PalCinema, Part 2 PRE-view of the Chicago International Film Festival

Week 2 brings some Hollywood heavy hitters, international gems, and heartfelt documentaries

October 21, 2024
 
By Dan Pal
 
There are some major Oscar-caliber films and provocative works in the second and last week of the festival!  Here are capsule reviews of films I’ve seen that will playing this week.  Full reviews will be published once the films are officially released.

All We Imagine as Light – 3 ½ out of 4 stars

Written and directed by Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light concerns two nurses who room together in a very modest apartment in Mumbai.  The narrative builds slowly towards its eventual central concern.  Prabha, played by Kani Kusruti, is the more traditional of the two women.  She is part of an arranged marriage but she hasn’t seen her husband in over a year as he works in Germany.  Prabha is very serious minded compared to Anu, played by Divya Prbha. Anu is a bit of a free spirit and is sexually involved with a Muslim named Shiaz.  (This may have been why India didn’t select the film for this year’s Best International Film Oscar.)  She has no interest in the custom of arranged marriages.  Her approach to life is much more modern than Prabha’s is and her personality confirms this even if her surroundings might be only a bit brighter than Prabha’s.  The two get along pretty well but they are part of the larger dichotomy that Kapadia seems to be exploring throughout the film: modernity vs. tradition, Mumbai vs. villages, and the rich vs. the workers.  The film doesn’t try to take sides and leaves us much to ponder about in each case. 

Screens Oct. 22 & 24.

Alpha – 3 out of 4 stars

In Alpha, from Dutch filmmaker Jan-Willem van Ewijk, a father and son reunite for a ski trip in the Swiss Alps.  A contentious relationship leads to a harrowing and dangerous adventure for both of them.  Reinout Scholten van Aschat stars as Rein, a teacher and musician who has not seen his father since his mother passed away three months earlier.  Gijs is the father who is a recognized actor and lover of younger women. Unfortunately, and this is one of the chief problems with the script, background details are not given enough of a chance to develop.  We never really find out what the circumstances between the men have been. The true power of the film though is its cinematography.  The characters are often dwarfed by the sheer majesty of the Swiss Alps.  Cameras also fly with them as they ski down some pretty steep slopes.  During their journey, the father and son endure other significant and dangerous situations such as an avalanche, fog, heavy snow, wind, getting lost, and some serious injuries.  Editing could be tightened but it is quite a visual experience and definitely features some major moments of peril that are emotionally very effective.

Screens Oct. 25 & 26.  Director Jan-Willem van Ewijk is scheduled to attend.

Baby – 3 out of 4 stars

When 18-year old Wellington is released from a youth detention center in Sao Paulo, he reaches out to his parents to sign discharge papers only to find they have moved without letting him know where they are.  This marks the opening for the film Baby. The direction the character’s life heads from there finds him involved with selling drugs, prostitution, and other criminal behavior.  It’s a sobering experience for someone who really just needs to bond with his own community of friends.  Wellington is played by newcomer Joao Pedro Ariano who boasts a very chiseled handsome face and a slight build that suggests he is still a boy.  He is also gay and develops a relationship with 42-year old Ronaldo who essentially tries to pimp him out to his voyeuristic friend. However, their bond proves much stronger than this.  The film itself offers a pretty raw look at the life of street hustling in Sao Paulo. It’s a pretty bleak picture of that life with only a few bright spots and some loving community friends.  Sexual activity runs rampant and is depicted quite explicitly.  As such this is a film for mature adults who want to get a snapshot of what life on these streets might be like and how a young person must weasel their way in and out of it. 

Screens Oct. 22 & 24.

Four Mothers – 3 out of 4 stars

In the new film, Four Mothers, Edward is a gay Irish novelist who lives at home with his mother, a stroke victim who can only speak through a computer.  He’s on the verge of embarking on a book tour in America but feels bound for duty to his mother.  Then three of his friends decide they can’t take the pressures of their own needy mothers and decide to head off to a Spanish Pride celebration, leaving Edward to have to take care of all of them.  This ridiculous premise almost kills the film from the start but there’s enough warmth and humor here to make it work as a heartfelt comedy/drama.  The film also redeems itself with some great performances by the ensemble, including Fionnula Flanagan as Edward’s mother.  She more than effectively communicates using her expressive non-verbals.  She and James McArdle, who plays Edward, demonstrate some great rapport given this limitation and their relationship clearly depicts a life of mother/son banter.  If some of the plot developments don’t quite feel realistic the film’s themes are.  There’s a time when many of us have to consider whether it is more important to take care of our own needs versus those of others.  Where and when should that line be drawn?

