NOTES FROM THE 2008 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Movies featured in this review: Plus tard tu comprendras, RocknRolla, Slumdog Millionaire, Passchendaele, La fille de Monaco, and Before Tomorrow

By Joel Johnson

It has once again been our privilege this past September to view films from around the world at the Toronto International Film Festival. This festival is acknowledged to be one of the five most prestigious film festivals across the world and one of two that best accommodate ordinary filmgoers and not simply the film professionals and journalists. We saw thirty films at this year’s festival. We suspect that most readers will find that an impressive and possibly overwhelming cinematic exposure, but we were actually chastised by one local Toronto festivalgoer for our paltry sampling of the available cinema. He avowed that he was going to see fifty films, and he was still managing to work! This is the first installment of my notes on the films that my wife and I watched.

PLUS TARD TU COMPRENDRAS (ENGLISH TITLE: ONE DAY YOU’LL UNDERSTAND)

Directed by Amos Gitai. With: Jeanne Moreau, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, and Dominique Blanc. 89 minutes. Screened Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 6:00 P.M. in Ryerson Theater

Two stars out of four

This is the second film seen this year-the first was Claude Miller’s Un Secret which screened at MIFF 2008 (see review in that section of the website)-to address the difficulty of recovering family history lost to the Holocaust. Like Un Secret, much of the difficulty for second-generation Holocaust survivors is being able to have those who lived through it share their memories. Unlike Un Secret, the reticence is not linked to a personal flaw or foible that makes the survivor feel at least partially culpable for the family’s devastation. This places the focus on the methodical thoroughness of the effort to round up and deport Jews to the death camps-the Holocaust itself. Yet the construct of seeing the event from the perspective of those born years afterward gives us little personal connection to the victims. The script was written by Dan Franck from an autobiography by Jérôme Cléments with adaptation advice from the director, Amos Gitai, and Marie-Jose Sanselme.

Victor (Hippolyte Girardot)-the cinematic identity of the autobiography’s subject-becomes obsessed with piecing together his family history-particularly his mother’s family-after discovering a document avowing his mother’s Jewish ancestry. Jeanne Moreau plays Victor’s mother, Rivka, who refuses to answer her son’s direct questions to tell him what she knows about the lives and fate of her own parents. Mother and son follow parallel orbits as they go through their lives-the son searching for leads in his ongoing efforts to retrace his grandparents’ lives and the mother coming to terms with the impending end of her life-but the two never come to a rapprochement on this issue. Moreau’s Rivka is the film’s most compelling character and is the primary reason one should see this film. Victor’s sense of psychic disconnection from his family’s Holocaust fate is an interior experience that can be described by a writer but cannot be easily shown in the cinema. Victor’s life follows an unexciting bourgeois rhythm remarkable only for a thrashing freneticism in pursuit of any snippets of information on his grandparents and a dour moroseness about ever understanding it all. An imagined impressionistic flashback sequence to his grandparents’ apprehension by the Nazis does give the film a needed jolt of energy as it provides an emotional immediacy that is otherwise sacrificed in favor of a cold-eyed appreciation of the scale of wanton collective cruelty directed at an entire class of human beings.

The hallmark of a less than fully satisfying film experience is a desire to remake (or more accurately to reimagine) the film. My version of the film would tell the story from the perspective of Rivka-the reluctant bridge between Victor and his Holocaust victim grandparents. She has first-hand experience of the loss of her parents and then is confronted by her son’s insistence that she share that knowledge-knowledge that she has spent a lifetime burying. This would, of course, not exactly be the book that Monsieur Cléments wrote, but-with Jeanne Moreau as the bridge between the first-hand suffering in the Holocaust and the missing birthrights stolen by the Holocaust from second-generation survivors-this should be a more enlightening and emotionally compelling film. At least, I would hope so.

ROCKNROLLA

Director: Guy Ritchie. With: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jeremy Piven, and Toby Kebbell. 114 minutes. Screened September 5, 2008 at 11:45 A.M. in Ryerson Theater

Three stars out of four

For most of the public, Guy Ritchie has been best known as Mr. Madonna-husband to the superstar rock performer. When this film was shown, the story had already broken that their marriage had hit the shoals, and the Material Girl had already established an interest in someone who was big into diamonds-baseball diamonds-by the name of Alex Rodriguez. However, for the Ryerson Theater audience to whom Ritchie was introducing his latest film, Ritchie was the superstar. This was no sleepy crowd suffering from “eleven o’clock droop.” This crowd was so psyched that they interrupted his introduction several times to pour forth their affection and positively howled with dismay when it was announced that he would not be able to stay for a question-and-answer (heretofore noted as Q & A) session following the film.

