Even though Emily Dickinson would become one of America’s most celebrated female poets, she led a hard life in the 1800s. She didn’t share her family’s ecclesiastical leanings, her passion was firmly rooted in poetry (not homemaking), she judged those around her too harshly, and, of course, she was a she. Beside her innate urge to express herself through poetry, which she would write in the quiet of night while the rest of the world slept, Emily’s other passion was her bottomless love for her close-knit family. Through exquisitely framed medium shots, supple camera movements, and a screenplay full of wealth and wit, legendary British filmmaker Terence Davies creates a lush biopic that does justice to a unique artist, slightly meandering on a few tangents along the way.

It feels like Cynthia Nixon is in the middle of her own Nixonassance, especially when you consider her searing portrayal of last year’s indie hit James White in addition to the powerhouse portrayal she conjures up here in A Quiet Passion. She so wholly embodies the poetess, you’d think she found a time machine to travel back to the 1800s and trace every inch of gesticulation and countenance befitting the introverted and rebellious woman. Emma Bell does a fine job as Young Emily in the first part of the film, when we get introduced to the Dickinson household and get a taste of conservative life in Massachusetts. But once Nixon enters the stage, you hear pins drop till the final curtain.

Scenes flow into one another like liquid being poured by The Queen’s butler, tracing the ebbs and flows of Emily’s emotional and mental state as she comes to terms with her own personality, the love she feels for her family, and her growing bitterness towards high society values. Her sister Vinnie (Jennifer Ehle, continuing to prove how unforgivably underused she is), her brother Austin (a slightly spotty Duncan Duff), her father (a brilliantly stoic Keith Carradine), her sweet mother (an outstanding Joanna Bacon), and Austin’s wife Susan (a revelatory Jodhi May)—all play vital roles in shaping Emily. Outside her immediate family, no one makes a bigger impact than Miss Buffam (a sensational Catherine Bailey); with a wit and banter second to none, she outplays every man in the room and always leaves room for more. It’s little wonder that Emily becomes instantly infatuated with her spirit. A Quiet Passion exposes a singular personality through the relationships and conversations she has with those closest to her. And for much of the running time, it’s consuming to the point of forgetting everything else in the world.

Davies’ bountiful screenplay takes the cake in terms of how rhythmic and effortless the viewing experience feels. It’s so vibrant with its verbiage, 1800s colloquialism, and sharp comebacks that there are scenes where it almost trips over itself, creating the “too much of a good thing” excess feeling. The first half of the film also overflows with a wonderful sense of humor. Then there’s, of course, the director’s signature painterly camera movements, pivoting around interiors to create an astonishing sense of intimacy and closeness. He would stay on characters during their most fragile moments (especially during the heart-wrenching scenes featuring Bacon) and gradually grind the viewer’s emotions into sawdust. The way he transitions from the early to the later years during a photo shoot sequence is breathtaking. All this is helped by Florian Hoffmeister’s brilliant work with lights and shadows; whether by candle or by sun, the glow that overwhelms A Quiet Passion is palpable.

Moving beyond the formal aesthetics and award-worthy performances, it’s Emily Dickinson’s character that keeps the film’s heart beating. Her flaws, her virtues, her desires, her idiosyncrasies, her painstaking love and love-wound pain—all are ironed gently to create a truly complex and mesmerizing personality. Affronted by obviousness in every aspect of life and art, so sharp in demeaning the overt piety and patriarchal Puritanism she was faced with on a daily basis, the Emily Dickinson that emerges is one fiercely intelligent, determined, funny, empathetic, and infinitely interesting woman. This, above all else, makes A Quiet Passion the magisterial film that it is, and confirms Terence Davies as director who knows how to tackle femininity from all angles.

