NEW YORK—The link-through below may not be the final word I offer on my experience at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, but since I aim to attend my first New York Film Festival press & industry screening tomorrow morning (come at me, Brian De Palma's Passion), I figured this was as appropriate a time as any to catch you all up on this blog post from last week, to which I contributed blurbs about three of my favorite films at TIFF. So if some of you were clamoring for elaboration on why I cited some of those titles in the artistic consumption log I posted just this morning...there you go.
By the way, I contributed that list, by the way, before I had seen Marco Bellocchio's Dormant Beauty, which probably would have edged out To the Wonder on that top three. If asked to come up with a blurb about it, I'd say something along the lines of it being the kind of humane political filmmaking that seems to be in preciously short supply in many recent American films (though, surprisingly, Robert Redford's new film The Company You Keep comes close to matching Bellocchio's in political intelligence, at least). You can see the trailer for the film above.
Showing posts with label Toronto International Film Festival 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toronto International Film Festival 2012. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Artistic Consumption Log, Sept. 10, 2012 - Sept. 16, 2012: "All Movies, All the Time at TIFF" Edition
BROOKLYN, N.Y.—
★ The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ritwik Ghatak), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ The Lords of Salem (2012, Rob Zombie), seen at Ryerson Theatre
★ Byzantium (2012, Neil Jordan), seen at Visa Screening Room
★ To the Wonder (2012, Terrence Malick), seen at Princess of Wales Theatre
The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012, João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Aftershock (2012, Nicolás López), seen at Ryerson Theatre
Clandestine Childhood (2012, Benjamín Ávila), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Three Sisters (2012, Wang Bing), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Reality (2012, Matteo Garrone), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Post Tenebras Lux (2012, Carlos Reygadas), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Sightseers (2012, Ben Wheatley), seen at Ryerson Theatre
★ The Capsule (2012, Athina Rachel Tsangari), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Walker (2012, Tsai Ming-liang), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Laurence Anyways (2012, Xavier Dolan), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Much Ado About Nothing (2012, Joss Whedon), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
★ Dormant Beauty (2012, Marco Bellocchio), seen at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
★ In Another Country (2012, Hong Sang-soo), seen at Scotiabank Theatre
Well, I guess I disappointed all of you out there who were actually "watching this space" to see posts from me from the Toronto International Film Festival as the festival was actually going on. Turns out, whenever I wasn't inside a movie theater, I usually found myself either socializing, tweeting or doing something other than working on actual full-length reviews of stuff I've seen. I feel somewhat guilty about this; on the other hand, I felt like I had a richer, more well-rounded experience this year at TIFF than I did last year, especially thanks to said socializing. So I have no regrets—notwithstanding the two TIFF-related pieces of writing that have yet to be finished. And crap, press & industry New York Film Festival screenings have already started!
In the meantime, here are my five favorite films of this year's Toronto International Film Festival:
1. Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan)
2. The Land of Hope (Sion Sono)
3. Dormant Beauty (Marco Bellocchio)
4. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick)
5. The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie)
Just missing the cut: Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths, probably the most purely entertaining film I saw in Toronto (though Hong Sang-soo's In Another Country did provide a perfectly charming way to end my time at the festival).
And while it wasn't quite the mind-blower Chris Marker's Sans Soleil was, Indian director Ritwik Ghatak's 1960 epic The Cloud-Capped Star—a lyrical Magnificent Ambersons-style family saga—was nevertheless quite the breathtaking cinephiliac discovery I made at TIFF. I look forward to seeing more of Ghatak's work; heck, I need to explore more of Indian cinema in general, with this, a handful of Satyajit Ray films and the Bollywood classic Sholay (1975) being my only frames of reference in that regard.
The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson), seen at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13
Some rough initial impressions on a film that I'm still turning over in my mind:
Dammit, Paul Thomas Anderson! I'm not even sure I like your newest film, and yet I can't stop thinking about it! Especially when cult leader Lancaster Dodd suddenly just randomly blurts out "pig fuck" to some guy at a party who dares to question his ideology. Imagine more or less an entire film made out of moments like the last scene of There Will Be Blood—that wacky concluding 10-minute stretch that somehow manages to strike some kind of insane balance between comedy and tragedy—and you have The Master.
