Week Of September 11, 2006 - TIFF Mon / Bobby Wed / Fri

September 15, 2006

My Toronto Film Festival is wrapping up today... and the closing day of it went pretty well for me.

Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire is no walk in the park, but damned if it is not THE definitive documentary on the issue of right-to-choose versus right-to-life. Kaye does what most documentarians are not interested in doing these days... he tells both sides of the story with passion and objectivity. At some points in this film, you start to think that perhaps he is a wild, shaved-head commercial directing icon who is also a closet right winger who wants abortion and birth control ended. And at other moments, it is clear that he is mocking the right and defending a right to choose without question or limits. Obviously, both cannot be true. But Kaye shows the respect to his audience of letting them decide for themselves after being presented with an enormous amount of information in a remarkably stylish way, considering the topic.

Kaye's film gets right down to business. In the first 15 minutes or so, we get a gynecologist's view of an abortion in progress, the reassembly of a fifth month fetus, and the formed heads, arms, and legs of a number of other fetuses. This is not your grandma's abortion debate doc. But this is one of the reasons why I admire this work so much. This footage may make the pro-lifers giddy, but those of us in the pro-choice camp must be willing to face the harsh reality of the procedure we support women in having the right to choose. I have never been one to believe that anyone is really pro-abortion. But in the discussion of when life starts, seeing the various stages of life that are ended is a responsibility we all should take.

Kaye brings along plenty of talking heads, many familiar and many unexpected. But the early duo that sticks all the way through are Alan Dershowitz and Nat Hentoff. Dershowitz explains how he started thinking of his daughter as His Daughter from the first time he saw her on ultrasound, about three months from conception. But he is still pro-choice. Hentoff, amazingly, is not. He believes that conception is the start of life and that arguing otherwise is disingenuous.

This really does cover the whole picture. From Jocelyn Elder, who sounds saner than anyone in government we've heard in years, to the discussion of how abortion killed pre-Ro, statistically and functionally, to Norma McCorvey (aka Jane Roe), who is now part of Operation Rescue.

I don't know why it took Mr. Kaye so long to finish this film, but the wait was worth it. This is a powerful, patient, serious film that should be seen by every high school junior and senior and college student in America, not to mention the adult world. It is not fun. It is not funny. It is going to be hard on you, no matter where your sympathies lie. The film doesn't even have the visceral thrill of something like Deliver Us From Evil, which has such a classic villain in the middle. It's not sexy, in a movie way. But damn, it brings so much to the table so very well. One of the very best films in Toronto this year.

Another film that apparently took forever to make was Tarsem's The Fall. The film is within aesthetic inches of being truly great. And I almost can't explain why.

The film is set in early Hollywood. A young girl from a family of fruit pickers, father deceased, is in bed with a dramatically set broken arm. In another ward, a movie stuntman who tried to ride a horse off of a bridge into the river below to impress his girlfriend... who apparently had just started an affair with the lead of the movie. Now he's both injured and suicidal.

It takes a while to figure out what's going on, but the little girl and the sad hunk meet and he - trying to seduce her into getting him enough morphine to commit suicide - starts to tell her an epic tale of heroes and villains. And the journey of these characters - all walking icons... the beautiful black man, the beautiful Indian, the beautiful masked man, the beautiful mystic, and the Ollie-Reed-esque jolly, rough-hewn munitions expert - is where Tarsem shines.

The film is Wizard of Oz by way of the bastard child of Terry Gilliam and Zalman King. But Tarsem has them all beat visually. Apparently, he used his commercial travels as an opportunity to shoot the film over the years, country by country, stunning location by location. And the images are singular. (Mel Gibson would be a little pissed about the beautiful Mayan sequence, if it wasn't so clear that this film isn't likely to provide competition to the images in Apocalypto in theatrical release anytime this year.)

Tarsem's storytelling is a little weak. And the real Achilles Heel is the acting. Lee Pace, who is not very good (albeit very handsome) as Dick Hickock in Infamous, is also pretty stiff here in the leading role as The Man. He's not embarrassing, but he doesn't show much range... much like a Zalman King male lead. And while Justine Waddell is amazing to look at here, again, she is not much of an actress. And while beauty is wonderful, a touch of humanity in the performances would have made a world of difference.

The real find of the film is the amazing Catinca Untaru as The Girl who is told the tale. She plays an immigrant with a funky accent and the greatest oddball line readings you may ever see any child give. I have no idea what is real about her readings and what is acting, but she is charming and funny and altogether winning in this role. She's only a song away from matching Judy Garland's Dorothy and a kinky variation on Sarah Polley's career launching turn in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

The story The Girl is being told becomes thematic as the film proceeds. The Girl projects herself into it. And eventually, so does The Man. And this conceit is actually quite interesting, especially as it evolves into a third act of twists.

I wish I could say this was a great movie, but it just misses. It does make one drool for a Tarsem movie with a good script that he would stick to. His work here can be, at times, all about the visual and lose itself, but this is not commercial/music video stuff. There is much more in play here. An upgrade in the couple of sexy leads would really make this a solid, very watchable film. And a little less confusion in the narrative might turn it, with the new actors, into a really excellent film. It is actually pretty close. But those things that fail it, fail it utterly and there is no getting over it (or cutting away from it).

I would think that one more editing pass - maybe 5 to 10 minutes cut and some massaging - and this is a potential passionate cult film. The visuals... oh those visuals... stunning. And anyone casting a kids movie of any kind should be fighting to see Ms. Untaru. Rewrite for her if you have to. She is a real find... a character actress in a pint-sized (albeit chubby) body with big expressive eyes. She's the kind of spice that could turn a dumb studio kids movie into something much more interesting in just a few scenes.

And Tarsem... find a genre script that really works and start shooting. Give us one. And then go back to chasing your elusive personal dream.

Watching this film got me thinking about how directors like Tarsem and Gilliam and Fincher and Tony Kaye and a few others are too distinctive to make movies like one of the Potter films without bending it too much to their voice. That's a great thing... and a curse. Because the money for their challenging films is hard to come by even if you haven't been tagged a pain in the ass (deservedly or not). But man, can these guys flex! Let's hope Hollywood can find a place for them.

Toronto wrap-up on Monday...

E Me.

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