DVDTown Reports from the Toronto International Film Festival

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This year, I had the pleasure of attending the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time; it will certainly not be my last. TIFF is impressive in scope and intensity, with 352 films from 61 countries playing in just a ten-day span (and approximately a five square mile radius in downtown Toronto.) With so many choices, there are as many "festival experiences" as there are festival attendees; it all depends on which films you choose. No critic can possibly review the entire festival, only the films that he or she manages to squeeze into a hectic schedule.

With a few exceptions, I avoided the high-profile films in favor of movies that I wouldn´t have a chance to see on the big screen anywhere else. I skipped out on big name features like "Babel," "Volver," and "All the King´s Men," none of which particularly interested me anyway. One headliner I did want to see, but missed, was Guillermo del Toro´s "Pan´s Labyrinth," about which I heard nothing but rave reviews.

Virtually every screening at TIFF (at least until later in the week) is a sell-out or near sell-out, making the early lottery drawing for tickets crucial for any attendee. I was quite fortunate to get tickets to every film I selected; many other people I talked to received only half (or even less) of their first choices, which made for a lot of grumbling about how the festival had grown too big for comfort. Certainly, some of the lines were overwhelming; I showed up an hour and a half ahead of the screening time for the premiere of Werner Herzog´s "Rescue Dawn," and still found nearly two hundred people in line ahead of me.

Despite the crowds and the occasional long walks between theaters, I managed to see 19 films at TIFF, and would have seen several more if not for some nagging health problems. Only a few were disappointments. Unfortunately, the aforementioned "Rescue Dawn" was the biggest disappointment of the bunch. "Rescue Dawn" is Herzog´s fiction remake of his great documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" (1997) about Dieter Dengler, a German-American pilot who was shot down on his first flight and taken prisoner in Laos. Dengler recounts his own story in the documentary; in "Rescue Dawn" he is played by Christian Bale. Without even a hint of a German accent, Bale´s Dengler sounds and acts like an all-American farm boy (though he identifies himself as "Deutsch") who spits all-American defiance at his captors, and draws on his endless reservoir of chutzpah to power his escape. The film is clearly pitched at a mainstream audience who has never heard of the documentary or, for that matter, of Werner Herzog. I suppose that´s most people, which explains why MGM snapped up the distribution rights before the debut screening. Longtime Herzog fans will be shocked by how "un-Herzog" the film is; nowhere to be seen are his typical long takes or languorous landscape shots. Instead, the film plays like a standard Hollywood action thriller, and judged by that standard I suppose the film is functional, though hardly inspiring. Think "Behind Enemy Lines" which is probably not a coincidence since Zak Penn penned that film, and has been a recent collaborator of Herzog´s (he´s also the first person thanked in the end credits of "Rescue Dawn.") "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" is superior in every way.

Another huge disappointment was one of the festival´s most anticipated films, Darren Aronofsky´s "The Fountain." The film was allegedly booed when it screened at Venice, though many a fine film has received the honor of being heckled by European festival goers. "The Fountain" is not a disaster, but it´s far from the visionary masterpiece it has been billed as during its long and troubled production. Stay tuned for my complete review of "The Fountain" later this week.

Every year must have its designated controversy, and this year´s trouble-maker was "D.O.A.P." ("Death of a President"), the much-discussed fictional documentary about George W. Bush´s assassination in 2007. The premiere screening featured a half-dozen security guards in the theater (allegedly, director Gabriel Range received death threats) as well as two people constantly patrolling the theater with night-vision goggles, though I believe they were far more concerned with piracy than audience safety. For all the build-up, "D.O.A.P." is a surprisingly tame film. The first half is rather provocative, with skillful use of actual footage of Bush, Cheney, etc. mixed in with staged scenes. The actual assassination is only barely glimpsed. Unfortunately, once Dubyah exits stage left, the film degenerates into a bland "who-dunnit" by way of a CNN Special Report. To the extent the film has a political message, it is in the number of plausible suspects it generates; the implication is that there are an awful lot of people who would have good reasons to kill Bush. Is this a revelation? Range is clearly influenced by Peter Watkins, the master of the staged newsreel, but the film´s limited success stems mostly from its controversial subject matter. The hysterical accusations of right-wing pundits who won´t even bother to see the movie will be much more entertaining than the film itself. One thought: is it a coincidence that the film can be pronounced "Dope?" "D.O.A.P" was picked up by Newmarket, who also distributed a humble little film that generated a bit of controversy a few years back: something about "Passion" and "the Christ" I think.

I saw so many great films at TIFF this year, I am reluctant to choose a single film as my favorite, but I will anyway. Jafar Panahi´s caustic, occasionally hilarious "Offside" tells a story about several Iranian women who dress as men in order to sneak into a soccer game. It is illegal for women to attend soccer matches in Iran, though nobody quite knows why; one of the funnier scenes involves a guard´s attempt to rationalize the law to one of his female prisoners. Panahi makes remarkable use of a confined space. Nearly half the film takes place in the tiny 15x5 foot pen in which a half-dozen women are held by guards who spend most of their time peeking through the gates to watch the game (the film is set at a real match between Iran and Bahrain when Iran qualified for the World Cup.) Though Panahi obviously thinks the law is ridiculous, he plays fair with all his characters. The male guards don´t have much enthusiasm for this peculiar law, but they have a job to do, and fear the repercussions if they lose any prisoner whose name is on "the list." Panahi gained critical acclaim with films like "The White Balloon" (1995) and ´The Circle" (2000), but "Offside" may be his best film to date.

