TIFF 2006
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced its list of films today.
The festival runs for 10 days, starting September 7th, and I plan to be there for 8 of those 10 days. Basically, I'll spend two very long weekends in Toronto, returning home once in between to teach my classes. (It's a 2-hour drive.)
Here's the list of films I'm personally considering, although it may look quite a bit different come scheduling time. I'm listing the films by program. The reason there are so few English-language films here is that most of them will eventually find US distribution.
Visions: Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa), Fantasma (Lisandro Alonso), Flanders (Bruno Dumont), Belle Toujours (Manoel de Oliveira), Climates (Nuri Bilge Ceylan), Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako), Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev), Invisible Waves (Pen-ek Ratanaruang), In Between Days (So Yong Kim), and three films by Jem Cohen, who made Chain.
Masters: Cœurs (Alain Resnais), Lights in the Dusk (Aki Kaurismäki), Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog), When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts (Spike Lee), The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach).
Special Presentations: Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo), Brand upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin), Fay Grim (Hal Hartley), Hana (Hirokazu Kore-eda), Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwal).
Mozart Program: Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang), Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul).
Contemporary World Cinema: 12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu), Offside (Jafar Panahi), Slumming (Michael Glawogger), Summer Palace (Lou Ye), To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die (Djamshed Usmonov).
Wavelengths (Avant-Garde): Films by Nathaniel Dorsky, Peter Tscherkassky, Rose Lowder, Lawrence Jordan.
Gala: The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (Zacharias Kunuk & Norman Cohn), Volver (Pedro Almodóvar).
Real To Reel (Documentaries): Dong (Jia Zhangke), Iran: Une Révolution Cinématographique (Nader Takmil Homayoun), Very Nice, Very Nice (Arthur Lipsett), These Girls (Tahani Rached), American Hardcore (Paul Rachman), The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (Sophie Fiennes).
Midnight Madness: The Host (Bong Joon-ho).
Others: 2:37 (Murali K. Thalluri), Gambling, Gods And LSD (Peter Mettler), A Grave-Keeper's Tale (Chitra Palekar).
If you'd like to recommend other films or filmmakers, I'd be glad to hear about them.
Specifically, I’d also like to ask if you know these films or filmmakers about whom I am curious: Hamaca Paraguaya (Paz Encina); The Bothersome Man (Jens Lien); Falling (Barbara Albert); Pablo Trapero from Argentina; Catherine Martin from Quebec; Guillermo Del Toro from Mexico; Bahman Ghobadi from Iran; Ann Hui; Marc Recha; any of the three (!) Johnnie To films playing; and any of the avant-garde filmmakers I don't have on my list above? Merci, tout le monde.
posted by girish @ 5:00 PM
155 Comments:
I liked Pablo Trapero's Crane World and El Bonaerense, but didn't care much for The Rolling Family, so there's 2:1 odds that his latest will be good. :) I really, really disliked Barbara Albert's Free Radicals, which was this meandering "butterfly wing"-type free association of very loosely connected vignettes. I'm not a fan of this style in general though, when it's done right, like Carnages, it can be fun, but with Free Radicals, it was just a lot of WTF moments interspersed with gratuitous sex. Having said that, I'll probably see it anyway at NYFF before deciding for sure if I want to keep investing my time on her films.
By the way, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by Gambling, Gods and LSD; it's grueling, but it really stays with you.
Thanks, Acquarello!
You know, I bailed on Barbara Albert's Free Radicals after an hour (I rarely do this with films) and so didn't want to judge her until I got another opinion, but thanks for giving it to me...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Lemme just add my voice to the anti-Albert contingent -- I despised Free Radicals when I saw it at the '04 NYFF. The New York voting committee must see something in her, though, as Falling made this year's NYFF. So who knows, etc. etc.
Also, hooray for Guillermo del Toro. I'm consistently impressed with how he can shift between the weird, creepy stuff he does in Spain and the high-quality hyperbolic stuff he does in America. (We'll pretend Hellboy didn't happen.) Pan's Labyrinth, by all rights, should be faboo.
Ghobadi's Turtles Can Fly is a doozy. It's a heartstring-tugger, maybe even too manipulative, but it's unforgettable, and although it has a narrative, it slips into a dream-state pretty easily, which I like. Plus it makes me feel bad for not realizing that such a town exists. Those kids. Those land mines.
