![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Toronto Film Fest, Days One and Two
Two films in two days, and the Canadian one trumps the Kiwi one hands down.
Title: 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous
Director: Stewart Main
Country: New Zealand
P's Rating: Crap
This looked like it would be charming fun. Set in rural New Zealand in the '70s, it follows two cousins just approaching puberty. Billy fantasizes about being the female lead of his favorite television show, a space opera that looks very much like The Tomorrow People. His cousin Lou is a definite tomboy who heads the school rugby team and is waiting for the day when she can finally cut her hair short. When they both develop a crush on a new farm hand, their friendship suffers. Alas, there is absolutely nothing to recommend this film. The plot is a mess, the dialogue is banal, the cinematography is ordinary when not outright bad and all the performances are atrocious.
Title: Eve and the Fire Horse
Director: Julia Kwan
Country: Canada
P's Rating: Recommended
Another film set in the '70s, this one follows Eve and Karena, two Chinese/Canadian sisters dealing with family tragedies large and small. Living in a Buddhist household, they somehow fall under the spell of Catholicism, aided and abetted by their mother who reasons that two gods in a household are better than one. Seen through Eve's eyes, the film is a completely charming view into how children can get things like religion wrong in very interesting ways. Particularly wonderful are the occasional fantasy sequences, where Eve encounters dancing Chinese goddesses and Buddha and Jesus waltzing together. A lovely film.
Title: 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous
Director: Stewart Main
Country: New Zealand
P's Rating: Crap
This looked like it would be charming fun. Set in rural New Zealand in the '70s, it follows two cousins just approaching puberty. Billy fantasizes about being the female lead of his favorite television show, a space opera that looks very much like The Tomorrow People. His cousin Lou is a definite tomboy who heads the school rugby team and is waiting for the day when she can finally cut her hair short. When they both develop a crush on a new farm hand, their friendship suffers. Alas, there is absolutely nothing to recommend this film. The plot is a mess, the dialogue is banal, the cinematography is ordinary when not outright bad and all the performances are atrocious.
Title: Eve and the Fire Horse
Director: Julia Kwan
Country: Canada
P's Rating: Recommended
Another film set in the '70s, this one follows Eve and Karena, two Chinese/Canadian sisters dealing with family tragedies large and small. Living in a Buddhist household, they somehow fall under the spell of Catholicism, aided and abetted by their mother who reasons that two gods in a household are better than one. Seen through Eve's eyes, the film is a completely charming view into how children can get things like religion wrong in very interesting ways. Particularly wonderful are the occasional fantasy sequences, where Eve encounters dancing Chinese goddesses and Buddha and Jesus waltzing together. A lovely film.