More 55th CIFF (BABYTEETH and A GIRL MISSING)

This week at Cine-File I covered BABYTEETH, playing at CIFF this weekend. You'll find my comments mixed into our coverage of CIFF. 

Meanwhile at the fest, I was also able to catch up with...

A Girl Missing 

Koji Fukada (HARMONIUM) brings a tangled psychological drama about societal dysfunction and a devoted home nurse, Ichiko (Mariko Tsutsui), who tutors the two grand-daughters of her elderly charge. Ichiko's world is rocked when her nephew, he of flat affect, briefly abducts one of the sisters. Crucially, Ichiko withholds her connection to the kidnapper from the family until it is too late and tabloid media distorts her life beyond all recognition. Meanwhile, the kidnapped girl's sister (Mikado Ichikawa) harbors an odd, possessive crush on Ichiko. Behaving like a wounded stalker, she becomes a wrecking-ball in Ichiko's life, so Ichiko plots revenge by seducing the girl's rather blank boyfriend (Sosuke Ikematsu). Everyone's a bit cracked in Fukado's world; his storytelling deftly shifts between past and present, until history catches up with our disturbed protagonist in the second half. Galvanizing acting by Tsutsui as Ichiko could remind you of Gena Rowlands. Fairly intriguing, though an Ostlund, Lanthimos or Haneke might have given this material an extra turn of the screw. Worth a watch.