Film Festival Reviews (Long and Off-Topic)

This year, my ticket requests came back missing several - I had the bad luck to
put my requests into box 6 (of 43) and the random box number chosen to start
filling requests was 10, meaning mine was the fourth from the last to be
filled. Still, I did fine, with some swapping, some standing on lines and some
good luck trading with other filmgoers.

Here are the films I saw in the order I saw them with my capsule reviews:

Notre Musique

This is a film by Jean Luc Goddard and, as ever with his films, there's much to
like but much I find does not suit my taste. This one is autobiographical and
is loosely based in the motif of Dante's Inferno. The first segment, Hell, was
simply too difficult and almost sent me from the theater. It consists of a
montage of film from and about WWII, loud and unpleasant music in the
background. Nothing more than a few seconds and from Hollywood or actual war
film but very disturbing, including some almost subliminal concentration camp
images. Then came Purgatory, which included some stories about the
Palestinian/Israeli conflicts, with Goddard himself making frequent appearances
puffing on a noxious cigar I could almost smell. His philosophizing on the
subject continued far too long with perhaps the most interesting quote being
something like that the world is only interested in the Palestinians because
they have chosen to be opposed to the Israelis - otherwise we would not notice
them. Finally came Heaven, a view of lovely gardens with pretty women
meandering around in them. There is a bit of a story about an Israeli woman
journalist who commits what I'd call suicide by cop by announcing in a movie
theater that she has a bomb. She is shot and in her pocket are only books. A
depressing movie all around.

Letters To Ali

This is the sort of film (in this case a documentary) that engenders one of the
reaons I go to the Film Festival: to see films that likely will not be released
in North America. It is an Australian film with subject matter that is of real
interest to Australians and not many other people.

In Australia (and this is the only country that does this), political refugees
are imprisoned in remote outposts sometimes for years before they are able to
join the general population. This includes children who arrive to Australia's
shores alone. It is a little known fact to Australians. The filmmaker became
aware of this through a newspaper story and found a family that had taken one
such young prisoner into their hearts. They had tried over and over to get a
visa for this young man (fifteen at the time of the story, about twelve when he
arrived as a boat person on Australia's shores) to join their family. She
followed their attempts to get him released to them which never fully happened.
They drove some 5,000 miles in each direction twice to visit with him - two
adults, three children, with the filmmaker following with her husband in their
own car. It is a sensitively made film that brings this horrible way of
treating refugees front and center and which hopefully will have some impact on
the way Australia is handling these unfortunates.

When Will I Be Loved

When Will I Be Loved is a James Toback film. He acts in it and in my opinion,
as an actor he is a reasonably good filmmaker and should definitely not give up
his day job. He certainly takes away from the film any authenticity it might
have. The film is notable for one scene in which Neve Campbell (whom we saw
last year in Company, a film about the Ballet), a beautiful ballerina but not
much of an actress, takes a shower and masturbates with the shower spray. She
plays a promiscuous rich girl who gets involved with a hustler who pushes her
to accept the advances of a much older Italian (the one good actor in the film
- Dominic Chianese). If I had to guess I'd say the story developed as the film
was being shot and it is thin, indeed.

Three of Hearts A Postmodern Family

This is a documentary about a family that developed when a gay male couple
decided they would like to incorporate a woman into the relationship. They met
and both fell in love with an actress who was happy to join in and make up a
curious threesome. This relationship lasted for a dozen years but fell apart
not surprisingly when the advent of two children changed the dynamics of the
family. The people involved (minus the children) appeared for a Q&A at the
filming and answered a few of the questions that this film raised. It was
sensitively filmed and is a look into a set of relationships that most of us
will never otherwise encounter.

Touch The Sound

A documentary, this is a look into the music (a lot) and the life (very little)
of the wonderful, deaf, Scottish percussionist, Evelyn Glennie. She is a
marvelous, creative performer who is also profoundly deaf from fairly early
(age 8) childhood. The music is beautiful, performed by Glennie and also
together with her friend, musician Fred Frith.

My expectation was to learn more about this interesting woman and her musical
history however, she is apparently very private and so very little of her life
was vouchsafed to the audience. We did meet her brother and see the farm she
grew up on (very cluttered and dismal-looking and indeed it burned to the
ground shortly after it was filmed in a sad coincidence) but the bulk of the
film (which ran far too long for me at 99 minutes - 45 would have done fine) is
the music she creates and some absolutely gorgeous cinematography that brings
the music even more to life.

I Heart Hucklebees (with a heart in place in the titles)

This is a theater of the absurd. The film centers around a disturbed young man
who seeks help from an 'existential detective,' Lily Tomlin and her
psychologist/existentialist spouse, Dustin Hoffman. It is a sendup of bizarre
psychotherapeutic methods and existential philosophies with some really
wonderful cinematic tricks used to chop up and reconstruct visual images. If
you don't have a weird sense of humor and a willingness to be cinematically
tickled, don't come to this one.