While all this stands, the picture does tend to lose the plot on a few occasions, especially towards the end during what looks like a fever dream sequence involving Emily and an anonymous man. It’s a jarring moment that broke the magic spell for a few brief minutes, and though I understand its intention, I find myself wishing that it were executed in a more refined way. A blasphemous thought to have considering this is Terence Davies, but there it is. The in-and-out narration of Emily’s select poems will also ignite frustration in a lot of viewers I imagine.

Thanks to these quibbles, the film is a step below the enchantment of Sunset Song and The Deep Blue Sea. But no matter how well versed you are with Emily Dickinson’s poems, A Quiet Passion still manages to envelop the senses in warm, gentle waves of cinematic opulence for most of its running time.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Film Comment Selects Series runs from February 17 – 24 in New York City. Two of our writers, C.J. Prince and Michael Nazarewycz, got to preview some of the films playing in the series. First up is C.J., who took a look at some of the new films playing in this year’s series.

C.J.: If you’re a die-hard cinephile, you should already know about New York City’s Film Society of Lincoln Center. With plenty of series and festivals every year like New Directors/New Films and the New York Film Festival, FSLC combines mainstream, classic and experimental cinema into one big, unending celebration of great filmmaking.

So when Film Comment, the official publication of the Lincoln Center, put together their 16^th edition of the Film Comment Selects series, we wanted to see what they had to offer. Gathering a mix of new works hot off the festival circuit and older, underseen titles, the series unites through themes of discovery and rediscovery.

Opening the series is Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, which had its World Premiere last year at the Toronto International Film Festival. A passion project for Davies, the film is an adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel about young Scottish farm girl Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn) as she tries to find independence and happiness in the early 1900s. For some reason Davies doesn’t get a lot of respect from the major fests (rumor has it that this film, along with the underrated The Deep Blue Sea, were flat out rejected by both Cannes and Venice), which seems baffling considering this is the same man behind The Long Day Closes and Distant Voices, Still Lives. Sunset Song doesn’t reach the same highs as those two films, keeping its focus on the source material’s sweeping narrative rather than providing the kinds of sublime moments Davies specializes in, but the film has a cumulative strength that’s undeniable. It’s less of a character study and more of a representation of how desires and ambitions can fall victim to forces beyond our control, whether it’s abusive family members (a subject Davies knows how to portray better than anyone else) or a war breaking out. It’s a reminder of how we can only define ourselves to a certain degree, and Davies expresses this message with just the right amount of humility and grace.

Even if one can’t go along with Davies’ style in Sunset Song, there’s still an earnestness with his approach that’s admirable. I can’t say the same for Benoit Jacquot’s The Diary of a Chambermaid, a piece of French prestige that sleepwalks through its adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel. This is the third time Mirbeau’s story has been translated to the screen, with Jean Renoir and Luis Bunuel making their own versions in the past, and despite having seen neither of those versions (something I’m not proud of), Jacquot’s adaptation still feels pointless. Léa Seydoux plays Celestine, a chambermaid who gets hired on at a house in the French countryside. She’s a smart, beautiful woman who knows it, spending most of her time bitterly lamenting both her job and social status. Seydoux continues to show why she’s become such a revered actress in a short time, and Clotilde Mollet gives a great performance as her cruel master, but the screenplay is a total mess. Flashbacks to Celestine’s previous jobs attempt to flesh out her character when it actually paints her as erratic, veering between sensitive caretaker (in a strange sequence with other up-and-coming French actor Vincent Lacoste) and resentful grump. These sorts of sudden, inexplicable shifts happen across the film, with the most baffling one being Celestine’s crush on her brooding, anti-Semitic co-worker (Vincent Lindon). With Jacquot making no effort to provide any sense of coherency, it’s hard to give a single shit about Diary of a Chambermaid’s narrative. The abrupt, unsatisfying conclusion feels more like everyone just gave up, preferring to go take a nap rather than try and make an actual ending.

