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
 

 

 
 
I Vitelloni (1953, Federico Fellini) – 3.5
 
Moved into the ‘re-visit’ pile for, let’s say, 10 years from now, because clearly I’m missing something at the moment that allows everyone else to connect with these characters. I tried to see if it was just a fluke mood I was in by watching some clips a couple of days later on youtube to see if they’d play any better for me, but no dice. It’s likely an aversion to Fellini’s tell-don’t-suggest style, which is evident, even at this early Neorealist stage in his career, from the opening montage introducing the characters. The narrator details, “Another day has come to an end. Nothing to do but go home, as usual” (italics mine), followed a couple of minute later by, “Just like every other night, only Moraldo walks the empty streets.” Perhaps this should be forgivable given that it’s just an opening, stage-setting bit of background info, but in this case, the ‘as usual’ and ‘just like every other night’ seem to be what the rest of the film actually details. For a film about the numbing mental and physical stasis of post-adolescent manhood, would it not be more poignant, compelling, engaging, etc. to actually learn of their lives’ monotony by experiencing it with them? As promised, these men have nothing to do to but lounge around, sleep with women who aren’t their wives, and partake in mildly amusing yet fleeting shenanigans, only to climax in a fairly beautiful escape for Moraldo, whose panning visions of his friends sleeping as he takes off for Rome effectively whisked me off into the relatively elating task of biking home. This is all more or less what happens in Diner (below), which is delightful; having watched Levinson’s film immediately after I Vitelloni just makes me suspect that Fellini’s portrait of bumbling hill-peakers is playing at a frequency that I am deaf to.
 
 
Diner (1982, Barry Levinson) – 6.9
 
I was surprised to learn that this was not my first Levinson experience (that would be Sphere, which I loved and lobbied for endlessly in middle school), and, more so, that this was nearly optioned into a TV series with Michael Madsen as Boogie (there was a 30-minute pilot, but it doesn’t look like it really got off the ground). Interesting, though, that the TV show was supposed to focus more on the wives, because the women in Levinson’s feature are the standout, with an extra special mention for Ellen Barkin, whose turn in the record cataloging fight would be enough to win me over for forever if her part in Shit Year hadn’t already done so. A film that will almost certainly shoot up with successive visits, it captured perfectly the crippling and often insanity-inducing incompatibilities that must be coped with for a relationship to work.
 
 
Rome, Open City (1945, Roberto Rossellini) – 7.6
 
Kind of the same idea, toward the end, as I Confess, but with grueling stakes that go beyond vanilla movie violence as the consequence. The first half sets up sympathetic characters with affectionate aspirations in life, and the brutal brevity with which these lives are obliterated is upsetting on a visceral level. A shocking act of violence removes a central character to the webbed narrative with whose life we’ve very much become complicit, closes the curtain on the first half, and does not relent as the second half ultimately verges on torture porn. The style is a well-seasoned balance of neorealism and Hollywood studio flair – the hopefulness of Hollywood crushed by the Italian tinges of wartime fatalism. Also, it ends up as a pretty damning portrayal of the consequences of catholic rituals, pretty much opposing Hitchcock’s heroizing of his faithful priest head-on.
 
 
Bitter Rice (1949, Giuseppe De Santis) – 6.8
 
Captures a place, era, and struggle with supreme detail despite it’s classical flourishes (say what the programmers will, this film does not belong in an Italian Neorealism retrospective unless it is meant as an example of contemporary filmmaking going against the movement. Sure, it’s shot on location, but these are budding and seasoned actors in highly dramatic, noir-ish scenarios, lensed by intricately – not to mention elegantly – choreographed shots and set-ups. Even the pessimistic finale ended up feeling like a crowd-pleaser). The piles of rice become like sand dunes, locating the mythical-looking jewelled choker in a mise-en-scene fit for something more like some kind of ancient amulet. And it seems to have some sort of voodoo power anyway on these women, sending those who crave it (with ‘it’ being the choker, but also, basically, wealth & sex) into howling, writhing hysterics. Glides along toward its finale, which isn’t quite tragic, but nonetheless inevitable as if legend, with flair and nary a wasted moment. Had a strong sudden impact, but the airbags are deflating, and I presume this will not play well on another look (grumbles about an upcoming Criterion edition would facilitate that, however). Enthralling tracking shots of the possessed women were startling, terrifying, unsettling, but perhaps it was merely effective because, in the midst of a Neorealist retro, my expectations were for something far more subdued.
 

