When discussing Romanian cinema, or more specifically the “New Wave” of minimalist, arthouse-friendly titles from this century (a wave that really isn’t that new anymore, given it’s over a decade old now), the word “slow” inevitably comes up in some form or another. With an emphasis on realism and letting scenes unfold through long, (usually) static takes, the apparent mundanity of what’s on screen ends up giving way to something thought-provoking and thematically rich. Whether it’s taking place in the country’s tumultuous past or its present day, the relatable and banal actions of characters provide a platform to explore personal, political and social ideas that delve well beyond the surface. These films are only “slow” in that their pacing isn’t what’s usually expected; “deliberate” would be a more accurate, and less reductive, description.

So it comes as no surprise that Radu Muntean’s One Floor Below is a very deliberately paced film, to the point where it might fly over some people’s heads. It starts with an innocuous act of eavesdropping: Business owner Patrascu (Teodor Corban) comes back home after taking his dog for a walk when he overhears an intense argument in the apartment below his. He listens in as Laura (Maria Popistasu) argues with Vali (Iulian Postelnicu), another tenant in the apartment. There’s a sound of a struggle and a scream from Laura before everything goes silent, and before Patrascu knows it Vali opens the door, catching him listening in. It’s an awkward moment for Patrascu, one he tries to forget about later that day until he sees police cars outside his building when he comes home from work.

Laura was found dead in her apartment with the police suspecting foul play, and while some directors might create a mystery over whether or not Vali did it, Muntean has different plans. The big question revolves around Patrascu instead, as he doesn’t divulge what he heard to police when they question him about Laura’s death. Without any hint of character motivation, Patrascu is more or less a blank slate for viewers to pin their assumptions and theories on. The only thing that’s obvious is his avoidance of anything related to Laura’s murder, shutting down the topic whenever his wife or son bring it up. But the hassle of trying to stay a silent witness gets worse for Patrascu once Vali starts involving himself in his life more and more, befriending family members and eventually asking Patrascu to help him out with a business matter.

It’s an enticing set-up, except Muntean seems intent on making his film a sort of inert thriller, focusing his time on things like Patrascu’s job as a bureaucratic navigator of sorts, helping people get their car registrations with little to no hassle. That’s what One Floor Below might look like at first blush, but it would be a mistake to interpret Muntean’s vast room for interpretation and reflection as nothing more than empty space. It’s a film that unfolds through gaps, to the point where its editing is so elliptical it’s easy to question basic facts: it’s never explicitly stated that Laura was murdered, and even then Muntean doesn’t make it clear that Vali killed her. Muntean’s omissions are blanks for viewers to fill in as they see fit, not holes in the story.

With so many films happy to withhold facts or delve into ambiguities, it’s easy to apply that same mode of interpretation on Muntean’s narrative, but with One Floor Below it might be a case of digging a little too deep. When Patrascu bumps into Laura’s sister in the apartment, trying to open her dead sibling’s overstuffed mailbox, it’s followed by Patrascu lambasting a friend for calling Laura a slut. Does Patrascu feel guilty about his silence after seeing Laura’s distraught sister, or is he just annoyed at the topic not going away? The real ambiguities of One Floor Below lie in its characters, not its story, which serves as a set-up for Muntean’s exploration of the reactions and fallout from Laura’s death. Patrascu, as a man who runs his own complicated business, finds himself inserted into a situation he has no grasp on, and in his attempts to maintain control he only finds it slipping out of his hands at a faster rate.

Teodor Corban’s performance is a low-key powerhouse in many ways, finding a perfect balance between a specificity that gives him an intimidating presence and an ability to hold back from revealing too much about what’s going on inside his head. Muntean pulls off a similar balancing act himself in his film’s construction, filming most of his scenes in lengthy, unbroken takes emphasizing the underlying tension between Patrascu and Vali. These scenes, especially when Vali starts showing up in Patrascu’s apartment to lend a hand, linger on the lulls in conversations, watching Patrascu try to get a handle on how to navigate himself out of a mess he inadvertently made himself a part of. Muntean has enough confidence in his premise and direction to simply present the situation, let viewers pick apart what’s raging underneath the surface and make their own conclusions about character motivations and psychology rather than what’s fact or fiction. And by creating the opportunity to navigate the murkier landscape of character rather than narrative, Muntean provides a more active and rewarding experience than One Floor Below’s conventional-sounding story implies.

