By: Henry J. Fromage –
Day 7 of TIFF was one to catch up on the sumptuous feast of films that debuted earlier in the year across the pond.
431. The Girl with the Needle
There’s a reputation for austere European dramas, particularly those in competition at Cannes, to be expertly made, tremendously dour affairs, but there may be no film that fits that description so much as this one (and yes, I’m very much including the films of Michael Haneke here). Set right before and after the end of WWI, it follows a garment worker whose life collapses when she gets pregnant and is rejected by her high society beau’s family (losing that job in the process). Seeking to do something about her plight, she finds a woman who offers a way out, at least a better one than the horrifically scarred husband she keeps running away from. Things get so, so much darker from there ,but there’s no denying the superb craftsmanship on display here, and there’s a glimmer of hope there at the end. A very, very faint glimmer. Three Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: whenever things go from bad to worse
Take a Drink: drugs!
Take a Drink: for platitudes like “it’s for the best” or “you’re making the right decision”
Do a Shot: whenever a new (or old) man comes into the picture
432. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
This opening moments of this film explain how the sacred fig tree grows on the trunk and branches of other trees, until it ultimately chokes and usurps it. It’s not clear whether the metaphor here is for the growing outcry of Iran’s population against its oppressive and increasingly violent government, or the regime itself, which perhaps overtook and suffocated its own inciting revolution. In any case, the macro of the widespread protests after Mahsa Amini’s shameful death at the hands of police and the micro of one newly promoted investigator’s suspicion of his own family when his gun comes up missing conflate into a portrait of suspicion and aggression causing more revolt than they suppress. As primal and revolution-espousing a film as you’re going to see, no wonder Iran is after its brave director Mohammad Rasoulof. Two Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: whenever the gun comes up in conversation
Take a Drink: whenever we actually see it
Do a Shot: for shocking real footage of the protests and the regime’s violent responses against them
433. Babygirl
Halina Reijn of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies fame is crafting quite the audacious resume between that film and this story of a powerful CEO (Nicole Kidman) who is happy but sexually unsatisfied in her marriage (to Antonio Banderas!). She’s not looking to stray, but something about the (over)confidence of a new intern (Harris Dickinson) catches her eye. She’s got a bit of a dom/sub thing going on, it turns out, a desire to be told what to do. While the Secretary comparisons are inevitable, what’s most comparable between them is the odd wholesomeness and surprisingly tentative humanity that pervades this unconventional relationship (and there’s a pretty effective streak of humor as well). Two Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: whenever Dickinson says something brash
Take a Drink: whenever Kidman takes an order
Take a Drink: for every warning/threat about the power imbalance
Do a Shot: for each orgasm
434. On Falling
First time director Laura Carreira studied at the feet of humanist master Ken Loach, and now tells her own story of the increasing disconnection of modernity in general and the gig-and-warehouse economy in general. Joana Santos very subtly plays a Portuguese immigrant to Scotland who works at an Amazon-type company as a picker by day and eats a quick dinner and messes around on Instagram or TikTok or the like (‘Swipey Screamy’ I call the lot of them) until it’s time to do it all again. She seems to be happy enough, quick to connect with others and always pleasant, but roiling beneath the surface is a stew of loneliness, purposelessness, and perhaps even depression. It’s a life that keeps her busy enough to arguably live no life at all, or so it seems she is beginning to fear. Two Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: for every hesitant attempt at human connection
Take a Drink: whenever anyone looks at their phone
Take a Drink: for any talk of suicide
Take a Drink: for rope
Do a Shot: for every sex toy she pulls
435. Harbin
This Korean historical epic recounts the true story of a plot by Korean revolutionaries to assassinate the Prime Minister of Japan when he visits the now-Chinese, then-Russian city of Harbin in 1909, in the midst of the decades-long Japanese occupation of their country. This is the kind of film where all of the double and triple crosses are the drivers of the plot, reflecting the extremely unstable ground these rebels trod upon in their quest to do anything to impact the burgeoning Japanese Empire. It’s very well made as Korean studio features always are, but fails at really making the characters full-fleshed enough to care about them more than as vessels for their righteous cause. Three Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: every time the Japanese officer shows up out of nowhere
Take a Drink: for every decision or request made in the name of honor
Take a Drink: for each train journey
Do a Shot: for every double cross
436. Vermiglio
This period film from Italian director Maura Delpero won the Silver Lion at Venice, and rightfully so. A very personal story that she conceived looking at old photographs after her father’s death, it covers four seasons of a very eventful year right at the end of WWII. Vermiglio is a small farming town high in the Italian Alps, and as such had sons go away to war, but did not have it actually darken their doorsteps. The plot is set in motion when one such son and his Sicilian brother in arms show up, possibly having deserted an at this point clearly lost cause, and the interloper falls in love with the eldest daughter of the local schoolteacher. This is a slow but beautifully felt film about a particular time and place that nevertheless feels universal. Two Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: for any mention of the war
Take a Drink: for each lesson in the schoolhouse
Take a Drink: for each pre-bedtime conversation
Do a Shot: for each birth
437. The End
Joshua Oppenheimer, director of two of the finest documentary films ever made, sure picked an eclectic project to debut as a narrative filmmaker- it’s a straight up Musical set in a bunker sometime after the clear collapse of society. Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton, and George MacKay are the family, alongside a select few staff chosen to join them, who reside there, at least until a young woman (Moses Ingram) shows up at their doorstep. I’m really going back and forth on whether pretty much all of the Pasek & Paul-style song sequences could have been excised and improved the final product (maybe keep one or two for the shock value), because this is very much a story of our penchant for avoiding the hard conversations and introspection on our mistakes and sins in the macro (the environment, anyone?) or the micro (familial dynamics). I’ll tell you what, you’ll never get another post-apocalyptic musical set hundreds of feet belowground in a salt mine, so definitely go seek this one out. Three Beers.
TIFF Special Drinking Game:
Take a Drink: for any mention of the before times
Take a Drink: every time anyone avoids a difficult conversation
Take a Drink: for each strange and delightful noise someone emits
Do a Shot: for each song, of course
