ON THE PULSE (2023) Venice 2023

Gabrielle is given an interview at a TV news show as a possible intern. Her teacher was friends with one of the editors. As the “interview”, which was going sideways, is interrupted she is left to talk to Vincent one of the reporters, a better friend of her teacher. When she is about to be sent off without a position Vincent intervenes and tells the boss to hire her. What follows is Gabrielle’s time with the news show.

While the film is very much about the reporting of the news the film is really not so much about the stories but about the people. We get lots of character interaction and newsroom discussions. This is a film where we are being like Gabrielle and hanging out with the people around her.  For much of the film I was really enjoying the film but at a certain point I began to think that this film wasn’t going to be great. It wasn’t constructed to  end with me being so delighted I had to talk about it…. And then the end came. And the combination of what I believe the final line “It’s all about being here” coupled with the remaining visual images that resulted in the film exploding in my opinion. In those final moments the film came together to become of the great joys of the Venice Film Festival. The big wide smile got me misty.

This is one of the rare films that surprised me by pulling it all together, and then some, into a magnificent whole in the final moments.

What an absolute joy.

This is a great film full of people we like just going through their lives and doing some really cool things. There isn’t any false sense of drama, but instead just a look at life.

I loved this film

Highly recommended.

For Night Will Come (2023) Venice 2023

Philemon is a high school aged boy who has to contend with a new home, new friends and the fact that he is a vampire.

This is an angsty coming of age tale melded with an outsider tale for a film of mixed results. While the film is beautifully acted, expertly filmed and frequently emotionally moving, the mixing of reality with the fantastic doesn’t always work. We are always very aware that Philemon is different. The film never completely blends it into the coming-of-age story so the need for blood is always in the foreground.  In other recent films about outsiders trying to get by in the regular world, say BONES AND ALL, there is creation of a world where these people exist. Here we simply have the life and this outsider. It doesn’t feel wholly natural, and it seems more there for effect, ie. the metaphor of the outsider.

I should point out that my being critical of the vampiric angle is not because it’s bad rather it’s because the weak integration into the plot makes what could have and should have been a truly great film (the film is top shelf on every other level) just a good one. There is so much here that is award worthy we get distracted wondering why they went this route.

My quibbles aside FOR NIGHT WILL COME is going to click with many people and as such is worth a look.

Through The Night (2023) Venice 2023

Dary assaults Aly. Stuck in a car with him she calls the police pretending to call her sister as a way of getting help. Anna takes the call and takes steps to stop anything further from happening. Over the next few weeks the fall out of the events of that night play out.

Feature expansion of director Delphine Girard's short film SISTER is a heavy night at the movies. A serious examination of sexual assault and it's aftermath is going to be tough sledding for many.  It's a film that puts us in a dark place and keeps us there as the film explores the devastating effect on all the parties. It does not have knee jerk answers nor does it sugar coat things. It's a film that drops us into the psyche of its characters.

I was disturbed and made uncomfortable. The film kicked up some things I really wasn't in the mood to wrestle with. (Sometimes I need to be more aware of what order I am watching films). It comes at the issue of sexual assault from an angles we don't usually see, and dares to ask, even in passing, why did this happen. For me the moment toward the end when Dary is asked if he wanted Aly in his life why he did what he did, raised a lot of questions since I could weirdly connect  that question to how men see women or are taught to view women, even in an enlightened society.

While I could have used a few less moments of silence or perfectly framed images to hit a point home I really liked this film a great deal. Actually I wish I could have seen it with some friends so the film could be discussed and dissected. 

Recommended

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023) Venice 2023 Toronto 2023

Sasha is a young vampire who gets squeamish at the thought of killing anyone. When her family cuts her off and tells her to fend for herself she struggles to find a way to cope. Then she meets Paul who agrees to let her feast on him, but she has to help him do a couple of things first. Complications are of course heading their way.

I absolutely love this film. It is a glorious film full of great characters. You absolutely love everyone on screen.

In some ways we’ve seen variations of this story, but in other ways this is entirely new. There are some twists and turns here that are wonderful.  Actually what is even more wonderful is the characters and performances which create an entirely believable world where vampires for exist.