From one French “It Girl” to another, Philippe Grandrieux’s Malgré la Nuit (the English title is Despite the Night, but I prefer the original) stars Ariane Labed, who co-starred with Seydoux in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster. Possibly the most extreme film in this year’s line-up, Grandrieux takes a look at extreme emotions through two people living in Paris: Lenz (Kristian Marr), returning from England to look for a woman named Madeleine, and Hélène (Labed), a nurse who strikes up an intense relationship with Lenz during his search. Beyond its disturbing subject matter (involving an underground club specializing in sex, torture and murder), Malgré la nuit gets under the skin through its strange formal choices, whether it’s shrouding scenes in darkness—most exchanges look like they’re happening in an underground cavern rather than a room—or shooting close-ups with artificial lights that turn faces into overexposed blobs of light. Grandrieux operates through cinema’s ability to portray subjectivity and emotions rather than its ability to tell a story, so while the narrative may be flimsy, it takes a backseat to the film’s ability to provide a visceral knockout to the senses.

Of course, this being FSLC, the series wouldn’t be complete without some titles that will leave viewers completely baffled. Take, for example, Marco Bellochio’s Blood of my Blood, which premiered at Venice and Toronto last year to a small yet vocal chorus of raves. It starts in the 17th century with Federico (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) arriving at the convent his priest brother resided at before killing himself. His brother had an affair with the nun Sister Benedetta (Lidiya Liberman), and in order to ensure his brother gets a proper burial, he must help prove that Benedetta is influenced by Satan (since that would prove that the suicide was an involuntary act and not a sin). This is all well and good until Bellochio abruptly ends this story halfway through, flashing forward to the same convent in present day where an old man named Count Basta (Roberto Herlitzka) resides. And oh yeah, Count Basta might be a vampire. How do these two storylines link together? It’s a question I can’t really answer after one viewing, and I’m sure most people will find themselves in the same boat. It’s a bemusing experience, although not everyone will feel like it’s worth the effort to try and understand what exactly might be going on in Bellochio’s head.

But, at the very least, I can say something about Bellochio’s film. Trying to talk about Andrzej Żuławski’s Cosmos is something that eludes me, and I’ll be perfectly fine admitting that a large amount of it probably went over my head. Adapted from Witold Gombrowicz’s novel, the film is Żuławski’s first feature film in over 15 years, and from frame one it feels like he’s unleashing all the pent-up strangeness he’s been accumulating over the years. Law student Witold (Jonathan Genet) escapes to a guest house where he befriends fellow guest Fuchs (Johan Libereau) and falls for the owner’s daughter (Victoria Guerra). At the same time, Witold’s discovery of a block of wood and a dead sparrow, both strung up by wire near the property, inspires him and Fuchs to figure out who’s responsible. All I can say about Cosmos is that it’s just one weird experience that, no matter how maddening it may get, never slows down for a second. It’s just unfortunate that Żuławski’s quirks start paying off far too late into the picture, with a final act and ending(s) that inspire laughter just by its sheer audacity. Fans of Possession, Żuławski’s cult classic, should not expect anything similar here, even though both films could be classified as unforgettable whatsits.

There are plenty more intriguing titles from recent years playing the series that I wish I could have gotten to see, like the essay Notfilm, a look into the making of Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton’s avant-garde short Film (which screens with Notfilm). Also playing are Venice prize winner No One’s Child, Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s 2015 Cannes competition entry Our Little Sister, Aleksei German Jr.’s Under Electric Clouds, and the US premiere of 2012 Iranian film The Paternal House. But Film Comment has much more going on than a showcase of recent festival fare. Michael Nazarewycz took a peek at some of the archival titles playing this year, starting with Ray Davies’ Return to Waterloo.

Michael: The Kinks, formed in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies, were a British rock band that had critical success early (1964’s You Really Got Me) and late (1983’s Come Dancing) in their musical careers. On the heels of the success of Come Dancing, with its music video rich in bittersweet themes of melancholy and regret, Ray Davies clearly had more to get off his chest creatively and thematically. He did so, partially at the expense of an already strained relationship with his brother Dave, by focusing his artistic attention on directing a musical film. The result, along with an accompanying soundtrack of mostly new music written by Ray, was 1984’s Return to Waterloo.

