and activists, all on the left. Then there are the five kids: four girls: Veroca, Eliana, Babiu, and Ana, and one boy, Marcello. They love beach volleyball, soccer, pop music and a fluffy dog they find on the beach. Rubens names him Pimpão, after Verona’s shaggy friend.
But a dark cloud hangs over their otherwise idyllic lives. Brazil is ruled by a right-wing military dictatorship and they’re using a series of kidnappings of European diplomats to question and harass anyone vaguely on the ‘left”. Vera is sent off to London for her own safety. Then one day, five sketchy men invade 
their home draw the curtains, and without a warrant drive Rubens away to an unnamed location. When Eunice tries to free him, the government denies they ever took him. It’s up to Eunice to take care of the kids as she tries to find him. Has he been disappeared?
I’m Still Here is the incredibly moving, true story of a Brazilian family, based on the bestselling memoirs of their son, Marcello. While it covers the secret arrest of Rubens Paiva by the military dictatorship it’s also about the repercussions it had on the lives of Eunice, their entire family, their friends, and the country of Brazil as a whole. And that’s where it hits you — the intimate details of a remarkable family’s everyday lives: the super-8 movies they record, the records they listen to. I though it was going to be just an historical retelling of an important event. But it’s actually about everything, good and bad, that the family goes through. Now I’m not Brazilian, I don’t live on a beach in Rio, but for some reason I totally identified with this family, I felt a real connection.
Walter Salles directs an epic movie like this every decade or so, films like The Motorcycle Diaries and Central Station. 
Apparently he had personal ties to the Paiva family as a young man. Fernanda Torres gives an amazingly nuanced performance as Eunice, that had my eyes tearing up. I’m Still Here has been nominated for three oscars — best actress, best picture and best foreign film — and rightly so. I can’t say enough good things about this movie.
Dark Match and I’m Still Here are both opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Gangsters and gangstas. Films reviewed: Yakuza Princess, Mogul Mowgli
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF starts in less than a week, but it’s a bit different this year. The press is under a total embargo, even for capsule reviews. But I can tell you about some of the changes. Unlike last year which was totally digital, this year they’re showing movies both on the big screen and digitally (at home). They also claim there will be no tickets, no badges, and no line-ups. No line ups? Unless they’ve mastered the art of teleportation, I’m not sure how they’ll get people into theatres without queues… but we shall see.
This week I’m looking at two new movies — an action thriller and a musical drama. There’s a young woman in Brazil pursued by Japanese gangsters; and a Pakistani-British rapper in London chased by visions in his head.
Yakuza Princess
Co-Wri/Dir:Vicente Amorim
(based on the graphic novel by Danilo Beyruth)
Liberdade is the Japanese-Brazilian section of Sao Paolo, one of the largest communities of ethnic Japanese in the world, outside of Japan. Akemi (Masumi) is there to improve her Portuguese. She has a part-time job selling LED lighting at a booth in the market working for a strict boss. In her free time, she practices Kendo, a martial art using bamboo swords. She’s devoted to her sensei, who stresses the importance of these lessons. And she loves singing at the local karaoke bar.
But due to an unexpected turn of events, she meets a strange man with no name (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). He has total amnesia — he doesn’t know who he is ,where he’s from and why he’s there. His face is covered with scars; he recently evaded a police-watch at his hospital bed where the cops wanted to question him about a certain sword, found beside his nearly-lifeless body. He also wants to know about the sword — he recognizes its importance — the only thing he can remember. Akemi has to fight off three aggressive young punks who cat-call her as she performs her song. 
They stalk her home and threaten and break into her apartment. She fights them off using her latent skills in self-defence, but it’s three-to-one, until the sword-wielding scarface steps in to help. Then a third player enters the picture and joins in the fight. Takeshi (Ihara Tsuyoshi) is a highly ranked member of a powerful Yakuza clan. (The Yakuza refers to organized crime groups and their devoted members who are both powerful but also outcasts within Japanese society.) He’s in Brazil on a mission: to track down Akemi, the only surviving member of a faction wiped out in a power struggle 20 years earlier when she was just a little girl. She knows nothing about any of this. Which of these two men is her ally… and which one is her killer? Takeshi, the ruthless Yakuza or the scar-faced swordsman with amnesia? And where did his strangely alluring Katana sword come from?
