THE SHROUDS (2024) NYFF 2024

There is no getting around it, David Cronenberg’s THE SHROUDS is a disappointment.  Based on Cronenberg's own feeling after losing his wife, the film is the story of a man dealing with the grief he feels after his wife died. He uses his tech savvy to create burial shrouds for the dead that allow people to watch their loved ones decay. As he tries to reconnect to life the cemetery is vandalized and conspiratorial plots involving the technology are possibly hatched.

This is the first film where Cronenberg lost sight of his characters for the plot. Perhaps this is the result of this being intended to be a miniseries for Netflix that got axed or perhaps it’s just Cronenberg wrote himself in the corner. Either way this film takes a long time before focusing on the characters and then in the final third it loses them again.

To be certain when the characters take front and center the film soars- the scene where the blind wife of one of Vincent Cassel’s clients touch his face was one of the best scenes in all of this year’s New York Film Festival and the sex scenes are both erotic and manage to drive the plot – but the truth is the film is too interested in the technical stuff to really work. In the words of Hubert Vigilla, with whom I saw the film, it’s like watching THE FLY and having it be about how the pods work.

I’ve been a fan of Cronenberg for decades and this is the first time one of his movies ended and I felt nothing. Both Hubert and myself were left staring at the screen by Cronenberg’s choice of ending point for the film since it doesn’t feel like a stop but simply mid action abandonment.

While the film is well made and has moments it really isn’t a good film. If the interpersonal bits weren’t as good as they are this would probably be the first truly bad David Cronenberg film.

For die hard fans of the director only.

Who By Fire (2024) NYFF 2024

(Apologies up front for not using names in the review, but people are introduced and disappeared so I never caught names)

A father, his daughter, his son and his son's friend go into the wilderness to spend some time with the father's friend and former collaborator for a few days. While there things go sideways in a WTF coming of age tale.

While I like this film to some degree, the truth is this film is a complete and utter mess narratively. Director Philippe Lesage brings together 11 people and manages to focus on none of them, moving them around in ways that make no sense.  Yes the individual scenes mostly work on their own but over all none of it really hangs together, killing not only a character who barely registers but the dog as well.

My feelings for the film have gone up and down since I saw it. Mostly I trade off liking moments (Rock Lobster is going to be what people latch on to) and realizing that the film has massive problems. 

The problems begin with the fact that most of the characters don't really exist because after they are introduced they disappear. Everything is focused on the friend of the son who wants to sleep with his best friends sister. I would ask why he's the focus when he isn't that interesting a character, except there are no other characters in the film. The father is a wine obsessed turd, the daughter is the sex object and everyone else is  barely there. The most telling clue as to how badly the characters are drawn and the plot is a mess in the fact that the main character, the friend of the son, has only two scenes with his supposed best friend. They almost never appear together, yet are so chummy that they go on vacation together. WTF? The son is such a non-entity that I completely forgot about him for most of the film.

Truth be told by the end everyone is so shitty to each other you will wonder why are they friends.

The plotting is just as bad with things happening, just because.  Big blow outs happen one minute and everything is hunky dory the next. Someone dies (I think they die), and then nothing.  It feels like the director didn't know what to do so he made it up. Let send everyone down a river because... The father obsesses about who switched his wine because he has nothing else to do. Scenes at times feel like pieces of long moments that got trimmed down.(why do I think there is a five hour cut of this that makes more sense)

It's a film that rambles all over the place and yet manages to go no where.

The actors are lost. The great Irene Jacob appears late in the film and does nothing but sit there.

This is two hours and thirty five minutes that are a waste of your life - yes I really like pieces- but that is all this is, pieces

As good as the pieces (particularly the literal needle drops) are there is no way I can tell you watch this over long trip to nowhere.

Rumours (2024) NYFF 2024

Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson tell the story of a G7 meeting during a looming crisis and the weird things that happen as they try to write a draft statement about the events. 

A great cast including Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance chew the scenery in silly look at end of the world. It's a crazy film that doesn't really make any sense, but survives because the cast makes it worth watching.

