Toronto International Film Festival: Days 1-2

Pub date September 5, 2008
WriterCheryl Eddy
SectionPixel Vision

If you ask me, there’s no better way to start your Toronto International Film Festival experience than with a film that contains a money shot revolving around a shredded set of intestines. Ohhh yeah, I knew the France-UK-Belgium co-production Vinyan was gonna be intense when I noted the director, Fabrice Du Welz, had also helmed 2004’s Calvaire — one of those don’t-get-off-the-main-road horror flicks that rang more depraved than most. In Vinyan, we meet well-off Euro couple Paul (Rufus Sewell) and Jeanne (Emmanuelle Beart) whose Christmas vacation turned to horror when their young son was washed away in the Indian Ocean tsunami six months prior. Or was he? Semi-convinced that he may instead have been kidnapped, the pair has stayed in Thailand grasping at hope — and in Jeanne’s case, sanity. A Heart of Darkness-style excursion into the wilds of Burma (where’s John Rambo when you need him?) pushes both partners into places of utter terror, both physical and psychological. Vinyan is also the best freaky-little-kids movie I’ve seen in awhile — we’re talking Who Can Kill a Child? (1976) territory here.