Toronto 2003: Day by Day
Day 1
Schedule: Lost in Translation (9:30 a.m.); Crimson Gold (12:15 p.m.); Les Triplettes de Belleville (2:15 p.m.); Ong-Bak Muay: Thai Warrior (4 p.m.); The Tesseract (8:15 p.m.)
Quote of the Day: "Do you have a fever? Do you have trouble breathing? Have you been in contact with a SARS-affected person in the last 10 days?" - Yes / No questions on a "self-assessment questionnaire" handed out to all incoming passengers at Toronto International Airport.
Hot Dog of the Day: For the uninitiated, a major part of Toronto's charms lies in its street-meat, with massive hot dogs available from C$2 (cheap!) at street vendors 24/7. Today's specimen - consumed around 11 p.m. - is a Polish sausage topped with ketchup, mustard and that funny green relish. Alas, it's a disappointment, the meat bland and almost watery, cooked to unattractive shade of pink. Hope to do better in Days 2-9.
Film of the Day: Memo to the folks behind LOST IN TRANSLATION (47) (dir., Sofia Coppola) Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris (and I guess the folks who love it, since it's turning into one of the most-loved films of the year): ennui is one thing, boredom quite another. The former is the nameless sense of spiritual dread Antonioni talks about; the latter is the American tourist in Japan's whiny distress when she visits a local shrine and complains that "I didn't feel anything" - a life based on instant gratification - or our heroes' eye-rolling, what-a-drag response to Life's little nuisances, invariably perpetrated by folks less self-aware than themselves - a lounge singer who murders "Scarborough Fair", a wife who sends stupid faxes asking about carpet samples in the middle of the night, a meeting with know-nothing fans, a night with a husband who snores. What's fatuous about the film is the way everyday annoyances get treated like indicators of some deep malaise, though of course only when experienced by its oh-so-sensitive heroes (when the bimbo actress makes fun of "Arigato" she's being cheap and racist, but when Bill Murray says "Short and sweet - very Japanese" he's making some sort of Wry Comment): Murray's persona is really like W.C. Fields', exasperated by Life's idiocies - except Fields never tried to pretend that being exasperated was a mark of nobility, nor did he mix his comedy with this kind of tortured pathos.
Those who like the film obviously find something beyond mockery in Murray's performance: David Denby in the "New Yorker" singles out the scene where movie star Murray does various takes of the commercial he's in Japan to film, praising the way he responds to the Japanese director's demands for more "intensity" ("he finds cold passion," sez Denby) - yet that whole scene is infused with Murray's contempt for his colleagues, and the film makes it clear he's (a) being badly directed and (b) to be applauded for his patience (we even get the ancient gag where a lengthy rant in Japanese gets translated into a few short words in English, which should be a key moment - note the title - but just seems like a gag). There's a film to be made about artists crafting Art in the face of language barriers, but not when the emphasis is so unequal - tired professional Murray vs. absurd bombastic director who wants it played more "Lat Pack", thus making one of many crude ethnic jokes (see also "Lock and loll", "Lip my stocking") and allowing Murray to bring down the house with Joey Bishop imitations. Self-congratulatory tone is hard to take, especially when everyone's a figure of fun except the central couple, two lost souls finding sanctuary in each other - and the film doesn't even have the gumption to create a private world for them, i.e. they do nothing much together (a few one-liners, the occasional word of reassurance; even the chastity seems misguided in a film that begins with a sexy shot of a panty-clad bottom): the point is that finding sanctuary is enough, which works if you're doing (say) a Mike Leigh film where the world seems oppressive and impossible, or even THE VIRGIN SUICIDES where the world seems confused and unfair - but not if you've just spent the previous 90 minutes making fun of that world, and affirming your superiority over it.
LOST IN TRANSLATION is amusing and good-looking, but it works in a particularly noxious way: heroes are surrounded by everyday nuisances, the kind any audience can identify with; their detachment from the nuisances makes them 'special' - spiritual fugitives in a world of kitsch - therefore makes the audience special too; then they bond over their specialness, and the audience bonds too. There is something magical when Murray sings Roxy Music's awesome "More Than This" at a karaoke party, but the magic depends on (a) previous familiarity with the song's awesomeness, (b) awareness that this swoony, seductive song is the opposite of what you'd expect to hear at a karaoke party, and (c) delight in the fact that cool American stars (Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson) are subverting a lame Japanese standby (karaoke). This is a film where isolation in a strange land is expressed in terms of bad pop-culture - porno comics on the subway, weird talk-shows on TV - when in fact those things are usually the only consolation about being alone in a new place; the real problem is that isolation acts as a reminder of one's inadequacy, making one feel small and inferior like a kid in a new school. LOST IN TRANSLATION should be a film where Bill Murray gets humiliated for 90 minutes, tries and fails to understand Japan and finally finds some tiny measure of salvation with equally 'lost' Scarlett Johansson; instead he's Thora Birch in a glossy version of "Enid Goes Tokyo".
Rest of the Day: CRIMSON GOLD (75) (dir., Jafar Panahi): Kiarostami-scripted, and a return to the kind of work he was making before he became "Kiarostami" - cynical, hard-hitting, resolutely urban with a cruel streak. A reflection of today's Iran, a battle between pointless repression and hedonist modernity - both alien to the spirit of the Revolution, as represented by our hero. Lovely style, alternating travelling motorbike shots with static-camera set-ups, action often wandering offscreen; also nice to see an Iranian film with voluble characters, small-time crooks and comic relationships (notably the central duo, one big and taciturn, the other small and garrulous). Best Iranian flick since TASTE OF CHERRY. § LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE (67) (dir., Sylvain Chomet): Awesome to look at, though it's just sight-gags really (maybe with a touch of AMELIE nostalgia). Bit of a Wallace and Gromit sensibility - complicated devices doing intricate tasks, an old woman and a dog going after fiendish villains - but very French, cycling and frogs' legs playing featured roles (though the latter are eaten by the film's version of Americans). Tati reference apposite, though I'm not sure that kind of stuff works so well in a cartoon. Highlights: the frog dinner, ship followed by pedal-boat, 30s-style opening with maddeningly catchy song. § ONG-BAK MUAY: THAI WARRIOR (59) (dir., Prachya Pinkaew): Victor has the details on this one (see his Sept. 11 entry), though also note the graffiti message in the background of a scene: "Hi, Spielberg. Let's do it together". Spielberg would doubtless add more structure and maybe cut 15 mins. - plus no way would the heroine be so passive in a Hollywood flick, taking no part at all in the action - but the sentiment is valid: Thai boxing could well be the next big thing, on this evidence. Wall-to-wall action with slapstick Keatonesque touches; goes on a bit too long, though. § THE TESSERACT (27) (dir., Oxide Pang): Everything connected, blah blah, "lives collide" blah blah, "we see it unravelled, but not the thing itself", yeah whatever. Incoherent nonsense, not helped by flashy style and horribly cutesy child actor. English Not Our First Language Dept.: "More money than you've ever dreamed of. Say, twice as much..."
Lesson of the Day: Never trust a Coppola.
Day 2
Schedule: Dogville (9 a.m.); Elephant (1:45 p.m.); The Fog of War (4 p.m.); Free Radicals (6 p.m.); Broken Wings (8:30 p.m.); The Cooler (10:30 p.m.)
