Film Festival Coverage Hub - Reviews & Recaps

I Carry You With Me – AFI Fest 2020

I Carry You With Me is an epic cross generational, border crossing love story that hops between Puebla in Mexico and New York in the USA. It’s shot across three time periods: the present in NY, the past in Puebla, and the distant past reflected in childhood memories. The majority of the film takes place in the middle where Ivan and Gerardo meet. It contains the bulk of the film’s emotion and narrative. However, the cuts to the present imbue it with nostalgia by situating it in the past. It makes it feel like a dream period for the couple that contrasts with the uncertainty of their lives in the present.

The style also contributes to the dream like qualities of the middle period. Like Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, Heidi Ewing uses a lot of color filters to imbue warmth and feeling to I Carry You With Me. Instead of warm reds and oranges, there’s greens, oranges, and blues that create a world that feels unique and special. It captures the excitement of their romance. Also like In The Mood for Love, there’s food. A plate of Chile en Nogada replaces a bowl of hot steaming noodles. Chile en Nogada being one of Puebla and Mexico’s most iconic dishes and one that is notoriously hard to make. It both situates their romance and symbolizes their love.

The portrayal of Puebla also challenges the typical American Dream narrative presented in U.S.-Mexico films. It depicts a Mexican city full of warmth, beauty, and life to contrast with the lonely, bleak, coldness of New York. In this film, the U.S. is not the land of opportunity that it is often depicted to be. Instead of leaving to escape poverty, they leave for the opportunity to start a new life.

I Carry You With Me is not without it’s own cliches. There’s the gay guy with the female best friend and another who’s best friend is a flamboyant drag queen. Then there’s the haunting memories of the first time their fiercely patriarchal families put them down. Obviously not all families in Mexico are like this, and whilst I don’t doubt these events happened to the real Ivan and Gerardo, they feel like exploitative throw in scenes designed to evoke sympathy and emotion. However, despite the cliches,I Carry You With Me is a brilliantly romantic portrayal of generation and border crossing love.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

Ekoua – Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) 2020

Ekoua is an ambitious animated dystopian film from Cote d’Ivoire featuring a Hero’s Journey story which unfortunately loses itself in exposition.

Visually, the 3D animation looks like it’s still in the development stage. Many animated objects are incomplete or forgotten about, such as a waiter carrying a tray with her arms by her side. More objects unnaturally cross spatial boundaries, such as a the baby’s legs blending into the crib it’s lying in when they move.

There’s also an unnecessary amount of shots in which characters are traveling from A to B either by walking or in cars. These shots are usually lengthened either side of the shot to show characters frozen still before and after they’ve started traveling. It adds time to a film which doesn’t need it. It reminded me of watching someone play a long game of Sims.

You could fault the criticisms above on a lack of funding or animated capabilities. Animated African films are rare compared to the number of animated films produced in North America and Asia. Ekoua is an ambitious attempt at creating a new dystopian world through animation. However, even with the limited animation capabilities, a complex storyline makes Ekoua hard to love.

At the start of the film, Ekoua sets itself up as a potential satire by introducing a dystopian world ruled by scammers. However, the scammer dystopia set up in the opening is never explained. The only scammers we see are two brightly dressed men that make it rain in clubs, and suspiciously keep following Ekoua for no apparent reason. Instead of exploring the scammer dystopia, Ekoua alters direction to follow a narrative of Ekoua becoming a ‘seer’ and eliminating an evil baby.

From there the film felt like a slow crazy dream. Here’s an outline of a portion of the plot I understood:

Ekoua becomes a seer thanks to an elder.
She has a vision that informs her that her neighbors newborn baby is an evil spirit reincarnated and that she must eliminate it to avoid repeating the same mistakes her mum made.
Scammers chase Ekoua and beat her up.
Ekoua takes the evil baby.
Royal police show up and guide Ekoua to the capital with the evil baby.
A band of mutated hyenas led by a mutant elephant named Koffi stop them and steal the baby.
Ekoua tracks the band of mutants to their hideout and recovers the baby.
Ekoua and the royal policeman move on to the capital.

Then the plot gets confusing.

Overall, Ekoua could do with a bit more simplicity. The story has a lot of different strands (scammer world, Ekoua’s mum, visions, hero’s journey) that make it hard to follow. With a more focused script and more budget to improve the animation, Ekoua would instantly improve.

My Little Sister – AFI Fest 2020

My Little Sister starts with two protagonists: Lisa and Sven. They’re twins, and evidently very close. Even when they’re shot apart, as in the opening scene, they’re still connected – it’s a shot of Lisa giving blood followed by a shot of Sven sleeping alone in a sanitized hospital room. She’s giving her blood to help him fight cancer.

