Toronto to Busan (festival travel 2025)

Film reviews by festival in no particular order (with a nod to Jared King)

Toronto

The Wizard of the Kremlin (Assayas) - quite mechanical, disappointing.

Magellan (Diaz) - very Portuguese (I say this as a part Portuguese with Filipino connections). Lacks clarity in narrative and character. Some people seem to be going through the motions. More of a cross between Terry Malick and Manoel d'Oliveira with a dose of Glauber Rocha Cinema Novo thrown in for good measure.

Eyes of Ghana ( Proudfoot) - a  cameraman from the Nkrume regime days of the 1960s shot film that was destroyed when Nkrume was overthrown. But they didn't know the negatives were stored in a vault in London. The films are now coming to light again. A fascinating story that needs to be told. 

EPIC (Elvis Presley in Concert) (Luhrman) - very powerful compilation of Elvis during some of his 1100 performances in Las Vegas in the 1970s. An intriguing demo of how an auteur appropriates anonymous footage (by omitting any of the original creators except Elvis). Elvis as objet trouvé?

Winter of the Crow (Adamik) good political thriller set on the eve of Poland's martial law era that eventually led to Lech Walesa revolution. The sort of film you will eventually see on Netflix.

Silent Friend (Enyedi) - one of the most intriguing films of the year. Top Neuro professor Tony Leung Chiu-wai is stranded in Germany during COVID and tries to communicate with a gingko tree. Huge dose of mescaline seems to do the trick.

Nouvelle Vague (Linklater) - pushes all the right buttons, that is to say he's read most of the usual texts in English. For those who knew him, the portrayal of Godard's assistant director Pierre Rissient is totally questionable. Was he really that well behaved?

Franz (Holland) - a decent if somewhat predictable effort to portray Kafka and his thoughts. I liked the intercutting between Franz the man, and today's Franz the driving engine of a big tourist industry build around him (hamburgers to key chains). Yes, a fantasist can keep an economy alive.

Busan

The Ozu Diaries (Raim) - a good attempt to capture the spirit of Ozu's films. Like all good examples in this genre it makes you want to watch the films again or for the first time.

Becoming Human (Ly) - a guy and his ghost girl pal talk about life, death and the universe under twilight skies. A creditable effort but a little predictable. For some reason I had passing thoughts of Men in Black probably because ghosts who go to be reborn have to take a memory erasing drink.

Sound of Falling ((Schilinski) - the history of East Germany as told through four women from various times from the 19th Century to the 1970s. An exercise in style (each episode, all intercut, is shot in the style of its reference) that gets too caught up in itself. The ending is predictable and owes a lot to Stanley Kubrick. Could be worse but also could have been better.

Eagles of the Republic (Saleh) - well modulated political thriller where a famous Egyptian actor is forced to collaborate with the Al Sisi Muslim Brotherhood regime. Delves deeply into the nature of political principles, corruption, and the strategies of survival in an atmosphere of political mafia. A poignant tale that crosses Nazi Germany and authoritarian regimes today.