Author name: Blake Williams

So, first, there are occasional small moments that I just find either endearing or cute or funny, and this helps with the film’s flow and momentum. Humour is like the most subjective thing, though, so sure, The Future will not make everyone giddy in that department.

But. What I really respond to is what I now realize to be the central theme of the movie, which is the fragility of our connections to people and ideas, and how the world outside of our own agendas is a harrowing, terrifying abyss. July’s character Sophie states early on how something like keeping up with the news is a task that she’s “so behind” on that she’s long since succumbed to not caring about it. She wants to keep track of current events, but she’s given up on that field altogether. “Why bother?” (this sentiment is repeated later on, on a global rather than personal level, in reference to the environment. We’ve ‘fallen behind on’ our maintenance of it, and people respond by not even bothering to fight for it anymore; Sophie’s bf Jason sells not one tree to anyone that isn’t Sophie).

Then, there’s the world Sophie has with Jason that encompasses her routines and schedules involving her life with him, which is the premiere responsibility of her daily life as they rely on each other for intimacy and companionship. As well, there are her career ambitions – gaining some sort of notoriety as a dancer – and her reliance on the internet, which is shown to be almost entirely superfluous to her as she struggles to think of anything necessary to research in the brief moments before her connection is shut off. All of these aspects of her life make up her own, readymade bubble, and her relationship to each is shown, one-by-one, to be incredibly fragile, irredeemably disrupted with only the slightest neglect.

Sophie’s attempt to start a hit youtube series of 30 Dances in 30 Days sees her giving herself an exciting (for her, anyway) utility of her artistic abilities that also relates to close quarters outside of her sphere (that plastic girl behind the counter). When Sophie struggles to come up with a first dance, she immediately falls behind schedule, gets frustrated, and, in a moment of feeling incompetent as an artist, channels her frustration in sex with a sleazy stranger (which dominos into her responsibilities toward her boyfriend Jason, the most impacting one).

She tumbles away from her responsibilities and into a void of unfamiliar routines (as a suburban mistress, as a non-artist, as a non-hipster), and this is portrayed emotionally in the film (as opposed to realistically or literally) via an onslaught of magic realist happenings, e.g. the talking moon, paused time, and people who age years and then decades right before her very eyes (one of a few instances that recalls Synecdoche, New York). Her detachment from any recognizable trait of the life she knows is made to be felt in us (the viewer) by detaching us from the flow and rhythms of the film’s first half (which was a portrait of complacent, harmless hipsters set within the rules of reality – albeit a twee reality that is situated on quirky gestures and actions. Significantly, and a bit heavy-handedly, this is shown in Jason’s dual attempts at stopping time; the first time it’s a cutesy pretend game in which the world resumes while he and Sophie pause, and then he later he stops time ‘for real,’ as he resumes amidst a paused world).

When Jason is destabilized from his life by Sophie’s 3:14am revelation, he likewise is detached from his schedules and responsibilities and falls into an abyss. His response is to not deal with it…to, as mentioned before, stop time. It’s an act that is initially meant to allow himself to gather his thoughts and relish his last few moments of ignorance before he learns of his girlfriend’s affair, annihilating the world he’s built for himself. He let’s it linger – for hours, then days, then weeks. The point where the film’s theme is most resonant is when he is told (by the moon…the quirk never completely goes away) that while he has effectively stopped time for himself, the world was still going, so when he ‘resumes’ time, he will pick up where he would have been had he not stopped time at all. He will already be without his girlfriend, and he also will have fallen irreparably behind in his other responsibilities (i.e. saving the planet, and caring for an unwell cat named Paw Paw, whose adoption day passes while Jason worries about his own emotional well-being, and results in the cat being put to sleep – the death of a life that was dependent on him).

So really, in the guise of an obnoxious twee, “high class mumblecore” film (as my friend David labeled it), it’s essentially a film about losing a grasp on what is inside and outside our respective bubbles, agendas, routines, etc. Things typically fall back in line over time, but the damages depicted in The Future are of magnitudes that preclude healing. This molds July’s sternly pessimistic vision as a response to the disengaged optimism exemplified in the first 45 minutes. I thought July was erring toward the end by suggesting a reconciliation for Jason and Sophie (she actually may have very well done that), but I’m pleased when the credits finally begin to roll – before too much hopes sets in, leaving the two in their lonely and alienated outer spaces, even within what used to be their one private space. Their precious ‘secret signal’ (Peggy Lee’s “Where or When”) doesn’t even work as intended, failing to put them back where they were.

 
I Am Guilty (2005, Christoph Hochhäusler) – 6.8

I’ve yet to be blown away by any of Hochhäusler’s films (the others being This Very Moment, The City Below, and his Dreileben wrap-up, One Minute of Darkness), but I don’t think I’d hesitate in calling him my favourite active German filmmaker (if you’re reading this Maren, know that I still like both of your films more than any of these). I’ll quickly surmise that whyever that may be probably has to do with how terrorized I am by the palpable dread laced throughout his mise en scène, whether that’s placed in a rural (Moment), urban (City), or suburban (Guilty) environment. They also all have the remarkable ability of skirting comprehensible critiques of middle and upper-middle class lifestyles, while still remains cryptic as all hell; that said, I don’t think any of Herr Hochhäusler’s four features so far have been as elusive of easy answers as this sophomore film has (the ending of The City Below actually makes perfect conceptual sense in retrospect). Which is to say, Armin’s motivations, behaviours, and – uh – urges, are so sketchily drawn that they can never really be interpreted or rationalized in a finite, or even meaningful, way. For instance, I have no explanation for why he fantasizes about doing (or does?) submissive sexual favours for the – very male – biker gang vandals, nor whether it actually ‘happens’ in the reality of the film. Nor do I think deciding one way or another would do me or anyone else any good. It almost begs to be left alone as an effectively unsettling mood piece, albeit one that likely has a very valuable sensibility to the ‘coming-of-age experience’ found in this particular (quite common) social context.
 
 
Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) – 7.6

I didn’t fully realize how awesome Hitchcock is until this catching up (long overdue) with some of these classics in the Fall season at the Lightbox. I took a course on his cinema in undergrad, but that didn’t leave much of an impression for some reason (if there is anything in print from me in which I mention Rebecca, Notorious, Spellbound, or North by Northwest, please disregard it). I have a pretty unorthodox history with Psycho, though it’s probably somewhat common with my generation: my first encounter was with, egad, Van Sant’s remake. Whoever it was I was in the theatre watching it with had seen the Hitchcock version, and obnoxiously leaned over to me 15 minutes before the end and said (and if you’ve not seen it, don’t read, and why are you this far into this paragraph already anyway?) “I bet he’s his mother.” Not even able to process the line of thinking that could have led someone to tell me that, I was, at that moment, dumbfounded and amazed at this unbelievably clever twist ending. Flash forward to my undergrad years when I finally see Hitchcock’s original, and I was dumbfounded and amazed that I hadn’t figured it out from the beginning when I saw it the first time; typical of most revisitations of films with twists, it all seemed so overstated.

