Comedy, morality, filmmaker subterfuge and lost love
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi
(out of 4) Starring, written and directed by Jafar Panahi. Opens Friday at TIFF Bell Lightbox. 82 minutes. Unrated. Here’s proof that you can’t keep a great filmmaker down.
Banned from making films by Iranian authorities, Jafar Panahi finds an ingenious way to do it anyway, mounting a hidden camera on the dashboard of his taxi to direct at his passengers or the world outside.
The result is naturalistic filmmaking at its best, with a wry Panahi gently pulling the strings. It’s warm and wickedly funny at times and any thought that Iranian women are mere doormats is put to rest by scrappy niece Hana Saeidi, who accepted the Golden Bear prize at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival on Panahi’s behalf. Bruce DeMara
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon (out of 4) Documentary on the rise and fall of the National Lampoon. Directed by Douglas Tirola. Opens Friday at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. 98 minutes. 18A
Douglas Tirola’s loving doc captures the anarchic ’70s college satire magazine that became a comic force.
Started by three Harvard grads in 1970, the mag reached one million circulation in its heyday. It was the Charlie Hebdo of its time, savagely goring any and all sacred cows.
Before sputtering to a halt in 1998, done in by the Internet and SNL (which poached talent), the Lampoon had morphed into a multimedia brand.
It helped inspire the likes of filmmakers John Landis, John Hughes and Judd Apatow, whose own comic creations — such as Landis’s Animal House, Hughes’ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Apatow’s Anchorman — leapt from minds unleashed by Lampoon’s wicked laughter. Peter Howell
Partisan
(out of 4) Starring Vincent Cassel, Jeremy Chabriel and Florence Mezzara. Directed by Ariel Kleiman. Opens Friday at the Carlton. 98 minutes. 14A Coming of age sparks a perilous arrival of conscience in the promising Aussie director Ariel Kleiman’s dystopian fable of child assassins.
Heavy on inference, with Daniel Lopatin’s assertive score seeking clarity not found in the screenplay, Partisan has a twisted fairy-tale vibe similar to the films of Yorgos Lanthimos ( Dogtooth) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet ( The City of Lost Children).
Vincent Cassel convinces as Gregori, the messianic leader of a mysterious cult of pint-sized killers and compliant single moms. But newcomer Jeremy Chabriel commands as 11-year-old Alexander, a chosen son whose dawning sense of right and wrong challenges the social order. An auspicious beginning, for him and Kleiman. Peter Howell
Coming Home
(out of 4) Starring Gong Li, Chen Daoming. Directed by Zhang Yimou. Opens Friday at Cinema Varsity and VIP. 111 minutes. PG Love lost, love forgotten and love that endures.
Director Zhang Yimou presents an achingly bittersweet tale set in the aftermath of the tumultuous Cultural Revolution.
Lu Yanshi, imprisoned for political crimes, is long separated from his wife and his daughter, Dandan.
He escapes so as to reunite with his family, only to be betrayed by Dandan.
Three years, later upon his release, Lu returns to find a wife who can no longer remember him despite his many efforts.
Chen and Gong, two of China’s most respected actors, offer two great performances in a film about love, loss and perseverance that will nearly break your heart. Bruce DeMara