It Was Just An Accident
Canadian Premiere

With apologies to Bugonia, righteous kidnappings have never been funnier than this deadly serious snatch and grab set in Iran. When a father’s squeaky steps in a rural garage trigger a mechanic who survived torture by the regime, a snowballing comedy of errors and argumentative archetypes is set in motion.

Even more impressive for having been filmed in secret, Panahi’s real gift is that this tragic farce builds to a catharsis that challenges us — and its indignant characters — to accept the risk of embracing their own humanity even as it puts them in jeopardy under an system of ever-lurking oppression and retribution.

The Wizard of the Kremlin
North American Premiere

In place of a dazzling magic show of power players playing a dangerous chess mass on a global stage, we instead get a deeply dull recounting of recent Russian history by a vaguely British-accented Paul Dano. As he prattles on to a writer on sabbatical played by Jeffrey Wright, simply as a framing device, an oddly inert Jude Law eventually makes an appearance as Tsar Putin himself. Maybe it was the morning screening time, but in a week of seeing a ton of films, this chapter-by-chapter slog has felt like longest 2.5 hours of my life.

A surprising misfire. Olivier Assayas usually makes the fleeting effervescent moments of ordinary lives feel monumental. Here, decades of highly consequential world politics are somnambulantly rendered as foregone conclusions. Perhaps that’s the point, but the negligible investigation of motivation beyond the sad inertia of proximity to power makes for tough sledding. 

Christy
World Premiere

Yes, it must be said: Sydney Sweeney gives a knock-out performance as a boxer who reached the pinnacle of her sport with a nobody in her corner. With currents of isolation, oppression, repression, and violence looming in the grand story of a pioneering career, the true story of Christy Martin’s ascent from small town West Virginia to the cover of Sports Illustrated is short on the typical triumphal levity of the sports movie genre.

Shot in wide angles from just above eye-level, Sweeney gives a terrifically credible physical performance as a small but powerful woman who fought like there were demons inside her (there were). Someone’s going to get a hair and makeup Oscar nomination for the bad lady mullets of the 1980s; not to mention the awful (and thinning) blond combover that renders Ben Foster nearly unrecognizable yet pathetically menacing as Christy’s coach-turned-husband. Rare moments of charisma break through like the Kool Aid Man when Chad L. Coleman channels the bluster of Don King’s or Katy O’Brian makes the most of limited screen time as a fellow boxer. Despite playing a lot of routine notes, Christy’s ultimate courage and swagger can’t be completely buried by the biopic format, particularly with Michôd landing an incredibly potent series of final blows.

Franz
World Premiere

In contrast, Agnieszka Holland so actively resists convention in attempting to capture the childhood, inspirations, family dynamics, life, and legacy of a man perpetually out of time and place that she leaves the audience to find their own form of coherence in the striking moments on screen.

Idan Weiss is wonderfully suited for a title role that requires a deep streak of detached oddity while also conveying relatable genius. Rendered kaleidoscopically, the narrative defies easy categorization. Everything, including the present day, often appears to be happening all at once. Characters speak directly to camera unexpectedly. Passages from books are rendered in horrifying fashion. Modern day tourists shatter the author’s perpetual quest for silence. Perhaps fitting for a writer whose name has entered the pantheon as an oft-used adjective, her version of Kafkaesque is a rewarding variety of disorienting without ever tipping into cliche swipes at nightmarish.

Sirât
North American Premiere

Amid a throbbing, speaker-ratting techno soundscape and stunning Moroccan vistas, a father searches for his missing daughter with his young son and cute dog by his side. Camping in a minivan alongside pilgrims to a druggy dance event that stretches through the night, they hand out flyers while lasers etch patterns onto distant canyon walls.

As the outside world begins to crumble due to an unspecified conflict, director Oliver Laxe frames the small band of misfits, amputees, and oddballs as unlikely guides through an increasingly perilous journey through the the harsh desert, much like the myth of a wire-thin road to paradise that passes over the inferno of hell referenced by the film’s title. There are surprising moments of sweetness, but the director is no softy. Shot with breathtaking cinematography, this parable is ultimately about the stupid futile fragility of life.

It reinforces a universal truth: no matter how caring and resourceful they are, never ever follow a band of aging ravers to a second desert raving location.