Watching it now (second time for Hitchcock’s, third time total), no longer viewing the movie as one long buildup to a wicked twist ending, focusing more on everything else that Hitchcock is doing, I see it as the masterpiece that it is…until the damn ending. I’m not just thinking the idiotic exposition where the guy stands there and provides us with a psychoanalytic reading of the film we’d just seen, but also, and especially, the climax of the film, when Norman Bates stumbles into the basement dressed up as his mother. Essentially perfect until this point, I’ve struggled to figure out what feels so wrong here. I like everything about this scene on paper, but what I remember as being shocking, terrifying, disturbing etc. now just seems lame and almost funny – tonally the opposite of what it should be. Going back and looking at how this scene was handled in Van Sant’s version, which I only saw that one time during its release (aside – holy shit, Julianne Moore is in this? holy shit pt. 2: Vince Vaughn gets paid to act?), and I’m surprised to find that I actually do think that Van Sant’s take on the ending works far better for me, and it comes down to a single element: Bates’ face. Sacrilegious for sure, and likely wrong, but for the time being, I’m certain that Hitchcock over-directed Mr. Perkins here (of course, until this point, he is utterly remarkable). Sure, Van Sant didn’t need to turn the basement into Damien Hirst’s production studio, nor extend the reveal into a fight scene with broken furniture and several cuts to additional points of view; but, he seems to understand that it’s not the crazy look on Bates’ face when he enters the basement that is so chilling, but rather the ideas behind what we learn in this moment.

Original:

 
Remake (skip to about 3/4 through the timeline to get to the scene I’m talking about, or watch the whole thing to be reminded of how bad this movie is):

 
 
Twelve Monkeys (1995, Terry Gilliam) – 6.9

Such a haunting film – more so for me than Marker’s. It loses me a bit with a saggy middle act and some annoying logic holes that every time travel movie suffers from – it’s their varying degrees of toying with these holes that make them more or less obtrusive. The last half hour feels like those dreams I have where I’m being chased by someone and can only move as if I’m wading through quicksand. It’s so clear what’s coming, and so irritatingly futile to hope for a positive outcome. I still don’t know if ‘the deed’ is done when David Morse – creepier than ever – opens the tube for the security guard, or if Bruce Willis getting shot down really is as tragic for mankind as it appears. In fact, there’s a lot I don’t have a firm grasp on in regards to what actually happens in this movie. I’m okay keeping it that way, too.

Third viewing, and it’s pretty much settled that this is in a virtual three-way tie with Synecdoche, NY and The Swamp for ‘Best debut film of the millennium’. Strangely enough, I don’t find myself raving about Campos that much, and I can’t say I’m salivating to see where he goes from here (not to say I’m not very much looking forward to Simon Killer, which was passed up by TIFF, will be premiering at Sundance in January, and is apparently very good). It’s just that what he pulled off here feels like it’s beside pure talent – like a miracle happened that allowed a lot of superb ideas to coalesce and be creepy as hell. This feeling is almost certainly a product of my never being all that impressed with any individual element of its production (the direction, performances, and script hardly stand out as ‘masterful’); it’s more that I think Campos has an exemplary understanding of where we are, technologically, as a society – more so than almost any artist working in any medium right now. Frankly, I’d probably more enjoy having a three-hour conversation with him than seeing whatever film he does next. The moment that stood out to me the most this time, and is a good example of a scene that I don’t think is in any way ‘amazing’, but resonates entirely as an idea, is when – near the beginning – Rob is in the bathroom playing with the motion-activated faucet. He waves his hand beneath the little laser, water comes out, and he then drenches his head in the water, perhaps to make up for the loss of touch required to release the water. It sets up his autistic persona, yes, but more, it underlines the depreciation of haptic experiences in the developed world. As a film about ‘feeling’, or really the lack thereof, it’s a potent, almost dystopian, moment. Maybe Campos is a genius for throwing in something like this, but it seems more like the kind of smarts that I wouldn’t necessarily associate with ‘gifted’ filmmaking. I hope Simon Killer proves me wrong.

I have a feeling that each time I see this in the future – granted that I see it in at least blu-ray – I will like it more and more. I’d previously seen it once on DVD on my computer monitor, and the difference this time, in a pristine 35mm print, was only that I was genuinely creeped out several times, where the first time I saw it I never was.

My problem is with the excessive exposition, which I predict will become less of a problem in the future, if only because everyone I spoke to after the screening didn’t mind it in the least. This can mostly be boiled down to the role of Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. Any time Miss Giddens encounters something strange, she just has a little chat with Grose, who spends the next five minutes filling her in on the back story that explains the significance of who or what she just may or may not have seen. Not to mention that the tired scenario of a babysitter coming in to care for depraved or afflicted children, only so that we may watch as she suffers the same fate as her predecesor(s) likely did, has become…tired. Certain classic scenarios can’t be spoiled by copycats or remakes (off the top of my head: Rear Window), but this one, for me, has been tainted.

Brilliant opening and closing (the first few minutes in particular, before even the first credits appear, are a perfect table-setter, as we sit in a pitch black theatre while Flora hums the beautiful and chilling theme song, which continues over the Twentieth Century Fox animation logo thing; it feels as fresh and exciting as a twenty-first century avant-garde found-footage remix). I don’t know if I’d just forgotten about the two passionate kisses shared between Miss Giddens and Miles – the first initiated by Miles and the second, significantly, delivered by Giddens – or if I just didn’t notice how inappropriate they are the first time I saw it, but the entire film rests on these two events, and this is why I think the film will only get better with future viewings, as I incrementally solve just what the hell this means (or I might just look it up).

Amazingly, there is an equal balance between daytime and nighttime – or poorly lit/chiaroscuro – scares, underlining the fact that Clayton mounts some palpable, mood-centric terror in this film, and doesn’t have to rely on BOO! scares.

But not the July movie. Since I’m writing for two places these days, and trying to do something with my life that will pay a bill, I’m not doing much writing on here….again. So it’s much less daunting if I commit to only writing words about films I see that I’m not seeing for the first time. This will amount to 1-5 posts per month, which is fine by me. Since I don’t give any sort of indication on my Log about whether or not each film is a revisitation or a first-time viewing, this will serviceably answer that question, too. So there we have it, a perfect solution.

Here’s a ranking of all of the feature films (40+ min.) I have seen that played in TIFF 2011. Many of them I saw during TIFF (Sept. 8-18), and many more I saw somewhere else. Let the key be your guide. I’ll start doing capsules again when the TIFF Cinematheque season resumes on October 1.
 
 
Key
– Saw at TIFF Proper (between Sept. 8-18)
– Saw at Cannes
– Saw at TIFF pre-festival press screening
– Saw via a DVD screener
 
 

 
 
Tier 1
House of Tolerance – Bertrand Bonello (8.4)
Melancholia – Lars von Trier (8.3)
 

Tier 2
Once Upon A Time in Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan (7.9)
Crazy Horse – Frederick Wiseman (7.6)
A Separation – Asghar Farhadi (7.4)
Martha Marcy May Marlene – Sean Durkin (7.4)
The Deep Blue Sea – Terence Davies (7.3)
The Loneliest Planet – Julia Loktev (7.2)
Drive – Nicolas Winding Refn (7.2)
The Turin Horse – Béla Tarr (7.1)
Elena – Andrey Zvyagintsev (7.1)
Goodbye First Love – Mia Hansen-Løve (7.0)
 

Tier 3
This is Not a Film – Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (6.9)
Play – Ruben Östlund (6.9)
Damsels in Distress – Whit Stillman (6.7)
Low Life – Nicolas Klotz & Elisabeth Perceval (6.6)
The Silver Cliff – Karim Aïnouz (6.6)
Into the Abyss – Werner Herzog (6.6)
The Kid with a Bike – Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne (6.5)
That Summer – Philippe Garrel (6.5)
Whore’s Glory – Michael Glawogger (6.5)
ALPS – Yorgos Lanthimos (6.4)
Porfirio – Alejandro Landes (6.4)
A Mysterious World – Rodrigo Moreno (6.4)
Century of Birthing – Lav Diaz (6.3)
Outside Satan – Bruno Dumont (6.3)
Almayer’s Folly – Chantal Akerman (6.3)
Pina – Wim Wenders (6.3)
People Mountain People Sea – Cai Shangjun (6.2)
Amy George – Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas (6.2)
Good Bye – Mohammad Rasoulof (6.2)
Twenty Cigarettes – James Benning (6.1)
Killer Joe – William Friedkin (6.0)
The Cat Vanishes – Carlos Sorin (6.0)
 