Actually, that's an oversimplification, because, if nothing else, this is a film that absolutely refuses easy pigeonholing. To call it a black comedy about the absurdity of Dodd's Scientology-like cult is to ignore the film's focus on the extravagantly disturbed World War II vet Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) and the way he tries to fit in with "The Cause" yet is fundamentally unsuited for it. And while the film is as fixated on the growing father-and-son-like relationship between Quell and Dodd, there's hardly the same warmth that even There Will Be Blood occasionally (very occasionally) found in Daniel Plainview's relationship with H.W. It is a consistently strange environment Anderson presents to us, and part of the thrill of his latest film lies in simply basking in its wonky tone and oddball characters/character dynamics.
On the level of a spectacle, then, I enjoyed The Master; it has a quality of mad unpredictability that keeps a viewer on his/her toes throughout. Is that enough to make this the great film that many have suggested this is? On this, I harbor doubts—but then, I've always harbored such doubts when it comes to this much-celebrated filmmaker, some of which I expressed recently in a contribution to this recent Criticwire survey. With There Will Be Blood and now The Master, Anderson is moving further away from the recognizable humanity one could sense even in the nutty idiosyncracies of Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and focusing on (all-American) eccentrics, seeming to deliberately obfuscate us from easy ways to emotionally access, much less relate to, such people. At least Stanley Kubrick—to which Anderson seems to owe his recent artistic evolution the most—applied his cold-sober approach to characters who seemed convincingly human; Anderson, by contrast, reserves his increasingly chilly vision for the contemplation of emotionally opaque monsters, basically—and, to my mind, the results strike me as considerably less revelatory, losing in humanity and resonance what they gain in artistry. Others' mileage may vary, but I still have yet to find much use for Anderson as an artist, even as I acknowledge the originality of his vision. No one is making movies quite like his right now, and The Master is, like it or not, a singular work.
Films
Toronto International Film Festival 2012, all films seen in Toronto:
The Company You Keep (2012, Robert Redford), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Gebo and the Shadow (2012, Manoel de Oliveira), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox★ The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ritwik Ghatak), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ The Lords of Salem (2012, Rob Zombie), seen at Ryerson Theatre
★ Byzantium (2012, Neil Jordan), seen at Visa Screening Room
★ To the Wonder (2012, Terrence Malick), seen at Princess of Wales Theatre
The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012, João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Aftershock (2012, Nicolás López), seen at Ryerson Theatre
Clandestine Childhood (2012, Benjamín Ávila), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Three Sisters (2012, Wang Bing), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Reality (2012, Matteo Garrone), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Post Tenebras Lux (2012, Carlos Reygadas), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Sightseers (2012, Ben Wheatley), seen at Ryerson Theatre
★ The Capsule (2012, Athina Rachel Tsangari), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Walker (2012, Tsai Ming-liang), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Laurence Anyways (2012, Xavier Dolan), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Much Ado About Nothing (2012, Joss Whedon), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
★ Dormant Beauty (2012, Marco Bellocchio), seen at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
★ In Another Country (2012, Hong Sang-soo), seen at Scotiabank Theatre
Well, I guess I disappointed all of you out there who were actually "watching this space" to see posts from me from the Toronto International Film Festival as the festival was actually going on. Turns out, whenever I wasn't inside a movie theater, I usually found myself either socializing, tweeting or doing something other than working on actual full-length reviews of stuff I've seen. I feel somewhat guilty about this; on the other hand, I felt like I had a richer, more well-rounded experience this year at TIFF than I did last year, especially thanks to said socializing. So I have no regrets—notwithstanding the two TIFF-related pieces of writing that have yet to be finished. And crap, press & industry New York Film Festival screenings have already started!
In the meantime, here are my five favorite films of this year's Toronto International Film Festival:
1. Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan)
2. The Land of Hope (Sion Sono)
3. Dormant Beauty (Marco Bellocchio)
4. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick)
5. The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie)
Just missing the cut: Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths, probably the most purely entertaining film I saw in Toronto (though Hong Sang-soo's In Another Country did provide a perfectly charming way to end my time at the festival).
And while it wasn't quite the mind-blower Chris Marker's Sans Soleil was, Indian director Ritwik Ghatak's 1960 epic The Cloud-Capped Star—a lyrical Magnificent Ambersons-style family saga—was nevertheless quite the breathtaking cinephiliac discovery I made at TIFF. I look forward to seeing more of Ghatak's work; heck, I need to explore more of Indian cinema in general, with this, a handful of Satyajit Ray films and the Bollywood classic Sholay (1975) being my only frames of reference in that regard.