Have you seen anything by Jay Rosenblatt? I noticed he has something in the Wavelenths program. He's more of a thematic collagist than a technical one like Tscherkassky. His short Human Remains has permanently changed my view of Mao Tse Tung. (Hey, it just occurred to me that it would a nice companion to Sokurov's The Sun; Hirohito is one of the world leaders that Rosenblatt doesn't dissect.)
I'm glad to see Roads of Kiarostami in the program. I missed it earlier this year somewhere. Here's Rosenbaum.
I'm always antsy to see your first round of picks, Girish. We should thank you for being so prompt. We need to get Harry to weigh in, too.
Calling M. Tuttle.
M. Tuttle?
First and foremost, Girish, as I've already expressed, I'm really looking forward to meeting you in person at Toronto this year and looking at your initial preferences, I'm delighted to see that so many of them mirror my own. I'll only get to have five or six days at the festival this year, which I thought would be a good intro. I'm already overwhelmed by what's being offered.
I'd like to put a big plug in for Twitch at this point whose anticipatory coverage of TIFF has been insightful and helpful, especially with regard to Midnight Madness. But also with much of the Latino fare and certainly the Asian fare.
"The Host" is certainly the big one. I loved "Memories of Murder" so "The Host" is quite attractive, though as assignments go, I might be focusing on some of the other stuff, named Nacho Cerda's "The Abandoned."
I'm likewise torn between seeing big films I'm just gnashing at the bit to see--"Renaissance", "Flanders", "Volver", "The Fountain", "Invisible Waves", to name a few--and trusting I'll have a chance to eventually see them on the West Coast. I tell myself I should focus on films I might not have any other opportunity to see.
Definitely Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" looks incredible and he's one of the main people I want to catch in interview. All of his works is fantastically atmospheric. "The Devil's Backbone" and "Mimic" fully entertained me and the glimpses I've caught at Twitch on "Pan's Labyrinth" has me salivating.
Bahman Gohbadi is a poet as far as I'm concerned in the best sense of the word: his themes are universal and transcendent. "Drunken Horses", "Marooned in Iraq" and "Turtles Can Fly" all pierced me to the marrow. I should really get my write-ups posted on The Evening Class.
Oh man. I'm reeling looking at the list. I'm grappling with things like how many movies I can see in five or six days, how many I can afford, how much time will I have left for interviews, which will I choose, and how will all that change the moment the time schedule is announced on the 29th.
Did you buy one of the ticket packages, Girish? I'm hoping to order one and then trade them in for whatever's left when I arrive in Toronto. Is that the way to work it?
You're coming too, Michael? That's fantastic news! I just did a quick head count and think I might know as many as 15 people who are making the trip this year. Unbelievable.
Harry has already posted his thoughts on some of these films at TIFF Reviews, but I'm hoping he'll pop in here as well to offer suggestions. I caught Battle in Heaven on the strength of his recommendation alone last year and it was one of my favorite films of the fest.
Does anyone know anything about Ten Canoes (Rolf de Heer)? It won a special jury prize at Cannes, and I was also interested to see that it got a good review at the World Socialist Web Site.
By the way, can we all agree to have our TIFF discussion here rather than spreading it across various fora and blogs? Might also save some redundant emailing.
I haven't perused the program yet, but my recommendation is to see the worst films possible and report back how awful the festival turned out to be, so that those of us who can't make it out there don't feel so jealous.
;)
You mean I get to meet you too, Darren?? YOWZA!! Good idea to keep the discussion centralized here at Chez Girish. For starters, here's the Twitch compendium of anticipatory posts on 2006 TIFF:
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/toronto_film_festival_2006/index.php
Oh shoot, that got cut off. Try this. Hope that works.
