Toronto 2007: The TIFF Fragments (*)
(*) Named in honour of THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS, which I never actually got to see.
Yin
Buying tickets on TIFF Minus One, the day before the start of the 32nd Toronto International Film Festival. It's 7.20 in the morning, but already the line at the Festival box-office (one of two, this one located off Bloor St.) snakes beyond the harried ticket-sellers, out the building and down the street, ending up a couple of blocks away.
It's a grey blustery morning, with faint but persistent drizzle. People unfurl umbrellas and improvise hats out of program books. "I was here at 5.30," one volunteer tells another, "and already there were 50 people here." A few apparently camped out, spending the night on the pavement to ensure they got tickets for the latest Bela Tarr.
Yang
A local TV crew appears, here to interview punters and grab a couple of quotes. The reporter and his cameraman sidle up to the young woman standing in line behind me. Will she favour them with a few words?
She giggles nervously. "What d'you want me to say?".
Oh you know, shrugs the reporter - celebrities, movies, that kind of thing. "Nothing serious," he adds with a smile. "It's only a film festival."
Not forgetting...
the other TV crew who arrived an hour later (we were still in line, of course) with a Burning Question for festival-goers. "Which celebrity would you be most excited to see on the street, during the Festival?"
"Viggo," replied a rather incoherent student type in front of me.
"Viggo Mortensen? Really? And what would you say to him, if you saw him?"
"I'd say ... 'How you doin', Viggo?'. And he'd be like ... 'Fine. How you doin'?"...
Round-Up: Day 4
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (63) (dir., Werner Herzog): Good stuff from Herzog, except he's fast becoming his own favourite character (when he talks of "abominations" like yoga classes and ATM machines in that cranky Teutonic bark, I start to daydream about a live-action "Muppet Show" movie with Herzog and Tommy Lee Jones as Stadler and Waldorf). When he comes across self-styled explorers and "professional dreamers" who romanticise their own marginal existence, like the guy described as a "philosopher and forklift driver" (dude, please! you're a forklift driver!), the self-regard threatens to reach toxic levels, though all credit to Herzog for shooting down the insufferable woman whose "story goes on forever" (and highlighting the Eastern European man who'd rather not talk about himself at all). Lots of fun, plus incredible Antarctic sea footage - though the more poetic (and wryly funny) WILD BLUE YONDER posited the same footage as lost images from an alien planet, whereas here it's just Discovery Channel pabulum. Hope it gets a big-screen release, though, so I can give "Deranged Penguin" a shitload of Best Scene Skandie points. § CHOP SHOP (62) (dir., Ramin Bahrani): A simple problem: This needs to be much more political. A kid whose life is devoted to work and making money is a political issue - is he being corrupted into venal hustler-capitalism, or is it a case of America the melting-pot, the Immigrant Experience only now with "safe homes" and f-bombs? Thought he'd be forced to choose between work and his sister (the sister being obviously more work-shy), but it never happened; Bahrani has no take on his subject, content to observe - which he does, superbly (the locations could be Third World, which I guess makes its own veiled comment). Possible best moment: after a hard day's hustling, the kid microwaves some popcorn and just stands there, looking out the tiny window at the world outside. Runner-up: the pigeons. § PERSEPOLIS (65) (dir., Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi): Way more entertaining than expected, a potted history of modern Iran with surprising detail - the middle-class Communists who initially welcomed the Revolution, dismissing the theocracy as "transitional" till it swallowed them up, like the Jacobins in France; class snobbery welling to the surface as former window-washers become Islamist officials - and a good deal of rage beneath its clean cartoon lines (which reminded me of Tintin, though I'm sure there's a closer equivalent). Our heroine is stubborn, secular - she sends God away when she's still a little girl - and touchingly devoted to the old Iran destroyed by the mullahs ("Never forget," says her uncle, a mantra repeated by her parents as they say goodbye at the airport). Three-quarters great, then it totally loses its shape when she comes back from Europe. Oh well. § DIARY OF THE DEAD (71) (dir., George A. Romero): Truly dystopian, in the sense that it gets more pessimistic as it goes along (finally asking out loud: "Are we worth saving?"). One by one, institutions are tried and found wanting, corrupted - schools, hospitals, Army, friends, family - making for a deeper sense of dread than BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (which was claustrophobic more than anything) and a stronger sense of collective madness. That said, there's a definite contradiction in the way Romero views the bloggers and other denizens of Internet 2.0 - on the one hand they're trolls, like people gawking at a road accident, on the other they're the only path to Truth in a world where the mainstream media lie systematically - and the gun/camera subtext is more like supertext. Bone-deep nightmarish, and the Amish interlude is an instant classic.
Also on Day 4: Redacted, In the Valley of Elah
Round-Up: Day 2
RENDITION (51) (dir., Gavin Hood): Full of clichés - slo-mo and wailing soundtrack chords in the aftermath of a bomb blast; Arab girl struggling against repressive father and arranged marriage; Meryl Streep as steely CIA hawk spitting out lines like "Polygraph don't mean diddly" - and BABEL-ish globe-trotting leading to some 'Meanwhile, back in the torture chamber...' moments. Gets mildly interesting for a while, when it looks like torture has actually been effective in exposing a terrorist - but the Streep-Witherspoon showdown isn't staged during that dramatic window (i.e. when it looks like Streep is right), and turns out to be a damp squib anyway (I have no idea why Reese signed on to this movie). Final twist is pointless, except insofar as Time-shuffling makes everything Significant; Arriaga blame Guillermo in my opinion. § MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (67) (dir., Amir Bar-Lev): Modern Art has no narrative - it's not 'about' anything - so narratives have to be created (because people need that). The buyers of the little girl's paintings find meanings that may or may not be there; the girl and her family become a TV narrative that ends up overshadowing the Art itself; and the controversy becomes Bar-Lev's own narrative, in the film we're watching - and meanwhile the girl's innocent pleasure in just creating Art becomes increasingly irrelevant. Not much more to it, once that message is digested (and it's mostly on the surface); the people aren't especially interesting, and the visuals are blah. Good enough to raise intriguing questions, though the did-she-or-didn't-she angle is fudged slightly. Why couldn't the girl paint well even with a concealed camera? Did she sense there was something different? Who can say. § GARAGE (57) (dir., Lenny Abrahamson): 'Tis yer man Sam Beckett.' 'Grand.' 'Only with a retard, so.' 'Awful messer.' 'Bit unusual, now.' 'True.' 'Quirky, that.' 'True.' 'Stylised way of speakin'.' 'ADAM AND PAUL, so.' 'Nature shots, emphasisin' childlike innocence.' 'Subtle, that.' 'Great Pat Shortt performance.' 'He's fookin' sound!' § THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (77) (second viewing: 83) (dir., Andrew Dominik): Brad Pitt, Venice prize-winner, is actually the weakest link here; he's grown much too elegant - too smooth, too much the movie star - to be very menacing, thinning out the paranoia in the second half (though of course Pitt's celebrity fits the character, and of course what's important is the gang's conception of him as a psycho who'll kill them if they don't strike first, even if we find it unconvincing). Casey Affleck is the main event as Ford, a lifelong screw-up with dead eyes and would-be endearing grin - even at the very end of his life, he's still trying (and failing) to find the right words - though Paul Schneider does tentative naturalistic things seldom if ever seen in Westerns, and Roger Deakins is the real MVP. A gorgeous film, gorgeous to look at and gorgeous to listen to; "wrought up", "grind it fine in my mind", "shabby first impression" - and also rolling cloudbanks, and a death-by-night punctuated only by three gleaming saplings in the white starlight, and the gang sitting in the woods with all the light and smoke, talking of this and that. Indebted both to Malick and I SHOT JESSE JAMES, though this Robert Ford - a stalker, a buffoon, "the baby" - takes a lot more easily to onstage histrionics in the film's (overlong) final section. Self-conscious, but in a good way. [NB. Seen with a cold, which obv. distracted from the lyricism. Second, healthy screening may bump it up to 80+.] [Second viewing did exactly that, also making clear that it's based around a death-wish: Jesse in effect commits suicide - not just in stage-managing the actual killing ("Guess I'll take my guns off now...") but throughout, probably from the first time he meets his eventual murderer - seeing in Bob's obsession a way of reaching the oblivion he craves ("Once you've peered over the edge [into Death], you'll never want to go back"). One could even say that Jesse is the real coward - afraid to do it himself - and that Bob isn't 'really' a liar when Jesse's wife screams "Did you do this?" and he says "I swear to God I didn't". Deeply morbid, and admittedly hard to take in a 160-minute slab, but its doom-laden vibe makes my inner emo quiver and weep. And it is unbelievably gorgeous.]
