FF+ Anatomy of a Fall/The Zone of Interest (TIFF Reviews)

Two surefire contenders for the 2024 Best International Feature Film Oscar, ANATOMY OF A FALL is a high-quality courtroom drama featuring an emotionally complex leading performance and some impressive shifting perspective camerawork during its trial scenes, while THE ZONE OF INTEREST provides a glimpse into the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a German military family living an idyllic lifestyle next door to the horrific Auschwitz concentration camp.

0:00 – Intro

0:53 – Anatomy of a Fall

9:29 – The Zone of Interest

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Patrick

Feelin’ Film

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

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Episode 382: Past Lives

Celine Song’s directorial debut is a beautiful story of friendship and contemplation about the choices we make in life. It is powerfully relatable, thoughtful, and mature in handling a unique relationship dynamic, and the film shows us that it’s okay to be sad about the road not taken without having regrets.

* Note – full spoilers in effect for entire episode *

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Feelin’ Film

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FF+ Stephen Curry: Underrated/Interview with Director Peter Nicks and Producer & DP Sean Havey

In this episode – my review of a cinematic and emotionally compelling documentary journey through the college and NBA careers thus far of superstar Stephen Curry, as well as his pursuit to finish the college degree he never obtained. Also, my conversation with Director Peter Nicks and Producer/Director of Photography Sean Havey about the film.

Stephen Curry: Underrated – 1:09

Interview with Director Peter Nicks & Producer/DP Sean Havey – 8:13

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

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Episode 369: You Hurt My Feelings

This week we enjoy taking a break from blockbusters to talk about how a 90-minute movie centered on exploring honesty in relationships could be so relatable, thought-provoking, and entertaining despite its seeming simplicity. We get into some personal examples, as well, so this is one of the episodes where you’ll get to know us better through the conversation.

* Note – full spoilers in effect for entire episode *

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Episode 367: The Spectacular Now

A largely underrated gem in A24’s catalog, this coming-of-age story is among the most natural we’ve ever seen, with an authenticity to its characters and dialogue that make it heartbreakingly and beautifully relatable. We chat about teenage alcoholism, keeping secrets from your children, and what it means to live in the moment, among other things, in this conversation.

* Note – full spoilers in effect for entire episode *

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FF+ Your Place or Mine/Sharper

In this episode – two longtime adult best friends swap houses and lives for a week and discover new ways to approach their lives and a possible romance, and layer upon layer of a confidence game is peeled back in a thriller about liars stealing money from the super-rich.

Your Place or Mine – 01:15

Sharper – 08:33

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Music: Upbeat Party – Scott Holmes Music

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Florida Project

The Florida Project (2017)


Going In

Sean Baker first came onto my radar with 2015’s Tangerine, the unique and moving story of a transgender girl searching on Christmas Eve for the pimp who broke her heart. Oh, and it was also shot almost entirely on an iPhone 5s. This made Baker a must-watch director for me. His newest film, The Florida Project follows the life of a 6-year girl and her single mother over the course of one summer. Not much more detail than that is known other than the film also stars Willem Dafoe in what critics are calling one of his best performances. The simplicity of its plot and incredible amount of positive critical buzz make this one of the movies I am most excited for this fall.



COMING OUT

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person’s frame of reference. To use a common metaphor, it is the ability to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” If there is one thing that The Florida Project evokes it is empathy, something our world could do with a hefty dose of right about now.

Sean Baker’s latest is a phenomenal film. Willem Dafoe anchors a cast of unknowns, including leads Brooklynn Prince (Moonee) and first-time actress Bria Vinaite (Halley). Both Prince and Vinaite are a revelation, turning in stunningly powerful performances as a homeless/jobless single parent and her mischievous 6-year old daughter. Set entirely over the course of one summer, this family lives in a run-down motel on the outskirts of the nearby Disney World. Moonee is not just a rebellious child, though, and that is what makes The Florida Project effective. Both she and her mother are both good and bad, living in that gray area that most of us do. Moonee could very well be seen as gifted, as well. She is incredibly creative and self-sufficient for her age, and a natural leader, but those rebellious tendencies that she has learned from her mother are ever-present. Hally, her mother, is also not a one note character. We don’t know exactly how she got into the situation she is in, but how she deals with it is the interesting thing. Her desire to provide for her daughter is never in question, but her methods of doing so definitely are. Watching her progressively poor choices was painful – she is a parent who thinks that she is showing love but doesn’t understand fully what that means. She is in many ways as much a child as Moonee when it comes to raising her daughter.

Willem Dafoe does indeed turn in one of his career best performance as the hotel manager and the only male influence in Moonee’s life. Like most characters in the film, he has the best of intentions but leads us to question whether the choices he makes truly what’s best for Moonee and her mom. Dafoe’s character could even be seen as a surrogate for the viewer, a man who is not in the same situation but on the fringe, trying to figure out how to interact and support without overstepping his bounds.  This is a movie about adventure, friendship, and innocence lost. The story is powerful from start to finish and it all leads up to an intense ending sequence that I haven’t been able to shake for weeks.