Hi everyone, thanks for the vote of confidence, I wish I could be there too... Actually I've seen 19 films on the list (5 other will be released in France before TIFF), and would gladly watch 38 more. :)
Girish picked all the good ones already, but anyway from what I've seen and roughly by preference order:
MUST-SEE : Lights in the Dusk (Kaurismäki); Fantasma (Alonso); Climates (Ceylan); 12:08 East of Bucharest (Porumboiu); Ten Canoes [CANNES SPECIAL JURY PRIZE] (Rolf de Heer);
WORTHWHILE : Invisible Waves (Ratanaruang); 2:37 (Thalluri); Volver (Almodóvar); Summer '04 (Krohmer); Renaissance (Volckman); Drama/Mex (Naranjo); Bamako (Sissako); Taxidermia (Pálfi); The Caiman (Moretti); La Tourneuse de Pages (Dercourt);
DON'T BOTHER : Paris, Je T'aime; Retrieval (Fabicki); Trance (Villaverde); Congorama (Falardeau)
From what I haven't seen and should be on your list Girish:
Chronicle of an Escape (Caetano);
Red Road [CANNES JURY PRIZE] (Andrea Arnold); The Violin [CANNES Un Certain Regard Best Actor] (Francisco Vargas Quevedo); Remembering Arthur [LIPSETT!] (Martin Lavut); These Girls (Tahani Rached); Golden Door (Emanuele Crialese); Jindabyne (Ray Lawrence); Day Night Day Night (Loktev)
I guess you omitted Iñarritu, Aronofsky, Verhoeven because of probable USA distribution.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ten Canoes is really good, I loved it, both for the traditional tale of an australian aboriginal tribe and for the multilayered form of its three-fold narration spanning 3 generations/eras of history. The off-screen narrator tells us an ancient story now, this story is about an old man who tells his son an older story to help him understand he should not covet his father's youngest wife. The first story (in a somptuous B&W), and like a documentary follow men building canoes out in the swamp. The ancestral myth (in color) dramatizes the conflict of the young son, where coincidentaly a son is also in love of his father's wife and will cause much trouble to the tribe equilibrium. This film is admirable for its respect of culture and its narrative invention.
Girish you should really watch Renaissance, you will enjoy the B&W graphism since you're a comics fan.
No need to praise Kaurismaki, Ceylan and Ratanaruang. I was a little underwhelmed by Almodovar's and Moretti's, but they are still great films.
Summer '04 was rightly described as a cross between Funny Games and Knife in the Water (not as masterful ) its atmosphere is really dense and especially well written (never going the obvious way).
Drama/Mex is a visually stunning DV film from Mexico about idle teenagers of various social classes, wandering one day on the deserted beach of Acapulco off-season. Their lives meet at crossing points, but this gimmick isn't the most important about this film. The illustration of melancholy, carpe diem, despair of a desillusionned generation is admirable.
Already mentionned Bamako at acquarello's.
I just saw La Tourneuse de Page with Catherine Frot and Déborah François (the girl from L'Enfant!) which is one of the best French film I've seen so far.
Taxidermia is a disappointing second film from the masterful director of Hukkle, because it's too overtly gore and gross, but it might reach cult status as a "midnight movie" for the fun. It's very well made too, just very bizarre.
Congorama is an enjoyable genre movie with an original story, well made, but is not what I'd prioritize within a festival setting.
Paris Je T'aime is a mixed bag, I guess it's cool to see Paris from the viewpoint of so many directors, but don't feel bad for missing it. Only a handful segments were worthwhile.
Trance is a really weird film about women traffic without much dialogue (like a better version of Moodysson's Lylja-4 ever) a russian mother is kidnapped in Germany an sold to a brothel in Italy. Some great long takes there, but ultimately too stylisticaly self-conscious.
Wowzah.
Thanks, everyone, for all the great ideas and suggestions! This is so helpful.
--Rob, I'd never heard of Jay Rosenblatt; I'll definitely try to catch his film...
--Steve and Michael, I guess I should be putting Devil's Backbone into my Netflix queue...
--Michael, I have a 30-ticket pass and the out-of-town service. You should check to see which passes are still available and you should do it right away. Do e-mail me if you have specific questions, and I can send you my phone #, and we can talk. My advice would be for you to act very quickly on the passes/tickets.
--Hey, Brian. You should think about making the trip sometime. It'd be a blast, especially with so many of us bloggers getting together, and best of all: we'd all get to meet you!
--Darren, I had no idea that many people were going...And thanks for posting those links. I'd forgotten all about TIFF Reviews.
--Harry, thanks so much for the detailed advice. So many films on there that I don't know about. And thanks for taking the time and providing links too...Remind me to buy you several drinks the next time I'm in Paris! :-)
We owe you big.
Harry--As you suggested, I'll make sure to see (in addition to what I already have on my list above): Ten Canoes, Summer '04, Renaissance, Drama/Mex for sure...and thanks for the reminder on the Lipsett doc; I overlooked it.
btw, I already have These Girls and Day Night, Day Night on my list above.
And I'll probably pass on Taxidermia...(the grossness factor; your lukewarmness).
--Here's a doc blog at the TIFF site.
Girish -- I was only able to glance at the entire film list today, but I'm going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb in the coming days. Of the ones you mentioned in your post, I'm most eager about Resnais, Loach, Herzog, Tsai, Jia Zhangke, and Ceylan. I recently saw the trailer for Climates, and it looks impressive.
