September 11, 2003

If we let them stop movie columns, the terrorists have won…

In our little war on crappy movies here in T.O. this week, there is now a clear “didn’t see it coming” winner. (That is to say, besides Focus Features 2-prong attack that we all saw coming.) And that winner is IFC, by two knockouts.

The first, which you have read about before in this column, is Touching The Void, the doc that views like a feature. The film is so hot up here that there was a rumor that Fox Searchlight was going to make a bid to buy the film from IFC. (The rumor is, it turns out, not true.) But producers Charles Furneaux, Robin Gutch, Paul Trijbits and John Smithson must be having a few extra drinks this week after realizing that they likely left at least a million dollars on the table by closing their deal with IFC before this festival. Regardless, the call to IMAX should have already been made, using the technique currently being used to open Matrix Revolutions on IMAX day and date with its worldwide theatrical release. A reframed Touching The Void would automatically become the best IMAX film ever and could well end up being the second $100 million IMAX hit in conjunction with IFC.

The second film arrived in the second half of the festival and, if handled properly, could outgross both Focus films… both of which are actually better films, on the whole. But the most striking thing about Intermission is that for a festival audience, a side-by-side comparison to Universal’s big-money work-in-progress, Love Actually, would surely go to this tiny flick, which could well be called Love Irishly.

I am told that the buzz in the Below-The-Line Railroad is that there will be some significant cutting to come on Love Actually. With due respect to a film that is much more upbeat, much more commercial and quite different in many ways, Richard Curtis & Co. would do themselves well to take a look at the work here by writer Mark O’Rowe and editor Lucia Zucchetti. I don’t mean to disrespect director John Crowley, his work here is solid, but not the key. Like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the work of the writer shines above and beyond the work of the director. (Uh, save the “QT’s a writer-director” e-mails… thanks.)

Intermission is not the industry shaker that Pulp Fiction was. It’s not Trainspotting either. But is is somewhere between Trainspotting and The Full Monty. Don’t get me wrong… no Oscar campaign need be started. But this is a solid, clean, complex, funny, heartfelt, feel good movie in which more than a few people get hit in the face and/or shot.

If I recall accurately, Intermission interweaves six stories to Love Actually’s eight. 28 Days Later’s Cillian Murphy is working through what he hopes is an “intermission” with Kelly Macdonald. Colin Farrell plays a darker role than usual, but with fine comic timing. Another couple is broken up over a March/October lust. A hard ass cop, played by Colm Meaney, takes on bad guys and a television opportunity. Shirley Henderson tries to recover, at mom’s house, from her ugly breakup. And a bus driver chases a young hooded hood who did him wrong.

The result is not a madcap romp like the aforementioned Love English Style: The Movie. (I mean that in a good way… mostly.) But a lot of the underlying emotions start showing themselves, as the ones in the other film float gaily on the surface. And by the time the movies closes with Colin Farrell’s version of “I Fought The Law,” the room is rocking in very much the way it was at Love Actually (and L.A. did leave most of the audience on a contact high… it would be unfair to suggest otherwise… seriously.)

There are other strong movies and mini-majors at this festival. But the story remains that sales are as soft as the movies that have been bought. The step below the great win of picking up the best movies here is showing up with the best surprises. And IFC takes that cake hands down as of today.

Also on today’s schedule were two more really terrific films, neither of which will be terribly commercial. But one actually has a shot at being more than it seems right now.

That film is Dan Ollman, Sarah Price and Chris Smith’s The Yes Men. The story of two guys and many cohorts who use “the system” to pull elaborate (and elaborately intelligent) gags on serious organizations that have come up short on a moral level. The film includes the biggest laugh I have had in a long, long time, as they explain to a college group an alleged WTO plan to recycle human waste into… ah… I’m not going to ruin it. All I will say is that the plan is “co-sponsored” by McDonald’s.

The film is not complex enough to be the next Bowling For Columbine. But it can play in big cities and it can surely be a cult classic on university campuses, if the distributor who gets involved has enough patience. It would be easy to dismiss the film as headed for TV. But it – and we – deserve better.

The other film is Nathalie… from Anne Fontaine, who, after leading to this movie with the sadly underseen How I Killed My Father, now has to be held as one of the truly great dramatic writer/directors of French cinema specifically and world cinema in general. She is beyond being blithely compared to any of her predecessors, but to say that she is showing herself worthy of consideration with filmmakers of the human heart like Eric Rohmer would not be excessive praise.

The hard part about Fontaine is that her works seem to fit right in the cracks of the current indie film business, not quite exploitable enough for some minis. But I hope and pray that a Searchlight or a Focus would see the value in being in business with this special director. Nathalie… (the ellipsis is part of the title, if you were wondering) does have some nudity from the still gorgeous Emmanuelle Beart, a lot of sexual description, the spectacular adult beauty of Fanny Ardant and one of the most subtle performances from Gerard Depardieu you’ll see. The performances of the women are quite excellent, beyond their saleable values. So maybe the folks who brought us 8 Women and then won big with Swimming Pool or the Searchlighters who gently pushed Cecelia Roth this summer, will jump in. I hope so. It should be an honor to be connected to this film.

The story of a woman who discovers that her husband has casual affairs and seeks out a high-end prostitute to investigate the process of starting such an affair first hand is a fascinating game of cat and cat and mouse. The theme of lost passion has been quite popular this year, but Fontaine delivers a completely unique take on the issue. (The film also bears more than a little subtextual resemblance to In The Cut as well and, like the earlier comparison, the smaller film trumps the bigger films – at least, as shown in Toronto – in this case as well.)

I saw two more movies today, but I’m running out of time before my deadline, so they will have to wait. But I will say this… someone would be smart to buy Haute Tension right now as a midnight movie follow-up to New Line’s surefire hit Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. The current English title is Switchblade Romance, but Bordeaux Switchblade Masscare, as a subtitle to the French title would work a lot better for me.

Until tomorrow…