Salvador Allende

This is a loving portrait of Salvador Allende who tried to lead Chile into a
democratic socialist society and eventually lost his life in the process and
lost Chile to a harsh military dictatorship. How the United States got
involved via the CIA, directed by Nixon and Kissinger is shown graphically in
the story and the outcome of their meddling was the eventual crushing military
coup (Allende committed suicide when it occurred) and the terrible system of
disappeared journalists and other thinkers that ensued. The love for Allende
comes through in interviews with people from all walks of life who knew him,
lived in his time and now look back sadly wishing it had ended otherwise.

Beyond The Sea

Kevin Spacey was a huge Bobby Darin fan all his life and wanted to do this film
starting a dozen years ago. The film had had several false starts and was
stuck in a studio when he began his quest. He finally got the rights to do it
four years ago and then began seeking financing. It's a very good thing that
he got the money!! Spacey plays Bobby Darin in a Brechtian film-within-a-film
format where Bobby Darin is directing and starring in his life story. One
thing he says early defuses the one problem with the film.. "I'm too old to
play Bobby Darin." It's true but he does a wonderful job of it - so good that
you forget that Spacey is in his forties or fifties, decades Darin didn't
survive to live.

Spacey also sings the songs - no lip-synch for him - and dances the numbers,
looking good all the way through. It is a film that is true to Darin's life
story and his music as well. As a side note, Kevin Spacey, after the opening
night Gala, came to our 9 a.m. screening and stayed to give a half-hour Q&A,
showing himself to be utterly charming, articulate, witty, a bit vulgar and
sensitive. What a guy!!

Being Julia

Istvan Szabo (Sunshine) returned to the Film Festival in triumph with this tour
de force for Annette Benning. It's a film about a woman of a certain age who
is the darling of the London stage but becoming depressed about the paucity of
roles available to her and about her life. She takes on a young lover and is
in ecstasy about the possibilities of this relationship until he proves less
than faithful and somewhat of a gold digger. Her solution to this betrayal is
brilliant as is the film's device of her dialogues with the late partner of her
husband, a playwright. I won't divulge the ending - this film is a must-see
and you'll love every minute of it as I did, I'm sure.

Omagh

In the 1990's there was the beginning of a cease fire by the IRA at which point
a dissident group, calling itself the "Real IRA" came into existence and
perpetrated a horrific bombing on a small town called Omagh in Northern
Ireland. The warning, giving half an hour to clear the area, was garbled
either accidentally or perhaps deliberately by the police resulting in people
being sent in the direction of the bomb rather than away from it. As a
consequence, there were many fatalities and injuries. The film, Omagh,
examines the outcomes of this terrible incident, following the family of a
young man who was killed when he was in town shopping for new jeans. The pater
familias, a gentle man, becomes very involved in a group of survivors who try
to determine who was responsible and to urge the powers that be to find and
prosecute the guilty. The film examines the reasons that this has not, to this
day, happened.

This is an excellent portrayal of a family in distress, with wonderful acting
by all and excellent cinematography. I very much recommend Omagh.

Hotel Rwanda

Terry George has made a magnificent film, reminiscent for many reasons of
Schindler's List and no less powerful. The story is real; a hotel assistant
manager is thrust into a difficult position in the midst of the slaughter of
Tutsi tribesmen in Rwanda by the Hutu majority, a true genocide that left
eventually over a million murdered. As the situation worsens, and eventually
the white guests are evacuated, the UN forces are very much withdrawn as white
nations decide that they choose not to help this black African country in
crisis.

Tutsi and Hutu are designations that the Belgians arbitrarily assigned to
tribesmen based on subjective observations and so this civil war really was
between brothers. Paul is Hutu and his wife is Tutsi so he is really in a
terrible situation personally as well as in his management role (the white
manager runs away very early, leaving Paul in charge of the hotel). With help
from Sabena, who owned the hotel, bribes to local police and purveyers of food
and drink and even a general, Paul keeps the hotel open. I won't tell you more
- I'm sure this film will soon be distributed and in my opinion it is one of
the very best of this year or any other recent year.

A South African Love Story - Walter and Albertina Susulu

Walter Susulu was known as a kingmaker, being the political mentor and muse for
Nelson Mandela. His wife, Albertina, has also been a powerful force in South
African protest against and the eventual defeat of Apartheit. They met in the
movement, married and remained true to each other through their frequent early
imprisonments and eventually through the twenty-seven years that Walter spent
at hard labor on Robben Island where he was imprisoned. A gentle, family
oriented man, he was nonetheless a very hard fighter for his principles and, as
we know, eventually prevailed. This is a warm and loving biography in film of
the couple with historical film interleaved with loving remembrances by his
children, grandchildren and others involved in South African politics over the
decades. I found it engaging and definitely worth seeing.

