HORIZON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Revelatory Gudni Doc *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICK*****

Horizon (2015)
Dir. Bergur Bernburg, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
Starring: Georg Gudni, Viggo Mortensen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

With his painterly eye for humanity and landscape, it seems fitting that Iceland's very own John Ford, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson (Children of Nature, Cold Fever, Devil's Island) has co-directed Horizon, a revelatory documentary portrait of the late, great painter Georg Gudni. Like Ford's beloved Monument Valley, Iceland's landscape has provided a stunning backdrop for Fridriksson's extraordinary canon and I can think of no better filmmaker to bring cinematic mastery to the subject of his old friend Georg Gudni.

Working with what feels like a lifetime's worth of footage of Gudni at work and in interviews, all shot by co-director Bergur Bernburg in collaboration with journalist Bill Rathje, Fridriksson has fashioned an indelible portrait of an artist who singlehandedly brought respectability back to landscape painting - a form often derided by Western art critics and practitioners in recent decades.

Gudni, however, saw something else in the landscapes around him - he was, after all, living in the land of the Askja calderas amidst the mighty, roiling volcanoes of the Dyngjufjöll mountains - an environment so topographically barren (though heartbreakingly beautiful) that it served as a training ground for the Apollo astronauts prior to their moon missions. Iceland is, in spite of its mountainous terrain, a land where the horizon seems infinite and Gudni's eye viewed layers upon layers of ever-so subtle shifts in both land and air.

If Heaven was on Earth, Gudni's remarkable paintings captured it again and again.

The superb footage of Gudni is expertly woven with interviews from a variety of artists, critics and academic historians, but perhaps most fascinating are the sequences with actor Viggo Mortensen, a dear friend, patron and publisher of Gudni's work. All these other voices lend support to Gudni's own words and actions, but Mortensen's observations might be the most moving and passionate of them all.

The other valuable element of Horizon is the jaw-droppingly stunning cinematography which matches the locations and even perspectives of Gudni's art. With the eye of a painter, Fridriksson and his collaborators take us into territory where the landscapes, the horizon, the remarkable light of Iceland weaves its magic before of our very eyes and melds into Gudni's paintings with the flow, force and fiery beauty of lava itself.

Yes, John Ford had Monument Valley, but Gudni and Fridriksson have Iceland - the backdrop of dreamers, poets and visual artists of all stripes - and thankfully, we have this film to make us all familiar with the work of one of the great artists of all time, to capture his genius and beauty forever.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Horizon receives its World Premiere in the TIFF Docs program at TIFF 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

CEMETERY OF SLENDOUR - Review By Greg Klymkiw *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICK*****

Cemetery of Splendour (2015)
Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Starring: Jenjira Pongpas Widner, Banlop Lomnoi, Jarinpattra Rueangram,
Sujittraporn Wongsrikeaw, Bhattaratorn Senkgraigul, Richard Abramson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A seemingly incurable sleeping sickness overtakes several Thai soldiers. Unresponsive to the usual treatments, they're dumped in a makeshift hospital in the northeastern provinces to receive what care can be dispensed. Jenjira (Jenjira Pongpas Widner), a crippled volunteer nursing assistant, spends endless hours and days tending to the needs of Itt (Banlop Lomnoi); giving massages, repositioning his body, applying wet cloths and even talking to him as if he was completely alert.

And then, he wakes up.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendour is compulsively fascinating, dazzlingly beautiful and deeply moving. Much of the film pulsates in a neo-realist tradition; the cast and locations always feel like the real thing. Equally astonishing are the spiritual moments, rooted in a reality that's never beyond the natural order of the film's mise-en-scene, and the natural order of the world as it should be. Weerasethakul's film is an ode to life, love, death and understanding in a world where change, more often than not, has a devastating impact upon the inner peace, spirituality and environment of a place, people and ghosts. Yes, ghosts!

Writer-director Weerasethakul dapples the film with odd bits of his trademark humour and delightful perversities (a la previous works like Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) which meld with the film's more cerebral and elegiac qualities. At times, it's a visual feast (especially the haunting coloured light treatments used upon the sleeping soldiers at night).

Most notable is the character of Keng (Jarinpattra Rueangram), a psychic who can read the thoughts and dreams of the men. She's the lynch-pin of the film's formal trinity of central characters and is indeed responsible for taking us into the deep, often impenetrable places of the heart, making them literal and as such, all the more real. It's a magic we believe in wholeheartedly.

Cemetery of Splendour resonates the way great art should. It is an exquisitely wrought tapestry that allows us to step inside it and then, soar. This, of course, is what also makes for great cinema!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Cemetery of Splendour is in the TIFF Masters program at TIFF 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

OUR LITTLE SISTER + MUSTANG - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - Mongrel Media's Must-See Sister Act - The Film Corner's Handy-Dandy *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICKS***** continue.

MONGREL MEDIA'S MUST-SEE SISTER ACT AT TIFF 2015

Our Little Sister (above)
Mustang (below)

Our Little Sister (2015)
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Starring: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When three sisters attend the funeral of their long-estranged father, they meet his daughter from a second marriage, the little sister they never met. They welcome her with open arms and she decides to live with them. For the first time in her life, she feels what it means to have family you can love and count on.

