#tiff2020

I wonder what it must be like to see Pieces of a Woman on the big screen, or on the stage for that matter (it began life as a play, also written by Wéber and directed by Mundruczó, who are well-known in their native Hungary for their theatrical and film work). The film premiered, miraculously, at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival, where Kirby won the award for Best Actress. Subsequent screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival (where it was one of our top picks) took place virtually, and now with a Netflix release and yet more pandemic-enforced lockdowns around the world, few cinemas will be projecting this volcanic drama.

Still, Pieces of a Woman envelops you in Martha’s headspace wherever you’re watching. There is hope that by finding it on Netflix, the film will reach a broad, worldwide audience, who will see themselves in the love and loss that propels the film, and recognize the hope and heartbreak of their own lives.

Why did you start the film with a shot of Sean, not Martha? Kornél Mundruczó: It was important to start on the bridge with Sean, as we later finish on the bridge with Martha. It creates a sense of curiosity and suspense. Who is Martha? And I love the sentence there that Sean says when he goes, “Martha is always fine”.

Kata Wéber: I really wanted to start with that line in the script, because then you’ll see that Martha isn’t actually always fine. It’s asking what she has to live up to, the picture of perfect Martha. Later on, you understand why it’s so important what she has to go through.

Iliza Shlesinger, Ellen Burstyn and Sarah Snook in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

Martha has to go through so much in that incredible 22-minute take of her giving birth. How did that scene come to be, and which of you came up with the idea first? KM: It was my idea, but it was not a quick idea. When you read 35 pages about birth—an experience which is amazingly personal and shows a variety of emotions—you wonder how you can do that. The main thing was wondering about using a handheld camera because it gives a lot of opportunity, but at the same time I found it to be too personal, and it’s very much like dogma filmmaking. And then a distant camera felt too manipulative and cold, so we found a tool called a gimbal, which is not really a filmmaking tool. It’s used more for sports and music videos. But we felt it was very spiritual, which helped us represent the spirit which needed to be there. Like an unseen spirit, which is always inside births.

I have real problems with cutting, and telling the time of a fourteen-hour story. It didn’t feel like the right choice, because we’re not a documentary, but it didn’t feel like you had Martha’s physical presence if you were cutting it. So, how could we grow her physical presence? So we expanded the film time, and we compressed into that expanded film time a compressed real time. And then it works. It felt like a manifesto for me, like a monolith. It represents Martha’s inner journey but also every single person can feel connected to that. It was a long research process to find the perfect form, but then we shot it on the first day.

Was there anything you were worried about for the viewer, when deciding to begin the film with that scene? KM: I decided to start the film with that scene because I was worried about the whole movie! I felt that you can’t play it without this kind of experience. I never really felt that I wanted to do a movie, I was trying to say without words that I wanted to create more of an experience, an emotional journey. And later, when Martin Scorsese became a producer, he was the one who called me after watching it for the first time and said, “This is not a movie, it’s an experience”. I’d never named it before then, but had always wanted to do that. So it was important to just jump into the deepest point of the emotional journey.

Vanessa Kirby as Martha in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

Vanessa Kirby has said the film responds to the fact that we’re so used to seeing death in cinema, and yet we capture birth on film so little. Was that something you were conscious about when making the film, or was your story always more personal? KW: Because it was first a play, there was already the question about how you’d do a birth scene on stage, which is even trickier than on film. But if you don’t do it, the whole story doesn’t make sense because you don’t establish this loving relationship—not just within the couple, but towards the baby. So I really wanted to stand for this scene. I wrote it long, because when you give birth there is this huge beauty and grace and love, and a certain kind of horror too. It’s uncontrolled and so spiritual.

KM: When I read the script it was shockingly personal, but also I thought that this really isn’t an academic movie. The structure is very special, it’s really not a dogmatic arthouse approach, which I did quite a few of! It’s not commercial either, so we thought, what is this? I didn’t know, but knew that I wanted to tell this story. Am I able to create a birth scene, which is kind of a taboo? Am I able to create a very emotional movie in a realistic sense? Which also feels like a form of taboo. I like the experience of exploring new fields and giving an audience something that is not just a movie.