Also on Day 2: No Country for Old Men, Alexandra
Iraq
Finally! Four (or maybe six) years after the event, with the war now officially unpopular with Americans of all political stripes, Hollywood grasps the nettle of the 'New Vietnam' - and I'm sure Brian De Palma would bridle at REDACTED (49) (dir., Brian De Palma) Izzy Diaz, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Patrick Carroll being called "Hollywood" but after all he's hardly Nick Broomfield, whose BATTLE FOR HADITHA (which I didn't see) apparently takes off from a similar real-life incident. The incident in HADITHA is a revenge killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by US Marines; the one in REDACTED is the unplanned murder of a family by a deeply troubled, bad-apple soldier named Reno - his brother Vegas is a homicidal maniac - which is partly why the film has no bite. It looks set for across-the-board hatred, at least in the States (its title in Vern-acular will clearly be "Retarded") - but I loved what it was doing, at least till it turned out not to be doing it. The first 10 minutes or so are camcorder footage of a microcosmic US platoon (the redneck, the Sarge, the intellectual), supposedly being shot by another member of the platoon as his hoped-for calling-card to film school. Then we switch to "Checkpoint" (the first bit was called "Tell Me No Lies: A War Diary") supposedly a subtitled French documentary on the conflict, with lyrical narration and Schubert on the soundtrack - at which point I thought the whole film was going to be 10-minute snippets in various styles, which would clearly have been awesome, not just making the most of De Palma's talent for pastiche but making a point on the RASHOMON-like unknowability of a war refracted (redacted?) through various kinds of media. Alas, that aspect - like everything else - turns out to be half-baked; we get a few glimpses of news reports and a blog by a soldier's wife, wittily tricked out with fake comments ("It's like jumping into a round of Grand Theft Auto"), but most of the film stays on the War Diary with brief interpolations from "Checkpoint" - forcing us to pay attention to the stilted dialogue and redneck caricatures ("My fuckstick needs some pussy!"), all of which is increasingly unconvincing. Even the visuals are unconvincing. Shouldn't the film-school wannabe lard his Diary with flashy-but-meaningless style (maybe slo-mo, or some of those fancy wipe-transitions)? Shouldn't the pretentious French be going for faux-poetic shots of minarets and sunsets? So much for De Palma's talent for pastiche.
There are good bits, like the sly insinuation that 'he who lives by the camera shall die by the camera'; mostly, however, the film is notable as a time-capsule, a snapshot of the impotent rage and confused aims currently plaguing American discourse on Iraq. De Palma claims to be furious, yet it's not the same fury that animated anti-Vietnam discourse in the 60s. That was idealistic outrage, threaded with conviction that America was wrong to fight the Cold War in South-East Asia. This is isolationist outrage, depicting Iraq as a "fucked-up place" making life hell for US soldiers. It's not that the troops should get out because their presence amounts to neo-imperialism; it's not even that they should get out because they're causing suffering to Iraqis - it's that they should get out because they themselves are suffering. The men in REDACTED do their best (bad apples excepted), trying hard to cope with the heat, the hostile locals, their own incompetent superiors. If they do terrible things - killing Iraqi civilians at a checkpoint, say - it's because of chaos and misunderstanding (the victims keep going when ordered to stop, allegedly because they don't realise a raised hand means 'Stop'); the troops aren't at fault, we see them trying to make the best of a bad job - though they're still vilified by the narrow-minded Iraqi media, yet more proof of what a shitty place Iraq is. It's a strange anti-war movie.
Stranger still is IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (46) (second viewing: 51) (dir., Paul Haggis) Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon, in which Tommy Lee Jones investigates the murder of his son, an Iraq-War veteran. As with REDACTED, one gets the sense of a script being written in a rush - because the filmmakers wanted to catch the national Moment, and plot is only there to house the message anyway - much of it coming off as slapdash and inelegant. The central investigation is thin and contrived, the kind of plotting where new clues turn up just as TLJ reaches an impasse - I'm thinking e.g. of the topless waitress who shows up again (no longer topless) when things look bleak, just in time to recognise someone in a photo and keep the film going. The big secret, what corroded the son's soul in Iraq (the death of a child), seems unimaginative. The symbolism is heavy-handed, not just the upside-down flag but details like the bit where our hero cuts himself shaving and a drop of blood drips down significantly, presaging news of his son's death. Some of the detail is just annoyingly lame, as when he gets information on Mexican drug gangs by simply Googling "Mexican" and "drugs" (yes, it's insignificant, but it typifies the film's sloppy staging). James Franco's character goes nowhere. Both of the female roles are misconceived. In short, the plot itself - the genre aspect - is poorly done. What really seems bizarre, however, isn't the plot but the sensibility. As in REDACTED, Iraq doesn't stand for American failings, or evil intentions, or moral cupidity; it just stands for unpleasantness. It's a "shithole". It's a nasty place for Our Boys to find themselves in. Most bizarre - indeed, so bizarre I'm convinced I must be misunderstanding - is the allegory contained in the title, the Valley of Elah being where David met Goliath in their Biblical bout. Is the film really saying that America finds itself In the Valley of Elah? And if so, can it really be saying that American troops are David, with Iraqi militants - or Iraq itself - as Goliath? That'll certainly come as news to geopolitics scholars everywhere, not to mention the prevailing view (at least on this side of the pond) of the US as a 600-lb. gorilla imposing its will on the world. On the evidence of these films, America's Iraq-war outrage is perilously close to self-pity, shot through with protective support-the-troops sanctimony. It's not - as Vietnam was - the outrage of a new generation against an immoral Establishment with outdated ideals. More like the outrage of a soccer mom against the careless school that dared send her kids on a dangerous field-trip.
Round-Up: Day 7
SON OF RAMBOW (49) (dir., Garth Jennings): Thought it was going to be a case of English schoolkids staging FIRST BLOOD, like with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE ADAPTATION. Instead it's a bright, punchy crowd-pleaser with a touch of Jeunet - esp. the early scenes with the French kid, random gags existing only in themselves - and a shameless climax by any standards (it's also implausible, though I've forgotten why; just recall thinking the kids couldn't possibly have gotten the footage they got). You'd think someone like me would appreciate the 80s nostalgia, but I've had enough to be honest. § STUCK (62) (dir., Stuart Gordon): Lots of distribution types at the screening I attended, but I'll be surprised if it gets much of a release; it just looks cheap - that blocky pre-digital look where it looks like it's shot with just a key and a fill light - and the acting's pretty bad (not throughout, but e.g. the friend's double-take when Mena Suvari talks about hitting a deer, or the boyfriend's surprise when he sees what's in the garage). Also unconvincing in much of its detail - examples: Why does the man not use 911 more intelligently (he's had enough time to think about what he's going to say) instead of just babbling incoherently? Why does Mena not even mention the problem to her boyfriend till next morning? What's an upwardly-mobile nurse doing with a scuzzy drug-dealer in the first place? - none of which matters necessarily, except in confirming the film as video fodder. What does matter is the stark, often nasty tone, the surprisingly unvarnished heroine, and surprisingly unvarnished B-movie honesty. We can even see the zits on Mena's face. § THE SUN ALSO RISES (59) (dir., Jiang Wen): What's it all about? Do we really care when the first 10 minutes include a Russian folk-song, a talking bird (!), a dream involving shoes, a chase and the cry "Defend our homeland!"? Whole list of striking moments in my notes - a bloodied shirt in bright-green water, a line of girls kneading dough and breaking into song, an obscure diagram 'explaining' adultery, a thing thrown from a tree that turns out to be a lamb ("Who says sheep can't climb trees?") - but the final act, far from pulling the whole thing together, turns out to be a complete non sequitur. Best I can come up with, based on the fact that Parts 1 and 2 are set in 1976 (i.e. just before the death of Mao), is that a society faced with imminent demise must look to its past in order to plan its future - but that's highly tentative, and I had major help from Chinese-movie expert Shelly Kraicer to even get that far. It's hilarious. It just makes. No. Sense.
