Toronto Film Festival Highlights

Article posted Thu Sep 30 15:33:48 2004

Almost a third of the 328 films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival were world premieres. Film festival entries can be a erratic bunch—some being screened for the first time; others premiered at Cannes or another festival; still others are shown unfinished and “in progress.” Many of them are mainstream Hollywood productions with A-list stars, but if you only attend those you are missing out on the heart of the film festival experience. You don’t need to attend a festival to see those, since they will be appearing sooner or later at your local cineplex. The whole point (for me and many filmgoers, at least) is to see independent films that would otherwise never be seen again. Which is not to say, of course, that most indie films are minor, underappreciated masterpieces. For every home-grown, shoestring film that is a piece of budding cinematic mastery, two dozen are pieces of budding cinematic crap.

The Festival was well organized, as it was last year, and has even seen some improvements—most notably in the theater screenings. In previous years, the screenings were held over six or seven different theaters in downtown Toronto. Most were theoretically within walking distance, but in practical terms this meant attendees had to scramble out of films early or take taxis to get to the next film, which may be next door or a few kilometers away. This time the bulk of films were held at two theaters within a few blocks of each other, and of the press office. This made for a more user-friendly festival and was easier on the legs. On the downside, the Starbucks carts that last year offered free brew to weary attendees were nowhere to be found.

Celebrities sighted in and around the festival include Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Scarlett Johansson, Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich, and Mark Walhberg. The festival concluded more or less uneventfully, with the exception of the ruckus caused by death threats by animal activists over a documentary about a vicious cat killer. The screenings get going at 8:30 in the morning and don’t stop until past midnight, with screenings of horror and action movies during the “Midnight Madness” series. For more info, check out the Toronto International Film Festival’s Web site at: http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/default.asp.

I managed to attend several press conferences, starting with I HEART Huckabees, about a pair of “existential detectives” (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) who help a young man experiencing a strange set of coincidences in his life. If you’ve never see a press pool shoot hundreds of virtually identical photos in the space of a few minutes, flashes blazing and cameras beeping and clicking, it’s a bit surreal. As Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, and director David Russell arrived, about twenty photographers, each armed with massive cameras, rushed up to the podium and began snapping photos. Given the flurry of furious clicking, I expected that the photo op would wrap up in a minute or less, but instead the production went on for three or four minutes while the stars looked in slightly different directions, flashing well-rehearsed smiles. “Dustin, up here please,” one scrawny shutterbug called from the upper right. “Okay, now over here, thank you,” a competitor requested from the other side. The stars patiently endured the deluge until the moderator firmly and repeatedly said it was time to begin. I asked director Russell, who helmed sharp, offbeat films as Spanking the Monkey and Three Kings, about what it was that drew him to such material. “My mother,” he said. “When I was growing up, she had a great, weird sense of humour, and I just picked up on that.”

I also sat in on a press conference for Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice; there had been talk that Al Pacino, who plays Shylock, was in Toronto but that was not to be. We were, however, treated to insight by Jeremy Irons, Lynn Collins, and Joseph Fiennes. I asked Irons if he approached the Shakespeare material—which, by the way, had never before been filmed—differently than a more traditional screenplay. He said that (other than the authentic dialogue) the process was essentially the same. Unless the screenplay is poorly written—in which case the actor needs to improvise—the source material is irrelevant to the actor’s approach.

I saw about a dozen films over several packed days of filmfesting; here are some of the highlights:

• Hotel Rwanda

Set in Kigali in 1994, Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), who worked as a manager at one of Rwanda’s most exclusive hotels, the Milles Collines. As he goes about his daily duties, the first swellings of a genocide are fomenting. Within days, the hotel becomes an oasis in a sea of genocide as the Hutu ethnic group attacked rival group Tutsis. His hotel becomes an unofficial sanctuary, and Rusesabagina barricades his family, hotel workers, and others in mortal danger of being slaughtered. Everyone tries to wait out the horror, sure that help is on the way at any moment. Yet Rusesabagina, and indeed all Rwandans, were abandoned and left to die by uninterested Western nations. Nick Nolte plays General Romeo Dallaire, the head of the beleaguered and profoundly understaffed United Nations peacekeepng force. (Dallaire is author of the book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.) A sort of African Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda is one of the most important films in recent years, and an indictment at a shameful period in American history just ten years ago. I will have more on this film, and an accompanying documentary, in the coming weeks.

