As synopsized by Eric Lavallee at Ioncinema: "You can call this year's Masters section the 're-showing of old filmmaker favorites from Cannes.' Plenty of the names selected here—Godard, Lee Chang-dong, Ken Loach, Manoel de Oliveira and Palme D'or winning Apichatpong Weerasethakul—were expected to show up. Added to the Cannes titles we have a trio from Venice in: Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing and Catherine Breillat's The Sleeping Beauty. The one world premiere is from Amos Gitai (Roses à Crédit)."
13 Assassins / Jûsan-nin no shikaku (Takashi Miike, Japan)—Cult director Takeshi Miike delivers a period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a wartorn future. Competing in Venice for the Golden Lion. Official site [Japanese]. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
At Twitch, Todd Brown delights that "there is not a trace of irony to be found in the promo" and offers a gallery. At /Film, Russ Fischer describes 13 Assassins as a "dead-serious samurai movie which seems to be a bit like The Dirty Dozen by way of Seven Samurai."
Erotic Man / Det Erotiske Menneske (Jørgen Leth, Denmark)—Danish master Jørgen Leth travels the globe in this sensual, provocative and sometimes autobiographical essay film about a man struggling to come to terms with his past choices and his decision to leave a lover. Leth is quoted from the film's website at TOFilmFest: "New places. Now new locations. New places. New locations. The same journey. We are searching for something. We are searching…. We don't know how to frame the erotic. I don't know exactly how you find it. It's not a definition, that's not it. It's about the search itself. Finding some moments in memory and in the present. We study woman, we study women in different places, in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, in Belém, Panama City, Jacmel, Dakar, in Manila. Watching her, her legs, her shoulders, her skin, her hands, her eyes and her mouth. We watch the unknown smile. The new smile. The difference, the little nuance that makes it different. That's what we're searching for. It's indefinable, it's unclear. We don't strive to be clever." At Variety, he's a bit more succinct, describing Erotic Man as "a sensual, poetic and nude depiction of the erotic in man," with the intention of discovering why eroticism plays such a large part in the life of the human. Erotic Man has no script in the traditional sense, but is based on documents, letters, pictures and poems by Leth, who has traveled to Brazil, Haiti, Panama and Tonga to collect material for the film. IMDb.
Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland / Norway / Ireland / Hungary)—A Taliban fighter is captured, interrogated, tortured and then transported to an unnamed snowy destination in Europe. He manages to escape and must use his wits to evade his pursuers whilst battling bitter winter cold and lack of food. Also competing in Venice for the Golden Lion, along with two other Vincent Gallo projects. Ioncinema predicts that Gallo will be "the toast of the Lido this year." IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Vanity Fair offers the trailer (do I detect a touch of sarcasm?) and quotes the Element Pictures production notes: "The film follows the story of Mohammed, who is captured by the US military in Afghanistan and transported to a secret military black site. When the army convoy he is riding in plummets off a steep hill, Mohammed finds himself suddenly free and on the run behind enemy lines. A hostile, snow-blanketed forest, gradually reveals to be somewhere in the wilds of Eastern Europe. Relentlessly pursued by the military, Mohammed must constantly confront the need to kill in order to survive."
"I can only presume," writes Movie/Line's S.T. Van Airsdale that "the purpose here is to contrast the psychologies of killing in the name of a cause and killing in the name of survival (as if the desert/snowfield metaphor isn't enough). But there is an outside chance that Skolimowski simply wanted to explode a few viewers' heads with the shocking WTF-ery of it all, from noted conservative and self-promoting ladies' man Gallo as a bazooka-wielding Taliban foot soldier to Emmanuelle Seigner showing up as … I have no idea. But she seems awfully calm about having a pistol-wielding, blood-soaked Afghan baddie crouched beneath her table in terror. Wait until she finds out what he did outside with that chainsaw." At /Film, Russ Fischer suggests that Gallo's "role in Essential Killing is playing directly to the audience who loves to hate him" and asserts "I'm not playing devil's advocate at all when I say he's one of the more interesting screen presences working in the last couple decades; there's something so watchable about Gallo. ...I don't care about his offscreen shenanigans; the camera loves him." Cinema Without Borders notes that "Essential Killing is a provocative thriller (almost entirely without dialogue) that confirms the excellent form of the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski." Skolimowski, incidentally, is described by the Venice Festival as "the excellent form of the enfant terrible of New Eastern European Film."
At The Guardian, Danny Leigh intriguingly offsets Essential Killing's "on-screen tinkering with racial identity" against M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. "Essential Killing promises to offset whatever aggro it creates," Leigh writes, "with moments that are genuinely thought-provoking. Given his fondness for the Republican party, it's hard not to be struck by Gallo's willingness to portray a soldier from the other side in a war from which American coffins are still returning (British ones, too, of course), in a film that suggests if not overt sympathy for his character, then certainly a lack of condemnation. Then again, quelle surprise, if anyone was ever comfortable with hostility it's Gallo, his entire persona often seems like one big slice of middle-finger-waving performance art. Yet even by his standards, there's still a certain confrontational glee to this latest move. Rarely do bad-guy roles come quite as politically loaded as this, and rarely are they allowed any sense of nuance."
Film Socialism / Film socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland)—Godard's latest film, a "symphony in three movements," grapples with trying to make sense of a world that appears to be beyond comprehension and meaning. Official website [French]. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
At MUBI, David Hudson has rounded up the reviews from Cannes. After Toronto, Film Socialism heads to the New York Film Festival (NYFF).
