Scary? Films reviewed: The Beasts, The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is Emancipation Month in Toronto, commemorating the end of slavery in the British commonwealth, including Canada. So in honour of that there’s a free screening of RasTa: A Soul’s Journey, at Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park on August 13th.
But this week I’m looking at two new, scary movies. There are sailors who want to abandon ship, and farmers who don’t want to leave their land.
The Beasts
Co-Wri/Dir: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) are a middle aged professional couple living in Galicia in northwestern Spain. He’s a burly, reserved man, while she is direct and no-nonsense. They gave up their lives and careers to settle among the rocky hills, growing organic tomatoes and vegetables. They love the simple life, working hard, breathing the fresh air and taking long walking through the nearby forests and hills They get along well with some of their neighbours, but not all of them. And especially not Xan and Lorenzo, a pair of wiry, adult brothers who keep nomadic horses. Lorenzo (Diego Anido) may be simple-minded but is prone to cruel, practical jokes, with Antoine as the victim. Xan (Luis 
Zahera) is much worse. Xan insults him, calls him a derogatory name for French people, mutters veiled threats and even spits at him.
At the centre of their dispute is a contract which Antoine and Olga refuse to sign. A multinational energy corporation wants to turn the village into a wind farm. But after all the money, time and work they have put into it, they don’t want to throw it all away for a small buyout. It’s their home. This is what makes their neighbours so angry. They want to leave their ancestral homes forever. And as their fight grows, it gradually turns to violence. What will become of them?
The Beasts is an intense, dark drama played out in a clash of cultures and class. The film starts with a group of men physically wrestling with horses in slow motion. This motif comes up later in the movie in an 
unexpected way. It’s billed as a thriller, but it’s not — I’d call it more of a slow-burn drama, spread out over more than two hours. The dialogue is in French, Spanish and (I’m guessing) Galician, since it doesn’t sound like any Spanish I’ve ever heard before.
Is it a good movie? I like the characters, and the acting and the drama, and its beautiful cinematography, locations and music. But the film has a weird structure, with a very long ending after an intense chapter in the middle. It’s less thrilling or scary than it is creepy and disturbing, though it does have a satisfying finish. I just don’t quite get the point of this movie. If you like feeling uncomfortable for a couple hours but not really challenged, then you’ll probably like The Beasts.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Dir: André Øvredal
It’s the 1890s and the three-masted Demeter is loading at a Romanian dock, preparing for its voyage to Dover, England. Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) has mustered all his sailors on the ship, as well as Wojchek, his first mate (David Dastmalchian), Joseph, his bible-thumping cook (Jon Jon Briones) and his eight-year-old grandson Toby (Woody Norman). It’s the captain’s last voyage so he wants to pass on some of his lore. The only unfamiliar face is Clemens (Corey Hawkins), the ship’s doctor. Not a sailor, but he does hold a medical degree from Cambridge (very uncommon for a black man in Victorian England). But with such a small crew, even the doctor has to take his turn steering the ship and on night watch. But the most unusual thing is this ship’s cargo: a series of large wooden crates filled 
with dirt and branded with a sinister-looking mark. The locals refuse even to board the ship, but the crew is happy that there’s a big cash bonus if they deliver the cargo in time.
Unfortunately, things start to go wrong pretty quickly. First, a female stowaway is found on board — and sailors considered women on ships bad luck. Anna (Aisling Franciosi) is half dead, speechless and frightened. Clemens keeps her alive with frequent blood transfusions. Then all the ship’s animals — from livestock, to a dog, to even the rats hidden in the hold — are found dead. And then the crew starts disappearing, one by one. Is this a disease? A stowaway killer? Or something even worse? And will the Demeter and its crew ever reach its destination?
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a well-crafted thriller/horror about a vampire on board a ship, based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And — no spoilers here — if this vampire looks familiar, it’s because he’s Nosferatu, the cadaverous, long fingered, pointy-eared creature made famous by the silent German expressionist masterpiece by FW Murnau, released a full century ago (1922). This Nosferatu can fly, 
swim, hypnotize its victims and seemingly pass through walls. He’s almost indestructible. The film is beautifully shot in a German studio, with the camera flying down long passageways, into the galley, under tables and up to the sailmasts. The soundtrack is punctuated with tapping sounds that reverberate the length of the ship. The acting is quite good all around. And this vampire is a scary one.
The one thing that’s missing is pathos — with a few exceptions, you don’t feel close or attached to most of the characters. But that’s a minor problem in a good horror movie. And this one gives new life to a very old vampire.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter and the Beasts are both opening this weekend in Toronto, with The Beasts playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Bikes and books. Films reviewed: The Last Rider, Umberto Eco: A Library of the World
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s Summertime and Toronto is melting. Luckily there are lots of new movies playing at festivals, both indoors and out. The ICFF is showing great movies from Morocco to China at the distillery district throughout July. Art of Documentary Film Festival is on next Saturday, July 15th, at Innis Town Hall Theatre featuring a talk by Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson, the great Toronto directors who brought us Scarborough. And later this month keep an eye out for the Female Eye Film Fest featuring memorable movies and shorts directed by women.
But this week I’m looking at two new documentaries that stimulate the body and the mind. There’s an Italian film about books and American one about Bikes.
The Last Rider
Wri/Dir: Alex Holmes (Maiden)
It’s 1989. Greg LeMond is a champion professional cyclist who was the first American ever to win the Tour de France. He has trained since a teenager in Lake Tahoe, growing up with a gut-knowledge of their mountains and steep roads. He meets Cathy, his future wife, like in a movie, at a Holiday Inn. He is soon recruited as a member of the Renault team, moves to France for training, and becomes world famous. Cathy comes with him, dropping out of College.
But after winning the Tour, he falls into a deep depression, followed by a terrible accident: he is accidentally shot and almost killed on a turkey hunt with his family. This happens while Cathy is in labour, so Greg barely gets a chance to see their newborn for weeks. But after a few years of recovery, they decide he should try once again.. Not to win the Tour de France, but just to see if he can finish it (remember: competitive cycling, especially climbing up 
gruelling Alpen roads like in the Tour, requires absolute perfection in strength, skill and stamina— and Greg still has metal pellets riddling his body!)
But to everyone’s surprise, it becomes a three way race for Greg, Pedro Delgado and Laurent Fignon. Who will wear the yellow jersey?
The Last Rider is a biographical sports doc about that historical and exciting race in 1989. It’s 75% period video footage — the Tour de France is heavily photographed, start to finish — and 25% new taking-head interviews with LeMond, his family and many participants in that race. 1989 was before the dirty side of professional cycling — all the scandals, illegal drugs and supplements that became endemic in the sport — so there is a sense of innocence and pathos permeating this story. I am not a big fan of the sport — I barely follow it — but it was still an exciting watch.
Umberto Eco: A Library of the World
Dir: Davide Ferrario
Umberto Eco is a writer, novelist and semiotician from Piedmont, Italy. He writes books — including international bestselling novels like The Name the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum — and academic essays and treatises. He also accumulates and reads an astonishingly diverse number of books. And though he is an academic, he avoids ranking books by their moral or political value, ignoring the usual canons of good vs bad literature.