Tier 4
Keyhole – Guy Maddin (5.9)
The Skin I Live In- Pedro Almodóvar (5.9)
Back to Stay – Milagros Mumenthaler (5.8)
Pariah – Dee Rees (5.8)
Mushrooms – Vimukthi Jayasundara (5.8)
Land of Oblivion – Michale Boganim (5.8)
Dreileben – Beats Being Dead – Christian Petzold (5.7)
Cut – Amir Naderi (5.7)
Life Without Principle – Johnnie To (5.7)
Historias Que So Existem Quando Lembradas – Julia Murat (5.6)
Dreileben – One Minute of Darkness – Christoph Hochhäusler (5.6)
The Ides of March – George Clooney (5.6)
Sleeping Beauty – Julia Leigh (5.5)
A Dangerous Method – David Cronenberg (5.5)
Habemus Papam – Nanni Moretti (5.3)
Miss Bala – Gerardo Naranjo (5.2)
Lena – Christophe Van Rompaey (5.2)
Dreileben – Don’t Follow Me Around – Dominik Graf (5.1)
Faust – Alexander Sokurov (5.0)
Crane World – Pablo Trapero (5.0)
Café de Flore – Jean-Marc Vallée (5.0)
Michael – Markus Schleinzer (5.0)
Nuit #1 – Anne Émond (5.0)
Le Havre – Aki Kaurismäki (5.0)
 

Tier 5
Fable of the Fish – Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr. (4.9)
Breathing – Karl Markovics (4.9)
Take This Waltz – Sarah Polley (4.8)
Kill List – Ben Wheatley (4.8)
Restless – Gus Van Sant (4.8)
Oslo, August 31 – Joachim Trier (4.7)
Beauty – Oliver Hermanus (4.7)
Twixt – Francis Ford Coppola (4.6)
Samsara – Ron Fricke (4.6)
Invasion – Hugo Santiago (4.5)
Shame – Steve McQueen (4.5)
Headhunters – Morten Tyldum (4.5)
Carré blanc – Jean-Baptiste Leonetti (4.4)
The Cardboard Village – Ermanno Olmi (4.3)
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius (4.3)
Fatherland – Nicolás Prividera (4.2)
Bonsái – Cristián Jiménez (4.2)
388 Arletta Ave. – Randall Cole (4.1)
Twilight Portrait – Angelina Nikonova (4.0)
Dark Horse – Todd Solondz (4.0)
Beloved – Christophe Honoré (4.0)
 

Tier 6
Volcano – Rúnar Rúnarsson (3.8)
Young Pines – Ute Aurand (3.8)
We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lynne Ramsay (3.7)
Think of Me – Bryan Wizemann (3.7)
Chicken with Plums – Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud (3.6)
The Student – Santiago Mitre (3.4)
Wuthering Heights – Andrea Arnold (3.0)
 

Tier 7
The Other Side of Sleep – Rebecca Daly (2.8)
Footnote – Joseph Cedar (2.7)
Love and Bruises – Lou Ye (2.6)
 

Tier 8
Doppelgänger Paul – Dylan Akio Smith & Kris Elgstrand (1.6)
Arirang – Kim Ki-Duk (1.5)

September 8:
9am – Beauty (4.7) – “again, questionable representation of gays; if film’s abt yearning for youth, why show Francois’ circle in such seedy light?”

12pm – Pina (6.3) – “I wish this experiment were a bit more Bausch-specific (i.e. another quality choreographer would’ve worked just as well), and I hated the interjecting non-insights into her life and work by the dancers, but it served to make the dancing all-the-more abstract.”

6pm – Into the Abyss (6.6) – “Herzog has way of making an iPhone image of a fetus or calluses on a hand resound like modern hieroglyphics.” unfortunately, a very ugly film, clearly made for easy TV transition.

10:15pm – Historias Que So Existem Quando Lembradas (5.6) – “Seduces as a quasi-ghost story in which everyone is clearly living; otherwizzze…” …it’s a bit familiar, and ‘deliberately paced’ for the sake of it. Chiaroscuro FTW!

September 9:
10:45am – Whore’s Glory (6.5) – “perhaps best-looking Digital doc ever, esp. Der Fishtank’s neon playground; Coco Rosie nice, but overused; lengthy. Sympathies clearly lie w/women, but the La Zona third wipes out much of its reserved distance & made me view project in very different light.”

1:30pm – Twilight Portrait (4.0) – “By the end of TIFF I doubt I’ll be able to make eye contact with women; God love’em for putting up w/all that rape.”

4:30am – Fable of the Fish (4.9) – “pure ridiculousness; terrible filmmaking, but, they baptized a fish with a straight face, so points for commitment.”

6:45pm – Goodbye First Love (7.0) – “The compression of movie time makes the leap from 2000 to now-ish much more affecting than it probably should be. I’m still crushed enough from Camille’s sadness in 2000 that I want her to get her man, even if she’d have been over it 10 years later. Camille & Sullivan have amazing chemistry for a couple we meet in the throes of departure. Credit to Hansen-Løve for really getting youth’s ideal projections.”

9:15pm – Wavelengths 1: Analogue Arcadia (no feature films) – For now, just a general order of preference: 1. Loutra Baths 2. 99 Clerkenwell Road 3. Edwin Parker 4. Sack Barrow 5. American Colour 6. Ars Colonia 7. Empire

September 10:
12:30pm – Faust (5.0, or rather, ??.?) – “one of the most mixed bags I’ve seen in ages; it only really started clicking for me when Humonculous showed up.”

3:15pm – House of Tolerance (8.4) – “old lady sitting next to me, about 15 min. before the end, to her husband: ‘The dog’s gonna eat him.'”

6:30pm – Wavelengths 2: Twenty Cigarettes (6.1) – “most cerebral Benning film I’ve seen; or rather, the only one to not work my viscera in some capacity; strong anyway.”

9:15pm – Wavelengths 3: Serial Rhythms – really liked Bouquets and Preface to Red. Sailboat is hilarious, and everybody still has no idea how T. Marie makes her images.

September 11:
9:15am – Almayer’s Folly (Inc.) – napped through at least 1/4 of it; can tell it’s good stuff, though, so will try again on Thursday I think.”

12:15pm – Damsels in Distress (6.7) – “worried at the outset, as it felt almost parodic of Stillman’s charactrs & style, but saved by typical keenness. Never realized how much of a doppleganger Gerwig is for Sevigny until now; Stillman definitely has a ‘type’.”

7:00pm – Wavelengths 4: Space is the Place – Not considering Coorow-Latham Road, I’d put them in this order from best to worst: Black Mirror at the National Gallery, 349 (for Sol Lewitt), Space is the Place, Untitled, Young Pines.

9:30pm – Wavelengths 5: The Return/Aberration of Light – Another beautiful Dorsky. Aberration of Light disappointing in the end. I’d basically have the same criticisms for it as I have with American Colour, actually.

September 12:
11:30am – The Cardboard Village (4.3) – “Knew I was in trouble when Immigrant X unpacks her cache of dynamite, guards it like it’s her Snickers stash. And when will Italy learn how to properly dub a film?!”

3:00pm – Low Life (6.6) – “On strictly cinematic terms, it sits next to Bonello as my favorite of the year; my attention ebbs & flows re: its content, though. The inky darks in the digital image, dubstep-ish score, and moments of just plain strangeness make the overall experience quite sublime.”

6:15pm – The Student (3.4) – “Not necessarily bad, but if I were to make a Top 20 list of things I value in cinema, 0 of them could be found in this film.”

9:30pm – Bonsái (4.2) – Boring.