Yakuza Princess, as the title suggests, is an action/thriller about an ordinary young woman who discovers she’s the heiress to a faction of gangsters whose rivals are trying to kill. This is a Brazilian movie, and the script is in three languages English Japanese and Portuguese. It’s also pretty kitschy 
in its fetishistic version of Japanese culture, filled silent ritual bows and singing swords. But movies like this are allowed to be kitschy — they’re all about the fights: sword fights, fist-fights, jiu jitsu matches, gun battles and chase scenes. All of which are nicely choreographed. Ihara Tsuyoshi is a former stuntman, Masumi is a singer-actress, and Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been playing dangerous pretty-boys in TV series and movies for many years. In this one though, his face is so covered in scars and blood he’s barely recognizable (probably so stuntmen can play him in the fight scenes.) Yakuza Princess may be super-cheesy and bloody with a convoluted plot, but it’s a fun action thriller. With an ending that suggests many more sequels yet to come.
Mogul Mowgli
Dir: Bassam Tariq
Z (Riz Ahmed) is a rising South-Asian English rapper. He just finished a sold-out American tour and he’s flying high, hanging with his American girlfriend Bina and his British manager. And now he’s slated to go on a world tour, as the opening act for a superstar. This is the big break he’s been waiting for. So he decides to spend a week in London’s East End with his family who he hasn’t seen for two years. But nothing has changed. The new dishwasher is still sitting there in a box. His bedroom is full of the cassette tapes he rapped to as a teenager. His dad (Alyy Khan) is a failed entrepreneur full of get-rich -quick schemes that never get off the ground. And his mom (Sudha Bhuchar) has her own quirks. When the chilli peppers she chars over a burner gives off no aroma — she says it’s a bad sign. Turns out she’s right. Z is suddenly afflicted by an unidentified ailment.
Within a day or two his muscles cease to function. He can’t walk, can barely even stand up. But his world tour is leaving in a couple days! IN the hospital a doctor had worse news. It’s an autoimmune disorder of unknown origin. Luckly there’s a new tincture they can try on him — it just might work.
But among many possible side effect is the loss of fertility. And even worse, his manager wants to replace him own the world tour with an awful rapper wannabe. Suddenly the famous performer is emasculated and immobile, deserted by his friends and depending on his eccentric parents’ superstitions to get through the day. Under the influence of the experimental meds he slips into a twilight zone of dreams, visions and hallucinations. Will he live or will he die? Will his former powers be restored? Can his career and reputation be rescued? And will his self-confidence ever return?
Mogul Mowgli is a brilliant showcase for the great young British actor Riz Ahmed. It’s hilarious surprising, and filled with sharp self-criticism. It chronicles the fall of a famous rapper — Riz Ahmed 
wrote his own versus — and the loss of face that entails. It also reveals the inner-workings of the London Pakistani community — at home, in the mosque and in the wider world. And how the children of immigrants navigate their split identities. Everything Z sees and hears makes its way into the versus he’s constantly composing in his head. It’s told in an almost surreal manner, through the inner workings of a possibly dying man’s mind. Z is haunted by a groom whose face is covered with garlands of flowers, while his hospital gown morphs into a sequinned suit.
I really liked this movie.
Mogul Mowgli and Yakuza Princess are both opening theatrically and/or digitally across Canada this weekend — check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Young Lovers. Films reviewed: Angelfish, Man Proposes, God Disposes, And Then We Danced
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
How is cinema faring at the start of this new decade? In Toronto, at least, it looks a bit grim. Our biggest film festival has laid off much of their staff, our largest theatre chain is about to be devoured by a British conglomerate, and one of the biggest downtown movie theatre is slated for demolition. But have no fear, the movies are still here. You can see super-8 movies over the weekend at the Polish Combatants’ Hall (SPK) on Beverley St; The magnificently refurbished Paradise Theatre is showing first-run art house films in a splendid setting. And TIFF’s Next Wave festival is offering free screenings of young directors for free if your under 25.
So this week I’m looking at three new movies about young love. There’s a Polish criminal pursuing a woman he doesn’t love, a Georgian dancer dealing with forbidden love, and a young couple in the Bronx trying to see if love can work.
Angelfish
Dir: Peter Lee
It’s the early 1990s in the Bronx. Brandon (Jimi Stanton) lives with his little brother Conner and alcoholic mom (Erin Davie) in Kingsbridge, a working-class white neighbourhood. He works behind the deli counter at the local grocery store to help pay rent. Eva (Princess Nokia) lives in nearby Marble Hill a Puerto Rican enclave in the north tip of Harlem. Her mother moved there to make a better life for Eva and her severely handicapped brother Julio. She’s planning on studying accounting at College to please her mom, but yearns to be an actress. The two meet by chance in the grocery store when Brandon stops a guy aggressively hitting on her.
