Lots of films in the past week, and apologies for the lack of blogging, but I've been buried in screenings, post-work activities, and life in general. I have set aside a few hours on Friday to get caught up on the NYFF, but tonight, I took a break from the movies and took in Liverpool's finest, Ladytron, and their live show at Webster Hall. I hate the club (muddy sound, a magnet for self-involved douche bags) but the show was tremendous; they played all the hits, the entire night was soaked in red light, and by the time the encore of Destroy Everything You Touch wrapped, the crowd was roaring in sweat-drenched approval. A great night and a much needed dose of social activity after sitting through 13 movies in four days at the Walter Reade. Like I say, more NYFF coverage coming very soon, but in the meantime, enjoy a little of that Ladytron magic.

Destroy Everything You Touch by Ladytron

Last week, after taking in the second day of NYFF press screenings, Michael Tully gave me a homework assignment; to write a single, unifying essay about Ingmar Bergman's Summer With Monika and Roman Polanksi's Knife In The Water. This is my rather futile attempt to earn a passing grade.

Love Boats

This coming Saturday, The New York Film Festival is about to unleash one of the most amazing film retrospectives in a long, long time when Jean Renoir's The Rules of The Game (swoon) kicks off a 25 film look at 50 years of Janus Films. There are few companies in cinema that have maintained a singular excellence over the past 50 years (companies come, companies go, the films last forever), but whenever I see Janus' two-faced coin logo at the start of a screening, I know I am in for a treat. Have they ever let me down? Before I type another word, I want to extend both my deepest thanks and congratulations to the team at Janus Films (and Criterion) for their hard work in building new audiences for some of the best films in the history of cinema. Without a company like Janus (and theaters like The Film Forum, BAM and The Walter Reade) championing these works, I am not sure I or most people my age would have found our way to the classics. Last week, Richard Peña and the NYFF shared two films with the press and industry in order to showcase two of the true gems of a truly bejewelled retrospective; Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water (in a stunning new print) followed by a screening of Ingmar Bergman's little-seen (by me anyway) Summer With Monika. Seeing both films back to back, projected in luminous black and white on the Walter Reade's screen, was quite a shock if only because of they felt completely modern and relevant; Neither film has lost an ounce of timeliness.

First up was Polanski's debut feature film, Knife In The Water. Made in Poland in 1962, the film justifiably launched Polanski into the world of major film artists; The filmmaking is so audacious and stylish, so assured, it is almost impossible to believe that this is Polanski's first film. Knife tells the story of a bourgeois couple who, en route to the local marina to spend a weekend sailing, pick up a young drifter after he aggressively flags down their car. Macho control freak Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) taunts the young man (played with a perfect balance of menace and innocence by Zygmunt Malanowicz) while Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka), Andrzej's intelligent, patient and beautiful wife tries to diffuse the tension between the men. When the group arrives at the marina, the young man tries to leave, but Andrzej sees the opportunity to teach condescending life-lessons to the young man and, unable to control himself, ends up inviting him to join the couple on the boat for their sailing expedition.

Polanski at work on Knife In The Water

It is at the very moment when the sailboat leaves shore that Polanski begins to soar as a Director, combining tense, claustrophic camera work in a very small, confined space (basically the deck of a two person sail boat) with stunning, fluid shots of the action on board and in the water. One shot in particular, a close up of the young man at the stern of the ship which suddenly peels off as the boat turns away from the camera, is more thrilling than anything you've seen in a long, long time. Another, featuring the young man laying Christ-like on the deck, his head encircled by a coil of rope, evokes Catholic iconography and painting with delirious beauty. Of course, this being a Polanski film, the thrills aren't simply visual, and the film drips with sexual tension as Andrzej's mastery of the boat is challenged by the potential danger of the young man's titular knife. As Andrzej humiliates the young man (an inept sailor who has never been on a boat before) and seeks to keep his wife's attentions from the younger, more attractive drifter, the competition heats up and things get dangerous.

Nowhere To Hide: Zygmunt Malanowicz in Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water

At the center of Polanksi's film is the deeply rooted desire for sexual mastery in both men, the need to assert their sexual dominance over the other in order to assure themselves that the unknowable, sexually mature Krystyna can be convinced of their worth. When the young man's knife (his source of self-assuredness and a survival tool for him) falls into the water, the entire equation (that is, Krystyna's affection and attention) is suddenly thrown up for grabs as the men are literally lost at sea. It is in this moment that the locus of the film shifts and Krystyna is allowed to assert her own desires (and to take over the boat and guide both men to safety), and she fufills her need to punish Andrzej for his refusal to allow her her rightful place in the relationship (see the film's opening shot, when Andrezj forces her to stop driving the car so that he can take over. Always a big mistake). When Krystyna allows the young man to make love to her, she re-establishes his lost confidence, gains revenge on her braggart of a husband, and proves to be the film's most powerful figure, a woman among boys, assuredly earning the last word in domination.

So, too, does Ingmar Bergman capture the unknowable sexual desire of a young woman in his 1953 breakthrough Summer With Monika (compellingly titled Monika, The Story of a Bad Girl for its release in the USA. Russ Meyer would have been proud). The films tells the story of an amour fou gone horribly wrong (but then again, don't they all?) between the hard-scrabble, working class Monika (an unbelievably young and gorgeous Harriet Andersson) and Harry, the young stiff whose desire to run his own life and escape the bourgeois expectations of urban living leads him to ruin. Monika and Harry start off on the right track; after meeting in a café, the young couple head to the movies and toward a long, seemingly normal courtship. But trouble lurks around every corner; Monika's family treats her like a child and forces her to flee their domestic arrangement and into Harry's eager arms, while Harry, a romantic whose need for respect is only matched by his refusal to do what is necessary to earn it, can't hold down his job with the local porcelain distributor. Monika also has a sexual past (unlike Harry) which Bergman makes manifest in the character of Lille (John Harryson), the local tough who isn't afraid to plunk Harry with a stiff punch to the jaw in order to show him who's the boss.

And here we go again; Harry and Monika flee the familial and sexual baggae by boarding Harry's father's boat (take that, Freud!) and setting off from Stockholm for the islands off the Swedish coast. As the young couple begin their lives together, their aquatic idyll couldn't be more perfect; they swim, camp, forrage for mushrooms and food, and make love whenever they please. While Harry is at the helm of the boat, it is clear that this work is in service to Monika's desires, and as the days and nights float by, things start to go sour. As Harry and Monika picnic away from their boat (and the domain of Harry's mastery) Lille shows up and trashes the boat, dumping their belongings into the sea, breaking windows and setting the boat on fire. Harry notices the smoke and discovers Lille, fighting him tooth and nail for control of the boat and the love of Monika, when she arrives on the scene to knock Lille out with a swift blow of a frying pan to the head. As the young couple try to re-establish their blissful experience, the violation of the boat has set everything askew in their lives. Harry's mastery has been challenged, his control and confidence shaken by the loss of control and Monika grows emboldened to assert her own dominance.

Bad Girl: Harriet Andersson as Monika in Ingmar Bergman's Summer With Monika

Soon, bad things happen (as they must) and the couple return to the reality of Stockholm (as they must) where Monika's dissatisfaction with Harry grows into an itch that only Lille can scratch. Much like Polanski's film, Summer With Monika derives its narrative thrust from our desire to see an untenable situation hurtle itself toward a happy ending but in both cases, a sexual pretender bites off more than he can chew. In Bergman's world, the happy ending simply isn't going to happen, and we know it clearly and irrefutably; using expressionistic lighting (may I even suggest Monika as a film noir?), Bergman makes clear the fate of his characters in two stunning close-ups. One, which sees Harry walk smack dab into a beautiful lighting scheme which highlights his eyes (and fades the world around him to black) is the perfect reveal for a man who suddenly comprehends his own fate. When Monika gets the same treatment, we see the lighting differently; The rising darkness behind her jet-black hair merely an expression of her long-understood intention to do whatever she must to make herself feel whole. In this sense, Monika is a long way (13 years and 19 films to be exact) from Persona's psychological realism and visual fireworks, and instead seems more akin to Smiles of A Summer Night in its powerful use of a seemingly pre-destined conclusion to somehow invest us deeply in the film's story. Monika doesn't feel nearly as revolutionary as Knife In The Water, but as an important stop on the road to Persona, it fits perfectly into the Bergman corpus.

Now, only 23 more films to go in the Janus series. I can't encourage you enough to grab tickets for as many of these films as you can. Think of it this way; It's your chance to re-live the glory days of the Cinematheque, to meet your friends on rain-soaked autumn streets as you spill from a screening, headed to the bar to discuss and argue, your mind and heart on fire with nothing but cinema. Think I'm overstating things? Take a chance and dare to confront greatness.