September 13:
9:00am – The Loneliest Planet (7.2) – “Extremely elegant depiction of survival instincts and an apocalypse of the learned instincts of companionship. Blasé moments of potential depravity in 1st half kept me on edge until *the* event revealed its theme, which is a bit oversold. Chapter-dividing establishing shots evoked Kiarostami’s minimal zig zags, as well as Meek Cutoff’s excursions through the arid desert. And I imagine that Loktev was intentionally nodding to Glass’s Einstein in the Beach with the Chimpanzee handstands and ‘Bitch on the Beach’, but, it kind of feels a bit too spare, and Bernal is flat as usual. Another, better actor could have really made this movie hit hard. That opening shot was horrifying; I have no idea what in the world it was about. The following 45min. quiver from its power.” After a bit of reflecting on this got me choked up, I was tempted to bump up the rating to 7.8, but I’ll just wait until the next time I see it to adjust that. Regardless, great movie.

12:30pm – Wuthering Heights (3.0) – “Utter hackery without a single moment that felt at all genuine. What a way for UKFC to go out.”

4:00pm – Land of Oblivion (5.8) – “Two very different halves, where the 2nd just gets progressively weirder, letting us feel the psychological abyss.”

7:30pm – ALPS (6.4) – “Not sure why everyone is acting like they’re in Dogtooth… those girls were awkward because they’re secluded from society, but I love the web of ideas (tabloid celebrity, role playing, grief place-holding) and how loosely they all relate to each other. Not as funny as DOGTOOTH, but not sure it’s meant to be. Could do w/o violence, which feels a bit gratuitous despite its brevity.”

September 14:
12:15pm – Crazy Horse (7.6) – “About conformity (rather than titties), and how performers & auds alike surrender their distinction to the ‘creator’. There are at least 6 knockout dance numbers, many not out of place in Clouzot’s L’INFER footage. Glorifies women while stressing their sameness. Footage of tourists flowing through Seine, shelves of bottles of champagne, both promising equal experiences of splendor for all participants, broke my heart.”

2:45pm – Killer Joe (6.0) – “Really like this stage of Friedkin’s career; doesn’t seem to give a damn about anything but most insane product possible.”

5:45pm – Chicken with Plums (3.6) – “Uses that Jeunet style I’m allergic to; bit of inspiration in its ‘creativity’, but a lot (most of it) feels hollow. Its homage to WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOME at the end made me feel absolutely nothing…so, yeah.

7:45pm – Dark Horse (4.0) – “so literally misanthropic that I worry Mr. Solondz thinks that his work up to now hasn’t been getting its point across.”

9:30pm – Nuit #1 (5.0) – “I loved everything about this except the banality of what they’re saying, and this is a talkathon.”

September 15:
9:45am – Invasion (4.5) – “Expected a lot from Borges, but this can stay in the archives.”

12:15pm – Twixt (4.6) – “Good fun before it became tired studio vampire flick. 3D 100% unnecessary (it’s only used for two scenes anyway).”

3:00pm – Love and Bruises (2.6) – “May be a masterpiece of rape.”

5:30pm – Century of Birthing (6.3) – “As with his MELANCHOLIA, dabbles in performance art, GOD, Being, filmmaking, and – ultimately – insanity. He’s still pretty bad with actors, but I consistently find myself not caring after about the 200-minute mark. Editing borders on kitsch. I’m sure you’re not supposed to say this but, his films could be shorter.”

September 16:
9:00am – That Summer (6.5) – “Seems light for Garrel, but that’s probably why it feels so good (via feeling so bad); Céline Sallette: Marry me.”

11:30am – Cut (5.7) – “really, Really committed to didactic and heavy-handed metaphor for rep cinemas’ demise via money-grubbing entertainment whores. The last 25 minutes either a dumb ode to Naderi’s own cinema tastes or an awesome, bloody takedown on all-time listmakers. I’ll go with the latter. Naderi made guerilla intro @ P&I screening, promised that if we didn’t feel something @ the end he’d cut off a finger. Keep them all, sir.”

2:30pm – A Mysterious World (6.4) – “Very pleasant; reminded me of SILVER CLIFF & Guerin (esp. SYLVIA), but remained peculiar; I’m adopting that celeb name game for my next party.”

6:15pm – The Turin Horse (7.1) – “Obviously masterful, & certain to be canonized (esp. if Tarr really does cease filmmaking), but I was never as devastated by this as I was by WERCKMEISTER’s naked old man, nor as transported as by that film’s opening bar scene. It’s a cold monolith. Petty Distractions: wind machines (only grass & bushes near camera are moving); that Vig song – I didn’t like it, nor its overuse. The only scene that really hit me was when we see tears dribbling from the horse’s eyes. But anyway, it’s still the best movie about a horse or donkey I’ve seen.”

9:30pm – Carré blanc (4.4) – “Starts out promisingly w/its abstract dystopia, cryptic love quarrels, PRIMER vibes, & Lanthimos-esque games, but it’s just a cluttered mess that’s aiming to confuse. Not tragic or thought-provoking at all – just an icy blur.

September 17:
11:45am – Back to Stay (5.8) – too ‘early Martel’ for its own good, but spats of endearing moments (most are set to music, of course) make for a sweet aftertaste.”

3:30pm – People Mountain People Sea (6.2) – “I feel like something profound happened at the end, but ‘what’ is anyone’s guess. Not knowing works, too.”

6:15pm – The Deep Blue Sea (7.3) – “Unlike his late-80s films (of which I’m not a fan), it’s perfectly nostalgic without being about nostalgia (hence sappy). Has the two best lines of the year. Not entirely convinced of Freddie’s insensitivity over the letter.”

8:30pm – Life Without Principle (5.7) – “Love the audacity of pumping so much hermeneutical stock market jargon into what is superficially a suspense thriller. Problem for me is that its role as convoluted thriller takes over and climaxes to a tidy, inevitable conclusion.”

September 18:
10:00am – Crane World (5.0) – 5.0 is pretty much my default rating signifying ‘this seems like something I would like but, on first viewing, it didn’t click.’ So that’s how I felt about this one here.

12:30pm – Fatherland (4.2) – “Closing shot aside, I just don’t think this should be in any medium other than performance art; reminded me of the essential differences between a visual essay and an essay film; this is firmly in the latter genre, and these almost never work for me. Structure evokes Benning’s durational ploys (length of shot dictated by length of text & each reader’s speed), but it ends up being inconsequential.”

3:15pm – Kill List (4.8) – “Really? That expertly crafted mystery & dread amounted to that? A genre remake of AURORA, with hints of BLAIR WITCH and dumb.”

6:30pm – Almayer’s Folly (6.3) – “I think I enjoyed this more when I slept through it than when I was wide awake; when the DVD is released, I’ll see how well it works upside down.”

9:00pm – Samsara (4.6) – “Could just as well be called ‘Andreas Gursky: The Movie.’ You just know we’re getting another one in 2030 – more chickens, more aboriginals, more life.”

