This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Calgary
International Film Festival has employed a hybrid model, with restricted seating
for the in-cinema screenings and the introduction of both drive-in screenings
and streaming video for at-home audiences. Because of this, the streaming
movies don’t correspond to any specific date of the festival, and in many cases
I watched them before the in-cinema or drive-in screening. Personally, I watched
these films entirely at home; the cinemas may be opening, but that doesn’t mean
it’s a good idea to go. Besides, the in-cinema screenings were largely sold out
by the time I bought my tickets. Alas, my internet and the light levels in my
apartment are both less than ideal, so the viewing experience was not up to the
same standard – then again, there’s also a shortage of major festival hits this
year, given that Cannes was cancelled and the fall festivals were scaled down,
and the most visually striking films I saw still impressed.
Despite these conditions – or, perhaps, because of them; I
have plenty of free time right now – I still managed to catch seven films at
this year’s festival. Here are short reviews of each:
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round once
again sees the Danish director teaming up with actor Mads Mikkelsen, who also
starred in his 2014 sleeper hit The Hunt. This newer film is a
tragicomedy about alcoholism, chronicling the efforts of four bored
schoolteachers performing “experiments” with imbibing alcohol in order to
revitalize their lives and careers. In its overall narrative arc, this is a
very formulaic drama about alcoholism, but it does have a couple minor twists
on the usual cliches. The key distinguishing factor here is that the protagonists
start drinking due to reading a paper which posits that the blood alcohol level
in humans is too low, and that life can be improved by increasing it to a
certain level. This introduces a degree of ambivalence to the proceedings, at
least for a while; their drinking seems excessive, but for a long while, the
results are overwhelmingly positive. All four teachers are more relaxed in
their lives, happier in their marriages, and more energetic in their teaching.
A sizeable chunk in the middle of the film is comprised of upbeat, often
humorous scenes of these improvements, aided in part by energetic performances
from the main cast, comprising Mikkelsen as well as Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars
Ranthe, and Magnus Millang.
It’s an oddly positive portrayal of what seems for all
intents and purposes like alcoholism, with all four characters drinking more
and more to continued positive results, until an inevitable fall. Eventually,
the film sinks back into the familiar ebb and flow of stories about alcoholism,
played so straight that it seems to invalidate the positive results from
earlier. Perhaps this serves as a demonstration of how alcoholism doesn’t seem
like a problem until it’s too late, but that isn’t enough to prevent Another
Round from being just another alcoholism drama, largely indistinguishable
from countless other films on the same topic. The film’s characterization is
also rather thin, with only a surface-level exploration of the protagonists’
histories that led them to such a low point in their lives. The film is too
underwritten to stand out in a crowded field, but it has enough verve to hold
the attention. 6/10
Black Bear, from Wild Canaries director
Lawrence Michael Levine, is a meta-film in two parts, one a film-within-a-film,
the other a look at that film’s behind-the-scenes drama. Both are set in the
same rural retreat, with the latter shining a new light on the former.
Personally, I found the second half much more compelling than the first, which
is just a convoluted web of deceit with a noncommittal approach to its own
themes. The second half demonstrates how relationships between cast and crew
may have informed those themes, which mostly involve a shrill debate between
progressive and reactionary philosophies, with a mysterious actress caught between
them. This stuff is largely nebulous until the other shoe drops, as the second
half similarly foregrounds deception and mind games, inviting constant
comparison between the two parts to consider how art reflects reality.
The film employs a darkly comic approach, especially in the
latter half, but it also presents a bleak portrait of gaslighting that is no
less potent for being surrounded by wacky personalities and general chaos. This
results in the second half being a lot more pointed and energetic than the
first, though the linkages between the two are vague at times. Helping matters
is the main cast of Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbot, and Sarah Gadon, who form
a strange love triangle in both parts and all impress by delivering two related
but distinct performances. But it’s also just a fiendishly clever gambit, and
that meta element pays off even with its imperfections. If only that first half
were more compelling, Levine might really have something here. 7/10
The longest film I saw at the festival was Golden Bear
winner There Is No Evil, from Iranian director
Mohammad Rasoulof. Although it runs for a good 2.5 hours, this is actually an
anthology of four loosely-connected shorts, none of which have anything to do
with each other except a common subject matter: all are about people who perform
executions. Each short provides a different perspective on capital punishment
in Iran, and although Rasoulof moralizes with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, he
works in a melodramatic mode of storytelling which tonally complements this
approach. Every short starts out modestly and then builds to a shocking twist, inevitably
related to capital punishment. Despite this, all four shorts operate in very
different modes: one is a context-light slice-of-life, one is an action-packed
thriller, one is a romantic tragedy, and one is a family drama. By taking on
such a diverse range of genres, the film explores different ideas of how capital
punishment effects those expected to deliver it.
