I am about 2 months out from having spent 11 days straight out of my house, meandering around downtown Toronto and checking tiffr.com to see whether I’d be walking 2 blocks North to get to Scotiabank Theatre, 2 blocks East to go to the Royal Alexandria Theatre, or right back into the rush line at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
I gather that this may sound exhausting to some people, but it was like dopamine for my broken, film-addicted brain. The freedom to roam through Toronto in September weather, selecting what films to see and what my back-up options were, was a lovely way to close out my Summer.
I want to say that it wasn’t just the excitement of being able to replicate my previous in-person TIFF experiences, with full audience engagement attached to the majority of these screenings (for better or worse) and the opportunity to attend with friends and loved ones too, because looking back on the selection of films I saw, I feel it was a particularly good lineup this year. I feel the need to put a possible asterisk on that statement because a lot of “film festival culture” refuses to acknowledge the desire to claim that The Whale is “the best film I’ve ever seen in my life” (I didn’t see it) or that Viggo Mortensen gives “the most authentic performance of the year” in Green Book (I did see this unfortunately) simply because it’s being seen sooner than the general public gets to, and that is exciting, but I did my best to factor that into my TIFF experience.
With all that being said, I wanted to give a quick recap of everything I saw here to kick-off the umpteenth blog I’ve started in hopes of exercising my writing skills and exorcising the media-related ramblings that are plaguing my brain.
Leonor Will Never Die (dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar)
My first film of the festival was this charming, insistently playful homage to Filipino action cinema in which a retired screenwriter is hit over the head (with a television) and transported into the universe of the film she’s writing. I love anything that draws attention to its unreality, and this is evidently having so much fun doing so. It wears its heart on its sleeve and quite literally embodies the idea that you write what you know
The way that it pulls the curtains in its meta-conclusion and offers a bow (and song!) from the cast and crew, especially in the context of a meditation on on-screen violence that is also founded on the idea that “you can write your own endings” (paraphrased), was very touching, because it feels like a positive ending note that allows you to know that nobody was hurt in the making of the film. It hammers home that none of its violence or darkness was reality – not that you would think that in the first place, given its willful absurdity – which was a refreshing thesis.
As its intentions became clear to me, it started to feel like Duck Amuck with an special emphasis on the responsibility of the creator, and the damage that they can cause.
It is funny, though, that this Last Action Hero riff also has a recurring reference to another Arnold movie (Junior) (there is an unnecessary running joke about a man being pregnant – which I will put a pin in until later)
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (dir. Eric Appel)
This Weird Al biopic was my first Midnight Madness of the festival, or in other words, the first of many times I ended up getting home around 4am.
That being said, not too much to say about this: it’s really funny. All of its performances hold up in the universe it creates, it’s full of crowd-pleasing moments that, I admit, might not play as well on THE ROKU CHANNEL (lmao) but hey, this thing is so joke-centric in a way that I forget comedies can be (recent narrative favs I’d say it compares to in that sense are Popstar and Beavis & Butthead Do The Universe) and I have to commend that.
As a parody connoisseur, as well, I condone this. It’s very safe and very innocent, but that’s really the Al Yankovic vibe, isn’t it? Little edge – any visible edge here is as comical as it is because it’s so uncharacteristic of Yankovic himself – and very silly, which is exactly what makes it work.
It also fascinates me how your emotional response to this kind of movie can work. I don’t consider this a film that is attempting to “actually have emotional impact” on top of its humor — it is very much a jokes-first experience. But, anything that you feel as a result of its playing-the-narrative-hits functions itself as a commentary on how emotionally manipulative those storytelling tools are. And while it is heavily compared to Walk Hard, it functions as a reminder of how ridiculous it is that people still try to get away with that Bohemian Rhapsody, “wait, say that again” biopic script-writing style since that movie came out in 2007.
Also, a shout-out to Spencer Treat Clark who was really cracking me up the whole time.
Prisoner’s Daughter (dir. Catherine Hardwicke)
I really only went into this because of my interest in Catherine Hardwicke as a director (though I’d only seen Twilight prior to this), and even though I thought this was pretty miserable, I won’t let that color my opinion of her overall.
