Toronto International Film Festival is here again - September 6 - 15th

TIFF is here again.

Cinemaeye will provide capsule reviews of films been screened.

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AMAL (Canada 2007) ***1/2
Directed by Richie Mehta
AMAL Kumar (Rupinder Nagra) is a rickshaw driver in New Delhi with a heart of gold.  When he accidentally causes a young girl (Priya) to be hit by a car, Amal uses all his hard earnings to pay her hospital fees.  But an eccentric billionaire (G.K. Jayaram) who had once ridden his rickshaw recognizes this man’s humanity and leaves him a fortune, if he can be found in time.  AMAL is based on the short film of the same title expanded effectively to a full length feature.  AMAL is set in contemporary India where everyone is out to make a quick buck and where no one can be trusted.  One of the key lines, repeated in the film is that richness can be found in Amal’s poorness.  Writer/director Mehta gets his point across effectively to show that the best ending to his film need not be the happy one that normal audiences would expect.  The girl dies and Amal does not get the money.  Yet, the beauty of it all is that the audience still leaves the theatre on Cloud Nine.  Indeed, as there is richness in a poor man, there is also pleasure for the audience in non-Hollywood endings.  AMAL is a tale of virtue brilliantly told.

BARCELONA (A MAP) (Spain 2007) **
Directed by Ventura Pons
Incest and adultery and homosexuality are intertwined in the lives of 6 characters who meet in an old apartment in Barcelona.  Yet, Ventura Pons’ (ACTRESSES, AMAT) film is neither offensive nor controversial.  The film is as flaky as its characters.  Each of the 6 characters talk too much, do not know what they want and are less interesting than they sound on paper.  Pons has directed a rather talky film in which the characters are not really related, except by chance.  Unimaginatively directed, stagey with mostly unimpressive performances made more pretentious by opening newsreel footage about the history of Barcelona.

BOY A (UK 2007) ***1/2
Directed by John Crowley
BOY A is 24 called Jack.  Released from prison from a terrible crime, Jack (Andrew Garfield) aims at a new life, with the aid of social worker, Terry (Peter Mullan).  Based on the novel by Jonathan Trigell and written for the screen by Mark Rowe, the second collaboration between Rowe and director Crowley after INTERMISSION is another assured piece of filmmaking.  The film can be considered to be two stories, one told in flashback, of Jack and the other of him as an innocent boy, led astray by a new but vicious friend.  BOY A is largely compelling as Crowley and Rowe feeds the audience only bits of information at a time letting the audience piece the bits together like a puzzle. 

LE CEDRE PENCHE (Canada 2007) *
Directed by Rafael Oullet
The fancy French title translates to the English one MONA’S DAUGHTERS.  The film opens with the uniting of the sisters while rendering the song Ave Maria, Mere de Dieu.  It is a melodious piece and director Oullet allows the audience the time to breathe in every moment of the song.  The film traces the journey during which Brigitte (Marie Neige Chatelain) and Candide (Viviane Audet) Provencher finally complete a CD for a radio station while coming to terms with their loss.  Unfortunately, all this is as boring as it sounds.  With hand held camera and a cinema verite feel, Oullet’s film is worst than watching a neighbour’s home movie.  At least your neighbour is a familiar character.  Here, Oullet does not bother with background, character or the behaviour of the Provencher sisters.

CONTINENTAL, UN FILM SANS FUSIL (Canada 2007) **
Directed by Stephane Lafleur
The films begins with a man’s disappearance in the woods after leaving a bus.  His wife is given solace through a get well card (only card they could find) from her colleagues and from there, director Lafleur weaves together the lives of four others.  The stories are of ordinary fragile folk, which make them realistic and heartfelt.  His films works when he turns up the humour a notch or two, most of it from smart observations from daily routines that somehow appear funnier on screen.  But Lafleur’s film pacing is monotonous.  Not building up to a climax, the film eventually turns to an everyday unimpressive yawn.  The wife’s story is the most interesting pf the lot.  Fragility need not be equated with weakness and hopelessness, which is the identical theme among the 4 stories.