I Wish I Knew / Hai shang chuan qi (Jia Zhangke, China / The Netherlands)—Commissioned to commemorate the 2010 World Expo, this documentary on Shanghai portrays a chapter of modern Chinese history through interviews and scenic views of a city in continuous evolution. I Wish I Knew is directed by one of the youngest masters of cinema, Jia Zhangke. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
I Wish I Knew screened in the Un Certain Regard at Cannes where Daniel Kasman dispatched to MUBI: "Talking heads, a wandering ghost frought with meaning, and a politely complacent tone sabotage the new, overlong, and very 'inside' documentary on Shanghai by Jia Zhangke, I Wish I Knew. Whether due to the need for official state approval or waned inspiration, the video is Jia on autopilot, haphazardly placing drifting, beautiful digital images of contemporary Shanghai along with overly leisurely and visually flat interviews with people whose personal history has been infused by the city, but whose connection to the China of here and now is left tantalizingly out of reach." Also at MUBI, David Hudson rounded up more reviews from Cannes.
Mysteries of Lisbon / Mistérios De Lisboa (Raul Ruiz, Portugal/France)—Based on a famous 19th-century Portuguese novel [by Camilo Castelo Branco], Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman and a young orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil where they connect with a variety of mysterious individuals. Official website. IMDb. TOFilmFest.
Nostalgia for the Light / Nostalgia De La Luz (Patricio Guzmán, France/Germany/Chile)—In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Augusto Pinochet's regime. Master filmmaker Patricio Guzmán [site] contemplates the paradox of their quests.
At Variety, Boyd von Hoeij writes: "The beauty of Nostalgia is that the many metaphors and surprising parallels between the universe, archaeology and Chile's recent past rise organically from the material…. The idea that the universal truths can be found by focusing on local details is again proven here." At MUBI, Daniel Kasman includes Nostalgia among his favorite films from Day Three at Cannes. He writes: "Patricizo Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light has perhaps the best approach to tragedy: equal parts science and poetry. To get to the lost victims of Pinochet's dictatorship, the film comes via the route of astronomy. It factually finds, in the Atacama desert, both the observation of the stars and the seekers of the dead, widows and family members searching for remains of the executed and disappeared. The analogy is simple and beautiful, as the light from the stars comes from long ago, these geographically coincidental searches both look deep into a dark past. But Guzmán pointedly shows the difference, one exploring and unearthing an ambient world to popular acclaim and awareness, and the other exploring a memory many are trying to forget, for which many are still being condemned."
Also at MUBI, David Hudson has rounded up a few additional reviews from the film's Cannes premiere. Nostalgia for the Light has also screened at the Melbourne and Moscow International Film Festivals. Spielfilm offers three video clips. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Poetry / Shi (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea)—Rhyme and crime intertwine in Poetry, the moving portrait of an elegant old lady in the initial stages of Alzheimer's, as well as a lyrical take on creative discovery and an upsetting look at juvenile violence, by Korean master Lee Chang-dong. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
At MUBI, David Hudson rounded up the Cannes reviews. After TIFF, Poetry heads to NYFF.
Roses à Crédit (Amos Gitai, France)—A young couple marry in France in the 1940s and the film follows the arc of their marriage over the next decade. As France recovers from the trauma of the war, the wife finds herself increasingly caught up in acquiring material possessions while the husband prefers a more traditional lifestyle. IMDb. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
Route Irish (Ken Loach, United Kingdom / France / Belgium / Italy / Spain)—A British solider who worked with a security firm in Iraq attends the funeral of his best friend, who was killed on the notorious Baghdad highway Route Irish. After receiving an envelope containing his friend's cell phone with a video recording of a massacre of Iraqi civilians, he sets out to avenge his friend's memory. At MUBI, David Hudson rounded up the Cannes reviews. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
The Sleeping Beauty / La Belle endormie (Catherine Breillat, France)—An epic fantasia of a young girl's coming-of-age, featuring Catherine Breillat's signature take on gender relations and breathtaking cinematography. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Breillat's Beauty opens the Orizzonti (Horizons) sidebar at Venice. At MUBI, David Hudson cites Ioncinema's synopsis: "There was a time in a faraway castle the birth of a little princess named Anastasia. The old fairy Carabosse cut the umbilical cord while three young fairies emerge breathless. The fairy godmother has launched a curse: at the age of 16 years, the child will pierce the hand and die. The three fairies come to tempt fate. Instead of dying, Anastasia sleep[s] for a hundred years." David also quotes Breillat: "Unlike Barbe Bleue, I would like to consider this fairytale not as a story that two girls tell each other, but as the story of a girl being born (she does not yet know into what world), and creates her own little girl's world. Childhood is a long and ruthless limbo that precedes adolescence—even if that is precisely when the fairytale beginning of the story is set. Hence the girl grows little by little and becomes an adolescent, who naively believes that she knows everything about life. But life is not a fairytale, and love during adolescence is like early motherhood, which leads to a different life reality. It 'brings your feet back on the ground', as they say. It is therefore no longer a fairytale, but an account of a life that is beginning."
The Strange Case of Angelica / O Estranho Caso de Angélica (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal / Spain / France / Brazil)—Manoel de Oliveira, a 101-year-old filmmaker, returns to the Douro River, the site of his first short, Douro Faina Fluvial, to create a surprising tale about a metaphysical love that defies reason. Photographer Isaac becomes smitten when he is called to take the last picture of the beautiful Angelica. Although she is dead, when he looks at her through his viewfinder she becomes animated and lively. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
At MUBI, David Hudson has rounded up the Cannes reviews. After TIFF, Oliveira's latest heads to NYFF.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives / Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, U.K. / Thailand / France / Germany / Spain)—Winner of this year's Palme d'Or, Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul takes viewers on a subliminal journey through a cinematic border zone where magic, transmigration of souls and generations of memory cohabit in a highly original masterpiece. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
At MUBI, David Hudson has rounded up the Cannes reviews. After TIFF, Joe's latest also heads to NYFF.