Titles That Are Missing Because I Saw Them in Pre-Festival Press Screenings:
Amy George – Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas (6.2)
Café de Flore – Jean-Marc Vallée (5.0)
The Cat Vanishes – Carlos Sorin (6.0)
A Dangerous Method – David Cronenberg (5.5)
Doppelgänger Paul – Dylan Akio Smith & Kris Elgstrand (1.6)
Le Havre – Aki Kaurismäki (5.0)
Headhunters – Morten Tyldum (4.5)
The Ides of March – George Clooney (5.6)
Keyhole – Guy Maddin (5.9)
Lena – Christophe Van Rompaey (5.2)
Pariah – Dee Rees (5.8)
A Separation – Asghar Farhadi (7.4)
Shame – Steve McQueen (4.5)
Take This Waltz – Sarah Polley (4.8)
Think of Me – Bryan Wizemann (3.7)
388 Arletta Ave. – Randall Cole (4.1)

Titles That Are Missing Because I Already Saw Them in Cannes:
Arirang – Kim Ki-Duk (1.5)
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius (4.3)
Beloved – Christophe Honoré (4.0)
Breathing – Karl Markovics (4.9)
Dreileben – Beats Being Dead – Christian Petzold (5.7)
Dreileben – Don’t Follow Me Around – Dominik Graf (5.1)
Dreileben – One Minute of Darkness – Christoph Hochhäusler (5.6)
Drive – Nicolas Winding Refn (7.2)
Elena – Andrey Zvyagintsev (7.1)
Footnote – Joseph Cedar (2.7)
Good Bye – Mohammad Rasoulof (6.2)
Habemus Papam – Nanni Moretti (5.3)
House of Tolerance – Bertrand Bonello (8.0) [I’m seeing this at TIFF anyway, because it rules]
The Kid with a Bike – Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne (6.5)
Martha Marcy May Marlene – Sean Durkin (7.4)
Melancholia – Lars von Trier (8.3)
Michael – Markus Schleinzer (5.0)
Miss Bala – Gerardo Naranjo (5.2)
Mushrooms – Vimukthi Jayasundara (5.8)
Once Upon A Time in Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan (7.9)
Oslo, August 31 – Joachim Trier (4.7)
The Other Side of Sleep – Rebecca Daly (2.8)
Outside Satan – Bruno Dumont (6.3)
Play – Ruben Östlund (6.9)
Porfirio – Alejandro Landes (6.4)
Restless – Gus Van Sant (4.8)
The Silver Cliff – Karim Aïnouz (6.6)
The Skin I Live In– Pedro Almodóvar (5.9)
Sleeping Beauty – Julia Leigh (5.5)
This is Not a Film – Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (6.9)
Volcano – Rúnar Rúnarsson (3.8)
We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lynne Ramsay (3.7)

This post will be updated with each new announcement.

********UPDATE!!! – to make this list a bit more universally helpful, I’m making it less specific to what I’ve seen. I’ll still brag about all of the titles I already saw at Cannes (or elsewhere) with a SEEN IT tag, but those will otherwise be marked in the appropriate colour. Also, if I’ve seen it AND recommend it (above 5.0), there’ll be a cute little ‘ * ‘ preceding the title.

Annnnd in case it isn’t obvious (it probably isn’t), there is an ascending priority going down the key below. So, for a film like Martha Marcy May Marlene, which played at Sundance and Cannes, has a firm release date in October, and might show up in the NYFF lineup, it’ll be coloured for COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU, because of all of the applicable colour choices, that one is the lowest on my key (why is it the lowest on my key? because TIFF charges $20 per ticket, and half of these films are never heard from again, even if they’re very good). If it didn’t have the release date firmed up, it’d be coloured CANNES gold (it’s gold). Something like A Simple Life would be the ON THE FENCE ‘you-should-prolly-get-that-checked-out’ urine yellow, but since it’s playing Venice, it’s the VENICE mauve-ish colour. If it eventually ends up in the NYFF lineup, it’ll become cyan. If it ends up getting slapped with a November 23 limited release date in North America… hopefully you get the idea. NO THANK YOU trumps all, because no child should be left behind. *********

Key:
35mm – this movie will be screened from a film print (as per the festival’s website)

ON THE FENCE – intriguing; OR decent word from Berlin, SXSW, Sundance, Locarno, or Karlovy Vary.
PRIORITY – one of my most anticipated for 2011; a lock for my schedule.
CANNES – played in a Cannes section somewhere; I’ll probably see it if I haven’t already.
VENICE – playing in planet’s 2nd best festival; Comp. titles w/o dire reviews will land on my schedule.
NYFF – will be on my schedule (if film plays NYFF and Venice/Cannes, it’ll be this color).
COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU – firm theatrical release date in 2011; will not see at TIFF.
WAVELENGTHS – I tend to see all of them.
NO THANK YOU – get this mess out of my face.

Special Presentations (68)
11 Flowers – Wang Xiaoshuai, World Premiere
50/50 – Jonathan Levine, World Premiere
360 – Fernando Meirelles, World Premiere 35mm
Afghan Luke – Mike Clattenburg, North American Premiere 35mm
Americano – Mathieu Demy, World Premiere 35mm
Anonymous – Roland Emmerich, World Premiere
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius, Toronto Premiere SEEN IT
A Better Life – Cédric Khan, World Premiere
Breakaway – Robert Lieberman, World Premiere
Burning Man – Jonathan Teplitzky, World Premiere
Café de Flore – Jean-Marc Vallée, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
The Cardboard Village – Ermanno Olmi, International Premiere
Chicken with Plums – Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud, North American Premiere
Coriolanus – Ralph Fiennes, North American Premiere 35mm
Countdown – Huh Jong-ho, World Premiere 35mm
Damsels in Distress – Whit Stillman, North American Premiere 35mm
Dark Horse – Todd Solondz, North American Premiere
Death of a Superhero – Ian FitzGibbon, World Premiere
The Deep Blue Sea – Terence Davies, World Premiere 35mm
The Descendants – Alexander Payne, World Premiere 35mm
* Drive – Nicolas Winding Refn, Canadian Premiere SEEN IT
Edwin Boyd – Nathan Morlando, World Premiere 35mm
Elles – Malgorzata Szumowska, World Premiere
The Eye of the Storm – Fred Schepisi, International Premiere
The First Man – Gianni Amelio, World Premiere 35mm
Friends With Kids – Jennifer Westfeldt, World Premiere 35mm
Goon – Michael Dowse, World Premiere
* Habemus Papam – Nanni Moretti, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Headhunters – Morten Tyldum, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Hick – Derick Martini, World Premiere 35mm
The Hunter – Daniel Nettheim, World Premiere
In Darkness – Agnieszka Holland, World Premiere 35mm
Intruders – Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, World Premiere
Jeff Who Lives at Home – Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass, World Premiere
* Keyhole – Guy Maddin, World Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Killer Joe – William Friedkin, North American Premiere
Life Without Principle – Johnnie To, North American Premiere
Like Crazy – Drake Doremus, International Premiere
Low Life – Nicolas Klotz, Elisabeth Perceval, North American Premiere
Machine Gun Preacher – Marc Forster, World Premiere
* Martha Marcy May Marlene – Sean Durkin, Canadian Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Mausam (Seasons of Love) – Pankaj Kapur, World Premiere 35mm
* Melancholia – Lars von Trier, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Monsieur Lazhar – Philippe Falardeau, North American Premiere 35mm
The Moth Diaries – Mary Harron, North American Premiere
My Worst Nightmare – Anne Fontaine, World Premiere
The Oranges – Julian Farino, World Premiere
Pearl Jam Twenty – Cameron Crowe, World Premiere
Rampart – Oren Moverman, World Premiere
Rebellion – Mathieu Kassovitz, World Premiere
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Lasse Hallstrom, World Premiere 35mm
Shame – Steve McQueen, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
A Simple Life – Ann Hui, North American Premiere
* The Skin I Live In- Pedro Almodóvar, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* Sleeping Beauty – Julia Leigh, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Take Shelter – Jeff Nichols, Canadian Premiere
Ten Year – Jamie Linden, World Premiere 35mm
Terraferma – Emanuele Crialese, International Premiere 35mm
That Summer – Philippe Garrel, North American Premiere
Trishna – Michael Winterbottom, World Premiere
Twixt – Francis Ford Coppola, World Premiere
Tyrannosaur – Paddy Considine, Canadian Premiere 35mm
Violet & Daisy – Geoffrey Fletcher, World Premiere
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale – Wei Te-Sheng, North American Premiere
We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lynne Ramsay, Canadian Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Where Do We Go Now? – Nadine Labaki, International Premiere
Woman in the Fifth – Pawel Pawlikowski, World Premiere 35mm
Wuthering Heights – Andrea Arnold, North American Premiere