CONTRE TOUTE ESPERANCE (Canada 2007) ***
Directed by Bernard Emond
CONTRE TOUTE ESPERANCE (English title, SUMMIT CIRCLE) is director Emond’s second film of a trilogy dealing with the virtues of faith, hope and charity. SUMMIT CIRCLE tells the story, in flashback of the events leading to a blood stained woman’s arrest.  The woman turns out to be an ordinary, quietly attractive wife, (Guylaine Tremblay) forced by fate to see her current life get from bad to worse to unbearable.  It all begins well when she and her husband (Guy Jodoin) purchase a beautiful home by a river in a Montreal suburb.  Then she loses her job, her husband becomes an invalid, depression sets in and so on.  Emond’s film like his first, LA NEUVAINE (THE NOVENA) moves at a snail’s pace giving the effect of the events unfolding in real time.  Still, he manages to jolt the audience out of their seats occasionally.  Emond is more interested here in the emotions, actions and behaviour of his protagonist rather than the storyline.  Tremblay delivers a subdued yet moving performance that keeps the film interesting.  Yes, and the audience does care for her character.

CONTROL (UK 2007) ***** Top 10
Directed by Anton Corbijn
Based on the book WALKING AWAY FROM SILENCE, CONTROL is the story of Ian Curtis (Michael Riley), the enigmatic singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to commit suicide at the age of 23.  Filmed in black and white and set in 70’s Manchester, CONTROL has a real feel of the times and passion of the band’s lead singer thanks to details of costumes, props down to the minute mannerisms and actions of the actors.  The way Curtis and his wife (Samantha Morton) cuddle while walking under his cloak reminds one of scenes right out of a 70’s Brit movie.  It helps that the music is fantastic as well.  As the music of Joy Division is easy to play, the actors actually performed the songs on stage.  CONTROL, which is director Corbijn’s first feature film, won special mention at Cannes this year.  A remarkable and moving feature that demands to be seen!  The film has an odd shift from Ian’s music to his infidelity though the second half of the film slowly blends the two issues together.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (France 2007) ***** Top 10
Directed by Julian Schnabel
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLION, based on the memoir by Jean-Dominque Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) is a brilliantly shot (by Janusz Kaminski) incredibly moving film about Jean-Do’s life.  Jean-Do is a successful fashion magazine editor who wakes up one day totally paralyzed from a stroke.  He is only able to move one eyelid (the other sewn shut to prevent it getting septic), blinking once for yes and twice for no.  The film tells of his rehab to the writing of his memoir.  Writer/director Schnabel (BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, BASQUIAT) wisely films his story from Jean-Do’s (as he calls himself) point of view, the camera lens replacing the protagonist’s one eye.  The screen often goes black once or twice as the protagonist communicates his answers whether affirmative or negative.  DIVING BELL takes an hour to document the rehabilitation and the other hour to describe what happens after.  What makes the film tick is Schnabel’s portrait of Jean-Do as a man full of human failings.  He is a womanizer before his stroke and even after, he insists on seeing his mistress despite the fact that the wife (Emmanuelle Seigner) who he has left, selflessly attends to his needs.  The agony, regrets, frustration and achievements are well documented cinematically.  Director Schnabel deservedly won the best direction award at Cannes for this remarkable piece of humanity on film.

EASTERN PROMISES (Canada/UK 2007) ***
Directed by David Cronenberg
Following close to the heels of his last hit A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (and also starring Viggo Mortensen), Cronenberg’s latest TIFF entry centres on the Russian mafia in London.  Mortensen plays the mysterious Nikolai, chauffeur and confidante to ruthless chief, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and unstable son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel).  Nikolai’s conscience is put to the test when he discovers an infant is about to be murdered during Christmastide.  One wishes EASTERN PROMISES to be as taut and violent as Cronenberg’s HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and SPIDER, but EASTERN PROMISES suffers from an ending that begs for a more exciting and satisfactory climax.  Still, PROMISES shows Cronenberg in top form – from his images, play on ambiguities and build-up of suspense.  The fight in the London Finbury Park sauna will surely go down in movie history to be one of the grittiest.  It is also an odd pleasure to hear Dane Mortensen, German Mueller-Stahl and French Cassel don Russian accents.

