The seventh day of the festival was relatively relaxed, though I still viewed five films. Only three are cleared for review at this point, but they're all five-star bangers, two of which shook me to my very core. Without further ado, they are:
Rescue
Made in cooperation with Doctors Without Borders, Rescue is an impossibly harrowing document of the inhumane ordeals refugees face as they cross oceans in hopes of a better life. It opens on international waters in the Mediterranean, where Libyan militia kidnap women and children from refugee ships. They're taken to camps for "processing," which means torture, rape, and death. Those who remain find shelter on a Doctors Without Borders-operated ship.
From there, we follow Hani, whose wife, Roro, was among those kidnapped. Over months of horrific waiting and uncertainty, Hani attempts to rebuild a home for his family when they return. It is an act of impossible love and hope, even in fear of the worst. Then Roro makes contact, and we hear her soul-crushingly horrifying story.
Throughout this, director Sine Plambech keeps their distance to avoid sensationalism and exploitation. Documentaries like this can easily fall for either one, using the pain of others for audiences across countries to engage in grief tourism without context. Here, Plambech observes, documents, and forces us to understand the human cost of every failure both the European Union and America have their hand in. It is an act of incredible resilience and vision, one that refuses to trade fact for a cheap headline.
By the end, Rescue offers no answers, only a call for arms. This will continue, and it happens with express approval of politicians who've never so much as walked to another town, let alone uproot their entire lives. It is an angry, painfully immediate portrait of failure on a global scale is not easy viewing, but essential nonetheless.
5/5 stars.
Kick On
Kick On is a speeding freight train of insanity, so deliriously entertaining and unrelenting it's a miracle it doesn't collapse under its own impossible nature. Set almost exclusively within the confines of a drug den in a nearly abandoned apartment complex, Kick On starts with a simple premise (dumb kids want to buy drugs from the worst possible person), and builds into an orgy of violence that shocks and delights in equal measure.
From minute one, it assaults viewers with an increasingly frenetic pace that slows just long enough for us to care about our hapless heroes, then jets from one unhinged set piece to the next. There are escape attempts, knife fights, shootouts, even weaponized sex toys, and buckets upon buckets of gore. Some of the effects are a bit wonky, but they only add to the charm. By the time bits start falling off, we're so invested in these characters that we buy the illusion.
Despite the insanity, nothing in Kick On feels forced or unearned; every act of violence is carefully built like a macabre Rube Goldberg puzzle, setting off another chain of events in turn. Breathlessly written and directed and without an inch of fat to its name, Kick On is the kind of hectic, take-no-prisoners madness Ozploitation cinema made its name on.
None of this would work without a winning cast, and Kick On doesn't disappoint. Anchored by a superb Markella Kavenagh as Eden, the leads are all eminently likable, even if they're not the brightest bulbs around. The villain, Ray, is played with demented charisma by Nikolai Nikolaeff, who takes over the film the moment he steps on screen. Fueled by propulsive directing from Nick Kozakis, Nikolaeff emerges as a larger-than-life threat who is still, in some magic trick of cinema, somehow sympathetic.
At a brisk 90 minutes, Kick On is a rush of cinematic adrenaline, a deliriously violent fun bit of nastiness that delivers everything it promises, and then some. For genre fans, it's pure nirvana.
5/5 stars.
Club Kid
There's a Finnish word that applies here: elämänmakuinen. Literally translated, it means "taste of life." It describes something so rich with texture, vibrancy, and lived-in quality that when experienced together, the result is as complex and beautiful as life itself. That is Club Kid, a joyous and heartbreaking coming-of-age story I cannot believe is the first feature from writer/director Jordan Firstman, who also stars.
In 2016, Peter, a queer club owner in New York, lives a hedonistic lifestyle of endless parties, sex, and drugs. During one outing, he ends up in an unexpected threesome with a random woman and thinks nothing of it for the next decade. Then, one day, a ten-year-old boy, Arlo (Reggie Absolom), shows up at his door. His mom is dead, and Arlo is alone. Peter is nowhere near father material; he can barely hold his own life together, but he's also kind and won't leave a child alone.
But what does parenting look like to someone who never grew up? Peter is a fun guy, and it's easy to see why people gravitate to him. But he's also irresponsible and dangerous; a drug dealer who, despite saying otherwise, wouldn't object if something did happen to him. An air of sadness hangs over him, at least until Arlo shows up.
Firstman's writing is impossibly sharp and clearly observed. He has an incredible ear for authentic dialog, and every moment in chaotic group conversations crackles with energy. These are places and people that actually exist. If I didn't know any better, I would buy Club Kid as a documentary. I could swear I've met some of these people and avoided a whole host of others. Club Kid captures the intensity and ecstasy of darkened clubs, where the noise and light are so overwhelming it feels like another planet. It's easy to see why these places are so intoxicating, and why they're even easier to drown in.
Then, as unexpectedly as life itself, Club Kid turns into something completely different. It grows up alongside its characters, and not one second of it feels artificial. Yet there are no easy answers, no magical solutions, nor a Hollywood ending. There's only life, bittersweet and what we make of it. Club Kid captures a slice of another person's reality and gifts it to us without melodrama. This film is a treasure; it moved me to the very fabric of my soul.
5/5 stars.
Check out day six of my TIFF coverage here:
Joonatan Itkonen
