Day 8 - Thu Sep 16
- There's a couple of things going on in my world today that are troubling me. My mum's not feeling well again and the symptoms she had before having her gall bladder removed have returned. In other words, the gall bladder was not the source of her problems. Surprise, surprise. I've thought all along her issues are a result of a dangerous pharmaceutical cocktail she's been taking for awhile due to chronic pain. Anyway, it appears she's going back into the hospital.
- The other thing is that my friend and former colleague (and fellow yoga instructor), Lindsey, was hit by a car last night, flew 30 ft and broke her leg in two places. I am just sooooooooooooooooo grateful that she is alive, but she's not happy about having a full leg cast for her upcoming wedding in a couple of weeks. In between movies, I slipped over to the hospital she was in, but she had been discharged - which is a good thing.
The Bang Bang Clubhttp://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/bangbangclub
Steven Silver, Canada/South Africa The Bang Bang Club was the name given to four young photographers, Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and Joao Silva, whose photographs captured the final bloody days of white rule in South Africa and the final demise of apartheid. The film tells the remarkable and sometimes harrowing story of these young men – and the extraordinary extremes they went to in order to capture their pictures. | ContemplationsSeeing this movie is for my baby brother. He's become a really talented photographer in the last couple of years and I think that had he discovered his talent earlier in life, he would have been drawn to photojournalism.
The Bang Bang Club is the true story about a group of photographers documenting the violence in South Africa in the days of the demise of Apartheid. Two members of the group went on to win Pulitzer prizes for their extraordinary work. But their endeavours came with an incredible amount of danger and with a huge cost. But this film was more than just about the daredevil tactics used in the name of art. There are lots of questions raised about the profession itself i.e. are photojournalists just paparazzi who take pictures of people who are not celebrities? Some of the criticism in the day of the Bang Bang Club was that they were earning money on the "blood of the blacks of Africa." An even bigger question raised applies to journalism in general and to documentary fillmmaking (which this is not, this is a dramatic feature based on a book) and that is, should the writer, photographer, filmmaker step in to assist the subjects they are covering when they are clearly in danger. I'm really proud to say this is a Canadian co-pro directed by a South African Toronto-based director. This is a really great film whose story is told with considerable skill. It's a $5M movie that looks like its budget was four times that. It's tough to watch at times and is a serious tear jerker. During the Q&A, director Steven Silver revealed that many of the conflict scenes were shot in the actual locations in which they took place 15 years earlier and it was really difficult for many of the local extras that appeared in the film. Horrible memories were triggered by their participation in the film. I should add that the acting in this film was superb. One small flaw was that star Ryan Phillippe went in and out of his South African accent. But still a job really well done. I would recommend this film to anyone, especially if The Year of Living Dangerously is amongst your list of favourite films. |
Blue Valentinehttp://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/bluevalentine
Derek Cianfrance, USA Blue Valentine is the story of love found and love lost, told in past and present moments in time. Flooded with romantic memories of their courtship, Dean and Cindy use one night to try and save their failing marriage. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star in this honest portrait of a relationship on the rocks. | ContemplationsBlue Valentine received a lot of buzz at Sundance and it's because of the remarkable performances of and chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. There were times when I was embarrassed watching the film because I felt I was being a voyeur and watching real footage.
But the film is a roller coaster ride for the viewer. Boy meets girl - boy and girl fall in love - boy and girl get married - boy and girl's life gets complicated - boy's drinking spirals out of control - girl falls out of love. You will smile and giggle and feel sick and cry. And this is yet another story, and there seem to be many at TIFF this year, of the damages caused by alcoholism and it demonstrates how most alcoholics aren't usually aware of the destructive nature of their behaviour. Why do we always hurt the people we love the most, is one of the questions asked in the film. Director Derek Cianfrance and Ryan Gosling participated in a Q&A. Cianfrance said the motivation for writing the film came from the divorce of his parents and his consequent attempt to understand why people fall out of love. And Gosling (he and Williams also produced the film) revealed that although there was distinct structure to the film, much of the dialogue was improvised. They apparently shot tons and tons of footage and very difficult choices were made in the editing room. But they pulled it off. This is a fantastic film. |
Mavericks: Ken Loach & Paul Lavertyhttp://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/maverickskenloachpau
Interview moderated by Michael Moore Director Ken Loach joined forces with writer Paul Laverty in the mid-1990s, and together they’ve injected their political passions into a dozen films. Their latest work, Route Irish, grapples with the Iraq war and the trend of using privatized soldiers who are more costly to taxpayers and less accountable to law than enlisted ranks. Filmmaker Michael Moore will moderate a conversation with Loach and Laverty as they delve deeper into the film’s subject matter and reflect on other political currents that run through their work. | ContemplationsI had my first look inside the Bell Lightbox at this session and it's pretty spiffy. I'm not sure about some of the interior finishes, though. Some of the floors are already incredibly scuffed up. But the theatre itself was quite chi chi.
