Vancouver International Film Festival(VIFF)Movie Reviews

DIRECTOR Albert Dupontel CAST Albert Dupontel, Virginie Efira, Nicolas Marié

France2020, 88 min. In French Rated PG - Violence, Sexual Language

In this dark comedy of errors where everything can go wrong possibly go wrong it does. In the first opening scenes, we have a woman who is seen by her doctor and he's giving her bad news she's got a health condition where she's only got a couple of months to live.

Another story altogether, there's a man who is with an IT company and he's being demoted for some of the younger people in his company.

The man buys himself a gun and attempts to shoot himself at work and he records his reasoning as to why, his losing remarks are "Bye Bye Morons". When he attempts to pull the cord attached to the gun there's a misfire and he accidentally shoots his co-worker in the next room to his office the dying woman is in that man's office, seeking help trying to find her long lost son but she had to give up when she was 15 years old. What happens next is they're chased all through the city and they even get the unlikely aid of a blind man which leads to more hysterics and it's easily one of the best films I've seen this year. If you have a chance to see it the last showing is Sunday, October 10, 2021, at 6:00 PM Kay Meek Arts Centre. I would suggest you go check this one out. This film is only playing festivals right now and will be released next year.

WORLD PREMIERE

DIRECTOR Nikhil Mahajan CAST Jitendra Joshi, Sanjay Mone, Vikram Gokhle, Neena Kulkarni, Gauri Nalawade, Priyadarshan Jadhav

India 2021 113 min.

In Marathi with English subtitles

Please note this film can only be viewed in British Columbia when streaming on VIFF Connect.

Sunday, October 10, 2021, at 6:15 PM SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

In this film we have Nishikant, he's walking the streets of his small town his family owns a number of businesses and apartment buildings so he's walking around collecting the rent and this becomes problematic for him. It's really tearing him apart, he's finding it really eating at his soul and he has no life he tells his parents later on in the film.

There is a wonderful part in the film where he's sitting by the river of Godavari and he meets this man who, is it's either a man or it's a spirit that has come to visit him but clearly bathing in the water and he says why are you bathing in the water you should get out of here it's dirty it's filthy. The man says to him why would you push away anyone who wants to reap the wonders of the water you should push away those that want to cause harm instead of those who want to worship the river for what it's known because it has known to cleanse people.

He peacefully and calmly says before he vanishes into the river, "God made one mistake he should have given us an ear here and he points to his chest Nishikant because this person has taken him into the water he's now standing knee-deep in water and Nishikant stands there in the awe that he's just vanished.

From there on the movie takes quite a different turn and he kind of sees the mistakes he's made almost like Charles Dickens Scrooged in a way he comes to realize what he's been missing in life and because he's been so busy with trying to get that rent.

His father even tells him, his mother could have gone and collected the rent or we could have had the people just send it to us instead of you having to worry about it. You live your whole life trying to collect rent and trying to appease others.

So Nishikant gets back in touch with himself and his family also his daughter who he's begrudged his love for, also he gets back in contact with his father.

It's really got some touching moments in the end.

I'm not sure how the ending is supposed to be perceived but I think it's a beautiful way to end it off.

It's really quite a beautiful film in the end for some it might be a little dark at first.

See For Me -No Official Poster or Trailer available prior to this review.

DIRECTOR Randall Okita CAST Skyler Davenport, Kim Coates, Jessica Parker-Kennedy, Natalie Brown, Pascal Langdale, Joe Pingue, George Tchortov, Laura Vandervoort

Credits Canada 2021 92 min.

Please note this film can only be viewed in British Columbia when streaming on VIFF Connect.

I went into this movie quite skeptical because the outline described it like every other movie where people are house watching and it certainly plays out like that for the first quarter of the film.

The young woman Sophie (Skyler Davenport)who is blind she used to be a champion skier was blinded and I guess she was blinded by an accident on the slopes we're not really given a reason as to why but she is now blind. She is still coping with the loss.

Sophie goes to cat sit at this mansion which is of course out in the middle of nowhere, of course, you know something bad is going to happen because it's just set up that way, but where I thought this movie was going it's not where it led me at all it took a complete left turn and threw me for a loop. I like when a movie can do that when it can surprise you with a twist that you didn't see coming because there are a few twists in here that you don't see coming. It is a clever little film as I think of it, it was quite well done.

Three men break into the house, all orchestrated by someone on the phone. They are after the safe in the house. Sophie gets in the way at first, but then wait a minute maybe she can help them? Or is it all a swerve to throw them off?

There's a small appearance by Kim Coates in this it was shot in Ontario so it's a totally Canadian film, so if you like thrillers this is a good Canadian shot thriller. The reason for the title See For Me is there's an app that blind people can get in the film, she downloads it to her phone when she accidentally locks herself out of the house in which she's staying. It's like a help center but it's video so the person on the other end can See For You, the young woman on the other hand helps her get into the house but it ends up being a whole different story than what I saw coming I was pleasantly surprised.

DIRECTOR Ricky Ko CAST Patrick Tse, Petrina Fung, Lam Suet, Chung Suet Ying, Sam Lee, Jia Xiaochen

Hong Kong 2021 99 min.

In Cantonese with English/Chinese subtitles

Please note this film can only be viewed in Canada when streaming on VIFF Connect.

Pictured above is Bo-Bo Fung & Yin Tse who is considered to be the Shirley MacLaine & Rock Hudson of Cantonese cinema.

I don't know what to say about the three leads in this movie Bo-Bo Fung, Yin Tse & Suet Lam because they're all so charming.

What we have here is a trio that back in their younger days they were quite the henchmen they were quite the ruthless gang of three and so we have that at the very start we have them attacking another group of people quite convincingly it's shot very well it's shot an old-style Cinema like 1970s martial arts movie and the way they shot it even looks like it's from back then.

Apparently, the director has worked on some of the IP Man movies, which explains why the choreography looks as convincing as it does.

Mrs. Fung(Bo-Bo Fung) lives with her son, his wife, and their son and it becomes a problem they end up sending her to a senior home.

Chau(Yin Tse) was the tough guy back in the day, he lives alone, he has a young girl who has become a fangirl of his, so she kind of stalks him and convinces him to let her live with him.

Chung(Suet Lam) is the driver he spends a lot of time with a local prostitute who he's falling in love with, but she's not in love with him so he's quite destroyed about that. He doesn't really get into any of the action he just drives them around where they need to go. there is some wacky scenes where the woman is using a microphone almost like Roger Daltrey from The Who like when he swings the mic well, she swings it way out of control and she's hitting chandeliers and she's dragging chairs to the floor where they're trying to interrogate this young man.

Then she uses an old dial phone hanging on the wall, the same sort of technique and she gets quite skilled at it.

There are some really comedic moments in here and then there are some really touching moments and the film wraps up really nicely and the end of the film they have the three leads actually singing the lead song from the movie as the credits are rolling so that was a nice touch.

They actually wiped tears away when they're done singing their part so it's quite a nice little touch we get some behind the scenes of the film as well as the song is being played out and some gag reel moments that you know just them laughing about certain scenes and stuff and it's a quite a nice way to end off the movie.