"From the streets of Hong Kong to a post-apocalyptic, vampire-plagued United States, from a town run by Kung Fu killers to the oil fields of Alberta, this year's Midnight Madness selection will take audiences into worlds that are sure to excite, shock and thrill."—Colin Geddes, TIFF programmer.
Bunraku (Guy Moshe, USA)—In a world with no guns, a mysterious drifter (Josh Hartnett), a young samurai and a bartender (Woody Harrelson) plot revenge against a ruthless leader (Ron Perlman) and his army of thugs, headed by nine diverse and deadly assassins. This visually stunning film is filled with uniquely choreographed action sequences of a new style that melds east with west and old school with new. The film also stars Demi Moore. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook. TOFilmFest.
Wikipedia has done a good job of rounding up the press releases and production buzz to date on this "upcoming martial arts live action / animation hybrid film noir that revolves around a 'Man with No Name' stock character known as 'The Drifter'. This classic tale is re-vitalized and re-imagined with shadow-play fantasy. The world of Bunraku is past and present, fantasy and reality, Samurai and Western all combined. Like Sin City and 300, it gives classic conflict a new graphically supercharged dynamic. Directed by Guy Moshe from his own script, the title of the film is based on a 400-year-old form of Japanese puppet theater, a style of storytelling that uses 4-foot-tall puppets with highly detailed heads, each operated by several puppeteers who blend into the background wearing black robes and hoods."
The Butcher, The Chef and the Swordsman aka Legend of the Kitchen Knife aka When Blade Meets Smile / Dao Jian Xiao (Wu Ershan, Hong Kong, China / USA)—A group of misfits become mixed up in the struggle to own a deadly kitchen cleaver made from the top five swords of the martial arts world in this wild and brash action comedy that is sure to have audiences running to Chinatown after the film for a late night snack. V.Joy.CN has the Chinese trailer. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
Fire of Conscience / Fur Long aka Huo Long (Dante Lam, Hong Kong, China)—Dante Lam proves himself to be a talent to look out for in this slam bang action film where robbers and gunrunners battle with cops on the busy urban streets of Hong Kong. Starring Leon Lai, Fire of Conscience is easily one of loudest action films from Hong Kong in recent memory, with an orchestra of exploding grenades and machine gun rounds. Official website. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Twitch teammates James Marsh and Niels Matthijs have both reviewed Fire of Conscience. "In short," James writes, "Fire of Conscience is a blast from beginning to end, delivering a much-needed grenade down the pants of an increasingly tired and world-weary sub-genre." Niels: "Dante Lam finally delivers a film that mixes enjoyable, adrenaline-inducing action coupled with a more stylish and classy exterior. Add solid performances from the whole cast and you've got a winner." Gonin Movie Blog describes Fire of Conscience as "brash, straight forward, undiluted, no funny hats" and claims it competes "with the iconic works of Michael Mann or John Frankenheimer." At Beyond Hollywood, James Mudge writes: "Fire of Conscience is a film which not only thrills, but grips. While it may be a touch downbeat and angst-ridden for viewers looking for straightforward, guilt free fun, it delivers an engaging, measured mixture of action and tormented male psyches. Lam directs with style and verve, and the film certainly confirms him as one of the most interesting currently working in the thriller genre." There are a few more mixed reviews at IMDb External Reviews.
Fubar II (Michael Dowse, Canada)—In the sequel to the 2002 cult comedy Fubar, headbanger hosers and lifelong friends Dean (Paul Spence) and Terry (Dave Lawrence) realize they're weary of constantly trying to "give'r" while barely scraping by and hit the road to find wealth, happiness and more beer in the oil fields of Alberta. Official blog. IMDb. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
Insidious (James Wan, USA)—When proud parents take possession of an old house, an accident results in one of their sons falling into a coma. The tragedy doesn't stop there when they are beset by vengeful spirits from another realm in this new chiller by the director and writer of Saw and by the producers of Paranormal Activity. The film stars Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey and Patrick Wilson. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
JimmyO offers a set report at JoBlo. Ryan Turek interviews James Wan for Shock Till You Drop.
Red Nights / Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade (Julien Carbon & Laurent Courtiaud, Hong Kong, China / France)—This shocking debut by director duo Carbon and Courtiaud is a seductive cat-and-mouse thriller set in Hong Kong, about a woman's obsessive desire to own a rare object that hides a deadly and perverse secret. At Twitch, Todd Brown shares the trailer and the film's theme music by Seppuku Paradigm. Official website. IMDb. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
Films Distribution synopsis: "During the reign of the first emperor of China, an ingenious torturer concocted an elixir that paralysed its victim's limbs, while increasing the sensitivity of their nerve endings tenfold. Kept in a jade skull, the elixir could provoke sensations in infinite variations—everything from erotic caresses to appalling lacerations. Haunted by the desire to experience the extreme sensations caused by the elixir, the executioner kills himself with his own poison, intensifying his death experience. His pursuers never found the skull, which had been concealed within a large imperial seal. But the curse of the jade skull, responsible for its creator's death, will endure within the seal, bringing misfortune to all of those who possess it. Until today...."