Appropriate Dialogue of the Day: "I've got so much going on in my head"; "That must be very tiring for you" - Paul Bettany and Nicole Kidman in DOGVILLE.
Hot Dog of the Day: No time for hot dogs on a busy film day, but I did spot Scott Tobias tucking into one around 3:30 p.m., and rushed over to investigate. Mustard and (inevitably) onions. What kind of hot dog was it? "Just a regular hot dog," he replied with a touch of impatience. Not a connoisseur, obviously...
Film(s) of the Day: Watching the two Cannes heavyweights back-to-back was instructive, if only in affirming what's hot and what's not amid today's highbrow critics. ELEPHANT (51) (dir., Gus Van Sant) John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Alex Frost was much-liked in "Film Comment" and "Cinema Scope" circles, and seems to be about the unknowability of Truth - at least when it's about anything at all, giving the sense Van Sant thought about Columbine for all of about 5 minutes before making the movie. There are various angles one could take on the massacre: one could simply say it was a tragedy, cutting down young people in their prime; one could blame guns, or videogames, or bad parenting, or the competitive nature of US schools; one could see it in terms of the high-school idyll and fetishisation of youth that's so much a part of American culture; one could see it in wholly abstract terms, as an event that can only be described, not dissected, part of the inexorable flow of Life.
The trouble is that ELEPHANT does all those things, jumping from one to the other. The early scenes are entirely fetishised: impossibly pretty teens frolic in the park, blond locks flopping against perfect cheekbones; soft piano music plays over football practice as the camera gazes tenderly at the doomed children, drinking in the beauty of the moment (the square 1.33 frame recalls yearbook photos); girls turn to look at a handsome boy walking down the corridor, and Van Sant plays the whole thing in slo-mo, making the space curiously unnatural.
Then, abruptly, the Calvin Klein sensibility is abandoned, replaced by a kind of subjective naturalism as we follow various kids around through their personal spaces, the point being that everyone sees the same event from a different angle (the school misfit sees the whole thing out of focus); this, presumably, is the main point - that each person (including the two killers) is a world unto themselves, all these worlds equally valid and mysterious hence impossible to explain from the outside (the film's key scene is perhaps a conversation about how impossible it is to tell if someone's gay just by the way they look). Rather than offer a single explanation for the killers' actions, it offers several (was it because they were gay? psychotic? neo-Nazi? gun-obsessed?), as if to say any attempt at explanation is fruitless.
It's a fair enough point, in a cop-out kind of way - but then the film changes again by showing the final massacre, which is surely unnecessary (and exploitative) if we're going with the 'unknowable' angle, denying any notion of objective documentary truth; the graphic detail seems to be straightforwardly milking tears, ending with a pan up to clear blue sky (Innocence Lost) over the closing credits. ELEPHANT is impressive, but a filmmaker gets so much instant cachet via tackling a well-known tragedy - it's Van Sant's 'Columbine movie' - he must be required to add something to our knowledge, or at least take a position (otherwise why bother?): it could work as a purely abstract work, or a work where abstraction becomes a kind of transcendence (as it does in GERRY), or a non-abstract realistic view of high school, or a study of a high-school tragedy, or even a didactic message movie - but it has to be something. Or is it just a case of the turbulent state of the world overwhelming filmmakers, who no longer feel qualified to try and make sense of it? We can't judge; we can only observe.
Enter the anti-ELEPHANT, also known as DOGVILLE (76) (dir., Lars Von Trier) Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Chloe Sevigny, Lauren Bacall, another film where characters were archetypal pawns at the service of a formally post-modern director, only not much liked in "Film Comment" and "Cinema Scope" circles ("the product of a megalomaniac who takes himself for an artist," claimed Quintin in the Summer 2003 issue of the latter) - yet marked above all by Lars Von Trier's deeply unfashionable willingness to judge his characters, and take a stand against those he despises. That turns out to be all of them (heroine excepted) - but that's no surprise given that human nature turns out to be the villain of the piece, making it work either as religious or political allegory.
The former notion casts Nicole as Jesus and the climax as the Second Coming but I prefer the latter, if only because it links up with the film's brilliant conceit, a setting built without sets (making for the mother of high-angle opening shots as we gaze down on Dogville, looking exactly like a board game): Dogville is the ultimate wide-open society, perfectly transparent - a place without walls, where everyone knows everybody else's business (it's the anti-PEYTON PLACE, a small town with nothing to hide secrets behind); it's also democratic and proud of it, taking decisions in town meetings, morally led by the activist Bettany character who evangelizes for self-improvement. In short, it's America, an egalitarian place founded on the faith that people can fend for themselves - yet Von Trier is unconvinced, finding people "greedy as animals", able only to "obey their own nature". Indeed, what he wants is the opposite of democracy (not anti-Americanism as such, more a rejection of the New World's emphasis on self-actualisation) - and the opposite of ELEPHANT's po-mo, free-market laissez-faire: in a word, standards (with a Jansenist corollary of punishment), making it clear the old Athenian ideal of a self-governing community can only lead to trouble: people's best is not good enough.
In a way, the joke's on Von Trier (given the current US administration's activist brand of 'democracy') - yet the film works sensationally well as a stark moral fable, however dystopian. Kidman's fragile Grace opens up (like the town itself) only to find herself cut down; characters are viewed entomologically, from a God's-eye view - that opening shot! - and omniscient voice-over that also acts as a distancing device. In many ways it's God propaganda - the Bettany character is a lot like Von Trier, but his fatal flaw is trying to reach moral awakening via purely intellectual means - but it could just be about the need for compassion, imposed from above to protect people against their own greed (call it the Scandinavian welfare-state model vs. the American individualist one), hence the closing montage of Depression-era poor and immigrants.
It's also a compelling story, made - to quote one of its characters - with "diligence and application to narrative and drama": as in the old small-town dramas ("Our Town" or "Picnic") there's hypocrisy here, but the townspeople don't just drop the mask of civility when nobody's looking. Instead, they convince themselves they're doing the right thing, staying true to their Dogvillian values (as indeed they are, smirks sly Von Trier) by exploiting Grace or punishing her for her 'unacceptable' behaviour; and of course there's moments like the diaphanous shot of Kidman on the apple-cart (the same one she upsets?), which would make the film worth seeing even if it offered nothing to think about. Just don't ask me what Moses the dog is supposed to signify...
