Images credit: Courtesy of TIFF
Mon: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks. I’m Mon.
Ron: And, I’m Ron.
Mon: In today’s episode, we’re reviewing a few films that we caught at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
Ron: Yeah, we watched a bunch of films, and one pilot episode. We’ve reviewed them at Women Write About Comics and we’re doing a few reviews here.
Mon: We’ll have two episodes on the round-ups, and this is episode one. I’ll also mention that the reviews are spoiler-free, because, good, bad, or ugly, we don’t want to ruin your viewing experience.
Ron: So, what are you reviewing today?
Mon: I’ll be chatting about All We Imagine as Light and Aberdeen.
Ron: Sounds great! I’ll be chatting about Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and The Listeners.
Mon: All We Imagine as Light is based in Mumbai. The film focuses on three women — nurses and roommates Prabha, played by Kani Kusruti and Anu, Divya Prabha, as well as Prabha’s friend and colleague Parvaty, played by Chhaya Kadam.
I’ll start off by saying that I completely misread the synopsis and went in with very different expectations for this film. The way the synopsis puts it, it seemed like All We Imagine as Light was a story about secret romantic love between women. That’s definitely not what it’s about! Imagine my disappointment. That doesn’t mean the film is bad — I was engaged through most of it, but then it lost the plot.
Ron: Oh no! I’m the one who recommended it to you.
Mon: Yeah, but it wasn’t all bad. Each character has a distinct personality and character arc. Some make more sense than others — Parvaty is full of righteous indignation and rage over being evicted from her home. Chhaya Kadam is a particular delight to watch as Parvaty in this film.
Anu is young and grates against the confines of the life she’s stuck in. Plus, she’s pursuing a clandestine relationship that is unfortunately frowned upon among many in India. That relationship crosses religious lines, and this issue has got a lot worse in the past few years. I like that the film doesn’t lean into tropes of hate crimes, though.
Prabha was the one character whose story was a little too abstract. I mostly got it — it’s about being apart from a loved one and what happens when distance seems to destroy a relationship. Unfortunately, I couldn’t gauge what her arc was supposed to be — she was central to connecting different parts of the story but seemed less of a character herself.
One thing I particularly enjoyed was the acting in All We Imagine as Light. It’s so natural. And I love that the director and editor Payal Kapadia and Clément Pinteaux, let the actors perform without unnecessary cuts and edits, or overlong gimmicky oners. You feel like you’re in the room with these characters because the actors make their characters’ actions so believable. Yes, the cook is going to keep cleaning while she’s talking, but she will stop and gesticulate wildly when she’s venting. Yes, Prabha will keep her eyes on the fish so it doesn’t burn, but can’t help but stop and look at her roommate who’s made a frustrating request of her. I absolutely love that about this film. It’s so easy to get lost in the story because you are part of the story.
Ron: Yes, this reminds me of how I felt about another Indian film at this year’s TIFF, Superboys of Malegaon – the acting was so natural. I’ve written about it at WWAC.
Mon: And, the cinematography by Ranabir Das is stunning as well. You can feel the heat and sweat from the crowds in Mumbai. You see the dark dinginess of the unkempt buildings. But, when the story moves to the seaside village in the final act, the camera perfectly captures the verdant forests, the dark caves and the beautiful beach side. And yet, it doesn’t forget to showcase that India is mostly a hot country, and with it comes flies and insects.
Ron: It doesn’t sound too bad. Where did it go wrong?
Mon: Two-thirds of All We Imagine as Light was riveting to watch but the third act dragged on for way too long, and honestly, I felt it didn’t know how to end. The ending posits solutions that aren’t sustainable beyond the credits of this film. After spending nearly two hours immersed in such a gritty and realistic reality set to the languid pace of real life, the contrivances in the third act take away from that immersive experience. So my lingering impression of the film is that it was a suspenseless and tedious watch, even though most of it did a wonderful job of capturing the everyday life of these three women.
This is a mostly accomplished film and I love that Indian films are spotlighting everyday women and their needs and wants and desires. All We Imagine as Light is not perfect but it’s still nice to see stories with multi-dimensional female characters.
Ron: Well, from one disappointment to another. I was looking forward to watching Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. This sounded like such a sweet film. A disenchanted woman failing to find romance because of the influence of Jane Austen novels.