There is very little to say about the plot on this, it is extremely by-the-numbers. A single mother (Kate Beckinsale) gets a call from her estranged father (Brian Cox) who is dying, and they attempt to make amends despite the odds. Oh, and her ex-husband and the father of her son (the lead singer of the All-American Rejects?????) threateningly lingers over her life as well.
This thing’s script keeps it from rising above its very generic premise (note: the use of “his violent past catches up to him” in TIFF’s provided plot description of this film does a lot of heavy lifting — there are no surprises to be found here). The acting does not help for the most part, but there’s so much insipid comic relief, so many generic character interactions and its plot is at best, extremely predictable.
It’s just completely unsubversive in a way that I forget is even possible. I would say this must be how non-horror fans feel about like Jack in the Box 3 or Ghoulies the Legacyquel or BJ Novak’s Saw, but at least those movies become heightened in their stupidity. I think a lot of drama-seeking film-goers place a lot of emphasis on performances which results in films like this that re-tread the same territory we’ve seen over and over, except without any good performances. All of its tropes are tired, and it can’t make up its mind between “violence is bad! men right???” and “well that was actually kind of charming and at least the violence was warranted” until it just kind of ends. It actually mirrors this year’s The Black Phone in that way, offering a seemingly unironic “boys will be boys” sentiment.
Brother (dir. Clement Virgo)
I sort of stumbled into this one on accident, since it made its way onto my partner Jess’s radar which, in turn, put it on mine, but I’m really glad I did.
This was a very sad and tender and beautifully performed film, with its period and Scarborough setting lending a lot of emotion and authenticity. Its fragmented structure allow the several systemic disadvantages this family is faced with to pile up in a way that devastatingly and accurately portrays their reality. It also allows the sweet memories and family associations they have with the setting to make themselves evident as well.
Both of the film’s titular brothers, Lamar Johnson and Aaron Pierre, gave excellent performances, but Pierre in particular – who caught my eye in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old last year – has such a unique and powerful presence, and I can’t wait to see where his career goes from here.
Speaking of Jess and this film, go read her words on it!
Bros (dir. Nicholas Stoller)
This was another accidental screening I ended up making it to. In fact, this Brotherly Double Feature (they are totally different films, I just happened to watch them back to back) was the beginning of realizing that this TIFF was going to be much more “go with the flow” than I expected, but I liked that added excitement!
I suspect that Billy Eichner, who scored/wrote himself a leading man role on this, fancies it a rom-com as indebted to Queerness as it is to Nora Ephron films from the ‘90s, which I respect, despite finding it more similar in sensibility to the proudly bulky Stoller/Apatow comedies of the ‘00s, which, surprise, I also respect. In fact, it would feel plucked straight out of the mid-2000s if not for it’s more pointedly progressive slant, and that is a positive for me.
It’s true that Eichner scoops a lot more onto his plate than perhaps he’s prepared to eat. In promoting the film, he’s referred to it repeatedly as “the first gay rom-com by a major studio,” which is definitely a bit confusing, and possibly wrong given the release of Fire Island earlier this year, though maybe that film’s streaming release disqualifies it? I frankly don’t know, but whatever pressure is attached to that claim has obviously worked its way into Eichner’s vision. One of two moments from the film’s Q&A which stuck with me was when Eichner spoke about that very claim, and said that he did not, in fact, feel that he was trying to do anything so grandeur in its representation, and that he merely wanted to make a rom-com that reflected his personal life. As valid as that would be, the film’s text suggests differently.
There is a lot of emphasis in the film on the importance of Queer history, specifically the role that Queer and Trans People of Color play in it, which find its way into the plot because Eichner’s character works at the first Queer History Museum. That brings me to the second relevant moment from the Q&A, in which an audience member asked Eichner why the film centered on two cis and white gay men despite its constant references to more marginalized individuals in the community. It was a very good question, though the answer could probably be summed up by Eichner’s clout in Hollywood – which is inextricable from his Whiteness and his gender – and his own desire to star in the film he writes, but I bring it up because the responsibility he felt to fully represent the community and the film’s shortcomings at doing so are difficult to ignore, especially when they are as close in proximity as Eichner’s character dedicating the opening of his museum to marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community and the event turning to center on his admission of love to another white, gay man.
