Toronto Film Festival

'Eastern Promises,' 'Juno' win Toronto's top prizes

Sheigh Crabtree — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 16:27:00 -0700

"Eastern Promises," an international thriller directed by David Cronenberg, won the Toronto International Film Festival's top prize on Saturday.

The festival's Cadillac People's Choice Award, voted by moviegoers, gave the hometown nod to fellow Canadian Cronenberg. The film stars Viggo Mortensen as a Russian mobster who tangles with a midwife, played by Naomi Watts.

Director Jason Reitman's "Juno," a festival darling about a pregnant teen, was the People's Choice first runner-up.

More here.

Farewell to the TO

Mark Olsen — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:56:28 -0700

As the Toronto Film Festival comes to a close it is worth noting how it can be many things to many people. Sales floor, dream factory, star machine -- however you want it, it can be it.

It was refreshing to be immersed in an event so in thrall to the idea of international film culture, to get away from the microscopic media universe of tabloid life. To be at the other end of the telescope, looking at Belgian punk rockers, Japanese cowboys, pregnant Canadians and having the shenanigans of Britney Spears be just a faint echo -- and knowing that there are plenty of people (likely most people) in the opposite position -- is revitalizing. The push-pull, inside-outside simultaneity of trying to both experience the festival and keep on eye on how it was being received and discussed, particularly in the online world, was punishing. Ah, modernity.

The difficulty of understanding truth within the media-saturated landscape of our current lives was an ongoing theme of films here. "Battle for Haditha," "Redacted," "In The Valley of Elah" and "Diary of the Dead" all examine how information is transmitted and received. "Haditha" is a fact-based fictional film directed by documentarian Nick Broomfield. The film does a remarkable job of showing three separate perspectives on a single event, giving the viewer a fully-rounded take on the physical and emotional costs of war.

As discussed elsewhere here on the Toronto blog, "Diary of the Dead" is a smart and sharp commentary on media and the dissolution of absolute truths. With zombies, no less. "Redacted," which earned Brian De Palma a best director award at the Venice Film Festival, is for me one of the absolute worst things I have seen here in Toronto. Wrong-headed in every way, it features laughably awful acting, outrageously phony "reality" footage and an utterly misplaced anger regarding the war. Portraying a group of American soldiers as demonic yokels seems to miss an essential point of warfare. ("Haditha," on the other hand, gives a fuller sense of why soldiers may do bad things in spite of themselves.)

Which brings me back to "I'm Not There." Todd Haynes' multi-layered look at the artistic life of Bob Dylan also celebrates something essential in the American character, a searching pioneer spirit and sense of constant reappraisal and rediscovery. There is an element of Mark Twain fable to Haynes' take on Dylan, and after a series of bruising, dispiriting films that make one feel increasingly gloomy about our times and the future, it is nice to get a little shot in the arm of good faith. It may be odd to come to Canada to think about America, but if 10 days immersion in the world of international art cinema teaches any one thing, it is that there are always new ways of looking at the world.

"Joy Division" -- myth turned real

Mark Olsen — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:20:26 -0700

It's a story you couldn't make up -- a vibrant young band, on the cusp of bigger things, is stopped in their tracks when the lead singer commits suicide. Such is the mythic story of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Their tale is told in two films at Toronto, both the documentary "Joy Division" and the fictional feature "Control."

What is remarkable is that the two films do not cancel each other out. Where "Control," directed by photographer Anton Corbijn in silvery black-and-white, seems very much in the mood of the band, an extension of their music, "Joy Division" is about the band itself, providing context and filing in the blanks. Where "Control" features a re-enactment of the band's first television appearance, "Joy Division" features the actual footage of their original performance. Both are electrifying.

Besides having two film projects in the ether, Joy Division suddenly seems very now, much as The Velvet Underground once emerged from the shadows to gain wider recognition and popularity. Which begs the question -- why does Joy Division seem to speak so directly to 2007?

"There's two answers," said "Joy Division" director Grant Gee. "The first one is demographics. The people in their late 30s and early 40s who grew up with it are at the age where they can foist their teenage obsessions onto the culture at large, like The Doors 20 years ago. Secondly, they are the polar opposite of how bands are promoted these, where you know everything about them in the first few months. Joy Division were so reticent. The style was just pure modernism, there were no frills."

Gee wisely gives attention to many of the band's key supporters and collaborators, include journalist Jon Savage (who is credited with writing "Joy Division"), graphic designer Peter Saville, manager Rob Gretton, producer Martin Hannett and label owner Tony Wilson.