They meet again at the local movie theatre, and when they spend a day together by the waterfront sparks fly. Is it love? But
family duties intrude on their budding relationship: Julio needs constant care from Eva. And Brandon should be paying more attention to the sketchy guys Conner is hanging with. Is their love destined to fail? Or can they overcome all the roadblocks between them?
Angelfish is a touching, low-budget and low-key look at ordinary people balancing love with responsibilities. Despite the Tony-and-Maria dynamics and the dark-alley locations, this is no West Side Story redux. The two are less of a Romeo and Juliet separated by race, than a young couple living up to expectations and dealing with grinding poverty.
Man Proposes, God Disposes
Dir: Daniel Leo
It’s a few years back in Gdansk, Poland. Karol (Mateusz Nedza) is a wiry guy in his twenties who lives with his mom and little sister. He sports a shaved head, a pencil moustache and a black watch cap. He makes his living through burglary and petty crime and spends his illicit earnings at nightclubs, picking up women. Bruna (Bruna Massarelli) is a middle-class university student in São Paolo with burgundy hair, freckled cheeks and sensual lips. Their paths crossed in Europe in a soon forgotten one-night stand. But an unexpected phone call brings them together again. She’s pregnant with his 
child. Karol makes his way to Brazil and shows up – unannounced and uninvited- at her apartment door. Things are prickly between them, and he acts arrogant.
His only friend is Cici (Erick Mozer) a water deliverer boy he meets on the street. He takes over his job, unheard of for a European in São Paolo. Mateusz is uneducated and penniless, looked down on by Bruna’s university friends. Still, they 
gradually get to know each other better and start to get along… Can an unborn foetus hold a couple together? And can such an unlikely pair find happiness and love together?
Man Proposes, God Disposes is a lovely, stylized look at an odd relationship plagued by a clash of cultures. They are forced to communicate in English as neither speaks the others language. First-time director Leo is a skilled cinematographer, and he pays as much attention to the look and sound as he does to acting. Each scene is arranged in vibrant primaty colours, with white walls and sharp contrasts, almost like a graphic novel.
Massarelli and Nedza make for a charming pair, and while the story is simplistic, it’s a pleasure to watch.
And Then We Danced
Wri/Dir: Levan Akin
It’s present day Tbilisi Georgia. Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani) is a ginger haired young man who lives in a cramped apartment with his brother David, his mom and his grandmother. Their family have been dancers for generations, and Since age 10, he’s been partnered with Mary (Ana Javakishvili), a middle-class girl with black hair and striking features. Together they train at the academy, with the goal of eventually joining the prestigious professional troop. He’s a great dancer but Aleko, the director, criticizes him for being too expressive, not stiff or rigid enough to capture the heart of Georgian dancing.
Enter Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) newly arrived from Batumi. He’s a 
natural, and Merab sees him as a rival for the upcoming audition. And he’s friendly with Merab’s loutish brother David (a dancer as well) the two of the often arriving in their shared bedroom late at night, drunk and wasted.
But when a bit of rough and tumble behind a boulder in the 
woods turns into something more sexual, things become more complicated between Merab and Irakli. Forthe first time in his life, Merab is lovestruck, emanating good feelings. But they have to be cautious. One dancer in their troop was nearly beaten to death when he was found sleeping with an Armenian. But 
when Irakli disappears, Merab is at wits end. Are they lovers? Or just friends? Who will win the audition? And with his new-found sexuality, can he find happiness – and safety – in still-conservative Georgia?
And Then We Danced is a beautiful romance set against the world of traditional Georgian dance. Levan Gelbakhiani looks like a young Baryshnikov, but his dance techniques combine traditional steps with hints of contemporary dance.
Great movie.
Man Supposes, God Disposes opens Wednesday at the Paradise cinema. Angelfish and And Then We Danced are two of many films playing at the NEXT WAVE film festival at TIFF in February.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Good dramas. 1917, Uncut Gems, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A good drama is hard to find, and this week I’ve got three of them. There’s an action drama set in Europe in WWI, a melodrama set in Rio in the 1950s, and a dark comedy set in present-day Manhattan.
