Before September 11th, the most dramatic news out of The Toronto Film Festival was that Matthew McConaughey had saved a woman who'd fainted while waiting in line for a movie. Before September 11th, the most shocking thing around town was how Joaquin Phoenix had thrown a hissy fit when he couldn't get into the VIP section of a party. Before September 11th, the star monitored closest by the press was LIFE AS A HOUSE co-star Hayden Christensen who let slip some juicy quotes regarding the next STAR WARS movie.
However, shortly after the second jet hit the World Trade Center early September 11th, movies seemed a lot less important frivolous even. As shell-shocked denizens crowded around TV's and jammed bars, festival programmer Piers Handling quickly canceled Wednesday's screenings. And then came the hand wringing. Should the festival shut down completely or should the show go on? A compromise was reached: All parties would be canceled, but screenings would be rescheduled.
Like all of us, I too was awakened that fateful day with the shock of my life. And like everyone else, I sat numbly watching CNN and CBC (the Canadian news network). By Thursday, I wondered if I could even sit in a darkened theater given the situation. Sick of alternating between watching TV, drinking and pacing (it was unclear just when and how I would get back home), I took a subway back to the festival and damn if I didn't end up right in front of the American Embassy. A stranger in a strange (albeit amazingly safe) land, it brought it all back home.
So now, as NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani implores entertainers like Letterman and Leno to go back about their business, I'll attempt to (in my own small, silly way) go about mine. What follows are the films that most stuck in what's left of my mind.
AMÉLIE (LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMELIE POULAIN)
The most talked about film had to be AMÉLIE by Jean-Pierre Jeunet's (DELICATESSEN, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN). His most accessible film to date, this romantic comedy about fate, love and finding one's soul mate in Paris is bound to be Miramax's big fall film, which is both a good and bad thing. The film IS positively effervescent, (it's easy to see why it was the hit of Cannes), but it also smacks of CHOCOLATE cuteness (although it's miles better than the overrated tooth ache).
Packed full of wide angle, pop art colored cinematography, it is also the closest a filmmaker has come to being drunk on style since RUN LOLA RUN. And get ready to see lead Audrey Tautou everywhere. Featured in virtually every scene, she's that good and that fresh.
HEIST
HEIST, David Mamet's "testosterone picture"
© 2001 Franchise Pictures
David Mamet's latest is a who's screwing who crime caper thriller starring Gene Hackman, Delroy Lindo and Danny DeVito. At the film's press conference, the mostly male cast (excepting Mamet's actress wife Rebecca Pidgeon) admitted the film was a "testosterone picture."
DeVito sported sunglasses and a big smile in a blatant attempt to ape his pal Jack Nicholson. Sam Rockwell laughed and said HEIST was quite a change from his last film, CHARLIE'S ANGELS, "where we had 17 writers." Mamet startled the PC throng by referring to Pidgeon as a "good broad." Meanwhile, the notoriously press shy Hackman just looked bored.
Mamet scored the biggest laugh, however, when he said about show business, "Everybody who ain't your friend is going to screw you. Now they just got better suits."
NOVOCAINE
The perfect film festival combo: a first time director (David Atkins), big name stars (Steve Martin as a duped dentist and Helena Bonham Carter as the bad girl with bad teeth) and twisted film noir humor (murder most foul). While the film was only received lukewarmly, Martin used the press conference to launch into a 40-minute stand up routine.
"I insulted all dentists with LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS," Martin deadpanned, "so I haven't had a dentist since."
With the polite reporters asking softball questions that easily translated into straight lines, Martin seemed to be having a ball. Example: "Mr. Martin, what area of show biz have you a desire to explore?" Martin: (long dramatic pause) "Hmmmm... Uma Thurman."
The multi-hyphenate Martin (actor-author-producer) added that his next book "is so embryonic at this point, it's not worth promoting."
JAMES ELLROY'S FEAST OF DEATH
A DOG'S DAY
©
This film was definitely the find of the fest. Vikram Jayanti's documentary about crime novelist James Ellroy (LA CONFIDENTIAL, THE COLD SIX THOUSAND) is a stunning achievement featuring the usual Ellroy antics (he's a dark humored cut-up at book signings) and something totally unexpected. In the climax, another author makes a ten-minute plea to a room full of homicide cops about whom he thinks killed Elizabeth Short (a.k.a. The Black Dahlia, the notorious murder victim who was drained of blood, cut in half and dropped into an LA field in 1947). Being that Short is the most famous unsolved murder of the last century, it's quite a bombshell.
FROM HELL
The long awaited film adaptation of Alan Moore's "CITIZEN KANE of graphic novels," this was one of the hot tickets in town. Starring Johnny Depp and directed by the Hughes Brothers (MENACE II SOCIETY), the reactions to the latest Jack the Ripper thriller were sharply divided. Here's a few choice comments overheard:
"For five years we waited for this? I thought it was just serviceable."