In the build up to this year's New York Film Festival, I had been participating in the annual ritual of scanning the global festival circuit to see what films on the American horizon were generating interest, but I was still surprised when Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette was included in the line-up. It seems obvious now; A strong, talented American filmmaker making a film in France (a costume drama no less) about a well-known historical icon. You can almost smell the Upper West Side just reading that. But in the wake of Cannes, where Marie Antoinette was one of the most critically derided films to come out of the festival, I tried to remain hopeful. Prior to seeing the film, and not one to shy away from greedily devouring on-line film reviews, I had a lot to think about. Let's look back, shall we?

"Coppola avoids writing, or filming, involved dialogue scenes, as if aware she can't pull off anything too complicated. Despite the vast number of people onscreen in many sequences, scarcely any scenes feature sustained group dynamics, multiple moves, ambitious staging or numerous characters interrelating verbally. To get around this, she tends to attractively and straightforwardly film individuals or simple groupings and then lay in the desired content via voiceover snippets of letters, isolated conversational snippets or, better yet, songs that can simply be played over a brief montage of shots. It's an easy-listening style of filmmaking, where the basic visual notes are hit but complexities, nuances and deeper meanings remain ignored... Coppola avoids famous incidents that would normally make up the essence of drama: the affair of the necklace that so seriously stained her reputation, the chance discovery of the royal family as it fled; the king and queen's imprisonment and eventual execution. High schoolers won't be able to use info they learn here to pass any history tests." -- Todd McCarthy, VARIETY, May 24, 2006

"Unfortunately (the) first 10 seconds was followed by another and another and another, and after two hours of those little series of seconds, it felt as if the staccato energy and sporadic sensual delights of Marie Antoinette had dissipated. Then the final credits arrived. And then the booing started. Yes, really. No other film in competition at Cannes this year has been booed...Coppola lacks the committed, demented genius Baz Luhrmann brought to Moulin Rouge, and when Marie Antoinette isn't being crazy and decadent it becomes a bit too pretty, proper and trivial for my taste."-- Andrew O'Hehir, SALON, May 24, 2006

Etc etc. Leaving the press screening of Coppola's film last week at the NYFF, I heard even more personal complaints about the film; "Of course Coppola identifies with Marie Antoinette," the voices said. "The isolated rich girl living in the palace, bored stiff, with great shoes." Maybe Coppola has her own critical masses to confront, pitchforks at the ready, the guillotine a mere carriage ride away.

I don't know if there ever was a time when America didn't feel compelled to stand at the intersection of celebrity, gossip, envy and art in our culture, but what I do know is how weary I am of the way in which people's real lives become fodder for the interpretation of their work, and no recent example is as striking as the completely unjustified smear campaign being waged against Sofia Coppola and her wonderful Marie Antoinette. Yes, Sofia Coppola is the daughter of a famous film director, and yes, we've all seen the New York Times magazine piece following her around the streets of Paris. A good life. In the case of Marie Antoinette, let's play grown-up and put the bullshit aside: Coppola has created one of the most compellingly watchable historical dramas in recent cinema precisely by doing what her critics accuse her of doing; playing loose with the historical and temporal facts for the sake of making a good movie. Answer me this; Would it be more or less ‘historically accurate’ (don’t get me started) to ascribe thoughts and famous quotes to a character via period dialogue or carefully plotted revelations that in no way spring from the emotional experience of real life? Or rather, isn’t it more cinematically compelling to interpret an historical life as an extension of the modern condition? Because, while there is no mistaking that Marie Antionette is certainly about class, privilege and duty, at its very core it is the story of a girl gone, well, a little wild.

Eats Cake, Wants Candy: Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette

Coppola makes three choices that, I think, deliver a knock-out punch to critics who, having been shown the shiny surface of a privileged life, choose to allow themselves to be blinded by the sparkle. The first is her use of modern new wave/post-punk music as the soundtrack for the emotional inner-life of Marie who, as played by a wondrous Kirsten Dunst, does what is required to keep up appearances, but who burns inside with a lust and curiosity for life. That she is a queen and not a member of the Parisian underclass certainly allows her to follow that curiosity in highly privileged ways that most of us could only dream of, but hasn't that nearly always been the case? Does every story of the French Revolution have to be Les Misérables? (Please, god, no.) Regardless, while Marie is living the high life with composure and in concert with her sense of royal duty, it is the music that lets us know how she really feels. From the film's opening notes (Gang Of Four's Natural's Not In It) to a terrific montage set to Bow Wow Wow's I Want Candy (re-mixed by My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields) to the beautiful use of Joy Division's Ceremony, Coppola understands that the feelings and longings of the young queen are ahistorical and in tune with the sounds of the director’s own youth. This is a terrific way into the character as well as the artist behind the camera, a common ground that shapes the character of Marie in a poetic and utterly cinematic way.

Next, Coppola does not make the mistake of trying to stuff historical drama into what is essentially the story of the awakening of a young woman and I can't tell you how thankful I am for that. When one of my colleagues lodged the "rich girl telling the story of a rich girl" complaint against the film, I immediately realized that Coppola, by tackling this subject, couldn't win with those whose minds were predisposed to personal interpretations; Had she made the film about the French peasantry, I can only imagine the criticisms. Instead of dabbling in the post-graduate free-for-all of political interpretation, Coppola does what a good storyteller should do; She stays true to her subject as an artist by filtering the story through her own sensibility. That means we hear The Cure, see a pair of blue Converse Chuck Taylor's in Marie's shoe closet, that historical details are the fodder for cinematic play; the movie is a thousand times richer for being smart enough to entertain and to tell Marie's personal story from her own, interior point of view while simultaneously building bridges across history, access points to an otherwise unrelateable story. I found myself sympathizing deeply with the girl, despite her tremendous excesses, because her story is universal, glitz and glam and all.

Finally, Coppola's aesthetic and visual style in the film is consistent with her previous work with the cinematographer Lance Acord; the images are beautiful and perfectly suit the film's narrative. The hurtful, hushed words of courtly intrigue that fly around the palace take on a sense of tremendous importance when set against the visual backdrop of Versailles itself. I found it easy to see how someone, given anything they wanted in life yet isolated from much of the world's experience, could allow life at the court to become so all encompassing. It would have been more shocking and less true to see that world expanded because, by and large, it probably wasn't and, even if it were, it doesn't serve the dramatic purpose of the film to escape from Versailles and courtly life. Instead, by nailing the visual delight found in Marie's world and taking it seriously, Coppola validates her character's dramatic story and makes us all privy to the fantasy and, most importantly, moved when the party comes to its inevitable end. Which is, of course, the point.

I think, had any other director made Marie Antoinette and followed Coppola's non-literal, highly cinematic strategy of telling this story this way, they would be hailed for their achievement. I simply think, in the age of Paris Hilton, MTV's Cribs and blinged-out hip-hop stars, there is a general weariness with the celebration of ridiculous, undeserved (read young) opulence among cultural critics. That said, the way in which Coppola's film (and the director herself) has been mistreated by these woeful misreadings is simply unfair; the film is neither a celebration of the queen nor a smug cautionary tale. I remember when Eric Rohmer made The Lady and The Duke a few years back, and despite the muted voices of a few left-wing French intellectuals, most critics were delighted by the visual daring and the fun Rohmer seemed to be having with what ended up being a deeply conservative story about a royalist on the run from stupid yet dangerous French revolutionaries. But this isn't The Lady and The Duke because there is no ideological longing here, and certainly no statement about French political morality is being made. Instead, Coppola does what any director in her right mind must do to make a very good movie; She empathizes deeply with her protagonist, finds a way to bring her audience into the queen's gilded cage and allows us to look into her unknowable heart.

It is so difficult in this day and age to find independent films that transcend the 'indie' label and aspire to the level of great art, so when you find a film that deserves the full attention of the film-going audience, a modest, beautiful heart-breaking film, there is a responsibility to spread the word. For me, one of the best films I have seen in 2006 is Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy, which opens today in NYC at the Film Forum. It is an extraordinary film, transcendent, and a must-see.

Will Oldham and Daniel London in Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy

I saw the movie at Sundance and was very fortunate and proud to be able to bring the film, Kelly and writer Jonathan Raymond to Sarasota for the Sarasota Film Festival, where it won our Best Narrative Feature Jury Prize. The film is a heartbreaking tale that marks the changes in our lives in the wonderful way that only cinema can; Small moments, perfectly observed, accumulate to paint a clear picture of lives drifting apart. I think the movie is one of the strongest films by an American filmmaker that I have seen in a long, long time, and I strongly encourage everyone to give it a chance and get to the theater this week to see it. A big opening weekend will really help launch this film into the wider world, and we can all do our part by taking a trip to the theater. I know I'll be there. Congratulations to Kelly and Jonathan on this great achievement, and I look forward to seeing how the film finds an audience.

