![[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: I am a willing host for 'Parasite'](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1570200415251-GUE2AD8FU0IG1O03NYKO/Parasite+1.jpg)
For the second straight year, following Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, a Korean film is going to dominate top-10 lists, including yours truly. It is the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes and just the second to win by unanimous vote since Blue Is the Warmest Colour. It would be remiss to say that Korean cinema is on the rise -- if anything, it has already arrived and Parasite is just the new high water mark.
Read More![[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: 'A Hidden Life' is so pretty you forget there's a story](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1570114178198-C11XFLTJZ03BYPFU8DMM/A+Hidden+Life+1_.jpg)
The main criticism – like all the other Malick films -- is its length. In the right mood A Hidden Life can be a truly enjoyable watch, but it’s about a half-hour to one hour too long to hold your attention span with such a thin narrative, though it will certainly be Malick’s most well-received since The Tree of Life.
Read More![[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: 'Just Mercy' is just good enough](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1569899909002-LT1AU12C5V9MZHGSNRPI/Just+Mercy+1.jpeg)
That’s about the extent Just Mercy is willing to go as far as a critique of America’s justice system, otherwise it’s a fine legal drama that plays like so many other of them do. Based on a true story, Michael B. Jordan plays Bryan, a young black lawyer who studied at Harvard and has started his own practice, the Equal Justice Initiative, in 1980’s Alabama.
Read More![[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: 'Anne at 13,000 Ft.' shakes and tilts, but still doesn't move very much](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1569687647700-16P855SMSNHLAAO4UMXG/AnneAt13%2C000ft_still.jpg)
Radwanski succeeds in building the intensity, but where it falls short is Anne’s curious lack of transformation. She’s not very different from when we first meet her, and her behavior and subsequent breakdown asks more questions than it answers.
Read More![[TIFF 2019] REVIEW: ‘Black Conflux’ zooms in on loneliness](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1568174552020-1QIY1XA9YDV5IP4YLUXT/Black+Conflux+4.jpg)
Few emerging filmmakers are quite as confident as Dorsey with how she isolates visuals and sounds, like an insect crawling along the ground while high-school-aged girls chat about boys, or the almost unsettling amplification of the sounds of people chewing or drinking. It’s a technique that suggests the film wants to take a detailed, magnified look at hard-to-spot details in everyday life; a method that echoes the feeling that drives the two main characters: pervasive, almost crippling loneliness.
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Bafflingly, the question posed by the film’s title doesn’t really come into force until halfway through. And various storytelling devices intended to tame the movie’s shaggy bits, like voiceover by the protagonist’s daughter and flashback exposition-dumps, are too inconsistently applied to keep anything in check.
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As the car magnate, Pace is the core attraction. After playing a similarly intimidating genius named Joe MacMillan on AMC’s retro tech-industry series Halt and Catch Fire, DeLorean feels like a natural choice for the actor.
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Somewhere inside, the filmmaker believes that his beloved analog Hollywood could have been rescued by a man of action like Cliff. While we’re encouraged to get to know Robbie’s depiction of Tate and root for her, she’s more of an icon for the period of time that Tarantino so carefully recreates here, and preserves in other ventures like his New Beverly Cinema in the real-life L.A.
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The struggle is real; not only is she hounded by questions about her private life (“are you married yet?”), she also has to put on a brave face to keep the family secret because – as her own family members keep pointing out – she’s far too emotional to be able to hide anything. It’s a low-key shot at “western” values that place more emphasis on being open and free-speaking, compared to stoicism as the more widely-accepted ideal in most Asian cultures.
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It’s fascinating to listen to Ted’s boss accuse Ted of letting his family distract from his job, a scene eerily reminiscent of the language used today to keep women from receiving pay equity or positions of power. The film proves how much of a mind warp gender politics can be; an argument that advances work over family is twisted and re-used to harm people regardless of gender, across whole generations.
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The bafflement that the character’s family feels about his actions – first as an absentee father and then as a drug mule – will feel familiar to anyone with a family member with a penchant for frustrating behaviour. Stone wants to be a provider, but doesn’t fit into the traditional model for one, and he doesn’t understand why others don’t recognize what he’s trying to do.
Read More![[VIFF 2018] REVIEW: Lanthimos delivers on "The Favourite"](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1538884033810-3CU32Q9HJTFQDKV91GGB/The+Favourite+1.jpg)
Of course, there’s the usual palace intrigue – secret things are done and said in darkly lit corners, and the usual extravagance of the rich, including a candlelit ball and a duck race, are all present – but it’s presented in such a Lanthimosian manner it’s equal parts funny and somewhat disturbing.
Read More![[TIFF 2018] REVIEW: ‘Border’ unlocks emotion and cultural commentary in a bonkers movie about trolls](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1536851227674-BAAC4JG2B4KI2Y36YBO8/Border+1.jpg)
The noteworthy detail about Border, however, is that it transcends the high-level logline and manages to be about more than a misunderstood female troll living in modern-day Sweden. It folds in commentary about forced cultural assimilation, racism, romantic relationships, and even child abuse. And while some of the imagery can make the work difficult to take completely seriously, there’s no denying that the film was made with a lot of commitment and heart, which is more than you can say for some fantasy/monster movies.
Read More![[TIFF 2018] REVIEW: ‘Burning’ invites you to choose the genre – quiet drama or simmering thriller?](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1536537055140-FW07GIFO24DK9RDQ59VU/Burning+2.jpg)
To be sure, the pace of Burning is slow, and those expecting a Hitchcockian everyman wrapping up a citizen-justice murder case in the space of 100 minutes will be disappointed. Lee lays out enough material that up until that final scene (and perhaps even beyond it), the door is still open for the tables to turn and Jong-su to be revealed as the one who kidnapped Ha-emi.
Read More![[VIFF 2017] REVIEW: 'The Florida Project' is a slice of life, and it's quite wonderful](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1508806317205-A8BPHBGKPAFWJX5N242L/Florida+Project+3.jpg)
The Florida Project was one of the films I was looking forward to the most at VIFF, and it didn’t disappoint. The title is taken from EPCOT, which was a master-planned community envisioned by Walt Disney in the 1960s. Disney’s project was never fully completed, and the motels and attractions that surround it now serve as housing for those struggling to stay above the poverty line. Florida, by the way, has a higher than average poverty rate.
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