Also on Day 7: Cochochi
Actress from LA at the Golden Griddle
Hope you got to meet Todd Haynes, lady...
10 Reasons
10 reasons why NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (64) (second viewing: 59) (dir., Joel & Ethan Coen) Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones isn't, as many claim, the best film of the year (though it certainly has its moments):
1. The final-act grab for profundity isn't set up and doesn't work - partly because Tommy Lee Jones' character isn't sufficiently embodied in the movie except at the beginning and the end. Cormac McCarthy's book has him intervening with poetic narration at regular intervals, so the themes of obsolescence and changing times are forever bubbling under the surface; the film is a lean and mean thriller that suddenly changes gears with 15 minutes to go.
2. Some of this also has to do with the casting of Tommy Lee Jones himself. In a word, he's too good - that's to say, too soulful for the role. When we cut (as we regularly do) to TLJ and his deputy talking about the case, he's presumably meant to come across as indifferent, weary, uninterested - but Jones has a natural authority that undercuts all that, and not just authority but intelligent authority. Imagine the role played, for instance, by R. Lee Ermey, an actor who'd be just as convincing as an old-school Texas sheriff but is clearly more limited, less complex. When R. Lee Ermey falls behind on a case, it must be because he's a buffoon. When Tommy Lee Jones falls behind on a case, it can only be because he's biding his time, like the wily old fox that he is. (The Coens exacerbate this by giving him an over-eager deputy, like Marge's in FARGO.)
3. Speaking of which, NO COUNTRY is too much like FARGO. The crime-scene conversations are extremely similar - "I think we're lookin' at more than one fracas" - and of course TLJ, like Marge, is a hick faced with (and unable to comprehend) all the evil in the world. The difference, again, is that FARGO kept Marge's worldview as a grace-note at the very end, as if pulling back to show what really matters (viz. Marge and hubby talking stamps at bedtime). NO COUNTRY tries to make this its theme, and fails.
4. There's a queasy isolationist worldview at work in both this and FARGO, which also ties in (indirectly) with the Coen style of storyboarded, artificial, self-enclosed universes. I'm talking about an outlook that endorses cocooning oneself against the world - which in turn consists of the world being painted in lurid, exaggeratedly awful colours. This is basically a tabloid sensibility, the same culture-of-fear mentality that posits serial-killers on every highway and pedophiles on every suburban street. I see it repeatedly in NO COUNTRY, esp. in the scenes where Javier Bardem kills or torments trusting locals who foolishly try to be friendly; the message seems to be 'Never trust a stranger! Especially one with a foreign accent'.
5. Bardem. It seems inescapable that the film treats him too much like a cool dude (a giggly love of violence has always been the Coens' Achilles' heel). I guess he's supposed to be The Devil, judging by the way his encounters with mere humans (Brolin, Harrelson) turn out to be non-events - the resolution of the Brolin strand is especially audacious - by his indestructibility and lurching walk at the end, and by his so-called 'code' where he gives (some) people a way out and always keeps his word, however ruthlessly. On the other hand...
6. ... he's also competent, and able to withstand pain - a very human trait. The classic movie template is that monsters get hysterical when their own self-preservation is threatened - thus e.g. the Preacher in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER howling like an animal when he's shot and wounded, or Stuntman Mike in DEATH PROOF falling to pieces when he has to patch himself up. Bardem, on the other hand, knows exactly what to do (and the film makes a point of showing his competence) when he has to self-medicate. His killing spree makes him a monster, but his grace under pressure makes him a monster who acts like a hero (pain is a very special thing in movies; pain is human, and a character who can handle pain is someone we admire). Very troubling.
7. More on Bardem, especially his face-off with Brolin's wife. In the book (which I haven't read, but skimmed through) she does call the coin but calls it wrong, then pleads with Bardem to spare her - giving him a chance to explain his code of honour before he inevitably shoots her. In the film, it's left open whether she agrees to bargain for her life (i.e. calls the coin) or retains her dignity, but I think the latter is implied - which again serves to humanise Bardem by making him fallible, albeit indirectly. In short:
8. The film has a vacuum at its core. Josh Brolin can't be its hero, given the structural violence of his dismissal (he's tried and found wanting, basically). Tommy Lee Jones should be its hero but isn't, because his final-act musings on obsolescence feel incongruous and unearned by the rest of it. That means the film has to make a special effort to avoid Bardem stepping into the vacuum and becoming its hero; it has to delimit Bardem very carefully, making clear he stands outside the action (as a Devil, for instance). Instead, it does the opposite.
9. The action scenes - possibly the strongest argument for the film's awesomeness. Even those who don't appreciate the final-act switch rave about the film's tense set-pieces. It's true they are tense - but mostly in the build-up. The scene where Brolin is trapped at the crime-scene merely ends with him running off and being shot at (I kept hoping he'd do something clever, but no), though the swimming killer-dog is admittedly unforgettable. The later scene with Bardem closing in as he sits in the hotel-room ends, again, with a quick escape, a chase and a shoot-out. Admittedly, action scenes often tend to be about build-up more than resolution - but that doesn't make it right, and besides think about the majestic climax of "Danny Boy" in MILLER'S CROSSING (Albert Finney coming out with guns blazing), let alone the John Turturro sequence in the woods in CROSSING, an action scene that turns into so much more. The Coens can do better.
10. I watched NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN with Jeffrey Wells sitting next to me, Michael Moore two rows in front, and Jonathan Rosenbaum three seats to the right of Moore. This film never stood a chance in my opinion.
[Not much more to say on second viewing, except this would probably be a better movie if Juno from JUNO appeared at some point, caught Tommy Lee in mid-soliloquy and cried "Silencio, old man!". I think I was wrong about Chigurh being the Devil, though - he's simply Death, hence the repeated admonition that "you can't stop what's coming", which is why it seemed less problematic this time round. The film begs to be viewed through the prism of Jones' character - the whole thing is like a dream he might have, in which (disguised as a younger man) he tries defiantly to stave off the inevitable, and of course fails; his line about being "overmatched" isn't about the world having changed, it's about the "old man" himself having changed; what deteriorates isn't society - I was semi-wrong about the culture-of-fear Message, though I bet it's how lots of viewers are perceiving it - it's one's ability to keep up with it. All the more reason why the Coens get it wrong, overdoing both Moss and Chigurh at the expense of Ed Tom - and it also seemed a lot less thrilling on second viewing (I was drifting off for long stretches), not to mention weird details like the contrast between Moss asking the frat-boy for his coat and Chigurh asking the kid for his shirt. Why are the two incidents diametrically opposite, the former giving Moss a hard time, the latter being as kind and compassionate as everyone else Chigurh meets? Are the Coens saying we try (in vain) to appease Death, when we should be putting that positive energy into Life itself? Probably not. I don't get it.]
