TIFF 2016: “A Quiet Passion,” “Julieta,” “Two Lovers and a Bear,” “Tramps”

The last line of Terence Davies’ “A Quiet Passion”comes from “This Is My Letter to the World,” a poem written by the film’s subject, American poet Emily Dickinson: “Judge tenderly of me.” It is a suitable request to apply to the many films I have seen, and am going to see at TIFF—whether the work of a master filmmaker or a budding one. It is also, unfortunately as it turns out, a request that “A Quiet Passion” made hard to honor when I had the chance to see it.

Disappointment with a Terence Davies film is not an accustomed feeling for me, but it set in early during his on-screen rendering of the life and tribulations of Dickinson. A stiff formality pervades the performances (notably Keith Carradine), something not helped by Davies’ unrelenting desire to style every line of dialogue into Jane Austen-like repartee. Yes, certainly the intention is to allow the exchanges to evoke something of Dickinson’s poetry, but lines become so top-heavy with meaning that they start to lose any meaning at all.  

There is something to admire in how “A Quiet Passion” is less interested in the creation of Dickinson’s work as it is in her persona. But here too Davies’ film feels like it lacks more substantial meaning. It certainly touches on significant themes: religion, mortality, her alienation on account of her gender. But so much of it feels touched on fleetingly, without greater depth. What success is achieved is often drowned out by the borderline histrionics of repeated scenes where someone asks, “Oh, Emily, why do you behave like this?” after an outburst of cynicism from the poet, and she offers an “I don’t know” answer. In time, that exchange became more appropriate. I too found myself wondering why “A Quiet Passion” was like this and finding myself increasingly coming up with an “I don’t know” as an answer.

I may have been disappointed with one master filmmaker at TIFF, but not another: Pedro Almodovar. There’s a moment early in the Spanish filmmaker’s latest, “Julieta” where, crossing the road, the title character (Emma Suárez) slips effortlessly between cars like a fish gliding through water. That moment is recalled later in the film, with a notable exception: this time, a car unexpectedly sideswipes Julieta and sends her to the hospital. Believe it or not, much of the pleasures of “Julieta” can be found represented in that moment—its examination of how life can sometimes sideswipe us when we thought we were innately gliding through it.

Drawn from three interlinked short stories in Alice Munro’s “Runaway," the less literal sideswipe in Almodóvar’s film revolves around Julieta, who is forced to confront the question when her daughter chooses to vanish and cut off all contact: How does a mother cope when their child decides to never see her again?

Now, “Julieta” doesn’t get there right away. We initially get a first half made up of somewhat energy-less, functional flashbacks, which introduce us to Julieta, the love story that leads to Antia’s birth, a tragic death, and a lot of enjoyable nods to Alfred Hitchock’s “Rebecca” (right down to Mrs. Danvers). But in the second half, once “Julieta” leads up to the sudden disappearance of Antia and its aftermath, the film really takes off.

It’s not just the abrupt vanishing of Antia that renders the movie something of a heartwrenching and melodramatic (this is Almodóvar) tragedy. It’s that the director—ever the film fan—goes so far as to treat the situation like an engaging familiar film noir, propelled by the central question of any mystery: why?

Along the way we get a poignant look at parental grief and regret, at how decisions—big or small—can accumulate into lives we (or our children) can’t turn back from. But there’s something deeply enjoyable in seeing Almodóvar turn human drama into something almost like a detective story. Julieta may not be a traditional gumshoe seeking answers, but she is given them gradually—always in the tone of revelation, usually bestowed on noir detectives who are about to crack a case wide open.

None of that is to say that “Julieta” ever loses sight of its human core. There may be a “Whydunnit” driving the film, but only because we need to know the answers, on a human level, as desperately as Julieta does. In that sense, that may be what distinguishes Almodóvar’s film the most: the way he wields such an empathic mystery to powerfully marry us with his character and her desire to understand how life could have caught her so off guard.

Lives are considerably more on guard in Kim Nguyen’s “Two Lovers and a Bear." If you have any doubts about the hostility of the frigid Northern Canada environment that Lucy (Tatiana Maslany) and Roman (Dane DeHaan) inhabit, “Two Lovers and a Bear” dismisses them quickly when Roman helps transport a coffin on a plane and is asked what happened to the man inside. “Got lost,” he answers.

He’s not the only one. “Two Lovers and a Bear” ties itself neatly together by being much about the danger of getting lost—and not just geographically. Lucy and Roman may have found love (and a whole lot of lust) with each other, but love—like their surroundings—isn’t without its dangers. Lucy’s desire to head south to go to university leads to a breakup that that leads them to almost losing each other. They decide to stay together. The two of them are at risk of losing themselves to pasts they can’t escape—Roman is haunted by memories of an abusive father whom he injured in self-defense, and Lucy seems to be pursued by a mysterious man she fears. They decide to escape south together, and set out on a trek to cross hundreds of miles of tundra to find a better life.