Stake Land (Jim Mickle, USA)—In the aftermath of a vampire epidemic, a teen is taken in by a grizzled vampire hunter on a road trip through a post-apocalyptic America, battling both the bloodsuckers and a fundamentalist militia that interprets the plague as the Lord's work. Official website. IMDb. Facebook. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
The Twitch team has had its eye on Stake Land for a while now. Back in April, Todd Brown interviewed Jim Mickle and subsequently offered a gallery of the vampires and a teaser trailer (also offered at Quiet Earth with additional Mickle quotes). John Marrone visited the set for Bloody Disgusting.
SUPER (James Gunn, USA)—After his wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), a frustrated husband (Rainn Wilson) decides he will win her back as Crimson Bolt, a costumed vigilante armed with a monkey wrench. His actions bring him an admirer, an overeager comic store clerk (Ellen Page) who wants to be his sidekick. IMDb. Facebook. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
Brendan Connelly reports to /Film on the casting of Kevin Bacon as the film's villain. At MUBI, David Hudson cites Ioncinema's Eric Levallee: "Wilson plays Frank, a seemingly average Joe who is madly in love with his troubled wife Sarah (Tyler). But when Sarah leaves Frank for Jacques (Bacon), a smooth-talking drug dealer, Frank transforms into pseudo superhero The Crimson Bolt, stakes out Jacques sleazy hideaway, and wages a one-man war on crime. What he lacks in superpowers, he makes up for with a trusty pipe wrench. Every superhero needs a sidekick and so enters Libby (Page), a cute sociopathic teen working at the local comic book store, who morphs into 'Boltie' and teams with Frank to take Jacques down."
Vanishing on 7th Street (Brad Anderson, USA)—When a massive power blackout causes the population to inexplicably vanish, a small handful of survivors (Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, John Leguizamo) band together inside a desolate tavern, struggling to survive as the darkness hones in on them. From director Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Transsiberian) comes an apocalyptic thriller with a terrifying vision of our world's end and a story that wrestles with the nature of existence itself. Official website. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
At Twitch, Todd Brown offers up a gallery, interview footage with the film's cast and production team, and the first trailer.
The Ward (John Carpenter, USA)—Acclaimed director John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) makes his long-awaited return to the screen with a thriller about a young woman (Amber Heard) in a 1960s mental institution who becomes terrorized by malevolent unseen forces. Live For Film has a behind-the-scenes trailer. Official website. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
Last year's Brand Israel controversy behind them, TIFF looks to Istanbul this year as a representative nexus of Turkish filmmaking. I look forward to sampling their national cinema. As TIFF Co-Director Cameron Bailey announced: "This has been a hard secret to keep! When we began discussions about a short list of possible cities back in January, Istanbul quickly emerged as a leading candidate. Most people know Istanbul as a dynamic city with a rich history, but its film scene is less well-known. Over the past five years, filmmakers from this vibrant metropolis have been winning awards at Cannes and Berlin. Now, some are making the leap to festivals outside of Europe. We're so pleased to feature films from Istanbul this year: audiences will have access to strong emerging filmmakers, at the moment just before they're sure to be discovered somewhere else."
10 to 11 / 11'e 10 Kala (Pelin Esmer, Turkey / France / Germany, 2009)—An elderly man clashes with his neighbors as they try to remove him—and his elaborate collections of ephemera—from his apartment. Official website. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Paraphrasing the synopsis at the film's offical website: Living on the fourth floor of the Emniyet Apartment Building, Mr. Mithat (Mithat Esmer) has—after facing numerous threats—managed to protect the collection he has been working on for years, even though it leaves him very little space in which to live. For Mr. Mithat, Istanbul is as unlimited as his collection; any piece in his collection could lead him anywhere in the city.
By contrast, for Ali (Nejat Isler) Istanbul is limited to the apartment building where he works as concierge and its surroundings. When the other tenants of the apartment building seek to demolish and rebuild the building out of fear of earthquakes (and with the added incentive of owning a more valuable property), Mr. Mithat faces his greatest challenge yet to save his collection. The building becomes the shared destiny of these two lonely men. Their relationship graduates to a different level when Mr. Mithat turns Istanbul over to Ali and it ends when they unknowingly change each others' destinies.
From the 2009 San Sebastian Film Festival, Neil Young dispatched to his Film Lounge that 10 to 11—to the surprise of many—went away empty-handed at the prize giving. "Taking its tone and pace from its 'unhurried' protagonist," Young writes, "this is the lightly fictionalized tale of the director's fiercely independent octogenarian grandfather—an educated, old-fashioned gent whose Istanbul flat is crammed floor to ceiling with 'collections' accumulated over the course of the decades. In its best moments a Bosphorus twist on Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, the picture exudes a beguilingly unusual atmosphere—one can almost smell the dusty piles of yellowing newspapers and magazines—that sustains what is, objectively speaking, a relatively slender storyline." At Variety, Jonathan Holland concurred: "There is something noble about Mithat's refusal to let the modern sweep him away: His collection represents Istanbul itself. Pic is loaded with such metaphors, but the script doesn't force them, preferring to remain focused on our impassive hero, directed by his granddaughter to ensure that no empty sentimentalism creeps in. The mood swings between melancholy and gently surreal comedy; the dialogue, like most of the pic, has been adapted to Mithat's own leisurely rhythms. But despite the script's inability to fashion any real drama, the pace remains compelling rather than dull." At The Flickering Wall, Jorge Mourinha describes 10 to 11 as a "lively, melancholy comedy-drama of people forced to accommodate to a city in constant change, loosely inspired by real people and situations and shot in documentary style."