Round-Up: Day 6
CORROBOREE (58) (dir., Ben Hackworth): Nice to see a cryptic, playful game-piece in the style of Polanski and Pinter (though the premise echoes PROVIDENCE, a dying artist reconstructing his life) instead of the usual festival-fodder about sullen teens and oppressed immigrants. Heightened look, use of garish colours, always-strong compositions (Hackworth has a flair for overhead shots) and hero's erotically-charged helplessness among the various women controlling his actions. More of a calling-card than a real movie, but a welcome diversion in a TIFF-y context. § MARRIED LIFE (46) (dir., Ira Sachs): Should've been a comedy, the main joke being that confirmed bachelor Pierce Brosnan ("I always thought marriage was a mild kind of illness") desperately wants the couple to stay together so he can nab the mistress, i.e. wants Married Life to be idyllic - whereas Married Life, far from being idyllic, is literally murder (and infidelity, far from being wrong, literally saves the woman's life). "It was a funny story, in its way," admits the V.O. - but Sachs unwisely plays it straight, and misses the point. Full of little ironies (the wife, not the mistress, is the one who means nothing but sex; it's uxorious love, not hate, that leads the husband to contemplate murder) but wrong in all kinds of ways, even little ones - see e.g. the bit where the V.O. muses: "Did I sense a hesitation? I thought I did. I wanted to." The last three words ruin the joke. § CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, THE ENIGMA (42) (dir., Manoel De Oliveira): Rating too low, perhaps (it's charming enough, and Manoel looks great for 98), but I'm getting tired of this comically crude exposition; "It took 16 days to reach Hudson Bay," one passenger on a ship informs another, who somehow resists the temptation to reply 'I know. I was there'. More importantly, the point of the film (as per the opening) is the way various countries all try to claim Columbus as their own, De Oliveira's corollary being that the truth suffers as a result - except he then spends the rest of the film doing exactly the same thing, claiming Columbus for Portugal with a straight face and much nationalistic blather, incl. an obsession with the Portuguese flag (He: "I'm looking forward to seeing those castles." She: "Yes. The ones on our flag."). Is it senility, or a really dry sense of humour? Did he just forget about that preamble, or stick it on later to suggest deadpan irony? One always tries to give the benefit of the doubt, but it's getting harder with each passing movie. § ANGEL (58) (dir., Francois Ozon): Another case of 'what were they thinking?'. Starts as comedy, deliberately kitschy as if to mock the purple worldview of its deluded, monstrously arrogant heroine ("I quite like Shakespeare, except when he's trying to be funny") - Big Ben appears as back-projection, a sudden rainstorm breaks out to provide ambience for a declaration of love - except the heroine then becomes conventional, falling in love with a rather unworthy man, caring for her Mum on her deathbed, even opposing WW1 (admittedly for selfish reasons, but she does put her money where her mouth is and sneak pacifist messages into her romantic novels). Very hard to say if the tone changes (if e.g. Angel's high-flown romanticism becomes a valid alternative to her lover's downbeat miserablism) or Ozon just becomes less adept at conveying it, especially since kitschy moments persist even into the second half - but he does have style, which helps tremendously, getting some magnificent images (my favourite: a three-shot from the doorway of the mansion, with a background painting placed so it glares menacingly in between the faces). Romola Garai is like Drew Barrymore with added hauteur, which is not necessarily a bad thing. § I'M NOT THERE (74) (dir., Todd Haynes): Hard to evade the fact that only two of the six 'Bob Dylans' - Cate Blanchett and that amazing kid - are remotely interesting, but the whole transcends the parts. I actually don't think it's about Dylan at all (he's not there!), more about the restlessness that's endemic to American culture, from the myth of the cowboy to the wandering bluesman - which Dylan merely exemplifies, whether in his tasting-menu attitude to musical genres or the perpetual motion of the Never Ending Tour - and can also be a shield against "feeling deeply". The film has its own in-built irony, its quicksilver shifts and flights of fancy - it's easily among the year's most seductive surfaces, right from the bluesy kick-start of "Stuck Inside of Mobile..." - making its own sardonic point, that the true faith of Woody Guthrie days has mutated into passion as cultural accessory, rebellion for its own sake ("Meaninglessness is holy"); there's almost a self-loathing, but the same was true e.g. of Fellini - whose magpie style appealed to the same shallow people he decried - and there's quite a lot of 8 1/2 in the film's design. An ode to the protean, with Dylan as imperfectly-glimpsed Exhibit A: a dreamer, a riddle, a bandit, a poet, a farmer, a trapeze artist. Mostly invigorating, and a welcome corrective to the Dylan mystique (this is what I thought it would be like); wish they'd used the opening vocal - not just the intro - to "Man With the Long Black Coat", though...
Also on Day 6: Days and Clouds
How to Festival
One thing bugs me about this year's TIFF: looking down the list of films I saw (48, plus one walk-out), almost none were truly unknown quantities. Living as I do in the sticks, I usually know a lot - often too much - about the films I watch before I watch them, so festivals are really my only opportunity to explore virgin territory. Last year, I'd been to Cannes and the Hollywood lineup wasn't great, so I seemed to watch a lot more stabs-in-the-dark like THE ABANDONED and THE SUGAR CURTAIN, buzz-less movies by directors I wasn't familiar with. This year, half my TIFF seemed to consist of catching up with Cannes titles, while the rest mostly came festooned with buzz (even Discovery entry CORROBOREE came recommended) or name-recognition. That makes sense, of course, since Toronto is a 'Festival of Festivals' - meaning they primarily show films already acclaimed elsewhere - but still, I'd have liked to be more adventurous.
As it is, the only movies where I went in 'blind' were LA ZONA and FROZEN - the latter my walkout, the former a film I didn't like. The rest was a case of expectations more or less fulfilled, though both GARAGE and DAYS AND CLOUDS (67) (dir., Silvio Soldini) Margherita Buy, Antonio Albanese, Giuseppe Battiston were a mere step up on the familiarity ladder, being films by directors I barely knew except that I'd liked one of their previous movies - even less of a firm recommendation in Mr. Soldini's case since the previous film was BREAD AND TULIPS, a gentle comedy that worked despite its very middlebrow trappings. The same may be said of this new one, except that it grabs you from the opening credits - beautiful shots of Genoa at dawn interspersed with various Old Masters being perused by our heroine, an Art-expert - and wears down those cheap hipster cravings for the bold and innovative with one measured, well-observed moment after another. There's so much to be grateful for, starting with the fact that the middle-class couple don't end up in penury (the film is allergic to melodrama), merely have to suffer the humiliation of downsizing their lives; "All we have is 20,000 Euros," says the husband after losing his job, which doesn't sound that bad - and at first he even insists on paying for the table when they go out with friends, lest the friends suspect the shameful truth. Bit by bit, the facade drops away as they move to a smaller house, chase up old loans, take any job that's going. Bit by bit, the film veers away from melodrama to become a (very entertaining) moral tract on how to live, how to do the right thing ("That's the result of never opposing anything in this country!" grumbles the husband, adding to the theme of moral engagement.) Old employees assure the husband that he acted properly, even if he lost his job by doing so. The friend who avoids paying back a loan - claiming he paid it back years ago - clearly behaves badly. The wife is tempted by her charming new boss. The husband turns out to be prejudiced towards his daughter's boyfriend; even worse, he loses his dignity, squabbles with his wife and says ugly things to her, loses his temper, allows himself to be defined by his circumstances. That's the real message - that it's not about being rich or poor, it's about holding on to one's humanity - and meanwhile the beautiful shots of Genoa keep on coming, as if to reproach our protagonists; the plot recalls MONDAYS IN THE SUN or Ken Loach, but Soldini doesn't hector (given his emphasis on endurance and morality, I suspect he's from the Olmi school of Catholic virtues as opposed to the politicised lefty crowd). So why not a higher rating? Well, the wife does vanish slightly in the second half. And it is very middlebrow...