1917
Dir: Sam Mendes
It’s April, 1917 in the trenches. Two soldiers, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George Mackay) are summoned by an officer with an important mission. The Germans seem to be retreating and frontline soldiers are preparing to cross over no man’s land. But it’s a ruse. If the troops try to cross the fields they’ll be gunned down like lambs to the slaughter. And the telegraph lines are down. It’s up to Blake and Schofield to take a crucial letter to the isolated troops before they’re all wiped out. And to get there, they have to pass through enemy territory, inside German trenches, and across enemy lines. Why are two ordinary soldiers chosen for this impossible task? Blake has a brother in the squadron they’re warning. And Schofield? 
He happens to be nearby when Blake is summoned. Can the two men young men make it there in time? Or are they just another couple of casualties in this War to End All Wars?
1917 is a thrilling action movie set during WWI. It’s full of narrow escapes, shootouts, explosions and hand-to-hand combat, with our heroes riding, running, flying and swimming, all to get to their goal. It uses lots of tricks you’d expect to see in horror movies: from sudden encounters with piles of rotting corpses, to shocking encounters with rats. It’s also a “War is Hell” movie but it’s a bit foggy on the Us and Them narrative of a war from a hundred years ago. Should WWI German soldiers still be portrayed as evil, drunken cowards while British soldiers are brave, kindly, steadfast and resolute? Still, you do find yourself rooting for the heroes hoping beyond hope that they’ll survive.The acting, especially MacKay, is fantastic and it’s fun to spot all the famous actors with bit parts as military brass include Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong and Colin Firth. But the best part of this movie is in an unexpected area. Roger Deakins camerawork is incredible, with shadow and searchlight, glowing candles and burning flames throwing chiarascuro images across the screen. It’s stunning to watch.
Uncut Gems
Dir: Josh and Benny Safdie
It’s the diamond district in present-day Manhattan. Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is a successful Bling jeweller peddling pricy kitsch to therich and famous in a small boutique encased in bullet-proof glass. He supports an unhappy suburban Jewish family, also setting aside money for his own peccadilloes: a mistress in a midtown apartment and tickets to NBA games. But he’s also a compulsive gambler throwing money at bookies. He’s in debt up to his neck, and the gangsters are circling. Two thugs in particular. Loan sharks, pawn shops, bookies, and legit 
business associates are all asking for their cut. But when Howard lands a lump of Ethiopian opals – the “uncut gems” of the title – he thinks all his problems are solved. By gazing into the glowing, coloured rocks he loses himself in a fantastical universe. He embarks on a complex plan: sell the gem to a superstitious star basketball player, pawn the priceless gaudy ring the player leaves as a deposit, and bet it all on a mammoth Las Vegas sports gamble. Will his plan pan out? Or will it all come a-tumbling down?
Uncut Gems is the latest Safdie Brother’s look at sympathetic, small-time losers and petty criminals, and the destruction they leave in their path. There’s a bit of excitement, but it’s more like a dark, absurdist comedy than anything else. They say Adam Sandler makes one credible acting movie for every ten horrible comedies. He proves his bona fides in this one, hands down. He’s great as the irrepressible and irritating Howard Ratner, complete with fake crooked and gummy teeth. But he’s a hard character to like…his problems are all of his own making, and his adulation for celebrity, sportsteams, cars and The Big Win is unattractive. I kinda sympathize with Howard but not really; I saw this four months ago at TIFF and remember feeling bothered and a bit angry by the end. But the humour, great acting, music, images, and elegant plot – from start to finish – helps redeem the unfomfortable feeling it leaves you with.
The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão
Dir: Karim Aïnouz
It’s 1950 in a middle class family in Rio de Jeneiro. Guida and Euridice are inseparable sisters who do almost everything together. Guida (Julia Stockler) is 20 years old, small, buxom, adventurous and mature. She’s looking for love in all the wrong places, where she meets Iorgos, a handsome sailor from Greece. She leaves a note with her sister that she’s off on a ship to Europe to marry her love and will be back in Brazil soon. Euridice (Carol Duarte) is 18, the good daughter, tall with long, curly hair. She devotes all her energy to practicing the piano, with the hope that someday soon she’ll be accepted into the conservatory in Vienna.
But both of their plans are stymied by unwanted pregnancies. Guida comes home, pregnant and alone. Iorgos is a rat, with a wife and kids in Greece and a girl in every port. But when she walks through her door, her father throws her out, saying, 
“you’re dead to me, I never want to see you again”. She’s forced to move to a working class neighbourhood, get a job (she works as a welder at the docks) and raise her son.