What were your different reference points for Martha’s different chapters in the film? Her journey is so unconventional and Vanessa’s performance feels like it taps into so many different emotions. KW: It’s about the inner journey of someone, so you want to make sure she knows all the aspects of this state of mind. We talked about bereavement processes where grief doesn’t go through the typical five stages, but it’s just stuck somewhere. What is grieving? If you talk to a psychiatrist they could often say that there is no recipe. It could be you waking up at four in the morning wanting to bake a cake. That’s grieving. We tried to establish it as authentic as possible.

KM: There’s a hundred layers to Martha. Even in the birth, there’s thirty stages that she has to go through.

KW: And she had to understand how physical it is. Giving birth is so physical, but also grieving is not intellectual. You cannot figure out how to do it.

KM: It’s also our personal experience, as we had a miscarriage. But when I read the script, I still didn’t know grief was so physical. It’s such a special perspective, because if you are not in it, you have the pain but you don’t have this kind of physical longing. That’s why we talked to Vanessa so much about her silence and her body as being way more important than any acting skills. The most important thing was to feel it. In her nail polish, her body language, her walking, how she smokes. That was so much more important for me as a director than the big speech. And of course the big speech matters, but all the other details are the character.

I want to talk about the significance of the apples. Martha says it’s the way baby Yvette smells when she was born, and there’s a lot of symbolism in the idea of a growing seed. But does that fruit in particular have any significance for you? KW: I was trying to find something expressing her longing and love to her baby. I didn’t know what it could be at first, but when my baby was born, she smelled like an apple and it was so surprising. It’s so weird and beautiful and nice, and I’ll never forget it. It’s so hard to express the inner journey and the longing and the love without words—I really wanted to try and convey that.

Benny Safdie as Chris in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

What do you think Letterboxd members should watch after Pieces of a Woman? KM: I’m a fan of early Michelangelo Antonioni movies, like Red Desert or La Notte. I think those intellectual melodramas are very healing.

What is a film that always breaks your heart? KM: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

KW: A Woman Under the Influence for me. It’s close to something we’re trying to understand here.

And what about when you want to piece it back together? KM: For me it’s Late Spring by Yasujirō Ozu.

KW: I was just thinking the same! Someone peels an apple in that movie…

Finally, what films made you want to be filmmakers? KM: I grew up in the Soviet area watching a lot of movies in my childhood by Elem Klimov, Aleksey German, Andrei Tarkovsky. These movies are socially reflective but also very emotional and spiritual, very transcendental. And those transcendental acts feel almost forgotten now, and that’s a bit painful. Even contemporary Russian movies are not so deeply transcendental. The images from those movies really stayed with me—I mean, I’m from the East!

KW: For me it’s The Graduate. It’s just so much about life. It’s funny and witty, I just love it. I could watch it 100 times and I would never get bored.

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Lovers Rock Directed by Steve McQueen, written by McQueen and Courttia Newland. The ‘Small Axe’ anthology will be released on a weekly rollout on Amazon Prime Video beginning November 20 with ‘Mangrove’, then ‘Lovers Rock’, ‘Red, White and Blue’, ‘Alex Wheatle’ and finally ‘Education’. Seen at: NYFF, BFI London Film Festival.

Lovers Rock, the first part of Steve McQueen’s ambitious, multi-part film project Small Axe, feels like a massive stylistic departure for the filmmaker, in a manner that completely transfixes and astounds. It’s no wonder that this one turned heads at multiple festivals, as it’s immediately warmer, more freewheeling and sensual than any other McQueen work. It’s defined by a hypnotic focus on sound and touch, represented in its earliest scenes with a tactile close-up of a heated comb working its way through hair, and later with its focus on hands wrapped around shoulders, moving across shirts and dresses, people joining together and/or colliding through song and dance. Despite being made for television, it’s astounding how little Lover’s Rock feels that way. Often impressionistic and unbound to the kind of urgency or efficiency that naturally comes with having to adhere to a time-slot, it simply rests in the moment. With the seismic protests being undertaken by Black people this year, Lovers Rock feels like more than welcome respite from a hateful populace—visually rich, gorgeously soundtracked Black joy and love. Also, man, those shirts are incredible. —KC

Nomadland Written and directed by Chloé Zhao. In US theaters December 4. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF, BFI London Film Festival.