Round-Up: Day 1
THE ORPHANAGE (60) (second viewing: 56) (dir., Juan Antonio Bayona): Great opening shot (craning down to the children's start-and-stop game), then tootles around rather lamely for about an hour, vaguely J-horror-ish - ghostly kids wreaking havoc, clammy water images, etc - then gets really lame in the scene that borrows FINAL DESTINATION's death-by-bus, then unexpectedly finds its feet, turning into Gothic-Victorian ghost story in the style of THE OTHERS. Everything from the (highly tense) séance scene onwards - basically, everything from the point where heroine stops being scared and starts looking for answers - worked for me; rating edged upwards throughout the last half-hour and two moments, the one where a rational explanation is offered and the one where a supernatural resolution is offered ("It's Laura!"), sent chills up and down my spine. Not exactly good, but effectively eerie. [Second viewing, July 2008: Highlights still rock, but there's really just 2-3 great scenes - mostly the seance, plus the morbid fairytale of the last 10 minutes. Also, I'd forgotten just how deadly 95% of the first half is.] § THE MAN FROM LONDON (53) (dir., Bela Tarr): My question: does the camera even move in the oft-repeated shot where we track from the ship's gangplank across to the train? I think it doesn't, or at least that it moves very little - Tarr wheels various odds and ends across the frame to make it look like we're tracking - making it a kind of obverse to the famous two-shot from WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES that keeps the people constant in the frame as they walk (that one has camera movement but seems static; this one has a static camera but seems to be moving). The fact that we're talking about shots (and about the mechanics of shots) says it all in this curiously unnecessary movie, full of sinuous movement, dreamlike imagery and a fatally slowed-down, not to say emaciated thriller plot. Meaning eluded me, but the slow 180-degree sidle from a wide-shot of a woman's back to a close-up of her face - 2-3 minutes of creeping camera, at the end of which she suddenly bursts out crying - almost made up for it. § LOVE SONGS (68) (second viewing: 59) (dir., Christophe Honoré): Rating may be revised after I watch DANS PARIS, which apparently does something similar - Nouvelle Vague tribute (not so much Demy, as people keep saying; there's a lot of obvious JULES AND JIM here) and a joyous-depressive view of Love as both exuberant and pernicious. Not quite sure why the fluid sexuality, though I wonder if KINGS AND QUEEN might be an influence (they both have a manic hero named Ismael) and the yen for expansive, all-human-life inclusiveness as an end in itself. Also wondered if the surnames-only credits are meant as an echo of classical French cinema (where actors often went by their last names), so the film may be trying to reconcile the various eras of French movies through the power of song, but maybe that's too fanciful. [Second viewing, May 2008: Still 'pro' overall, but Louis Garrel crossed the line into annoying this time round (note to football/soccer fans: Doesn't he remind you of Cristiano Ronaldo?) and it's rather shallow as a film about bereavement; also suspect the fluid sexuality is there purely because the plot might've seemed boring with another woman, and Christophe Honoré is never boring. Moments of magic nonetheless, and a wonderful airy worldview; how many other films appreciate the awesomeness of falling in love "pour la beauté du geste"?] § DON'T TOUCH THE AXE (64) (dir., Jacques Rivette): Crisply made, deliberately theatrical - because of course the lovers are posing - and highly enjoyable, despite a growing suspicion that the plot and characters may be simpler (and more simplistic) than they appear: Love = War, he's a worm that turns, she's a tease who gets what she deserves when he turns the tables. Intertitles gently mock the posturing ("Goodbye forever!" she cries - then "An hour later...") and the fairly incongruous action climax may also count as a subtle joke. Guillaume Depardieu convinces as a "dull and sombre" hero, but Jeanne Balibar is bewitching as ever. § MY WINNIPEG (74) (dir., Guy Maddin): Maddin really ought to be my role-model - a hick from the sticks who's become one of the world's great filmmakers without ever leaving his obscure hometown, and remains a pretty good film writer into the bargain. Alas, what he does is so sui generis none of us stick-dwellers could ever copy it - especially in recent years, when he's found the technology to cut his fever-dreams at a pace to match. Truth and fantasy blur - is Winnipeg really the coldest city in the world? does it really have 10 times the sleepwalking rate of other cities? - just as dead and alive blur (Mother bonds with the actor playing her long-perished son); "secret streets" herald a secret history, fuzzy found-footage intersects with mad invention ("Ledge Man"!). No real variation or progression, really just a series of vignettes, but I love both this and BRAND UPON THE BRAIN! with which it shares a number of ingredients - domineering mother, juvenile "Guy Maddin", and the theme of trying (in vain) to recapture the past. My dream: a DVD of BRAND with this as an extra.
Pretzel Break
Snyder's of Hanover ("We are not connected with 'Snyder of Berlin', Berlin, PA 15530") Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel Pieces! I won't say you North American dudes are lucky to have them - since they're probably taking years off your lives - but they join Cream Soda and Greg's marshmallow ice-cream on my list of Junk-Food to Consume While In Toronto.
Round-Up: Day 3
EASTERN PROMISES (63) (dir., David Cronenberg): Loads of fun, but I can't believe people are taking it seriously. Really just the final, goofy act of HISTORY OF VIOLENCE stretched out to an entire movie, with everyone speaking in broad Russian accents and Viggo so tough he stubs out his cigarette on his own tongue (oooh!). Also of course That Fight, but if BORAT-style scuffling - plus the whole tattoo angle - is enough to constitute a statement on The Primacy of Flesh, we might as well throw in the towel (note to those who've seen it: no pun intended). Soccer-related extra for the benefit of American readers: the reason our heroes support Chelsea is because it's owned by Roman Abramovich. [Second viewing: Rating is correct, but I think I sold it short in the comments. Actually makes sense for people to take it seriously - not the plot (which is crude) but Cronenberg's daring tightrope-walk on the brink of absurdity (boldest detail: cutting straight from gaping prosthetic throat-gash to the long-haired cretin singing "Ochi Chornie") and the echo-chamber style constantly playing variations on the themes of blood, physical body and identity; also for Viggo Mortensen's performance, which is exquisite, modulating subtly even as he stays in the macho cartoonish register of Mysteerious Rossian. Check out this "Cyprus Mail" review for more, though it's kind of diffuse as always; thanks, Amy Taubin.] § SILENT LIGHT (72) (dir., Carlos Reygadas): Most impressive is perhaps that this works just as well with or without God, appealing to the likes of Victor even though it's clear (to me) that Reygadas has no interest in matters religious. We start with a natural miracle and end with a man-made (or woman-made) one, underlining the link between Man and Nature; the Mennonites live in harmony with their surroundings - which is why the husband is so affected by having found his "natural woman", which is why the wife says she's "separated" from the world by her sadness over his affair (separation from the natural world is her greatest affliction), which is why so much is made of scenes like the children at the lake. The only problem is the final miracle doesn't stem from anything miracle-worthy - it's not like she makes any great sacrifice - but maybe that adds to the point (as if to say the miracle could've happened at any time, that Man himself is miraculous). Dumont-ish in style, and pointedly film as opposed to video - doing exactly the things video can't do, like darkness and bright light in the same shot when the husband visits his buddy. I bet it's deliberate. § LA ZONA (45) (dir., Rodrigo Plà): Not what I expected. Plot has slum kid breaking into gated community, which sounds like the cue for social comment - but instead the inhabitants of La Zona turn vigilante (their community meeting plays like the conclave of a secret society), the kid when finally glimpsed is winsome, and Plà goes mainly for thriller elements and cheap sentimentality like the boy bonding with a boy from La Zona. More downbeat than its US equivalent (esp. the ending), but really this could star Stephen Baldwin and go straight to DVD with minimal tweaking. Maybe that's the idea. § THE BAND'S VISIT (38) (dir., Eran Kolirin): Ronit Elkabetz is veering into Irene Papas territory - the raven-haired, self-consciously passionate Mediterranean woman with soulful expressions and over-aggressive movements. The film is just cutesy, with mucho shots of the band in their uniforms - this is funny, apparently - and rigorously unmentioned political subtext, except of course it's rather silly (and craven) for the politics to remain invisible over a whole night of cross-cultural bonding. Everyone's lonely, making for some nice melancholy moments in the second half, but the town is self-consciously depressed, the car won't start and a roller disco provides the only nightlife. Should appeal to fans of MEDITERRANEO, and those who think the purpose of foreign-language films is to show foreigners getting along together.
Space
It's unlikely IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (85) (dir., Jose Luis Guerin) Xavier Lafitte, Pilar Lopez de Ayala, Laurence Cordier can get a proper release nowadays. Too abstract, too much a case of Art-Fag Cinema - but I can pinpoint exactly when I knew this was special, viz. when it took a cliché of 'festival' movies (the staring-into-space shot) and gave it meaning. The first proper shot in SYLVIA (following a few early inserts) has our nameless young hero sitting on his bed, lost in reverie - and he stares and stares, doing absolutely nothing, for a full minute (a handful of people walked out then and there). But then he bestirs himself - and also does something that explains his previous stillness, incidentally touching on the theme of Inner Worlds that infuses the entire movie. Part of SYLVIA lies in the tension between Outer and Inner Space, meaning (a) the real, outside world vs. the hero's inner world of obsessions and passions but also (b) the totality of the world vs. the sliver that can be contained in a movie image. Again and again, Guerin uses the frame in a knowing way, even when he just stands still and observes (carefully choreographed) life go by - All Human Life is Here, and it's probably no accident that it's set in Strasbourg, the EU headquarters, and pointedly features three or four different languages overheard in its first 15 minutes. Two little boys go by, having a (surprisingly profound) conversation in English, a woman pushes a pram, a lame florist limps across the frame; life is sprawling and variegated, self-evidently impossible to express in a film - but our hero is an Artist, and an Artist's job is to find meaning in randomness. The extended early set-piece in a café - possibly the first time I've ever fought back tears in a movie without any plot-related emotional reason, wanting just to cry at the Beauty Of It All - literally makes an art of people-watching, marshalling the patrons in creative compositions that constantly suggest hidden stories; divergent eye-lines speak of missed connections, foreground/background contrasts indicate confusion and the gulf between people (slyly reinforced by narrative confusion over a waitress bringing the wrong drinks); a lifetime of intrigue is contained in the knot of a woman's hair. It's as though our hero's managed to enfold the outside world into his inner monologue - at least till creative passion crosses the fine line into obsession, ultimately blinding him to the true glories of the world (that, I think, is the point of the final set-piece), leading him down a dead-end street of amour fou.
