Toronto International Film Fest (TIFF) 2013

[onetet]

Anyone else headed to this? http://tiff.net/thefestival

Takes place Sep 5-15, screening in the neighborhood of 300 films, with the majority of features having directors present. I've been attending each year since 1998... this and SXSW are major highlights of each year for me.

I'll be seeing 38 films from 22 countries over 11 days. I usually focus on international films from that are unlikely to come back to the US theatrically, but this year I'm treating myself to a fair number of films that almost certainly will, including:

Gravity
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch vampire flick w/ Tilda Swinton)
Joe (David Gordon Green. starring Nicolas Cage)
Green Inferno (Eli Roth)
Night Moves (new Kelly Reichardt w/ Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Saarsgard)
The Sacrement (Ti West)
Blind Detective (Johnnie To)
Bastards (Claire Denis)
Closed Curtain (Jafar Panahi)
The Dog (documentary about real-life story behind Dog Day Afternoon)
Blue Ruin (buzzed-about Cannes thriller by Jeremy Saulnier)
Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat)
Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)

I'm also excited about a free screening day one of a newly restored SHIVERS (Cronenberg).

UPDATE: Here are all my TIFF 13 reviews from the thread:

ABUSE OF WEAKNESS--I liked this a bit more than others in this thread, but only because I'm a big fan of the director Catherine Breillat (best known for the Criterion-enshrined Fat Girl and Romance) and wanted to see through her own eyes the story of her stroke, recovery, and near-bankrupcy at the hands of an infamous big-stakes con man. Isabelle Huppert gives a great performance with two truly unbelievable physical scenes standing out, and it's heartening that Breillat's work retains the same sharp and unsparing voice it had before her stroke, but there's no denying the film could be tightened up. 3.5/5

BASTARDS--The new Claire Denis film is her darkest since the controversial Trouble Every Day. As with most of her work, the story is presented as a non-linear puzzle of sorts, so I won't construct it for you here. But the main character is a hardened 50-something man who left his family business and fortune behind to live as a sailor; he returns to Paris to deal with a family crisis involving his sister and niece, and is having an affair with a single mother living upstairs from his bare, temporary apartment. A business mogul embroiled in major legal and moral scandals also factors heavily into the plot. This is a depressing film with disturbing sexual content, but those are the only things that should serve as disclaimers. Claire Denis is my favorite filmmaker working today, and if this is not her best work, it is yet another decidedly brilliantly made film that broadens and expands her incomparable filmography in intriguing ways. 4.25/5

BLIND DETECTIVE--Johnnie To's latest is billed as a comedy/romance/thriller, but that's a bit like saying Austin Powers is a romantic spy film. This is a very, very broad slapstick comedy, and probably not one that will play well to North American audiences, especially in its very un-PC portrayal of its blind central character and, well, everyone else. There are moments when this film hearkens back to classic screwball comedies, but overall it was a miss for me. I'm a fan of To's gangster films, and have enjoyed the notes of comedy in his work, but when comedy is front and center it felt like two hours gorging on cotton candy. Good-spirited performances, great locations, and a fast pace keep things agreeably entertaining, but this film is quickly fading from my memory. 2.75/5

BLUE RUIN--This mixture of dark comedy and thrills has been compared to The Coen Brothers' Blood Simple, and is perfectly worthy of such high praise, even if it doesn't feel quite as virtuosic (nor as stylized) as that seminal film. As Blue Ruin opens we meet a bearded man who lives in Delaware out of his wreck of a car, his face a portrait of anguish. When he gets word that a man from his past is being released from prison, he drives down to Virginia, hellbent on revenge for events ten years in his past. But to the degree that he has a plan, things go less than perfectly, and a cycle of violence begins to spiral out of control. This artful low-budget genre film debuted at Cannes, which is interesting--it feels more like a SXSW film, albeit a very, very good one. Director/cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier directed the bloody horror-comedy Murder Party some years ago; this is a much more grim and realistic film. The Weinstein Co has purchased this, and it should get the strong release it deserves. 4.25/5