Rest of the Day: THE FOG OF WAR (78) (dir., Errol Morris): Morris meets Robert McNamara, smoothest of smooth operators; breaks up his smoothness with a skein of constant jump-cuts, gets him to admit he "acted like a war criminal" during WW2 but otherwise doesn't try (or doesn't manage) to pierce his armour - but makes a virtue of opacity, implicitly contrasted with the sloppy tabloid culture of emotional 'truth'; "What is morally appropriate in a wartime environment?" asks McNamara, and there really isn't any answer to that. Suggestions of denial (esp. in the way Curtis LeMay acts as an all-purpose scapegoat), suggestion of a cold-blooded man who recalls figures - what things cost, what his salary was during the Depression - but admits he has no head for philosophy, irresistible analogies to America's current adventure in Iraq; also super-stylish, in the Morris way. Fascinating. § FREE RADICALS (52) (dir., Barbara Albert): Alternative title: "Everybody Hurts". Starts off well, with things to say about order and chaos and the randomness of modern life - you really feel it could go anywhere - gets "increasingly Austrian" as a friend put it (i.e. gruelling, miserablist, etc). Traumatised people seeking closure, but it all got a bit too much; who knew the Moody Blues were so big in Austria, though? § BROKEN WINGS (62) (dir., Nir Bergman): Minor surprise, doing creditable work in a disreputable genre - the family melodrama, wherein kids and parents bicker all the time but love each other really. Kids are all smart and good-looking (incl. 17-year-old Maya Maron with the big haunting eyes), yet the overriding tone is of low-key struggle and understatement - night-time exteriors, tiny triumphs and connections, big crowd-pleasing moment (involving a kid in a coma) taking place offscreen. Best prop: a man-sized mouse costume. Signature line: "Could be worse". § THE COOLER (36) (dir., Wayne Kramer): The anti-DALLAS 362, both featuring Shawn Hatosy (though of course I saw this one first): depressed-loser sensibility played for broad laughs (hero's such a loser, even the record scratches when he tries to put on music), pointless violence pumped up to eleven; Alec Baldwin does the macho asshole very well, but it's kind of repellent that the film endorses him so unconditionally. Surprisingly graphic nudity, horribly phony Maria Bello, general sense of "all flash, no soul". Indiewood at its most rancid.
Lesson of the Day: All viewpoints are equal (but some viewpoints are more equal than others).
Day 3
Schedule: Twentynine Palms (9:00 a.m.); Japanese Story (12:30 p.m.); Rick (3:15 p.m.); West of the Tracks, Part I: Rust (4:45 p.m.); I'm Not Scared (10 p.m.)
Quote of the Day: "It's a masterpiece!" - Budding auteur Skander Halim on TWENTYNINE PALMS.
Hot Dog of the Day: A disastrous day for hot dogs: down by the Press Centre around 12 midday, bought a promising specimen from a cart headlined "Best In The City" and "Famous For 9-Inch Sausages". Meat unusually red and fiery-looking. Added ketchup, then decided to colour-code the sausage by adding only red toppings, and heaped it high with hot pepper relish. Relish turned out to be too hot, giving me heartburn throughout the first 20 minutes of JAPANESE STORY.
Film of the Day: Worst day of the Festival for me, and I come to TWENTYNINE PALMS (32) (dir., Bruno Dumont) David Wissack, Katia Golubeva like a humble acolyte holding out my own palms in defeat. Teach me! I have no idea what others are seeing here, and I'm usually a sucker for Antonioni-style sense-of-place and people wandering aimlessly in a vacuum. In a word, I found these people boring as fuck (especially when they do in fact fuck, which is often); they're also risible, having what 'David' accurately describes as "dysfunctional conversations". He and 'Katia' look at windmills and he says "It's great" and she says "C'est magnifique" (she speaks French, lack of communication being a major theme here); later she says "It scares me", and he says "What does?", and she says "I don't know"; later she scratches the car, then laughs and says "I'm sorry, I do stupid things"; later she says "I'm starving", so they order ice-cream which she abandons after a couple of bites (it's a measure of how annoyed I was by this point that I even cared about the fact that people in the real world would never order ice-cream if they were really hungry).
Yet it's not just a case of plot or characters; I realise Dumont isn't interested in conventional revelations, and that's fine - but I didn't even think the film was very interesting to look at, to be honest. One shot stands out, the splendid high-angle shot of a swimming pool right next to the highway - which is just above and behind it, so the couple swim in the foreground with cars occasionally roaring by in the background. And there's the moment when 'Katia' squats to relieve herself and 'David' turns away saying "Someday I want to see you pee" - at which point the camera angle changes so we see her pee, a nice comment on the director's (and audience's) intimacy with the characters vs. their own alleged intimacy with each other. Otherwise, compositions seemed terribly flat (albeit well-ordered) and insight on the characters minimal verging on negligible. I can't talk about this movie; it supplies no way in.
The only solution is to talk about it in relation to other films - L'HUMANITE, where at least there was a tension between Dumont's reticence and the story's baroque elements (notably the murder inquiry and Pharaon the cop, a great movie character for better and for worse), and THE BROWN BUNNY, which I saw a couple of days later and thoroughly enjoyed. Partly, I suspect, it's because BUNNY (like LA LIBERTAD from a couple of years ago) is a tale of one man vs. his environment whereas PALMS is the story of a couple - once a dynamic is established, we want to know more about it, whereas Vincent Gallo as a near-silent Existential Hero is sufficient for that genre - but it's also because BUNNY offers such enticing images. It's shot close on the people, filling the frame, and there's magic-hour and rain-slicked roads and car headlights drifting down the highway, and Gordon Lightfoot songs on the soundtrack. Let's put it this way: BROWN BUNNY is a film to see from the front row of the theatre, put your notes away and just let it wash over you; TWENTYNINE PALMS is a film to see from the back row, making note of the arid look, chilly tone and emphasis on the whole image over constituent parts. If that sounds like a recommendation then hey, be my guest.
Rest of the Day: JAPANESE STORY (47) (dir., Sue Brooks): One to admire, in that it blithely goes in a totally unexpected direction halfway through, and yes, the tonal shift turns out to have been cleverly set up by the opening scenes (in retrospect), and no, it did absolutely nothing for me emotionally (I note, however, that the girl sitting beside me was in floods of tears). Not to give too much away, but the second half is just maudlin and doesn't really connect with the first half - i.e. heroine learns nothing in the first that she applies in the second; whole thing is really just the old it's-a-comedy-no-wait-it's-a-tragedy trick I already disliked in MURIEL'S WEDDING. Must be a Toni Collette thing. § RICK (w/o) (dir., Curtiss Clayton): Walked out on 52 minutes, with the rating hovering in the high 30s; basically "Scrooge" in the style of AMERICAN PSYCHO (though culturally-savvy people inform me that 'Rick' is in fact supposed to be Rigoletto). Has its moments, but it looks horrible and gets repetitive; stayed just long enough to ascertain what the twist with Dylan Baker was going to be - and left when it turned out to be the hoariest of indie-comedy clichés. No thanks bud. § WEST OF THE TRACKS, PART I: RUST (65) (dir., Wang Bing): 4-hour Chinese documentary in the Wiseman style (first of three parts, 9 hours in total): fascinating view of a system on its last legs, corrupt and decrepit factory in grim industrial city still haunted by Communism; Revolutionary songs and slogans on the fringes - now meaningless, still hanging on by force of habit - workers speaking frankly about their lives and (literally) poisonous jobs. Didn't really need to be 4 hours long, but the first section at least is totally compelling, alternating snowy grey skies with the dim light of "break rooms" and hellish red-orange fire of the (metal-smelting) factory floor. The only Chinese-state-industry exposé you'll ever need. § I'M NOT SCARED (25) (dir., Gabriele Salvatores): Useless Miramaxisation of a rather fine novel, airbrushing all the edgy stuff that made it special to leave only a standard kiddie adventure with period setting, calculated script, over-insistent music score, etc. Kid Hero hides in a tree to make sense of his feelings, Cute Little Sister says come down from there; "I'm never coming down," says KH; "Then can I have your comic books?" says CLS, cue genteel audience laughter. Excruciating.
