Daniel Garber talks with Kourtney Jackson, Max Shoham and Ella Morton about their films at FOFS
What do the following three stories have in common? An Inuk recalling her history, language and culture amidst the ice floes of Nunavut; three diverse black women in Toronto sharing the unique hair problems they faced during the pandemic; and a young, Jewish-Romanian couple meeting aboard a ship burgeoning with refugees adrift at sea during WWII. These stories are all films featured in The Future Of Film 
Showcase — or FOFS. In its eighth year, FOFS has selected 11 new short films made by Canadians under 40.
Kourtney Jackson is a Toronto-based experimental filmmaker whose hybridized, storytelling transcends the physical body. Her film Wash Day looks at three black women talking about bodies, hair, skin, beauty and self-love as they each cleanse themselves in a shower.
Max Shoham, an award-winning, prolific maker of animated short films in diverse genres, has been obsessed with movies since Grade 3. Sophie and Jacob is an animated retelling of Max’s own grandparents’ 
story about how they met aboard a ship.
Ella Morton is an artist whose still and moving images incorporating obsolete techniques have taken her across Canada and through Scandinavia. Her film Kajanaqtuq combines manipulated analog formats along with recordings of an Inuk’s recollections of her life so far in Nunavut.
I spoke with Ella, Max and Kourtney via Zoom.
You can watch all films playing at FOFS on CBC Gem for free until July 22nd.
Movies from Africa! Films reviewed: Dachra, Lift Like a Girl, Running Against the Wind
This week, I’m looking at three movies from north and northeast Africa: a horror movie from Tunisia, a documentary from Egypt, and a drama from Ethiopia. We’ve got inner-city weightlifters, a forest full of witches, and two childhood friends… who can’t wait, but don’t know which way to go.
Dachra
Dir: Abdelhamid Bouchnak
Yassmine (Yassmine Dimassi) is a journalism student at a university in Tunis. She was raised by her kindly grandfather; ever since her mother left her in his care when she was still a child. At school she hangs out with two friends: the very serious Bilel (Bilel Slatnia) and the rude, crude and funny Walid (Aziz Jebali), who is always on the lookout for a sexual innuendo. The three team up to complete an assignment due soon: to report on a unique story, one that’s never been covered in the mainstream media before. Bilel is the cameraman, Walid the sound guy, and Yassmine — who is beautiful and likes to take charge — is the reporter. The story they’re chasing? A woman in a mental hospital named Mongia who is rumoured to be a witch. She has attacked medics in the past, and is said to perform supernatural acts. She’s been there ever since she was discovered at a village in the woods with her throat cut but still alive.
After some bribes and subterfuge, they manage to arrange an interview with her, so they can track down the mysterious village where all the events were said to have taken place. But are these cub reporters biting off more than they can chew?
Dachra is a scary, gory and sometimes disgusting horror movie from Tunisia. It’s beautifully shot in colour, but so spare it almost seems like black and white at times. It uses little or no CGI special effects — the horror is in the creepy characters and situations. These include an always-laughing little girl, an overly solicitous middle-aged man, and a village populated only by women who don’t seem to speak Arabic or French, and who only eat “meat”. Certain parts are predictable — it’s a variation on the classic Cabin in the Woods-type movie — but it also has enough twists and surprises, both supernatural and earthly, to keep you staring at (or cringing away from) the screen.
Dachra is great classic horror in a brand new setting.
Lift Like a Girl
Zebiba seems like an average 14-year-old girl with glasses and ponytail in Alexandria, Egypt. So what’s so special about her? She’s a competitive weightlifter, training for international competitions. And her coach is the famous Captain Ramadan who brought his own daughter international glory a generation earlier. He’s an exuberant man, exuding enthusiasm with every breath. He’s also a one-man cheerleader, ready to break out in chants, songs and dances for his best lifters. And right now, Zebiba is his prize. She specializes in a three part lift. First bringing up the barbell from a squat, then raising it to her upper chest, then turning her hands around to lift it above her head. Her daily practice takes place in a dusty field surrounded by a fence on a street corner in an industrial section of the city. As a competitor she’s equally concerned about how many kilos she lifts as she is about how many she weighs (which determines whom you’re competing against) so she has to follow a strict diet, complete with fasting. to win. But as she grows older, and her medals add up, something 
unexpected happens, totally changing the dynamics of her life. Can Zebiba continue as a champion weightlifter… or is the magic gone?
Lift Like a Girl is a verité-style documentary about a young girl training in a traditionally masculine sport. It follows Zebiba over four years as she matures. Coach Ramadan is an unforgettable character, a man who rejects religious piety, external pressure, and traditional gender stereotypes (“if a man can belly dance, why can’t a woman lift weights?” he asks.) Zebiba, on the other hand, rarely speaks. She’s followed as an athlete but we rarely see her home life or innermost thoughts, only what the camera catches in her face. Lift Like a Girl is an informative and occasionally interesting examination of a previously unexplored sport. While it definitely has its moving moments, this doc is best suited for those who find competitive weightlifting a fascinating spectator sport.
Running Against the Wind
Co-Wri/Dir: Jan Philipp Weyl
Abdi and Solomon are two young boys who live in the desert like Gand Abdi area of Ethiopia. They don’t go to school, instead spending their time playing or herding goats. But one day a surprise visitor send both their lives on a new course. Abdi discovers he loves running… and can do it faster than anyone he knows. Solomon discovers what a camera is, and decides to devote his life to taking photos. Within a few tears, Abdi is in training with a coach in Addis Ababa, while Solomon has completely disappeared. In fact he isn’t dead, he has taken up a new life in the capital. His photo dreams quickly fade as he falls in with a crowd of homeless kids who make their living begging, stealing and doing hard labour.
Years pass and Abdi (Ashenafi Nigusu) is now a celebrity runner appearing on billboards, with more prize money than he can spend. Solomon nicknamed photo (Mikias Wolde) is now living with a girl he met as a child in the gang, and they have a two year old daughter. But they still live hand to mouth in a shanty-town shack. Worse, his friends get him involved in organized crime, leaving him 
under the sway of a genuine villain. Is Solomon permanently stuck in a life of poverty or can he fulfill his dream? Will Abdi adjust to big city life, forgetting his roots in the countryside? And will the two best friends ever be reunited in Addis Ababa?
Running Against the Wind is an engaging, Dickensian story about friendship and brotherhood. While it has a somewhat boilerplate storyline, there is so much stuff happening it can’t can’t help but be interesting. There are dozens of memorable characters, from Solomon’s ne’er-do-well friend Kiflom who keeps getting him into trouble, to Solomon’s loving partner Genet, Abdi’s hard-ass coach with a heart of gold; Paul, an Amharic-speaking European-Ethiopian photographer; and an evil, bulging-eyed gangster kingpin who oozes cruelty from every pore. Running Against the Wind is the first Ethiopian movie I’ve ever seen, and I can’t wait to watch more.
