It Must Be Heaven (2019) Review

Title: It Must Be Heaven
Year: 2019
Director: Elia Sulieman
Country: Palestine
Language: French

Best known for Divine Intervention (2002), which won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, Elia Sulieman is a Palestenian director who's cinematic style has been compared to Jaqcues Tati and Buster Keaton. I was at the Q&A for his film It Must be Heaven at the Toronto International Film Festival. Sulieman has a great sense of humour, saying "If you don't like this film, I have a brother...and he's big!" He also appeared to be a big film buff as he jokingly claimed he "stole from a lot of sources" for his movie. 

Elia Suleiman's unnamed character travels to different cities and finds himself in quite odd and hilarious scenes. 

A dash of Keaton, a sprinkle of Tati, and a pinch of Python can be found in It Must Be Heaven. It's an abusrd picture made of vignettes that comically compares Sulieman's hometown of Nazareth to the rest of the world (mainly France and New York). Each vignette starts with an observational shot, then shows Sulieman's reaction to it, and then edits back and forth between the two. The funniest can be seen in the middle of the film when police officers are trying to measure the length of an outdoor cafe and Sulieman is in the middle, quietly drinking his coffee. 

In It Must Be Heaven Sulieman is satirising the security and policing that happens everywhere in the world, while pointing out that the West take such matters incredibly casually. We take our freedom of movement for granted. The vignettes about the US demonstrate how preposterous it is that people can buy automatic weapons in the super-maket. Certainly can't do that in Nazareth. 

It Must Be Heaven is a healthy mix of comedy and politics. One can get something out of this film, even if they know nothing about Palestine. This is a picture that deserves serveral viewings and perhaps a trip to the library. 

Devil Between the Legs (2019) Review

Title: Devil Between the Legs

Year: 2019

Director: Arturo Ripstein

Country: Mexico

Language: Spanish

Early September 2019 my wife and I went to Toronto International Film Festival for the first time. We saw four films; Devil Between the Legs, A Hidden Life, Lucy in the Sky and It Must Be Heaven. Devil played at the Bell Lightbox at 9:15pm. I quite liked the theatre, as it had an elevator butler and very high quality seating. The distance between the seating and screen made it so pretty much every seat in the house was a good one. After Devil I was able to meet the director Aruro Ripstein for a Q&A. It was a memorable experience. 

Beatriz (Silvia Pasquel) and the Old Man (Alejandro Suárez) have been together for decades. A retired homeopathic pharmacist, the Old Man now divides his time between their Mexico City home where he shuffles around in his housecoat, raging against Beatriz, and paying secret visits to his mistress. Beatriz, when not bearing the brunt of the Old Man's tirades, sneaks out to take tango lessons.

Devil Between the Legs feels like what would happen if Luis Bunuel remade Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). It's a bold and innovative picture that treads a fine line, narrowly avoiding being too offensive or off-putting to be enjoyable. Ripstein does what very few have thought of in cinema; put the erotic desires and impulses of a geriatric couple in their 70's at the forefront of this drama-comedy. 

Even if you're, like me, a bit confused about what to make of the picture, I can certainly attest that Devil Between the Legs is quite memorable. The cinematography and set design seem to be quite in sync with the deterioating condition of the couple throughout the film. The weird dynamics within the picture are complimented with a strong script that brings our characters to a more sympathetic and endearing light. A poor director/writer would have made us detest these people, but instead we see outselves within them.