Twilight Portrait - TIFF Day 2
At TIFF the Discovery programme is for gamblers: as low-budget, low-profile films by directors without any track record; it shouldn’t be surprising if many of these turn out to be slow, clichéd, or sometimes an unbearable mess. However I always try to see three or four from the Discovery programme because they are so unlikely to be released in Canada at theatres or even on DVD, and sometimes these unknown directors turn out to have fresh and powerful voices. Angelina Nikonova is a prime example: her debut feature Twilight Portrait is rivetting even though its scenes of humiliation, hardship, and sexual violence are so raw and realistic that you want to look away. Set in present-day Moscow, the film portrays a dysfunctional Russia in which bureaucrats actively discourage the reporting of crime, while policemen cavalierly rape women. Olga Dykhovichnaya, who co-wrote the script, gives a searing lead performance as Marina, a social worker who is raped by three cops and then seeks one of them out, her motives ambiguous. Shot on DV in a style that evokes early Dogme95, Twilight Portrait is the kind of movie that makes TIFF worth while. 10