Seven films that stood out at the Toronto International Film Festival
From September 4 through September 13 key figures in the film world gathered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The largest public festival in the world TIFF draws publicists promoters journalists celebrities and cinephiles in equal measure to watch movies all day and get stupid-drunk every night. For the first time ever Fast Forward sent a correspondent to this year’s fest. In the interest of professionalism we focused on the films rather than the dangerous alcoholism. Here are the highlights.
A FILM WITH ME IN IT (dir. Ian Fitzgibbon)
Before the movie started I overheard a gentleman complaining that “They’re gone – the U.K. rights are bloody gone.” Take that as a sign that there’s some buzz around this one. Mark Doherty stars as an out-of-luck actor who thanks to a rapid series of unfortunate accidents has every reason to worry he might be suspected of a triple-homicide. Sean of the Dead’s Dylan Moran is his friend a hack screenwriter who tries to help him out of the bloody mess. It’s a pitch-black comedy as dark as the awful Christian Slater vehicle Very Bad Things although without the high camp and mean-spiritedness but Fitzgibbon maintains a wonderfully dry atmosphere throughout. Though the main characters are universally mopey the sheer ridiculousness of their circumstances and the wonderfully understated performances make it work. The only rough spot is a subplot about Doherty and Moran writing a movie. The premise works fine without such self-aware meta-humour.
THE BROTHERS BLOOM (dir. Rian Johnson)
Brick Johnson’s 2005 debut as a writer and director was an excellent genre pick transplanting film noir conventions into a modern high school. More than that though it established Johnson as a writer with a unique skill for establishing a fully integrated world — everything from the look to the made-up slang felt cohesive. The Brother Bloom continues in this tradition though it shares very little with its predecessor. In look and feel the film is closer to a Wes Anderson effort all bright colours and whimsical scoundrels. Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo play brothers and con men Rachel Weisz their mark and Kill Bill’s Rinko Kikuchi their mysterious silent assistant.
Unlike most films that borrow from Anderson though Bloom never seems burdened by its flights of fancy. Johnson’s script is far too smart for that and his direction far too capable. Of all the films at this year’s festival this one seems most likely to go on to Little Miss Sunshine or Juno -style cult success — and it’s far more satisfying than either of those. Look for this one to hit Calgary in early January.
PONTYPOOL (dir. Bruce McDonald)
McDonald does a fantastic job of crafting a paranoid atmosphere in this movie about a small-town talk radio morning crew’s realization that an inexplicable and horrifying news event is unfolding just outside of their studio. Aside from one scene the movie is confined to the station with the characters relying on news feeds and callers to piece together the events. Much more than a standard horror movie (people have described it as a zombie flick but that hardly does it justice) McDonald’s latest is a top-notch thriller that does a remarkable amount with just the power of words.
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (dir. Danny Boyle)
Boyle’s gained a reputation for starting strong and finishing with bizarre twists that don’t suit his films at all. Sunshine his sci-fi flick of last year morphed from an intense psychological thriller to a cheesy monster movie in the third act and 28 Days Later’s superbly human hero transformed into an inhuman super-soldier by the movie’s end. Slumdog Millionaire offers no such problems. The story of a lower-caste Indian boy who wins a fortune on that country’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire follows more in the footsteps of Millions Boyle’s tale of a young boy who finds a duffel bag full of cash and gets tangled up with the mob. Boyle excels at getting dramatic non-cloying performances from his child actors and the Dickens-via-India storyline contains some genuinely heartbreaking moments. The film requires some suspension of disbelief (not only do all the Millionaire questions relate to anecdotes from the contestant’s life they relate in chronological order) but once you accept the premise the rest falls into place.
SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK (dir. Charlie Kaufman)
Synecdoche is Kaufman’s directorial debut after writing such mind-melters as Being John Malkovich Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . As should be expected when you give a dedicated weirdo complete control over a movie Synecdoche makes those others seem straightforward. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a playwright trying to complete his most ambitious project — a performance piece featuring hundreds of individual scenes acted out simultaneously including ones that have actors playing Hoffman and his assistant and other actors playing the actors playing Hoffman and his assistant. Reality loops in on itself like nesting dolls. Time narrative and characterizations get toyed around with like something out of a David Lynch movie with the creepiness replaced with sadness and confusion.
It all works — despite the insanity Kaufman never seems to be trying to put one past his viewers. He’s trying to communicate the big ideas — love death and everything else — in a way that a more straightforward story never could. Rumour has it that Sony wants to trim this one down before releasing it which would be a shame and pointless as no amount of editing could turn it into a traditional story.
TEARS FOR SALE (dir. Uros Stojanovic)
According to this bizarre fairy tale of a movie Serbia lost nearly all of its men during World War One leading to some seriously gender-unbalanced towns. A pair of professional mourners are sent to find a man when their town’s last remaining male a mostly impotent bed-ridden grandpa finally croaks. Imaginative visuals and an unpredictable plot make for an absolutely delightful flick for fans of ghosts witches ancient curses and the Charleston.
THE WRESTLER (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
It’s a shame that most people will call The Wrestler a return to form for Aronofsky because The Fountain was actually a far better movie than most people give it credit for. Still there’s no denying Mickey Rourke’s standoutperformance as an over-the-hill pro wrestler trying to get his life back on track. The film reeks of sadness loneliness and desperation but not in the coldly clinical way that characterized Aronofsky’s breakthrough Requiem for a Dream . The characters are universally vivid (Marisa Tomei is particularly good as the somewhat clichéd stripper with a heart of gold) and Robert D. Seigel’s script keeps the degradations plausible and painful. A scene where Rourke competes in a “hardcore wrestling” match with barbed wire broken glass and staple guns is particularly harrowing.
