David Gessel
My Winnipeg
Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg was narrated live (by Guy) in the theater at our screening. It is, at times, howling funny even for a non-winnipegger, though the Toronto audience seemed very amused by some Canadian and Winnipeg specific jokes that I didn’t really get. The live performance added a lot, I thought, to the experience of the movie, the two working together very well to foreshadow and set up some of the jokes.
For a movie entirely about something as personal as Guy’s childhood and as place as specific (and as unlikely to be on most people’s must visit list) as Winnipeg, the movie touched a lot of universal truths while being quirky and colloquial.
2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Ulzhan
Ulzan is a movie about a man named Charles (Philippe Torreton) struggling with a difficult and unnamed event in his past that has led him on a reckless journey into Kazakhstan’s interior. Sort of Leaving Las Vegas on the Steppe. In the opening scene, he tells a border guard on entering Kazakhstan asking, after looking dubiously at the bottles littering the passenger side of his car, “are you a vagabond?” “No, French.”
Two interesting characters join him as generally unwelcome compatriots on his journey: the gorgeous Ayanat Ksenbai as the title role, a woman who perhaps leads Charles to salvation; David Bennent as Saukuni, a travelling vendor who sells rare words.
It is a moving and charming film that just might be about redemption, but is absolutely about finding life where you are. As the film progresses, it becomes more and more interesting, the characters more and more compelling. I very much enjoyed it.
2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Les Amours d’Astree et de Celadon
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon is a pastoral play in a classical style about shepherds and nymphs falling in love with each other. The production is stylized to fit the period, which is perhaps academically interesting, but ultimately rather boring. The dialog and production values feel more like a lightly rehearsed high school production, though I have no doubt that achieving that effect took considerable skill and dedication.
The nymphs wear revealing outfits and there is some pleasing partial nudity, but overall the result is not particularly erotic, despite the attractive bodies. Most of the laughs seem unintentional, over absurdly too sincere or painfully stilted dialog; even so those moments would be less funny if they were intended to be funny. If they were intended to be unintentionally funny, then the movie is fairly successful.
2007 Toronto International Film Festival
The Litvinenko Case
The first movie we saw at the Toronto International Film Festival was Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case by Andrei Nekrasov. He was there to answer questions in person and make his final public appearance before he too is assassinated.
The movie makes a strong, nearly overwhelming case that Litvinenko was poisoned by the KGB for speaking out about the Moscow bombings, along with Anna Politkovskaya. Both journalists appeared in the movie in interviews shot before their deaths, and both spoke of their concerns for their safety.
While there seems to be little doubt that Litvinenko was killed by the FSB, the FSB cover story that he did it himself as a means to an end was given slightly more credence by the movie and the director’s comments. First, that Litvinenko converted to Islam a year before his death with some fervor (including his father’s befuddlement at having brought unwanted Christian icons to his hospital room). Second, Nekrasov said after the movie that Litvinenko’s first words to him when he arrived in Litvinenko’s hospital room were “this is what it takes to be believed.”
Technically the movie was bit shaky, all hand held footage and stylized with extreme close ups of people’s faces and hands as they talked. While it added interest to what was otherwise a movie composed entirely of talking-head interviews, it was a little nauseating after an hour or so.
2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Brick Lane
The last movie we saw at Telluride, in fact at the ATFF, or After Telluride Film Festival, was Brick Lane, a movie about a woman’s ambivalent journey from Bangladesh to London, and her arranged husband’s ambivalent journey back. It is based on a book by Monica Ali.
It is the story of a precocious Bangladeshi woman who has a marriage arranged to an “educated” man living on Brick Lane in London. She arrives there and makes a life for herself, but dreams always of her village life and the fun she had growing up. In time she meets a charismatic young man who turns into a strong community leader as fall out from the World Trade Center bombings makes life even more difficult for the Muslim community. It is overall a well constructed story about the difficulties faced by recent immigrants and their children as they adapt to a foreign and often hostile new home.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
The Band’s Visit
Bikur Ha-Tizmoret is the story of an Egyptian police band that gets lost in Israel on their way to the opening of an arab cultural center. The movie covers just about 24 hours, from when the band lands to the time they get to their final destination, by way of a culture-less town in the middle of the desert. In the brief time they’re lost, they all grow, develop schisms, heal them, and become more complete people while making a small contribution to healing the Arab/Israeli rift.
Ronit Elkabetz is absolutely enchanting as Dina. She completely owns the screen. She’s gorgeous and funny; her every expression is adorable. One could watch her for hours.
The Band was by far the funniest movie in the festival with a command of subtle, dry humor. I recommend it highly.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a Romanian film about two college roommates dealing with one’s unwanted pregnancy and the trials the two go through to get an illegal abortion in pre-revolutionary Romania. The movie is very suspenseful and in places somewhat difficult to watch. Carolyn objected to the unrealistically trivial representation of the physical effects of the abortion on the woman who needed it, but the story is more about the afflicted girl’s friend, played by Anamaria Marinca, and the trials she suffers in support of her friend. The performances are all strong and the movies pacing is generally good.
2007 Telluride Film Festival
Wind Man
Wind Man is a film from Kazakhstan about a small village on the steppe visited by both Death and an Angel. It’s funny and generally light-hearted, but the character development is weak and one is left feeling a bit unconcerned about the various deaths, some of which should be sad, but just aren’t.
I’m not familiar enough with the genre to really get the tropes, but Carolyn is and tells me that people find these crude comedies comforting, like sitcoms, as the same actors appear over and over in typecast rolls. While the movie is interesting and abstract enough to reach a global audience, it probably plays a lot better to a local one.
Not really Wings of Desire on the steppe.
2007 Telluride Film Festival