TIFF Reviews

HOW TO TIFF

The Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 7-15. Advance tickets can be ordered online at www.tiff07.ca, by phone at 416-968-FILM or in person at the TIFF Group box office (Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor W., north entrance, main floor), the Festival box office at College Park (444 Yonge, south entrance, market level), Roy Thomson Hall box office and the theatre box offices (same-day screening tickets only). Buy early, and look for info on same-day and rush tickets. Box office hours are seven days a week, 7am-7pm.

REVIEWS BY: JASON ANDERSON, PHILIP BROWN, LIZ CLAYTON, KIERAN GRANT, ADAM NAYMAN AND DAMIAN ROGERS

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS

Dir Cristian Mungiu w/ Anamaria Marinca, Vlad Ivanov. 113 min. Sep 8, 4:30pm, Winter Garden; Sep 10, 10am, Cumberland 1.

The Romanian New Wave scored an international breakthrough with the Palme d'Or win by Cristian Mungiu's lean, gripping drama, set in the waning years of the Ceaucescu regime. Ably carrying the film on her slim shoulders, Marinca is excellent in the role of a young woman who attempts to procure an illegal abortion for her university roommate over the course of one very awful evening. Slivers of gallows humour occasionally alleviate the militantly gaunt mood and one gratuitous shock is the only moment Mungiu sets a foot wrong. JA

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Dir Julie Taymor w/ Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess. 133 min. Sep 10, 9:30pm, RTH; Sep 11, 11am, Elgin.

Julie Taymor's Fab Four fantasia is almost certain to be deemed a fiasco but at least it's an endearingly daft one. An amalgam of Hair, Rent and The Rose, Across the Universe is scored to the songs of Lennon/McCartney – mostly well sung, fortunately, and in settings that are only occasionally reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil. Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess play transatlantic lovers who get tossed about by the tempests of the '60s, with Taymor trying to freshen up the all-too-familiar events with a ham-fisted Vietnam = Iraq analogy. Though the most psychedelicized sequences are thoroughly cringe-worthy – especially when Bono shows up for “I Am the Walrus” – the low-key moments have a disarming sweetness that makes it easier to forgive (and even savour) the many risible excesses. JA

ALEXANDRA

Dir Alexander Sokurov w/ Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov. 92 min. Sep 13, 8pm, Winter Garden; Sep 15, 9am, Scotiabank 4.

Reports of Sokurov's declining health and the recent death of Vishnevskaya's legendary husband, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, inevitably add to the already melancholy air of the director's latest, the graceful, humane story of an elderly woman's visit to her grandson's army base in Chechnya. Sokurov's film thoughtfully adopts the same pace as his lead character and Vishnevskaya is marvellous as the matriarch who casts a sad eye at the pain and heartbreak caused by war, both this particular one and every one like it. JA

AMAL

Dir Richie Mehta w/ Rupinder Nagra, Koel Purie. 105 min. Sep 13, 9pm, Ryerson; Sep 15, 9:15pm, Scotiabank 3.

Richie Mehta's Delhi-shot debut is named for its hero, (Rupinder Nagra) a benign auto-rickshaw driver unknowingly on the verge of a massive, Melvin and Howard-style windfall. Whether or not he'll receive it is a matter of some clumsily manufactured suspense, but this modest and good-hearted (yet finally unsentimental) film is at its best in between its plot points. The location shooting is impressive, evoking a sense of bustle without resorting to jittery vérité clichés. AN

AMERICAN VENUS

Dir. Bruce Sweeney w/ Rebecca De Mornay, Jane McGregor. 81 min. Contemporary World Cinema program. Sep 8, 9:15pm, Scotiabank Theatre; Sep 10, noon, Scotiabank Theatre.

Sweeney's cutting satire of Yankee gun love is energized by Rebecca De Mornay's performance as desperately clingy mom, which summons up the kind of unholy fury rarely been seen since Faye Dunaway spotted those wire hangers. JA

AND ALONG CAME TOURISTS

Dir Robert Thalheim, w/ Alexander Fehling, Barbara Wysocka. 85 min. Sep 12, 6:15pm, Cumberland 2; Sep 14, 10:15am, Varsity 2; Sep 15, 9:30am, Varsity 1.

A German youth (Fehling) doing his national service abroad at the Auschwitz museum is enlisted to look after an aged and ornery Polish concentration camp survivor (Ryszard Ronczewski); awkwardness and discomfort eventually yield understanding. What scans as a predictable scenario yields surprise, though it has more to do with the filmmaking choices than the direction of the narrative. Starting with its unobtrusive realist style, And Along Came Tourists is brisk and nuanced. The script balances one gigantic question – does the public remembrance of atrocity somehow sanitize and diminish it? – with an uncommonly involving young-man-at-a-crossroads story. AN

ANGEL

Dir François Ozon, w/ Romola Garai, Sam Neill. 119 min. Sep 13, 6pm, Elgin; Sep 15, 12:45pm, Scotiabank 2.

When is a movie comprised almost entirely of clichés not in the least bit lazy? When it's been directed by François Ozon, a filmmaker with a track record of purposeful pastiche (8 Women) and too much talent to have just tossed off something this tacky. Which doesn't mean that this satire of period melodramas – in which a nominally gifted and spectacularly bratty romance novelist (Romola Garai) rises and falls through Edwardian England – is particularly involving. It's a sumptuous technical exercise that splits the difference between affection and contempt at comes up empty. AN

ATONEMENT

Dir Joe Wright w/ James McAvoy, Keira Knightley. 123 min. Sep 10, 9pm, Elgin; Sep 12, 2:30pm, Elgin.

Screenwriter Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright do an audacious and impressive job of adapting Ian McEwan's novel about a scuppered romance between an upper-crust English beauty (Knightley) and a housekeeper's son (McAvoy) not long before WWII. Despite the slipperiness of McEwan's many narrative threads, Atonement is distinguished by the same vitality and intelligence that marked Wright's 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice. Knightley and McAvoy have also rarely been better – the strong passions of their characters help ground the film's headier enquiries into the cruelties of fate and the responsibilities of storytellers. JA

THE BANISHMENT

Dir Andrey Zvyagintsev w/ Konstantin Lavronenko, Maria Bonnevie. 150 min. Sep 7, 12:30pm, Scotiabank 1; Sep 8, 9am, Scotiabank 14; Sep 15, 9:30am, Varsity 4.

A follow-up to the director's 2003 Golden Lion winner The Return, The Banishment again sees Andrey Zvyagintsev channel the spirit of his much-revered countryman Andrei Tarkovsky but with less compelling and more lugubrious results. Konstantin Lavronenko (also seen in The Return) won the best actor prize at Cannes for his role as a man brooding about the news that his wife's unborn child is not his. A dark cloud hangs over their would-be idyll at his childhood home in the country. Lavronenko's charisma and Zvyagintsev's eye for landscapes are not enough to compensate for the inert narrative. JA

BEFORE THE RAINS

Dir Santosh Sivan, w/ Linus Roache, Nandita Das. 98 min. Sep 7, 9pm, Bader; Sep 14, 9pm, Varsity 3.

It's an old rule: guns, once produced, must be used. So after the first scene of the Kerala-set period piece Before the Rains, when British planter Henry (Linus Roache) presents his village liaison T.K. (Rahul Bose) with a brand new pistol, it's pretty obvious what's going to happen – the only question is to whom. Director Santosh Sivan aims for clammy melodrama – the Psycho car-in-the-swamp kind, where our sympathies become aligned with unsympathetic actions – but the story and its carefully italicized implications are too pat to be properly unnerving. AN

Boy A

Dir John Crowley w/ Peter Mullan, Andrew Garfield, Katie Lyons. 100 min. Sep 8, 9:45pm, Cumberland 3. Sep 9, 9:15am, Cumberland 3. Sep 14, 9am, Royal Ontario Museum.

