By Swati Sharan

Bouchra

4/5

Directed by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani 

Bouchra is scripted in the fashion of a modern Aesop’s fable except that it’s semi-autobiographical shot in 3D animation using a documentary style. Much like the fables, the film depicts people as animals to get a point across. It helps in depersonalizing what is otherwise a deeply intimate story.

 Bouchra is a queer coyote filmmaker in New York City who is trying to make a film based on the real life awkwardness she and her mother in Casablanca share over a period of 9 years after she has come out. She was told to do what she wanted but not talk of it ever. And this has built into a great inner turmoil. 

The film tosses between English, French and Arabic. The animation is a stunning mirror to real life with its larger than life parallels to the big Apple. We also see how our protagonist’s personal struggle fits into the larger context of the Moroccan community that is settled in the US and how much public guidance gets sought in the form of talk shows as part of the immigrant struggle on coming to terms with oneself in a foreign land. 

In the absence of traditional communities, people are making awkward confessions over talk shows. Barki and Bennani have painted a very vivid slice of life of the community by breaking the story down into these mundane everyday occurrences. 

The film goes back and forth through the use of storyboards that are being prepared for the film being made within the film. The film strikes one as being both subtle yet stark at the same time. It is every bit worth the watch for both the storyline and the way the artistic vision has been carried out from a cinematic point of view.

Couture

 5/5

Directed by: Alice Winocour. Starring: Angelina Jolie, Anyier Anie, Louis Garrel

Angelina Jolie plays a middle-aged American film director named Maxine who has just discovered that she has breast cancer while working on the Paris runway.  She then feels fashion is useless and realizes she needs to slow down. She is putting things on the back burner because of a financial necessity stemming from a recent divorce and the responsibility of having a teenage daughter. 

In the meantime, she chairs an effort to recruit models from different war-torn countries to debut in her anti-gender, violent horror-film themed fashion show.  But this is met with challenges. As we see people portray themselves as zombies, it actually starts feeling very symbolic after a given point given the mechanical nature by which everyone is operating in this very brisk fashion industry.

We see the struggles of women who make it to the top. In the middle of so much bad news, Maxine is being forced to perform because so much time and money and people are involved that she can’t slow down when this is the very time she must. She also has a teenage daughter whom she must find a way to connect with because she is in America with her father. 

There is also a strong emotional need for intimate connection for what can be scary to go through by yourself. 

The irony is not lost on one to think that the fashion industry is dominated by women yet it doesn’t cater to a women’s everyday needs no matter how much they get paid. Women are being expected to be like robots with no personal life. Jolie has gifted us with a humanizing portrayal of what highly successful women in the entertainment industry go through, if only but a glimpse.

Simultaneously, we see the new recruits trying to cope with what may otherwise appear like a fantasy world and is perhaps their ticket to a safe and financially successful life with much empowerment. We see their personal traumas and fears for their families and the fate of their countries. In turn, in the age of cell phones, their family is giving a minute by minute account of whatever personal struggles they face which perhaps makes it harder for some of these models to just slide into whatever the demands of the fashion industry are just like that. Yet the return is so high that they work very hard to transition into the horror film project. It’s like they have one foot in Paris and one in their home countries never allowing them to be 100% in one space. 

We also witness the exploitation of people in the Arts including the makeup artist who is unpaid and often overworked at a frenetic pace as are the seamstresses in some cases. But even if they should get paid well, the pace is ungodly. 

They don’t lurk there just for the joy of it. The makeup artist hopes, for example, to write a successful novel based on her experiences. Is the anticipation of a future success worth it?  

The film is shot with a feminist perspective, which ironically the fashion industry has lacked though it is dominated by women. Yet rarely do we see this kind of voice. 

Jolie’s no holds barred performance meshing with the idea of empowering women from developing countries bolsters it because it overlaps with her real life volunteer work.

Dust to Dreams 

4/5

Directed by Idris Elba. Starting: Seal, Nse-Ikpe Etim, Konstance  Olatunde

Three stories seem to be playing out in this very short drama of 17 minutes. It may feel like a lot is coming at you but here we go. 

A dying nightclub owner in Lagos, Nigeria is in conflict with family members about ownership of the night club her father started. Their argument is: ‘It is all we have left of him. Sell it to us.’ But she is conflicted on how to share the legacy and she doesn’t see selling as the answer. 

In the meantime, the owner must arrange for her daughter to be paired with her estranged husband, the singer turned soldier. He has been away in the army for so long with no experience of being with the daughter. How do they begin?  Where once he was likely admonished for his singing talents, he must face up to this night club which once belonged to a father-in law he was once afraid of. 

In the meantime, the daughter (Konstance) has actually inherited her father’s talent for singing. Can a bonding be forged in the absence of the mother? 

The film attempts to tie all these loose ends together in a short span of time. But it is very absorbing to see how as evidently, this is a very big budgeted short film which one rarely comes across. The visuals and art direction are very strong with very catchy music. The film wants to say a lot in such little time. Yet little gestures and one line statements convey a lot. 

Co-produced by a Forbes 100 entrepreneur for the African sub-continent Mo Abudu with direction by Idris Elba, the film is an attempt at making something larger. It’s the attempt to promote films from the African sub-continent for an international platform.

With so many stalwarts backing it with the likes of Nollywood star Etim and pop singer Seal, the push is bound to bring a spring of results. 