Maya -- I'll be heading out from the west coast as well. This will be my first time at TIFF, and I'm looking forward to meeting you, along with Girish, Darren, and everyone else who'll be attending. I'll be there for six days. Glad you'll be able to join us.
Michael, I'm eagerly looking forward to meeting you as well. This is going to be the most "communal" TIFF I've ever attended...!
My friend Moen (Toronto cinephile par excellence) just emailed me to say that: (1) Alonso and Oliveira are on a double bill together as one screening, 2-for-1, so to speak, and (2) The Benoit Jacquot film is about a Frenchwoman who discovers her dad is an "untouchable" Indian and goes to India, which automatically puts it on my to-see list.
James Longley has a 21-minute short in the the Real to Reel section, Sari's Mother. I have a feeling this is like a fourth fragment to accompany his excellent Iraq in Fragments (limited release in November).
Ten Canoes is really good; de Heer, generally, is one of our most interesting filmmakers.
And you've got to go see 2:37. I mean, obviously. How could you not?
Okay, looked over the program and I'm feeling even more left out. Maybe I will come one of these years. I'll have to console myself with the knowledge that there's some good stuff coming to my town that week too.
I've seen Rosenblatt's Afraid So and can definitely recommend it as a pretty typical (a.k.a. excellent) work for him. It's very short so presumably it screens on a program with other films.
Perhaps nobody's mentioned the Norman McLaren shorts because either a) their quality goes without saying, or else b) revivals are automatically a lower priority at the TIFF. I've seen most of them on video but would thrill to see them on a big screen.
Can't contribute much else. Looks like I liked Treparo's the Rolling Family better than acquarello did, and Turtles Can Fly not as well as Michael did (though I was knocked out by Ghobadi's first film).
Truthfully, I hope you all have a wonderful festival!
--Useful link: David Hudson's compendium post of all Cannes coverage links from May.
--Indiewire lists films and includes country of origin, which the TIFF list did not.
--Re: 2:37, Matthew is referring to this controversy, most likely old news to all of you.
--Brian said: "Perhaps nobody's mentioned the Norman McLaren shorts because either a) their quality goes without saying, or else b) revivals are automatically a lower priority at the TIFF."
The former for me; I want to see them on the big screen. And I wish we had more revivals at TIFF.
A couple more notes on the Wavelengths program. Matthias Müller's (with or without frequent collaborator Christoph Girardet) films remind me a little of early Resnais in experimental mode: very formalized, ingenious editing, tongue in cheek cleverness. Cynthia Mandasky's recent focus has been the Middle East and specifically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and these seem to be in that vein.
Truthfully, I'm not so sure McLaren's work needs to be seen on the big screen, and there's an immanent 7-disc DVD box set in the works from NFB/Home Vision.
Are there fewer revivals this year? It looks like the Talking Pictures speakers will all be discussing their own work rather than what they did in previous years with Akerman and Tsai.
I simply tallied up the titles/names I'm already familiar with and I've got about 50 titles; I'm most curious about the unknowns in world cinema and discovery sections.
Michael, I'm also excited about The Host; it'll be my first ever midnight TIFF screening, so maybe we can keep each other awake.
I'm a big fan of The Tracker, so I'm definitely looking forward to Rolf de Heer's new one. Harry, thanks for the Porumboiu recommendation, too.
I was mightily impressed by Sissako's Waiting for Happiness, so I'm definitely going to try and catch Bamako.
I still haven't gotten around to seeing Atanarjuat--is it genuinely worthwhile? Are we sure Invisible Waves has distribution?
I was excited by the look of Renaissance, but the clips I've seen of it have diluted my enthusiasm. Harry, does it transcend its gunplay/police thriller aspects? Girish, the Benoit Jacquot film sounds fascinating, thanks for the heads up.
Great to see Aurthur Lipsett's Very Nice, Very Nice in there! I've seen it before, but I think the NFB recently restored it and Lipsett's films are so dense they can never be exhausted. He would've been a great choice for the Canadian retrospective.
I think Amelio is terribly underrated (his last only played at a single theatre in L.A. for a week), so I'll definitely try and catch The Missing Star.
I was a big admirer of Hans-Christian Schmid's previous film, Distant Lights, one of the better entries in the dubious ensemble genre, so Reqiuem is a possibility.
Anybody know anything about Trapped Ashes? I'm curious about anything from Dante (just caught his hilarious Homecoming) and Hellman.
At first glance, the documentary line-up looks especially interesting this year...