In the film, veteran British character actor Kenneth Colley plays a man simply known as The Traveller. The Traveller is an otherwise unassuming businessman…until it’s revealed he might be a wanted serial rapist. He follows a blonde into the tube and, as he takes his train ride, his mind harkens to many different things, including thoughts of his recently-estranged daughter and his disenchanted wife, as well as his opinions of present-day youth and memories of a more promising career in his younger days.

Return to Waterloo marks the cinematic debut of writer/director Ray Davies and, with the exception of a few subsequent documentaries, it’s his only filmmaking effort. That’s a shame. Davies’ musical drama, while not perfect, is a wonderful blend of melancholy, music, and mystery, and it proves that the musician had greater artistic scope than just penning and recording hit records. His approach is bold; rather than create a linear narrative and tell a traditional story, Davies plays fast and loose with The Traveller’s timeline and his sense of reality. The character clearly exists in the now, but as he encounters people in his travels, those people trigger thoughts and images that slip in and out of reality, dancing a line between things that happened in the past and things he imagines are happening now. The creative approach, which ultimately relies on the viewer to do some heavier-than-usual lifting, works more often than it doesn’t, and at a lean and energetic 58 minutes, it’s a great time. Tthe film also marks the second onscreen appearance of a young Tim Roth, as well as an early entry in the career of legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins.

Film Comment has also chosen to screen a pair of Charles Bronson films at their Selects festival. Bronson, who began acting in the early 1950s, appeared in a collection of films that would go on to become classics, including John Sturges’s The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. In the 1970s, Bronson rocketed to superstardom, anchored by a star turn in Michael Winner’s vigilante classic Death Wish. Late in his career, Bronson was one of the biggest stars in the Cannon Films stable, appearing in a collection of ’80s action flicks for the notorious production company. But hidden among these famous films are two lesser-known entries from the action legend.

First is Tom Gries’ Breakout, from 1975. In the film, Robert Duvall plays Jay Wagner, a man wrongly imprisoned in Mexico for a murder he didn’t commit. The murder and incarceration were orchestrated by Wagner’s corrupt grandfather-in-law (played by John Huston). Wagner’s wife, played by frequent Bronson co-star and real-life spouse Jill Ireland, hires bush pilot Nick Colton (Bronson) to break her husband out of jail. Action ensues.

As a film, Breakout isn’t very good. While it allows Bronson to be a little less serious than the brooding characters he’s better known for, the plot is an utter mess and the rescue attempts (there are several) are nothing more than a string of haplessly assembled action pieces that only serve to illustrate what a terrible rescuer Colton is (as is his sidekick of sorts, played by Randy Quaid). Still, the film is notable and worth checking out for a couple of things. It’s loosely based on the book The 10-Second Jailbreak, which itself is based on actual events. The film is part of the Bronson canon, and one not usually mentioned in the same breath as the others, so Bronson completists should rejoice. It has quite a cast, as well as quite the producing team in Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, the Oscar-winners behind the entire Rocky franchise (including 2015’s Creed). Most interestingly, though, Breakout is one of the titles bandied about when there are discussions about the “first summer blockbuster.” While Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is widely regarded to hold that distinction because of its wide release and its success, other films, including this one, had wide releases just as big.

The other Bronson film selected by Film Comment is an excellent choice, one that is part of the overlooked European portion of the actor’s career. Starting with Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West  and ending with his return to the US as the star of The Mechanic, Bronson made about a dozen films in Europe including the 1970 film Rider on the Rain, which won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. The French film is a sleek, slick Hitchcockian thriller, although the name of its femme fatale is more Bond than Hitch: Mélancolie Mau.

