Report from the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival

---

Tools:
Send to a friend »

---

Do men in Canada carry change purses? This is a serious question for our Canadian readers. After my second day at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year, I couldn´t walk down the street without listing to the right as I got loaded down with the looneys and tooneys I had accumulated as change from Tim Horton´s and all of those magnificent hot dog vendors, the food providers of choice for all harried TIFF attendees.

Everyone experiences his or her own festival. This year, TIFF screened 349 films in 10 days; I saw 21 of them. Therefore, I have no idea how good the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival was; I only know how good "My Toronto" was.

And the best film I saw at "My Toronto" was "My Winnipeg," Guy Maddin´s "docu-fantasia" about his snowbound hometown. Only labeled a documentary to placate the film´s sponsors, the film takes a hallucinatory trip around the city of Winnipeg, back and forth through time, and in and out of reality, though "reality" is such an ugly word to use when Guy Maddin is involved. Highlights from this funny and charming film include the sight of octogenarian hockey players battling to keep the Winnipeg Arena from being demolished by evil city planners, and a shocking invasion by Nazi stormtroopers on "What If?" day, a day that explains why all Winnipeggers are terrified by the word "if." This might be Maddin´s best film, and his most heartfelt; as an autobiographical film it makes a fine companion piece to "Cowards Bend the Knee."

If "My Winnipeg" was the highlight of "My Toronto," then Brian De Palma´s ludicrous Iraq war film "Redacted" was certainly the nadir. De Palma arrived in Toronto fresh off a win for Best Director in Venice, which can only be explained as a "We hate America" vote. The film (loosely) recounts the true story of the rape of a 15 year old Iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family by U.S. soldiers. While nobody should expect restraint from De Palma, his depiction of the soldiers as cartoon villains who do everything but cackle while twirling their moustaches is so far over the top, it is difficult to fathom his motives. A potentially interesting examination of the way that government and the media (including bloggers and You Tube) distort war-time information is buried knee-deep somewhere in all this bullshit.

A more effective film depicting American atrocities in Iraq is "Battle for Haditha," a fiction feature by documentarian Nick Broomfield, another director hardly noted for his restraint. Broomfield (loosely) reconstructs the events that led to the 2005 slaughter by U.S. Marines of 24 Iraqis, most or possibly all of whom were non-combat civilians, in Haditha. Broomfield portrays the soldiers as young men who react angrily and without thought or compassion when a fellow soldier is killed by a roadside bomb. Shoot first and don´t ask questions later is the operative motto. Where De Palma only shows the Iraqis as shapeless victims, Broomfield finds the time in this lean docudrama to show many dimensions to the Iraqi population, from gung-ho terrorist leaders, to the more equivocal recruits, to the civilians who live in fear of angering either the U.S. or the insurgents.

Docu-fantasias and docu-dramas are fine, but what about docu-mentaries? TIFF´s documentary lineup is usually strong, and the best one I saw this year is Nina Davenport´s provocative "Operation Filmmaker." I greatly admired Ms. Davenport´s previous film "Parallel Lines" (and I also interviewed her about it), and her new film is a worthy follow-up effort. Initially, Davenport is hired to shoot a short "fluff" piece about a young Iraqi filmmaker named Muthana Mohmed who is invited by actor/director Liev Schreiber to serve as intern on a film shooting in Prague. Davenport soon realizes the film will be anything but "fluffy" when Muthana shows tremendous resentment about the menial tasks he is asked to perform ("Not my fucking job") and makes a series of unfathomable self-destructive decisions. Soon, the documentary turns into a bitter struggle between the filmmaker and her subject as Muthana´s requests for assistance constantly escalate, cannily targeting the white liberal guilt of Davenport and her producers. The documentary is a personal and ideological battlefield, raising many troubling questions about the exploitive nature of documentary filmmaking. I wouldn´t be surprised if it wound up as a standard "test case" in documentary textbooks.

Two other interesting documentaries I saw at TIFF are Werner Herzog´s "Encounters at the End of the World" and Variety critic Todd McCarthy´s "Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient." Herzog´s new documentary is a fairly typical effort for the globe-hopping Bavarian who takes his camera to one of the few places on Earth he has not yet visited: Antarctica. Surprisingly, Herzog shows more interest in the people he meets (one is identified as a "philosopher/truck driver") at McMurdo Station than he does in the desolate landscape, though there are still enough of the director´s patented sweeping panoramas to satisfy enthusiasts. McCarthy´s somewhat bland talking-head style film about Pierre Rissient is engaging entirely because of its enigmatic subject. Who is Pierre Rissient? Nobody knows for sure, but he may know more world filmmakers than anyone else. A one-man force of nature, Rissient has discovered and promoted innumerable talents over the years, and holds a unique position at Cannes that nobody can quite identify. And rumor has it he bedded one of the hottest actresses of all-time, though McCarthy teases the audience by bleeping out her name: any lip-readers catch this one?

Do-yeon Jeon won the Best Actress prize at Cannes for Lee Chang-dong´s "Secret Sunshine." I am always suspicious of "award-winning performances" but in this case, the award and the praise are fully merited. Jeon plays a woman beset by a series of tragedies so crippling, her mere survival is miraculous. Dealing with unbearable grief, Jeon turns to every source of hope and healing she can find, including the evangelical Christians in her new town, but finds only temporary respite from any of them. "Secret Sunshine" straddles the border between melodrama and classic tragedy, with Jeon´s quiet but powerful performance providing the core to this unforgettable tear-jerker. I was reminded of "Broken Blossoms"; "Secret Sunshine" may not be quite the accomplishment as D.W. Griffith´s masterpiece, but it is every bit as gut-wrenching, and Jeon proves far more resilient than fragile Lillian Gish.