His shelves are filled with Charlie Brown bobble heads beside Voltaire, devoting equal space to fumetti — low-brow italian comics — and pulp fiction, as he does to obscure codices scribed by medieval monks. The more obscure the better. There are illuminated manuscripts of animals with human heads. And — unlike the current vogue of labelling works as misinformation, disinformation or “fake news” — Eco loves writers who churn out huge quantities of books of dubious credibility and provenance. Like the 17th-century German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who studied and wrote about practically everything, including travelogues of China (despite never having been there), and treatises on mathematics, music, medicine, the tower of Babel and Egyptian hieroglyphics. There’s always room for mysticism, conspiracy theories and apostate Cathars. Eco died in 2016 but left behind a stupendous collection of books, including his own 
Umberto Eco: A Library of the World is a fascinating, esoteric and aesthetically pleasing documentary about Eco and his writing, the books he read, and about libraries worldwide. Members of his family tell their stories and they and actors recite aloud some of Eco’s works, both profound and mundane. There are also 
If you like Umberto Eco’s work, this is a must-see; and if you’ve never heard of him watch this movie — you’ll learn learn a thing or two.
Umbertio Eco: A Library of the World starts next Friday at Hot Docs cinema, and The Last Rider which recently opened in Toronto is playing later this month at the Lavazza INCLUCITY FESTIVAL in the distillery district; 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.
The best movie of the year? Films reviewed: Chevalier, Quasi, Beau is Afraid
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring film festival season continues with Images, where indie film and experimental video meets avant-garde art and media culture. And Hot Docs Documentary Festival starts next week. But this week I’m talking about three new features — a comedy, a historical drama and a movie that defies categorization. There’s a hunchback whose name rings a bell, a musician whose work rivals Mozart’s, and a recluse who must confront what he fears most.
Chevalier
Wri/Dir: Stephen Williams
It’s the 1780s in Paris, and Joseph de Boulogne (Kelvin Harrison, Jr) is the talk of the town. He’s handsome, witty, educated and highly-skilled. He’s a champion fencer and a violin virtuoso. He can also compose a score for opera, ballet or orchestra. When Mozart comes to town, he jumps onto the stage and challenges him to a duel — using violins as their weapons. Men admire him, and women swoon. And the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) dubs him Chevalier de Saint-George, the highest title he can receive. Most unusual of all, Joseph de Bologne is Black. Born in the French Caribbean, his father is a wealthy colonist, and his mother a West-African-born slave.
He takes on as his lover the beautiful Marie Josephine (Samara Weaving); together they hope to 
launch his career in opera. But he faces opposition from people in high places. His lover is married to a powerful, but abusive man. The Chevalier earlier snubbed another patron La Guimard (Minnie Driver) who bears a grudge. Can a black man in 18th century France rise to the top of a rigid system? And what about the revolution?
Chevalier tells an interesting story about an almost-forgotten historical figure. It’s full of ornate wigs and costumes, dancing ensembles, and crowds on cobblestone streets shouting Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! What it’s missing, though, is a soul. It’s hard to get past the big issues and petty intrigues to care deeply about the main characters. This film has great production values and acting. In fact Kelvin Harrison, Jr is one of the best young actors around, and I’ll see anything he’s in — he’s that good. Sadly, he’s better than the material he has to work with. Chevalier is good enough, but it never reaches the greatness I was hoping for.
Quasi
By Broken Lizard
It’s France in the 1400s, and Quasimodo, the legendary hunchback with a twisted face, works not as a bellringer in Notre Dame but as a royal torturer. He got the job because he invented the rack to straighten out the hump of fatty tissue on his back. Didn’t work, but turns out the rack is great for causing pain. And the new queen (Adrienne Palicki) has taken a shine to Quasi. She likes his outspoken nature, and the fact he listens to what she says, unlike the vain and egotistical King Guy. Things are looking up when Quasi wins the national lottery. But the grand prize — meeting with the King — ends up a fiasco. Far from being a fun filled smorgasbord, Quasi leaves the palace with orders to kill the Pope! If not, the King will kill him and all his friends instead. To add to his troubles, when he meets the Pope, Quasi is ordered to assassinate the King! He’s caught in the middle of a feud between two cruel and powerful leaders. How will he ever get out of this one?
Quasi is a sketch comedy parody that transplants The Hunchback of Notre Dame into a new 
setting. Unfortunately — aside from a bit of bawdy humour — most of the jokes never go beyond foul language, torture humour and opaque references to oysters. (Why oysters? Why indeed). Then there are scenes like one character having his testicles nailed to a wooden board. (Is this supposed to be funny? I don’t get it.) The film is the product of comedy troupe Broken Lizard whose five members — Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, and Eric Hanske — wrote, produced and starred in multiple roles, with Heffernan at the helm. Apparently, they’re quite well-known and popular and have made some other movies, including “Super Troopers 1 & 2”. Perhaps they’re an acquired taste (which I have yet to develop) and if I ever do, I’ll be sure to let you know. But in the meantime, I failed to find humour anywhere in this unfortunate exercise in juvenile excess.
I guess we could call this a quasi-comedy.
Beau is Afraid
Wri/Dir: Ari Aster
Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a meek, mild-mannered, middle-aged man who lives in an unnamed city. He’s the ultimate passive introvert, whose main goal is to avoid conflict. He has no job or friends and lives alone, but does see a therapist regularly. His main topic? His mom, Mona Wasserman (Patti Lupone) a very successful entrepreneur from a small town called Wasserton. His dad died before Beau was born, so Mona has always been the main influence in his life. Then there’s Elaine, the girl of his dreams, whose Polaroid photo he carries with him wherever he goes. Their time together as teenagers was brief but he will never forget her.
Now he’s supposed to fly to visit his mother, but Beau is afraid. And for good reason. He lives in a 
dystopian slum full of criminals, drug addicts and naked serial killers roaming the streets. He’s in danger the moment he steps out his door. And his apartment isn’t safe either — it’s infested with poisonous spiders, and bloodthirsty neighbours who slide threatening notes under his door. Nowhere is safe. Luckily his analyst prescribed him a new medication he’s sure will calm Beau down. But it comes with unexpected side effects.
When he misses his flight, he sets out on foot, beginning a picaresque journey full of strange, wonderful and sometimes hazardous people he encounters along the way. His face and body are battered and bruised, his survival due to sheer luck. But will he ever see his mother again?
Beau is Afraid is a hilarious, dreadful, shocking and amazing drama. It’s uncategorizable, one of those few movies that stand alone, like work by David Lynch, Gaspar Noe or Lars Von Trier. It’s three hours long, uncomfortable to watch, but clearly something special. It’s multiple-layers deep with more detail than you can absorb in a single viewing. I’m purposely not touching most of the characters and plot because one of the joys of watching this thing is the constant surprises.
The whole movie is intentionally ambiguous as to what is real, what is imagined, and whether you’re inside a dream or a drug-induced psychosis.
