TIFF07 Day 2
Seven years ago I bumped into Roger Ebert on Yonge Street.
He typically asks festival goers what they’ve liked, and he is happy to pass on what he’s liked. That year he told me to go see Roy Andersson’s Songs From The Second Floor. That was one of the best bits of movie-going advice I have ever received: I loved the offbeat, deadpan, and pointed satire of contemporary society. This year I was thrilled to see that Swedish auteur Andersson would be back at the festival with his next effort, YOU THE LIVING.
While wielding a duller blade this time, Andersson is still hacking away at the human condition, presenting the audience with a cast of desperate, lonely characters whose luck ran out the day they were born. Set in an endless urban Scandinavia, black humour pervades scenes painted in muted, pastel tones where sunlight barely permeates the clouds. Signs, advertising, landmarks do not exist; in their place are generic symbols and the visual monotony of indistinguishable cityscapes. Primary colours and any joy they might bring have been long forgotten in the land of LIVING: there is barely a scene that does not contain a sobbing, bewildered character. These are people dying to be understood, but who give nothing and therefore get nothing back.
If all that sounds horribly depressing, well, some scenes are just plain sad, but most are cut with enough absurd dialogue and stylized behaviour that we understand that Anderssen is with us, not ag’in us. SONGS and LIVING both point to a societal apocalypse, but with a knowing wink that turns it all to a deliciously nasty little warning.
I have no idea if this one’s coming out - Songs From The Second Floor did eventually appear in art house theatres and then on DVD, but you had to keep your eyes open - and I think this one’s a little less accessible. That said, if the above appeals, look it up online for more info at tiif07.ca and the imdb, and keep your eyes peeled; it’s worth your time.
Today’s second film will never come out here. THE MOURNING FOREST is a gentle Japanese film about the Buddhist 33 year mourning period after the death of a loved one. I dozed through about the second 1/4 hour of it, maybe more, and then came-to, wondering if the projector had been on pause the whole time; certainly the plot had been.
That’s to be expected though in a film that deals with grief - director Naomi Kawase wants us to understand the characters deeply so that we understand their motivations: plot development gives way to character development. That said, it was a mostly pleasant film, but I mostly didn’t care; and in the end I’ll never know if the 15 missing minutes would have helped me to care more, or if my shrug would have been more pronounced.
This year the Peoples’ Choice Award is sponsored by Cadillac. I am afraid to vote for a film, concerned that I may actually win a Cadillac. How gauche. I mean, what would you do with one? I can hear the telephone ringing, the voice at the other end telling me that I now own a Cadillac. Suddenly a feeling washes over me that I have this piece of gum stuck to the sole of my shoe, along with the nagging thought that this is going to be a major pain to clean off, that my shoe may never be quite the same again; there’ll be this sticky squeak every time I lift my foot from the floor no matter how much work I do to clear the unwanted mass. That to me is Cadillac.
Joy Division is making a comeback at this year’s festival. Well, as close as a band can whose lead singer died closing in on 30 years ago now: Manchester’s post-punk progenitors are getting attention from both a feature film and a documentary. Today was the premier of the excellent doc JOY DIVISION by Brit Grant Gee. No time to write more - if you are or were a fan of the band, you’ll be very happy with the comprehensiveness, the openness and honesty, and the energy of this terrific recap of the Joy Division’s brief by influential existence.
Next, Michael Moore was back with another pic, and while it’s hot on the heels of Sicko, it was filmed long before it. CAPTAIN MIKE ACROSS AMERICA is essentially a concert film of Moore’s speaking tour at US college and university campuses just prior to the 2004 presidential election where he hoped to motivate enough students to get out and vote. It’s not the tour de force that some of Moore’s pop docs have been, and it feels a bit thin at times, but there are lots of good lines and amusing and appalling clashes with the lunatic fringe of the American Right, and it will all make for a entertaining rallying cry during the lead-up to the 2008 election. Like always too, Moore made for a very entertaining speaker during the intro and the following Q&A session.
The day ended with a fine english language feature from India named BEFORE THE RAINS. RAINS tells the story of a British tea plantation owner whose careless affair with the Indian maid he and his wife employ threatens to destroy more than just those directly involved. Very beautifully shot by cinematographer/director Santosh Sivan, we are treated to the beauty of the mountainous Kerala region in India’s south in 1937, when the push for independence from Britain was gaining strength, and when Indians who admired and befriended the Brits had to make difficult decisions. Fine performances from an international cast including Brit Linus Roache, American Jennifer Ehle (always great with a British accent), and Indian stars Nandita Das and Rahul Bose highlight a sensitive and well-written script. Here’s hoping this pic gets a little respect with a mainstream release.
Please forgive any late-night syntax, spelling, or grammatical mistakes. Be tough on the rest. Off to bed…