Galas (20)
Albert Nobbs – Rodrigo Garcia, World Premiere
The Awakening – Nick Murphy, World Premiere
Beloved – Christophe Honoré, International Premiere SEEN IT
Butter – Jim Field Smith, World Premiere
A Dangerous Method – David Cronenberg, North American Premiere
From The Sky Down – Davis Guggenheim, World Premiere
A Happy Event – Rémi Bezancon, World Premiere
Hysteria – Tanya Wexler, World Premiere
* The Ides of March – George Clooney, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Killer Elite – Gary McKendry, World Premiere
The Lady – Luc Besson, World Premiere
Machine Gun Preacher – Marc Forster, World Premiere 35mm
Moneyball – Bennett Miller, World Premiere
Page Eight – David Hare, International Premiere
Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding – Bruce Beresford, World Premiere
Starbuck – Ken Scott, North American Premiere 35mm
Take this Waltz – Sarah Polley, World Premiere SEEN IT
Trespass – Joel Schumacher, World Premiere 35mm
Winnie – Darrell J. Roodt, World Premiere
W.E. – Madonna, North American Premiere

Vanguard (9)
Carré Blanc – Jean-Baptiste Leonetti, World Premiere
Doppelgänger Paul – Dylan Akio Smith & Kris Elgstrand, World Premiere SEEN IT
Generation P – Victor Ginzburg, North American Premiere
Headshot – Pen-ek Ratanaruang, World Premiere
i am a good person/ i am a bad person – Ingrid Veninger, World Premiere
Love and Bruises – Lou Ye, North American Premiere 35mm
Oslo, August 31 – Joachim Trier, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Snowtown – Justin Kurzel, North American Premiere 35mm
The Year of the Tiger – Sebastián Lelio, North American Premiere 35mm

TIFF Kids (4)
First Position – Bess Kargman, World Premiere
The Flying Machine – Martin Clapp, Geoff Lindsey and Dorota Kobiela, International Premiere
A Letter to Momo – Hiroyuki Okiura, World Premiere
A Monster in Paris – Bibo Bergeron, World Premiere

Real to Reel (26)
Arirang – Kim Ki-Duk, North American Premiere SEEN IT
The Boy Who Was King – Andrey Paounov, World Premiere
Comic-Con: Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope – Morgan Spurlock, World Premiere
Crazy Horse – Frederick Wiseman, North American Premiere
Dark Girls – Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry, World Premiere
Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell – Rithy Panh, International Premiere
The Education of Auma Obama – Branwen Okpako, World Premiere
Gerhard Richter Painting – Corinna Belz, International Premiere 35mm
Girl Model – Ashley Sabin and David Redmon, World Premiere
I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful – Jonathan Demme, North American Premiere
In My Mother’s Arms – Atia Al Daradji and Mohamed Al Daradji, World Premiere
Into the Abyss – Werner Herzog, World Premiere
Last Call at the Oasis – Jessica Yu, World Premiere
The Last Dogs of Winter – Costa Botes, World Premiere
The Last Gladiators – Alex Gibney, World Premiere
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory – Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, World Premiere
Paul Williams Still Alive – Stephen Kessler, World Premiere
Pink Ribbons, Inc – Léa Pool, World Premiere 35mm
Samsara – Ron Fricke, World Premiere
Sarah Palin – You Betcha! – Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill, World Premiere
The Story of Film: An Odyssey – Mark Cousins, World Premiere
Surviving Progress – Mathieu Roy & Harold Crooks, World Premiere 35mm
The Tall Man – Tony Krawitz, International Premiere
Undefeated – Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin, International Premiere
Urbanized – Gary Hustwit, World Premiere
Whores’ Glory – Michael Glawogger, North American Premiere 35mm

Midnight Madness (10)
The Day – Douglas Aarniokoski, World Premiere
God Bless America – Bobcat Goldthwait, World Premiere
The Incident – Alexandre Courtes, World Premiere
Kill List – Ben Wheatley, Canadian Premiere 35mm
Livid – Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, World Premiere
Lovely Molly – Eduardo Sanchez, World Premiere
The Raid – Gareth Evans, World Premiere
Sleepless Night – Frederic Jardin, World Premiere 35mm
Smuggler – Katsuhito Ishii, World Premiere 35mm
You’re Next – Adam Wingard, World Premiere

Masters (13)
Almayer’s Folly – Chantal Akerman, North American Premiere 35mm
Faust – Alexander Sokurov, North American Premiere 35mm
Hard Core Logo II – Bruce McDonald, Toronto Premiere 35mm
Le Havre – Aki Kaurismäki, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
I Wish – Kore-Eda, International Premiere 35mm
* The Kid with a Bike – Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
* Once Upon A Time in Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Canadian Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
* Outside Satan – Bruno Dumont, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Pina – Wim Wenders, Canadian Premiere
Restless – Gus Van Sant, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Snows of Kilimanjaro – Robert Guédiguian, North American Premiere
* This is Not a Film – Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Toronto Premiere SEEN IT
The Turin Horse – Béla Tarr, North American Premiere 35mm

City to City (10)
Caprichosos de San Telmo – Alison Murray, World Premiere
* The Cat Vanishes – Carlos Sorin, International Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Crane World – Pablo Trapero 35mm
Fatherland – Nicolás Prividera, World Premiere
Invasion – Hugo Santiago, Canadian Premiere 35mm
A Mysterious World – Rodrigo Moreno, North American Premiere 35mm
Pompeya – Tamae Garateguy, North American Premiere
The Stones – Román Cárdenas, International Premiere
The Student – Santiago Mitre, North American Premiere
Vaquero – Juan Minujín, International Premiere

Discovery (25)
Las Acacias – Pablo Giorgelli, North American Premiere 35mm
Alois Nebel – Tomáš Lunák, North American Premiere
Among Us – Marco van Geffen, North American Premiere 35mm
Avalon – Axel Petersén, World Premiere
Back to Stay – Milagros Mumenthaler, North American Premiere 35mm
Behold the Lamb – John McIlduff, North American Premiere
Breathing – Karl Markovics, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best – Ryan O’Nan, World Premiere
Bunohan – Dain Said, World Premiere 35mm
Cuchera – Joseph Israel Laban, International Premiere
The Good Son – Zaida Bergroth, International Premiere
Habibi – Susan Youssef, North American Premiere
Hanaan – Ruslan Pak, North American Premiere
Historias Que So Existem Quando Lembradas – Julia Murat, North American Premiere 35mm
The Invader – Nicolas Provost, North American Premiere
J’aime regarder les filles – Frédéric Louf, International Premiere 35mm
Lost in Paradise – Ngoc Dang Vu, World Premiere 35mm
The Other Side of Sleep – Rebecca Daly, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
* Pariah – Dee Rees, International Premiere SEEN IT
Roman’s Circuit – Sebastián Brahm, World Premiere 35mm
Summer Games – Rolando Colla, International Premiere 35mm
The Sword Identity – Haofeng Xu, North American Premiere
Twiggy – Emmanuelle Millet, World Premiere 35mm
Twilight Portrait – Angelina Nikonova, North American Premiere
Volcano – Rúnar Rúnarsson, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT

Canada First! (7)
Wetlands – Guy Édoin, North American Premiere 35mm
* Amy George – Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas, Canadian Premiere SEEN IT
Leave It On The Floor – Sheldon Larry, Canadian Premiere
Nuit #1 – Anne Émond, World Premiere 35mm
The Odds – Simon Davidson, World Premiere
The Patron Saints – Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky, World Premiere
Romeo Eleven – Ivan Grbovic, North American Premiere 35mm

