Working Women (2018) Hebrew w/English subtitles Nov 21, 7pm, Cineplex Park Lane In her first feature-length fiction film Invisible (2011), director Michal Aviad explored the longterm effects of stranger rape. In her most recent film, the feminist filmmaker tackles the immediate consequences of a kind of sexual violence that is less definite and more diffused. […]
Film + TV
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Review: The Souvenir will leave you waiting
The Souvenir screens at Carbon Arc cinema on Nov 1 at 7pm and 9:30pm. The extent of one’s enjoyment of director Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir will be determined by whether a film being strong in almost every individual aspect can make up for the fact that its pace is almost unbearably slow. This coming-of-age story […]
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Robert Eggers keeps it weird
The Lighthouse Oct 25-30 Scotiabank Cineplex 190 Chain Lake Drive cineplex.ca When Robert Eggers unveiled The Witch in 2015, he was so convinced it wouldn’t succeed that he sought a back up project “just in case.” After learning that his brother, Max, was working on a story about two men living in a lighthouse at […]
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Review: The Lighthouse shines on
Anyone who’s ever stood at the edge of the ocean shore and gazed over a roaring Atlantic at night can attest to its eerie nature. What lies beyond the rocks, where we can only catch glimpses of whitecaps, small changes in grey shades of darkness? Add a storm and the tension of survival sets in. […]
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Review: Clifton Hill plays all the angles
Niagara Falls, with its gambling and theme park gaudiness sidled up beside one of the country’s most majestic natural wonders, is rife with potential for Lynchian strangeness. It doesn’t take director Albert Shin long to tap into that disquieting feeling with Clifton Hill. Just past the intense but terrifically understated opening sequence—in which the protagonist, […]
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Review: The Last Black Man in San Francisco was abandoned by his city
The Last Black Man in San Francisco Fri Sep 27, 6:30pm & 9pm Carbon Arc, 1747 Summer Street $8.75 When watching The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the most striking aspect of the film is how beautiful it looks. Sublime lighting and shots of the city’s vast landscape make the flick feel, at first, […]
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Review: Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a barrage of tenderness
Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes place on a secluded island in 18th century Brittany, France, where Marianne (Noémie Merlant), an ndependent young painter, is commissioned by a Countess (Valeria Golino) to paint a wedding portrait of her daughter, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). As Héloïse has refused to pose for previous painters, Marianne masquerades as […]
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Review: Run this Town runs out of breath
Run this Town wants to say a lot of things. Unfortunately, it says nothing at all. A slick and entertaining hot-mess of a tale from writer-director Ricky Tollman (Enfant Terrible), Run this Town follows reporter Bram as he tries and fails to land the story that led to the downfall of Rob Ford. (Watching the […]
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Review: Her Last Project sees a woman writing her own ending
Shelly Sarwal didn’t view her death as a tragedy. But, that doesn’t mean she wanted to die. As she points out in Her Last Project, which chronicles the last year and half of her life after being diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA)—a rare and incurable neurodegenerative disease—she just wasn’t given a choice in the […]
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Review: Murmur is beautifully bleak
Written and directed by Dartmouth-based filmmaker Heather Young, (Dog Girl, Milk) Murmur—which opened this year’s FIN Atlantic International Film Festival—tells the beautifully bleak story of Donna (Shan McDonald), a kind-hearted woman whose loneliness is palpable. She doesn’t appear to have anyone in her life except her daughter, who refuses to answer her calls or texts. […]
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To The Lighthouse
The Location Matt Likely has spent years working his way up the gilded ladder of the film industry, starting as a graphic designer “making signs that are used in the background of a movie,” to roles like artistic director or production designer. When luminary auteur Robert Eggers decided that Yarmouth—in particular, what Likely describes as […]
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Heather Young’s film slays not with a bang but a Murmur
FIN AIFF Opening Night Gala: Murmur Thu Sep 12, 7pm Rebecca Cohn Auditorium 6101 University Avenue $50 The opposite of a silver-set Hollywood dream, Heather Young’s films have both feet firmly planted in reality. She wants to make movies about “a real person, that feels like someone I could meet in my real life—that both […]