Curious Eyes

Overall I enjoyed the festival. The average quality is high, it’s a real public festival like Rotterdam and i saw some unpolished diamonds, even some polished ones. My highlights:

• Slumdog Millionaire. For once I agree with the public’s choice – in Rotterdam I never do -, a fantastic, overwhelming happening;
• The Burning Plain. had a rather critical welcome here in Toronto, but I am still fascinated by the marvelous plot and also here: the devil is in the detail (no spoiler, though);
• A Year Ago in Winter, beautiful acting , I still hear the Bayern  accent of Josef Bierbichler;
• Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a way to make – if possible – war imaginable;

International Film Festival Rotterdam, cinema tiff, TIFF 2008, TIFF08, Toronto International Film Festival

And after one week I bit the dust with my posts around Toronto International Film Festival. Too tired, also a little tired of the festival, a little unwell too – not really sick, anyway – and after all not completely satisfied with my posts,particularly the language. English is not my native language and you see that, well, I can.

But, ok, the festival ended and it’s now time for a final review. 

First the second week. I saw less screenings, but some highlights:

• New York, I love you. Because it’s a “work in progress” – not finished yet – I am not supposed to report about this one, but let’s say the “tone” of the movie is very pleasant and nice; and also very up to the minute, I saw my first white iPhone 3g in a movie here; no rating (out of competition)
• The Hurt Locker, from “maverick“ Kathryn Bigelow. How close you can get in a feature film to reality, in this case the reality of defusing bombs in Baghdad? Very close, i can tell you.  At the start of the movie – well, not completely the start – you see rocks coming up from the grounds and it’s feeling like you experience yourself the overpressure of the explosion. In the very informative Q&A Kathryn told that that part was shot with a special digital camera (the Phantom) that can shoot about 10.000 frames per second. For an excellent report of that Q&A, see this excellent blog tifftalk. Rating ****1/2
• A Year Ago in Winter, from 2003 Oscar winner Caroline Link (Nowhere in Africa). “small” movie, beautiful painted, as much in screening as in reality, an splendid leading roles from Karoline Herfurth and Josef Bierbichler. The beautiful portraits created by (yes, that I couldn’t find, an update will follow). Rating ****

general A Time to Stir, A Year Ago in Winter, Caroline Link, I love you, Kathryn Bigelow, New York, Paul Cronin, Slumdog Millionaire, Snow, The Hurt Locker, tiff, TIFF08, Toronto International Film Festival

There is a, still a little inarticulated discussion about elitism at this Toronto Film Festival. See this blog and The Toronto Sun . My comment anyway:

As a foreign and first time visitor of the Festival  I am a little modest in my own comment, but I hear around me a lot of negative comments of Festival ” tigers” – package holders like me with 30 or more tickets – , especially about the changed policy for the Visa Room Elgin screenings. Though I can not compare the difference with other years, I find the prices of the Elgin screenings ridiculous. Maybe I will blog later over simularities and differences between Toronto and Rotterdam, another big ” public oriented” Festival.

International Film Festival Rotterdam International Film Festival Rotterdam, tiff, TIFF08, Toronto International Film Festival

John Malkovich, Youssou N’dour, both present and in the movie, two world premieres,  the 2008 winner of Cannes’ best director award, and that all in in one day: Let’s say it could be worse, isn’t it?

• In the kitschy Winter Garden Theatre the world premiere of Disgrace from the famous novel of J.M. Coetzee. I never finished reading the novel, so I was fairly blank in watchin’ this movie. Well, John Malkovich was als always John Malkovich, what is terrific and bad at the same time. The central theme of the book/movie, the voluntarity of Lucy to been humbled, was not really convincing. “ Like a dog, Yes, like a dog.”  And was the role of black dogman Petrus not too small? Still rating ***1/2 (of 5 possible)
• I already described my enthousiasm over the documentary about Youssou N’dour and after a night sleep, it rests. Particularly I liked the personal touch of the movie in combination with the after 9-11-2001 images, taken from the street – Church Street NYC- where I was just a few years ago. Rating ****.
• Three Monkeys of Cannes winning director Nuri Bilge Ceylan was a nice “small” movie on the matter of betrayal and faith with a very intriguing start – no spoilers here -. Rating ****
• And for the start of the day the Chinese Ocean Flame, a Romeo and Juliette drama, packed in a HongKong style, exaggerated crime scene. And a beautiful ocean. Rating ***.

general Ceylan, cinema, Coetzee, Disgrace, Ocean flame, Three monkeys, tiff, TIFF 2008, TIFF08, Youssou Ndour

Just saw the world premiere of a great film about Youssou N’dour, mostly about his Egypt album and tour and the controversy about that in his own country, Senegal. The young director, American Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, made an excellent documentary about the famous African singer, revealing the feelings and dilemma’s about spirituality and Islam. The Egypt album was a great succes in the Western world, but quite controversy in Senegal, but that changed after he won the Grammy Award in 2004.