Not quite as good as Radiohead's Kid A, Boy A is a nuanced if loosely wrought character story about Jack (Andrew Garfield), a youth delinquent re-entering society under an assumed identity. Peter Mullan is the show-stealer here as Terry, his social worker, whose own life and identity are so hinged on the boy's salvation that he can't see anything too clearly. The redemptive trades are too facile – but the landscape of grey England and, indeed, the personal vistas within the characters themselves, offer a worthy invitation into emotional darkness. LC

Breakfast With Scot

Dir Laurie Lynd w/ Tom Cavanagh, Ben Shenkman, Noah Bernett. 95 min. Sep 9, 6:30pm, Scotiabank 1; Sep 11, 9am, Scotiabank 14.

A good-natured film about tolerance, acceptance and just being yourself, Breakfast with Scot is like a family-values-heavy after-school spesh with a hot-pink twist. Sam, a closeted ex-NHL-goon-turned-TV-sportscaster, must confront his own discomfort with his sexual identity when a lovable and super-fey 11-year-old orphan turns up at the door dripping with his dead mother's jewellery and sparkly scarves. It's like a gayboy version of '80s race-centred sitcoms like Diff'rent Strokes and Webster, with an especially tenuous explanation for how a busy professional couple ends up as temporary foster parents – trust that poignant mayhem ensues. The whole cast is strong and extremely likeable, with the young Noah Bernett delivering a believable and nuanced performance as Scot, elevating what could be a cartoonish role to three dimensions. DR

BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME

Dir Hana Makhmalbaf, w/ Nikbakht Noruz, Abdolali Hoseinali. 81 min. Sep 9, 6:30pm, Scotiabank 14; Sep 11, 9am, Scotiabank 4; Sep 14, 9:30am, Cumberland 3.

There's no missing the point of Hana Makhmalbaf's debut feature, a deceptively muted – and then climactically explosive – broadside against the Taliban set in the Afghani province of Bamian. In 2001, the Taliban destroyed a pair of massive fifth-century Buddha carvings there; those magnificent statues loom in absentia over Makhmalbaf's pointed parable. Inspired by her neighbour's recitations, smiley post-toddler Baktay (Nikbakht Noruz) decides she wants to go to school. Her first lesson is in economics, as she tries to barter some eggs for the pen and paper she'll need for class. That's a head-scratcher, but nothing compared to the ensuing tutorial in culture studies, as she's menaced by a callow cabal of boys playing “Taliban” – and playing it to the hilt. AN

CARAMEL

Dir Nadine Labaki w/ Labaki, Yasmine Al Masri. 95 min. Sep 14, 9:30pm, RTH; Sep 15, noon, Scotiabank 4.

To call Caramel a Lebanese chick flick may not sound terribly flattering but the film's blend of breezy humour, bittersweet feeling and soft feminism is definitely reminiscent of better-known Hollywood counterparts despite the Middle Eastern setting. Luckily, Nadine Labaki's debut film – awarded a Gala spot due to its abundance of Cannes buzz – is usually as fetching as it is familiar. The filmmaker stars as Layale, the proprietor of a Beirut hair salon whose clients and employees face a variety of crises, including one woman's need to restore her virginity before her wedding. Alas, not even the ritziest spa package includes that procedure. JA

CEDRE PENCHE

Dir Rafael Ouellet w/ Viviane Audet, Marie Neige Chatelain. 78 min. Sep 6, 8:15pm, Varsity 7; Sep 8, 2pm, Cumberland 3.

A fetchingly small-scale Francophone piece about two moody, musically inclined sisters (Marie Neige Chatelain and Viviane Audet) who come together in the wake of their pop-star mom's death. Director Rafael Ouellet's fractured storytelling tactics may frustrate momentum junkies, but those with patience – and a willingness to meet ambitious yet cash-strapped filmmakers halfway – should have no trouble slipping into the elliptical groove. It also features several lovely musical interludes penned and sung by Chatelain and Audet, the latter performer now perched for real-life pop stardom. AN

CHACUN SON CINEMA

Dir Theo Angelopolous, Olivier Assayas et al. 119 min. Sep 8, 11am, Elgin; Sep 14, 6pm, Elgin.

To mark its 60th anniversary, the Cannes Film Festival asked over 30 revered directors to make films about films. It was the experience of being in a theatre that principally interested these auteurs: Wong Kar-wai, the Dardenne brothers, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Atom Egoyan all portray the darkened cinema as a site for activities either illicit or transcendent. Some bits work better than others – Jane Campion and Amos Gitai should've received stern rejection letters – but best-in-show citations go to shorts by Manoel De Oliveira (the delightful Sole Meeting, starring Michel Piccoli as Khrushchev) and David Cronenberg (At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World, a film whose title is as notorious as it is self-explanatory). JA

LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR (LOVE SONGS)

Dir Christophe Honoré w/ Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier. 95 min. Sep 7, 7:15pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 9, 3:30pm, Scotiabank 1.

The difficulties of maintaining a happy threesome is not a common topic for a song in a movie musical, so give French writer-director Christophe Honoré full marks for audacity. Alas, his contemporary take on the genre is cringingly precious and fatally lacking in memorable tunes. The generally appealing Garrel is also badly miscast as Ismael, the male partner in a ménage-à-trois that is beset by tragedy. The distant rumble you hear as you watch this is Jacques Demy rolling over in his grave. JA

CHOP SHOP

Dir Ramin Bahrani w/ Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales. 84 min. Sep 10, 8pm, Varsity 3; Sep 12, noon, Cumberland 1; Sep 14, 10am, Cumberland 1.

The Iron Triangle, a hellish stretch of Queens where stolen cars are dissembled for parts, is the setting for a startling piece of made-in-America social realism by the director of Man Push Cart. Alejandro (Polanco) is an intrepid 12-year-old who works (and lives) in a garage. He struggles to create some semblance of a stable family life for himself and 16-year-old sister Isamar (Gonzales) but his schemes inevitably unravel. Following the model of Ken Loach and the Dardennes, director Ramin Bahrani digs deep into Alejandro's world to create something raw and affecting. JA

CLOSING THE RING

Dir Richard Attenborough w/ Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer. 119 min. Sep 14, 6:30pm, Elgin; Sep 15, 11am, Elgin.

The funeral of a WWII veteran in 1991 Michigan leads us to Belfast treasure hunters, the Provisional IRA, a long-dead American airman and a 50-year-old love triangle in Attenborough's sentimental drama. It's a compelling story propped up by MacLaine and Plummer (except when they're playing embarrassingly, Dudley Moore-dly drunk) and natural performances by Canucks Neve Campbell and Gregory Smith, and then pulled down by cloyingly twee, fiddly-diddly Irish bunk and an utterly robotic (though thankfully brief) performance from a key support player. This shouldn't be memorable mainly as a movie in which fans of The OC got to see Mischa Barton with her kit off, but.... KG

CONTRE TOUTE ESPÉRANCE (SUMMIT CIRCLE)

Dir Bernard Émond w/ Guy Jodoin, Guylaine Tremblay. 90 min. Sep 11, 6:30pm, Cumberland 2; Sep 13, 4pm, Cumberland 1.

