THE BROTHERS BLOOM had the highest wattage star power of any festival film that I got tickets for: Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo. So yeah, high, but not that high. Because of that, I was concerned that I might be in for something too Hollywood (dreaded H-word)… but in the end, BLOOM went swimmingly. From its opening scene where a handicapped cat moves across the screen with a crutch and in a roller skate, you know you are in for a rather crazy ride. BLOOM’s first hour is propelled by the whimsy and craftiness of AMELIE with a good dollop of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS thrown in, with exotic locales and quirky characters aplenty. Brody and Ruffalo play the eponymous brothers, orphans since - well, since the beginning of the film - who have perfected the art of the con since childhood foster-home experiences compelled them to act rather independently.

After our introduction to the brothers’ world, the plot kicks into gear with the classic con cliché - the sworn last grift - only one more poor little heiress to bilk and it’ll be time for the pair to retire. We forgive this tired old saw though as the scheme is deftly hilarious, with another surprise around every corner, and our heiress, the glowing Ms. Weisz, turns out to be more than they bargained for naturally. Could she be a con artist herself? BLOOM couldn’t be that DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELSy could it? In what direction will this elaborate plot twist?

Well, it twists all right, and the film that begins with the genial mischief of AMELIE’s Montmartre, ends in somewhat murkier terrain along the Gulf of Finland. Director-writer Rian Johnston (of the Generation-Y film noir BRICK) ends an hour and a half of fun with a quarter hour of darker stuff. Maybe that’s the trick of the con though; maybe the audience should share the sucker punch. I still remember the film fondly despite my misgivings about its ending, so I say “see this film” like the critics do on tv.

Not had your fill of self-serving double-speak from faceless corporations lately? Well, UNDER RICH EARTH, which details the lengths to which Canadian mining firm Copper Mesa (formerly Ascendant Copper) will go to strip mine an Ecuadorian village, will certainly get your back up as high as you could ever want. EARTH was assembled by Winnipeg-born documentary filmmaker and lawyer Malcolm Rogge from videos and stills shot by the villagers of Junin in Ecudor’s remote Intag valley. Rogge adds interviews he filmed in the aftermath of armed incursions by paramilitary units hired by Copper Mesa into the farming village. EARTH also thoroughly exposes Copper Mesa’s propaganda campaign in regard to its planned Intag mine as so many lies.

It’s great to know that there’s a Canadian mining company romping around Ecuador threatening and traumatizing the local farmers to establish a strip mine on their land. Thank goodness a Canadian documentary filmmaker is taking them on. You’ll never have been so disgusted to be a Canuck if you get to see this, and you’ll be checking your mutual finds afterwards to make sure that Copper Mesa has none of your money.

On Thursday afternoon I scheduled the one programme of Canadian shot films I see each year.

Ever watch Bravo? Sometimes these things show up on that channel when a feature ends before the hour is up. You never know when a short is going to play though, so there’s just about no way to get to see these. So, what can I tell you anyway? Well, any shorts programme is a mixed bag of funny, clever, touching, and disappointing. You don’t remember the disappointing ones too long, like A SMALL THING - something about a girl trying to remember a birthday that scarred her for life: luckily her birthday hasn’t scarred me for life. Then there was the line drawn animated piece called PIERCE, CRUSH, ESCAPE; NOTES ON THE BOREAL, that displayed squiggly lines dancing across the screen for 10 minutes depicting forest-like scenes. It could have been 7 minutes shorter. UNIFORM MATERIAL looks at the fine line that divides those with means and those without by following the methodical actions of a man preparing for a new job. 15 minutes was a bit long for this, but the short’s point is well made. In MON NOM EST VICTOR GAZON a young boy tallies the pros and cons of life after he is told that a relative committed suicide because more things made him sad than made him happy. Sounds depressing, but it was actually funny and charming. WHITMORE PARK, named after the Regina suburb where the filmmaker grew up, recalls with nostalgic humour the school teacher who changed his life. That was an excellent use of 9 minutes. MACHINE WITH WISHBONE documents the workings of a number of Rube Goldberg type inventions. Beautifully shot, and very engrossing: 8 delightful minutes. 106 tells the story of Edna Berry, the oldest woman in Canada, and the attempts to off her by the second oldest woman in Canada: a sprightly 6 minutes. Finally, to close it off was the inexplicably programmed LA BATTUE: 20 minutes of misery detailing a daughter who wants to get away from her mother, set during a hunting party in a Quebec forest in winter time, with plenty of shotguns, none of which were used soon enough.

Didja see SON OF RAMBOW earlier this year? The kid from that - Bill Milner* - our hero - stars in IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?  along with Michael Caine, who is reason enough to go to a film. Bill stars as Edward, who lives in a home his parents run as a seniors’ lodge. Ten-year-old Edward is fascinated by what comes after death, and has recently turned to leaving a cassette recorder running under the beds of elderly residents who aren’t expected to make it through the night: Edward is hoping to catch evidence of paranormal activity on tape. Caine plays Clarence, a rather reluctant new resident in the home, and a bitter ex-magician for whom the magic in life has been revealed as mere trickery. This pair get off to a bad start (natch), but then predictably learn to get along famously, with a few unpredictable turns as the story unfolds: both have a lot to learn about life.

ANYBODY THERE, it turns out, is quite a fun pic. With a supporting menagerie of schoolyard bullies, preoccupied parents, and batty house guests the film glides from one amusing setup to the next, reminding the audience of what a trip it was to grow up, and how you can mess with kids heads when you get older. Very charming.

Craig James White
Toronto - see you in the dark!

*Who would name a kid Bill Milner these days? At least, why would a 10 year old be using that as a stage name? Why not Billy? Why not Will? Both are cooler for a kid. I hear Bill Milner and I think ’silent film star’? Rethink Bill Milner.

Okay; long day, five films, here goes:

Mike Leigh has made a number of the very best British films in recent times: most explore pinpricks of light in dark situations, like the ironically titled HIGH HOPES or LIFE IS SWEET , and 2004’s highly lauded VERA DRAKE, while some have looked into dark corners of light situations. TOPSY TURVY, about Gilbert and Sullivan, would be the best known of these. HAPPY GO LUCKY, Leigh’s latest, now joins the latter.

Poppy is a happy, go with the flow, brighten your day 30-year-old north Londoner, who seems so unaffected by life’s valleys that her friends actually worry for her. If that sounds vapid or ridiculous or an easy role to play, it ’s not. Even though we all know someone like Poppy, we just wouldn’t believe in this character if rising British star Sally Hawkins not knocked this one out-of-the-park with a relentless performance. Hawkins initially sets the tone as a high energy rather silly party girl, but gradually reveals a nuanced, thoughtful, fully-rounded character. Leigh has very deliberately chosen the name Poppy here - Hawkins’ chararacter’s real name is Pauline - to describe her type, and he ends up defining her type in fact. I believe we’ll find Poppy becomes to Hawkins as Holly Golightly became to Hepburn.

A little plot? Poppy is a primary school teacher who lives with another teacher, her best friend Zoe, and spends the weekend looking for kicks at the disco. A theft of Poppy’s bicycle one day is just taken as encouragement for her to take driving lessons, and Poppy only laments that she had not had a chance to say goodbye to her bike. Can Sally really take it when events really conspire to test her though? Poppy’s driving lessons turn out to more a test of her character when the instructor - in another memorable performance by Leigh regular Eddie Marsan - turns out to have strong opinions on more than just how to drive: a student in Poppy’s class has changed and is now dealing out beatings on other classmates: Poppy’s sister has let it be known she considers her to be immature and foolish. All the situations are mundane, but Leigh likes to explore the minutiae of relationships, and the gift to the audience is to do it right. An Hollywood oddsmaker has already pegged Hawkins for an Oscar nom, and Hawkins walked away with the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for this performance, so Leigh and Hawkins have in fact done this right.

ADORATION is easily Atom Egoyan’s most captivating film since THE SWEET HEREAFTER. Set in current day Toronto, we open in teenaged Simon’s French class, who have been asked by their teacher to translate a story about a terrorist attack on an airliner. Simon, played by Devon Bostick, presents his translation to the class, which links the story to his family’s difficult past. Soon everyone at school - the students, the teachers - are talking about the revelations on the story moves online to chat rooms. Devon’s world is turned upside down by it all, and the consequences for his family’s life, and that of his French teacher are beyond what anyone could have predicted.