So, this was not a film, but an interview of the two filmmakers that I saw last night. And Michael Moore, who is in the middle of shooting, flew up just to moderate the session. The discussion was incredibly compelling, but there was a moment that particularly stood out. Moore called to the stage a representative from a group called Justice for Janitors. It seems that TIFF and the Lightbox have hired a janitorial firm that undermines the basic rights of the cleaning staff they employ and who, most often, are immigrants. Everyone in the audience was pretty shocked and I'm sure TIFF is already planning some sort of response or hopefully a resolution. But most of the discussion was about the true impact that films like those made by Loach and Laverty have on society and social injustices, what can be done to improve the distribution of these kinds of films, and what members of the audience can do to help change the world. Moore was typically irreverent and Loach and Laverty were predictably full of wisdom, passion and hopefulness. A really, really good time was had by all. |
Leap Yearhttp://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/leapyear
Michael Rowe, Mexico Laura Lopez lives a lonely existence in her Mexico City apartment. Her few guests are men that she picks up at night for some anonymous sex. When she meets Arturo, what begins as some light slapping quickly turns into more extreme episodes of sado-masochistic sex. On her calendar, the 29th of February is ominously circled, its significance becoming more apparent as leap year approaches. | ContemplationsThere is a very fine line between eroticism and pornography, but I guess as a Cannes prize winner, Leap Year has tread the line successfully - or has it? The movie is shot entirely in a single apartment with the lead character, a very lonely and alienated woman, having casual sex with a succession of men. Well, it's casual until she starts to see one of her lovers on a more regular basis and it turns into a sadomasochistic relationship that is a challenging one to watch on screen, especially for women, I think.
Anyway, the jury is out on this one for me. Director Michael Rowe, an Aussie who lived in Mexico for about 15 years, was just a little too arrogant for my taste. He started by saying that he ended up living in Mexico because great success as a writer came early to him in his career, and as a purist he had to escape all those offers for television. Poor baby. Rowe made a couple of other comments that rubbed me the wrong way as well. But kudos to him for turning the heads of the Cannes jurors. It didn't turn my head other than away from the screen for many parts of the movie. |
Even the Rainhttp://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/eventherain
Iciar Bollaine, Spain/France/Mexico Filmmaker Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) travels to Bolivia to shoot a film about the Spanish conquest of America. He and his crew arrive during the tense time of the Cochabamba water crisis. The lines between past and present, fiction and film, become increasingly blurred in Iciar Bollain's latest feature, Even the Rain. | ContemplationsIt appears that I just can't get enough of screenwriter Paul Laverty as he wrote this wonderful, wonderful Spanish film about the making of a movie about Christopher Columbus set against the crisis of the attempt to privatize the ownership of water in Bolivia (where the movie was being shot). The storyline about the filmmaking is fictional, but it is woven around the real attempt of corporations to control Bolivian water resources in the 1990's.
The interweaving of the stories is so skilled that this kind of writing completely humbles me. Add to that perfect casting, which included a lot of non-actor Bolivians, and some stunning cinematography and the result is awesome. This film struck me deeply on an emotional level, particularly because of the repulsive behaviour of the greedy capitalists. They were attempting to extort $450 per household in water charges from families whose income might be a couple of dollars a day. Laverty and producer Juan Gordon (I think that's who it was - my neurons were stating to misfire by this point) were on hand for the Q&A. Although Laverty has lived in Spain for many, many years, he wrote the script in English and it was translated into Spanish. And there was never any intention of doing this film in English. I know there were some really good points brought up in the post-film session, but I can't even remember how I got home this evening, let alone what these people said! |
Promises Written in Waterhttp://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/promiseswritteninwat
Vincent Gallo, USA Shot in black-and-white, this fiercely independent film traces the steps a young photographer takes to fulfil the dying wishes of a beautiful young woman, including getting a job in a funeral parlour so he can oversee her cremation. | ContemplationsFirst of all, there is no image for this film on the web site because I presume that actor/director Vincent Gallo refused to release one. And yes, one has to admire Gallo for being uncompromising and fully funding his own movies so he can make them the way he prefers. But whereas his last film, Buffalo 66, had something the viewer could grip on to, there was nothing in this film that drew me in.
There are uncut scenes that are repeated up to three times or more and long, long periods of silence. The self-indulgence was just too much for me - written, directed, acted by Vincent Gallo, music written and performed by Vincent Gallo, most screen time given to Vincent Gallo. Fuck off! I was tired and nodded in and out - mostly out. There was no Vincent Gallo at the screening, so why should I care about this film? Good luck to him on getting an audience for his next film. I won't be part of it. Apologies for my crankiness. It was a 10 pm start for my sixth film of the day, I'm 36 films into the festival and I'm worried about 'me poor mum.' :( |