The Toronto International Film Festival may have concluded nearly 3 months ago from the time of this writing, but we are still trying to catch up on some last minute stragglers. Even the best festival planners can’t catch everything the festival has to offer, and though we made a pretty sizable dent in the slate there we still some casualties of time that we were unable to see.
Thankfully, many of them had limited theatrical releases, allowing us to seek them out and add them to our very long list of TIFF viewings. Many of these late films are international submissions for the Oscars from around the world, and some are legitimate contenders to make the shortlist of qualifiers. So with that, let’s take a quick look at some TIFF films we were able to catch up before the end of 2023!
Fallen Leaves
Aki Kaurismäki is a very specific director, the kind who sets a specific tone for his all of his films regardless of the genre or narrative at hand. “Fallen Leaves” is by far and away his most sincere, and dare I say the most accessible if you’re willing to let the offbeat quirk of its characters work for you instead of against you. This small Finnish film is a quiet little romcom/drama that follows two broken people longing for some kind of connection who happen to find each other in the most unlikely of ways. “Fallen Leaves” leans heavily on the tonal atmosphere Kaurismäki is known for; deadpan delivery, slow pacing, and incredibly dry humor juxtaposed against the backdrop of a world on fire. It’s quirky and kind of weird if you’re not tapped into its wavelength, but if you are “Fallen Leaves” is the kind of joyous celebration of connection we need a bit more of these days.
The polarity of the working class struggling to make ends meet while the War in Ukraine blasts over the loud speaker and the mundanity of every day life in that world of our stars (Alma Pöysti as Ansa and Jussi Vatanen as Hoppola) as they try to navigate it all as best they can. “Fallen Leaves” is hard not to love, and shows that while everything around us may be going to shit, there’s still something to be said about falling in love and finding the right person in the most unlikely of places. It gives us characters we can’t help but love, maintains its quirky tonality throughout, quietly and humorously executes its themes without every feeling preachy, and gives an adorable dog all in a taunt 81 minutes. What’s not to love about all that?
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
The Delinquents
Billed as a heist dramedy, “The Delinquents” follows two friends in the aftermath of a bank robbery that one of them committed. Moran (Daniel Elías) has concluded that robbing the bank is a quicker path to financial freedom than working there for the rest of his life, deciding that 3 years in prison or 50 years at the bank is a more tolerable way to retirement. He purposefully gets caught, but not before he give the money to his bank friend Roman (Esteban Bigliardi) to hide until his free and they can split the money. “The Delinquents” follows these two men over the course of the 3 years, as each one tries to wrestle with the either the guilt or the consequences of their decisions. It has a lot going for it, and for its 3 and half hour runtime manages to stay largely entertaining. “The Delinquents” is a little top heavy, meaning it’s better in the first half than the latter, and is truly inaccurately billed. This is not a heist film, and if you go into this thinking you’re going to get some sort of international or subversive “Ocean’s 11” you’re going to be sadly mistaken.
“The Delinquents” is incredibly patient, sometimes exhaustingly so. As it follows the trajectory of these men’s live in the wake of their crime, it starts to get a little messy and a littler overlong. I’m perfectly fine with long films so as you can make a case for its necessity. “The Delinquents” sadly does not, and devolves into some out of place subplots containing a love triangle and a really ambiguous relationship with Roman’s girlfriend and family. We’re meant to believe that it is the guilt of his actions that is causing their rift, but it really only serves to bloat the runtime rather than inform the story. Same with the love triangle, which unfolds in the second half and could be cut entirely without changing the film altogether. I really wanted to love “The Delinquents” and it works best when we’re focused on the bank and the investigation, as well as Moran’s less than easy prison stint. It has a lot of ideas that unfortunately didn’t all come together for me and I really started to feel the runtime.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
The Peasants
What a masterpiece of craft. “The Peasants” is first and foremost a testament to the necessity of artists and creators. In a world increasingly turning to AI recreations, this film demonstrates that we need human artists more than ever. No amount of AI generation could possible create the magnificent, living, breathing canvas paintings that “The Peasants” brings to life here. Narrative aside, this is a marvel of artistic achievement, and a type of artistry that needs to be seen to be believed. 6 years and nearly 65,000 hand drawn oil paintings over actors and scenery is astounding and mesmerizing, and I was completely in awe of its stunning beauty. Its craft is unique even if “The Peasants” story doesn’t quite reach those heights. It is truly stunning and performed really well, so much so that it kind of makes up for some of its strange narrative structure and overall cruelty to its protagonist. I know that’s the point of “The Peasants,” but something feels missing in the leap from misfortune to outright hatred.
