Directed by Women. Films reviewed: The Blue Caftan, Priscilla, Rodéo
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season in Toronto continues in November with Cinéfranco presenting its 26th year of Canadian and International Francophone cinema. This means not just great movies from France, Belgium and Switzerland, but also a Spotlight on the African Diaspora, with films from Congo, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco as well as four new Québec features curated by La Tournée Québec Cinéma.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies directed by women — two of which are playing at Cinéfranco. There’s a craftsman in Morocco with eyes on his apprentice; a trucker in Québec on a road trip with his daughter, and the wife of a certain rock’n’roll singer in a mansion called Graceland.
The Blue Caftan
Co-Wri/Dir: Maryam Touzani
Salé, Morocco.
Haliim and Mina (Saleh Bakri, Lubna Azabal) are a childless couple with a small tailor’s shop in the town’s marketplace. Mina is petite with angular features, her black hair pulled back. She runs the front of the store, balancing the books. Halim works at the back. He is tall with blue eyes and a moustache. He’s a maalem, a trained craftsman who sews and embroiders in the traditional way. No sewing machines here; he does everything by hand. But customers complain he’s taking too long. They want modern, chic clothes not old fashioned caftans. To speed up the process, Mina hires a new apprentice, but with low 
expectations. They cheat, they steal and they quit after just a few months of training. But Yousef (Ayoub Missioui) is a quiet and gentle soul who really wants to learn. Money is not his goal, he says — he has supported himself since he was eight. But as they all work together on an exquisite blue caftan embroidered with gold thread, Mina notices an unusual dynamic: Halim seems taken by the young apprentice, who is always close to her husband. And the couple is facing another crisis that could totally change their. Can they solve these problems together?
The Blue Caftan is a beautiful and touching story about an unexpected menage a trois in Morocco. It’s languid and subtle, with a sensual, though not explicit, undertone. The camera focuses on Halim’s fingers touching Yousef’s hand as he guides him in sewing a thread… or the bare feet of two men revealed behind a door at the local hammam — or bathhouse — looking for some furtive sex. Belgian actress Lubna Azabal gives a powerful as Mina, while Saleh Bakri will move you to tears. I’ve never seen Ayoub Missioui before but he also gives a great performance within the triangle.
The Blue Caftan captures not just the look of small-town Morocco, but also the the constant sounds of the souk: the voices, music and calls to prayer always drifting through the windows along with the smell of ocean air.
A beautiful movie.
Priscilla
Co-Wri/Dir: Sofia Coppola
It’s the late 1950s. Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) is a 14-year-old American girl on a military base near Bad Nauheim, West Germany. She’s an army brat, living a typical American life but overseas. She misses her friends back home and feels stifled on the base. Enter Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) the 24-year-old superstar. He’s drafted into the army but manages to live a life of luxury and stardom while serving his time. But when his pimp — I mean superior officer — asks Priscilla if she’d like to meet Elvis, everything changes. It sets in motion a years-long courtship and their eventual marriage many years later. And a strange courtship it is. They share a bed, but sex is forbidden. Elvis is always on pharmaceuticals, but when he slips her a sedative, she wakes up two days later with no recollection of what happened. He chooses what dresses she can wear, what colour to dye her hair — she’s almost like his own personal Barbie doll. And he is always somewhere far away, shooting a movie in Hollywood with Ann-Margaret or recording a record with The Boys, his entourage of old friends and musicians 
who never leave his side. Is Elvis is cheating on her? Will they ever consummate their relationship? Or will she remain an icon of virtue and purity in his eyes, but with no life of her own?
Priscilla is a biopic about the life of Elvis’s girlfriend and wife from the late 50s to the early 70s. And in the world of celebrity biopics, this a strange one, where the main character functions mainly as a side kick or an afterthought to the much more famous singer. It feels like all the fun stuff is happening off screen, and we’re left with Priscilla waiting for Elvis to come home. We constantly hear about his manager the Colonel but he rarely appears (no Tom Hanks in this version, thank God). As in most of Sofia Coppola’s films, there’s an air of detachment and ennui that only a third-generation Hollywood icon could feel. And though skilfully made, Priscilla left me feeling like I missed the real movie and had to watch this substitute instead.