Lesson of the Day: Hot dogs don't need to be Art.
Day 4
Schedule: The Company (8:30 a.m.); Kamchatka (11 a.m.); Young Adam (2:30 p.m.); Shara (4:15 p.m.); Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (7:30 p.m.); In the Cut (10 p.m.)
Quote of the Day: "Oh, the director's Canadian though. He's the son of that famous ... what's his name." - Unidentified punter in same-day ticket line, on RHINOCEROS EYES directed by Aaron Woodley (nephew of David Cronenberg).
Hot Dog of the Day: None, shockingly enough.
Film of the Day: It's not that I dislike THE COMPANY (53) (dir., Robert Altman) Neve Campbell, Malcolm McDowell, James Franco - it's just that it could've ended more or less at any point and I'd happily have moved on to the next movie. God knows it makes sense that a film about ballet should be as weightless and light on its feet as possible, but after so much else that seemed happy to observe without judging (see also ELEPHANT, FOG OF WAR, TWENTYNINE PALMS, BROWN BUNNY, TIME OF THE WOLF) maybe this was just one disinterested study too many - and of course it's not really impartial since it ignores an all-important aspect of the creative process, the way showbiz obsession can corrode human empathy in the non-showbiz world (see especially TOPSY-TURVY, though Altman doesn't even provide any equivalent to Jean Gabin suddenly obsolete at the end of FRENCH CANCAN).
The whole thing is remarkably sanguine and jolly, though I'm not entirely sure how the 'dark side' could've been suggested - eating disorders and drug habits seem a little crude, though I'm sure both exist in the ballet world (maybe it's because the company is played by an actual company, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago). The only real misstep I can find is a gratuitous scene where artistic director Malcolm McDowell accepts an Achievement Award, obviously inserted to make him more likeable and make it clear he too used to be a dancer - yet even that fits with the film's (very Altmanesque) schema, contrasting insiders and outsiders as he's done in everything from M.A.S.H. to THE PLAYER (James Franco as the boyfriend is the main outsider, finally blocked from Neve by a stage full of dancers, literally having to make his way through the company in order to be accepted).
The main trouble is perhaps the McDowell character, whom you're supposed to find magnetic but I found overbearing, plus the view of dancers so besotted they even pirouette after a gutterball when they go bowling, so indefatigable they just keep on dancing in the middle of a rainstorm, so committed they swallow their pain and keep rehearsing after a colleague snaps her tendon; it seems like there should be some payback for this kind of obsessiveness, not just the show-must-go-on celebration beloved of luvvies everywhere (McDowell is also, implicitly, a film director, just as the first words we hear - asking audiences to turn off cellphones and warning against cameras at a ballet performance - could equally apply to a film performance). Altman celebrates process, not so much Art as craftsmanship - the dancers giggle at the florid talk of a pretentious choreographer - but the tone is about on a par with the harmless knockabout of the Christmas roast staged for a laugh towards the end; I also thought the opening and closing ballets were pretty garish - lurid colours, high-energy dancing, streamers that look like laser beams - but maybe that's how it's done nowadays...
Rest of the Day: KAMCHATKA (45) (dir., Marcelo Piñeyro): Unsurprising coming-of-ager with perfunctory period setting, bafflingly beloved in certain quarters. Thing We Hate: phony family rituals in movies, i.e. when Dad starts saying something and all the kids join in halfway through because it's a family in-joke ("Science at the table..." "...is bad manners!"). Kamchatka = family, by the way. § YOUNG ADAM (48) (dir., David Mackenzie): Puzzling stuff, because the love triangle that takes up most of the first half turns out to be irrelevant to the rest of it (i.e. the courtroom climax would be just as powerful if our hero had simply walked off the barge and left Swinton and Mullan to their wedded bliss); puzzle solved in part by Scott Tobias, who saw it as a character study of a chronically irresponsible man rather than a single narrative - which makes a lot more sense, but still seems rather iffy since the triangle isn't shown with any particular emphasis on our hero (i.e. it doesn't feel like the first of many adventures, more like a James M. Cain opening that simply peters out). Moody but unfocused, with scenes that don't seem to make emotional sense - why his abuse of Mortimer? isn't he supposed to be this weak-willed figure drifting through Life? - and one intriguing strand (hero agreeing to stay with Swinton solely because he feels guilty about the dead girl) that never really develops. MVP is David Byrne, the score both languid and menacing; looked in vain for L'ATALANTE reference, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Anyone have any idea what the title means? § SHARA (72) (dir., Naomi Kawase): Touching drama with a roving camera and often shamanic rhythms (using a repeated sound or action for hypnotic effect, notably the singing at the festival but also far-off ringing of a bell or clatter of wooden shoes on pavement). Sublime opening and closing half-hours - only a woman director could've shown giving birth in such detail - sags a bit in the middle; also let down by a certain literalism, i.e. too obviously about traumatised teen finding closure, despite the poetic style. Still tentative, suggestive, quietly intense. Title was explained to me by a Japanese woman at the screening, but I don't remember now; it's a Buddhist thing. § AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER (64) (dir., Nick Broomfield): Brilliant opening, the ultimate in intertextuality - Broomfield's previous Aileen Wuornos doc gets called in evidence during her appeal and he has to testify about his methods (lawyers basically playing film critic, prosecution trying to prove he's editing 'creatively', defence insisting he's objective). Subsequently turns into the usual freakshow, shamefully fascinating in a Jerry Springer kind of way, plus a few incidental pleasures. Naive Woman: "Were there gay people when you went to school?" Broomfield (shamefaced): "I went to a British public school..." § IN THE CUT (54) (dir., Jane Campion): Women want babies, romance, the whole "courtship fantasy"; men are violent, patriarchal, domineering. Sex = violence ("The only thing I won't do is beat you up," says the one good man). Campion adds a couple of fantasy scenes like in PORTRAIT OF A LADY but can't quite transcend simplistic message, not helped by flat narrative and some crude moments (we know handcuffs = empowerment even without Ruffalo saying "I feel like a chick", thanks Jane). Looks very nice [second viewing addendum: Looks terrific, actually, esp. the first half-hour with all the out-of-focus and blotches of colour], with consciously 'noir' lighting - shadowy, shallow-focus images with bright hard-light source - but seems to lose its way; trying to do too much (appeal to critics, academics and mass audience), possibly. [Here's what I wrote for the Cyprus Mail after second viewing (not on their website, for some reason.]
Lesson of the Day: Ballet don't need to be soft.
Day 5
Schedule: The School of Rock (8:30 a.m.); Sexual Dependency (12 midday); L'Histoire de Marie et Julien (3:15 p.m.); The Brown Bunny (6:30 p.m.); Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring (10 p.m.)
Quote of the Day: "Last time I showed this I got booed out of Cannes. This time I think I'll wait outside." - Vincent Gallo, introducing THE BROWN BUNNY.
