Category: TIFF

Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself (UK/Denmark, director Lone Scherfig): I found the emotional arc of the story a bit weird, but enjoyed the film nonetheless. You see, suicide itself is not funny. But Wilbur keeps trying to kill himself in various ways which I think are supposed to be funny. Meanwhile, his longsuffering brother Harbour (hmmm…symbolism?) has just buried their father and now has no relief since he’s constantly worried about Wilbur. Then something wonderful happens. Harbour meets and falls in love with Alice, and her nine-year-old daughter Mary. They marry, and all seems well, even despite Wilbur’s almost successful suicide attempts. Then a new crisis hits.

I don’t want to spoil the film, but let me just say that things get better for Wilbur once he learns that other people need him. I was complaining to my friends that British films like this one (well, it’s a British/Danish coproduction) tend to hide their saccharine with lots of swearing. There wasn’t an unusual amount of swearing, but Wilbur’s surliness is paper-thin, hiding the proverbial “heart of gold” underneath. He’s the typical “bad boy” that women find irresistible. Harbour is the typical saint/martyr who is kind but just a bit dull (in fact, why didn’t they just call him “Safe” Harbour?). Alice, of course, loves both of them.

So although the film was tremendously acted, and had some great secondary characters (Julia Davis as sexy but flaky nurse Moira was hilarious, as was the psychologist played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen), I was just a little bit disappointed with the main characters. I thought a film like About A Boy took the suicide issue just a bit more seriously, while still finding abundant humour elsewhere.

(7.5/10)

Remember Me (Italy, director Gabriele Muccino): I didn’t see this film. The reason was that when picking second choices, the film I picked to follow this one started at 9:30. I didn’t even check the running time of this film until today, and it was 125 minutes, which would have made me late for the second film. Since I was meeting my friends Brent and Paul for the 9:30 film, I went down and sold my ticket to a grateful man in the rush line.

End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones (USA, directors Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia): This was a warts-and-all documentary about one of my favourite bands. And I mean warts-and-all. The lighting, lack of makeup, and extreme closeups (along with this particular screening being a digital blow-up) made everyone look terrible. Johnny Ramone and Seymour Stein (former head of Sire Records) look they have some kind of melanoma, Ed Stasium (producer) was sporting a black eye, and Danny Fields (former manager) looked seriously unwell (jaundice, sores). The only ones who emerge relatively unscathed are Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom, founders of Punk magazine. This seems fitting, since they also appear to have emerged from their punk roots without suffering too much damage.

Since we were viewing a very early print, most of the video clips had not been cleared, and so had timecodes and other stuff overlaid, so that was somewhat annoying. It didn’t feel like a finished film, and the way they shot most of the interviews in extreme closeup was not very flattering to the subjects, most of whom have probably been living hard for going on fifty years.

The film was enlightening in that it broke open many of the reasons why the members of the band generally couldn’t stand each other. Joey comes off best, as the obsessive-compulsive romantic who couldn’t shake his grudge against Johnny for stealing and then marrying the woman he loved. Johnny was (and still is) cruel, demanding, and just mean, but he also was the driving force behind the band’s relentless work ethic. Dee Dee was just loopy insane, but sort of lovable in the way that damaged people are. Original drummer Tommy looks like the record producer he was meant to become, and second drummer Marky looks pretty much like the drummer he’ll always be. One moment of incredulity was when fill-in drummer Richie (from the ’80s) is interviewed in the present wearing a suit and tie! Maybe he sells insurance now.

All in all, only a few bits of new information, and with the downbeat ending (Joey and Dee Dee are no longer with us, nor is Joe Strummer, who was also interviewed in the film, and Johnny seems as unrepentant and nasty as ever), this will definitely drive me back to the records, where The Ramones seem to lose themselves in a more positive energy.

Let me take this opportunity to plug, once again, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s amazing book, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. And though I haven’t read it, I’m sure the book Legs co-authored with Dee Dee, Lobotomy: Surviving The Ramones, is good as well. Funny, when I read Please Kill Me a few years ago, I remember hearing that it was going to be made into a film. I sure hope this wasn’t it, or I’d really have to say, “please, kill me.”

(7/10)

The Agronomist (USA, director Jonathan Demme): This is going to be hard to rate. The subject of the film, Haitian radio journalist and activist Jean Dominique, was a firebrand and a voice for democracy until his assassination in 2000. The film, born out of Demme’s long friendship with Dominique, is a stirring tribute to the man and his wife, journalist Michèle Montas. However, it is clear that most of the footage is more like a collection of Demme’s home movies than a professionally-produced film. Demme interviewed Dominique many times over the course of more than ten years, and it’s not always clear when particular conversations are taking place. To make things worse, some of the editing is awkward and even gimmicky at times, and the overlaid text graphics are just plain ugly. If I were to rate the story of Jean Dominique, I’d give it a 10 (which was why it was a no-brainer to stand when Michèle Montas came to the stage). Unfortunately, Demme’s film is a less-than-inspiring piece of work about an incredibly inspiring man.

(7/10)

Evil (Sweden/Denmark, director Mikael Håfström): Based on the Swedish bestseller Ondskan by Jan Guillou, Evil is the story of sixteen-year old Erik, who is expelled from his high school for his constant fighting. What his teachers don’t know is that at home, Erik is being beaten mercilessly by his stepfather, and is lashing out the only way he knows how. He is sent to a prestigious boarding school, where he is determined to make good on his considerable academic potential. But the school is ruled by the cruel whims of the senior students, whose many crimes, both petty and otherwise, are ignored by the faculty. Erik faces a choice. He can fight back, and be expelled, or he can take the humiliation. Or is there another way?

This beautifully-shot film reminded me of Lord of the Flies, for obvious reasons, but has also been compared to Rebel Without A Cause (which, being set in the 1950s, it references directly). It didn’t hurt that Andreas Wilson, the actor who plays Erik, bears some resemblance to James Dean. It’s a very well-crafted film, even if it doesn’t have any revolutionary things to say. The universal themes of friendship, first love, growing up, and resisting injustice are all here and handled with skill. There is quite a bit of violence and humiliation in the film, and even though we are stirred up to see Erik take his vengeance, the director gently pulls away from showing us this half of the equation. I thought that was a very interesting decision, and it elevated this film above being just a more violent Revenge Of The Nerds.

(8.5/10)