Oops! Sorry, one more. Mika Taanila's films are more like documentaries/essay films, from what I've seen of his work, his preoccupation seems to be with engineered environments, modernization, artificial intelligence, and the "dehumanization" of technology...but not in a Harun Farocki kind of way, more like the absurdity and obsolescence of it.
You're welcomed Girish, see you in Paris sometime ;)
Oh sorry about the duplicate, so many films there...
The Benoit Jacquot is not released here until december, so I haven't heard about it (stars Isild Le Besco).
http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=109749.html
And he has 2 more films slated for 2007!
Quelques Jours en Septembre (Santiago Amigorena) will be out on Sept 6th
http://www.quelquesjoursenseptembre-lefilm.com/
Juliette Binoche inside (for fans) + Turturro and Nolte. Venice selection too.
Doug, like I say in my short review, the script is a rehashing of common Sci-Fi themes, light (as light as a paper comic can be) but not dumb/lame, and the film is worthy for the look of it alone anyway. Not a must-see, but you won't regret seeing it if you can fit it in your schedule somewhere ;)
--Doug, I didn't know about the McLaren DVD set; thanks for the heads-up.
--"I still haven't gotten around to seeing Atanarjuat--is it genuinely worthwhile?"
Yes! I think you'd really dig it, Doug.
--Re: Dialogues, I think they've listed simply the films showing along with the directors of the films, and not who will be showing those films and talking about them....the series used to be super strong in earlier years, but has been a bit less so the last few years.
--I suspect the Lipsett film is showing in the same screening/bill as the doc.
--Acquarello, don't apologize--we can all just throw in ideas in bits and pieces here as we think of them, put all our jottings in one place.
--Seconding Doug on the Sissako film; I loved Waiting For Happiness.
--Could someone recommend a good "entry" film for Amelio? I've never seen anything by him...
L'America would be my pick, but They All Laughed and The Keys to the House are all on DVd as well. Open Doors is an excellent courtroom drama. Amelio is a polished narrative filmmaker, which is probably why he's often oevrshadowed at festivals by flashier work, but his storytelling abilities, humanist convictions, and thematic depth are exemplary. MoMA just did a retrospective last year:
http://tinyurl.com/jsnb2
Ah, I hadn't noticed Lavut's documentary on Lipsett! I mentioned it was in the works a few months ago on my blog.
Woops, that should've been The Way We Laughed.
Doug says: "Michael, I'm also excited about The Host; it'll be my first ever midnight TIFF screening, so maybe we can keep each other awake."
In case you can't, I think each midnight movie has a second screening in the morning, so that's an option for those who find it easier to chase their eggs and bacon with jolts of gore than to hit the sack at 3am with ghosts under the bed.
Heh. That's a lovely way to put it! Just found Fortissimo Film's calendar for TIFF. Their website also offers several press write-ups on their respective offerings.
Ha. I'll keep that in mind.
BTW, I'm seeing Iraq in Fragments tomorrow, Rob, so thanks for the heads up.
I'd like to recommend an extra-festival event: I recently caught an Andy Warhol exhibit at the AGO curated by David Cronenberg that is truly excellent. It's not large (about 20 pieces; shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half, max) and the Cronenberg audio commentary tour is incredibly insightful. If you can, try to squeeze it in between films; you won't be sorry.
That sounds great, Girish, and I'll toss in my recommendation for the NFB Mediatheque, which offers free space-age personal viewing stations of hundreds of digitized short films, including many Lipsett films. Definitely worth a visit--it's across the street from the Paramount.
Doug, I was at the NFB Mediatheque last week and spent about a half-hour poring over their electronic catalog and jotting down some work I'd like to see there. They have (as you pointed out) about a dozen Lipsetts; Joris Ivens; Michel Brault; Gilles Groulx's Le Chat Dans Le Sac; Pierre Perrault, etc. And since it's right across the street from the Paramount, it'd even be great to duck into to catch a few shorts between films.
Not much to add to the good discussion going on here, but I'm also very excited by this year's listing, particularly:
Invisible Waves (not expecting it to live up up to Last Life..., but I liked what I've seen)
The Host (I love South Korean genre-benders, and the buzz around this one is impossible to ignore)
Pan's Labyrinth (ditto what's been said about del Toro)
Hana (I feel obligated to see any samurai film that comes my way)
The Banquet (extravagant Chinese take on Hamlet, could be really good or really bad)
Election 1+2 and Exiled (I'm not a fan of Johnnie To, and yet I always feel compelled to see his films)
King And The Clown
...to name a few. :)
I doubt it was on the list of anyone here, but the Fortissimo calendar that Michael linked to above reminds me to warn everyone away from Snow Cake. I kind of like Alan Rickman, but Sigourney Weaver has just the most darling type of autism. I mean, Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind beat his schizophrenia just by toughing it out, but I think Weaver should hang onto her ailment. It produces so many cute one-liners, it'd be a shame to lose it.
