TIFF 2021: Highlights from a film festival that entered the multiverse

Yet determination was inactive a batch to emotion successful the slimmed down lineup this year. The festival's People's Choice Award, successful caller years an Oscars bellwether, went to "Belfast," Kenneth Branagh's coming of property play acceptable successful North Ireland during the Troubles. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's "The Rescue," astir the miraculous 2018 Thai cave rescue, walked distant with the aforesaid prize successful the documentary category. But for awards play prognosticators, the representation retired of Toronto was possibly murkier than successful erstwhile years.

As a movie festival that entered the multiverse, wherever what you saw was dictated by IP code arsenic overmuch arsenic taste, it's hard to sum up TIFF. This writer is the archetypal to admit helium has unsighted spots -- unsighted spots he'd alternatively not have, but simply couldn't beryllium filled. Nevertheless, let's try. With a towering asterisk attached, here's what we enjoyed astatine Toronto.

"The Power of the Dog"

Jane Campion doesn't merchandise films often, but erstwhile she does radical wage attention. With bully crushed -- her adaptation of John Savage's novel, a Western acceptable successful 1920s Montana but filmed successful Campion's autochthonal New Zealand, is prestige cinema of the highest order.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons are rancher brothers Phil and George Burbank, joined by humor and precious small else. But their uneasy codependency is interrupted erstwhile the urbane George marries young widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst), overmuch to the chagrin of rough-hewn Phil, who launches intelligence warfare against the "cheap schemer" and her gentle lad Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) erstwhile they determination to the homestead.

Cumberbatch, each sinuous guile and calculated cruelty, haunts their footsteps similar Mrs. Danvers successful a 10-gallon hat. Galoup, the imperious drill sergeant played by Denis Lavant successful Claire Denis' "Beau Travail," besides springs to mind. However, the marque of calloused machismo Phil projects doesn't onshore arsenic wholly authentic. Why is helium trying truthful hard? And what caused him to curdle inside? Over clip and a bid of menacing interactions with Peter, cracks successful the facade are pried unfastened until they go the film's main concern.

Taut and arsenic good engineered arsenic the enactment Phil weaves with dedicated fervor, Campion's movie is 1 of large restraint. Ari Wegner's compositions of New Zealand's Otago peninsula are to dice for, but alternatively than fto the movie go swallowed by the epic setting, her oculus for look and motion let america to consciousness each bushed of the characters' journeys. Another corking people from Jonny Greenwood is utilized sparingly; conscionable capable to harmonize with the moment, but ne'er truthful overmuch arsenic to effort to dictate however we feel. Campion trusts the craftsmanship successful beforehand and down the camera to archer a communicative without needing to excavation the spurs in. For that and overmuch other besides, much powerfulness to her.

"Dune"

The roadworthy to "Dune" is agelong and fraught with peril. Just inquire Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch, with 1 aborted movie and 1 critically-panned betwixt them. Both failed successful their abstracted ways. Was it hubris that made Denis Villeneuve judge helium could ace the "unfilmable" tome by Frank Herbert? In immoderate case, he's succeeded successful yet doing justness to the publication -- the archetypal fractional of it, astatine least.

This is simply a cavernous cathedral of a film, afloat of spectacle and atrocious beauty. The standard of it all, from immense landscapes to monolithic buildings, is huge, the battles epic, the Hans Zimmer people thundering and sonorous, each designed to person audiences cowering successful the pews. It's Sturm und Drang sci-fi by mode of the Old Testament -- fitting for a movie centered connected a messianic figure.

That would beryllium Paul (Timothée Chalamet), heir of House Atreides, who travels with his parents (Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson) and entourage to the satellite Arrakis, wherever they person been commanded by the Emperor to instrumentality implicit its invaluable spice mining operation. Previous colonizers the Harkonnen are nary excessively pleased, nor the Fremen, natives of Arrakis. Much politicking and unit ensues, on with a dense dose of mysticism and premonition courtesy of Paul and his mother, a subordinate of an intergalactic nine of witches called the Bene Gesserit.

As you mightiness person guessed, the movie is plot-heavy, and Villeneuve is forced to wantonness the aged maxim "show don't tell." We're told a lot, often much than once, and the publication occasionally strays toward coddling the audience. Exposition alternatively than fearfulness whitethorn beryllium the caput killer. But 1 can't sound the film's ambition: a superior blockbuster that makes for an overwhelming experience, precision-made for the large screen.

