Good Euro at #TIFF24. Films reviewed: Miséricordia, Vermiglio, The Girl with the Needle
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There was a dearth of European movies at TIFF this year with far fewer high-profile films from countries like France, Benelux, Scandinavia, Romania and Poland. But there were still some very good ones. So this week, I’m talking about three new European films that were featured at TIFF. There’s a mom with a baby in Copenhagen, an army deserter in Tyrol, and a funeral-goer in southeastern France.
Miséricordia
Dir: Alain Guiraudie (Review: Stranger by the Lake)
Jeremie (Félix Kysyl) is a boyish-looking man from Toulouse returning to the tiny village of L’Aveyron in southeastern France. He’s there for a funeral, the untimely death of the village’s baker. Jeremie knows the village and all its people very well, as he was the baker’s assistant for many years. He asks the baker’s widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), if he can stay there for a few days.
She puts him up in her adult son Vincent’s old room (Jean-Baptiste Durand) — which still look’s like it’s a kid’s room. Vincent, though, is a married adult, a tough guy known for his moodiness and sudden bursts of anger. Then there’s Walter (David Ayala), the town recluse, a large, droopy man with coarse features who seldom speaks with anyone other than his dog and Vincent. And an Abbey from an ancient monastery who always seems to turns up when anything significant happens.
So Jeremie’s presence upsets the local rhythm. Vincent treats Jeremie like they’re still kids, picking play-fights with him, grabbing and punching. He uses his key to barge in on Jeremie in bed at 4 am (on his way to work, he says). He suspects Jeremie is sleeping with his
mom. But in reality, Jeremie seems more attracted to the late baker than his wife. When Jeremie drops by Walter’s place for some chat and a few glass of the local pastis — Walter warns him not to let Vincent know he was there. With his tongue and inhibitions loosened Jeremie comes on to Walter sexually which shocks and confuses the much bigger man. By the next morning there’s a dead body buried in the woods, a witness, a killer trying to keep it a secret, and the gendarmes starting an investigation. Whodunnit, who will get caught, and what will happen to the rest of the characters?
Miséricordia is a cross between dark comedy and film noir. Like a stage play, it’s full of dialogue overheard through half open doors, people disappearing behind curtains or hiding in someone else’s bed. It deals with lust and passion — and compassion, anger but also forgiveness (Misericordia is Latin for mercy). And a fair amount of unexpected erotic nudity. It’s shot on grainy colour film, among the ancient whitewashed houses, stone monastery, and the wilds of the nearby forests — it’s visually beautiful. Alain Guiraudie who directed the great Stranger by the Lake once again crafts an unusual mystery with a queer undercurrent.
This is a really good movie.
Vermiglio
Dir: Maura Delpero
It’s near the end of WWII in a mountainous village tucked away in Tyrolia, northern Italy. Two faces arrive in town one day, one familiar, one unknown. They are both deserters, Italian soldiers press-ganged into the German army, but the stranger, a Sicilian named Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), knows only this friend Attilio, he served with. He also saved his life and practically carried him all the way home. Pietro’s Italian is totally different to them so he seldom speaks. They put them up in a barn, just to be safe, and feed them.
The patriarch of this village is Cesare (Tommaso Ragno) a highly respected schoolteacher with ten kids of his own. Most of the kids sleep together, some three to a bed, and there’s a constant stream of patter and dialogue within the family. The oldest daughter is Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), named after the village’s patron saint. There’s also Flavia, the precocious daughter and Ada the religious one. Lucia knows nothing about sex, but does know she likes Pietro. They flirt, court, kiss, and marry. He signs up for the adult literacy lessons his new father-in-law teaches. And finally, as Lucia’s belly grows, he abruptly leaves the village for a short visit home in far-off Sicily. But when he fails to return after months away without even a postcard, Lucia begins to worry. What has happened to her Pietro?
Vermiglio gives a look at the consequences of ambition, rivalry, love and betrayal in an isolated village where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. It follows all the members of this family, though especially the daughters and their hard-working mother (10 kids!) over the course of one year.There’s a lovely ebb and flow, with 
characters appearing and disappearing, deftly interwoven throughout the film in dialogue and action. Though linear in structure there’s no clear explanation of much of what is going on — you have to figure that out yourself. Filmed under soft natural lighting, you’re as likely to see an extreme closeups of milking a cow’s udders, as you are a furtive kiss. I found Vermiglio fascinating and empathetic — you really care about what happens to all these characters.
I like this one.
The Girl with the Needle
Co-Wri/Dir: Magnus von Horn
It’s WWI in Copenhagen Denmark. Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) works in a sweatshop making uniforms. She hasn’t heard from her husband Peter since he enlisted with the Germans, and without his income she’s behind on her rent and faces eviction. In desperation she visits the factory owner Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup) and asks for her military widow’s pension. But without any proof of his death, there’s nothing he can do. But he does find her attractive and soon they are having furtive sex in back alleys. Inevitably she gets pregnant so he does the honourable thing and proposes… until his aristocratic mother stops him cold. Not only won’t he marry her, she must be 
fired from her job. Meanwhile, it seems her husband was not killed at the battlefront, but he’s unrecognizable. Peter (Besir Zeciri) now wears a mask to cover his face that had been blown off and them sewn back together. Peter now works at a carnival freak show revealing his face for a few krone.
In desperation, Karoline takes a knitting needle to a public bath and attempts to kill the foetus in her womb by jabbing it, but ends up injuring herself and nearly passing out. But she’s spotted by Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm) who runs a local candy store, and her pretty, blonde daughter Erena (Ava Knox Martin). She nurses her and tells her what to do if she starts bleeding again. And she gives her a bag of candy with the shop’s address on it. Dagmar is always there when there’s no one else to turn to. And when she finally gives birth, penniless and homeless, Caroline shows up at the candy store asking for help give away her baby. She can’t afford to pay her — this is a business, Dagmar reminds her — but agrees to let her stay there for now, as an 
on-call wet nurse. Many young women pass through there with their kids, so she’s always ready to lend a hand. But what really happens to those babies?
