TIFF 2016: “Old Stone,” “Layla M.”, “Past Life” | Festivals & Awards | Roger Ebert (2024)

Storiescomprised purely of heroes and villains often seem unwilling to acknowledge thefact that people, in a vast majority of cases, are utterly convinced that theyare doing the right thing. This notion makes for exceedingly more interestingdrama, as evidenced by two Cannes prize-winners screening at Toronto, AsgharFarhadi’s “The Salesman” and Cristian Mungiu’s “Graduation.” Both films featureprotagonists who defy societal standards of morality because they believe it isin the best interests of their loved ones. Though we may be shocked by theiractions, we are left pondering whether we would’ve acted differently had webeen in their shoes. If society is inherently unjust, then who’s to say what ismoral? What is an individual really worth when their right to life is judged bythe contents of their bank account?

Justimagine, for a moment, that you’re Lao Shi, the Chinese taxi driver in JohnnyMa’s agonizing debut feature, “Old Stone.”An intoxicated man is thrust into your cab, grabs your arm and causes you tohit a motorcyclist. With time ticking away, you are forced to make a crucialdecision: do you wait for the ambulance and risk having the wounded man die onthe street, or do you take him to the hospital yourself? The latter would seemto be the most sensible decision, not to mention the most humane, and that isprecisely what Lao does. What he soon learns, however, is that by saving theman’s life, he has sealed his own fate. Suddenly, he’s faced with unpayablehospital bills, a crumbling marriage and a now-sobered-up accomplice unwillingto take any form of responsibility. The bleak lesson Lao is repeatedly facedwith is that it would’ve been wiser to simply let the innocent man die. Thesystem is designed to punish those who act on good-hearted intentions.

Ma’sfilm would be pitilessly depressing if it weren’t so expertly suspenseful, andat a crisp 80-minute running time, the film kept me entertained even as itdrove me nuts. Sure, there are aspects of Lao’s plight that feel too neatlycontrived, and the final descent into grisly violence nearly derails thepicture altogether. What anchors every scene is the performance by Chen Gang asa tragic everyman whose sanity is gradually dismantled by the cruelindifference of an uncaring world. At a time when my own personal frustrationwith America’s health care system has peaked, I found it effortless toempathize with Lao’s mounting outrage. When a bureaucracy values profit oversurvival, we are as helpless as the swaying trees featured in Ma’s recurringvisual motif, forever vulnerable to the winds of chance.

Thedanger of any belief system claiming to be the One True Faith is the potentialof its followers to become radicalized. One of the most bewildering mysteriesof fanaticism is how it can cause otherwise independently minded people tobecome willfully oppressed. “Layla M.”,the powerful drama from Dutch director Mijke de Jong, guides us through everystep of its titular heroine’s evolution from a headstrong rebel into a virtualprisoner. As portrayed by remarkable newcomer Nora El Koussour, Layla doesn’tat all fit the stereotypical profile of a future terrorist. She’s aDutch-Moroccan teen fed up with Amsterdam’s discriminatory measures against Muslims,such as a burqa ban that she openly protests, much to the chagrin of her familyand friends. When she chastises her older brother for shaving off his beard, heexplains to her that his view of Islam isn’t a political one, and doesn’trequire rigorous devotion to archaic customs. For Layla, cloaking herself in aburqa is an expression of her individuality rather than the extinguishment ofit, and as the ties to her past become increasingly frayed, she finds herselfdrawn into a relationship with a young jihadist, Abdel (Ilias Addab).

Servingas a fitting companion piece to Hany Abu-Assad’s 2005 masterwork, “ParadiseNow,” de Jong’s film makes each of its protagonist’s choices frighteninglycomprehensible by involving us in her rightful indignation. It isn’t until shearrives in her new life with Abdel that the mood shifts, and she starts to betreated more and more like a submissive servant rather than a participant. “I’mnot just here to cook fish, you know,” she tenderly informs Abdel, whose responseis mere awkward silence. The film’s most riveting scenes occur in its last act,as Layla begins pushing back against the restrictions placed upon her by aculture that had initially promised acceptance. Though the central charactersare Islamic, the themes of disillusionment and alienation resonate on auniversal level. This is an indelible example of how cinema can unite us duringtimes of extreme division by placing an achingly human face on people the24-hour news cycle teaches us to fear.

Justas Layla is told that “hatred doesn’t get anybody anywhere,” Agnieszka(Katarzyna Gniewkowska) in Avi Nesher’s “PastLife” is encouraged to forgive. Of course, that is much easier said thandone. “She has such a tight grip on the past that she has little room for thepresent,” her son, Thomas (Rafael Stachowiak), explains to Sephi (Joy Rieger),the new woman in his life. She’s a fresh-faced Israeli singer whose familiarfeatures trigger traumatic memories in Agnieszka’s mind during a Berlinconcert. Confronting Sephi afterward, Agnieszka charges her as being the“daughter of a murderer.” Upon returning to her home in Tel Aviv, a blindsidedSephi shares the story with her older sister, Nana (Nelly Tagar of “ZeroMotivation”). Already harboring a paranoia regarding her father’s murky past,Nana pushes Sephi to join her in investigating the acts he committed in Polandduring World War II. Once their father, Baruch (a wrenching Doron Tavory),learns of their suspicion, he insists on sharing his side of the story withthem, in the hope that it will put his daughter’s doubts to rest. Though hiswords contextualize the desperate choices one makes when entrenched in the hellof war, they do not spell the end of Nana and Sephi’s pursuit for the truth.

Asidefrom a few fleeting, imagined flashbacks, the past is left entirely off-screen,leaving us to parse through it ourselves. Nesher’s film is a richly movingexperience in part because all of the characters are essentially good peoplecaught in difficult situations. “Past Life” is an ode to the cleansing need forforgiveness—between siblings, between strangers and between generations. Facedwith a life-threatening diagnosis, Nana claims that she’s paying for herfather’s sins, though Sephi points out that it was her choice to smoke foryears. Agnieszka clings to the belief that all atrocities are committed bymonsters bereft of humanity, yet what makes the Holocaust—and all acts ofgenocide or terrorism, for that matter—so deeply troubling is that it wascarried out by ordinary people susceptible to the same destructive instincts weall share. Rushing to judgment has been rendered easier than ever by moderntechnology, yet “Past Life” asks us to think twice before voicing an opinion ona retweeted headline.