TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Diary 7: Sept. 13, 2000

GODDESS OF 1967's ROSE BYRNE AND DIRECTOR CLARA LAW

Back to just movies today. Started with a Thai horror film and ended with a doc on a "noise" band from London, Ontario. The fest is nothing if its not diverse.

The untold story about the festival is that the theatres start to become almost as tired as the film goers. The floors get a little more sticky, the seats a little less comfortable as the fest goes on. Similarly, the people look less and less lively by this time.

By the end of screenings on Saturday, everyone will look like hell.

Managed to catch Goddess of 1967, a film that my friend Anton thinks is his fav of the fest. The lead, Rose Byrne, just won for best actress at Venice. I thought the film was nice, but nothing particularly original or inviting. Seemed to me like a slew of other independent films, with little to set it apart. It really hit Anton though - proving once again how subjective this little silly business of film writing (and viewing) really is.



SEOM (THE ISLE)
Directed by: Kim Diduk

In the (genius) Coen Brother's film The Big Lebowski, Julianne Moore's character Maude is an avant garde artist who describes her painting as "strongly vaginal." Until The Isle, I thought that was simply a funny joke upon the traditionally phalocentric world of art.

Nay, for few films are as vaginal as the Thai film The Isle. If no man is an island, it nonetheless the case, if you buy this film's prevailing imagery, that a woman's vagina is an island of danger and mystery.

The story surrounds a mute groundskeeper who runs a fishing village of sorts. Small cabins on rafts are placed on a lake. The caretaker services the cabins of male fishermen, bringing them coffee and sex at their bidding. Her angry eyes and self-prevailing muteness (she speaks once in the film, as we watch her lips move while talking on the phone as seen through a window) illustrates a cold passion and cunning.

This is an intense, disturbing, and at times disgusting film. It is also, at times, quietly beautiful, even when its being the most brutal. The film contains more gore than most horror films, but also explores powerful, violent and intimate emotions. The horror is unstylized, the uncoloured horror of people hurting one another, most often by hurting themselves.

The film is almost dialogue free, with very sparse or banal observations when words are used to communicate. Instead, much of the communication of the film's ideas are done through actions and images. It is a very physical, tangible film, a movie that requires a great deal of its audience.

A very compelling and disturbing film, one that won't soon be forgotten.
Grade: A-/B+





Sexy Beast
Directed by: Jonathan Glazer

Ben Kingsley plays a guy who, in the parlance of his character, is a right cunt. A fun gangster film, telling the tale of you-can-never-really-leave that the Godfather, among others, championed so well. In this battle of wills, Kingsley is fun to watch, but the film as a whole never quite gels.

Grade: B-/C+



Goddess of 1967
Directed by: Clara Law

I get the sense that if this film really clicks with you, it is something that you'd really love and hold dear. I, on the other hand, just couldn't get into the film. The Goddess refers to a particular model of Citroen, leading a Japanese man into the wilds of Australia. I was reminded of the fish-out-of-water elements from Jarmusch's Mystery Train, but the film as a whole simply didn't manage to captivate.


Grade: B




Before Night Falls
Directed by: Julian Schnable

While I liked his Basquiat, Schabel's most recent work fails to move me. While the story of Reinaldo Arenas is tragic enough to be interesting (and Javier Bardem's performance sympathetic) the film as a whole simply seems long and indulgent.

Grade: C+