The film mimics Hannet's production in the way it is at once spare and lush, while also displaying the visual austerity of Saville's signature look for the band. It has the hypnotic quality of dystopian sci-fi.

The interviews with Joy Division's three surviving members (who went on to form New Order together) are shot in black-and-white. The band members display a disarming honesty while discussing how they were unable to help their bandmate and friend.

As the Toronto film festival comes to a close it was announced, as expected by many, that "Joy Division" was being bought by The Weinstein Company, who are also distributing "Control."

"You just want to hold them up as a stop sign to people who only talk of career goals," said Tom Atencio, long-time manager of New Order and and the Joy Division catalog. "Go be a great performer, write fantastic songs, and people will come to you."

TIFF Q&A: Harmony Korine

Mark Olsen — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:11:37 -0700

Harmony Korine is something like the Lost Boy of American filmmaking.

After bursting on the scene with his screenplay for "Kids," written while he was just a teenager, he went on to direct "Gummo" (1997) and "Julien Donkey-Boy" (1999), both cataclysmic distillations of cutting-edge hip.

Then he seemed to vanish, lost into a haze of rumors and uncertainty. He went to Paris and London, spent time fishing in Peru and is now 33, living in Nashville and recently married.

His newest film, "Mister Lonely" represents a rebirth for Korine both personally and as a filmmaker. The movie tracks two separate storylines -- one about a commune of celebrity impersonators, the other about skydiving nuns in the jungles of Panama -- to create a poetic meditation on identity and renewal.

Rather than the purposeful agitations of his earlier work, "Mister Lonely" is about healing and moving on. To that end Korine cast two of his own filmmaking heroes, Werner Herzog and Leos Carax, who themselves perhaps represent a lifeline to survival.

Besides his main cast of Diego Luna, Samantha Morton and Denis Lavant (as well as his wife as Little Red Riding Hood), Korine also cast Anita Pallenberg (as the Queen of England) and James Fox (as the Pope), slyly referencing "Performance," itself a magisterial and enigmatic look at persona and identity-construction. I talked with him in Toronto during the festival.

I guess first things first, what happened to you?

Around the time of my last film I just felt like I couldn't do it any more. I felt like I didn't care so much anymore. I had this sense of disconnect. I was in bad shape. I always feel, as far as movies go, it's really difficult to make cinema without love. And I had none to give and I didn't feel like I had any myself.

I felt like there were a lot of phonies around me and it started to make me suspect about my own self. If these are the people that are around me, there must be something wrong with me. It was time for me to split and do something else.

It's almost giving myself to much credit to say I left movies. They left me. So I just disappeared for a while.

Can you tell me about the two parallel storylines?

It was an intentional decision to not make the stories directly intersect. It felt like there's enough of a thematic connection between the stories, almost like an allegory, that the jungle stuff served like a poetic punctuation.

I felt like in some ways, narratively, they speak to the same issues, mainly faith and a desire for these outcasts to create their own world, almost a utopia, and this idea that there may be magic in the world.

I guess all these characters are dreamers, and in my experience, the biggest dreamers are also the ones in the end who get hurt the most. I think they speak to the same things, and that was enough for me.

Everyone, I find, is really concerned with making like a perfect sense, and for me I like to make a perfect non-sense, if that makes sense.

What's interesting to me is people sometimes think my films are something to be "gotten," or that there's a riddle there or that they are intentionally obtuse. But it is never about that. It's always about a feeling, an ambiance or a mood. That's all I want.

I just want people to go in and feel some kind of connection to the characters, some kind of intrinsic understanding, maybe feel differently about things than they did when they went in and maybe not know why.

Do you feel recharged? Do you expect it will take you long to make another film?

Oh, it won't take me eight years again. That was something special. I'm in a good place now.

There's this thing in America, maybe it's everywhere, I see all these directors become obsessed with the business aspect, the deal, and become interested in bureaucracy and the emails and the telephone calls. I just don't give a ...

I think in the end you want more show than business. I would like to get to a place in my life where that side of it is at a real minimum. I don't care, big movies, small movies -- just make things, just create.

-- Mark Olsen

"Obscene" -- hero of an earlier era

Mark Olsen — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:00:23 -0700

The documentary "Obscene" tells the story of Barney Rosset, the publisher who repeatedly fought to put out books (and movies) others tried to hide away.

