TIFF 2021 SILENT NIGHT: Reflections by Carol Borden

 By Carol Borden

Camille Griffin’s Silent Night (UK, 2021) was not the cozy British Christmas movie starring Keira Knightley I was expecting. Sure, it starts with a range of well-off couples singing along to a Michael Bublé Christmas song as they drive to a beautiful house in the English countryside. Tony (Rufus Jones), Sandra (Annabelle Wallis) and their daughter Kitty (Davida McKenzie), James (Ṣọpé Dìrísù) and Sophie (Lily-Rose Depp), and Bella (Lucy Punch) and Alex (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) all seem to be in good spirits as they reveal comedicaly charming little cracks in their relationships. But they are gamely trying their best for a Happy Christmas among old friends. And, sure, Nell (Keira Knightley) is madly trying to finish dinner in time for everyone’s arrival with the help of her son Art (Roman Griffin Davis) while her husband Simon (Matthew Goode) corrals their other two sons, Thomas (Gilby Griffin Davis) and Hardy (Hardy Griffin Davis), into the bath and lays down the screen time and swearing rules for the night. Of course, there are problems with dinner preparation. There are only enough potatoes for each person to have one. Nell didn’t get the sticky toffy pudding promised to Kitty this year. And Art cuts himself and bleeds on some of the carrots. And this is where little things start to accumulate. Nell is hosting a lot of people and can be hard to figure out how much food is enough for 12 people, including four tween or teen children. But why doesn’t she throw out the bled upon carrots? Why do her friends still eat the raw carrots after seeing some blood on them? And when Sandra and Nell send Simon and Tony to the store for sticky toffy pudding, why do they suggest throwing a rock through the store window?

Silent Night is not a cozy Christmas reunion in the country movie. A kind of movie that is beloved whether filmed in British Columbia for the Hallmark Channel or stars beautiful posh English people on the big screen. Silent Night is another entry into the genre of white people dinner parties--terrifying whether it’s just unpleasant interactions with awful people in many, many period pieces or the hosts are pleasantly planning terrible things, as in Adam Wingard’s You’re Next (2011), Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation (2015) or Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017). This Christmas dinner is a danse macabre or, a la Boccaccio, a plague dinner. Old school friends with two “new” tolerated partners, Alex and Sophie, gather to celebrate one last time before the end. But the plague is not a virus or bacteria. It’s a toxic storm caused by climate change and everyone who has been caught in the gases spreading over the earth has died bleeding out their eyes. The house is beautiful, the wallpaper is worthy of Louis Wain, the friends are eating and dancing together, but the carrots are bloody and the poisonous storm is coming.

The friends gather together in the name of “love and forgiveness.” They also gather to explain to their children what’s happening. Or rather, they explain once they have to. As Sophie, interloping American partner of James the oncologist says, “Posh people like to keep secrets.” And because Silent Night is a comedy, a very dark one, Nell and Simon gather their sons to tell them, “We just want you to understand as your parents, we are not to blame. This is not our choice and this is not our fault.” But none of this goes over well with the children. I think Roman Griffin Davis’ Art will rightfully get a lot of attention, as will Davida McKenzie’s powerhouse performance as the imperious Kitty. But I just want to share my love of Hardy and Gilby Griffin Davis’ delivery as the very chill twins.

Silent Night is a comedy that involves a lot about class and maintaining appearances, both personally and socially. But I think it also deliberately subverts its characters belief that everything and everyone is kind of awful underneath--especially through the character of Alex, a black Lesbian observing many of the shenanigans around her and once using a Scrabble board to comment on secrets being revealed, before remarking to Bella in private, “They’re all so mean.” Alex has seen people not like Bella’s friends even in the world of Silent Night. And many of those people are out there excluded from the British government’s plan for dealing with the toxic gases.

Silent Night was absolutely not what I was expecting. I’m glad Robert Mitchell recommended it to me without telling me why. I do hope they include director Camille Griffin’s video introduction to the film in any video release. I am not sure many people will have that same experience of going in blind, because Silent Night is not a film to suggest to people who want to see a nice, cozy movie to enjoy over the holidays. It would be traumatizing. And a lot of people who would enjoy it might be put off by a Keira Knightley cozy Christmas movie. But I am sure whoever distributes it will find a way because Silent Night is a not movie that is ruined by knowing what it’s about, without knowing too many specifics of what happens. That said, there are some jokes I’d love to repeat here--especially one about The Road (2006). But I won’t. You should probably see it for yourself.