Based on a true story, The Girl with the Needle is a powerful movie about a horrifying case that shocked the world (no spoilers). It shows us a Copenhagen riddled with friction and sharp divisions between the haves and have-nots. It also repeats a theme of disturbing images of grotesquely deformed faces. It’s shot in glorious black and white by the Polish cinematographer Michal Dymek, who also filmed Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO two years ago. There’s some serious acting here, especially the three main women. This is one of those jaw-dropping movies where you go in expecting a conventional, scary-type horror movie, but you end up watching something much bigger than that. This is a fantastic and very disturbing movie, but with a touch of hope.
And it’s Denmark’s choice for the Oscar for best international Feature.
Keep your eyes peeled for Miséricordia, The Girl with the Needle, and Vermiglio, that all played at TIFF and should be opening theatrically over the next year.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Current cinema. Films reviewed: Destroy All Neighbours, Freud’s Last Session, T.I.M.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s “award season” when prizes are handed out to the best — or most widely publicized — movies. But not every film is prestigious or a blockbuster. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies — one each from the US, Ireland and England — that might otherwise fall through the cracks. There’s a robot with human traits, a music producer turned serial killer, and a psychoanalyst talking about God.
Destroy All Neighbours
Wri/Dir: Jonah Ray Rodrigues
William (Jonah Ray Rodrigues) lives in a rundown apartment with his girlfriend Emily (Kiran Deol) a lawyer. He’s tall, skinny, and wears unfashionable clothes and nerd glasses. He works in a studio at the soundboard, helping bands record their music. But sometimes he feels like he’s just a knob- turner, going through the motions. His real passion is recording the ultimate prog-rock album, and is constantly coming up with new ideas, but never finishing it. Emily encourages him to give up and move on, but he feels he has to do it. But he’s getting more and more tired and frustrated by the people around him. At work, his boss is constantly ragging him for being late. And the latest client, Caleb Bang Jansen is insufferable. Even the panhandler where he parks his car is getting on his nerves. At home, Eleanor, the elderly pothead superintendent (Randee Heller) is constantly calling him for help with the fuses. Another neighbour, Phillip, lets his pet pig roam the halls. But worst of all is the new tenant next door. Vlad (Alex Winter) is hideously ugly, aggressive and incredibly loud, playing non-stop euro disco all night long. Vlad lifts weights using buckets of cement attached to his barbell. He’s a scary guy, William is passive aggressive and terrified of face to face confrontations.
When he finally visits Vlad to ask him to turn down the music, they get in a fight and somehow Vlad ends up impaled on a stake, and — accidentally — decapitated! 
William doesn’t know what to do, but finally realizes he has to dispose of the body. But things have changed since Vlad — new bodies keep piling up — always killed unintentionally by him, by strange coincidences. He becomes a serial killer by default, or a serial manslaughterer, as he likes to say.
But when the all the people he killed come back to life, he realizes something really strange is going on. Can William keep his boss and girlfriend happy, record his prog rock album, stop killing people, and living a normal life? Is he destined for a very dark future? Or is he just losing his marbles?
Destroy all Neighbours (the title says it all) is a comedy/horror movie, with an emphasis on in-your-face, gross-out humour. So there’s lots of disgusting blood and 
gore, but it’s always so exaggerated it’s funny, not scary, in the manner of Monte Python or Army of Darkness. Jonah Ray Rodrigues is the writer/ director/star and the current host of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I admit it’s an acquired taste, and some of the gags and schtick fall flat, but I was laughing more than not. I happen to like that kind of humour (in moderation) but, admittedly, it’s not for everyone. So if you’re into bloody horror-comedy set in L.A.s skid row, or even if you’ve ever had annoying neighbours, I think you’ll love Destroy all Neighbours.
Freud’s Last Session
Co-Wri/Dir: Matt Brown
It’s September, 1939. Germany has invaded Poland and Great Britain is about to go to war. Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) and his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries) left their homes and vocations in Vienna after the Anschluss — the unification of Austria and the Third Reich, and moved to London. His office is decorated with the art and bric-a-brac of home: Persian rugs, African fertility statues and Catholic saints. Anna continues to research and give lectures on psychoanalysis and child psychology, but Sigmund, due to his age (he’s 83) and poor health (he’s dying of cancer) rarely leaves his home now. But on this day he has an unusual visitor: CS Lewis (Matthew Goode). Lewis is a don at Oxford where he teaches English and has written a book about Pilgrims Progress. (He later goes on to write The Chronicles of Narnia.) And he’s still suffering from shell shock from WWI. But why are they meeting? Lewis wants to talk with Freud about God and religion. He once was an atheist but now has adopted theism and Christianity as his guiding light. Freud, on the other hand, is a committed atheist and finds all religions equally fascinating and equally false. Still, they have a spirited discussion on a wide range of issues. But certain topics are taboo. For example, Freud refuses to talk about the fact that Anna has a female lover. And Lewis considers his own sexual relationship with his late best friend’s mother as something too private to share. Meanwhile, air raid sirens are going off, Freud is struggling with the oral prosthetic he calls his “Monster” and nobody knows what the future will bring. Will this be Freud’s very last session?
Freud’s Last Session is a fictional historical drama adapted from the successful stage play. There’s no evidence that an elderly Freud and a younger Lewis ever actually met; the story functions more as an intellectual exercise than a theatrical drama. So it’s not captivating, but it did keep my attention. They try to perk it up a bit with flashbacks — Lewis in the trenches in WWI; Freud as a small child — but I found them lacklustre at
best. There are some clever touches, where Freud ends up reclining on the settee while Lewis takes on the analysts role. Of course it has nice period costumes and sets, but the main reasons to see this film is first the topics and second the acting. The topics range from sex to psychoanalysis to theology. Devotees of Freud and/or Lewis may get a kick out of it, but no major revelations here. The acting, though is delightful. Hopkins walks through his usual role — along with a few artfully-placed wunderbars and ja ja ja and das ist gut! so we don’t forget he’s Austrian. Goode is more passionate, fearful and sad. Best of all is German actress Liv Lisa Fries (from Babylon Berlin) as Anna Freud, who gets to rush around London looking for meds for her Dad.
Freud’s Last Session is not bad, but not noteworthy, either.
T.I.M.
