Posted by by J. Robert Parks
Today's schedule features four movies that I’m taking chances on. In other words, they're not made by big-time directors or arrive with buzz from Cannes or Venice. Instead, they're just movies that sounded interesting, from either genres or countries I've enjoyed in the past. Waking up in the morning, I was prepared for a couple movies to stink but expected a couple to be great--a hit and miss day. It turns out I was wrong--all four are decent, but none are great or even very good. The hit and miss day turns out to refer to each film, which hit and miss in equal parts.
Lining up at the Cumberland (not my favorite theater in Toronto) at 9am, I have the great privilege of meeting Dick and Linda, a lovely retired couple from New Hampshire. This isn't their first time in Toronto, but they usually go to Montreal's film festival instead. But with that situation in chaos, they're here in Toronto for five days, seeing fifteen films in the process. We have a nice conversation and then file in to see our first movie of the day, the documentary Sisters in Law. It's co-directed by Kim Longinotto (who made the documentary Divorce Iranian Style) and Cameroon-born Florence Ayisi and set in that African country. Focusing on the court system and particularly a set of female judges and prosecutors, the film tries to convey how justice is carried out in that Muslim/Christian land. It does this by cutting between pre-trial hearings, actual court trials, and village and town life in Cameroon. Some critics have called this "Judge Judy in Africa," and it's true that a couple of the legal women take a no-nonsense approach. But the documentary's approach is richer than that, and we get a nice sense of the gender and family dynamics at work in Africa's modernizing society. Still, having thoroughly enjoyed Divorce Iranian Style, I couldn't help but compare the two documentaries, which are amazingly similar. Unfortunately, Sisters in Law doesn't show us much new, at least for those of us who have seen a few African movies in the last couple years, while the Iranian film opened up the curtain on gender relations in that strict Muslim country. I also wish Longinotto and Ayisi would've given a better sense of how village life impacts the family. And after seeing two movies in which Longinotto clearly takes the side of women trying to break free of the marriage bond, I'm starting to wonder if there's a deeper motivation at work than just documenting life in a foreign country. Btw, for those who have seen either movie, I'm not saying that those women should be forced to stay married to abusive husbands, but I wonder if Longinotto has anything else to say. three, out of five
After a quick lunch, it's back to the Paramount for the German drama Summer in Berlin. It's a portrait of two single women in their 30s, wrestling with friendship, dating, and work (or lack thereof). The characters, played by Nadja Uhl and Inka Friedrich, are nicely drawn, and their friendship takes a variety of interesting turns. One of them is a single mother, and her relationship with her 12-year-old boy rings true, as does the other's work relationships. And when one of them starts dating a truck driver, that new dynamic brings a whole series of conflicts. Nonetheless, director Andreas Dresen can't keep all of his threads from unraveling, and he unfortunately chooses to focus on the one I liked the least (the relationship with the truck driver). Summer in Berlin is certainly not a bad film, and it's nice to see a German movie that has a largely sunny disposition. three, out of five
I didn't even have to go outside to get to my next movie, another Iranian film, this one entitled Day Break. It focuses on a man who's been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. But according to Iranian law, the victim's family must show up for the execution and, there, also has the option of forgiving the criminal and commuting the sentence to prison time. Mansour, who's scheduled to be executed, has actually had his sentenced stayed two different times when the family didn't appear, but his third date of execution is quickly approaching. Director Hamid Rahmanian makes the interesting decision to tell the story through Mansour's eyes, through point-of-view shots, tight close-ups on his face, and several brief but evocative flashbacks. We get a sense of what it's like to face imminent death, especially when there's a chance for a reprieve. Rahmanian also uses darkness to nice effect, with several scenes at night and the recurring motif of a train going into a tunnel. The film's a bit rough at times: Rahmanian switches from a documentary style (where characters address the camera) to a more straightforward narrative approach without much justification, and lead actor Hossein Yari isn't especially convincing as a man wrestling with a dark night of the soul. But the movie has a nice visual style, and the story is compelling and thought-provoking. And it ends with a marvelous surprise, which provoked one of the most interesting audible reactions from an audience I've ever heard. three 1/2, out of five
The final hit-and-miss film is a didactic little number called Waiting. It's about a disillusioned Palestinian filmmaker who's ready to leave Palestine for good. But he's roped by an old friend into visiting various Palestinian refugee camps and auditioning actors for a national Palestinian theater company. I had heard the film had an agenda that somewhat overwhelmed the material, but I had seen the director's early movie Curfew and loved it, so I wanted to see what he'd do next. Waiting starts well with a nice visual motif of passing through security, but it quickly settles into what you'd expect: various scenes of waiting punctuated by people talking about Palestine. Given how little we see of normal Palestinians in the U.S., I feel it's always valuable to get a perspective into that world that doesn't involve suicide bombers. Furthermore, the movie picks up some much-needed steam when the protagonist requires his potential actors to act out what it means to wait. The following auditions are both humorous and provocative. Still, there's no need to show two separate but highly similar protest parades, and the film's conclusion is both predictable and banal. An appropriate end to the hit-and-miss day. three, out of five
I had a ticket to Abel Ferrara's Mary, apparently a vociferous response to Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. But after seeing ten movies in the previous two days, I just wasn't up for another five-movie day. Besides, the buzz is rather mediocre, so it's a perfect opportunity to call it an early night and relax a bit.
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