Devon’s story pits Toronto’s WASP past against its multicultural present, and aspects of the city itself are represented by several of the characters. Egoyan’s wife Arsinée Khanjian anchors the cast as Simon’s enigmatic French teacher, Kenneth Welsh plays the bitter patriarch of Simon’s family, Scott Speedman is Simon’s struggling uncle and caretaker, Rachel Blanchard is his tragic late mother, and Noam Jenkins plays Simon’s late father, who is not lamented by all.

Egoyan explores his favourite territories in ADORATION - communication, alienation, the complexities of love and selfishness - through a fascinatingly structured film that gives up its secrets slowly and challenges the audience to make sense of complicated motives. I was thoroughly engrossed, and the Q&A made evident that the audience in general had been similarly spellbound. Purchased by Sony Pictures Classics, ADORATION is expected to be in theatres early in the new year.

Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s 7915 KM documents the stories and concerns of the people who live along the route of the Paris-Dakar Rally. While we get a brief glimpse of the trappings of the rally itself in the opening scene, we are otherwise traveling from Morocco to Senegal in the rally’s wake, meeting those whom the rally has passed by. Most of those living along the route cannot believe the amount of money that rich Europeans and Americans waste driving through the land they own, they lament the lack of respect they are accorded by the racers while visiting their villages, and they despair the damage often caused to land their herds graze on. It’s not a love-in. In ending scenes we watch from a surveillance jet a kilometre above the Atlantic as they track over-full boatloads of Senegalese making a perilous dash for Europe. It’s all more than a little sad.

Ten years ago Brazilian director Walter Salles brought CENTRAL STATION to the festival, and I had a new favourite to add to my lists of great films and directors to keep an eye on. This year Salles is back along with his frequent collaborator Daniela Thomas and their film LINHA DE PASSE, or PASSING LANE, which is the story of single Saõ Paulo mother Cleuza and her four sons, all fathered by different men. The boys - between their early 20s and early teens, are soon to have another sibling as Cleuza is pregnant again. The eldest boy works as a bike courier on the city’s dangerous roads; the next dreams of life as a soccer star; the next has found his salvation in the church; the youngest, who is black, is obsessed with finding his father, a Saõ Paulo bus driver. As the film unfolds each has their own crisis of faith to deal with, and whether or not each character is able to overcome them is left up to us to decide. While I was looking for a film to move me to the extent that CENTRAL STATION had ten years ago, LINHA is not that film, but was an engrossing dip into many aspects of life in Brazil’s largest city nevertheless. Whereas STATION’s power comes from two riveting, intimate performances, LINHA sprawls, giving us glimpses at highlights of its characters lives. With LINHA, Salles has recast his star of STATION, Vinícius de Oliveira, then a 12 year-old shoe shine boy, in the role of Dario, the soccer star hopeful. It was good to see him onscreen again.

SHAKESPEARE AND VICTOR HUGO’S INTIMACIES is a documentary by first-time Mexican director Yulene Olaizola. The title refers to the corner in Mexico City at which Yulene’s Grandmother lives, and to some of the more interesting goings on in her home. Rosa Elena had boarders in her home after her husband died, and one came to change everyone’s lives. Jorge Riosse wrote and sang songs to Rosa and her granddaughters, then tore up all his music and began to paint. The rather fascinating paintings still cover the walls of Rosa’s home, but they end in 1993 when Jorge met an untimely end. Yulene’s documentary probes the time that Jorge spent at her Grandmother’s , and the mystery that surrounded his death, and the events that may have led up to it. It was all very well put together by a promising new filmmaker. With a luck this will end up on a documentary channel here.

Well, I am two days behind, so off this goes without further editing. Apologies for any typos, grammatical errors, nonsense, etc.

Cheers!

Craig James White
Toronto - see you in the dark!

It’s 9:21 AM - the earliest I have been in a cinema for a film this year, but I’m just practicing for a 9 AM film I have tomorrow, and I’ll have to get there earlier than that. Some films - not many - are starting as early as 8:45 AM at this fest. I mean, Breakfast Television hasn’t even ended by then. I’ve heard tell that some folk in the hinterlands start their days as early as 6 AM, so they would be able to make it down for 8:45 I suppose, but that just seems like crazy talk to me.

So, I am seated in the Paramount 2, and I’m waiting for the start of a Jennifer Anniston film? What? Am not! I’m at a Steve Zahn film. Steve’s this underused, under-appreciated comic actor (funny is enough in his case: if he has range, I don’t want to know about it) and I am just happy he’s in a film here called MANAGEMENT.

***

Okay, the flick’s over now. Ehhhhhh: nice try, but too contrived.

I should be fairer to Jennifer Anniston though. Several years ago in an attempt to distance herself from her ‘it girl’ image, she starred in a little independent film called The Good Girl, which was a very good film in which Anniston showed serious ability, and it earned her some real cred. For a while. Now she’s trying to recoup that, or build on it, with MANAGEMENT, another little independent, a small romantic comedy that is out to charm its audience with winning, understated performances by Anniston and the aforementioned Steve Zahn, along with a splashy nutbar cameo by Woody Harrelson. Too bad it just seems like they filmed some guy’s bedtime fantasy.

Zahn plays Mike, the nighttime manager at his parents’ motel in Kingman, Arizona. One day Sue (Anniston) drops in, and Mike decides to make a pass at her. She’s from the East Coast (= far more sophisticated) and isn’t falling for Mike’s lines. Or is she? It goes back and forth and then an hour and a half later the movie ends as do all thoughts about it.

KISSES tells the story of two Dublin 12 or 13 year-olds, next-door neighbours Dylan and Kylie, who run away from home when Kylie rescues Dylan from his raging father. The two have grown up in unenviable situations - poverty, alcohol, abuse - and this latest incident is the last straw: off they go, never to return.

Director Lance Daly begins his film in black and white, but adds colour as the kids make good their escape, bringing it up to full saturation as they arrive in the hustle and bustle of downtown Dublin where everything seems supercharged to the kids. If they weren’t smart enough when left to their own devices you’d say that it all goes like a dream for Dylan and Kylie initially, a while pair are resourceful, it isn’t long before gritty reality comes crashing in on the two after the setting of the sun. What’s their long term solution? What are they going to learn?

Wonderfully authentic with natural performances and smart writing, KISSES moves past the average coming of age film into something really special. With thick Irish accents throughout, the sometimes tough-to-catch dialogue will leave film distributors on this side of the pond second guessing KISSES’s commercial potential, but let’s hope somebody sees a little gold in it. During the Q&A, director Daly asked the audience whether or not to release the film subtitled. While the result was an overwhelming show of hands against that prospect, I will admit to turning on the subtitling on DVDs occasionally - I mean, well, take BILLY ELLIOT for example; who knew that Tyke for ‘nothing’ is ‘nowt’? Now I can spell it too. (Tyke, by the way, is the Yorkshire dialect.) Still, DVDs are the only proper place for subtitles for British or Irish films.

The Q&A also featured the most fidgety kid I had ever seen. Kelly O’Neill, the girl who played Kylie, would not stand still, or even stay on stage, and could barely answer a question. If you’re 12 years old and great on camera, it is no guarantee that you know how to act in public yet, or that you even want to. You could see rebellion was hardwired into these kids. Very interesting.

The EU declared Liverpool the European Capital of Culture for 2008. They do it every year to one city or another. Amongst Liverpool’s subsequent commissions was a film to commemorate it and tell its history, and it went to hometown iconoclast Terence Davies to do the deed. OF TIME AND THE CITY is Davies’ reminiscence of growing up in a tough city, one beset by poverty and since repudiated urban renewal policies that left hollow housing estates in place of tumbledown slums. Davies rails at all that is English, but finds some humanity to love amidst the institutions he despises. Were the complaints merely hurled epithets the film would be a drag, but Davies’ caustic wit charms and turns viewers into colluders.

Might you ever see this film? I can’t think where, other than in an art gallery in Liverpool, or maybe on very late at night on Bravo.

It’s the really dark ages. War and the plague are sweeping across the German lands, and one night 14 year-old orphan Krabat is told in a dream to follow the ravens that are waiting to lead him out of a life of misery. So begins direktor Marco Kreuzpaintner’s sorcery fantasy KRABAT, an engrossing story of boys enslaved in a medieval mill in exchange for being taught about the dark arts.

