I went immediately from the end of TIFF to a four-day work meeting in Gatineau, so my good intentions of catching up with the end-of-festival films went unaddressed. Finally have a moment to start to add to the record of this year.
Since getting back to the "real" (as opposed to "reel") world, I've been asked several times one of the following two questions:
1) What was my favourite film?
2) Was TIFF 2011 better than previous years?
After seeing about 45 films this year, there was no single film that stood above the rest. The year's experience is more like a classic bell curve -- there are a few really good films at one end; a few poor, if not terrible, films at the other and the bulk of the films rest somewhere in the middle. The hope is that more films occupy the first group than the third.
Fortunately, there were only a couple of films ("Goon" comes to mind) which truly underachieved. While not very good, "Killer Elite" and "Hard Core Logo 2" were more of disappointments than outrages -- there was potential, but the end results fell short.
The final impression of TIFF was that it was comparable to previous years. There wasn't a comedy on the level of "The Trip" last year nor was there a film that really pushed like the envelope like films I've seen in the past. That may be a result of the (good or bad) choices I made, but the overall impression was that it was "pretty good".
I'll add a few more entries on some of the other films I saw this year. Stay tuned.
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2011/09/28
2011/09/15
Killer Elite
Based on a true story involving SAS and private sector assassins, "Killer Elite" boasted the talents of Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro and a lot of ammunition and explosives (i.e. this was a guy's film).
The editing and even the title sequence suggested that they wanted to capture some of the magic of the two Bourne films directed by Paul Greengrass. Unfortunately for them, they did not have the facility for shooting action that he has.
While there was nothing overtly wrong about the film, it just became increasingly tedious and predictable as the story wore on.
Something to watch if there's nothing else on TV.
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The editing and even the title sequence suggested that they wanted to capture some of the magic of the two Bourne films directed by Paul Greengrass. Unfortunately for them, they did not have the facility for shooting action that he has.
While there was nothing overtly wrong about the film, it just became increasingly tedious and predictable as the story wore on.
Something to watch if there's nothing else on TV.
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Surviving Progress
"A Short History of Progress" was critically acclaimed piece that had a life as both a Massey Lecture and a best-selling non-fiction book. It's now been adapted as a documentary for the NFB.
The basic premise is that "progress" is not always a positive step and that there exist "progress traps" where a perceived improvement actually makes things worse. Traps may become so serious that they lead to the downfall of a civilization. The types of traps he describes include over-consumption of natural resources, over-population and the excessive concentration of power and wealth in the hands of oligarchs and elites.
It's the last one that becomes the central theme of the film. Although a number of the interviewees come from an environmental / biological perspective (for example, Jane Goodall and David Suzuki), the overwhelming focus was on economic arguments.
For me, this was ultimately disappointing. It felt a bit like a classic "bait-and-switch" tactic -- I was intrigued by the notion of progress traps and wanted more of that beyond a simple definition and ended up with 90 minutes on the description of wealth.
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The basic premise is that "progress" is not always a positive step and that there exist "progress traps" where a perceived improvement actually makes things worse. Traps may become so serious that they lead to the downfall of a civilization. The types of traps he describes include over-consumption of natural resources, over-population and the excessive concentration of power and wealth in the hands of oligarchs and elites.
It's the last one that becomes the central theme of the film. Although a number of the interviewees come from an environmental / biological perspective (for example, Jane Goodall and David Suzuki), the overwhelming focus was on economic arguments.
For me, this was ultimately disappointing. It felt a bit like a classic "bait-and-switch" tactic -- I was intrigued by the notion of progress traps and wanted more of that beyond a simple definition and ended up with 90 minutes on the description of wealth.
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2011/09/13
Samsara
"Samsara" is a documentary by many of the principals who worked on the film "Baraka" from a few years back.
Like its predecessor, it's a collage of imagery from around the world, combining natural wonders and exotic culture (both traditional and modern), set to a world-beat soundtrack, this time composed by Lisa Gerrard and Michael Stern. Advances in technology allowed the film to be shot in 65 mm and projected as a 4K image -- the colour saturation is, as a result, intense.
Due to a late start and a tight schedule this afternoon, I only saw about 3/4 of it. What I did see was a collection of impressive images but without any overall cohesion. It made for a somewhat disconnected experience. As many of the images did not include movement, it felt like flipping through a high-definition National Geographic without words; in effect, it was a coffee table film. I suspect it will do well as a Blu-Ray release or as a demo disk for hi-end TVs.