Canada Open Vault (1)
Hard Core Logo – Bruce McDonald 35mm

Contemporary World Cinema (51)
388 Arletta Avenue – Randall Cole, World Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Always Brando – Ridha Béhi, World Premiere
Azhagarsamy’s Horse – Suseendran, International Premiere
Beauty – Oliver Hermanus, North American Premiere 35mm
Billy Bishop Goes to War – Barbara Willis-Sweete, World Premiere
Blood of my Blood – João Canijo, World Premiere
Bonsái – Cristián Jiménez, North American Premiere
Color of the Ocean – Maggie Peren, World Premiere 35mm
Death for Sale – Faouzi Bensaidi, World Premiere 35mm
* Elena – Andrey Zvyagintsev, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Extraterrestrial – Nacho Vigalondo, World Premiere
Footnote – Joseph Cedar, North American Premiere SEEN IT
The Forgiveness of Blood – Joshua Marston, North American Premiere 35mm
Free Men – Ismaël Ferroukhi, International Premiere
From Up on Poppy Hill – Goro Miyazaki, International Premiere 35mm
A Funny Man – Martin P. Zandvliet, International Premiere 35mm
Future Lasts Forever – Ozcan Alper, World Premiere
* Good Bye – Mohammad Rasoulof, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Goodbye First Love – Mia Hansen-Løve, Canadian Premiere 35mm
Guilty – Vincent Garenq, North American Premiere 35mm
Gypsy – Martin Šulík, North American Premiere 35mm
Heleno – José Henrique Fonseca, World Premiere
Himizu – Sion Sono, North American Premiere 35mm
Hotel Swooni – Kaat Beels, International Premiere 35mm
I’m Yours – Leonard Farlinger, World Premiere 35mm
Islands – Stefano Chiantini, World Premiere
Juan of the Dead – Alejandro Brugués, World Premiere 35mm
Land of Oblivion – Michale Boganim, North American Premiere
Last Days in Jerusalem – Tawfik Abu Wael, North American Premiere
Last Winter – John Shank, North American Premiere 35mm
Lena – Christophe Van Rompaey, World Premiere SEEN IT
Lipstikka – Jonathan Sagall, North American Premiere
Lucky – Avie Luthra, World Premiere 35mm
Man on Ground – Akin Omotoso, World Premiere
Michael – Ribhu Dasgupta, World Premiere
Michael – Markus Schleinzer, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* Miss Bala – Gerardo Naranjo, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Mr. Tree – Han Jie, North American Premiere 35mm
Omar Killed Me – Roschdy Zem, North American Premiere 35mm
People Mountain People Sea – Cai Shangjun, North American Premiere
Restoration – Yossi Madmony, Canadian Premiere 35mm
Rose – Wojciech Smarzowski, International Premiere
Rough Hands – Mohamed Asli, World Premiere 35mm
* A Separation – Asghar Farhadi, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* The Silver Cliff – Karim Aïnouz, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Sisters&Brothers – Carl Bessai, World Premiere
Sons of Norway – Jens Lien, International Premiere
Superclásico – Ole Christian Madsen, North American Premiere 35mm
Think of Me – Bryan Wizemann, World Premiere SEEN IT
UFO in her Eyes – Xiaolu Guo, World Premiere 35mm
Union Square – Nancy Savoca, World Premiere
Your Sister’s Sister – Lynn Shelton, World Premiere

Visions (20)
ALPS – Yorgos Lanthimos, North American Premiere 35mm
Century of Birthing – Lav Diaz, North American Premiere
Cut – Amir Naderi, North American Premiere
* Dreileben – Beats Being Dead – Christian Petzold, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* Dreileben – Don’t Follow Me Around – Dominik Graf, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* Dreileben – One Minute of Darkness – Christoph Hochhäusler, North American Premiere SEEN IT
Fable of the Fish – Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr., International Premiere
* House of Tolerance – Bertrand Bonello, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
KOTOKO – Shinya Tsukamoto, North American Premiere
The Last Christeros – Matias Meyer, World Premiere
The Loneliest Planet – Julia Loktev, North American Premiere 35mm
Monsters Club – Toshiaki Toyoda, World Premiere 35mm
The Mountain – Ghassan Salhab, North American Premiere
* Mushrooms – Vimukthi Jayasundara, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* Play – Ruben Östlund, North American Premiere SEEN IT
* Porfirio – Alejandro Landes, North American Premiere 35mm SEEN IT
Random – Debbie Tucker Green, International Premiere
The River Used to be A Man – Jan Zabeil, International Premiere
Swirl – Helvecio Marins Jr. and Clarissa Campolina, North American Premiere 35mm
This Side of Resurrection – Joaquim Sapinho, World Premiere

Wavelengths (25 [3 are feature-length])
Wavelengths 1: Analogue Arcadia – Tacita Dean, Nick Collins, Sophie Michael, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ben Rivers, Raya Martin, & Joshua Bonnetta Some 16mm & 35mm
Wavelengths 2: Twenty Cigarettes – James Benning
Wavelengths 3: Serial Rhythms – Adriana Salazar Arroyo, Alina Rudnitskaya, John Price, Joyce Wieland, Rose Lowder, Jonathan Schwartz, Karen Johannesen, T. Marie, & Kevin Jerome Everson Some 16mm & 35mm
Wavelengths 4: Space is the Place – Chris Kennedy, Mark Lewis, Neïl Beloufa, Eriko Sonoda, Ute Aurand, & Blake Williams (AKA me) Some 16mm & 35mm
Wavelengths 5: The Return/Aberration of Light – Nathaniel Dorsky & Sandra Gibson, Luis Recoder and Olivia Block 16mm & 35mm

Mavericks (9)
Barrymore – Erik Canuel
Deepa Mehta and Salman Rushdie
In Conversation With… Francis Ford Coppola
The Island President – Jon Shenk, World Premiere
The Love We Make – Albert Maysles & Bradley Kaplan, World Premiere
Neil Young Life – Jonathan Demme, World Premiere
Sony Pictures Classics: 20 Years in the Business
Tahrir 2011: The good, the bad, and the politician – Tamer Ezzat, Ayten Amin, & Amr Salama,
Tilda Swinton

Future Projections (11)
1. James Franco and Gus Van Sant: Memories of Idaho (1991; 2010 and 2011) – World Premiere [TIFF Bell Lightbox Atrium, 350 King Street West. September 8 to 18]
2. Mr. Brainwash: Mr. Brainwash in Toronto (2011) – World Premiere [David Pecaut Square, 55 John Street, September 8 to 18, and in collaboration with Gallery One, 121 Scollard Street, September 8 to October 22]
3. Peter Lynch: Buffalo Days (2011) – World Premiere [Thorsell Spirit House, 100 Queen’s Park. September 8 to 18]
4. Eve Sussman | Rufus Corporation: whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir (2009-2011) [NFB Mediatheque, 150 John Street. September 9 to 11]
5. Gregory Crewdson: Sanctuary (2009) – Canadian Premiere [CONTACT Gallery, 80 Spadina Avenue, suite 310. September 8 to October 22]
6. Nicholas and Sheila Pye: Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board (2011) – World Premiere [Birch Libralato, 129 Tecumseth Street, September 8 to October 15]
7. Duane Hopkins: Sunday (2009) – North American Premiere [MOCCA, 952 Queen Street West. September 9 to 18]
8. David Rokeby: Plot Against Time (2007-2011) – World Premiere [The Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen Street West. September 8 to 18]
9. * Ben Rivers: Slow Action (2010) – Toronto Premiere [Gallery TPW, 56 Ossington Avenue. September 8 to October 1] SEEN IT
10. Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky: Road Movie (2011) – World Premiere [O’Born Contemporary offsite, 51 Wolseley St. 5th Floor, September 8 to 18]
11. David Lamelas: Time as Activity (Buenos Aires) (2010) – International Premiere [Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, ste. 124, 401 Richmond Street West. September 8 to 18]