Admittedly, each episode is stylized in such a way to seem
slightly removed from reality; each scenario is elaborately constructed for
pathos rather than realism. All four segments veer wildly between tones, and
all four feature some narrative contrivances. I imagine that means this won’t
be for everyone, but it’s so unpredictable that I found it incredibly exciting.
Furthermore, they pose provocative questions, especially regarding the fact
that executions are part of Iran’s mandatory military service – something I did
not know about. Each narrative is set up in a way that the massive twists have
major consequences for the characters, and the latter two sections dwell on the
emotional fallout afterwards. It uses shock value and character-driven pathos to
comment on how the death penalty dehumanizes and alienates those who are forced
to carry it out, and I found it quite poignant. 8/10
I have little constructive to say about Shiva Baby,
which as a cringe comedy is something I just have no stomach for. Its elaborate
premise finds a young woman named Danielle attending a shiva immediately after
sleeping with her sugar daddy, who just happens to be at the wake – and has
brought his wife. Meanwhile, her ex-girlfriend keeps bothering her, her parents
are overbearing, and she even needs to deal with her own lack of direction in
life. It’s a claustrophobic film, running only a brief 77 minutes and confined
to one setting, where Danielle runs into one tense situation after another, the
risk of serious embarrassment always right around the corner. It’s got a lot of
witty dialogue and a strong sense of escalating absurdity, but it mostly just
made me anxious. That’s probably just because I have no taste for this sort of
humour, so ignore me; if you like cringe comedy, this seems like a
well-executed example of that. 5/10
Much less acclaim has been heaped upon Viggo Mortensen’s
directorial debut Falling, a film about the risky subject
of John, a gay man looking after Willis, his homophobic, senile father. It’s a
difficult film to embrace wholeheartedly, not in the least because Mortensen’s
script spares no expense in making Willis as despicable as possible. He’s an
entitled bigot with a violent disposition and no redeeming qualities. Only
occasionally does the film even try to make him sympathetic, and these moments
tend to rely on his condition. Instead, emphasis is placed primarily on his
family, who he has clearly alienated; John, as the protagonist, is the most
notable, but other family members are similarly strained in attempting to
accommodate him, and the film gains power from the strange contrast between
John’s attempt to take care of this man who only embarrasses and bullies him.
The film mostly comprises of an endless series of standoffs,
as Willis embarrasses and bullies John time after time after time, while John
patiently changes the subject and continues to care for him, only occasionally
directly addressing his father’s corrosive attitudes. Mortensen attempts to alleviate
the repetition by interspersing the “present-day” scenes with flashbacks to
John’s childhood, but these rapidly devolve into a fairly similar portrait of
abuse. The timeline has also been blatantly engineered for maximum contrast
between John and Willis – the “present-day” scenes actually take place some
time during Barack Obama’s first term as the U.S. President; it’s hard not to
see the insinuation that Willis would be a Donald Trump supporter. But it’s not
a film about political tolerance - if anything, it implies that Willis doesn’t
deserve the attention John gives him. And while Mortensen has a remarkable eye
for imagery, his strange editing rhythm and insistence on just letting Willis
spew hateful verbal diarrhea may make this too abrasive for the audience that
swallowed up Green Book. There are quite a few rough edges, and the film
takes a while for its tone to stabilize, but there’s more going on here than
the synopsis might suggest.
And it’s just so well acted; Viggo Mortensen plays John with
unusual subtlety, turning each scene into a study of subtle facial expressions.
