Category: TIFF

Falcons (Iceland, 2002, Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, director): Mawkish and heavy-handed, this film was (almost) saved by two things: the cinematography capturing the incredible beauty of Iceland, and the luminous Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir. Keith Carradine plays an ex-con who travels to Iceland “to forget.” Instead he meets a woman who might be his daughter. I saw Fridriksson’s excellent Angels of the Universe two years ago, which was adapted from a book. This time, for his first English-language film, he chose to write the screenplay himself. I wanted to like this more, but the story was just too trite. 6.5/10

Spun (USA, 2002, Jonas Åkerlund, director): Boasting a raft of young talent (Jason Schwartzman, Patrick Fugit, Mena Suvari, Brittany Murphy), this is a frantic tale about a group of methamphetamine addicts. Raunchy, disturbing, and often very very funny. The pace does tend to wear out the viewer, though. Since we saw the “unrated” cut, expect the final “R” version to be more manageable in length. Brittany Murphy and John Leguizamo do amazing work here. 8/10

Well, it’s that time of year again. The film festival starts on Friday. We spent most of Monday lined up to get tickets and choose alternates. Here’s my final schedule. Stay tuned for the patented CC “capsule reviews”:

• Friday September 6 — 8:30 PM — Falcons (Iceland)
• Friday September 6 — 11:59 PM — Spun (USA)
• Saturday September 7 — 2:30 PM — Sweet Sixteen (UK)
• Saturday September 7 — 6:30 PM — The Man Without A Past (Finland)
• Sunday September 8 — 3:30 PM — Morvern Callar (UK)
• Sunday September 8 — 9:00 PM — Auto Focus (USA)
• Monday September 9 — 3:00 PM — Love Liza (USA)
• Wednesday September 11 — 8:00 PM — OT: Our Town (USA)
• Wednesday September 11 — 10:00 PM — A Peck On The Cheek (India)
• Saturday September 14 — 9:30 AM — In America (Working Title) (Ireland)

Waking Life (USA, 2001, Richard Linklater, director) is a groundbreaking film. Using a form of rotoscoping to animate over digital video footage, every frame of this film is beautiful, creating the perfect setting, a dream world, where the main character never knows if he is asleep or awake. Lots of philosophical musings, which occasionally grate, making it difficult to concentrate on both the visuals and the talk at the same time, but overall a film that deserves several viewings. 9/10

The film festival has been disrupted the past few days and two of my screenings have been cancelled or rescheduled, but tonight I saw a film for the first time since Monday night. How fitting that it was The Son’s Room (Italy, 2001, Nanni Moretti, director), a quietly moving film about grief. The anguish that this family experiences in the film is being played out thousands of times over in the United States, Canada, and other countries right now, and collectively as well. It was good to be sad with a lot of people tonight, and to realize that every single person who perished in New York, or in Washington, or in Pennsylvania has people who love them very much, and who are grieving. Impossible for me to “grade” this one, since my reactions are as much due to real life right now as anything in the film.

Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (France, 2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director) Between Jeunet’s dazzling visual tricks and Audrey Tautou’s dazzling beauty, it was hard to look at the subtitles at all (might be a reason to learn French in itself!). Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) has made an incredibly romantic movie that celebrates all of life and love (not just romantic). As in all romantic comedies, Destiny is a major character, but only in this film will it use a suicidal goldfish, a globetrotting lawn gnome, and a one-armed fruit vendor as its henchmen. Perfect! 10/10!!