September 20, 2004

Good morning. Today is Toronto Film Fest Round-Up Day, Pt 1. I'm going to keep each grouping in alphabetical order. Some of these films have already had full reviews. Others, not. But the context in each case will be Toronto relevant and any one of them could be up for a fresh discussion as they close in on their release dates.

Tomorrow, the column will be updated with details on the next titles. In the meanwhile, if you haven't checked out The Hot Blog yet, this would be a good time to take a look. And last Friday in the column... Beyond The Sea & Ray.

TORONTO 2004

THE BEST OF THE FEST

BAD EDUCATION - Almodovar has once again taken somewhere unexpected. I called this one "Fag Noir" and then had to step off of the tag, as it seemed to offend some folks. But I do see this is a more than just "Queen Cinema" or an offshoot of Bound. Almodovar, when he is in the mood, has become a genius at layering in a gay sensibility to his films. Critics obsess on it, some seeing 2002's Talk To Her as some sort of gay polemic, when I see that film as far more complex in its ambiguity.

Here, Almodovar is clearly offering homage to the noir films, becoming less and less subtle about it as the film progresses. Anyone who bought into the arch self-awareness and story shambles of Femme Fatale would logically have a joyous heart attack over this film - though I kind of expect reserve from that crowd - as this film is, perhaps, too accessible to real people for them to embrace it fully. But in classically Almodovar style, he enjoins the gay elements of the film as though it would be natural to expect Gael Garcia Bernal to be Veronica Lake, not making a statement on cinematic homosexuality. Even more so, in the case of the priest, an element that has gotten lots of press, Almodovar really doesn't hit the note the way you expect. The priest is, early in the present-day, part of the story, just a guy (a bad guy, but just a guy) who has made changes in his life as he made new discoveries. Almodovar makes judgment on his characters… just not the judgment you'd expect.

Ranking Almodovar soon after seeing his latest is always treacherous. Some films look better and others worse over time. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Bad Education will grow in the estimation of viewers over time. That probably won't be in time for a Best Picture nomination or a repeat of the Almodovar screenplay/director nods of 2002, but those are just gravy, right?

ENDURING LOVE - The most often heard thing about this film is that it digresses into a gay stalker film in the third act. And while the filmmaker must take responsibility for the audience missing his point the first time around, a more careful examination of this story bears far sweeter fruit.

This is one of those classic marketing conflicts… do you sell what the marketplace buys or do you sell what you really have? Do you clue viewers into the powerful subtexts of the film or do you allow them to discover them for themselves? It is a brutal decision, since as people who care about film and the experience of film, you have to make thse decisions early and they tend to stick, regardless of whatever truths confront you at, say, Telluride and Toronto. Retooling a campaign this late in the game is almost impossible, but giving potential viewers some questions that they should be pondering without giving away any sense of what the answers might be… that is a challenge.

GUNNER PALACE - This jaw-dropping look at the real lives of an American gunnery division holed up in one of Uday Hussein's summer palaces went to Palm Pictures, and they handle films with great, personal care. They paid a fairly high price for this film and it could be their biggest hit to date. For better or for worse (depending on the side of the aisle on which you sit), the film won't be making an impact on this year's election. Even if it were to get a wide release right now, the politics of the personal, as trumpeted by Fahrenheit 9/11, has pretty much killed the Kerry campaign's chances after it turned out that the Republicans could spin and poke with all the aggression of Michael Moore… without leaving the same greasy fingerprints.

Still, Gunner Palace is one for the ages, not just for Iraq.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS - Zhang Yimou's latest is not really Oscar bait. But it is a glorious return to the Shaw Bros. chop socky flicks that QT only wishes he could match. Most remarkably, HOFD puts Kill Bill in greater perspective as a hybrid and even less homage.

KINSEY - Bill Condon's work here threatens to put the Director before the Writer in Writer/Director. Not everyone is anxious to see this film. That is Searchlight's challenge. But once people have seen it, it sticks to the chops like a great meal.

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES - Walter Salles' best work, it reaches far, far beyond the politics of Che Guevara (which go almost unmentioned) and into the heart of any young person in search of life's greater meanings. And for those of us who are a little older, we were thme once too. (Walter only looks that young!)

THE SEA INSIDE - Alejandro Amenabar, along with many of the other directors with powerful, small films this year, continues to define the "European" sense of cinema… which is now to start with convention but to never give in to convention. It is an odd dichotomy, as the theatrical pandering of a film like Whose Life Is It Anyway - which I quite like, by the way - makes that film all the commercial and awards friendly, while Amenabar's steadfast refusal to do what we expect when we expect it… his refusal of our need to see Bardem's character as some sort of super hero or to like some of the other characters more… is what makes this a vastly superior film to any of the films that have been in this milieu until now.

Bardem will be nominated for an Oscar… one of only two locks to come out of Toronto.

SIDEWAYS - A great, great film which I have now seen four times. Even so, the reception at Toronto was unexpected and the challenge for Fox Searchlight is to keep that wave cresting for the next three months… no mean feat.

TARNATION - A great, one-of-a-kind personal experience from Jonathan Caouette. The idea that this was a Toronto film, after turning up at Sundance, Cannes and LAFF strikes me a bit odd, which explains the muffled response. Still, the memory of this film should linger as long as anything Kenneth Anger has done… and longer.