Agathe, played by Camille Rutherford, runs a book shop in France but hasn’t been able to find her own Mr Darcy. When her best friend of ten years, Felix, played by Pablo Pauly, enrols her in the Jane Austen Residency in the UK, Agathe reluctantly agrees to go in the hopes of kickstarting her novel. And just as she’s leaving, she has a romantic moment with Felix.
But at the residency, Agathe meets Oliver, a descendant of Austen. He’s played by Charlie Anson. They don’t hit it off at all and chafe against each other’s existence until they don’t.
United by their ineptitude at life—Agathe calls herself the Palme d’Or of losers—they fall in love. Classic love triangle.
Mon: Ooook. This sounds complicated.
Ron: Tell me about it. I really liked the first twenty minutes of this film. The characters were interesting and the dynamics between Agathe and Felix, as well her sister who she lives with, felt very strong and believable. Then Agathe and Felix kiss and the vibe just changed.
Yes there were funny moments after but I was so confused by what direction the film wanted to go. Agathe and Felix are the embodiment of the best friends-to-lovers trope and the first act spends a fair amount of time setting up why they’re great friends and could possibly be great partners. There’s such an easy camaraderie between them and they have a thorough understanding of each other.
Felix is a commitment-phobe and Agathe is living in fantasy land and they both get it. But then Felix is gone for the majority of the film and that connection fizzles out.
Agathe tries and fails to write at the residency, all the while trying to navigate her complicated feelings for Oliver and Felix. I wish the film had picked a lane—either the best friend becomes the romantic partner or the dark brooding stranger who is basically Darcy brought-to-life fulfils Agathe’s fantasy. Having both muddled the story and made it feel like the movie was just trying to get to its plot milestones without setting the groundwork for those moments.
Mon: Booo! I was really excited for this film.
Ron: I know you were and that’s why I was. I also felt let down by a couple of plot points just being dropped. Agathe has trauma from her past but it’s mentioned a couple of times and that’s it. If it doesn’t inform her actions in the rest of the film, why have it in there at all?
I also got very confused by the timelines. The trauma Agathe suffered was six years ago but she’s been having romantic difficulties for two years. So are those two events connected or not? And when and how did Agathe realise that Jane Austen was the reason for her unfulfilled fantasies?
I was left disappointed in this film. Especially when the end basically wrapped everything up in a neat bow. The ending felt rushed and underserved the characters.
Mon: Yikes! Well, I’m happy to report I’m about to discuss a film that didn’t disappoint. Aberdeen is not a film about Scotland. It’s a wonderful, hard-hitting story about navigating life as an Indigenous person in Canada, and the film, rightfully, received a standing ovation at its premiere at TIFF.
In the film, Aberdeen is a Peguis First Nation woman who's having a seriously rough time. She’s played by the truly phenomenal Gail Maurice. Ron, you may remember her from Night Raiders, which was at TIFF a few years ago, and still one of my favourite TIFF films.
Ron: That’s amazing. I love Night Raiders. Tell me more about Aberdeen.
Mon: We meet our protagonist when she’s asleep in a drunken stupor on a park bench. The police treat her as less than human when they try and wake her up. She’s arrested almost immediately for being drunk and disorderly, and while she’s rambunctious and nonchalant, this latest arrest hits her hard.
Her brother, Boyd, played by Ryan Black, wants to wash his hands off her, especially as he’s struggling with some bad news and he’s had to give up the care of his great niblings due to his personal issues.
But Aberdeen’s struggles have only just begun — she’s lost her IDs and most of the film is a crushingly painful look at the unfair and unjust hoops that people from Indigenous communities and nations have to jump through to prove who they are and where they come from to a bunch of white bureaucrats.
It’s a heartbreaking and heart-wrenching story about just how much colonialism has continued to affect Indigenous communities in Canada. The bureaucracy of having to prove who you are to the people who stole your land is… horrifying.
The film employs humour but never lets you forget that the situation that Aberdeen is facing is anything but amusing. The story and dialogue did feel stilted at times, but it’s telling the real struggles of people who’re quashed under the boot of colonialism, so if it wants to be pointed and on-the-nose, then let it!