"Bloody good and plenty bloody."
"Depp was excellent, not at all like the part he played in SLEEPY HOLLOW."
"What was with Heather Graham's accent? It came and went more than a pizza delivery guy."
"The East London atmosphere was brilliant. And like MENACE, you had a sense of space and dread that was positively palpable."
THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO)
This one's a return to form of sorts for writer/director Guillermo del Toro. A ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War that's long on atmosphere and short on overblown effects, Backbone makes us remember why CRONOS ('94) was such a stunning debut and MIMIC ('98) such a muddled mess.
The jovial del Toro (who resembles a south of the border Harry Knowles) intro'd his film with a laugh and the proclamation: "This is the best festival in the f***ing world."
The next day at a packed solo press conference, del Toro took shots at his Hollywood mess ups, laughed at all his own jokes and showed off his elaborate gothic sketch books saying, "No matter what happens to the finished films, I'll always have these."
HOW'S YOUR NEWS?
HOW'S YOUR NEWS?
© 2001 Grainy Pictures/Sun Brock Productions
"Charles Kuralt's America remade by retards," was the wince worthy description of this documentary about mentally and physically disabled adults who, armed with a van and video camera, journeyed from coast to coast in search of the heart of America. Originally a short, NEWS became a cult legend and with the help of indie producer John Pierson and SOUTH PARK bad boys Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it's now a full-blown feature. In telling interview after interview, five reporters with disabilities ranging from Down's Syndrome to severe spastic cerebral palsy hit the hinterland and find humor, honesty and truth.
After one showing on Monday the 10th, cast and crew converged at Lee's Palace, a heavy metal bar on Bloor Street. Regulars were shocked when the cast took to the stage and in a series of songs they'd written themselves completely won over the dumbfounded audience.
"I didn't know if I should laugh or not," one liberal patron explained. "But then I realized this was an empowering thing. And they sure as hell dance with more enthusiasm than anyone I've ever seen."
FAT GIRL (À MA SOEUR!)
FAT GIRL (À MA SOEUR!)
© 2000 Flach Film/CB Films/Arte France Cinéma/Imagine & Cinéma/Urania Pictures
Catherine Breillat's (ROMANCE) latest sexual shocker is a drama about two French sisters on vacation and on the make. One is slight and pretty, the other plump and plain. Featuring a seduction shot in painful real time and a shocking ending, FAT GIRL had audiences violently divided. While many found the performances stunning, others complained Breillat is just messed up psychologically and is punishing audiences by taking out her neurosis on the screen.
VERSUS
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's AMELIE (LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMELIE POULAIN)
© 2001 Miramax
Toronto's Midnight Movies picks are always a dodgy proposition. Meant for the well-lubricated and overly medicated crowd, they're usually fringe genre films long on sensation and splatter, and short on plot and acting. I felt obligated to check at least one out and gave Ryuhei Kitamura's VERSUS a try. A samurai EVIL DEAD meets DAWN OF THE LIVING DEAD meets John Woo meets total nonsense, I made it through the first blood soaked hour. (Although I must admit my description makes it sound pretty good.) Shot in a forest (for obvious budgetary reasons), VERSUS had a few good editing and stunt tricks and, for the true gore hounds, a series of increasingly nasty effects that included decapitations, limbs being lobbed off and a demon that pulled out a guy's heart and, of course, slowly ate it. Ho-hum.
POSTSCRIPT: For the record, here's what fest director Handling and managing director Michele Maheux had to say at the end of it all...
"Thank you for your unflagging support through this difficult week. When we launched the Festival 11 days ago, we all looked forward to welcoming the Canadian and international film community to Toronto to celebrate cinema from around the world. As the incomprehensible events of September 11, 2001 unfolded, we came together globally to grieve for and comfort our neighbors, friends, colleagues, and their families in America and around the world who were touched by the devastation. We found solace in each other, occasionally losing ourselves in film. Together, we have continued to hope and yet grieve with the rest of the world.
"Please know that each and every one of us at the Toronto International Film Festival is deeply saddened by this tragedy, and all those affected by it will remain in our hearts long after the cinema screens go dark at the end of the Festival."
THE WINNERS
VOLKSWAGEN DISCOVERY AWARD:
CHICKEN RICE WAR (voted on by the accredited Press Corps of the Toronto International Film Festival)
FIPRESCI AWARD:
INCH'ALLAH DIMANCHE
Special Mention: KHALED by Asghar Massombagi (Canada)
CITYTV AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE FILM:
INERTIA Sean Garrity, Canada
TORONTO CITY AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FEATURE FILM:
ATANARJUAT (THE FAST RUNNER) Zacharias Kunuk, Canada
AGF PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD:
LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMÉLIE POULAIN Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France
RUNNERS UP:
2. MAYA Digvijay Singh, USA
3. MONSOON WEDDING Mira Nair, India
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