The list of works Rosset put out is astonishing -- "Naked Lunch," "Lady Chatterley's Lover," "Waiting For Godot," "Tropic of Cancer," "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," "A Confederacy of Dunces" and many more -- and forms much of the central core of post-war American counter-culture.

Particularly at a film festival where so many of the films are likely doomed to future obscurity, the story of Rosset and his Grove Press imprint is downright heroic. It is inspiring to think of someone who worked so hard to get the word to the people.

Rosset was not entirely altruistic, of course, and he made (and subsequently lost) multiple fortunes. As one period magazine article puts it -- he was a study in how to put out "dirty books" for fun and profit.

The film, directed by Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Conner, is fairly conventional as documentaries go, constructed from various talking head interviews, period photos and film footage and lots of time with Rosset himself.

Yet the story itself is so essential and compelling, and Ortenberg and O'Connor wise enough to keep things moving at a brisk pace, that the film never lags. Though meant as a positive portrait of Rosset, the film is a bit too fawning and could perhaps use a bit more bite.

Not exactly great cinema, there is something scrappy and endearing about "Obscene."

The film also examines, in a subtle way, the distinctly American intertwining of life and work. As Rosset himself says "If you want to know who I am, look at the books I published."

-- Mark Olsen

'Mister Lonely' and 'Diary of the Dead' -- sly surprises

Mark Olsen — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:32:12 -0700

The festival has brought two big surprises (to me at least) in "Mister Lonely," the unexpectedly moving and heartfelt return of onetime bad-boy director Harmony Korine (pictured, left), and "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead," a smart, sharp and up-to-the-minute entry in the horror maestro's signature franchise.

Both are filmmakers about whom I have decidedly mixed feelings, so it was a relief to find myself swept up into their latest works.

Especially as the festival heads into its last few days, and one is prone to hit the wall, as it were, it is reassuring (and vital) that the films themselves make it all seem worthwhile.

The most immediate thing about "Mister Lonely" is how formally conventional it is in relation to Korine's previous directing efforts, "Julien Donkey-Boy" and "Gummo," both of which exhibited a severe art-damaged sensibility.

"Mister Lonely" is downright elegant by comparison, and, working with cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, Korine creates a number of images that are breathtaking in their beauty.

The film features two parallel but essentially unrelated story lines, one involving an unlikely commune of celebrity impersonators (played with heart and not for camp value by the likes of Samantha Morton, Diego Luna, Denis Lavant, James Fox and Anita Pallenberg) in the Scottish highlands, the other following a group of skydiving nuns and a drunken priest (the irrepressible Werner Herzog) in the Panamanian jungle.

Though there is still a sense of the offbeat and Korine's love of unlikely grotesques, there is something so strangely sweet about "Mister Lonely" that it was one of the most transporting films I have seen in Toronto.

When Diego Luna (pictured, above, right), playing a Michael Jackson impersonator, jubilantly leads an old folks home in a chant of "live forever!" and "don't die!" I wanted to leap from my seat with exuberance.

"Diary of the Dead," on the other hand, is at once a cracking fun zombie movie, lightly speckled with blood and guts, and also a subversive critique of mainstream media and the way in which capital-T 'Truth' can be hard to find even within the era of broadband, all-access, 24/7 information.

When the dead begin to rise, as they always must, a small band of Pennsylvania film students tries to head home to their families. Along the way they document everything that happens to them, and their film-within-the-film is called "The Death of Death."

Every shot in the "Diary" is somehow sourced from within it, by camera phone, online video, surveillance footage or the students' own cameras. Leave it to Romero, maker of the original "Night of the Living Dead," to find a way to reinvigorate the zombie film with smarts, scares and an undercurrent of social commentary.

Keep an eye out in this space for an upcoming Q&A with Harmony Korine, as well as a more thorough examination of the media critique and political anger coming through in such films as "Diary of the Dead," "Redacted," "In the Valley of Elah" and "Battle for Haditha."

Things may be winding down here in Toronto, but we are still swinging away. -- Mark Olsen

Photos: (Top) Director Harmony Korine and actor Diego Luna at the IFC Dinner at the The 32nd Annual Toronto International Film Festival by Krist Papas/WireImage.com. George A. Romero at the Big Apple Comic Book Convention by George Gershoff/Wireimage.com.

'I'm Not There' digs deep

Mark Olsen — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:51:32 -0700

Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery directly after seeing "I'm Not There."

A head-spinning take on the many personas presented by the work of Bob Dylan, the latest film from director Todd Haynes is a dense, dizzying, multifaceted way of approaching the life and meaning of an artist, and pretty great whether you're a dedicated Dylanologist or not.