Hot Dog of the Day: Finally! Taking the bull by the horns on the hot-dog front, decided to splurge on the (slightly) more expensive places around Cumberland St. All in all, a wise investment: another Polish sausage, but this time crisp and delicious, bursting with flavour. Topped with ketchup and a hint of Dijon mustard, for that extra touch of class. Time: 2:15 p.m.
Film of the Day: Many of the films I liked best at Toronto were - bizarrely - films I don't necessarily agree with: DOGVILLE is basically authoritarian, whether it's a vengeful God or call to fascism, THE FOG OF WAR amounts to a glorification of McNamara, and THE SCHOOL OF ROCK (74) (dir., Richard Linklater) Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman has a strange and unsavoury subtext to the effect that kids who try for straight 'A's are "dumb" and should give up high achievement in favour of having a good time ("No more reading. Time for rock!" as Jack Black puts it).
The film may also be a little too lenient with Mr. Black as its arrested-adolescent hero - he should be more of a loser, esp. in his dealings with the other teachers (whom he seems, rather unconvincingly, to win over by film's end) - but it's hard to think of other flaws when it gave me more of a joyous buzz than anything in this genre since THE COMMITMENTS (though the genre, strictly speaking, is closer to THE BAD NEWS BEARS). Easy to dismiss as a feelgood comedy but I really think it's more, showing the same generosity of spirit as Linklater's best work (it's much more his film than Mike White's, whose script has little of his usual pinched disaffection): his direction of the kids is magnificent - no mean feat, see e.g. the wholly inadequate kid actor in THE TESSERACT - above all because of the seriousness with which they approach rock'n roll, and Cusack's uptight character also gets developed in ways that preserve her dignity (it's great that she doesn't actually need to get drunk to respond to Stevie Nicks - the film doesn't humiliate her - and it's great that, even in her big let-it-all-out speech, she can't quite bring herself to say the word "bitch").
In fact, though Black is the movie, hilariously so - "Sell my guitars?! I'm an artist! Would you tell Picasso to sell his guitars?" - it also shows up his immaturity, if only in how quickly (albeit affectionately) the kids move beyond him (he really is a loser); unlike 'inspirational' teachers from DANGEROUS MINDS to DEAD POETS SOCIETY, he doesn't mean to inspire anyone (his motives are selfish) and also doesn't meet any resistance (which he probably couldn't have handled); the film doesn't confuse things by making him a fighter in the usual maverick-teacher way, or having him win any conflicts - conflict is almost unknown in Linklater's films, which may be why I find them all so moving (except TAPE, where there is conflict) - or forcing him on the other characters; just like rock'n roll, he's a ramshackle creature whose only real aim is to have fun, and whose only real talent is for making people blossom without even trying. Only bothersome character is the harridan wife played by Silverman, but even that makes sense in a way - if Black is a kind of unconscious musical Cupid, bringing out the rock'n roll in everyone, there should be a character immune to his charms, representing the joyless grind rock'n roll rebelled against in the first place. May be overrating it slightly just because most big-studio comedies feel so mechanical these days, and that subtext sure is troublesome - but really, who cares? Can't recall the last film I enjoyed so thoroughly. (Deeper meanings? Uhhh, it's about connection.) Funniest bit: Cusack's manic grin as she tells the assembled parents the news: "Ladies and gentlemen - I've just been informed that all your children are missing"...
Rest of the Day: SEXUAL DEPENDENCY (56) (dir., Rodrigo Bellott): Split-screen throughout, making for some interesting shots - at some points the two halves overlap, other times they create a whole new space (e.g. when two characters separate and walk down adjoining corridors), other times they're shot / reverse-shot allowing us to see e.g. both faces when a couple are making love - plus a gear-shift into more theoretical territory halfway through. The "Mirrors" story is the watershed, containing all the other titles just as everyone is each other's mirror, i.e. we all contain everyone else (plus of course the split-screen is a kind of mirror, for added forelock-tugging); all very clever but I think I preferred the rollicking early scenes, despite typically belligerent South American morality (see also CITY OF GOD, AMORES PERROS), to the more academic later section, esp. since the final twist seems to add nothing (the point having long since been made). Human-interest note: Bellott's apparently been coming to TIFF as audience member for 5 years, now finally "my dream came true" and he's here as filmmaker. Hope for us all, it seems... § L'HISTOIRE DE MARIE ET JULIEN (44) (dir., Jacques Rivette): Julien repairs clocks, i.e. plays with Time, just like Rivette himself - only not in this case (and there's no fancy meta-games either). Romantic-drama equivalent to VA SAVOIR, elegant enough but resoundingly ordinary to my eyes (others have apparently called it his UGETSU, though whether because of plot resemblance or actual quality I couldn't say); you know something's off when a cat steals the show. § THE BROWN BUNNY (66) (dir., Vincent Gallo): See Twentynine Palms comments. Also what the fuck is wrong with people, this was among the most likeable films in the Festival; couple of points docked for the self-pity inherent in Gallo's persona and random, let's-just-stop-the-movie-here ending (though much better than the Cannes cut, where he died and came back as a rabbit!). Gorgeously becalmed, surprisingly affecting. § SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER ... AND SPRING (73) (dir., Kim Ki-Duk): Kept resisting for the longest time, because there's cute animals (great day for cats, what with this and Rivette), and a little boy and an idyllic rural setting and a message about finding wisdom through harmony with Nature - but at some point you have to swallow prejudice and admit it's beautifully crafted and not as dopey as it sounds, with at least an awareness of human cruelty and the harsh world beyond its serenity (it's true the final trek pales in comparison with BALLAD OF NARAYAMA, but that's supposed to be tragic whereas this is supposed to be redemptive). Note to self: really must start watching that DVD of WHY HAS BODHI-DHARMA LEFT FOR THE EAST one of these days.
Lesson of the Day: Muse Malade is thinner than expected; Michael Sicinski, bulkier.
Day 6
Schedule: Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (9 a.m.); Facing Window (1 p.m.); 21 Grams (3 p.m.); Gozu (6 p.m.); The Return (9 p.m.)
Quote of the Day: "This is the Festival of Orgasms." - Gabe Klinger
Hot Dog of the Day: Italian sausage, around 11:30 p.m. This is a "spicy" sausage so sweet toppings are in order, notably ketchup and sauerkraut; the result is rich and satisfying. I give this sausage a 71. No, not really.
Film of the Day: Taken from "The Economist" (not a film mag, obviously) after THE RETURN (82) (dir., Andrei Zvyagintsev) Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko won the Golden Lion at Venice: "Haunting yet inconclusive ... the journey does nothing to resolve the problems between the generations. 'It sounds like a valid question, what is this film about?' the director said after the screening. 'But I think this question should not be asked'. Really? Baffled spectators were still asking it when the festival ended". Compare and contrast with über-buff Charles François (whose site will perhaps return someday), who claimed to dislike the film because it made itself too obvious, "hitting the same note again and again". Personally I found myself somewhere in the middle, which is usually a thankless spot but meant, in this case, I got the best of both worlds: took a while to grasp what the film was 'about' - if a character drama can ever be 'about' anything - but left entirely satisfied, and not at all baffled.
