Full coverage of the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Night Raiders is one of the biggest Canadian films to come through VIFF this year, at least in terms of buzz and word of mouth. I had the chance to see it last week (and you can read my review here), and this week I had the great privilege to speak with Danis Goulet, the film’s writer and director.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Interview: Danis Goulet on her film ‘Night Raiders’”
The first thing you will notice is the cinematography. Shot in elegant black and white, the camera in Paris, 13th District (Les Olympiades, en Francais) is a character unto itself, peering into the windows and lives of the residential towers of the district before settling on three to follow. The camera then follows them, like a close friend, and while the resulting film is lightly paced and slight with the details, it never doesn’t feel intimate and empathetic.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Paris, 13th District’ is a gorgeous, if slightly thin, look at how we deal with trauma”
The best comedies are the ones with depth. The ones that layer together stories and satire and lay bare what the filmmakers feel about whatever subject they are tackling. Official Competition is one of these films.
The film opens in the wake of a billionaire’s birthday party, a man looking back on his 80 years and wondering about his legacy. What can he do to ensure he’s remembered? An idea comes to him: a film; A great film. A film directed by and starring the greatest talent available and drawing on a beloved novel as its source. Or maybe a bridge. A bridge would be good. But no, a film is the way to go, and he impulsively buys the rights to a noble prize-winning book, hires an award-winning art-house director, and the two greatest actors of this generation. Of course, when I say he does it impulsively, I mean he has his assistant do it.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Official Competition’ is a savvy, hilarious satire”
Time is a film that takes its time to show you its true character, and as such, you’ll work your way through many assumptions as you watch Ricky Ko’s debut feature. Is it a pastiche of 60s Hong Kong action flicks? A bucket list final hit taken by three ageing assassins? A Leon-style juxtaposition of caring for a young tearaway while killing? A heartfelt, even defeatist, look at the withering pain of old age? Truth is, it’s somehow all of those things, and how it brings all its story threads together is where the true joy of this film lies.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Time’ uses narrative layers and black humour in a touching tale of old age”
How does one determine ones own worth? This is one of the questions at the heart of Benediction, Terrance Davies new biopic of English poet Sigfried Sassoon. Sassoon lived through the first world war, and as a commissioned officer, won himself the Military Cross for gallantry, but he opposed the war and wrote poems of the hell that was the trenches. This is just the start of the contradictions and the self loathing Davies portrays of his life, and the result is a heartbreaking look at a man who was never able to answer that question satisfactorily.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Benediction’ is a heartbreaking portrait of poet Siegfried Sassoon”
The 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival is officially underway, and here we are with quick reviews of two films for you to check out.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Quick Reviews: ‘The Beta Test’ and ‘Quickening’”
A trio of inseparable brothers in arms, one with second sight, one with a temper, and one with a hidden past, get stranded in an unfamiliar place. An effective setup for any film, but Saloum adds folklore and the unspeakable atrocities of Africa’s recent past to the mix to make something unique.
Continue reading “Fantastic Fest Review: ‘Saloum’ is a wild, genre-twisting ride from start to finish”
Canada has a certain reputation that we like to uphold. We’re viewed as America’s nice neighbour, as the reasonable ones. The thoughtful and the multicultural ones. If you’re from here, though, you know that Canada’s reputation is not as deserved as we would like you to think it is, and we have a dark history of racism and colonialism that persists to this day.
This is the history that writer and director Danis Goulet draws on to imagine the post-apocalyptic world of Night Raiders, one in which the legacy of Canada’s treatment of indigenous people –and the Residential School system in particular– is drawn out to its logical darkest endpoint.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Night Raiders’ draws on Canada’s dark past to imagine a dark future”
The 40th VIFF starts in less than two days, and this week I had the pleasure of joining host Dakota Arsenault on the Contra Zoom Podcast to talk about a few movies that I am looking forward to this year.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Preview: Matthew stops by Contra Zoom to talk about their most anticipated movies!”
Good news everyone! This week the Vancouver International Film Festival returns for its 40th year, and we will be covering it! This will be Matt’s sixth and Simon’s second time covering the festival, and we are excited to be back. This year’s festival is a hybrid, with both in-person screenings and once again also to viewers across British Columbia via VIFF Connect!
The festival runs from October 1st to 11th, and you can find coverage on the site starting tomorrow, September 30th. Follow along with the VIFF 2021 tag!
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