A year after the debate stirred up by the torture scenes of “Zero Dark Thirty,” several films at the Toronto International Film Festival are taking up stories of torture and prisoner rights with obvious contemporary relevance.
In “Prisoners,” a rage-crazed father (Hugh Jackman) locks away the man (Paul Dano) he believes has kidnapped his daughter. “The Railway Man” looks at the lasting demons of a British officer (Colin Firth) who was water-boarded and tortured by the Japanese during World War II in Thailand.
Whereas “Zero Dark Thirty” sought to directly depict the interrogation techniques used by the United States in pursuit of Osama bin Laden (and found controversy for, many claimed, suggesting that torture paid intelligence dividends), these new films approach the subject more broadly and metaphorically. By contemplating the perspectives of both torturer and victim, they dig into questions of morality, revenge, forgiveness and human dignity.
In “Prisoners,” a father who will do anything for his missing daughter stands in for a vengeful America: National issues are told through a domestic lens. The Quebec director Denis Villeneuve responded to Aaron Guzikowski’s script because, he says, of how it “raised moral questions about our actions in the world.”
“I thought it was a pretty accurate portrait of North America today,” Villeneuve said in an interview. “It was pretty brilliant the way Aaron Guzikowki was describing tensions and moral questions that as North Americans we are dealing with. But he was approaching it from an intimate point of view.”
The film, which Warner Bros. will release Sept. 20, is about the varied reactions of a suburban community after two young girls go missing. When police, lacking evidence, are forced to release their chief suspect, Jackman’s father boards him up in a vacant building where he tries through different means of brutality to coerce him to talk.
“It was very much in the DNA of the script,” says Jackman of the film’s allegory. “What are the boundaries to justice on a national level? To act or not, to follow a gut instinct that you’re doing the right thing?”
Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays a police detective trying to navigate both the pursuit of the kidnapper and the rights of the case’s suspects, says the film’s themes don’t mean the movie is trying to weigh in on arguments about Guantanamo Bay or the treatment of captured terrorists. Rather, he says, it’s about the emotions underneath.
“I don’t think it’s politicized,” Gyllenhaal says. “It just brings it all the way back to the home.”
“The Railway Man,” which is based on the 1995 memoir by Eric Lomax, premiered at Toronto seeking distribution. Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and co-starring Nicole Kidman as Lomax’s wife, it’s about a man traumatized years after WWII by his experience as a prisoner of war.
As seen in flashbacks with Jeremy Irvine as the young Lomax, he was among the POWs forced to gruelingly work on the Thai-Burma railway. After an incident, he’s beaten, kept in a bamboo cage and water-boarded.
Years later, when Lomax learns the identity and whereabouts of his torturer, he must decide if he’ll reciprocate the same treatment on his former captor (Hiroyuki Sanada). Another film at the Toronto Film Festival, the upcoming Nelson Mandela biopic “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” also focuses on whether the unjustly imprisoned should seek payback through violence.
“These are very live issues,” Frank Cottrell Boyce, who wrote the script to “The Railway Man” with Andy Patterson, told reporters in Toronto.” This isn’t just about a forgotten moment in history. The way that Eric was tortured was water-boarding. When we first started working on this film that seemed like a kind of antique, remote thing, and now, it’s part of how we do business in the West.”
Director Lucrecia Signs With PRETTYBIRD For Her 1st U.S. Representation
PRETTYBIRD, the production company helmed by Paul Hunter, Kerstin Emhoff, and Ali Brown, has added award-winning filmmaker Lucrecia to its roster for U.S. commercial and music video representation. This marks the director’s first representation in the U.S. market.
Lucrecia has been signed to PRETTYBIRD UK since 2021, soon after winning UKMVA’s Best Pop Newcomer award for her Tarantino-esque music video for rapper/singer-songwriter Ashnikko--which the director pitched, prepped, and shot in only four days. Since joining PRETTYBIRD UK, Lucrecia has quickly made a name for herself. Her striking narratives, combined with a hyper-real aesthetic and iconic world creation, have been the centerpieces of her filmmaking and photography.
Her work has gone viral on more than one occasion. Her commercial for bibigo, “Live Delicious,” was widely admired and even recreated on an episode of Jimmy Kimmel. She has won awards from Kinsale Shark, Creative Circle, and UKMVA, as well as recognition at the Cannes Lions Young Directors Awards and Ciclope Awards.
Candice Dragonas, VP, talent strategy/executive producer PRETTYBIRD US, said of Lucrecia, “She brings a uniquely stylish approach to storytelling with the perfect splash of humor and playfulness. I admire her extreme passion for her craft and the drive to create at the top of her game.”
In addition to Lucrecia’s cinematic visual aesthetic, she routinely engages in another unique form of self-expression: nail art. She has had everything from whipped cream and cherries to chrome flames adorning her nails.
At PRETTYBIRD, Lucrecia joins a roster of filmmakers including Academy Award-winning duo Daniels (Everything Everywhere All At Once), A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand... Read More