Co-Wri/Dir: Spencer Brown
Abi and Paul Granger (Georgina Campbell, Mark Rowley) are married, professionals, double-income, no kids, moving into a beautiful, modern home in rural England. It’s at the end of a long country road, with open staircases, glass walls and a huge garden, all paid for and arranged by Abi’s employer. She’s an engineer who specializes in AI robotic prostheses. She designs the human-looking hands of robots. Paul is currently unemployed, but is in line for a corporate position in London. They’re both looking forward to their first child, and are working hard at it each night.
Now this house is completely on the grid. Everything’s smart — smart windows, locks, heating, computers, lighting — all controlled through a central console, and co-ordinated with their smart watches and phones. The central console, though, is something her company invented. It’s a Technologically Integrated Manservant, T.I.M. for short, or just Tim. Tim (Eamon Farren) is a humanoid robot with perfect male features, blond hair, and artificial intelligence; he’s constantly learning. He’s a prototype: he can cook gourmet foods, do heavy lifting, play the piano, send and answer emails. Abi’s boss is adamant that all his employees have a T.I.M., so they can get rid of the bugs in the system before the upcoming release. Abi, loves her new toy, but Paul is less enthusiastic. Why did T.I.M. barge into their bedroom while they were making love? T.I.M. says Abi’s blood pressure and temperature had risen, he just wanted to make sure she was OK. But Paul suspects T.I.M. of spying on him. He thinks TIM sends messages to Abi whenever Paul visits Rose their only neighbour (Amara Karan), feeding Abi’s suspicious jealousies. And when he catches T.I.M. perving through Abi’s clothes, he knows something is very wrong. Is T.I.M. morphing into something bad? Can a robot even have feelings? And if things go wrong, who will Abi trust: Paul, the fallible human, or T.I.M., the perfect machine?
T.I.M. is a sci-fi thriller about the potential dire consequences of AI given a human form. This isn’t the first humanoid movie — there have been at least a dozen in the past few years — and some of the plot is predictable. And it does have that “pandemic movie feel” to it, with a tiny cast (just four main characters) located in an isolated country setting, but, in this case, it really works. It’s scary, it’s creepy, it’s interesting. It feeds on your worst fears about electronic devices communicating without your knowledge, and the possibility of the singularity, when humans will no longer be essential. I’m not familiar with any of the actors but the cast is good. The storyline is compelling, and most of all, the movie feels believable. So if you ever feel like your smart phone is a bit too smart, you’ll like this scary, sci-fi thriller. It’s a good one.
Freud’s Last Session opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Destroy All Neighbours is streaming exclusively on shudder.com, starting today; and T.I.M. is now available digitally and on V.O.D.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
War movies at #TIFF22. Films reviewed: The Inspection, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, All Quiet on the Western Front
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
When military budgets soar, and “war games” are held more frequently, when Presidents and Prime Ministers make speeches about liberty and democracy, when lots of military experts start appearing on cable news networks, rattling their sabres… it usually means governments are gearing up for war. And art imitates life. War movies — you know, the kind of films with all-male casts showing bravery and camaraderie, and lots and lots of guns, tanks and bombs — are becoming popular again.
This week I’m talking about three new war movies that had their world premieres at TIFF. There’s high schoolers in Germany who want to enlist in WWI, a guy from New York who wants to bring beer to his buddies in Vietnam, and a homeless black, gay man who wants to join the marines.
The Inspection
Wri/Dir: Elegance Bratton
Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) is a 25-year old man who sleeps in a homeless shelter in Jersey City, NJ. His single mother (Gabrielle Union), threw him out as a teenager when he came out as gay. He spent the next 10 years living on the streets. Now he plans a new beginning: to turn his life around by joining the marines. But bootcamp is not a nurturing environment. As the sergeants say, we are going to break you all down, and if you survive it, we’ll build you back up again. The breaking down process consists of bullying and violence visited on anyone deviating the norm, be they gay, muslim or just insecure. Sgt Laws (Bokeem Woodbine), in particular, has it in for French, and seems to want kill him — literally. Another recruit, Harvey (McCaul Lombardi) goes out of his way to make French’s life in bootcamp unbearable. 
Luckily he does find a few friends, including Sgt Rosales, who takes his side. Can he survive bootcamp and become a marine? And can he ever make his estranged mother proud of him again?
The inspection is based on the memoirs of the film’s writer/director Elegance Bratton. It’s a passionate and deeply-moving first film about a gay son and his fundamentalist 
mother, while trying to succeed in a toxic environment. There have been many movies before about life in bootcamp (especially Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket) even for a gay man (the South African film Moffie, for example) but The Inspection is still a new take. My only criticism is it seems to be, as a whole, an “oorah-oorah” celebration of military life, despite the prejudice and corruption within it. Without a negative thought, anywhere, about war itself.
The Greatest Beer Run Ever
Co-Wri/Dir: Peter Farrelly
It’s 1967 in Inwood, N.Y., a white, working-class neighbourhood in northern Manhattan. Chicky Donohue (Zach Efron) is a high school drop out who sleeps in everyday and during waking hours can usually be found getting drunk with his buddies at a local bar. Full of piss and vinegar, Chick has lots of big ideas but rarely follows through; no one take him seriously. Lots of his friends and neighbours either signed up or were drafted to serve in Vietnam, but his time served in the Merchant Marines exempts him. His sister marches in rallies against the Vietnam War at Columbia, but Chicky is firmly on the America, Love it Or Leave it side.
But one day, sitting at the bar with his friends, he wonders why no one
is doing anything for their buddies in Nam: Minogue, Pappas, Duggan and the rest. So he boasts he’ll buy them some beer and give it to them personally. And that’s what he does — fills a duffel bag with cans of PBR, signs up on a ship headed for Saigon, and just goes there. His ship captain gives him three days to find his friends if he ever wants to leave Vietnam. The only Americans who travel in that country are journalists or military. And no one goes north into battle zones voluntarily. Except Chicky. He starts tracking them down to everyone else’s disbelief. As they say, only someone as dumb as him could survive a trip like this.
He happily passes as a CIA agent until he witnesses what they actually do (like the torture and murder of prisoners). And the Vietnamese in the countryside aren’t welcoming him with open arms — they’re terrified he’s going to murder them. And those bombers all around? They’re dropping napalm everywhere. Later he joins forces with a journalist (Russel Crowe) to discover the truth. But will he ever get the beer to his buddies and make it back alive?