Snow Cake. I laughed. I cried. Etc.
Just found out I'll be attending a press screening of "Renaissance" next week in SF so I'll let you know what I think. And was advised by the publicist that "Shortbus" is soon to follow so that helps me out a bit with the film choice dilemma. Such a dilemma. Heh.
Just got some great ticket tips from Todd Brown at Twitch that I thought I'd share here:
"You’ll do fine for tickets, the key will be to go after the daytime screenings. You can always get those. And sign up for the Best Bets emails. A lot of things will show as sold out until the night before, when all the unused comps and sponsor passes come back. Every night after the box office closes they send out an email of all the films with tickets available for the next day. You can either order them online or, if you’ve got coupons to use, hit the box office first thing in the morning. And if you’re desperate to see something you can always camp out in the rush line. Those can be a lot of fun, actually …"
Girish, it's funny that you reference TIFF so much in your blog, I've been a member of the production crew at TFF (Telluride Film Festival) the past five years. The two can't help but be connected.
I've been here three weeks now and the weather's sublime. I'll do my best to blog throughout the Labor Day weekend.
...and thanks for the good word: if any of the films you mentioned are at Telluride I'll be sure to catch them.
Excellent, Michael. I'm sure you're relieved to hear that.
Barry, I'll look forward to your reports from Telluride; I have your blog as one of my RSS feed subscriptions.
Both Hamaca Paraguaya and Zidane got fairly strong positive reviews from Cannes in the last Film Comment, from Gavin Smith and Amy Taubin respectively. Gavin said the former was Straub/Huillet-influenced.
Thanks, girish -- I've been so damn busy I haven't even had a chance to look at the Toronto programming announcements. All I know is (as usual) I'm looking forward to it as a soul-renewing experience...
Looked the list over, and spotted at least two Filipino films, both of which I haven't seen. Jeffrey Jeturian's The Bet Collector I've been hearing good things about; I would guess it's worth watching and a nice introduction to neorealist Philippine cinema. I can't say I'd go out of my way to see it, though.
Mel Chionglo's Twilight Dancers I'm tempted to say 'avoid,' and leave it at that, but that's being unfair. I have seen many of his previous films, including what I would guess is a prequel, 'Midnight Dancers,' and they are almost all uniformly bad. The 'Dancers' films, inspired by Lino Brocka's 'Macho Dancer'--second rate Brocka, but head and shoulders superior to the best works of many Filipino filmmakers today--are gay erotic cinema at its most exploitative.
Mario O'Hara took a quick sideswipe at the trend (Filipino filmmakers exporting gay softcore porn to film festivals, especially Toronto) in his I think brilliant film Babae sa Bubungang Lata
Thanks for those comments, Noel. I was researching The Bet Collector yesterday and was impressed by its trailer. I have a weakness for realistic, street life films, especially from countries I know little about. Plus, I like to catch a couple films at TIFF that are unlikely to get even a DVD release in the States.
So is anyone planning to see any of the bigger, more popular films as a kind of break from all of the heavy drama? I'm pretty sure I'm going to see the new Christopher Guest film. Mostly, I'm just curious to see if anyone from the cast shows up for the public, non-gala screening.
Thank you ~ Jim, Noel & Darren.
Re: bigger films, I think the Christopher Guest is a good pick; I've seen all his others in the theaters too. In addition, subject to scheduling exigencies, I'm eyeing Mira Nair's The Namesake, the Verhoeven, and Barbara Kopple's Dixie Chicks doc (I'm a fan of American Dream and Harlan County USA).
Zidane is nothing like a documentary on soccer, but an experimental work focusing exclusively on one player during 90' (including 95% of idelness). As much as I like formalism, I prefer to read about this one, and don't need to sit through it. Critics were mixed over this. It's up to you to enjoy.
Speaking of bad vibes, reported by critical reception from films I skipped (for what it's worth), Guédiguian's Le Voyage en Arménie and Chapiron's Sheitan are supposed to be rather bad.
Maya, I hope you catch a lot of interviews over there for us to read afterward. :)
p.s. I meant La Tourneuse de Page was the better French film I had seen this year, not ever.
