Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

TIFF, Toronto’s International Film Festival is winding down after a busy week, but there is still a lot to see, including the People’s Choice awards offering free screenings of the winning films tomorrow. So this week I’m looking at three terrific movies that premiered at TIFF but aren’t getting the degree of coverage I think they deserve. There’s a coming-of-age story about a girl in Taiwan, a biopic about a man in Scotland, and a documentary about a legendary American journalist.

Girl

Wri/Dir: Shu Qi

Lin Xiaoli  (Bai Xiao-Ying) is a working class tween in middle school in Taiwan. She lives with her mom, and her domineering stepdad who terrorizes her mother and her. Xiaoli hides inside a zip-up wardrobe in her bedroom as protection from his violent outbursts. He works as a mechanic in his Uncle’s garage, and usually comes home drunk to the gills. Her Mom works in a hair salon and makes artificial flowers at home to earn extra money, but takes out her anger on her much smaller daughter. Xiaoli takes care of her younger sister, who is favoured by both her parents. At school she tries to stay unnoticed to avoid more of the violence and anxiety he gets at home. 

Until she meets a vivacious girl named Li Lily (Lin Pin-Tung). Lily lived in the States for a few years but now she’s back and living with her grandparents who let her do whatever she wants. Though the too are complete opposites, Lily is helping Xiaoli climb out of her shell. And one day they cut class, wear makeup, smoke a cigarette, go to a video cafe, sing songs, and eventually meet a bunch teenaged boys riding motor scooters. But will this day change her life in a good way… or in a bad way?

Girl is a realistic coming-of- age drama set in the previous millennium (with no computers or cel phones) and full of poignant details. It’s a very moving story about parental abuse passed down through generations, but it’s also full of hope. It follows the points of view of all the main characters, not just Xiaoli.  Now, I have a rule, I avoid first films at TIFF directed by actors. Why? They’re usually crap. Vanity pics, Oscar bate, self-serving vehicles or relentless navel gazing. Shu Qi is a very famous Taiwanese actress, and Girl is her first try at directing. Luckily, it’s really good. She has acted in three movies by Hou Hsiao Hsien and Girl resembles his films in both style and content, though a totally original take. It’s rough and violent in parts, which is hard to handle in a realistic movie, but there’s lots of sweet stuff, too.  

Girl is an excellent first feature.

I Swear

Wri/Dir: Kirk Jones

It’s the late 1990s. John Davidson (Scott Ellis Watson) is a popular teenager in Galashiels, Scotland He’s starting at a new school, getting friendly with a girl he fancies, and is the prized goalie on the local boys’ football team. His Dad has even arranged for a scout to the next match. But then something unexpected happens. He starts twitching in class, just a little at first, like a nervous tic. But it soon turns to rapid movements, facial contortions, and barking sounds. Followed by spitting, random punching and the uttering of the most offensive words. He gets caned by the headmaster for acting the ckown, his mother makes him eat his meals on the floor facing the fireplace. HIs father abandons his family. His onetime girlfriend slaps his face and other kids bully him at school, But none of it is intentional; he has Tourette’s syndrome.

Decades later, John (Robert Aramayo) still lives with his mother, heavily sedated, not allowed to speak with anyone for fear of an incident. A miserable existence indeed.  Until he runs into an old school friend who invites him for dinner at home. He repeatedly declines — for good reason — until his friend’s mom Dottie (Maxine Peake), a psychiatric nurse diagnosed with cancer, insist he come in for spaghetti dinner. The first thing he says to her is You’re dying of cancer, haha! before skulking away, mortified. But Dottie brushes it off as the most honest thing she’s heard in years. She invites him back, and tells him to stop apologizing for things that aren’t his fault. Eventually he moves in to try to live a normal life. But is that possible with Tourettes?

I Swear is a comedy/drama, based on a true story, about one man’s life with Tourette’s.  The title refers to the profane and deeply offensive words that spew forth from his moth at the worst possible times. It’s mortifying but also excruciatingly funny, and the two actors who play him, Watson and Aramayo, exude sympathy and humour in every scene, despite their seemingly insurmountable problems. I laughed my ass off for most of this film (whenever I wasn’t crying out of sympathy). I Swear tells a heart-warming story, even as it educates —  without lecturing — about Tourette’s.

I strongly recommend this feel-good movie.

Cover-Up

Wri/Dir: Laura Poitras (All The Beauty and the Bloodshed)

and Mark Obenhaus

It’s the 1960s and America is at war. Sy Hersh, a freelance reporter, hears a rumour of mass murder in Vietnam by American troops. He speaks with GIs on base and the soldiers accused of these crimes. He also got a hold of a secret military investigation the massacre. And the facts he finds are horrifying. There include synchronized sexual assaults and murders of hundreds of women, men and children, and even babies, by American soldiers. Hersh blames My Lai on General Westmoreland and others who ordered the mass killings — which happened in a number of places on the same day — solely for the purpose of raising the body count. They needed more dead bodies to prove they were winning the war. The story has major repercussions all the way to the top — Nixon and Kissinger were recorded calling Hersh a son of a bitch — and played a role in turning public sentiment away from the war. For Hersh, My Lai is the first of many crucial stories he breaks in the decades to come. He becomes the NY Times daily reporter on the Watergate scandal. He uncovers US involvement in Pinochet’s bloody coup in Chile and the assassination of Allende; illegal CIA infiltration of anti-war groups, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the invasion of Gaza (ongoing), and the abuse and torture of Iraqis by American soldiers during the Gulf War at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. 

Cover-Up is a journalistic documentary about journalism itself. It features historical documents and period photos and film — many very disturbing —  new interviews with people involved in the stories, and extended talks with Sy Hersh, who at the age of 88 is still a full-time journalist.  You get to see him see at work talking to anonymous sources and vetting incoming photos and leaks. He’s a bit prickly about protecting his sources even from the documentary makers (who take care never to reveal anyone still alive), because it’s that core of consciences bureaucrats, soldiers, and spies who still uphold the constitution and flout illegal coverups. They’re the sources who keep freedom of the press alive.

After the TIFF screening, Hersh said that American journalism is in a bad state with reporters running scared. How many important stories are being gagged or stifled now — or in the past — under White House pressure? It shows how badly we need more adversarial journalists who question the powers that be and uncover what they’re hiding.

And that’s what Cover-Up is all about.

I Swear, Girl and Cover-Up all played at TIFF and should be released over the next few months. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.