The Greatest Beer Run Ever is a fun and fast-moving bro-dramedy based on a true story. It’s set during the Tet Offensive as the war escalates. It has a terrific soundtrack of 60s pop and psychedelic music. Zach Efron is good as a dumb cluck who gradually wakes up to what the war is really about. And while there are some Vietnamese characters, like most American war movies, it’s all about America. It’s hard to tell whether this film is pro-war or anti-war; rather it seems to be pro-soldiers but against the war in Vietnam and especially the lies the generals told.
All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues)
Dir: Edward Berger
(based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque)
It’s 1917 and the world is at war. Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) is a skinny student with glasses at a Catholic boys’ school in a German town. After a rousing speech by their schoolmaster — who dubs the boys “Iron Youth” — all of his classmates rush to join the fight for God, the Kaiser and the Fatherland. But Paul is still too young to enlist, so he forges a letter to sign up with his friends, looking forward to the fun and adventure that surely lies ahead.
But once they arrive in occupied northern France, they soon 
discover this war consists of an endless wasteland of trenches. The “new” uniforms they’re fitted with are recycled from the bodies of dead soldiers. They are forced to train wearing horrible gas masks, and thrown into battle. And a hellish fight it is. Paul — along with his friends Haie, Kropp, Müller, Kat and Tjaden — soon realizes that the only way they’re going home is in a coffin.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a scathing look at the machinery of war and how it uses soldiers as cannon fodder. Even while a German diplomat (Daniel Brühl) is busy negotiating armistice, the generals continue killing as many soldiers as they can until the bitter end. The film graphically shows soldiers incinerated by flame throwers, shot, bombed, stabbed by bayonets, and run over by tanks… even killed in brutal, hand-to-hand combat by the main sympathetic characters. While it provides some relief — one soldier steals a goose from a farm to the joy of his squad-mates; another falls for an art deco poster of a French woman that he sticks to the trench wall — there’s a feeling of doom pervading the entire movie. It has good acting, a 
soundtrack that is as brilliantly ominous as the theme from Jaws, the photography is deadly, and the makeup — soldiers’ faces coated in a deathly layer of mud and blood — is especially striking. It’s as violent as American movies like Saving Private Ryan, or Hacksaw Ridge, but without the veneer of heroism and bravery. It shows the futility of warfare in all its enormity. This is a gruelling and shocking testament against all war and the military industrial complex.
All Quiet on the Western Front, The Inspection and The Greatest Beer Run Ever all had their world premieres at TIFF, which continues through the weekend.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Witches and Poets. Films reviewed: Benediction, Lux Æterna
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring film festival season is in full swing this week in Toronto, with ReelAbilities, Inside-out and the Toronto Arab Film festival all on right now. TAF is a pan-Arab film festival; featuring movies from 19 countries, including dramas, docs, animation and experimental, and it’s on through Sunday. ReelAbilities has films by for and about people from disabled and deaf communities and it’s running through June 10th in a hybrid format. And Inside out, Toronto’s LGBT festival is on now through Sunday June 5th, featuring many world premieres, and presenting at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Some of the movies at Inside-out I’m looking forward to seeing include a stunning-looking musical from Rwanda called Neptune Frost, Camilla Comes Out Tonight, an Argentinian coming-of-age drama, So Damn Easy Going a Scandinavian story of the messy relationships of a young woman with ADHD, and The Divide, about the breakup of a couple in France during the “yellow vest” protests
But this week, I’m looking at two new movies both opening this weekend in Toronto that handle narratives in an experimental way. There’s a film from France about a burning witch, and a biopic from the UK about a war poet.
Benediction
Wri/Dir: Terrence Davies
Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) is a Lieutenant in the British Army at the western front in WWI, known for his bravery and valour. He’s also famous as a war poet. An aristocrat, he’s a descendent of the Sassoon clan, late of Baghdad, Bombay and Shanghai. But by 1917, he is sickened by the war and the death of his men, so he writes and publishes a formal letter protesting it. Instead of being courtmartialed, he is diagnosed as shell-shocked and sent to a psych ward near Edinborough. There he befriends a young soldier named Wilfred afflicted with night terrors, and together they write poetry for the hospital’s literary magazine, the Hydra.
After the war he joins other writers, musicians and artists around London. One evening, while reciting his dark poetry at a soiree, he meets Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), a hugely famous celebrity 
whose sentimental songs — like Keep the Homefires Burning — kept up morale during the war. By that evening they are sleeping together with Ivor unceremoniously dumping his previous boyfriend Glen. But while Siegfried is a passionate romantic, Ivor is cold and cruel; he cares more about his looks and career than love or commitment. So after a messy break up, Siegfried has a series of relationships with various bright young aristocrats like Stephen Tennant in the 1920s-30s. But will he ever find true love?
Benediction is an impressionistic biopic about the life of Siegfried Sassoon and his friends and lovers between the two wars. This means he’s as likely to see Edith Sitwell reciting her doggerel as running into Lawrence of Arabia at a wedding rehearsal. But you never forget that this is a Terrence Davies movie, his unique style always apparent. Like singing — whether it’s soldiers breaking into song, actors on a west-end 
stage or just sitting by a piano at a party. And Sassoon’s own voice recites his poetry over photos of war dead. Flashbacks might fade from one to the next then back again reflecting the thoughts of a character, often with black and white newsreels projected in the background. There’s a lush, dark look to the whole film, in its music, images and sets. The acting — especially Lowden and Irvine but also Calam Lynch as Stephen Tennant and Gemma Jones as his ultimate wife Hester — is terrific all around. (The movie flashes forward to a reclusive and bitter Sassoon (Peter Capaldi) with a wife and adult son in post WWII England.) Benediction is romantic in the classical sense, more like a Wagnerian opera than a rom-com. The script is exquisitely written, with almost every line a bon mot, a witty observation or a cutting insult. Benediction is experimental and idiosyncratic in style but with a deeply moving story.
I really like this film.