At MUBI, David Hudson relies on member Mutt who writes: "Turkish director Pelin Esmer (Oyun) follows up on her début documentary short Koleksiyoncu: The Collector with this full-length feature loosely based on the story of her obsessive collector uncle which has picked up awards at the Istanbul, Altın Koza and Ankara international film festivals as well as a number of foreign awards." Mutt synopsizes: "Elderly collector Mithat and newly arrived concierge Ali find their lonely lives becoming increasingly intertwined with each other and the city Istanbul itself, which for one exists to be catalogued and for the other is a fearful unknown, as they become the last two inhabitants of a condemned apartment block. Consummate professional Nejat Isler (Everything About Mustafa and Egg) puts in a subtly nuanced central performance whilst ageing débutante Mithat Esmer looks a bit shaky in places but none-the-less performs admirably in a role based on himself and together the two evolve a convincing and emotive relationship. The director has cleverly counterbalanced the story of her uncle with that of an equally alienated individual in a way that allows the characters to drive the story in a way still seemingly innovative in Turkish cinema whilst at the same time preventing the all-too-easy descent into sentimental nostalgia that could have all to easily plagued the production."
40 (Emre Şahin, Turkey)—Capturing the dazzling intensity of Istanbul's 12 million souls, Şahin's groundbreaking feature crisscrosses the lives of a petty crook, an ambitious nurse and an African migrant as they seek money, luck or just a way out. Official site. IMDb. Facebook. TOFilmFest. International Premiere.
Block-C / C-Blok (Zeki Demirkubuz, Turkey)—Zeki Demirkubuz's career-launching debut feature dissects the melancholy and repression inherent in bourgeois life in dreary apartment blocks. Official site. IMDb. TOFilmFest. Canadian Premiere.
At Strictly Film School, Acquarello writes: "Something like an unpolished Michelangelo Antonioni film in its interpenetration of alienating landscapes and interior turmoil, Block-C is a flawed, yet seminal film in Demirkubuz's body of work—a complex character study that provides the psychological and visceral paradigm for his subsequent films." Acquarello has also taken extensive notes from a panel discussion on Turkish Cinema with Zeki Demirkubuz.
Dark Cloud / Bahti Kara (Theron Patterson, Turkey)—A black comedy in the style of a lucid dream, Dark Cloud looks at Adnan (Reha Özcan) a middle-aged man who can't move on from the death of his wife, and his teenage son Burak (Kamer Çelenk) who needs him to wake up. Iksv program capsule. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
At The Hürriyet Daily News, Emrah Güler found Dark Cloud "a refreshing combination of real characters, impressive acting, and improvised dialogue." Belying fixed definitions of national cinema, Güler pointed out director Patterson's American nationality (further profiled by Ceylan Yegįnsu at the Hürriyet). Güler likewise detailed the controversy associated with the film's multiple awards at the Bursa Silk Road Film Festival: "Following the awards, it was revealed that Hülya Uçansu, the head of the jury, was somehow linked to the movie. Later, rumors surfaced that a film with no script had won the screenplay award." Güler chalked off the rumor the film had no script to a misunderstanding of Patterson's method of working with improvised dialogue, which in his opinion ranged from "natural to amateurish." According to Emįne Yildirim at Today's Zaman, however, this practice of improvisational screen acting "so strongly holds Bahtı Kara (Dark Cloud) together, despite its minor flaws, and adds such genuineness to the overall universe of the film that it makes it a significant milestone in Turkish cinema that will not be forgotten." Yildirim added: "I have never seen a Turkish film that so vividly, fervently and unapologetically presents a human being who just cannot move on with his life." At Sunday's Zaman, Elįf Nesįbe Özbudak offered specific examples of how Patterson's improvisational method worked on set and at Today's Zaman Yasemįn Gürkan examined the film's controversial association with Hülya Uçansu.
Distant / Uzak (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey)—Distant maps Nuri Bilge Ceylan's signature exploration of existential heartache onto the wintry shores of Istanbul. Using the Wayback Machine, David Hudson rounded up reviews at the Greencine Daily when Distant was held close by critics at Cannes. Official site. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest.
Hair / Saç (Tayfun Pirselimoğlu, Turkey)—An ailing Istanbul wig-maker becomes obsessed with a woman who enters his shop one day. Screened earlier at Locarno. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
TOFilmFest expands the synopsis: "An ailing Istanbul wig-maker becomes obsessed with a woman who enters his shop one day. Hamdi, a wig seller in a run-down district in Istanbul, is desperately lonely. He's addicted to cigarettes and spends his time, day and night, bored, in his store, which is also his home. His cancer means he has only a short time left to live, but he chain-smokes, staring out of his window at a woman in red, a prostitute standing on the pavement on the other side of the noisy road. Hamdi also believes he is shrinking and measures his height every day. He has no expectations: except perhaps of going somewhere far away before he dies. Brazil is the furthest place he can think of, a paradise with no pain. One day a strange thing happens: a woman, Meryem, comes to his store to sell her very long hair. Hamdi is stunned as he contemplates her. He cuts her hair as she hides her tears. Hamdi becomes obsessed, following her when she leaves the store and then everywhere she goes. As Meryem, married to a churlish man who washes corpses for a living, realizes that Hamdi is pursuing her, the situation becomes ever more bizarre."