Over the first half of the movie, the camera follows Lisa and Sven equally. However, the narrative balance between them becomes more lopsided as the film progresses. Coinciding with Sven’s deteriorating health, Lisa takes up more and more screen time. The movie becomes less about how Sven copes with cancer and more about how Lisa deals with it. Whilst it confirms his physical end, her assumption of the film’s focus also represents her inheriting Sven’s spirit. She takes on Sven’s stage presence (he was known for being a charismatic stage actor) and assumes some of his characteristics. She becomes more independent and creative than she appears at the beginning of the film.

One example of Lisa’s change is in her marital relationship. After she takes Sven abroad to her home in Switzerland, she starts questioning her life with her husband Martin. He’s a symbol of the soft patriarchy that has frozen her in a place she doesn’t want to be. She has compromised her creative career to move to a remote Swiss town for his advancement, but got no support in return. Instead of considering a return to Berlin with Lisa, Martin mansplains that living as a housewife abroad is in Lisa’s best interests. Her role for him is to fulfill his ‘happy family’ image at work functions. Lisa’s revolt against his soft patriarchy is triggered by the arrival of Sven. He’s a reminder of her previous ambitions that have been forgotten in her nuclear family life abroad.

There’s no doubt that My Little Sister is a sad family drama. The only respite seems to come from the classical opera music that replaces diegetic sound in and following the most hopeless scenes. However, looking at it positively, we follow a character that inherits the freedom to become a more independent character. So if you can brave a film featuring an intimate relationship with a relative fighting cancer, you’ll be able to appreciate My Little Sister.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

The Intruder – AFI Fest 2020

The Intruder does a lot in the opening 15 minutes. It develops the character of Ines rapidly to set the tone for the rest of the movie. We see that she works as a voice actor helping to dub foreign movies and is a part time chorister. We also find out that she has a lot of nightmares and is terrified of a lot of things such as planes and bats. There’s also her annoying boyfriend who helps to define her as the more grounded and normal of the two. All of this is crammed into the opening without feeling rushed, so when a catastrophe happens, we’re already familiar with Ines and her world.

This opening gives us a grasp of what’s normal for Ines. So, after her traumatic event, we can see that her life seemingly returns to normal. She’s back in the recording studio doing dub tracks and she’s back singing with her choir. The only things that change are her voice and a rise in the number of her dreams. But neither thing feels that alarming or unusual at first. Plus, it’s at this point that her mum shows up to help her recover from her trauma and a organist appears to rekindle her love life. They both help to enforce the normalcy of Ines’ life by appearing in the mundanity of it. But something just doesn’t feel quite right. Her life feels a bit like uncanny valley.

The director, Natalia Meta uses Ines’ dreams to establish the dream world as another place that exists beside Ines’ reality. It’s so close to her reality that we slip between the two with ease. The transition between the two worlds are aided by the darkness of Ines’ life. She moves from her dark apartment to the dark studio recording rooms and artificially lit choir hall and is never spotted in daylight. As she’s inside for most of the film, it’s hard to know what time of day it is at any point. As a result, we lose track of time, and with it our hold on reality. It’s hard to pinpoint when she’s dreaming or awake. The darkness facilitates the creation of Ines’ dream world and it’s merging with her everyday reality.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

Farewell Amor – AFI Fest 2020

Farewell Amor follows a father reunited with his wife and daughter after 17 years living apart. It starts with their reunion in New York airport and then splits into three parts to replay each of their experiences of their first few days back together. This allows us to see each of their perspectives in order to understand each of them better. Whilst each of them see things differently, they all highlight the struggle of living together after a long time apart.

Their first few days together feels pretty awkward. There’s a clash of cultures between Walter and Esther, the reunited couple. Walter has become accustomed to U.S. culture after 17 years living in New York. He’s created a new life for himself with the immigrant community around him. By contrast, Esther hasn’t had the privilege of officially starting a new life, as she’s been waiting for her U.S. visa. To perhaps deal with the struggle and uncertainty of their long distance relationship, she has found peace and happiness in becoming a stronger christian. Their different paths have caused Esther to become more strict and passive whilst Walter has become accustomed to a more free and open way of life in the U.S. It’s shown in the treatment of Sylvia (their daughter) and in what they do in their free time: Walter dances whilst Esther cleans and shops. They’ve each grown apart over time.

However, the tone of the movie makes it feel like their differences can be worked out. Instead of emphasizing the drama in their new conflicting personalities, Farewell Amor uses a relaxed pace to give time for us to get to see each character through their own eyes. It makes it feel like the characters, like us, can see both sides of each other. That whilst they’re all struggling to adjust to their new lives together, they all know they’ve been through the hardest part and just need to persevere to make things work.

It’s a refreshing American made film about the African experience that focuses on family relationships instead of the usual war driven (Beasts of No Nation) and exceptional African (Mandela films, Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Queen of Katwe) narratives.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.