L’ENNEMI INTIMES (INTIMATE ENEMIES) (France 2007) *****Top 10
Directed by Florent –Emilio Siri
The beginning shot of a two scorpions fighting on the soldier’s corpse indicates the detail and craft of director Florent –Emilio Siri’s film.  INTIMATE ENEMIES is set in 1959 Algeria.  France sent troops to quell the Algerian rebels so that Algeria can remain a part of French.  As everyone knows, this is a useless war with wasted casualties on both sides as Algeria would eventually become independent.  The film begins with military operations stepped up in the mountains of Kalylia where a rookie lieutenant, Terrien (Benoit Magimel) takes command over a platoon run by the cynical and much more experienced sergeant Dougnac (Albert Dopontel).  The INTIMATE ENEMIES of the title imply that the new lieutenant has more enemies in the platoon than the outside rebels, known as fellaghas or the FLNs.  Through three battles/assignments, director Siri brings the audience to identify with the men in the platoon as well as the two leads (the sergeant and lieutenant), the folly of the war and men’s breaking point.  The film takes no sides, offering mindless slaughter and torture performed by both the French and fellaghas sides.  The film ends with one of the soldiers screening his home made film shot of the platoon during Christmas time.  If the images of many of the young faces of the soldiers (then dead) in that film do not wring tears in your eyes, nothing will. 

FADOS (Spain 2007) ***
Directed by Carlos Saura
Master dance film director Carlos Saura (TANGO) tackles FADO in his latest song/dance film.  FADO is one of the oldest forms of urban folk music.  Director Saura traces its evolution from early to contemporary times through 5 minute segments from the film’s start to finish.  He climaxes his film with Fado Flamenco blending Fado with his specialty, the flamenco dance.  For this film, the audience has just to sit back and enjoy the music and dance.  The film features performances from FADO legends as Mariza and Carlos do Carmo.

FOREVER NEVER ANYWHERE (Austria 2007) ****
Directed by Antonin Svoboda
Three men are trapped on a remote road in their car in the midst of darkness.  They are later discovered by an angelic boy who turns out to be pure evil.  It takes an hour or so in this 88 minute film before the car plunges into the woods.  It is clear then that director Svoboda’s film is not a horror flick involving a battle of wills.  It is rather difficult to classify the kind of genre this film falls into.  For one, Svoboda takes his time to show his audience just how irritating his characters are.  One is a little talented accordion performer who tells bad jokes and abuses his audience.  Another is a drunk who attends his sister’s book opening only to hit at the ladies after.  If not at each others throats, his characters are screaming and annoying the audience.  Svoboda’s film is fresh, edgy, never boring and impressively shot, down to the mechanical details.  The segment of a field mouse scurrying through the car’s electronics system is brilliantly done.  FOREVER NEVER ANYWHERE (as the title implies) might not take its protagonists anywhere, but it jolts its audience with quite the hell ride.  This is the most satisfying annoying film of the festival.  Existential loathing is the term Svoboda uses to describe his characters.

FLASH POINT (HK 2007) ***
Directed by Wilson Yip
Donnie Yen is the fight choreographer (HERO) and star of fist action power film FLASH POINT.  Yen plays hot-headed cop, Jun.  Together with his partner, Wilson (Louis Koo), who after infiltrated a drug gang undercover, they pursue brothers Tony (Collin Chou) and Tiger (Yu Xing).  “My duty as a cop is to catch thieves.” Jun’s words ring true as the film proves his point.  High octane car chases, kung-fu action and foot chases are piled one after the other.  Director Yip adds in a bit of emotions to the actioner in the form of mothers – that of Jun and off the drug brothers.  Action fans will not be disappointed with this midnight madness entry.  The climatic fight between hero and villain is an exciting 15 minutes of violent, blood filled, old-fashioned one on one combat without use of CGI. 