Aberdeen ends on a note of hope, but unfortunately, also a message that you have to play the game and work within the system even when you’re angry. It’s an unfair battle, but that’s the battle you’re stuck with.
Ron: Wow. This sounds like a must-watch.
Mon: It is. Co-writer and co-director Ryan Cooper wrote Aberdeen 10 years ago, and he based a lot of the film on his own experiences and those of people he knew. At the premiere screening I attended, Cooper even talked about what hell it was when he lost his IDs once.
I wasn’t surprised to hear that all their first-choice actors signed on to act in the film. I love that veteran actor Billy Merasty, who plays Aberdeen’s friend Alfred in the film, said in the post-screening Q&A that he loved how utterly gay his role was and how being gay in Winnipeg is not as big of a deal now as it was before. I’m delighted to hear that!
Merasty also said that all the characters in the film are named after streets! That’s a nice bit of trivia for everyone.
I’m so glad I went to the world premiere of Aberdeen. The standing ovation and emotions in the crowd had to be felt. Listening to the directors and cast get emotional about how their own experiences informed their performances was not something I would have wanted to miss.
I hope people throughout Canada watch this and learn just how unjust the settler society is to the people whose land Canada was made on.
Ron: That’s amazing. I hope I get to see it. Turning to a very different topic, I caught the first episode of The Listeners at TIFF. It was a press screening. When I came haring in looking for a seat at the screening, I was unsure if this was even a real thing. I couldn’t find it on the internet. There’s another film called The Listener which also has Rebecca Hall, but it wasn’t the same story. So, I was relieved when I found a line of people waiting for it.
The Listeners is about a schoolteacher, Claire, played by Rebecca Hall, who starts hearing a distracting humming noise. Nobody else can hear it and people don’t believe her. Her husband, Paul, played by Prasanna Puwanarajah, is understanding but he can’t quite get it because there’s no evidence. Then Claire finds that someone else also hears the sound and that connection brings her solace but also begins to unravel her life.
Mon: Sounds like a strange premise. What did you think about it?
Ron: I really enjoyed this! I’m looking forward to watching more if it comes to Canadian television. I’m pretty sure I had read about people in a small town or village in England who were hearing a humming sound that others couldn’t. Not sure if that was a hoax or if this show is based on that story but I like the concept.
The first episode has these undertones about the medical community and not believing women. It’s not a huge part of the story but it did strike me. Claire has to advocate for herself quite a bit to get the tests she needs. But what does a person do when they know something is different, even wrong, about them but they have nothing to back up their feeling? And there are physical manifestations from this hum—Claire gets headaches and nose bleeds, and she can’t sleep because of it. Since nobody can understand what she’s going through, that obviously makes her cranky at school and with her friends and family.
I feel like the show kind of captures what people with chronic illnesses or chronic pain go through. Nobody else really knows that something is always hurting so you have to keep living your life but sometimes it gets too much and you can’t keep being on your best behaviour. I don’t know if I’m reading too much into the episode or if all these layers were intentionally woven in. If it’s the latter, kudos to the creative team because I got all of that.
Of course, because it’s a British production, the story doesn’t go in any of the expected directions. For most of the episode, one student is a real thorn in Claire’s side, Kyle, played by Ollie West. He’s got his headphones on in class, he keeps falling asleep. He’s a nuisance.
So guess who’s the only other person in town who can hear the hum? Kyle!
What I found really interesting is that Kyle has been on this journey for longer and he’s already been doing his own investigations. He’s as relieved as Claire is to find a fellow listener. But Claire immediately shuts down any connection because she’s his teacher and they cannot engage with each other outside of class.
Eventually they do because they’re looking for answers but I liked that the show reflects society as it is now—it’s weird for teachers and students to hang out beyond the boundaries of school because so many teachers over the years have done absolutely horrid things. I can see this particular plot point going places in upcoming episodes. We got a short preview of the rest of the season and Claire trying to solve this mystery with Kyle is going to bite her, for sure.
And I hope to see what happens next. Fingers crossed the show comes to a channel or service I can access!
Mon: Well, that was truly unexpected.
And that’s all for Part 1 of our TIFF 2024 round-up. See you next time with more TIFF reviews.