For the second year in a row I attended the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) from my couch. And for the second year in a row the thing was a bit of a mess, though I guess successfully viewing the films means it was a success.
Tag: TIFF21
Becoming Cousteau (2021, Liz Garbus)
This is a fairly traditional and hagiographic documentary about Jacques Cousteau. I had no idea he had such an incredible life but I’m not sure this is the movie to tell his story.
Saloum (2021, Jean Luc Herbulot)
My first Senegalese film (as far as I know), this is a tonally inconsistent horror movie which tries to trick you into thinking it’s something else more than once. It’s super stylized and some of my confusion with it likely stems from having never been to Africa and knowing literally nothing about this part of …
Zalava (2021, Arsalan Amiri)
This is a psychological horror drama set in an absolutely gorgeous part of Iranian Kurdistan pre Iranian Revolution. There’s a bit of a Wicker Man vibe to it, though it is a little more grounded in reality (and a hell of a lot prettier). SPOILERS
Arthur Rambo (2021, Laurent Cantet)
This is the story of a rising French literary star (and YouTube personality) whose career is derailed right at the moment of his big triumph by his Twitter history. it’s something that happens seemingly every day in our world and yet I don’t think I’ve seen yet seen a movie that explicitly deals with this, …
True Things (2021, Harry Wootliff)
This movie follows a predictable arc, if you’re familiar with its type: the main character is struggling with their life, a mysterious stranger comes in and entrances said character (or “insert other plot device here”) , and then life lessons. (Sorry for the mild spoiler.) I point this out so early in the review because, …
Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (2021, Edwin)
This film is many things all at once. It is, kind of incredibly, based on a novel, which made my confusion over what happens all the deeper, as the thing that I can’t resolve feels like its the kind of issue that wouldn’t exist in a book. So I’m wondering if something was lost in …
Dashcam (2021, Rob Savage)
The people who made this movie are extremely enamoured with Annie Hardy. I didn’t know anything about her though she’s actually only a few months older than me. If I had encountered her music when I first encountered Anal Cunt or when I was, say, 22, I can imagine also being enamoured by her music. …
Hold Your Fire (2021, Stefan Forbes)
This documentary looks at a 1973 hostage taking at a sporting goods store in Bushwick in Brooklyn, and how it helped create the idea of permanent hostage negotiation units.
Huda’s Salon (2021, Hany Abu-Assad)
This is an excellent, taut thriller about blackmail and hard choices in Palestine. It is mostly extremely well done and really worth checking out both for how it works as a movie and for its message of how hard it is to be moral in a place where you feel like you have no allies. …
Attica (2021, Stanley Nelson)
All I really knew about Attica was the scene in Dog Day Afternoon, a movie I’ve seen way too many times. I had some vague idea of the riot, but that was it. This documentary collects interviews from the prisoners, the “Observer’s Committee” and the families of some of the guards to re-tell the story …