CLUB SANDWICH. If anyone saw Duck Season or Lake Tahoe, this tender yet transgressive coming-of-age film is by the same director, Fernando Eimbecke--and while all three of his films have been excellent this is now my fave. The plot is very simple: a 40-something mother and her shy teenaged son, who have an unusually close relationship, vacation at a very quiet motel during its off season. Another family arrives with a teenaged daughter, who is just a bit older and more experienced, and the two teenagers develop a flirtation. The mom is torn between wanting to see her son have his first romantic experiences and hesitant to let his childhood end--and so she starts acting out in strange ways, some funny and some passive-aggressively destructive. As he said at the Q+A, director Eimbecke specializes in coming-of-age stories, but this one ends up being a coming-of-age story about a mother. A very understated film, so don't expect to be knocked out, but it's an enjoyable viewing experience that really lingers. 4.25/5

THE DOG is a documentary, 10 years in the making, telling the true-life story of the man upon whom Dog Day Afternoon is based. A Brooklynite who entered Vietnam a hardcore conservative and returned extremely liberal, loud, bisexual, and promiscuous, he ended up holding up a bank, he claimed, to finance his lover's sex-change operation. This basics of the narrative will be familiar to those familiar with the Al Pacino classics, but it turns out there's a lot more to the story than that, and the documentary subject just oozes personality. Unfortunately, the directors have been working on this project in their spare time for about a decade while they did other work that paid the bills, and so much of the footage is shot on outmoded digital video cameras, giving the film a dated and drab early 2000s look. The story also has a lot of grey areas that probably should've been explored more thoroughly, some of which only emerge at the film's rather abrupt ending. That said, the entertainment factor is so high as to counterbalance these flaws. 3.5/5

GRAVITY--I can't completely join the "masterpiece" chorus on this one, as it weighs in with far more fromage in both its dialogue and occasionally overbearing soundtrack than I would have expected/hoped. That said, there's no denying that this film is an astonishing accomplishment in its visuals, action, pacing, and use of 3D. A couple scenes are absolutely mind-blowing. I'll definitely be seeing this again. 4.25/5

GREEN INFERNO--Eli Roth's return to the director's chair should please fans of the 70s cannibal exploitation genre. As always, Roth delivers a film that begins with a group of privileged Americans journeying, all-too cocksure, into a mysterious region and getting in over their heads very quickly with the locals. This time, the first act is unfortunately the least effective we've seen from Eli Roth, but if you're watching this movie for carnage and gore with more than a dash of dark humor... well, you won't be disappointed, b/w be careful what you wish for. Not my cup of tea, but it retains doses of the humor that, IMO, set Cabin Fever and Hostel aside from the pack, and this one is probably good for what it is. Certainly the goriest new film I've seen in several years--if that factor alone entices you, this should be a must-see for you. 3.5/5

JOE--The new film starring Nicolas Cage from David Gordon Green. Green seems to be entering a third phase in his career where he combines the working-class indie drama of his early films (George Washington, All the Real Girls) with the star power and genre acumen of his 2nd phase (best exemplified by Pineapple Express). Here Cage stars as the manager of a rural work crew who, possibly illegally, slowly kill trees in forests with a poison spray so the landowners can declare the forests dead and legally turn the land over to other uses. He takes a 15-year-old kid under his wing, but becomes embroiled in the kid's severe problems with his drunk, combative dad--at the same time as Joe faces problems with the local cops and a drunken adversary of his own. Honestly, other people hyped this one to me too much. There's a lot to like here, with a half-dozen or so exceptional scenes and a mixture of good acting from Cage with some wilding-out that can be added to the Nicolas Cage insanity supercuts on youtube. But what I call the "Winter's Bone factor" is very much in effect here, too... the portrait of southern working-class rural people is just a little too cliched to the point that it's bordering on the offensive. This despite there also being some amazing performances from some non-professional actors. Worth seeing, with some amazing moments, and some of you will love this, but to me it's 3.5/5