Special moments were D’nour with his fragile, 95 years old grandmother – died in 2006, the movie is dedicated to her – , a serious, but also hilaric moment in Dublin about the starting time of a concert during Ramadan – it was scheduled too early and has to be prosponed to later on the evening – and the nail-biting waiting for the verdict of the Grammy jury at Youssou’s home in Senegal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHejzA8k344]

Mame Bamba, N’dour song about Sheik Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride brotherhood and the Senegal pilgrim town Touba.

general Elisabeth Vasarhelyi, Mame Bamba, tiff, TIFF08, Touba, Yousou N'dour

Friday 5 september was my first, real TIFF day, started at 8:15 AM in a line around two blocks near Ryerson University. Half of Canada walked out to see Passchendaele, the debut movie of actor Paul Gross, for me unknown. So this  were the results of my second TIFF day:

• Passchendaele is about  the Canadian participation in WWI – in Canada still the Great War – the big losses and how it hurts in Canadian society. In spite of this big theme and many beautiful shots it was for me a very disappointing experience: Gross is in his debut the director of the overexaggerated gesture, as he must explain every single point. In someway the theme is like in Plus Tard, je comprendas – how political tensions has influences  in the personal life of families – , but the movies couldn’t been more different. The latter is the movie from what is not been said, the former the movie of everything said twice or even thrice. My rating: ** (of possible *****)
• RocknRolla. Wow, what a beat, speed, black humour,  what a different look at Ken Livingstone’s London. Though I could not understand half what was said in different kinds of cockney English, I enjoyed the movie from start to finish, as the whole sold out Ryerson Theatre – many fans – did. My rating: ****
• Linha de Passe, Nominated in Cannes for teh Palme d’or, a typical ‘Rotterdam’ movie, about the struggle against poverty in the slumps of Sao Paulo, typecasting a single parent family – off course the mother is the only parent – with 4 different young boys,  from 18 years old Ronaldinho look-alike Dario  to the rebellious and very black Reginaldo, who melted my heart. My rating: *****
• Knitting,   a modern  version of an old Chinese tale, the immortal Weaving Maiden and the poor Cowherd. Did not convince me, but maybe because it was the fourth movie of the day and waiting again in a line. My rating: ***

general Knitting, Linha de Passe, Passchendaele, RocknRolla, tiff, TIFF08

5:30 PM: and then there was the line. Used to the chaotic mess of people for the start of a movie at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the smaller brother of TIFF, I was totally surprised by that tidy line of waiting people, half an hour before the start already far around the corner of the block from Church Street.

My first movie of the festival was an impressive, touching one, Plus  Tard, je comprendas of the Israeli director Amos Gitai. It was a classic    movie about the great drama of the 20th century in the context of a   French/Jewish family , based on the autobiography of Jérôme Cléments,  president of Arte, the European cultural TV Channel.

Most impressing in the movie was what not been said: about the  choices made in the famliy, about the Holocaust. And the image of  almost childlike happy German and French  policemen and soldiers, finding  what there where looking for in a small  French village in the Vichy-  south: an older Jewish couple, says more about the madness of  mankind then other images with brutal violence.

Grand old lady Jeanne Moreau, 80 now, played the role  of the Jewish (grand) mother in an very convincing way, showing all the dilemmas of those who survived the Holocaust.

Uncategorized Amos Gitai, Arte, cinema, Jeanne Moreau, tiff, TIFF 2008, TIFF08

general TIFF 2008, TIFF08

Gisteravond, op straat, toen ik weer eens mijn iPhone als wichelroede op zoek naar wifi gebruikte, viel mij op dat ik overal hetzelfde SSID tegenkwam: One Zone_High Speed Internet. Ik heb eens rond gevraagd en geneusd en wat blijkt: er is voor heel “downtown” Toronto 1 groot high speed wifi netwerk beschikbaar onder de voor de hand liggende naam : One Zone.

Een zegen voor mij als iPhone gebruiker en TIFF08 bezoeker. Ok, het is niet gratis, maar de $32,77 voor een hele maand heb ik er graag voor over. Nu nog kijken of er ook in de bioscoopzalen bereik is , dan ben ik klaar voor het filmfestival.

En het is snel: de update van Texas Hold’em – toch gauw 128 Mb – ging in 5 minuten, op straat..

Waarom bestaat zoiets niet in Amsterdam, Rome, Parijs, New York, Berlijn,….?

Update: ook Rotterdam Centrum gaat draadloos, dus ook daar tijdens het filmfestival connectie, in dit geval als backup/alternatief van 3G.

general one zone, TIFF08, Toronto, wifi