tiff 50 BALLARD of a SMALL PLAYER: Gweilo, Ghosts and Ghuols Haunt The Macau Night. A Reflection by Robert Aaron Mitchell

 

Filmmaker Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave) returns with is third Toronto International Film Festival premiere with Ballard of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell who plays Lord Doyle. A down on his luck gambler. The film is based on the novel by Lawrence Osborne and adapted by screenwriter Rown Joffe. 

It is cliche to say it however I shall say it. Anytime a film is shot on location in an amazingly cinematic local - in this case, Macau - Macau is indeed it's own character in the movie. The cinematography by James Friend (All Quiet on the Western Front) beautifully captures the sensory overload of the gambling capital of the world. 

The act of gambling is a ever increasingly successive roller coaster of highs and lows. Lord Doyle walks out of the hotel and asks the attendant for a limousine. The attendant informs the Lord that all the cars are currently tied up. Lord Doyle informs him he just needs one big win. The big score all gamblers and bank robbers are chasing. 

Lord Bryon informs us that he a gweilo. A Chinese word for white people. It literally translates to "ghoul man" or "ghost man."He is a ghost floating through the universe invisible. Perhaps so but not so invisible to the people the Lord owes money to.  

Lord Doyle's game of choice is Pai Gow. A game of insanely high stakes and insanely crazy swings. He wakes up back in the hotel hungover. Today is the first day of the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts Residents from all over the city will be attending and bringing offerings for the dead. 

Lord Doyle leaves the hotel for another night of depravity and arrives at a scene of a man who committed suicide and landed on a car on the street. A torrential downpour starts. He gets into a taxi with Dao Ming (Fala Chen) he pleads to her as only a desperate gambler can. His luck has to change. It is all statistics...right? No one can stay down for ever? Right? He offers Dao a proposition a 50/50 split. She shuts it down, "no more credit to him or anyone else." She has given up. "On life?" Lord Doyle asks. "Lending money to another addict?" She says to Doyle. 

Dao offers an offering to a shrine. The flames of the pyre light up the night. Doyle informs Dao he is about to win to win big and will pay off his debts and her debts. His ship is about to come in. A Lord never goes back on his word. Dao whispers, "I have run out of chances." 

Doyle runs into another gweilo Betty (Tilda Swinton) who snaps his picture. He wants the picture deleted. He wants five hundred USD for the picture. They have a conversation and she calls Doyle by another name.  He takes off with her purse and sets off a chase through the hotel. She gives him the money he wins 10000 grand at the table. 

Can a gambler ever get the big score? Will that ship ever arrive? What if you did hit the score? What is left? There is always...one...last...bet....

tiff 50 TRAIN DREAMS: The Beauty, Absurdity, Tragedy and Wonder of it all. A Reflection by Robert Aaron Mitchell

 

 

The pathos of it all. Train Dreams the cinematic adaptation by director Clint Bentley (Sing Sing, Jockey) starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones had it's International Premiere in the Special Presentations of the 2025 Toronto International Film festival. Train Dreams is adapted from the novella of the same name by writer/poet Denis Johnson. 

Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) is a logger as well as railroad worker at the turn of the 20th century. He meets Gladys (Felicity Jones). Life is idyllic. More apt home life is idyllic. Robert and Gladys set up a small log cabin off of a lazy river. Soon they have a daughter. As the narration by Will Paxton states, "this was the happiest (Robert) ever was). By the nature of Robert's professions he has to leave for places far away for long periods of time. He laments that his daughter will not who is. 

 

Once Robert is sawing logs, laying rail ties the pathos of the world is unleashed. A Chinese railroad worker is picked up by other workers and carried to a railroad bridge crossing a gorge many miles below. Robert is screaming, "What has he done!? "What has he done?!" There is no answers forthcoming, only a senseless murder. 

Another logging season sees Robert sawing a large log with a very talkative Frank (Paul Schneider) a man enters the logging camp and asks the whereabouts of Frank. He than guns him down with two bullets and explains to the loggers that Frank killed his brother in New Mexico. Violence in America arrives without warning, without reason and with swift irreversible consequences. 

