TIFF16: J-Horror Monster Rally and a Post-Apocalyptic Cannibal Western

In your timeline, the Toronto International Film Festival is over. In mine, it is 8:27 am on the final Sunday and I am in a line-up waiting to get into the Scotiabank 14. To the max extent possible I have programmed the funnest, most watchable flicks for this last exhausted crawl over the finish line. And, to give away the ending, that worked exactly according to plan.

(My full capsule review round-up, for your clip and save convenience, drops on Tuesday.)

Godspeed (Taiwan, Chung Mong-Hong, 4) A young drug courier takes a cab to a distant hand-off location, forming a combative friendship of circumstance with the aging driver. Elusive interweaving of character comedy, gangland violence, and Buddhist existentialism.

From the director of past Ken & Robin fave Soul.

I managed to make it to the final day before resorting to movie theater poutine, so that’s an achievement. (We’re talking Toronto here, so the involvement of pulled pork can be taken as read.)

Neruda (Chile, Pablo Larrain, 4) Cynical secret policeman (Gael Garcia Bernal) hunts politician-poet Pablo Neruda after the Chilean government issues a warrant for his arrest in 1947. Magical-realist manhunt biopic shot in the blues and purples of a faded photograph.

One of two biopics Larrain had at the fest this year, the other being the much buzzed about Jackie.

Catfight (US, Onur Tukel, 4) A chance meeting between former college frenemies (Sandra Oh, Anne Heche) leads to brutal combat and a cycle of reprisals. If you need your movies to feature likeable protagonists, you will not enjoy this cruelly hilarious satire of America’s poisoned discourse nearly as much as I did. Kubrickian not in its visual style but in its use of music and view of humanity.

Sadako vs Kayako (Japan, Kôji Shiraishi, 4) When two young women fall prey to separate ghostly curses--one connected to an abandoned house, the other to a cursed VHS tape--an exorcist hatches a scheme to save them by provoking the two legendary bakemono to fight each other. Monster rally sequel to The Ring and The Grudge has creepy, crazy fun merging the two J-horror franchises.

The Bad Batch (US, Ana Lily Amirpour, 5) Sentenced as an undesirable to a vast, lawless Texas internment zone, a young woman (Suki Waterhouse) plans vengeance against the cannibal community that cut off and ate her arm and leg. Visually bold, sometimes shocking post-apocalyptic western. With Jason Momoa as the main people-eater, Keanu Reeves as a local potentate who looks like Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton character, and an unrecognizable Jim Carrey in the old coot role.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16: Saudi Rom Com

Saturday morning. The penultimate day of the Toronto International Film Festival. 35 movies down, 10 to go. The weather app predicts thunderstorms on a day of outdoor line-ups. Time for the inconveniently large umbrella and some more capsule reviews.

Death in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Danis Tanovic, 3.5) A failing hotel heads for a strike as it prepares to host an EU commemoration of the Franz Ferdinand assassination centenary. Ensemble political drama portrays the Balkan conflict as not resolved, but latent, behind a crumbling facade.

This is a prime example of what I think of as a festival movie--something I’m glad to see as part of a slate of films, but that I might not want to arrange an evening around.

Barakah Meets Barakah (Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud Sabbagh, 4) Naive municipal inspector falls for fiery Instagram star--but love isn’t easy when any date can be raided by the religious police. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting protest against the fundamentalist constriction of ordinary Saudi Arabian life than a funny, charming romantic.

That means, of all the films I’ve seen so far at the fest, the one most likely to get the filmmaker in trouble is a rom-com.

Blind Sun (Greece, Joyce A. Nashawati, 2) I'm a near future where a water shortage is pushing Greece back in police state condition, a man engaged to guard a rich family’s villa slowly loses it. Monotonous Antonioni pastiche.

So that’s twice this fest I talked myself into seeing essentially the same dud film. Without Name is “what if Ben Wheatley remade The Tenant”? and this is “what if Antonioni remade The Tenant”? Note to future self: avoid scheduling anything that might be The Tenant as if remade by anybody.

The Patriarch (New Zealand, Lee Tamahori, 3.5) In 50s New Zealand the head of a prosperous Maori sheep-shearing family (Temeura Morrison) butts heads with his smart, questioning teen grandson. Masterfully summons the sweep of fifties and sixties CinemaScope epics--though unfortunately the comparison extends to some extremely on-the-nose dialogue in the climactic dramatic confrontations.

Definitely eclipses all of cinema history’s previous sheep shearing competition sequences.

The Age of Shadows (South Korea, Kim Jee woon, 4) During the Japanese occupation of Korea, a collaborating police captain (Song Kang-Ho) plays a double game while hunting the resistance. Assured blend of action, Hitchcockian spy suspense, and drama of conflicted loyalties from the director of The Good, The Bad and the Weird.

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Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.