After writing some long posts in the last week, I thought I should cover some of the other films and experiences I've enjoyed at this year's Toronto Film Festival. As I have said many times before, when you see six films a day for nine days, things get a little wacked out; people begin shouting at the screen, the movies begin to talk to one another and the whole experience becomes singular, unified. Toronto was a tremendous festival, and despite some complaints by my fellow colleagues that this was an 'off-year', I found plenty of films I have loved (and I didn't see most of the most highly regarded titles as I will be catching them next week at the New York Film Festival.) I always say this, but it bears repeating; One of the great joys of my job is being able to watch films with an open heart and mind. I have no commercial interest or critical reputation to uphold, I simply watch to see if I can connect to a film and if an audience might be able to do the same. I don't know where that lands me in terms of responsibility, but all I know is that I have really enjoyed most of the films in Toronto. While I always fail in my attempts to honor the spirit of brevity (my time in Canada is over, NYFF press screenings begin tomorrow), my thoughts on a wonderful Toronto...

Fay Grim by Hal Hartley

If Fay Grim, Hal Hartley's global conspiracy-draped follow up to his classic Henry Fool, proves anything, it is that the future of digital cinema follows the same path that cinema has always taken; A good script, fine actors, and a talented Director working in perfect concert will make a good movie, regardless of what camera is used to capture the images. Day-and-date multi-platform releasing, VOD windows, on-line film downloads, editing suites being pared down to a single laptop; who cares? If there is one thing that most of the people cutting the edge of 'new cinematic business models' may be overlooking (or maybe not), its that the projects they are choosing (mostly independent, low-cost/low-risk movies) are exactly the ones that will continue to excite the human beings who want to sit in movie theaters. Fair play to the good folks at HDNet films for packaging up multiple platforms and trying to get their films seen by as many people as possible, but until the day when movie downloading and TV playback is simple, fast, foolproof and very, very cheap, I will refrain from getting too excited about any of it. I mean, how much revenue did Soderbergh's wonderful Bubble bring in? Then again, maybe the lesson has been learned and these companies understand human behavior far better than I do. It's enough to make one schizophrenic!

Fay Grim

I guess the reason I bring this up, in this context, is that it seems surprising to me that Hartley's low budget, shot on HD, edited on Final Cut Pro, released in the coming months by the HDNet films/Magnolia/Landmark troika, etc etc. film is getting less press for its terrifc story than it was for its embrace of digital-age cinematic tools (and possible release strategies). At the end of the day, kudos go to everyone involved for bringing this tremendously fun, wildly energetic film to audiences. The film tells us the story of Fay Grim (Parker Posey), sister of poet Simon Grim (James Urbaniak), and her discovery that her former lover Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan), long thought dead, is actually alive. Of course, this revelation is not without its complications, which involve the CIA, terrorism and a delightfully non-sensical (yet perfectly plausible) chain of conspiracies, codes and entanglements that make up a hilarious distillation of our complicated times. Think Chaplin's Modern Problems blended with Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much set in the age of global terrorist 'chatter', and you have a start.

Rescue Dawn by Werner Herzog

Rescure Dawn, Werner Herzog's fictionalized re-telling of his non-fiction Littlke Dieter Needs To Fly, may be his most accessible film for American audiences and will, I think, become his most sucessful film on these shores, but I already heard the backlash starting when I walked out of the press screening. "That was Herzog?" said one attendee to a friend. "America is going to eat that up," said another. To those who watched Rescue Dawn and saw something that doesn't fit in perfectly with Werner's long-established theme of man battling against the violence of the natural world, well, I would argue that either you don't know Herzog or you don't understand the accessibility of Little Dieter in the first place. This film will find an audience in America, I think, precisely because it finds personal triumph in a relative defeat while showing us a terrifying fight for survival (a note-perfect re-telling of Dieter Dengler's personal narrative).

I can understand how this film could be misread by those eager to graft political interpretation onto the film's P.O.W.-in-Laos story (either as vindication of American soliders or an equivoication with something like Abu Ghraib), but I think Werner would want to choke anyone who tried to dabble in metaphor when talking about Rescue Dawn. What the film is about is a pilot who, once being shot down on a secret mission in Laos, is held in a P.O.W. camp before engineering an escape and being plunged into a jungle which holds him in an equally terrifying captivity. Proof that Herzog's message should not be misinterpreted as some sort of triumphalism? In the film's final moment, when Dieter (Christian Bale, who seems to be almost chanelling Dengler) is returned to his comrades on-board his Navy vessel, he is asked if he has any advice for the soliders who take inspiration from his survival. "Scratch what itches, " he says. If I have ever heard more Herzogian advice in my life, I couldn't identify it. There is no irony, no metaphor in Rescue Dawn. It is simply an amazing adventure, well told, with great perfromances all the way around (Steve Zahn shines, and if Jeremy Davies doesn't get the lead in a Helter Skelter remake after this, no one deserves it). I am interested to see how the world inevitably heaps its own bullshit onto Herzog's movie, but if anyone can overcome it, it is Werner.

Men Against Nature: Steve Zahn and Christian Bale in Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn

Strike by Volker Schlöndorff

I haven't heard much from others about Volker Schlöndorff's Strike, and I am surprised as it was one of the highlights of the festival for me. Detailing the working conditions that lead to the rise of the Solidarity movement in the shipyards of Danzig/Gdansk, Poland, Strike is primarily the story of the plucky, hard-working Agnieszka Kowalska (an amazing and vital performance by Katharina Thalbach), an illiterate shipyard welder who is also the pride of the labor union. After terrible working conditions, mutiple acts of deception and corruption by Union officials all lead to a tragic accident at the worksite, Agnieszka agitates the party officals and is fired, leading her fellow workers (including Lech Walesa, played with intensity by Andrzej Chyra) to begin to organize against the state controlled labor officials and bring the famous Solidarity movement into the world. I don't know whether the film's tiny critical response so far is a measure of its scheduling during the festival (everyone else was in line to see Borat, sigh...) or if the film's dedication to industrial labor relations and politics is simply unattractive to many in our global corporate age. but for me, the film couldn't be more timely. As corporations chase cheap, unorganized labor around the globe is search of low costs and the highest stockholder returns, Strike was a refreshing and hopeful reminder of battles fought and won. The film itself, which reminded me of what might happen if you took Eisenstein's Strike, mixed it with Norma Rae and had a Nights of Cabiria-era Giuletta Massina in the role of the plucky working woman, you have an idea of how engaging Strike is.

Monkey Warfare by Reg Harkema

Wow. Seeing the film billed as a Canadian (the film is set in modern-day Toronto) re-telling of Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 classic La Chinoise, I went into Reg Harkema's Monkey Warfare with a load of expectations. You just don't make that comparison in a festival catalogue without inviting skepticism, but I am very happy to say, I enjoyed Monkey Warfare more than I ever dreamed I would. I don't know why that is, and it probably says more about me than the film, but that is a lot of expectation to foist on a modest indie film. But man oh man, does Monkey Warfare transcend. Instead of a re-make or a re-telling of La Chinoise, Monkey Warfare takes the specifc political concerns and cinematic style on display in Godard's film and projects them into the present day, where they take on an almost tragic feeling in the context of today's social conditions.

Linda (Tracy Wright) and Dan (Don McKellar) are bohemian roomates who live below soceity's radar in a rent-controlled house, subsisting on the found objects and antiques they discover and sell on-line. In fact, the pair live so far off the grid, Linda and Dan don't even use e-Bay, but instead have their own on-line business. When their pot dealer gets busted, Dan enlists the services of Susan (Nadia Litz), an impressionable twenty-something in a beret who, like Dan and Linda, rides a bicycle and gets by on day to day living and the pot business. As Dan and Susan grow closer, he becomes a mentor of sorts to the younger girl, educating her in the ways of old school revolutionary idealism; he plays her Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings records, shares his book on the Baader-Meinhof group with her, and lays down his philosophy of living in our dark times.

Fuck The Man: Susan (Nadia Litz) rides her bike in Reg Harkema's Monkey Warfare

The film really picks up when Dan and Susan's relationship is complicated by Linda and the three become something of a family unit wherein Dan and Linda, somehow and someway, shock themselves by discouraging Susan from taking her own revolutionary ideals too far. Instead of becoming a piss-take on the revolutionary ideas and images of the 1960's, Monkey Warfare instead incorporates those images, styles and ideas into what I considered an elegy for left-wing political idealism. The film is at once poignant and very funny precisely because it knows how to use history, both cinematic and political, to show us how much we've changed since Godard threw his cinematic molotov cocktails up on the screen. I saw both positive and negative in those changes, but ultimately, I don't really miss the days of Marx and Coca-Cola; We've got the MTV and the SUV to contend with now. I can't recommend Monkey Warfare enough and, if this movie is not the Opening Night Film of NYC's Bicycle Film Festival, there is something wrong in the world.