Lift Like a Girl and Running Against the Wind may be playing in cinemas in your area — check your local listings — or you can find them on VOD; Dachra is opening theatrically in the US, and later on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Summer movies. Films reviewed: Summer of Soul, The Boss Baby: Family Business, Black Conflux
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Summer is here and it’s hot, hot, hot! Normally I’d say go sit in an air conditioned movie theatre and go watch something, anything, right now. But as of today, (I’m recording early because of the holiday weekend) the indoor theatres are still closed. But here’s a selection of films to please almost everybody who wants to watch at home.
This week, I have a music doc, a family cartoon and an art house drama. There are musicians in Harlem in the ’60s bringing the house down, babies around the world trying to bring the government down, and a girl in ’80s Newfoundland trying to stop her life from crumbling all around her.
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Dir: Questlove
It’s the summer of ’69 in Harlem, where 50,000 people are crowded into Mt. Morris Park for a series of six outdoor concerts all summer long. The images and music were captured on film for TV, but were never broadcast; they sat in a vault for 52 years until now. This new documentary replays some of the best songs of that summer, and talked to the performers and the fans about how they remembered it. What’s remarkable is the array of talent and the enormous peaceful crowds in Harlem, a neighbourhood vilified as a violent ghetto. But it was actually a safe, black neighbourhood, beloved by its residents as their home, and as a centre of culture, commerce and political foment.
This film is a time machine, showing fashion, hair styles, and faces in the crowd — one viewer remembers the pervasive aroma of AfroSheen. There are incredible performances on the stage, in a wide range of styles: soul, R&B, gospel, pop, jazz and psychedelic. There’s an amazing moment when young Mavis Staples shares a mic with the great Mahalia Jackson for 
the first time to sing Oh Happy Day. There’s Nina Simone at the piano, reminding the crowd they are “Young, Gifted and Black.” Motown stars like Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight and the Pips alternate with salsa bands. It’s really surprising to see mainstream groups like The Fifth Dimension, letting loose on stage — their top 40 hits were always classified as “white pop music” — I never even knew they were black. Luminaries like Sly and the Family Stone and Hugh Masakela from South Africa light up the stage.
Summer of Soul works as both a documentary and as an excellent concert film; what a shame it was never shown until now.
The Boss Baby: Family Business
Dir: Tom McGrath
It’s a suburb, somewhere in America. Tim is a stay-at-home dad, who takes care of his two daughters Tabitha and Tina, while his wife is at the office. Tabitha is in grade 2 at an elite private school, while Tina is still just a baby. He tells them stories, sings songs and plays games. But he’s worried that he’s losing his bond with Tabitha — the 7-year-old spends all her time studying and says she doesn’t need childish things anymore. Alone in the attic Ted wonders how things ended up this way disconnected from his kids and no contact with his little brother Ted. If only he could go back in time and fix things. Next thing you know, Ted arrives at their doorstep by helicopter (he’s a rich CEO now) and the two of 
them are magically transformed into their childhood selves. Who engineered all this? It’s little Tina, the new Boss Baby, behind it all. Still in diapers she talks like a grown up with a brain to match. She works for Baby Corp, a secretive organization that keeps the world safe. But there are evil villains working all around the world at schools just like the one Tabitha goes to. It’s up to Tim and Ted, in their new kid and baby forms, to infiltrate the school and stop their fiendish plans. But are they too late?
The Boss Baby: Family Business is a funny family film, aimed at kids, but equally enjoyable by grown-ups. It’s animated, and features the voices of Alec Baldwin as Ted, the original Boss Baby, James Marsden as Tim, Ariana Greenblatt as Tabitha and
Amy Sedaris as Tina. I tend to avoid sequels, because they’re usually second rate, but never having seen the original Boss Baby I have nothing to compare it to. And (though clearly not a cinematic masterpiece) I was fully entertained by this one.
Black Conflux
Wri/Dir: Nicole Dorsey
It’s the 1980s in a small town in Newfoundland. Jackie (Ella Ballentine) is a 15-year-old girl with ginger hair and a good singing voice. And she’s seeing a new boyfriend. She’s bright, pretty and optimistic: she believes people are basically good. But her upbeat nature is threatened by reality. She has lived with her alcoholic aunt since her mom went to jail for DUI (her dad’s out of the picture). She spends most of her time hanging with Amber and her other two best friends, smoking behind the school, shoplifting makeup at the mall, or going to bonfire parties. They get around by hitchhiking along the single highway that passes through the town. But Jackie is forced to deal with the increasingly bad and gritty aspects of her life which keep intruding on the fun of growing up.
Dennis (Ryan McDonald) is an introvert in his late twenties with a fetish for porn. He’s also a firebug who gets off on lighting matches. He lives with his adult sister and works loading and delivering 24s at a local brewery. He’s also a brooding loner with anger and resentment building up deep inside. He has no social skills to speak of and his occasional dates always seem
to end up as disasters. He prefers to peer at women at night through their open bedroom windows over actually speaking to them face to face. He spends most of his time with a bevy of imaginary women he fantasizes are living in the back of his delivery truck. Sometimes he can’t tell the difference between reality and his hallucinations. Is he just a misunderstood guy or a nascent serial killer?
Black Conflux is a slow-building drama that follows these two characters in their separate but parallel lives, like two rivers that 
eventually merge. For Jackie, it’s a coming-of-age story, while for Dennis it’s a brooding drama. They come close to meeting throughout the movie, but it’s kept till the very end to reveal what happens when they do. Ella Ballentine and
Ryan McDonald both give remarkable performances as two alienated people in rural Newfoundland in the 1980s. Beautifully shot, and skilfully directed by Nicole Dorsey (her first feature), I first saw Black Conflux at TIFF two years ago, and like it even better the second time through.
Boss Baby, and Summer of Soul opened this weekend on VOD and digital platforms with Black Conflux now at the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Reasons. Films reviewed: Silent Night, Sun Children
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto is finally opening up — well, kinda. Now you can see movies away from home, just not yet in theatres. The Lavazza Drive-In Film Festival is coming to Ontario Place, showing a huge selection of crowd-pleasing international films. It also incorporates the wonderful annual Italian Contemporary Film Fest, now celebrating its 10th year. It starts this Sunday and continues through July 17th, featuring, on Canada Day, the North American premier of Peace By Chocolate — based on the inspiring, true story of a family of Syrian refugees who start a chocolate factory in Nova Scotia.
