Reprise

I’d advise you to run out and see this film but alas, both screenings at TIFF have already taken place. So you’re gonna have to create a spreadsheet or word document or write down the title of this film somewhere on a piece of paper and then periodically check to see if it’s been released or is available on dvd. My point: see this film.

From the opening montage of quick edits which imagine the future of the two central characters (described in at least one review as an homage to Truffaut’s Jules et Jim but a more recent cultural reference might be those flash, still photo sequences which sketched out the future for some of the characters that the title character would pass while in motion, could almost stand alone as a great short film Tykwer’s Run Lola Run) to a similarly structured, somewhat ambiguous conclusion, this is a film with a lot of passion, energy, humour, and dead-on observations on human relationships.

I hate to ‘over recommend’ a film because it inevitably inflates expectations and leads to disappointment but this is the best one I’ve seen in some time. Sometimes a film just hits every note with precision, capturing what it's like to grow old, struggle with your place in the world and your aspirations to be something interesting to yourself and to the world. If you're guy, that is. If there were any criticisms to make or biases to acknowledge is that this is mostly a guy's film, told from a guy's perspective with keen insight into how guy's tease one another, resist growing old and accepting responsibility, and try to find their place in the world. But I don't think it's a film just for guys; if anything, it provides a glimpse into just how ridiculous and self-important men can be, as well as how difficult it can be to try age with purpose and make real connections with the women in their lives.

Another admission of bias: I'm a huge Joy Division fan and keep thinking back to the opening credit sequence, which shows the characters in the film marching in, and sometimes drunkenly staggering through, an Independence Day parade in Norway (independence from…any Norwegians care to lend a hand with a brief history lesson) while ‘New Dawn Fades’ blares through the soundtrack.