It's impossible to detail all the things the film is doing - but suffice it to say Guerin seems to be both a documentarian and a romantic, both of them simultaneously and (inevitably) at cross-purposes, since one privileges objective truth while the other privileges the whims of the human heart. The frame often seems to be mocking our hero, and I thought of Buster Keaton in the scenes where he follows the girl around Strasbourg - their near-misses, observed with a fixed camera, are as droll as Buster and the girl in THE NAVIGATOR - not to mention the quietly hilarious shot where first she, then he, crosses a tiny edge of the frame, their little story dwarfed by the world around them. I also thought of Iosselliani in the deadpan observational humour, but Iosselliani is aloof and a little bit cruel whereas Guerin is compassionate and finally optimistic, albeit wryly; our hero isn't as alone as he seems (see e.g. the recurring graffito reading "Laure Je t'Aime", proof of some other lovelorn wanderer), and the ending locates Desire in the music of a radio from a passing car - part of the world, and a beautiful part, flaring up then fading into the distance. SYLVIA has a lot of classical humanism - there's an almost neo-realist tang to its conviction that human behaviour is worthy of close observation, that profound truth can be extracted from the sight of a couple kissing, or a woman fiddling with a lock of hair - but its emphasis on form takes it close to avant-garde; others spoke of De Oliveira (I'm not so sure), and perhaps a touch of Ruiz in the suggestion that everything we see may be just a fantasy, part of a book our hero's writing. There's a different kind of fantasy in the parade of beautiful women - except the one with a scar, who feels like the token girl-with-a-scar - and I guess the male gaze isn't really subverted; I'd be curious to hear what a feminist (re)viewer has to say about it. But that's just explaining why the film is an 85, as opposed to a 100. In most respects, it really is that perfect.
Shape-Shifter!
Special Mention to the girl behind the Timothy's counter at the Scotiabank (formerly Paramount) Theatre - a slow-moving, bleary-eyed girl with a weary galumph to her well-padded figure. My eyes wandered down to her name-tag: "Miranda Becoming Jane". A case of split personality? Was she in the process of re-inventing herself? Might she morph into some other, less weary girl - "Jane" - before my very eyes? I enquired discreetly. "My name. My favourite movie," she replied wearily.
Sleep
Sleep is an important part of the Festival experience - first by its absence, then its unwanted presence. You could in theory get 7 hours if you didn't do Midnight Madness and didn't socialise/unwind at the end of the day - that is, if you went straight to bed immediately after your last movie - but that would be lame verging on perverse. Instead, the approximate exchange rate goes as follows: A quick drink and hurried conversation (rare) takes you down to 6 hours. Staying at a bar till kicked out at 2.30 a.m. (most popular option) gives you about 5 hours. Poker night, depending on skill and luck, can drag you down to under 4 hours. (I hung out for a while, but didn't play; I know my limits.) Point being, you don't get much sleep at a film festival.
This isn't necessarily a problem. Jeremy Heilman, say, is the kind of person who can get by on 4 hours' sleep for a week and a half, watching the midnight movie 8 nights out of 10 and blogging compulsively on everything he sees. I am not that kind of person. Fortunately, I seem to be in the majority - at least judging by the (sometimes audible) evidence of dozing-off at TIFF screenings, especially after Day 4. One becomes attuned to the sound, the sudden stifled snore of breath caught in the back of the throat - often nudging the culprit awake - or the small disjointed blip in peripheral vision which is actually the person sitting next to you succumbing to sleep, their head juddering slightly like a finely-balanced house of cards then toppling forward. Usually the head shoots up again immediately, punctuated with an instinctive sniff or cough from the dozy viewer (as if daring anyone to accuse them of being asleep). Sometimes the head stays down - though not often, because people are embarrassed by dozing off. It's a mark of defeat, besmirching not just the sleepy cinephile but Cinema itself, which wasn't strong enough to keep them awake. (Of course there are exceptions, like Mike "Two Reels" D'Angelo who's been known to curl up and nap unabashedly in lieu of walking out of a movie, once its 40 minutes are up. To his credit, he barely snores at all.)
I did pretty well on the dozing front this year. I always used to burn out at TIFF, lack of sleep tending to catch up with me around Day 8, but I'm more seasoned now and I've learned how to pace myself. In fact I only faltered at the start, on Days 2-3 while my body struggled to adapt - and even then I mostly blame the movies, like ALEXANDRA (45) (dir., Aleksandr Sokurov) Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov, Raisa Gichaeva where I admit I dozed intermittently through the last half-hour, but only because I felt I'd gotten everything the film had to offer. That would be a veiled attack on the dire state of the Russian Army - and atrocities committed by same in Chechnya and elsewhere - expressed through the dubious device of a salt-of-the-earth babooshka coming to visit her officer grandson at the front. "Cheer up soldier!" she tells the men, bosses them around and cares for them; "You can destroy, but when will you learn to rebuild?" she chides, and goes into town where she bonds with the locals ("Give us our freedom," pleads a young Chechen). The film isn't as didactic as that may sound, partly because it's hard to be too explicit in Putin's Russia; much of it is mood, and the camera pans slowly round the shirtless, despondent-looking conscripts, expressing either pity or compassion with a hefty touch of FATHER AND SON homoeroticism. Alexandra is of course Mother Russia, the same personage who loomed behind RUSSIAN ARK - and even looms, implicitly, behind Tarkovsky's rapturous shots of Nature - and I think I spotted a WW2 song mentioned in the credits (it wasn't subtitled), evoking chastening memories of Russian courage and martyrdom; the point is made early and just keeps getting made, which is why I checked out though the last 30 minutes (I'm told) make the point more affectingly than the previous 60. Sokurov's visuals don't help, still in his 'brown phase' albeit somewhat lighter than THE SUN - a bleached sandy look with striking moments (a pieta of grandson cradling grandma recalls MOTHER AND SON) but a deadening sameness; "In Sokurov's cinema, people, trees, buildings and atmospheres are all but interchangeable, or at least equally mysterious," writes Kent Jones in "Film Comment", which sounds like the other side of the same coin. I'll probably see it again (sans dozing), just to make sure.
Then again, that's what I did with THE MOURNING FOREST (51) (dir., Naomi Kawase) Shigeki Uda, Machiko Ono, Makiko Watanabe and it turned out I was right the first time - though apologies to Dan Sallitt whose reasonable post-screening questions I answered with misleading vagueness, loath as I was to admit I'd fallen asleep through much of my first viewing (like I said, dozing off is embarrassing). This follow-up to SHARA is deeply-felt, as reflected in Kawase's lengthy and passionate speech when she won the Grand Prix at Cannes; unfortunately it's also fuzzy-minded pap - and way too upfront, lacking the sense of mystery that was SHARA's strongest suit. An old man and a young woman - patient and nurse, respectively - get lost in the titular forest, which is also a way of losing their modern inhibitions ("Let's pray to the wind together," he says, shortly after she loses the signal on her cellphone); the forest, with its animist overtones, becomes a safe place where the Healing Process (tm) can take place. Both, in their different ways, are in mourning, and can only feel "alive" again by letting go of the dead; we know this because the subject of being "alive" - what does it mean?, etc - features in the dialogue, just as the repeated line "There are no formal rules, you know" anticipates the duo's different paths to the end of mourning (for him, it's a ritualised process of taking old diaries to his wife's grave; for her, a random incident recalling - we assume - her son's death by drowning). The film is both too clear on what it's doing and too obscure in the way it does it (I like movies best when it's the other way round): Kawase finds a lot of 'beautiful' images - a misty forest, an embrace by firelight, wind on grass, people walking between lush green terraces - but the rhythm doesn't change (cf. SHARA) and onscreen geography is muddled (probably deliberately), making the trip a shapeless shamble to a known destination. Jeremy Heilman has a point when he compares Kawase to Hayao Miyazaki, but the shambling quality of the latter's films isn't circumscribed by a pre-planned agenda - his fertile muddle is expansive, reflecting the way children use fairytales to create their sense of the world, whereas Kawase's in FOREST is constrictive, merely reflecting the gulf between spiritual and visual. No wonder I fell asleep.
