Forty years ago the Festival of Festivals started in Toronto, ostensibly a showcase of cinema from other international fests like Cannes, Berlin, and Venice. As it evolved into becoming TIFF — The Toronto International Film Festival — what constituted a Toronto film changed, where even announced world premieres would sometimes be trumped by sneaky Telluride “unofficial” screenings. Now that I’m privileged to hit two of the other big guys on the calendar (Sundance and Cannes) what counts for me as the best-of-the fest has changed – The Witch, Sicario, Green Room, Son of Saul — all of these are amazing, but all of them counted towards other fests.
I wasn’t in Berlin or Telluride or Venice, so some of these below may not be so new either, but for me they’ll always be associated with TIFF 2015. Of the six-dozen films I screened this year, here’s what rose to the top.
Room
The People’s choice winner was one I was championing as soon as I saw it. Far from being the simple story the premise may make one believe it to be, the film deftly and intelligently deals with hard questions long after the initial conceit plays out. This is a film that really starts where most would end and it’s all the better for it. Brie Larson knocks it out of the park, and newcomer Jacob Tremblay is fantastic as young jack. Lenny Abrahmson’s direction is also top notch, creating tension beautifully and finding a way to make the claustrophobic feel positively frightening.
Rabin: The Last Day
Amos Gitai’s stunning work is as provocative as it is profound. A mix of drama and documentary, the film looks at the insidious nature of zealotry and how the cancer of a society can eat away from within. I cheekily put the same film on a similar list for FSR’s sister site Nonfics as the film truly is a hybrid between real-life footage and beautifully-crafted cinema.
Hurt
Alan Zweig’s masterful look at addiction, obsession, and the tarnishing of a heroic act by personal weakness is a stunner, and it’s another that I put on my Nonfics list. The film took home the top prize of the newly formed Platform jury program, hopefully facilitating this quiet yet sublime film to get the audience it deserves.
45 Years
Sundance Selects
In my review I called the film a ghost story, and dozens of films later barely a few haunted me as much as this stellar Brit drama. Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay are legendary in this quiet but impactful tale of a secret that divides a long married couple.
Anomalisa
Charlie Kaufman’s rumination on complacency was either going to be a stunner or a fascinating flop, so I’m all the more pleased it ended up every bit as excellent as I could have hoped for. It’s not easy to pull off a work about banality without it itself becoming boring, but the inspired use of stop motion puppetry makes the wry content come alive. Plus, the best puppet-on-puppet sex scene since Team America: World Police can’t ever be a bad thing.
Beasts of No Nation
Most are going to see this on VOD when it hits Netflix shortly, but there was no film that I was more pleased to see presented on the big screen with a rapt audience. This tale of a child soldier and his broken, fictional country has elements of fairy tale horror, yet hammers its point home with the impact of a documentary.
Spotlight
It’s not often that newspaper reporters get to be lauded for uncovering a well-hidden truth, but what sets the film apart is how this never falls into hero worship. The tale is complicated and the results of their actions worthy of celebration, but the questions that linger are equally problematic and highlight both the success and the challenge of this important endeavor. Unlike Truth, a fine but flawed take on a scandal at CBS, Spotlight manages to make both the human and journalistic drama interesting within the context of a film while still delving deeply into the issues surrounding the story.
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