By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week we review a bevy of interesting screeners from the San Sebastian and Busan festivals, plus some remaining TIFF films.
610. Hana Korea
This film playing both festivals follows a North Korean woman (Pachinko‘s Kim Min-ha) who has made it to the South via China. There she’s enrolled in a governmental program to help North Korean refugees adjust to life in this quite different and not always friendly land. She still has ties back home that constrain her, though. A fascinating look at a real life experience that carries unique challenges it may be hard for many of us to imagine. Two Beers.
611. Meadowlarks
This pleasant familial drama follows a group of siblings separated by far from pleasant circumstances- the “Sixties Scoop” enabled by Canadian governmental policies that made it far easier to separate Indigenous children from their parents and send them instead to foster families, group homes, or even to be adopted abroad. This history looms over these adults who are just now getting to meet their brothers and sisters in person. Three Beers.
612. Out Standing
This Canadian film follows Sandra Perron, Canada’s first woman infantry officer, as she looks back on a distinguished career that she does not now want to be defined by the abuse and sexism that came with it. Nina Kiri is excellent in the title role, playing a woman who was going to prove she was every bit the equal of her male comrades, if not better, even if that means tolerating more than any of them ever would. Two Beers.
613. Lovely Day
This wedding dramedy follows a Egyptian/Lebanese writer who’s marrying the French Canadian girl of his dreams- if his neuroses and meddling family will allow for it. Director Philippe Falardeau cuts between past and present, both long ago and back and forth on the day of the wedding, to trace out and then reinforce the drama and grievances that drive the characters’ actions. Two Beers.
614. Redoubt
Denis Lavant stars as a Swedish farmer sometime early in the Cold War who took governmental pamphlets of what to do in case of the outbreak of war to heart and devoted the rest of his life to fortifying his farmhouse so that he and his neighbors would have somewhere to shelter when it inevitably came. A slow, idiosyncratic black and white film full of eye-catching compositions. Three Beers.
615. Six Days in Spring
This French drama playing San Sebastian is set in another film-loving vacation destination- the French Riviera. A young French-African mother takes her twin sons and their soccer coach/her boyfriend on vacation the only place it looks like they can go- her ex-in-laws’ empty vacation home. Despite their sun-kissed reverie, this proves to not be the best idea in the end, as you might imagine. Three Beers.
616. Weightless
This affecting teen drama follows a 15 year-old attending a summer camp apparently designed to help teens with weight and emotional issues but which pretty much leaves them to their own devices. Her more sexually experienced roommate takes her under her wing but doesn’t exactly make her feel great with her careless speech and actions, but it’s the older male counselor who’s nice- perhaps too nice- to her that really raises her heart rate. A well-observed, quietly devastating coming of age film. Two Beers.