The festival has for a few years now included a select handful of family films that they allow children to go to. The darkest of these this year was KRABAT, and as Harry Potter fans I knew my nephew and niece would be swept up by the mystery and magic of this tale, so along with more family friends, seven of us, including 4 kids, invaded the Varsity for the evening. Turns out my hunch was right, and on Wednesday those 4 kids get to go to school and tell their friends how cool a film was that they actually had to be read subtitles for.

Kreuzpaintner gathered a number of young German stars for his movie including Daniel Brühl and Robert Stadlober, an excellent art director, great special effects artists, and created a really compelling world from Otfried Preußler’s novel of enslavement and freedom… and sold it to 20th Century Fox. Will 20CF release a subtitled German language film for kids here though? I dunno. It’s really good, but how do you sell a foreign film to teens? How will Lucas and Leah’s friends react when they tell them they saw a really great film they had to read?! It’s curtains for KRABAT on this side of the Atlantic I fear, but maybe a DVD release will find a “cult” fan base.

Craig James White
Toronto - see you in the dark!

The documentary EVERY LITTLE STEP tells the story of the audition and casting process for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line on Broadway. Being that A Chorus Line itself is the story of the audition and casting process for a Broadway musical, we have the filmic equivalent of a feedback loop here, and it’s quite the engaging ride.

Now I’ve never seen A Chorus Line - neither on stage, nor in the movie theatre, nor on DVD - but before you starting cursing my parents and showering me with elaborate pity parties, or making expensive arrangements to put me up in New York’s finest hotel rooms with great seats on Broadway tout de suite, rest assured that I will soon be correcting one of the oversights of my upbringing by seeing the show when it hits the stage of the Canon Theatre later this fall. All will be well.

I got the ticket for EVERY LITTLE STEP just because of the fact that I will be seeing the musical shortly, and I am certainly anticipating the show now, having finally learned a bit about this stage phenomenon. If you’re going to see it anyway, you might as well be prepared, right? Right. There’s no word if STEP will open before A Chorus Line opens in late October, although that would be a longshot. If I were David Mirvish I’d be trying to arrange it, nevertheless. Those who know the show will love this backstage look, those who don’t will be left wanting to see the show. And you’ll be wishing for these actors to be coming with the touring production - we certainly come to root for a few of them - but they won’t be coming, I have already checked the cast list on the website.

I am still thinking about THE COUNTRY TEACHER a day after, but I’m not so sure what to say about it. I don’t want to give too much away, but then again, I have little faith that this fine film will make it to theatres here. It Czech. See many Czech films?

TEACHER is shot in the beautiful countryside a distance from Prague, in a farming village on a lake, surrounded by woods. The setting is the rural idyll, an escape from the capital from which the titular teacher had a past he has run from. He soon finds, however, that you can’t keep your secrets hidden if you continue to act the way you did in the city: a foolish act puts his very existence in the village in peril, and the film subsequently asks its characters if they can forgive and accept, or if they will be slaves forever to misery and hate.

The film makes a choice that not all audience members were willing to accept. One questioner left the Q&A when another audience member eloquently defended the director: you could see that this film had cut deeply.

Anyway, I have no idea if such sketchy details on my part will entice anyone to see this film should they have the opportunity. I remembered little about it from the festival write-up by the time it started, and in retrospect I was glad not to know much more about it than what I have laid out here. This is one of those ‘this is the way life happens’ films, and sometimes it’s better to be less prepared for them. In fact, I have told you too much already. Forget what I have said, but see THE COUNTRY TEACHER if you ever have the chance.

TULPAN sprawls over the Kazakh steppe while at the same time it finds beauty in simplicity, with an entirely uncomplicated plot, and a whole disappearing culture for the audience to drop into. Asa is a young man, recently returned to the steppe after several tours as a Russian submariner. It’s time for him to find a wife, get a herd of sheep, a yurt, and establish a family. Tulpan is the girl down the road, a long day’s tractor ride away, and the object of Asa’s affections. A meeting is arranged to offer a dowry to Tulpan’s parents, but she and her mother aren’t interested: Tulpan is destined for the city and better things. Asa’s desires for Tulpan remain undiminished however, and if he can just prove to her that he can be a good herdsman and pure of heart, well, maybe she’ll change her mind.

Asa’s extended family are so natural that you cannot imagine you are seeing anything other than a real family going about their lives. Scenes do not seem staged or written so much as they have been merely caught by the camera. Shots of the sheep herds in a dust storm, or what it takes to get a hurt camel some help, or of family life in the yurt, or of weather on the steppe, are all exactly what they seem, with no hidden meanings nor dark complications; they are simple glimpses of this anachronistic life, and it’s very, very charming.

It’s a day of three documentaries in a row for me: I didn’t schedule that on purpose, but I am looking forward to them all…

If a film with 9 philosophers talking for 10 minutes each about what matters most as they see it appeals to you, you will really enjoy Astra Taylor’s EXAMINED LIFE, a title riffing on Plato’s maxim that an unexamined life is not worth living. If the above does not initially appeal, well, you might be surprised. You will all get a chance to test its appeal for you when EXAMINED shows up on TVO’s schedule in the coming months, but in the meantime I can tell you that Cornell West, Martha Nussbaum, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Michael Hardt, Judith Butler, and Astra’s sister Sunaura Taylor, (yes, Hippie parents) and the inimitable Slavoj Zizek expound upon questions of ethics, responsibility, power, meaning, revolution, acceptance, love, ecology. There are moments when the academic jargon will benefit from the rewind and/or pause buttons on the PVR, and from a conversation with more well-versed friends, but most speakers make themselves easily understood. Strangely enough, or so it seemed to me at first, I found myself seated beside a number of viewers who had gotten into a call-and-response type of interaction with the film, of the kind that is learned in charismatic churches. I kept hearing “yes!” and “it’s true!”, everything short of “amen” from them, which was quite unexpected, but it did make me feel like I was in church, this being Sunday morning and all. As a quick intro to philosophy today, and how it just might apply to real life, EXAMINED LIFE is easily worth at least one viewing.

FOOD INC. is one scary (but not without hope) and rather important film.

Enjoy eating? I have some friends who, if their party behaviour is any indication, do not, but I do, and I know some of you occasionally eat as well, so you just may have some interest in this film. I think FOOD INC. is destined to be one of the more talked-about documentaries of the coming year - that is, unless Monsanto has anything to say about it. (Actually, please don’t send them this email, as they will likely sue me for suggesting that they may want to squelch the release of a film that should bring to them the level of scrutiny that the tobacco industry has ‘enjoyed’ in the last couple of decades.) I certainly spent the rest of the day talking about it.

Filmmaker Robert Kenner, inspired by the books ‘Fast Food Nation’ by Eric Schlosser and ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ by Michael Pollan, set out to put together a film of how the food supply system in the US works, exploring all areas, real friendly like. As research ensued however, Kenner found that he was being stonewalled by the food producers of the US; one after another Tyson, Smithfield, Purdue, Monsanto, etc., all refused to be interviewed, and what emerged instead was a litany of grave concerns that farmers themselves had over the practices that puts much of the food on our tables. As Kenner points out, the advance of technology should continually be making our food system safer, when in reality e-coli outbreaks are becoming more common. (It needs to be said that Maple Leaf Foods acceptance of responsibility for the listeriosis outbreak here in Canada is anathema to the actions of the multinational food corps in the US, which indicates to me a somewhat more benign industry in this country. I may be somewhat naïve in that belief, but this film has got me hoping that our border provides at least some cushioning from the worst of what is shown in this film.)

That said, FOOD INC. is very well put together, and not so much depressing as it is educational, and it should prove to be an agent of change in the people that go to see it. It will be for me.

You’d think I was a jockumentary fan if you didn’t know me better. A day after seeing a basketball doc, here I am at HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29, a doc about an even more obscure sport: football. At least I’ve been to some Raptors games over the years, but football?

Well, the title was too intriguing. So Harvard beat Yale 29-29? How did they do that? What does that mean? I turns out that the game in question took place 40 years ago, at the end of an undefeated season for both teams. Yale was heavily favoured to win as a nationally highly ranked team who played tougher opponents than their Ivy-League rival Harvard. Their annual duel in 1968 however, which was 22-0 for Yale at one point, turned out very differently later, and it’s the last half of the game that the players on both teams will never forget.

