MIFF 2014 - Day 4
A little girl and a bunch of troubled men...
Anina
Anina Yatay Salas is deeply unhappy. She has a triple palindrome name, and she's bullied for it. But she has friends. When she accidentally causes another student to lose her sandwich, the girl teases her for her name. And she teases back with another cruel nickname. They fight and end up in the principal's office where they're both given sealed black envelopes and told to come back in a week to open them. Over the course of the week, Anina learns to be nice and also that bullies can be old as well as young. It's a sweet little animated tale with a good solid moral. And there's an excellent musical number about sparing the rod and spoiling the child that would have Walt Disney smiling.
Sorcerer
William Friedkin's love letter to Clouzot. I've never seen it before, and I can't believe it took me this long. This is filmmaking. From beginning to end, it's pure cinema. The final moments stumble slightly in my opinion, a few nips and tucks is all it would have taken to fix, but the final shot is striking. And that's my only complaint. It's brilliant, and the bridge crossing deserves all the praise that's heaped upon it.
Locke
Ivan Locke is having a very bad day. He's driving across town, trying to remotely manage a giant cement pour on a building site, while also taking care of some very difficult family matters. Tom Hardy alone in a car for an hour and half is arresting viewing, and exhausting too. You're watching a man who views himself as solid and practical find everything he thinks he knows about himself and his place in the world come crashing down around him. What's equally impressive is the direction, which manages to never bore you, despite the entire film taking place in a car driving on a freeway.
Joe
And another guy with problems. Joe has severe anger issues, and he doesn't really know how to stop himself once he starts. So he drinks, he smokes, he visits hookers, he does what he can to keep control. But occasionally it slips out, and he gets into trouble. Nicholas Cage is a great actor when given good material, and this is great material for him. Equally good is Tye Sheridan as Gary, a kid with an abusive deadbeat father who ends up a surrogate son for Joe. It's a bit unfortunate the end is more conventional than the rest of the film, and in that way it's very similar to Mud. Tye Sheridan is playing more or less the same character in both films too. But shootout ending or not, it's a great character piece and well worth a look.
Anina
Anina Yatay Salas is deeply unhappy. She has a triple palindrome name, and she's bullied for it. But she has friends. When she accidentally causes another student to lose her sandwich, the girl teases her for her name. And she teases back with another cruel nickname. They fight and end up in the principal's office where they're both given sealed black envelopes and told to come back in a week to open them. Over the course of the week, Anina learns to be nice and also that bullies can be old as well as young. It's a sweet little animated tale with a good solid moral. And there's an excellent musical number about sparing the rod and spoiling the child that would have Walt Disney smiling.
Sorcerer
William Friedkin's love letter to Clouzot. I've never seen it before, and I can't believe it took me this long. This is filmmaking. From beginning to end, it's pure cinema. The final moments stumble slightly in my opinion, a few nips and tucks is all it would have taken to fix, but the final shot is striking. And that's my only complaint. It's brilliant, and the bridge crossing deserves all the praise that's heaped upon it.
Locke
Ivan Locke is having a very bad day. He's driving across town, trying to remotely manage a giant cement pour on a building site, while also taking care of some very difficult family matters. Tom Hardy alone in a car for an hour and half is arresting viewing, and exhausting too. You're watching a man who views himself as solid and practical find everything he thinks he knows about himself and his place in the world come crashing down around him. What's equally impressive is the direction, which manages to never bore you, despite the entire film taking place in a car driving on a freeway.
Joe
And another guy with problems. Joe has severe anger issues, and he doesn't really know how to stop himself once he starts. So he drinks, he smokes, he visits hookers, he does what he can to keep control. But occasionally it slips out, and he gets into trouble. Nicholas Cage is a great actor when given good material, and this is great material for him. Equally good is Tye Sheridan as Gary, a kid with an abusive deadbeat father who ends up a surrogate son for Joe. It's a bit unfortunate the end is more conventional than the rest of the film, and in that way it's very similar to Mud. Tye Sheridan is playing more or less the same character in both films too. But shootout ending or not, it's a great character piece and well worth a look.
posted by Andrew Lee at 12:19 AM
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