Lux Æterna
Wri/Dir: Gaspar Noé
Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg (played by themselves) are two French famous actresses making a film together. Beatrice is trying her hand as director and Charlotte is the star. The film they’re shooting, on set, is a feminist reboot of accused witches being burned at the stake by religious zealots in the manner of the Inquisition. They chat about the meaning of burning witches as a misogynistic crime. But all is not well.
The producers of the film, are plotting to get Beatrice fired, so a young man named Tom is ordered to follow her everywhere and record it on film, with the hope of catching an error. Meanwhile, an American actor, Karl (Karl Glusmann) is trying to have a meeting with Charlotte, various models are desperately looking for the proper costumes and hair, and all of the personal assistants are incompetent. Worst of all, though, something is wrong with the lighting system, which begins generating as series of multi-coloured strobe lights, the kind that can induce a tonic-clonic seizure. Can the scene be shot? Or will panic destroy everything before it’s caught on film?
Lux Æterna is simultaneously an experimental piece of art, and a satirical look at the film industry, the Me Too Movement and the backlash that followed it. Gaspar Noe is the enfant terrible of French filmmakers, all of whose films somehow provoke and torture its viewers. In the past it was through extreme violence, horror, drugs or explicit sex. This time, it’s (theoretically) supposed to induce tonic-clonic seizures among epileptic 
viewers of the film. Why? Because the aura leading up to as seizure is said to be the ultimate psychedelic experience. (Not sure who said it because I can assure you there’s nothing pleasant about having a seizure!) Anyway, about a quarter of the film consists of the gorgeous multicoloured strobe effect projected over the crucified bodies of the witches. Another portion is in the titles themselves (Gaspar Noe is the master of creative titling — no font is accidental in any of his films) with old Roman capitals used to advance the plot. All the characters use their real names, and the shooting takes place on a movie set, just in case you need more meta.
If you like Gaspar Noe — I love his stuff but it’s certainly not for everybody — well, Lux Aeterna is his latest artistic experiment. A large part of it resembles Dreyer’s 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, beautifully done, as if photographed on Calvary. And the strobe light effect is hypnotic though irritating. There’s very little plot or acting involved, with lots of gratuitous nudity, but, hey, it’s only about an hour long. I like everything he does, but this is not a major work, more like him fooling around. If you like art, you might enjoy this experiment, just don’t expect a normal movie.
Benedction is playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; and you can see Luxe Aeterna at the Revue Cinema 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
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.
Highbrow, middlebrow, lowbrow. Films reviewed: The Hustle, Tolkien, Be My Star
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some people mistake upper-class and working-class characters with highbrow and lowbrow films. This week I’m looking at three movies with upper-class and working class-characters. There’s a middlebrow biopic about an orphan at a private school, an arthouse drama about working-class kids in Berlin, and a lowbrow comedy about a boorish con artist at an elite resort.
The Hustle
Dir: Chris Addison
Josephine (Anne Hathaway) is a British aristocrat who lives in a cliffside mansion in Beaumont-sur-mer, a casino resort on the French riviera. Fluent in many languages, the high-stakes gambler and 
seductress knows all the shakers and movers on the Côte d’Azur. But her life of luxury is disrupted by a hefty and boorish Aussie named Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) who is passing through town. Penny 
is a small-time con artist whose M.O. involves catfishing men online using stock photos, then tricking them out of more money when they meet face to face. Penny is arrested mid-scam, tossed into prison and kicked out of town. What she doesn’t know is
she’s been played– the policewoman who arrested her worked actually for another con artist, none other than Josephine! When she discovers the truth, Penny and Josephine agree on a competition: whoever succeeds in scamming a random man out of half a million dollars can 
stay in the resort, and the other one must leave. Their victim is an innocent, Mark Zuckerberg look-alike (Alex Sharp). Which of them will win over the tech millionaire?
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because The Hustle is a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but with Anne Hathaway in Michael Caine’s role and Rebel Wilson replacing Steve Martin. Recasting successful comedies with women in formerly male roles is popular these days, but doesn’t always work. But in this case it sure does. The Hustle is better, funnier and more subversive than Scoundrels. Hathaway is clever as the multilingual aristocrat, but it’s Rebel Wilson who steals every scene with her physical humour, facial contortions and bawdy language. She is brilliant. Maybe the concept of con artists on the Riviera is a bit dated, but it still had me laughing loudly during most of the movie.
I rarely endorse comedies, but I found this one hilarious.
Tolkien
Dir: Dome Karukoski
It’s the early 20th century in Birmingham, England. Young J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult: The Favourite, Warm Bodies) is an orphan who finds himself in impecunious circumstances. Luckily, a wealthy Catholic priest, Father 
Francis (Colm Meaney) takes him under his wing and sponsors him to study at a prestigious school called King Edward’s. He was home schooled by his mother before she died, leaving his head filled with stories of 
mythical dragons and elves. He may be the poor kid, but he immediately impresses everybody with his knowledge of Latin, Old English and mythical languages he creates just for himself.
After initial misgivings, he falls in with three other boys: 
Christopher, Geoffrey and Robert. Together they form the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, a four-man group that hangs out in tea shops discussing art, music and poetry as well as concepts of bravery, fellowship and loyalty. He meets a beautiful 
young woman named Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), also an orphan, who lives in his boarding house. His friendship with the boys grows, even as his love for the piano-playing Edith deepens.
He is eventually accepted to Oxford on a scholarship, but is separated from Edith and some of his friends. And his
world is torn apart by WWI, when they are all sent off to the trenches, where he witnesses carnage and total destruction. Who will live and who will die? And will he ever see Edith again?
Tolkien is about the boyhood and youth of JRR Tolkien, long before he 
wrote the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The movie flashes back and forth between memories of his growing up, and the film’s “present day” when he is stuck in the trenches of The Battle of the Somme in WWI. And it gives a a few hints at his future as a writer of the famous fantasy books. He imagines fire breathing dragons on the 
battle front, with the scenery like Mordor. The four friends are like Frodo, Sam and the gang in The Fellowship of the Ring. It also touches on Wagner’s Ring Cycle’s influence on Tolkien’s Ring trilogy. So it’s kind of interesting to watch if you’re into his books. And I liked the period costumes, scenery and good acting.