Screens Oct. 20 & 21.  Director Darren Thornton is scheduled to attend.

Hard Truths – 2 out of 4 stars

Almost thirty years ago, Mike Leigh directed Marianne Jean-Baptiste to an Oscar nomination for the great film Secrets & Lies.  She played a black woman who searches for her mother only to find that she is white.  With that film, and many others such as Another Year and Vera Drake, Leigh is known for developing rich characters and pointed dialogue.  Happy-Go-Lucky from 2008 features Sally Hawkins as a terminally upbeat young woman learning how to drive.  His new film, Hard Truths, takes almost the opposite approach with his main character.  Baptiste plays Pansy, a married woman who prefers to stay in bed due to her “health issues.”  When she does arise, she needs to keep the home that she shares with her husband Virgil and their grown son Moses in tip top shape.  Even more than this she spouts off constant complaints about them and everyone else in the world.  She may be the angriest character ever portrayed on screen. The problem with Hard Truths is that we remain in the same position with her for most of the film.  Pansy’s rants are constant and after a while quite exhausting to see and hear.  It doesn’t make for a very satisfying experience.

Screens Oct. 24 & 27.

Long Good Thursday – 3 out of 4 stars

At the start of the Finnish film, Long Good Thursday, Hessu and Kukka bring their father for a nursing home tour.  He doesn’t share any of their enthusiasm and walks out. Then a slightly younger woman named Saimi comes into his life and provides some late season hope for the man.  The film, based on a novel, presents an almost fairy tale-like depiction of what could be for an aging adult.  The characters are beautifully drawn and full of the eccentricities that make for good reading/watching.  Heikki Kinnunen, who is a comedy star in Finland, plays the older farmer. He has a very modest small country home where he spends parts of his day chopping wood and eating near a photo of his deceased wife. Saimi is a divorcee who lives in an old schoolhouse and spends much of her time as a photographer.  She is a free spirit who lightens up any space she’s in.  Besides his very expressive face and demeanor, which are great for her photos, what she sees in the farmer is a bit of a mystery. She comes across as almost too good to be true.  The film is nicely shot and while the music score may veer the story into overly melodramatic territory at times, there’s enough charm here to warm the hearts of those who might be cynical about the nature of people’s golden years.

Screens Oct. 23 & 24.  Actress Jaana Saarinen (Saimi) is scheduled to attend.  The film is one of five at the festival which aims to showcase the cinema of Finland.

Nickel Boys – 3 ½ out of 4 stars

There’s a technique that various directors have attempted over the last century of cinema that Nickel Boys uses in some astonishing ways.  It’s called the subjective point of view, which basically means that we are seeing from the perspective of a character.  The camera is located in the position of that character’s eyes.  An early famous example of it was Robert Montgomery’s The Lady in the Lake from 1946.  More recently, artist/director Julian Schnabel captured a paralyzed man’s perspective in the brilliant 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  The choice of this technique by RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys is a curious one since the film is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name.  In theory, this should mean that the text is more important than any flashy camera technique being used but Ross creates an extremely artful, visual piece of work that beautifully expresses the novel’s disturbing story about a young black man’s wrongful imprisonment in a segregated Florida “academy.”  This is a daring film that will likely be studied and honored for years.

Screens Oct. 23^rd at the Music Box Theatre.  Director RaMell Ross is scheduled to attend.