Umberto D. (1952, Vittorio De Sica) – 7.0

So Wendy and Lucy really was Reichardt’s stab at Italian Neorealism. It’s not the dogs’ ‘dogness’ that makes these films’ finales so heartbreaking, obviously, but their inabilities to comprehend the reasons for their future heartbreak (yes, I believe these dogs will be heartbroken when they realize they’ve been bastardized), which first hits Umberto, as he is dismissed by society, thus spreading to the dog’s fate. The landlady is too villainous, and the young girl too self-serving, but kudos for not making Umberto himself very sympathetic. After he throws poor Flike onto his landlady as revenge for letting him loose, he becomes just as laughably misbehaved and irrational as the other wretches patrolling Rome circa 1952.

The Future (2011, Miranda July) – 7.6

[Spoilers throughout] Goddamn the haters for making me feel guilty for pretty much loving Miranda July. Treating life as if every gesture were a performance art act, she transcends the tweeness by accumulating solid, simple ideas that resonate on a purely human level, and then obliterating the airy worlds of her protagonists with a hit of real-world consequences. Sure there’s the cat (which is not a narrator, by the way; he tells no story but his own), and she plays the same Beach House song about two dozen times (a great song, at least). The worst that any of the first half of this film could be charged is for being ‘too cute’ – perhaps the same as quirky, maybe even hipster, and almost certainly twee. But it’s building up these layers to present a lifestyle that is incapable of really dealing with the real world – genuine drama and pain and suffering: the things that real quirkfests love to forget about. There’s a cat that speaks (or probably just thinks) in English, what’s the worst that could happen? These guys are so damn cute for each other, they’re adopting a wounded cat and cancelling their internet service. Too cute. Things derail, though, when one of Sophie’s (July) gestures (she calls a guy that drew a kitschy portrait of his daughter, and tries to determine where they are in relation to each other by looking at the clouds) gets away from her and starts to become part of a different kind of lifestyle…a different kind of movie. When Marshall and Sophie first speak to each other on the telephone, and much more so when they meet in person at Marshall’s home, there is enough sexual tension to suggest where this is going, but I consciously thought to myself something like ‘if this were another movie, these people would totally start an affair or something’. And then they do. And then Jason’s magic powers to stop time become ‘real’, and the moon starts speaking, trying desperately to change the film back into what it was supposed to be, and yet Sophie’s time moves on in a kind of parallel world straight out of a Lynch film, only it’s disarmingly Normal. Like a movie playing in another room, this thread progresses at an accelerating speed that moves forward as if on a mission to get it all in before the 90 minutes are up, defiantly situating itself to end in the exact way that this film, as it began, had no chance of ending. It’s one of those films that I can only really defend by jiving with it and then acting stupefied at those who couldn’t likewise jive, but this is just a magical movie, through and through.

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950, Roberto Rossellini) – 5.1

Fine enough, but what the hell is going on with the acting? I know they’re real monks (now), but Francis’ expressions of grief are downright presentational in their stilts and hamminess. It works though, in its own way, because these men are supposed to be actively naive, forgiving, and all-loving, and their performances lent a childlike purity that made their actions even sweeter, almost precious, even.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean) – 6.3

As engaging as a huge, blockbuster epic with a climax of two gigantic armies stampeding toward each other is going to get for me. Most affecting moment is easily Lawrence’s confession that he enjoyed his execution of Gasim, which was great but unfortunately seceded by two hours more of film that essentially makes that trait clearer and more extreme. What happens when an egotistical and ambitious man who has been put in charge of a large army also finds himself to be highly sadistic? He gets the job done, that’s what. Glad I finally saw it, but it’s a bit too tidy, even at four hours, to motivate a revisitation in the future (my problem with most of the canon, hence my avoidance).

Under the Sun of Rome (1948, Renato Castellani) – 6.5

Who? What? Huh? Why I’d never heard of this film or filmmaker before now boggles the mind. This is a major entry in Italian Neorealism, with photography heavily influenced by French Poetic realists, and some of the most superb non-professional acting I’ve yet encountered. Little touches, like the shots during the boxing match when the fighter is punching Ciro as shown through the perspective of a jug of water, just elevate it even more above the films typical of the era. Features some of the starkest tonal shifts pre-dating Cassavetes, usually between people (Ciro’s make-up then breakup with Iris), but also extending to the mise-en-scene as it abruptly puts on the breaks of adolescent summertime patrolling to harsh war-time panic. All of the key characters seem to love and hate each other, always. I’m not yet prepared to address the blatant homoeroticism going on between Ciro and Geppa, but it’s totally there in the ‘Primo tempo’.