And for those of you without cars, the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show (or TOPS & Friends, for short) is showing outdoor movies in person at Old Fort York, incorporating special features selected from a year of Toronto film festivals, including the Geothe Institute, Real Asian, Toronto Palestine, Inside-Out film fests, Viewers can sit on the grass, physically distanced, while watching a whole bunch of movies — for free! Details and showtimes will be released in July.
But this week I’m looking at two new movies you can watch at home: a crime flick and a coming of age story, one from the UK the other from Iran. There’s a gangster in London who agrees to kill someone in order to save his young daughter; and a 12-year-old kid in Teheran who agrees to break the law in order to save his mother.
Silent Night
Wri/Dir: Will Thorne
London in the present day. Mark (Bradley Taylor) is just out of a London prison, and looking for work. His six-year-old daughter Daisy is overjoyed tp see her dad again, but his ex-wife Rosey is skeptical. Mark insists he’s a different man now, and wants nothing to do with the gangsters he used to pal around with. He just wants to carve a wooden hobby horse to give to Daisy for Christmas. But when he gets a job trimming trees in a forest, who is the first guy he runs into? Alan (Cary Crankson) a truly sketchy character if he’s ever met one who is also his former cell-mate. More former “friends” start gathering around him, including Pete and Seamus a friendly pair of pot dealers; Toni, the gang’s matriarch; Nicky, girlfriend of the boss; and Caddy (Frank Harper), the gruff and paranoid kingpin.
They urge, cajole, pressure and threaten Mark offering a carrot and a stick, for this, they promise will be his final job. The carrot is enough money to keep his family secure and stable (the government jobs pay terribly). The stick is they’ll kill Daisy if he doesn’t follow through. What does he have to do? Catch and kill a rival mob boss who Caddy thinks is threatening his business. But when the bodies start piling up, with no end in sight, Mark has to make some heavy decisions. Can he 
complete the job, save his daughter, and figure out who is really behind this scheme… before getting killed or sent back to prison first?
Silent Night — it’s set during the days leading up to Christmas — is a heavy-duty London crime drama. There’s lot’s of death and violence — some quite explicit, others comical — as Mark tries to navigate his life as a former criminal gone straight despite all the forces working against him. No spoilers, but there’s also a major twist that caught me totally by surprise, and raised my enjoyment level considerably. The acting is good and the script is punchy and fast-moving, without being stupid (like so many crime dramas.)
I like this one.
Sun Children
Co-Wri/Dir: Majid Majidi
Ali (Rouhollah Zamani) is a 12-year old boy in Teheran. His father died in an accident and the shock sent his mother to a psychiatric hospital, where she lies tied to a bed, unresponsive. He has no money and nowhere to live, but does work for a pigeon-keeper and petty criminal named Hashem, who is like Fagin in Oliver Twist. Ali is the head of a group of four young guys, with Abolfazl, Reza, and Mamad. They make money stealing hubcaps. They also look out for Zahra, a little girl who sells trinkets on the subway. Some of them are Afghan refugees, others have fathers in prison, on drugs or dead. So when the boys are offered a chance to go back to school, and get paid for it, they jump at the opportunity. Ali and his gang may be street smart but they’re uneducated. And he’s promised a safe place to live so he can take his mom out of hospital.
There’s just one catch. He has to enrol in a specific school — the Sun School — and do a bit of side work without getting caught. When they’re not in class, they’re supposed to be secretly digging a long underground tunnel using a pickaxe and their bare hands. At the end of the tunnel, beneath a cemetery, there’s buried treasure beyond their wildest dreams. So begins their new lives, studying full time but also doing hard labour 
between classes. Abolfazl proves to be a great math student, and Reza excels at soccer. Ali has his own skills: he head-butts two classmates and scares off a third for insulting his mother. He still has to avoid the cops and the self-important school principal, while looking after the others, and relentlessly digging, digging, digging through the walls. What lies at the other end?
Sun Children — that’s what all the boys in the school are called — is a marvellous, realistic, entertaining and deeply-moving 
look at the lives of street kids. (If this film doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, I don’t know what will.) The children are all non-actors but pull off amazing performances, including Rouhollah Zamani, who won a top prize at Venice. This coming-of-age drama looks at political corruption, poverty, child labour and the duplicitous and exploitative nature of grown-ups as seen through the eyes of children.
I strongly recommend this movie.
Sun Children and Silent Night both open today on VOD and digital platforms.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Self-reflexive. Films reviewed: Akilla’s Escape, Truman & Tennessee, Censor
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 — a crime drama, a horror movie and a documentary. — that also look at themselves. There’s a possible killer named Akilla, a horror movie about horror movies, and a doc about two famous gay writers… who write about themselves.
Akilla’s Escape
Co-Wri/Dir: Charles Officer
It’s present-day Toronto. Akilla (Saul Williams) is a smart and well-read guy, who was born in Jamaica, grew up in Queens NY, and ended up in Toronto as a teenager. He has built a career with a successful grow-op he calls “the farm” for twenty years, but feels it’s time for a change. There’s been a rash of gang violence and he wants out. But on the same day, he interrupts a robbery gone wrong, leaving dead bodies in its wake. Most of the remaining local gangsters get away with two bags full of cash and drugs which should be in the hands of organized crime. But one of them — whom Akilla knocks out during the robbery — is still lying unconscious on the floor. And when he pulls off his mask, he sees young Sheppard (Thamela Mpumlwana), a 15-year-old boy who reminds him of himself at that age. He doesn’t want to hand him over to the mob because they’ll kill him… but he also needs to recover the stolen cash and drugs — otherwise
he’ll be the one to suffer. Can he get Sheppard to confess, avoid a hitman from the Greek mob, and catch a fugitive killer… without dying himself?
Akilla’s Escape is a complex and engrossing crime drama set within Toronto’s Jamaican community. Through a series of flashbacks, it’s told in three parallel stories about people dragged into a life of crime largely against their own will: young Akilla in Queens, Sheppard in Toronto, and adult Akilla in the present day. It’s nicely shot in a distinctive style coloured with reds and yellows to differentiate the different time periods. Saul Williams is really good as Akilla, both thoughtful and intense; and, in a twist, Sheppard and the 15-year-old Akilla are both played by the same actor, Thamela Mpumlwana!
Interesting movie — I like this one.
Truman & Tennessee: an intimate conversation
Dir: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams first met in the 1940s when they both were rising stars. Capote was still a teenager while Williams was in his late twenties. And they both were gay authors. Tennessee was a compulsive writer dedicated to his craft, while Truman yearned for celebrity, not just success. Tennessee wrote a series of incredibly successful plays, most of which were later turned into hit movies, all about the lives, loves and tragedies of southern woman. You’ve probably seen at least some of them: The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, to name just a few. Truman Capote wrote novels, memoirs and true crime reports, like In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Other Voices, Other Rooms. They went on vacations together, along with their long-term lovers, to exotic locales in Italy and Morocco.