Played by Marlène Jobert, Mélancolie is a lonely woman in a loveless marriage living in a lifeless seaside town. One day, while her husband is somewhere else in the world in his role as an airline pilot (and philanderer), a creepy-looking man (Marc Mazza) with a red bag gets off a bus. The man makes incidental eye contact with Mélancolie. Later that day, when she is trying on clothes in a shop, the stranger leers at her through the outside window as she stands exposed in her underwear and stockings. That night, the stranger breaks into her home and rapes her. He doesn’t leave. Before he can repeat his act, there is a struggle that eventually affords Mélancolie the opportunity to shoot and kill him, but rather than report it to police, she dumps the body into the sea and keeps the incident a secret.

The next day at a wedding, Mélancolie meets American Harry Dobbs (Bronson), a man who not only knows what she did but knows a lot of the circumstances surrounding it. Still, despite his prodding, she refuses to confess to her actions, and what follows is a tingling game of cat-and-mouse that showcases Mélancolie’s resolve and Dobbs’s downright misogyny. Of course things devolve from there.

Director René Clément certainly gets his Hitchcock on for this film. While Mélancolie is not your typical Hitchcock blonde, the redhead is no less icy and no less mysterious. Of questionable character, too, is Dobbs, whose knowledge of the facts and pursuit of the truth suggest hero, but whose methods suggest anti-hero at best. A beautiful resort, sexual energy to spare, and a slowly unraveling mystery make Rider on the Rain a compelling and, at times, unsettling watch in ways reminiscent of Hitchcock, but perhaps with more dazzling visuals and brutal realism (the rape scene is harrowing). Jobert is truly the star of the picture, but Bronson is excellent, with his perpetual cat-who-ate-the-canary grin beneath his signature mustache. The two couldn’t be more different than each other, yet their onscreen chemistry is excellent.

In addition to these fun catalogue titles, Film Comment’s lineup boasts several other classics, including a trio of films from Andrzej Żuławski to accompany Cosmos. That trio consists of a pair of 1972 horror films, The Devil and The Third Part of the Night, and the 1988 sci-fi/fantasy On the Silver Globe. Closing night offers a Chantal Akerman tribute with the screening of her 1986 musical Golden Eighties.

Is it even possible to whittle down TIFF’s line-up to 15? This year TIFF has 399 shorts and features playing the festival, an insane number that has us asking questions like “Why are there so many movies?” and “Why couldn’t the 400th movie be Carol?” among many others.

Every year at TIFF is an embarrassment of riches, and this year is no different, so we had a tough time narrowing our choices down to what we consider the essentials (even crueler: it’s unlikely we’ll catch all of these at the festival, meaning we’re praying some of these get released soon or get some sort of distribution deal). But we did manage to come up with a list, and it’s a varied one. There are some films we missed at festivals earlier this year, some brand spanking new ones by directors we love, a return from a master of the cinema, and one film from a newbie that looks like it could be one of the most unforgettable experiences of this year’s festival.

Read on to see our picks below, and be sure to keep reading the site for our coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival for the rest of the month.

Anomalisa

Charlie Kaufman. A name that, for those familiar with the man’s work, justifies the length of a paragraph to be all but two words on this list. Kaufman’s screenplays—Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind–-burst people’s notions of original comedy, with plots, settings, characters, and dialogue that turned the ordinary into the fascinatingly unique. It’s easy to get lost in Kaufman’s eccentricities, but there’s profound stuff underneath his squiggly surface (especially evident with his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York). His latest effort is a stop-motion animation feature, co-directed by Duke Johnson, with Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Thewlis, and Kaufman regular Tom Noonan providing the voice talent, about a misanthrope travelling to Cincinnati to give a keynote speech about his bestselling book on customer service. From the purportedly fantastic look of the film, to the much welcomed return of Kaufman’s sui generis imagination, everything about Anomalisa so far (including early raves from Telluride) fills this film to the gills with promise. [Nik]