The acting is superb, from Joaquin Phoenix as the eternally abused milquetoast to Patty Lupone as his monstrous mother (possibly her best film performance, ever?), with unforgettable scenes by Parker Posey as an unexpected visitor, Kylie Rogers as a vindictive teen, and Amy Ryan as a Gold Star Mother. Beau is Afraid chews up and spits out everything, from the collapse of the American Dream, to psychoanalysis, hippy communes, police violence, poverty, Big Pharma, and rampant capitalism.
Some people will hate this movie, but I think it’s amazing; maybe the best film of the year.
Beau is Afraid and Chevalier both open across Canada this weekend; check your local listings. Quasi is now streaming across Canada on Disney+.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Exposing secrets. Films reviewed: John Wick: Chapter 4, The Five Devils, Ithaka
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies — an action film, a mysterious drama, and a documentary— from the US, France and Australia. There’s an assassin battling a secret organization, a little girl sticking her nose into hidden places, and a journalist jailed for bringing secret war crimes into the light.
John Wick: Chapter 4
Dir: Chad Stahelski
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a Belorussian assassin, under the control of a powerful, international cabal known as The High Table. He’s infamous for his relentless killing skills; he can wipe out an entire squadron with a just a pair of nunchucks. Wick wants out, but to do that he needs to be free. So he embarks on a complex series of tasks to complete before the Table frees him. In the meantime, The Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), the head honcho, wants him dead… so he gets Wick’s former best friend and partner to kill him.
Caine (Donnie Yen) is an expert martial arts fighter and shooter who happens to be blind. So Wick turns to another old friend, Shimazu 
(Sanada Hiroyuki) a hotelier in Osaka. Even though he could lose everything, he still agrees to hide Wick from the Marquis’ agents. Meanwhile, the marquis has put a multimillion dollar mark on Wick’s head, a reward that its steadily rising, letting loose an army of killers out for a quick buck, including a man with a dog known as the tracker 
(Shamier Anderson). Can Wick survive this army of killers? Or will this be his final showdown?
John Wick: Chapter 4 is nearly three hours of non-stop violence. The characters and storyline is strictly cookie-cutter, but the settings — in New York, Osaka, Paris, Berlin and Jordan — is vast and opulent. Every chamber has cathedral ceilings and gaudy rococo elegance. And the fight choreography is spectacularly orchestrated. The cast — including Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane and the late Lance Reddick — are fun to watch. No one will call this a great movie, but if you enjoy endless fight scenes with hundreds of extras whether among the writhing bodies of a Berlin nightclub or in a traffic jam around the Arc de Triomphe, John Wick 4 will satisfy.
The Five Devils (Les cinq diables)
Co-Wri/Dir: Léa Mysius
Vicki (Sally Dramé) is a bright young girl who lives in a small village in the French alps. Joanne, her mom (Adèle Exarchopoulos) teaches aqua fitness, while Jimmy, her dad (Moustapha Mbengue) is a fireman. But Vicki has no friends, and is constantly bullied at school, perhaps because she’s mixed-race in a mainly white town (her mom is white, her dad’s from Senegal.) Vicki has a unique skill no one else knows about: she can identify anything or anyone purely by its scent. If she picks up a leaf she instantly knows what kind of animal bit it, and its size, age, even its feelings. And she can recognize people at twenty paces, blindfolded, just by their smell. Vicki starts finding things, and like an alchemist, puts them into jars, carefully labelling each one.
But when a surprise visit by her aunt Julia, her father’s sister (Swala
Emati), things start to change. There’s something in Julia’s past that has turned the whole village against her. When Vicki discovers how to harness her power of smell to travel, temporarily, back in time, she finds that she may have played a role in Julia’s younger life. But can she influence what already happened?
The Five Devils is a very cool French mystery/drama with a hint of the supernatural and a sapphic twist. The alps may be majestic but they hide a sinister past, and a stultifyingly provincial and xenophobic culture. This is conveyed in the large, tacky murals and oddly dated architecture that pops up everywhere. The three female leads Exarchopoulos, Dramé and Emati are amazing (with full points on the Bechdel test). Mysius is an accomplished 
scriptwriter who has worked with such luminaries as Claire Denis and Jacques Audiard. You can tell. And an unexpected twist at the very end will have you leaving the theatre with an extra jolt.
I like this movie.
Ithaka
Wri/Dir: Ben Lawrence
Twenty years ago this month, US- and British-led forces invades Iraq under the pretence of finding Weapons of Mass Destruction supposedly threatening the west. Nothing is ever found and over 200,000 civilians are killed, 4 million displaced, and the entire middle east thrown into disarray, leading to the rise of fundamentalists like ISIS, unrest and civil war from which, 20 years later, it has yet to recover. In 2010, army specialistChelsea Manning anonymously releases a huge trove of secret military files to Wikileaks, a website founded specifically to expose things like war crimes and corruption, without endangering news sources and reporters who cover them.
It’s founded by Australian journalist and hactivist Julian Assange. That’s when Wikileaks catches the world’s attention by exposing, 
on video, the US military gunning down innocent civilians in Iraq in cold blood, including Reuters journalists. None of the perpetrators of these — and countless other war crimes — ever served time, but Manning is arrested and jailed, while Assange is forced to seek refuge in the Ecuador Embassy in London. He is afraid that travelling to Sweden for questioning will lead to him being extradited to the US. His fears are correct, and he is later jailed in Belmarsh, a maximum security prison in London, awaiting deportation to the US on charges of espionage. He remains there today.
Ithaka is a personal and intimate documentary about Assange in jail in London during the trial, and the events that led up to it. Using original interviews and contemporary news reports, it fills in the blanks you may have missed. It also reveals the CIA’s involvement, including plots to murder him. The doc follows two people: John Shipton, Assange’s dad, and Stella Moris, his wife and the mother of their two sons. Shipton is an Australian house builder and peace activist. Moris is the Johannesburg-born daughter of Swedish and 
Spanish parents who were active in the anti-Apartheid movement. She also serves as his lawyer. Assange is off camera, but his cel phone voice is often present.
For a man like Assange, who has done more to expose government and corporate corruption than almost any other journalist today, to be charged with espionage and threatened with life in prison is a travesty of justice. His suffering and deterioration in solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. If you want to learn more about him, or to show your support, Ithaka is a good place to start.
John Wick Chapter 4 and The Five Devils open in Toronto this weekend; check you local listings. Ithaka is now playing at the Hot Docs cinema.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Girls Adopted. Films reviewed: Queens of the Qing Dynasty, The Quiet Girl, Return to Seoul
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Who are your “real” parents: the ones who raise you, or the ones who gave birth to you? This week, I’m looking at three new dramas from France, Ireland and Canada, about daughters who are either adopted or have foster parents. There’s a French woman in Korea looking for her birth parents, a young woman in Nova Scotia leaving the foster parents system, and a little Irish girl sent to live with relatives.