They both drank heavily and popped pills supplied by the notorious “Doctor Feelgood”. But by the 1970s their fractious friendship ended in bitter rivalries. Truman wrote a story with a character based on Tennessee, whom he described as “a chunky, paunchy, booze puffed runt with a play moustache glued above laconic lips who has a corn-pone voice.” In response, 
Truman is said to have “gone so far in his shtick that all his work will be seen now in the shimmer of a poised stiletto”.
This documentary is composed of scenes from their films, still photos (by photographers like Richard Avedon and Cecil Beaton), and a few key TV interviews (with David Frost and Dick Cavett). Visually it’s experimental, with lush green leaves, trees and rippling water superimposed kaleidoscopically on much of the period footage, giving the film a drifting, ethereal feel.
It’s narrated by the authors themselves, as voiced by actors Zachary Quinto (Star Trek) as Tennessee Williams and Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) as Truman Capote. It’s full of personal details of their superstitions, phobias, addictions, jealousy, loneliness and lust. Did you know that Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe, not Audrey Hepburn, to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (which was based on an actual friend of his)? And Tennessee Williams tells all his viewers to walk out of his movies just before they’re over, because, he says, Hollywood’s happy endings ruin them all. These just give you a taste of all the secrets revealed in this movie.
If you like these two writers, you must see this doc.
Censor
Co-Wri/Dir: Prano Bailey-Bond
It’s the mid-1980s in Thatcher’s Britain. Enid (Niamh Algar) works for the censor board. In teams of two they rate, classify, cut or ban the many videos flooding the country. She’s meticulous in her work, logging frame by frame any images she thinks show too much. Scenes that don’t make the grade include a gouged eyeball that “looks too realistic”, or “excessively visible genitalia”. Pressure is especially strong these days because the tabloid press blames a rise in crime on the prevalence of “video nasties” — low-budget horror movies washing up on the sacred shores of Albion.
Things get worse when a gruesome real-life murder seems to mimic a scene from a horror movie she once approved. And once the papers print her name, she is inundated by paparazzi, journalists and non-stop anonymous obscene phone calls to her home. Meanwhile, at work, she is visited by a particularly sleazy and salacious film producer, who says she would be perfect to star in his next movie. Turns out his past video nasties include a film about two teenaged sisters, one of whom was violently killed. Thing is, Enid’s own sister disappeared 
after a walk in the woods when they were both still little girls, and she has made it her life-long goal either to find her or find out what happened to her. Is this film somehow related to her and her sister? Is the film studio a murder machine, making snuff films? Or is it all in her head?
Censor is a psychological horror pic that traces a bureaucrat’s slide from proper office worker into the depths of violence and depravity. It’s about the making and censoring of those low-budget horror movies in the 80s, but it’s also a horror movie in its own right. Its style matches the videos it’s sampling — the music, sound effects, costumes — giving the whole film a surreal feeling.
This is good, over-the-top horror.
Akilla’s Escape is now playing on VOD; Truman & Tennessee: an intimate conversation opens today digitally at the Rogers HotDocs cinema; and Censor also opens today on your favourite VOD platform.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Japanese women. Films reviewed: Wife of a Spy, Mio’s Cookbook, The Brightest Roof in the Universe
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s spring Film festival season continues. Toronto Jewish Film Festival finishes this weekend, with two great French films, Summer of 85 a gay mystery romance set in the 80s and directed by Francois Ozon; and The Specials, a crowd pleaser by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, best known for the hugely popular Intouchable. It’s about a makeshift social services centre in Paris for hard-to-handle kids with autism.
But this week, I’m talking about another TJFF, the Toronto Japanese Film Festival. This one is also digital, but each film plays for the duration of the festival, until June 27th. And as always, it’s deftly programmed, with movies ranging from samurai to Yakuza to family dramas, romance, comedies, action, anime, and even some movies adapted from manga.
This week, I’m looking at three new Japanese features told from a female point of view. There’s a cook trying to capture the flavours of her childhood, a high school girl who seeks answers on top of a roof, and a wife who can’t decide whether her husband is an adulterer… or a spy.
Wife of a Spy
Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
It’s the 1940s in Kobe Japan where Satoku and and Yusaku are a happily married couple. Satoku (Aoi Yu) is a movie actress and Yusaku (Takahashi Issey) a rich businessman who owns an import-export corporation. Japan is at war, but they continue live a western-style life of peaceful luxury. But everything changes when Yusaku and their nephew Fumio return from a business trip in. Manchuria. a Japanese puppet state in Northeastern China. There they witnessed unspeakable atrocities and war crimes committed by the notorious Kwantung Army (aka Kantogun), an elite branch of the Japanese military. And they brought a young Japanese woman back with them.
Satoku sees only the young woman and knows nothing of the war crimes — is her husband cheating on her?. Meanwhile, a childhood friend named Taiji relocates to Kobe. She remembers him as a kind young man. But now he’s a member of the dreaded Kempeitai, the Japanese Gestapo. He criticizes her for wearing dresses instead of kimonos and for drinking foreign whiskey not Japanese. He’s also secretly in love with her. And he suspects Fumio 
and possibly even Yusaku, are traitors spreading Japanese war secrets to the enemy. Or is he just trying to break up their marriage?
But when she discovers the truth about the horrors of war, she confronts her husband — does he have proof? Eventually she has to decide whether to become a spy herself or turn in her husband to the police.
Wife of a Spy is great WWII thriller, full of jealousy, intrigue and numerous unexpected plot twists. Japan is not like Germany where filmmakers have produced hundreds or thousands of movies about their dark past. Rarely do you see Japanese films like this one. This movie is made for TV so everything is on a smaller scale with a more compact feel than a theatrical film, but under the direction of Kurosawa Kiyoshi and with its really good acting and script, (along with costumes, sets and music), it keeps the suspense building till the very end.
Great movie.
Mio’s Cookbook
Dir: Haruki Kadokawa
It’s 1801. Mio and Noe are two 12 year-old girls in Osaka. They vow to be best friends forever. One day they encounter a fortune teller who says Noe is destined for great success, while Mio will have to pass through dark clouds before she reaches blue skies. The same night a huge flood sweeps away both their houses. Mio is an orphan adopted by a woman, and Noe completely disappears. Fast forward ten years.
