Toronto 2019: From Budapest to the Zeitgeist

FQ Editor B. Ruby Rich reviews the offerings at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, the first under the new leadership of Cameron Bailey and Joana Vicente. Avoiding Hollywood's tentpole films and Oscar buzz, Rich instead hunts down films presenting subtle studies of human behavior, in most cases with the help of subtitles. From the latest efforts from established art-house favorites Pedro Almodovar, Oliver Assayas, and Elia Suleiman, to discoveries such as the Romanian documentary Colectiv (Alexander Nanau, 2019) and the Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz's A Vida Invisível (The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, 2019), Rich finds ample reassurance of film's emotive power and ability to provide a moral compass in challenging times.