Filmmaker Kevin Rafferty has crafted a fun film (even for non-football fans) that intercuts the important plays with players’ reminiscences about them, (intercuts which occasionally show you can’t count on memory, but that you can on videotape). Highlights of the interviews include that one of the Yale players roomed with George W. at the time, and one of the Harvard players roomed with Al Gore. Another one of the players was going out with Meryl Streep, a Vassar student way back when. Oh yeah, and on the Harvard team? Tommy Lee Jones. What a laconic interview he gives. Get the man some pep pills.

It’s all good fun, and as the players from both the “winning” and “losing” teams will tell you, it’s just a football game.

The day ended back in the land of fiction films, with director Baltasar Kormákur’s very enjoyable WHITE NIGHT WEDDING, a contemporary Icelandic retelling of Chekhov’s Ivanov. I had seen Kormákur’s amiable 101 REYKJAVIK years ago, and thought it was time to revisit this clever director. WEDDING takes us to a remote island off Iceland’s north shore (people really live up there?! yup!) where a former Reykjavik college professor is planning to marry a local girl half his age. Jon is haunted by the ghost of his late first wife however, and his future mother-in-law is, well, less than thrilled with the prospect. Jon’s friends, an eccentric gaggle of islanders, however, conspire to make certain the obstacles to the marriage are overcome. It’s all quite amusing, and filmed in a rare, beautiful place. It’s been quite a while since an Icelandic film hit the art house circuit here, but I am hopeful this one just may do it. It certainly deserves a chance.

Craig James White
Toronto - see you in the dark!

Introducing the screening, TIFF programer Thom Powers asked how many people were at their first film festival film, to which a lot of hands were raised. MORE THAN A GAME drew a pile of people up from Ohio, plus locals that until now hadn’t connected with a festival film. The screening subsequently drew an atypical level of response from the audience - there were multiple outbursts of applause and cheering throughout the film, and once it was all over and the players were brought up on stage for the Q&A, many in the balcony moved forward to crowd the mezzanine aisle for a better view, bringing a real concert-standing room only feel to it all. It’s worth noting that a couple of the players totally choked up during the Q&A, as they discussed watching their high school years unspool before their eyes again.

The Q&A was followed, by anyone who wanted to attend it, with Lebron James leading a hoops shooting contest at Yonge-Dundas Square, which of course, was thronged. All of this was very populist on a day when the Toronto Sun’s headlines screamed FILM FEST ‘ELITIST’. It does have that corporate side, but it’s not the singular beast some would have you believe. (Just stay away from the Galas.)

During the introduction for GOODBYE SOLO, an independent American film (it could not be farther from Hollywood), programmer Jane Schoettle announced that SOLO had just won the FIPRESCI prize at the Venice Film Festival, heightening our expectations for this already buzzed-about film. (FIPRESCI prizes are handed out by a panel of film critics to promote film art and encourage new and young cinema).

The film concerns a man who has moved from Africa to the US to make his way in the world, and to provide for his family back home. Solo is driving a cab at the moment, but seeking employment as a flight attendant. One evening a fare he has picked up gives him a deposit to book him for a drive into the mountains in ten days. The destination is a national park known for its cliffs, and the fare won’t ask Solo’s innocent question about why he wants to go there - setting the wheels of the story in motion.

Côte d’Ivoirian newcomer Souléymane Sy Savané is riveting as Solo, while veteran character actor Red West brings a gruff realism to William, a man worn down by a past he keeps hidden. Director-writer Ramin Bahrani brings their story to the screen with such unsentimentalized honesty that the film has more of a documentary feel to it. I don’t think there’s a wrong move in the whole film. This will be a hard one to forget. If this doesn’t play the Carlton/Cumberland/Canada Square art house circuit, something is wrong.

NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST was my last film of the day, and a complete departure from SOLO: it was Hollywood calling tonight, but I didn’t initially realize it would be. Directed by Peter Sollett, who was responsible for the excellent RAISING VICTOR VARGAS 5 years ago, I expected another New York based low budget indy pic, and because it stars hometown nerdthrob Michael Cera, I thought maybe we had another JUNO here. Well, it’s not a total Hollywood sellout…

NICK AND NORAH is the story of a couple of Bridge and Tunnel New Jersey kids in New York for the evening. The two are both in the middle of relationship meltdowns with their Exes when they meet and eventually find love through their shared musical interests. (None of that is really a spoiler given the name of the film of course.) It turns out that it’s far more smartly written than the average teen comedy, but while it doesn’t exactly reach those JUNOian heights, NICK AND NORAH will play very well. Michael Cera’s impeccably understated comic delivery is complimented by winning performances including Kat Dennings playing Norah and the hilarious Ari Graynor as her too-often-drunk friend Caroline, along with a whole ensemble’s worth of photogenic friends with whom to trip the light fantastic. No surprise, New York at night also looks fantastic in this pic, (I think I want a crazy late night next time I’m there), and the soundtrack is consistently fun (and should sell like crazy). If you’re gonna sell out and go Hollywood, might as well do it as well as Peter Sollett has with NICK AND NORAH. This one’s out in October.

In the last several years the festival’s center has drifted towards the Entertainment District, with screenings at the Paramount, and Galas showing at Roy Thomson Hall, and they are still there too. Adding the Elgin and the Ryerson theatres into the mix meant the occasional walk-through of Yonge & Dundas, but the festival seemed like an afterthought there… until this year.

Now, having taken over 10 screens at the newly opened AMC 24 at Toronto Life Square, the festival seems to have moved lock, stock, and barrel into the core of Toronto’s commercial life, and it’s made for a distinctive new feel for the event. Yonge-Dundas Square is not everybody’s idea of an urban oasis - not enough shade, some would like a lawn, the over-the-top commercialism is off-putting for some, and the surrounding architecture is left wanting for others (me) - but wowza, with all the Ryerson University students all over the place, with all the shoppers pouring in and out of the Eaton Centre, with the brand new and popular scramble crossing in the middle of the intersection, with all the events taking place in the square, with the lights and signs and screens, this is one happening place. Smartly, the festival is not only using the cinemas here, but has also opened their box office here, and put up a booth in the square and is programming free films or concerts in the evening. It is a lot of fun to pour out of the Toronto Life Square complex and into Yonge-Dundas Square at the end of the day to see hundreds of people out and about, and enjoying the city. Leaving the Entertainment District’s Paramount Theatre at night in comparison, seemed to not present much more than a dark street and a long walk to the subway. I still have films at the Paramount, but not so many as I did, and I’m glad.

Speaking of moving lock, stock, and barrel, I started the day with Guy Ritchie at the Ryerson theatre presenting his new film ROCKNROLLA. Like LOCK, STOCK and SNATCH, ROCKNROLLA is a sharply edited, fast moving mess of clipped and confusing plot points propelled every which way by fast talking rough and tough types, all playing the game for whatever they can get. It’s English real estate moguls/mobsters verses Russian real estate moguls/mobsters in modern day London, and it’s fun, and flashy and a hugely enjoyable waste of time. I would not have minded knowing just what was going on in a third of the scenes, but whatever. Don’t ask to much of a film that just wants to dazzle, and you won’t be disappointed.

Conversely, there are also films like YES MADAM, SIR that want to do much more than dazzle for a couple of hours, and which mean to inspire instead. YES MADAM, SIR is a solid but typical documentary, but it is its subject that is absolutely extraordinary. Kiran Bedi was the first female police officer in India. That in itself is was enough to bring her to attention in that country, but her subsequent heroic actions meant that she made a splash with the media, but waves within her department. In the 80s she singlehandedly turned back a riot when her fellow officers fled their sword-wielding opponents; in the early 90s she turned around the scariest, most corrupt prison in Delhi; in the mid-90s she revolutionized that city’s cadet training. Naturally all along the way Kiran has butted heads with the entrenched, lazy bureaucracy that let things go wrong in the first place, and this film depicts her struggle for reform in a corrupt system that has always rewarded the status quo. It’s very compelling stuff, and when Kiran was introduced to the audience at the end of the film there was an immediate and prolonged standing ovation. Already very high profile in India, this woman is a role model par excellence, and her work and goals should become much better known through this film… which I am not convinced will see distribution here other than on CBC Newsworld or the Documentary channel. I hope everyone gets to see this.

I had to run from the Q&A unfortunately, as the next film was ready to roll, but a friend was recording it on her video camera, and I hope it will appear on YouTube soon. I’ll let you know if it does.