No Place Like Home by Perry Henzell

Speaking of classic cinema projecting itself into a present day context, Perry Henzell's No Place Like Home was plucked out of a Jamaican time capsule and shown at this year's Festival. The movie, mostly shot in 1974/75 in Jamaica, is a sort of follow-up to 1972's classic The Harder They Come, but with a Psychosimbiotaxiplasm twist; the film oscialtes between documentary- style footage of a film crew shooting a TV Commercial for shampoo (starring a very young P.J. Soles) and a narrative about a local fixer named Carl (Carl Bradshaw) and his attempt to find P.J. after she flees the set. During production of No Place Like Home, the negative went missing and the film was lost until it was recently found it in a New York City sound studio. Taking the found footage and trying to assemble something from it, we have this version of No Place Like Home.

The film is unfinished and a total narrative mess and Henzell and his team clearly know it and have tried to fix things by inserting shots and bits of dialogue from the present day (shot on digital video) and matching it to the dirty, griitty film stock and story from the 1970's. Even still, with the impossible to follow story, the gratuitous slow-mo shots and the unresolved plot, the film must be seen if only for the first twenty minutes and later, for Carl's journey home. In the opening sequence, the film crew attempt to shoot the shampoo commercial with an incorrigable P.J. Soles, who not only sings the comerical's music ('We all live in a world of beauty/ the sun shining every day'-- hilarious) but complains about every take, camera angle and even on-set sound. It is a jaw-dropping document of the early 1970's commercial culture and the 'making of' style that Henzell employs makes me wonder what was real and what was staged; it is pretty astonishing to walk into a cinema in 2006 and see fotoage like this. Carl's journey to find P.J. Soles, who has fled the set in order to experience Jamaica (we never see her again) is also well worth seeing and includes a brief, unfinished rendez-vous with a young Grace Jones (who is stunning) and the beginnings of a revolution against the authorities who are shutting down local businesses in order to sell-off beach-front property to wealthy foreigners (we all know how that one ended), but again, most of these scenes are mere fragments. I got a clear sense that, had Henzell not lost the negative and been able to complete these stories (and had he not fallen back on Bob Marley classics and instead used more timely, less popular music on the soundtrack) at the time, he would have had a worthy follow-up to The Harder They Come. As it stands, No Place Like Home is a series of beautiful antique fragments clumsily stiched together with modern threads. I can understand the impulse to try and salvage what was clearly an amazing project, and a film festival is the perfect place to show the footage, but I suspect this movie will see other incarnations in the future.

D.O.A. at the American Hardcore Party

Yes, there were several industry folk at the American Hardcore party at Toronto's legendary Horseshoe, but I am not sure how many folks were on the floor with me when the mighty D.O.A. took the stage around 12:30am on Wednesday night. The band have still got it; I think Joey may be the only original member left in the group, but they still fucked it up, playing classic D.O.A. as well as some choice covers, like The Germs' Fuck You and fellow Canadians The Dickies classic I Don't Give A Shit. It was great to be in the middle of a busy Film Festival and be able to crash around the front of the stage like a ridiculous sixteen-year-old again. Sigh. Maybe next year we can get a Dayglo Abortions show? ha! Thanks to the American Hardcore folks for the event... I missed Flipper's opening set (tragic!), but D.O.A. made my day.

Regrets and Thanks!

My two main cinematic regrets at the festival were missing This is England by Shane Meadows (which someone else on my staff covered) and The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, which will be released by the time my festival rolls around, but which I was dying to see (but unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict, could not). Otherwise, I did pretty well.

It was a lot of fun to get back in the cinematic swing of things and I'm looking forward to writing some in-depth reviews of the New York Film Festival in the coming weeks. Thanks to Jared Moshe, Matt Dentler, Paul Rachman, Josh Braun and everyone else for the party invitations; I really appreciate it! Thanks also to the staff, filmmakers and volunteers at Toronto for delivering a top notch event. I look forward to seeing you all again next year!

Today, as many press and industry members left town, I was excited to take in a couple of the most highly-anticipated titles on my list of must-see movies. First up was Hal Hartley's Fay Grim (more on this at another time, but I liked it very much), and after a quick lunch, I hustled to the Varsity 7 to catch the second press screening of Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire. I was exhausted from the week's work, and the film's difficult subject matter seemed daunting; already on an emotional edge, worn out, and perhaps more open and vulnerable as a viewer than I might otherwise have been, I wasn't sure I could do it. But by the time the film let out, I felt transformed and overwhelmed.

I believe that in 20 years time, as our nation's political landscape changes in whatever ways it will, we will return to Lake of Fire, along with films like Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies, Albert and David Maysles' Gimme Shelter, Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, USA and Errol Morris' The Fog of War, as an essential documentary; A piece of the cinematic puzzle of our nation. I knew Lake Of Fire would be difficult (any responsible film about the issue of abortion must be), but I was not prepared for the film's epic complexity; I have used the word masterpiece on this site before, but Lake of Fire is one of the most important documentary films ever made. Shot entirely on gorgeous black and white film and utilizing extreme close-ups of many of his interview subjects to tremendous effect, Kaye (best known for American History X and the long battle over that film) has crafted what is, both aesthetically, politically, and cinematically, what I can only imagine will be remembered as the film of record about our battle over a woman's right to choose an abortion.

Shot over a 16-year period (from 1991 to the present day) and running 150 minutes, the film is much more than a simple roll-call of the names and faces that have lead the fight over abortion rights in the last two decades; it is, quite simply, a devastating chronicle of America's slow and steady slide into political intolerance. With unimaginable access to people on both sides of the issue, Kaye refuses to flinch from the comprehensive presentation that the subject requires; Footage includes crime scene films, clinic bombings and murders, protests, clinic defenses and trials, but the film's heart and soul are the conversations with advocates for a woman's right to choose and those opposed to abortion. Most difficult of all, two abortion procedures are shown in detail.

What is startling (and ultimately what makes the film so important) is Kaye's understanding that, while the issue itself is almost a blank screen upon which every sort of deeply felt human belief is projected, the crucial element at play in the abortion debate is the lack of an adequate ethical framework to help the majority of people create a sensible solution to the political divide. That is to say, while no one doubts that a fetus is 'human' in some way or other (either as its earliest, unfinished form or as a human baby from the moment of conception), there is no way to definitively know with absolute certainty what the relationship between each day of gestation and the development of a human life is. We are left with unanswerable, highly politicized ambiguity, in the murky gray area where human behavior takes over and we discover far more conflicts than solutions; Human faith and religious authority versus a constitutional democracy that specifically chose to nullify the influence of religion on activities of state, the reality of demand for abortion necessitating safe access to a legal procedure for women pitted against a religious ideal of the world where making abortion illegal is the first step in creating a moral utopia.

And then there is the violence. At the center of the film's first half is the string of murders of abortion providers in Florida, Boston and New York. The film's most powerful example of the rise of violent intolerance is seen in the case of Paul Hill, the former Presbyterian minister who murdered Dr. John Britton and and his bodyguard, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Herman Barrett outside a women's clinic in Pensacola, Florida on July 29th, 1994. Hill shows up early on in the film when he is seen defending the murderer Michael Griffin outside the Pensacola courtroom (Griffin himself was convicted of murdering Dr. David Gunn on March 10, 1993, a year before Hill committed his own murder at the same clinic). In a press conference after Griffin receives a guilty verdict, Hill is seen on camera calling the murders a "just response" to the act of performing a legal abortion. A camera operator in the crowd takes Hill to task for his advocacy of violence and makes an off-hand comment, asking "if we'll be seeing you on trial for murder in a few months," and Hill pauses as the seed is clearly planted in his own mind. Hill becomes a regular outside the clinic, is seen protesting at a memorial service for Dr. Gunn, and then finally erupts in violence. Kaye has plenty of footage of Hill's escalating campaign against the clinic; the entire progression from activist to murderer is visible on screen. Hill was subsequently executed by the State of Florida on September 3, 2003.

Paul Hill, outside the Pensacola Women's Clinic

Griffin and Hill's intertwined story transforms the film and deeply complicates the anti-choice position; as advocates of murder and vigilante justice who disregard the legitimacy of our nation's laws because they do not conform to their religious vision, Griffin and Hill as well as their fellow murderers Eric Robert Rudolph, James Charles Kopp (who is not named in the film) and John Salvi provide a horrifying insight into the role religious faith and moral certainty have in some individual's response to the law. Kaye tells this story straight; he allows people to speak without inserting his own voice as an advocate on either side of the issue, but he isn't simply focused on the anti-choice movement. He also doesn't validate Hill and Griffin's connection between the termination of a pregnancy and murder by comparing Hill and Griffin's actions to the act of abortion, instead allowing ethicists and the faithful to discuss the implications of the crime.