As a tie-in sale, there was a forgettable half-hour film called Mozart about a
youngster in the South African townships whose pretentious mother insists he
study violin. I won't bore you with the rest of the story but suffice it to
say it was predictable and uninspired.

The Merchant Of Venice

This is a beautiful realization of Shakespeare's play, set, naturally, in
Venice with all appropriate pomp and circumstance. Al Pacino made a very
believable and outstanding Shylock and the rest of the cast were definitely up
to his strong acting abilities. For those who love the play and for those who
have not yet seen it, I heartily recommend this film.

10e Chambre Instants d'audiences (10th Court, moments from trials)

This was a French documentary, with no commentary whatsoever, showing a number
of cases in a Paris courtroom with a severe woman judge. This is a criminal
court so the cases included pickpocketing, assault, drunk driving, violations
of immigration law and other similar ones. It's an interesting look into a
different style of courtroom procedure, though Judge Judy would certainly find
her match in this lady judge who was at times funny, annoyed, furious, curious
and so on. More fun than the U.S. TV judge shows, if it comes around, by all
means have a look.

Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt

This is a documentary about a very sad life. Townes Van Zandt was a talented
songwriter and singer who lived a peripatetic life after an episode of severe
depression that led to the use of insulin shock therapy as an attempted (and
unsuccessful) cure. The rest of his life was marked with loss of memory about
his childhood (from the treatments), drug abuse, alcohol abuse and some success
as a traveling musician. Not unexpectedly, after a hospitalization for a
broken hip from a fall that was marked with episodes of DT's, he came home,
drank until he was more or less back in 'shape,' and soon after collapsed and
died of heart failure. A sad end to a sad life.

Downfall

This is a German film that examines the very end of Hitler's war and Hitler's
life. The actor who plays Hitler, Bruno Ganz, does so with amazing charisma
and force, moving from gentle interpersonal relationships to terrifying temper
tantrums. Hitler is portrayed as absolutely refusing to surrender or to allow
his troops, even when defeat is completely inevitable, even when Hitler and Eva
Braun have committed suicide, to surrender, leaving orders that they must fight
to the last man. His contempt for the German people as well as for his failed
military is blazingly evident. The deterioration of the situation is very
well-documented and really gives one a taste of what it must have been like in
that bunker. That two of the secretaries who worked for and with Hitler
throughout the war eventually escaped and have been interviewed about those
events, leads me to believe that there is great accuracy in the story as
filmed.

This is a long (150 minutes) and violent film, not for children to see, in my
opinion, but I am glad that I saw it - even if there are no good guys to root
for.

Moolade

Moolade (Moo La Day) is a period of protection, under penalty of affronting the
gods and in this case it refers to the protection that was established for four
preteenaged girls in an African village who wanted to avoid the obligatory
genital mutilation that was a custom of their tribe. We learn that many young
girls have died as a result of this surgery without benefit of either
antiseptic methods or anesthesia but that it is the women of the tribe,
following the wishes of the men who enforce this horrendous practice and
continue to pursue the young girls until they yield to them. The justification
for this practice is a word in the Koran about shedding a drop of blood, a
phrase that has been extended to include such mutilation as excision of the
clitoris, the labia, sewing the labia even after birth and other similar lay
surgeries.

The director of the film, a fierce feminist at age 80, is on a campaigne to
stop this practice which exists in some 38 African nations to this day,
including Egypt. He spoke poignantly of his wish to eliminate such mutilations
altogether (and we know they take place even today in Canada and the US despite
laws to the contrary). The film, which is very moving, and which shows a great
deal about life in small villages in Africa, is being distributed through the
UN, free, for Africans to see. It is very persuasive and moving.

Yesterday

Before the screening of Yesterday, the director came to suggest that we avoid
falling asleep as the tempo of the film is very slow. I can assure you no one
in the theater fell asleep! Yesterday is the name of the heroine of the film
(her father named her that because he felt that everything was better
yesterday), a lovely young African mother who lives in a small town. We meet
her as she and her young daughter, Beauty, are walking to the clinic (some
several miles away) to see a doctor because Yesterday has had a cough for
months. She is late and the line is cut off before she can visit the doctor.
Eventually, some weeks later, she does see the doctor and, after tests are done
to confirm, is told she has HIV. This story must have been repeated hundreds
of thousands of times all over Africa. Indeed, the carrier of HIV to her is no
surprise - it is her husband who works weeks at a time in Johannesburg in the
mines and no doubt contracted the virus with a woman there, bringing it home to
his wife in the village.