TIFF 2021 SALOUM: Reflections By Carol Borden

 By: Carol Borden 

 Jean Luc Herbulot Saloum (Senegal, 2021)

Saloum was one of my favorite movies at this year’s festival and if you know you like action movies with mercenaries in them, I’d suggest just seeing it without reading or watching anything more about it. I’m not including any serious plot details in this piece, but I also think that Saloum can’t really be spoiled.

During a coup in Guinea-Bissau, three mercenaries extract their target, a Mexican cartel member, Felix (Renaud Farrah), and escape with him, his drugs and his gold. They are Baguin’s Hyenas: Chaka (Yann Gael), the red-gloved brains of the operation; Rafa (Roger Sallah), the more hot-headed and straightforward “brawn”; and the white-dreadlocked Minuit (Mentor Ba), who knows the spirit world and uses gris-gris on their missions. Or, you know, head, heart and spirit. En route to Dakar, they discover their plane is leaking fuel and land in the Sine-Saloum delta in Senegal. Burying Felix’s gold and narcotics, Chaka tells Rafa the plan: They’ll go to a nearby holiday camp and hide out until they can get fuel and resin to repair the plane so they continue on to Dakar. At Camp Baobob, they present themselves as vacationing gold mine workers and meet the genial Omar (Bruno Henry), who runs the camp, and his guests Sephora (Marielle Salmier) an artist; Youce (Cannabasse), Sephora’s ex-partner and current artistic collaborator; Awa (Evelyne Ily Juhen), a deaf woman who knows a lot about the Hyenas; and Cap. Souleymane Fall (Ndiaga Mbow) of the Dakar police. Omar doesn’t require payment from his guests, but he does ask that they do chores to contribute to the camp’s upkeep. 

They have a lovely, delightfully cinematic dinner as everyone except Awa and the artists pretend they are there for some other reason than they are. They trade erudite observations. It has that charming feel of dinners in James Bond movies. Very little is as it seems and antagonists and protagonists spar, but politely and expansively. This is probably the only action movie I’ve seen where Léopold Senghor, poet, founder of the Négritude movement, and president of Senegal was referenced. Then again, Saloum is the only Senegalese action movie I have seen. After dinner, Minuit tells the men that there is an eye on them while Rafa believes something needs to be done because Souleymane is obviously preparing to capture them and Awa signed to them that she plans to reveal the Hyenas’ real identities if they won’t take her with them when they go.

The next day the guests all perform their assigned tasks, and then meet again that evening. And then, as they so often do, things go to hell over dinner. This is also where Saloum takes a turn. And I absolutely did not expect it.

  

Saloum is one of the best movies I saw at the festival this year. I can’t single out a performance, as much as I’d like to. I could write about any of the leads in depth. I could probably also write about Bruno Henry’s suave Omar or Ndiaga Mbow as his Souleymane goes from feeling cheerfully confident in his plan to capture Baguin’s Hyenas to his horrified realization that what he thought was going to happen is absolutely not what is happening. Saloum is a deft mix of genres--crime, action, horror, even maybe fantasy--and influences. It’s well-written and well-crafted. I appreciate how well Saloum integrates the particular history of the region, both in the story and in exposition. The breathtaking shots of the landscape use the whole screen and I love them for that. The pointed presence of the landscape in the film reminds me of Westerns and I wish more action movies used landscapes this way.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be watching Herbulot’s Sakho & Mangane on Netflix now that TIFF is over (for me at least).

TIFF 2021 ZALAVA: Reflections By Carol Borden

By Carol Borden 

 In Arsalan Amiri’s Zalava (Iran, 2021) there is certainly a demon among the people. They are scared and capable of anything. But is that demon their own fear or is there something else cursing them?

The film is set in 1978 in Zalava, Kurdistan, a village settled by Romani one hundred years ago. The village itself is beset by djinn that can only be controlled either by capturing the djinn in a jar or bottle or by wounding a possessed person below the waist. The people of Zalavi prefer to shoot someone in the leg as it has a higher chance of survival but they also will stab or cut a person below the waist so that they “blood spurts.” This prevents the demon from possessing others. As the film opens, a young woman has been declared possessed and the villagers have summoned Sgt. Massoud Amhadi (Navid Pourfaraj) to do something about it. Massoud confiscates the villager’s rifles to prevent them from hurting the girl. He tells them, “She’s better possessed than having you mutilate her.” But after Massoud, his sidekick / underling Younes (Baset Rezaei) and the rest of the local gendarmerie return to their station outside Zalava, the girl’s father draws his knife to do what he believes must be done. Unfortunately, as she backs away from him, she falls to her death.