While his glam-rock gloss "Velvet Goldmine" was undone by a heavy-handed conceptual nod to "Citizen Kane," here Haynes is able to (almost) always keep all the plates spinning. At first, as scenes shift from one actor to another portraying Dylan in his various guises, it seems perhaps a little too on-the-nose. (A little too "Across the Universe" might be more like it, but that's another story.)

Slowly -- especially as it crosses between the domestic dramas of Heath Ledger (think "Blood on the Tracks"), the speed-freak op-art hep-cat jive of Cate Blanchett (shades of "Blonde on Blonde" and the film "Don't Look Back") and Richard Gere's outlaw in exile (a la "The Basement Tapes" and Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," for which Dylan did the music and appeared as a character notably named Alias) -- the film accumulates a strange, galloping momentum, moving faster and faster and drawing the audience along.

And that's leaving out the rambling troubadour and the born-again preacher.

As much as people will talk of Blanchett, Ledger, Gere and Christian Bale, it should be noted that there are three other fine performances in the film.

Julianne Moore plays a Joan Baez protest type and Michelle Williams an Edie Sedgwick ingenue, and Charlotte Gainsbourg appears as a version of Dylan's ex-wife Sara Lowndes, known to many as the "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands."

There's also a fun, quick cameo form Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, again showing the way in which Haynes wisely opens up "I'm Not there" to more than just empty "you had to be there, man" nostalgia-tripping. (The conception and portrayal of the 1960s in the Beatles-derived "Across the Universe," on the other hand, is single-minded and deadly dull, like reading Rolling Stone in the '80s.)

Gainsbourg's performance in particular does a great deal toward rooting "I'm Not There" in something with more emotional resonance than just recognizing the references. Williams has a danger and energy really hinted at only by the Sedgwick bio-pic "Factory Girl," whereas Moore has the slightly rueful recollections of Baez down cold.

If anything, it's a shame that Haynes couldn't somehow have kept moving forward, as for me the most recent Dylan persona -- that of a dustbowl riverboat gambler -- is a personal favorite.

The theme of reinvention has been a constant one in Dylan's work, and Haynes was shrewd to pick up on it as a thread to hang his story together with. In Martin Scorsese's documentary "No Direction Home," Dylan himself talks of wanting to exist in a constant state of "becoming," and in his book "Chronicles: Volume 1" he mentions how while writing the protest music that would originally make his legend in the 1960s he was largely reading and thinking about the Civil War.

Or, as he says on the "Live 1964" CD, "I've got my Bob Dylan mask on. I'm masquerading." -- Mark Olsen

Believe the Blanchett hype on 'I'm Not There'

wholovesya — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:42:43 -0700

Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream" is clearly one of the worst films the auteur has made in years.

The dialog is atrocious. Scene after scene feels like a bad "Saturday Night Live" skit. Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor must have been wondering what they were getting into after signing on to this one.

Luckily for the fortunes of the Weinstein Co., they screened a much better movie immediately after: Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There."

In this accomplished and fascinating look at the life of Bob Dylan -- as played by six different actors, including Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger -- the best "Dylans," by far, are the two Aussies.

Under the pseudonym "Jude," Blanchett plays Dylan as he travels with his band to London in the early '60s. It is there that the singer gets flack from both fans and critics for changing his sound.

This portion of the film, which is intercut with the five other story-lines, is inspired by the Beatles' 1964 film "A Hard Day's Night." It is hands-down the most entertaining and compelling portion of the picture.

The film's outspoken distributor, Harvey Weinstein, had relentlessly pumped up Blanchett before the "I'm Not There" premiere at the Venice Film Festival. But this time, it wasn't just Harvey bluster -- she is phenomenal.

At times you completely forget it's the same actor who was parading around on screen a few days earlier as the Queen of England in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" or that a woman is so believably playing a male role (really).

And as for Oscar? Her chances are probably better in the best supporting actress race than best actress, but the potential for a nod and a win are there.

As for Ledger, he portrays a Dylan infatuated with the fame of making movies concurrent with the breakdown of his marriage.

Ledger doesn't try to mimic Dylan like co-Dylan Christian Bale does, but he completely conveys the frustration between his personal and professional lives during the early '70s.

It's another nice turn in Ledger's growing body of excellent work.

