WFF Reviews - Final Round

I have a feeling the World Film Fest team are praying TIFF will make journalists forget about the terrible edition they gave us this year. Talk about a flop : the rooms were empty, the good films didn’t have any publicity and major guests were not even mentionned in press kits. Even if you focus on the films shown that year, you’ll realize there was no logic in the programming. A festival should give an idea of the situation of world cinema. After this edition, I guess cinema is going somewhere, but where exactly ?

You’ll find here short reviews for movies seen at WFF this year. Enjoy !

Directed by Matthew Wilder, Your Name Here is a fictionnous take on the last days of science-fiction author Philip K. Dick. Writer William J. Frick is trying to finish what would be his last novel. By looking for inspiration, he finds himself stuck in a strange dimension where reality and fiction collides into a mind fuck. The film does have some qualities, but its labyrinthic structure gets tiresome really fast up to a point where it gets losts in its own traps. In the main role, Bill Pullman gives a good performance and manages to carry the movie on his shoulders. Because he plays once again a man falling into madness, the film could be considered as a companion to the much superior Lost Highway. An effort worth seeking for the actor’s fans.

Emma spends a few days with an astrophysician she met at the airport. When she discovers she’s in love with him, the man mysteriously disappears. Eric Forestier’s La troisième partie du monde combines existential science-fiction with romance and the result are midly successful. The script is quite simply too intellectual and cold to become engaging, even known a good sense of mystery manages to keep us on alert. Clémence Poésy is charming as Emma and Jean-Luc Bideau is hilarious as an old scientist obsessed with black holes. Eric Forestier made a clumsy first feature that still make you curious to see what he’ll do next. Hopefully more science-fiction !

Élève libre (Private Lessons) hits hard. Joachim Lafosse tells the subversive story of a young kid getting help on his studies from a trio of adults. When the kid becomes sexually curious, his friends decide to teach him more than just philosophy and math. This movie will haunt you a long time after the screening. The actors are magnificient and dare to go in what we could call dangerous territories. As fascinating and complex than Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, this is easily one of the best films seen this year at the World Film Festival.

Is pornography affecting men’s relationship with the opposite sex ? Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun certainly believe so and their documentary The Price of Pleasure tries to prove it. Their film sometimes feels like a close-minded condamnation but does raise some interesting questions towards its conclusion. Well made and intelligent, this hour-long film should at least create interesting conversations.

Finally, one of the best surprises of the fest was a short film called Animated American. In a few minutes, this hilarious movie makes fun of Hollywood and reminds us why hand-drawn animation will always remain better than CGI.