Our postcard dispatches form the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival for Sunday, September 7.
By Tim McEown
StandardDelivery
The Search
Dear TIFF,
Some things you just want to like.
The Search, Michael Hazanavicius’ follow up to his phenomenally successful The Artist, must have had you salivating when you saw it on the calendar.Starring Bérénice Bejo, and Annette Bening, with a tremendous breakout performance by a young man (a child, really), named Maksim Emelyanov, The Search has a multi-faceted storyline filled with the kind of war-torn pathos that send chills through the Oscar crowd while still retaining some indie cred.
I can imagine your disappointment then, when you first screened it. Despite rambling, often stilted performances from the two principal cast members, it has great cinematography and some remarkable visual storytelling that is then undercut by long-winded, hackneyed speechifying (from Bening particularly).
A six dressed up as a nine is somehow more disappointing than just a six.
Sincerely,
Tim
PriorityPost
Red Army
Dear TIFF,
I'm a huge fan of Hot Docs - Toronto's other world-renowned film festival - but it usually signals something special when you TIFF folks land a documentary premiere. And that's exactly the case for Gabe Polsky's Red Army.
This is a truly great sports film, and certainly the best hockey doc of all-time.
Polsky chronicles the Russian superstars who came to fame during the late 70s and found unstoppable dominance in the 80s. Through fantastically paced editing, striking graphical treatments, mounds of archival footage and new interviews with Vladislav Tretiak, Alexei Kasatonov and, most entertainingly, Vyacheslav Fetisov, we learn what it was really like to play for the Soviet Union's powerhouse hockey club.
Enlisted as actual soldiers and forced to live in barracks away from their families for 11 months a year, the film uses hockey as the perfect prism through which to examine Cold War culture. The story continues all the way to the first Russians playing in the NHL, but never stretches back far enough to even mention the '72 Summit Series, which Canadians believe to be the definitive international hockey showdown. Not the case. The film proves there's a tonne more rich hockey history to be found in subsequent years, and that the '72 Summit was only one battle in a great sporting war.
Sincerely,
Christopher
By Diane Carol Harder
Air Phoenix
Dear TIFF,
A lot of people probably roll their eyes when they hear about another Holocaust movie. Personally, I watch every single one I come across—but it's definitely not new territory. Although Phoenix somehow makes it feel that way.
Yes, the Holocaust is the setup. The main character is a survivor of Auschwitz, and the film never lets us forget it. But that’s not really what the story is about. It's about the recovery, the haunting, and the feelings of betrayal survivors were forced to deal with in the midst of their normal, everyday lives. All of which is masterfully handled, both in the performances and the cinematography. Heavy stuff, but I was definitely glad that I spent my Saturday morning at the theater.
Sincerely,
Diane Carol Harder
By Diane Carol Harder
Air Breakup Buddies
Dear TIFF,
I really didn't know what to expect when I saw this Chinese buddy road trip movie on the TIFFF programming list. But, recovering from a recent break-up myself, I was game.
I can see why the stars, Bo Huang and Zheng Xu, are such a big deal in China; they're both pretty hilarious, and have good chemistry (first honed when they starred together in Lost in Thailand). What could have been a run-of-the-mill buddy comedy had some interesting twists, and a parallel narrative structure to make the divorce that instigates the story all the more poignant in the end.
My only real complaint is that the subtitles were too fast; there’s so much witty banter, but I was only able to catch every second or third line. Some of the story beats relayed by onscreen text (emails, text messages, etc.) weren’t translated, either. Overall, though, I found myself laughing a lot more than I thought I would, and found myself enjoying this fresh and unexpected side of Chinese cinema.
It was also a soothing balm to my own broken heart.
Sincerely,
Diane Carol Harder