Subtraction (dir. Mani Haghighi)
The nuances of what this pulled off (I do remember this: it pulled off a lot!) have somewhat escaped me in the mid-/post-TIFF haze, but this turned out to be one of my favorite films of the festival! I am a sucker for a doppelgänger story, and this is about as exciting as one can be.
The film follows a woman who witnesses her husband going into another woman’s home, only to later realize the man she saw was her husband’s doppelgänger. But it doesn’t stop there: the woman he was seeing was his wife, who also happened to be *her* doppelgänger.
The film is riveting in its structure, masterfully detailing each of the character’s distinct qualities, and results in a riveting and sometimes painful deconstruction of the idea of soulmates, and the fine details that separate a functional marriage from a dysfunctional one.
Biosphere (dir. Mel Eslyn)
I won’t say too much about this one, but it was an interesting case of a TIFF film being added to the lineup only a few days before the festival actually started. It was essentially a complete surprise to the audience, and the only thing there was to know was that the film starred Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown, and that it was about the last two men on earth. It was most definitely the worst film I saw at the festival.
I will spoil it in the following paragraph, so don’t read ahead if it interests you to go in blindly.
I know it isn’t productive to be mad about other peoples reactions to a film, or even to center your opinions on the film around them — but I’ve seen many reviews of this film that essentially say, “you will NEVER guess what happens in this movie.” …really? You’d never guess that if there were 2 people left on earth that they would have sex? Or is it because of the science fiction element of the film, that itself gives way to a bounty of casual homophobia and explicit transphobia. Any credit I could give this film (which, I admit, does not exist regardless) vanishes when so much of the audience was guffawing at the very idea of a man having a vagina. On top of that, its two (2) scenes that try to address the seriousness of its concept and deepen it feel embarrassing and like nothing more than lip service.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (dir. Daniel Goldhaber)
This is the film that, more than any other at the festival, I wrestled with my response to, which is interesting because it was probably the film that, when it ended, I most confidently thought was truly excellent. The reason for my uncertainty around this film was a much-discussed quote from the director that was said during the Q&A I actually attended.
Before I get into that, though, I will just note that this is a very electric heist film about a group of young environmental activists who set out to, as the title suggests, Blow Up a Pipeline to raise awareness of the climate crisis. It takes the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Andreas Malm, as its bible and runs with it. (Note: I have yet to read the book, which I hope to fix soon.)
What got people talking about the film’s Q&A was the director, Daniel Goldhaber, mentioning that they had an anonymous technical advisor on the film who is a higher-up in counterterrorism in the U.S. military. The extent of this individual’s actual involvement is, obviously, unknown to me, but for a film that is adapting such seemingly radical material, the director’s nonchalance about enlisting the help of anyone involved with the U.S. military feels totally counterintuitive to the film’s messaging. That did, ultimately, send me down a rabbit hole of placing the rest of the film in that context which, (spoilers ahead) in particular, made me question the character who is a mole for the police, because although her involvement with them turns out to be a part of the plan, the idea of “having to work within the system” does feel a little tired and especially out of place here. (spoilers end here)
That all being said, I came to terms with the fact that in all things formal, this is a very poppy film that uses its stellar cast of young actors to make an exciting and accessible adaptation of material that is – very arguably – the opposite of that.
The Blackening (dir. Tim Story)
This was just one of the biggest delights of the festival and benefitted so much from being able to howl along at it with an audience, which makes me hope that this isn’t simply dumped onto a streaming site. Although, it will make a perfect late-night watch when it eventually does end up there, by whatever distribution means.
The film’s premise subverts the horror trope of the Black character always dying first, by making a group of Black friends go away to a cabin in the woods for a weekend, in classic slasher fashion, which then poses the question of: if every character is Black, who dies first?
Despite its focus veering more onto the comedy side – with its main cast of performers working together in hilarious harmony – it also takes a sincere approach to its slasher premise. It additionally functions in a very post-Scream, post-Scary Movie fashion where the characters knowledge of horror (specifically how Black characters are treated in horror) helps them to navigate their circumstances.