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Like its predecessor, it's a collage of imagery from around the world, combining natural wonders and exotic culture (both traditional and modern), set to a world-beat soundtrack, this time composed by Lisa Gerrard and Michael Stern. Advances in technology allowed the film to be shot in 65 mm and projected as a 4K image -- the colour saturation is, as a result, intense.
Due to a late start and a tight schedule this afternoon, I only saw about 3/4 of it. What I did see was a collection of impressive images but without any overall cohesion. It made for a somewhat disconnected experience. As many of the images did not include movement, it felt like flipping through a high-definition National Geographic without words; in effect, it was a coffee table film. I suspect it will do well as a Blu-Ray release or as a demo disk for hi-end TVs.
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Heard on the street
I passed a guy on a cell. As I passed by him, I heard him say...
"This has nothing to do with common sense. This is cable!"
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"This has nothing to do with common sense. This is cable!"
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2011/09/12
The Story of Film
Once again, one of the better films this year is a documentary. "The Story of Film" is a 15-hour "odyssey" across the length and breadth of film history.
TIFF is showing the entire piece in chunks during the festival and I saw the first three hours of it Monday morning. Although it's not strictly speaking a chronological history, the segments I saw took the story from the beginning work of Edison and the Lumiere Brothers up to the end of the silent era.
The creator is Mark Cousins, a film professor from Scotland and is based on a book by the same name. His intent is to give credit to the innovative work down across the globe and the portion I saw this morning provided several examples where a new approach in, say, editing, appeared in a country many years before it was adopted by the Hollywood studios.
If the first three hours is any indication, it's an engaging journey through cinema, suitable for the casual film goer as well as the hard-core cinephile. It's hard to say what form it will take, but it could appear as either a series of episodes on TVO or PBS or as a DVD set. During the Q&A, Cousins also spoke about developing material for the web to expand on the examples shown in the film.
Highly recommended.
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TIFF is showing the entire piece in chunks during the festival and I saw the first three hours of it Monday morning. Although it's not strictly speaking a chronological history, the segments I saw took the story from the beginning work of Edison and the Lumiere Brothers up to the end of the silent era.
The creator is Mark Cousins, a film professor from Scotland and is based on a book by the same name. His intent is to give credit to the innovative work down across the globe and the portion I saw this morning provided several examples where a new approach in, say, editing, appeared in a country many years before it was adopted by the Hollywood studios.
If the first three hours is any indication, it's an engaging journey through cinema, suitable for the casual film goer as well as the hard-core cinephile. It's hard to say what form it will take, but it could appear as either a series of episodes on TVO or PBS or as a DVD set. During the Q&A, Cousins also spoke about developing material for the web to expand on the examples shown in the film.
Highly recommended.
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2011/09/11
Monsters Club
A rather odd little film "inspired" by the Unabomber's published manifesto.
A young Japanese man, obsessed by the failure of modern society, sends mail bombs to the heads of various corporations from a remote cabin in the forests of Japan. He discovers that he is not alone and is visited by creatures who challenge his ideas and philosophies.
The film had a bit of a Twilight Zone quality about it but was better at setting up the story than ending it.
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A young Japanese man, obsessed by the failure of modern society, sends mail bombs to the heads of various corporations from a remote cabin in the forests of Japan. He discovers that he is not alone and is visited by creatures who challenge his ideas and philosophies.
The film had a bit of a Twilight Zone quality about it but was better at setting up the story than ending it.
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Wuthering Heights
Normally this would be the kind of period film that might make my long list for TIFF but would very rarely make the final cut.
What made the difference for me was the director. Andrea Arnold had previously shown her films "Red Road" and "Fish Tank" at TIFF and her visceral style of film-making seemed perfect for modern, kitchen sink dramas, but how she would approach the story of Catherine and Heathcliff was a mystery that had to be solved. I should also note that my knowledge of the source material and its many adaptations was slight at best, so it represented an opportunity to see a classic work with open eyes.
The film emphasized the brutal beauty of the Yorkshire moors in a way that mirrored the emotional brutality and cruelty of the story. She applied the same approach to selecting images and editing them into the story that was consistent with her earlier work which worked very effectively with the story of the protagonists. Using mostly non-professional actors, they provided a grittiness that a more seasoned group might have abandoned.
The problem for me was the story as the plot advanced, the actions of the characters made less and less sense. This may have been my issue but In the Q&A following the film, Arnold mentioned that certain things in the novel "confounded" her. I felt the same way when it ended.