Arn Peeples (William H. Macy) is a man with a limited and specialized job in the logging camps. He is the man who operates the dynamite. At one point around a fireside conversation he laments the fact that they are cutting down 500 year old trees. Everything is connected and there will be hell to pay. 

 

The randomness of it all Robert struggles with as he is trying to find his place in the world and what it all means. The cinematography by Adolpho Veloso) is absolutely exquisite and captures the beauty, the absurdity, the tragedy and the wonder of it all. 

Robert returning from camp arrives as a forest fire has enveloped where the Grainier cabin was. He digs through the ash for answers and none are forthcoming. Trains Dreams is hauntingly reflective. As I watch a piece of cinematic art I place myself with the work and connect it to my life experiences and the world that I am currently breathing in. The fact that Train Dreams premiered on my birthday is not lost on me a time of usual self-reflection. The parallels of the random violence, racism and environmental destruction. there is currently an oil fracking operation on the ranch I am living on in South Texas. What is my place in the world as "immigration" use brutal state sanctioned violence on the people of America. I hope some of the answers arrive before my 80th birthday. We, the audience can at least take solace that Robert Grainier soars above the earth and finds peace.

tiff50 KOKUHO: Director Lee Sang-il Talks About KOKUHO With Exclusive Stills

 

 

About 15 years ago, I had the idea of making a movieabout onnagata [male actors who play female characters] in kabuki performances. I did a lot of research and got deeper into the world of kabuki. In retrospect, maybe my film, Kokuho, emerged from this early conception. Originally, I intended to write a story modeled on an actual actor, but I didn’t know where to go from there. At the time, the project was too ambitious for me to handle. 

 

 

Then I had an opportunity to speak with the novelist, Shūichi Yoshida, whose novel, Villain,I’d adapted into a movie. I mentioned my idea about a kabuki-themed movie and he seemed interested. A few years later, I heard about his new novel which would be serialized in a newspaper. It was about kabuki, which intrigued me. With no objective in mind, I was keen to know how Yoshida would depict the world of kabuki and what story he would tell. I didn’t immediately think of adapting his novel, KOKUHO, because my earlier attempt hadn’t worked out. Then I observed enthusiasm building around the idea of making Kokuho into a movie until it slowly distilled into reality. 

 

I was cautious but I was certain of one thing. The movie could only proceed if we could find an actor capable of portraying the protagonist, Kikuo, as he would carry the movie. Then I had a fortunate encounter with the actor, Ryō Yoshizawa. Without exaggeration, the project would have
ended if not for Yoshizawa. It went ahead because we had him; Ryō Yoshizawa is the movie. Kikuo, the character that Yoshizawa played, would be the spine of the story. If I had just picked up episodes related to Kikuo from the novel, the movie risked being just a catalog of events in Kikuo’s life. I decided to focus on his journey of ups and downs, on the arc of his life and where it draws him and where he ends up. That would shape the movie. As the son of a gang boss, Kikuo’s life revolves around the blessings and curses of lineage as he dives into the world of kabuki.

 

That was the plot but what was more essential to show was Kikuo’s soulful connection with Shunsuke. There’s a ying/yang component to their relationship and their souls appear to meld on stage. With that in mind, when we developed the screenplay, I carefully extracted scenes from various kabuki acts that would symbolically show the highs and lows of the two men’s lives together and how they become one in communion. Kikuo and Shunsuke are immersed in the unique world of kabuki where the art is passed on through succession. Preserving the intangible art of kabuki through generations of actors. My initial interest in onnagata probably explains my fascination with kabuki. There is a timeless quality to onnagata, they’re an androgynous depiction of other. They’re atypical, in a class of their own. They’re sensual in a sophisticated way and if I may say...the sensuality strikes you unexpectedly. I don’t know where it comes from, maybe from the corporeal intensive training? But I was firm on NOT employing trained kabuki actors as dance doubles for Ryō Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama [who played Shunsuke]. I was convinced that having these two actors perform the kabuki acts would breathe life into the movie adaptation and keep it authentic. The character of Kikuo is on a life-long quest to find an allusive “scenery”. I’ve come to believe that it’s the same scenery that Ryō Yoshizawa would have seen as he tackled the demanding role of a kabuki actor.