Queens of the Qing Dynasty
Wri/Dir: Ashley McKenzie
Star (Sarah Walker) is a moon-faced 18-year-old in hospital in Nova Scotia. She feels comfortable there having spent most of her young life in and out of institutions. She’s there because she drank poison — they’re pumping her stomach. She’s over- medicated in a nearly catatonic state. And most alarming, she’s about to turn 19, meaning she’s aging out of the foster child system, and will have to take care of herself, if capable, for the first time. She’s diagnosed as bipolar with ADHD, and is prone to addiction, but her real problems lie much deeper.
An (Zheng Ziyin) a student from Shanghai, volunteering at the hospital, is assigned to keep Star company. He’s artistic, effeminate and flamboyant. He likes traditional Chinese songs (he sings in falsetto), and is obsessed with his fingernails. He imagines himself as a Manchu concubine plotting politics within the Forbidden City. But these two very different people find 
comfort from each other, confessing their secrets and sending texts late at night when they’re apart. And form an unusual friendship.
Queens of the Qing Dynasty is a realistic look at two marginalized, oddball characters finding their place within a bigger, constrictive society. It’s shot in brutally drab locations, like snowbound motels, strip mall mani-pedis, hospitals and group homes, using mainly first-time actors. And despite the depressing or even tragic lives of the characters, it somehow remains light, whimsical and endearing.
This movie is both weird and appealing.
The Quiet Girl
Co-Wri/Dir: Colm Bairéad
Rural Ireland in 1981. Cáit (Catherine Clinch) is a little girl from a big, poor family of farmers. Her Dad is away all day, drinking, gambling and philandering, instead of cutting the hay. Her Mom is pregnant while taking care of a toddler and three or four others. With no one taking care of her, Cait falls through the cracks. She has dirty cheeks and mousy brown hair, is painfully shy and wets her bed. At school, she is bullied and laughed at and labeled an idiot. So her Mom asks her cousin if she could take care of Cáit for the summer while her mom’s preparing to give birth. So her father drives her out to Waterford, but forgets to unpack her suitcase before he leaves.
The Cinnsealachs (Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett) are a childless, older couple, middle-class dairy farmers who live in a spotlessly clean house. Cait is terrified to live around strangers, but gradually adjusts. They tell her to be honest here — there are no secrets in this house. They give her boys’ clothes to wear around the farm, and pretty dresses from in town. Soon they’re teaching her how to chop onions, fetch water from the well, or how to milk the cows. She brushes Cait’s hair a hundred times and helps her with her reading. He encourages her to run and exercise. Over the course of the summer, Cait gradually emerges as a bright 
and pretty girl. But locals are gossiping about her — why is she living there? What do they want from her? Does she know their secret? And what will happen once she’s home again?
The Quiet Girl is a deeply touching story of one summer in a neglected girl’s life, amid a caring couple recovering from a loss of their own. The acting is very good, especially Clinch as the quiet girl. The story is both simple and subtle, and sure to move you to tears. Most of the characters speak Irish (with subtitles) throughout the movie, to various degrees of success. (I’ve been mispronouncing Cáit as “Kate” using an Anglicized version of her name.)
I like this movie — and it was nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film.
Return to Seoul
Wri/Dir: Davy Chou
Freddie (Park Ji-min) is a 25 year old French woman at a guest house in Seoul. She’s supposed to be in Tokyo, but ended up here when all flights to Japan were cancelled due to a typhoon. She instantly bonds with Tena (Guka Han) at the front desk, who can speak French. That evening, Tena and other new friends tell Frankie she has classic Korean features, and doesn’t seem French at all. She decides to prove her Frenchness by being provocative, spontaneous and wilfully rude. When she admits she was born in Korea but adopted as an infant in France, they wonder why she hasn’t been to “Hammond” an adoption agency which holds all relevant data.
Frankie is uninterested — she’s here as a tourist — but does carry a snapshot in her wallet of a woman holding her as a newborn babe. She ends up requesting meetings with both of her birth parents. Her birth father (Oh Kwang-rok) is a former fisherman. He takes her home, feeds her, where he and his family prostrate themselves before her asking her forgiveness. She rudely rejects them, and refuses to answer his drunken teary texts sent to her each night. But her mother remains a mystery. Will Frankie ever he meet her birth mother? Does she have any connection to this strange country? Ad what will her future bring?
Return to Seoul is a dark drama of a western woman discovering
her roots. The film is fictional but based on the French director’s own experience in returning to his ancestral home in Cambodia.
Frankie’s story is told in episodes over the course of a decade, in France and in Korea, always on her birthday. Frankie is an enigmatic character, smart and sexy, but also socially obtuse, selfish and occasionally outright monstrous. At times she seems like a female Wolf of Wall Street. She treats the men she meets, both hookups and partners, like a piece of Kleenex to be discarded after use. Most of her past is only hinted at: Was she once a concert pianist? What was her relationship with her French family? But eventually she lets her real feelings show through, if only for a moment.
Return to Seoul is a troubling, alienating and emotionally powerful film.
Queens of the Qing Dynasty, The Quiet Girl, and Return to Seoul all open this weekend at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; 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.
Oscar contenders, 2023. Films reviewed: Saint Omer, The Son, Living
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three potential Oscar contenders opening this weekend. There’s a writer in Paris attending a trial, a bureaucrat in London whose life is a trial, and a Dad dealing with the trials and tribulations of a mentally ill son.
Saint Omer
Wri/Dir: Alice Diop
It’s the early 2000s in a Parisian suburb. Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) is on trial for murder. She admits to leaving the infant on a beach to be washed away with the tides one moonlit night, but why she did it is not so simple. She’s a Senegalese-French woman from Dakar, in Paris as a student. She is beautiful, articulate, poised and intelligent; not your usual murder suspect. As her mother (Salimata Kamate) told her, education and politesse are the two most important traits. But after a series of events she ends up living in a small apartment as a grey-haired, married man’s mistress — no longer in university, with no friends, no job, no future. And virtually no one knows she was pregnant nor that she gave birth at home. She existed in a strange limbo world.
All of this is taken in by Rama (Kayije Kagame) a novelist and 
university prof in Paris. She is following the trial in person, for a new book she’s writing about Medea. Like Laurence, she’s a French intellectual, and a black woman of West African background. More than that, she’s estranged from her mother and is in her first trimester of pregnancy. In a sea of white faces in the courtroom, she feels both a connection and a revulsion toward Laurence. Could this be me on trial? she wonders. And will I be a fit mother?
Saint Omer is a devastatingly powerful courtroom drama as seen through an observer’s eyes. It’s the opposite of a Law & Order episode — no smoking guns or pot twists. Rather it’s Laurence’s retelling of her story before judge and jury Rama’s reactions that carries all the power. It’s intentionally filled with subtle ambiguity so you’re never quite sure whether Laurence is lying and being coached to do so, or if she’s completely sincere. With women holding most of the key roles — including the judge and the defence council — it strips away some misconceptions. The acting (by actress Malanda and artist/performer Kagame) is superb, and the filmmaking amazing. This is documentary filmmaker Alice Drop’s first drama. Somehow, she takes the drab wooden panels of a classroom and a courtroom and turns them into something pulsing with emotion.
This is a great movie.
