RVIFF Day 6: Teachers in Trouble, Deadpan in Italy, and a Vampire at the Depanneur
September 11th, 2024 | Robin
A Ken and Robin Consume Media Special Feature
The Breaking Ice (China, Anthony Chen, 2023, 4) Visiting snowy Yanji for a wedding, a depressed finance worker (Liu Haoran) bonds with two other twenty-somethings, a walled-off tour guide (Zhou Dongyu) and the directionless restaurant employee (Qu Chuxiao) who shares his attraction to her. The love triangle becomes a minor chord and opportunities for cheap melodrama are set aside in a lovely, melancholy drama of connection and reawakening.
Amanda (Italy, Carolina Cavalli, 2022) Back in the family manor after an unsuccessful sojourn in Paris, an abrasive slacker (Benedetta Porcaroli) campaigns to reconnect with her alleged childhood bestie (Galatéa Bellugi), now a recluse. Offbeat comedy revives the deadpan stream of 90s indie cinema from a woman’s point of view.
I am glad to see that this vibe, as first laid down by Hartley, Jarmusch and Kaurismaki, has been absent for long enough to make a second-generation resurgence. I would not have expected it to come from Italy. Or Mongolia, as in the previously reviewed The Sales Girl.
The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany, İlker Çatak, 2023, 4) Suspecting that a colleague is behind a series of petty thefts, a high school math teacher (Leonie Benesch) sets a trap, plunging the institution into chaos. Edited and scored like a thriller, wicked but played absolutely straight, this nerve-wracking bureaucratic morality tale incisively examines what happens when de-escalation is never an option.
Love Life (Japan, Koji Fukada, 2022, 4) A woman and her new husband’s grief over the death of her six year old son is complicated by the reappearance of her now homeless ex. Surprising turns give breadth to this moving, emotionally complex naturalistic drama.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Canada, Ariane Louis-Seize, 2024) In a world where vampires live secretly among humans in family units and have their own dentists and psychologists, reluctant bloodsucker Sasha (Sara Montpetit) finds a willing victim in depressed, put-upon high schooler Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard.) Droll horror rom com with nods to quintessential touchstones of Quebecois culture.
For the third year running, my wife Valerie and I are attending our own at-home film festival. It takes the place in our hearts and vacation plans formerly reserved by the Toronto International Film Festival. The Robin and Valerie International Film Festival is the cinema event you can play along with at home, with a roster of streaming service and SVOD titles. Its roster includes the foreign, independent and cult titles we used to love to see at TIFF, but cheaper, hassle-free, and on the comfort of our own couch. Daily capsule reviews roll out throughout the festival, with a complete list in order of preference dropping a day or two afterwards. Review ratings are out of 5.
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