reviewvancouver:Vancouver International Film Festival 2024

Luther: Never too Much

USA, 2024, Director: Dawn Porter, 101 minutes

Dates and Venues October 2 at Fifth Avenue Cinema-3 and October 5 at International Village-9

In Dawn Porter’s new documentary, she creates a fascinating profile of accomplished soul singer Luther Vandross. The film gets its title Never too Much from the song of that name – his first major hit. Porter’s commendatory portrait is essentially a gift to his many fans who still listen to his music, even though the artist died nearly twenty years ago at the wasteful age of 54 of complication of a stroke.

During his expansive career he was a vocal arranger and backup singer to the likes of Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, David Bowie and Aretha Franklin before he started out as a solo performer. He also earned pretty good money writing commercial jingles for a while.

Porter features a good deal of video footage from his concerts and interviews with her subject’s contemporaries as well as younger artists like Mariah Carey whom he had encouraged. We see and hear candid conversations from his former songwriting partner Richard Marx and Jamie Foxx who also had a hand in producing the film. Porter does touch on Luther’s health issues that include diabetes and his well-known problems with his weight. The director discreetly skips across the surface of his sexuality.

Bonjour Tristesse

Canada/Germany, 2024, Director: Durga Chew-Bose, 110 minutes

In English and French with English subtitles

Dates and Venues Sptember 28 at Fifth Avenue Cinema-3 and September 30 at International Village-10

It’s taken sixty-six years for a filmmaker to get around to remaking Otto Preminger's 1958 film adapted from Françoise Sagan's novel Bonjour Tristesse (trans. Hello Sadness). Montreal director Durga Chew-Bose obviously felt it was the right time to try and improve on the original. When Sagan's novel was first published in 1954 it caused quite a stir. I only watched the film much later on “black and white” television, condensed to fit a ninety-minute timeslot that would include commercial breaks. It’s probably unfair to compare it to the new version.

Durga Chew-Bose is more a writer than a filmmaker. Bonjour Tristesse is her directorial debut and it shows. Scenes that offer insignificant information seem to take a long time, whereas, scenes that are important to the narrative are all to brief. New Yorker Lily McInerny takes on the central role of pampered teenager Cecile who has an unconventional relationship with her father Raymond played by veteran Danish actor Claes Bang. She even refers to him by his first name and enjoys a sisterly rapport with her father’s girlfriend Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune).

Of all the actors in this film, I was most affected by Chloë Sevigny’s stoic portrayal of fashion designer Anne, who travels to the French Riviera to visit Raymond, the husband of her deceased friend. She certainly shakes things up with the other two women in the house who have enjoyed a rather sybaritic lifestyle.

This may be a project that might have been better left alone. Translating a setting from the fifties to the present day changed the narrative from a morality tale to a domestic drama.

Ari's Theme

Canada, 2024, Directors: Nathan Drillot & Jeff Lee Petry, 98 minutes

Dates and Venues Sptember 26 at Vancouver Playhouse and September 28 at VIFF Centre

In keeping with the tradition of opening the festival with a Canadian film, VIFF have chosen Nathan Drillot & Jeff Lee Petry’s exceptional documentary that focuses on the extraordinary British Columbia musician Ari Kinarthy. Ari lives with Spinal Muscular Atrophy type-2, which has progressed aggressively since he was a teenager. Now in his mid-thirties, he has confounded specialists who had predicted his demise before reaching twenty. He is unable to play any musical instrument and yet he is capable, with the help of technology and his music therapist, of translating the complex melodies in his head to a written score.

To their credit, the filmmakers have concentrated on their subject’s musical ability rather than his disability. The film indulges in a lot of family video footage, but the real story, narrated by Ari himself follows the creation, development and realization of a musical work called Ari’s Theme. It's a pleasant tone poem that honours his parents and evokes his early memories. The work is heard as part of the film’s soundtrack and at this presentation performed live by eight members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

When We Lost to the Germans (Toen We van de Duitsers Verloren)

Netherlands, 2023, Director: Guido van Driel, 84 minutes

In Dutch with English subtitles

Dates and Venues Sptember 26 at International Village-8 and September 28 at International Village-10

Guido van Driel has adapted this multi-layered film from his own graphic novel by the same name. Shot in monochrome in presumably suburban Rotterdam, it’s essentially a coming-of-age story in the aftermath of the final game of the 1974 World Cup (of soccer) between Netherlands and West Germany (pre-unification). It was expected that Netherlands would win, but after each team scored with a penalty, Gert Müller scored just before half time for a West Germany win.

The following day, the streets are quiet and the city is suffering a post game hangover. Jonas (Rein Hoeke) and Daan (Kylian de Pagter), a pair of prepubescent boys are going about their day. While they are not friends, they decide to hang out together. Jonas is a sensitive kid from a middle-class family, whereas, Daan is tougher and outwardly confident though appears to have issues with an abusive father.

Parallel to this action (or really non-action), Cato a pretty classmate of Jonas disappears without a trace. In the opening scene, the entire with the exception of Cato are having an end of term class photograph. We eventually learn that Cato was left out because her parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Young actors Rein Hoeke and Kylian de Pagter out perform the film's senior cast members who come across as being somewhat stiff. Guido van Driel use of monochrome makes the film look like it was shot in 1974 – perhaps that was the intention. One of the caveats to shooting in ‘black and white’ is the white subtitles on a light background are difficult to see and impossible to read.