Toronto Jewish Film Festival

17th TORONTO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

With film from as many as 23 countries, the 17th Annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) has grown into a rather stable and healthy local film festival given its humble beginnings.  Films from all walks of life (sports; circus; music; politics et al.) arrive from Ireland to Africa.

This year the GOATTA SING, GOTTA DANCE series celebrates songwriters of musicals.  Composers and lyricists as Rodgers and Hart and Stepehn Sondheim are among those honored.  Oldie favorites like DUCK SOUP and SWING TIME are included in the screenings.

For more information on film showtimes, ticket prices, venue and program, please check the film website at:
http://www.tjff.com

Happy picture-going!

BEING JEWISH IN FRANCE (France 2007) ***
(Part 1 and Part 2)
Directed by Yves Jeuland

Screened in two parts (Part 1 is 73 minutes and Part 2 is 112 minutes), BEING JEWISH IN FRANCE is a serious educational documentary (don’t be fooled by the cheery title tune) that chronicles the plight of the rich Jews in France.  Through archival newsreel footage, interviews and clips from old classics (Joseph Loesy’s MR. KLEIN, Max Ophul’s THE SORROW AND THE PITY), the Dreyfus affair and the evils of the Vichy regime are revealed.  This is material the world outside France is unfamiliar with.  Director Jeuland’s film is dead serious in tone.  He makes his film clear at where he stands with regards to the injustice towards the treatment of Jews.  Not only are the Nazis responsible for the war crimes against the Jews but a large portion on the French as well.  Disturbing at times but a nevertheless intriguing film!

CYCLES (LES MURS PORTEURS) (France 2007) **
Directed by Cyril Gelblat

LES MURS PORTEURS begins with a 75-year old Frida, a Ashkenazi Jew returning to her old apartment, believing her dead husband is still around.  She confuses the past with the present – much to the consternation of her son and daughter who have other family problems of their own.  Gelblat’s film has too many sub-plots and one soon wonders where the film is heading or what the aim of the whole exercise is.  Everyone family member is agitated at one problem or another.  The only happy character turns out to be Friday’s tenant who starts having an affair with her son.  Do we need to watch this?  Veteran French stars Miou-Miou and Charles Berling putter around and cannot save the movie.

EL BRINDIS (Chile 2007) **
Directed by Shai Agosin

Slow moving Chilean film centering on a young female photographer who leaves Mexico to meet her father in Chile.  He is dying and as complications in films go, she falls for his father’s rabbi who happens to be married.  In turn he tries to convert her father to Judaism.  Wonder about the sense in all this except to show the power of the religion.  Father does get his bar mitzvah.  Thank God, the protagonist finally comes to her senses and leaves the married lover.  The only thing good about this movie is the scenes the audience gets to see of the beautiful Chilean city of Valparaiso where it was shot.  Never has so many events been put together in such a slow moving film.

VILLA JASMIN (France 2007) **
Directed by Ferid Boughedir

Disappointing film about a working Parisian Jew (Clement Sibony) who takes his wife to his birthplace Tunisia where he recounts his father’s anti-French activities in the 30’s.  The expecting wife cannot figure out the reason for his obsession – and truthfully neither can the audience as director Boughedir just lets his film drags on and on.  Boughedir intercuts his film between past and present with both stories lingering on the edge of mediocrity.  At the film’s end one wonders if one has watched a family drama or a social political commentary.  At least, Boughedir shoots a few gorgeous sights of Tunisia.

VICTORIA DAY (Canada 2009) **
Directed by David Bezmozgis

Set in May 1988 in Toronto, VICTORIA DAY (the name of a Canadian bank holiday) tells the story of Ben amidst the backdrop of a boy found missing from the long weekend Bob Dylan concert.  Ben comes from a Russian Jewish family with the dialogue frequently breaking into Russian.  There is nothing really Jewish about this film – it could be about a film about a community of any other religion or race.  Nominated for the grand jury prize (but did not win), VICTORIA DAY is not half bad but it is a rather plain single layered first feature.  The film can pretty much be summed up in one scene where Ben’s girlfriend’s looks on for almost 5 minutes in the background, not saying anything or interrupting - anyone else would – while her father reams out Ben.  VICTORIA DAY has been billed as an honest unglamorous coming-of-age story.  Unglamorous, it certainly is!