Radu Muntean’s One Floor Below centres around Patrascu (Teodor Corban), a man who’s made a business out of navigating his way through government bureaucracy for citizens. When coming back to his apartment one day, he hears his downstairs neighbour Laura arguing with Vali (Iulian Postelnicu) in her apartment. Later that day, he learns that Laura has been found murdered in her apartment, but when the police come to question him, Patrascu doesn’t tell them about what he heard. It seems like an issue Patrascu just wants to go away altogether, but soon Vali starts befriending his wife and son, and Patrascu finds himself stuck in a volatile situation he can’t get out of.

Muntean’s film is a murder mystery that’s less about the murder itself and more about the reactions to it, letting viewers try to figure out what’s going on in each character’s head rather than concerning themselves over the specifics of the crime. It makes for a much more fascinating and rewarding film than its conventional plot would suggest, avoiding narrative concerns to explore character instead. Back at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, I sat down with director Radu Muntean to talk about the film.

One Floor Below opens Friday, January 22nd in Toronto, Ontario at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Where did the idea for One Floor Below come from?

I remembered this idea I had maybe 15 years ago or more. I read an article in a newspaper about someone who witnessed a murder. He was listening to a fight in neighbour’s apartment, he didn’t do anything, and then he heard there was a crime there. I was thinking about this, like if he did something at that moment [of the fight], maybe he could have stopped the killing or interrupted the fight. It was inside my head for some time, and then I met a guy who was actually the model for Patrascu. He has the same job as him, and I thought it might be interesting to mix a very in control character like Patrascu with this difficult situation you can’t easily control.

Your last film Tuesday After Christmas also deals with a character losing control, except in that film it’s because of an affair. What attracts you to throwing characters into these kinds of situations?

I’m attracted to putting myself, the character, and the viewer in an uncomfortable situation. What would you do when you’re in a position where Patrascu is? It’s not an easy task because you know he’s not a vicious guy. It’s something personal, somehow none of your business, although society wants you to react very promptly and share all the information that you have. But it’s not so easy. If you’re referring to my previous film, it would have been easier to have a very ugly wife, an aggressive and boring wife or whatever, but she’s as beautiful as the mistress and you have to choose. It’s very subjective.

Do you have sympathy for Patrascu?

I need to try and understand him. I’m not judging him at all. This is not the case. The case is to talk about the notions like conscience and morality. To question [them] in a very direct and sincere way.

It’s a murder mystery, but the mystery is about psychology and motivations.

The viewer has all the information that Patrascu has regarding the murder. We wanted Patrascu to have the 1% of doubt that he could hang on to, that this wasn’t the real killer. Towards the end of the film, he realises Vali is the real killer, but he also realises that he misjudged his actions until that moment.

These underlying aspects are left open to the viewer, but do you know the answers yourself when developing the film?

Yeah, of course. For me, it’s the only way. You have to talk to the actors, you have to make them understand their characters in order to make them organic with their characters. Otherwise, it’s just something glued on their own personalities, and you can see that. I think I was very precise in that I knew where I wanted to get with the film. At the same time, what you interpret as open is the viewer’s way to get to that point, which might be different from viewer to viewer.

I did find it very straightforward in terms of what happens, but it’s still a complex film.

Yes, these are the facts, but it’s not so easy to judge them! [Laughs]

Do you feel like what Patrascu has done, or didn’t do, is more of an isolated incident, or do you find this is representative of something larger or more societal?

