Leslie Combemale – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

SHE CAME TO ME – Review by Leslie Combemale

September 21, 2023September 23, 2023 Leslie Combemale bruce springsteen, Bryce Dessner, Katia Labèque, rebecca miller, she came to me

Tthe audacious, bizarre, inconceivable dramedy will prove to be a favorite to quirky indie fans. There’s care and consideration in every aspect of the production, from the awards-heavy cast, to the careful color stories in the production design, to the embarrassment of riches offered up in the score and music. Writer/director Rebecca Miller gives her characters real issues, often to the point of mental illness, and they are issues that build interactions and relationships that offer less clearcut hero/villain scenarios, thereby making them worlds more interesting. She collaborated with her cast in developing their roles, and it shows in the commitment the performers give to their performances. The result is a sort of screwball comedy meets magical realism, with a lot of heart thrown in.

Festivals Reviews

IN THE REARVIEW (TIFF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

September 18, 2023September 18, 2023 Leslie Combemale documentary, In the Rearview, Maciek Hamela, TIFF 2023, ukraine

In the Rearview is aptly named. It’s a documentary in which the camera sits inside a car, driving in Ukraine evacuating people from their homes. That’s the entire movie. Does it sound boring or repetitive? It’s anything but. What this film does, is it reveals the dangers, horrors, and tragedy of war in a way that nothing else could, and in so doing is an essential document of this moment in history. In the Rearview is a powerful act of protest, done via filmmaking.

Festivals Reviews

THE PEASANTS (TIFF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

September 18, 2023September 21, 2023 Leslie Combemale Dorota Kobiela Welchman, hugh welchman, loving vincent, Painting Animation Work Stations, PAWS units, The Peasants, TIFF 2023, Wladyslaw Reymont, Young Poland movement

This is the second animated feature by directing wife and husband team Dorota Kobiela Welchman and Hugh Welchman after their Oscar-nominated success Loving Vincent. Based on a novel of the same name by Nobel lauriate Wladyslaw Reymont, it features the technique created by the company for Loving Vincent. Using painting animators working on specially designed PAWS units (Painting Animation Work Stations), live action footage is used to create oil paintings, which make up the finished imagery seen in the film.

Festivals Interviews

DK and Hugh Welchman on THE PEASANTS (TIFF 2023) – Leslie Combemale interviews

There’s a new animated feature from writer/director wife and husband team Dorota Kobiela (DK) and Hugh Welchman known for the Oscar-nominated film Loving Vincent, called The Peasants. It’s based on a novel of the same name by Polish 1924 Nobel laureate Wladyslaw Reymont, a thousand-page tome so well-known in Poland that it’s taught in schools, and considered one of the classics of world literature. Created in the same style as Loving Vincent, The Peasants was filmed in a technique in which live action is shot, and then used as reference and interpreted through oil paintings, each created by hand at four studios in Poland, Serbia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Those oil paintings then are shot and become the images seen as the finished film. Women made up 75 to 80% of the artists working on the film.

Festivals Reviews

GONZO GIRL (TIFF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

September 18, 2023September 18, 2023 Leslie Combemale Camila Morrone, Cheryl Della Pietra, gonzo girl, Hunter S. Thompson, Patricia Arquette, TIFF 2023, willem dafoe

As a directorial debut, Patricia Arquette could have done a lot worse than Gonzo Girl. Based on the book about the experiences of Cheryl Della Pietra’s as Hunter S. Thompson’s assistant in the mid-nineties, Arquette was the perfect age to understand the challenges of a women in the business world of the time. Arquette shows a facility with interesting shots and choosing below-the-line artists who will give life to a film’s vision, and choosing performers who will click, and make the best of their lines. She’ll do well in the future with a better script. She already knows how to bring out the best out of good actors working together.

Festivals Reviews

SOLO (TIFF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023 Leslie Combemale Alice Moreault, canadian films., Félix Maritaud, Solo, sophie dupuis, Théodore Pellerin, TIFF 2023

Anyone who hasn’t seen the magnetism or star power of Canadian actor Théodore Pellerin needs to see his performance in Solo, writer/director Sophie Dupuis’s new film. It rightly made a splash at its TIFF premiere, where it was shown in the prime Gala spot. An examination of toxic relationships both familial and romantic and a celebration of queerness and found family, it will ring true in both joyful and painful ways to many audience members who seek it out.

Reviews

HELLO DANKNESS – Review by Leslie Combemale

August 31, 2023September 2, 2023 Leslie Combemale 500 sampled clips, australian films, composite movie, Dan Angeloro, Dominique Angeloro, Hello Dankness, pop culture history, sampling film clips, Soda Jerk

Australian siblings Dan and Dominique Angeloro, the video artist duo better known as Soda Jerk, has brought a bizarre and bracing new political satire to audiences with their film Hello Dankness. It is an assemblage or collage of narrative films, news footage, and clips from various media that tells the crazy story of American politics in the last few years. Created through sampling clips, gonzo editing, and by adding dubbed-in dialogue, the resulting hour and a bit of film feels like the intersection of experimental video art, documentary filmmaking, guerrilla activism, and cultural commentary, if it were built by the hands of filmmakers who were, as they say, seriously tripping balls.

Reviews

PERPETRATOR – Review by Leslie Combemale

August 25, 2023 Leslie Combemale Alicia Silverstone, horror, jennifer reeder, Kiah McKirnan, Perpetrator

What would it look like if a feminist filmmaker redefined the expression “girls gone wild?” The answer is in writer/director Jennifer Reeder’s stylish horror coming-of-age genre mashup Perpetrator, where Blood with a capital B, teen rebellion, and really trippy visuals are the order of the day. In Perpetrator, Reeder is posing a lot of questions about obsessions with beauty, age, gender norms, and femininity, loosely wrapped in a private schoolgirl story of survival and becoming. As they grow into adulthood, are young women monsters if they refuse to submit, to stay silent, or make how men (of any age) see them as their highest priority? Are they monsters if they refuse to be victims, stand up for each other, and strike back? The right answer would be “of course not!”, but in Perpetrator, Reeder makes this point: If we have to ask that question, there’s already a huge problem.

Reviews

JULES – Review by Leslie Combemale

August 7, 2023August 6, 2023 Leslie Combemale Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, Jade Quon, Jane Curtin, Jules, marc turtletaub, Zoe Winters

With age comes invisibility. How do people struggling with that truth break out beyond it, to make new connections and have meaningful interactions? That’s really the starting point and the emotional touchstone for producer/director Marc Turtletaub’s new dramedy Jules. The trailer and tagline, (“You won’t believe what just crashed into Milton’s azaleas”), reveal the film is centered around how aging widower Milton (Ben Kingsley) handles an alien’s spaceship crashing into his backyard, but the sci-fi element is just a jumping-off point for a funny, poignant tale of friendship and loneliness.

Reviews

AURORA’S SUNRISE – Review by Leslie Combemale

July 30, 2023July 30, 2023 Leslie Combemale animation, Armenian Genocide, Auction of Souls, Aurora Mardiganian, Aurora’s Sunrise, hybrid documentary, Inna Sahakyan, Moebius, Ravished Armenia

Truth be told, I didn’t know much about the Armenian genocide before watching Inna Sahakyan’s award-winning animation/live action hybrid documentary, Aurora’s Sunrise. I had vague recollections of it from world history class as a violent event that predated the holocaust of World War II. Rest assured I walked away from the film with knowledge I’ll never forget, and that’s true for anyone who sees it.

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