Now Mio (Matsumoto Honoka) lives in Edo (Tokyo) and works as a cook in a small restaurant. But her love of the sweeter, subtler flavours of Osaka that she’s used to are not popular in her customers in Edo who prefer stronger, saltier tastes. So after much experimentation and hard work she comes up with a perfect blending of the two cuisines. She creates the perfect chawan-mushi egg custard, and her fickle customers love it. Soon, there are lineups around the block. Word reaches Yoshiwara, the red light district, where a mysterious courtesan who never shows her face in public and is known only as Asahi (played by Nao), sends an emissary to bring one back for her to taste. Meanwhile two men are also interested in her cooking: an aristocrat (Kubozuka Yusuke) and a doctor who frequents both the restaurant and the Yoshiwara district. But evil forces — in the form of competing restaurant owners — are working against her. They steal her recipes, send bullies to scare away customers and even set fire to her workplace. Can a woman become a famous chef in Edo? Will Mio ever find her childhood 
friend? And will she find love in the confines of her restaurant?
Mio’s Cookbook is a lovely drama about friendship, cooking, class, religion, sex work, and the floating world of the pleasure district. It’s full of fascinating details about Japanese cuisine — each new dish she creates is displayed and labeled for you to see — and tons of period touches about life 200 years ago. It’s directed by Kadokawa Haruki, the notorious former movie producer, once heir to the Kadokawa publishing empire but who fell from grace in a cocaine scandal in the 1990s. A Japanese Spielberg, he knows how to craft a complex plot with many characters by pressing all the right buttons to keep the crowd wanting more. This is an enjoyable film that left me feeling… well, very hungry afterwards.
The Brightest Roof in the Universe
Dir: Fujii Michihito
Tsubame (Kiyohara Kaya) is a high school girl in a town somewhere in Japan. She has a crush on her next door neighbour Toru (Ito Kentaro) a banjo-playing dude who thinks of her more as a younger sister. She recently split up with her boyfriend after he posted cruel anonymous texts about her on everybody’s cel. And at home, her parents (her dad and step-mom) are preparing for a new baby. But will it take her place in the family? Tsubame has lots to worry about, which she does on the roof of a building where she takes Japanese calligraphy classes. Until one day she realizes she’s not alone up on that roof. There’s a tough-as-nails old lady up there, too, who rides around on a kids’ scooter.
This strange granny is outspoken and opinionated and makes Tsubame feel uncomfortable. There’s something about her she just doesn’t get. But eventually they become friend and confidants. Turns out Hoshi-ba (Momoi Kaori) — meaning granny from the stars — has special powers. She says she can fly and can solve almost any problem. In exchange for Hoshi-ba’s favours, Tsubame starts doing things for her — like finding her long-lost 
grandson who lives somewhere amidst all the rooftops in the town. Is Hoshi-ba real or imaginary? And can she fulfil Hoshi-ba’s wish?
The Brightest Roof in the Universe is a sweet and absorbing coming of age story that touches on family, friendship and love. It also deals with more obscure topics like ink brush painting, jellyfish and astronomy It’s slow paced but not boring, and told in a series of revelatory chapters, some of which are total surprises.
It’s also a sentimental tear-jerker, but in a nice way. I like this movie, too.
Wife of a Spy, The Brightest Roof in the Universe, and Mio’s Cookbook are all playing, now through June 27th at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Grand Ambitions. Films reviewed: Edge of the World, The Sign Painter, Lune
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s spring Film festival season in Toronto. Inside Out continues through the weekend featuring some more pics, like Knocked a Swedish psychological thriller about a lesbian widow who hears knocks in her apartment at night; and Being Thunder, a doc about a two-spirited, genderqueer teen’s experiences at a pow wow. The Toronto Japanese Film fest starts today and runs through the month — more on this one next week — and the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, featuring films from around the world, has just begun.
This week I’m looking at three new features (two from the TJFF), from Malaysia, Latvia, and Canada, about people with grand ambitions. There’s a a sign painter in Latvia who wants to be an artist, a Victorian explorer making friends with head-hunters in Borneo; and a radical anti-apartheid feminist who wants to vote for Nelson Mandela.
Edge of the World
Dir: Michael Haussman
It’s the 1840s in Sarawak, Borneo. James Brooke (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is an India-born British explorer, collecting butterflies and plants to send back to the academy. He arrives by ship on the shores of this island beside his cousin Crookshank (Dominic Monaghan) and his nephew young Charley (Otto Farrant). But once he enters the jungle they’re captured by warriors who celebrate victory by chopping off heads. Luckily they are brought before two Malay princes to rule on their fate. Prince Makota (Bront Palkarae) is aggressive and devious — he sees a chance to gain British guns and cannons. The younger Prince Bedruddin (Samo Rafael) on the other hand, likes James, as in lust — a future ally and bed-partner?
He says James has semangat — a certain virility and vitality fit for a ruler. James, on the other hand, only has eyes for the beautiful Fatima (Atiqa Hasholan). But after a battle, the Sultan of Brunei makes him king, the Rajah of Sarawak. But danger awaits at every turn of the river, with the snake people, and double-crossing royals, out to get him. And the British Empire would love to get their hands on the gold, coal and spices. Can he hold onto his kingdom, and fight off enemies abroad and at home? Or will his 
head land up as just another trophy on somebody’s mantlepiece?
Edge of the World is an exciting adventure in Southeast Asia when most of the world was still coloured pink (the British Empire). This is based on a true story, celebrated at the time, and told by Malaysians themselves. It includes Dayak music and dance, and a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic cast (Malay, Chinese, Indigenous, Indian, and European). Far from a tribute to colonialism and imperialism, most of the British (save for Sir James) come across as cruel, greedy and racist murderers.
If you like historical dramas — this is a good one.
The Sign Painter
Dir: Viesturs Kairišs
It’s the 1930s in a remote, small town beside a river in Latvia. Ansis (Davis Suharevskis) is a gawky, gangly young man who works with his father as a sign painter, but secretly wants to be an artist, painting on canvas, not words on doors and walls. His other secret is his love for a beautiful young woman. He visits Zisele (Brigita Cmuntová) Romeo and Juliet style, climbing ladders to knock on her window. She’s a modernist, often reading books on free love. But like Romeo and Juliet, they are separated two forces: her father, Bernstein — a local Jewish shopkeeper (Gundars Abolins) — and Ansis’s Catholic priest. Neither want them to marry, and it doesn’t help that he’s poor. There are also others in the mix. The self-centred Naiga (Agnese Cirule) — the literal girl next door, her father owns the pharmacy next to Bernstein’s shop — has a crush on him. And then there’s Andreas, a bombastic Baltic German, who has the hots for Zisele. Who will end up with whom? But all of their young plans are up in the air when war comes, and the country already under a fascist dictator, is invaded first by the Soviets, and later by the Nazis. What are their fates?