Arabian Nights

Miguel Gomes has been popping his head out from the subterranean levels of arthouse since 2008’s Our Beloved Month of August, but it was his sensational and half-silent 2012 film Tabu that wrote him on the proverbial map with permanent ink. Now he’s back with what is his most ambitious effort to date, a sprawling 6-hour epic split into three volumes based on the infamous Middle Eastern and Asian stories, 1001 Nights. Going by the popular English title of the collection, Arabian Nights pushes the boundaries of narrative with its three volumes—titled The Restless One, The Desolate One, The Enchanted One respectively—and sets events in Portugal, elucidating on the country’s socioeconomic issues through allegory and Gomes’ signature vigor for cinematic storytelling. Using a mesh of satire and fantasy, fiction and non-fiction, the film has been hailed as a genuinely stirring cinematic experience in all respects since it premiered in Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight, and we are beyond excited to see it at TIFF. [Nik]

The Assassin

Gestating in development for over ten years, and scaling a mountain of budgetary hurdles all while learning to adjust to the ever-changing climate of film production, Hou Hisao-Hisen’s latest film is finally here. For a film that’s been anticipated this long, directed by a beloved legend of Taiwanese arthouse cinema, the hype for The Assassin was strained with a mix of excitement and slight trepidation before it premiered at Cannes. The film turned out to be a critical hit, and Hou was commemorated with a Best Director prize (many believed it would walk away with the Palme). This wuxia tale follows a trained killer (Shu Qi) who is forced to choose between her heart and her profession when she gets her latest assignment. Yeah, it’s a synopsis bland enough to fit the description of the worst kind of Steven Segal movie, but its plot is not why The Assassin has already been hailed as a masterpiece by many. With a master filmmaker at the helm, the film’s qualities are found in its aesthetics, mood, composition, and a refined kind of slow-burning mystery that seems to cast a spell on all who see it. Yummy. [Nik]

Baskin

After discovering Baskin’s inclusion in the Midnight Madness programme, I contacted director Can Evrenol to get a glimpse at his 2013 short film (which this film is based on). Evrenol was gracious enough to let me see his short, and the moment it ended I knew I had to catch his feature-length adaptation at TIFF. Both the short and the film have the same synopsis: a group of cops responding to a call for backup arrive at an abandoned building that turns out to be the home of some sort of horrifying dark arts ritual. By the time the cops realise they’ve stumbled into some seriously freaky, occult type stuff, all hell literally breaks loose. The short is a brief and twisted slice of fun, and Baskin looks like it’s expanding in all the right ways: gorier, nastier, and with plenty more horrifying surprises in store. Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes has gone on record saying that Baskin might rival the legendary premiere of Martyrs at TIFF in 2008, and based on what I’ve seen of Baskin, I’m inclined to believe he might turn out to be right. [C.J.]

Beasts of No Nation

Fresh off the enormous success of True Detective, Cary Fukunaga returns to the big screen with more critical clout than ever before. Beasts of No Nation marks the writer/director’s third feature, and it looks to be a work of greater intensity and visceral impact than either of his previous films. From a Mexican immigration drama (Sin Nombre) to a classic bildungsroman adaptation set in Victorian England (Jane Eyre), Fukunaga now takes us to an unnamed country in Africa where a young boy struck by tragedy is forced to become a child soldier in a ferocious civil war. Fukunaga’s versatility is truly impressive, and with this film carrying the added plus of Idris Elba (in what could potentially be his greatest role yet), I’d say it’s shaping up to be yet another feather in the cap of an exciting and steadily rising filmmaker. [Byron]