At the press screening I attended the reaction was mixed. Some people liked it and some people didn't. The argument against the film was that there really wasn't much here. And to be honest I can see that, it is ultimately a shaggy dog tale with a wicked sting in the tale about the uselessness of our leaders, but I liked it. 

If you are a fan of the cast or the directors it's worth a look 

Brief Thoughts on Your Tomorrow (2024) Toronto 2024

Portrait of Ontario Place, which is a public space  that looks like an amusement park. When it was created it was a happening place where everyone went to get away. Over time people drifted away. The film charts the space over 100 days as an effort is made to redevelop the property as a private spa and water park.

This is a good observational doc that is probably going to play best for those who know of the Ontario Place going in. I say this because the film is largely observational so we are mostly left to get the context of the park from the bits we pick up.  As some one who knew nothing going in I enjoyed the film on some levels, but because I am not from Ontario I never could grasp the larger context of the place or what was happening. Everything remained isolated.

Worth a look for those interested.

So Surreal:Behind the Masks (2024) Toronto 2024

One of the best docs playing at TIFF this year, SO SURREAL: BEHIND THE MASKS (co-written and co-directed by Neil Diamond and Joanne Robertson) is a look at the masks used by Native Americans in rituals, as well as their connection to the surrealist artists who collected them.

This film is a joy. It's a film that is so alive that it makes us feel that way by the end.

Focusing on director Neil Diamond's journey to understand why and how the surrealists became interested in the masks, it's a film that opened my eyes to how the masks were collected and used, and the power they contain (I did not know that masks were often burned after ceremonies because it released the magic and spirits).

Using differing styles to tell the story, SO SURREAL transcends the typical doc form to become something truly special. This is told in the manner of the best raconteur you've ever heard - one who changes things up as the story changes. I was enraptured. 

Honestly, I was watching this film late at night and figured I would watch a little bit before going to bed, and instead found myself wide awake and leaning in, wanting to know more. When it was done, I was popping online to do more reading.

Yeah, the film is that good... and then some!

Highly recommended, not only for anyone who is interested in the subject, but for anyone who wants a great story expertly told.

Shepherds (2024) Toronto 2024

Shepherd should not work. Everything about the this film should make this just an okay film that is exactly the sort of thing we’ve seen before in other forms, and yet director Sophie Deraspe and her crew have made a film that you will fall in volve with and want to see over and over again, especially on a big screen.

Based on a true story SHEPHERD is the story of a marketing writer who “goes on vacation” to France, never intending to go home. He falls into becoming a shepherd, falling in love with a beautiful civil servant he meets along the way.

As I said at the top this film hits so many of the  expected notes for a story like this and yet this so well done it is a perfect example of how important an artist is in creating a work of art. Deraspe takes a great script, a note perfect cast and some of the most beautiful images you’ve ever seen and mixes them together into a film that is like a siren song for your soul. When one character says late in the game “I don’t want to go back” you feel the exact same way, you don’t want to go back to reality, you want the film to go on forever. Barring that you want to jump on a plane and fly to France to herd animals.

You need to see this film as soon as you can, preferably on a he screen, not just because it’s a great film but because it will leave you feeling like me, with no words, only with emotions.

One of the truly great films of 2024.

Go see it.

Red Rooms (2023)

A model becomes obsessed with the trial of a serial killer. She ends up going on line  in order to find the video of the killer killing one of his victims.

Focused purely on one obsessed "fan" RED ROOMS pushes the killer to the background. He is locked up and remains almost motionless and entirely silent through the whole film  We only get what we know from him from the court room testimony and the discussion by the other people on screen. It's an intriguing way to look at things since it firmly makes the monster at the center a cipher.

At the same time the construction of the film is such that it really isn't a thriller. Yes the first time through it plays as a thriller, but at the same time the film is more a character study and a look at an unhealthy obsession. I say this because the film doesn't behave like a thriller and instead creates tension by are no being certain how this will play out.

The result s a tense little thriller that will keep you staring at the screen until the very end.

Recommended.

