Dogtooth (Lanthimos)
An accomplished execution of an idea in a nearly exactly-executed package, there is little doubt that what is onscreen in Dogtooth is precisely what filmmaker Lanthimos wants to be up there. Judging the film is not so much a matter of how well it does what it intends, but whether or not what it’s intending is too sadistic/hateful/absurd. Knowing the concept going into the film, as I did, alleviates the confusion that is intended for the first 15 minutes of the film, created with (for non-Greek-speakers) nonsensical subtitling, robotic acting, and a cerebral tone that clashes with the warm outfitting of the environment and the ‘suburban’ family’s aura: these are the Beavers as programmed by a cynical computer. The film works best when a character threatens to snap out of it, which often creates a hilarious tension in their behavior and the adapting reactions by those who are ‘informed’. The concept may not be new – primarily having been done across decades of literature – but this filmed incarnation is very much of this zeitgeist, and intermittently comes across as an essential and dire hypothesis for the outlook of a certain branch of society.
Independencia (Martin)
As Independencia trudges further into its brief running time, the film’s only noteworthy features – the look and the sound – become more obviously gimmicks. While the audio, noteworthy for being triumphant and dynamic, is a welcome bit of superfluous style, the look of the film is not only distracting, but ugly. It isn’t merely in the academy ratio and in black and white, but it is made to look like it is moving at 18 frames per second, resulting in a choppy and laggy aesthetic that is usually attributed to poorly compressed or exported video. All of this would be more forgivable if the content of the film was engaging in its own right, but, save for a compelling, late thunderstorm, it isn’t.
Irene (Cavalier)
Unfamiliar with M. Cavalier’s filmography, I gained an interest in this film, like many of the ones that I saw at TIFF, from the word coming out of Cannes. The idea for the film, consisting of Cavalier using his camera as a first-person looking glass at the remaining memories and diaries he has of his wife, Irene, who died some 25 years ago in an auto accident, was a concept that was enough to make me misty just reading it some months ago. The film follows through on the promise of this synopsis, for sure (mist intact), but the meat of the film is in discovering exactly why this trek into Cavalier’s past and memories is so engaging for the unassociated viewer. It becomes a study in what is, and isn’t, universal in a stranger’s life, and what is, or isn’t, disposable. Moments unrelated to Cavalier’s scavenging arise, like a nasty fall down an escalator, in which we see Cavalier’s body, and even his face. These few moments are startling because we’re reminded of whose life we are intruding; it is no longer confused with our own. These moments simultaneously pull us out of the film, and further into its formal complexity.