“I am already convinced that Chloé Zhao deserves the whole world,” writes Jaime of Nomadland, the TIFF People’s Choice winner. Personal security is something we don’t think about on a daily basis. We have shelter, we can buy food, anything else is bonus. But what if those two basic tenets vanish? While the global financial crisis affected all in 2008, it affected retirees more. Supposedly secure retirement investments vanished; security no more. What do you do? Survive. Zhao’s adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction masterpiece Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century is a beacon of human spirit and survival. It may not be pretty, but it’s real. It’s not something to be embarrassed about, it’s something to be proud of. Those that let this happen to good, honest working people should be the ones embarrassed. —JW

Minari Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung. No release date announced. Seen at: Middleburg Film Festival.

Minari is the medicine for these tough times. It’s a wonderful, wonderful, deeply personal, utterly serene and metaphysical portrait of America—freedom, faith, superstition, forces of nature, and ambition collide with the costs of intoxicating capitalist dreams, but not without a whole lot of heart. This is elegantly crafted, at once organic in its approach and always sweepingly cinematic. The film’s gentle sense of humor ensures that it never takes itself too seriously and allows the weight of its poetic images and juxtapositions to guide the narrative. The brilliant ensemble should grow to join Steven Yeun as household names (well, cinephile households). Youn Yuh-jung and Alan Kim are bright sparks as the latest classic duo of sassy grandma and precocious grandchild, but it’s Han Ye-ri—taking on the surrogate role of director Lee Isaac Chung’s mother—who provides an overlooked and tender sounding board for familial bonds in fraction. Minari is truly one of 2020’s most invaluable and essential pieces of art, living up to the hype built since Sundance. Korea came to the USA for the Oscars earlier this year, and if 2021 shows similar mercy, there’s a chance you’ll see this home-grown Asian-American picture mounting that stage in future. —JM

Wolfwalkers Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, written by Will Collins with Moore and Stewart. Recently released in UK theaters; coming to Apple TV+ December 11. Seen at: TIFF, BFI London Film Festival.

The much-anticipated Cartoon Saloon adventure Wolfwalkers was met with only joy around here. A fable about what happens when a colonizing force tries to tame a wild forest, set during Oliver Cromwell’s Siege of Kilkenny, Wolfwalkers builds to “one of the most sensational animated third acts I’ve seen in years,” according to Animatedantic. The film’s themes are embedded in every hand-drawn line and stroke. “It’s not sleek and seamless and modern,” writes Cow Shea. “This is transparently a true work of art where all the work of that art is part of the finished product.” Mebh and Robyn are animated action heroes for the ages, and you’ll hear a lot about ‘Wolfvision’ in the weeks to come—for very good reason. Werewolf films have, for years, tried different ways to put us inside the beast’s mind, but Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart followed their noses and it’s as thrilling as things get. —GG

David Byrne’s American Utopia Directed by Spike Lee. On HBO and HBO Max now. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF, BFI London Film Festival.

David Byrne’s American Utopia is well on track to join Jonathan Demme’s film of another Byrne stage outing, Stop Making Sense (1984), as one of the highest-rated anythings on Letterboxd. We’re still deciding whether this film is sublime because the stage show itself is sublime, or because Spike Lee has sublimely captured the whole joyous thing for us to inject into our eyeballs, time and again, for far less than the price of a Broadway ticket. Let’s be honest: it’s due to both, and more besides. It’s a blessing upon 2020, of that we are certain. As Clint writes, “The phrase ‘this is the film we need right now’ is such a creaky cliché, but there’s an ineffable feeling that, if David Byrne and Spike Lee can’t heal the world with grey suits, bare feet, and some of the most all-encompassing works of music ever written, no one can.” As my colleague says, “will rewatch to death”. —GG

Shiva Baby Written and directed by Emma Seligman. On the festival circuit. Seen at: TIFF, LFF.

