EIFF 2021 Documentary Reviews
EIFF 2021: Vague Visages’ Marc Nelson on the documentaries Bosco, The Gig Is Up, Faceless and Radiograph of a Family.
Marc Nelson
EIFF Review: Chloé Mazlo’s ‘Skies of Lebanon’
“‘Skies of Lebanon’ asks slightly too much of its actors; the switch-up from animation and deliberate artificiality to fine-grained historical drama demands a change in style that results in the performers having to pull in two directions at once…”
EIFF Review: Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s ‘Ballad of a White Cow’
“‘Ballad of a White Cow’ has a knack for creative and unexpected camera placements, expressive touches in staging and layered use of sound design.”
Glasgow Film Festival Review: Mohammad Rasoulof’s ‘There Is No Evil’
“There Is No Evil’s artistry is inconsistent, but its argument is undeniable.”
Glasgow Film Festival Review: Frederick Wiseman’s ‘City Hall’
“‘Reality fiction’ contours everything in ‘City Hall,’ from the microscopic level of scene transitions to the macroscopic level of entire sequences given deliberate framings…”
Glasgow Film Festival Review: Lili Horvát’s ‘Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time’
“It’s a delight to watch Stork think in ‘Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time.’ Her cogitations are signaled by the darting actions of her piercing blue eyes, the slight flex of an eyebrow or the raising of a subtle and pursed smirk.”
A Stone-Dumb Genius: On Charles Grodin’s Performance in ‘The Heartbreak Kid’
“Under May’s stare in ‘The Heartbreak Kid,’ and through the provocations of scene partners, Grodin creates a character of rare stature: a horrifying, stone-dumb genius.”
Joy in the City: On Jacques Tati’s ‘PlayTime’
“It’s not difficult to see how PlayTime’s jubilant finale — with its invocation to fashion the city to its occupants’ sense of fun, desires and needs — is perhaps Tati’s most profound statement of his participatory cinema.”
I Could Grow to Love This Place: On Bill Forsyth’s ‘Local Hero’
“The films of Bill Forsyth are well-observed, genial comedies — and yet the director’s humor is intermingled with a powerful strain of sadness, an attentiveness to protagonists lost and longing.”