Scared Shitless (2024) Fright Fest 2024 Fantasia 2024

A plumber and his germaphobic son end up having to battle a monstrous beast that is loose in the plumbing of an apartment building. Traveling through the pipes, the genetically created beast is tearing apart the residents.

This is a perfect example of what happens when clever filmmakers take a story similar to one we've seen before and decide to be clever with it. Sure, the basic story of a beast loose in an apartment house has been done many times, but turning it into a wicked comedy where the tropes are turned on their head and it has practical effects with tentacled monsters is just too wonderful for words. It's everything that long-time monster movie lovers want in their lighter films.

I had such a blast with this film that I had to go back and watch it a second time with my brother, just to be able to laugh and react with someone of a like mind. This is a film that needs to be seen in a theater with a big audience, so that everyone can react to it together.

In all seriousness, this is a blast. It's scary at times, gross in others, and perfectly funny in others. This is a film that both takes itself very seriously and knows that it's also bat-shit crazy, and it manages to not just walk the edge of the razor but dance on it without falling down.

Highly recommended. This is one of the most delightful finds of 2024, and I highly recommend it..

Silent Planet (2024) World premeiered at Fantasia 2024

In the far flung future some prisoners are sent to spend their days on lonely planets mining for minerals. On one planet Elias Koteas is living out his days mining and waiting to die. One day Brianna Middleton is sent to the planet. She was arrested and charged with terroristic behavior because she was raised on an alien planet by species the humans are trying to destroy.  As the two try to find a common ground tension grows as a secret from the past emerges and the pair discover there may be an unpleasant connection.

I’m going to  be honest and say this probably shouldn’t be playing at Fantasia.  I say this not because the film is bad, oh lord, it’s not, rather because aside from the other worldly setting this is a film that is very much about the here and now. It is a film which is doing what all the best genre films do which is filter todays world through the prism that makes the topics discussing.  While the genre setting, in theory, make this perfect for Fantasia the fact that this is really more a mediation on immigration, fear of the other and the dark things we do and have to live with make this film something else entirely.

Watching the film I was kind of lost in that I was expecting something more action packed. What I got was essentially a chamber drama involving two people taking (There is more to it than that). It was a film much more heady than I expected. It was a film that felt like it really belonged at some of the big prestigious festivals like Toronto, Venice or New York. I was thrown and it wasn’t until the morning after I saw the film that I was ready to accept the film for what it was instead of being annoyed for what I thought it should be.

THE SILENT PLANET is a kick ass film. It is a film that anyone, especially those who “don’t like science fiction” need to see because it isn’t that. It is a deeply moving film that reflects todays world and acts as an examination of our shared humanity.

Highly recommended.

ATIKAMEKW SUNS (2024) Brooklyn 2024 Opens the Brooklyn Film Festival Friday Night

A look at what happened before and after the events in 1977 when police found five Atikamekws dead in a car. Until recently no one knew exactly what happened. The film is told via members of the families of the deceased.

Unique film is a mix of docudrama and poetry put together by people connected to the true crime tale in such a special way that it doesn't feel like a true crime tale.

Told as if it was just the story of the lives of various characters, ATIKAMEKW SUNS sucks us in and takes us along. moving at it's own pace it moves us from now back almost half a century when these events actually played out. It's a film that gives us something more important than the story of events, instead it gives us a look at the lives of the people who lived it.

It took me a few minutes to click with what the film was doing, but once it did I found myself in the middle of a truly special film. It's a film that gives us deeper and richer story than if this was just a straight up documentary.

Recommended, especially if you want a film that does something more special than your typical true crime or Hollywood film.

Seguridad (2024) Hot Docs

Tamara Segura tries to un ravel her complicated relationship with her abusive father and the country she left behind, Cuba.

This is one of those films that seems to be one thing and then opens up into something larger. Segura’s tale about trying to connect to her father becomes a journey through her family’s history, what made her father become abusive, an exploration of the Cuban revolution, what it means to leave your home country and a few other things. It’s a film that wonderfully is opening doors every couple of minutes, with the result the film makes our eyes go wide as we are brought into a seeming never ending tale.

