A film about Winnipeg partly inspired by Detroit

More from Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma:

Deco Dawson’s Diaspora is a film featuring 25 languages but only limited subtitles, those being for when the principal character, Eva (Yuliia Guzhva), a just arrived immigrant from Ukraine, is speaking. You might think that’s a problem, especially with the film’s more than two hour length. But the concept works beautifully and you don't even notice the time because this story about a newcomer trying to make it in an alien society is just so engrossing. We follow Eva from her arrival by taxi (by a driver who speaks a different language) to her landlord (who speaks another language) as she gets settled in. Then, as she explores Winnipeg’s North End, a once bustling but now dilapidated neighborhood of old stores and decaying factories - indeed very similar to parts of Detroit - Eva tries to start a new life. But everyone she encounters is an immigrant, from the convenience store clerk to a vacuum cleaner salesman to her boss at a textile factory. Again, no subtitles, just Eva (Guzhva arrived in Canada herself very similarly a decade ago) trying to understand what the other person is saying, communication (or non-communication) usually made up of a lot of hand signaling, body gestures and emotional inflections.  These vignettes are absorbing simply because we’re basically experiencing what Eva is experiencing  - the frustration, miscues and at times anger - “what a fucking joke this is, there’s never anyone anywhere!” - when she can’t find someone with whom to communicate. (Not to take anything away from the film but it did occur to me that some of these other immigrants would probably have had a default basic English vocabulary.)  In a question and answer session after the film, director Dawson said it was his intention to film the stark images of  Winnipeg much like Detroit’s desolate neighborhoods. Dawson has filmed in Detroit and an earlier 2001 short film of his, FILM(dzama), won Best Technical Innovation award at the 2002 Ann Arbor Film Festival…..Belgian director Fabrice du Welz’s Inexorable is a taut psychological thriller about a famous author and an obsessed fan. It is probably the slickest (in a good way), most well paced and produced film I’ve seen at the festival so far, with several thrilling moments as the movie builds to a crescendo. Excellent performances from  Benoît Poelvoorde (Marcel, the author) and Alba Gaïa Bellugi (Gloria, his admirer), who also starred in the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) perennial favorite The Intouchables (2011)....Lucas Delangle's Jackie Caillou is one of those films about mystical powers that can have a certain appeal to those who are fascinated by the spiritual or supernatural. I'm not, but I won't let that bias my review. Jackie (Thomas Parigi) inherits his grandmother's gift for magnetic healing and befriends a female with whom he has amorous relations. But his attempts to heal her go awry and lead to devastating consequences. I can't fault the film's acting or overall direction; it's just not my type of subject matter.