Another punishing effort from Bernard Émond, this is the second part of a trilogy begun two years ago with La Neuvaine. That film was a straightforward investigation of “faith”; Contre Toute Espérance obliquely addresses “hope.” (Émond's next film will evidently tackle the third great virtue of “charity.”) Hope hardly springs eternal (or at all) for Rejeanne (Guylaine Tremblay), whose husband becomes stricken with illness just as she loses her job. As the film progresses, her rage comes to a boil. Yet the film is tepid. Intended as a modern Job parable, with God's cruelty recast as corporate indifference, it plays as schematic and obvious – except for its forceful final scene. AN

DAINIPPONJIN

Dir Hitoshi Matsumoto w/ Matsumoto, Takeuchi. 113 min. Sep 14, 11:59pm, Ryerson; Sep 15, 12:30pm, Scotiabank 3.

Likely to be the most bizarre movie not just in Midnight Madness but all of TIFF, this feature debut by popular Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto is a daffy and highly entertaining mash-up of monster movie and mockumentary. Daisato (Matsumoto) is a seemingly ordinary schlub who leads a double life as defender of Japan. Alas, Daisato gets no respect for his ability to turn into a shock-haired giant in blue underpants. The monsters he fights – like the one with the deadly farts – aren't too popular, either. With its wickedly deadpan humour and ludicrous CGI sequences, DAINIPPONJIN is the Godzilla movie Christopher Guest never made. JA

DAYS AND CLOUDS

Dir Silvio Soldini, w/ Margherita Buy, Antonio Albanese. 115 min. Sep 12, 9:30pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 14, 3:15pm, Scotiabank 14.

Silvio Soldini's Days and Clouds contains my favourite last shot of the festival so far, and everything that comes before it is pretty great, too. This story of a middle-aged, upper-middle class Genoa couple flailing in the wake of one partner's professional upheaval is clear-eyed and compassionate. The script taps into universal anxieties – including the curious frustration of finding yourself overqualified for menial work – while retaining a wonderful specificity of place and character. Where so many films about domestic stress descend into staginess and flat-out caricature, Days and Clouds presents us with recognizably flawed people, who happen to be flawlessly inhabited by stars Margherita Buy (a vision of fraying elegance) and Antonio Albanese (a portrait of dignity in reverse). AN

DEATH DEFYING ACTS

Dir Gillian Armstrong w/ Catherine Zeta-Jones, Guy Pearce. 97 min. Sep 13, 6pm, Ryerson; Sep 15, 9am, Ryerson.

I'm just throwing this out there but maybe Guy Pearce is not the best person to play Harry Houdini, the legendary escape artist who was also short, stocky and Jewish. Pearce seems to sense that too – the actor lacks his usual intensity as well as any palpable chemistry with co-star Zeta-Jones in Gillian Armstrong's pretty but limp movie about a con woman's attempt to scam the famous Houdini. Largely devoid of the flair and cunning that any movie about magic needs, Death Defying Acts comes off as a poor relation to The Prestige and The Illusionist. JA

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Dir Julian Schnabel w/ Mathieu Amalric, Marie-Josée Croze. 112 min. Sep 11, 6pm, Elgin; Sep 13, 3pm, Ryerson.

The Best Director prizewinner at Cannes, artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel pulls out all the stops with his vivid, moving though somewhat overbearing adaptation of the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Played here by Amalric, Bauby was a French writer and editor who was almost completely paralyzed by a stroke yet, with the use of only his left eye, was able to relate his experiences in his bodily prison and his reflections on the life he led. Though the flashbacks can be excessively florid even by the director's standards, the hospital scenes with Croze as Bauby's determined therapist have great power, as does Schnabel's portrayal of Bauby's emotional transformation. JA

EASTERN PROMISES

Dir David Cronenberg, w/ Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts. 96 min. Sep 8, 6:30pm, RTH; Sep 9, 9:30am, Ryerson.

Conventional where A History of Violence was smartly coy, David Cronenberg's London-set Organiznatsiya saga balances fine performances and one jaw-dropping action set piece against a loping, awkward screenplay. Viggo Mortensen glowers impressively as the taciturn chauffeur of a Russian mob family; Naomi Watts looks appropriately fretful as the midwife who accidentally runs afoul of the group. Eastern Promises is too frequently compelling to be termed a full-out misfire, but it's strangely impersonal all the same, even with all the spilled vital fluids and scarily ornate prison tattoos. AN

EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY

Dir Michelange Quay, w/ Sylvie Testud, Catherine Samie. 105 min. Sep 10, 7:30pm, ROM; Sep 12, 3:30pm, Cumberland 2; Sep 14, 8:30pm, Varsity 4.

The opening shot of Eat, For This Is My Body glides across a vast expanse of water, reaches the shore, and then keeps moving languorously inland. What it finds there is not an empire but the remnants of one: director Michelange Quay addresses Haiti's colonial legacy with rage and grace. The issues aren't black and white, but the director boldly frames them that way. The poetic – and then poisonous – sickbed ruminations of an elderly, pale French woman (Catherine Samie) are followed by the ritualized arrival of a group of black boys at her ghostly chateau. Their interactions, which also involve the woman's daughter (Sylvie Testud), play out as a series of surreal and plangent tableaux vivants; like his obvious influence Buñuel, Quay locates articulation in obliqueness. AN

EMOTIONAL ARITHMETIC

Dir Paolo Barzman w/ Susan Sarandon, Gabriel Byrne. Sep 15, 6:30pm, RTH; Sep 15, 8pm, RTH.

One of several big festival titles based on canonic works of CanLit, director Paolo Barzman's adaptation of Matt Cohen's 1990 novel may tread familiar territory but at least it does so with class. The story of the fraught late-life reunion between three survivors of a French transit camp that was the last stop before the Nazi death camps, the movie is much enriched by strong performances by Sarandon, Byrne, Max Von Sydow, Christopher Plummer and Roy Dupuis. Their efforts more than compensate for Barzman's penchant for ostentatious camera moves and tendency to oversell moments that need a lighter touch. JA

ERIK NIETZSCHE: THE EARLY YEARS

Dir Jacob Thuesen w/ Jonatan Spang, Soren Pilmark. 91 min. Sep 8, 6:30pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 10, 4:15pm, Cumberland 1; Sep 14, 5:45pm, Varsity 4.

Ostensibly a memoir about film school scripted and narrated by one Erik Nietzsche, this Danish lark is actually the latest mea culpa by Lars von Trier, who again feels compelled to explain what made him the asshole he is today. His alter ego Erik (Spang) is a sensitive lad who only wants to make movies about trees when he arrives at Denmark's film institute in 1978. He is soon corrupted by the poisonous (but often very funny) atmosphere of professional rivalries and sexual jealousies. The in-jokes are probably best savoured by ex-film students and Danes but even the uninitiated should enjoy these vignettes from Erik's school days. JA

EX DRUMMER

Dir Koen Mortier w/ Dries Vanhegen, Norman Baert. 104 min. Sep 7, 9:30pm, Scotiabank 14; Sep 9, 12:30pm, Scotiabank 14; Sep 15, 10pm, Varsity 5.

Squalid, misanthropic, pornographic, grotesque – this Belgian movie invites many colourful adjectives. What makes Ex Drummer more than another empty provocation is its wild visual panache and its steely wit. Adapted from a cult novel by Herman Brusselsman, it's the tale of a famous writer who conducts his own exercise in class tourism when he's recruited to play drums for a punk band that features a skinhead rapist for a singer, a deaf junkie for a bassist and a gay man with a paralyzed arm for a guitarist. The band's name? The Feminists. Yes, that's the kind of humour at play here, which means Ex Drummer is not for the easily outraged. Sickos and miscreants, however, will find much to get excited about. JA

FADOS

Dir Carlos Saura w/ Mariza, Caetano Veloso. Masters. 85 min. Sep 6, 6pm, Ryerson; Sep 7, 4:30pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 14, 10am, Varsity 3.

