The Toronto International Film Festival obviously has a slew of new footage, trailers, posters and synopses from their various films so we thought we’d point out some new ones we noticed from films that should be on your radar.
First up is “Dogtooth”, one of our 10 Most Anticipated Films from Cannes that we missed and which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival earlier this year. Directed by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos it’s basically about three siblings completely sheltered and cut-off from the outside world and forced to play strange games according to rules created by their overprotective parents. And apparently the parents are kinda nuts. “Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the über-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission,” read the TIFF Synopsis. We showed you the trailer earlier this summer. Looks creepy, weird and chilling.
After that we have another new image of Gaspar Noé’s “Enter The Void.” Another film from our 10 Most Anticipated Films from Cannes that we missed.
Always a provocateur, Noé’s latest — heralded as both a masterpiece and total indulgent trash by others as Cannes — centers on young Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a small time drug dealer who promises to protect his little sister, a nightclub stripper (Paz de la Huerta), after the brutal death of their parents. He is shot and killed in a drug deal gone wrong, but refuses to leave this earth because of the deal he made with his sister and instead hovers around Tokyo as a nightmarish ghostly apparition caught between two worlds (or something like that, you probably have to witness it to actually understand it).
Another picture we’re greatly looking forward to is German/Turkish director Fatih Akin’s “Soul Kitchen.” Known for lyrical and weighty films like the streetwise, “Head On,” and last year’s terrific Kieslowski-esque film of chance, “The Edge of Heaven” (which we had in our Best of ’08 picks) Akin takes a left turn with a comedy. “Soul Kitchen” stars Moritz Bleibtreu (“Run Lola Run”) and Birol Ünel (“Head On”) and the film is actually described as a “house party of a comedy,” so Akin is seemingly taking a total creative detour here. The film is set in a bad warehouse diner and troubles get worse when the restaurant owner’s (Adam Bousdoukos ) brother gets out of jail and drags all of Hamburg’s trouble into the establishment. Tax collectors and a superstar chef coming by only make it worse. Sounds like it could potentially be a lot of fun, especially coming from Akin, whose work is generally grounded in heavier gravitas.
Lastly we have one new shot from the French film “Micmacs.” Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the beloved French auteur behind “The City of Lost Children,” “Delicatessen”and “Amelie,” returns with his very first film since 2004’s
“A Very Long Engagement.”
He returns here with “Micmacs” — which was on our Most Anticipated of 2009 list — a satirical film about the gun trade and apparently a “searing piece of romantic filmmaking set against the storm clouds of warring arms dealers,” according to TIFF.
The picture also features many of Jeunet’s regulars like Dany Boon (the French dramedy, “My Best Friend,” which is being adapted into English by Wes Anderson) André Dussollier, Nicolas Marie, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Julie Ferrier. The only bummer about this one is Yann Tiersen didn’t compose the music.