A girl walks into a shiva and bumps into her sugar daddy. What sounds like a joke sets up 77 minutes of note-perfect comedy horror in Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, her feature debut adapted from her dissertation short of the same name. It’s funny, horrifying, excruciating and so painfully, accurately Jewish. Isaac Feldberg calls it “cruelly hilarious about everything smothering and inevitably miserable about Jewish family gatherings”, but Seligman’s sharp eye for comedy, her affection for her teen hero Danielle (Rachel Sennott, a bona fide star) just figuring her career out and owning her sexuality (Molly Gordon playing Danielle’s overachieving ex-girlfriend Maya is a highlight) cuts straight to the core, however you relate. Matt Neglia points out how Shiva Baby “captures the behaviors of its characters with the same level of dry wit and detail as the Coen Brothers would”. What a thrill for a young, smart, Jewish, bisexual woman to be setting the pace now. Keep an eye on Seligman’s bright, bright future. —EK

Tove Directed by Zaida Bergroth, written by Eeva Putro. Released in Finland; on the festival circuit elsewhere. Seen at: TIFF.

If there was a film swoony enough to fill the Portrait of a Lady on Fire-sized hole in your heart this year, it’s Zaida Bergroth’s Tove, a bewitching biopic of Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, creator of the beloved Moomin cartoon characters. Set in Helsinki during and post-World War II, the film orbits around her boho world, flitting between her creative struggles as a painter and deep sexual awakening with married theater director Vivica Bandler (Krista Kosonen). As Lillian says, “Lesbians and Moomins is such a huge fucking mood I never wanted it to end.” Alma Pöysti shines effortlessly in the lead role. “The film happens on her fantastic face,” writes Hannu. Seth agrees: “a captivating first-class drama about a world-renowned talent in search of her own identity, love and freedom.” A cozy fall-season perfection. —AY

Shadow in the Cloud Co-written and directed by Roseanne Liang. Slated for a summer 2021 release. Seen at: TIFF, AFI Fest.

A proud addition to the “she did that!” canon, the single downside of Roseanne Liang’s genre-perfect, “deliciously fearless” Midnight Madness winner Shadow in the Cloud is that there was no Midnight Madness to experience it at—but thanks to a juicy sale out of TIFF, we can look forward to a premiere next summer. Chloë Grace Moretz is Maude Garrett, a WWII pilot assigned to transport a highly classified package over the Pacific. The all-male crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress banishes her to the lower ball turret, where they harass, gaslight and leer over her—and that is nowhere near the worst part of this bonkers, non-stop hell flight, which Moretz carries like the future action hero she must now become, if the movie goddesses are listening. —GG

Pieces of a Woman Directed by Kornél Mundruczó, written by Kata Wéber. Coming soon to Netflix. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF.

You will be hearing a lot about Vanessa Kirby in the months to come. Pieces of a Woman is an arresting, often taxing watch, but few actors have delivered a performance as utterly overwhelming as Kirby portraying Martha, a grieving mother processing the loss of her baby. The filmmaking team (Mundruczo and Weber share a “film by” credit) zoom in on deep, jagged pain, and tease out some of the most affecting moments put to screen this year. Jack calls the film “an intensely intimate depiction of mental and marital deterioration caused by tragedy” and nods to master Howard Shore’s “subtle yet potent” score. It’s poetry in motion, with stunning turns from Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn, Sarah Snook and Benny Safdie also. But proceed with caution: “this film will destroy you”, Alisha Tabilin warns. —EK

Underplayed Directed by Stacey Lee. On the festival circuit. Seen at: TIFF. (Also recommended in our music movies round-up.)