Closely repeating the format of his 1995 music film Flamenco, Carlos Saura crafts a stylish showcase for the many varieties of Portuguese fado music. The theatricality of the presentation – performances take place in a studio amid a variety of settings, most memorably a “fado café” populated by battling singers and guitarists – suits the high drama of the songs themselves and the tributes to such late fado greats as Amalia Rodrigues have the same elegance as performances by Mariza and other contemporary stars. JA

FLASH POINT

Dir Wilson Yip w/ Donnie Yen, Louis Koo. 87 min. Sep 13, 11:59pm, Ryerson; Sep 14, 12:30pm, Scotiabank 4.

The star and director of SPL return with another old-school Hong Kong action flick that may be meagre when it comes to story and character development but definitely delivers what matters most. The perfunctory plot pits Yen and Koo as hot cops (neither can seem to keep his shirt on for long) against drug dealers eager to wipe out anyone who's willing to testify against them in court. Though the car chases and shootouts have no lack of flash, the real thrills arrive in a final fight sequence in which Yen and co-star Collin Chou go mano-a-mano in a manner that owes more to Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts than to the styles usually seen on screen. JA

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON

Dir Hou Hsiao-hsien w/ Juliette Binoche, Simon Iteanu. 113 min. Sep 7, 2:45pm, Ryerson; Sep 15, 10am, Scotiabank 1.

Both an homage to Albert Lamorisse's much-loved film The Red Balloon and the first movie made by Hou Hsiao-hsien outside of Asia, this appropriately airy confection manages to produce no small amount of wonder. Much of the action takes place in the perennially chaotic apartment that a puppeteer (Binoche) shares with her son and his new babysitter, a Taiwanese film student who enlists the boy to help shoot her version of Lamorisse's movie. Through the accretion of small details, Hou's film eventually provides a surprisingly full view of this little corner of Paris, resulting in one of the director's most charming and accessible works. JA

Forever Never Anywhere

Dir Antonin Svoboda w/ Christoph Grissemann, Heinz Strunk. 88 min. Sep 10, 9:45pm, Scotiabank 14; Sep 12, 2:45pm, Cumberland Theatre; Sep 9pm, Varsity 6.

This Austrian film has a premise that shouldn't work: three unlikeable characters are trapped in a car for the film's entire running time. As insufferable as that sounds, director Antonin Svoboda brings deft character development, humour, and absurdity to his Beckettesque tragicomedy. Certainly not a film for those afflicted with claustrophobia and/or ADD, but one that offers significant rewards for those willing to accept the challenge. PB

FRONTIÈRE(S)

Dir Xavier Gens w/ Karina Testa, Samuel Le Bihan. 108 min. Sep 7, 11:59pm, Ryerson; Sep 9, 3:30pm, Scotiabank 14, Sep 14, 11:15pm, Varsity 4.

Four tough youths from Paris' riot-filled banlieues make an ill-fated stop in a border-town motel. What follows is anything but original plot-wise – everything from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Boys From Brazil to Hostel and The Descent ends up in this French casserole – yet this second feature by Xavier Gens is so bloody, vicious and intense, such thievery is very easy to forgive. Gens gets the maximum impact out of his gruesome and audacious imagery (one scene stresses the importance of safety when using a table saw) and allusions to contemporary racial and political strife raise discomfort levels even higher. JA

FUGITIVE PIECES

Dir Jeremy Podeswa w/ Stephen Dillane, Rosamund Pike. Sep 6, 6:3pm, Elgin; Sep 8, 9:30am, Cumberland 1.

In his first feature since 1999's The Five Senses, Toronto director Jeremy Podeswa accomplishes the nigh-on-impossible task of preserving the lyrical flow of imagery and complex emotions in Anne Michaels' much-admired novel about Jakob, a Polish boy who is rescued from the Nazis by a Greek archeologist (Rade Sherbedgia) but never escapes his memories of his family. Playing Jakob as a grown-up, Stephen Dillane gives a performance that's compelling enough to help smooth over many of the narrative's potentially bumpy shifts in time and place. The brisk pacing and emotional directness also prevent the proceedings from becoming too precious. Instead, Podeswa's TIFF opener is a work of great sensitivity and beauty. JA

GARAGE

Dir Lenny Abrahamson w/ Pat Shortt, Conor Ryan. 85 min. Sep 8, 8:30pm, Varsity 3; Sep 10, 4:45pm, Isabel Bader; Sep 14, noon, Cumberland 2.

Regarded as an idjit by his neighbours in a small Irish town, Josie (Shortt) is nevertheless tireless in his efforts to find a friend. Things look up when the owner of the gas station where he works saddles Josie with a teenage co-worker but the older man's naïveté and loneliness lead to tragic events. Likewise, this low-key second feature by Lenny Abrahamson gradually shifts from a gentle, affectionate portrait of a small-town misfit into something darker. The transition is not entirely satisfying but Shortt's performance elicits great sympathy for poor Josie. JA

HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD

Dir Eddy Moretti, Suroosh Alvi. 84 min. Sep 8, 9:45pm, ROM; Sep 10, 2:15pm, ROM; Sep 14, 3pm, Varsity 7.

Four young Iraqi metalheads long for the chance to shred in more peaceful circumstances in this kick-ass doc from the VICE Films/VBS.tv crew. Concentrating on the story of Acrassicauda, Iraq's sole metal band, filmmakers Moretti and Alvi reveal the heart-wrenching circumstances for the people caught between the occupiers and the militias. The few gigs they manage to play come to seem heroic in light of what the band members go through both in Baghdad and as refugees in Syria. It'll make you very thankful to live in a place where the decision to wear a Slipknot T-shirt won't get you shot. JA

HERE IS WHAT IS

Dir Adam Vollick, Daniel Lanois, Adam Samuels. 90 min. Sep 9, 8pm, Winter Garden; Sep 11, 3:15pm, Scotiabank 1; Sep 14, 11:15pm, Varsity 3.

A rarity among music documentaries, this unconventional and engaging film by musician and producer Lanois and his two collaborators is explicitly about the creative process or – in the words of Lanois' ever-eloquent pal Brian Eno – “how beautiful things grow out of shit.” Of course, scenes of Lanois working wonders at his mixing board or playing with his ace drummer Brian Blade are anything but shitty. Though some of the film's stylistic elements are iffier (the inexplicable shots of a mostly naked dancer are a bit much), it's a rich opportunity for music fans to geek out and learn something. JA

IMPORT EXPORT

Dir Ulrich Seidl w/ Ekateryna Rak, Paul Hofmann. 135 min. Sep 12, 9:45pm, Scotiabank 4; Sep 14, 3:30pm, Scotiabank 4.

Since it captures the dying breaths of several nursing-home patients, the second feature by Austrian maverick Ulrich Seidl hardly provides an uplifting view of humanity. Yet to dismiss it as an example of ugly misanthropy is to miss the vitality and empathy evident even in the harshest scenes. Import Export splits its running time between the non-intersecting stories of Olga (Rak) and Paul (Hofmann), two young people from opposite sides of the economic and social divide between the West and the former Soviet bloc. There's never a good time or place to be poor but Seidl makes 21st-century Europe look particularly brutal. JA

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

Dir Robin Swicord, w/ Maria Bello, Emily Blunt. 105 min. Sep 10, 9am, Scotiabank 2.

I know, and I'm as surprised as you are, but this doesn't suck. In fact, Swicord's adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler's chick-lit hit about five women (and one over-his-head young man) who bond by discussing Jane Austen features understated, on-target allusions to the author's oeuvre, plausibly intelligent dialogue, a good laugh-to-cringe ratio and only two doggie-reaction shots. The ensemble is excellent, particularly Bello as a self-denying cobbler's daughter type and Hugh Dancy as her spectacularly dorky, Ursula LeGuin-loving suitor. AN

KING OF CALIFORNIA

Dir Mike Cahill, w/ Michael Douglas, Evan Rachel Wood. 96 min. Sep 11, 7am, Scotiabank 2; Sep 13, 2:15pm, Scotiabank 14.

