SLIFF 2009: North Face

2008 // Germany - Austria // Philipp Stölzl // November 13, 2009 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema)

Richard Wagner is name-checked in Philipp Stölzl Nazi-era mountaineering thriller, North Face, which is appropriate (and not just due to the swastikas). Towering and bombastic, often in moments when such a grandiose tone is entirely unearned, the film chronicles the attempt by two German enlisted men goaded by Nazi propaganda (and a little ambition) to conquer the north face--a.k.a., "The Murder Wall"--of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps. Stölzl's approach is strictly Hollywood by way of Deutschland, complete with soaring orchestral gestures and a pining love interest (Johanna Wokalek, as far from her radical she-devil in The Baader-Meinhof Complex as can be.) The director frequently overplays his hand, particularly with vaguely repugnant supporting characters that have little function other than to compare unfavorably to our Aryan heroes. Which isn't to say the North Face isn't damn thrilling in the moment, particularly with Stölzl keeps his focus on the climbers' ordeal and their astoundingly low-tech methods and tools. With a little CGI wizardry, the film renders the Eiger as a truly terrifying creature in its own right, seemingly more at home in one of Wagner's Teutonic myths (or Middle-Earth) than Switzerland.

SLIFF 2009: An Education

2009 // UK // Lone Scherfig // November 12, 2009 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Tivoli Theater)

An Education is a fairly conventional coming-of-age-story that is enlivened and elevated by abundant, magnificent acting. To be sure, Nick Hornby's screenplay boasts plenty of cheek and a canny, understated awareness of its early 1960s British setting. Meanwhile, director Lone Scherfig operates in a mode that is comfortable with melodrama and also assured enough to toss aside its emotional excesses. Scherfig permits her narrative's most pivotal developments to unfold off-screen, but her commanding storytelling ensures that the film never misses a beat. Everything we need to know is up there. That said, An Education would probably have been nothing more than an old story--girl falls for charming cad, girl gets burned, girl moves on--told quite well. It would have, that is, if not for a plethora of dazzling performances. Carey Mulligan is almost spookily well-cast as ambitious and dissatisfied teen Jenny, but equally vital are Peter Sarsgaard in a challenging role as her creepy, oddly vulnerable, and (much) older paramour, and an engrossing Alfred Molina, proving yet again that his best characters are usually well-meaning boobs. Heck, Rosamund Pike deserves praise for lending texture to her ditsy playgirl almost entirely through sideways glances and glum expressions.