TIFF Capsule Reviews (Issue 2)

TIFF 2009 Capsule Reviews:

ALL FALL DOWN (Canada 2009) ***
Directed by Philip Hoffman

Director Philip Hoffman’s meticulously directed experimental documentary is a juxtaposition of two stories.  One is that of the life of writer George Lachlan Brown settling in the Normandy Township that takes a devastating course of poverty and the other of an equally tragic historical native who loses her rights after marrying a white man.  Told through visuals using archive footage, home movies, paintings, photographs and heritage films and through the words of telephone messages, poems, quotations (George Orwell and Wallace Stevens) and songs, Hoffman’s film is an intricate maze of storytelling that often fascinates as well as mesmerizes.  It demands concentration though it can be quite trying at times to figure what Hoffman’s message is.  The only humor is the running joke of the money Hoffman has saved in the calculation of the number of frames in his heritage movie.

CAIRO TIME (Canada 2009) **
Directed by Rubba Nada

CAIRO TIME works if one would believe what is happening on screen could be true.  In Nada’s (SABAH) film which she also wrote, a diplomat’s (Tom McCamus) wife Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) lands at the airport in Cairo, Egypt where she is met by their long time friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig).  As Mark the husband is indisposed for some reason or other, Juliette eventually succumbs to the charm of Tareq and the Arab world.  She reaches the point of having an affair or to change her belief in the American way.  But Nada’s script gives nothing concrete that would otherwise convert Juliette, she being the strong-willed person she is.  For one, Juliette seems very set in her ways upon arriving at the airport and she has been hassled non-stop from her arrival at the hotel to no end.  The fact that Nada’s film moves along at a snail’s pace allows one to assume that Juliette is offered the time to consider a change.  Apart from the solid musical score and fine camerawork, and yes - the pyramids beckon at the end - CAIRO TIME still remains unconvincing for the most part. 

CARCASSES (Canada 2009) **
Directed by Denis Cote

Quebec indie director Denis Cote presents a story of an elderly man (Jean-Paul Colmor) who suffers collectionitis.  He has collected junk all his life living on his land in Saint-Amable near Montreal.  Living the life of almost a hermit most of the days of the week, he survives by selling spare auto parts, but does the odd traveling to the town or meet the occasional girl.  But when visited by a group of somewhat backward youths, he is forced to decide how to react to the intruders.  Cote moves his film at a snail’s pace.  He often sets his camera still and films his subjects from a distance. There is nothing really wrong with a director taking his time to tell a story but in this case there is not much of a story to tell nor is there any interest generated by him.  The one senseless scene with him sitting down in the kitchen listening to a lesson on speaking Spanish says it all.

COOKING WITH STELLA (Canada 2009) **
Directed by Dilip Mehta

Carefully crafted family dramedy about Stella (Seema Biswas), the household head who is as crooked as she is nice on the outside with her bosses!  A diplomat (Lisa Ray) arrives in New Delhi from Canada with her spouse, a cook (Don McKellar).  Stella starts up her usual nonsense stealing and selling her employers’ household belongings till she is pitted against an honest nanny (Shriya Saran).  There is nothing really wrong with COOKING WITH STELLA the movie, except that it plays like a predictable TV serial.  Typical in such co-productions, everything foreign is exotic and anything white is plain boring.  So, as expected, all the Indian foods are on fine display here with Canadian fare looked down upon.  (Squeezing pomegranates and lemons is supposed to be Canadian upper cuisine.) Biswas is good as the crafty Stella, but one wonders why a diplomat’s spouse is allowed to carry on throughout his stay with his unkempt beard.

THE DAMNED UNITED (UK 2009) ***1/2
Directed by Tom Hooper

THE DAMNED UNITED opened in the U.K. last spring without much hullabaloo.  I myself gave it a miss after reading mediocre reviews when I visited London then.  But this above average football (or soccer) pic is given a big boost as a gala this TIFF and rightly so.  THE DAMNED UNITED is a period sports piece, set in 1974 with an excellent central performance by Michael Sheen (he played Frost in FROST/NIXON and Tony Blair THE QUEEN) and supported by a superb Brit/Irish cast that includes Oscar winner Jim Broadbent (the latest HARRY POTTER), Timothy Spall (the Leigh films) and Colm Meaney (the Stephen Frears films).  Basically a character study of football manager Brian Clough who rose through the ranks to finally head Leeds United, this is a root-for-the-hero story with all heart.  The film shifts between two periods – 1974 and the years before Clough made it big.  Never mind if you are not a sports fan for the plot is easy to follow.  And director Hooper captures the spirit and excitement of the sport as well.