Douglas goes spelunking for a bookend Oscar in novelist Cahill's hyphenate debut as a shaggy, life-force lunatic prospecting for gold underneath a Costco. It's an insufferably adorable performance, all nervous tics and faraway smiles, and the movie would be totally insufferable also if not for Evan Rachel Wood, who is remarkably credible as Douglas' long-suffering daughter. Costco's participation is a strange case of self-deprecating product placement – the store in the film is run by creepy perverts and its security is shown to be quite permeable, but as Douglas and Wood repeatedly exclaim during their reconnaissance, “they have everything here.” So, basically: shop at Costco. AN

KING OF THE HILL

Dir Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego w/ Leonardo Sbaraglia, Maria Valverde. 90 min. Sep 8, 8:45pm, Scotiabank 3; Sep 10, 9:15am, Scotiabank 4; Sep 14, 8:15pm, Varsity 5.

After a bathroom dalliance with an unknown woman, a traveller ends up on a very dangerous stretch of road in this taut Spanish thriller. Though all that Quim (Sbaraglia) should've had to worry about was contracting an STD – or, considering it was a gas-station bathroom, cooties – instead he and the young woman Bea (Valverde) are targeted by one or more unseen gunmen in a remote part of Spain. Director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego keeps tension high and developments unpredictable, though a daring shift in perspective in the movie's last leg is ultimately too problematic for King of the Hill to fully deliver on its early promise. JA

L'ÂGE DES TÉNÈBRES (DAYS OF DARKNESS)

Dir. Denys Arcand w/ Marc Labreche, Diane Kruger. 104 min. Gala program. Sep 12, 6:30pm, Roy Thomson Hall; Sep 13, 3pm, Elgin Theatre.

The third in Arcand's trilogy about western decadence that began with The Decline of American Civilization is a caustic satire that has little of the affection the director expressed for his characters in the film's predecessors. Shots at office life, fraying family ties and political correctness hit their targets, but it sputters out in an overlong and ill-conceived conclusion. JA

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Dir Craig Gillespie w/ Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer. Special. 106 min. Sep 10, 9:15pm, Ryerson; Sep 13, 2:30pm, Scotiabank 1.

The Half-Nelson hero proves his mettle once again in the title role of an oversensitive young man who develops a peculiarly chaste yet oddly sweet relationship with a sex doll. Lucky for Lars that he lives in one of those nice small towns – call it Frank Capra-ville, though the film was actually shot in wintry Ontario – where his delusion elicits sympathy and gentle comedy rather than horror and contempt. Though the script by former Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver initially smacks of excessive whimsy, it grows richer when Lars' romance with “Bianca” takes surprising turns. JA

MISTER LONELY

Dir Harmony Korine w/ Diego Luna, Samantha Morton. 112 min. Sep 12, 6:30pm, Scotiabank 1; Sep 14, noon, Scotiabank 2.

Celebrity impersonators and flying nuns abound in the mostly engaging third feature from the mind behind Kids and Gummo. Luna stars as a Michael Jackson impersonator who becomes part of a community of like-minded faux-celebs, including Morton as a kind-hearted Marilyn Monroe and Denis Lavant as a cruel Charlie Chaplin. Werner Herzog stars in an unconnected storyline as a motor-mouthed priest who trumpets the miracle of the skybound sisters. It's all as weird as Harmony Korine's fans could've hoped and sweeter than they'd expect, though the naïve spirit of the thing can be cloying. JA

The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories

Dir Andrey Paounov. 100 min. Sep 12, 7pm, Varsity 1; Sep 14, 9am, Cumberland 2.

Belene is a “pretty little town on the Danube,” at least according to the lyrics of a song that goes on to praise the place's “nuclear future.” That construction on the power plant was abandoned long ago is just one of the problems facing Belene in this Bulgarian doc. Memorably odd and beautifully shot, Andrey Paounov's film opens with Errol Morris-style interviews with the town's more colourful citizens – each of whom has his or her own way of coping with that mosquito problem – but gradually takes on a more troubling aspect as darker truths are revealed about Belene's past. JA

THE MOURNING FOREST

Dir Naomi Kawase w/ Shigeki Uda, Machiko Ono. 97 min. Sep 7, noon, Scotiabank 4; Sep 8, 9:45am, Scotiabank 4; Sep 13, 5:45pm, Varsity 5.

Located in a mountainous region in western Japan, the titular forest is arguably the most important character in this meditative third feature by Naomi Kawase. As for the human presence, they are Shigeki (Uda) and Machiko (Ono), an elderly man with dementia and his nurse, both of whom travel deep into the forest to complete rituals of grief and remembrance. While much of the mysterious proceedings demand great patience, the lengthy final shot achieves the state of spiritual transcendence to which Kawase clearly aspires. JA

MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD

Dir Daniele Luchetti w/ Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio. 108 min. Sep 7, 6:45pm, Scotiabank 14; Sep 9, 9:15am, Scotiabank 14; Sep 14, 10:30pm, Cumberland 1.

Two brothers are divided by matters of love and politics in this feature by a former actor and assistant director for Nanni Moretti. You'd think that the movie would lose its appeal when younger brother Accio (Germano) proudly declares himself a fascist. But the real problem is that Luchetti is unsure whether he's making a raucous family comedy or a political drama about the seismic shifts in Italian society in the '60s and '70s, an ambition better realized in The Best of Youth, which was scripted by the director's co-writers here. Wobbly it may be, My Brother Is an Only Child still has a winning vitality. JA

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT

Dir Amir Bar-Lev. 82 min. Sep 8, 12:15pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 10, 9:15pm, Cumberland 1.

Where the merits and authenticity of its subject's work may be in doubt, the quality of Amir Bar-Lev's documentary is unquestionable. This profile-gone-awry of pre-tween “abstract expressionist painter” Marla Olmstead – who sold nearly a half-million dollars' worth of living-room doodles before being outed as a fraud on 60 Minutes– throws questions of subjectivity and critical responsibility into razor-sharp relief. Bar-Lev airs his own encroaching doubts without making the film about himself, and the shifting nature of his relationship with Marla's parents – whose protective instincts seem intermittently held in check by the allure of money, fame, etc. – is the stuff of high drama. AN

MY WINNIPEG

Dir Guy Maddin w/ Ann Savage, Louis Negin. 80 min. Sep 7, 8pm, Winter Garden; Sep 9, 5pm, Varsity 8; Sep 15, Bader, 8pm.

After the silent-movie extravaganza Brand Upon the Brain!, what could Guy Maddin possibly do for an encore? How about make an incalculably odd homage to the wintry city he could never leave, no matter how hard he tried? Though nominally a documentary, My Winnipeg involves such typically Maddinite flights of fancy as animated interludes, a dance sequence and dramatic re-enactments shot in his childhood home and starring his mother as herself. Hilarious pieces of Maddin's personal mythology intersect with Winnipeg's wider history, which he variously portrays as heroic (the General Strike!), mysterious (séances in the Legislative Building!) and tragic (the betrayal of the Jets!). As imaginative as any of his recent films, it's also the most fun. JA

Naissance des pieuVRES

(WATER LILIES)

Dir Celine Sciamma w/ Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachere. 85 min. Sep 11, 9:45pm, Scotiabank 14; Sep 13, 9am, Scotiabank 14.