The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson), seen at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13
Some rough initial impressions on a film that I'm still turning over in my mind:
Dammit, Paul Thomas Anderson! I'm not even sure I like your newest film, and yet I can't stop thinking about it! Especially when cult leader Lancaster Dodd suddenly just randomly blurts out "pig fuck" to some guy at a party who dares to question his ideology. Imagine more or less an entire film made out of moments like the last scene of There Will Be Blood—that wacky concluding 10-minute stretch that somehow manages to strike some kind of insane balance between comedy and tragedy—and you have The Master.
Actually, that's an oversimplification, because, if nothing else, this is a film that absolutely refuses easy pigeonholing. To call it a black comedy about the absurdity of Dodd's Scientology-like cult is to ignore the film's focus on the extravagantly disturbed World War II vet Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) and the way he tries to fit in with "The Cause" yet is fundamentally unsuited for it. And while the film is as fixated on the growing father-and-son-like relationship between Quell and Dodd, there's hardly the same warmth that even There Will Be Blood occasionally (very occasionally) found in Daniel Plainview's relationship with H.W. It is a consistently strange environment Anderson presents to us, and part of the thrill of his latest film lies in simply basking in its wonky tone and oddball characters/character dynamics.
On the level of a spectacle, then, I enjoyed The Master; it has a quality of mad unpredictability that keeps a viewer on his/her toes throughout. Is that enough to make this the great film that many have suggested this is? On this, I harbor doubts—but then, I've always harbored such doubts when it comes to this much-celebrated filmmaker, some of which I expressed recently in a contribution to this recent Criticwire survey. With There Will Be Blood and now The Master, Anderson is moving further away from the recognizable humanity one could sense even in the nutty idiosyncracies of Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and focusing on (all-American) eccentrics, seeming to deliberately obfuscate us from easy ways to emotionally access, much less relate to, such people. At least Stanley Kubrick—to which Anderson seems to owe his recent artistic evolution the most—applied his cold-sober approach to characters who seemed convincingly human; Anderson, by contrast, reserves his increasingly chilly vision for the contemplation of emotionally opaque monsters, basically—and, to my mind, the results strike me as considerably less revelatory, losing in humanity and resonance what they gain in artistry. Others' mileage may vary, but I still have yet to find much use for Anderson as an artist, even as I acknowledge the originality of his vision. No one is making movies quite like his right now, and The Master is, like it or not, a singular work.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Artistic Consumption Log, Sept. 3, 2012 - Sept. 9, 2012
TORONTO—I am currently knee deep in going from movie to movie here at the Toronto International Film Festival (or, in the case of Neil Jordan's latest film, Byzantium, nodding off through it thanks to film-festival fatigue that finally caught up with me), so I'll keep my usual commentary to a minimum as I theoretically work on longer TIFF-related posts to share with you all. Theoretically.
★ Premium Rush (2012, David Koepp), seen at AMC Empire 25 in New York
Consider this a placeholder for the longer review I'll perhaps one day write suggesting some of the hidden depths underpinning this deceptively slight, breezy thriller.
Toronto International Film Festival 2012, all films seen in Toronto:
★ Sans Soleil (1983, Chris Marker), seen at Jackman Hall
Tabu (2012, Miguel Gomes), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Rust & Bone (2012, Jacques Audiard), seen at Ryerson Theatre
★ Pacific Sun (2012, Thomas Demand), seen at Jackman Hall
★ 21 Chitrakoot (2012, Shambhavi Kaul), seen at Jackman Hall
Many a Swan (2012, Blake Williams), seen at Jackman Hall
★ Departure (2012, Ernie Gehr), seen at Jackman Hall
★ Auto-Collider XV (2011, Ernie Gehr), seen at Jackman Hall
★ The Land of Hope (2012, Sion Sono), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
Stories We Tell (2012, Sarah Polley), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Seven Psychopaths (2012, Martin McDonagh), seen at Scotiabank Theatre
Something in the Air (2012, Olivier Assayas), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
No One Lives (2012, Ryuhei Kitamura), seen at Ryerson Theatre
Cloud Atlas (2012, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski & Tom Tykwer), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
Mr. Pip (2012, Andrew Adamson), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
Other than the free screening of Sans Soleil I saw as my first screening of this year's Toronto International Film Festival (to which I say "holy shit fucking masterpiece where have you been all my life"), I can't say I've been super-blown away by much of what I've seen so far. Exceptions: Martin McDonagh's exhilaratingly unpredictable Seven Psychopaths and Ernie Gehr's two terrific new abstract shorts Departure and Auto-Collider XV (you seriously will not see train travel or highway rides quite the same way after watching those two).
 |
| Sans Soleil |
Films
Consider this a placeholder for the longer review I'll perhaps one day write suggesting some of the hidden depths underpinning this deceptively slight, breezy thriller.
