Edvard Munch2026-01-31
Toronto, ON
This is unlike anything I've ever seen. It's not your classic biopic by any means. It operates like a documentary, and does in a way feel made for television, but it evokes the man's life in a way that feels so authentic and lived in. The presentation is cyclical, bouncing around haphazardly, but it somehow works incredibly well. Stylistically, everything feels boxed in, zooming and panning around, but never really quite deciding what to focus on — perhaps symbolic of the inner-workings of the mind of an artist. And reading up a bit more on the production of this, it's fascinating to learn that Peter Watkins cast this film by placing adverts in local Oslo newspapers. So the players here are all non-actors. Insane that the actor that played Munch here only has one credit to his name.
Watched on 35mm at the TIFF Lightbox, in memoriam of Peter Watkins. Very rare print, and an old one at that, old enough that it had shifted in colour and appeared magenta on the screen. But that honestly added to the experience. It's pretentious to say, but this felt more like an art exhibition than a movie. Not the kind of event where you roll up with a bucket of popcorn. And folks were confused walking out of this screening after three hours, thinking there should have been an additional forty minutes of content, but this was the theatrical cut, not the television version. So no, it wasn't that the print was in such bad shape that we were cheated out of some missing frames.
Watched on 35mm at the TIFF Lightbox, in memoriam of Peter Watkins. Very rare print, and an old one at that, old enough that it had shifted in colour and appeared magenta on the screen. But that honestly added to the experience. It's pretentious to say, but this felt more like an art exhibition than a movie. Not the kind of event where you roll up with a bucket of popcorn. And folks were confused walking out of this screening after three hours, thinking there should have been an additional forty minutes of content, but this was the theatrical cut, not the television version. So no, it wasn't that the print was in such bad shape that we were cheated out of some missing frames.