Leslie Felperin reviewed the film at Locarno for Variety. Situating Hair as the third part of a trilogy, along with Rıza and Haze—though, curiously, at the Hürriyet Daily News Emrah Güler alternately lists Rıza and Pus as the first two entries in the trilogy—that explore lives of quiet desperation in contemporary Turkey, "Pirselimoğlu's latest has the kind of formal precision and meditative quality that will endear it to highbrow critics. However, with its indulgently long, static takes and painfully indirect storytelling method, pic will be a hard sell even to arthouse auds." Noting that Pirselimoğlu makes "abundant use of carefully composed long shots that afford the opportunity to feast on images of Istanbul's jolie-laid urban landscape"—providing "diverting enough viewing"—Felperin cautions that "the impression grows incrementally that the script doesn't add up to much more than a severely attenuated short film, and a last-act transition into weirdsville doesn't work on the intended psychological level." Ray Bennett had the honors at The Hollywood Reporter and dismissed the film as "a dreary and dispiriting tale" that is two hours more "than most viewers will likely want to sit through." Bennett regretted that Pirselimoğlu didn't do more with the film's "one small visual note of irony that a man who sells hair for a living is losing his own due to chemotherapy." Güler profiles Pirselimoğlu further: "Turkish audiences know director and writer Tayfun Pirselimoğlu from his directorial debut Hiçbiryerde (Nowhere Land) of 2002 and 2007's underrated Rıza, as well as his writing credits in last year's Güz Sancısı (Pains of Autumn). He's also a familiar name as a novelist with four books to his name."
The Majority / Çoğunluk (Seren Yüce, Turkey)—A young middle-class man rebels against his father's brutish authority and seeks a rough romance with a woman of ethnic minority. Yüce's moral tale draws from the example of today's Turkish youth and the timeless shadow of fathers over sons. As synopsized for the Venice Days program: "Life is hard for Romeo and Juliet even in Istanbul. Especially when he is a member of the conformist middle-class and she is a Kurdish girl seeking her own normalcy in a world where the majority does not allow for transgressions." TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Tadeusz Sobolewski quotes Seren Yüce in his program capsule for Venice Days: "Humanity's complicated structure, which is disguised under the veil of technology, is always affected by the power of masculinity. Majority is a critique of myself and Turkish society, of which I am a member. My aim is to look at 'us' through a family, which is the core of society."
Sobolewski queries: "Will it be possible one day for a character of a Turkish movie to look back at his youth and get to understand his tyrannical father as did the liberated character of Padre padrone? Nowadays, we hear a great deal about the oppression suffered by women in many traditional societies, but Seren Yüce shows us an oppressed young man. The son is subdued to his father. Fear of his father proves more powerful for him than his love for an 'alien' girl. Is this passive character aware of this oppression? This film makes us face a paradox: In a patriarchal society a woman may find it easier to emancipate herself than a man."
At MUBI, Boyd von Hoeij anticipates the Venice World Premiere of The Majority: "A new generation of Turkish filmmaking talent has quietly grown up in the shadow of Cannes darling Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Yüce makes his feature debut here with Majority after working as an assistant director on Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven, the Akin-produced Takva: A Man's Fear of God, and Yesim Ustaoglu's Pandoras Box. What these dramas have in common is that they look at Turkish society with a sharp and critical eye while never letting their socio-political ruminations take precedence over their narrative- rather than issue-driven stories; they never reduce the specific characters in their stories to clichéd stand-ins for larger groups of society. Hopefully, this will also be the case for Majority, which looks at a son's infatuation with a Kurdish girl, and the problems this creates with his father."
My Only Sunshine / Hayat Var (Reha Erdem, Turkey / Greece / Bulgaria)—In this potent, widescreen portrait of an Istanbul wild child, Hayat (Elit İşcan) lives in a shack beside the Bosphorus sea with her criminal father (Erdal Beşikçioğlu) and wheezing grandfather (Levend Yılmaz). Life is harsh, but Hayat watches and learns: "You'll face up to every ordeal and say 'that's life'." Official site. IMDb. TOFilmFest. Toronto Premiere.
At MUBI, David Hudson offers the film's trailer and cites MUBI member Mutt: "Celebrated Turkish filmmaker Reha Erdem (Beş Vakit & Kaç Para Kaç) continues his international success with this elegy to alienated urban Turkish teenage life which took home awards at both the 58th Berlin International Film Festival and the 3rd Yeşilçam Awards and secured international distribution." Mutt notes that "Digitürk Young Talent Award-winning Turkish starlet Elit İşcan (Beş Vakit) reunites with the director for a powerful performance which holds the entire film together and drives it forward despite the young actress barely speaking a word, while veterans Erdal Beşikçioğlu, Levend Yılmaz and Banu Fotocan follow in her emotional wake. The Yeşilçam Award-winning director plunges into the dark underbelly of urban Turkish life, with the few splashes of color there coming from the beautifully captured Bosphorous of cinematographer Florent Herry and the arabesque dominated soundtrack, for a moving film which somehow manages to find its sunshine."
At Eye For Film, Jennie Kermode praises Elit İşcan's central performance: "Elit İşcan demonstrate[s] a confidence that belies her years. She's not demonstrative but quietly resilient, intelligently interpreting the withdrawal common to children in such circumstances. The problem is that, brave though the film may be, this is pretty difficult to watch for an hour and a half, and the occasional flashes of humor are not sufficient to leaven the weight of the central narrative. Instead we rely on lyrical images of the river landscape, some of which work beautifully but most of which fail to stand out from the great bulk of such imagery you'll see in films like this."