THE MILITANT--Every film I've seen from Uruguay has been excellent, and this evocatively shot film was no exception. A reticent, awkward leftist leaves a student strike in Montevideo after learning his father has died. Upon reaching the small town in which he grew up, he encounters nothing but problems: a long line of creditors owed substantial debts by his late father; his father's mistress, who still wants the family to support her and her daughter; and a group of local students trying to mount a strike of their owed, mired by their own laziness and ineptitude. This may sound like a heavy drama, but it's actually a mixture of arty drama and comedy that has a special tone defying easy description. Producer Lisandro Alonso's imprint is felt a bit here--as with his austere and divisive masterpiece Liverpool, the film concerns a quiet loner on a journey home, and boasts a drastic change in tone late in the film--but this work is a lighter affair in comparison. Bonus points for an excellent original soundtrack that has elements of post-punk, psych, and doom. I recommend seeking it out, as with the other films from Uruguay I've seen--Whisky, Gigante, and A Useful Life (the last two both shot by this film's extremely talented cinematographer, Arauco Hernández Holz). 4.5/5

MOEBIUS--Kim Ki-duk follows up his comeback film Pieta with this, his most graphic exploration of violence, madness, sex, and catharsis (both physical and spiritual) to date. If you've seen his earlier work, you know that's saying a lot. I don't want to tell you anything about the plot, other than these two things: something highly shocking sets things off within the first five minutes; the story is told without any spoken words (but with a very active sound design). Again, warning: HIGHLY GRAPHIC. One of the most extreme films I've seen in 15 years of attending this festival, both in its images and its ideas--but for the brave and adventurous viewer, a likely TIFF 13 favorite. 4/5

NIGHT MOVES--Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff, Old Joy) serves up a quiet but effectively tense character study with thriller notes regarding militant eco-activists who band together to destroy a river dam in Oregon. Jesse Eisenberg gives a restrained but winning central performance; Dakota Fanning has a few unconvincing moments, but acquits herself well in crucial scenes, and Peter Sarsgaard is excellent. For the minority of you who agree with me that The East substituted a comic-book version of militant activist subcultures under the guise of realism, this film offers a nice antidote. It also winks at the excellent 70s Gene Hackman thriller of the same name in some of its mood and imagery, although it has no formal narrative connections to that film. As with all of Reichardt's films, the natural world of the Pacific Northwest serves as more than setting, factoring heavily into the narrative, and is rendered evocatively. 4.25/5

OCTOBER NOVEMBER--An effective Austrian family drama from the director of the incredible Revanche and lesser-known but even-better earlier film Antares. This one is a little gentler and a little more of a snapshot, suggesting a midpoint between Michael Haneke and Mike Leigh in its story of two adult sisters, the older of whom stayed home to manage the family bed and breakfast in the small town in which they grew up, the younger of which left for the big city and became a famous actress. As their father faces declining health, the two sisters must make peace with some issues that have lurked just beneath the surface. This one didn't knock me out as much as Götz Spielmann's earlier films, but it's quite solid. Q+A after the film was exceptionally informative and entertaining, BTW. 4/5

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE--This Jim Jarmusch vampire film opens and closes strong, but I was disappointed with much of its body. I also expected Tilda Swinton to turn in a creepy and mysterious performance, and she went a bit...silly. What she does here is not necessarily bad, but wasn't what I expected, and I'm still mulling it over. The film's narrative also relies on a lot of details related to contemporary music, always a risky proposition, and some of those references work better than others. Well worth seeing, but far from his strongest work. 3.25/5

OUR SUNHI--The new Hong Sang-soo film concerns three men, all three involved professionally or academically with film, and all three obsessed with Sunhi, herself a self-obsessed film student and aspiring filmmaker. As in every Hong film, everyone eats and drinks too much, and as the soju flows, bickering and secrets emerge. This film specifically focuses on conversation, and how people repeat ideas and phrases from person to person verbatim, convinced that they're saying something new and original. Therefore, it takes about 30 of the film's 90 minutes to see the plan that's at work and to start to absorb the humor, which builds steadily as the film proceeds. As such, it's not the most accessible introduction to Hong's work--for that, I'd suggest last year's Isabelle Huppert-starring In Another Country. But for fans, this is another fine expression of Hong's deadpan sensibility and penchant for skewering the male ego. 3.75/5