That said, my overall impression of the film was positive. I thought she brought a fresh perspective to the story that a more traditional approach would have missed. Worth a look.
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What made the difference for me was the director. Andrea Arnold had previously shown her films "Red Road" and "Fish Tank" at TIFF and her visceral style of film-making seemed perfect for modern, kitchen sink dramas, but how she would approach the story of Catherine and Heathcliff was a mystery that had to be solved. I should also note that my knowledge of the source material and its many adaptations was slight at best, so it represented an opportunity to see a classic work with open eyes.
The film emphasized the brutal beauty of the Yorkshire moors in a way that mirrored the emotional brutality and cruelty of the story. She applied the same approach to selecting images and editing them into the story that was consistent with her earlier work which worked very effectively with the story of the protagonists. Using mostly non-professional actors, they provided a grittiness that a more seasoned group might have abandoned.
The problem for me was the story as the plot advanced, the actions of the characters made less and less sense. This may have been my issue but In the Q&A following the film, Arnold mentioned that certain things in the novel "confounded" her. I felt the same way when it ended.
That said, my overall impression of the film was positive. I thought she brought a fresh perspective to the story that a more traditional approach would have missed. Worth a look.
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2011/09/10
Goon
It's not uncommon for multiple films on the same subject to appear on the schedule at TIFF. We have a couple of these this year -- there are four rock documentaries (on U2, Pearl Jam, Neil Young and Paul McCartney) as well as three or four films about hockey.
"Goon" is one of those four, a comedy about a good-hearted but terribly dim bouncer who finds himself hired as an enforcer to protect a minor league team's flamboyant yet fragile star player.
A film like this should offer great opportunities for character actors to go to town on, but too many of the roles are one-dimensional. Most of the humour comes from the gleefully profane dialogue, but it's really not enough to sustain a feature.
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"Goon" is one of those four, a comedy about a good-hearted but terribly dim bouncer who finds himself hired as an enforcer to protect a minor league team's flamboyant yet fragile star player.
A film like this should offer great opportunities for character actors to go to town on, but too many of the roles are one-dimensional. Most of the humour comes from the gleefully profane dialogue, but it's really not enough to sustain a feature.
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The Hunter
A film that looked more promising in the catalogue than it was in its execution.
Willem Dafoe receives a contract by a mysterious biotech/military company to hunt, kill and collect samples from the last known specimen of a Tasmanian Tiger. Most of the film takes place in the remote Tasmanian jungle.
The film never built any kind of momentum and, as a result, any problems in the screenplay were magnified (and there were a few). An average film at best.
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Willem Dafoe receives a contract by a mysterious biotech/military company to hunt, kill and collect samples from the last known specimen of a Tasmanian Tiger. Most of the film takes place in the remote Tasmanian jungle.
The film never built any kind of momentum and, as a result, any problems in the screenplay were magnified (and there were a few). An average film at best.
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Urbanized
2011 has started with an emphasis on documentaries and Friday afternoon brought another terrific one to the table.
"Urbanized", directed by Greg Hustwit, is a survey of current thinking on urban planning and design around the globe. Given that it is estimated that 75% of the world's population will reside in urban environments by 2050, it's a very timely film on an important subject.
The examples provided span every continent except for Australia and Antarctica, highlighting cities ranging in size from 200,000 up to 36 million (the latter is Mumbai, whose slums have a population the size of New York City).
For the most part, it was a terrific film, offering some examples of some of the forward thinking at play in cities like New York, Capetown and Bogota (the mayor of Bogota talked at length about their approach to public transit and cycling infrastructure to which the audience responded enthusiastically). The tone was mostly positive, although they did touch on some of the "mistakes" of urban planning (for example, the stunning architecture of Brasilia was contrasted with its terrible transportation infrastructure). One of the striking visuals was an elevated train ride through downtown Detroit. Detroit's population has plummeted over the past few years and it is some time in the sequence before you see a single person on foot -- it's a modern ghost town.
The only flat point of the film involved a transportation project called Stuttgart 21 that involved pitched confrontations between the city government, developers and citizens over a transit project. It was the one time when it felt like there wasn't enough context to the story to understand the visuals.
In the Q&A that followed the film, the director was well aware of the controversies on urban issues at play in Toronto. Both his responses as well as the examples provided in the film demonstrated the degree to which our mayor is completely out of touch on current thinking.
Highly recommended.
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"Urbanized", directed by Greg Hustwit, is a survey of current thinking on urban planning and design around the globe. Given that it is estimated that 75% of the world's population will reside in urban environments by 2050, it's a very timely film on an important subject.