I was also delighted by Alain Resnais´ "Coeurs" (AKA "Private Fears in Public Places"), in which he places a hodge-podge of romantic relationships under the cinematic microscope. Virtually every member of the cast turns in a stellar performance, though Resnais saves the best material for his muse Sabine Azéma who plays Charlotte, a woman who embodies the Madonna-Whore complex in a unique and outrageous manner; Charlotte is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic film characters of the year. Lambert Wilson and André Dussollier also excel. After his superb musical "Not on the Lips" (2003), "Coeurs" proves that the 84-year old director hasn´t lost a single step as he enters his seventh decade of film-making.

The Three Gorges Dam loomed large at TIFF this year, playing a prominent role in at least three films. Jennifer Baichwal´s "Manufactured Landscapes," the best documentary I saw at the festival, is a portrait of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky´s work depicts industrial landscapes, images many might find sterile or outright ugly, but which the photographer imbues with a stark and alien beauty. Baichwal documents Burtynsky´s extended shoot in an increasingly industrialized China, offering some beautiful footage of her own, particularly an extended opening shot over a vast factory floor-room that feels like a mega-sized version of Godard´s supermarket sweep in "Tout va Bien." One of the most engaging sections of the film depicts the population displacement caused by the massive Three Gorges Dam project. Coincidentally, this displacement is also the subject of two films by Jia Zhang Ke: his documentary "Dong" (which I did not see) and his fiction film "Still Life," which won the Golden Lion at Venice just a week before TIFF. "Still Life" tells the story of two people searching for spouses (or ex-spouses) who were relocated after the first stage of the Three Gorges Dam reservoir was filled. Alternately poignant and playful, "Still Life" is a real gem, not quite as good as Jia´s previous film "The World," but still one of the better movies at the festival.

I saw several other great films, but I only have space to briefly discuss a few of them. "Opera Jawa" is an audiovisual treat from Garin Nugroho; this will probably be billed as an alternative to Bollywood, but with its masterful use of color (rivaling Antonioni at his peak) and deployment of several magnificent art installations, this is a hybrid film like few I have ever seen. Pedro Costa´s wonderfully plotless "Colossal Youth" unfolds as a series of lazy portraits with non-professional actors who create indelible characters. Vanda Duarte (who also appeared in Costa´s "Ossos") is brilliant in a way which simply has to be seen to be understood. Apichatpong Weerasethakul´s "Syndromes and a Century" is a real head-scratcher that is something between a silly indulgence and a masterpiece. I suspect it might be both, but I won´t know for sure until I see it again (and possibly again after that).

The last film I saw in Toronto was also the funniest: "This Filthy World," a comedy concert film of a stand-up act by John Waters. America´s greatest purveyor of perversion his been performing some version of this live routine for thirty years now, and the polish really shows. Waters has the poise and impeccable timing of great stand-up comics like Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks, and his act provides more laughs per second than any movie I have seen in several years. Jeff Garlin directs, and knows how to stay out of the way of a great performer. Netflix is distributing this film through their Red Envelope label. I don´t know if it will play in theaters, but it will certainly be available on DVD, and is a must-see.

The festival also marked my first trip to Toronto (and my first to Canada for that matter), and I quickly fell in love with the city, though I will live a happy and fulfilled life if I never eat at a Tim Horton´s again. The festival had its share of minor bugs, especially the absurdly long lines early in the week, but the festival organizers, along with the army of volunteers, did a great job in transforming this logistical nightmare into controlled chaos. My only complaint is that I didn´t get to see even half of the films I wanted to see, but I suppose I can´t blame TIFF for that.

For those of you skipped to the end, or prefer a condensed review, I am including a table below with the films I saw grouped into relatively arbitrary categories.


THE BEST: Offside, Coeurs, This Filthy World, Opera Jawa, Still Life, Manufactured Landscapes, Colossal Youth

THE NEXT BEST: Syndromes and a Century, EMPz for Life, Paris Je T´aime, I Don´t Want to Sleep Alone, Blindsight

I´VE SEEN BETTER, I´VE SEEN WORSE: Brand Upon the Brain!, D.O.A.P., The Killer Within, Trapped Ashes

THE DISAPPOINTMENTS: Rescue Dawn, The Fountain, For Your Consideration

WANTED TO SEE THEM, BUT DIDN´T: Pan´s Labyrinth, The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, Black Book, The Last King of Scotland, Dong, The Making of a Bollywood Blockbuster, Chronicle of an Escape, Red Road, Shortbus, The Beales of Grey Gardens, The Pervert´s Guide to Cinema, S&MAN, My Life as a Terrorist, Invisible Waves, Exiled, and oh, hell, at least a few dozen more.

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