Before I mistakenly misrepresent this film as being a loaded, pro-choice film that pits rational, free-thinking pro-choice advocates against murdering anti-choice activists, let me say once again that many voices on both sides of the argument are heard and the film does an amazing job of showing the ethical dilemma surrounding abortion. In the film's final moments, Kaye personalizes that dilemma in the most difficult and dramatic of ways by showing us a young woman go through the entire process of receiving an abortion. It is in the story of this woman that the film clearly outlines the difficulty of the personal decision to terminate a pregnancy. It also shows the procedure in detail, from the psychological support and interview process to the surgery itself. The film is not for the faint hearted, and its refusal to look away from the physical reality of abortion will raise many questions in the minds of viewers on both sides of the issue. The aftermath of the procedure provides the perfect coda to the film, but it also left me with the distinct feeling that somehow, the Roe lawyers got it right when they framed the prohibition of abortion as a violation of our 4th Amendment right to privacy. Because, for all of the bluster, violence and hostility on display in the film (and in society), Kaye gets it absolutely right when he shows the act of terminating a pregnancy as being, essentially, the most private and personal decision currently guaranteed by federal law.

The Women's March on Washington

Interestingly, both sides of this issue would love to see reductions in the number of abortions performed as no one wants to see a woman face the terrible and difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy. But we do not live in a utopia, nor will we ever, and as such, Americans must search for a way to reconcile ourselves to the realities of human behavior and human faith while finding a way to live together despite our deep differences. Kaye's profound ambivalence about that possibility is on display from the get go. There are no solutions here, no bridges built, no pathways to understanding. What makes the film great is its acknowledgment that it can provide no answers, but rather a comprehensive, deeply felt illustration of the depth of the problem. You only need look as far as the film's title for proof.

Lake of Fire gets its name from a passage in the Book of Revelation, quoted in the film, which summarizes the depth of the divide as concisely as anything probably can.

"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire, This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." --The Book of Revelation, Chapter 20, Verses 12-15

Where can we go from here? How can we find a middle ground between those who believe that non-Christians will spend eternity in a Lake of Fire in Hell and those who seek personal privacy and freedom of choice to make an incredibly difficult, painful decision to terminate a pregnancy? I don't care to get into the politics of abortion here, because it makes it almost impossible to talk about the film and accurately describe Kaye's delicate balancing act, so I hope that my thoughts on the film are seen as just that; thoughts on a film. I have my own beliefs, but I refuse to trade in the hostilities on display in the movie. Take that for what it is worth. Or think of this review as an attempt to practice what I preach and make a gesture toward those with whom I disagree. Either way, I believe fair-minded people on both sides of the debate must see the film and I hope it can become a tool for opening discussion about this profound issue among those who disagree. I will be very interested to watch this film as it makes its way through the world, and despite leaving me with the feeling of being absolutely devastated, I almost can't wait to see it again. It is absolutely essential and like I said, will be remembered as such. The best film I've seen in Toronto by a wide margin.

The buzz at the festival today was steeped in tragedy, yet somehow (and of course), a day in the cinema gave me some respite from the news of the world. As any New Yorker waking up on September 11, my first thought as I opened my eyes was for my fiancée and the hope that I would hear no news. Despite the constant and public memorialization of 9/11, I consider the day to be highly personal and specific; a private anniversary best spent with memories, my own thoughts. This morning, I took a minute before rising from bed, remembered, and dragged myself into the shower and toward the day.

I soon understood that another tragedy had taken center stage among festival attendess in Toronto. Stepping into my first screening of the day and nursing a mild hangover after last night's terrific About A Son party (thanks Jared! I got home at 4:00am), I heard about the triple homicide at the Delta-Chelsea Hotel that rocked the festival today. The murder (or murder-suicide) took place late last night right next door to some industry delegates, so there were a lot of rattled nerves today as police continue to investigate. (UPDATE: The vicitims appear to have been German tourists)

With frayed nerves and a lot on my mind, I ducked into the first screening of the day...

The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky

I have been following Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain since pre-production in Australia was scrapped years ago when Brad Pitt pulled out of the film in order to take the lead in Troy. Having seen the film today, and having closely follwed the critical divide it has inspired, I was excited to settle in and make up my own mind. The three word review? I loved it. I don't understand what critics are taking exception to in the film, other than its obvious (and necessary) seriousness about its ideas, structure and philosophy. Which is another way of saying that a movie with some interesting ideas about life and death, which simultaneously echoes Love Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Aguirre: Wrath of God probably shouldn't work, but it really does. Unlike the trailer, which seems to claim some sort of love-story-through-the-ages/reincarnation narrative, the film's formal structure is not so much a time-twisting mind-fuck as a very clear, easily understood and (here's the most important part) deeply felt look at love and loss. This is not a difficult movie to understand and Aronofsky should be congratulated for taking chances with this highly inventive material and bringing his rhythmic, geometric visual and narrative style to an altogether new place.

The story is simple; A medical researcher named Tommy (Hugh Jackman) is working on a cure for brain cancer when his wife Izzy (Rachel Weisz) is diagnosed with the disease. As Tommy races against time and uncovers a possible cure from the bark of a tree found in Honduras, Izzy has been working on a novel about the search for the Mayan Tree of Life by a Spanish conquistador (also played by Jackman). The novel's tale parallels Tommy's own search for a cure for Izzy and both stories cut to the future where Tommy, having discovered the key to immortality, travels in outer space to return the Tree of Life to the Mayan underworld and bring a proper ending to Izzy's unfinished novel. It may sound complicated and silly, and it might have been, but the film's insistence on taking itself seriously saves it; There are no winks to the audience, no flinches, and not a single tinge of irony to be found. On the other hand, the film does suffer from a lack of levity; the race for a cure, the quest for the Tree and the space travel are all dependent upon Jackman's clenched jaw and his overwhelming sense of personal loss, and Aronofsky, never known for a Lubtisch-like touch to begin with (he may be the master's antithesis), never relents. Whereas Requiem For A Dream began in the deep end and descended from there into the darkest possible waters, The Fountain stays in cruise control, delivering its bumps and bruises with an evenhanded precision. That is, until the film's final minutes, when death comes calling and Aronofsky transcends.

Love and Death: Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain

I have been thinking about mortality quite a bit lately; Reading Michel Houellebecq's great new(ish) novel The Possibility of an Island recently (which deals with cloning, death and eternal life in ways that resonate deeply with The Fountain), I came across a passage that one of the characters in the novel attributes to Baudelaire's poem The Death of The Poor, and watching the film today (and having the criticism of it bouncing around in my head), I was reminded of the poem again (the translation is in the Houellebecq);

"Death, alas! consoles and brings to life;
The end of it all, the solitary hope;
We, drunk on death's elixir, face the strife,
Take heart, and climb till dusk the weary slope.

All through the storm, the frost, and the snow,
Death on the black horizon pulses clear;
Death is the famous inn that we all know,
Where we can rest and sleep and have good cheer."

Reading Ray Bennett's review in The Hollywood Reporter, I was shocked to discover the following phrase which gets the film absolutely, perfectly wrong;

"Early in 'The Fountain,' writer-director Darren Aronofsky's flatulent dissertation on the benefits of dying, someone says, 'Death is the path to awe.' Aw, shucks, isn't that what suicide bombers are led to believe?"

Cute turn-of-phrase, but wrong; It the inevitability of death and the need for us to embrace our own mortality that Aronofsky is advocating and he seems right in line with Baudelaire. Human mortality, usually so deeply disregarded by on-screen violence, is finally engaged in an interesting way, and the best the press can do is take cheap shots comparing the film's message to that of terrorists? Wow. In reality, I think if the film can find an audience, it can do very well, especially among women; Lots of women I spoke to coming out of the screening were deeply moved by the film, as was I, and the love story at the film's center is an engrossing tragedy that could do terrific business. Give the film a chance and make up your own mind.

I Don't Want To Sleep Alone by Tsai Ming-Liang

Walking into the screening tonight, a chance encounter; I stood face to face with Tsai Ming-Liang, alone in the hallway. I greeted Tsai with a handshake and spoke a few brief pleasantries before we headed in opposite directions, but one of the great benefits of attending a film festival are these lovely little meetings with destiny. Soon after the handshake, I settled into my seat and Tsai took the stage, recounting the story of a dream that a Chinese philosopher once had; Waking from a dream of being a butterfly, the philosopher wondered if, somewhere in the universe, there were a butterfly dreaming of being the philosopher. Of course, the tale made a resonant point in regards to Tsai's beautiful new film I Don't Want To Skeep Alone; That our dreams and desires are projected into the world and, in many cases, become real. In the film, Tsai's longtime collaborator Lee Kang-sheng plays two roles; that of a comatose patient being cared for by two women and his doppëlganger, a homeless man recovering from a savage beating who is cared for by a stranger. The film is a love quintangle between the homeless man, the two female care-givers, the young man who rescues and cares for the homeless man, and the comatose man himself, and it is the complex relationship between the narrative world and the dream world of the comatose man that drives the story.

