A Gentle Breeze in the Village (Tennen kokekkô) (Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita): From the director of Linda Linda Linda, one of my favourites from TIFF 2005, this is another coming-of-age story set in a sleepy small town where Soyo is one of only six students in a combined primary and junior high school. The arrival of hip transfer student Osawa from Tokyo changes everything. The photography looks absolutely stunning and this promises to be a nice antidote to some of the more violent or depressing stuff I’ll be seeing.
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Chaotic Ana (Caótica Ana) (Director: Julio Medem): I was recently mesmerized by Medem’s 1998 film Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los Amantes del CÃrculo Polar) and wasn’t even aware he had a film in this year’s festival until Bob Turnbull posted about it. Thanks, Bob!
Medem seems to be a bit like Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski (another of my favourites) in his love for coincidences and recurring events. In this new film, “Ana’s existence seems to be a continuation of the lives of other young women, all of whom died tragically at the age of 22. Doomed to a chaotic fate, Ana must co-exist with these young women as they continue to live on in the abyss of her unconscious memory.” Another plus is the presence of Charlotte Rampling.
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Le Voyage Du Ballon Rouge (Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien): I haven’t seen any of Hou’s films before but have heard great things about Three Times (2005) and Café Lumiere (2003), as well as about Juliette Binoche’s performance as a frazzled single mom who hires a Chinese nanny to watch her son. The nanny is also a film student who is making a film based on Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 classic The Red Balloon, which I dimly recall seeing as a boy.
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Tagged as:
TIFF
Son of Rambow (Director: Garth Jennings): This premiered at Sundance this year and I’ve been hoping it would make it to TIFF. Set in the 80s, the film tells the story of a boy raised in a strict religious home who has never seen a film until a school friend shows him Rambo and the two boys decide to make their own film version. This gentle comedy will probably be overshadowed when the broader farce Be Kind Rewind comes out, but any film that celebrates the DIY filmmaking spirit is worth my time.
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Silent Light (Luz silenciosa) (Director: Carlos Reygadas): Lots of buzz on this one, about a community of Mennonites in northern Mexico. A married man’s faith is put to the test when he falls for another woman. Co-winner of the Jury Prize (with Persepolis) at this year’s Cannes (and nominated for the Palme d’Or). A curious item is that a certain Miriam Toews is credited with the role of the man’s wife. I’m wondering if it’s the same Miriam Toews who wrote Swing Low, A Complicated Kindness, and other beautifully-written tales of her Mennonite upbringing in Manitoba. From the trailer, I’m pretty sure it’s her.
Note: “Stellet Licht,” as seen in the poster, is the title in the Plautdietsch dialect of German that the Mennonites speak.
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Secret Sunshine (Milyang) (Director: Lee Chang-dong): I’ve also heard quite a lot about this film, which is about a woman who moves with her young son to the town where her recently-deceased husband was born, only for tragedy to strike again. Though some critics have called it melodramatic, I think that’s pretty standard for Korean cinema, limited as my experience with it has been. Jeon Do-yeon won the Best Actress award at Cannes this year, and the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or. As well, Song Kang-ho (who was great in The Host), plays her new suitor.
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