35 - A good age for Toronto Film Festival (TIFF)

Toronto International Film Festival (or tiff as it is affectionately known by the locals) is one of the largest and most recognised films festivals in the world. 2010 saw it turn an impressive 35.  The milestone was marked with the opening of TIFF BELL LIGHT BOX (on the corner of John and King Streets) a wonderful modern building akin to the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank, which as well as being a stand out festival venue will also be the year round home of international cinema in Toronto.

The Lightbox was made possible by numerous public donations not least of which came in the form of the land on which the building now stands by the Reitman family.  On 12th September there was a dedication and official opening which Jason Reitman  (Director of Juno, Thank you for Smoking and Up In the Air)  attended along with his family, industry and some famous acting faces including Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters II).

The Lightbox has 5 Cinemas, 2 bars, 1 cafe and  2 large exhibitions spaces. The Tim Burton exhibition which was recently a huge success at MOMA and ACMI in Melbourne will open there in October. There is also a free exibition on Essential Cinema. These are the 100 top films of all time, as voted for by Tiff programmers and attendees. These films will screen throughout the year at Bell. So for those based in Toronto you can now see great cinema all year round. And the rest of us will have to made do with the home DVD player until our next trip Toronto bound.

More details can be found at http://tiff.net/tiffbelllightbox

Tiff - Opened it's doors with this question!

And an exihibit showing extracts from the top 100 Essential Films of All Time

A quiet moment before the lines start

The Kids Are Alright - "This film is more than alright"

The Kids Are Alright was the closing night film in the 2010 Sydney Film Festival and turned out to be a real crowd pleaser.  Writer/Director Lisa Cholodenko had previously cut her teeth on other quirky and interesting films like Laurel Canyon (which has the sexyist non sex scene ever) and High Art. 

The Kids Are Alright focuses on two lesbian mums, played by Annette Benning and Julianne Moore bringing up their two teenage children. The kids decide it's time to contact their biological father (Mark Ruffalo), and secretly arrange a meeting with him. The discovery of their father changes the family irreversibly. Cracks in the family dynamic become great caverns. Some how they have to find a way to at the very least plug up the holes and hope the damage can eventually be repaired.

All of the actors give fine performances, but Annette Benning really is the stand out. She steals every scene she's in. Oscar should be nodding for this one.

For a life affirming film about creating a family, getting hurt, picking up the pieces and sticking it out see The Kids Are Alright.

The Killer Inside Me - "I can't exactly recommend it, unless you like the feeling of being winded"

For The Killer Inside Me director Michael Winterbottom ( Road to Guantanamo, 24 Hour Party People) adapts Jim Thompson's 1952 novel to the screen in a terrifying and violent roller coaster ride. Casey Affleck plays Lou Ford, the quiet, soft spoken deputy sheriff of a Texas town. As the film unfolds we discover he is also a violent psychopath who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, including those of his lover played by Jessica Alba and his fiancee Kate Hudson.

It is not the serial killer subject matter which makes this film so shocking. But shocking it is!!!! (You only have to look at the reviews online to see how divided people are about this film).  Let's face it though, there are serial killer stories in abundance on television and film these days. It is Michael Wintterbottom's uncompromising depiction of the violence that really unsettles.  We see Alba's character beaten to a bloody pulp by Lou Ford and when many other director's would move away, cut earlier, focus on something else in the room, Michael forces you to watch it all.

In an interview with Casey Affleck (in the Sydney Morning Herald) he is quoted as saying that Michael Winterbottom was interested in showing the ugliness of violence, to a world which seems so sanitised to it.  And for most of the film he achieves this.  Until the ending, which left me feeling confused and even a bit cheated. Without wanting to give away the end, Winterbottom's message gets blurred here and appears to suggest that violence is sexy and acceptable after all. Perhaps even that violence will win in the end?

This is a very difficult film and I actually can't bring myself to recommend it, despite the excellent acting and slick production values. The brilliant opening credits and music, for instance, are sexy and upbeat lulling us  into a false sense security and then slapping us in the face with the reality.

It is poignant to note that Cassey Affleck also said (in the afore mentioned interview) that his wife was very upset by the message of the film. He wouldn't relate what she actually said, but the sentiment is rather telling.

Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work "Witty, Wry and Worth it"

I admit before going to see this documentary I knew almost nothing about Joan Rivers. Well I had some vague sense of her being the poster woman (poster child seems too ridiculous when she has just turned 75) for plastic surgery. I'm not even exactly sure why I picked this film from the long list of possibilities at Sydney Film Festival. It could be that I happened to be free on that night, or that I felt I should be seeing more documentaries, but actually I think I was also genuinely curious to know more about Joan Rivers. Who is she really? And this film goes a long to answering that question.