Rodéo (Eng. title: Stampede)
Wri/Dir: Joëlle Desjardins Paquette
Serge Jr (Maxime Le Flaguais) is a trucker in Eastern Quebec. He is macho, with long hair and a beard and quick to fight, especially after too much to much to drink. Maybe that’s why his wife Jessica divorced him. He likes death metal music, and his prized green semi. He has the truck jacked up with flashing lights and horns, the perfect thing for drag racing. But most of all, he loves his daughter Lily (Lilou Roy-Lanouette). She’s cute, blonde and sharp as a tack. Only ten, but she can already scare grownups with her foul mouth, loud yells and lethal karate moves. But when Serge keeps Lily overnight at a truck rally, against custody rules, Jessica cuts off all ties. She won’t let Lily see her dad anymore. Until he shows up one day at her karate dojo, ready to roll. They’re heading out on a cross country drive, just the two of them — with Jessica’s permission, he says — to participate in the biggest truck drag race in the country — the Calgary Stampede! So she climbs into his truck and they take off, due west. But is there more to this trip than meets the eye?
Rodéo is a working-class, father-daughter road movie about 
meeting strange people, getting into trouble, and discovering the much- hated Canada — outside of Quebec — for the very first time. It’s also a bit of a thriller, as the two reveal their secrets and lies even as a larger world closes in on them. The camerawork and art direction is stunning, with flashing coloured lights and clouds of mist, steam and smoke mysteriously following the two of them on their journey. And the acting — and accents — are first rate.
I like this movie.
Priscilla just opened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, with the Blue Caftan and Rodéo/Stampede both playing at Cinéfranco at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Summer tentpoles. Films reviewed: The Deepest Breath, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A tentpole is a movie that, despite its extremely high budget, is expected to help a studio stay afloat so they can make lots of mid- or low-budget movies — the films I try to cover. But since a lot of these tentpoles are popping up this summer and inundating us with ads and publicity, I can’t completely ignore them. So this week, I’m looking at two of them — an action movie and an action/adventure — plus a sports doc.
The Deepest Breath
Wri/Dir: Laura McGann
Alessia Zecchini is an Italian woman whose dream — since she was a little girl — has always been to free dive. Freediving refers to an extreme sport usually done in natural settings. While there are many variations, it generally involves swimming straight down underwater as deep as you can go, and then turning around and swimming back up to the surface. The type Alessia competes in involves a weighted rope that she follows when swimming down and up. The deeper you go, the better your chance of winning a competition or breaking a world record. But countless people go deep-sea diving — what sets this type apart? Free diving is done without scuba gear; competitors hold their breath the entire time they’e underwater. (We’re talking two, three or four minutes or longer!) It’s considered an extreme sport because if you swim too deep you might black out and drown. So there are safety divers who accompany you, to mitigate the danger — they propel your body to the surface if you pass out. One such safety diver is Stephen Keenan, an Irishman known for his skills and dedication. The two become close in their repeated dives. But can they remain safe in such a dangerous sport?
The Deepest Breath is a sports documentary about Stephen, Allessia and other free divers both in and out of competition, as well as talking-head interviews with their friends and relatives. I was attracted to this documentary because I love underwater 
photography — the deep blues, the colourful fish, the coral reefs, whales and orca people might see as they explore the depths. And the photography is quite beautiful. But I hadn’t realized that most of the movie would just be people competing as they swim down and then up again. Free climbing — rock climbing without ropes or nets — is a highly skilled and very hazardous sport. (A great doc called Free Solo came out a few years ago). Free diving is not the equivalent. It’s just about who can hold their breath the longest as they swim up and down a rope, like a human yo-yo.
There are historical precedents, like women in Japan known as ama (海女) who used to swim topless in deep and rocky waters searching for pearls in oyster beds. But they did it as an occupation, not as a hobby. For the life of me, why do people risk their lives at something so pointless? I also found the movie manipulative: misleading audiences about implied relationships which may or may not have been real, while dropping false hints about the death of certain characters (no spoilers).