Indeed, it's a very satisfying film, especially in a Festival so full of tentative and wilfully opaque ones, its dynamic not unlike that of LA PROMESSE (another small, finely crafted film that built quietly to a powerhouse climax): there's a domineering father and a son - actually two sons - having to decide between loyalty to Dad and doing the Right Thing, except that in this case we're looking through the other end of the telescope. The Dardennes is a metaphor for the normal course of childhood - starting out attached to a parent then drifting apart, with a moral choice as the coming-of-age - whereas this is about 'lost' children getting a chance to re-attach themselves, only to fail through mistrust and miscommunication. The other big difference is the choice isn't moral this time but emotional, which is a little more banal; on the other hand, doing the Right Thing is a lot more problematic, not least for the audience.
In fact, the film depends on identification with young Ivan, shown from the opening scene as a fierce individualist; what ensues is a power struggle with his estranged father - an inscrutable figure but probably a former soldier, training his sons in brutality - and most viewers (except Charles, apparently) will be rooting for the kid to win. Yet the film is loaded with mystery - is the man even really his father? - shot in a greyish light with a throbbing score and marvellous eye for wild sea-and-skyscapes, and the Right Thing is endlessly ambiguous (there's even a hint of "Treasure Island", with reprobate Dad as Long John Silver): the emphasis is on physicality - tarring a boat, running in a rainstorm, cutting branches for the wheels of a stuck car - bringing up something atavistic, a father's primal hold over his son (for Ivan to rebel, it's implied, is against Nature), and investing the opaque patriarch with hidden reserves of affection. Left alone, the kid is merely silent, looking out at distant traffic on a misty highway, giving nothing away.
Only at the very end does the film show its hand - in the father's expression as he runs up the tower - though its young heroes remain only half-aware of their own tragedy, making it even more poignant (the photo montage at the end was a mistake, however); Zvyagintsev's technique is spare and simple, even stagy at times - the family at dinner is all shot / reverse-shot, ending on a wide-shot of the whole table - but it's very deftly done and he steps up a gear when necessary, notably in a dazzling trick-shot of the boys lugging a corpse through a field of reeds (the camera keeps moving, the kids almost immobile, yet they stay in the centre of the frame; I thought at first it was double exposure, but maybe it's a case of shot and subjects moving in opposite directions). The result is hypnotic in my opinion, all mist and silence and terrific emotional tension; mileage may vary, it appears.
Rest of the Day: WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF (44) (dir., Lone Scherfig): Strange how some countries seem to like tonal shifts more than others. Scandinavians are among the main offenders (ditto Australia), happily going from comic to unpleasant: Wilbur trying to kill himself by jumping in a shallow lake is funny, Wilbur slashing wrists in a bathtub full of blood (maybe 20 minutes later) is not; even the ending shifts, following a funeral scene with a cheerful one-liner to send us home happy (or not, in my case). Scherfig seems to be specialising in brown-looking films where lonely people get beaten up by Life but at least have each other (cue sniffles of manipulated audience); "It's nice that people can get together when they don't have anyone else". Understatement helps, ditto great deadpan performance by Mads Mikkelsen. § FACING WINDOW (55) (dir., Ferzan Ozpetek): Hate to sound like Harvey Weinstein or whatever but this really needed more work on the script: heroine's relationship with handsome neighbour - Hugh Grant glasses, permanent smirk - barely exists, nor do plot and sub-plot really connect (something to do with betrayal? secret love, maybe?). Good to see a heroine with a nasty temper for a change - though it kind of gets forgotten as the plot gets underway - but Ozpetek tends to overdo the big moments, see esp. final CU and the scene where heroine has second thoughts after seeing her entire family from titular window. Best line, middle-aged spouse on being married: "After 15 years, it's incest now". § 21 GRAMS (61) (second viewing: 55) (dir., Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu): May be overrating it slightly [not anymore], since the Inarritu style - constant smash-cuts and Time-shuffling - leads to diminishing returns; at least it's never boring, and makes an intriguing contrast with Sean Penn's own films - similar plot (obscure mission of revenge / redemption) done in completely different style. Probably a mistake to have Naomi Watts' character seek revenge explicitly - the strength of (say) THE PLEDGE was precisely that it never got spelled out - but it's hard to tell anyway with so much going on. Grainy look, bright white light, fine Benicio Del Toro performance, generic God-talk for that faux-spiritual quality. Sign glimpsed in the background: "Cod Bless The U.S.A." § GOZU (65) (dir., Takashi Miike): Miike's "Alice in Wonderland" (our hero very pointedly a virgin), starting with necessary caveat: "Everything I'm about to tell you is a joke. Don't take it seriously". Great first hour - lactating women and whatnot - sloppy second hour, kick-ass climax with Cronenbergian hand reaching out of man-girl's vagina. Also, a soup ladle up the ass. Also a minotaur.
Lesson of the Day: I am turning into a middlebrow philistine softie. Or perhaps I always was...
Day 7
Schedule: The Saddest Music in the World (9:45 a.m.); A Talking Picture (12 midday); Vodka Lemon (2:45 p.m.); Good Morning, Night (4:45 p.m.); The Five Obstructions (9 p.m.)
Quote of the Day 1: "I've always said his films are either masterpieces or mannered curiosities, but this may be the first time when it's both." - Jonathan Rosenbaum (in conversation), on A TALKING PICTURE.
Quote of the Day 2: "For, like, 20 minutes it was a 100!" - Mike D'Angelo, on DALLAS 362.
Hot Dog of the Day: Not much time for hot dogs, but managed to grab a bite around midnight. Ketchup, mustard, relish. Quick and dirty (though not really, this being Canada).
Film of the Day: He's a card, that De Oliveira. Don't like him much when in VALLEY OF ABRAHAM / UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE mode - all those dull conversations in nondescript interiors - but A TALKING PICTURE (69) (dir., Manoel De Oliveira) Leonor Silveira, John Malkovich, Irene Papas, Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandrelli is something else again. Victor Morton has a must-read take on this (even if it's not really a take at the moment; see his Sept. 12 entry), and I believe it was Chris Stults who mused how strange it was that a 94-year-old should've made the talking-point of the Festival. Emphasis on 'talking', because the thing never shuts up, told in lengthy orotund orations; but perhaps you already noticed the title?
The film is a history lesson, starting with ancient European civilisations, coming right up to date. It's also very funny, in a deadpan way. The first half is a riff on the Victorian 'Grand Tour of Europe', an illustrated lecture going through various places of historical importance - Marseille, Athens, Istanbul - with a short disquisition on each. It's also very funny, in a deadpan way, because each destination is prefaced by a near-identical shot of a small crowd waving madly from the dock (the tour takes place on a cruise ship) - and because the lectures are given by our heroine, a Portuguese history professor, in the form of conversations with her young daughter, a blonde moppet who's apparently the most patient little girl in the world and sits happily through Mommy's interminable explications. "Did you enjoy that?" asks Mom when they're back on the ship after another bout of History (the film may be described as De Oliveira's "Love Boat", or perhaps De Oliveira's JUGGERNAUT). "Yes," she replies, "but it was a little bit tiring".