September 12 / 12 Eylül (Özlem Sulak, Turkey / Germany)—In this meditative and monumental examination of the legacy of Turkey's 1980 military coup, individual narrations of the tumultuous event are juxtaposed with quotidian routines, 30 years on. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Emrah Güler backgrounds the film for the Hürriyet Daily News: "The joint production from Turkey and Germany features interviews with 12 people at different ages and from diverse backgrounds as they reminisce about the day of the military coup of Sept. 12, 1980. The Sept. 12 coup and its aftermath is one of the more popular subjects of Turkish cinema, with seven thousand people imprisoned, 50 executed, and political opposition silenced."
Somersault in a Coffin / Tabutta Rövasata (Dervis Zaim, Turkey)—A thief with bizarre compulsions—and possibly good reasons—tries to get by in this essential Istanbul film. Somersault in a Coffin was the winner of multiple festival awards, including the SKYY Prize at the 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival and several Golden Oranges at Antalya's 1996 Film Festival. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest.
Despite its festival pedigree, Stephen Holden (The New York Times) found Somersault in a Coffin "compassionate but hopelessly sketchy" and argues that—despite its intriguing characters—"this cinema-verite-style movie never finds its narrative focus. Key incidents in Mahsun's sad life are insufficiently developed, and the abrupt changes in his relationships remain frustratingly inexplicable."
Along with its sampling of narrative features and feature documentaries, the City to City spotlight offers seven shorts.
ascents in february / subat'ta yükselisler (Yoel Meranda, Turkey)—An abstract, impish spot of light leads the camera onto Istanbul's streets. World Premiere.
not be or… / yok ya da... (Yoel Meranda, Turkey)—This whiplash montage of Istanbul's urban imagery conveys a pure sense of speed and disorientation. World Premiere.
On Thin Ice / Ince Buz Uzerinde (Burcak Kaygun, Turkey)—A painterly composition explores movement and sound in the abstract, as skaters on a winter ice rink swirl round and round. Canadian Premiere.
rauscht / hisirtilar (Yoel Meranda, Turkey)—A politician's televised speech is utterly transformed into stunning abstraction. International Premiere.
Science Lab / Bilim Laboratuvari (Eytan Ipeker, Turkey)—This short is a visual compendium of experimental techniques, all uncannily mined from footage of the filmmaker’s piano keys. International Premiere.
straitscaping / denizgeçiti (Yoel Meranda, Turkey)—Yoel Meranda completely transforms brief footage of a ferry trip across the Bosphorus. World Premiere.
Waves / Dalgalar (Belmin Soylemez, Turkey)—This striking experimental documentary focuses on the boys and young men who jump into the Bosphorus to escape the city and the heat. North American Premiere.
In addition to the above features and shorts, a panel session entitled "Istanbul—A Conversation" will feature several guests, including Richard Florida, author of The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity and Who's Your City?; Reha Erdem, director of My Only Sunshine; Pelin Esmer, director of 10 to 11; and Seren Yüce, director of The Majority. This panel will be open to the public and will take place on Thursday, September 16 at 7:00PM at the Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall. Admission is free.
As synopsized by Eric Lavallee at Ioncinema: "You can call this year's Masters section the 're-showing of old filmmaker favorites from Cannes.' Plenty of the names selected here—Godard, Lee Chang-dong, Ken Loach, Manoel de Oliveira and Palme D'or winning Apichatpong Weerasethakul—were expected to show up. Added to the Cannes titles we have a trio from Venice in: Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing and Catherine Breillat's The Sleeping Beauty. The one world premiere is from Amos Gitai (Roses à Crédit)."
13 Assassins / Jûsan-nin no shikaku (Takashi Miike, Japan)—Cult director Takeshi Miike delivers a period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a wartorn future. Competing in Venice for the Golden Lion. Official site [Japanese]. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Erotic Man / Det Erotiske Menneske (Jørgen Leth, Denmark)—Danish master Jørgen Leth travels the globe in this sensual, provocative and sometimes autobiographical essay film about a man struggling to come to terms with his past choices and his decision to leave a lover. Leth is quoted from the film's website at TOFilmFest: "New places. Now new locations. New places. New locations. The same journey. We are searching for something. We are searching…. We don't know how to frame the erotic. I don't know exactly how you find it. It's not a definition, that's not it. It's about the search itself. Finding some moments in memory and in the present. We study woman, we study women in different places, in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, in Belém, Panama City, Jacmel, Dakar, in Manila. Watching her, her legs, her shoulders, her skin, her hands, her eyes and her mouth. We watch the unknown smile. The new smile. The difference, the little nuance that makes it different. That's what we're searching for. It's indefinable, it's unclear. We don't strive to be clever." At Variety, he's a bit more succinct, describing Erotic Man as "a sensual, poetic and nude depiction of the erotic in man," with the intention of discovering why eroticism plays such a large part in the life of the human. Erotic Man has no script in the traditional sense, but is based on documents, letters, pictures and poems by Leth, who has traveled to Brazil, Haiti, Panama and Tonga to collect material for the film. IMDb.
Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland / Norway / Ireland / Hungary)—A Taliban fighter is captured, interrogated, tortured and then transported to an unnamed snowy destination in Europe. He manages to escape and must use his wits to evade his pursuers whilst battling bitter winter cold and lack of food. Also competing in Venice for the Golden Lion, along with two other Vincent Gallo projects. Ioncinema predicts that Gallo will be "the toast of the Lido this year." IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Vanity Fair offers the trailer (do I detect a touch of sarcasm?) and quotes the Element Pictures production notes: "The film follows the story of Mohammed, who is captured by the US military in Afghanistan and transported to a secret military black site. When the army convoy he is riding in plummets off a steep hill, Mohammed finds himself suddenly free and on the run behind enemy lines. A hostile, snow-blanketed forest, gradually reveals to be somewhere in the wilds of Eastern Europe. Relentlessly pursued by the military, Mohammed must constantly confront the need to kill in order to survive."