"Mothering Sunday"

French manager Eva Husson has made 1 of the astir maddeningly, intoxicatingly British films of the twelvemonth successful "Mothering Sunday," an adaptation of Graham Swift's caller astir love, nonaccomplishment and the straitjacket of propriety successful precocious people England.

Three families person been ravaged by the First World War, with lone 1 son, Paul, returning from conflict betwixt them. Played by an insouciant Josh O'Connor, he's unhappily engaged and having an matter with Jane (a luminous Odessa Young), the maid of household friends the Nivens (Colin Firth and Olivia Colman). On Mothering Sunday, the 2 lovers wriggle from nether the feet of their respective families and conscionable for a long, languid time distant from prying eyes and society's expectations. If lone beingness were truthful simple.

Husson frames the communicative via Jane's recollections arsenic an older woman, present a palmy writer. It's not the lone constituent of examination with Joe Wright's "Atonement," but whereas that Ian McEwan adaptation went for maximum affectional wallop, present events are mostly underplayed. We ticker a procreation trying to clasp backmost a tidal question of grief with starched collars and cucumber sandwiches, retreating into nostalgia and routine. Of course, it cannot, and erstwhile emotion does aboveground it breaches similar a hernia. Colman and Firth some get their clip to shine.

In fact, there's good performances each round, and sumptuous camerawork from Jamie D. Ramsay casts everything successful a hopelessly romanticist light. But it's the smouldering duo of O'Connor and Young who acceptable the surface ablaze arsenic the young lovers grasping for a aboriginal of their own, nevertheless improbable it whitethorn be.

"Attica"

The US has nary shortage of shameful chapters successful its history, and Stanley Nelson's documentary pulls retired a peculiarly egregious 1 successful his retelling of the Attica situation riot successful New York state, 1971.

Nelson kicks disconnected with the archetypal uprising successful the situation courtyard, earlier doubling backmost to supply context. Correctional officers from the section municipality of Attica were White and worlds isolated from the bulk Black inmates astatine a installation known arsenic "the past stop." Degrading attraction is elaborate by erstwhile inmates, who looked for but were denied humane conditions. "It was a timebomb acceptable to blow," says the girl of 1 of the guards.

Blow it did, but erstwhile inmates picture the other of chaos successful the autumn out: erecting tents, gathering latrines, establishing a aesculapian presumption and voting connected leadership. One inmate wistfully recalls looking up astatine the stars and falling dormant without proceeding the clang of metallic bars locking. But the lone happening that allowed this authorities of empowerment were the guards inmates had held hostage (an irony and communicative constituent the movie does not prosecute with arsenic overmuch arsenic it might).

The "naked fist of power," arsenic 1 dependable describes it, was acceptable to amusement its hand. The involution of authorities constabulary and correctional officers is shown via harrowing surveillance footage and graphic photography, showing the deadly battle and brutal reprisals -- a savage reassertion of authorization and the presumption quo.

A furious, blistering film, Nelson's operation of grounds and searing visuals is potent, and has nary qualms pointing the digit of blame. As 1 interviewee laments, "It didn't person to beryllium this way."

"Sundown"

Tim Roth saw however Michel Franco depicted situation successful "New Order" and said, "sign maine up!" The Mexican provocateur down past year's incendiary revolutionary play is backmost with different bleak tale, albeit connected a smaller standard and with a little assemblage count.

Neil (Roth) and Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are affluent Brits connected vacation successful Acapulco with her children Colin and Alexa erstwhile an exigency forces them to instrumentality home. Everyone does but Neil, whose passport has gone missing. He's forced to bent retired successful Acapulco successful vacation overtime, arsenic the metropolis begins to amusement its disfigured broadside and truthful does he.

Only it turns retired helium didn't suffer his passport aft all. There's a consciousness of unraveling, an abdication of work astatine play. He's abandoning himself, his relationships go fraught, without america truly knowing why.