Black Mass

Scott Cooper is someone who hasn’t quite broken out yet as a “name director.” Crazy Heart was acknowledged for its performances and music despite being a solid character study with real directorial sensitivity, and while Out of the Furnace proved to be somewhat bland and predictable, it still contained glimmers of a filmmaker with a distinct vision. With his third film, Black Mass, Cooper is tackling something of significant scale. It’s the story of the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger, and the project boasts a killer cast. Johnny Depp arrives in heavy makeup once again, this time in a different context, and he appears to be in rare form, exuding charisma that is terrifyingly deceptive rather than merely quirky. With such a weighty subject, there’s a lot that could go wrong, but hopefully Cooper rises to the occasion and finally takes the spotlight, delivering something more like The Departed than Killing Them Softly. [Byron]

Cemetery of Splendour

Arguably the greatest arthouse filmmaker of the 21st century, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is more beloved than the spelling of his full name is hard to memorize. Every feature he’s directed—most especially Tropical Malady, Syndromes of a Century, and Palme D’Or-winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives—has been studied by cinephiles for their hypnotic power and spiritual sensations. His latest is titled Cemetery of Splendor, and if that’s not enticing enough (it should be), its Cannes premiere was met with the kind of plaudits worthy of Weerasethakul’s venerated oeuvre. The film follows a housewife who volunteers at a clinic where she befriends a soldier with a mysterious sleeping sickness and meets a medium who helps family members communicate with their comatose relatives. In typical Weerasethakul fashion, dreams, memory, and romance are weaved together to create a mystical viewing experience. We couldn’t be more ready for this. [Nik]

Evolution

Way back in January of this year, I picked Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution as one of my most anticipated films of 2015. I figured it would premiere at Cannes, given it went into production last year, but Cannes came and went without her film appearing. I forgot about the film (partially to not disappoint myself again), so once it got announced at part of TIFF’s Vanguard programme this year I was ecstatic. Little was known about Evolution back when I first wrote about it, but now there’s a better idea of what to expect. The film centres on a ten-year-old boy living on an island with no adult males, only women and young boys like himself. The boys undergo various medical experiments, and Nicholas decides to investigate what’s going on. Rather than explain why Evolution is on my radar again, I’ll just quote its programmer Colin Geddes who told me it’s “a sublime, body horror, fairy tale mystery.” I don’t think it’s possible to hear a description like that and not get intrigued. [C.J.]

High-Rise

I won’t lie: I’ve been deliberately avoiding learning much about Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise, which is having its world premiere this year in TIFF’s competitive Platform programme. I know it has a killer cast (Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Elisabeth Moss and Luke Evans, to name a few). I know it’s an adaptation of a J.G. Ballard novel, it involves different people living in an apartment building, and that Clint Mansell is doing the score. That’s about it. So why am I putting this down as one of my most anticipated titles of TIFF? Because Ben Wheatley is one of the more exciting names in international cinema right now, hopping between genres with ease and delivering films that are truly distinct. This looks like a return to the moodier, intense fare of Kill List along with the chamber piece quality of his terrific debut Down Terrace (which largely took place in a house). High-Rise sounds like a literal expansion for Wheatley compared to his low-budget first feature: a bigger cast, a bigger budget, a bigger location and a bigger scale. Here’s hoping Wheatley makes the most of it. [C.J.]

Mountains May Depart

To be honest, I don’t know much about Mountains May Depart, but what I do know is that Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin was one of the best movies to emerge from 2013. Brutal and depressing in equal measures, the film is an anthology that presented the deeply troubled nature of modern China through powerful allegory. Jia’s follow-up seems to cover similarly ambitious ground, spanning two generations and confronting the effects of a rapidly changing societal landscape. No matter what the story details are, Mountains May Depart is a must-see purely because it places the audience in the secure hands of a great cinematic social commentator. [Byron]

Office

Want to know how much I love Johnnie To? Whenever I see the word “musical” I tend to run in the other direction, yet I’m clearing my TIFF schedule to fit in the musical Office because he’s helming it. The film marks two firsts for To, a director who’s been working for decades with an insanely prolific and consistent output; it’s his first musical, and his first film in 3D. Seeing To tackle new areas only gets me more excited, because he’s shown multiple times that he has no problem adapting any genre to his economic and quick-paced style. Based on the hit play by Sylvia Chang (who also stars in Mountains May Depart), Office sounds like a continuation of To’s recent fixation on the corporate class and the 2008 financial crisis seen in films like Don’t Go Breaking My Heart and Life Without Principle. But this time, To has recruited big names like Chang and Chow Yun-Fat, along with (what sounds like) full-blown song and dance numbers. Early word on Office has been great, and I can’t wait to see what will surely be To’s unique take on the musical. [C.J.]