Butterfly Kisses: Lee Kang-sheng in Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want To Sleep Alone

Unlike most of Tsai's recent films, I Don't Want To Sleep Alone is shot almost entirely in the darkness required by the film's thematic concerns with sleeping and dreaming, and when coupled with Tsai's signature long takes where action happens at an almost silent pace, the film is almost a lullaby in and of itself. Which is not to say that the movie is slow, but that it may be one of Tsai's most difficult films because it takes us quite a while to find the film's rhythm. However, once the connections between the characters is clarified (or understood) and the trick of rhyming Lee Kang-sheng with himself is pieced together in the narrative, feeling and a true connection with the piece begins to gel. Patience with the movie pays off, but it is an absolute necessity. Like The Fountain, there is no real trick here; Tsai makes his story clear by the time the final reel closes with a wondeful, etherial image of a bed floating on water. There are lovely light touches, some typically graphic love scenes and beautiful music throughout the film and once audiences find their way into I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, these delights on enhance the already engaging story.

Long day ahead tomorrow, so it is off to sleep. Alone. Ha.

The weather has cooled considerably in Toronto today, giving the air the cool, damp feeling I love. It's clearly autumn now. The sun is setting a little bit earlier each day, the sweaters are coming out in force, and at the film festival, I had two solid days of screenings. Movie-wise, yesterday was one of the best days I have ever had at a film festival taking in three films. Today, four so far; I may be running to a 10:30pm screening to make it five, but it all depends on how fast I can crank out this blog post, so let's get to it, shall we?

Shortbus by John Cameron Mitchell

It is hard to where to begin in describing John Cameron Mitchell's long-awaited follow-up to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but it may be best to begin with a superlative; I have never seen a more honest, true and loving portrayal of the search for fulfillment and intimacy in all of my years of watching film. Shortbus, named after the film's fictional free-love salon, is a celebration of human freedom and the importance of community in terminating the inherent lonliness of sexual desire (or lack thereof), and I was absolutely blown away not only by the film's graphic honesty (which, as established by the tour de force opening sequence, is as normal and loving as human sexuality should be), but by how the film works as a movie. Mitchell braids together the stories of the different people that come to the Shortbus salon for true sexual healing; Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a couples counselor whose marriage has yet to produce an orgasm for her, James and Jamie (Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy) are a gay couple looking to add something new to their five-year relationship and Severin (Lindsay Beamish) is a dominatrix unable to fill her own emotional needs. As the characters meet and help one another find some sort of happiness, the film takes on almost haunted feeling of loss that brings perfect weight to the sex, love and conversations on the screen.

Whole Lotta Love: John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus

Two stand-out sequences give Shortbus the depth and punch necessary to give meaning to the carnality, and both involve the character of Ceth (Jay Brannan), a handsome young musician who becomes a central part of James and Jamie's troubled relationship. The first scene takes place between Ceth and an elderly man who turns out to be "the former mayor of New York", a clear nod to real-life former Mayor Ed Koch. The two characters begin talking, and the Mayor delivers a glorious monologue that would not be out of place in a Tony Kushner play. The monologue scene is one of the film's great wonders, an apology for Koch's late action in the battle against AIDS, a plea for understanding in the face of fear, and a wonderfully humanizing act on Mitchell's behalf that is the most gloriously perfect defense of New York City's role as a beacon for true human freedom. When Ceth kisses the Mayor with great tenderness, he does so on our behalf. "New York City is permeable," the Mayor says in the city's defense, and truer words have never been spoken.

The second scene involves the nervous overture to three-way sex between James, Jamie and Ceth that drifts gently from uncertainty and excited sexual tension to a full-voiced chorus of the Star Spangled Banner in the middle of a precariously balanced sexual pyramid. The film's complete comfort with gay and heterosexual sex and the human body in all of its shapes and sizes (all of the film's sex is real, and it shows) will certainly turn a lot off potential viewers off in the prudish, shame-based culture that we live in, but don't think that this isn't Micthell's precise and indisputable point for making this film; By embracing the normalcy of human sexuality and human bodies partaking in sexual pleasure, Shortbus is a clarion call for the freedom of human choice and, well, for humanism in general. As such, the film is perhaps the first in a new generation of films about human liberation and the establishment of tolerance, love, and self-fulfillment. It is also, and without question, one of the most honest films ever made about New York City in the post-9/11 world. 9/11 hovers over this film like it does over the lives of so many people in New York, a source of loss and uncertainty that manifests itself in a million unknowable, unspoken ways. By placing the locus of human liberation in New York City, Mitchell has forged a powerful act of reclamation for the City, taking back the moral high ground and seizing the very freedom that is so often used as grist for bullshit politicians who trade on fear and uncertainty, all the while hating us for who we are. I can't possibly describe how good it felt to walk out of Shortbus; I felt alive, connected both to a larger community and to my own feelings and desires. There isn't much more you can ask of art.

The Pervert's Guide To Cinema by Sophie Fiennes

After Shortbus, I walked a few blocks to the Royal Ontario Museum for the only press screening of Sophie Fiennes' three-part, 150-minute exploration of the film theory of Freudian scholar Slavoj Žižek (himself the subject of another recent documentary, Žižek). Fiennes and Žižek are a perfect match for each other, the former making the wonderful decision to place her subject on the sets and locations of the various films he is discussing and the latter an often hilarious, exhilarating and engrossing intellectual who isn't afraid to show us the subconscious meanings of some of our favorite movies. The film is broken into three parts (probably for use as a television series), but stands as a singular argument about the way in which cinema formulates the models for human desire. If that sounds heady, well guess what; it is, and shamelessly so. To be in a movie theater, watching a tremendous documentary that takes film and ideas seriously is a huge pleasure, and I can't think of a brisker, happier 150 minutes than those that I spent in The Pervert's Guide To Cinema.

"The danger is not in taking cinema seriously," Žižek states near the film's end, "but in not taking the fiction of cinema seriously enough." I couldn't agree more. Breaking the film down into its three natural segments, we first have a discussion of the formal Freudian structures at work in film (Psycho, The Birds, The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chapin, and The Exorcist all play important roles) from the manifestation of the id, ego and superego in the physical structure of Norman Bates' home (moving his mother from the upstairs/superego into the cellar/id) and The Marx Brothers (Groucho/superego, Chico/ego, Harpo/id) to the dismebodiment of the voice in Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Friedken's The Exorcist, Žižek lays our his strategy in clear terms; Things are what they seem in the movies, we must simply recognize them for what they are.

The Maestro: Slavoj Žižek

The second episode is dedicated to sex and repression (which, having just seen Shortbus had my brain spinning) and was heavily focused on the work of David Lynch and on Hitchcock's Vertigo. This section articulated Lynch's structural and thematic concerns with such clarity, I believe Žižek may be the definitive Lynchian scholar. Finally, Žižek tackles Anxiety and Fear, the "only authentic emotion and human motivation." Here again is Lynch, joined by Alien Resurrection, Hitchcock, etc. The film's ideas and Žižek's delivery would certainly stand alone as a wonderful lesson in film theory, but it is Sophie Fiennes who takes Žižek's ideas and brings them to life, not only with an amazing array of delicious film clips (wonderfully edited to illustrate Žižek's points), but by putting Žižek in the locations and on the sets of the films themselves. It is these moments that make The Pervert's Guide To Cinema more than a simple lecture by a fascinating Professor, turning the film into a wonderful piece of cinema in its own right. The sets and locations include the Golden Gate Bridge, the sets of Blue Velvet,Psycho, The Matrix and The Conversation, the small motor boat in The Birds and on and on and on. This is the movie I want all of my friends and loved ones to see, if only they can come to know the pleasures of caring deeply about movies, of thinking deeply about them. So much fun! It demands to be seen on a big screen and I hope that some brave company picks this film up and gives it a full theatrical release, because as a great piece of cinema, it deserves its own stay in a theater. I think it would do very well among cinephiles and movie-lovers everywhere; this movie is for us.

Brand Upon the Brain! by Guy Maddin

Out of my seat at the Royal Ontario Museum, I needed a nice walk after sitting for 2.5 hours, so I headed down to the Elgin Theater for Guy Maddin's world premiere and only screening of his Freudian fever dream, Brand Upon The Brain!. The Elgin is a gorgeous space, probably 1700+ seats with gilded ceilings; it felt like being in an ancient movie palace. Back story; Brand Upon The Brain! is a silent film, presented with a 17-piece ensemble from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing a score by Jason Staczek, two foley artists providing sound effects, a narrator and a vocalist. The screening had a bumpy start as the projectionist skipped the very beginning of the film (and screwed the music cue), so we rewound and began again without a hitch this time. The film is broken into twelve chapters, and tells the story of Guy, a man making a return to his boyhood home (a lighthouse on a remote island), which he tries to repair with white paint. As his brush slathers the walls, Guy is overwhelmed by the Proustian impulse and is swept back to when he was a young boy living with his all-seeing mother, mad-scientist father, and sexually curious older sister named Sis. Mother runs an orphanage in the family lighthouse, while father conducts secret experiments in the basement, having already invented a phonograph-like device which allows the family to communicate over great distances (providing their emotional urgency is true enough to make their message clear). While the orphans participate in brutal rituals lead by the oldest orphan, Savage Tom, the young Guy falls in love Wendy Hale, one half of a brother/sister dectective duo. Wendy has other plans though and, having fallen for Sis, dresses as her own brother Chance Hale and seduces Sis while trying to uncover the mysterious goings on in the lighthouse.