THE SACRAMENT--Ti West directed House of The Devil, one of my favorite indie horror films of the last 10 years. In casting AJ Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg, Kate Lyn Sheil, and Kentucker Audley, this literal-cult thriller also becomes a reunion of sorts of the casts of two of my favorite films of the last year: Sun Don't Shine and You're Next. As such, I went in with too-high expectations that weren't met. But once I shed those expectations, I enjoyed this film, especially its last 30 minutes, which have a very well-rendered payoff. As a fashion photographer (Audley) becomes increasingly worried about his sister, who’s joined a communal family as a means to escape her problems with addiction, he invites a Vice crew (including cameraman Swanberg) to visit the commune with him. There we meet his sister (Seimetz) and a diverse, seemingly harmonious cluster of family members who swear they made the right decision in shedding their belongings to live together with their new “Father” (an excellent performance from Gene Jones). The narrative here borrows heavily from the real-life stories of The Source Family and, especially, Jonestown. It would be hard to match the excellent documentaries made about those cults, and this film doesn't; but as a fictional riff on those true-life horrors, it's perfectly fine. 3/5

THE STATION--Tell me if the concept behind this Austrian midnight movie sounds familiar: at a remote, snowbound scientific-research outpost, a rugged, cynical, hard-drinking scientist and a small team of colleagues face terror as a strange new life form attacks his dog, and then turns its attention to the scientists. Yeah: this movie would be great if The Thing didn't exist; it's fairly well-produced and has effective thrills. But original it ain't, and it definitely raises the question "at what point does homage cross over into rip-off?" 2.5/5

STOP THE POUNDING HEART--Now this film I loved, and it served as a counterbalance of sorts to the qualms I raised in my review of Joe. Here we have a mesmerizing, nonjudgmental look at rural Texan Christians. We follow primarily a family who raise goats and sell dairy products at farmers markets, and another who herd cattle and are active in rodeo culture. Many of the characters are home schooled, are interested in Confederate history, and have decidedly anti-feminist leanings, and while you get the sense that the filmmaker does not agree with these views, the film simply observes and lets the audience have their own reaction. The film is a hybrid of fiction and documentary, with the non-professional cast playing "characters" that are both named after themselves and live lives based on their own. As such, most people watching it cold would assume it's a documentary--and a very beautiful, if not particularly dramatic one. If you're an admirer of the films Sweetgrass, Silent Light, and/or The Ross Brothers' 45365, run don't walk! 4.5/5

THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT--This is perhaps the freshest film I've seen at the fest this year, especially in terms of its film language. It's a simple story--or, perhaps more accurately, scenario--of a German middle-class family preparing a meal together in their apartment as some guests arrive, while the household animals and disturbances from neighbors intervene. This film was prepared in a workshop overseen by retired master Bela Tarr--but, to his credit, the film is not in his style but realizes the "room with family as moving sculpture" ambitions of its director. It's a fairly gentle film (and checks in at a decidely un-Tarr running time of ~75 minutes), but highly bold in its use of Bresson-ian techniques, with much of the "action" represented by sound effects outside the frame, and many pivotal images (including close-ups of faces) framed such that they are oddly cut-off. The sense of humor here is a bit like Bunuel, but with more avant-garde film language. The director and producer appear to be identical twins, and speak in the same sing-song cadence, yielding a highly memorable Q+A. We'll definitely be hearing more from them. 4.5/5