The Son
Wri/Dir: Florian Zeller
Beth and Peter (Vanessa Kirby, Hugh Jackman) are a newly married, upper-middle class couple with a new baby. All I going well until they get an unexpected knock on the door. His teenaged son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) says he can’t take living his mom anymore (Laura Dern) a full-time nurse whom Peter divorced and abandoned a few years earlier. What a dilemma! He can’t turn away his own flesh and blood, can he? But Nicholas is difficult to live with. It seems he stopped going to school months ago — without telling his parents. And Beth finds him scary. What if he does something to our baby— how can I trust him? So they check him into a psych ward without his consent. But what can they do in the long run with this troublesome teen?
The Son is an overwrought melodrama about divorced parents forced to care for their troubled son. It deals with anguish, anger and regret but only from the parents’ perspective, never from the son’s. He’s just a pain in the ass… and possibly a threat! This movie falls in that sub-genre of sympathetic parents forced to deal with sons who “selfishly” choose to become drug addicts or mental ill. How dare they! Despite what the parents try, those bad sons are criminals and liars at heart who can never be trusted. This dreadful collection of 
never-watch movies includes Beautiful Boy, with Timothy Chalamet and Ben is Back, starring Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges. This one has equal star power, and is just as hard to watch. It’s especially disappointing because it’s Florian Zeller’s follow-up to The Father a few years back about an elderly man slipping into dementia (Anthony Hopkins, who also appears in this film), as its unreliable narrator. But don’t be fooled. The Son has no redeeming features and is truly one of the worst movies of 2022.
Living
Wri/Dir: Oliver Hermanus
It’s Londin in the 1950s. Williams (Bill Nighy) is a mundane municipal bureaucrat, the head of public works at County Hall. He spends most of his time at his desk — along with his subordinates Rusbridger, Middleton and Hart — keeping busy by ignoring piles of files and requests. Whenever troublesome locals appear, like a group of mothers requesting they build a tiny playground in a vacant lot, they’re quickly disposed of by sending them to another department in the endless bureaucratic labyrinth of city hall. The newly-hired Wakeling is quickly discouraged from working too hard — an empty inbox means you’re doing something wrong. The sole woman, Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), is thinking of quitting to take a managerial job at a local restaurant. Since his wife died, 
Williams has lived a humdrum existence sharing his home with his adult son and daughter-in- law. But everything changes when his doctor brings him some terrible `news: incurable cancer, 6 months left to live. Suddenly everything takes on new meaning as he decides to start enjoying life and making things better for others. But is it too late?
Living is a period drama about life in post-war London. It captures the spark that can be reawakened in even the most humdrum person’s existence. It follows the night Williams spends in the demimonde led by an alcoholic bohemian he meets in a cafe; the days spent helping Margaret, for the chance to share in her youth and vitaity; and a project he hoped to complete in his final days.
I approached this movie with trepidation, because it’s a remake of Kurosawa’s Ikiru, one of my favourite movies of all time, which I didn’t want to see ruined. Happily, Living it is wonderful film in its own right. Maybe only a writer like UK novelist Kazuo Ishiguro could transport a story from Tokyo to London, while staying true to its original meaning and structure, even while giving this very Japanese film a distinctly English feel. Bill Nighy (who usually plays silly characters in crap movies) is wonderfully understated in this one. And South African director Oliver Hermanus, who brought us the great Moffie, again puts his all into the film he’s making.
I recommend this movie.
Living, Saint Omer, and The Son all open this weekend in Toronto, with the latter two playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; 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.
Humans and machines. Films reviewed: L’homme Parfait, Pinocchio
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In these troubled times, many feel daunted by quickly-changing technology, and wait with trepidation the eventual coming of the Singularity: the day robots and artificial intelligence become smarter than humans. What will happen to us after the Singularity?
This week I’m looking at two new movies about the increasingly thin line separating people from machines. There’s a woodcutter in Italy who creates a puppet that acts like a boy; and a woman in France who buys a robot that acts like a man.
L’homme parfait
Co-wri/Dir: Xavier Durringer
It’s the near future, somewhere in France.
Franck and Florence (Didier Bourdon, Valérie Karsenti) are a happily unmarried middle-aged couple with two kids, Max and Victoire. Florence has an office job, while Franck works from home. He’s an actor who is writing that blockbuster screenplay which will turn his career around. But it’s been three years now with no sign of progress, and his agent isn’t exactly banging on his door with acting jobs. And even though Franck is at home all day, it’s Florence who ends up cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids. But enough is enough. She puts in an order and two days later a large box arrives at their door. Meet Bobby (Pierre-François Martin-Laval): a realistic-looking male robot: strong, smart and friendly. He has artificially blue eyes and speaks in a monotone. With a variety of built-in options, from Salsa dancing to Krav Maga, soon Bobby is whipping up boeuf bourgognon, ironing their sheets and telling bedtime stories to the kids. And his artificial intelligence means, like Siri, he listens to — and remembers — everything he hears.
But there are side effects. Florence may love all the free time she has now, but Franck 
feels stripped of all his fatherly duties. Bobby is better at bowling. Bobby can fix a broken car engine in a flash. Bobby can select the best wine, say the right thing, buy the right gift. Franck feels increasingly left out. And when he accidentally sees Bobby’s “standard equipment” he feels second-rate and useless. Meanwhile, Florence feels sexually neglected and doesn’t understand why. Is Bobby ruining their marriage? Will Florence ever activate Bobby’s forbidden love-love button? Or can Franck reactivate their relationship?
L’homme parfait is a French comedy about robots, technology and middle-age crises. It’s also a clear knock-off of last year’s German hit I’m Your Man (they actually give it a nod by saying Bobby is manufactured in Germany). It’s conventional, predictable, and anything but subversive, in the style of those cheap-ass Hollywood comedies in the ‘80s and ‘90s. That said, it did make me laugh more than once. What can I say — no one will call L’homme parfait a great movie, but it is a funny, low-brow sex-comedy in an emerging sub-genre: humanoid robots.
Pinocchio
Dir: Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson
Geppetto is a wood carver who lives with his beloved son Carlo in a small village in Tuscany. He carves everything in town from wooden clogs for Carlo, to Christ on the Cross in their local church. But when a WWI bomb drops on the village killing his son, Geppetto becomes a reclusive alcoholic, spending all his time crying by Carlo’s grave. Two decades later, in drunken rage, he chops down a knotty pine tree that grew from a pinecone Carlo found on his last day alive, and roughly carves a new boy — with wobbly knees and elbows, rough-hewn hair and a long piece of wood for a nose — all modelled on his son. He calls him little pine, or Pinocchio. What he doesn’t realize is a blue cricket (the story’s narrator) lives inside a hole in the wood the boy is made of.