What Would Mother Say?: Guy Maddin's Brand Upon The Brain!

Having just sat through a 2.5 hour film on Freudian interpretations of cinema, it was not hard to be completely floored by one of the most definitively personal, touching, and hilarious examples of Freudian self-analysis ever comitted to celluloid. Maddin's film is at once extremely personal and incredibly accessible, retaining both the wit and unique vision of his previous films but somehow transcending his earlier work. This is easily my favorite of his movies, and I know that this is largely due to the performance of both the foley artists (who were precise and excellent throughout) and Jason Staczek's awe-inspiring score. I loved the music so much, and it was performed so beautifully, I cannot possibly imagine the film without it. I know there are those who think silents should stay silent, but the foley work and the score created a magical environment for film viewing. I heard a rumor that there may be a screening added to the New York Film Festival where I would happily see the film again. The impact of the score and sound effects cannot be underestimated, but it is the happy combination of all of the cinmatic elements, broken apart and spread across the theater (film beautifully projected, foley in the corner, orchestra under the screen) that created something wonderful.

That said, there was a technical problem with the narration where, from what I could gather from my seat in the balcony, the copy of the film running with narration subtitles from which the narrator was performing froze up, and despite attempts to get him back on track with a paper script, he was unable to synch his narration to the film and ended up (and this is pure speculation) skipping enormous chunks of the narrative. Maddin himself was seated in the narrator's balcony, encouraging him and lending help in tracking the script, but despite a few lines salvaged here and there, the final 2/3 of the film was not really narrated. Not that the film needed it, it was truly great on its own. Still, I have a suspicion that a fully realized performance has not been executed in public, and I look forward to the possibility of another screening, where the narration is presented in its entirety. Again, I am speculating, but watching the flurry of activity in the narrator's balcony (and noting the vast decrease in narration in the final 2/3), I feel safe in saying that something went afowl, but it in no way hindered my appreciation of the final film. If you are within a 500-mile radius of a performance of this film, run, don't walk.

Paris, Je'Taime by Various

I think it is safe to say that my obsession with Paris (having never been) is officially well-documented, so as a cinematic voyeur of the City of Lights, I have no way to judge the relationship between reality and the small, beautiful films that populate Paris Je'Taime. What I can say is that, in the grand tradition of one of the most important locales in the history of cinema, Paris Je'Taime is a near-perfect rendering of the cinematic idea of Paris, which is to say the subject of the film is perhaps not the city itself, but the history of the city's cinematic representation. As such, I've fallen in love again.

Paris Je'Taime is not simply a film, but instead a collection of films by 18 Directors that tackle the theme of love in each of Paris' individual neighborhoods. In any endeavor of this nature, some films work better than others, but Paris Je'Taime has about a 90% success rate and is a near-perfect love-letter to the city. There are many standout scenes in the film, but for me, none surpasses Nobuhiro Suwa's heartwrenching Place des Victoires. The film, stylistically at a far remove from the stillness of A Perfect Couple (which I played at this year's Sarasota Film Festival and still ranks as one of the best unseen films in years), tells the story of a mother (Juliette Binoche) whose young son has recently died and for whom she cannot stop mourning. One night, following the child's voice into the street, she is met by a cowboy (Willem Dafoe), once the fantasy object of her son, now granting her her own dream of being reunited with him. As a portrait of grief and longing, it is beautifully executed and haunting, and was my favorite in the film.

Other standouts include Joel and Ethan Cohen's Tuileries, starring Steve Buscemi as a tourist beseiged by the cruelties of the natives, Tom Tykwer's lovely Faubourg Saint-Denis, starring Natalie Portman (who I am loving more and more as I watch her develop into a truly amazing actress) and Melchior Beslan. Knowing no inside information, this film might be read as a eulogy for the Director's own relationship with the actress Franke Potente, but again, I'm speculating. Oliver Schmitz's fine Place des Fêtes shows us the tragic death of a Nigerian immigrant (beautifully played by Seydou Boro), Alexander Payne's 14th arrondissement which stars Margo Martindale as a single woman from Denver, narrating in French with a hilarious, over-the-top American accent, who looks to discover romance and her own happiness, and finally, the segment that literally brought me to tears, Gérard Depardieu and Frédéric Auburtin's Quartier Latin, starring a radiant Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara as a divorcing couple who are looking to end things amicably. Watching the two actors on screen together, discussing the end of things, life and death and children, well, it was too much for me; the ghost of John Cassavetes seemed to be at the table with them, smiling that huge grin. I lost it for a minute. The sequence was, in that moment, a true through-the-looking-glass moment, holding the image of the past and a future where cinema may not promise us another pair of eyes like Rowland's, another cocktail soaked voice like Gazzara's. To see them together again, to see the lovely kiss that time has left on both of their faces; it was beautiful. I miss moments like this, and I was surprised at the depth of feeling this short, witty exchange inspired in me.

I understand that there will are plans to make this a series of films and that New York City is next, and I have the perfect film idea for Park Slope... I don't know who to pitch this one to, seeing as I am no Nobuhiro Suwa (ha!), but I would kill to make a film for New York Je'Taime. In the meantime, if someone doesn't call John Sloss at Cinetic and grab this movie for American distribution, there is something deeply wrong with American distribution. Paris Je'Taime is an absolute must for French film fans.

Building A Broken Mousetrap, NYC Weights and Measures, and Blessed Are The Dreams Of Men by Jem Cohen

I love Jem Cohen's films (we had Chain at the 2004 Sarasota Film Festival) and consider Instrument to be the best rock and roll film of all time. Maybe I should change that to considered it the greatest, because having seen today's press screening of Building A Broken Mousetrap, Cohen's new film documenting a 2004 performance by Dutch band The Exat New York' City's Knitting Factory, I may have to rethink everything. Cohen brings his inimitable style to the performance, cutting between The Ex's performance and his signature shots of urban exteriors, commerical space, and people passing through the unflinching New York City landscape. Like his work in Instrument, Cohen's handheld, gorgeous photography immediately captures the brilliance of The Ex's performance while at the same time, through his kinetic editing, brings a focus and shape to the beautiful noise being produced by the band. And what a noise it is; one of the most incredible performances by a band that has ever been captured on film.

The Ex

During the propulsive set, I found myself almost being pulled from my seat by the force of the music, and here again, the big screen makes a tremendous difference; the projectionist had the volume way up, the digital projection system looked great and I was blown away. The two shorter pieces that preceded the feature, NYC Weights and Measures, and Blessed Are The Dreams Of Men were both lovely meditations on the view from a moving train, with droning scores that perfectly complimented Cohen's images, but neither was adequate preparation for Building A Broken Mousetrap. Or maybe I should say, their moving images laid the foundation for the propulsive show that lay ahead. I read that Mousetrap will be released on DVD soon, but fuck that; if I can get my hands on a Hi-Def print, I am bringing this film to my festival, DVD or no DVD. This needs to rock in a theater, and it needs to be seen by as many human eyes as possible. I loved this movie deeply. Looking at the band's tour schedule, I see they are playing in Chicago as I type. A cruel joke! Why am I not there for the show?

It is strange to re-read this now and too see so many superlatives and so much happiness, but I have to admit, I did the right thing by taking some time off this summer and refreshing my perspective. The past few days have been a joy, and I feel open to film in a new way, or maybe a renewed way. Not everything I've seen has been great, but who cares? I have been knocked flat by some great movies, by great ideas, and feel re-connected to cinema in a way that makes me hopeful not only for movies, but for change and a new, heightened place for art and ideas in the world. I had missed this sense of hope and to have it restored? Yes. Bed now (missed that movie!), and more soon.

Before this blog mentions a single word about the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, I must start by saying that for the first time in years, I LIKE THE FESTIVAL TRAILER! Readers who have read this site in the past will remember my previously mentioned (see the comments! Hilarious!) and longstanding (see #4) problems with the festival trailer which, in past years, simply went on too long and featured some very haughty filmmaking. Well, clearly I was not alone in thinking this, and as one who truly enjoys accentuating the positive, I offer my kudos to the Festival's design and marketing departments for what is a short, sweet trailer that makes its point. The trailer features the festival's hand painted, blue background and has the signature red eyebrows fly down from the sky and nestle gently on the figure's forehead. Cut to black. Done. Bravo. In my first press screening for the terrific 12:08 East of Bucharest, gasps and applause were audible.