 

The local people complain to the government, blaming Massoud for her death and his illegal confiscation of their rifles. Massoud receives orders to step down and return the rifles. The day before he is to retire, he dons a very 1978 suit, goes to sign papers and turn in his badge. But the villagers return to the station demanding that he do something about the demons attacking Zalava. Instead of telling the new commander it’s his problem now, Massoud dons his uniform and returns to Zalava to discover metal implements hung in front of doors and strung across alleys to scare the demons away. Everyone is terrified. Some appear to be convulsing. And the center of the activity is a house people are certain now contains a demon. They have called a ritual specialist, Amardan (Pouria Rahimi Sam) to exorcise the demon. Amardan tells the assembled villagers to bring their rifles and all the musicians. The musicians come, but no one will bring a rifle because they believe Massoud will seize them again. Amardan tells Massoud to shoot him in the leg if he comes out empty handed. Then he asks someone to stab him in the leg if Massoud is too afraid to shoot. Amardan comes out of the house carrying a clear jar that he claims contains a djinn. The musicians play. Everyone dances. Massoud is extremely skeptical. And now the real suspense begins. 

 Like a lot of folk horror, Zalava relies on the fear of what people are capable of based on their beliefs and what might be happening that’s rooted in things from long ago that urban and urbanized people might no longer understand. But Zalava also reminds me of Val Lewton’s psychological horror movies at RKO in the 1940s. Though there is a lot of successful suspense built around it in the film, it doesn’t really matter if there is a demon in that jar. The demon’s presence or absence is less important than the destructive power that people themselves are capable of. It’s hard to see how one djinn is really worse than a village of people willing to shoot, stab and even kill each other in their fear that something secret is wrong with someone among them. And the accused we see before they are shot, stabbed or driven off the edge of a building don’t seem much different than anyone else. Though while embodied djinn seem initially innocuous, we do hear that Amardan can send disembodied djinn to do things like pee in dams. While watching Zalava, I couldn’t help thinking about Emir Ezwan’s Roh / Soul (Malaysia, 2019), another film with another demon setting people against each other. But as that demons says, “All we do is whisper.” In Zalava, our fear and panic is far more destructive than any demon could be by itself. 

 

I assume there are social and political implications that aren’t immediately apparent to me in setting the film before the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, but I do appreciate setting it in that time for other reasons. Massoud’s suit and the film’s color palette certainly reflects that era in film. There are some beautiful shots of Massoud’s tan jeep driving through arid, rocky mountains. I didn’t mention Dr. Maliheh (Hoda Zeinolabedin) in my synopsis, but she is integral to the film and she has fantastic chemistry with Navid Pourfaraj’s Massoud. Pourfaraj is another actor who conveys so much with his eyes alone. 

I also appreciate director Arsalan Amiri’s point in his introduction that this kind of panic can happen anywhere anytime. It’s not specific to this place. At the same time, I am not entirely comfortable in setting it among an ethnic minority, Kurdish Romani, even as I know that having some kind of other who is simultaneously outside society and involved in secret and perhaps dangerous supernatural activity is a common story the world over. I don’t know enough history about the area or of Iranian film to say more about whether the people of Zalava are even read as Kurdish or Romani. All that aside, Zalava is an excellent film. And we are wise to remember that, yes, these panics can happen anywhere and we should watch out for them not just in others, but in ourselves because they always feel righteous. 

And if you are concerned about the kitten or the rabbit, they don’t die.

TIFF 2021 I'M YOUR MAN Ich bin dein Mensch: Reflections By Carol Borden

By Carol Borden

Maria Schrader I’m Your Man / Ich bin dein Mensch (Germany, 2021)

Sure, there are a lot of movies about people falling in love with androids, robots and AI, but a lot of them are about the risks and even dangers of men falling in love with robots. In Ex Machina (2014), Her (2013), and Godzilla vs Monster Zero (1965 / 1970), for example, men have learned what it is to feel a love beyond computation. And there is even The Companion (1993), in which a woman falls in love and experiences the perils of a smitten Bruce Greenwood android with full autonomy. But that doesn’t mean that there’s not room in my heart for one more.