It’s not a comment on society. Of course, a lot of people will think this, and I don’t mind it. They always link the films coming from Romania to social situations, political situations, the Communist era, the heritage of that, I don’t know. I didn’t want that because I’m Romanian, I live in that society and maybe I’m one of these guys. I don’t know, but I didn’t want to comment on it. And I think it can apply to a guy from Canada, from Korea…I think that, although you know what society wants from you, it’s not easy to apply it all the time. For me, Patrascu is thinking the police want him to give information, but if this guy killed this lady that he loved, most likely by accident, what can society do? What justice can be made in this kind of situation? It’s very tricky for me. To be honest, you have to question these things because otherwise they are just abstract. They’re just stamps saying you have to be this or you have to be that.

I felt like Patrascu working in this intense, bureaucratic job meant that he knew how much of a hassle it would be to him if he did provide the information and became a key witness.

Yeah, it’s very possible. It’s thinking about his own comfort and family, too. A lot of people in Cannes asked me about what’s Romanian in it, what’s the social commentary. I was thinking about this, and maybe they’re right. Some of the particularities of Patrascu as the male head of the family are in a lot of Romanians. Their ego is quite big. Maybe because of the Communist heritage, the head of the family is not allowed to have weaknesses. And I think this is the main reason he is not telling his wife. Forget about the police. He was listening maybe a little too much near the door, and he didn’t do anything. He doesn’t want to recognize this in front of his wife because he’s supposed to be the head of the family. Maybe that’s the thing. I don’t know if it’s only Romanian.

Tell me about the casting process for Teodor and Iulian.

I first chose Iulian because I knew him, I used to work with him before. I’m doing a lot of advertising in between films so I worked with him. I immediately thought of Iulian and I cast him after we did some tests. For Teodor, I was not so sure because I was initially thinking of a younger character, 40-something instead of 50-something, but he’s very transparent. You can feel what’s inside him even if he’s barely moving. He’s an intelligent actor, he can be very organic with the character and I needed this. He can be empathetic even with a very minimalistic way of acting, and even if you know very few things about the actor you somehow feel his inside.

Does your precision with the film’s form also apply to the actors, or are you more open to what they might want to bring to the performance?

Of course, I have the idea, but it’s not cartoons. They bring their own personality to the film. I want them to understand what I want from the character and I’m open to ideas, but at the same time I’m not changing a lot in the rehearsals. It’s a kind of process in layers, you put layer after layer until the final layer on the shooting. I discuss a lot with them but there’s almost no room for improvisation [during] shooting.

How much preparation went into pulling off the fight scene at the film’s climax?

It was the most difficult thing that we shot. We knew it had to be in one shot because we did the whole film like that, it has to be as real as you can [make], and you have to obtain this without a degree of danger. They could actually hit themselves very hard. We initially had a fight coordinator, but we fired him after two rehearsals because he had very clear idea of how they could pretend they’re fighting. We had a little bit of choreography of how things will take place. We rehearsed with 20% of the power involved in the fighting but having in mind that during shooting we have to use almost 100%, so things can change very easily. The first time we shot it, Iulian was hit in the head by Teo’s foot somehow, so I had to change the way I wanted to shoot a little bit. We did reshoot [the scene] and it was OK, but at the end of the shooting day, I was not completely happy. I wanted even more. It’s the peak of the film, it’s like the Sergio Leone showdown in my way, so it should be very convincing.

Did the rest of the shoot go smoothly given your rehearsal process?

Smoothly or not, when you have a 5-minute or 6-minute shot with 4 characters there’s no such thing as a perfect take. You have to make small compromises. Sometimes it’s for the best, and sometimes it surprises you with really nice things. It’s a very alive process. Sometimes take number 2, sometimes take 20, sometimes take 11, it’s a peak. You feel like you cannot get a better take than this. And if something is not working, the focus, the movement, one of the actors, it’s really bad because you cannot get better. You can obtain only less from that scene. So it’s very alive and, for me, it’s very stressful. Even if it’s not difficult in a logistic way, it was not a difficult shoot, this tension I accumulate on this shooting is really intense for me and the actors.

Do you feel like that tension during shooting might actually help the material?

Who knows? No, I don’t think so. There are situations where you don’t want the characters to be tense.

Your last four films including this one have been written by you and the same two co-writers (Alexandru Baciu and Razvan Radulescu).