This feature debut by young French filmmaker Céline Sciamma provides a look into the world of teenage girls, a place that's often explored in films but rarely in such a revealing and discomfiting manner. Marie (Acquart) is a reserved 15-year-old who is drawn to Floriane (Adele Haenel), the most brazen member of her synchronized swimming team. The messiness of the psychological and sexual warfare that follows is intensified by the modernist austerity of the film's setting, Cergy-Pontoise, a Parisian suburb that looks more like Alphaville. JA

NIGHTWATCHING

Dir Peter Greenaway w/ Martin Freeman, Emily Holmes. 141 min. Sep 9, 6pm, Elgin; Sep 11, 2:30pm, Elgin.

Uncovering the scandals hidden in Rembrandt's masterpiece Night Watch, the latest from the long-AWOL Peter Greenaway sees the director back on form for the most part. Bold, brilliant and frustrating in equal measure, Nightwatching renders – in somewhat exhausting detail – the social, political and even sexual contexts in which the painter toiled. Though the film occasionally gets mired in the obfuscations and cryptic stratagems that Greenaway so dearly adores, Freeman's lusty and witty performance gives the movie a vibrantly human core. JA

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Dir Joel and Ethan Coen w/ Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem. 123 min. Sep 8, 6pm, Elgin; Sep 11, 9am, Ryerson.

Easily the Coens' best outing since The Big Lebowski, their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's gaunt neo-western has barely an ounce of fat on it. Brolin is excellent as a down-on-his-luck dude who foolishly takes a whack of dough off some drug dealers he finds dead out on a West Texas plain. Bardem is even better as a fate-obsessed psycho in a pageboy haircut who kills everyone in between him and the money. The Coens preserve the vein of fatalistic humour in McCarthy's original, as well as the inordinately high body count. JA

NORMAL

Dir Carl Bessai w/ Carrie-Ann Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie. 100 min. Sep 10, 9pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 12, 1pm, Scotiabank 4.

Canadian director Bessai's latest thuds with cudgel-like subtlety. With its story of interconnected tragedy among rich people, in which the women cope by throwing things and having temper tantrums and the men fuck inappropriately, it's hard to say what's more stomach-turning here: Carrie-Ann Moss as the shallowly written grieving mother, or the sub-porn, wish-fulfillment sexual liaisons that attempt to spice up the film. LC

NOS VIES PRIVÉES (OUR PRIVATE LIVES)

Dir Denis Côté, w/ Penko Gospodinov, Anastassia Liutova. 82 min. Sep 7, 8:45pm, Varsity; Sep 9, 4:30pm, ROM.

Music critics like to call certain albums “growers.” Denis Côté's ballsy drama shoots roots into your brain only to bloom about a week later. That's how long it took me to reconcile my feelings about this micro-budget provocation, which starts (and, come to think of it, ends) very much like a Claire Denis picture. It's glancing and enigmatic and erotic. Two strangers who meet online (and who both claim Bulgarian heritage) meet up at a cabin in the wilds of Quebec. Intimacy, and then other, more stunning things ensue, all at an uncomfortably close (and beautifully maintained) proximity. AN

OBSCENE

Dirs Neil Ortenberg, Daniel O'Connor w/ Barney Rosset, Ray Manzarek, John Waters. 97 min. Sep 9, 9:45pm, Royal Ontario Museum; Sep 11, 9:45am, Cumberland 3; Sep 13, 10:30pm, Royal Ontario Museum.

This stylish, quick-moving doc about the founder of the controversial Grove Press, Barney Rosset promises numerous times to show us what an outrageous crank Rosset himself is, but really proves his bravery – and maybe blind faith – in defending contentious, “dirty” books and films to be the outrageous puzzle piece in a repressed art politic that would see Grove's works repeatedly challenge obscenity laws and pave the way for the truly avant-garde – back when there was one. LC

OPERATION FILMMAKER

Dir Nina Davenport. 95 min. Sep 9, 7pm, ROM; Sep 11, 3:45pm, ROM; Sep 13, 10pm, Cumberland 3.

It was one of those situations that are supposed to make everybody feel good about themselves. After seeing an MTV segment about an Iraqi film student named Muthana Mohmed, Liev Schreiber brought him to Prague to work on Everything Is Illuminated. Nina Davenport was to co-direct a movie about Muthana's experience. Despite the best of intentions, the situation proved less than ideal, largely because Muthana was not a political symbol but a very human and often frustrating mess of contradictions. Deftly portraying a range of issues that the war has created for Americans and Iraqis, Operation Filmmaker is also a fascinating examination of the fraught dynamic that can develop when a documentarian and his or her subject have clashing agendas. JA

PARANOID PARK

Dir Gus Van Sant w/ Gabe Nevins, Dan Liu. 90 min. Vanguard. Sep 11, 9:15pm, Varsity 8; Sep 13, 9am, Scotiabank 1.

Gus Van Sant's hot streak continues with this oddly elegant story about a young Portland skateboarder who opts not to tell anyone about his part in an accidental death. The material's roots in a young-adult novel are evident in our hero's somewhat stilted narration but the non-linear structure, incongruously swoony music (borrowed from Fellini) and brilliant cinematography by Christopher Doyle all enrich the experience. Some deft allusions to the Iraq war suggest that the tale's not as slight as it initially seems. JA

PERSEPOLIS

Dir Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud w/ Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve. 95 min. Sep 6, 9pm, Elgin; Sep 8, 10am, Scotiabank 1.

Iranian authorities have been none too pleased about Persepolis' portrayal of life after the Islamic Revolution. But Marjane Satrapi's splendid, visually inventive adaptation of her autobiographical graphic novels – co-directed by fellow comic writer Vincent Paronnaud – is first and foremost a personal work rather than a political one. What the film portrays most acutely is the Satrapi family's struggle to cope with the new changes and restrictions, as well as the sense of cultural dislocation the teenaged, punk-obsessed Marjane feels in both Iran and Europe. Satrapi and Paronnaud render some very heavy themes in a manner that's notable for its warmth and humour. JA

POOR BOY'S GAME

Dir. Clement Virgo w/ Rossif Sutherland, Danny Glover. 104 min. Special Presentation. Sep 11, 8:15pm, Varsity; Sep 13, 5pm, Isabel Bader Theatre.

The latest from Virgo – about an ex-con who tries to atone by facing his victim's cousin in a boxing match he's certain to lose – boasts the director's visual panache and skill with actors, as well as his weakness for hackneyed plot twists and dialogue that overstates the obvious. He still lands enough blows to score a win by decision. JA

A PROMISE TO THE DEAD: THE EXILE JOURNEY OF ARIEL DORFMAN

Dir Peter Raymont. 90 min. Sep 8, 2:45pm, Scotiabank 3; Sep 11, 8pm, Varsity; Sep 15, 9:30am, Varsity.

Shake Hands With the Devil director Peter Raymont chronicles another wrenching return in A Promise to the Dead. This intelligently diffuse doc finds internationally renowned author and poet – and former Salvador Allende attaché – Ariel Dorfman wandering through Chilé 30 years after he fled General Pinochet's military coup. It's not his first homecoming, but it proves to be a fateful one. Pinochet suffers a heart attack during the shoot and Dorfman, whose writing (especially Death and the Maiden) bears the scars of his trauma, gets pressed into service on the talk show circuit. AN

REBELLION: THE LITVINENKO CASE

Dir Andrei Nekrasov w/ Alexander Litvinenko, Marina Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya. 106 min. Sep 6, 7:30pm, Varsity 5 & 6; Sep 8, 12:30pm, Scotiabank 4; Sep 13, 7:30pm, Varsity 6.

