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Click here for my full overview of this year's Chicago Film Festival at Film Comment Magazine.
 Features I Saw at CIFF:Ranked in order of preference My Vote for the Gold Hugo Happy as Lazzaro (International Competition; Italy, dir. Alice Rohrwacher) - A kinder, gentler Time of the Wolf. Sounds like a paradox? Well, Rohrwacher sees things that you and I don't see. Extremely Strong ROMA (Gala Presentations; Mexico, dir. Alfonso Cuarón) - Cuarón's a prodigy of world-building. Strains a bit more at characterization. All holds true in this textured memory-play. Shoplifters (Masters; Japan, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda) - Films are like families—each scene, each member stands delicately, distinctively apart, yet they're all tightly bound. Shorts 3: Bad Don't Sleep – After Dark (Shorts; US/Greece/Canada/France, dirs. Miscellaneous) - Amazingly high quality! La Chute, Icebergs, Milk, Hair Wolf are all peaks. Rangy angles on fear and anxiety. Joy (International Competition; Austria, dir. Sudabeh Mortezai) - With strong images and agile play with structure, shows personal and systemic sides of overlooked yet all-too-common dilemmas. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Gala Presentations; USA, dir. Marielle Heller) - So layered! Tonally adroit. Perfectly acted. Historically specific. Love of words as dangerous siren. Highly Recommended Ash Is Purest White (International Competition; China, dir. Jia Zhangke) - I dug the knotting-together of personal and national melodrama, even amid blunter moments. Zhao is remarkable. Jumpman (International Competition; Russia, dir. Ivan I. Tverdovskiy) - Premise is so gutsy and edge-of-the-seat intense, it barely hurts the film that it doesn't push the story further forward. At War (International Competition; France, dir. Stéphane Brizé) - Labor drama with deft character study. Lindon gives an oppositely but equally powerful performance to his last for Brizé. The Hate U Give (Gala Presentations; USA, dir. George Tillman, Jr.) - Bold, admirably relentless commitment to ideas and worldviews it makes accessible to a wide audience. Go see it! Vox Lux (Gala Presentations; USA, dir. Brady Corbet) - Artpop². Unafraid. Tries to think historically about an era that repudiates history—without making pop something it's not. Recommended The Favourite (Gala Presentations; Ireland/UK/USA, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) - Bold tone and craft, dumb lenses aside. I vacillated on the story's merits. Colman is amazing, diving ever-deeper. Border (International Competition; Sweden, dir. Ali Abbasi) - I'm surprised at my own enthusiasm? It's a textbook case of committing to the bizarro story you're telling. I was so moved! Birds of Passage (International Competition; Colombia/Mexico/Denmark/France, dirs. Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra) - A bold gangster drama, unique in many aspects, yet disconcertingly loyal to tropes you might expect it to contest. Cold War (Masters; Poland/France, dir. Paweł Pawlikowski) - About art and money, East and West, earnest love and performative gamesmanship. It's chic but I didn't care all that much. Widows (Gala Presentations; USA, dir. Steve McQueen) - Propulsive Chicago crime thriller; action climax goes off like an IED. Unevenly completes its passes at social critique. Buy Me a Gun (World Cinema; Mexico/Colombia, dir. Julio Hernández Cordón) - Less Huck Finn, more Beasts of the Dystopian Wild. Collapsed world viewed inductively from defiantly odd perspectives. Sorry Angel (World Cinema; France, dir. Christophe Honoré) - Honoré on another roundelay of connections, disruptions, shifting orientations. Deepens and solidifies as it continues. Hard Paint (World Cinema; Brazil, dirs. Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon) - Study of depression, personal or urban, and a web-era allegory where desires and personal brands are sources of anxiety. Sauvage (World Cinema; France, dir. Camille Vidal-Naquet) - Despite ultimately limited insights, offers a tactile, textured survey of a rough milieu, staged and acted with conviction. Srbenka (Documentary Competition; Croatia, dir. Nebojša Slijepčević) - Not the first bold movie, pressing on raw nerves, of which you can't help imagining an even bolder, more trenchant version. As I Lay Dying (New Directors Competition; Iran, dir. Mostafa Sayyari) - Carries Faulkner's legacy into unusual terrain, even/especially by Iran's standards. Style less distinct than story. My Home, in Libya (Documentary Competition; Italy, dir. Martina Melilli) - On-screen text and other tricks feel rote at first but the encounter between Martina and Mahmoud keeps deepening. The Shadow Line: Alberto García-Alix (Documentary; Spain, dir. Nicolás Combarro) - Interesting fusion of subject and maker's aesthetics. Neat study of photos both taken and not. Boy Erased (Gala Presentations; USA, dir. Joel Edgerton) - Not a mold-breaker aesthetically, but a moving story with a deep acting bench. Ends on rare mix of anger and compassion. Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland (Documentary; USA, dirs. Kate Davis, David Heilbroner) - Doesn't always exhibit perfect structure or story sense but trusts its own power. Mixed Bags Transit (International Competition; Germany/France, dir. Christian Petzold) - Experiments with deadpan surrealism, historical dislocation start strong but peter out. I've grown impatient with Petzold. Rafiki (World Cinema; Kenya, dir. Wanuri Kahiu) - Still hard not to feel the first half sets up a more complex story than the second half delivers. But plenty to recommend. What They Had (Gala Presentations; USA, dir. Elizabeth Chomko) - Camera feels flat and sound is worse, but the actors keep finding truths about this family, and families in general. This Changes Everything (Documentary; USA, dir. Tom Donahue) - Formally modest doc about fighting sexist working norms in Hollywood hits a lot of its rhetorical targets. Beautiful Boy (Opening Night; USA, dir. Felix van Groeningen) - Has some tough ideas for conveying addiction but directorial missteps increasingly unravel them. Actors look unsure. Mario (World Cinema; Switzerland, dir. Marcel Gisler) - Liebe, Simon. It's fine, with a smart final shot, but if soccer's all risk and intricate maneuvers, why shouldn't cinema be? Not Recommended [Censored] (Documentary Competition; Australia, dir. Sari Braithwaite) - Strenuously claims to bring some critical or ethical frames to a fund of lurid footage that it mostly just recirculates. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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