Round-Up: Day 9
THE ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON (56) (dir., Eric Rohmer): Young love, the beauty of pastoral landscapes (so different to today's urban blight, per the opening caption), the charming innocence of stilted acting and antiquated texts. It may seem unnatural, but Love itself is unnatural - the idea of two becoming one, just like the unnatural idea of duty and fidelity (so much more natural to sleep around, the "impure love" urged by Rodolphe Pauly's character) - hence the awkward stylisation expresses the awkwardness of romance itself. Otherwise limpid, with a certain free-flowing sensuality and a few too many dead bits. Sample dialogue: "Take him to the castle. We'll slip in by a back door, unseen." § MISTER LONELY (41) (dir., Harmony Korine): Community of misfits = not my favourite genre, and it's even more annoying in this case given the missed opportunity to say something about celebrity-worship. The fact that none of the celeb impersonators act remotely like the people they're impersonating is allowed to pass without comment - but is their seemingly inept Michael Jackson or Marilyn Monroe-ness just a security blanket, something to hide their insecurities (see e.g. the V.O. about longing to be someone else), or do they channel the celeb just by 'being' the celeb? The early scenes, where Diego Luna entertains an old folks' home then charmingly says goodbye to his hotel room before leaving it, seem to suggest a magic quality to celeb-hood, an all-enveloping kindness - celebs as gods or priests, which also ties in to the (much better) scenes with Werner Herzog and a bunch of nuns. Once we get to the island, though, comment gives way to a tolerant vibe where everyone's welcome, however mediocre or inept - and if the ending suggests you have to come down to earth eventually, that's never apparent in the film itself. Some call it 'generous'; I call it saccharine. § IMPORT EXPORT (76) (dir., Ulrich Seidl): Seidl still attracted to grotesquerie, but nothing can contain this wildly ambitious panorama - a two-tier Europe, the Iron Curtain turned into the Money Curtain - and even his grotesque images in the nursing-home have metaphorical weight, Old (literally) Europe lying in its sickbed, waiting for death or demographic disaster. West exploits East but also quails before it, the thuggish Austrian duo as lost in the Slovak wilderness as the Ukrainian maid is in the middle-class family home (meanwhile, an Eastern European gang beats up our hero in a parking lot); everything is power relationships - trainer and trainees, a man with a dog and a woman who's afraid of dogs, sleazeball and hooker, maid and employers - and it's never as simple as exploitation, West and East more like two wounded people desperately clinging to each other (nor are the characters simple, esp. the disaffected skinhead who turns out to be looking for "harmony"). Haneke-like style, extended set-pieces in lieu of flowing narrative, works brilliantly, making its case more devastatingly with each new nugget. Probably the most important European film - as in 'film about Europe' - of the past few years.
Ode to Burgundy's
I miss you not,
You greasy spot
Of onion rings
And other things.
And yet I miss
The dubious bliss
Of Rickard's Red and bad poutine,
The way I'd miss
A sloppy kiss
Or Tulse Luper, Part 16.
Oh Burgundy's,
I'm on my knees.
Forgive my rash departure, please.
I never knew ye
Till I outgrew ye.
Slick
Is TIFF getting too slick for its own good? More specifically - a point made by more than one Canadian I spoke to - is it becoming a Hollywood showcase, servicing the giant industry to the south? Two things stood out for me this year. The first was the worldwide publicity given to the People's Choice Award (won by EASTERN PROMISES), which was even mentioned on the News in Cyprus - I'm almost sure previous winners like WHALE RIDER and ZATOICHI never got such publicity - as if to give Toronto the newsworthy angle it needs to compete with other big fests. (It's also notable that a big-studio movie with major stars won the prize, but I prefer to put it down - at least this year - to Cronenberg being Canadian.) The second thing that struck me was how undeniably Hollywood brought its 'A' game, screening some of its biggest final-quarter offerings - VALLEY OF ELAH, I'M NOT THERE, INTO THE WILD, RENDITION, THE GOLDEN AGE, MICHAEL CLAYTON, etc. I should probably do some research before spouting off, and obviously a big chunk of TIFF has always been given over to American big-studio movies, but they somehow seemed more ubiquitous this year - and meanwhile there was no Locarno winner (THE REBIRTH), very little from Berlin except the slick, English-language ANGEL, and few unpolished gems like ... well, THE UNPOLISHED. If nothing else, that 'Festival of Festivals' tag must be getting rather worn.
This is where I'm supposed to twist the knife and bemoan the commercialisation of TIFF - but the truth is I only watched about 15% of the full program, and the other truth is that most of my faves were big-studio movies; my second- and third-favourite films at the Festival star those obscure Uzbek thespians Nicole Kidman and Brad Pitt, respectively (though I did deliberately blow off the Sidney Lumet to watch FROZEN in the interests of a more balanced TIFF, so credit where it's due). In short, I'm not really qualified to play Indignant Highbrow - but most of what I saw was quite slick, even the little-known stuff (LA ZONA), and very little of it entailed Asian master-shot alienation or shoestring-budget rural dramas from Burkina Faso. I also heard the unsubstantiated rumour that some programmers had received instructions not to pick anything too 'arty' in their sections. And that's all I've got to say about that.
Round-Up: Day 5
THE DIVING-BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (55) (dir., Julian Schnabel): As I told Scott and Noel: "Oh you know. Human spirit, whatnot." Paralysed man "clings to what makes him human" - Imagination and Memory - though Schnabel's strategy of random images (a meadow, a matador, a cliff collapsing), expressing the detritus of a broken mind, isn't carried far beyond the first act. Worthy, watchable, soft-centred; potentially the most painful scene (hero on the beach with his kids) is sweetened with a layer of Tom Waits. Also read the book a few years back, which also didn't make much impression; clearly, the subject is too big to reduce in this fashion. Or I'm just a bad person. § MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (79) (dir., Noah Baumbach): Title evokes Rohmer, but Rohmer wouldn't have included the abusive father (or masturbation, fast becoming a Baumbach trademark) - and speaking of painful scenes involving kids [see above], has anything ever matched the sequence where Margot tells her 12-year-old son that he used to be graceful, but now he's just a big lump (the boy gapes at her, looking ready to cry, then just says "Aha..." and slinks off defeated). Jack Black wears a moustache - "It's supposed to be funny" - Jennifer Jason Leigh is restrained, Nicole Kidman is Margot - and does very well though her character tends to overbalance the movie, like Jeff Daniels' character in SQUID AND THE WHALE; she's pushy, judgmental, brutally honest and insanely stubborn, telling a couple early on what they need to do about their autistic son and refusing to shut up (the film just cuts her off in mid-rant, as if to say 'We'll be here all night'). Baumbach has people doing exaggeratedly awful things so he can patch them up with happy endings - but he also enlivens them with detail so precise it must be drawn from life, as when the nervous cousin asks Mom to hide the frightening cover of "In the Court of the Crimson King" (I also love that it starts with the kid accidentally going to the wrong woman on the train, thinking it's Mother; if only it were!). Highly-strung, viper-tongued, neurotic. Gripping stuff. § PARANOID PARK (77) (dir., Gus Van Sant): Another in Van Sant's series of films about people getting lost - whether literally or inside themselves - and the double-edged pleasure of seeking and finding oblivion. Initially, our teen hero's life seems full of possibility; the music behind him keeps changing, as if to suggest he could be anything - he and his friends are half-formed, constantly shifting (even the skating is something he's only recently taken up). Initially, the movie has a clear (if shuffled) narrative, centred on the cop and his murder investigation - but that narrative simply fades away, and then the boy's internal narrative also vanishes (when he finishes the letter, then burns it), leaving him only with his identity as a skater and the fuzzy, self-enclosed footage of Paranoid Park. Actually something of a sad film, Alex shedding options as he goes - including the war-in-Iraq option, which might've connected him to the politicised girlfriend: "I really don't care" - though perhaps he also becomes more truly himself (speaking of which, what's his background supposed to be? he seems well-off, and has money to buy skateboards etc, but his Dad looks decidedly working-class). Quietly perceptive, also of course very beautiful, fluid, etc. Christopher Doyle shouldn't act, however. § CLEANER (44) (dir., Renny Harlin): Samuel L. Jackson cleans up crime scenes; he's an ex-cop; his wife is dead, his daughter is troubled (and likes to watch HIS GIRL FRIDAY). The real trouble is that Harlin is much-underrated, but this is so bland it's likely to confirm everyone's prejudices about his hack-tude; seriously, what's it doing in a major festival? Weirdest part: the ending, wherein a ledger detailing the doings of corrupt cops is apparently destroyed ... and that's okay. Wtf? § DR. PLONK (66) (dir., Rolf de Heer): More burlesque than Silent comedy, with a few choreographed gags (e.g. when Plonk throws the bottles for assistant to catch) but also lots of primitive slapstick, kicks in the pants, etc. Its real asset is its sense of anarchy - shared with its characters (Plonk excepted) who'd rather play than work, esp. the assistant who's completely unfazed by Time-travel and has absolutely no sense of duty. Also smart in having Plonk travel through Time so often, so it simply stops being an issue - at some point the film just starts to feel unconstrained by time and space, giving it an anything-can-happen feel. I must admit it left me giddy with happiness, though it is pretty one-joke.