I too am thinking about the Guest film and, like Girish, am eyeing The Namesake (heck, I might just buy the novel so I can read it on the plane ride over). I'm also interested in the new Patrice Leconte film, Mon Meilleur Ami and (possibly) the new Minghella, Breaking and Entering (though if push comes to shove, I'll pass on it). And though it's not one of the big films, Volker Schlondorff's Strike interests me, though I probably won't make it a priority.
Darren, are you planning to catch Babel? 'Cause I am.
As for Johnnie To...
Exiled is the follow-up to The Mission:
The time is 1998. The setting is Macau. Every living soul jumps at every chance to make quick money before the Portuguese colony ushers in a new era under the Chinese rule. For the jaded hit men, they wonder where this journey will end. Against this background of fin-de-siècle malaise come two hit men from Hong Kong sent to take out a renegade member trying to turn over a new leaf with his wife and newborn baby. They soon find themselves in the throes of a dilemma when two of their former associates also show up, intent on thwarting them at every cost.
Here is the trailer for Election; here is a montage of scenes from the movie. Here is the trailer for Election 2.
Michael, if you read my spreadsheet post at Long Pauses, you might recall that I've instituted what I call the "Cate Blanchett" rule. So, yes, at the moment Babel is safely in my second tier of films. ;)
Ah, that's right -- the Cate Blanchett rule. Yeah, the film's in my second tier as well, but I'll do my best to catch it.
I think Suely in the Sky by Karim Aïnouz (Madame Satã) is worth a viewing.
Speaking of neorealist Philippine cinema, Noel, have you seen Cavite? It was recently released on DVD and I'd definitely recommend it.
I thought that this year I would make my triumphant return to TIFF, but I cannot and now I am sad. Sigh.
If I were going, though, Zidane would be my first choice. Of course, I liked Gus Van Sant's Gerry...
I've always wanted to see the early-70s Jamaican film by Perry Henzell, The Harder They Come; it stars Jimmy Cliff and has a killer soundtrack. It just went out of print on DVD and Netflix kicked it off my queue. Might be a good time to catch the Dialogues screening of that film.
The other night I was in a bar and "Johnny Too Bad" came on. As usaul I got chills up my spine hearing that fat Farfisa line.
The Harder They Come is a perfect example of a film whose soundtrack is almost universally, justifiably, considered greater than the film itself. But it's certainly something to see at least, and if director Perry Henzell is in attendance to talk about its making it might be the perfect opportunity. I notice he's finally completed a second feature film, No Place Like Home, which also screens TIFF.
Just a few tidbits I noticed today:
• Lucy Walker (Blindsight) was the director of The Devil's Playground, the compeling documentary about Amish culture.
• Agnès Godard shot The Golden Door.
• Remembering Arthur has a nice website and a trailer (at YouTube). (I'm not sure how to do links here.)
• Darren and I saw a short film called Wasp at SFIFF a couple years ago that turned out to be a highlight of the festival; Red Road is the director's first feature.
Here's the YouTube Arthur Lipsett trailer for you, Doug, as well as the official website. And for us. I love how you turn me on to things. Now I'm glad I'm arriving a day or two early so I can take advantage of Girish's Warhol recommendation and your tip on the free Lipsett films at NFB Mediatheque.
Darren:
Sure thing. Not sure Bet Collector is street-level realism, but Jeturian is known for doing well-made dramas. I think it could be an okay first Filipino film...
I'm disappointed Lav Diaz's 9 hour Heremias (first of two parts) didn't make it, tho.
Brian, I remember first discovering "Johnny Too Bad" on the UB40 covers record, along with Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine." And here's something I happened to find on Henzell and The Harder They Come.
Also, this is awesome: Acquarello is among the Top 5 film journal websites named by the Times UK. (via Matthew.)
All right!! Acquarello's DA BOMB!!
Another cool thing is that the other sites are group efforts, while Strictly Film School is the only single-person site on that list.
Doug, I wonder if you caught Wasp at the 2004 SFIFF or maybe at Palm Springs, because I've never seen it. The short film we both enjoyed at TIFF 2005 was Suzi Ewing's Going Postal. (There are advantages to obsessively journaling every film you see. ;) )
That was supposed to say "The short film we both enjoyed at SFIFF 2005 . . ."