I really enjoy working with them. We’re really good friends and I cannot see any reason of changing the team because we’re having a really good time working together. We discover a lot of things about ourselves, and it’s a really interesting and intense experience.

I’ve spent the last several weeks of December doing what almost everyone who writes about film does at the end of the year: compiling, ranking and showing off lists. The only thing is that, for almost every list I put together, everything on it needed to have a public release in 2015. That means every film needed distribution of some sort, disqualifying anything that might not be accessible or lucky enough to score some sort of availability outside of film festivals.

That’s why, like for 2014, I’ve decided to compile another list of great films that don’t have a US distributor. For some of these films, it might not be surprising to see that buyers aren’t clamoring for them (a perception that has nothing to do with the film’s quality); other titles are more surprising in that they still don’t have distribution, given their accessibility and/or accolades. Either way, all of the films on this list deserve the chance of being seen beyond the festival circuit, and hopefully with enough interest or demand that might happen for a good number of these titles. Last year, over half of the films profiled on our 2014 undistributed feature wound up getting distributed; here’s hoping that amount winds up being higher for these 15 films.

Best Undistributed Films of 2015

The Academy of Muses

José Luis Guerín (sort of) returns to narrative filmmaking eight years after his masterpiece In the City of Sylvia, creating an entrancing and dense work done on a micro budget. Starting out as a documentary, Guerín films lectures held by Italian Philology professor Raffaele Pinto (playing himself) about poetry and the role of the female muse as inspiration for male artists. The opening act can feel like a tidal wave of concepts and ideas, but Guerín eventually settles down once he brings in a narrative involving Pinto using several of his students as muses. Shooting on cheap DV with no cinematographer, Guerín pulls off images just as evocative as the ones in Sylvia, once again using reflective surfaces to portray emotions and sensations that could never be summed up properly with words. It’s a film that crackles with energy from beginning to end, and yet another example of great small-scale filmmaking.

Update: Grasshopper Film has acquired US distribution rights for The Academy of Muses.

The Ardennes

Trailer

Robin Pront’s directorial debut surprised me back when I saw it at TIFF, as its familiar story of a love triangle between two criminal brothers (one reformed, one just out of jail) and the woman between them sounded all too familiar. But The Ardennes is both sophisticated in its approach and more thematically rich than one would expect, focusing on its characters trying to move on from their past sins by working their way above the poverty line. That gives The Ardennes a powerful and tragic edge, acknowledging how much social, political and systematic factors can muddle the distinctions between good and evil. Combined with great performances from its three leads (especially Veerle Baetens, who works wonders with what could have been a thankless role) and a gut punch of an ending, it’s surprising that The Ardennes is still awaiting US distribution.

Update: Film Movement has acquired US distribution rights for The Ardennes.

The Brand New Testament

Trailer

In Jaco Van Dormael’s The Brand New Testament, God (Benoît Poelvoorde) is a mean old drunk who spends his days creating disasters, diversions and annoyances on his computer to toy with humanity. He locks his wife (Yolande Moreau) and 10-year-old daughter Ea (Pili Groyne) in his apartment, worried that if they get out they’ll end up like his son. But Ea rebels against him, leaking out everyone’s date of death before escaping to Brussels in the hopes of recruiting six new apostles. It’s a strange film to say the least, with a premise viewers will have to accept as is if they want to enjoy it. Luckily, Van Dormael is intensely committed to seeing his vision through, and the film is bursting with so many weird ideas it’s easy to get won over by its energetic style. It’s a light, humourous attempt by Van Dormael to confront some of the bigger questions involving existence, and probably the cutest act of blasphemy you’ll ever see.

Update: Music Box Films has acquired US distribution rights for The Brand New Testament.