Willis clearly upsets him, and yet he remains dutiful; much of the supporting
cast toes the same line. Meanwhile, Lance Henriksen is so aggressive in his
performance that he blurs the lines between natural toxicity and the symptoms
of encroaching dementia. Falling is repetitive and at times messy, and
yet there’s something poignant about it despite that. It’s about a sort of love
that is hard to justify, a sense of loyalty to family members who you long ago
realized were contemptible. Mortensen may not do a whole lot else, but he does
a remarkable job of expressing that idea. I found it fascinating, warts and
all. 6/10
Much less fascinating is My Little Sister, a
middling cancer drama from Véronique Reymond and Stéphanie Chuat, which barrels
through a lot of incident but provides relatively little in the way of insight.
The afflicted is German actor Sven, played by Lars Eidinger, and the titular
“little” sister (by mere minutes; the two are twins) is playwright Lisa, played
by Nina Hoss. In truth, Sven’s condition is just one of many stresses on Lisa’s
life, all of which are archetypical; most notably, her husband Martin cares
more about his career than her feelings, and the theatre director David has cancelled
Sven’s performance in “Hamlet” at the last minute. These pressures are only
loosely connected but carry similar themes in that they all represent a sort of
family for Lisa and Sven, and both David and Martin are responsible for some
sort of betrayal.
The film juggles a lot of ideas, not developing any of them
in any particular depth. One of these is the suggestion that Sven might be
holding Lisa’s career back, and ultimately Sven is something of an accessory to
the general chaos of Lisa’s life, but the implication is alleviated by the fact
that Lisa is proactive about looking after him. Their interactions are occasionally
tender, but both characters are thin. This is a bigger problem in the other
subplots: it’s easy to side with Lisa when Martin makes major decisions for
her, but her arguments are weakened by repeated references to nebulous “plans.”
Meanwhile, David’s decision to not put a dying actor on stage seems fairly
reasonable, making it much harder to view as an injustice. But the bigger issue
is that this film is just not particularly insightful, its characters too
underwritten. The performances are solid and somewhat compensate, but the never
manages to find a fresh angle. 5/10
Finally, Christian Petzold’s Undine finds the
acclaimed German director working with mythical creatures, though that aspect
is so subdued until the final act that it seems more like magical realism. In
European mythology, undines are a sort of water spirit, but this film instead follows
the romances of Undine Wibeau, a historian presenting a lecture on Berlin’s
urban development. At the start of the film, she breaks up with her previous
boyfriend, only to very quickly start a new relationship with a diver named
Christoph under bizarre circumstances. As the film develops, cryptic imagery
and strange occurrences create an air of mystery. Despite the likelihood that
Undine herself is not human, the magical elements are not an overwhelming part
of the tale, with precise camerawork instead picking up the slack to create a
slightly off-kilter tone. Just enough is known that something must not be
right, and this pays particular dividends once the pace increases about halfway
through.
Petzold also attempts to use Berlin’s architectural history
as a metaphor for Undine’s relationships, but to the extent that this
resonates, it’s dependent on familiarity with the myth of undines, and even
then is a little underdeveloped. Nonetheless, this thematic thread lingers as
an open question for a good while, enhancing the film’s mysterious atmosphere. A
decent chunk around the middle is largely uneventful, but the film is also
stylish enough to compensate. The gorgeous piano score and cinematography elevate
the routine meetings between Undine and Christoph, before a major plot twist resumes
the film’s forward momentum. The magical element itself is absent for sizeable
stretches of the plot, and is often ambiguous in nature; for the most part,
it’s left unclear as to what is actually causing certain inexplicable events,
though the true nature of the story becomes apparent in the ending. It’s a
relatively minor work from Petzold, but its texture and atmosphere are still compelling.
Hopefully some day I will be able to return to watching
movies in theatres, but transitioning to a digital format has helped festivals
become less exclusive. The Toronto International Film Festival was open to all
residents of Canada, and this year’s CIFF has been open to anyone from Alberta,
Saskatchewan, and Manitoba – a major increase from the local screenings that
the festival had previously offered. The film festival experience is notoriously
exclusive; even CIFF, an event that doesn’t have many big-name premieres, could
benefit from this. It will be interesting to see how the industry is changed by
the pandemic. In the short term, I’m glad to have some sort of film events
around, even in a more modest form; with so few new movies having come out this
year, it’s become more exciting than ever. Maybe when this turbulent time is
over we’ll be able to return to a film scene that’s better and more accessible
than ever.
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