STRAY DOGS--The latest film from Tsai Ming-liang, which will be enough said for some. For his entire career Tsai has been filming the same lead actor, Lee Kang-sheng, who has a stoney face and a stoic nature. This ongoing project dates back to Rebels of the Neon God in 1992 and now involves 10 features and several shorts, ranking alongside Truffaut's Antoine Doinel films and the 7 Up documentary series as one of the great extended projects in film history. Each film can be viewed on its own terms, but they become even richer when you watch several. It's been a few years since Tsai has made one that's a nice stand-along entertainment (and that may be a stretch, given that his films are ultra-slow and painterly), so if you haven't seen any of his films, I'd recommend checking out 2003's Goodbye, Dragon Inn to see if you're intrigued or just bored. But if you're already a fan, this will be well worth checking out. It has one of the more destitute and painful narratives in Tsai's career, punctuated by a few moments of humor (doing for cabbages what The Wayward Cloud did for watermelons). It is also, I believe, Tsai's first film shot on video, and I'm happy to report his masterful compositional sense remains not just intact, but exceptionally strong. But again, the uninitiated should start elsewhere. 4/5

WE ARE THE BEST!--Lukas Moodysson alternates between light, warm films and oppressively dark and transgressive works. This adaptation of his wife's graphic novel about a group of girls in 1982 Sweden who find purpose in punk rock harkens back to the tone of his early films Show Me Love (aka F***ing Åmål) and Together, which is a good thing. It's a minor work, but a very satisfying coming-of-age story with a lot of insight into friendship. And, to its credit, it knows the punk scene and period details well, and it's not unrealistic in its portrayal of kids' initial musical abilities. 4/5

WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST--This Romanian film bored me to tears--despite me being generally enthusiastic about the recent wave of slow Romanian films that are built around ultra-realistic renderings of sometimes mundane moments. Somewhere in here there's a bit of a story about a film director romancing his lead actress, a new discovery he's brought from live theater into film that other film directors are now interested in. This movie is shot on film and mostly constructed out of 11-minute takes (in other words, the full capacity of each reel), but this doesn't result in anything that resonated with me. I've watched Chantal Ackerman films with a similar central conceit three times as long that felt shorter than this film. That said, the most entertaining moments come towards the end, and I won't discount the possibility that it'll grow on me. 2/5

WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL--Sion Sono's latest boasts an exceptional first and final 20 minutes, but at 126 minutes it's far too long for what it is. The story revolves around a group of young wannabe filmmakers calling themselves The F**k Bombers, who encounter real violence on the streets and film it as entertainment. As they grow from teens to adults, they happen on two battling clans of yakuza; the leader of one wants to revive the acting career of his daughter, a childhood commercial star, and the F**k Bombers start filming the yakuza war with his enthusiastic participation. The madcap, kitchen-sink mentality of this film seems like an attempt to make a film similar to House (aka Hausu), a wonderfully insane film that I absolutely love. But this film is way sillier than House, not to mention too self-aware. There's plenty of hilarity and gore here, not to mention some fun concepts, but there's also 40 minutes of padding that, if cut, could easily result in a great film. 3.25/5


AWARDS:

Originally Posted by roar

The award winners from TIFF (as found on the Toronto Star website)

Blackberry People’s Choice Award
Overall: Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave
First runner-up: Stephen Frears’ Philomena
Second runner-up: Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners

Documentary: Jehane Noujaim’s The Square
First runner-up: Alanis Obomsawin’s Hi-Ho Mistahey!
Second runner-up: Leanne Pooley’s Beyond the Edge

Midnight Madness: Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell?
First runner-up: Mike Flanagan’s Oculus
Second runner-up: Alex de la Iglesia’s Witching & *****ing

Prize of the International Critics (Fipresci Prize)
Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida in the Special Presentations category
Claudia Sainte-Luce’s The Amazing Catfish in the Discovery Program, which spotlights feature films by new and emerging directors

City of Toronto and Canada Goose award for Best Canadian Feature Film
Alan Zweig’s When Jews were Funny

Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film
Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver’s Asphalt Watches

YouTube Award for Best Canadian Short Film
Walter Woodman and Patrick Cederberg’s Noah

[Show spoiler]Noah

Netpac Award for World or International Asian Film
Anup Singh’s Qissa