Here’s what I did not expect to see last Monday: Béla Tarr, hunched by a door before the fourth and final screening of the experimental Wavelengths shorts programs so crucial to my annual TIFF experience. I’d missed a trick–news that he’d be with us had been tweeted out that morning, but I’m glad I didn’t know. Dropping in one of the crucial film figures of the last 30 years was a shock to the system; the red-carpet clutter unavoidably inseparable from nearly any festival faded away, and for a few minutes there was just Tarr, as stringent as expected, talking about the young […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 19, 2018The first shot of Steve McQueen’s Widows is in keeping with the Master Shot Severity of Hunger, Shame and 12 Years a Slave: an overhead two-shot of Veronica (Viola Davis) and Harry Rawlins (Liam Neeson) in bed, held at great length, allowing for durational “naturalistic” acting in a rigorously defined space. “Severity” is descriptive, not necessarily a pejorative: the solemn Steadicam virtuosities and meticulously imprisoning static compositions of Shame only heightened the silliness of the story of a rich man who does zero work onscreen while having sex with an effortlessly accrued slew of partners but who, like Brian Wilson, sometimes still feels Very Sad. McQueen’s […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 9, 2018Like The Duke of Burgundy, Peter Strickland’s In Fabric isn’t a giallo but feints at the genre, wrapping itself in lovingly reproduced trappings to pursue an entirely different agenda. Burgundy was an unexpectedly emotional examination of the difficulties of mutually negotiating the obstacles of a long-term relationship; Fabric is unemotional, its primary instincts either mischievous or satirical. It’s a pretty good time—too long, which makes it just like pretty much every cult movie ever made, so that’s appropriate. The opening credits list legendary British soundstage Twickenham Studios as one of the production companies, and the credit’s no joke: the movie takes place almost entirely […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 8, 2018Our Time stars Carlos Reygadas and his wife Natalia López as Juan and Ester, a married couple whose definitely fictional open relationship in no way bears any resemblance to the performers. Even the TIFF write-up barely pretends to believe in this author-vs-character divide: “It’s fascinating when you realize that the director is effectively filming himself secretly watching his real wife’s affair.” Setting this aside (at least until someone asks Reygadas about it in an interview), the premise isn’t a huge change of pace: for all its Dreyer trappings, Silent Light is an adulterous love triangle, and Reygadas’s manic peak Post Tenebras Lux made one […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 7, 2018An adaptation of Garrard Conley’s memoir (which I haven’t read) about attending a “gay conversion” camp at age 19, Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased scans as, and turns out to be precisely, textbook Oscar-bait: it’s topical, its heart is in the right place, the cast is stacked, and despite all good intentions the final effect is very meh (“powerful” is a word I expect to see used a lot). Edgerton’s directorial debut, The Gift, was (minus its vile ending) a tautly commendable thriller; visually, Boy Erased looks very much in the same pocket at the outset, all nighttime darkness and tightly composed […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 6, 2018Joana Vicente, a producer and currently the executive director of IFP, Filmmaker‘s parent organization and publisher, has been named the new Executive Director and Co-Head of TIFF, the presenter of the annual Toronto International Film Festival. She’ll join Artistic Director and Co-Head Cameron Bailey in the position beginning October 1. From the press release: “After an extensive search for a Co-Head we are thrilled to welcome Joana to the new role and to the TIFF family,” said Jennifer Tory. “The hiring committee was deeply impressed with Joana’s combined history as a producer, a champion of independent filmmakers, and with her […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 28, 2018Prior to arriving for my first TIFF, I’d been told the only films you needed to show up early for were those with either celebrities or “awards season buzz,” and this has proven to be completely true. Most P&I screenings appear to be occupied by buyers who arrive late and leave early. For sheer impatience, perhaps no one will beat the guy who entered The Human Surge five minutes late, gave it two, and then bounced, but there’s been heavy competition for worst manners: I’m particularly anti-fond of the guy who spent a portion of Ulrich Seidl’s Safari reading Yelp reviews before presumably heading out […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 15, 2016Decried as an offensive trivialization of trans reassignment surgery by GLAAD as soon its premise was announced, Walter Hill’s Re(Assignment) makes the subtextual defense for itself early on. Institutionalized for two years, surgeon Rachel Ray (Sigourney Weaver) — a formerly respected practitioner stripped of her license — is being questioned by a shrink (Tony Shalhoub) as to why four corpses were found in her illicit medical officet. Ray was performing gender reassignment surgery on the willing and unwilling, but she wasn’t just a doctor, she insists; she was also an artist, and — quoting Edgar Allan Poe — declares that proper art is […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 12, 2016Sergei Loznitsa’s Austerlitz, a record of tourists visiting the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, could be loglined as a movie about why it’s a transparently bad idea to take selfies at Holocaust sites, but that would be reductive and far too banal a point to need making at feature length. The film is in low-contrast black-and-white, and how could it be in color? The visual language of extant Holocaust footage is B&W, so Loznitsa maintains visual and historical continuity. The opening movement is not that far off from, of all things, In the City of Sylvia, with long shots of tourists milling about in multiple compressed planes the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 11, 2016Matías Piñeiro has been living in NYC for a few years now, so it’s logical he’d eventually make a film set at least partially there. I can’t pretend to a lack of rooting interest: I know, casually or closely, a semi-significant number of people who worked on or acted in this, did a set report (meaning I spent part of the first viewing waiting to see what was actually being said in the shot I saw filmed) and, if you go to a lot of rep cinema in the city, Piñeiro — a serious, inveterate cinephile — is just kind of generally around. Hermia […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 10, 2016