Women-in-the-workplace movies aren’t usually this banging. Stacey Lee’s documentary Underplayed focuses on one corner of the still wildly sexist music industry—the dance-music scene—and lays out both the facts and feelings regarding why women still, always, deserve better. A number of key names guide the story—Rezz, Alison Wonderland, Nervo, TokiMonsta—giving the viewer a taste of what we’re missing out on while booking the same old men, over and over. And it’s not just because of the stats or the injustices that this is a must-watch: in times of limited social interaction and when the feeling of an adrenaline-fuelled crowd feels like a foggy memory, Lee captures some truly electric moments of these women thriving, captivating thousands of music lovers at once. “Buy yourself good speakers and turn them up because this movie is fun and it deserves it,” writes Matt Brown, and he’s absolutely correct. Underplayed is essential and exciting. The most entertaining education of the year. —EK

Another Round Directed by Thomas Vinterburg, written by Vinterburg and Tobias Lindholm. Awaiting new UK date due to lockdown. In US cinemas soon. Seen at: TIFF, LFF.

Another Round reunites filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg with his muse Mads Mikkelsen, in a lads-on-tour buddy movie, except the lads are four middle-aged high-school teachers, and the tour features a very casual, very constant level of intoxication each man commits to in the name of a social experiment. What could possibly go wrong, you ask? Plenty, naturally—but Vinterberg marries the slapstick moments of bumbling drunks falling over themselves with more mature, poignant scenes that question just how far you can or should go to feel that little bit more alive. There’s a lot to love here, but if we’re being very precise, it’s “rock-solid proof that Mads Mikkelsen is one of our greatest actors,” says Karen Han. Come for the wise, contemplative study of youth and spontaneity, stay for rock-solid proof that Mads Mikkelsen is also, somehow, one of our greatest contemporary dancers. —EK

One Night in Miami Directed by Regina King, adapted by Kemp Powers from his own stage play. In select US theaters December 25, coming to Amazon Prime Video January 15, 2021. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF.

Ladies and gentleman, Regina King has arrived. The actor wastes nothing in her feature directorial debut, bringing to the screen Kemp Powers’ vivid stage play of the same name with a heavyweight cast of greats. Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge and Leslie Odom Jr. are Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (before he took the name Muhammad Ali), Jim Brown and Sam Cooke respectively, as the four men celebrate Clay’s victory over Sonny Liston in February 1964, during One Night in Miami. Rachel Wagner notes how “they all feel like friends and have chemistry, but each with a unique perspective”. This chemistry comes from King’s perfect alchemy of mood, design and structure; she lets her men speak, but her voice is never lost. “Queen King never wavers on her vision until every bit of flesh is torn off each man,” Ben notes, admiring a film that shines for all its famous faces, but stands the test of time for its rich, piercing empathy for every other one waiting in the shadows. —EK

Supernova Written and directed by Harry Macqueen. Awaiting UK and Ireland release due to lockdown; in select US theaters January 29, 2021. Seen at: BFI London Film Festival.

Colin Firth at his very best, Stanley Tucci losing his grip on himself, the luscious Lake District and endless cozy, delicious, warm knitwear. Supernova is every bit as beautiful as it sounds, but also packs a major punch when it comes to mapping a lifelong love story, and the cost of loyalty and pride when you’re fighting against pain nobody can control. As Sam and Tusker, devoted to one another for decades, come to terms with Tusker’s diagnosis of early on-set dementia, there is as much care and sadness as is to be expected, but it still feels brand new and cuts deep. Every good love story is its own. Director Harry Macqueen and his two shining stars understand this better than anyone. —EK

French Exit Directed by Azazel Jacobs, written by Patrick DeWitt. Scheduled for US release January 21, 2021. Seen at NYFF.

Armed with acerbic wit and sharpened claws, Michelle Pfeiffer delivers a vulnerable close-to-career-best performance in French Exit as a mother free-falling from wealth and reconciling with her son, an expertly cold Lucas Hedges. What appears to be formal and dry (“rich white-people stuff”, blegh) is actually wonderfully weird and surprisingly spiritual. There’s a divisive scene at the half-way point that instantly unroots the movie from any grounding we assumed it had established. In any other film, it would open up an entire world of possibilities, but French Exit decidedly treats it as matter-of-fact in order to focus on the emotional journey. It’s the decisive moment—you’re on its wavelength, or you’re overboard—and the rewards for staying aboard are plentiful. Patrick DeWitt’s adaptation of his own novel is in good hands with director Azazel Jacobs. —JM

Still Processing Directed by Sophy Romvari. On the festival circuit. Seen at: TIFF.