This is a great film.  It’s wonderfully curated ride through a the life of not only the director but her family and the country of her birth. It is a film that also transcends being just one person’s story, but one that we all can see ourselves in. Something somewhere in this tale is almost certain to click with you.

One of the best films at Hot Docs, it’s also one of the great finds of 2024.

Highly recommended.

COCO FARM (2023) NYICFF 2024

Max is forced to move to the country with his dad after his dad’s business goes belly up. Staying at a farm he realizes that if he uses all the free range chickens he can set up an egg business. However as he makes a go of it , the processes set up to protect the big companies from competition begin to cause him trouble.

I was not planning on seeing COCO Farm at NYICFF however talking to people who had seen it at the film’s two festival screenings had me asking to see it. I mean people were saying they felt so good that they got weepy.

While I did not get weepy, I enjoyed the heck out of the film. A wonderful film about great people I instantly fell in love with everyone on screen. I know people tend to favor the animated films at NYICFF, however every year the festival is full of great live action films like this. This is the sort of film that is going to find it’s audience and become a touchstone film for generations.

This, like most films at NYICFF is one you will want to track down- and I mean that for adults as well as kids.

Hunting Daze (2023) SXSW 2024

Nina is traveling through the hinterlands. She and her friends run out of gas. When one of her other friends, Kevin, arrives to rescue them, tension causes a fight to break out and Nina is left stranded by her original companions. Truly in the middle of nowhere, Kevin takes Nina back to the hunting lodge with him. She manages to bond with the macho and crazy hunters, passing an initiation test she is considered one of them. All is going along swimmingly until Kevin brings in another stray, a black man he found wandering down the road. All is well until something happens and everyone is sent skidding.

Beautifully made film is for it’s first half a tightly plotted drama. It’s a wonderful look at a bunch of people being crazy in a remote cabin. The comradery is real and you have the feeling that everyone is truly friends. You also see  how Nina becomes one of them. That first half is wonderful.

The problem is that there is a moment after the stranger joins them that the film goes sideways. The film shifts from straight reality into something else. Things become dreamlike and we aren’t really certain what is real and what isn’t. The straight narrative disappears into mystical trips. It’s creepy and unnerving for a while but there came a point where I wasn’t certain it was going anywhere. Honestly the pieces are, like every other bit of the film, fantastic, but they just don’t some together.

That doesn’t make this is a bad film, it just makes what is great film for the better part of an hour an okay one in the end.

The one thing I have to talk about is the performance of Noubi Ndiaye. Giving one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen (no really) he is a force of nature. There is a moment where he stares hurt and broken and not understanding and my soul cracked.  I had to rewatch the sequence a couple of times to see if I could figure out how in the hell he was doing what he was doing. I have no idea other than he managed to call up all the pain in the universe and bleed it out of his soul and on to the screen in a few fleeting moments. It was a moment that pretty much broke me in half. This is one of the finest piece of acting I have ever seen on screen or in person. I can not wait to see what he does next. His performance singlehandedly makes the film worth seeing.

For the bits that work and for Noubi Ndiaye‘s performance HUNTING DAZE is recommended

DOUNIA: THE GREAT WHITE NORTH (2023) NYICFF 2024

Sequel to DOUNIA & THE PRINCESS OF ALEPPO which played last year’s NYICFF. That film followed Dounia’s flight from Syria to safety in Canada. She and her grandparents made it to safety but her father was still  stuck in the worn torn country.

As the film opens Dounia and her grand parents are trying to assimilate in a town in the frozen north. She has made friends with Rosalie a French-Canadian girl and Miguizou who is a member of the First Nations. We watch as Dounia navigates her life with  her friends and family while her father tries to get to his daughter.

While not as tense  as the first film this film is a nice film that takes us through the next steps of a refugee. It’s a film that has a lot to say about the refugee experience as well some important things about the people of the First Nation.

If you liked the first film and wanted to know what happened next this film is for you.