Despite the Night

After being rejected by the major festivals, Philippe Grandrieux’s Despite the Night (Malgré la nuit) finally unveiled itself at Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma in the fall of 2015, marking another disappointing treatment of one of the most interesting and consistent filmmakers working today. Grandrieux is a director more interested in the dark and insidious, finding unsettling ways to push the boundaries of cinema into new territory, and Despite the Night is more of the same. Lenz (Kristian Marr) returns to Paris searching for a woman from his past, and in the process he enters an intense, destructive relationship with Hélène (Ariane Labed), a disturbed nurse still grieving the loss of her son. Grandrieux has made what might be his most accessible film to date, although that’s not saying much considering narrative has never been of too much interest in his works (it’s best to just surrender to Grandrieux’s intense aesthetics). Few filmmakers are willing to venture into the darkness; Grandrieux dives in headfirst, leaving it up to viewers if they want to dive in alongside him.

El Movimiento

Trailer

“1835. Argentina. Anarchy. Plague.” That title card sets the stage for Benjamin Naishtat’s El Movimiento, which quickly establishes its chaotic world by opening with a man getting his head blown off by a cannon at point blank range. From there, the film settles into following Señor (a fantastic Pablo Cedrón) and his two lackeys as they travel the desert, convincing people to join what Señor calls “The Movement” in hopes of unifying the country. Naishtat never bothers delving into what Señor’s movement exactly is (and Señor’s talks are nothing more than vague statements delivered with intensity), a choice that puts the focus more on the quest for power and dominance than ideology. People familiar with Argentina’s history and politics will certainly get more out of El Movimiento, but those unfamiliar should find plenty to enjoy whether it’s the gorgeous black and white cinematography, Pedro Irusta’s aggressive score, or Naishtat’s ability to create such an engrossing sense of time and place over a brief 65-minute runtime.

Happy Hour

Trailer

With the distinction between cinema and television getting blurrier by the day, and binge watching becoming more common, along comes Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 317-minute Happy Hour to show the unique pleasures cinema can bring when duration isn’t a restriction. The film follows four women in their 30s, close friends who discover one of them has been trying to divorce her husband for over a year. The woman’s decision to leave her husband, followed by her vanishing from the film altogether, throws the other three women’s lives into turmoil over their own relationships. Hamaguchi lets his film breathe considerably, dedicating large chunks of time to sequences like an art event all four women participate in, a hangout at a bar or a getaway to a resort, and by doing so takes full advantage of his runtime to provide a level of depth rarely seen in film or television. All four women transform considerably by the time Happy Hour’s credits start to roll, and Hamaguchi gives his characters enough time and care to make their changes deeply felt and all the more resonant.

How Heavy This Hammer

Review

My heritage may make me biased, but 2015 was a good year for Canadian cinema (case in point: at least 3 films on this list are from the Great White North). And while a good amount of Canadian films blew me away last year, it was Kazik Radwanski’s How Heavy This Hammer that left me feeling excited for what the future might bring. Erwin (Erwin van Cotthem), a family man who spends most of his time playing computer games, makes a drastic shift in his life when he suddenly decides to leave his wife, yet finds himself in the same rut as before. Radwanski shoots almost entirely with handheld cameras and in extreme close-up, giving the film have a claustrophobic mood that emphasizes its protagonist’s feelings of being trapped that’s extremely effective. But Radwanski’s greatest skill here is his ability to get inside Erwin’s head without being judgmental, leaving viewers to make up their mind how to feel about him. Seeing something this formally interesting and empathetic come out of Canada only makes me hopeful that this is only the beginning of something much bigger for Canadian cinema.

Invention

Review
Clip

First off: kudos to Soda Pictures, who acquired both Canadian and UK rights to Mark Lewis’ Invention, a film that I never thought would get distribution of any kind considering it’s almost entirely silent. Other than a small piano number opening the film and a Fuck Buttons song used in the conclusion, Invention plays out with no sound whatsoever as Lewis’ camera swoops through three locations: Toronto, Sao Paolo and The Louvre in Paris. The film’s complex shots—using cranes, pans, zooms, tilts and just about every other possible type of camera movement—constantly redefines each space with every passing second, putting an emphasis on how cinema can influence our own perception. Taken on their own, Lewis’ shots are incredible works (the film is actually an anthology of a dozen films by Lewis), but Invention’s real power comes from the way it elegantly reminds viewers of how powerful of a tool cinema can be.