"I can only presume," writes Movie/Line's S.T. Van Airsdale that "the purpose here is to contrast the psychologies of killing in the name of a cause and killing in the name of survival (as if the desert/snowfield metaphor isn't enough). But there is an outside chance that Skolimowski simply wanted to explode a few viewers' heads with the shocking WTF-ery of it all, from noted conservative and self-promoting ladies' man Gallo as a bazooka-wielding Taliban foot soldier to Emmanuelle Seigner showing up as … I have no idea. But she seems awfully calm about having a pistol-wielding, blood-soaked Afghan baddie crouched beneath her table in terror. Wait until she finds out what he did outside with that chainsaw." At /Film, Russ Fischer suggests that Gallo's "role in Essential Killing is playing directly to the audience who loves to hate him" and asserts "I'm not playing devil's advocate at all when I say he's one of the more interesting screen presences working in the last couple decades; there's something so watchable about Gallo. ...I don't care about his offscreen shenanigans; the camera loves him." Cinema Without Borders notes that "Essential Killing is a provocative thriller (almost entirely without dialogue) that confirms the excellent form of the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski." Skolimowski, incidentally, is described by the Venice Festival as "the excellent form of the enfant terrible of New Eastern European Film."
At The Guardian, Danny Leigh intriguingly offsets Essential Killing's "on-screen tinkering with racial identity" against M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. "Essential Killing promises to offset whatever aggro it creates," Leigh writes, "with moments that are genuinely thought-provoking. Given his fondness for the Republican party, it's hard not to be struck by Gallo's willingness to portray a soldier from the other side in a war from which American coffins are still returning (British ones, too, of course), in a film that suggests if not overt sympathy for his character, then certainly a lack of condemnation. Then again, quelle surprise, if anyone was ever comfortable with hostility it's Gallo, his entire persona often seems like one big slice of middle-finger-waving performance art. Yet even by his standards, there's still a certain confrontational glee to this latest move. Rarely do bad-guy roles come quite as politically loaded as this, and rarely are they allowed any sense of nuance."
Film Socialism / Film socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland)—Godard's latest film, a "symphony in three movements," grapples with trying to make sense of a world that appears to be beyond comprehension and meaning. Official website [French]. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
I Wish I Knew / Hai shang chuan qi (Jia Zhangke, China / The Netherlands)—Commissioned to commemorate the 2010 World Expo, this documentary on Shanghai portrays a chapter of modern Chinese history through interviews and scenic views of a city in continuous evolution. I Wish I Knew is directed by one of the youngest masters of cinema, Jia Zhangke. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Mysteries of Lisbon / Mistérios De Lisboa (Raul Ruiz, Portugal/France)—Based on a famous 19th-century Portuguese novel [by Camilo Castelo Branco], Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman and a young orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil where they connect with a variety of mysterious individuals. Official website. IMDb. TOFilmFest.
At Variety, Boyd von Hoeij writes: "The beauty of Nostalgia is that the many metaphors and surprising parallels between the universe, archaeology and Chile's recent past rise organically from the material…. The idea that the universal truths can be found by focusing on local details is again proven here." At MUBI, Daniel Kasman includes Nostalgia among his favorite films from Day Three at Cannes. He writes: "Patricizo Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light has perhaps the best approach to tragedy: equal parts science and poetry. To get to the lost victims of Pinochet's dictatorship, the film comes via the route of astronomy. It factually finds, in the Atacama desert, both the observation of the stars and the seekers of the dead, widows and family members searching for remains of the executed and disappeared. The analogy is simple and beautiful, as the light from the stars comes from long ago, these geographically coincidental searches both look deep into a dark past. But Guzmán pointedly shows the difference, one exploring and unearthing an ambient world to popular acclaim and awareness, and the other exploring a memory many are trying to forget, for which many are still being condemned."
Poetry / Shi (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea)—Rhyme and crime intertwine in Poetry, the moving portrait of an elegant old lady in the initial stages of Alzheimer's, as well as a lyrical take on creative discovery and an upsetting look at juvenile violence, by Korean master Lee Chang-dong. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Roses à Crédit (Amos Gitai, France)—A young couple marry in France in the 1940s and the film follows the arc of their marriage over the next decade. As France recovers from the trauma of the war, the wife finds herself increasingly caught up in acquiring material possessions while the husband prefers a more traditional lifestyle. IMDb. TOFilmFest. World Premiere.
The Sleeping Beauty / La Belle endormie (Catherine Breillat, France)—An epic fantasia of a young girl's coming-of-age, featuring Catherine Breillat's signature take on gender relations and breathtaking cinematography. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
The Strange Case of Angelica / O Estranho Caso de Angélica (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal / Spain / France / Brazil)—Manoel de Oliveira, a 101-year-old filmmaker, returns to the Douro River, the site of his first short, Douro Faina Fluvial, to create a surprising tale about a metaphysical love that defies reason. Photographer Isaac becomes smitten when he is called to take the last picture of the beautiful Angelica. Although she is dead, when he looks at her through his viewfinder she becomes animated and lively. IMDb. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives / Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, U.K. / Thailand / France / Germany / Spain)—Winner of this year's Palme d'Or, Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul takes viewers on a subliminal journey through a cinematic border zone where magic, transmigration of souls and generations of memory cohabit in a highly original masterpiece. IMDb. Wikipedia. TOFilmFest. North American Premiere.
