Hey folks, Harry here with Buttercup's third report from Toronto, and a very nice report it is. The latest from Joan Allen, a sex film from Michael Winterbottom, a film about art and an italian romance. Not necessarily the films that are lighting the world afire, but well, read and see, you may be surprised! Here ya go...
Four films today. It's late, so forgive me if I ramble or am entirely non-sensical.
YES
First was Yes, a new film by Sally Potter, starring Joan Allen. The movie didn't sound particularly promising: the two main characters are named He and She, and everyone speaks in rhyming couplets. I was afraid it would turn out to be one of those films which is completely inaccessible due to various pretensions, but instead it's one of the best films at the festival.
Plotwise, Joan Allen is in an unhappy marriage to an Englishman (Sam Neill). Joan's character, She, was originally born in Ireland and raised by her aunt, but spent most of her life in America. At a dinner party, She meets He, a surgeon from Beirut who is now working as a waiter/cook in London. The attraction is instant, and they start an affair. We see their romance progress from initial bliss into a disintegration brought about partly through cultural differences. September 11 is never specifically mentioned in the film, but Potter began writing the screenplay on September 12, and the presence of September 11 and its consequences are a constant undercurrent in the film. I won't go into the ending so as not to spoil the plot entirely.
The actors in the film were all phenomenal, especially Joan Allen and Simon Akbarian (He). The dialogue flowed with the ease of natural speech even though they were in couplets; I would love to get a hold of the screenplay for this. Another great part of the film are the cleaners, especially Shirley Henderson, who almost act like a Greek chorus; they're a part of the film, yet break down the fourth wall to directly address the audience.
Yes is a film about love and examining your beliefs to see whether those you had continue to hold true. It's a beautiful film, intellectually and visually, which I think will reward repeated viewings. I cannot heap enough good praise on this film, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
******************
9 SONGS
Next up was 9 Songs, the new film by Michael Winterbottom. Yep, the sex film. Big contrast to Yes, considering they're both relationship-driven.
Kung Fu Hustle was cancelled, so I got a ticket for 9 Songs based on Winterbottom's name, without knowing anything about it. First off, it has a killer soundtrack. The way it was shot looks very unpolished and grainy; I'm not sure if the concert footage of the couple was shot live, but I'm assuming it was. And the sex...well, it was real. A handful of people left throughout the film, but most stayed until the end.
While watching the film, I almost felt like it was just a little exercise, something for Winterbottom to experiement with while he's waiting for something bigger to come along. 9 Songs wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The film simply shows small moments in the lives of Matt (Keiran O'Brien) and Lisa (Margo Stilley).
To be perfectly honest, I don't entirely see the point of real sex vs. fake sex in film. I mean, as an actor, your job is to *act* right? To put it to a more extreme example, we don't have real violence onscreen, because there isn't really much point to it, is there? Okay, I can see how a filmmaker pushes the bounds of conventionality by combining artifice and reality. But to have real sex in a film simply acts as a distraction from the film itself because both the audience and the filmmaker are focusing on that aspect of the film.
Real sex just seems like a gimmick, and when you've got a great film, you don't need a gimmick to sell it. Take out the real sex, replace it with simulated sex, and you still don't have a great film. There just wasn't enough substance, and even though it was a half hour shorter than Yes, it felt twice as long. I think this film will just sort of fall by the wayside, except for notoriety about the sex scenes - it wasn't bad, but just sort of mediocre.
******************
MODIGLIANI
By chance I noticed a large banner outside the Art Gallery of Ontario on Tuesday for an upcoming Modigliani exhibition, and told my friend I'd love to see it. Tonight I saw Modigliani, a film about the artist Amedeo Modigliani (Andy Garcia). Before this week, I knew nothing about Modigliani; I'm not sure if I'd even heard about him. His paintings are beautiful, even though his life was sort of a train wreck.
Modigliani had a lover, Jeanne (Elsa Zylberstein), who was the subject of many of his paintings. The film depicts their relationship, along with Modi's stormy relationship with fellow painter Pablo Picasso, and Modi's struggle between living a wild and reckless life, or working towards building a stable life with Jeanne and their daughter. We also get scenes of Modi's childhood in Italy. One major conflict in the film is between Jeanne's father and Modi; Modi is Jewish and therefore unacceptable to Jeanne's father, who does everything he can to keep the two of them apart. The film is wonderfully shot, and we get a great sense of Modi's view of the world as the film veers from the reality of Paris in the early 1900s to Modi's hallucinogenic haze.
The film starts out slow but builds up tension to a climactic competition with a prize of 5,000 francs between artists, most notably Picasso and Modigliani. A well-produced film, with all-around good performances, especially from Garcia, but I don't know if I would call it a great film. It just felt a little too predictable throughout (how many struggling artist tragic films are there, anyway?).
******************
AN ITALIAN ROMANCE
Final film of the night was An Italian Romance. Set in Italy around the time of World War II, this is the story of Giovanni (Stefano Accorsi) and Maria (Maya Sanza). Their passionate first meeting was on a beach, but it isn't until their second meeting, years later, that their romance kindles. Giovanni (married with a son) is transferred back to his hometown by the bank he works for, and he tracks down Maria (still single), who has always been in the back of his mind. They begin an affair, but things quickly sour as Giovanni turns against Maria, thinking he is being blackmailed. They reunite later and rekindle the affair, falling in love, but having the relationship fall apart again as Maria spots Giovanni with his family and ends the relationship.
An Italian Romance focuses entirely on Giovanni and Maria, and the lead actors carry their roles well. There's a train conductor who appears periodically who's a great supporting character. Probably not a good sign that I was more interested in the relationship between the conductor and one of his passengers than in Giovanni and Maria's relationship. Admittedly, by this point I'm dead tired, but the film just never really seemed to get off the ground. It's an exploration of love, its ups and downs, how it drives people together and sometimes apart...it's a well-executed film, but it wasn't great.
That's all from me tonight.
Cheers,
Buttercup.