Meanwhile, Euridice gets married to Antenor (Gregório Duvivier) the son of a business partner of her dad who owns a bakery. He’s a boor and an inconsiderate lover. She’s preparing for her Vienna audition in a few months but despite her church-sanctioned birth control methods, she ends up pregnant too, scotching any plans to study in Vienna. Guida assumes her sister is in Europe, and Euridice thinks Guida has disappeared without a trace (their parents block any communication with Guida, and both sisters have no idea the other is living in Rio.) Will the sisters ever see each other again? And will their ambitions be realized?
The Invisibie Life of Euridice Gusmao is subtitled, “a tropical melodrama” and that’s what it is: a passionate, lush story about the lives of two strong-willed women, torn apart against their will. Guida forging a new life as a single, working class mom, as Euridice navigates Brazil’s repressive middle class life in the ’50s. I loved this movie.
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is now playing in Toronto, and Uncut Gems and 1917 both opened on Christmas Day; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
TIFF18! Films reviewed: Consequences, Woman at War, Tito and the Birds
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com.
Tiff is here, now.
It began last night, and is filled with big-budget, glitzy premiers and movie stars from all over the world. You can go down to King st — between Spadina and University — starting today, to take it all in. And even if you don’t have tickets, with more than two hundred movies opening there, I promise, you can still get in.
But the Hollywood stuff is getting way too much coverage, so this week I’m talking about three, lesser-known movies playing at TIFF that I really like. There’s an eco-activist in Iceland, a bird talker in Brazil and a Slovenian in the slammer.
Consequences
Wri/Dir Darko Stante
Andrej (Mate Zemlijk) is a teenager who has it made. He lives with his parents in a nice suburban home. He’s handsome, fit, with a beautiful girlfriend and a pet rat named FIFA. Fortified with bourbon he can pick up any girl in the room. But the sex he has is bad, his life is empty, and he takes out his frustrations on everyone around him.
This lands him in a reform school with strict rules. It’s run by adult men, but is 
actually governed by a gang of bullies, headed by Žele (Timon Sturbej) and his sidekick Niko. Žele is a tough skinhead who extorts money from the other boys by claiming they owe him. Niko is a deranged practical joker who eggs Žele on while brandishing a blowtorch. Andrej initially stands up for his pothead roommate Luka, but soon he is 
invited into the gang and becomes their main enforcer. He accompanies them on their weekend outings in Ljubljana.
And as he is pulled away from the rules of his home and the reform centre he feels increasingly isolated, spending the night in a kindergarten playhouse he remembers from his childhood. Meanwhile the crime level continues to rise, as Žele grooms Andrej for shakedowns, car theft, drug trade and smuggling. But Andrej’s not in it for the money. He likes the bully – likes, as in sexually – and thinks he sees a mutual attraction. Will Zele be his rival, his 
friend… or his lover?
Consequences is a dark, coming of age drama set in present-day Slovenia. It probes alienated youth, crime, drugs, sexual fluidity, and relationships. This film uses unknown actors to great effect and the interplay between Zemlijk and Sturbej is compelling. Darko Stante’s Consequences is part of TIFF’s Discovery series and it’s having to world premier tonight. Catch it if you can.
Woman at War
Dir: Benedikt Erlingsson
Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir) is a single, middle-aged Icelandic woman with a secret. It’s not that she’s a well-liked choir head. Or that she has an identical twin named Asa. Or even that she’s been approved to adopt a Ukrainian orphan girl. Her big secret is she’s the eco activist the government has been searching for. She’s the one who takes down hydro cables, shutting down the foreign-owned smelting plants endangering Iceland’s once pristine environment.
Using a simple bow and arrow, along with some metal wire, she manages to bring down a high tension wire. Her secret is known only to one person in the 
government – her friend and government mole Baldvin (Jörundur Ragnarsson) who is sickened by their environmental policies. The government repeatedly arrests a latino hiker in a Che Guevara T-shirt, while Halla escapes unknown.
Halla is one with nature. She knows every nook and cranny, every mound and cliff, and manages to avoid drones, helicopters and security experts. But when they close down all the roads just to catch her she seeks refuge with a 
sympathetic farmer, possibly a distant cousin. But with the government closing in, can she continue her one-woman fight for the environment? Or will it ruin her long awaited chance to adopt a child?
Woman at War is a brilliant satirical comedy drama about Iceland, its clans, government corruption, the environment, and its women. Geirharðsdóttir is marvellous as the twin sisters, totally believable as an underground superhero who can communicate with the environment by covering her face in lichen.
Another great movie at TIFF.
