BUCKING FASTARD (Werner Herzog)
Canadian Premiere

Werner Herzog’s oddball story of synchronized shut-in sisters opens with an unconventional opening courtroom scene in which they’re being sued for a restraining order, we learn that the siblings played by Rooney and Kata Mara speak with one voice and do absolutely everything together (including, but not limited to being cuddly cowgirls who “ride their neighbor well” in the garden shed). Dedicated to David Lynch and with an eerie and dedicated performance from the Maras, the resulting film is dreamlike in the truest sense: threeways with Orlando Bloom (in exceptional louche form), unexpectedly crashing a stranger’s wedding, surprising extra real estate, emerging from tunnels. Also, there’s a fox.

No matter how wide into the Irish countryside or deep into mysterious caves the film’s canvas expands, its puzzling series of loosely connected incidents of longing, revenge, and desire are on their surface mostly banal, yet remain strangely memorable and lodged in the waking psyche nonetheless.

COWARD (Lukas Dhont)
North American Premiere

More than a century has passed, but after all these years, what a time for twunks in the trenches. On the dire Belgian front of World War I and inspired by real letters and photographs, Lukas Dhont conjures a period-appropriate retelling of the makeshift drag shows performed by enlisted men. Led by soldiers, the theatrical productions served as a surprising respite from the brutality of war, with its perpetual performance of strict masculinity by terrified youth far from home, and their daily soul-deadening drudgery bringing bombs to the trenches and hauling mangled bodies to mass graves. As the value of these performances become recognized by higher-ups, they serve as a safe enclave by which the magnetic young leads played by Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne discover themselves (and side-play). As the film goes on the costumes grow more inventive with each passing act, the music is thoroughly gorgeous as their performances and relationship blossom. The runtime, though, stretches nearly as long as the Great War.

BITTER CHRISTMAS (Pedro Almodóvar)
North American Premiere

Writers writing about writers who write about writing? Tedious to most, but catnip to film directors!

Pedro Almodóvar is mostly unapologetic in his self-confrontation of the necessarily vampiric nature of autofiction. With little interest in self-disguise, his protagonist is a Spanish filmmaker who’s reached the career stage of regular tributes from LGBTQIA+ organizations, offers of ludicrous appearance fees from Emirate film festivals, and the existence of legions of fans still grateful for minor works or streaming deals. Much of the action features Leonardo Sbaraglia’s Raul at his laptop’s keyboard as he revisits a time in his life (after the death of his mother, of course) when he became plagued by panic attacks. In his film-within-the film, the lead is played by Bárbara Lennie as Elsa (also a film director who’s working on a film). Both characters steal liberally from their friends, agents, and lovers to a near-comic degree.

Some degree welcome self-critique arrives by the end (better late than never), but until then it’s very tough to get invested in an imagined film-within-a-film as more than a dollhouse for working through creative choices. Per usual, though, everyone & everything in his cinematic toybox remains gorgeous and impeccably art directed.

Oh, to live in a world where everyone’s rich, younger hotter firefighter boyfriends do stripteases on the side for spare cash, beach towels perfectly arrange on black sand beaches, and everyone’s sweaters match their couches. Maybe it’s worth sacrificing your own lived experiences for the benefit of others?