From September 26–October 6, the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) held its 43rd iteration, showcasing the work of filmmakers around the globe.
Whether you snagged tickets well in advance like I did, or stood for hours in the standby lines, the festival brought audiences together to celebrate their shared love of cinema through films like No Other Land to Emilia Pérez.
This year, thanks to VIFF’s free U25 membership, I had the pleasure of watching A Different Man and Anora. Though these two films couldn’t be more different in their subject matter, they both left me walking out of the theatre with a face sore from laughing and racking my brain to decipher what the last two hours had all meant. In their separate approaches to dark comedy, not only were these films exhilarating, they also demanded their audiences to consider the moments of tragic poignancy in between the deadpan and the slapstick.
A Different Man
Directed and written by Aaron Schimberg, A Different Man follows Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan), a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis who is down on his luck. Seemingly in conversation with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, the film tackles similar questions of the self and its presentation in everyday life, albeit through an entirely different lens. With the physical manner of his condition, Edward is well aware of what it’s like to be stared at.
Amid the noise of his insecurities, Edward’s eccentric, beautiful, aspiring playwright next-door neighbour Ingrid Vold (Renate Reinsve) comes in. For a moment, it seems that this friendship may be enough to reshape Edward’s outlook on life, but his newfound confidence quickly turns on itself, prompting him to take on an experimental procedure. Peeling off his skin, Edward leaves his old self behind, donning a new mask as Guy Moratz.
With his new face, Guy becomes a dashing and incredibly successful real estate agent. But when he learns that Ingrid is staging a production based on his past life, Guy insists he plays the part. As Guy’s performance is interrupted when Oswald (Adam Pearson) passes by, the film begins to suggest that perhaps appearance was never the issue for Edward/Guy in the first place. As someone with neurofibromatosis himself, Oswald is everything that Edward/Guy aren’t: charming, full of zest, inquisitive. Here, the film starts to take on a number of its own masks — a meta-cinematic play within a film, grappling with the tensions between the interior and the self.
By the end, Edward’s turmoil as his sense of self completely collapses in the face of Oswald reveals that not even the most life-changing physical transformation strategies can resolve what’s going on within. In a further meta-cinematic gesture, Oswald evokes the timeless Shakespearean question: to be or not to be? A Different Man, through the entanglements between Edward, Guy and Oswald, dangles this question in front of its characters and the audience, leaving them to make that decision for themselves.
Anora
From The Florida Project’s Sean Baker, Anora tells the story of Ani (Mikey Madison), a 20-something person living in Brooklyn as a sex worker. In this world of pulsing strobe lights and exposed skin, the film — despite revolving around two lovers from different worlds — is no fairytale; instead, it takes the classic Cinderella story as we know it and parodies it, providing thrilling yet heartbreaking commentary on the nature of sex work.
Anora kicks off when Ani meets Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) after he requests a Russian-speaking dancer. Vanya, as the son of a Russian oligarch, is rolling in it, requesting Ani’s services night after night. Somewhere in these exchanges and transactions, the line between lust and love is blurred. And on one of these sex-charged nights, Vanya proposes to Ani and she accepts.
But just like I said, this isn’t happily ever after. As much as we’re tempted to believe that we’ve seen this film before — Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in Pretty Woman — the fun is just getting started.
When word of Ani and Vanya’s clandestine marriage makes its way to Russia, the film ushers in a game of cat and mouse across New York City as Vanya flees and his father’s goons are sent after Ani, who ultimately teams up with her chasers to find Vanya. In a whirlwind of English and Russian one-liners and jabs, Anora finds its comedic relief in the band of misfits composed of Ani, Igor (Yura Borisov), Toros (Karren Karagulian) and Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan).
At face value, Anora is an incredibly exhilarating and fun film. But at the end, Ani is left exactly how she started: precarious and vulnerable. You’d be surprised at how silent a packed theatre that had erupted in laughter at every other line could become when left to grapple with the film’s last few minutes. I can attest that I’ve never previously watched a movie that made me that guilty for enjoying it. But that’s exactly the question Anora leaves you with: how much are you willing to spend for temporary, no-strings-attached fun?
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