originally published September 13, 2009
Too long for Twitter, too brief for the capsule page, some quick takes on films screened at this year's TIFF:
This one's a documentary, only 45 minutes long, and scheduled to air on Canadian TV in the coming weeks. It's nightmarish, but not for the same reason it intends. Director and narrator Min Sook Lee is a new mother growing increasingly paranoid about the invisible threats to her daughter; in the film's best sequence, she invites a toy tester into her home to check for lead and soon has him scanning her whole kitchen for traces of the stuff. (Cut to: hubby tearing out the cupboards.) The punchline is that a tox screen reveals her daughter is practically antiseptic, though Lee's closing voiceover suggests she won't be satisfied until the kid's fitted for a Hazmat suit. Setting out to enlighten and inform her fellow parents, Lee instead captured the onset of OCD from the eye of the storm. Also: Pox Parties? Ick. ***/4
