Harry here, I have heard a lot about the Toronto Film Festival year in and year out... I've heard it is a great CELEB hangout, that Hollywood moves to Canada for the event, and when the tragic event took place in Washington, D.C. and New York on Tuesday... I wondered how it would affect what many consider the most important film festival in the world right now. The Parties and shindings were all called a halt to and the festival went back to basics... Showing movies. This is the real jewel of what a film festival should be about. FILM. Seeing celebs and directors and writers and producers.... that's cool, but that is all the presentation of the candy, the film itself. The second half of Toronto focused upon film. And with the world on the edge of war, they had damn well better be good films, because it takes powerful drama to pull you away from the events of late... as the drama and stories coming out of New York, Washington and around the Globe are powerful.
One of the great gifts we have in this world are the films of the world. The modern works of art... the way stories cross borders... the visions of those of differing backgrounds thrown on a screen. A film festival is a fine arts museum of film. You'll take in many styles, many experimental techniques... Some you'll respond to, others you may not care for, but rarely do these films at the very least not make you take pause... and think. Think about the ideas, what the artist was saying or laugh at the celebration of the medium. The world may have gone crazy this past week, but Toronto had a good season of film it sounds like! Here's Darrin...
Hi Harry,
I think this article speaks for itself.
It was a week to celebrate the famous, but one horrific day of infamy changed all that.
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is known as an annual orgy of photo-ops, parties and celebrity spottings, a 10-day red carpet event that acts as a bellwether for Hollywood's critical fall/winter season. Toronto's sophisticated film audiences have proven to be master Oscar alchemists over the years, giving a collective thumbs up to cinematic dark horses such as American Beauty, Life Is Beautiful and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With its ascending reputation in Hollywood circles, the TIFF has been able to draw in more high-profile films and celebrities. The 2001 fest promised to have more star-studded parties than years previous.
Then came the events of Tuesday, Sept. 11.
I was coming from a screening of Neal Slavin's new film Focus, based on Arthur Miller's novel about American anti-Semitism at the end of World War II, when the news came: the Festival was cancelled until further notice, due to terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington. Like most other people, my thoughts quickly turned from films to greater concerns. What about my parents, who were with a relative in Boston, where some of the ill-fated flights had flown from? Did I know anyone who worked in the vicinity of New York City's "ground zero"? Were biological weapons involved? The rest of the day was a series of cell phone calls and a steady dose of CNN, CNBC and CBC Newsworld. I finally checked the TIFF web site at 11 p.m. to see if the Festival would continue.
Indeed it would, albeit without the red carpet entrances, parties, and most of the celebrities -- the very engines that fuel the Festival, at least according to the papers around here. For the rest of the week, TIFF Director Piers Handling and Managing Director Michèle Maheux graciously introduced Gala screenings with apologies for the lack of celebrities, while requesting moments of silence for those lost in the attacks. Some films were cancelled because they, like their stars, couldn't make it into Canada, while countless others had to be rescheduled. Like all other circles of North American society, a dark cloud had been cast over the TIFF.
But through the adversity, without superficial fanfare and movie star functions, the Festival focused on its strongest point: the films.
On Thursday, Sept. 13, Roger Ebert wrote in Canada's National Post that "one of the reasons we go to movies is because the great ones help us treasure the gift of life. Artists are like priests. They share our mortality but are closer to the mysteries." The TIFF was full of films that address these mysteries. Real films. About human beings. Not the action-filled pap that Hollywood so efficiently churns out, where flesh-and-blood characters and story lines are mere props to violent CGI-driven spectacles. Now that a real disaster has unfolded in front of us, we are witnessing the human consequences that the effects wizards could never replicate. Perhaps our fetish for effects-laden destruction will dwindle as we contemplate the human element within the fantasy. One can hope.
This was a week to reflect on humanity and life, and the TIFF offered countless opportunities to do so. It did so in films like Last Orders and the Palme d'Or-winning The Son's Room, realistic portrayals of people who struggle with the loss of a loved one. There's a brilliant sequence of shots in The Son's Room, where four close-knit family members are caught at the same moment in different scenes. The common bond between the scenes is that they place each character in potential peril. It speaks volumes for the fragility of life, and reminds us to cherish every moment on this mortal coil.
We can be inspired through a film like Life as a House, where Kevin Kline's terminally ill character uses his final months to mend a life of indifference and complacency. Or through a film like Delbaran, where a young Afghan boy flees to neighboring Iran, and is welcomed into a community that defiantly works to live amidst political and economic strife. The film's characters are too busy surviving to think about religious dogma or imperialist devils. The gift of life is present in a film like Blue Spring, where a troubled Japanese teen realizes through his teacher that humans are like flowers -- they exist to bud and be beautiful. It's also present in To End All Wars, a true account of World War II prisoners that persevered through torture and slave labor by setting up a homegrown "university" to help them cope intellectually with their predicament.
These were but a handful of the 30 films I watched this week. The TIFF had over 300 films in all, meticulously picked from all corners of the world. Within a few hours, I could experience an engaging thriller like Enigma, based on Robert Harris‚ novel about World War II code breakers, as well as the exquisitely shot A Dog's Day, a reflective tale of a rabid dog that's an effective allegory for India's present political system.
I can tell you I didn't miss much of the fanfare or celebrity worship. Sure, I was pleasantly surprised when Peter Fonda showed up after a screening of his restored 1971 "feminist" western, The Hired Hand. But did I stew when Mira Sorvino missed the Gala screening for The Triumph of Love? Hardly -- I was there to witness her excellent screen portrayal of the cunning princess Leonide. Did Kiefer Sutherland's absence at the To End All Wars screening make the film less relevant? Not in my eyes, although I would've maybe complimented him on his role as the American prisoner Rigden.
Today I was reflecting on how the TIFF once again opened my eyes to a world of perspectives through cinema. It was a week of exploring sundry themes on love, humanity, and yes, inhumanity, all through the camera lenses of acclaimed directors from different parts of the world. Thanks to the relative absence of red carpets and celebrities, I didn't even have to maneuver around scrambling TV reporters and photojournalists to enter the theaters.
The beauty of the Toronto International Film Festival isn't its ability to attract stars, but rather its ability to attract curious audiences to great films they'd otherwise never see. It's also a venue for some non-Hollywood productions to get a fair shot at the North American market. In the case of foreign-language films like Life Is Beautiful and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Toronto approval in the form of the People's Choice Award was a telling predictor of their success. North American audiences are, after all, traditionally not big on "subtitle films". This year's People's Choice winner, the French film Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain, will hopefully also find an audience on this side of the Atlantic. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film is the type of inspirational tonic we need right now.
Handling, Maheux and all the other festival organizers, employees and volunteers deserve to be commended on maintaining a high level of quality and dignity during a trying time. In many ways, this festival was one of their finest hours.
Darrin Keene