Next it was down to the dreamy Winter Garden theatre; my first time since the film festival started using its leafy confines, where friends and I caught Phillipe Falardeau’s C’EST PAS MOI, JE LE JURE, or IT’S NOT ME, I SWEAR. I really enjoyed Falardeau’s CONGORAMA a couple of years ago, so the promise of a film about a very naughty lit boy terrorizing his 1960s Quebec town was too much to pass up. JE LE JURE stars a 10 year-old named Antoine L’Écuyer as Léon, a hellion whose parents can’t see the effect their dysfunctional relationship has had on the kid. Full of mischief wherever he goes, Léon has made enemies out of his brother, the neighbours, his teacher, his schoolmates, and even the girl he’s got a crush on. If all his destructive force is eventually going to lead to an epiphany, it’s not going to be an easy ride to get there. It is a very darkly funny and affecting one however, as Léon’s intelligence gives us the thread we need to hang on to as things proceed. This one will definitely open in theatres here, and I am very glad about that.

I ended the day off with THE PARANOIDS, an interminable Argentinian film with nothing to say about anything. North American distributors will spare you from ever hearing about this one again, so, so will I.

When at 7:30 this evening the film $9.99 premiered in Cinema 7 at the new AMC Megagoogleplex at Yonge-Dundas Square, it brought 10 years of work to fruition. 10 years of work by director Tatia Rosenthal and her cohorts? Why sure, but who cares, because it was also my first chance to enjoy the fruits of 10 years in lines these past two weeks… or so it has felt.

The 10 years worth of work it takes to line up a festiful (I know that’s not a word - wait - now it is) of films though, is mitigated by the friendliest line-up buddies anywhere, the free Dole drinks and Lindt chocolates we were plied with (and look how quick I am to repay their kindness with advertising), the sympathetic and patient box office staffers, and the anticipation and excitement it all serves to create. Any lingering doubt raised by dint of missed first (and some second) choices for films or by ticketing system meltdowns during waits in poorly air-conditioned box office lines dissipates entirely when the cinema lights dim for the first time. Seat yourself by a good friend and in a packed auditorium, and the 10 years of work to get yourself into that seat are forgiven.

$9.99 is a stop-action animated film that combines 6 stories by acclaimed Israeli short story writer Etgar Keret. The stories range from the fantastical visit of an angel with a lonely widower desperate to talk with anyone, to a supermodel’s pull on a man who is prepared to do anything to show his love for her, to a little boy whose piggy bank will have to be smashed to smithereens if he is to get a toy he has wanted, and more. All of these spiritual and emotional quests center on one apartment building where our characters’ stories intersect and diverge; some endings are happy, some ambiguous, some rather chilling. Most characters are miserable to greater or lesser degrees; they lead challenging lives and face crises, which some overcome, and to which others succumb.

$9.99’s voice work is led by Geoffrey Rush, whose presence at the screening along with the director, scribe, and composer, really lifted the introduction and subsequent Q&A following the closing credits. While Rush’s masterful delivery is the best of a legion of voices, it was his wit and charm in the Q&A that really stood out: Rush brought some reassurance of purpose to those left with questions by the challenging film they had just seen. (He should attend every screening.)

Visually the film is a challenge too, or was for me, anyway. The smooth, rounded, flawless creatures - humans included - that we are familiar with in stop action films like Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit series, are nowhere to be seen here. The $9.99ers are covered with blemishes and lint and sweat and sport bulging lips lining skewed mouths and awkward, puffy, wrinkled eyelids that protect glassy eyes. While the level of detail is to be commended, the glaring imperfections often kept me focused on the odd appearance of the puppets, instead of being fully immersed in the stories. The writing is good enough though that I believe more care should have been taken to keep the viewer from being distracted by needless visual oddities that often hijacked one’s concentration.

In the end, I am left with mixed reactions to the mixed stories and idiosyncratic animation, and a sense that this film will only play at film festivals. Too adult to play at multiplexes, while not racy enough to gain cult status, I don’t expect $9.99 will find its way to many silver screens, but I will say that it is worth its eponymous price, and so will likely find its public as an animated film buff’s curiosity DVD rental.

I’m neither dead nor injured - just a bit tired! I’m not sure what way I am going to continue the reports this year, but they may come out as one lump at the end of the festival. Cheers!

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…

The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off it’s 32nd edition tonight, and it started quite well for me…

…it’s just that I don’t know of it I am going to write it up this year.

I have more tickets than ever - 48 - as I have a pass this year. (I have gone with a day pass and coupons in the past.) With that load I am not sure I will get it all written up, at least not to the length of previous years reports.

Meanwhile, I’ll try to be quick about today’s shows:
I started with the Festival Gala opener, FUGITIVE PIECES. It was preceded by such glowing opening remarks from fesitval directors, and the film’s producer, and its director, it all led me to expect one of the greatest films ever shown at the festival… and this story of a Jewish, Polish boy rescued during World War II by a Greek archeologist was quite good, and moved me occasionally, but I dunno…when director Jeremy Podeswa told us in all sincerity that not one single member of the cast could have been replaced, well, one expected the greatest performances ever captured on film. Everyone is good mind you, with particular kudos reserved for Rade Sherbedgia. (Look him up.) While PIECES is not an out-and-out manipulative tear-jerker, I am still thinking about whether I am satisfied with some of the film’s overtly melodramatic turns.

Better, and completely believable however, was a great animated film called PERSEPOLIS, the story of a young Iranian girl growing up during the overthrow of the Shah and her subsequent flight to Vienna once the hardline Islamic regime took over Iran. A french language picture, this film, based on the graphic novel of the same name, and co-directed by the book’s author, whose life story the film is based on, was very moving, often laugh-out-loud funny, and wonderfully animated. If this film were to be released in North America this year, and thus qualify for an Academy Award nomination, it would easily deserve to beat out Ratatouille for the prize. Here’s hoping for a local release: PERSEPOLIS is a great film.

Finally, if you are not interested in getting any potential reports from me this year, please let me know, and I’ll remove your email address from the list of recipients. Thanks!

CASHBACK, a first feature from Britain’s Sean Ellis, is an expansion of his 18 minute Academy Award nominated short of the same name. It concerns Ben, an art student who is able to stop time and study the beauty in the world around him: any girl he says can suddenly be the ultimate life drawing model, frozen for Ben as he creates charcoal drawings or paintings. Ellis has created some fascinating stopped-time moments, still-life scenes made all the more interesting by Ben’s ability to weave through them: in a day when digital effects have rendered the impossible snooze-worthy, CASHBACK still elicited whispers of ‘how’d they do that?’ throughout the screening.

Beyond the visual wizardry, CASHBACK follows Ben’s journey from being dumped by his girlfriend to finding his place in the world. Along the way Ben, played by Sean Biggerstaff, joins the late shift at a supermarket, a place that provides a cast of cracked characters that make for a lot of fun, a bevy of beautiful shoppers for Ben to sketch, and Sharon, played by Emilia Fox, a cashier who is intent on bettering herself in preparation for moving on. Will Ben and Sharon move on together? Watch for CASHBACK when it opens in a few months…

No explanation is needed for what the name UN CRIME means in English. What could stand some explanation, however, is why this film, set in New York, and acted entirely in English, is called UN CRIME for in the first place. The third film from French director Manuel Pradal, UN CRIME stars Emmanuelle Béart as Alice, a woman obsessed with her tragic neighbour Vincent. Vincent was left a widower three years earlier by the murder of his wife Ashley, an unsolved crime which has left him angry, confused, and stuck in time. If Alice is ever going to become Vincent’s new lover, she is going to have to find Ashley’s killer, and allow Vincent to get his revenge and close that chapter of his life, able to move on. And if Alice cannot find the killer, she can set someone up to take the fall…

UN CRIME gives us an fascinatingly horrible villain to detest, and in Harvey Keitel, playing the hapless victim of Alice’s obsession, a unique and complex underdog who just may escape her plot. Despite its darkness, I enjoyed UN CRIME, up to a point where near its end the film strained its credulity beyond the breaking point. Emmanuelle Béart puts in a memorable performance, but I not sure I’m happy that I won’t forget this one.