The Missing Girl

Review
Trailer

A US indie about one of life’s “late bloomers” isn’t exactly unheard of (Sundance has made an industry of these kinds of films), but A.D. Calvo’s The Missing Girl is a shining example of how much good execution can make even the most familiar material feel fresh again. The film starts out as a mystery: comic book store owner Mort (Robert Longstreet) hires a new employee (Alexia Rasmussen), only for her to disappear shortly after someone connected to an old missing persons case moves back into town. Calvo, with the help of an incredible performance by Longstreet, sets things up to look like Mort taking on the role of amateur detective before deliberately abandoning all feelings of mystery in the film’s second half. It’s a surprising move that pays off well, letting the film’s terrific sense of character take over while making Mort’s character arc much more impacting. With no distribution deal announced as of this time, I hope that someone will come along to help make this hidden gem no longer stay hidden.

One Floor Below

Trailer

Radu Muntean’s follow-up to Tuesday After Christmas finds the Romanian director—one of the members of Romania’s “new wave” of cinema—dealing with material similar to Ruben Ostlund’s films (or, for a more specific comparison, Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown). Patrascu (Teodor Corban) overhears an argument between a man and woman in the apartment below his, eavesdropping until the man in the argument catches him listening in. Hours later, the woman from the argument is found murdered but Patrascu doesn’t tell the police about what he heard, and soon the man who caught him starts taking an interest in Patrascu. Muntean’s interests lie strictly with Patrascu and not the circumstances surrounding the murder, preferring to delve into how Patrascu, a successful businessman used to exercising control over everything in his life, deals with getting thrown into a situation where he no longer has the upper hand. It’s a slow boiler that’s hard not to get caught up in, with Muntean’s long, elaborately choreographed takes—a high-wire act in itself—feeding into Patrascu’s attempts to navigate the sticky situation he’s put himself in.

The Other Side

Trailer

After completing his Texas Trilogy, Roberto Minervini moves into darker and more political territory with The Other Side. It continues Minervini’s unique blend of documentary and fiction developed in his earlier films, except this time he’s moved from Texas to rural Louisiana, looking at two groups located on the furthest edges of society. The film’s first half dedicates itself to Mark and Lisa, a couple trapped by their drug addictions, before switching over to a militia group preparing itself for what they think is an impending war with the government. It’s impossible to tell between what’s real or staged, and Minervini’s camera remains unflinching in its observation of some of the uglier aspects of both lifestyles. Yet The Other Side always shows a care and understanding towards its subjects/characters, with Minervini exploring the context behind their intense dislike of their government rather than pitying or dismissing them based on their situation. It’s a perspective that, in a time when political divisions get stronger and more abrasive with each passing day, feels more necessary than ever.

Update: Film Movement has acquired North American distribution rights for The Other Side.

Our Loved Ones

Review
Interview

When talking about Anne Émond’s Our Loved Ones, the word ambition springs to mind immediately. For her second feature, Émond creates a multigenerational family story dealing with grief, loss, fatherhood, depression and mental illness among many other big themes, nailing almost all of them with a grace and honesty even some well-established filmmakers might envy. Opening with the suicide of a family’s patriarch, the film hones in on eldest son David (Maxim Gaudette) over the years as he gets married and has two children. It’s only later on in the film that Émond’s elliptical and deceptively undramatic approach pays off, as David begins suffering from the same feelings of melancholy that led to his father’s death. Émond’s portrayal of depression is remarkable in its precision, and when the narrative transitions from David to his daughter Laurence in the film’s final act, Our Loved Ones feels like a true epic done on a human scale. Our Loved Ones’ subject matter will be a tough sell to most audiences, but it’s a powerful experience viewers should have the chance to see for themselves.