The film then changes focus, to the Captain's table where Captain John Malkovich is hosting three well-known divas from various European countries; they talk of this and that, each lady giving a lengthy speech in her own language (which the others miraculously understand). This section is clearly intended as a comment on the EU, though probably more anti- than pro- (it's true that language is no longer a barrier, but this only holds true for the privileged bigwigs at the Captain's table - and it's doubtless significant that the heroine's Portuguese is not understood when she finally joins the others). It's also very funny, in a deadpan way, because Malkovich freely admits that the whole thing is a game - a creaky symbolic contrivance - and makes impossibly fawning speeches to each of the ladies with his usual patent insincerity.
The twist in the tail brings us right up to the horrors of the present, and was viewed by some as a statement that the liberal Western traditions of "Old Europe" lead inexorably to disaster, esp. given the role played by a chador-clad doll at the climax and some previous talk of the Arabs' devastation of the library at Alexandria; certainly, De Oliveira isn't playing by the standard anti-Americanism of European intellectuals - yet his tone seems to be one of rueful resignation more than anything, a variation on "Plus ça change". We've already heard of King Sebastian in Marseille, who made war, Dubya-like, on those of a "different religion", and we've heard our heroine talk of fundamentalism and the wars between Europe and Islam; we've also heard them say you "can't turn back the clock" - but De Oliveira thinks you can, and that History will always repeat itself, the European dream not much more than a fanciful game. Some (actually Michael Sicinski, whom I'll gladly link to if he ever gets that site going) found the message problematic, but it's really just an aesthete's sophisticated - maybe too sophisticated - view of History as a cyclical constant, tinged with mistrust for those young idealists who claim to change it. Seems fair enough, for a 94-year-old. And it's also very funny, in a deadpan way.
Rest of the Day: THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD (61) (dir., Guy Maddin): It's that man Victor again! (See his Sept. 11 entry.) Maddin gets the production values to match his talent, and proves he's no longer just a dazzling fringe figure but a major stylist; alas, his most sumptuous film is also his least compelling, fizzling out long before the end. Typical line: "No-one can beat the Siamese when it comes to dignity, cats or twins". Even more typical line: "I'm not an American! I'm a nymphomaniac!" § VODKA LEMON (37) (dir., Hiner Saleem): Wafer-thin drama in a vivid setting - rural Armenia, still getting over the collapse of the USSR, a dollar economy but with songs and posters left over from the Soviets (see also WEST OF THE TRACKS). Otherwise deadly, marred by a kind of forced exoticism: "Why is it called vodka lemon when it tastes like almonds?"; (shrugs) "That's Armenia!". Ah... § GOOD MORNING, NIGHT (73) (dir., Marco Bellocchio): The strange case of Marco Bellocchio, suddenly turning into a major director in his 60s (I didn't even like FISTS IN THE POCKET): almost as good as THE RELIGION HOUR, limited only by dealing with a more specific theme - the crisis of Leftism in 70s Italy, hinging on the murder of PM Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades (terrorism obviously a topical theme nowadays). Slow to start, feeling like a second-rate FOUR DAYS IN SEPTEMBER, but it grows increasingly rich and strange - there's even a séance towards the end! - and, as in RELIGION HOUR, has the rare gift of treating intellectual notions as emotional epiphanies: heroine realises she's become just like the Fascists she despises, and realism suddenly gives way to operatic passion with Pink Floyd on the soundtrack and everything. Bellocchio isn't really such a strong filmmaker - it's the content that makes it so intense (as it did LAND AND FREEDOM), blending private and public drama, looking back on the mistakes of the past with fervour and honesty. Footage of Stalin is a cheap shot, however. § THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS (67) (dir., Jørgen Leth / Lars Von Trier): Fascinating concept, but (a) Von Trier doesn't play the game properly - only Obstructions #1 and #2 are bona fide, and #4 is overcome by throwing money at the problem, which just seems wrong - and (b) the real point of the film is the bond between him and Leth, which is hard to respond to if (like me) you've never heard of the older filmmaker or his mediocre-looking 60s short (also doesn't help that each obstruction deals with a different part of the original - would've made more sense to film exactly the same segment in five different ways). Best seen for what it says about Von Trier himself, notably the taste for artistic flagellation as a path to purity (see also Dogme 95), and what it says about the artistic process, much more self-enclosed and diagnostic than non-artistic types tend to think. Reminds me of (I think) Gyorgy Ligeti, when asked whether he writes for himself or his audience: "Neither. I write for solutions..."
Lesson of the Day: Sleeman's Beer is every bit as good as Rickard's Red.
Day 8
Schedule: Bus 174 (11 a.m.); Distant (3 p.m.); Time of the Wolf (9 p.m.)
Quote of the Day: "They compared this to Tarkovsky! The only thing Tarkovsky about it was that they mentioned his name!" - Disgruntled punter, after DISTANT.
Hot Dog of the Day: Usual place, around 6 p.m. Decided to try an experiment - no toppings whatsoever, just the merest hint of mustard. With hindsight, a mistake: hot dogs are not haute cuisine, and just taste like plastic if you don't pack them full of junk. Think I may be getting a little hot-dogged out, actually...
Film of the Day: Nothing stands out really; 3-film day, due to lack of sleep (I know, I'm a wimp).
Rest of the Day: BUS 174 (58) (dir., José Padilha): Half-snoozed through this one, but it's happened often enough to know I should blame the movie rather than myself (I'm never sleepy at films I like, even when dropping with exhaustion before and after). Looks and sounds pretty good - symphony in black and orange, with a roiling score like the grinding of wheels - but the hero's journey didn't seem very interesting, former street-kid turned criminal by a brutal system (his violence "a desperate and impotent cry against social exclusion"). Seems clear he's been turned into a martyr, or maybe Padilha couldn't find anyone to speak against him (his aunt insists he'd never kill anyone, which may or may not be true) - or maybe the whole thing is indeed a tragedy, and I'm just being callous. Sorry street-kids. § DISTANT (62) (dir., Nuri Bilge Ceylan): Formally accomplished, though it's the kind of master-shot formalism I don't tend to respond to (see also Tsai Ming-Liang) - guess I just need the oxygen of editing. Liked it nonetheless, till it unaccountably dropped the central dynamic of city mouse and country mouse (another kind of oxygen), having them go off on separate - if occasionally parallel - paths and concentrating on the jaded city cousin, a former photographer who's lost his ideals. "World's the same all over, really," he opines, which the film is busily disproving with ridiculously beautiful shots of Istanbul (best bit: the ship lying on its side in the harbour) - but he's still an alienated dullard who sucks all the life out of it, and it's still the kind of film that doesn't have a music score and ends with a shot of a man smoking thoughtfully and gazing out to sea (held long, naturally). Sample subtle detail: the shot of Mahmut in his publisher's office, both men at frame-right by the window - and Ceylan's tiny pan from right to left as the publisher comes to sit at his desk at frame-centre, not strictly necessary but echoing the man's action, like the satisfying click when you shut a briefcase. Impressive. § TIME OF THE WOLF (69) (dir., Michael Haneke): Haneke's style is so spare and compartmentalised - each shot so precise, nothing getting in the frame by accident - it seems far more suited to tracking individuals than communities (where a more expansive Altmanesque style works better); maybe that's the problem with the middle section, all a bit stilted as a group of post-apocalyptic survivors bicker and fight. Opening half-hour is magnificent, though, using darkness and aloneness to superb effect - one shot is completely black, save for a tiny pinpoint of flame in the distance - and ending uses fire imagery as effectively as Bergman's (similar) SHAME uses water, an elemental cleansing of impossible man-made situation. Not entirely successful, but I could've sworn it still had a half-hour to go when the closing credits rolled, and you can't argue with that. (Spoiler-laden question: Scott Foundas in "Cinema Scope" claims it "culminates in the exhilarating image of a young boy willing to sacrifice himself to better the rest of the humanity" - to which I can only say, wtf? I thought the kid was trying to kill himself. Did I miss something?)