But the movie never seems to go anywhere. It falls into the category of biopics about revered subjects where you can’t show passion, adventure or sex, at the risk of tarnishing his pristine image. (Ironically, Tolkien’s heirs still refused to endorse the film.) No sparks in this hagiography, just a few kisses and some unrequited, longing glances.
Be My Star (Mein Stern) 2001
Wri/Dir: Valeska Grisebach
Nicole (Nicole Gläser) is 14-year-old girl who lives in Berlin with her two sisters, Monique and Janine. She’s at a turning point in her life. It’s the age when you try out a job (she chooses to intern at a bakery because she likes the way it smells). She’s also becoming sexually aware. First she dates any guy who asks her, but later becomes more discerning. She approaches Schöps (Christopher Schöps) a soccer-playing teen to give it a go. He’s interning as a plumber and gets his own apartment. They have cigarettes, alcohol and privacy to share, but they don’t 
quite know what to do. Is this love, and are they a real couple? Or just a couple of kids?
Be My Star is a very sweet and beautiful coming-of-age story made 20 years ago. It’s acted by kids using their real names, in a verité style and setting, 
but it’s clearly a drama not a documentary. It’s also an excellent example of the Berlin School of filmmaking. This tender and intimate examination of first love (and first break up) is realistic and moving. Its showing as part of Past Forward: German Directors Before Cannes, a series of seminal works by German directors who later became famous.
I really liked this one.
Tolkien and The Hustle both open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. And Goethe Films is showing Be My Star one time only at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on May 14th at 6:30.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with Oscar-winning filmmaker László Nemes about Sunset
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos of László Nemes by Jeff Harris
Irisz is a pretty, young milliner from Trieste who is visiting a grand hat shop in Budapest celebrating its 30th Jubilee. She is there to apply for a job, but the owner hands her a first class ticket home the moment he hears her name.
It’s Leiter, a name both famous and infamous. It’s the name of the hat store, suppliers to the royal family, and founded by her 
own parents who died in a fire. But it’s also the name of a man who started the fire and murdered a count. Is he a madman… or a revolutionary? Irisz vows to find out who he is. But will the visit lead to a happy anniversary? Or is it the final sunset for the famous millinery house?
Sunset is also the name of a new film from Hungarian director Lázsló Nemes, who created the Oscar-winning Son of Saul. 
Sunset gives a multifaceted impression of pre-WWI Budapest, using sound, light, motion, colour and voices as experienced by Irisz. It shows the decadent Austro-Hungarian empire teetering on the brink, even as the new shining city arises. Sunset is a film filled with chaos, confusion and conflagration.
I spoke to Lázsló Nemes on location at TIFF in September, 2018.
Sunset opens today in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Shells. Films reviewed: Journey’s End, Ready Player One, The China Hustle
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s a holiday weekend filled with eggs, whether hard boiled or made of chocolate with a prize inside. So this week I’m looking at three new movies about… shells. There are VR gamers looking for a hidden easter egg, Wall Streeters investing in shell corporations, and WWI soldiers dodging mortar shells.
Journey’s End
Dir: Saul Dibb
It’s March, 1918, in the WWI trenches of northern France. Underground, where the officers stay, it’s dark, dank and smelly. Up on the surface its deadly dangerous, with snipers aiming at your head. Four British divisions rotate their stays at the front at one week per month. It’s like a lottery – with a one in four chance of dying. And the soldiers in Company C are just trying to stay sane and alive. There’s the fatherly Osborne (Paul Bettany) who everyone calls “Uncle”, the indefatigable cook Mason (Toby Jones), and the shell-shocked Hibbert.
So no one can understand why the green, idealistic Lt Raleigh (Asa Butterfield) pulls strings to join this benighted group. Why? His upper classman Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin) is stationed there and he wants to see him 
again. But he doesn’t realize the level of death and despair that has taken hold there. And that his hero, Stanhope,
is now a mean and bitter alcoholic. The soldiers there are forced to make pointless raids in daylight so as not to interrupt the dinner schedule of far-off Generals. And things reach a boiling point when 
word gets out the Germans are about to attack on Thursday, right there. They’re essentially sentenced to die at the front. How do they all handle this?
Journey’s End – based on the classic play – is a tense retelling of an old war story, exactly 100 years later. It deals with the futility of war, the rigid British class system, and the male comeradery of life in the trenches. The acting is very good, and the camera wonderfully captures a world lit only by flickering lanterns. Even so, it was hard to sympathize with the stuff-upper-lip, tally-ho language of the script. The long theatrical conversations might might work on stage but not on the screen. The main emotions I got from this movie were depression, disgust claustrophobia and fatalism. It all felt too long, too slow, and too distant, especially once you know their fate… Just die already!
Ready Player One
Dir: Steven Spielberg
It’s 2045 in Columbus, Ohio and the world is a mess. People live marginal existences in ramshackle towers beside huge corporations. Wade (Tye Sheridan) is an 18-year-old orphan who spends most of his time online in a wildly- popular VR fantasy world called Oasis. Its creator left a trillion-dollar prize to whoever can solve the puzzles hidden within this digital world. First they must complete three levels of games and collect three keys and claim the hidden easter egg. Wade he surprises the world by appearing on the boards as Player One, the top ranked player in the world. But he’s not the only gunter (egg hunter) trying to win. His closest virtual rivals are Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) a fiery red-head, Aech, a muscular giant and genius mechanic; plus Daito and Sho whose avatars look like a samurai and a ninja, respectively. Wade calls himself Parzival. Like the Wagner opera 
character, he’s searching for a holy grail. And he’s in love with the lovely Artemis. But as best-bud Aech keeps telling him: you only know her avatar – that’s not what she’s like in real life. And lurking in the shadows is the rich and evil Sorrento, (Ben Mendelssohn) the head of IOI, the corporate rival to Oasis’s company. He pretends to be a champion gamer, but he’s actually a fake who hires employees to play for him. But he’s out to win — and take over the world — at any cost. Which of the hunters will figure out the puzzle and find the easter egg? And can they defeat the villainous Sorrento?