Paulina

Winner of the top prize at Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2015, Santiago Mitre’s Paulina is only further proof of how Argentina has a knack for producing some seriously good directors. Paulina (Dolores Fonzi), a lawyer with a promising career, throws it all away when she decides to finally pursue her passion, moving away to teach high school students in one of the poorer parts of the country. Not too long after starting her job, a group of men (some of whom include her own students) beat and rape her as she travels home one night after visiting a friend. It’s a grim set-up that turns into something more frustrating and complicated as Paulina decides to keep teaching, baffling and infuriating everyone around her. Revealing any more of the story’s twists and turns would be a disservice to what Mitre has crafted, turning Paulina from a captivating drama into a fascinating look at what happens when personal interests clash with ideological ones. Forzi, along with Oscar Martinez (playing her father), both give great performances that help steer the film away from feeling too provocative or contrived.

Tag

Review
Trailer

Only one of six (!) films Sion Sono made in 2015, Tag should prove to be a delight for fans of the director’s gonzo works like Why Don’t You Play in Hell? or Tokyo Tribe. Anyone familiar with Tag already (it won several awards at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival) should know about its opening sequence already, a kind of deranged remake of The Happening that’s more surprising and entertaining than anything M. Night Shyamalan has done in more than a decade. After that, Sono just keeps the strangeness coming at full force, as the film’s lead transforms into three different women while avoiding death at every turn, whether it’s from gun-toting teachers, malevolent gusts of wind or pig men. Sono, a master when it comes to pacing, never slows things down for a second, and his ability to throw out as many insane ideas he can think of means it’s impossible to guess what will happen from one second to the next. Hopefully, Tag will be the first feature of Sono’s six from last year to score US distribution, and help further expose Western audiences to one of the most prolific and singular directors in the world right now.

Uncertain

Review
Trailer

Uncertain fell off people’s radars after winning an award at Tribeca in 2015, a shame considering it was one of the best documentaries of last year. The title comes from the town directors Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands profile, a small city with a population of 94 sitting on the border between Louisiana and Texas. The film profiles three men ranging from 21 to 74, all of whom have their own present hardships or tumultuous pasts primarily dealing with addiction. At the same time, the film periodically looks at a crisis happening in the town when an invasive weed spreads throughout the local lake, wreaking havoc on the ecosystem and threatening to end people’s ability to fish for food and income. McNicol and Sandilands tie together both the aquatic weed’s stranglehold on the town with the vices and conditions of its three subjects, creating a metaphor so perfectly intertwined with the film’s themes it gives Uncertain’s final moments—a brief glimmer of hope amid a grim reality—an emotional resonance that lasts long after the credits roll.

When One Floor Below premiered earlier this year at Cannes, the general reaction seemed to be bafflement. For some reason Radu Muntean’s follow-up to Tuesday After Christmas confounded people with its simple and intriguing story. Watching it now, while still in the context of a rushed festival like TIFF, it’s easy to assume that Cannes audiences might have been surprised at how straightforward this film really is. Family man and business owner Sandu (Teodor Corban), who helps people navigate the bureaucracy of car registrations in Romania, overhears an argument coming from the apartment of his young, single neighbour Laura (Maria Popistasu). He listens in, only to be caught when the door opens and he sees Vali (Iulian Postelnicu), a married neighbour from a different apartment downstairs. Sandu, embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping, goes on his merry way, but later finds out that Laura was murdered. Yet when the cops come to question everyone in the apartment, Sandu refuses to say a word about the argument he overheard. And soon enough Vali starts involving himself more and more with Sandu’s family.

Muntean shows remarkable control here, letting his scenes play out through long, well-composed takes that are all about what’s not being said. The murder at the centre of the film isn’t the real mystery; instead it’s why Sandu won’t speak up, and why Vali seems so keen to get himself closer to Sandu. Muntean lets his film unfold at a deliberate pace, letting Vali slowly insert himself into Sandu’s personal space as time goes on (first outside by his car, then chatting up his family members in the stairwell and eventually winding up hanging out with his son in his apartment). This makes One Floor Below unfold at a slow, steady boil, with Corban providing a strong, understated performance as his character has to deal with the consequences of his inaction. There’s a plainness to One Floor Below that’s refreshing. Muntean simply presents a situation, keeps the motivations and psychology under the surface, and lets the viewer make their own conclusions. It gives the film a richness, one that invites plenty of discussion and repeat viewings.