Directed confidently by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, this fly on the wall style film, follows Joan for more than a year. This in itself must have been a massive undertaking. The final finished product is 82 minutes so think how much footage must have been left out after a year's worth of shooting. What they have chosen to leave in is well worth watching. Joan Rivers is surprisingly engaging and really rather interesting.  We find out a little of her history, for instance that she was something a trail blazer for woman in the male dominated world of 1950s/60s stand up comedy.  That she unashamedly swears like a sailor. That she works extremely hard for everything she has. You even get to see her without her make up, something she tells us very few people ever get to see. Until now anyway.

As with people who have lived a long life it wasn't all roses and laughter for Joan. Her husband suffered from depression and killed himself leaving her to raise their teenage daughter by alone. She is philosophical about it now, although obviously after a lot of therapy. The dark times seem to have informed her wry, witty view of the world, as is so often the case with comics past and present. Go on check out this piece of work.

Apart Together "Enjoyable, that's about it"

Wang Quan'an's latest film Apart Together, which screened at Berlin and Sydney Film Festival festivals this year, attempts to look at the historical and political fallout from the 1949 civil war in China by rooting it firmly in personal family drama.

The story unfolds in 1980s Shanghai when Liu Yangsheng (Ling Feng) comes from Taiwan in search of the Yu-e, the woman he left behind there 30 years ago. His wife has recently died and he hopes to take Yu-e back to Taiwan with him. But, as we know the course of true love never runs that smooth and Yu-e is torn by her love for Liu and the loyalty she owes her common law husband. In the end she sacarifices her happiness for his.

It is a beautifully told film and the performances are lovely and subtle. Like a lot of Asian cinema much of the dramatic tension happens around the dinner table. Don't go to this film hungry. Seriously, you have been warned!

The film as a whole though is like $5 steak and mash, it always seems fulling, but in the end is never really that satisfying. Wang brings in the historical context, but fails to really explore it. Leaving those of us not in the know about China's civil war with barely a snapshot of what happened. He also introduces the story lines of supporting characters(like the granddaughter about to break up with her boyfriend)at pivotal moments in the main narrative, jolting you harshly away from the main story and for no discernible reason. Then to top it off he annoyingly doesn't return to these smaller stories. What then is the point in mentioning them in the first place?

So if $5 steak's your thing,go for it. Personally I would rather have the banquet.

The Snowman - "A moving personal story"

The Snowman is a moving personal documentary, about Jimmy Graham, an excellent and experienced climber who went to Antarctica with 'Operation Deep Freeze' in the 1970s to train scientists in survival skills on the ice. Three months later he arrived back agitated and paranoid. He said that he had stumbled onto an illegal American nuclear site and that the CIA had given him a chemical lobotomy. He descended into madness. Unable to cope with his frightening behaviour, his wife fled with their two children.

Thirty years later, Jimmy's daughter Juliette, brings this heartbreaking family tragedy to the screen and in the hope of finding the father she has lost. The personal telling of this story is everything. No matter what your family dynamic you can't help but feel touched by this film. It resonates with deep sadness about what had been lost. The loss of a husband, friend and father. The loss of time. The loss of sanity. It is an amazing testament to this family that they allowed an audience to view them warts and all, through hard decisions and difficult moments. They seem to come out the other side a little stronger, wiser and certainly closer.

The only thing that was missing for me is that we never really know, what, if any mental illness Jimmy has. There is some reference to him being vaguely diagnosed with schizophrenia many years ago, but no mention of whether he is now receiving medical help. He certainly seemed to have very lucid moments during the film. Was he on medication? Perhaps it doesn't matter, but for a family suffering and mind diseased, would it not make sense to find out as much as possible about the condition and any possible treatments? The almost total omission of this bothered me.

That aside this film shines a light on what it is like living with mental illness and provides us with a beautiful portrait of a loving family struggling for answers. It has deservedly been nominated for an AFI award.

Honey - "Slow but beautiful"

This Turkish, subtitled film is not for everyone and frankly if you want action forget it. It is a slow creep to the finish line, but not an unpleasant one. That is, if you can manage to stick it out to the end. At the Sydney Film Festival screening I attended at least a ten people walked out and that's an apparently 'world film' savy audience.

Honey is the story of a young boy who is so shy that he can speak only to his father (whom he obviously adores) and only in a whisper. His father, encourages him gently and the little boy does slowly begin to blossom in small ways.

The father makes a living as a bee keeper in an isolated part of Turkey. The film opens with the father attempting to climb an extremely tall tree to retrieve honey from a hive he placed there earlier. In the attempt he falls and is killed. The film then flashes back to tell us more about this man and his son. I understand the reasons for showing the death a the beginning, though I would question the wisdom of it, as I spent the whole film waiting for this to come and when it does come, it feels rather anticlimactic. But maybe that was the point? It is also tragic for the boy because not only does he lose a father, but also the only person in the world he would talk too.

On the plus side, the film is beautifully made and the boy little is so engaging and heartfelt that he carries the film. There's very little dialogue and but lots of soul. If you can stick with it, it's worthwhile.