A bit of an uneven start last night to TIFF2014, with two films that were good but couldn't quite ascend higher than that.
The first film of this year was "The Valley". It's a Lebanese film, apparently the second film in a trilogy, although there was no sense that seeing the first film ("The Mountain") was absolutely necessary.
In a remote valley, a man emerges from a car crash. He has no recollection of who he is or how he got there. He helps a group of people to fix their car and they take him back to their compound. An airborne assault on the valley forces them to flee the compound.
The film is structured as a series of very tightly-controlled, mostly static scenes, many of which are quite beautiful in their austerity. The music, mostly Middle Eastern with a Joy Division cut included, complements this imagery perfectly. Occasionally, characters begin to dance to music in the room -- it's quite jarring to see this in the midst of the film, but it's done in such a natural, spontaneous fashion that it works really well.
At the end though, there is just a little too little information to hold the film together.
Number 2 was a drastic shift from Lebanon to Finland and from drama to a fairly broad comedy. "The Grump". An 80-year old man is forced by circumstance to leave his solitary life in the country to join his son's family in the city.
The comedy for the most part is very one-dimensional and told entirely from the perspective of the curmudgeon. Fortunately it was redeemed at the end by a lovely ending.
Lots of action downtown, a mix of TIFF and university Frosh Week events. The move out of Yorkville a few years ago has actually provided more options for connecting the festival to the real world, which is definitely a positive.
Steamy day today and there will be a couple of mad dashes between screenings. It's going to be sweaty.
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