There’s a troubling absence in Marcin Wrona’s Demon: there are very few Jews in this adaptation of a Jewish story. Protagonist Piotr (Itay Tiran) is a gentile, his intended bride (Agnieszka Zulewska) is a gentile, and all the people in their nameless Polish town are gentiles, too. There are only two Jews in the entire […]
Film Festivals
TIFF15: Young love and dying tradition in Song of Songs
Eva Neymann imbues ordinary moments and domestic tasks with a magical quality. Yet this sense of wonder is as fragile as shtetl life itself. Read our coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival.
A weekend with women at TIFF15: Saturday Sept. 19
The Seventh Row presents a guide to spending your weekend immersed in films directed by women in our end-of-TIFF series #AWeekendWithWomen (named after #AYearWithWomen because a weekend is a good start). Here’s how we suggest you spend your Saturday. 9:15 a.m. Semana Santa at Scotiabank 9 (85 mins) — Tickets available OR 10 a.m. Body […]
TIFF15: Legend delivers exactly what it promises ***
Legend delivers exactly what it promises: a glitzy gangster flick starring Tom Hardy opposite Tom Hardy (doppelgangland!). Director Brian Helgeland lays everything on with a trowel, but subtlety isn’t why we’re here. The flash, the violence, and Tom Hardy’s twin performances make Legend a fun ride. Tom Hardy plays both of the Kray twins, the gangster […]
TIFF15: Jack manages to be a boring serial-killer movie
It should be difficult to make Jack Unterweger’s story dull: Austrian prostitute-murderer turned prison poet, he became a literary cause-celèbre. He achieved early release from prison in 1990, only to kill himself four years later after being convicted of nine subsequent murders. Yet Elisabeth Scharang’s Jack manages to make a clock-watcher out of this dramatic material […]
TIFF15: Masterful 3D is vital to the domestic drama in Every Thing Will Be Fine
Whether it’s making you feel like you’re gazing at the Chauvet caves in Southern France in Cave of Forgotten Dreams or making you aware of how small a boy is in a big, scary, Dickensian adult world in Hugo, 3D can be an essential tool for storytelling. Ever since Wim Wenders started using the technology, to […]