Saturday, September 19, 2020

TIFF 2020: Preparations to Be Together for an Undetermined Amount of Time


 

Preparations ... was my least  favourite film of this year's festival (and one of Susan's bottom 2). Woman who does not emote thinks she has a relationship with man who does not emote (which he does not acknowledge), and then nothing much happens for an hour and a half. Unlike Falling, which we also hated, there were no characters in this film about whom we cared at all. Other reviews call this film enigmatic and mysterious, and it currently gets an 80% rating on RottenTomatoes.com. I find it mysterious and enigmatic that anyone liked it.

TIFF 2020 Overview 

TIFF 2020: Falling

 


Falling, starring and directed by Viggo Mortensen is basically senile old asshole making his son miserable, and having flashbacks to when he was a young asshole making life miserable for his whole family..

 

TIFF 2020 Overview 

Thursday, September 17, 2020

TIFF 2020: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel

 


The New Corporation: ... is a documentary that revisits an earlier documentary by the same filmmakers, which had looked at a legal ruling defining corporations as having many of the same rights as persons. The sequel focuses on how companies are rebranding as "socially responsible", while pursuing goals that undermine democracy. I expected a lot of talk about "greenwashing" (pretending to be environmentally conscious while continuing to ravage the planet), and there was some of that, but the film went further, exposing rampant privatization of not only health care and prisons (US trends I was well aware of), but also education in poor countries, and municipal water systems.

Much of the film was shocking and depressing. At one point we are told that we should be despairing over what is happening. Then the later parts of the film focus on very recent events: the pandemic and the uprising of a movement for justice in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, and we see how everything is connected, with the recent events exposing how the huge transfer of wealth enabled by the policies of privatization have made all of this much worse. There is some hope at the end, as we see some local movements succeeding, and people running for office to make things better.

This is a really important film, and I hope the positive message at the end in an indication that a better future is possible, but it also left us feeling haunted by how much trouble our world is in.

 

TIFF 2020 Overview