A Real Pain – 3 ½ out of 4 stars

Cousins Benji and David Kaplan embark on a heritage tour through Poland where their deceased Jewish grandmother once lived before being ousted by the Nazi’s.  Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who also plays David, the film becomes a story of family pain decades after the events of the Holocaust. The primary focus is on the cousins, their relationship, and their often humorous methods of handling the challenges of life.  Front and center is Emmy winner Kieren Culkin as Benji.  His is the showier role and the more in your face character.  To say that Culkin and Eisenberg are playing variations of characters we’ve seen them play before would be too obvious.  Benji is a highly animated, free flowing spirit who comes off as a loose canyon but also a highly sensitive, emotionally wounded man approaching middle age.  David is more tightly wound and stable.  He’s the sensible one with a wife and child at home while Benji smokes weed and wanders a bit aimlessly through life.  The tone of the film is relatively light but given the personalities of Benji and David, that tone has its comedic and serious moments.  This potential Oscar favorite is a film to be enjoyed on a number of levels:  the writing, characters, performances, and scenery.

Screens Oct. 23. Rush seats only may be available.

Slice of Life: The American Dream.  In Pizza Huts – 3 out of 4 stars

The documentary, Slice of Life:  The American Dream. In Former Pizza Huts explores the people who transformed the iconic chain’s buildings into something new and often very personal related to their own lives and ambitions.  For a film about the American dream of starting a new business though, it is a bit ironic that the filmmakers behind this project are from Australia.  Director Matthew Salleh travels around the U.S. interviewing people who have taken the former Pizza Huts and converted them into an MCC Church started by an LGBTQ community in Florida, a dispensary in Colorado, a karaoke bar in Texas, and, among others, a barbecue in Chicago’s northern suburb Waukegan.  While the origins and evolution of Pizza Hut are highlighted, this is really a film about the people who come from all walks of life that have taken this opportunity to transform these former restaurants into something they may have never dreamed they’d be able to do.  It’s inspiring to witness how this affects their lives and the lives of people in their own communities. 

Screens Oct. 23 & 24.  Director Matthew Salleh and producer Rose Tucker are scheduled to attend.

Time Passages - 3 ½ out of 4 stars

Here’s a film that really resonated with me and will likely do the same for anyone who has had a special connection with their mother – especially during the pandemic.  Filmmaker Kyle Henry compiles Super 8 home movie footage, interviews, photos, and even some performance pieces to present a portrait of his mother Elaine.  Like Elaine, my own mother documented much of our lives growing up.  I was the one holding all of her films and photos when we had to put her into a nursing home. Henry painstakingly edits together much of what he has for his new film Time Passages. So much of the material here comes from sources (reel to reel tapes, decaying film footage, etc.) that few people use in our culture today, which makes it quite challenging to convert to a more commonly used medium such as digital files today.  But Henry does this exceedingly well.  In addition to the home movies, he includes recorded phone messages, slides, FaceTime conversations, and of course hundreds of photos.  A film like this further proves how important it is to preserve our own individual histories and to share them with others.  It keeps the spirit of all those who once graced our worlds alive and allows them a place to shine again.

Screens Sat. Oct. 26 at 2:15 PM at the Chicago History Museum.  Director Kyle Henry is scheduled to attend.

Universal Language – 3 ½ out of 4 stars

Canada’s submission for this year’s Best International Feature Oscar is a wonderful homage to some of the films of Iranian and Italian cinema while also being a purely original Canadian production.  Co-written, directed, and starring Matthew Rankin, Universal Language is one of the most captivating films of the year that begs for us to even try to summarize and understand.  The film features loosely interconnected stories that are sometimes dark but even more so, very funny.  In one, children are being asked by their frustrated teacher what they want to be when they grow up.  One boy, with glasses, a fake moustache, and dark eyebrows has a goal of being a comedian like Groucho Marx.  Then there’s a freelance tour guide who takes people around to the few tourist sites he believes there are in Winnipeg, such as a bench with a briefcase that has been sitting there for possibly decades and a memorial to the father of Manitoba which is situated in a small grassy area between lanes of a major highway.  Then there’s a turkey on the loose riding on a bus…  This isn’t just a series of silly, surrealistic scenes (although some certainly are) there’s a real story here about characters in a Canadian winter who all really need each other and perhaps hold on to a sense of humor to get by. One of my favorites from the festival.

Screens Oct. 20 & 22.  Director/Actor Matthew Rankin is scheduled to attend.

To read previous coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival and for all PalCinema archive reviews, click here.