I AM FROM TITOV VELES (Macedonia 2007) **
Directed by Teona Strugar Mitevska
TITOV VELES is a small industrial village poisoned by the fumes of a steel factory that spews fumes into the air.  The film is the story of three sisters, told from the poin t of view (why?) of the youngest 27 year old who refuses to speak.  Each searches for a better life, which means leaving the village at all costs.  TITOV VELES is beautifully shot, considering its mainly barren surroundings.  Director Mitevska tracks her shots and positions her camera well.  Unfortunately, she neglects to put in more realism into the characters who seem to flow in and out of scenes like images in a landscape.  It is difficult to feel for a film if we hardly have enough background given to the characters for us to care for them.

JAR CITY (MYRIN) (Iceland/Germany 2006) ****
Directed by Baltasar Kormakur
This is the kind of foreign film that will never play in North America because it is too commercial for the art crowd.  JAR CITY is term for the place where foetuses, brains, organs and the like are kept for biological research.  It is also where a murdered young girl’s brain is kept and recovered after an elderly man is suddenly found murdered in his basement flat.  JAR CITY is a bad cop, ***censored*** cop (Ingvar Örn Sigurðsson and the comic relief Björn Hlynur Haraldssonfilm) set in lively Iceland locations.  Always snowy and bleak but yet always beautifully barren (the photography is stunning), the landscape complements the mood of director Kormakur’s (101 Reykjavik) awesome suspense action thriller.  Though initially a bit confusing with so many facts thrown at the audience at once, the occasionally funny film eventually gets itself on track when all the clues make sense.  JAR CITY is also the grossest film I have seen for a long time.  Also convincingly acted and skilfully directed.  Highly recommended!

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (USA 2007) **
Directed by Craig Gilespie
Socially inept Lars Lindtrom (Ryan Gosling) is not a normal person.  He has a life-size doll as his girlfriend.  The trouble is that the entire town goes along with it, for the reason that Lars is a lovable guy who just happens to be disillusional.  This is the premise of director Gilespie’s predictable comedy of errors.  Needless to say, Lars matures, dumps the doll and eventually gets on with his life.  But Gilepsie goes for the easy laughs rather than dwell with the more important issues at hand.  The result is a film that is quite funny to some, but essentially lacking in substance and bite.  The film is neither black nor daring enough to succeed more than a simple coming-of-age story of a forgettable soul in a small forgettable town.  The filmmakers also make no attempt to mention what town (though the film is shot in Toronto) or where the town is actually located. 

POOR MAN’S GAME (Canada 2007) ****
Directed by Clement Virgo
At one point in the movie, boxing, the sport is described not to be a game.  “We play hockey, football but do not play boxing!” Yet, director Clement Virgo’s latest film is called POOR MAN’S GAME, probably as an inside joke.  Unlike RUDE and LIE WITH ME, his most well known arty features, POOR MAN’S GAME is a more accomplished, disciplined and thankfully commercial piece of work set in Nova Scotia dealing with quite a few issues including adapting to the world after prison, tribe loyalty, racial conflict but mostly personal redemption.  Newcomer, Rossif Sutherland plays Donnie Rose, a young boxer who is just released from prison for brutally handicapping a black man for life.  The father, George (Danny Clover) and the black community led by boxer Ossie Paris (Flex Alexander) pushes for revenge through a boxing match.  Virgo’s film is compelling to watch.  He keeps the story just a notch ahead of the audience.  Virgo’s focus on details while keeping the central idea on track coupled with fine performances from all his actors, particularly Glover and Sutherland, make this film the best Canadian entry I have seen this year.
The climatic boxing match is a little disappointing.  Example: the coach tells Donnie to watch his balance as his eardrum is broken.  But the question is how the coach knows that fact.  Still, Virgo’s film is not about boxing and he still pulls all the right punches with an unpredictable but winning ending. 

OBSCENE (USA 2007) **
Directed by Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor
Barney Rosset, the Irish hothead troublemaker is the subject of this documentary that draws from 60 years of old footage.  An American publisher, described by an interviewee as the last maverick in American publishing, Rosset (who has publish works of icons as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter et al.) who rose from rags to riches back to rags, is best known for his court battles to put forbidden works on paper.  The directors go for a lot of facts and interviews instead of selecting the more dramatic ones.  The best bit has Rosset posing with Beckett in his heyday.  If only this doc was as volatile and exciting as its subject.  Assembled chronologically!