The film itself is vintage Guy Ritchie. It is easy to see this is as a descendant of his first feature film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Instead of a lot of fresh faces (like Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones) and veteran character actors in his introductory under ₤1 million masterpiece, here Ritchie has a top-of-the-line cast that had a lot of fun in his over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek ultraviolent crime epic. The film is indeed a wild ride as Ritchie keeps the pedal to the metal on a curlicue course that makes Le Mans look like a drag race straightaway. The convoluted plot has real estate scams, political graft, a faked death, many that don’t seem to be faked, a robbery or two or so on, sex, drugs, and-of course-rock ‘n’ roll. The intense soundtrack and the heavily accented working class British English make it all the more difficult to unravel exactly who is doing what to whom. Ultimately, getting and keeping it all straight is not really the point (though I would like a second crack-perhaps with subtitles-to get a few more of the ducks lined up). You either are entertained by Ritchie’s black comedic perspective on horrific violence and criminal personalities, or you are not. The audience with whom I watched it loved it. There are other audiences that would be bewildered and appalled. So if you are up for something wicked and wild, this may be your cup of tea.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Director: Danny Boyle. Codirector, India: Loveleen Tandan. With: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, and Irfan Khan. 120 minutes. Screened September 10, 2008 at 3:15 P.M. in Ryerson Theater

Four stars out of four

Boyle and acclaimed screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) have used the device of the Indian version of the TV program Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to tell a story of poverty, exploitation, brutality, and survival that is somewhat reminiscent of Fernando Meirelles’s City of God. Both make use of recalled memories, both feature children negotiating a tortuous route to adulthood, and the visuals are intense and action packed. Of course, anyone who has seen Boyle’s early film Trainspotting knows that he knows a thing or two about amping up the visual intensity of a film. Those who have seen Millions know that he can capture the playfulness and the pathos of a child’s world. The “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” set-up means that-literally-there can be a big pay-off at the end. The film goes a bit too Hollywood-or, perhaps more accurately, too Bollywood-at the very end, but it manages to keep the audience’s collective hearts in their throats most of the way. The buzz in Toronto was very hot for this film (it ultimately received The People Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival as the audience’s favorite film), and some were suggesting that it had the potential to win the Best Picture Oscar and, if Boyle showed up to do presentations after each Academy screening, it might. He ultimately won the same level of audience support as Guy Ritchie had at “hi.” This film may lack the star-power of known Hollywood actors to get over the hump, but don’t count out this delightfully exotic film. Getting people into the theater for this Indian-set film will be the hard part. Once there, the movie will deliver quite a ride that is powerful, poignant, and entertaining.

PASSCHENDAELE

Director: Paul Gross. With: Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas, Joe Dinicol, Michael Greyeyes, Meredith Bailey, and David Lereaney. 114 minutes. Screened September 5, 2008 at 8:45 A.M. in Ryerson Theater

Three out of four stars

World War I has been much overshadowed by World War II in American eyes. The later war has continued to be refought and virtually every aspect of its wartime experience explored in American cinema. There are two brand new films coming to theaters near you that illustrate this. Mark Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas provides a child’s perspective on the Holocaust and, of course, the upcoming film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise, tells of the failed conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Films about World War I are, by contrast, few and far between. The earlier Great War-once known as the War to End All Wars-has been surpassed by the Good War against a true Axis (of evil). The reason for this is not only the vivid and colossal atrocities perpetrated by the opposing Axis powers in World War II, but also that American participation in World War I covered only a fraction of the duration of that war. The United States declared war in April 1917, and the war-which ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918-had lasted more than four years. The American combat experience of World War I covered only one-and-a-half years of that vicious conflict. Our Canadian cousins had much earlier answered the call to arms issued throughout the British Empire-on which it was said the sun never set-even if some places like Canada actually were then independent nations.

Though the combatants are now long dead and the guns have been silent for ninety years, the impact of World War I continues to reverberate in Canada. Soldiers gathered into combat units from villages and towns were sent “over there,” climbing out of trenches to advance across open fields into a hail of machine gun, rifle, and artillery fire. Young men who had grown up playing together died together-by the thousands. Communities, virtually emptied of an entire cohort of young men, would mourn that loss for decades. It is no wonder that families that lost fathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins would continue feel the emptiness of grief for generations. Director Paul Gross has sought to fill that emptiness in this film that celebrates Canadians’ experience of this frightful conflict. While the film could be described as a World War I-set Saving Private Ryan in that actor Paul Gross’s Michael Dunne returns to the battlefield determined to protect his girlfriend’s asthmatic brother David (Joe Dinicol), the film tries to cover a broad range of issues.