Wendy Feinberg on Sugarcane (2024) Sundance 2024

 

Of the many documentary films I watched at this year’s Sundance Film Festival,  the world premiere of SUGARCANE, in my estimation, ranks among the best and  most important at the festival. I am not sure if I will be able to do this film the  justice that it deserves, but I will try.  

The film, co-directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, won the well deserved Directing Award in U.S. Documentary category at the festival and tells  the very powerful and emotional story of the indigenous children who lived on the  Sugarcane Indian Reservation in Canada and attended the St. Joseph’s Mission  Residential School.  

Beginning in 1894 indigenous Canadian children were forced to attend Canadian  government schools, most run by the Catholic Church. There were rumors of  abuse at these schools and unmarked graves were found of children who died  while living at the St. Joseph’s Mission School. In the film, many members of the  Sugarcane reservation are interviewed. A young Chief Willie Sellars speaks about  what has been done in the recent past to heal and honor the survivors, including  the celebration of Orange Shirt Day, honoring children taken from families and  sent to the mission. We meet Charlene Belleau, who is investigating the abuses at  the school, including the mysterious unmarked graves. Now deceased, I was  moved by Rick Gilbert, a survivor of the mission school, who traveled with a  group to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis to discuss the cruelties  experienced at the school. We hear from many other survivors of the abuses that  occurred at St. Joseph’s, including Ed Archie Noisecat, who is co-director Julian  Brave NoiseCat’s father, as well as his father’s mother (Julian’s grandmother), two  of the many that experienced multi-generational abuse at the school.  

It was heartbreaking to hear about the horrific physical and sexual abuse that  occurred at the school which led to the school being closed down in 1981.  Unfortunately, this abuse led to many unwanted pregnancies and deaths at the  school, as well as alcoholism, abandonment issues and a number of suicides by  survivors after leaving the school.  

Although sometimes disturbing to listen to the stories told by the survivors, I feel  that SUGARCANE is a gripping film that needs to be seen by all as a reminder of  the injustices that have been wrought upon native people, not only in Canada, but  around the world. In the film it is mentioned that this is also an American story  where more than twice as many children were taken from their families.  Highly recommended!

Tales From the Rez (2023) and Cloud Striker (2023) Blood in the Snow

 

CLOUD STRIKER is the short playing with TALES FROM THE REZ

What happens when a First Nation father goes to reclaim his child from a Christian school.

I’ve ran across this short at another festival and it’s a really good tale of revenge.

TALES FROM THE REZ|
Several episodes of horror set in the Native American community (hence the title).

This is closer to TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE as opposed to TWILIGHT ZONE or TALES FROM THE CRYPT. For me that’s a big selling point since while I love those other shows, DARKSIDE always felt warm and inviting in a scary sort of a way. There was never the mean spiritedness of some of the CRYPT stories or the intellectual pretentions of ZONE.

These are some great stories. They have great set ups that quietly hook us an d pull us in. The first story for example is set up by a guy in a chair sitting and talking to us before the story kicks in , the next thing we know we’re hip deep in the creepy stuff, with an great pay off….

And yes I am being intentionally not forth coming with details. I am doing so because to say anything is to risk spoilers and one of the joys for me was not having any clue about what the story was or how many. With compilations like this am frequently guilty of using the plots and number of stories to work out when the pay off is coming. With TALES FROM THE REZ I went in blind and just let it all was over me. That’s the way to do it.

My refusal to say anything aide, TALES FROM THE REZ is a joy. I had a grand time watching the tales. I want more.

The collection is highly recommended.

One With The Whale (2023) DOC NYC 2023

This is a film you must see on the big screen. Trust me. That opening shot is going to mess up your head and make your jaw hang open. What looks like stones at the bottom of a river is revealed to be huge blocks of ice on the ocean  between which a small boat is navigating.  From this simple setting of the scene, this film drops us into a small community on St. Lawrence Island where the islanders struggle to survive. It’s a simple tale with images the like of which we’ve not see before.