The Sign Painter is a tragi-comedy about life in Latvia during the 30s and 40s as seen through the eyes of one young man. It starts out with a light humorous tone — a sign painter gets lots of work changing the name of main street, with different colours — from Green to Red to Black — and fonts from roman to cyrillic to gothic, depending on who’s in charge. But about half way through, it takes on a much darker tone, as changing political whirlwinds bring arrests, deportations and massacres. Based on a novel, it’s laden with characters and unexpected plot turns.
I like this movie.
Lune
Dir: Arturo Perez Torres,
Aviva Armour-Ostroff
It’s 1994 in Toronto. Miriam (Aviva Armour-Ostroff) is a single mom who is excited. She’s a radical feminist an artist and a long-time anti-apartheid activist. She’s generous and helpful, giving food and comfort to random homeless people and political dissidents. Why is she so excited? Her birthplace, South Africa, is about to have their first free election — and she wants to go back and vote for Nelson Mandela. Problem is she is penniless (she lives in an apartment above a pawn shop) jobless, and nearly friendless — though she’s has many, many sexual partners. And then there’s her daughter Eliza (Chloe Van Landschoot). Eliza is finishing high school and trying to get a scholarship to a Montreal Dance Academy. She’s dating Mike (Vlad Alexis) a naive, young DJ with very well-established 
parents. Miriam says she wants to take Eliza and Mike to South Africa with her to witness democracy at work. Did I mention? Miriam and Eliza are white, and Mike is black.
Mike is enchanted by Miriam’s antics and thrilled by the idea of rediscovering his poetry, music, creativity and inner blackness. Eliza, though is pissed. What about her dancing? What about her boyfriend? She’s seen episodes like this throughout her life. 
Miriam is off her meds and in an increasingly manic state. So even as her creativity and enthusiasm grows, so does her recklessness. Can they make it to South Africa and back in one piece? Or is this all just a pipe dream?
Lune is a drama about an unusual family in Toronto in the 90s. It’s an amazingly moving piece, a biting satire and an explosion of creativity from spoken word to art to modern dance (Eliza retells her own story in the form of a dance, done by Chloe Van Landschoot.) Vlad Alexis is perfect as the bourgeois black guy trying to get woke. But the centre of it all is co-writer, co-diirector and star Aviva Armour-Ostroff, who as Miriam pushes all her boundaries in a shocking performance, grounded in politics you rarely see. Miriam talks like a combination of Edina Monsoon and Cornell West… with a good dose of cannabis-induced lunacy. (The title, Lune, divides the film into chapters marked by the stages of the moon).
Lune is a fantastic movie, and has already won the 2021 Micki Moore Award. Don’t miss this one!
Lune has it’s Canadian premier at TJFF today and is playing through Saturday; The Sign Painter has its Ontario premier at TJFF on June 8th and 9th; and Edge of the World opens today on VOD and all major platforms.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Potatoes, Radios and Poppies. Films reviewed: Potato Dreams of America, How to Fix Radios, Poppy Field #InsideOut!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Inside Out, Toronto’s LGBT film festival, kicked off last night, and is open for digital viewing across Ontario. It has movies, docs and shorts from around the world, many showing here for the first time.
This week I’m looking at three of these new movies two of which are directors’ first features. There’s a “little potato” in Russia, a broken radio in Canada, and a field of poppies in Romania.
Potato Dreams of America
Wri/Dir: Wes Hurley
Little Potato (Hersh Powers) is a school kid in 1980s Vladivostok, in the USSR a land of Perestroila and Glasnost. But he can’t stand communism, he puts all his faith in Jesus and wants to go to America, where it’s just like the movies and everyone has coloured TV. So he is overjoyed when his devoted and progressive mom, a prison doctor becomes a mail-order bride and takes him with her to Seattle. He likes his new school and stepdad, and is thrilled to see the relative openness toward gay people. But the teenaged potato (Tyler Bocock) wants to 
assimilate and doesn’t American attitudes. And when his step father’s Christianity turns out to be steeped in homophobia he’s afraid they’ll both be on the next plane back to Russia. Will Potato’s dreams be ruined?
Potato Dreams of America is a highly stylized, theatrical and campy version of the real memoirs of Russian American director Wes Hurley. And it’s full of surprises. I’m only allowed a capsule review here, but let me just say, if you like to watch a view of gay life in Russia and America, with lots of homoerotic details, occasional two-dimensional sets, and characters who burst into song, you’ll love this one.
How to Fix Radios
Dir: Casper Leonard, Emily Russell
It’s summer in a rural town town in Ontario. Evan (James Rudden) has found a summer job — cleaning up the land around a ramshackle hut before acomes in and clears it all away. He’s a quiet loner, a high school student who lives with his dad in an isolated home ad dresses in basic clothes: Shorts, T-shirt and ball cap. So he’s taken aback when he meets his supervisor. Ross (Dimitri Watson) is his opposite: a combative angry attitude, dressed in overalls, with bright pink hair, black fingernail polish and a pierced septum. He’s here, he’s queer and he doesn’t care who knows it. Evan has never seen anyone like him, but they gradually become friends. They meet up with Ross’s sister to go on picnics, and retreats to an abandoned house by a lake that everyone uses. And there they share intimate secrets by the campfire.
But things are complicated.
Small towns have gay people but they also have bullies. Ross is 
constantly tormented by a thug named Jake who rides around on his three wheeled RV, smoking pot and drinking beer with his chowderhead friends. Problem is, he’s also the son of their employer who owns the land they’re cleaning up and pays their salaries. Why don’t you move to the city, Evan wonders. Because, Ross says, he likes the quiet and trees there, and the nature all around him. And he doesn’t want a moron like Jake determining what he does with his life. But how much longer can Ross endure the punches and taunts from Jake?
How to Fix Radios (the title refers to one of Evan’s skills) is a warm look at friendship and the life of a queer kid in small-town Ontario. It’s an ultra-low-budget, indie film shot last summer during COVID, with all the spacing and location rules that entailed, which may explain why the sound quality is dodgy (some lines are lost or else overpowered by background noise.) But the great music, beautiful images and engaging characters make it a treat to watch.
Poppy Field
Dir: Eugen Jebeleanu
It’s present-day Romania. Cristi (Conrad Mericoffer) is a member of the Gendarmerie, an elite national police force run military style, using tightly-knit squads. They’re called in to handle dangerous riots and criminal acts. But tonight they’re at a movie theatre. How come? A lesbian drama, sponsored by an LGBT group, is scheduled to play that night. But the theatre has been occupied by a group of right-wing Christian activists. Draped in Romanian flags and carrying icons of the Virgin Mary, they say they’re trying to stop the pornographic “Homosexual Mafia”. The people in the audience say they just want to watch a movie. The tension is rising, but for some reason, Christi, unlike the other gendarmes, is standing far back, doing nothing. What is bothering him? But when he is confronted by a gay man, he loses it and beats the man up. This outs his whole squad in potential trouble. Why did he do it? Christi is gay too, but doesn’t want the other cops to know. He even has a Parisian lover waiting to meet him tonight in his apartment. Has Christi’s secret been revealed? Will he lose his job? And can he face his inner demons?