The examples provided span every continent except for Australia and Antarctica, highlighting cities ranging in size from 200,000 up to 36 million (the latter is Mumbai, whose slums have a population the size of New York City).
For the most part, it was a terrific film, offering some examples of some of the forward thinking at play in cities like New York, Capetown and Bogota (the mayor of Bogota talked at length about their approach to public transit and cycling infrastructure to which the audience responded enthusiastically). The tone was mostly positive, although they did touch on some of the "mistakes" of urban planning (for example, the stunning architecture of Brasilia was contrasted with its terrible transportation infrastructure). One of the striking visuals was an elevated train ride through downtown Detroit. Detroit's population has plummeted over the past few years and it is some time in the sequence before you see a single person on foot -- it's a modern ghost town.
The only flat point of the film involved a transportation project called Stuttgart 21 that involved pitched confrontations between the city government, developers and citizens over a transit project. It was the one time when it felt like there wasn't enough context to the story to understand the visuals.
In the Q&A that followed the film, the director was well aware of the controversies on urban issues at play in Toronto. Both his responses as well as the examples provided in the film demonstrated the degree to which our mayor is completely out of touch on current thinking.
Highly recommended.
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2011/09/09
This is Not a Film
The story behind the film…
Jafar Panahi is a renowned Iranian director who has frequently irked the government in Iran. For his “crimes”, he has been banned by the government from making a film for 20 years and, during the time period of this film, he was also facing a possible prison sentence of upwards of six years.
Last year, a colleague (Mojtaba Mirtahmasb) came to his apartment and Panahi described the film that he would have made if he was able, reading sections from a produced screenplay, mapping out how the film would be set and illustrating some of the themes using sections of his previous films, which he projected on his flat screen TV. The resulting film was shot on digital video as well as with an iPhone and was eventually smuggled out of Iran on a USB stick baked in a loaf of bread. The film, co-directed by the two men, was shown at Cannes and, subsequently, Mirtahmasb was also placed under similar restrictions by the Iranian government.
TIFF is making available the film as a free screening this week, a political as well as a cultural act. While the final product is very rough, there are many echoes between Panahi’s situation, the plot of the proposed film (which is a story of a young girl being prevented by going to university by being kept under house arrest by her family) and ambient sound from the street outside his building which apparently includes gun fire and, at the end, fireworks. It was quite compelling.
2011/09/08
Pina
A beautiful start to TIFF '11, Pina creates a portrait through four of her dance pieces combined with short clips of her dancers describing their experiences working with her.
The 3-D was fairly unobtrusive although it sometimes reinforced the spatial relationships between the dancers, at other times it simply added a hyper-real quality to the film. It'd be interesting to see how this would work in 2-D. This was only the third digital 3-D film I've seen and, unfortunately, I still find the combination of my progressive lenses and the 3-D glasses a bad combination -- towards the end I was starting to experience the headaches I'd had in "Avatar" and "Cave of Forgotten Dreams". Either the technology will have to improve or I do.
The film boasted a wonderful score as well as some striking locations from the Wuppertal area where Bausch's dance company makes its home.
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The 3-D was fairly unobtrusive although it sometimes reinforced the spatial relationships between the dancers, at other times it simply added a hyper-real quality to the film. It'd be interesting to see how this would work in 2-D. This was only the third digital 3-D film I've seen and, unfortunately, I still find the combination of my progressive lenses and the 3-D glasses a bad combination -- towards the end I was starting to experience the headaches I'd had in "Avatar" and "Cave of Forgotten Dreams". Either the technology will have to improve or I do.
The film boasted a wonderful score as well as some striking locations from the Wuppertal area where Bausch's dance company makes its home.
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Show Time!
The opening film this year is "Pina", directed by Wim Wenders, a tribute to the legendary German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. And it's in 3-D!
In line at the Lightbox right now, waiting for the theatre to open. It's the first time this year that the crowds have really come together in any significant way. Lots of buzz right now and enthusiasm.
While I was standing here, Roger Ebert walked by, as the crowd left from the real first film of the festival, a 5-hour German film called "Dreileben" (actually a trilogy of inter-connected films). It sounded interesting, although I couldn't make it fit in the schedule.
A block away, the crowds are starting to come together for the opening gala, a rock documentary on U2. That will be loud.
With TIFF 2011, the festival has almost completely severed its ties to the Bloor-Yorkville area (only one theatre is in use up there this year). The Entertainment District and Yonge between Gerrard and Queen are now the focal points.
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