Round-Up: Day 10
TERROR'S ADVOCATE (60) (dir., Barbet Schroeder): Maybe Schroeder ought to stop doing documentaries on controversial figures; he never managed to pierce Idi Amin's armour (though Amin's vainglorious joviality told its own story) and now Jacques Verges, the ostensible subject, never opens up to him here, citing lawyer-client privilege the one time he's semi-cornered. Instead we get a history of 60s and 70s radicalism - it seems clear Verges became a terrorist-enabler during his 'missing' years - reminding us that not much has changed; "so many bombs were exploding". Fascinating for the people being interviewed and the facts they reveal, though Verges himself grows increasingly irrelevant, almost disappearing for lengthy stretches in the second half (the main charge, that he betrayed his early idealism by defending obvious villains, isn't really explored but seems pretty sound). This film is "the director's point of view ... which may differ from that of the interviewees" says the opening caption, suggesting that Schroeder thinks he made a different film altogether. § BEFORE I FORGET (59) (dir., Jacques Nolot): Talk about warts-and-all. Very first scene acquaints us with director-star Nolot's little pot-belly - a naked old man in a dimly-lit room, later observed peeing in the sink, popping sweetener in his coffee, watching people in a cafe, etc. A glimpse into a gay sub-culture, as grimly compelling as the details of the old 'hanky codes' though not as colourful - instead they talk about the price of gigolos, the price of therapists, the perils of being a "handbag queen" (possible best line: "I used to go cruising with Roland Barthes"). Hero contemplates risky sex, thinks about his rich older lover (now deceased), thinks about being HIV-positive - but also makes himself a chicken dinner while the TV blares with news from Hebron, and the camera pans across video tapes, an old hi-fi, a pile of Euro notes. And of course there's Death, apparent from the title to the final image of approaching blackness. Strangely hypnotic. § THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (53) (dir., Fatih Akin): Watchable but curiously unmemorable, partly because the constant will-they-won't-they of the dangling plot strands (will they link up?, etc) distract from the characters, who remain mostly ciphers. The young German girl - privileged, spoiled, condescendingly calling things she dislikes "very German" - may be the most detailed, but her pre-announced fate has its own dramatic (and political) problems since we wait for her good deed to be punished. The theme of dual identity - German vs. Turkish - also falls by the wayside, though it's clearly what Akin is most into. Did you know Islam has its own version of the Abraham-and-Isaac story? Well it does. § INSIDE (61) (dir., Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo): No taking notes in the final-night Midnight Madness: it's the rule! Not much to say, consequently (I'm writing this two weeks later), except that Beatrice Dalle is terrifying - especially when silhouetted against sickly yellow light - and the film has a great middle section bookended by a flat opening and over-the-top final act (and spooky coda). Seriously bloody and disgusting, though. I'm just saying.
Murmur
Isn't it strange how softly Third World kids speak? (At least in movies.) Part of the lure of Iranian cinema used to be those solemn, inscrutable kids in THE WHITE BALLOON or the Koker Trilogy, meeting misfortune with sad-eyed perseverance - but the boys in COCHOCHI (65) (dir., Israel Cardenas & Laura Amelia Guzman) Antonio Lerma Batista, Evaristo Lerma Batista speak even softer, in monotone murmurs, and move even more deliberately (it can only be a laugh-line when an old man declares: "This boy's in a hurry!"). They're Mexican-Indians from the region of Chihuahua, looking for a lost horse which they ride through a sylvan landscape - a land both idyllic and creepy, the kind that can swallow up a boy and leave no trace. When they crack jokes, they do it solemnly; when they're in trouble, they gaze impassively. The film is like Lisandro Alonso with a lyrical kick of Gus Van Sant, finding a forest in fog, a painting of a swan in a dingy home, a guitar-and-accordion duo playing a song called "Two Bottles of Mezcal" in a village cantina (the walls plastered with shots from a nudie calendar) - and finding it all through the gauziest of soft light and the most meandering of rhythms. At one point, a junior-high graduation segues without warning into a dance number, the kids wordlessly pairing up for a celebratory waltz - bodies lost in geometry, faces betraying nothing - and shuffling to the music. It's quite transporting.
Round-Up: Day 8
MAD DETECTIVE (62) (dir., Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai): Closer to sci-fi than cop movie, especially when everyone's hidden personalities are on view (the frame resembles a party in a phone booth). More literal-minded than EXILED, taking time to explain the goings-on - then again, it's a lot more outlandish - but not forgetting silhouettes, artful squares of light, etc. No real theme except maybe Lethal Innocence - a sub-theme at best - but highly entertaining from zany pre-credits sequence ("The killer is the ice-cream shop owner!") to hall-of-mirrors climax. Best bit: cop chops his own ear off and hands it to the chief as a going-away present - and cue title. § A GIRL CUT IN TWO (42) (dir., Claude Chabrol): Chabrol turns into De Oliveira, spelling out every plot point (esp. near the end, when it takes ages to establish that yes, the rich family will be hiring a lawyer, and this is the trial, and then there was a verdict and now we shall hear the verdict), making heavy weather of an ordinary love triangle and leaving his trademark finesse behind - though there's certainly a lot of the old-school Frenchman in the sniffy bit about "French society drifting towards puritanism or decadence". Neither of the rivals is convincing (neither is the girl, but Ludivine Sagnier never seems quite real anyway), esp. Magimel as the dandyish psychotic Henry Thaw figure; the broad comic tone is hearty without being witty, dialogue is flat and style is limited to some basic stuff with mirrors. Biggest disappointment of TIFF '07, possibly styled on the foolish aphorism it quotes: "A bon mot is worth a bad book." § YOU, THE LIVING (57) (dir., Roy Andersson): Easy to describe: SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR, Part II, only missing three crucial elements: (a) the explicitly apocalyptic aspect (statues of Jesus, human sacrifice and so forth); (b) the visual grandiloquence and spectacle, like that incredible shot of piled-high baggage at the airport stretching as far as the eye can see; (c) the tableaux, since Andersson cuts rather frequently this time. Still pretty good, though it feels like it could be a sketch show ("Little Britain" or something) and most of the jokes revolve around the same theme, crossing the line between public and private - people being too personal, offering too much information, etc. Bit I remember: a police band marches off, leaving the watching crowd with nothing to watch. And cut.
Also on Day 8: In the City of Sylvia, The Mourning Forest
There's Two Gangs Who Fight
And when they fight, they dance.
They DANCE-FIGHT!