Lesson of the Day: A 20-minute nap in the middle of the day will do wonders for your filmgoing stamina.
Day 9
Schedule: Dallas 362 (9 a.m.); Bright Leaves (12 midday); The Third Page (3 p.m.); Cremaster 3 (9 p.m.); Undead (12 midnight)
Quote of the Day: "When I was a kid we fuckin' respected our parents! We didn't fuckin' eat them!" - UNDEAD, a zombie movie.
Hot Dog of the Day: There will be no further mention of hot dogs in this journal.
Film of the Day: Late-breaking Festival news! Chasm opens up between older online critics and junior brigade (scary kids, you know the ones) over DALLAS 362 (75) (second viewing: 72) (dir., Scott Caan) Scott Caan, Shawn Hatosy, Jeff Goldblum, Kelly Lynch. Most plausible theory is they just don't like people muscling in on their Scary Precocity turf (Scott Caan is 27), because the movie's obviously superb, albeit hard to describe. Opening shot is a dazzler, going without a (visible) cut from heroes getting in a pool-hall fight to heroes sitting in police car outside the pool-hall a few minutes later, and the whole thing works in a similarly restless fashion, leapfrogging over dead bits and constantly reconfiguring itself to upend cliché. Our hero's standard-issue voice-over ("My father died when I was 15...") is revealed to be the hero himself talking to his shrink. Back-and-forth cutting between heroes talking and a redhead telling a story ends abruptly when Caan yells over her segment and pulls the movie back to himself ("The redhead was telling a story!" protests Hatosy). Marley Shelton makes a grand slo-mo entrance, rhymed to music in the usual ersatz-MTV style, only the entrance is deliberately overdone and she then plays no further part in the story. A Mexican standoff ends in a fast incoherent shoot-out - as Mexican standoffs always do - only to then be repeated from a different angle, making clear what actually happened. "Did you ever see that movie, GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE?" asks Lynch post-coitally, setting up what sounds like yet another trendily obscure pop-culture reference; "No, I didn't," admits Goldblum; "Well don't," she says sleepily. "It's stupid".
Formal adventurousness is no surprise in a film that names its hero after the kid in RUMBLE FISH, yet that really isn't the point - and it isn't even that adventurous, at least in the sense of staking new ground. What it mostly does is keep itself in a state of constant uncertainty (if there's a signature move, it may be the repeated bit when A tells B some outlandish news - then, when B goggles "Really?", shakes his head and says "I'm kidding"), the better to express the uncertainty in our heroes' lives: the film's real tension is between loudness and stillness, saying too much and saying very little. There's a couple of John Leguizamo-style motormouth punks, whose scenes tend to babble on and on (one of them yells "It's a conspiracy!" and can't seem to stop, the old joke milked for so long it attains new levels of hysteria), but there's also Jeff Goldblum with his hooded eyes, killing conversations in a single phrase, and Shawn Hatosy with his curiously square-cut face and permanently dazed, dreamy expression.
What distinguishes the film from other tales of small-time crooks - SIX WAYS TO SUNDAY or THE COOLER or WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD, or the whole rash of post-Tarantino crime comedies - is hard to pinpoint, but it certainly includes the following: a healthy respect (i.e. disrespect) for violence, and the arrested adolescence it reflects and perpetuates; a sharp study of a friendship that's become a millstone, yet can't be shaken off by either party; actual jokes as opposed to Attitude, played on the level of a nervous breakdown; above all, a constant friction between flashy style (all that fast-motion when they're driving) and a basically sad-sack, depressive sensibility, mired in dead-end post-adolescence. Can't really say more without seeing it again (hopefully the junior brigade will do likewise); and no, I don't know what the deal is with MIDNIGHT EXPRESS either... [Second viewing, two years later: A little festival madness in that rating, but less than I'd feared. Tonally this is still among the most unique films of the past few years - I don't even know how to describe it, except that it shape-shifts and seems permanently jittery; Caan keeps making odd choices, and they're memorable even when not wholly defensible (e.g. the extreme wide-angle lens in Christian's house, presumably just to show all the clutter). What I wrote above still goes, basically, except the more conventional scenes stood out more (e.g. Lynch explaining to Goldblum why she won't let her son go back to Texas) and the plot resolution seemed weak; also, it's hard to deny there's a macho, jock-like sensibility underneath it all, which isn't necessarily a problem but might be for some people. Oh, and the DVD version no longer ends with Smashing Pumpkins' "Today" (a rights issue, I assume). This is probably a good thing.]
Rest of the Day: BRIGHT LEAVES (71) (dir., Ross McElwee): Odd how the only McElwee I don't much like is his best-known, SHERMAN'S MARCH. This one's about living with the past, and trying to preserve it - its final image a tiny attempt at preservation that's supremely moving - and gradually discovering that's impossible. He's an inveterate filmmaker, documentary being of course an attempt to preserve reality ("I didn't film this for any particular reason. It's just a little scene, a little moment") - and he's also hilarious, in a rueful kind of way. Shame about the anti-smoking bits, which I found pretty tiresome, but the great advantage of these rambling personal-essay films is that you can pick and choose. Patchy, but delightful. § THE THIRD PAGE (w/o) (dir., Zeki Demirkubuz): Walked out on 48 minutes, with the rating at around 46: could've stayed, but I was starting to doze off and it didn't look like the film was going to solve the basic clash between its alleged Everyman drama and obvious relish in violent 'movie moments' (it opens with the mother of all gangland ass-kickings). Seemed confused, maybe even hypocritical; or maybe that was all part of the irony... § CREMASTER 3 (50) (dir., Matthew Barney): 60s cars ganging up on a 30s model. The auteur himself climbing up the Guggenheim (like a videogame, supposedly). A leopard woman, tiny sheep grazing next to a sleeping giant, little boys packing a cadaver into a vintage car. Not entirely sure what it's 'about' (exploitation and technology, perhaps, with images of progress flanked by images of suffering); not entirely sure why all the Irish symbols (beyond the fact that Mr. Barney is Irish); not entirely sure why it got shown in galleries as an objet d'art when it plays like just another arthouse movie. Still quite enjoyable. § UNDEAD (42) (dir., Peter and Michael Spierig): It's a zombie movie - what d'you need, a roadmap? Looks pretty drab, but still quite incredible to hear it was shot partly with a Bolex and cut on Adobe Premiere; good job Spierigs. Best bit: the flying fish.
Lesson of the Day: Staying up till 6 a.m. at the Golden Griddle with a flight to catch in a few hours isn't necessarily a good idea. We should do it again sometime...