Sunset Song

Suffused with rich feeling and evocative melancholia, Terence Davies’ movies are like a vintage wine that sentimentality has rendered priceless; only to be uncorked for a momentous occasion. Which is exactly what the world premiere of his latest picture, Sunset Song, already feels like. Coming off the heels of The Deep Blue Sea, probably the most underrated and misunderstood film of its year, Sunset Song is a period piece set in the cinegenic Scottish countryside of the 1930s, and based on a book by Lewis Grassic Gibon that’s been called the most important Scottish novel of the 20th century. Other than a few gorgeous-looking stills, and the announcement of the cast which includes the brilliant Peter Mullan, mum’s been the word on the details behind Davies’ adaptation. But if he sticks close to Gibbon’s story, we’ll be following the hard life of young Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn), a woman growing up in a dysfunctional household, on a farm in Scotland. We expect nothing less than the same refined and lyrical cinematic precision we’ve been getting from one of Britain’s most celebrated auteurs. [Nik]

Where to Invade Next?

America’s most divisive filmmaker returns with a new documentary sure to inspire an avalanche of critical blog posts, angry tweets and bitter Fox News segments. It’s been six years since Michael Moore released Capitalism: A Love Story, and little is known about his new project outside of the vague notion that it will concern the United States’ unending condition of being at war in some capacity. I’ve always been fond of Moore’s work, despite the loudness of his mouth and the dubiousness of his specific claims. For sheer entertainment value, his films are about as hilariously satirical as documentaries get, but beneath the unabashed agenda and supposed methods of misdirection lies a sobering reality demanding our immediate attention. For this reason, I can’t wait to see Where to Invade Next? and revel in the controversy it will inevitably stir up. [Byron]

The Witch

If the reactions out of Sundance earlier this year are any indication, The Witch is the latest installment in a recent string of thoughtful indie horror pictures (such as It Follows and The Babadook) vying for “instant classic” status. The film is a period piece—something far too uncommon in the genre these days—and tells the tale of 17^th century New England settlers encountering evil forces in a nearby forest while perhaps confronting their own inner demons as well. I like my horror cinema grim and ambiguous, and the film’s brilliant trailer seems to promise a gloomy tone and ominous atmosphere, along with what might be the most malevolent on-screen goat since Drag Me to Hell (although likely not as humorous). A 2016 release date pretty much guarantees a series of sold-out shows at this year’s fest, so don’t hesitate to check it out if you get the chance. [Byron]

Yakuza Apocalypse

Back in May when Yakuza Apocalypse premiered at Cannes, it sounded like Takashi Miike was back in full-force. But then again, considering his insanely prolific output (I’ve lost track of his films, there are too many), “full-force” seems to be status quo for Miike. The image above should give you an idea of what Yakuza Apocalypse might be like: insane, bonkers, all over the place, nonsensical and yet completely entertaining to watch. The film starts out with a Yakuza boss revealed to be a vampire, and soon the entire town he rules over gets converted into vampires as they try to remove threats to their way of life. And also there’s something about a fighting alien toad, the apocalypse, and whatever else Miike could think of apparently. When it comes to Miike, I don’t ask questions anymore. He’s proven himself to be an amazing director, so when I get the chance to see one of his latest films I’ll go on blind faith. Sometimes his films don’t work out for me, but other times they work spectacularly. Yakuza Apocalypse looks like it’s going to fall more into the “spectacular” category. [C.J.]