Though vaguely shaggy in its story, that is really only a symptom of its evident goal to make you laugh, and I would very endearingly fit it snugly in the middle of a Scary Movie to Killjoy spectrum of bringing sincerity to its horror premise.
Plus, (spoilers), it just about made it onto my list of Slashers Where Nobody Dies.
Dalíland (dir. Mary Harron)
This was, unfortunately, a very dull portrait of Salvador Dalí. I get that it was submerged in the life of an artist’s assistant, providing an outside view of the art world, but it wasn’t even particularly scandalous, nor was it very informative. The best scene in the movie is the very first scene, which is a recreation of a (pretty good, tbh) bit Dali does on a “guess the famous person” television show, where he keeps answering “yes” when they ask if he is certain things. It’s entertaining but it also introduces you to a feeling of not knowing whether you can trust him or not, which would perfectly translate to the form of a cinematic dissection of Dalí, but this movie misses the mark on it.
Sick (dir. John Hyams)
Okay, this is a film that I was probably most stoked walking into, sitting through and walking out of, but I also, admittedly, have been presenting it with sort of an asterisk, due to uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic’s role in the story.
For starters, this is, quite simply, a slasher that follows two girls who are isolating at a house in the middle of the woods. It is a collaboration between director John Hyams – who directed two excellent Universal Soldier DTV sequels, as well as another extremely intense horror film called Alone – and Kevin Williamson – the writer of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, as well as the creator of Dawson’s Creek. Katelyn Crabb also co-writes the script.
From its opening scene, I was grinning in my seat at how perfect of a collaboration this is. The combination of Williamson’s hopeful/comforting writing style and Hyams’ non-stop, grimy direction of action was basically magic to me. Plus, everything that they said in the Q&A made me appreciate their vision even more, like: Kevin Williamson saying he loves chase scenes at that this is basically a 90 minute one; John Hyams saying that the film has a first act, and then a really long third act; Kevin Williamson saying that he saw Alone, which inspired him to seek out Hyams as a director.
I don’t want to spoil it, because I think this film is so fun and gorgeously directed, with suspense and action that genuinely elicited audible responses from me, but I did have to accept that the film’s COVID commentary is largely played for laughs and doesn’t entirely hold up to super deep analysis. (mild spoilers) They took the concept of COVID as a slasher villain, and with that, it does not do a lot of work to outline who is in the right or wrong, but I think the film is truly great enough to overlook that.
Nanny (dir. Nikyatu Jusu)
By far, this was was both the film that upended my expectations the most, as well as the film with the most insightful Q&A following the screening. One of the theses that director Nikyata Jusu was that American horror is, in so many words, far too restrictive as far as its definitions to horror, which was extremely refreshing in a landscape of filmmakers attempting to distance themselves from the term “horror” (all the while making classical horror films) in order to convince audiences that their films are high brow.
Nanny, which follows Aisha’s (Anna Diop, in a terrific performance) experience working as a nanny for a rich, white family, which involves her taking care of their daughter while she waits for the arrival of her own son, who she had to leave behind in Senegal. The film’s tone and perspective are razor-sharp, providing nuance and cultural specificity as the horror, trauma and physical exhaustion of her work weaves its way through her love life and her family life.
Pearl (dir. Ti West)
I was a fan of Ti West’s X from earlier this year, with reservations, and I’ve become a fan of his work overall on a recent run-through of his films. He is often working in a realm of pastiche that usually pays out on, at least, its craft. Pearl, to me, was a lot of the subteXt of X turned into teXt, which I found relatively underwhelming overall. It made for a pleasant enough watch, and if they just wanted to paint a colorful homage to the character of Pearl and let Goth dive into her character a little deeper, and simultaneously fuse Texas Chain Saw Massacre with Technicolor Hollywood, they modestly achieved that.
Admittedly, it was difficult for me to resist either of his entries in the X universe because they are so deeply indebted to Tobe Hooper’s work, but where X surprised me with its thoughtfulness, Pearl let me down in its re-treading. I both expected and wanted more out of her American Dream fantasy sequences to buff out the plot and contribute a little more unreality to her story, letting the audience get lost in her sense of unhinge, but as a pastiche and an obvious vehicle for Goth’s performance, I enjoyed this.
