Craig at the Toronto International Film Festival

September 10, 2004

Filmfest 2004 - 01

Few people in Toronto will forget that the Uptown theatre was demolished last year. During the process the roof collapsed onto a neighbouring school, killing a teacher and injuring children. A rather ignominious end to the much loved cinema, the closing was already lamented before anyone dreamt the closing of the Uptown would bring a tragedy upon the city.

The last screenings at the Uptown were the festival’s, and in fact my second last film at the 2003 fest was the last film to be screened in the Uptown 3. Festival programmers were nostalgic about the place, certainly I was, especially concerning the Uptown 1 with its garishly painted art deco features, its massive screen, its steep rake (so there was never a head in front of you) and its excellent sound. While auditoriums 2 and 3 were not special rooms at all, I had enjoyed many film premieres in them, including Priest and Beautiful Thing which quickly come to mind. The whole complex was perfectly located for the festival at the corner of Bloor and Yonge, and the big question was how the Uptown would be replaced for this year’s fest.

The answer is this: the 918 seat Uptown 1 is replaced by the Ryerson Theatre’s approximately 1200 seats, and the over 1000 seats of the 2 and 3 are being replaced by the Paramount 2 and 4. Both Ryerson and the Paramount are quite a distance from the festival’s Yorkville epicentre, so travel between screenings is a bit more of a challenge this year. It has always been a part of a 42-film festival to get your exercise sprinting from one cinema to the next: this year there’s just to be a lot more of it.

Distance between venues is only one factor that effects how smoothly the fest will go for the audience. Here’s another: while the Paramount is a known quantity (good cinemas, if a bit distant), I have not seen anything at the Ryerson Theatre in a couple of decades, so questions like ‘does it have a deep enough rake’, ‘how comfortable are the seats’, and ‘how’s the quality of the projection and sound’ have been popping into mind. As my first film this year was at the Ryerson, those questions are now answered: the rake is fine without exactly being stadium seating, the seats are comfortable for about an hour, the sound and the projection is worthy of a big-deal film festival.

The film was Jean-Luc Godard’s NOTRE MUSIQUE and I feel quite unqualified to comment on it. I had never seen Godard before, and now that I have, I think I need a course on his films before I pretend to add anything to the debate. NOTRE MUSIQUE splits into three parts: first Hell - images of war from documentary and Hollywood footage across the ages, then Purgatory - current day Sarajevo where a conference is convened and Godard himself attends, and finally Heaven - a glorious bit of nature that’s fenced off and protected by U.S. troops.

Purgatory is two thirds of the film; heaven and hell speak for themselves pretty plainly, but purgatory takes some more explanation: see-it-again kind of explanation, ’cause I didn’t actually understand it all. I have to work out what Godard wanted to say by placing North American Indians into Sarajevo for example. I have a few ideas bumping around in my noggin, but this is one of those films where you’re not so sure you’re getting ever level at once. Anyway, we do live in a Purgatory, that much of a message is clear. Get in the line-up for when this shows up at the Cinematheque in a short while.

And speaking of the Cinematheque, my second film of the day was LE FANT�ME D’HENRI LANGLOIS, an exhaustive three and a half hour documentary charting the history of the founder and the founding of the French Cinematheque. That might sound more interesting if you saw THE DREAMERS in the last year - Bertolucci’s new film about three teenagers in Paris in 1968 who spend their days recovering from the night before, and their evenings at the Cinematheque immersing themselves in the world of film. During DREAMERS we witness a moment in history when student riots break out in defense of the government-deposed director of the Cinematheque.

Wow. Rioting over the firing of a film programmer - that’s quite something. Three and a half hours seemed like a small price to pay to learn how something like that could happen.

LE FANT�ME was great. Langlois, who had legions of devoted fans for the way he presented cinema to a thirsty audience, and who made enemies whenever he ran headlong into a comfortable bureaucrat, was one of those classic polarizing geniuses whose life could easily have provided fodder for a film twice as long. (See - just say “twice as long”, and three and a half hours suddenly feels like a bargain. It’s like magic.)