From Poster To Trailer, Elegnatly; The 2006 Toronto Film Festival Campaign

The trailer finished, and the films unspooled on what was a good day for me (6 films). As mentioned, 12:08 East of Bucharest was first, and it was probably the best film I saw all day. The film, which features a single story broken into two very distinct and wildly differnent segments, primarily follows the story of three men, Jderescu (Teodor Corban) a well-to-do television station owner whose ideas and self-regard vastly transcend his ability to deliver quality television to the people, Piscoci (Mircea Andreescu), an elderly retiree and the town's part time Santa Claus who spends his time waiting for the street lights to turn on and off, signaling the start and end of his days, and Manescu (Ion Sapdaru) a heavy drinker, history teacher, faux-revolutionary whose personal debts and domineering wife have forced him to try and heroicize his own life. This cast of characters is surrounded by a society out of joint; there is a firecracker epidemic plaguing the town as children set them off without conscience, the townseemingly has a single viable merchant in a Chinese immigrant who, despite being the butt of Manescu's jokes, is the conscience of the community, and a traditional Romanian youth brass band who want to play Latin dance music but are forced, rather unhappily, to slog through Romanian Christmas carols.

The film hinges upon the fateful decision of a distracted Piscoci and the 'revolutionary' teacher Manescu to join Jderescu on his TV station's community phone-in show and discuss the question of whether their small town actually participated in the Romanian revolutuion to oust Communist dictator Nicolai Ceausescu on December 22, 1989. This sequence, shot in the style of low-budget public access television programs is both hilarious and heartbreaking as Jdrescu confronts the self-proclaimed revolutionary Manescu on whether or not he was protesting in the public square before 12:08pm on December 22nd. The time is crucial, because it marks the line between the Ceasescu regime's control of the nation and the minute in which the nation was informed of that he had been deposed.

I have already said too much perhaps, but the film's formal vignettes in the first half are equally matched by Manescu's real-time collapse in the Public Access TV show format of the second half, and despite the stylistic differences, the movie soars in both segments. Corneliu Porumboiu's direction is both funny and humane, and the story's personification of Romania's crisis of identity in the context of its own history is clearly worthy of the film's Camera D'Or win at Cannes. In the context of last year's amazing The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, which won a Special Jury Prize in Sarasota when I showed it this past April, Romania is clearly home to an exciting cinema and full of terrific filmmakers. I look forward to seeing Porumboiu's next film and, along with Lazarescu director Puiu, seeing where Romanian cinema takes us next.

Next up, because of a personal schedule change, I headed to see Susanne Bier's After The Wedding (Efter Brylluppet), which was acquired by IFC Films quite a while ago (I couldn't find a release date on-line). The film tells the Sirkian story of two men and the ways in which their lives intersect both presently and, with enough emotional twists and turns to satisfy Sirk himself, in the past. I expected the film's tale of a Danish billionaire's decision to give money to an Indian orphanage run by fellow Dane Jacob Petersen (played by Mads Mikkelsen who is as intense and fine in his performance here as he was as Tonny in the amazing Pusher films) to be a sort of commentary on philanthropy and class issues. In light of Gates Foundation's ascendancy and Warren Buffet's recent philanthropic gifts, the issue is a timely one, but I wasn't prepared for the Danish version of Written On The Wind. The film feels in many moments like a Dogme movie (jittery hand held shots, a slew of closeups of eyes and mouths, glances exchanged, etc.) and so, most cinephiles watch the film awaiting the dreaded dark, Danish twist that plunges everything into despair. But when the twists do come, and keep coming, Bier does a fine job of subverting expectations and still delivering emotional punches. The question remains, how many revelations is too many? After The Wedding has an over-abundance, and the film becomes somewhat exhausting. As melodrama in the classic mold, however, it is as fine an example as any.

The afternoon was plagued with a few disappointments. I didn't care much for the prisoner/wife/prison guard love traingle in Jean-Pascal Hattu's 7 ans despite a game lead performance by Valérie Donzelli who brings a good working-class sensibility to the role of Maïté. Ultimately, the film suffers from an undercooked story that strains credibility because of its refusal to get too stay with Maïté's point of view. As the wife of Vincent (Bruno Todeschini), an inmate in a prison (we never learn his crime), Maïté's sexual tryst with a prison guard named Jean (Cyril Troley) wins her husband favor within the prison walls, but one would think her motives and feelings would transcend the simple need for sexual fulfillment. We aren't given much more that that. When Vincent has Jean tape record their liasons, things get sort of silly. The movie has the lovely rough around the edges look of a truly independent film, but the editing and transitions sometimes feel like a television movie made for Lifetime. Could have been much better.

Next up was Palimpsest which was more like a film-school experiment in sound design and peek-a-boo scare tactics than a decent thriller. Imagine Kieslowski and Mark Romanek making a movie starring the love child of Steve McQueen/Daniel Craig/Ulrich Mühe and written by Bam Margera with the classic cop-out "Surprise! It was all a dream!" structure, and you have an idea of this one. Ugh.

Rushed to The Royal Ontario Museum afterward to catch Jia Zhang-ke's wonderful first documentary Dong, which follows the painter Liu Xiao-dong (imagine John Curren and Jenny Saville, sort of) on two excursions; one to the Three Gorges area of China where he paints demolition workers at play (and encounters tragedy) and the other to Thailand, where he paints young prostitutes. The paintings are wonderful, and I suspect that anyone who is interested in the form will enjoy the film, but Jia being Jia, there are many other levels at play including the issue of the artist's responsibility to his subject, the life of the subject (both the Liu Xiao-dong's subjects and Liu Xiao-dong himself as Jia's subject), and the relationship between creative work (filmmaking, painting) and manual and sex work (demolition, prostitution). I loved the film; the exteriors echo Platform, but the subject of the role and place of the artist is pure documentary and unlike anything Jia has made before. Shot on what I assume is HD, it looked great on the big screen and Liu Xiao-dong's colorful paintings really popped; I think HD does an amazing job with vibrant colors, and this film benefits from it. A must see for fans of Jia's work, or those interested in the workings of the creative mind.

Finally, I stayed put at the Museum for Vincenzo Marra The Session Is Open, a documentary exploring the procedures and personalities behind a highly inept legal system in Naples, Italy. If it weren't so funny, you'd probably cry. The film suffers from long, procedural monologues and debates about evidence, etc., you know, courtroom stuff. That said, there is a lot to be engaged by as the personalities clash, prejudices (or should I say "post-judices") are exposed and days and weeks go by without any progress.

It was a long day, and after a quick duck in to the THINKFilm brunch this morning, I finally found some time to write. I am running off to catch Shortbus now, and with Brand Upon The Brain! later tonight, it promises to be a great day. More tomorrow...

Today was an adventure. Up at 6:30am in order to get on the internet for some very special tickets; the public tickets for the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival! The box office opened at 7:00am this morning and I can only imagine the hordes of people who bombarded the festival box-office on the phone, on the web, and in person. All I know is that, logging on at exactly 7:00am, I wasn't able to complete my teeny-tiny transaction online until 8:30am. Pounding the re-dial button on my cell, the phone harshly sang out an unwavering busy signal as, meanwhile, the web site pages loaded like it was 1995 all over again, slowly undermining my constant attempts at ordering, and just when I go to click the final 'Buy' button to confirm a purchase, the entire system collapses in a series of error messages that send me back to square one. I am persistent. I breathe in, I breathe out. I click. I dial. I dialclickbreathe. At 8:30am, magic strikes. I click the 'Buy' button, cross my fingers tightly, hold my breath, and my order goes through. I weep.

As a result of my single-minded assault on my personal electronic devices, I am now the proud owner of four tickets for Guy Maddin's Brand Upon The Brain! There is only one screening (Friday, September 8th), with a live orchestra, two live foley artists, and a narrator accompanying Maddin's brand new silent film, which he describes as a companion to his classic Tales From The Gimli Hospital. You can see a nice 'making of' Brand Upon The Brain! by clicking HERE.

Eat Your Heart Out, Kids: Guy Maddin's Brand Upon The Brain!

My mission accomplished, I quickly finished packing for my trip, jumped into the car service, and made my way through LaGuardia Airport in record time. I ran into a friend and, after a nice conversation about the book I was reading, we hopped the small plane to Toronto. A quick bus and subway ride ($2.75 and at my hotel in 40 minutes!), I checked into my room, and was off to Industry Registration. No line. In and out in two minutes. Is this really happening?

More friends have already begun to arrive, the corner has been turned, and I feel like work is officially under way. I couldn't be happier. Tomorrow, I hit the ground running with a great schedule of screenings (12:08 East of Bucharest, Chronicle of An Escape, 7 ans, Dong, Palimpsest, and The Session Is Open; food is optional) and I am ready to go. This year, the festival has set up an official Toronto FF blogging community and I am happy to say i was approved to join the group. You can click on the pretty, blue temporary TIFF banner on The BRM sidebar to jump to the TIFF blog group at any time or, if you fancy, you can add your own blog to the conversation. I love this idea and hope that more festivals encourage feedback and community building in this way. Looking forward to a great year, so stay tuned and I promise to write as often as I can.