Toronto International Film Festival 2012, all films seen in Toronto:
★ Sans Soleil (1983, Chris Marker), seen at Jackman Hall
Tabu (2012, Miguel Gomes), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Rust & Bone (2012, Jacques Audiard), seen at Ryerson Theatre
★ Pacific Sun (2012, Thomas Demand), seen at Jackman Hall
★ 21 Chitrakoot (2012, Shambhavi Kaul), seen at Jackman Hall
Many a Swan (2012, Blake Williams), seen at Jackman Hall
★ Departure (2012, Ernie Gehr), seen at Jackman Hall
★ Auto-Collider XV (2011, Ernie Gehr), seen at Jackman Hall
★ The Land of Hope (2012, Sion Sono), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
Stories We Tell (2012, Sarah Polley), seen at TIFF Bell Lightbox
★ Seven Psychopaths (2012, Martin McDonagh), seen at Scotiabank Theatre
Something in the Air (2012, Olivier Assayas), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
No One Lives (2012, Ryuhei Kitamura), seen at Ryerson Theatre
Cloud Atlas (2012, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski & Tom Tykwer), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
Mr. Pip (2012, Andrew Adamson), seen at Winter Garden Theatre
Other than the free screening of Sans Soleil I saw as my first screening of this year's Toronto International Film Festival (to which I say "holy shit fucking masterpiece where have you been all my life"), I can't say I've been super-blown away by much of what I've seen so far. Exceptions: Martin McDonagh's exhilaratingly unpredictable Seven Psychopaths and Ernie Gehr's two terrific new abstract shorts Departure and Auto-Collider XV (you seriously will not see train travel or highway rides quite the same way after watching those two).
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Getting Into a Real TIFF
QUEENS, N.Y.—By the time you all read this, I will be at John F. Kennedy International Airport, awaiting to board an American Airlines flight to Toronto's Pearson International Airport for the Toronto International Film Festival!
As many of you may already know, I attended this festival last year and had a grand time visiting the city for the first time and taking in a lot of films (like Terence Davies's The Deep Blue Sea, which was probably my favorite film of the festival last year and will be one of my favorite new releases of this year for sure). Early on this year, I committed to going again this year—and once again, I am indeed doing so without the benefit of press accreditation to maybe offset some of the cost. Maybe I didn't look/try hard enough...? Nevertheless, for me the hope is that, with this and the upcoming New York Film Festival (for which I thankfully am accredited), I'll have a lot of the upcoming major new film releases under my belt before the year is out—so, you know, I can at least try to seem like I'm playing amongst the big film-critic boys and all.
I will try my best to cover my festival experience here at My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second, though it might be tough finding time to write as a result of averaging four movies a day for most of the days of the festival. Twitter might be the best place to look, for those of you who are curious as to how TIFF is going for me. Still, I encourage you all to, as people in my generation say, "watch this space" and everything.
As many of you may already know, I attended this festival last year and had a grand time visiting the city for the first time and taking in a lot of films (like Terence Davies's The Deep Blue Sea, which was probably my favorite film of the festival last year and will be one of my favorite new releases of this year for sure). Early on this year, I committed to going again this year—and once again, I am indeed doing so without the benefit of press accreditation to maybe offset some of the cost. Maybe I didn't look/try hard enough...? Nevertheless, for me the hope is that, with this and the upcoming New York Film Festival (for which I thankfully am accredited), I'll have a lot of the upcoming major new film releases under my belt before the year is out—so, you know, I can at least try to seem like I'm playing amongst the big film-critic boys and all.
I will try my best to cover my festival experience here at My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second, though it might be tough finding time to write as a result of averaging four movies a day for most of the days of the festival. Twitter might be the best place to look, for those of you who are curious as to how TIFF is going for me. Still, I encourage you all to, as people in my generation say, "watch this space" and everything.
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