Category: TIFF

Noted: “You want to know the Christians’ biggest mistake? Not recognizing the neutrality of media. You don’t like the movies they’re showing downtown? Then make some of your own. You spend all your time preaching to the choir, it just gets incestuous. And you know what incest produces? Retards.”
— Christian film producer Matt Crouch (The Omega Code) in the September 10 New Yorker. (via DVD Journal)

Well, that’s a fitting way to begin my film festival experience. I’m off to see “the movies they’re showing downtown.”

Today I began the annual bittersweet ritual of lining up for the Toronto International Film Festival. Today it was picking up the program book. Thursday morning, it’s lining up to drop off my film picks. Monday morning is lining up to pick up tickets and see how many of my picks I got, then lining up again to pick alternates. Then during the actual festival, it’s lining up at every film to get in. Lots of interesting conversations are overheard in line. Stay tuned…

My final two films of the film festival:

• Before Night Falls – Directed by artist Julian Schnabel (who also directed Basquiat), this tells the heartbreaking true story of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, persecuted, imprisoned, and finally allowed to leave Cuba, only to die of AIDS at the age of 47. Beautifully shot, and lovingly acted, with cameos from Sean Penn and Johnny Depp. Any biographical film that makes me want to run out and find more about the subject is a success. 8/10
• Comédie de l’innocence – This one was creepy. A child decides one day that his mother is not his real mother, and takes her to an address where he says his real mother lives, a woman who lost her own child in a drowning accident two years earlier. Very Hitchcockian, especially the music, and left a few loose ends (or maybe I just couldn’t make the connections). Excellent underplayed performances, especially by the child, and Isabelle Huppert as his mother. 8/10

Another film festival over. Not that my life will be any less busy for a while. I have concerts on Monday and Tuesday night, a party next Saturday, and another week of jury duty and taking care of my dad’s cats.

Is Jack Saturn OK? His sites haven’t been updated since the end of August, and frankly, I miss him. If anyone knows his whereabouts, please clue me in.

Yet more films:

• Possible Worlds – Canadian film directed by Robert Lepage, a well known theatre director. This was an awkward mixture of philosophical “arty” film and B-movie sci-fi schlock. When someone says the line, “They took his brain,” how good can it be? This rates a 6/10
• Loners – From the Czech Republic, where everyone is gorgeous. That’s the impression I was left with. A very sharp, funny film with no particularly deep message. And according to the director, the pot smoked in the film was “mostly real”! This is a solid 7/10.
• The King is Alive – Directed by Kristian Levring, one of the founders of the Dogme 95 movement (ie. filmed entirely on location with digital cameras), this is about a group of tourists who become stranded after their bus breaks down in the North African desert. As starvation looms, they decide to stage a performance of “King Lear.” Great ensemble cast, including Janet McTeer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, although it’s typically Scandinavian (gloomy…) This was an 8/10.

Two films left, and then it’s over for another year. The trial’s going ok, too. Hopefully we’ll be finished by the end of next week, but there’s no guarantee. In my opinion, the rest of the jury are grumbling a little too much. After all, we can go home when it’s over. The accused guys might not have that option.

More films to report:

• City Loop – This was a debut from former journalist Melinda Chayko. It’s a story of six individuals who work at a fast food restaurant and what happens on one long night. It’s composed of individual segments told from each character’s perspective and the narrative folds back on itself in some really clever ways. Good performances from a cast of unknowns, also. I’d give it 7/10
• Angels of the Universe – This is my favourite film so far. A beautifully shot and told story of one man’s struggle with schizophrenia, based on a book by the director’s best friend about his brother. Achingly sad and yet life affirming. It’s a shame no one will probably see it outside of Scandinavia. My second Icelandic film of the festival (who knew??). This is easily a 9/10.
• Chasing Sleep – Starring Jeff Daniels as a man whose wife doesn’t return home from work one day. He spends the days and nights getting progressively more freaked out and unable to sleep. It’s been compared to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, but I think it doesn’t quite achieve what it wants to. Still interesting and of course a bravura performance from Daniels. 7/10
• Signs and Wonders – [there were still tickets available for this film this morning, so Brooke and I decided to add it to our schedule] Great cast including Stellen Skarsgard, Deborah Kara Unger, and Charlotte Rampling, (Skarsgard and Rampling were at the screening, and Brooke got both their autographs) about a man who leaves his wife for another woman and then changes his mind. It starts off as a film about infidelity but veers into cheesy thriller territory. Also notable for being completely shot with digital video cameras. It felt like an American film trying to be an European film. 6/10

Also, today was my first day of jury duty. I reported to the pool of potential jurors and sat in on two different trials. The first was a civil trial and I didn’t get called up. The second was a criminal trial, with four defendants facing a total of 40 charges. Jury selection went on for the whole day, and I was chosen as juror number 8. We finished the day with only 10 jurors, out of a total pool of almost 90 people, all of whom were rejected by counsel. I’ll be on this jury for the next two weeks. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing how the whole process works, and listening to both sides in the case.