Still, “The Peasants” is a tragic story of the power gossip and conjecture, as well as the consequences of forbidden love and betrayal. It is the examination of the dangers of beauty, and that being a beautiful women is a detriment, not a gift. Janga (Kamila Urzędowska) is so beautiful and so independent that if you’re not madly in love with her, you’re overcome with jealous and hatred. I never saw this film’s predecessor “Loving Vincent,” so I can’t compare this new work to his previous attempt. But while I did have some issues, “The Peasants” is so stunningly gorgeous and enthralling with every new frame it almost doesn’t even matter. Your eyes will be glued to the screen, marveling at every new detailed painting that splashes across the screen. The performances are great, and both its visuals and actors more than make up for any of its faults. If you can find “The Peasants” in a theater on a huge screen, I highly recommend it.
Rating: 4 out 5 Stars
Monster
I feel like I’ve been use the word “devastating”” a lot to describe some pretty heavy movies, but my god does “Monster” redefine the word entirely. This is a poignant, tragic, emotional story about suppression, lies and consequences and a world that often indulges our worst tendencies when dealing with things we don’t understand. Hirokazu Kore-eda brilliant execution of telling the same story from three different perspectives only seeks to highlight this glaring blindspot of human interaction. “Monster” invites us to side eye each person when we meet them because we don’t know them. We believe what we are told and then Kore-eda reminds us that we know nothing and our projections and demonizing is exactly how these kinds of events unfold. We jump to conclusions from our own limited sight, and “Monster” expertly continues to widen the lens with each new retelling until we are left with the whole picture, one that doesn’t have a happy ending but is also somehow cathartic.
You’re gonna want to bring some tissues to “Monster,” because it truly is (for lack of a better word) devastating. Each layer is more emotionally stirring than the last, and as we start realize what is actually happening, it becomes consistently more heartbreaking. The film starts us off on the path to find the monster in the story, and then blurs the line and definition of what that word actually means. Its search for the truth through ambiguity on leaves “Monster” in a class of its own, and one that keeps to glued to the screen to see it again through different eyes. This is the kind of film that sticks with you, the kind that really begs you to revisit its themes and ponder its conclusions. Not so much what actually happened, but how those events shape and shaped the characters and their stories. I have a feeling I’m going to be thinking about “Monster” for a very long time. I don’t know that I necessarily want to explore this tragedy through repeat viewings, but I was moved enough to really dig into its themes and its characters as well as the larger discussion “Monster” wants to have with its audience. This is simply stellar work, and I am so glad I was able to catch up with this one.
4.5 out of 5 Stars
The Settlers
One of the last films I was able to catch up from TIFF, and ooh boy was it a doozy. “The Settlers” is an often patient landscape driven western punctuated by unimaginably brutal violence. It is a subversive look at colonialism, manifest destiny and genocide in the name of nationalism carried out by powerful men who are often left off the hook from the atrocities they command. Hailing from Chile and directed by Felipe Gálvez, “The Settlers” sports some pretty stellar cinematography across is baron landscapes of undeveloped by claimed land in 1901. The film utilizes spaghetti western undertones to execute its darker themes, and visually brings to life the vastness of unconquered land and brutal violence committed in the quest to own in it. Well, steal it from those that already do. Though not quite as expertly crafted and significantly smaller in scale, “The Settlers” would actually pair well with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” as both deal with targeted eradication of Native Americans as well as how those atrocities are seldom remembered in their brutality.
“The Settlers” does falter in not really diving into its characters, whom we follow across the land as they set out to establish fencing for sheep and slaughter any Native Americans in their path. Sadly, our three leads are all surface level caricatures of brute force, the sort of embodiment of evil with one tormented by his heritage (half native, half white) as he is demanded to carry out horrific acts. As they continue to journey through the frontier, “The Settlers” becomes more and more unfocused, never giving us a true anchor or audience surrogate that invites us into the journey to make its events more impactful. The sudden time jump hinders the impact of its harrowing final moments, and “The Settlers” falls just shy of what it sets out to accomplish. Still, I am definitely looking forward to whatever Gálvez does next, as this is a solid first effort.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