Verdict

The Florida Project wowed me in a way that few films have in 2017. I resonated deeply with its primary theme of empathy. As a parent myself, watching it was sometimes difficult but always worthwhile. With any luck, many will see this poignant film and begin to look a little more closely (and with more compassion) at those outside the margins as they go about their everyday lives. The Florida Project is unforgettable – a definite must see.

Rating:


Aaron White is a Seattle-based film critic and co-creator/co-host of the Feelin’ Film Podcast. He is also a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society. He writes reviews with a focus on how his expectations influenced his experience. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to be notified when new content is posted.

MOVIE REVIEW: It Comes At Night

Each time Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr., Birth of a Nation) picks up his lantern to wander the dark halls of his family’s  boarded up home, he strikes the image of a ghost- perhaps of a weary railroad conductor making his rounds. Tension builds with each creak of the floorboards, and the lengthening of shadows indicate that something ominous lurks. In his sophomore feature length effort, It Comes at Night, writer/director Trey Edward Shults proves sometimes less is more with horror.  Sometimes, what we don’t see is as unsettling as actually revealing the monsters that hunt us.

The audience isn’t given a lot to work with in regard to world building. There is the aforementioned house and the surrounding woods.  Nothing more is required.  The presence of gas masks posit some sort of airborne virus exists, and the gruesome illness that has befallen Travis’ grandfather indicates said virus isn’t screwing around.  Besides Travis, the house is occupied by his parents, Paul (Joel Edgerton, Loving) and Sarah (Carmen Ejogo, Alien: Covenant), and the family dog.  Paul’s day-to-day routine is militaristic in nature- designed with safety and survival as priority.

When that safety is threatened, Paul is forced to make some uneasy decisions that will alter the dynamic he’s worked hard to sustain.  The fly in the ointment here is Will (Christopher Abbott, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot), a survivor who attempts to break into the home in search of supplies for his family.  Will eventually convinces Paul that his intentions are honest, and with some prodding from his own family, Paul consents to bring Will’s wife Kim (Riley Keough, American Honey), and young son Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner) to live in the house and share resources.

Shults keeps traditional horror tropes at arms length.  He has no interest in burdening the audience with cheap jump scares or semi-visible ghoulies scurrying about.  The tension in It Comes at Night stems from the atmosphere Shults has created.  Most of the film is shrouded in a suffocating darkness- the fear of falling victim to the unseen virus keeping everyone on edge.  Shults doubles down on the uneasiness through his characters’ interactions.  Trust  between the families is paper thin, and one sideways glance can send the new household dynamic into chaos.

Our perspective of this story comes primarily from Travis.  The mood set by Harrison Jr.’s often unmoving gaze provides us a glimpse of a devolving world- a human condition that is gradually unraveling, fed by a lingering deceit and burgeoning mistrust.  The graphic nightmares Travis endures, perhaps symbolic of the film’s title, show us a consequence of the withering psyche of Travis as an individual that’s clearly seen too much.  Harrison Jr. sells all of it, and although we as the audience aren’t privy to any real context of what is happening in this world, the deconstructing of this one small segment of it is enough to earn our attention.

When we aren’t living in Travis’ worldview, the film treads along the interactions of Paul and Will.  Edgerton and Abbott volley their mistrust of each other back and forth, threatening their uneasy alliance almost minute by minute.  As an audience, we wait idly by for something to break.  Both actors succeed in playing off each other’s skepticisms, but each is bound by a sense of personal duty to do right be their family.  Alas, Ejogo and Keough serve little purpose beyond looking frightened and succumbing to direction from their men.

So what is Shults really playing at in It Comes at Night?  Is the virus used as a macguffin to get at a more intimate portrait of social constructs?  Does it really matter whether any of the characters fall victim to unseen horrors when the clear and present danger presents itself within their own interactions?  A lot of time is spent worrying about what lies on the other side of a creepy red door, when the true horrors may reside on the same side as the people who are doing the worrying.

No doubt there are people who will walk away confused, or perhaps even angry.  It’s a consequence of ambiguity. The ending is not conducive to filmgoers needing answers, but that doesn’t mean answers can’t be had.  Monsters don’t always need to be tangible things with sharp teeth and fangs.  But just because we can’t always see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.  Paranoia is a big motivator, and it hangs like a thick fog over this story.  How you reconcile the themes within the film, and especially the ending, probably depends on the way your own life mirrors certain aspects within- the losses you’ve been dealt- the people you’ve had interactions with.  It Comes at Night dares to play with those subconscious thoughts and invites you to explore them for yourself.  Sometimes the true horrors lie within us.

Rating:

 

Episode 5: It Comes at Night

Raw, fully spoiled, instant reactions after leaving the theater. This film is not what trailers made it seem. Instead it is a deep, psychological family drama that had the potential to leave viewers seriously confused. Aaron and Don talk through their emotions and try to figure out exactly what this film means.

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Intro/Outro Music – “Seeing the Future” by Dexter Britain

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