David and his sister Sarah (Caroline Dhavernas) grew up as Canadians yet not only suffer the suspicion of their German ancestry but also their father’s return to his homeland and subsequent death fighting for Germany. David has a medical exemption from serving, but he is desperate to enlist, both to stop the neighbors from targeting him and his sister and to be seen as worthy in the eyes of his girlfriend Cassie’s (Meredith Bailey) father. It is suspected that the girl’s father, a doctor who declares David fit for combat, hopes to end the romance-permanently.

Dunne has returned to the Canadian province of Alberta from the front with wounds both physical and mental. He bears a checkered past that includes a miscreant youth with fellow roustabout Highway (Michael Greyeyes) and wartime heroism tempered by the knowledge that he had needlessly bayoneted a young, defenseless German soldier who was trying to surrender. In Alberta, he meets Sarah, whose contribution to the war effort is to nurse wounded veterans. Recovered from his physical wounds he is reassigned to the Alberta home front to recruit new soldiers-a task he undertakes with considerable ambivalence. It is there he encounters the monstrously officious Colonel McAndrew (David Lereaney) for whom there seems no tactic too slimy to use in getting young men sent into harm’s way. Much of the film centers on the budding romance between Sarah and Michael that germinates in an absolutely gorgeous Alberta with spacious fields, glorious streams, and majestic mountains.

However, the action eventually takes all the key characters to the Battle of Passchendaele-a prolonged campaign for a few square miles of territory, typical of how the First World War was fought-with the film’s action focused on its climax on November 6, 1917. The combat sequences are shot with the same ferocious you-are-there intensity that Spielberg brought to Saving Private Ryan. This is an overstretched, melodramatic film that leaves virtually no heartstring untugged, yet at its core it delivers timeless truths about human nature and the unquiet place war holds in our collective soul. It is especially well worth seeing on the big screen for both its beautiful rendering of a pastoral Alberta and its horrific rendering of combat. American viewers may have few opportunities to see this film in theaters, so care will be needed in looking for single copies at the video store or in perusing lists of titles from mail-order rental services.

LA FILLE DE MONACO

Director: Anne Fontaine. With: Fabrice Luchini, Roschdy Zem, Louise Bourgoin, Stéphane Audran, Gilles Cohen, and Jeanne Balibar. 95 minutes. Screened on September 7, 2008 at 12:15 P.M. in Scotia Bank Theater 1

One and a half stars out of four

La fille (Louise Bourgoin) est magnifique-alas, the film is definitely not. It is billed as a romantic comedy but really can’t decide whether it is a romantic comedy, a buddy picture (its most effective scenes are between Luchini and Zem), a courtroom drama, or a slacker gross-out comedy. There are elements of all these genres present. Had the screenplay by Fontaine, Benoît Graffin, and Jacques Fieschi settled on any one, the film might have worked. As it is, the film squanders a fairly good set-up and the terrific chemistry between Luchini and Zem to become embarrassingly silly. Luchini is a high-priced Paris attorney imported to Monaco to defend aging doyenne Audran, who is charged with killing her Russian mafia paramour; Zem is a bodyguard providing twenty-four-hour protection to Luchini from the paramour’s mafia buddies; and Bourgoin sees Luchini as an opportunity to advance her television career.

Louise Bourgoin is a gloriously statuesque blonde beauty channeling Nicole Kidman’s ambitious weathergirl from Gus Van Sant’s To Die For while adding a dash more of Marilyn Monroe’s sexy innocence. Sweet with shockingly few inhibitions displayed, Ms. Bourgoin’s Audrey is hard to resist. It will be interesting to see how her career develops after being the titular character in what-for me-was a very disappointing film. Unfortunately, our tight schedule did not allow us to hear the director Fontaine’s “closing argument” during the Q & A nor fully appraise her Exhibit A stunner in Bourgoin, who accompanied the director.

BEFORE TOMORROW

Directors: Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu. With: Madeline Ivalu, Paul-Dylan Ivalu, and Mary Qulitalik. 93 minutes. Screened on September 7, 2008 at 2:30 P.M. in Scotia Bank Theater 4

Two stars out of four

Film festivals exist to show films from different cultures, and Before Tomorrow is a perfect example-a film from the indigenous Inuit of northern Canada who were very warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by the Toronto audience. Unfortunately, it is not a perfect film for bleary-eyed festivalgoers who had already taken in two or three films. This is a slow-moving film about the unintended consequences of contacts with white visitors. One consequence was disease and death for the indigenous peoples. We do not see the contact-only the aftermath. An elderly Inuit woman and her grandson are the sole survivors, having been drying the fish catch for their group. Much of the film’s story is told like an oral tradition shared during an evening gathering. We see the storyteller telling the story directly to the camera. The film cuts against our expectations and desires. Faced with such a major survival challenge, most films would show how the characters persevered to survive-to find another group to which to become attached. This film is a meditation on the end of life.