Poppy Field (and I have to admit, I have no idea what the title 
means) is a realistic and tense drama about a gay Romanian cop being pushed to the brink by his two separate lives: a passionate personal life and a rigid and violent workplace. The film is divided in the same way: part one is a night with him and his lover Hadi, and part two is a day at work. This is an excellent movie — a first feature but done in the style of current Romanian cinema: hyper realistic, done in real time, dealing with social issues. If you’ve ever seen contemporary Romanian movies like Police: Adjective, you’ll immediately recognize the style. Director Jebeleanu uses the fantastic veteran cinematographer Marius Panduru gives it his distinctive, minimalist look. Mericoffer, as Christi, rarely speaks, but you can see the angst brewing beneath his stone-cold features.
Short, sharp and fast-moving, Poppy Field is a great art house pic.
Potato Dreams of America, How to Fix Radios, and Poppy Field are all playing now at Inside Out, Toronto’s LGBT Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Love and Death. Films reviewed: Riders of Justice, Trigger Point, Undine
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 — two action/thrillers, one from Canada and another from Denmark; and a love story from Germany. There’s death on a commuter train, shoot-outs in a small town, and eternal love… deep underwater.
Riders of Justice
Wri/Dir: Anders Thomas Jensen
Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) is a hard-ass officer in the Danish army, happily married with a teenaged daughter named Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg). But his job keeps him apart from his family for months at a time. So when he hears his wife has been killed in a rare commuter train accident, he rushes home. He has to take care of Mathilde now, but summarily refuses all offers of counsellors or psychologists — he doesn’t believe in that mumbo-jumbo. But he clearly has a lot of anger inside — he punches Mathilde’s blue-haired boyfriend, Sirius, in the face the first time he meets him. (He’s been away so long he doesn’t even know she has a boyfriend.)
But their lives are further disrupted by an unexpected knock on the door. Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is a number-crunching computer nerd. He was on the same train, and says it can’t be a coincidence that a key witness in an upcoming trial of a criminal biker gang — called Riders of Justice — was also killed in that explosion. And the police clearly don’t care. Can we punish them ourselves? Otto enlists his two frenemies: Emmenthaler, an enormous man with a man bun who is also a facial-recognition expert (he has a terrible temper from a lifetime of being bullied); and Lennaert, a hacker without any social skills whatsoever (he’s been in therapy for 25 years.) This motley crew sets up camp 
inside Markus’s barn to prove the biker gang is to to blame. And Markus, after a lifetime of military training, knows how to fight back. But is their conspiracy theory correct? Can they catch the villains and avenge the deaths? Can one soldier and three untrained, anti-social intellectuals beat a heavily-armed criminal gang? And can Markus ever learn to communicate with his only daughter?
Riders of Justice is a brilliantly funny, satirical look at self-proclaimed vigilantes. It deals with probability, death, and retribution all wrapped up in the language of psychology, technology, sexuality and social networks. It does have a Christmas theme — which is odd to watch in a late-spring movie – but that hardly detracts from the main story. It’s also quite violent, with a lot of blood, pain and death. What’s great about it is all the well-rounded portrayals of disparate, odd-ball characters who learn to live together in a make-shift, highly dysfunctional family.
This is a fantastic movie.
Trigger Point
Dir: Brad Turner
Lewis (Barry Pepper) is a nice guy. Ask everyone in the small town where he lives. He found a kitten for Janice (Nazneen Contractor) a waitress at the local diner, and he fixed the electric tea kettle — no charge! — at Irene (Jayne Eastwood) ’s bookstore using just a paper clip. That guy can fix anything, he’s a regular MacGyver! He lives alone on the outskirts of town in a huge wooden farmhouse. But when outsiders with big city ways come to town snooping around, things start to change.
Dwight (Carlo Rota) says he wants to talk with him. Elias (Colm Feore), his former boss, has a job for him to do: track down and free Elias’ kidnapped daughter Monica (Eve Harlow). You see, Lewis used to be a top agent at The Corporation (aka the CIA), but went underground when a mysterious assassin — known only as “Quentin” — started knocking off everyone else on his team. And lots of people think Lewis is the actual killer. Now he has to follow the trail, question the suspects, and uncover the evidence before he becomes Quentin’s next target. But who can be trusted and who’s a turncoat?
Trigger Point is a good, traditional shoot-em-up action movie. It’s an apolitical look at the spy trade, concentrating instead on 
corruption and greed. Shot in small-town Ontario, it’s full of open fields, greenhouses and some stunning lakeshore landscapes, with lots of famous Canadian faces popping up. And it keeps up the pace. Sadly, it has a weird, unfinished quality to it, as if the final 30 pages of the script blew away, so they decided to end it early. What’s going on? Why did they introduce new characters in the last few minutes? Why don’t they bother capturing the villain? Is this actually just a pilot for an unproduced TV series?
Whatever. If you don’t mind turning off your brain, you’ll enjoy this fast-moving action/thriller.
Undine
Wri/Dir: Christian Petzold
Undine (Paula Beer) is a young woman in a Berlin cafe. She’s crushed because her true love Johannes has just revealed he’s married to another woman. She says, if you leave me, I will have to kill you! But their conversation is cut short because her unusual job at the museum across the street starts in five minutes. She works as a guide to an enormous 3-D physical model of the city’s map. When she returns to the cafe after her shift, Johannes is gone. But a strange voice calls to her, from behind a decorative fish tank. It’s Christoph (Franz Rogowski) a boyish and clumsy man. The two collide, breaking the tank, and sending shards of glass and a flood of water on top of the two of them. And as Christoph pulls broken glass from Undine’s body, it’s love at first accident. He works out of town in a scenic lake as an engineer, repairing broken machinery and welding it back together… underwater! Undine follows him to the lake and joins him in scuba gear. They spend all their time together, making love on land and in the 
water. But, although they share a psychic bond, the elements seem to pull them apart. And when Johannes reappears, Undine’s relationship with Christoph seems to be at risk.
