September 14, 2012

TIFF Day Nine

Night Across the Street [France/Chile, Raul Ruiz, 3] Aging shipping clerk recalls his childhood and waits to be assassinated. Adaptation of magic realist novel misses the transporting quality of the director's key works.

Burn It Up Djassa [Ivory Coast, Lonesome Solo, 3] A young man's plunge into street crime is seen both through the bravado of a neighborhood storyteller and the bitter reality of direct experience. Your basic naturalistic developing world crime drama.

It does not need to be said that, among directors with work appearing at this year’s festival, Lonesome Solo hands-down wins the award for best name.

Pieta [South Korea, Kim Ki-duk, 4] Brutal debt collector loses his psychopathic equilibrium when a woman shows up claiming to be the mother who abandoned him at birth. Kim recovers from a dry spell by returning to the ultra-nastiness of the films that first made his name on the festival circuit.

The Thieves [South Korea, Choi Dong-hoon, 4] Heisters from Korea and Hong Kong uneasily ally to steal a diamond from a Macao casino. Cracking entertainment presents a fresh take on the genre by focusing on plots and betrayals among the gang--then throws in killer action sequences and Simon Yam, to boot!

This is now South Korea's top box office grosser.

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