DAYBREAKERS (Australia/USA 2009) ***
Directed by the Spierig Brothers

Life is a ***censored*** and then you don’t die!  Thus quotes the character Elvis (Willem Dafoe) as a human turned vampire turned human again.  The Spierig Brothers (THE UNDEAD) push the vampire genre one step further with the vamps ruling the planet where human are hunted for their blood.  Only one sympathetic vampire (Ethan Hawke) sides the humans while hunting a cure or substitute for the dwindling plasma supplies.  The Brothers handle the action segments with great skill and excitement.  This is a horror film with more story than expected.  The Brothers pull it off with a polished climatic finish in which the human race, of course, triumphs.  Well, in their way, of course!

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (UK/Canada 2009)
Directed by Terry Gilliam

(Capsule review embargoed till opening day of Toronto International Film Festival)

LIFE ACCORDING TO AGFA (Israel 1992) *
Directed by Assi Dayan

In the bar called Barbie in the volatile city of Tel Aviv, not only can anything happen but does and reaches boiling point.  A chauvinist police officer has an affair with a suicidal young woman; the owner picks up young customers; a waitress seeks to flee to America et al.  Then drug junkies enter the bar creating more trouble.  Director Dayan lets incident after incident occur without paying much attention to credibility or logic.  When the film ends in a climatic scene that has to be seen to be believed
(or disbelieved), one can only what Dayan is thinking in his take on humanity.  LIFE ACCORDING TO AGFA swept the 1992’s Israel awards.  The paradox of such a terrible film winning prizes is probably the reason this 1992 film took so long to reach here.  Pessimistic and ridiculous!

PARTIR (LEAVING) (France 2009) ***
Directed by Catherine Corsini

PARTIR begins with Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) leaving the bedroom with gunshot heard.  It is assumed that she has shot her husband Samuel (Yvan Attal) in the bedroom.  Director Corsini flashes her film back 6 moins plus tot to reveal the circumstances leading to this sad state of affairs.  It all turns out to be due to Suzanne’s sexual awakening to love, catalysized by the hiring of a builder Ivan (Sergi Lopez for their home.  Unable to control her emotions, she abandons her husband, who in turn, because of his connections in the medical field cuts her off from all finances.  Can one survive with love and no money?  Suzanne and Ivan resort to all means including robbery as a last resort.  Corsini makes her point relating the reasoning and circumstances for the shooting.  PARTIR succeeds in this way but one can hardly sympathize with a woman who has abandons her husband and 2 children of an over 10-year marriage for whatever reason.

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE (USA 2009) *
Directed be Lee Daniels

Set in Harlem and based on Sapphire’s experiences in teaching, director Lee Daniels’ PRECIOUS concentrates on the life of abused fat 16-year old African American, Claireece ‘Precious’ Jones (Gabby Sidibe).  Precious has everything ‘not’ going on for her.  Twice impregnated by her father, abused by her mother (Mon’Nique), mother of a Mongoloid then of an h.i.v. positive baby, kicked out of school, what more can one imagine could happen to her.  Only good things then!  The audience is then led to believe that Precious will pull herself out of the s…hole to read and write with the aid of one unbelievable goody-two-shoes teacher (Paula Patton) who is in the picture because she just loves to teach.  But Daniel (producer of films as MONSTER BALL and THE WOODSMAN which deals with nasty topics) throws subtlety out the window.  His film is downright blatant with foul language, vomit and other nasties splashed right at your face, in case you did not get the point.  His camerawork is awful, camera placement questionable and whenever he does get a good shot (tone with the teacher first meeting Precious), he overdoes it by doing two segments with it (the same shot).  Lenny Kratvitz and Mariah Carey also embarrass themselves in this film with minor roles.  And what is it with one scene in which Precious cannot read the phrase ‘A Day at the Shore’ and the other, not long after attending classes when she is confidently reading aloud a fairy tale from a book?  Oprah produced this movie and will be attending TIFF to promote the film’s ‘message’.

REEL INJUN (Canada 2009) ***1/2
Directed by Neil Diamond

What begins as an ordinary documentary of how native Indians in Hollywood films were incorrectly portrayed eventually ends on an unexpected upbeat note with clips from one of the best native films ever made – ATANARJUAT, THE FAST RUNNER.  Director Neil Diamond takes his audience on a kind of educational road trip.  As he travels to Hollywood to make sense of the politically incorrect depiction of natives in movies, the audience is given entertaining and insightful information through clips from old movies, interviews and voiceover.  Though most cineastes are familiar with films like native politically correct Hollywood films as LITTLE BIG MAN, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST and the first nation films (POWWOW HIGHWAY, SMOKE SIGNALS), Diamond has assembled an impressive load of footage from which he has constructed quite an argument.  The last few minutes of screen time devoted to ATANARJUAT proves that natives (as in other prejudiced minorities like Blacks and gays) have come a long way and finally succeeded as Diamond’s film has.  Diamond has also craftily incorporated Clint Eastwood in the interviews so that he is on the side of the REEL INJUNS.  That way, John Wayne can be singled out as the main baddie of this movie.