Geez, Maya, isn't it like 5:00 a.m. in your neck of the woods? (I think I just stumbled into why he's so prolific at blogging :) ). Thanks everyone for the vote of confidence, I didn't expect the citation either; too bad the Times readers were by a bunch of angst-ridden hardcore tunes at the time. ;)
Incidentally, wasn't the latest Straub/Huillet supposed to play at TIFF? Did I miss the listing?
umm...greeted by a bunch of... I'm not a morning person. :(
Sorry if I sound like an ingrate (don't mean to), but let me note in passing the absence of Straub/Huillet, Lynch, Tian Zhuangzhuang and the Austrian doc about food production that Harry liked so much.
Oh, how weird--total memory conflation there, Darren. You're right, I actually saw Wasp as part of the Oscar shorts program a couple years ago. But Going Postal was excellent, too.
Thanks for those links, Maya. Since I'm a west coaster I'm taking a red eye Wednesday night and arriving early on the 7th...if you're around on Thursday, maybe we can meet up for coffee. Is anyone else arriving early?
And congrats, Acquarello! Of course, The Times is only confirming what we already know. ;)
I agree with your list of omissions, Girish, and I'll add the new animes by Oshii, Goro Miyazaki, and Satoshi Kon (all at Venice).
I was kind of hoping I'd finally get to see Claire Denis's ballet documentary.
Harry, I'm kicking myself now for having missed Our Daily Bread at LAIFF. When I read the description, I feared it would be a picturesque Baraka kind of thing, but I take it that it has depth?
(Oh, and I have a French question: what's the difference between cinéphile and cinéphage? I just saw Jacques Richard's Langlois documentary and Langlois says, "There are cinéphiles and cinéphages. Truffaut is a cinéphile. A cinéphage--a film nerd--sits in the front row and writes down the credits. If you ask him whether it's good, he'll say something sharp, but that's not the point of movies. To love cinema is to love life. To really look at this window on the universe. It's incompatable with note-taking!" I really like that distinction, but I'm thinking cinéphage isn't necessarily derogatory?)
Well, -phage is from the Greek word, phagein meaning "to eat", versus -phile, which is just "lover of", so the difference is in the level of obsession. It's similar to "cinemaniac" (from the documentary); I wouldn't call it derogatory, but average moviegoers would probably say it is. :)
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Yeah, I knew the exact meaning, I was interested in the cultural context. I think of a cinéphage as a fanboy. But I've seen Harry use the term in a positive sense...so I was wondering if the terms were functionally interchangeable?
Oh, that Wasp. I caught it at one of those Oscar short series, too. It stars the great Nathalie Press who was also in My Summer of Love. Looks like she's in Red Road too.
acquarello is an online legend! Way to go.
Our Daily Bread is definitely very insightful. Especially its form. It develops without a word a coherent narrative by the simple juxtaposition of long plan-sequence filming the automatisation of various stages of food production over a year, in different branches of the industry (vegetables, fish, chicken, porc, beef). You can imagine the chicken factory farms, the chain slaughter... but it's not spectacular, just very ironic.
Nikolaus Geyrhalter was in attendence at a full retrospective of his work last month. He edited out all the interviews with the workers, to keep it unbiased. It's just facts. And actually it's filmed in a way that "glorifies" the industrial tools, because it's clean and efficient. Almost leaving the human factor out of the picture. Animals coming in and processed food coming out. And we're mezmerized by these Metropolis-like conveyer belts that are rarely shown to the public. But this artificiality imposes a bitter reflexion on our mindless relationship to food.
He's filmed other great original documentaries Elsewhere (about ethnic populations all around the world while the West celebrated Y2K), The Year after Dayton a full year spent in Bosnia after the peace treaty, the effort of reconstruction and despair of deported families.
Highly recommended documentarian, don't miss his films! I'm kicking myself for only seeing 2 in this retrospective.
re: Langlois. Well acquarello beat me to it. :)
Yeah I think he's the one who coined the word "cinéphage". I guess the cinéphage is the film-geek who can tell by heart the aspect ratio, the year, the credits, all sorts of trivia, but couldn't give a critical appreciation of what they see. Their goal is to "score" the largest number of film seen. They love cinema like a collector. But Truffaut loves cinema like an connoisseur and enters the film like a child. Actually Truffaut was also sitting on the front row with his Cahiers buddies to "eat" the screen, to be in it. So the difference is subtle.
"Cinéphage" sounded definitely pejorative in Langlois' word, but they were a sizeable share of his cinemathèque goers so he couldn't disparage them openly. Langlois was not judgemental about consuming habits. Maybe what you mean is that he recognizes the need for people to save the precious notes on small details, for archive purpose. But it's a functional/emotionless contact with cinema, that prevents total engagement with the work. So if I used it in a positive sense it was irony. Cinéphage is an ext