Plus, I loved her Nardwuar moment at the end.
The People’s Joker (dir. Vera Drew)
I was won over through and though by this movie. I was very interested from the moment it was announced to be at the festival, but I didn’t originally intend on attending the Midnight Madness premiere. I saw Peter Kuplowsky’s tweet that this screening was not to be missed while I was at work, so I decided to stroll over when my shift was over. It wasn’t until I got inside that I started hearing murmurs about the cease-and-desist against the film from Warner Bros, which made for a very uniquely excited screening. Then, of course, the following morning, I woke up to an announcement that the film was pulled from the festival entirely. Wow!
I am aware that Vera Drew has been an editor on many Adult Swim related projects – those associated with Tim Heidecker, Eric Andre, and more – so I think it may just be the film’s nature as a coming-of-age story that makes me want to call this “obviously the work of someone who grew up on Adult Swim but actually turned out okay.” The film is edgy but extremely wholesome, and it takes itself and its iconography really seriously, which you might not expect upon hearing that the studio that owns Batman doesn’t want this to be released. I mean, it is an extremely positive and personal response to the material, and even immediately problematizes and distances itself from the culture of the Joker, embracing a character that has been otherwise claimed by incels.
The film also made me think a lot about what we call being “terminally online,” because there are a lot of in-references to online culture in the film, which I think we are so opposed to, in general, because to see the ridiculous shit that people tweet without thinking twice about it make its way into million dollar productions is both jarring and weird. That is all to say that I think this walks the line really well, and not only are its targets carefully chosen, but it is all in support of Drew exploring her trans identity through IP.
In fairness, though, I was immediately won over by its dedication: “For Mom and Joel Schumacher.”
Soft (dir. Joseph Amenta)
Some of these, with distance from the festival, I don’t have an exceptional amount to say about. This is a queer coming-of-age film set in Toronto, following three young teens who are wrestling with their friendships, relationships with family and sense of place. I thought the scenes in which the three friends were playing together and hanging out were extremely natural and charming, and its cinematography and uses of montage – especially being from Toronto – were very well-done. It certainly left me wanting a little more, but purely as a slice of life, it delivers.
V/H/S/99 (dir. Johannes Roberts; Flying Lotus; Tyler MacIntyre; Maggie Levin; Joseph & Vanessa Winter)
V/H/S, aka “2 outta 5 ain’t bad” the series.
It would be nice if this series of anthology films felt they could commit more wholly to their aesthetic instead of bogging them down with horrible characters, especially considering they have begun exploring themselves as period pieces with these last two enries. At its worst, it feels like Bad Two Sentence Horror (which actually gives me an idea for a horror anthology film; the meat worm segment would kill).
You likely know the drill with these, so I won’t go into them too deeply. The stand-outs for me were Johannes Roberts’ Suicide Bid – which much like his feature films, takes a simple (almost-)one location concept and knocks it out of the park – and Flying Lotus’s proudly twisted Ozzy’s Dungeon – which harnessed his sicko-shit approach to Kuso, though with a little more tact, and gleefully puts it towards punishing an evil game show host. The last short here, Joseph and Vanessa Winter’s To Hell and Back, is really a victim of my aforementioned issue with the series: I was grinning in my seat expecting a full-out Jigoku style short with minimal dialogue but it is ultimately tainted by its characters’ irritating quippiness. The other two, though, didn't have much to write home about, but each of this film’s shorts have at least one interesting creature, which definitely puts it above some of the other entries in the series.
Project Wolf Hunting (dir. Kim Hong-sun)
It is funny how the darkness of the blood/tone, or the editing and over-reliance on loud thuds and general habit of shying away from impact – note: I recognize it is odd to use the word shy to describe this film – can differentiate this from something that is comparable in violence & bloodshed to something like Riki-Oh, whose embrace of the cartoonish makes it so much more impactful.
As the film gets into its general conceit – inmates vs. guards vs. a super-soldier inmate on a boat – I started to think about how a hulking blood-stained Frankenstein’s monster who demolished everyone in his path, both cops and inmates, aims right down the middle as far as its political stance/implications, but then this movie’s plot gets so ridiculously convoluted that I could either no longer follow or no longer care.