LIGHTS IN THE DUSK was the last film of the festival for me, but as part of a whole, and despite working as a denouement for the fest, I wish it had been second last: I wanted to go out with more of a bang. Directed by Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki, who in 2002 created the wonderful multi-award-winning film THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST, LIGHTS IN THE DUSK is still a fine film, but more downbeat than my favourite Kaurismakis. DUSK tells the story of Koistinen, a security guard who rubs some Helsinki mobsters the wrong way, and who subsequently ends up as their witless patsy: Koistinen takes the fall for a crime they have committed. There is salvation waiting for Koistinen to ask for it, but will he? Darkly funny, DUSK holds some small rewards for the viewer’s patience. If you’re a Kaurismaki fan, line up, but if you haven’t seen his films yet, THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST makes a much better starting point.

PARIS, JE T’AIME was my second last film, but is literally a film festival all on its own, and was a fantastic surprise for my last day at the festival. PARIS is made up of 21 segments by prominent directors with 21 different stories and casts, all of which are clever nuggets of life and love in the City of Light. Segments include: Steve Buscemi starring in the Coen Brothers‘ amusing take on the perils faced by tourists in the Metro, Emily Mortimer and Rufus Sewell as a couple whose impending marriage is saved by Oscar Wilde in Wes Craven’s visit to Père-Lachaise cemetery, Juliette Binoche as a woman coming to terms with the death of her son in Nobuhiro Suwa’s ‘Place des Victoires‘, and more and more and more: each stories is a wink and a smile. This one is worth looking up on the festival’s website at bell.ca/filmfest, or at imdb.com for a full list of the talent involved in creating it.

PARIS, JE T’AIME hasn’t sold here yet as far as I know, but I certainly hope it will - the universality of the stories and the universal appeal of Paris should bring in the audiences - it certainly deserves them. In a little while, I’ll be looking for this one on DVD.

So that’s it. Another festival has come and gone, and it’s time to return to regularly scheduled programming… Only 355 days ’til next year’s.

Chacun Sa Nuit

How high is Belgium’s suicide rate? Not so high that you can’t get a film crew together apparently, but really, it must be higher than other countries. How many therapists do they have per person? And where must they import them from?
CHACUN SA NUIT, which mean ‘everyone has his night’ is the story of four late-teen friends who have a band, and Lucie, the sister of one of them. Lucie is the ultimate groupie; a free spirit, and a serial lover of the band members. The three ‘other’ band members have their suspicions about her relationship with her brother too…

Pierre, the brother, another free spirit, has a natural charisma and a pretty insatiable appetite that complicates things; everybody wants Pierre. After Pierre goes missing one night however, he is soon found dead, and the police open an investigation into his murder. When the investigation stalls, Lucie takes it on herself, and will do whatever it takes to get people to open up.

Based on a true story, CHACUN SA NUIT, is morbidly fascinating and sad, the classic too-bright-a-light-to-last-very-long tale that searches into the dark corners of motivation and desire. It is worth noting that this film had a very small budget for wardrobe.

What is it about Belgium that makes life so terrible there? Because I cannot believe it’s just the movies. I mean, the beer is great, and one could argue ‘maybe it HAS to be great’, but I’m more inclined to think that there must be SOMETHING bearable about Belgian life for the beer to be so lovingly made. And then there are the wonderful frites, served with a selection of flavoured mayonaisses, and delicious Liège waffles. Maybe anyone who is the least bit happy in Belgium is cooking or brewing, because they certainly aren’t writing or directing the films.

(more pictures: [1] [2] [3] [4] [poster])

The Postmodern Life of My Aunt

THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT comes to us from China and director Ann Hui. Ye Rutang is a sixities-ish woman living alone in a Shanghai apartment. She feels scorn for neighbours; they reciprocate her feelings. Ye’s nephew Kuan-kuan arrives for a visit, and is soon rankled by her stingy ways: there’s an air conditioner, but she’s not turning it on for him. How to get back at Auntie? Kuan-kuan fakes his own kidnapping and demands a ransom. Kuan-kuan is not the least of Ye’s troubles however; there are con artists around every turn in this tragicomic film, including Chow Yun-Fat playing a character who sees Ye’s loneliness as his ticket to her lifetime savings. A smart film that seems to wander a bit in its last quarter, AUNT would easily be worth a trip to an art house cinema should it find distribution here.

This Filthy World

THIS FILTHY WORLD is John Waters doing stand-up, and every anecdote he knows - or so he told us when introducing the film. FILTHY is 86 minutes of funny nuggets of offbeat wisdom gleaned from Water’s life - from making his first films as a teenager up through his latest, A DIRTY SHAME. FILTHY is directed by comedian Jeff Garlin, who plays Jeff Greene on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, came back at the end of the screening to lead a very funny Q&A session - everyone who asked anything got an item of swag from Garlin’s festival loot bag: people walked away with gift certificates, shampoo, leather binders, even luggage. I had a day of shows to get to: I kept my mouth shut.

Nue Propriété

I accidentally got a ticket for a Belgian film today called NUE PROPRIÉTÉ. I hadn’t read the synopsis of the film carefully enough - I thought it was French. My mistake. Not that all Belgian films are terrible, it’s just that so many of them are so depressing: it just doesn’t seem to be a real Belgian film unless the principal characters are hollow shells, utterly conquered by life. Therefore, with the PROPRIÉTÉ in question being Belgian, other than me paying more attention, NUE PROPRIÉTÉ could have been avoided if a couple of the characters had just killed themselves before the rest of this film happened: it would have saved us all from one and three quarter hours of anguish that way.

PROPRIÉTÉ tells the story of Pascale, played by the estimable Isabelle Huppert, divorced for 10 years now, who wants to sell the home that she and her lay-about early-twenty-something sons still live in. It’s just that Dad left the home to the kids, and they don’t want to leave. So Mom is unhappy, kids are unhappy, Dad is unhappy, neighbour Mom is taking up with is unhappy, the skies are always gray, people just sit around moping between the fights that break out… Essentially, this film tricks you into not liking anybody in it much, and then something terrible happens near the end, and you feel slightly sorry for the characters. Some people will even be fooled into feeling sympathetically towards the film. Those people are wrong however: this malaise-athon is nothing more than a well-acted grind.

10 Items or Less

10 ITEMS OR LESS seems to be the latter - or so I could gather from the 45 minutes I sat through it before making my daring escape. Directed by Brad Silberling, (who made LEMONY SNICKET - I liked that) ITEMS stars Morgan Freeman as an actor looking for a comeback in a little indie film. Luckily Freeman doesn’t need a comeback, because I don’t think he’d be getting it in this little indie. ITEMS looked promising at first: Freeman gets picked up in an all-purpose van by the production company’s runner, then dropped at a supermarket in one of LA’s poorer suburbs so that he can do some research for a role. He watches and makes friends with a wise-cracking and very savvy cashier, played by Paz Vega. When the runner doesn’t show up to pick Freeman up at the end of the day, he gets a lift with Vega, who is on her way to interview as a secretary. Suddenly the script calls for Vega to get nervous, drop her bravado, and act like a ninny while Freeman takes her to a Target to gussy her up for the ‘audition’. The dialogue here went to hell in a handbasket so quickly that I got itchy, very itchy. Maybe it was that the two girls to my right were also laughing at everything: Freeman says something like ‘well, I’ll be’ and the two of them would go ‘ha-HAAA!’ You would have left the theatre too.

Early on Freeman’s unnamed character remarks: ‘Comeback? It’s just a little indy film I’m doing. If it flies, great, if it doesn’t, it won’t matter.’ Morgan Freeman is great, and 10 ITEMS OR LESS shouldn’t matter.

Primo Levi’s Journey

PRIMO LEVI’S JOURNEY is a documentary by Davide Ferrario that retraces the 8 month journey home to Italy taken by Levi and other Auschwitz survivors upon their liberation by the Russians in 1944. Levi subsequently wrote a book detailing the trip, and here we stop where they stopped: Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Austria, and get a glimpse of some aspect of life in these places today. It’s a bit of a scattershot approach: in Poland we visit Nova Huta, a decaying industrial city created from scratch during the communist era, while in Belarus we see that the simple life is little different than it was 60 years ago, and in the Ukraine xenophobia is still potent. Whatever they found wherever the documentarians went, they filmed: without a compelling focus, this film, while pleasant, will be forgotten quickly.