City of Women (1980, Federico Fellini) – 5.0

As pointed out by my new friend Scott, this is essentially an amalgam of 8.5 and Casanova, for better and worse. For all of the attention drawn to Fellini’s fascination with Jung, he sure shows a low capacity for subtext. Angry feminists, copious phalli, a rooster mounting a cat (get it?), and a final shot of a train rushing into a tunnel (DO YOU GET IT???), he tries to reconcile how juvenile archetypes shaped, tortured, and nurtured his sexuality; it is at once too universal and obnoxiously self-absorbed. The film is essentially a trip through Fellini’s Phallic stage (to mix psychoanalysts’ metaphors) which potentially never reached latency, explored as a dissection of his dream-state psyche. While many of my favorite films could be described that way, it is really only valuable when coming from those whose psyches house more complex desires and thoughts that Fellini’s apparently does.

The Swimmer (1968, Frank Perry) – 6.6

Love the idea, but the execution is hit-and miss (the ‘hits’, though, are doozies). I had to look up Nathaniel Dorsky’s wikipedia page to make sure that he didn’t start making films after this – his first shorts, which I’ve recently seen in Chris Kennedy’s Early Monthly Segments at the Gladstone Art Bar (end plug), were made just a few years earlier, though Dorsky wasn’t yet making the type of work that I thought was evoked here – because there are several impressionist passages that are tied directly to Dorsky’s signature poetic style (at least, to his Compline, Aubade, and Pastourelle that played in the TIFF 2010’s Wavelengths sidebar). This isn’t even touching on the other big art extract, Hockney’s pool paintings, which he began making in ’67, just a year before this film’s release (these are probably coincidences, or maybe these guys had more connections to each other than I am able to source out). Anyway. Lancaster’s physique is really the star here; at first well-sculpted and youthful when first glimpsed emerging from the woods toward his first pool, gradually exposing scars, wrinkles, crevices, and flab that show a weathered and worn man past his prime, struggling – like all of the bourgeois elite he encounters – to retain the significance and ideals of their past. I couldn’t decide if Perry was embracing an intentionally hammy vibe striving to make this into a readymade cult picture, or if that was all just inherent in the film’s ideas and its casting of Lancaster. Either way, it downplays the weight of Ned’s deterioration – the exact opposite of an ‘awakening’ that the film’s premise hints at – and makes many moments that should be heart-wrenching into giggle-worthy cringe-inducers.

Attack the Block (2011, Joe Cornish) – 5.4

British humour has always been a bit lost on me, a fact I finally accepted when I laughed exactly four times at In the Loop. It’s a combination of my difficulty with hearing the words they’re saying, and that I know next to nothing about the cultural quirks that are the subject of so many of the jokes. Or does it all hinge on the fact that they talk funny. This is not to say that Attack the Block is a comedy that I did not appreciate because I didn’t think it was funny, but that I couldn’t imagine this generating the kind of buzz it has without its supporters thinking it was a laugh-a-minute riot, because as an alien invasion film, it’s solid, but certainly not fresh. The aliens are minimal and actually look pretty cool with their emerald-glowing teeth and opaque fur. I could also discern its socio-political value (though, again, not something I’m exactly familiar with), which gives it points for ‘saying something’. But really, it’s a predictable, structurally by-numbers film with only sketchily drawn characters and a groovy soundtrack. Cornish avoids all opportunities to let his film become necessarily unhinged, and his determination to end the film on that smile is too schematically set-up.

 
 
La Dolce Vita [1960, Federico Fellini] (7.5)

Fellini peaked early. None of the other nearly-dozen features I’ve seen have been quite as affecting. Assembling its episodes from tabloid headlines and rampant paparazzi culture from his youth, one gets the impression that he packed all of the best ingredients into one entrée, many of them (the flying Jesus and giant sea monster bookends, in particular) the most fantastical and colorful details of any of his films I’ve seen. Detailing the lifestyle of a man whose desire for glamour and hedonism conflicts with the impulse to settle down that is embedded in his (and his fiancée’s) DNA, it spells the conflicted hollowness and euphoria inherent in the life of the rich and famous, which ultimately leads them, as well as those who yearn for such a lifestyle, into insatiable unhappiness.
 