As far as I'm concerned, director Hirokazu Kore-eda (After Life, Nobody Knows, Still Walking, Like Father Like Son) has no equals in contemporary Japanese Cinema. He seems to be the one true and genuine successor to the legacy of Yasujiro (Tokyo Story) Ozu, the master of the groundbreaking tatami shots, long takes, figures moving in and out of frame, a stately pace allowing for deep contemplation of the dramas unfolding, a deep sense of humanity, a love for the properties of melodrama and an unflagging commitment to examining the intricacies of family. To a certain extent, the aforementioned Ozu grocery list of unbeatable properties seems not dissimilar to the work of Kore-eda.

Kore-eda, however, differs on two fronts. He downplays sentiment almost to the extent of eschewing it completely, but then, when you least expect it, he's not afraid of using melodrama sparingly as a legitimate storytelling tool (usually with a wallop to the solar plexus). Secondly, though Kore-eda is also primarily interested in the dynamics of family, he adds his own special thematic element, dealing heartbreakingly with the theme and dramatic action of abandonment.

Our Little Sister has got "abandonment" almost literally spilling out of its ears and he allows us to be privy to three, then four sisters filling various voids in their hearts with the love they have for each other. At times it feels like nothing much is really happening, but "it" most certainly is - in tiny, delicate and subtle ways. Kore-eda allows us time to luxuriate in each sister's unique qualities and how they play off each other.

He slowly builds to a handful of scenes during the final stretch of the picture that inspire overwhelming emotions in the hearts of its audiences. I bawled like a baby and still can't shake or forget its uplifts which are never machine-tooled, but burst forth naturally from within his film's very big heart.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Our Little Sister plays in the TIFF Masters program during TIFF 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

Mustang (2014)
Dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Starring: Gunes Sensoy, Dogba Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu,
Elit Iscan, Ilayda Akdogan, Ayberk Pekcan, Nihal Koldas

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The events depicted in Mustang are so horrific and harrowing, it's sometimes more unbearable to experience an equal number of story beats infused with fun, love, kindness, pleasurable abandon and humour since they're such powerful juxtapositions to the tragedy of the situation presented.

In a small Turkish coastal town on the Black Sea, a repressed, deeply traditional busybody neighbour spies five orphan sisters having fun on the last day of school. The innocent actions are deemed obscene. Their grandmother and stern uncle hit the roof and what should have been a glorious summer vacation turns into a living nightmare. They're immediately locked in the house, stripped of all items which could be considered immoral, informed that their education has come to an end and thrown into a rigorous indoctrination to be loyal, subservient wives. Parades of potential suitors are brought in to inspect their "wares" and the goal is to have all the girls, ranging from 12 to 16, married off by the end of summer.

The youngest sister proves to be the craftiest and most rebellious. She masterminds a brief escape for the girls to watch a soccer match, but the happiness is short lived when they're eventually caught in the act by their guardians. At this point, all bets are off. The home is then transformed into a literal prison replete with iron bars on all the windows, extra locks, barbed wire atop the walls surrounding the house and an intensified chaperoned courting/match-making process. In addition to the threat of physical and even sexual abuse, the girls are treated like so much chattel instead of individuals with minds of their own.

The first two-thirds of Mustang is so superbly directed and acted, it's a shame the screenplay takes a fairly conventional turn in its final act. What transpires comes close to negating the power of the rest of the film. Though some will find the denouement inspiring in all the right ways, it ultimately contradicts the reality of the girls' lives and offers up hope where none, in reality, would ever exist.

During one of the final set-pieces, first-time feature filmmaker Ergüven directs the proceedings with the urgent, nerve-jangling skill of a master. The suspense is virtually unbearable, but it's almost rendered moot when the yellow-brick-road to happiness rears its ugly head. Of course we want the girls to escape, but deep down we know a happy end to their short lives of freedom must surely be an impossibility. When these tables turn, it's not so much a cause for celebration, but a lament for honesty.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Mustang is a TIFF 2015 Special Presentation. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

THE WAITING ROOM - Review by Greg Klymkiw - Yugo Noir: *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICK*****

The Waiting Room (2015)
Dir. Igor Drljača
Starring: Jasmin Geljo, Zeljko Kecojevic

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Even when a war is 20-years-ago and thousands of miles away, it sears its ugly imprint upon your soul forever. It's even worse if you've been forced to abandon all you know and love for a new country with few prospects for immigrants and refugees.

Jasmin (Jasmin Geljo, a tough, pug-faced Buster Keaton) knows this all too well. The popular actor and playwright fled the violent dismantlement of the former Yugoslavia and settled in Toronto. Estranged from his first wife, he still finds time to visit her in the terminal cancer ward, alternating the death-watch with his youthful adult daughter. Married to a much younger woman, with whom he's sired two children, Jasmin grows increasingly distant from her.