Ready Player One is an incredibly fast-moving sci-if action movie. Oasis’s inventor, whose puzzles they’re all trying to solve, was obsessed with the 80s, so the movie feeds you a random hodgepodge of Back to the Future and Iron Giant, Gandam and Street Fighter, New Order and Van Halen, a non-stop shower of pop culture, to the point where you can’t tell self-referential jokes from cheap product placement. (Maybe they’re both?) But why would kids in the 2040s care about the 1980s? I can’t call this a good movie; it’s incredibly commercial, felt more like a theme park ride than a film, and parts were like watching a video game with someone else holding the controls. But you know what? I still enjoyed it. And it does have that classic Spielbergian look and sound.
China Hustle
Wri/Dir: Jed Rothstein
After the Subprime Mortgage crisis, American investors, pension funds, and ordinary moms and pops were looking to make some money. But where? Chinese people were making millions investing in their red-hot companies, but those stocks weren’t traded on Wall Street. Until, suddenly, they were. Hundreds of Chinese startups were being bought and sold and making big bucks. And companies like Roth Capital were holding lavish parties known as “investment conferences” to reel in buyers. They were backed by reputable auditors like 
Deloitte. It’s a win-win proposition – everyone makes money. Until, that is, some suspicious investors fly to Shanghai and looked around.
Turns out, many of these companies operate as “Reverse Mergers”. Existing Chinese corporations buy shell companies already registered in the US, take them over, change their name, and they’re open to make money.
But their books here don’t look like their books there. Idle factories in China are said to be making ten times what 
they’re actually earning. And no one’s checking up on them.
So a few maverick investors decide to short sell their stock (like in that movie The Big Short) counting on its value crashing soon. And they speed this along by publicising the corruption and questionable accounting of the parent companies back in China. The result, riches for a few, terrible losses for many.
The China Hustle is a fascinating documentary looking at the shady practices behind deregulation, auditing and investments, as told by three American short-sellers. I thought its view of China as a monolithic villain was superficial and rather one-sided; for example, it shows how these fraudulent investments affect ordinary Americans’ lives, but not how they affect ordinary Chinese.
But it does expose in detail a huge scandal I knew nothing about.
Ready Player One opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. Journey’s End and The China Hustle are in theatres and Video On Demand. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Making history. Films reviewed: Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House, Goodbye Christopher Robin, BPM (Beats Per Minute)
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s festival season in Toronto: Reel World film festival brings the world’s untold stories to the big screen; and Toronto After Dark has horror, sci-fi and fantasy pics that make you laugh your ass off or will scare your pants off. Toronto after Dark and Reel World are both on right now.
But this week I’m looking at historical dramas based on real events. We’ve got protests in Paris, politics in Washington, and Pooh in East Sussex.
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
Dir: Peter Landesman
It’s June, 1972 in Washington DC. Mark Felt (Liam Neeson) a top-ranked FBI agent, notices something strange: burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. And they weren’t stealing money, they were looking for files. And the burglars are former Federal agents. Who is behind it all? Felt investigates. The trail leads to the White House where Richard Nixon is running for reelection. But his investigation is 
stifled by a suspicious political appointee named Gray. He’s the provisional head of the FBI – J. Edgar Hoover just died — and seems to be taking orders from the White House. This is a no-no. And the White House seem to know everything the FBI is doing – is there a leak in the Bureau? So Felt decides to do some leaking himself. He secretly meets with reporters from Time Magazine and the Washington Post to pass on crucial information. Will the truth about Nixon and Watergate come out and can Felt keep his identity a secret?
No spoilers here: you’ve probably heard of the Watergate scandal that brought down Nixon. And about Deep Throat – the mysterious source journalists Woodward and Bernstein used to break their stories. And the Senate Watergate Hearings which investigated it all. This movie, though, looks at it from an entirely new perspective: as a power struggle between the White House and the FBI, personified by Felt a career federal agent.
It’s also about Felt’s private life, with his depressed, alcoholic wife Audrey (Diane Lane), and his hippy daughter who disappears and who Felt thinks is a member of the Weathermen Underground. At its worst, this film seems to paint the FBI – which has plenty of its own skeletons in its closet — as the saviour of a nation. But at its best it captures the mood of a superb thriller, based on a huge, real-life conspiracy.
Goodbye Christopher Robin
Dir: Simon Curtis
A.A. Milne (Domhnal Gleeson) is a popular playwright in London’s west end just back from WWI. On the surface he’s full of witty patter, all whizbang and tiddley poo. But he’s actually he’s shell-shocked: Champagne corks or popping balloons send him diving for cover. He’s so shaken up he moves out to the country where he hopes to write an anti-war book in peace. His flapper wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) makes it clear she would much rather be partying in London. Milne has writer’s block. And the crying baby makes the situation even worse. They hire a nanny, Olive (Kelly Macdonald) to help raise their son Christopher Robin whom they call Billy Moon. But when Daphne moves back to London, and Olive to her dying mother’s bedside, Milne is suddenly left alone with a son he barely 
knows (Will Tilston). He has to talk to him, cook for him and entertain him.
And that’s when some serious father-son bonding kicks in. They go on adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood, climb trees, make up stories and play with Billy Moon’s stuffed animals – a teddy bear, a piglet, and a donkey. He invites his friend — an illustrator — to draw pictures of it all. And Milne begins to write poems. He sends one, Vespers, about their son praying before bed, to Daphne in London to show her he’s writing again. She submits it to Vanity Fair and soon it’s a huge hit. Milne publishes his poems and stories and, suddenly, his son and the toys he plays with – Winnie the Pooh, and Kanga and Roo – become celebrities, famous around the world. The boy is dressed up and trotted out for book tours and toy stores and radio interviews. 
And this upsets him. Strangers know everything about his private life and his imaginary inventions. They think he’s a fictional character come to life, but he’s not Christopher Robin. He’s Billy Moon. Can the family stop this tide of fame before their lives are ruined?
Goodbye Christopher Robin is a touching story about the reality behind the beloved childrens’ books. It’s also the contrast between the British stiff upper lip – no touching or showing emotion – and all the humour and imagination yearning to escape. The movie is a bit slow in parts, and sometimes succombs to nostalgia and sentimentality, but I liked it anyway. And it also has beautiful locations and great costumes.
BPM (Beats Per Minute)
Dir: Robin Campillo
It’s the early 1990s in Paris, AIDS is at its peak and people are in a panic. The government makes speeches but does nothing and big pharma is sitting on crucial medication. Meanwhile, people are dying every day. So a group of activists launch a protest group called Act Up Paris (after its US counterpart) and spring into action.