Tito and The Birds
Dir: Gabriel Bitar, André Catoto, Gustavo Steinberg
Tito is a schoolboy in a big Brazilian city like São Paulo. His dad is an inventor, specializing in steampunk contraptions filled with misshapen, pipes, dials and gewgaws sticking out at weird angles. He thinks his machine will let people talk with birds. But when it explodes, and Tito ends up in hospital, dad leaves his family for good. A few years later Tito takes up his dad’s role and enters his own invention into the school science fair. His main rival is a rich kid named Teo. But Tito’s machine, like his dad’s, blows up, sending the audience running.
Meanwhile a strange disease has gone viral infecting more and more people in 
the city. It feeds on fear – fear of crime, fear of disease, fear of poor people – even though there is nothing to fear but fear itself. This fear is encouraged by a real estate developer, trying to move people out of the cities into gated communities under glass domes. Scary men in Hazmat suits have taken over spraying everyone with chemicals, but it doesn’t seem to work. So Tito and his best friends – the brave Sarah and the silent Buiu – join forces to defy fear and thus defeat this terrible disease. They are sure the city’s pigeons hold the secret. And they invite rich rival Teo – the son of the real estate mogul – to 
help them too. Can they save the city with birds and science? Or will fear overcome logic?
Tito and the Birds is an animated film from Brazil that looks at poverty and class difference as seen through the eyes of children. It’s a kids’ movie, for sure, but I loved it, especially the colours splashed across the big screen. Vibrant swathes of glowing green, hot pink, warm yellow, and black are everywhere, giving it an unforgettable look.
Consequences, Tito and the Birds, and Woman at War are all premiering at TIFF. Go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Cities. Films reviewed: The Lost City of Z, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, Colossal
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Cities. People around the globe are urbanizing at an alarming rate, with tens of millions leaving their farms, villages and small towns each year. So this week I’m looking at movies about cities. There’s a man who wants to find a city, a woman who wants to save a city, and another woman who is trying not to destroy a city.
The Lost City of Z
Dir: James Gray
It’s 1905. Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) is a major in His Majesty’s Army but an undecorated one – no medals, because he has never seen battle. He’s a modern thinker, not bogged down by religion and bigotry, and believes in equal rights for women, including for his wife Nina (Sienna 
Miller). His father — a drinker and gambler – had ruined the family name, so he jumps at the chance to restore it. The offer: to lead an expedition to “Amazonia” sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society. A skilled cartographer, Fawcett must map an uncharted river running between Bolivia and Brazil. He also wants to find a legendary, 
advanced civilization he calls the city of “Z”.
On the ship heading to South America he meets a dismissive man with a bushy beard, round glasses and a big hat. Turns out it’s his aide-de-camp, Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson). They make an odd couple, Costin kitted out for the jungle with Fawcett still in European mode. But soon they learn to get along. First they journey to a pop-up 
city in the jungle, complete with an opera house. It’s run by filthy- rich robber barons riding the Amazon rubber boom. Fawcett assembles a small team to travel down the river on a raft, further than any European has gone so far. A former slave serves as their guide. Along the way, they are attacked by locals with spears and arrows, encounter black jaguars and make it as far as a waterfall – the river’s source? There Fawcett finds artifacts he says are from the lost city he seeks. Back in London, he raises money for a second trip. His 
wife asks to go too, but he says it’s “no place for a woman”. Instead he takes a portly millionaire named Mr. Murray – an armchair explorer – as his sponsor. But this leads to more trouble. This time they encounter cannibals and travel even further than the first trip, but not as far as “Z”. Can Fawcett earn the respect of his family, the confidence of the Royal Geographers, and the backing of the press? Can he survive a third trip through the jungle? Or is his passion — finding the lost city of Z — just based on his own fantasies?
This is a fascinating adventure based on real historical figures. It’s also very similar to a fantastic black-and-white arthouse film from a few years 
back called Embrace of the Serpent, also about a European travelling down the Amazon during the rubber boom. This one is more traditional, told solely from a European point of view, with dashing explorers out to discover things lost to the locals. The indigenous people are “things” they encounter on their journey, and almost never speak. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but I enjoyed the movie anyway. Charlie Hunnam is great as Fawcett, and Robert Pattinson (the heartthrob vampire from the execrable Twilight series) is completely unrecognizable in this role. If you’re in the mood for an exciting colonial trek through the jungle, this long movie is made for you.
Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
Wri/Dir: Matt Tyrnauer
It’s postwar America, where the car is king and freshly-built houses in the suburbs the ideal home. Jane Jacobs is a young writer in Manhattan who publishes pieces on manhole covers and city streets for magazines like Vogue and Architectural Forum. Robert Moses is the immensely powerful, urban planning and highway 
czar, building enormous parkways through cities to let people commute to their far off homes. He subscribes to the visions of Swiss architect le Corbusier: Cities are best viewed from an airplane — clean, pristine and devoid of pesky things like small shops, loitering people and 
peculiar neighbourhoods. Cities are old and ugly cesspools filled with cancerous slums that can only be saved by wiping them out.
Robert Moses views cities from above looking down; Jane Jacobs (in her book The Life and Death of Great American Cities) looks at cities from ground level. She loves the confusion and excitement of neighbourhoods and the people who live there. 
Moses wants to extend Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue down through Washington Square park, and turn it into a highway, destroying Canal St, Soho, and Little Italy on the way. And no one ever defies his grand plans… until Jane Jacobs. She’s the one responsible for a new look at urban landscapes and city planning. She saved Greenwich village from destruction and changed people’s views about what a city should look like and feel like.
This is a superb documentary chronicling her battle with Moses. It also shows how people like Jacobs can challenge the orthodoxy of so-called urban renewal (what James Baldwin called “negro removal”) and its destruction of neighbourhoods.
This documentary doesn’t deal with Jane Jacobs before she moved to New York City or afterwards when she moved to Toronto (where she helped save the city from the Spadina Expressway). It’s specifically about Jacobs’ battle with Moses. And it does so in a very informative and absorbing way.
Colossal
Wri/Dir: Nacho Vigalondo
Gloria (Anne Hathaway) has it made: an English boyfriend with a beautiful apartment, and lots of cool hipster friends who show her the highlife. She’s loose with the bottle and free with the pills. But after an especially horrific incident he gives her the boot until she 
dries out. So she is forced to relocate to her childhood home in a small town. She is taken under the wing of Oscar (Jason Sudeikas) a local entrepreneur who offers her a job at his roadhouse bar. (Turns out he had a crush on her as a kid and wants to renew their friendship).
She takes the job but turns down his sexual advances. Though depressed 
and lonely, she gradually adjusts to the slow paced rhythm of life there: working late at the bar, sharing drinks with her new friends and waking up the next morning on a park bench feeling like hell warmed over. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a giant monster is trampling through Seoul Korea, toppling buildings and terrorizing the populous. And Gloria notices something very strange: the monster only appears in Seoul whenever she wakes up in the park, drunk to the gills. Stranger 
still, the colossal monster she sees on the news shares her nervous tics and habits. What is the connection?
Colossal is a unique film that doesn’t fall easily into any single genre. It starts out like a sophisticated chick flick or a recovery 
movie, but it’s also a disaster and monster movie, a comedy and a social drama. Hathaway is good as a young alcoholic forced to deal with her addiction, and Sudeikas is equally good as a conflicted (and sometimes vengeful) friend. The Korean aspect of the movie is superficial, with locals mainly there to get stepped on. Still, Colossal is weird and surprisingly entertaining — it’s different from any movie you’ve seen before.
Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, The Lost City of Z and Colossal all open today in Toronto; check your local listings. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
New Places. Films reviewed: Sunset Song, Neon Bull, A Bigger Splash
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Someone asked me recently what I like about movies. I gave the usual answers: story, emotions, acting, images, themes, novelty… but she said she likes the places movies can take you, countries you otherwise wouldn’t get to visit. So this week I’m looking at dramas that take you to new places. There are celebrities in the Mediterranean, cowboys in Brazil, and farmers in northeast Scotland a century ago.
Sunset Song
Dir: Terence Davies (based on the novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon)
It’s the early 20th century in rural northeastern Scotland. Chris (Agyness Deyn) is happy and bright, a schoolgirl who lives on her family farm. She’s one with the land, but holds future ambitions of a career, maybe a schoolteacher. But her family life is less than nice. Her mother is depressed, her father (Peter Mullan) is a brute. She’s closest to her 
brother, Will, who hates their dad for good reason. Their father is quick with the whip and will bloody Will’s back for the slightest infraction, even a play on words using the name Jehovah. It’s a rough life.