Undine is an incredibly beautiful romance, wonderfully acted and elegantly shot. Like in all of Petzold’s films, while the story seems simple, its characters and ideas are intense. His style is spare. Every scene in the movie — a spilled glass of wine, a glance at a passerby — is there for a reason, essential to the story. Nothing wasted. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but Undine shares her name with a classical figure — a water nymph, from the Greek Myths — and leaves open the suggestion that this Undine is also supernatural. The film plays with the themes of eternal love, destiny, tragedy and life both underwater and on land, sort of an adult mermaid story. Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski also played star-crossed lovers in Petzold’s last movie, Transit, and they ‘re back again sharing the same tension and electricity.
I strongly recommend this amazing love story.
Trigger Point is now playing, Riders of Justice starts today, and don’t miss Undine opening in two weeks.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Tricks, Tracks, Traps. Films reviewed: The Killing of Two Lovers, Deliver Us From Evil, In the Earth
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring Film Festival Season is on in Toronto, digitally speaking. Coming in the next few weeks are the Toronto Japanese Film festival, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Inside Out, Toronto’s LGBT film festival, and events organized by the Toronto Palestine Film Festival.
Starting in two weeks is the ReelAbilities film festival with shorts, features and docs about deaf and disability cultures, including a comedy night. All screenings are pay-what-you-can. Go to reelabilities.org/toronto for more info.
This week I’m looking at three new movies, from the US, the UK and Korea. There’s a husband who feels tricked by his wife, a hitman tracked by a killer; and an earth scientist trapped in a psychedelic forest.
The Killing of Two Lovers
Wri/Dir: Robert Machoian
David (Clayne Crawford) lives in a small-town in the southern US. He used to have ambitions to be a singer-songwriter, but now he works as a handyman doing odd jobs to keep his family afloat. He married Nikki (Sepideh Moafi) straight out of high school, and they now have four kids. But the spark is gone. David is living with his Dad now — he and Nikki are on a trial separation. It’s meant to help fix their broken relationship. But when he finds her in bed sleeping with another man, he feels lost and angry, and starts to carry a gun.
Meanwhile he wants to bond with his kids and keep the family together. His oldest daughter is furious with them both. And the younger ones (played by real-life siblings) are just getting by. Can Nikki and David ever get back together? Or will David’s brooding anger finally explode into violence?
The Death of Two Lovers is a relationship movie done in the style of a high-tension crime pic. It’s told through David’s eyes, so we feel his boiling rage and inner turmoil. He takes out his anger on a boxing dummy, and practices shooting with an old pistol. The soundtrack is full of repeating sounds — slamming car doors, creaking noises — unrelated to the actual images you see. And his encounters with Derek (Chris Coy) his moustached rival looks like it’s headed for disaster. No spoilers, but this is not a crime drama; it’s a movie about the (potential) collapse of a family. The acting is great and bit of a it’s tear-jerker, but it seems trapped within an unclassifiable and misleading genre.
Deliver Us From Evil
Wri/Dir: Hong Wan-Chan
In-Nam (Hwang Jung-min) is a Korean hitman who kills for money, but only targets organized criminals. His assignment: a ruthless yakuza boss in Tokyo who exploits sex workers. It’s his final assignment; once complete, he plans to retire somewhere with warm beaches and lax banking laws where he can enjoy his blood money in peace…somewhere like Panama? But his dreams are shattered with a blast from the past. His ex-girlfriend he hasn’t seen in 9 years is trying to reach him. Her nine-year-old daughter Yoo-min has been kidnapped. He drops everything and flies to Bangkok to investigate. He’s too late to save her but maybe little Yoo-min is still alive. He hires a local Korean woman named Yoo-Yi (Park Jeong-Min) to translate for him and serve as his guide. She works at a Patpong bar, and needs the extra cash to pay for sex-reassignment surgery. Together they uncover a terrible truth: a ruthless Thai operation that kidnaps small kids, especially Japanese and Koreans in Thailand, to sell their organs to rich people back home!
What In-Nam doesn’t realize is that he’s a marked man… the hitman is on a hit-list. The Yakuza boss he assassinated had a brother named Ray aka The Butcher (Lee Jung-jae). This guy is ruthless and deranged, and can do terrible things with his very sharp knives. Can In-min rescue Yoomin (and the other 
kidnapped kids) before their organs are yanked from their innocent bodies? Is little Yoomin — who he’s never met — his own daughter? And who will survive the fight to the death: Ray who is out for vengeance; or In-Min?
Deliver us from Evil is an intense crime action/thriller set in in the underworlds of Korea, Japan and Thailand. The first half hour is a bit dull: too much talk, talk, talk, and not enough action. It’s a complicated plot that needs a lot of explaining. But once it starts going it never let’s you down, with lots of fistfights, marital arts, knives, guns and cars. It’s a world where everyone’s corrupt: competing criminal gangs, local con artists, international syndicates and cops on the take. If you’re disturbed by violence, blood and awful situations— stay away. But if you like action, suspense, intense fighting, and some interesting characters, Deliver Us From Evil is a good watch.
In the Earth
Wri/Dir: Ben Wheatley
It’s England in the near future, where an unknown virus pandemic is wiping out the population. The country is a mess with food shortages and strange new laws. Martin (Joel Fry), is a mousy scientist who arrives at a nature preserve to study the soil there. (He also has a hidden agenda, to contact Alma another scientist who disappeared, leaving a puzzling diary.) After passing the medical tests, he sets out into the woods accompanied by a guide. Olivia (Hayley Squires) is a no-nonsense forest ranger with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She can assemble a pop tent in a couple minutes and knows every inch of the woods. But while they slept a stranger attacked them, stealing their shoes, clothes and Martin’s crucial radio equipment. Luckily they encounter Zach (Reece Shearsmith), an eccentric, bearded, back-to-the-land type who is shacked up nearby. He tends to their wounds, makes them some food and gives them comforting elderflower tea. Unluckily Zach is a lunatic who drugged their tea and tied them up. He says all nature is 
connected, and we must listen to a common brain to find out her wishes. And this includes using Martin and Olivia in bizarre rituals and possible sacrifices. They must escape! But a natural mist has settled all around them generating microscopic mushroom spores and unbearable sounds. What is the truth in these woods? And can Olivia and Martin overcome its allure?
In the Earth is a weird, science-fiction/horror/ fantasy about humans fighting nature — and the earth fighting back. It was filmed just a few months ago during the height of the pandemic in the UK. And it’s full of psychedelic visions and creepy sounds. Ben Wheatley’s movies are unique and either you like them or you don’t. But I thought it was fantastic. There’s a fair amount of violence and gross-outs, but it’s all done in an art-house style, not your typical Hollywood horror. If you’re in the mood for a freaky, indie movie, this one’s for you.
The Killing of Two Lovers Starts today on all major platforms, In the Earth also opens today at the Virtual TIFF Bell Lightbox; and Deliver us From Evil will be available on VOD, digital and on disc on May 25th.
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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