Unlike Her, Ex Machina, The Companion and Godzilla vs Monster Zero, Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man / Ich bin dein Mensch (Germany, 2021) is mostly a romantic comedy. It just has some additional existential drama. Schrader is also an actor. You might know her from Aimeé & Jaguar (1999) or Nobody Loves Me / Keiner leibt mich (1994), but she has moved into directing and I am happy she has.

Dr. Alma Falsar (Marren Eggert) is working on breakthrough research she is about to publish on previously undiscovered poetry in cuneiform tablets at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum. The museum’s administration has offered her additional funding if she’ll participate in an experiment. She’s to spend three weeks with an android designed to be her perfect partner* and then write an evaluation that will help determine whether or not robots should be allowed to marry and have other rights in society. Of course, this funding is a “thank you gift” and not a bribe.

Alma meets Tom (Dan Stevens) at a special club designed to show off the romantic possibilities of androids--and even holograms. Tom attempts to woo her with compliments and the rhumba, but it’s not really Alma’s thing and she seems more interested in him as a robot than a potential partner. She does, however, take Tom home and set him up with his own room. And so the experiment begins.

In another film, Tom might rampage or we might discover he is more “human” than human. Another film might let Tom be hit by a streetcar for maximum pathos or to resolve the central conflicts it has set up about what it means to be happy and what it means to have a perfectly compatible partner who only wants to make you happy and give you everything you want. Another film might echo the warnings of earlier science fiction that the robots will trick us by being perfect servants and then take over. (Shades of Benito Cereno). I’m Your Man / Ich bin dein Mensch does not. But it does provide the possibility of Alma navigating her principles and concerns while also, perhaps, allowing herself to love and be loved. And I appreciate that it navigates issues of consent well--not only Alma’s but Tom’s ability to consent.

The above might make it sound like the film is not funny, but I have to say that Dan Steven’s Tom was hilarious to me. His reactions, his romantic poses, his delivery and his too much intense eye contact and initial overuse of Alma’s name were all on point. Marren Eggert’s responses to Tom are similarly hilarious. Her bewilderment, her incredulity, her absolute bafflement and exasperation at times were delightful And I enjoyed how Tom and Alma would watch each other in different ways. The film has a lovely and quiet use of the gaze. And Marren Eggert is fantastic as Alma moves towards a vulnerability that she does not want to feel and that makes her feel more alone. But Alma’s integrity and her commitment to her work and living as she thinks she should are not compromised. They are just complicated by not just her growing feelings for Tom, but by her curiosity about him. I’m Your Man is another favorite at this year’s festival and I’d gladly watch it again.

(Incidentally the Bleecker Street trailer translates Alma saying “This is the penis of my dreams” as “This is the man of my dreams.” You know better, Bleecker Street).

*A Mechanized Organism Designed Only For Marriage. I want to be more sorry about this joke than I am.

TIFF 2021 THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN: Reflections by Carol Borden

 

By Carol Borden 

Will Sharpe The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain (UK, 2021)
 

Among other things, Louis Wain was an artist whose work spanned the1880s through the 1920s. In his lifetime, Louis Wain was most renowned for his drawings of cats--especially his charming and often satirical drawings of cats doing human things. (You can see a brief clip of Wain drawing a cat in a 1921 British Pathé short on YouTube). Wain began working for illustrated papers in London, depicting mostly animals at country fairs and, well, wherever other animals might appear in the news. He was the eldest of six siblings and the only male child. When his father passed away, Wain became responsible for supporting his mother and sisters. He was not suited for this task. He was eccentric and, according to the film, experienced delusions and hallucinations that became progressively more intrusive as he got older. For his part, Benedict Cumberbatch seems to have chosen to play Wain as being on the autism spectrum. Regardless of its source, the way Wain experienced and interacted with the world led to a remarkable output of art that he could not, unfortunately, benefit from because it did not occur to him to copyright it.

The Electrical Life of Lous Wain begins just as Louis is doing reasonably well but realizes he might need to bring in a more steady income after his sister Caroline (Andrea Riseborough)  hires Miss Emily Richardson (Claire Foy) as a governess for his youngest sisters. Louis is unhappy at first because the necessity of taking a steady position as a staff illustrator at Sir William Ingram’s (Toby Jones) paper interferes with his ability to pursue his other interests, especially his electrical research. But Louis resigns himself to her presence. Ultimately, he falls in love and marries Emily. Emily and Louis take in a cat, Peter. And thus Louis begins drawing cats.

