By Kiva Reardon With Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires’ Triptych, you get three terrible films for the price of one. Composed in a tripartite structure, the film follows Michelle (Lise Castonguay), a schizophrenic second-hand bookshop owner who hears voices and self-harms with a rosary; Thomas (Hans Piesbergen), a brain surgeon with an unsteady hand which…

By Kiva Reardon There’s a certain simple charm to Ritesh Batra’s debut The Lunchbox. The film follows lonely housewife Ila (Nimrat Kaur) and curmudgeonly widower Saajan (Irrfan Khan), who are brought together when the lunches she lovingly cooks for her adulterous husband are misdelivered to Saajan. After discovering the error, the two begin passing notes…

By Kiva Reardon “Men in their 20s are the worst thing happening on our planet,” said comedian Rob Delaney; given the evidence of Afflicted, the debut feature from Derek Lee and Clif Prowse, the same could be said of cinema. A horror film that unfortuntately lacks any real dread, gore or suspense, Afflicted follows filmmaking…

By Kiva Reardon The story of the wrongful conviction and incarceration of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin—better known as the West Memphis Three—was conveyed in such compelling, gritty detail over the course of the three-part HBO documentary Paradise Lost (1996/2000/2011) that one may conceivably feel sorry for anyone attempting to relate it…

By Kiva Reardon Moving from oil to water and proving the two can mix, Jennifer Baichwal and Ed Burtynsky reunite after their eco-tract Manufactured Landscapes for Watermark, which once again examines the intersection of humans and nature. This time around, however, the results are more meditative and philosophical. Burtynsky has taken on a co-directorial role,…

By Kiva Reardon The title of Destin Cretton’s first feature suggested that the director knew his audience. Premiering at Sundance in 2012, I Am Not a Hipster seemed tailor-made for the festival’s indie-centric crowd: focusing on a lovesick California indie musician, the film sketched a spot-on portrait of young white male malaise, awash in scruffy…

By Kiva Reardon Whether one is lamenting not having enough time to see personal picks or having hedged one’s bets on a dud, regret is intrinsic to any festival experience. Cue the tears, then, as this writer’s International Film Festival Rotterdam was dominated by the Bright Future section, the festival’s showcase of debut and sophomore…

The year in cinema has been stamped with a modicum of magical realism. First up at Sundance was Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, a film routinely described as “lyrical” and “heartwarming.” Now there is Montréal director Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle, arriving at fall festivals after bowing in Berlin and taking top honours in Tribeca.…

By Kiva Reardon The question of whether the horror genre is dead has become as predictable as the very cinematic ouroboroi—such as Saws and Paranormal Activities, constantly finding new ways to die within the same immovable structure—that tend to inspire such sweeping generalizations. It’s also necrophiliac in nature: if horror is dead, why do people…