They storm into government meetings and pharmaceutical offices, throwing plastic sacs of fake blood at the walls. Then they stage mass die-ins, falling to the floor until they’re dragged away by police. They meet in university lecture halls to hash out their disagreements: men and women of all ages and sexualities. But will their actions fall on deaf ears?
BPM is a story about the group, but especially two of its members, 
Sean –a scrawny, cynical latino (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart ) and Nathan, a student from a small town (Arnaud Valois). After a spontaneous first kiss – when they take over a high school to teach safe sex – they move in together: Sean is HIV positive, Nathan negative. Their relationship is intense and passionate, partly because Sean might die at any moment. BPM is a long and detailed – but very moving – look at a civil disobedience movement. It captures the fluidity and uncertainty of life and love in the midst of a crisis.
BPM, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House and Goodbye Christopher Robin 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.
Goethe Films: Margarethe & Barbara. Films reviewed: Hannah Arendt, Rosa Luxemburg, Marianne & Juliane
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Margarethe von Trotta is a leading German director and one of the only women in the New German Cinema (Neuer Deutscher Film) of the 60s, 70s and 80s. She co-wrote and co-directed (with Volker Schlöndorff) the first commercially successful film of that movement – The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. Though her films are about dynamic women and told from a female point of view, von Trotta has distanced herself from some schools of feminist cinema. She creates movies about women, but not “Frauenfilm” (women’s movies).
She started her career as an actress, so she knows how to draw amazing performance from her actors. And she has a decades-long working relationship with one actor in particular: Barbara Sukowa.
Barbara Sukowa is a reknowned actor with a beautiful, square face that she completely transforms to match each character she portrays. She can play a role as both passionate and restrained, her emotions churning just beneath the surface.
This week I’m looking at three great films (based on historical figures) directed by Von Trotta and starring Sukowa. They’re part of a special series called Goethe Films: Margarethe and Barbara playing on the 3rd, 5th and 12th of October at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. There’s a melodrama about a revolutionary, a family drama about a terrorist and her sister, and an intellectual drama about a journalist-philosopher.
Hannah Arendt (2012)
It’s the 1960s in New York city. Hannah Arendt (Sukowa) is German-born writer and philosopher who is part of the intellectual scene in that city. She studied philosophy under Heidegger – and was his lover — but when the Nazis came to power she was stripped of her credentials as a Jew, while he embraced Nazism. She fled to France and later the US. Now she is offered a strange assignment by The New Yorker magazine – to cover the upcoming trial in Jerusalem of the notorious Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was one of the main architects of the Holocaust and the murderer of millions. He testifies in a glass booth. Eichmann denies everything and paints himself as a gentle bureaucrat.
But Arendt’s description of Eichmann’s behaviour as the Banality of Evil — that of an ordinary-looking man who killed so many – meets with widespread shock and criticism, even among her friends and colleagues. Her writings on totalitarianism, guilt and responsibility reverberate around the world.
Hannah Arendt is a beautiful and magisterial depiction of a major intellectual figure as iconoclast, a hero fighting the tides. It’s also a biopic, given to long pauses of contemplation. And one that somehow seems kinder to Heidegger than to Arendt’s critics in academia.
Rosa Luxemburg (1986)
It’s 1900, the start of a century of change. Revolution is brewing in Russia and Germany is close behind. Rosa Luxemburg (Sukowa) is an educated, Polish-Jewish woman who walks with a limp. She is also a social democratic revolutionary, a firebrand who writes articles and gives passionate speeches. Now she lives in Berlin after being jailed and nearly executed in Warsaw.
She’s in a tempestuous relationshio with her sometime lover and fellow revolutionary Leo Jogisches (Daniel Olbrychski). But when she discovers he is having an affair, she begins a relationship with a friend’s adult son. And, with Karl Liebknecht, she 
founds the Red Flag newspaper and the Spartacus party, a Marxist (but not Leninist) Socialist party.
She calls for a massive strike to resist the war but nationalism is on the rise. Bloody Rosa is arrested and jailed during WWI as a political prisoner. Will her political dreams ever be realized, or will nationalism prevail?
Rosa Luxemburg is a fascinating historical biopic, told in a melodramatic style. There are as many scenes of her shouting to cheering crowds as there are of her gardening in prison or writing letters. A costume drama, this captures nineteenth-century romanticism in its music, poetry and idealism.
Marianne & Juliane (1981) Die bleierne Zeit
It’s the 1970s. Juliane (Jutta Lampe) is a journalist who writes for a feminist magazine. She grew up in a large family with a bible-thumping father, a conservative minister. Her sister Marianne (Sukowa) looked up to her as a teenager. Julianne was the rebel. She smoked, talked back to her teacher, wore pants – not a skirt! – and caused a furor when she danced alone to a Vienna waltz ata high school dance. The two are shattered by the documentaries they see in school on Nazi mass murder, and vow they will never let it happen again. But the two have taken different paths and their roles have changed.
Marianne is now a brash, self-centred woman who 
rejects concepts like marriage, family and money. She doesn’t ask for things; she demands them. She’s a member of the dreaded Red Army Faction — a terrorist group that sets off bombs and hijacks planes — and is on the run from police. She also has a young son, Jan, but can’t take care of him. When she is caught by the police, it’s up to Juliane to visit her in prison to keep her sane and alive. She smuggles in notes hidden in tissues, and passes on her messages. Can Juliane’s marriage and job — and Marrianne’s son — survive the prison sentence and the widespread public hatred of the crimes she committed?
Although this is a fictional drama, it’s based on RAF member Gudrun Ensslin and her journalist sister. This powerful drama is not a historical biopic; it was made just a few years after the events it portrays.
All three films encorporate historical black-and-white film footage and prison scenes, about heroes (and villains like Eichman) encaged and restrained. Together, these three films provide a century-long view of modern Germany through the eyes of three women.
Marianne and Juliane, Hannah Arendt, and Rosa Luxemburg are all playing next week on the big screen at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto — $10 per ticket — with Barbara Sukowa introducing Marianne and Juliane. Go to Goethe Toronto for details.
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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