The film uses a variety of charming visual techniques to draw us into Wain’s life and world. It focuses on his art and his particular method of drawing and painting. I particularly like a scene where the camera looks through a design Cumberbatch paints on glass.

I also enjoyed the segments with subtitled cats and the presence of so many amazing cats in the film. The scenes that morphed into stills recalling hand-painted photographs were a nice touch, too. I loved the design--all the prints and colors in the costuming and especially on the walls of Wain’s rooms. Taika Waiti has a nice cameo where his American accent makes him sound like Alan Cumming, at least to me. I feel like these visual elements were the strongest part of the film. The title cards at the end of the film were delightful and it’s too bad that they were not the title cards at the beginning of the film. I assume they were intended to be, but there were notes.

I wish The Electrical Life of Louis Wain had about 15% more whimsy. Just leaned into Wain’s world a little more. This could be a side effect of just having watched Neptune Frost which went hard for what it was going for. Neptune Frost does not give a fuck about what cinema is supposed to be. It’s got its business to take care of. And so my critical faculties might be distorted. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is tremendously whimsical for a more mainstream film. And I recognize the dangers of whimsy in film. I don’t think you’d want to go full Wes Anderson or Tim Burton with a film about Louis Wain, or at least with this particular screenplay about Louis Wain. Although I can see a pretty good Wain film from either filmmaker. In fact this might make an interesting pairing with Burton’s Big Eyes (2014).

But this is a biopic very much interested in letting us know about the life of Louis Wain, actual human being who had a rough time, rather than Louis Wain, eccentric character. It’s a hard balance because I can see what Sharpe finds so inspiring about Wain and his desire for the audience to feel inspired at the same time that I feel so sad for Louis Wain, a man who could not fulfill the expectations of his time, who felt a profound calling to make the world a better place,  and who experienced mental illness in terrible conditions.

TIFF 2021 INEXORABLE: Reflections by Carol Borden

 By Carol Borden

Fabrice Du Welz’ Inexorable (Belgium / France, 2021) is part of a long tradition of films wherein an unbalanced woman insinuates herself into a man’s life and and destroys it. Except she is almost always invited and the gentleman almost always makes everything worse. In Inexorable, that man is Marcel Bellmer played by Benoît Poelvoorde (Man Bites Dog (1992)). Marcel is struggling with writer’s block after the astronomical success of his novel, Inexorable. His father-in-law recently passed away leaving an actual manor house with grounds to Marcel and Marcel’s wife Jeanne (Mélanie Doutey), who is also Marcel’s publisher. Presumably, Marcel is also not entirely confident of his ability to succeed on his own. At Jeanne’s insistence, Marcel works in his father-in-law’s home office and is not comfortable with the arrangement, but the psychology of that part of Marcel’s life is largely overshadowed by other, emergent problems. Except for a nice riff in which he is seduced by a passage from his own work. (Or is it?!) Because with this kind of films, the psychology in the psychological thriller is mostly there to justify the particular elements used in presenting the story of an invited interloping woman destroying a successful man’s life. In this case, Gloria (Alba Gaïa Bellugi) is that woman. Returning to the village where she grew up, coincidentally the very village the Bellmers own an estate in, Gloria finds the Bellmer’s dog Ulysse sitting at the end of their long driveway and brings him home to Jeanne, Paola (Anaël Snoek) their nanny/servant and the Bellmer’s distraught daughter Lucie, who have been calling for Ulysse. Jeanne invites Gloria in and then, sympathetic to Gloria’s situation, invited Gloria to stay.

This is when the classic game of cat (lady who just wants love in wrong, wrong ways and possibly vengeance) and mouse but also cat (upper middle class man desperate to cover up whatever it is he did) begins. It is a classic story and I appreciate how Du Welz (Alléluia (2014) and Message from the King (2016)) and his co-screenwriters Aurélien Molas and Joséphine Darcy-Hopkins handle this iteration. It reminds me not only of 1990s American thrillers, but also a bit of both The Housemaid, though it lacks The Housemaid’s humor, and of Parasite, though Inexorable is not as focused on class. What it is focused on is Gloria’s trap and Gloria’s utter commitment to her cause.

