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06. If.... (1968, UK) Lindsay Anderson -

a must see

10. Frontière(s) (2007, France) Xavier Gens -

worth seeing [C+]

After the long-take approach of two masters like Hou and Tarr, this kinetic French horror film in Cinemascope felt like a shotgun blast to the face. It starts out like Ma 6-T va crack-er with a group of rebellious car-torching youths on the run, but the French countryside proves to be an even bigger bitch than the city as the film quickly morphs into a Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake by way of cannibalistic Nazis. Like Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects Xavier Gens seems to have adopted that same, unapologetic Fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-horror tone that genre fans all but eat up. The real downfall here is when the carnage ceases, so does the film, as Gens fails to conjure up even the slightest bit of character or broader narrative scope. This is yet another in the long line of admirable and entertaining shock-fests that are fun to rave about for a while but will be all but forgotten by next year's MM program.

World Premiere Screening -- No photos taken. Director was in attendance.

11. The Mourning Forest (2007, Japan) Naomi Kawase -

a must see [B-]
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this years Cannes Film Festival, this is my first exposure to the work of Naomi Kawase, a festival darling of sorts whom I’ve been reading raves about ever since her feature debut Suzaku took the Camera D’or back in ’97. Kawase has been compared to Ozu, and while that brand of impressionistic, mundane style of cinema is on display here, this more closely resembles the trend in lyrical journey films like Old Joy and the work of Joe W. A pensive work, that shows tremendous control and maturity, this is also a deeply spiritual film chronicling one character (Shigeki) as he embarks on what can be read as a Buddhist rite of passage, and like his caretaker Machiko, we are forced to take the journey ourselves. Give yourself over to it and by the end, you just may find a little of your own soul reflected on the screen.

North American Premiere -- No cast or crew in attendance

12. My Kid Could Paint That (2007, USA) Amir Bar-Lev -

a must see [B]

A fascinating deconstruction of not just the questionable nature of modern art, but of the process of documentary filmmaking, filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev pulls off the challenging feat of drawing attention to his process while also trying to give an accurate portrayal of his subject. It’s the perfect film for those textbook questions that surface in just about every film classroom around the world (subjectivity vs. objectivity, is it possible to photograph something without in some way influencing it? etc, etc.) The fact that Bar-Lev genuinely appears to have only wanted to document the simple story of a little girl who was selling paintings for thousands of dollars, and it was only in the process of filming that he was forced to confront the morale questions he does, only adds to the genuine non-exploitive appeal of this little gem. Like all great documentaries, this is a film that is as much about the person behind the camera as it is the people in front of it.

Photo and Audio of Q&A found here.

I seem to be in the minority in my admiration of this playful and understated romantic comedy from Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, the Thai auteur who seems to specialize in these types of wry mood pieces. The title refers to a young girl who goes by the name of Ploy (many people in Thai culture adopt quirky shortened versions of their rather longish names), who meets a young couple, fresh off a red eye flight from the States, in a hotel bar. Ploy is killing time waiting for her grandmother to pick her up in the morning, while her boyfriend is passed out stoned in the corner of the hotel restaurant. She meets Dang, a smooth Thai professional from the States but who is home for a funeral, he is unable to sleep and has left his wife Dang (Lalita Panyopas star of 6ixtynin9) up in the room where she sneaks booze and pops pills. What follows is a lucid dream of a film, which seems to weave in and out of several characters consciousness, documenting their fears and fantasies, leaving you to decide what is real and what is imagined. Nothing much really happens, but like the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, this languid brand of Thai humor and bold form of narrative is something I can’t seem to get enough of. A very special little film that imparts that magical half-awake/half-asleep ambiance that made Lost in Translation so affecting.

French cinema has a long history of emulating the Hollywood film. This was a fine practice back when Hollywood was still making GOOD films, however in this day and age of Blockbuster crap, biting on the recent string of Jason Statham popcorn action entertainments seems more than a tad ridiculous. A mind numbing Sci-Fi work that has the clinical look of late-Spielberg combined the occasional macho wham-bam action scene; this has about 1/3rd the amount of action as a Luc Besson production and about four times the amount of continuity errors. How this ever got into Toronto is beyond me, but since this shares much of the same cast and crew as Frontière(s), and the two directors are in fact real life buds, here’s hoping that TIFF struck some sort of compromise and let the one film in on the strength of the other.