tiff2016 - it's what we do

Julieta

Directed by:  Pedro Almodovar
Starring: Emma Suarez, Adriana Ugarte

Love me some Almodovar.  Whether intensely dramatic or high camp, Pedro's view of the world is unique and rich.  He's also a champion film maker for women, and in Julieta he takes that one step further by adapting the work of Alice Munro.  Relaying a tale of a mother and her estranged daughter, Pedro tells their story in past and present as we come to understand the complex relationship between these two women.  It's a soft telling, where we want and expect much to happen but very little does.  At the hands of another director this would be an immense problem, but with Pedro's magic touch we are drawn into Mom's suffering sadness and hope she finds her something more.  Compelling score and very well acted.  This one also took me back to #spainsanity for a short while, so all good on all fronts.

Manchester by the Sea

Directed by: Kenneth Lonergan
Starring : Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler

I'm exhausted.  Over tired, really, and when I get over tired I get over emotional.  It's like my mind can't decide how it wants to feel, so it just default cries.  I spent much of this screening silently sob crying in my seat.  Was it because of my over tired state of mind?  Well, maybe 3%, yes.  The other 97% was due to a most beautiful, beautiful film which hits the notes of grief and guilt so softly they take you over unexpectedly yet continuously.  No one can (or should ever have to) imagine the grief and guilt felt by Lee (Casey Affleck) after he suffers an imaginable and horrific loss.  His life is turned upside down again by the death of his older brother (Kyle Chandler) so back home he must go to care for his teenaged nephew.  Casey's Lee suffers a quiet agony so painful it's hard to imagine anything enabling him to break free from it - he's lonely, angry and also kind and sensitive.  Casey's dialogue is sparse but we don't need words to tell us how he's feeling - we have his face and his nuanced mannerisms and sheer brilliance.  This script is not only beautifully written, it's real.  We understand, completely, that Casey can't break out of his suffering - he tells us this flat out - and while we're used to heroes overcoming odds and obstacles as they seek to achieve some sort of betterment, I can't help thinking Casey's Lee is a hero too.  The life he chooses of almost monastic penance is his self imposed punishment for what happened.  He's not being a martyr, he's doing this because it's what he feels he must do to survive.  He must live within his loss to overcome his loss.  Fucking heartbreaking.  It really was.