Ahoy, squirts! Quint here before movie #2 at Australian Night of QT Fest. Tons of Toronto stuff here! Enjoy!
Call me Crippled Critic if you use this. I am a film critic working out of Toronto and covering the world's finest film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival. Thus far I have screened twenty six films and thought to drop a line to give some opinions on what I have saw so far.
WATER...Deepa Mehta's deeply moving account of a group of Indianj widows living in an ashram in thirties India, during the rise of Mahatma Gandhi is an extraordinary cultural awakening that will leave the viewer breathless. Strong performances dominate the film and though there are moments that tend to bog down, all is made right with the astonishing final ten minutes in which we leave the theatre filled with hope and seing the characters find some redemption. Ten year old Sarala is a revelation as an eight year old child bride delivered to the ashram after the death of her much older husband, and of a course, a child's innocence disrupts the ashram to no end. Indian star John Abraham is superb as a young idealist under the spell of Gandhi and Lisa Ray haunting as a young widow used as a prostitute to pay the rent of the ashram. A powerful film that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre, particularly that final sequence that moved me to tears.
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE...The best film I have seen so far is a dark, disturbing account of a seemingly ordinary small town American man portrayed by Viggo Mortenson, the owner of a diner with a lunch counter who becomes a hero after two very bad dudes come to his diner and try to rob him. He kills them both, quickly, and becomes a hero which attracts more very bad dudes to his diner claiming they know him under a different name, discussing a past he claims to know nothing about. The problem is, he kills again, once again with the profiency of a master and his family begins to fall apart. Mortenson is superb in the lead role, with strong support from Maria Bello and Ed Harris, as a scarred mob leader who gets far more than he bargained for in dealing with Mortenson. This might just be David Cronenburg's best work, and let;s face it, he's been pretty damned fine before. This one is an unsettling masterpiece in the vein of Taxi Driver (1976) ; could be an early Oscar hopeful for Mortenson, who deserved a nod for Aragorn and Cronenburg, who has long been ignored.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN...In years to come, this film might become recognized as one of the great love stories of the cinema if audiences can get past the stigma that the love within is between two men. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall portray two young cowboys, who in 1963 take jobs on Brokeback Mountain tending sheep, which leaves them isolated for the entire season. They become friends, then best friends, then suddenly their love becomes physical. As the summer ends, they go their separate ways, marry, father children, then encounter one another four years later and find that thier feelings are stronger than ever before. At war with their emotions, neither man can fight it, yet giving in is agonizing to them. Ledger's performance is brilliant, Gyllenhall equally good and they are matched by two strong supporting performances from the actresses portraying their wives, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, both breaking their caasting moulds here. Ang Lee directs with a sure hand and the right amount of senstivity to make the film work on every level. If there is a quibble, it is that I found all the actors hard to accept as characters in their late thirties, much like James Dean failed to capture Jett Rink in his fifties. Still a brilliant film that should stun critics and audiences.
ELIZABETHTOWN...Underwhelming. As much as I adore Cameron Crowe, and I do, I found this one in need of a good honest edit and a stronger leading man. Orlando Bloom was wonderful in The Lord of the Rings trilogy but has done nothing outisde of those films to suggest any real depth as an actor. With somelike Tom Cruise in the central role here, the audience would be willing to go down this road with the character, but Bloom lacks whatever that connection is that sme actors find with an audience. After a shoe design results in his empolyer losing nearly a billion dollars, he decides to kill himself, but before he can do the deed he receives a phone call telling him his father has died and he needs to return home. He does, with the promise he will come back and finish the job. Once in the deep South he re-connects with his father's spirit, partly thorugh the eccentric family who loved his dad deeply, and the perky young airline attendant he meets on the way winningly portrayed by Kirsten Dunst. This is quite simply the finest performance of Dunst' career, she is luminous throughout the film. Susan Sarandon provides some genuine comic relief as Bloom's frantic mom, but the ladies are not enough to save the film. Bloom has some nice moments, but they are telegraphed to us and no surprise when they happen. There is a long road journey he takes to scatter his dad's ashes across the South and he gets into a laughing jag that we know, we know, will just as quickly become a crying jag. Too many close-ups on pretty Orlando, not enough angst from him. A disappointment from one of our best directors, though is there another filmmaker out there who knows exactly what song to play behind a scene as well as Crowe?????
THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA...Another gem about loss, hope and redemption. Directed by acting icon Tommy Lee Jones, this film traces the journey of three men, one of them dead, one of his best friend, the third the killer, as they embark to Mexico to bury the man where he wanted to buried. Jones is a ranch hand, the best friend of Estrada, a smiling Mexican terrified of the border patrol who meets an unfortunate end at the hands of a young border patrol guard portrayed by Barry Pepper. Enraged that nothing will be done about the killing of his friend, Jones kidnaps the young man, digs up Estrada's body and begins a long journey on horse back into Mexico to take his friend home. Though simplistic in its story, the impact is deep, as the film is moving and powerful. Jones is at the top of his substantial gifts as an actor here, grief stricken until he makes a decision what to do, terrifying in his focus os what he will do. Pepper has a thankless role, and aside from from some over the top yelling that fialed him in The Snow Walker (2003), captures the fear of the younger man about his fate, and finally, the agony he feels in this senseless killing that has haunted him everyday. Powerful, brilliant, with an Oscar cailbre performance from Jones.
MANDERLAY...Is there much worse than being lectured at by an anti-American director who makes a film about the south, about slavery and then subjects his audience to constant lectures from the cast? I was angry leaving Mandalay, a film I was looking forward to seeing much due to the presence of Bryce Dallas Howard, but director Lars Von Trier, rather than make a film that makes statement about slavery, makes a film that both condescends and lectures to his audience. We are not foolish, we know slavery existed, that it was wrong, yet each time Grace (Howard) opens her mouth it seemed as though another history lesson was pouring out. Predictable to a fault, tedious and sadly self indulgent, this is the biggest disappointment I have had so far. Once again using the abstract and stylized sets he utilized in Dogville (2004), Von Trier attempts to place all focus on his actors, but then sadly fails them by giving them nothing to do or say.
CAPOTE...In a mesmerizing performance, Phillip Seymour Hoffman IS Truman Capote in Bennett Miller's film Capote. What I found courageous about the performance is the fact the actor and director chose to mportray Capote as a liar and jerk, an ego maniac who believed himself to be smarter than anyone else. Most biographies go the route of a greatest hits of the character's lives, candy coating the events so we like them. Only a select few, Raging Bull (1980), Malcolm X (1992) and Nixon (1995) have possessed the courage to show their characters warts and all. In Capote, we see the writer follow his senses from New York to the dusty mid-west to cover a story of a brutal murder that will lead to the executions of the killers. This will become Capote's greatest work In Cold Blood. We watch as he becomes close to the killers, as he abuses his friendship with about to be famous writer Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) all in the name of art, or is it? Perhaps it is all in the name of vanity. A superb piece of acting in a film that doesn not quite match the performance.
Call this part one -- got to run and see more flicks.