 
Paisan [1946, Roberto Rossellini] (5.7)

It was tempting to mark this as ‘Inc.’ because the print was so chopped up and many subtitles were missing, but in the end I think I got enough of it to know that it is just a set of shorts films in which some work much better than others. The portrayal of the Americans was unexpectedly multi-faceted, refusing to play them as excessively villainous or mindless (though the thick Southern accents didn’t help with that). Not sure if the fact that the Americans couldn’t remember what certain Italian characters looked like the day after spending isolated bonding time together was weak storytelling or a sly neurological racism worked into their character traits.
 
 
You Are Here [2010, Daniel Cockburn] (7.2; down from 7.7)

Handles many ideas that I’m currently grappling with, with enough DIY aesthetics, games and tests, and Wavelength references to leave me smirking the whole way through. The anecdotal structure is successful purely because the anecdotes are so provocative, and while they all deal with greater ideas of consciousness and self credited to John Searle, Cockburn positions them, returns to them so that it also becomes a dissection of the perceptive and cognitive components of movie-watching (most explicit in the film’s most chilling scene about an inventor who develops an computer eye for blind people, and then switched the programming so that everyone with the eye can only see what he sees). It is perhaps too precocious for its own good, not to mention that the compelling pedagogy of some of its sequences can cross a line into pedantically schooling the viewer, but it is undeniably inventive in its own resistance of conventional cinema logic or form, and holds itself together surprisingly well.
 
 

 
 
An Angel at My Table [1990, Jane Campion] (6.9)

I’m not quite sure why I respond so well to Campion’s deceptively conventional brand of (auto)biographical nostalgia, nor her episodic structures, which would normally leave me snoozing through their rambling, shapeless, sepia-toned running times (see: Terence Davies). There is an edge to her direction, with slightly off-timed line deliveries and lingering angles positioned at awkward heights, that makes it just, for lack of a better word, amateur enough to leave me hooked. She has a brand of quirk that isn’t manufactured, doesn’t care if it finds an audience, like she just needs an outlet and this is it. I thought this was Campion’s autobiopic until I learned it was Janet Frames (Janet as a pseudonym for Jane, poetry instead of filmmaking…not too crazy), which is as much in debt to the vibrancy and detail of Campion’s assemblage as it is to the similarity of her name to her subject’s.
 
 
Love Streams [1984, John Cassavetes] (6.4)

The one film by Cassavetes where the overwhelming positive is the filmmaking (i.e., photography, montage, lighting) rather than his usual excellence in script and direction. Viewed as the last ‘true’ film before he bastardized Big Trouble and then died an early death, it almost reads as a frankensteined greatest hits of scenes and characters from his earlier films: Sarah is clearly a resurrection of Mabel, while her relationship with Jack could be how Minnie and Seymour Moskowitz turned out after a decade or so of romance. Also, pretty sure Robert’s house was the same as the one used in Faces? Anyway, key characters are trying to convey love – a term that Cassavetes breaks his back over in an effort to abstract it further than it’s ever been – and have yet to negotiate for themselves the difference between tenderness and silliness, suggesting that while there really may not be a clearly-defined distinction between the two, it is downright toxic to display both forms simultaneously; in equal measure, they cancel each other out. The last reel of this film is a masterpiece, and a devastating final page in his oeuvre. It’s too bad that the rest of the film, while enthralling in spurts, suffers from some severe tonal imbalances, as well as some of the most self-consciously ‘heavy’ performances I’ve ever seen.
 
 
West Side Story [1961, Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise] (4.8)

Romeo and Juliet-ish take on mid-century race issues in NYC is about as gentrified as Giuliani’s Times Square. I hate that the Puerto Ricans are mostly white people in ‘brown face’, speaking in a faux-Latin accent that would get any white person’s ass justifiably kicked were it actually spoken in New York; I hate that after every musical number all of the characters pause, and then burst into cheers and high-fives to congratulate each other on the awesome choreography they just pulled off ‘spontaneously’ (I know this is kind of a signature of Broadway, but still); and I hate those god-awful songs that are not even the least bit catchy (except for maybe I Feel Pretty, and why God why do I have to have that song stuck in my head?). Loved the prolonged overture and opening with just ambient sound effects, and those sets sure are colorful. The one audacious stroke in the whole project was allowing the film to end without any of these hollow, irrational people getting to change. It ends when things are most dire and depressed, but, unlike the infinitely more incendiary Do the Right Thing (which does more or less the same thing), it feels entirely manipulative and unearned.