A PROMISE TO THE DEAD (Canada 2007) ***
Directed by Peter Raymont
A PROMISE TO THE DEAD: The Exile of Journey of Ariel Dorfman is as the title implies, documentarist Peter Raymont’s (2001’s SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL) account of Ariel Dorfman’s exploration of his life in exile.  Dorfman served as cultural advisor to Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende before Chile fell to the U.S. coup in which Pinochet took power.  His life was spared (he believes, the reason) to allow him to tell the story of the evils and torture of the Pinochet regime.  Raymont’s film is thorough and makes a good history lesson on Chile.  Raymont tries not to take sides, filming scenes with Dorfman communicating with Pinochet loyalists.  Interviewees include Rodrigo Dorman (the eldest son), close friends of Ariel and Juliet Stevenson who acted in Dorfman’s play DEATH AND THE MAIDEN which went on to win several Olivier Awards.  It helps that Ariel Dorfman speaks perfect English and is moving, convincing and charismatic on camera.

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (Canada 2007) **
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
The feature film SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, based on the book by Lt. General Dallaire, arrives rather late after the filmgoers have been saturated with information about the genocide in Rwanda in films like HOTEL RWANDA (2004), UN DIMANCHE A KIGALI (2006) and others.  The film itself begins with a brief 2 minute history lesson.  This time around, the story is told from the point of view of Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire (Roy Dupuis), the Canadian commander sent to enforce peace keeping in Rwanda but torn between duty and conscience to protect the minority Tutsi group from massacre.  Hunk Dupuis, who now sports white hair, is ok as Dallaire, but the film lacks the drama of the internal fight he goes through.  Showing him winning verbal arguments or torturing himself by cutting his leg with a razor does not work.  The change in character leading to madness is not developed.  If the final purging of guilt is professed in the writing of the book, director Spottiswoode (UNDER FIRE, TOMORROW NEVER COMES) has none of this indicated on film.  International stars Deborah Kara Unger and Jean-Hughes Anglade lift the film with spirited performances as a journalist and the founder of Medicines Sans Frontieres respectively.  The film boasts the scenes filmed in actual Rwandan locations.  I have not seen the 2004 Canadian documentary directed by Peter Raymont, also of the same title, but with real footage and interviews with the Lt. General and excellent reviews.  One wonders why the filmmakers bothered with this mediocre dramatization.

THE SECRETS (France/Israel 2007) ***
Directed by Avi Nesher
The plural of the film title indicates that more than one issue is tackled in director Avi Nesher’s film about a young rebellious Jewish girl, Naomi (Ania Bukstein) coming-of age in a repressive orthodox culture of a seminary set in the picturesque town of Safed.  Though multiple issues like sexual awakening, (gay in this case), male predominance, rebellion against school authority, female camaraderie, coming-of-age, religious practices might appear too many too handle, director Nesher swiftly touches each topic effectively.  Bukstein is winning as the young Naomi, aided by a young talented cast.  French veteran Fanny Ardant lends a hand in the role of a woman rejected by society aided by Noami and friend, but she looks rather lost in this piece.  Though it is difficult to imagine who the filmmakers had in mind for their target audience, THE SECRET still emerges as an assured entertaining drama about life and personal loyalties.

WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? (UK 2007) ****
Directed by Anand Tucker
Busy with work, preoccupied with immediate family but mostly staying apart from his father by choice, Blake Morrison (Colin Firth) is forced to look back at the past to ponder the question: WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? Anand Tucker’s film (HILARY AND JACKIE) is a surprisingly non-sappy sentimentally constrained film, based on the book by Blake Morrison despite its theme and lengthy sickness scenes.  Jim Broadbent delivers an award winning performance as the father who can out talk himself out of any situation.  His best line is “I love you and your mother most’, when confronted with his infidelity.  Director Anand brings his family drama out into the open with bright stunning scenes of the English countryside and sea (West Sussex).  The best are the father and son bonding driving lesson and disastrous camping trip.  The script neglects to fill in Blake’s sister’s side of the story and to further complete Blake’s little affair with the Scottish maid.  Still, WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? is a moving tale of miscommunication and fatherly love.