TIFF16 Film #1

Reason for Pick – Eli’s Hayes’ review out of Cannes

Toni Erdmann is a complex dance that paints the outline of the relationship between a lonely father and his career occupied daughter, who's living abroad.

I went in with the impression that this was going to be two hours and forty minutes of non-stop laughter. It isn’t. While there are frequent laugh-out-loud moments, and two scenes that sends the audience into fits, the remainder ranges from poignant to painful to awkward. Writer / Director Maren Ade isn’t afraid to linger on a shot, often cutting a few seconds after the natural beat, which gives a feeling of reality over scripted drama. She also isn’t afraid to use…

[8]

Well, Christian Petzold broke the ice, but it looks like Maren Ade's going to bring it home: the "Berlin School" has broken beyond the rarefied festival circuit to produce bona fide hits. What's particularly shocking about this turn of events is that, unlike other segments of the austere art-film universe, the Berlin School appears to have crossed over into the mainstream almost by accident. Apart from slightly more direct plotting, there's nothing about Petzold's Phoenix that made it inherently more accessible than his earlier films. And now, Ade gives us Toni Erdmann, a generational comedy that, at its core, is about the inappropriate character and unavoidable embarrassment that accompanies "humor" between the generations.

Ade has long been the stealth…

El Padre Imaginario

En la pelìcula Toni Erdmann de la directora Maren Ade, se nos presenta un escenario interesante: El regreso del padre.

Un regreso dentro de la trama de una mujer que lleva una vida -se podría decir- normal, agitada e infeliz. Este inesperado regreso se manifiesta de manera peculiar al ser un retorno a lo íntimo, una invasión, si se quiere.

La intimidad en la obra de Ade trata varias capas y resulta interesante poder visualizarlas, percibirlas.

En una de las escenas el padre irrumpe en el apartamento de Inès, escuchamos primero la cadena del baño, y luego, el padre se esconde en el closet, hasta ser descubierto. Estos dos lugares no son coincidencia ya que representan los…

Once I read about the raves at Cannes this film received I was eager and optimistic to check it out since comedy isn’t my particularly favorite or well executed genre in film. Despite the seemingly mixed reviews I was worried, but much to my surprise, ‘Toni Erdmann’ delivered impressively. This is a brilliant unconventional and witty interpretation on separation and reconnection in today’s world. It’s a 3-hour German comedy about father-daughter estrangement that is incredibly comical, incredibly moving and unexpectedly tender. Every moment is carefully designed for a reason to help express this clever comedic tale that will make you contemplate your own humanity. This is an arthouse pleaser that feels very eccentric and weird, a successfully curious film that…

Maybe the best foreign-language film of 2016, Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann is a beguiling and unforgettable father-daughter story that will have you in tears, from both laughing and crying, as writer-director Ade shares her triumph with two fantastic lead actors. Peter Simonischek is sheer perfection as Winfried Conradi, a divorced, semi-retired piano teacher who fancies himself a master of disguise. He gets a kick out of confusing friends with wigs, fake teeth, whoopee cushions and various accents. His best audience of course, is his dog. But when the dog dies, Winfried defies intimations of mortality and decides to reconnect with his only child, Ines Sandra Huller, superb). Ines is a 30-ish corporate management exec, a cold exec who instructs employers…