After Geppetto passes out, a magical wood sprite, out of sympathy for the old man, brings Pinocchio to life. She gives the cricket responsibility of taking care of the kid and teaching him right from wrong. The new-born boy is clumsy and dangerous, a tabula rasa taking in all around him. He exalts in learning and gleefully smashes everything he sees. Soon the discovers Pinocchio with different reactions. Some call him an abomination, the work of the Devil. Podesta, a member of Mussolini’s Fascist Party, thinks Pinocchio can be the ultimate weapon, a soldier who cannot die. And a sleazy carnival barker named Count Volpe, and his sinister sidekick, a monkey named 
Spazzatura, see him as a money-maker, a living puppet he can exploit at his circus. Being pulled in all directions, can Pinocchio ever find his way back to his father and creator Gepetto?
Pinocchio is a dark retelling of the 19th century Italian classic. It’s masterfully-made using stop-motion animation of dolls and puppets, in the style of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or A Nightmare Before Christmas. Gone are the cutesy Disney costumes and hats; this Pinocchio is bare-bones wood all the way, with clothing hacked onto his body. The naughty boy is made of knotty pine. It’s partly a musical, with characters spontaneously breaking into song (some good, some not), especially at the circus. But it’s also, like all of del Toro’s movies, dark, sad and scary. It deals with theft, alcoholism and death. And by transplanting the story into fascist wartime Italy (similar to Spain in Pan’s Labyrinth), he makes it even darker.
In addition to Gregory Mann, David Bradley and Ewen McGregor — as, Pinocchio, Geppetto and the cricket — other voices include Tilda Swinton, Kate Blanchett, Rob Perlman, and Finn Wolfhard as Candlewick, Pinocchio’s frenemy. But it’s the characters themselves, animated on the screen, that really make this movie. If I saw this as a little kid, I guarantee, Pinocchio would have given me nightmares. But as a grown-up, I found it a sad and very moving story, beautifully made.
Pinocchio is now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and L’homme parfait is one of many films screening at Cinefranco till Tuesday and then digitally till the end of the month.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Filming the Impossible. Movies reviewed: Fire of Love, Come Back Anytime, Nope
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You know how I’m always talking about big-screen movies, how they show you things that you don’t get on a TV, device or phone? Well, movies don’t just walk to your cinemas, they take a hell of a lot of work to get there. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to get them on the screen.
So this week I’m looking at three beautiful movies, two of which are about filming the impossible. There’s a ramen chef who reveals his secret recipes; brother-and-sister ranchers who try to take pictures of a UFO; and husband-and-wife scientists who try to film volcanos, up close, as they erupt.
Fire of Love
Dir: Sara Dosa
It’s the early 1960s in France. Katia and Maurice Krafft meet at a scientific conference, and never part. Katia is a petite geochemist with a pixie haircut, while Maurice is a geologist, twice her size, with a face like John C Reilly. The two are so fascinated by volcanoes. That they call themselves Volcanologists. They go to anti-war protests and eventually marry, honeymooning on Santorini island in Greece (an active volcano, naturally). They form a team of two, investigating and recording on film, 
volcanoes around the world. Dressed in metallic space suits, they measure everything from the arcs that volcanic bombs (large chunks of molten lava) take as they are expelled into the air, to the degree if acid in water pools nearby. And most of all, the volcanoes themselves. Each volcano has a unique personality and should be approached in a different way. But they make one distinction. Red volcanoes are safe if you take precautions. They’re caused by tectonic plates pulling apart, exposing the magma beneath. Molten lava spills out and flows in a clear path, and can be filmed from a relatively close distance. Grey volcanoes, though, are caused by tectonic plates crashing into each other, expel ash into the sky. When they explode, they can be more powerful than an atom bomb, leading to landslides and widespread death and destruction. The power of the earth, 
the Kraffts say, dwarfs anything mankind can attempt. But they photograph and film it all, providing much of the images of volcanoes the world sees. The Kraffts died in 1991 while following their passion at the eruption of Mt Unzen, a grey volcano in Japan. Their bodies were never found.
Fire of Love is a stunningly beautiful documentary about Katia and Maurice in their search for active volcanoes around the earth. It is illustrated by their own extensive footage, including surprising and breathtaking images from Iceland to Zaire to Krakatau, Indonesia. They went where no one else dared. Wistfully narrated by Miranda July, the film also looks at their long-lasting love affair, devoted to each other and volcanoes. Beautifully illustrated by animated drawings it delves into their private thoughts including Maurice’s fantasy of rowing a canoe down a river of molten lava as it spills into the open sea. You’re probably familiar with the volcanoes in movies and TV shows, but this doc takes you right into the middle of them, like nothing you’ve seen before. Spectacular.
Come Back Anytime (また いらっしゃい)
Dir: John Daschbach
Over the past decade, ramen has become popular worldwide with dozens of restaurants opening everywhere. It’s considered a classic Japanese dish, but in Japan it’s thought of as Chinese food. Ramen first gained popularity in Yokohama’s Chinatown. It consists of noodles in a hearty broth made of pork or chicken bones — typically flavoured with salt, miso, or soy sauce — and topped with roast pork and vegetables.
After WWII, it became wildly popular in Japan, with ramen stalls opening on every street corner. This documentary follows Ueda, the chef, along with his wife, of a particular ramen shop. It shows us, season by season, one year of its existence, including a behind the scenes look at what goes into that bowl of ramen you’re probably craving right now. (My mouth started watering about five minutes into the film.) 
Come Back Anytime is a very low-key, realistic look at a ramen shop — not one that’s famous or prize-winning, not a chain or a corporation, not one that uses fancy or unique flavours like dried sardines — just an ordinary ramen place. But its devoted clientele — some of whom have been going there for 30 years — would argue that this place is something special. It consists of scenes in the restaurant, up at his farm where he grows vegetables, and interview with customers, family and friends. While nothing remarkable, this gentle, ordinary doc leaves you with a nice warm feeling inside, like after eating a hot bowl of ramen.
Nope
Wri/Dir: Jordan Peele
OJ Haywood and his sister Emerald (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer) are unsuccessful horse wranglers who live in a huge wooden house on a dry-gulch ranch somewhere in southern California. Em is outgoing, selfish and spontaneous; she loves listening to LPs full blast. OJ is a monosyllabic cowboy, prone to pondering, and is more comfortable with horses than with people. While he’s on the farm taming mustangs, she’s out there trying to get rich and famous in LA.Their dad built up a big business in Hollywood, providing horses for westerns, but they’ve fallen on hard times, especially since Pops died in a 
freak accident. Now they’re forced to sell their horses, one by one, to Ricky (Steven Yuen) who runs a tacky cowboy theme-park nearby. Ricky is a former child-actor whose hit sitcom was cancelled, years earlier, when his co-star (a chimpanzee) ran amok on set.
But something else is happening on the ranch. Power turns off spontaneously, metallic objects seem to fly around, and what might be a UFO keeps appearing in the distance. Em thinks they can get rich if they can just capture on film a clear, “Oprah-quality” shot of the UFO. Problem is their security cameras fizzle out whenever the flying saucer appears. So they make a trip to a big box store to buy some better quality equipment. And that’s when they meet Angel (Brandon Perea) a cashier there who is totally into both electronic surveillance and UFOs. He volunteers to help them . But have they bit off more than they can chew?