• The Woodsman

Kevin Bacon turns in the best performance of his career as Walter, a child molester trying to re-integrate back into society and face fears—both society’s and his own. The film doesn’t shy away from Walter’s heinous crimes, but it shows that there is more to the person than just his previous actions. Walter ends up protecting children from others like himself; not a hero, but possibly not still a monster. The Woodsman is director Nicole Castle’s screen debut, and it is a brave and complex look at a difficult yet worthy subject.

• Creep

I’d never seen a grade-B horror film at a film festival before, but here it was. I was still clearing sleep cobwebs and licking coffee film from my teeth when the eight-thirty AM showing began. Over one horrific night in a deserted London subway, a young woman (Franka Potente of Run Lola Run) is chased endlessly by a medical experiment gone awry (don’t they always in films like this?). There’s lots of dark tunnels, rats, a shrieking creep that looks a bit like Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees unmasked, and a fair amount of gore. Strictly for splatterhounds.

• Turtles Can Fly

I’d heard great things about the 2000 Iranian film A Time for Drunken Horses, by Bahman Ghobadi, but had never gotten around to seeing it. Turtles Can Fly is his third film and I expected great things from Ghobadi—not just as a novelty Iranian director, but as an accomplished storyteller and filmmaker. The story takes place at the desolate Turkish-Iraqi border just before the American invasion. A thirteen-year-old named Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) is the father figure to local children and orphans who earn money selling unexploded land mines and ordinance. Enter an armless boy with the power of prophecy, his traumatized sister, and a toddler they care for.

I have to stop for a second and admit something: I was distracted from the film by a young man to my right who not only showed up late but began picking his nose. I expected him to stop after a while, like any normal person would, but he kept mining nose nuggets with determination and tenacity. As the movie went on, I was more and more fascinated by what could possibly be in the man’s nose that he hadn’t managed to dig out in ten minutes. By the twenty minute mark, he must have been hitting cartilage. I finally leaned forward, ostensibly to shift position in the seat, but I turned and glared right at him on my way back. He finally left his hands at his side and I could return to focusing on the film.

I admired the effort and messages of the tragedy of lost youth and the ravages of war in Turtles Can Fly, but I was not impressed overall. There is a strange, strained romance between Satellite and the armless boy’s sister, which never really amounts to anything. Well-intentioned but meandering, Turtles Can Fly will likely disappoint demanding filmgoers.

• Cronicas

In Cronicas, a thriller from Mexico and Ecuador, John Leguizamo plays Manolo, a star TV reporter known for his investigative—and sensationalized—news stories. When he and his crew are assigned to cover a story about a serial child killer, the dreaded “Monster of Babahoyo,” he happens upon a man who is about to be lynched by a mob for accidentally running over a child with his truck. Manolo saves the man’s life, just barely, and the man is jailed for the accident. Desperate to escape the jail and the frontier justice still awaiting him, the man asks Manolo to help him by telling his story; as an incentive, he offers information about the “Monster of Babahoyo.” Manolo must decide if the man is lying, telling the truth, or if he is himself the serial killer. Good production values and a sharp story make this one of the better Latin American films to watch for.

• Ferpect Crime

A black comedy from Spain, Ferpect Crime tells the story of a suave ladies’ man who works in the womens’ section of a department store. He has bedded half his staff, a bevy of beauties falling under his cheesy charms. Yet when he is passed over for a promotion to head of the department, he ends up killing his rival. He disposes of the body, and commits a nearly perfect crime; the only witness, he finds out, is a rather unattractive and obsessional woman he had ignored for years. Yet she has designs on him, blackmailing him into a relationship and eventually a marriage. He is miserable and tries to do all he can to get out of the union without committing another murder. A little long but very funny, with some interesting commentary on society’s expectations and how we see ourselves.

Look for these and other films at a film festival near you, or on video / DVD later this year.