Renaissance

RENAISSANCE, the only animated feature I’m seeing at the festival this year, is set in a dystopian Paris of 2054 where a corporation and its technology is threatening to overwhelm society. Directed by graphic artist Christian Volckman, this film introduces us to a stunning high-contrast black and white computer generated world - gray is used exceedingly sparingly, and colour splashes onscreen in only one setting - and motion-captured actors are used to bring realistic movement and shape to a highly stylized world. So it’s gorgeous, but that said, this crime-thriller story is clicheed: our cop hero must turn in his badge when his methods are too unorthodox for his superiors, but he keeps on fighting the good fight to save a kidnapped girl. Still, there are a couple of twists that keep it interesting. Jonathan Pryce provides his vocal talents to bring a creepy villain to life, with other notables like Ian Holm and Daniel Craig making less distinctive contributions.

THE HALF LIFE OF TIMOFEY BEREZIN stars the wonderful Paddy Considine as Timofey Berezin, a Russian nuclear technician who is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation at the plant one day. Director Scott Z. Burns weaves the doomed Timofey’s reckless mission to leave his wife and son with the means to carry on without him, into the story of Shiv, a small-time Moscow protection racketeer who has to make good on an expensive mistake he has made. Timofey wants to sell some weapons grade plutonium, Shiv might have some clients for that. With a terrific script, a cast of quirky criminals, and a chilling topic, TIMOFEY makes for an engagingly unpredictable ride.

I first noticed Nanni Moretti’s work when CARO DIARIO came to the festival in 1994, having won him Best Director at Cannes that year: I have been catching his films ever since. Some, like 2001’s THE SON’S ROOM, which took the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Moretti’s stirring portrayal of family who lose their teenage son in a diving accident, have been terrifically moving while others have been less successful. THE CAIMAN is Moretti’s latest film, created by him to help influence the outcome of Italy’s spring election earlier this year. The object of Moretti’s ire in the film is the very controversial (and now former) Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. THE CAIMAN, which became Moretti’s most popular film at the box office, helped seal Berlusconi’s fate: he lost the election.

CAIMAN is really two films: one is the story of film producer Bruno’s attempts to get a film about Berlusconi made, the other film is about the disintegration of Bruno’s private life during the same time. If the two films, constantly inter-cut, had more parallels, it would be have been interesting to follow, but Bruno’s life story, as it is, keeps stalling the more interesting story of the scandal-plagued Prime Minister. Moretti told us that his intention was to hold up Bruno’s family story as emblematic of what has happened to Italy under Berlusconi, but it still seems a bit of a stretch. Despite my reservations though, THE CAIMAN is still mostly entertaining, and somewhat provocative, and Moretti makes for a terrific Q&A speaker.

HULA GIRLS is based on the true story of a Japanese mining town which when faced the the closing of the mine, turns to creating a Hawaiian centre replete with dancing girls to bring tourists to the town and save jobs. Very cute, but very bring-on-the-violins too, HULA GIRLS takes the FULL MONTY/BILLY ELLIOT/BRASSED OFF/KINKY BOOTS formula and saves the town while dazzling us with some great dance numbers. It’s an audience pleaser, and could find an audience here were it to be generally released.

MON MEILLEUR AMI is by Patrice Leconte, one of my favourite French Directors, responsible in the past for gems such as RIDICULE and THE WIDOW OF SAINT-PIERRE. Some of you will think ‘and MONSIEUR HIRE too, fool!’ I haven’t seen it though - I only know it by reputation - so I left it out… Anyway, here he teams up again with the superb Daniel Auteuil, the hero from WIDOW, and increasingly famous for roles such as the spied-upon French media star in last year’s stunning CACHÉ.

AMI is fairly light fare for both Leconte and Auteuil. The film concerns Francois Coste, a Parisian antiques dealer who learns at his birthday party that the people he considers his friends don’t consider him anything more than a colleague. They tell him in fact that he has no friends. A bet is entered into: if Francois can produce his best friend within 10 days, he’ll get to keep a very expensive vase. If not, it’s gone. Francois spends the rest of the film learning why he doesn’t have friends, and slowly discovers what it takes to have one. He is aided in this quest by Bruno, his taxi driver.

AMI is 90% comedy. The set-up of the comedic situation seemed forced to me though: the whole zero friends thing seemed so far-fetched. All is forgiven however, because Auteuil delivers a terrific performance, which is matched by the hugely charming Dany Boon playing Bruno. AMI is highly enjoyable, but without the edge of another Auteuil comedy vehicle, LE PLACARD, and the relative paucity of French films that play regularly here, I am not so sure this film will open in English Canada.

VELVET GOLDMINE has finally arrived at the festival 8 years late. It was actually presented as part of the DIalogues with Directors programme, despite not being brought by its director, or another director who admires it. In this rare case it is actually the producer of GOLDMINE, Christine Vachon who came to show the 1998 Todd Haynes directed tribute to the Glam Rock era of the late 70s, and discuss producing it and other of Haynes’ and others’ films over her prodigious career. It is always fun to see a film that one missed on the big screen when one is given the rare chance, and some of Vachon’s insights in a subsequent interview made it doubly worthwhile.

STARTER FOR TEN, a breezy comedy, takes its name from University Challenge, a British Reach for the Top type quiz show. It concerns Brian, a nerdy type small-town type who has spent his life compiling a vasty storehouse of knowledge which he is just dying to unload on his University’s UC team. Essentially it’s boy goes to college, boy meets girl, boy meets cuter girl, boy gets cuter girl, boy loses… oh hell, you know what’s coming, and so did all of us, but it is a cute film, and has some good laughs. Brian is another of Mr. Tumnus’ roles at the festival this year - in fact, Tumnus, played by up-and-comer James McAvoy, is in three films at this fest - he’s one busy guy.

Anyway, STARTER is fun, and similar to GOLDMINE has another great 80s soundtrack. Take your favourite squeeze.

Ethan Hawke is best known as an actor, for films such as DEAD POETS SOCIETY, BEFORE SUNRISE, BEFORE SUNSET, and GATTACA. He is also a director, his first film was SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS, and an accomplished author. THE HOTTEST STATE is his own film adaptation of his book of the same name, and his second feature film. STATE tells the story of William, a 21 year-old actor trying to make a go of things in New York. William’s heart is still in Texas though, or so he was told it should be by his father, whom he hasn’t seen since being uprooted from Texas by his mother when he was young. It’s not surprise that William has a lot to prove, and issues to work out.

William, forcefully played by Mark Webber, falls for a girl he meets in a bar one night: Sara, played by Catalina Sandino Moreno, Oscar nominated for her first role in MARIA FULL OF GRACE, who aspires to be a singer. Unsurprisingly Sara has issues of her own. The two have a brightly burning, but all too brief affair that William yearns to bring back to life when Sara pulls back. Portrayed with great realism, and much sincerity, Hawke creates a tender film about the capriciousness of relationships of people who are trying to find themselves. Well done.

Anyway, I feel badly about having skipped the flick THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, starring Forrest Whitaker and Mr. Tumnus - it was the only film I had scheduled this year that delved into Africa - but a slow wake-up was the only way to go today. Idi-Amin and his cohorts will have to wait until this film is unleashed in regular theatres. (I heard later when talking to other festival goers that it is a terrific film. Fooey! I’ll see it later.)

Monkey Warfare

MONKEY WARFARE, similarly, is my only English Canadian fiction feature this year. While I don’t tend to plan my schedule to get one dollop of everything, it does end up that way sometimes. Anyway, MONKEY tells the story of pothead Parkdalers and shrewd garage-salers Dan and Linda, played by Don McKellar and Tracy Wright, who buy cheap and make their living reselling on the internet. I have never enjoyed Don McKellar’s performance more, and have always had a thing for Ms. Wright, and she’s spot-on again here: the two of them are terrific as this pair of age-mellowed counter-culture rebels. Into their lives strides Susan, an idealistic young pot dealer who wants more and more to fight ‘the Man’, and is moving to bring back the homegrown civil disobedience of the 70s. Dan and Linda just want a reliable supply of pot, and to remain under-the-radar.

Director/writer Reg Harkema captures a slice of Parkdale and weaves an amusing tale of post-hippie existance that’s disappearing in the wake of the area’s gentrification.

The Fountain

THE FOUNTAIN arrived at the Elgin with 1) pedigree, 2) a major marketing push behind it, and 3) the dubious distinction of having been booed when it debuted in Venice last week. (We never boo anything here, we just walk out. Would people walk out tonight?)

