REVIEWS


MASTERS


Jap. 2011. 128mins Director/screenplay/ editor Hirokazu Kore-eda Production company Shirogumi International sales Wild Bunch, www.wildbunch.biz Producers Kentaro Koike, Hijiri Taguchi Cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki Production designer Ayako Matsuo Music Quruli Main cast Koki Maeda, Ohshiro Maeda, Nene Ohtsuka, Joe Odagiri, Kyara Uchida, Kirin Kiki, Isao Hashizume, Hiroshi Abe


I Wish REVIEWED BY DAN FAINARU


Hirokazu Kore-eda, one of the most original Japanese film- makers in recent years, is back working with children. The last time he did it, with the masterful but heartbreaking Nobody Knows (2004), he took Cannes by surprise and collected an award for his lead actor. His new fi lm, I Wish, is in a vastly more upbeat mood, but


displays the same sensitivity and skill, and if the original idea behind this production seems to have been the promotion of a new bullet-train line, the outcome bears almost no sign of it. It is a gentle, intelligent and touching tale of two brothers trying to reunite their divorced parents. The bullet trains do have a role but I Wish (Kiseki) is most defi nitely not about them. The overture here may take a bit too long, if only because


there are so many characters Kore-eda needs to introduce. But to his credit, all of them develop perfectly, exquisitely played not only by the children but also the adults, some of them familiar — and beautifully shot — faces from Kore-eda’s earlier fi lms. Since their parents’ split, Koichi and Ryunosuke (played by


real-life brothers Koki and Ohshiro Maeda, who have their own comedy act on stage and TV) have been separated. The older boy, Koichi, already in the sixth grade, lives with his mother (Ohtsuka) and her parents, while Ryunosuke, a fourth grader, has moved with his father (Odagiri), a would-be rock musician, to another town. At this point, the new range of bullet trains comes into the


story. These travel so fast that the energy they release, or so Koichi has heard, can make wishes come true. So the idea is for Koichi to meet Ryu midway, at the point where two bullet trains will be passing each other in opposite directions and a miracle would then be inevitable (the Japanese title, Kiseki means ‘mira- cle’) and their family reunited. This may well be Kore-eda’s most accessible picture to date


and could eventually reach large international audiences, even if they had never before heard the director’s name.


SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


US. 2011. 120mins Director/screenplay Cameron Crowe Production companies Vinyl Films, Monkeywrench, Tremolo Productions International sales Arts Alliance Media Producers Kelly Curtis, Cameron Crowe, Morgan Neville, Andy Fischer Executive producer Michele Anthony Cinematography Nicola B Marsh Editors Chris Perkel, Kevin Klauber Main cast Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Eddie Vedder


Pearl Jam Twenty REVIEWED BY DAVID D’ARCY


Leave it to former rock scribe Cameron Crowe to make a docu- mentary about and with one of his favourite bands, Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam Twenty reveals a fan’s appreciation, celebrating the band’s 20-year anniversary. The fi lm will be released on Sep- tember 20 worldwide, simultaneously with video on demand (on September 24). If Pearl Jam’s existing fans fl ock to the fi lm, it will make money — and the band’s fans are nothing if not fi ercely loyal. Bear in mind this group sells out arenas. Crowe’s voiceover announces he is a fan, yet his fi lm does not


gush. You get the sense he spent his energy editing down a near infi nity of footage and sound from a vast range of sources. Since at least the 1980s, one aspect of the Seattle scene has been its self-documentation. Pearl Jam Twenty is a daunting editing dis- tillation, with only a few false notes in a two-hour movie. More animated than Crowe’s doc earlier this year, The Union,


which observed recording sessions with Elton John and Leon Russell, Pearl Jam Twenty is also a lot less elegiac, even though Crowe has logged plenty of time with the band, who appeared in his 1992 grunge-feature Singles, when they were known as Mookie Blaylock. These are spry, boyish guys, even after 20 years. Lead singer Eddie Vedder is refl ective. Co-founder Stone Gossard is wryly comical, as is cynical lead guitarist Mike McCready. For much of the audience, the band’s journey will chart a


familiar trajectory towards mass stardom, accompanied by familiar angst about sacrifi cing musical credibility in the proc- ess. Still, the band’s pre-history in Seattle’s indie-rock incubator may be a revelation to the group’s younger fans. Pearl Jam devotees may be more concerned with what the fi lm


leaves out — almost all personal information — though the group’s longstanding aversion to the cult-of-personality mechan- ics involved in commercial music promotion should have pre- pared its public for a certain degree of privacy. The downside of drawing such a wall around the band members’ private lives is that we never learn what they do besides play music. The most ardent Pearl Jam head-bangers will have ways to fi nd out.


■ 6 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 13, 2011


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16