View 2011 TIFF Future Projections in a larger map

Short Cuts Canada (43)
4am – Janine Fung, North American Premiere
Afternoon Tea – DJ Parmar, World Premiere
Combustion – Renaud Hallée, World Premiere
Derailments – Chelsea McMullan, World Premiere
The Devil’s Due – Alexander Gorelick & Adam Shaheen, World Premiere
Doubles with Slight Pepper – Ian Harnarine, World Premiere
The Encounter – Nicholas Pye, World Premiere
A Film Portrait on Reconstructing 12 Possibilities that Preceded the Disappearance of Zoe Dean Drum – Eduardo Menz, World Premiere 35mm
The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar – Igor Drljaca, World Premiere
Good Boy – Isaac Cravit, World Premiere
Heart of Rhyme – Cory Bowles, World Premiere
Hidden Driveway – Sarah Goodman, World Premiere
Hope – Pedro Pires, World Premiere
If I Can Fly – Yoakim Bélanger, International Premiere
Issues – Enrico Colantoni, World Premiere
Lie Down and Die – Kyle Sanderson, World Premiere
Little Theatres: Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage – Stephanie Dudley, North American Premiere
Mandeep – Darrin Klimek, World Premiere
No Words Came Down – Ryan Flowers & Lisa Pham, World Premiere
Of events – Mathieu Tremblay, World Premiere 35mm
One Night With You – Jeanne Leblanc, World Premiere 35mm
Ora – Philippe Baylaucq, World Premiere
The Paris Quintet in Practice Makes Perfect – Benjamin Schuetze, World Premiere
Patch Town – Craig Goodwill, World Premiere
Pathways – Dusty Mancinelli, World Premiere
The Pedestrian Jar – Evan Morgan, World Premiere
The Red Virgin – Sheila Pye, World Premiere
A River in the Woods – Christian Sparkes, Toronto Premiere
La Ronde – Sophie Goyette, North American Premiere 35mm
Solar Wind – Ian Lagarde, World Premiere 35mm
Sorry, Rabbi – Mark Slutsky, World Premiere
Spirit of the Bluebird – Xstine Cook & Jesse Gouchey, Canadian Premiere
Sundays – Jean-Guillaume Bastien, World Premiere 35mm
Surveillant – Yan Giroux, World Premiere
Tabula Rasa – Matthew Rankin, World Premiere 35mm
Throat Song – Miranda de Pencier, World Premiere
Trotteur – Arnaud Brisebois & Francis Leclerc, Canadian Premiere 35mm
Up In Cottage Country – Simon Ennis, World Premiere
Waning – Gina Haraszti, World Premiere
Water – Raha Shirazi, World Premiere
We Ate the Children Last – Andrew Cividino, World Premiere
The Weight of Emptiness – Alain Fournier, World Premiere
A Yodeling Farmer – Mike Maryniuk & John Scoles, World Premiere

Being out of Toronto until the end of August has prompted me to take a bit of a break before TIFF takes over my life. It’ll also allow me to watch some stuff that is above my capacity for any sort of thoughtful reflection without the pressure to write capsules for them (like Hellboy, apparently). I’ll still update the TIFF colour thing on Tuesday when the full lineup comes out, and I’ll post a top 50 of what I’m most likely to check out a few days later. And, if I see anything, it’ll go in the Film Log, as usual. Cheers!

 
 
Moonstruck (1987, Norman Jewison) – 6.1
 
A bit shaky, but gets the job done better than most straight rom-coms do. No single character is particularly likeable or worthy of much sympathy, but the cumulative force of this high-strung family coalesces and brought a lump to my throat. As Shanley himself put it, it makes the idea of ‘justice’ out to be the most damning thing to ever happen to the idea of ‘family’. If these people tried even a little to judge each other based on what they all actually deserved, there would be no hope or love left for any of them. If that all sounds a bit too Sister Sledge for its own good, it’s because it is.
 
 
The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010, David Robert Mitchell) – 5.8
 
Just checking to see when this film is supposed to take place, and all (lack of) information suggests that it’s set in the present. I get that it’s probably aiming for a timeless quality or nostalgia, but the absence of cell phones and internet in the lives of these couple dozen upper-middle class teenagers is distractingly anachronistic, missing an opportunity to really take a glance at how adolescent social spheres are shaped in 2010. Mixing signals about the setting even further was the ambiguously non-diegetic incorporation of Beirut’s ‘Elephant Gun’ during a leisurely bike ride, which suggested a relation to modern day twee-ness. This isn’t to say that I need historically accurate coordination between soundtracks, settings, and subjects (House of Tolerance confuses these traits to euphoric effect). What it seems to be doing, strictly, is reminiscing about a particular childhood activity that doesn’t carry over into adulthood, for whatever reason, and evoking the hazy identity crises that correspond to that period in life. What this results in is a well-observed yet light-as-a-feather depiction of kids’ fickle feelings and ill-advised decisions. Would this have greatly benefited from representations of some non-suburbanite, middle-to-upper-middle class characters? Probably (I really have to try to forget how enraged I would be if I were a lower-class teen watching this film). And we’re possibly still at the stage where an appearance from twitter, facebook, texting, etc. would be too swaying toward that ‘topic’, but a coming-of-age film that is about such a generic activity is deprived of a much-needed edge (and the dubious morality of Scott’s crush on the Abbey twins is not the kind of edge I’m talking about).
 
 
Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick) – 6.6
 
Well, I guess I can like a film with a gigantic clash of huge armies a bit more than Lawrence of Arabia, after all. I still think – as I did with Lawrence – that the big battle is overwrought and noisy filler that makes the post-intermission stretch significantly less affecting than the masterful set-up, but the writing is so sharp and the scope so rhapsodic for the entire duration that it ends up wowing more often than not. The second half is also laced with scenes of poignance that border on excess schmaltz – the ‘I’m Spartacus’ bit; the reunion with Varinia; the final scene – that are rousing but with a heavy-handed precision that is slightly aggravating, where the earlier moments (there are many in the gladiator training stages, a majority contained within a single Kirk Douglas gaze) achieve a greater weight because of their modesty.
 
 

 
 
Nights of Cabiria (1957, Federico Fellini) – Inc.
 
I walked into the theatre anywhere from 5-10 minutes after the movie started (the TIFF Bell Lightbox usually starts evening screenings at 6:30, but today they scheduled it for 6:15; I will have to look at every ticket from now on), so I had no idea if/how what I’d missed would impact my reading of the 95% of the movie I was watching (having just seen those first 5-10 minutes online, I’m aware that my experience would have been significantly different, especially how I responded to the ending). It’s not even worth trying to say anything else.
 
 
The Goddess (1960, Satyajit Ray) – 7.8
 
Affecting in a myriad of ways – the male sense of displacement when a woman leapfrogs (literally) overnight into a position of superiority; a marriage crisis drama, in which one partner becomes aware that he/she can do more with his/her life, but only without the other partner; most directly, a caustic portrait of withering psyches after they’ve become obsessively idolatrous. It’s a perfect balance, then, of personal, political, and religious turmoils without overselling any one theme. That it accomplishes this in lusciously framed compositions in shimmering black & white photography (this was one of the few instances where the idiom ‘the silver screen’ was entirely justified) is just spoiling us.
 
 
Take This Waltz (2011, Sarah Polley) – 4.8