But possibly we're looking for answers successful the incorrect places. Like the director's erstwhile works, these characters are playthings for Franco -- a caller acceptable of pawns to research modern Mexico. His Acapulco has a happening for casual violence, a immense wealthiness disparity, and a broadside bid of grubbiness alongside the tourer traps. These observations lone find the halfway of the framework successful snatches, but it's ever there. That, alternatively than the crises of affluent tourists, is what Franco believes to beryllium the existent tragedy, 1 suspects.

"Petite Maman"

Celine Sciamma's travel up to captious deed "Portrait of a Lady connected Fire" sees the manager swap rugged coastlines and play mounting for a small-scale fable that nevertheless delivers big.

We travel eight-year-old Nelly arsenic she travels to her mother's puerility home. Her grandma has precocious died, and her parents person the task of clearing it out. Left to her ain devices, Nelly heads into the woods lone to observe Marion, her doppelganger, who inexplicably whitethorn besides beryllium her mother.

Shot during the pandemic, Sciamma (once again directing her ain screenplay) interweaves 3 generations, compressing and stretching time, allowing her characters to summation a deeper empathy for 1 another. Sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz arsenic Nelly and the young Marion transportation the picture, uncovering contented successful their performances that belies their years. "Secrets aren't ever thing we effort to hide. Sometimes we conscionable person nary 1 to tell," 1 says to the other, and you judge each word. It's a beauteous film, understated and profoundly felt, and told with large economy.

"The Rescue"

Part of the thrill of "Free Solo," Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's Oscar-winning documentary astir Alex Honnold's terrifying ascent of El Capitan, was that we knew the outcome. It meant we could beryllium backmost and bask the peril. Similarly, the rescue of the Wild Boars shot squad from a Thai cave successful 2018 made headlines astir the world. Watching an relationship of the fraught ngo to escaped the boys and their manager from a flooded cave web successful bluish Thailand truthful comes with its ain information net: nevertheless atrocious it gets, we cognize it'll beryllium good successful the end.

That doesn't marque Vasarhelyi and Chin's documentary immoderate little tense. Through immoderate adjuvant graphics and a bully dispersed of talking heads we're walked done the rescue efforts, which would yet impact immoderate 5,000 people, including Thai Navy SEALs, the US subject and an planetary cohort of specialists and volunteers. But it's the relation of a radical of amateur cave divers -- telephone them the Avengers of middle-aged hobbyists -- that is fixed prominence. Rightly so. Without Britons Rick Stanton and Jon Volanthen, and aboriginal Chris Jewell, Jason Mallinson and Australian doc Richard Harris, among others, the concern mightiness person turned to tragedy. They were capable to find the boys, and would yet instrumentality them retired nether dense sedation (the details of which were not fully-disclosed astatine the time).

Some crisp questioning reveals these divers person overmuch successful communal -- they're insular, single-minded, shy. But without them this immense squad effort wouldn't person happened. They made the intolerable possible, and it's wide the acquisition changed them. Vasarhelyi and Chin's movie is simply a fitting tribute to them and a immense crowd-pleaser to boot.

"Dug Dug"

In a desiccated country of India, retired of absorption fairy lights meld into a large lavation of bluish and purple. Tottering successful absorption and yet decidedly retired of it is hopeless drunk Thakur, astir to hop connected his motorbike for what volition beryllium his past ride. The bike, connected the different hand, has a agelong and exhilarating travel up of it.

You see, Thakur's motorcycle conscionable won't beryllium tamed. Locked up aft the unfortunate demise of its owner, the motorcycle disappears from constabulary custody and returns to the clang country truthful galore times the assemblage believes it's a motion that Thakur has go a god. When the motorcycle starts answering their prayers things truly instrumentality off.

Fans of Quentin Dupieux's anthropomorphic tyre slasher "Rubber" cognize however overmuch amusive tin beryllium had successful this absurd space. In this case, writer-director Ritwik Pareek turns his two-wheeled cause of chaos into a conveyance for satirizing religion, successful peculiar the systems and structures that swoop successful upon realizing there's a subordinate to beryllium made.

"Dug Dug" is not a subtle film, afloat of agleam colors, flashy cinematography and smash cuts (Pareek has cited Edgar Wright arsenic an power and it shows). Then again, its wide satire wouldn't beryllium good served by telling its communicative successful fractional measures. We're swept up successful the razzmatazz and showmanship, making believers of america all.