And when Mum survives an incredibly painful childbirth – it’s twins — she loses it and the family falls apart. Will leaves for greener pastures, Mum’s out of the picture, Dad has a stroke. Chris has to run the farm basically by herself, plowing the fields and harvesting the grain. She marries for love to a kind and gentle man named Ewan (Kevin Guthrie). Their post-honeymoon life is idyllic until WWI. Then, suddenly, it’s loud sermons from the pulpit saying the Kaiser is
the antichrist and anyone who doesn’t join up to fight in the muddy trenches is both a coward and a traitor. He signs up. The next time she sees Ewan he’s been replaced by a horrible creature she doesn’t recognize.
Sunset Song is a coming-of-age novel about a strong and independent woman and the troubles she faces. But, being directed by the great Terence Davies makes it a different movie than you might expect. Time passes and scenes change like memories recalled much later. Chris is the narrator but she speaks in the third person. And as in most of his movies, characters are as likely to start singing songs or reciting poetry or quoting biblical texts as they are to have “normal” dialogue. But it never feels odd or affected, it’s just how they talk. Sex and violence, fury and pain, anguish and celebration are all played out… by candlelight. Beautiful.
Neon Bull
Wri/Dir: Gabriel Mascaro
Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) is a vaqueiro – literally a cowboy – in Brazil. He’s tough and swarthy with a black beard. He lives among the cows, feeding, washing and shoveling manure. His job is to tend the bulls used in a type of rodeo match called a vaquejada. Two men riding horses with a bull running between them have to take him down and cut off the end of his tail. Iremar is the one who powders the bull’s tail and pushes him into 
the ring. His work is rough, dirty and badly paid. But a more interesting life exists in the creative part of his mind. He sees images and fantasies which he brings to life, in the form of clothing and costumes.
He lives on the road as part of a travelling, impromptu family. There’s model-like Galega, his boss (Maeve Jinkings), her young daughter, the unfortunately-named Caca (Alyne Santana), and 
others. In his free time he observes and collects: A mannequin he finds in a dump; surfing fonts he sees on a sign; the hair bobbed off the bulls tails at the rodeo… he keeps them all. And he sketches his designs over pictures of nude women in skin mags. He “dresses” them.
And he translates these into outfits for Galega to wear and perform in. But what outfits they are: a sexy mixture of horse and human.
And there lies the crux: they work with cows but dream about 
horses. Caca wants to own a horse, Galega dresses like one, and Iremar either wants to become one or have sex with one – it’s never completely clear. He certainly has erotic dreams involving horses, as well some real-life sexual interactions of a sort between man and beast. (I’ll say no more about that; you have to watch the movie yourself to understand what I’m saying.)
There’s not much of a story; see it for its images and ideas. It’s beautifully shot, alternating between explicit sex and amazing documentary-style animal scenes with the screen completely filled with white bulls. This is the kind of movie that gradually grows on you long after you’ve seen it.
A Bigger Splash
Dir: Luca Guadagnino
Marrianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) lives in a secluded villa on a rocky Italian island in the Mediterranean. She’s a former rock star used to preforming in glam makeup and sequins before thousands of adoring fans. Until she lost her voice. Now she’s doted on by her much younger, faithful husband 
Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). They spend each day playing in bed or relaxing in their serene swimming pool.
Paul was introduced to Mariann by her first husband, Harry (Ralph Fiennes) who felt a change was needed. Harry is a larger-than-life celebrity in his own right, a rock producer, who loves recalling his adventures with Mick Jagger. So Paul is in 
awe of both Marianne and Harry. Which is why he can’t really object when Harry arrives uninvited at their doorstep with a blasé young woman named Penelope (Dakota Johnson). She lives with her mom in Connecticut but recently discovered she has a dad – Harry, of course. And here they both are.
Harry loves it. He’s the kind of guy who always needs a dramatic 
entrance. And once he’s on stage he walks around naked for most of the movie. Penelope is looking for sex, and has her eye on both her putative father (she wants to see a DNA test) and Paul. Marianne is less than pleased by the interlopers. It opens up old wounds and unfinished business. She also prefers centre stage, she doesn’t want 
to be a side kick in her own home. And Paul is overwhelmed by the uncomfortable situation, but keeps it to himself. Until things explode.
This movie feels like a stage play with four characters played by four great actors. They’re all fascinating but in a grotesque, hateable sort of way. As celebrities they’re used to being watched but they also need privacy. We get to watch them how they really are, and it ain’t pretty.
Some of the camera work bothered me – too show-offy and distracting — but the scenic beauty of a Mediterranean isle that’s also a landing point for asylum-seekers more than makes up for it. Luca Guadagnino also directed I Am Love in 2010; A Bigger Splash is less stylized, more mature.
Neon Bull, A Bigger Splash, and Sunset Song all open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
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