TIFF25: “Levers” Captures Dreamy Imagery of a Changing World
This review was originally published on Film Obsessive.
Rhayne Vermette’s Levers shows life after the Big Bang. No, not that one. It’s a slightly smaller bang with less noticeable repercussions, but that doesn’t mean it was only a whimper. Levers premieres at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Wavelengths program. This section of the festival is for the boundary pushers. The ones who take film as we know it and push its celluloid boundaries to ventures we’ve never seen before. Levers, likely named for the French word for “sunrise,” is a marvel akin to discovering life itself.
A small town in the Red River Valley gathers for the unveiling of a new statue. It’s meant to commemorate the past and look to the future, as all good creations do. As the day winds down, the sun disappears, but this is not like every other day. Today, the world is plunged into a full twenty-four hours of darkness. Levers takes the audience through the aftermath of this bizarre event, when the world has been fundamentally altered but it’s just another day. Told in episodic chapters marked by scratchy, hand-drawn, Tarot-esque cards that appear on-screen, Levers loosely follows the Sculptor (Val Vint), a Security Guard (Will George), and a Civil Servant (Andrina Turenne) whose lives ebb and flow into each other.
courtesy of TIFF
Levers opens with a lyric from Sun Ra’s song “When There Is No Sun.” The song goes, “The light was crucified on this planet, there’s nothing but darkness anyway. And it’s knocking at your door.” Light is a scarce commodity in this film. Every small glimpse we get of it reignites the fundamental human need for some light source. To feel warmth on our skin, to have a glow on our face from the pale blue light of the staticky television set. Levers reminds us that we are no better than moths with their flames. We are yearning, grasping for that massive fiery ball in the sky. Taking it for granted when it’s there, listless, aware of the proverbial end when it’s gone. How do humans react when the steady, relentless celestial body we have built our civilization on stutters for a moment? When it no longer is something we can rely on? Does that mean all we have is ourselves?
It’s quite difficult to wrap your head around a narrative thread that’s working linearly toward a neat, tidy bow. Levers does not give an answer as to why there was a global day of darkness, and the film makes it obvious from the beginning that this isn’t the type of movie that’s concerned with that. In fact, Levers seems to actively discourage the audience from looking at this series of images in a logical manner. At every turn, Levers bobs when you want it to weave, actively avoiding being captured in a way that’s easy to synopsize. The film is an esoteric exercise in human mortality. To some, that’s a nightmare scenario, but Levers has the ability to please those who may not seek out experimental films, yet are open to the possibility of letting something like this wash over them.
courtesy of TIFF
By Vermette’s own admission, Levers was shot on a series of broken Bolexes over the period of a year. The result is quite mesmerizing, extracting colors that feel too bold and deep to exist in our reality. One of the early images is of the deep red curtain billowing over the mysterious stature. The red alone is enough to take your breath away, and then your eyes notice the lush greenery behind and the pale, bold blue sky above. When the world falls into darkness, you remember what was taken from you. The reds, blues, and greens that are so indulgent to the eye.
Vermette makes a second appearance at TIFF this year as cinematographer for Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie’s Midnight Madness closer, Dead Lover. The films could not be more different in terms of look and story, but they’re united by a fierce vision and individualism. If the future of Canadian film looks like Levers and Dead Lover, we are certainly in for a treat. Levers is a slice of life that has been altered irrevocably and captured in an utterly magnificent fashion.
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