THE FILMS THAT I FIND MYSELF STILL LINGERING ON

5 X 2 - CINQ FOIS DEUX - The new Ozon is kind of a different take on Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. A relationship, viewed in five acts, from end to beginning. And yes, there is even an anal rape as in the Noe, though nowhere as violent as the Noe. Perhaps that is the point of this movie. While Noe felt a need to punish his audience with the most painful and luscious images imaginable, Ozon is more humane and real. Yet both films strike me as painfully insightful and tortured by the nature of love and lust. Perhaps American Splendor makes the third leg of this trilogy… ugly people with weird problems stumbling through life and love in much the same way as the perfect and the near-perfect do in the two French films. Of course, Harvey Pekar is extraordinary in other ways, so not a perfect fit. Still…

THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON - This is another remarkably complex film, even if the filmmaker seems to feel he made a simple, clear lefty statement. But this film, which stars Sean Penn as a man who actually did make a first-trimester abortive effort to kill President Nixon, leaves a lot more question marks than exclamation points floating out there. In an odd way, this is Sean Penn's version of a Lee Harvey Oswald performance. What motivates someone to get to the point of such a self-destructive and success-challenged action? But even more so, I am struck by the notion that organized protest groups are shown here to be not much better than the organizations they are protesting. Meanwhile, you can see both the benefit and the failure of classic capitalism.

So where does that leave us? This is, to me, the great question of the next decade and utterly disregarded as any issue at all by both parties during this election cycle. That makes both the movie and the upcoming election quite scary.

AUTOMNE - This film by Ra'up McGee is in that Memento area of current film, but it is not based on a trick so much as the tricks we play on one another. The director of the film, an American, was not a full-fledged French speaker when he started making the film and you get the sense that the preference for visual over spoken words comes in no small way from that reality. McGee has the actors to pull it off and while it does get a little head-spinning at moments, the twists and turns are very satisfying.

One thing that struck me throughout the screening was the notion of an English-language remake. It makes sense. But it is probably being embodied on some level by Doug Liman's Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which may or may not still be in production. (ha ha)

KEANE - This is pretty much a one-man show by Damian Lewis, put through his paces by Lodge Kerrigan. Though the tale of this man is told in regular chronological order, with some flashbacks, there is an interesting emotional reverse order to it. At first, the audience feels like they are watching a homeless guy, wandering the streets, lost in his delusions, scary and capable of anything. As the film moves along and we get to know this man better, he seems saner and saner, bit without ever cheating and giving up any of his troubling ticks.

This is kind of a classic "see it on Sundance Channel" movie, but seeing it in a theater will improve your experience of it, as so much of it is meditative and not story, story, drive, drive. The filmmaker forces us to spend time with Keane so we can get to know Keane. And he's not wrong. Again, it is one of those films that "Hollywood" would make more accessible and chase awards with. (Damian Lewis is a lock for an Indie Spirit nod.) But that would involve the film telling us what to think instead of allowing us to do the work... and I tend to prefer the latter.

THE MACHINIST - I saw this one back at Sundance and images and moments from it still leap to mind when I least expect it. There was a series of cognitive dissonance movies at Sundance this year and The Machinist was the best of them. But still, the image of a rail thin Christian Bale is as powerful as any single image you'll see on film anytime soon.

PALINDROMES - The new Todd Solondz apparently got booed at Telluride… and I'm not sure why. It is true that Solondz probably would have done himself a favor by staying away from any Welcome to the Dollhouse references. They just aren't necessary. But his central stylistic conceit - which underlines that the ugliness and confusion of life may visit us all, no matter our size, shape, color or charms - is powerful enough to go back to this film a few times before getting it all down your gullet, digested for all its values.

YES - The love/hate of Sally Potter's new film is definitive. For me, it was half great and half boring. Essentially, I was far more interested in the politics of saying "yes" than I was in Joan Allen's character's broken marriage or her sexual interests. The good news for the film is that divisive is at least a form of passion and for art house films - which is all this is - that drives the box office more effectively than benign enjoyment.

The second half of the list fills out tomorrow…

GONE WRONG
Being Julia
Beyond The Sea
Human Touch
I Heart Huckabees
Shark Tale

THE UNSEXY SEX FLICKS
Anatomy Of Hell
A Hole in My Heart
Nine Songs
When Will I Be Loved

THE REST
Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat
Dear Frankie
Le Fantôme d'Henri Langlois
Old Boy
P.S
Ray
Silver City
Stage Beauty
The Holy Girl
The Woodsman
Undertow
Schizo
Harvest Time

SORRY I MISSED
3-Iron
Downfall
Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
Hotel Rwanda
In My Father's Den
It's All Gone Pete Tong
Lightening In A Bottle
My Summer of Love
Omagh
Oyster Farmer
St Ralph
Tell Them Who You Are
The Libertine
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

READER OF THE DAY: SNOOP, THERE IT IS writes: "Here are a couple of pics that I think you should get around to seeing that
screened at TIFF:

On the Outs - an unsentimental look at the lives of three Jersey girls that really adds a lot to the 'plight of urban youth'-genre, because it gives voice to young girls who have always tended to be secondary players in movies like this (i.e. Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, Do the RIght Thing, etc.)

Moolaade - a dramatization of the internal struggle within the African
continent, as traditional values and customs (female "circumcision" (rightly described in the film as genital mutilation)) come up against an emerging liberalism. A great film all around, from the acting to the message it conveyed. You gotta check it out.

As far as Automne, you know what I thought all while watching that movie? This is a good case for an American remake. I loved the ending with the poisoning, but the scene was taken down a notch, because of how detached everyone seemed from the proceedings. Put a premise like that in the hands of say Bryan Singer or Chris Nolan and you might have something.

I left Huckabees with a strange feeling. I laughed a lot, a whole lot.
However, I really couldn't say if I thought the film worked. I can say
unequivocally that Mark Wahlberg is a great comedic actor. I was sitting next to a woman who said she was from Tel-Aviv and the company she worked for owned the distribution rights for the film in Israel. It was the first time anyone had seen it from her company on the big screen. After the screening, I just shook my head and said, 'Good luck.'"

E ME: Your feedback is encouraged.