In fact, in its final moments it gets at a relatively interesting idea of how these monstrously big people with criminal pasts are used as pawns and symbols of danger while the people who are well-off and have power over them can use those same resources without being associated the same way, but the film is so head-over-heels in love with its bloodshed that the impact of anything else in the film is relatively minor.
No Bears (dir. Jafar Panahi)
While I’m sure there is a lot of cultural context I am missing here, I was so engaged and won over by Jafar Panahi’s – who was sentenced a 20-year ban from making films in 2010 – treatise on documentation not as a catalyst for violence and disruption, but more as a cipher. Panahi is central to the story, playing himself as he stays in a small town and directs a film over the internet. The film is about a complicated relationship that mirrors a relationship that his documentation disrupts in that town he’s straying in.
I am so taken with any film that comments on the danger and power that it holds, and for Panahi, as the director, to once again cast himself in the center of it, thus making that comment impossible to ignore, is a stroke of subversive brilliance.
The Fabelmans (dir. Steven Spielberg)
Not much contextualizing I have to do here, I think. I’m sure most people are aware of what this new Spielberg picture is all about, but I do love the need, in its press, to classify this as “Spielberg’s first dive into the personal,” when the movie is all about channeling his feelings into stories that are ostensibly not about him, as well as his divergence from that being a direct result of his fear of embracing his emotions. All of which is to say that I thought this was very exceptional, and as an ode to not only filmmaking, but a late-period attempt to, in turn, provide personal context to so many wildly popular films that maybe we don’t so clearly see his fingerprints on.
In that sense, this is just an incredible end of a 1-2-3 punch with this, West Side Story and Ready Player One, which I specifically felt justified in my love of while watching this. With RPO being a commentary on the culture that is so influenced by Spielberg’s own work (and his culpability therein), and WSS being born out of Spielberg re-playing and re-creating the original film in his head endlessly, to watch him recreate his early films, memories and experiences as a young man was a perfect addition to his late-period catalogue, and I loved every minute of it (particularly the end!).
The Eternal Daughter (dir. Joanna Hogg)
I can’t think of a more complimentary aesthetic that this material could have. I simply need to re-watch this first thing on a cold October morning with a steaming hot cup of tea.
This was my first Joanna Hogg film, and I loved its very literary, gothic approach to seemingly very personal subject matter. In the film, Tilda Swinton plays a writer, as well as her own mother, and the two travel to a very eerie, very empty hotel for some time away.
I know little about the actual conception of this film/story, so this really just applies to how I read the film, but as far as hiring someone to act out your relationship with your mother goes, Tilda Swinton is a perfect get. The theme of pleasing and tending to your mother coupled with its lonesome, equal-parts-peaceful-and-haunting tone is extremely therapeutic and makes for a gorgeous watch. Plus, to have Swinton’s writer character finish the film by essentially writing the film itself made for a perfect cap to its self-contained healing.
Saint Omer (dir. Alice Diop)
This, as a matter of fact, made for an excellent pairing with Eternal Daughter, as a depiction of writers figuring out how to best approach their work with care and empathy, particularly when it pertains to other people’s lives.
I will say a lot of what I loved about this film was informed by hearing prior to the screening that it is based on a real court case that the director, documentarian Alice Drop, attended. The case, as the film depicts it, follows Laurence Coly, who is accused of leaving her 15-month-old daughter to die on the beach.
On top of being an astoundingly empathetic film, even from a surface level, how it toyed with subjectivity and subtly brought your attention to the camera/filmmaker’s role in sharing a story made this a perfect and fitting narrative debut from a documentary filmmaker, as you can tell that each decision in sharing the story’s details are carefully considered so that the defendant can be given a fair shot in a system where she is already at a disadvantage. A late-in-the-film monologue given from the defense attorney towards to jury doubles as a direct address to the film’s audience, and it was likely the most powerful and self-reflexive moment in any film that I saw at the festival.
That was my TIFF 2022 experience! I realize this is over a month late, but my thoughts and recommendations stand.
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