TIFF ’23: What To See at This Year’s Fest, Sept. 8 (Plus, a Day in the Life of a Hack)
By Jim Slotek, Liz Braun, Thom Ernst, Karen Gordon, Kim Hughes, John Kirk, Chris Knight, Liam Lacey, and Bonnie Laufer
And just like that, it’s here! The 48th annual edition of the Toronto International Film Festival arrives with diminished celebrity power but with a heap of amazing features, shorts, and documentaries to see before wrapping September 17.
Original-Cin writers are previewing as many films as possible to help you build a can’t-miss schedule of screenings, both now and in the future when many of these debuting titles will roll out into cinemas or on streaming services.
Check out our TIFF preview piece, our thoughts on the current strikes keeping Hollywood A-listers off the red carpets, and watch for incoming ephemera such as interviews like this one with Eva Thomas, director of the short (but possibly soon-to-be feature-length) drama Redlights and Chris Knight’s charming recollection of attending TIFF as both critic and movie fan.
Note that because of TIFF embargoes, our capsule reviews are tied to a film’s second public screening, not its first.
Anatomy of a Fall
Anatomy of a Fall (Special Presentations)
Fri, Sept. 8, 4 pm, Scotiabank 12.
The winner of the Palm d’Or at last spring’s Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall is an engrossing film about relationships, family, and perceptions wrapped in a courtroom drama. The formidable German actress Sandra Hüller is riveting as Sandra, a successful writer living in an isolated chalet in France with her husband Samuel (Samuel Theiss) and their son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner). When Samuel is found dead in the snow outside their house, Sandra is charged with his murder. Co-writer and director Justine Triet — one of the stars of the current French wave of directors — reveals the complexities of the story slowly and deliberately in this beautifully calibrated film. KG
Bloom (Short Cuts Programme 2)
Fri, Sept. 8, 6:50 pm, Scotiabank 14; Tues, Sept 12. 11:30 am, Scotiabank 14.
The always wonderful Jodi Balcour (The Crown, For All Mankind, Ted Lasso) shines in this impactful film about taking control of one’s life. Written and directed by Kasey Lum, Bloom explores one’s close connection with nature. Fragile after a breakup, Laurel (Balcour) searches for stability, only to form a very strange bond with a houseplant. As we slowly learn about her pain, the plant appears to take root in Laurel's psyche, making her question where it ends and she begins. We get a strong sense of the interconnectedness between humans and nature, and the consequences that can arise when neglected. I’ll never forget to water my plants again. BL
I Don’t Know Who You Are (Discovery)
Fri, Sept. 8, 10 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 4.
Mark Clennon is Benjamin, a musician starting to get back into his music after a difficult breakup. Plus, he’s met a promising romantic prospect. But after Benjamin is sexually assaulted by a stranger he is thrown back into despair, and forced to secure cash to pay for the PEP medication to ensure he is not HIV-infected. The film has a taste of 1968’s The Swimmer, based on John Cheever’s short story of a man who breast strokes his way home through suburbia from backyard pool to backyard pool. Only in Murry’s film, the swimming pools are replaced with wine glasses. Clennon’s performance might remind some viewers of David Thewlis’s commanding presentation in Naked (1993) or even Oscar Isaac’s journey in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). But the film falters when it heralds the benefit of PEP (which is no doubt true) to the point of sounding like a PSA. TE
Perfect Days (Centrepiece)
Fri, Sept. 8, 9:30 pm, Scotiabank 4.
Wim Wenders’ beautiful new film is set in modern-day Tokyo. Veteran Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho is Hirayama, a quiet, meticulous man who cleans public toilets. He leads a very simple life. We glean bits about him from his routines, and his enjoyment in various arts. For instance, he drives to work listening to cassettes from artists like Patti Smith and Lou Reed. He does, of course, have interactions in the film that give us more of a sense of him, but leaning on a wonderful performance by Yakusho — who won best actor at last spring’s Cannes Film Festival — Wenders doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to give the movie a big crescendo. In the end it feels like both a character study and — if you’ll forgive the cliché — a meditation, not simply on aging, but on seeing the world through in our unique way and living the days we have with our own sense of purpose. KG
The Contestant (TIFF Docs)
Fri, Sept. 8, 9:30 pm, Scotiabank 14.