 Though some find it overwhelming, the film is very much worth the watch.

Gandhi

5/5

Directed by: Hansal Mehta 

Starring: Pratik Gandhi, Bhamini Ozha, Kabir Bedi, Tom Felton 

Gandhi is a web series highlighting the earlier years in the freedom fighter’s life. The festival showed us two episodes from the series. The storyline traces back to the days of when many knew him as dear Mohan (Pratik Gandhi). 

Shown in a way that may resonate with today’s youngsters, we see Mohan being groomed to go abroad to become a barrister and redeem the family within a year or two of settling down. He faces a lot of stigma for going abroad as a Hindu and is threatened to be disowned if he comes back. His mother, however, stands her ground and makes sure Mohan gets that chance no matter how high the stakes are. 

What ensues however are tremendous financial hardships on the family that Mohan is oblivious of while he acclimates into the British lifestyle albeit without the meat and alcohol. 

Yet he comes out looking like the proper gentleman in British attire. He then goes on to befriend Josiah Olfield (Tom Felton), a vegetarian society founder. Through him, we learn about how the idea of vegetarianism is not as foreign to England as it was made out to be. During difficult periods of time, Britishers had adapted to a vegetarian diet out of necessity. 

Through many similar instances of exposure and personal development, Mohan realizes it’s time to go back to India. The price of being abroad was unreasonable on his family financially, physically and emotionally. 

After the return to India, we see Mohan being disentitled from getting the rightful position of a barrister because of the artificial barriers the British have imposed. He realizes he will never get his due if he remains in India. Eventually, he decides to go to South Africa. 

In Pietermaritzburg, Gandhi is thrown off the train in a Whites only compartment. Therein begins the journey to start fighting injustice. 

The screening concludes with Gandhi being shown in South Africa with much more to come. 

Gandhi’s time period has been recreated with the subtlest of Gujarati nuances. Based on Ramchandra Gina’s book, many fine details can be found in this web series. 

The costumes, characterization and  storyline all blend seamlessly. The acting and direction borrow strongly from theatrical influences. It may have been better to use a younger actor for this part of Gandhi’s life but Pratik is able to create a suspended belief in animation to enthrall the audience into believing he really is in his late teens or early 20s because of his innocent expressions. One can’t wait to see the whole series unfold. Stay tuned for the interview.

A Sámi Wedding 

4/5

Directed by: Ase Kathrin Vuolab, Pal Jackman

Starring: Sara Margrethe Oskal, Ante Siri, Inga Marja Utsi, Ivan Aleksander Sara Buljo, Craig Stein

Produced by a Cannes Film Festival Prize jury winner and now a TIFF winner for A Sentimental Journey, A Sami Wedding is a Norwegian web series whose talent we got to interview. The Sami tribe are an indigenous tribe to Norway. This is a series which helps people of the Sami tradition rekindle their heritage. 

A Sami Wedding is the story of a dysfunctional family in Norway in the Sami tribe. Garen (Oskal) is the matron intent on the traditional elaborate Sami wedding for her son with all its customs and rituals; but the family is less on board. This is Garen’s way of not just preserving her heritage but also her way of becoming more reputed and gaining in stature in the community.

 Somehow, however, the family ultimately comes together with a bunch of hilarious mishappens along the way.

The series appeals to an international audience. As the series writer Ase Kathrin Vuolab shared with us in an interview we will be sharing soon, an Indian wedding has less people but many rituals while we have many people with less rituals.

Throughout the different episodes we got to see, we see many dynamics playing out. We see a need for cultural preservation while also acknowledging how tradition can keep someone down. The dynamic of the gay couple lends a very harmonizing touch to the series. Seeing how even within Sami culture, it is interesting to see hierarchies. It’s not just that they have been dominated by a mainstream Norwegian culture. Groups of Sami people look down upon each other. We also bear witness to the idea of the time freeze phenomenon in the form of certain characters as having remembered a place as they left it years ago and don’t allow for the possibility that change can happen even if it’s slow.

Though as an outsider, we have less context of the larger picture of what has gone on in Norway, the series is still very much worth the watch. A Sami Wedding is a very engaging serial.

Dandelion’s Odyssey 

4/5

Directed by: Momoko Seto 

Dandelion’s Odyssey is a story of the earth’s rejuvenation told from the perspective of four dandelion balls. Upon nuclear explosions, we witness the journey of these balls traversing throughout habitats and great distances and then landing on another planet similar to the earth. We witness transformation and adaptation to suit the new planet. 

The imagery and animation are so true to life that if the screen were not depicting micro-organisms in such gigantic proportions, you would swear these were real. Such is the accuracy in detail of the animation at hand. 

Seto engaged in a lot of scientific research and traits of the dandelion to make this into a believable story regardless of however much a fantasy it actually is. 

While alerting people to the brutal consequences of human interference with the environment, the film still gives a message of hope. A lot of macro footage has been shot in Japan, France and Iceland and transposed on to the animation depicting people-free places. Techniques of time lapse, ultra slow motion and robotics have been used while shooting with 17 cameras. 

Such techniques enhance the believability of biological phenomenon. 

While there isn’t a conventional plot to give one an emotional lure, the wordless feature is still giving an engaging message to people about being careful with the environment just by exhibiting the process of nature itself.