The end is known, only the journey is portrayed and it is a terribly sad one of
ostracism by the other villagers, of no room at the hospital for the husband
when his time comes, of a mother who prays only to live long enough to see her
six-year-old start school. It is a beautifully realized film, one to see and
one to hope is seen where it is most needed, where men bring this curse home to
their women because they will not use protection.

A Good Woman

Oscar Wilde's wonderful story, Lady Windermere's Fan, is the basis for this
very enjoyable romantic comedy. Helen Hunt plays the very interesting main
character (not Lady Windermere) in the film and she is simply perfect as Mrs.
Erlynne. The best lines are naturally from Oscar Wilde and I promise you'll
enjoy this romp through an earlier time in a different place. I daren't
discuss the plot - wouldn't want to spoil a moment for you but do go and see
it!!

Lightning In A Bottle

This is a film made around a fabulous 2003 concert of Blues players and singers
and let me assure you, the Blues is alive and well in America!! With
flashbacks via film of some of the old-time great Blues singers, interviews,
shots of rehearsals interleaved with the actual concert which took place in
Radio City Music Hall in New York, this film was a fabulous view into current
and past Blues musicians and music.

The good news is that while many old-timers like BB King and Ruth Brown and
middle timers like Buddy Guy (who was idolized by and shown in old film with
Jimi Hendrix) are still around and making fabulous music, there are new Blues
men and women who are rocking the rafters with their incredible talent. To my
surprise and pleasure, there were very strong antiwar messages both in the
music and in the commentary by the bluesmen. This feature length documentary
film gave us virtually nonstop amazing music that had the audience that was
lucky enough to attend the live concert dancing in the aisles. And I danced
right out of the theater determined to buy the CD when it comes out and a copy
of the film as well.

Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry

This film should dispel any doubts about John Kerry's war service and heroism
under fire. It is a documentary about Kerry's military service (attested to by
men he served with, including one whose life he saved under fire) as well as
his later protests that may well have shortened the war in Viet Nam by
impressing members of Congress and Senators with his testimony before them.
While it is obviously prepared lovingly by a friend, it is nonetheless
indisputable evidence of the effect this man had on men who served under and
with him as well as on others in public life, many whose bias changed after
hearing from him.

Isn't This A Time! A Tribute Concert for Harold Leventhal

This is a film about a concert that took place in November, 2003. It was a
50th anniversary celebration for the music producer, Harold Leventhal who
produced concerts for folk and protest musicians over that time period,
including the time in the fifties when they were blacklisted. There were many
participants including Arlo Guthrie, who narrated the film as well as singing
in the concert along with members of his family. Also singing were (among
others) the Weavers and Peter Paul and Mary.

The antiwar and anti-White House sentiments were strongly stated, not
surprisingly, by the participants but the real theme was the music and
musicians. The film was good, not great, but for a folk music lover, it was a
real treat. Even more of a treat (this was a world premiere screening) was the
fact that the Weavers actually came to Toronto and came out on the stage and
gave a short four-song concert. I was front and center and will have some
photos to commemorate for me what was a really nostalgic event.

Return To Sender

This is a death row story with some very interesting and exciting twists.
There were few, if any, false moments in the film, the acting was excellent (as
was the cinematography), and the convoluted plot absolutely believable (and we
heard later from the writers - the two writers, the director and the three
principal actors appeared for a Q&A after the morning screening to our delight-
that the story came from real life.. amazing!!

I very much recommend this film which kept me gripped from beginning to end.

Ladies in Lavender

Dame Judi Dench AND Dame Maggie Smith in the same film - well, they could read
a phone book and I'd want to be there to see and hear it, so I signed up
without reading another word about the film. Turns out to be a very good story
including mystery, unrequited, inappropriate love, jealousy and a happy ending.
What more could you want? Oh, also beautiful cinematography of a period piece
set at a gorgeous seashore location. And much as I say, "they don't know how
to end movies," in this case they certainly did. If it comes around, I'd call
it a must-see

My Festival

In all, I'd say that 2004 was an excellent Festival. It started off slow but
there were some amazingly good films including one or two that I'd call
lifetime favorites. I hope you've enjoyed my capsule reviews and will enjoy
hearing from you as you see the films to see if you agree with my takes on
them, Remember, these are my opinions, unaffected by other reviews since I
simply do not read any reviews before I attend the films.


Karen
Cruising, Schmoozing and Cats

In article , Karen
Allison wrote:

This year, my ticket requests came back missing several - I had the bad luck to

Who gives a fu--? Your film reviews don't belong here. Find the right
newsgroup to post them. This is a newsgroup for the discussion of
cruises.

--
Charles

In article , Karen
Allison wrote:

This year, my ticket requests came back missing several - I had the bad luck to

Who gives a fu--? Your film reviews don't belong here. Find the right
newsgroup to post them. This is a newsgroup for the discussion of
cruises.

--
Charles