On a much lighter note, Takashi Miike turns his hand to the spaghetti Western in his hilarious "Sukiyaki Western Django." The film features an all-Japanese cast (except for one mentally challenged American actor) speaking English… sometimes very poorly. I wouldn´t be surprised at all to learn that some of the actors were speaking their lines phonetically. It´s a brilliant choice that makes "Sukiyaki" feel like a true spaghetti Western (where many international actors were dubbed badly into Italian, or tried awkwardly to speak the language). The basic plot is an ironic reworking of "Yojimbo" but the real fun comes from the slapstick set pieces that comprise the bulk of the film. I am not much of a Miike fan (I stopped watching him after "Ichi the Killer"), but I have no reservations about recommending this whacked-out farce.

I also admired Gus Van Sant´s "Paranoid Park," a film which cements Van Sant as the world´s unrivaled chronicler of the (very slow-motion) movements of pretty young boys. It takes a lot to keep me interested in a movie about skateboarding teens, but Van Sant and cinematographer Christopher Doyle pull off the trick. "With Your Permission" by Paprika Steen is a surprisingly funny dark comedy about a man who is abused by his wife; yes, that set-up actually produces ample laughs, though laughs tinged with guilt like you would expect from any script by Anders Thomas Jensen. Canadian director Bruce MacDonald´s "The Tracey Fragments" takes its form from its title; nearly every shot is broken down into multiple split-screen windows, sometimes more than a dozen at a time. I don´t know if it will play well on the small screen, but in a theater it´s a pretty heady experience, plus Ellen Page is dynamite in the lead role. I´m not sure I want to see this one a second time, though.

Wayne Wang emerged from the "Winn-Dixie" wilderness to bring two genuine independent films to the festival: "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" and "The Princess of Nebraska." "Prayers" is a more conventional character study, and also my favorite of the two films: character actor Henry O. gets the chance to shine in the lead role as an estranged father trying to reconnect with his Americanized daughter. "Princess" felt like one of those Soderbergh experiments (think "Bubble") but Wang doesn´t really have the avant garde chops to make it all work. Still, it is quite intriguing, and well worth a second viewing on DVD. Did he make enough money from "Maid in Manhattan," "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "Last Holiday" to start making real movies again? Here´s hoping.

Other films I liked with major reservations: Bela Tarr´s glacially-paced "Man from London," Phillipe Faucon´s sit-com funny "Dans la vie," and Amos Gitai´s "Disengagement," in which Juliette Binoche goes completely bonkers.

My biggest disappointment was George Romero´s "Diary of the Dead." I am a huge Romero admirer, but I found his "re-booting" of the franchise far too clunky and, unlike his previous "Dead" films, almost entirely devoid of political insight. The film features a few very funny scenes, though, and I guarantee that the "Amish guy" has a lucrative future as a horror convention guest. Harmony Korine´s first film in eight years "Mister Lonely" also failed to meet expectations, and I´m now beginning to wonder if his brilliant "Gummo" (1997) is going to turn out to be a one-hit wonder. At least Werner Herzog got another shot at a very funny role as a priest in charge of a group of flying nuns (no Sally Fields were hurt during the shooting of this film).

You´ve probably noticed that I have written nothing about the high profile American films playing at the festival such as the Coen Brothers´ "No Country for Old Men" and David Cronenberg´s "Eastern Promises." That´s not because I didn´t like them, but because I didn´t see them. I don´t trek all the way to Toronto to see movies that will be released stateside in a few weeks or months. However, I heard many good things about both films (Cronenberg´s won the audience prize at the festival) as well as Todd Haynes´ Bob Dylan kaleidoscope "I´m Not There" and Noah Baumbach´s "Margot at the Wedding."

In 2006, I saw several near-masterpieces at Toronto, including "Offside," "Colossal Youth," "Still Life" and "Private Fears in Public Places." Of my 2007 TIFF films, I´d only rank "My Winnipeg" in such heady company, but that doesn´t mean there weren´t plenty of great films that I simply missed out on. Among the movies I wanted to see but missed: Ang Lee´s "Lust, Caution," Hou Hsiao-hsien´s "Flight of the Red Balloon," 99 year-old Manoel de Oliveira´s "Christopher Columbus, the Enigma" and 19-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf´s "Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame." DVD-Gods willing, I´ll catch up with all of these within the year.

THE TOP TEN FILMS I SAW AT "MY TORONTO" in 2007:

1. "My Winnipeg"
2. "Secret Sunshine"
3. "Operation Filmmaker"
4. "Battle for Haditha"
5. "Sukiyaki Western Django"
6. "With Your Permission"
7. "Paranoid Park"
8. "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers"
9. "The Tracey Fragments"
10. "Encounters at the End of the World"

NEXT BEST: "Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient," "The Man from London," "Ploy," "Dans la Vie," "The Princess from Nebraska," "Disengagement"

DISAPPOINTMENTS: "Diary of the Dead," "Mister Lonely," "The Secrets"

TOTAL STINKER: "Redacted"

---

---