Eking out a living as a construction labourer whilst endlessly auditioning for stereotypical television roles requiring Eastern European gangster "types", he dreams of recapturing former glories (of the thespian kind) by returning to Sarajevo to mount the hilariously bawdy theatrical comedy he's been performing for Toronto's Yugoslavian community.

War, however, forces dreams to either die hard or at best, reside in a kind of purgatory. His attempts to move forward seem to create an ever-increasing stasis. Taking part in the filmed portion of a political avant-garde art installation about the turbulent events two decades earlier is what finally ignites memories of the war he's tried so hard to closet. One repression usually leads to another and Jasmin's purgatory intensifies.

Writer-director Igor Drljača has taken several astonishing leaps forward from his dazzling 2012 debut feature Krivina.

This sophomore effort is even more richly layered, but on this occasion, he's splashed the movie with healthy sprinklings of (mostly sardonic) humour amidst the angst. What consumes us, though, is Drljača's rich mise-en-scène - gorgeously composed still-life shots, the drab, grey Toronto juxtaposed with a fake backdrop of the gorgeous Yugoslavian countryside. The pace is miraculously measured and calculated; so much so that the picture's guaranteed to mesmerize.

Like his first feature, Drljača has crafted a devastating film about war with nary a single shot fired from a gun, nor a single bomb exploded. The echoes, explosions and shots heard round the world are burrowed in the film's devastating silence and the pain etched into the faces of those suffering strangers in a strange land are like silent screams ever-reminding us of the true casualties of war - those who live a living death.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five Stars

The Waiting Room plays at TIFF 2015 in the Contemporary World Cinema program. For dates, times and tix, visit the festival's website HERE.

HURT - Review capsule by Greg Klymkiw - Fonyo Noir *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICK*****

HURT (2015)
Dir. Alan Zweig

Starring: Steve Fonyo, Gabor Maté

Review Capsule By Greg Klymkiw

During the 80s, 18-year-old Steve Fonyo ran 8000 km across Canada with a prosthetic leg. Raising $14 million for cancer research, he received the Order of Canada. After suffering three decades from abject poverty and various addictions within the dark underbelly of the criminal class, this Canadian Hero was transformed into a pariah by pencil-pushers in the nation’s capitol and turfed from the country’s highest recognition.

HURT has its masterpiece status guaranteed.

Charting one year in Fonyo’s life, Alan Zweig pulls off a miracle. This stunning documentary is as narratively searing and artistically compelling as the grim and gritty 70s cinematic forays into crime, punishment and atonement, not unlike Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

The very process of filmmaking and Zweig’s intervention as both artist and humanitarian offers the promise of healing and redemption. The picture cold-cocks you as frequently as it wrenches tears.

A FILM CORNER TIFF 2015 MUST-SEE!

THE FILM CORNER RATING ***** 5-Stars

HURT receives its World Premiere in Platform, TIFF's all-new and highly exclusive new programme comprised of up to 12 films of high artistic merit that demonstrate a strong directorial vision by significant international filmmakers. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF 2015 website HERE.

BROOKLYN - Review By Greg Klymkiw *****TIFF 2015 MUST-NOT-SEE*****

As you can see, impish colleen immigrants
do not require hands to provide good service
in the better department stores of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn (2015)
Dir. John Crowley
Scr. Nick Hornby
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen,
Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Jessie Paré

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Save for the pleasing cast of babes (Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Paré) and hunks (Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson) providing ample scenery (in addition to the general period production design) and a couple of old Brit stalwarts (Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters) ham-boning to the hilt, about the best I can say about Brooklyn is that my Mother (God rest her soul) would have enjoyed it thoroughly. She was, however, uh, like, old.

The aforementioned are what the film has going for it. I was less inclined to favour the alternately sad and jaunty Irish folk music elements of the syrupy score, the dull, style-bereft miniseries camera-jockey direction and a screenplay playing out like a muted soap opera with about as much conflict as having to choose twixt Aunt Jemima pancakes and Rice Crispies at breakfast time.

Gorgeous Saoirse Ronan, with the help of her big sister and Jim Broadbent's Father Flanagan-like priest, leaves behind the lack of opportunities in Ireland and hits the big boat for the wide-open shores of America. The good Father sets her up in a lovely boarding house for young ladies run by an endlessly quipping Julie Walters, then he gets her a good job in a nice department store where she's mentored by the STUNNINGLY gorgeous Jessica Paré and, Faith and Begorrah, our jovial, benevolent man of the cloth pays for her tuition at business college.

Sounds like being a gorgeous Irish immigrant of the female persuasion is a good deal. Oh sure, you have to go to endless dances to land a prospective husband and quite often, you get homesick for Ireland, but truth be told, it's a cakewalk. Hell, Saoirse even falls in love with a mouth-wateringly handsome Italian stud-muffin (Emory Cohen) in Brooklyn and upon visiting her old Irish home, she meets a yummy prim and proper rich boy (Domhnall Gleeson).

And here you have it, ladies and gents, the only conflict in the whole movie.

Must be nice.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** 2-Stars

Brooklyn is a TIFF 2015 Special Presentation. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.