The film orchestrates hours of interviews and archival footage into a smartly edited and organized whole that moves along at a good clip. I left feeling like I had just seen brand new required viewing for every student of film - French or not - for what Langlois did for the world of film transcended national boundaries. (Beloved by filmmakers the world over, Langlois was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1974 for his commitment to preserving cinematic history.) Since his death in 1977, more and more of his influence has been lost; a situation FANT�ME appears likely to correct.

FANT�ME bodes well for the rest of the festival; it reminds one of the power of good films.

Craig James White
Toronto - see you in the dark!

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September 9, 2004

Filmfest 2004 - 00

Hey!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year,

again!

Like always, if you don’t want to get this year’s fest reviews, let me know, and I’ll deep six your address. Otherwise, here’s the before-the-fest-begins news:

Pick up a Toronto Star on Thursday. Look for the festival coverage. Every day during the festival, some fest-crazy person will be profiled by local artist and reporter Christopher Hutsul. On Thursday, the festie is me.

Why? Well, I saw Chris’s art at the Toronto Outdoor Art Festival this summer, and last week I purchased a piece. (If you’d like to check out some of his art, visit http://www.hutsul.com.
The seriagraph I acquired can be viewed at
http://www.beguiling.com/artproductview.asp?P_NUM=4074.
BTW, the robot is going DOWN.)

When I was picking up the art Chris and I got talking about the festival: my interest, and his Star assignment. And the rest, as they say, is, well, I don’t know yet. I quite like Chris’s art, so I’m looking forward to having a Hutsul of me. I just hope I wasn’t yabbering too quickly to prevent Chris from stitching some intelligent commentary together. We’ll see…

Anyway, enough self-serving blather. The festival starts anon. Later…

Craig James White
Toronto - see you in the dark!

Posted by rae under craig | Comments (3)

September 15, 2003

Filmfest 2003 - Summary

It’s over, and my 13th year at the festival was a pretty good one.

After 2 years of decreased attendance for me, 2003 was a return to form where the number 42 figures prominently: over the 10 days at 42 screenings, plus at one advance screening, I saw 42 features and 3 shorts. Meanwhile, despite being behind on reviews, it makes sense for me to do a festival summary for you before getting to back some films in depth. Here goes:

With the immediacy of 9/11/2001 retreating a bit more, the joy of overloading on films and kibitzing with strangers was back, while some of the films themselves were now asking “can’t we all just get along?” And despite a start to the year where Toronto was beset by SARS, a record number of stars dropped into town and helped to de-spell the last lingering feelings of civic gloom. If you like to see the surprisingly long list of who came by town check out
www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2003/mediacentre/release.asp?id=212.

Festival screenings this year started with 3 shorts: the first being a stylish series of cuts of a woman in a black dress holding up a huge frame of celluloid that allowed us to see through her to the minimalist landscape beyond, tying into the festival’s poster campaign; the second showing a volunteer being treated to a red-carpet theatre entrance with cheering onlookers, and being a thank-you to the army of 600 or so volunteers without whom the festival can’t run; and the third being 1 of 3 brilliant segments from mutual fund company
AGF, a major sponsor of the festival, each featuring characters with a flair for the dramatic going above and beyond the call of their day jobs, all underscoring
AGF’s
tag-line “what are you doing after work?” Audiences were often laughing at these even on the last day of the festival, and they all made for classy and amusing intros to each film that left the crowd in a good mood and anticipating another masterpiece of cinematic art.

I’m not sure I saw this year’s audience award winner, and ‘the buzz’ was that there wasn’t a groundswell rising for one particular film that stood out above all others, one that made audience laugh and which tugged at their heartstrings in equal measure. Meanwhile that award is being given out as I write this, but I’ll the avoid checking it until I’m done.

My one walkout this year was a forced one: I had to leave a late starting
LES INVASIONS BARBARES
to get to
DISTANT
which I would likely not get to see again. If I had had no friends at it, my one chosen walkout would have been
A PROBLEM WITH FEAR,
which was my biggest disappointment at the fest.

So, lists:

Chronologically:

Advance screening on Monday, August 18th

CASA DE LOS BABYS

Thursday Sept 4th

LES INVASIONS BARBARES

DISTANT

Friday Sept 5th

THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ
(restored print)

A PROBLEM WITH FEAR

THE EVENT

Saturday Sept 6th