-- Gregory Ellwood

Photo: (Top) Richard Gere, director Todd Haynes, and Heath Ledger pose at a photo session to present the movie "I'm Not There" at the Venice Film Festival in Venice on Sept. 4, 2007. (Bottom) Cate Blanchett arrives for the gala of 'Elizabeth The Golden Age' during the the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto Sunday, Sept. 9, 2007.

'Boy' buzz and the Wright man for 'Atonement'

wholovesya — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:54:52 -0700

While the upcoming December releases "The Orphanage," "Juno" and "Atonement" have been the recipients of good buzz as the festival has progressed, another film is starting to generate strong word of mouth.

Coming in completely under the radar, "Boy A" is the sort of startling independent surprise you would more likely discover more at Sundance than Toronto.

Quickly picked up by the Weinstein Co., "Boy" follows a 24-year-old British man (a fantastic Andrew Garfield) who has just been released from prison after being convicted as a child, along with his best friend, of the brutal murder of a young girl.

Because of his tabloid notoriety, the government assists him in creating a new identity when he's released, but the shy and self-conscious new "Jack" struggles to adjust to his adopted identity.

Immediately after the screening of "Boy," I headed over to the public reception for "Atonement" where, coincidentally, I ran into the young actor.

Garfield seemed overwhelmed by the praise his performance has received, stating several times "It was just made for TV."

That may have been the case, but it's clear director John Crowley ("Intermission") had higher aspirations.

Garfield also told me he'd heard the Weinsteins don't plan on releasing the picture till 2008, as the film still needs some final tweaking in the mix and transfer. Audiences will have a bit of a wait, then, to discover "Boy," but Garfield is already on Hollywood's radar.

The 24-year-old with dual American and British citizenship has supporting roles in both "Lions for Lambs" and "The Other Boleyn Girl."

As for the party iteslf, Keira Knightley spent most of her time at a private corner table, but a beaming James McAvoy and director Joe Wright made the rounds chatting it up with the press and local dignitaries.

I congratulated Wright on his magnificent film, and he already sounded exhausted after back-to-back Venice Film Festival and Toronto appearances.

"I'm glad it's winding down," Wright said. You'd think that after the award-season run for Wright's previous film, "Pride & Prejudice," the filmmaker would realize his ride is just beginning.

-- Gregory Ellwood

American ethnographies: 'Chop Shop,' 'Margot at the Wedding'

Mark Olsen — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:30:45 -0700

It is sort of astounding to think that two films as diverse as "Chop Shop" and "Margot at the Wedding" might somehow fall under the same rubric of "American Independent Filmmaking," and yet for most people (and at most cinemas), they likely do. Each is, in its own way, singular, a unique example of the writer-directors behind them.

"Margot at the Wedding" is the latest effort from Noah Baumbach (pictured right), who seems determined to chronicle with microscopic precision the peccadilloes of American intelligentsia, the literary set.

"Chop Shop" comes from director Ramin Bahrini, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bahareh Azimi. Bahrini's previous film, "Man Push Cart," chronicled an immigrant in New York City who operated a coffee cart and "Chop Shop," about a boy scrambling to survive amid the auto shops of Queens, continues in the same vein of telling stories rarely seen on screen.

They make an intriguing double bill, "Margot" and "Chop Shop." Both are, in their own ways, ethnographic films, exploring subcultures and mindsets and specific ways of living with exactitude, charm and curiosity.

Baumbach chronicles a family of intellectuals who have become so self-aware, so self-involved, that they have stopped progressing or growing, simply because they spend so much time examining themselves that they don't actually move forward anymore in their emotional lives. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh both turn in energetic -- and possibly award-ready -- performances that are at times difficult to watch for the way they so nakedly show people at their worst. Unlike Baumbach's previous film, "The Squid and the Whale," this one is more bitter than sweet, but still has the undercurrent of comedy that has made all of his films such a treat.

In the best way possible "Chop Shop" often feels like a foreign film, in that it examines so precisely a world which I, for one, would otherwise know nothing about. The dust, grime and heat of the NYC junkyards it takes for its setting feel palpable, making the young protagonist's struggles to eke out a life for himself and his sister that much more vibrant.

The lead performance by Alejandro Polanco is really quite remarkable, as he conveys hope, innocence and the scars of hard-learned life lessons with grace and understatement. With "Chop Shop," Bahrani proves that "Man Push Cart" was no one-off fluke; he is a genuine filmmaker with a true voice.

-- Mark Olsen

Photo: Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (L) and director Noah Baumbach attend the a party at the Toronto International Film Festival Party on September 11, 2007 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images for InStyle)