Cristian Mungiu’s provocative Graduation––which he shared the Best Director prize at Cannes 2016 with Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, also screening at VIFF––is as intricate as it is sharp and unsettling. Adrian Titieni is gripping as grey-haired Dr. Romeo Aldea and he dominates almost every frame of this arresting Romanian drama. Mungiu, who won the Palme […]
Author: Shane Scott-Travis
The Complexity of Happiness – VIFF 2016 Review
Italian director Gianni Zanasi (Non penarci) offers up a shrewd, cerebral, and stylish comedy with his latest film The Complexity of Happiness. Enrico Giusti (Valerio Mastandrea, brilliant) is a scoffing and somewhat autonomous businessman who routinely chides no-account CEOs to trade their companies, but his old ways won’t wash now that he’s met two orphaned […]
Little Sister – VIFF 2016 Review
Writer/director Zach Clark (White Reindeer, Vacation!) begins his latest comedy––more of a melodrama with an irreverent spin––with a quote from shock rocker Marilyn Manson; “Fail to see the tragic, turn it into magic!” And thus begins Little Sister, an immediately light and likeable indie with enough witty aphorisms, sardonic interactions, and odd-yet-amiable characters that more […]
Gimme Danger – VIFF 2016 Review
Ohio-born American Indie auteur Jim Jarmusch, himself no stranger to the rock doc (namely, 1997’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse documentary, Year of the Horse), makes a very persuasive argument for the Stooges as “ the greatest rock-and-roll band ever” in his latest non-fiction offering, Gimme Danger. Outrageous and unpredictable rock icon Iggy Pop (James […]
Sins of the Flesh – VIFF 2016 Review
“You came and brought ruin with you,” says Fatma (Nahed El Sebai) through tears of anger and heartbreak, to her one-time lover, Aly (Ahmed Abdala Mahomud), recently escaped from prison in the new intense new Egyptian drama, Sins of the Flesh. Written and directed by Khaled El Hagar (Room to Rent, El Shooq), himself a […]
Ghostland – VIFF 2016 Review
“The plane wakes up,” says one of the Ju/’hoansi people as she takes her first trip ever on an airplane, destined for “overseas” aka Germany in Simon Stadler’s endearing and open-handed documentary, Ghostland. With an observant but never overly intrusive eye Stadler presents the Ju/’huansi as engaging and endearing subjects. A tribal people who’ve lost […]