Album Reviews
Movies
Concert Reviews
Movie Resources
Concert Reviews
Book Reviews

Top 10
Resources
Contact Us

For the second straight year, I had the privilege of attending the Toronto International Film Festival. Toronto, held this year from Sept. 9-18, is by far the largest festival in North America and ranks second in importance only to Cannes. More than 300 features were screened, along with dozens of short films. Obviously with that many movies in circulation, I could see only a small number of them--35 in fact, though that many in nine days felt like more than enough.

One of my primary considerations in choosing those 35 was the director. So my lineup was filled with festival favorites like Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Zhang Yimou, Olivier Assayas, and Francois Ozon. Unfortunately, only the first two matched their past work. Kiarostami's master-class documentary 10 on Ten is probably only for Kiarostami completists, but that includes me, and Hou offers a beautiful homage to Yasujiro Ozu with his Cafe Lumiere. Zhang Yimou's follow-up to Hero is another color-filled martial arts flick entitled House of Flying Daggers. The first 95 minutes are glorious, but the finale is unintentionally hilarious and sent out most fans with a befuddled frown on their faces. The Assayas, Clean, and the Ozon, 5 x 2, had their supporters, but they were clearly minor works at best.

The documentary section wasn't as strong as in years past, but it still produced one of my favorites. Touch the Sound was directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, who also made Rivers and Tides a couple years ago. His latest also focuses on an artist, though in this case the subject is improvisational percussionist Evelyn Glennie. The music is rich and gorgeous, and Riedelsheimer complements it with gorgeous visuals. Agnes Varda returned with another of her quirky personal documentaries, Cinevardaphoto. This one is actually a collection of three short works: one from this year, one from 1982, and one from 1963. The first two are fantastic, capturing Varda's lovely observations about art and life. The last one, a homage to the Cuban revolution, feels dated but still provides a striking artifact. My final documentary, Darwin's Nightmare, is a provocative look at the post-colonial world around Lake Victoria in the African country of Tanzania. Though the film's aesthetic qualities are limited (the digital video cinematography was especially poor), its portrait of the area's residents is profound.

Coming up with festival themes is hard when you're only seeing 10% of the movies, but certainly sex was a hot topic. I avoided most of the explicit stuff, but I found both Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs and the much maligned A Hole in My Heart to be worthy of contemplation. The same cannot be said of Todd Solondz's Palindromes, which did little more than scandalize audiences with its tale of a twelve-year-old trying to get pregnant.

In the last few years, Toronto has developed into a launching pad for potential Oscar candidates. I usually skip those films, since they'll be easy to see when I get back to Chicago. But I did catch The Motorcycle Diaries, a bio-pic based on an early episode in the life of Che Guevara. The film is a lush, compelling drama featuring Gael Garcia Bernal (Y Tu Mama Tambien) as Che and the charismatic Rodrigo de la Serna as his best friend Albert. Look for a full review in a couple weeks.

A number of my favorite movies are playing in the Chicago International Film Festival, so I'll save more detailed reviews for my Chicago preview (look for it sometime next week). But in case you're buying tickets early, Tropical Malady is a beautiful, meditative film from Thailand, though its enigmatic storyline won't be for everyone. Turtles Can Fly and Stray Dogs provide more evidence of the importance of Iranian cinema. Nobody Knows is a compelling drama about four children abandoned by their mother, and Whisky is a droll comedy that seemed to excite most critics but left me uninspired, though the fact that it was my 35th movie might have something to do with that.

The festival environment does tend to wear me down after a while, but one of my favorite movies played on the penultimate day. _Duck Season_ is a delightful comedy from Mexico that features just four characters: two 12-13-year-old boys, a 16-year-old girl, and a pizza delivery man. But their interactions in a Mexico City apartment are filled with real laughs and genuine pathos. First-time director Fernando Eimbcke, who uses black-and-white cinemascope to marvelous effect, is a talent to watch.

Another movie about teenagers proved its worth on the festival's very last day. Bluebird, a simple tale about a twelve-year-old girl struggling with bullies at school, transcends its after-school-special genre with an incredible performance from newcomer Elske Rotteveel and a strong supporting cast. Director Mijke de Jong (from the Netherlands) balances the story's simplicity with fine observations about how adolescents interact and struggle to find their own identity.

Those last two movies are accessible enough to reach a larger audience (let's hope a distributor snaps 'em up), but that can't be said of my two favorite movies of the festival. Peter Hutton, a professor at Bard College, is one of the foremost landscape filmmakers in the world, and his latest work, Skagafjordur, shows why. Shot in the Icelandic town that gives the film its name, it's merely a series of static, 45-90-second shots of hills, islands, and coastline. But what Hutton does with light and the spectacular scenery defies description, inspiring the viewer to notice things he never has before. Afterwards, Hutton modestly claimed that it's impossible not to make a beautiful movie in Iceland, but that can't account for his formal mastery of composition and lensing. Another work on the same program, Anthony McCall's 1973 installation Line Describing a Cone, took my other top spot of the fest. McCall introduced it by saying it was more a light sculpture than a film, and I can't think of a better description. Shown in a gallery setting, the work encourages the audience to move around the room, experiencing the "film" from as many angles as possible. It's not only a participatory work but a communal one as well, as we shape the light together. I realize this is awfully vague, but no description can do justice to this inspiring and revelatory piece. If either of these experimental works ever makes it to Chicago, I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and experience something truly incredible.

Not everything I saw was great, but as I mentioned to my friend Garth, how would I know how high a film was if I couldn't see the floor? So thanks to Oyster Farmer, Palindromes, Buffalo Boy, and the strangely over-rated My Summer of Love for providing the floor for the festival.

Finally, a festival experience might include a lot of sitting in dark rooms, but it'll be awfully lonely if that's all it is. Fortunately, I had the great opportunity to share meal after meal and discussion after discussion with a number of good friends. The final get-together over Ethiopian food involved some wonderfully passionate discussion and reminded me of why filmgoing (and filmmaking) is such a social endeavor. If you ever get a chance to head north for the Toronto Film Festival, you'll see exactly what I mean.

J. Robert Parks  9/26/2004