Nope is a weirdly excellent western / mystery / horror movie with a good amount of humour. It bombards you with shocking, seemingly unrelated events, but eventually they all make sense. While Peele’s previous movies, Get Out and Us, were small, drawing room horror, this one is grand and expansive, with sweeping skies and rolling hills, horseback chases and terrifying attacks from above. Daniel Kaluuya is great as the almost mute cowboy, Keke Palmer hilarious as Em, with Steven Yuen as a slimy actor-turned-entrepreneur and Brandon Perea as an enthusiastic third wheel rounding off a great cast. It has wonderful cinematography and art direction: your eyes are flooded with bright oranges, greens and reds. There’s a bit of social commentary — how blacks were erased from Hollywood westerns, as well as just the general ersatz creepiness of American pop culture; and there are also the meta aspects — after all, this is a movie about making a movie — but Nope is mainly just entertainment. And that’s what it did. I saw it on an enormous IMAX screen and enjoyed every minute of it.
Come Back Anytime is now playing at the Toronto Hot Docs cinema; you can see Fire of Love at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; and Nope opens on IMAX this weekend worldwide; 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
Still looking. Films reviewed: Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, The Gray Man, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Summer is here and so is TOPS, Toronto Outdoor Picture Show. This festival lets you watch new or classic films for free, sitting on the cool grass on a warm dark night in a city park. Locations include Christie Pits, the Corktown Commons and Bell Manor Park, showing open-air movies weekly through July and August. Or if you’d rather stay home or watch things on your phone you should check out this year’s Prism Prize winners, a collection of cinematic music videos by and about Canadian artists. Surprisingly good.
This week I’m looking at three new, big-screen movies. There’s a woman in Paris looking for a dress, a hitman in Bangkok looking for a way out, and a talking sea shell looking for his family.
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris
Dir: Anthony Fabian
It’s London in the 1960s. Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) is a hardworking house cleaner, who always goes out of her way to help other people. But her employers, including an aspiring movie star and an extremely rich family, don’t seem to appreciate what she does, often forgetting to pay her wages. Her husband was shot down in WWII so she has supported herself ever since waiting in vain for him to come home. On her free time she goes to the pub or bets on dog races with her best friend Vi (Ellen Thomas) and her bookie Archie (Jason Isaacs). But everything changes when she spots a beautifully flowered dress in her employer’s wardrobe. It’s a Christian Dior, and it cost £500 in Paris. Five hundred pounds…!
Suddenly, Ada has a goal: save up all her money and spend it on a dress like that one. And, through a series of fortuitous events she finds herself in Paris quicker than she thought. But buying the gown is another matter entirely. She faces roadblocks at every turn — the idea of
a cleaning woman buying such a dress. It’s Haut couture, but Mrs Harris is neither haut nor a part of their couture. We sell to princesses and heiresses not to the likes of you, says Mme Colbert (Isabelle Huppert). Are Ada’s hopes and dreams nothing but a fantasy? Or will her optimistic nature win out in the end?
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is a wonderful bitter-sweet drama about a working-class woman in the mid-20th century. Based on the novel by Paul Gallico, it shows how an ordinary woman — through the power of will, sincerity and common sense — can open the tightest doors, but can never transcend her class. The 
movie’s not just about her — there’s a Marquis (Christopher Lambert); a shy young executive (Lucas Bravo — you may recognize him from the dreadful Emily in Paris); and Natasha (Alba Baptista), an existentialist model — but Lesley Manville as Mrs Harris is really the star. She manages to convey, perfectly and subtly, Ada’s innermost thoughts and emotions. Parts of the movie did seem like a non-stop ad for Christian Dior, but, other than that, it was a pleasure to watch.
The Gray Man
Dir: Anthony and Joe Russo
It’s a night-club in Bangkok. 6 (Ryan Gosling) is there for a job: murder. He’s a hitman who works undercover for the CIA in the top secret Sierra division. Recruited as a young man doing hard time for murder, he’s been a loyal member for two decades, eliminating with precision whatever bad guys (no women or children) they assign him to kill. He chases the target into a dark alley, and after a violent confrontation, on his deathbed, the guy says, Wait! I have something to tell you! You’re 6, right? I’m 4. You’re killing a member of your own unit… they’re getting rid of Sierra, and you’re next. He hands him a tiny memory disc drive, and says, They’ve gone bad, and this proves it. Hold onto it and get the hell out of here. Then the guy expires.
So begins an intercontinental chase, with 6 vs the entire CIA, and a team of mercenary 
assassins bankrolled by the Agency under the guidance of Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans). He’s a ruthless, sadistic contractor who will kidnap, torture and kill anyone who gets in his way. The whole world is potential collateral damage… including a little girl with a heart condition that 6 had promised always to protect. (Giving 6 a reason to pursue Lloyd.) Who will triumph? 6, a regular-guy hitman in a track suit with a heart of gold? Or Lloyd, an evil elitist with a douchey moustache and an expensive gold watch?
The Gray Man is a fast-moving action/thriller made for the big screen. It follows 6 from Thailand to Turkey, from Vienna and Prague to an isolated castle in Croatia, complete with a 
convenient hedge maze. There are some spectacular fights — like a battle in mid-air as a cargo plane blows up; fistfights in a hospital and shootouts aboard a a rolling streetcar. On the negative side, there is absolutely nothing original in this action movie — it’s all been done a thousand times before. And there’s product placement for a brand of gum in the first lines of the script. That said, it’s great to see Ryan Gosling again — he’s always worth watching; and Chris Evans is a nicely hateable villain. Ana de Armas, though, is wasted as a dull CIA agent. The good lines all went to other characters. And there are some clever ones. Like You can’t make an omelette without killing people. Is the Gray Man a good movie? I won’t say it’s “good” but I actually like watching good actors in pretty settings with lots of buildings blowing up.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Dir: Dean Fleischer-Camp
Marcel (Jenny Slate) is a naive, inquisitive little boy who lives in a large deserted house with just his grandma to keep him company. The rest of his family mysteriously disappeared one day, and he hasn’t seen them since. He likes listening to Brahms on a record player and watching 60 Minutes. But he’s not human — he’s actually a tiny seashell with one big eye, two legs with pink running shoes and a little mouth. He gets around using Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions, powered by an electric blender blender attached to pieces of string. And he can move quickly on the floor by climbing into a tennis ball and rolling around. But everything changes when a filmmaker named Dean (Dean Fleischer-Camp) moves in. He’s fascinated by the strange little talking shell, so he starts to film Marcel — with his permission — and puts the clips on YouTube, which, of course, eventually go viral. Soon he’s in the NY Times, and people on TikTok are copying his funniest phrases and moves. He’s a minor celebrity, but still hasn’t found his 
family. And Nana (Isabella Rosselini) is getting old. She loves gardening and can talk to insects but she’s having trouble remembering things, and her shell is pock-marked and cracked. Will his new-found fame bring Marcel a better life?