A SHINE OF RAINBOWS (Ireland/Canada 2009) ***
Directed by Vic Sarin

A bullied boy, 8-year old Tomas (John Bell) is adopted from the local orphanage by a charming young woman Maire O’Donnell (Connie Neilson) unable to bear a child.  The woman is all smiles but the boy has to win the heart of her hardened husband (a scruffy Aidan Quinn) as well as the village children to stay in the home.  As the film progresses, Tomas adopts an abandoned baby seal while mother Maire falls ill and eventually dies.  If the story does not already spell tearjerker, director Vic Sarin shows no mercy at pulling at the heartstrings.  Bring lots (and lots) of Kleenex.  A SHINE OF RAINBOWS, set in the picturesque Irish wind-swept Corrie Island allows Sarin, who is also cinematographer to also show his prowess in this field.  Very Irish, with lots of folk tunes Irish dancing and Celtic charm!

A SERIOUS MAN (USA 2009) ****
Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen

A SERIOUS MAN plays very much like the Coen Brothers last two movies, from the abrupt ending (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) to the sequence of unrelated life events that make no sense in the realm of things (BURN AFTER READING).  In A SERIOUS MAN, the protagonist is one, trying to make sense of the craziness that is going on around him.  The most important element in his life right then is his tenure professorship.  Never mind his wife is having an affair with his good friend, his brother is getting into trouble with the law or his children sidetracked from school.  A SERIOUS MAN reminds one of Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS in which the director makes the movie he wants and everyone else who disagrees can just f*** off.  A SERIOUS MAN is absolutely absorbing, terribly funny in the Coen Brothers sort of way and incredibly imaginative.  The fact the characters (most of whom are played by relative unknowns) speak Hebrew and Yiddish illustrate, as in the Tarantino movie, that great directors put a lot of detail and research into the language of their movies.

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN (NZ 2009) ****
Directed by Jonathan King

At one point in the film, fraternal twins who can telepathically communicate with each other are stopped from saving the world because their uncle and aunt will not let them leave the house.  Based on the novel of the same name by Maurice Gee and on an earlier TV-series, UNDER THE MOUNTAIN follows the adventures of Theo and Rachel Matheson, who with the help of Mr. Jones (Sam Neill) battle slimy aliens called the Wilberforces who can take the shape of human form.  This inventive, amusing and totally compelling tale with teens as the leads may very well be the sleeper hit of the festival.  Set in Auckland, New Zealand, director Jonathan King’s (BLACK SHEEP) film makes full use of the island’s beautiful locations from the volcanic crater lake that inhabits beautiful black swans to its brackish waters that often smells of rotten cabbage.  Grand special effects, great camera work, lots of volcanic pyrotechnics combined together with good old-fashioned heroics and adventure lift UNDER THE MOUNTAIN way above the horror genre. 

THE YOUNG VICTORIA (UK 2009) **
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee

Quebec director (LISTE NOIRE and his recent hit C.R.A.Z.Y.) goes big time with the British costume period piece YOUNG VICTORIA about, obviously the early years of the monarch (Emily Brunt).  The film concentrates on her rise to the thrown and her romance with Prince Albert (Rupert Friend from CHERI).  But Vallee’s film plods along tediously during the first part.  It is only after Victoria’s marriage to the Belgian prince that the film takes flight, taking on the passion and drama that was initially missing.  For all that it is worth, the costumes, sets and props are stunning and Vallee has a good camera eye for the film’s royal look.  Pity he fails to connect the audience with the YOUNG VICTORIA.  For a film based only on a small portion of Queen Victoria’s life, Vallee’s story feels as if he has assumed the audience’s familiarity with all the details of that period.  The supporting cast of the excellent Paul Bettany (as Lord Melbourne), Miranda Richardson (as the Duchess of Kent) and Jim Broadbent (as King William) try their best at lifting the film out of the doldrums.  Surprisingly, it is Friend who saves the day.  THE YOUNG VICTORIA, TIFF’s closing night gala has already opened in the U.K. last spring and is slotted for a November release in North America.  Still, the film should be seen for all its glory despite it (should I mention this?) already being downloadable on the net.