It’s The Truman Show meets Old Boy — but real. In 1998, a Japanese game show contestant known as Nasubi (eggplant, after the shape of his face) spent more than a year alone in a tiny apartment, naked and with only a stack of magazines, from which he had to enter contests until he won a million yen (about $10,000 today) in prizes. He also needed to win food, which led to him living on a diet of rice, dog food and, in the early days, willpower. And when TV viewers questioned whether the weekly show was real, the producers live-streamed it, all without Nasubi’s knowledge. Director Clair Titley expertly captures this funny/heartbreaking example of cruelty as entertainment. It has to be seen to be believed. CK
TIFF Diary, Day 1: The Toils and Spoils of Being A Critic
By Chris Knight
Eat. Sleep. Write. This is the holy trinity of the film festival journalist, each one valuable, even necessary, yet difficult to find. And all the more so when one attempts the five-films-in-one-day marathon that is the critic’s badge of honour. Here’s how mine went on TIFF’s first day.
8:50 am. En route to the Varsity. The studio behind A Haunting in Venice decided to press-screen the film (see my review next Friday at Original-Cin!) on day one of TIFF. From the subway I notice a flatbed truck heading south on the Don Valley Parkway, carrying a big orange TIFF sign, destined for King (sorry, Festival) Street.
9:30 am. First food of the day: Tim Hortons’ breakfast sandwich, hash brown and coffee. No greens yet.
10:00 am. A Haunting in Venice. Tina Fey’s character tells Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot that retirement has made him happy but not satisfied. An hour and three quarters later I decide Branagh’s third instalment in his Agatha Christie series has left me in a similar state. I swear he’s doing them just for the fun of wearing the moustache and speaking in a French-Belgian accent.
12:01 pm. TTC to Festival Street, during which I run into Original-Cin.ca founder Jim Slotek and confirm plans for a Tuesday-night get-together, which at this point feels like it’s a month away. (Note to CK: the get-together is actually on Thursday. Jeesh – Ed). Exiting the subway at King and University, I see the orange TIFF sign has beaten me there, though it remains unwrapped.
12:30 pm. Screening of Walls, an Italian documentary about a border wall that was built last year between Poland and Belarus. A little thin, but I remain hopeful for Green Border, Agnieszka Holland’s dramatized version of the same story, later in the festival. Anyway, just enough time to grab a bottle of water on my way to...
2:45 pm. Screening of Flora & Son, a comedy from John Carney (Once, Sing Street) about an Irish family who are all infected with a love of making music. Sweet and toe-tapping, with a wonderful CanCon “cameo” when someone watches an old video of a performance by Joni Mitchell of “Both Sides Now.” It made the character cry. Me too.
4:20 pm. Just time to grab a burrito on Adelaide. Later, waiting for my next screening, I bump into former TIFF head honcho Piers Handling, and apologize that I’m too burrito-y to shake his hand. He understands, and when I ask how his TIFF is going, he tells me he wasn’t a huge fan of Anatomy of a Fall, but that he was very moved by Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, about the domestic life of a Nazi death camp commander. Great thing about post-TIFF Piers? He doesn’t have to censor his opinions.
5:30 pm. Screening of Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, a whimsical little love story and my second CanCon musical cameo of the day, given its use of Gordon Lightfoot’s “In the Early Morning Rain” — in Finnish! The Finnish lyrics aren’t nearly as good as the Canadian ones, however.
6:50 pm. Grabbing a coffee at King and John, which I’ll promptly counteract with a tumbler of white wine at the next venue. The street is relatively silent as I enter the coffeeshop, but on exiting I find that Toronto pianist-composer Thompson Egbo-Egbo, one of the free musical acts, has started playing around the corner on the Festival Street Music Stage. The street has come alive.
8:00 pm. Gala opening-night screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron at Roy Thomson Hall. Numerous introductions include one by Guillermo del Toro, who notes that traditional animation is the one medium in which everything has to be made from scratch. The graceful motion of a human body or a blade of grass or a cloud can all be filmed in live-action, but in animation they must be created one frame at a time. The film is confusing and funny and wonderful, although I’m too sleepy to fully appreciate its grandeur. A second screening after the festival will be welcome.
11:00 pm. Heading home on the TTC. I have eaten enough to sustain myself through five films (barely). Sleep beckons as soon as I’m home. And I finish writing up this diary. Missions accomplished. Tomorrow, I do it all again. Though maybe just three screenings this time.