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a totally delightful treat of a movie made in the form of a live-action documentary. Marcel is portrayed using stop-motion photography incorporating his (or actually Jenny Slate’s) hilarious, improvised comedy. It’s 90 minutes long, but flies by in a second, despite its simple style. It’s full of wisdom and humour and speaks to both kids and adults (a lot of the funniest lines appeal to grown ups with Marcel’s unintentionally hilarious observations.) You may be familiar with him from Youtube, and when I first saw the poster, I thought, why in hell would anyone want to watch this? But, view it and you’ll understand why it’s so good.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is now playing all across Canada, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris opens this weekend; check your local listings; The Gray Man is playing in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Lost Souls. Films reviewed: Apples, Moloch, Passengers of the Night
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s Nunavut day, so what better time is there to catch up on Inuit movies. Slash/Back, a brand-new movie about aliens in a small arctic town, is playing right now. The Grizzlies is a feel-good film about a high school lacrosse team. And if you’ve never seen Zacharias Kunuk’s movies — including The Journals of Knud Rasmussen and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner — well… you’d better.
But this week I’m looking at three new European movies — from Greece, the Netherlands and France — about lost souls. There’s a lonely guy in Athens who loses his memory in a pandemic; a divorced mom in Paris who seeks solace in late night talk radio; and a widowed mom in the Netherlands who is haunted by the lost souls… in a peat-moss bog.
Apples
Wri/Dir: Christos Nikou
Aris (Aris Servetalis) lives by himself in Athens, Greece. One day while going for a walk he forgets where he lives. Also his family, his identity, even his first name. He has acute amnesia, the symptom of a strange pandemic, sweeping across the planet. He’s taken to hospital, with the hope a family member will arrive to identify him. But no one comes. About the only thing he knows is he likes apples. The hospital arranges for him to move into an apartment, where they hope he can regain his memory, or at least achieve some level of self worth and identity. To achieve this they put him into an experimental program. He’s given a series of mundane tasks, all of which he is expected to record, using a polaroid camera. Ride a bike, go to a movie, attend a party, drink alcohol, meet a new friend. It also includes things like picking up a woman in a bar (he accidentally goes to a strip bar with embarrassing consequences) But during his recovery, while viewing the Texas Chainsaw 
Massacre, he encounters another alienated, memory-deficient person.
Anna (Sofia Georgovasili) is clearly on the same program. Two is better than one, so they begin to see one another, if in a detached, alienated way. But as time progresses, Aris begins to remember things, including sad memories he wants to suppress. Will Anna be his soul mate? Will he ever find his original home? And is there any meaning to his life?
Apples is a satirical look at modern urban alienation in a time of pandemic. Interestingly, this film was completed in 2019 BC, (before Covid). But 
somehow it captures the mundane, seemingly meaningless medical obsessions, the injections, the tests, the isolation, loneliness and self-doubt that we all experienced over the past two years.
Writer-director Christos Nikou worked with the now famous Yorgos Lanthimos, on his earliest film, Dogtooth, and like that movie, it’s funny, weird and extremely awkward, with adults behaving like children, and people blindly obeying seemingly nonsensical rules. It takes place in the present day but it’s filled with obsolete gadgets like polaroid cameras, and cassette tape players not a cel phone or a laptop in sight. Aris Servetalis is excellent as the main character, who fits perfectly within the film’s minimalist feel.
I like this one.
Moloch
Co-Wri/Dir: Nico van den Brink
Betriek (Sallie Harmsen) is a woman in her thirties who lives in an isolated home with her parents and her young daughter, in northern Netherlands. Her home is in a forest, surrounded by peat moss bogs. Her daughter goes to public school but Betriek likes the isolation — she thinks her family is cursed so it’s best to keep to herself. Easier said than done. Especially when a strange man appears in her living room! He can’t stop it, he says, they won’t let him! And his voice seems to be an unworldly chorus of a thousand souls. And then he tries to kill them all. Turns out he worked at a nearby archaeological dig, headed by Jonas (Alexandre Willaume) a Danish man.
Peat moss is a natural preservative and they’re digging up mummified bodies from ancient times. And when they examine them, they discover they are all victims of the same sort of ancient ritual sacrifice to some primeval god. By disturbing the graves they may have let loose ancient demons, 
possessing her friends and family. Meanwhile, her mother is going through another difficult period with her brain — is it related? Her father says they’d better leave the place and never come back. And when Betriek encounters strange visions of a little girl sending her a message, she realizes things are very wrong. Will Jonas ever believe there’s something evil going on? Can Betriek break her family’s curse? Will they fall in love? And together can they fight off an ancient evil god?
Moloch is an excellent Dutch horror movie about life in a remote village built over secrets that never should have been disturbed. It sounds like a simple story, but actually it’s a multi-layered drama. The film even incorporates a school Christmas pageant where small children innocently reenact an ancient pagan tribute even while mayhem is happening outside. The movie’s in Dutch, but because of the multiplicity of languages, much of the dialogue is in English. And remarkable for a horror movie, the cinematography is gorgeous, as warm and grainy as any 70s Hollywood movie. I liked this one, too.
Passengers of the Night
Dir: Mikhaël Hers
It’s the mid-1980s in Paris. Elisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg) lives with her two teenaged kids high up in an apartment tower. Her daughter Judith, is outspoken and into politics, while her son Matthias (Quito Rayon- Richter) is more introspective — he gets in trouble for writing poems in history class. The dad, though, is nowhere to be seen. He moved in with his girlfriend and pays no child support. So Elisabeth is forced to search for a job to keep her family afloat. She finds solace listening to a late-night radio talk show, and applies to work there. She lands a job at the switchboard vetting callers and guests for the host, Vanda (Emmanuelle Béart). She invites a young woman to the show based on a touching letter she wrote. Tallulah (Noée Abita) is 18 but has lived on the streets of Paris for years, sleeping under bridges and in squats. She has raven hair, pale skin and doe eyes.
Elisabeth can’t stand the thought of her sleeping in the rough, so she invites Tallulah to stay, temporarily, in a spare room tucked away far above their apartment. She wants to keep her separate from her kids, but they soon meet up. She’s street smart, and teaches them how to live on nothing and tricks like how to get into a movie theatre without a ticket. Matthias is smitten by her and longs to take it further. But after a late night tryst, she flees
the apartment and disappears, leaving the family shocked and saddened. Four years later, things have changed. The kids are growing up, Elisabeth has gained self-confidence and she has a day job and a much younger boyfriend named Hugo. But when her ex says he’s selling the home, it’s time for major changes. That’s when Tallulah reappears again at their door in a bad state. Can Elisabeth save Tallulah from her spiral into darkness? And what will the future bring?
Passengers of the Night is a beautiful and heartfelt look at a Parisian family navigating its way through unexpected shifts in their lives, and how a visitor can change everything. The film is set in the 80s (from 1981 through 1988), not just the costumes, music, and Talulah’s big hair but also the tumultuous political and social changes from that era. And it’s punctuated by views of Paris from that era — high-rises, sunsets and views through commuter train windows — shot on a narrower bias, to give it a realistic feel. While more gentle than a sob story, it still brings tears to your eyes.
Passengers of the Night and Apples are both playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. And Moloch is now streaming on Shudder.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
culturalmining.com 
1 comment