Reeling: Our Day Will Come, Into the Wind, Aftershock
Posted on 19. Sep, 2010 by Simon in Film, Reeling, Reviews
I watched a few movies at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. I considered writing about each as individual posts, but then I realized I didn’t have enough to say about any of them that would be even remotely capable of maintaining your interest. So in the spirit of comprehensive coverage and efficiency, I present three movie reviews — in one! This year’s theme? Stereotypes!
Our Day Will Come
You know that thing Parisians do, where they come off incredibly cultured without trying? Like, as if they were born with a cigarette in their hand and the first thing they did out of the womb was glare at the nurse to offer them a light? And then like, 20 years later, they’re standing around talking to you and offer you some wine and they’re all like “this is the best wine in the region,” and you taste it, and you’re like “oh, it’s pretty good, but what makes it the best?” and then they roll their eyes like you’re just another uncouth North American backpacker carrying a Lonely Planet book?
Yea, that’s kind of what watching Our Day Will Come was like. Romain Gavras, who cut his teeth directing highly strung cinema veritas style music videos for the likes of Justice and MIA, has debuted with an incredibly gorgeous — but opaque — film. Vincent Cassel and Olivier Barthelem both put out strong performances, bounding between glib and graphically sociopathic with aplomb. Gavras makes the barren industrial landscapes of Northern France look haunting and otherworldly in his version of a fucked up underdog road-trip movie and wrings some real tension into his scenes, often without the need for dialogue.
What is the movie about though? Hell if I know — and from Gavras and Cassel’s reaction during the post screening Q&A, if you have to ask, you like totally just aren’t getting it man. Still, the potential Our Day Will Come represents is tantalizing. If this is Gavras drawing pretty pictures, you have to be excited about what he might do if he ever actually has something to say.
Into The Wind
You know that thing sports documentaries do, where there’s a hero and in order to create audience empathy they explain all the trials and tribulations you never really considered that the athlete had to overcome in order to reach their goals, then you feel all inspired and uplifted? Also, have you ever seen a documentary on Canadian icon and Marathon of Hope hero Terry Fox?
Yea, that’s exactly what watching Into The Wind is like. It’s a Terry Fox documentary, produced for ESPN and co-directed, interestingly enough, by my professional sports Man Crush™, Steve Nash. Although I am somewhat biased in terms of my screening experience because, I like, totally finally met Steve Nash and shook his hand, I must say Into The Wind does manage to strike a chord other Fox documentaries haven’t seemed to want to play.
Perhaps it’s because this doc was developed with an American audience in mind, or perhaps it’s Nash and co-director/cousin Ezra Holland’s conscious decision to spend the majority of the film on Fox’s internal doubts instead of external challenges. Although rote details such as how Fox was struggling to get publicity or get along with his van driving sidekick Doug Alward are included, much of the film is devoted to narration of Fox’s personal diaries, shedding light on how becoming a public persona weighed heavily on Fox as an everyday 22 year-old kid. Moreover, there is some subtext of the role media plays in building up and destroying idealism in even the most well intentioned individuals — ironic considering the essentially propagandized nature of all such sports documentaries.
As far as technically? Let’s just say I don’t know how much Nash actually directed, but you can tell this was made by two guys who have never made a feature longer than 25 minutes before. Good thing Stevie has a day job.
Aftershock
You know that Tim Hortons commercial with the old Chinese guy, who is watching his grandson play hockey with his son, who reveals that all those years his son thought he wasn’t watching him play hockey as a kid he secretly was, from the shadows, then everyone goes awwwww especially if you’re Chinese because parental affection is a bit of a sore spot for us?
Yea, Aftershock is like that ad, except blown up roughly a thousand times over.
What is the sound of 500 Chinese people crying? Ask anybody who was in the Elgin Theatre this past Sunday night for the premier screening of Aftershock, which was billed as “The Most Successful Chinese Movie Of All Time” … wait for it … OF ALL TIME! (<side note/ in my mind, that’s like publicizing a salad as “the healthiest menu item in the history of Taco Bell”. Is that really a selling point? Was that question passive aggressively racist? Does that make me a self hating minority? /end sidenote>).
But I digress. Aftershock tells the tale of the 1976 earthquake which essentially leveled the entire city of Tangshan, China killing roughly a quarter million people. Yes, you read that right — 250,000 dead instantly, give or take (which is slightly more than the entire population of Orlando, Florida).
The movie is actually based on a book about the catastrophe and revolves around the plight of one family literally rent apart by the natural disaster. Despite enough cliches to risk submarining the film into the depths of parody, Aftershock manages to tread a rare balance between meticulously engineered tearjerker and genuinely affecting cinema.
Shoddy CGI and some, at times, horrific acting performances, aren’t enough to dampen the pure heartstrings pulling of this movie that is ultimately about the importance of family and all that jazz, but, you know, wielding the air of authenticity that only family movies from non-first world countries can accurately exude. What’s hilarious is I’m not even being sarcastic with that comment. The actors perform admirably when they are most called upon, and that’s enough because the story is incredibly strong. The journey is poignant and twisting, spanning decades and paced wonderfully for maximum creation of tears.
I can’t say without certainty that I didn’t find Aftershock more touching because the idiosyncrasies and complications of the Chinese family structure obviously strike closer to home for me than those of say, Meet the Fockers. But I can say with relative objectivity that it’s definitely one of the best mass market Chinese films I’ve ever seen, weaving some of the best (and worst) habits of Hollywood storytelling to tell a tale deeply entrenched in the heart of the world’s most populous nation — and a culture that is notoriously stoic and emotionally repressed.
And no, I did not cry. But I almost did. Which, if you know me, is saying a lot.
Celebrity commercials suck only as much as the celeb | The Ashcan
Mar 22nd, 2011
[...] OH RIGHT, Vincent Cassel were shooting the shit at the world premier of Gavras’ movie Our Day Will Come at TIFF. Yea, that story sounds better when I omit the fact it was the post-film Q&A, but [...]