A shudder-inducing but uninspiring look at the poisoning of the outspoken former KGB agent via a dose of polonium-210, director Nekrasov uses this single attack as but one example of the ways in which war (on individuals and groups) is used to manipulate the stability of the state for greater control. Nekrasov's wealth of footage includes a tape of a TV roundtable in which the ill-fated Litvinenko reveals the brutality of his past duties – the film's ultimate insinuation being that things are no different now than during the Cold War. LC

RENDITION

Dir Gavin Hood, w/ Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal. 120 min. Sep 8, 9am, Ryerson.

“This is my first torture,” croaks sad-eyed CIA naïf Gyllenhaal midway through Hood's prestige-pic thriller. It seems that overseeing clandestine interrogations of terror suspects in foreign lands is a good way to lose one's innocence (and then to find one's cojones). Rendition deals with some topical maladies – the titular practice of under-the-table extradition, the ethics and logistics of the war on terror, and that old chestnut Cycles of Violence – but it does so from a stacked deck. The script pays lip service to its subjects' ambiguities, but takes pains to point out who's good (Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon as the abductee's American wife), bad (terrorists) and ugly (Meryl Streep, doing a Dirty South variation on her Manchurian Candidate role). AN

RESERVATION ROAD

Dir Terry George w/ Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo. 102 min. Sep 13, 6:30pm, RTH; Sep 14, 9:30am, Ryerson.

Hotel Rwanda director Terry George attracted some A-list thespians to this adaptation of John Burnham Schwartz's novel about a professor (Phoenix) who seeks vengeance for his son's death in a hit-and-run accident. Though guilt-ridden, the culprit (Ruffalo) evades him as best he can, which is hard to do since they live in the same wealthy Connecticut town. George valiantly sets out to examine questions of violence and retribution in a place far away from war zones but Reservation Road is so laborious and self-important, it mostly resembles a rote revenge thriller with pretensions. JA

RUN, FAT BOY, RUN

Dir David Schwimmer w/ Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton. 101 min. Sep 10, 10pm, Bader; Sep 12, 3:15pm, Scotiabank 2.

When you assemble some of the funniest actors in Britain with Stella's Michael Ian Black as screenwriter (co-writing with star Pegg) and David Schwimmer as director, comedy gold should be in the offing, right? So how'd they cock this up? Mostly by trowelling on the sap and piling on the pratfalls and gross-outs to cover the shortage of character-based material and decent lines not improvised by the great Dylan Moran. As a tubby loser who tries to win back the girlfriend (Newton) he deserted at the altar by completing a marathon, Pegg is plenty game but Run, Fat Boy, Run trudges when it should sprint. JA

SECRET SUNSHINE

Dir Lee Chang-dong w/ Jeon Do-yeon, Song Kang-ho. 142 min. Sep 7, 9:15pm, Scotiabank 3; Sep 9, 11:45am, Scotiabank 1; Sep 13, 5:15pm, Varsity 4.

The best film at this year's Cannes – where it won a best actress prize for lead Jeon Do-yeon – this South Korean drama conveys an astonishing and highly tumultuous range of emotions. It tells the story of one woman's reaction to a terrible tragedy that takes place after she and her son move to her late husband's hometown. As he did in 2002's superb Oasis, writer-director Lee Chang-dong steers the material far away from melodrama – the developments are unpredictable and the reactions all too human. Valuable comic relief is supplied by The Host's Song Kang-ho, cast against type as the woman's indefatigable suitor. JA

THE SECRETS

Dir Avi Nesher, w/ Fanny Ardant, Ania Bokstein. Sep 8, 5:30pm, Bader; Sep 10, 3:15pm, Scotiabank 1; Sep 15, 8:30pm, Varsity 3.

The secret of The Secrets is that it's not about what it appears to be – that is, it's less a story about two teenage girls at a seminary in Safed privately helping a stricken older woman (Fanny Ardant) find inner peace through the application of Kabbalah than it is about the relationship between the girls. The film's treatment of the relationship is bold and sensitive, and stars Ania Bokstein and Michal Shtamler do terrific work. Unfortunately, the Ardant plotline is overwrought enough to scuttle the whole venture. The film's heart and politics are in the right place, but the emphases are off. AN

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL

Dir Roger Spottiswoode w/ Roy Dupuis, James Gallanders. 113 min. Sep 9, 2:30pm, Elgin; Sep 11, 3pm, Scotia 14.

This faithful adaptation of Lt. General Romeo Dallaire's first-hand account of the Rwandan genocide tucks some hallucinatory passages into an otherwise straightforward play-by-play. The mechanics of Rwanda's political and tribal crisis, the UN's bureaucratic inaction and the complicity of countries such as the US and France – all so complex and infuriating in the book – is puréed for narrative ease, yet Spottiswode captures the horror of events by revealing carnage incrementally in relation to Dallaire's increasing despair. Shake Hands can't escape made-for-TV triteness, but what does hit home comes thanks to Dupuis – the picture of military professionalism and quiet, emotional agony as Dallaire. It's a case of a great actor doing justice to a great man. KG

SILENT LIGHT

Dir Carlos Reygadas w/ Cornelio Wall Fehr, Miriam Toews. Visions. 127 min. Sep 9, 9pm, Scotiabank 3; Sep 11, 12:15pm, Scotiabank 4.

Bettering both his extraordinary feature debut Japón and its equally provocative follow-up Battle in Heaven, Mexican director Carlos Reygadas reaches some lofty ambitions with this achingly intimate story of love and faith in a Mennonite community near Chihuahua. A religiously devout farmer, Johan (Fehr) suffers great anguish over the fact he's in love with a woman who's not his wife. The women (played by Maria Pankratz and Canadian author Miriam Toews) aren't too happy about it either. It all builds toward a climax that not only evokes the films of Dreyer and Tarkovsky but suggests Silent Light belongs in their league. JA

SILK

Dir François Girard w/ Michael Pitt, Keira Knightley. Special Presentation. 116 min.

A romantic drama by François Girard – the long-AWOL director of The Red Violin and Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould – Silk feels like the kind of movie David Lean might make now... after he's been dead for 16 years. The decision to cast Pitt, our era's most narcoleptic screen presence, in the lead proves fatal to Girard's pretty but torpid adaptation of Alessandro Baricco's novel about a 19th-century silkworm smuggler whose heart is torn between his sweetie back home in France (Knightley) and an alluring beauty he meets in Japan (Sei Ashina). Sumptuously presented but thin as rayon, this material needed a far more charismatic actor if it hoped to display any vital signs. JA

SLEUTH

Dir Kenneth Branagh, w/ Michael Caine, Jude Law. 86 min. Sep 10, 6:30pm, RTH; Sep 11, 3:45pm, Ryerson.

Rent the 1972 original, because Sleuth 2.0 is a misbegotten venture, starting with director Kenneth Branagh's bizarre minimalist conception. He's employed Harold Pinter to pare down Anthony Shaffer's abundantly plummy play, which pits a rich mystery writer (Michael Caine, taking over from Laurence Olivier) against a younger hairdresser (Jude Law, taking over from Caine) in a game of pricks through the former's secluded country estate. Bad idea, KB: Pinter breaks what didn't need fixing, reduces the dialogue to staccato expletives and flogs his tired macho-mythos horses. Caine retains his dignity by underplaying, but Law is outed as a strutting peacock – and he wears some very crucial plumage very poorly... hint hint. AN

SLINGSHOT

Dir Brillante Mendoza w/ Jiro Manio, Kristoffer King. 86 min. Sep 7, 6:30pm, Scotiabank 3; Sep 9, 9:45am, Scotiabank 3; Sep 15, 10:30pm, ROM.