The pedigree was Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, and Ellen Burstyn on-screen, and Darren Aronofsky of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM fame behind it; that added up to some big expectations. The marketing push was evidenced by huge ad-trucks driving around town with the rather stylish and mysterious FOUNTAIN billboard plastered on them. And the Italian response? Well…

Six years in the making, six years in the watching, THE FOUNTAIN takes place in three time frames: the past, the present, and, uh, forever and ever and ever. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play similar characters in each era. In the present, where we spend the most time, Jackman is Tommy, a brain tumour researcher who is racing for a cure that might also save his wife Izzy from a cancer death. Rachel Weisz’s Izzy has been writing a book that puts her hubby in the role of a 17th century Spanish conquistador Tomas who is racing on Queen Isabella’s behalf to find the fountain of youth at a Mayan temple. Things don’t go so well in the past though, so future Tom rides a bubble-protected tree-of-life spaceship to a nebula that promises to put all things right…

The film is extremely stylish, overarchingly stylish. The nebula is gorgeous - I would love to visit - and the Mayan temple is Indiana Jonerseriffic, and every other set is so freakishly darkly sumptuous, including Dr. Tommy’s medical lab and hospital, that any notions of grounding even one of the storylines here in some kind of reality relatable to us is tossed out the window. Not one damn fluorescent light in the medical lab: it’s all dark with dim pools of light that make each workstation look more like tables at a chic little resto where one might want to propose marriage and an increase of 50 more ccs of anesthetic that the lab-monkey needs to get through his day. And then there’s Tommy and Izzy’s suffocatingly dark and dreary house, and Isabella’s candle-happy castle that continues into the surrounding blackness, and on and on. So, if on sets alone I am forced to dismiss any relation to reality, I have to consider THE FOUNTAIN on its fantastical elements: does it stand up as sci-fi fantasy? Does it have an internal logic? Do the pieces fit?

I say only with a sledgehammer, and here’s what THE FOUNTAIN’s sledgehammer is made up of:

1. Hugh Jackman screaming in anguish for 80% of the film over his wife’s impending death, then upon her death, and then still long, long after her death, (enough anguish already, we get it!)
2. the entirely obvious lesson, redrawn ad nauseum throughout the film, and identifiable to the audience early on, that living forever and not letting go will make one insane, (the whole quest for eternal youth is making you go nuts Tommy, we get it!)
3. so much visual symbolism piled up on symbolism that you have a pile of stinking, rotting symbolism that’s constantly threatening to fall and smoother anything non-symbolic, (it’s always dark, either raining or snowing, it’s the winter of Tommy’s discontent, we get it!)
4. and a time structure that’s so discontinuous that you’re willing to accept any incoherent plot device because you’re not sure how it all fits together anyway, (Tommy loses his ring in the lab - oh, what could that mean? - and Tom finds it six centuries later in the nebula in space because it’s a dramatic moment. Gaggez-moi.)

I like films with a lighter touch, understated, where the moral of the tale is hinted at, not tattooed across my face. Now I have to get this pretentious new age twaddle lasered off…

Izzy has a last gift for Tommy: he must finish her search-for-eternal-youth book after she has died. I would have finished that book in the fireplace, but all I could do was clap in relief when the film was finally over. The Italians were right. Boooo!

I finished my night off with a talk instead of a movie. John Waters, of PINK FLAMINGOES infamy and HAIRSPRAY fame and John Cameron Mitchell of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH and SHORTBUS notoriety were in conversation tonight discussing what it’s like to push the limits of what is acceptable in films. To get to that spot host Sook-Yin Lee interrogated them about their childhoods first, and what influenced them as each grew up: pretty standard interview form, all very genially performed. Waters is definitely the comedian of the two, always ready with quips and anecdotes; he’s a real crowd pleaser. Mitchell, while maybe not exactly shy, is the quieter of the two, and someone who goes for the full story over the punch-line. Did I learn anything startling? They both indicated that we pretty much have the Catholic church to thank for the way both turned out: it was definitely the common thread in their rebellion histories, so nothing too surprising. Insights into the filmmaking process were bandied about, and in the end, a fun time was had by all.

For Your Consideration

My day started with FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, the latest comedy from the people who brought you WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, BEST IN SHOW, and A MIGHTY WIND. Those people would be Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Bob Balaban, Fred Willard, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, and lots of others. The list gets longer with each movie they create. CONSIDERATION is the first of this series to not be in the mockumentary style, but is still an affectionate skewering as the earlier films were. This time it’s Hollywood and awards season that are getting their comeuppance, and while there are lots of great lines and hilariously drawn characters, this is the weakest of the four films as we have no real underdog heroes to root for this time.

Still, CONSIDERATION had lots of big laughs; in fact the audience spontaneously applauded at the end of particularly impressive routines more than a couple of times during the film. We were also applauding and laughing afterwards too: CONSIDERATION was granted one of the rare Q&A sessions held at the Elgin. The place is so big they generally refrain from doing Q&A’s here, but this and the few others I have seen here prove that they do not need the general prohibition exercised on the here: we just asked questions loudly enough, and it all worked fine. Nearly all of the major cast members were in attendance, lined up across the stage, and we enjoyed 20 minutes of lunatic answers to crazy questions. It was sheer festival magic.

The Art of Crying

Next up for me was a Danish film called THE ART OF CRYING, and black comedy and family tragedy about child abuse. Using the word comedy may cause you to think that a serious subject was being trivialized, but that was not the case here. CRYING concerns a family whose eldest son has escaped to university while 14 year old daughter Sanne and 10 year old son Allan are left unprotected by their mother from the most insecure and manipulative father you ever seen, but can unfortunately believe. The comedy comes from seeing all of this through the eyes of the 10 year old who initially misunderstands what’s happening about him. As Allan starts to put the pieces together, the comedy begins to give way to tragedy, while never completely succumbing to it: Allan’s deeply desired hope for a normal life keeps utter calamity at bay. You won’t know the names of the people involved here, but all of the work is top notch and CRYING will likely launch some careers. Check out the credits on the CRYING page at bell.ca/filmfest if you’d like to know more.

The Bubble

THE BUBBLE was up next for me. What with the euphoric silliness of CONSIDERATION and the emotional tight-rope of CRYING earlier in the day, were THE BUBBLE to be powerful, I just might be ready to be pulled apart. THE BUBBLE, it turns out, is a very powerful film concerning Israeli-Palestinan politics and sexual politics by TIFF stalwart Eytan Fox. My first ‘Fox’ feature, THE BUBBLE opens at an Israeli border checkpoint where a tense crossing is occurring: an arab woman’s water has just broken, and her baby’s still-born arrival threatens to blow-up into a battle between the soldiers and those crossing. Noam then arrives home in Tel-Aviv from this situation, having completed a month-long stint guarding the checkpoint. His flatmates Lulu and Yali are surprised to find that Noam has brought home Ashraf with him, a Palestinian he has met at the checkpoint and whom he has fallen for.

Can Noam and Ashraf manage to create a life together in Tel-Aviv when Ashraf has no papers permitting him to work in Israel? Can Ashraf avoid being married off to his brother-in-law’s sister back in Nablus? Can Ashraf even make his family understand that he is gay, let alone accept it? Issues like these may be becoming more easily tackled in the west, but THE BUBBLE deftly illustrates how difficult like can be for both gays and mixed-nationality couples in Israel and Palestine. I hesitate giving anything more away for fear of diminishing the power of this film for those may get to see it; I’ll just say that I was a bit of a wreck by the time THE BUBBLE popped. Wow. Blown away.

Congorama

I needed something lighter to end the day, and it worked out. CONGORAMA, by Quebec director/writer Philippe Falardeau, tells the story of Michel, played by Cannes Festival award-winner OIivier Gourmet, a 40-ish Belgian engineer and inventor who discovers that he was adopted, and that his birthplace was a barn somewhere in rural Quebec. Olivier’s search for his birth family is interrupted by a car crash while riding with Louis, a good samaritan who is on a search of his own, and by Olivier’s ‘discovery’ of a scientific breakthrough big enough to change his life.

Olivier’s point of view is ours until the car crash, and then Falardeau takes us back in time to watch events unfold as Louis sees them. The device works, and grants the audience omniscience while the onscreen characters are still puzzling through. CONGORAMA examines both how where we come from and how we choose to live our life shapes our identity. While not earth-shattering, it is an effective and satisfying multipl