Inexorable also does a good job of making Jeanne and Marcel not immediately awful. Some movies with the crazy lady destroying a family will lean too hard on presenting the wife as nagging, cold or sexually unavailable in order to make the ensnared husband more sympathetic. Inexorable doesn’t. And Marcel, though a novelist struggling with writer’s block who might feel angry and emasculated in another story, is generally not terrible on his surface. You can see that story in Marcel if you want. There is evidence in the film between his father-in-law’s office and his trouble maintaining an erection at one point after Jean francophonily tells him that she loves that he smells of cigarettes. He struggles with his new book and drinks something that looks like J&B, but I do no believe it is. But Marcel tries to do the right thing at first. He sees Gloria as someone to talk to about his books. And he tells Gloria about his thoughts about writing about two Belgian fascists (“Rexists”), on of whom dies for love. But of course, these movies are about stripping away the surface and Gloria is willing to tear the surface away with her teeth if necessary. She’s willing to sacrifice a roast chicken. This woman is capable of anything. And Marcel, well, he could tell the truth but he ends up framing a dog, which wins Marcel no friends. 

 

If you are in the mood for a thriller where men are in perilous positions cinematic women are usually in--and don’t realize their peril until too late--Inexorable is a good one. It’s nicely shot and well-acted. Alba Gaïa Bellugi brings a remarkable desperate intensity to Gloria and handles her tonal shifts well. If the manor isn’t quite a character in the film, it certainly makes for a nice background to the events and a reasonable contrast the village and the hotel where Gloria starts her scheme. And Lucie has an excellent birthday performance. If only the Park’s child had a similar one perhaps tragedy could have been averted in Parasite. As for Ulysse the dog, I can’t say for sure that he survives, but I am going to assume everyone realizes he’s a good boy who has been framed.

TIFF 2021 NEPTUNE FROST: Reflections by Carol Borden

 

By Carol Borden

Neptune Frost (Rwanda/USA, 2021) Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman

Dense and ambitious, allegorical and musical, Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost (Rwanda, 2021) is unified field theory of a film combining Afrofuturist cyberpunk science fiction, music, poetry, history, post-colonialism, critical theory, reflections on war, genocide, decolonization and resistance. And I’m going to add swank futuristic fashion and make-up.  
Neptune (Cheryl Isheja and Elvis Ngabo), an extremely fashionable hacker and intersex person, flees after being assualted and meets Matalusa (Bertrand “Kaya Free” Ninteretse), a coltan miner, in a village of hackers in Rwanda. Together in songs and discussions, the community tries to escape the Authority, realize their own power and envision a world free of war, genocide, colonialism, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, slave labor and extractive industries that contribute nothing to the people who “do the work behind their screens.”

How effective is it? I think Neptune Frost is exactly the movie Williams and Uzeyman wanted to make. They have expressed what they want to express in the form they want to express it. And that is one of the ways that art is successful.  Neptune Frost is the kind of movie I need to sit with for a while. There is a lot ot think about and it certainly bears more than one viewing. Once more people have seen Neptune Frost, I expect there to be some deep, thoughtful and compelling pieces on it that I look forward to reading. In the meantime, you’re welcome to join me in just pondering what we’ve seen.
 

 

TIFF 2021 THE GUILTY: Reflections By Carol Borden

Antoine Fuqua The Guilty (USA, 2021) 

By Carol Borden

Antoine Fuqua’s The Guilty is opening soon in limited release and then will be available on Netflix US on Oct. 1. Normally I’d wait to watch the movie until then. At festivals, I like to see movies I am not sure I’ll ever have another chance to see. But Jake Gyllenhaal is why I watched it now.. Gyllenhaal plays Joe,  a police officer put on duty in the LAPD communications center answering 911 while an “officer-involved shooting” is investigated. Joe being the involved officer who shot a 19-year-old kid. Joe very much resents this work and wants to get back to helping and “protecting” people who he thinks deserve it and, though he doesn’t explicitly state it, punishing people he thinks deserve it. Then he takes a call from a woman who pretends she is speaking to her child. She’s been abducted. Joe continues to alternately express a rage he can barely contain and withdraw from the other officers at the center, as he works to discover where the woman is and who has taken her so he can save her life.