Rapidly emerging as an important new talent, young Filipino director Brillante Mendoza delivers his second feature of the year, a wickedly energetic portrait of Manila street life shot on the fly with a digital camera. Life is very hard for the petty thieves, drug addicts and working stiffs who live in the series of decrepit squats where Slingshot is set. Mendoza depicts their many hardships and fleeting joys with great urgency, capturing the bustle of the city whether the action at hand is a religious service, a cellphone-snatching or a police beating. JA

THE STONE ANGEL

Dir Kari Skogland, w/ Ellen Burstyn, Christine Horne. 90 min. Sep 12, 6:15pm, Scotiabank 2; Sep 14, 4:45pm, Bader.

Margaret Laurence's university-syllabus perennial gets an economical and mostly un-stolid adaptation by writer-director Kari Skogland. The old-woman-this-is-your-life scenario hasn't been changed, and nor have the almost comically Canadian thematics (strive to die on your own ornery terms!) but Skogland and her actors – especially Christine Horne and Ellen Burstyn, who play steely heroine Hagar Shipley at either end of her life – don't surrender to dourness. There's humour here, and also some genuinely sensual love scenes. The only real blot is the editing, which blunders indelicately between temporalities. AN

STUCK

Dir Stuart Gordon w/ Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea. 94 min. Sep 10, 11:59am, Ryerson; Sep 12, 4pm, Scotiabank 4.

A fictionalized take on the strange but true tale of a Texan woman who hit a homeless man with her car and let him slowly die while stuck in her windshield, this New Brunswick-shot cheapie by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) is a seedy little black comedy. Mena Suvari plays the driver, a nursing-home worker who's more dim than necessarily malevolent. Either way, it's bad news for Stephen Rea as the guy who ends up impaled on a windshield wiper. Despite the obvious limitations of the premise, Gordon and his actors squeeze out all the sick, queasy laughs they can. JA

TERROR'S ADVOCATE

Dir Barbet Schroeder. 135 min. Sep 7, 11:45am, Scotiabank 3; Sep 13, 12:30pm, Varsity 5.

Even director Barbet Schroeder is susceptible to the charms of Jacques Verges, a smooth-talking and affably amoral French lawyer who began his career by defending (and then marrying) an Algerian café bomber and would gain greater notoriety for his associations with Carlos the Jackal, Klaus Barbie and Slobodan Milosevic. Verges' story is colourful, outrageous and full of mysterious gaps that Schroeder can't entirely fill, probably because his subject is inconveniently alive and litigious. The excess of data may limit the film's appeal to those already up on their Red Army Faction trivia but Terror's Advocate remains plenty gripping. JA

THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS

Dir Bruce McDonald w/ Ellen Page, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos. 77 min. Visions program. Sep 12, 9:45pm, Scotiabank Theatre; Sep 14, 12:45pm, Cumberland.

Adapted from a novel by Maureen Medved, McDonald's ambitious attempt to carve up the cinematic frame yields thrilling yet often frustrating results. Page plays a 15-year-old malcontent whose rage at the world splits the screen up into a dozen or more separate images at once. McDonald's oblique strategies can't disguise the mundane nature of Tracey's tale of teen hell. Even so, it's worth enduring the iffy stretches for Page's performance, the exhilarating opening scenes and the surprisingly haunting finale. JA

UNE VIEILLE MAITRESSE

Dir Catherine Breillat w/ Asia Argento, Fu'ad Ait Aattou. 114 min. Sep 10, 6:30pm, Scotiabank 1; Sep 12, noon, Scotiabank 2.

Though this is her first period drama, the infamous director of Romance and Anatomy of Hell invests the genre with her characteristically jaundiced and ruthless view of the human heart, as well as regions located further south. Argento is perfectly beautiful and cruel as Vellini, a tempestuous 19th-century belle who refuses to allow her lover Marigny (Aattou) to ditch her for a more respectable marriage prospect. Scenes can go on too long and the costume-drama trappings occasionally seem to stifle Breillat and Argento's efforts, but an Asia scorned is a truly dangerous thing. JA

VEXILLE

Dir Sori w/ Meisa Kuroki, Shosuke Tanihara. 110 min. Sep 9, 11:59pm, Ryerson; Sep 11, noon, Scotiabank 14; Sep 15, 11:30pm, Varsity 6.

The team behind Appleseed trump themselves with this slick piece of anime, which overcomes some wonky storytelling thanks to exhilarating action sequences and frequently astonishing imagery. Vexille takes place later this century, decades after Japan closed itself off to the rest of the world. Members of a US Special Forces unit penetrate its borders and are shocked to discover what has happened there. They're also rightly amazed by the movie's most dazzling creation: sand-worm-like creatures comprised of hurtling chunks of metal. JA

WALK ALL OVER ME

Dir Robert Cuffley w/ Leelee Sobieski, Tricia Helfer. 98 min. Sep 11, 9pm, Scotiabank 3; Sep 13, 9:30pm, Cumberland.

The teen temptresses in Eyes Wide Shut and Battlestar Galactica's Caprica Six get mixed up with criminal hijinks in Vancouver in this somewhat messy but energetic comic thriller, a Canada First! entry by Calgary's Robert Cuffley. Looking to break a streak of bad luck, Alberta (Sobieski) arrives on the doorstep of Celene (Helfer), her former babysitter and now a professional dominatrix. When Alberta decides to try out Celene's vocation, she gets between some bad guys and a bag of stolen money. Though Sobieski's too tentative to give the movie the centre of gravity it needs, it's held together by slick packaging and fun supporting turns by Helfer, Lothaire Bluteau and Jacob Tierney. JA

WEIRDSVILLE

Dir. Allan Moyle w/ Scott Speedman, Wes Bentley. 90 min. Part of the Contemporary World Cinema program. Sep 12, 3pm, Scotiabank Theatre; Sep 14, 9:30pm, Ryerson Theatre.

The director of Pump Up the Volume and New Waterford Girl gets gonzo with this tale of two slacker junkies – played by Speedman and Bentley, both of whom look far too healthy – who have a very strange night in their Ontario small town. What with the abundance of Satanists and little people in medieval garb, there's some fun to be had, but the muddled script by Willem Wennekers is too crowded with bits borrowed from umpteen other movies about drug-addled losers. Though Weirdsville works hard for future-cult-classic status, its particular brand of weird feels dispiritingly second-hand. JA

YOU, THE LIVING

Dir Roy Andersson w/ Jessica Lundberg, Elisabet Helander. 95 min. Sep 7, 9:15am, Scotiabank 4; Sep 13, 8:45pm, Varsity 1.

As austere, ingenious, hilarious and miserable as the Swedish director's 2000 wonder Songs From the Second Floor, Roy Andersson's fourth feature includes a more romantic and hopeful strain of emotions than was previously palpable in his gloriously dyspeptic take on the human condition. Named after a phrase by Goethe, You, The Living is comprised of stark, mordantly funny vignettes that portray people who are desperate for others to acknowledge them yet are blind to anyone's pain but their own. A brass band, a house on a train and a failed magic trick all figure prominently in a movie that confirms Andersson's status as one of world cinema's true originals. JA

YOUNG PEOPLE FUCKING

Dir Martin Gero w/ Aaron Abrams, Carly Pope. 90 min. Sep 6, 7:45pm, Varsity 8; Sep 9:15am, Scotiabank 3.

Though no film could ever deliver all the creamy goodness promised by that title, Martin Gero's Canada First! opener makes it somewhere between second and third base. An appealing ensemble comedy that follows five hetero couples' sexual encounters from prelude to afterglow, Young People Fucking has a good time revealing the turn-ons and hang-ups of its characters. The action's only mildly risqué so don't expect Shortbus-style transgressions. Moreover, some stories fail to find climaxes that fully satisfy participants and spectators alike. Yet the movie scores big laughs (and solid insights) with segments about an unlikely threesome and a couple who go to extremes to get those home fires burning again. JA