I can’t say enough good things about this film easily one of my most favorite films of 2023, HUMANISTIC VAMPIRE made me smile from ear to ear. I just sat there falling in love with the film in ways that I haven’t experienced in a long time. Finding a film like this is why I love the movies. The point I fell hopelessly in love with the film with the film was the scene with a Brenda Lee song. Watching the Paul and Sacha (I won’t suggest they are actors but simply the characters) was so magnificent I was getting misty. There was no real reason for it other than this marvelous moment between the two people on screen. I was lost for ever.

How good is this film? When I was done I was sending emails to all the writers covering Venice and Toronto to tell them to cover the film. I was sending emails to film directors to tell them to cover the film.

Yes it really is that good.

You need to see this film. This is the sort film that takes a story we might have seen before, adds some seasoning and makes it something new. It’s a film that is so full of humanity and truth it makes us reconnect with life.

Highly recommended

A pointer toward Dormitory (Yurt) Venice 2023

This is a pointer toward a the film DORMITORY which just premiered at Venice.

The film is a the story of a young man who is torn between the religious and secular worlds in Turkey and how the demands of both don’t always mesh comfortably. He is sent by his religious father for instruction to a dormitory, while a friend shows him how to work the system. However he finds it difficult to straddle both worlds. 

While I am not going to say a great deal about it I will say you should go see it.

The film is rooted in the split between the worlds within Turkey. Ever since the modern country was moved from a religious state to a secular one by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk there has always been tension. Things are not helped by the country being the buffer between the Arab world and Europe.

You will forgive me for not doing a big write up on the film but this film is so good and so thought provoking that I can not in good conscience write a “review” of the film on a single pass. There is simply too much I want to say and so much I need to ponder.  Further complicating matters was the fact that as the film was coming to its conclusion I found I was connecting things up with moments earlier in the film. I realized that I needed to go through the film a second time  because how I was viewing the film changed. There was this grand AH HA moment where it all clicked… essentially making my notes useless.

In order to meet the embargo date, and because I have other films I need to see I can only point you to this film and tell you that you will want to see this film.

Recommended.

God is a Woman (2023) Venice 2023 Toronto 2023

In 1975,Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau, an Oscar-winning French filmmaker for SKY ABOVE MUD BELOW went to the Guna Yala islands off Panama’s Caribbean coast to make a film about the Kuna community. He lived with them for over a year and shot a film about the fiercely independent people. The trouble was because of financial reasons  the film disappeared into a creditors vault seeming to disappear forever.  Filmmaker Andrés Peyrot and member of the Kuna people Orgun Wagua follow Arysteides Turpana as he attempts to get a copy of the film to show his fellow Kuna the film from 50 years ago.

This is a great film.  

Starting out as a film about the making of a film and about the people who were profiled in it, the film suddenly explodes in the last half hour has a copy of the original film is located a the film is screened for the Kuna people, most of whom had only heard the stories of the original film. It is here in these moments that the film produces a very real cinematic magic that speaks to anyone who has ever seen any sort of film. What I mean by this is that in the moments when we watch the Kuna watching a film about them the walls of cinema collapse. Time compresses. People see themselves and their loved ones alive once more. The Kuna get to see all of the the things and the people that they only heard about in stories. Legend becomes reality.

Watching the end of the film I was made misty repeatedly. I  connected to what I was seeing on a personal level as I remembered when I saw old home movies of relatives I had only heard about. I remember listening to my parents and other relatives reacting to the people on the screen as if they were live. Stories fell from their lips. It was a magic I had lived.

On an intellectual level GOD IS A WOMAN is a magnificent statement about why movies matter. Why do we go to the movies and what the ghosts up on the screen? It s because they bring the dead to life and the past to the present. Yes we have had this discussion before but rarely has there ever been such a magnificent illustration of that point.

I absolutely loved this film it is a film that moved my soul and opened up my eyes once more to things I thought I knew.

Highly recommended.

YEAR OF THE EGG (2023) Venice

A couple goes to stay at a spiritual retreat watched over by a large egg in order to have the proper environment leading up to the birth of their first child. They will stay until the baby is born and for several months after. It is a welcoming place and the couple find a place where they are accepted. However when tragedy strikes things become dark.

This is a small  scale film about a couple dealing with the something terrible. It’s a beautifully acted film that gives us a real sense of community and a sense of place. It’s a film that feels very like some of the better recent inde films I’ve seen.

This is a film for those who like small tales of humanity. It’s a tale about love and loss and finding the support to go on. It’s not a big loud film, but a small joy that will move you.

Recommended.