This film is a stunner. It’s the sort of small scale human story that Hollywood spend millions on, you know those epic films of regular people in eye exploding places that are Oscar bait? With ONE WITH THE WHALE it’s real. We are in a spectacular looking place where people live.

And beyond the visuals we have a group of wonderful people. This portrait of a community is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. Shot as if we were one of the group we are pulled in and carried along. Life truly seems to be unfolding before us. Too often when watching similar films the camera and the crew seem to be slightly outside the action, we are not fully part of things. As good as Frederick Wiseman’s observational films are we are observing, we are not participating Directors Peter Chelkowski and Jim Wickens has us participating. It’s glorious since it makes everything that happens that much more involving - even when characters hug- we really feel it.

What an absolute joy.

This is a truly great film- you need to see this.

Someone Lives Here (2023) DOC NYC 2023

Khaleel Seiwright built small one room Tiny Shelters for homeless people trying to survive the winter in Toronto during a bitterly cold winter in Toronto during the Covid lockdown. As he tried to actually help people with movable homes that can actually keep the homeless safe and warm, the city took steps to stop him.

This film is going to piss you off. What starts out as a great film about a great idea, small mobile houses that are warmed by body heat and can keep people safe and warm, turns into a nightmare as Toronto does everything it can to stop Seiwright from actually making a difference. They don't want to help anyone, they just want the homeless to go somewhere else. You will want to fly to Toronto and burn the city down by the end. 

This is a sad film whose story is being repeated across America. No one wants the homeless near them because they will bring down property values. DO any of the people actually help the homeless, of course not they just want them moved. The film clearly charts the official bullshit via the use of videos and recorded phone calls which show how the city declares the shelters dangerous, despite never inspecting them, and how the homeless are being told that all they need to do is ask for help at any time in order to received it only to find that not only do they have to call during certain hours, there actually is no help for them.

Some one needs to kick these people square in the nuts.

This is a vital and important film because it explains why cities and states will never really solve the homeless problem and that some other means of getting people into real homes needs to be found.

Highly recommended.

GAMMA RAYS (2023) San Sebastian 2023

This is the story of several young adults on the fringes of their groups and what happens to them.

I’m sorry if that doesn’t tell you a great deal but it’s kind of hard to really discuss what this film is. One part narrative and one part documentary the film is hybrid mix that is kind of like watching life as live except that we know some of this was created for the film. I have not explored how much that is, rather I just let wash over me like watching people on a summer day.

This is nice little film that moves you and touches your heart because you quickly realize the people on screen are real people. 

It's also a hard film to really discuss in a vacuum because in viewing the film you want to relate what you've seen to your own life, and you want to relate to it in a conversation with someone because you will have thoughts and ideas that you want to discuss not pontificate about. My feeling when the film was done was to discuss it not review it.

That my friends is a rave because it is a sign of a film that demand we interact with it.

Go see GAMMA RAYS, if not at the San Sebastian Film Festival where it just premiered then at one of the festivals that will follow soon.

King Tide (2023) Toronto 2023

After a storm a small town isolated on a distant island finds a baby under a capsized boat. The child has miraculous powers and can heal anyone she is near. Ten years on, an unexpected event forces the island to consider if they should keep themselves and the girl isolated or if she should be brought into the world. The discussion threatens to tear the once closely knit community apart.

For the most part I really liked KING TIDE. It’s a film with a dynamite sense of place and  solid cast. We are on an island in the middle of the sea. You can almost smell the sea breeze. It is a film that has a lot going on and asks us to ponder some heady subjects. It is for the most part a solid drama.

The place where the film gets in trouble and which keeps me from truly loving the film is in the tone of the film. From the opening frame to the last the film is dripping with the sense of tragedy. The framing the shots and especially the score push the film into a dark place from the beginning. The trip down the path is set at the outset with , the tone and the mood so the result is the story doesn’t build to anything. We know where this story stands. I knew things were not going to be happy.

Does it make it a bad film? No, but a film should be a journey that surprises us where it ends. KING TIDE signals where we are going to be at the end and it takes some of the edge off.

Still what is here is really good and I recommend it.