The Guilty is a remake of a 2018 Academy Award-nominated Danish film, Den skyldige / The Guilty, directed Gustav Möller. I haven’t seen Möller’s film and I am curious how closely  the screenplay by Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) tracks with the original--especially with the ending.  The Guilty is a solidly made film because Antoine Fuqua knows what he’s doing. And Gyllenhaal is adding to his array of roles playing people who are terrible one way or another. Gyllenhaall is fantastic as he sits in a call center mostly reacting to audio. He was fantastic at making me cry at one point in the film, even though his character is an awful, punitive, rage-filled police officer.  Gyllenhaal is an affecting and effective actor, but is this the story I want to see re-set in an American context right now? Is this whose feelings I want to see explored right now? I don’t think we should not have stories about rage-filled LAPD cops realizing the horror of what they have done when they thought they were doing the right thing. But I also don’t know how much I want to see their feelings right now. Then again, this is Pizzolatto’s wheelhouse and I should have expected what I was getting into when the film started. Fuqua surrounds Joe with police officers of color who respond rightfully to him like he’s out of control and isolating himself, which helps. But still, I wonder how differently this story ends in the original film and how differently it comes across in a Danish context. All of this is to say: The Guilty is a solid, well-acted film and maybe make sure you are in a place to explore the psychology of a messed up police officer if you watch it.

TIFF 2021 VENGEANCE IS MINE, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH by Carol Borden

 

Hey everyone! I am so happy that Carol Borden, editor and one of the writers (The Cultural Gutter) is joining me on this the 2021 Toronto International Film Journey this year. We were able to work together in the days of the TIFF Midnight Madness blog. Without further ado her first piece of the festival! - Robert Mitchell

I’m pretty excited to be back on the TIFF beat and to be unleashed here at Soldier of Cinema after years of writing for and editing the official Midnight Madness and much missed Vanguard program blogs. I loved that job and loved those film programs. But at Soldier of Cinema I’m writing about films from a variety of TIFF programs so thanks, Rob, for this opportunity! - Carol Borden

The first film of the festival for me this year was, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Indonesia, 2021) directed by Edwin and adapted from an eponymous novel that is available in English if you don’t read Indonesian. Director Edwin co-wrote the screenplay with author Eka Kurniawan. Part of the reason I mention this is not just to help promote Indonesian literature, but because the film has a unique feel. I think some people might walk into Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash expecting something different than they are getting with the film. You might be prepared for an exploitation film or b-movie fights and gore. And you do get fights, gore and sex. But behind all the fighting and humor is painful history and a look at toxic masculinity. As Edwin says in his introduction to the digital screening of the film, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is grounded in Hong Kong cinema and b-movies popular in Indonesia in the 1980s, but it’s not a nostalgic movie and it’s not a movie that is neutral about its violence or uses rape as an opportunity for the viewer to see breasts while a female character retains her virtue. No, the violence is effective but the characters’ motivations for engaging in violence range from understandable but likely a mistake to idiotic to wrathful to cold-blooded and calculating disappearance of other people. Even the most understandable killing in the film doesn’t really heal anything. It’s the telling of stories--the telling of the truth of what happened--that helps the most making Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash a potentially a better double feature with The Act of Killing (2012), a documentary in which Indonesian men who participated in mass killings in 1965-66, than with, say, The Raid (2011) or the more recent Geran / Silat Fighters: The Deed of Death (2019).

 

 

After Edwin’s introduction I couldn’t help but watch for the tell-tale signs of nostalgia. After all the film is set in the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The fashions and music are accurate. But there is always the background of what was happening in Indonesia at the time. And even if you don’t know about Suharto’s dictatorship, the “dark days” that Edwin hopes won’t come again as he says in his introduction, I don’t think you can help notice the general feel of anxiety about the military, about the police, about the men’s rage, about why this violence is happening and what has happened to everyone in the film. 

 

 

Anyway, I should provide a synopsis. In Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Marthino Lio plays Ajo, a guy who can’t maintain an erection and, as an ad informs us, “Only a man who can’t get it up can face death without fear.” Ajo likes fighting. It’s all he wants to do. Until he gets into a fight with Itueng (Ladya Cheryl) when she’s paid to be a bodyguard to a sleaze construction company owner. After their tussle, Itueng quits and goes on to work in a carnival, which can only be described as rad. Ajo and Itueng fall in love, but there is a rival (Reza Rahadian) and there is Uncle Gembul (Piet Pagau), who prefers not to have his past as a general mentioned and who wants to hire Ajo to erase a man named Macan as if Macan burned up in Krakatoa. And for Ajo love seems impossible when he can’t get it up.

I have to say I enjoyed the phallic imagery--the spitting clams, the leeches. It was very entertaining.

Oh, yeah, and martial arts master Cecep Arif Rahman has a small role, but he does some nice fighting in it.