If you are a fan of (or a competitor in) free diving or other extreme sports, you’ll love this movie. Otherwise… maybe not.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1
Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a spy who carries out top secret assignments as part of the IMF — the Impossible Mission Team, known only to Kittridge, his boss (Henry Czerny) who works for the US government, and other members of the team. His mission? To rescue a special key from another agent, Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and bring it back. But this is no ordinary key. When interlocked with a second, one, this key can activate a lethal weapon so powerful it makes atomic bombs look like BB guns. The key was stolen from the Russians by an unknown entity, possibly an example of artificial intelligence gone rogue. Hunt liberates the key, but his plans are interrupted by a new player on the scene. Grace (Hayley Atwell) is a beautiful and glamorous thief, who can pick any pocket and open any lock. She’s working for Gabriel (Esai Morales), a mysterious and ruthless villain who represents The Entity — that unknown person, group or computer program seeking to rule the world. And her nimble fingers soon take possession of the key. It’s up to Hunt and his team to follow her through scenic spots in Europe and get back the key, before the Entity blows us all up. But who can he trust?
Mission: Impossible — Day of Reckoning is a light, fun movie with non-stop action. I find Mission: Impossible movies annoying for their ponderous plots and Tom Cruise-centric focus. This time, it’s funnier than usual, and also has many interesting characters: Ilsa, 
Grace, but also a deranged assassin named Paris (Pom Klementieff) and a diffident criminal broker known only as The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). That’s right, this is an action movie with four fascinating female central characters! That’s rare. The stunts and special effects are really impressive, as is the scenery in Rome, Venice, and across the continent.
On the other hand, the dialogue in this movie is atrocious. I mean abysmally bad, in some scenes. A sequence set in the Pentagon may live on in history as some of the worst lines ever written. (Could it have been written by AI? No, it’s even worse than that.) It’s also Part One of a two-part series, so you’ll have to watch another one next year to tie up the loose ends.
But if you’re looking for pure summer entertainment, check this one out.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Dir: James Mangold
It’s 1944 in Nazi Germany. Indiana Jones (a de-aged Harrison Ford) is an archaeologist known for his bravery and derring-do. With his side-kick Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), they’re hoping to find a priceless relic amongst countless crates of stolen loot. They are captured and tortured by their cruel adversaries, but manage to escape, along with part of an ancient Greek device invented by Archimedes— the Dial of Destiny. Flash forward 25 years to Manhattan in the late 1960s. Indie is now an over-the-hill college professor, whose get up and go has got up and went. His treasure-hunting days are over, his wife (Karen Allen) has left him and his students don’t care what he says. But everything changes when Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter, shows up unannounced. She grabs the dial and runs off with it to Morocco. She’s not the only one interested in this dial — government agents want it, too, and so does Dr Voller (Mads 
Mikkelsen) a former Nazi turned NASA rocket scientist who Indie and Basil encountered back in 1944. Indie reverts to his old personality, and complete with hat and whip, he flies off to Morocco. And after some jostling and negotiations, he joins Helena and her loyal street-urchin pal Teddy (Ethann Isidore) on a transcontinental journey to locate the other half of the dial. But who will get there first?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the latest, and possibly the last of the movie franchise. Considering Harrison Ford is 81 now, I think he carries it off pretty well. Does the movie work? Totally. It’s a family-oriented action/ adventure film. Maybe I like it for the 
nostalgia factor, which is the basis of the whole series — Spielberg and Lucas made Raiders of the Lost Arc in the 80s in an attempt to recapture the movies they grew up with. But it has enough twists and turns, secrets and surprises, to keep you interested, start to finish. Mads Mikkelsen plays a perfect villain, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is great, too. I actually really liked this one — it redeems the whole series.
One thing I don’t normally do is compare two movies, but I was struck by how similar this movie is to the latest Mission: Impossible. They both have chase scenes driving tiny cars pursued by gun-crazed drivers — a yellow Fiat 500 in Rome in Mission: Impossible, vs a Morrocan tuk-tuk in Indiana Jones. They both have half of a device with incredible power — a key and a dial — and are searching for the other half. They both have fight scenes on the roof of a fast-moving train passing in and out of tunnels. And 
there’s a clever pick-pocket — Grace in Mission, Teddy in Indie — who befuddles both the hero and the villains. And each of these tentpoles cost about $350 million each to make: That’s more than the budget of every feature made in Canada that year put together. Which is better? I liked them both, but I’d say Dial of Destiny is the better one.
Indiana Jones and thee Dial of Destiny is playing now, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and The Deepest Breath both open 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.
culturalmining.com 
1 comment