Hey folks, Harry here... Toronto International Film Festival #25 got underway today, and while I am here in little ol Austin... I decided that it shouldn't be a reason for me to not take part. I managed to intercept a print of a film called WHAT HAPPENED TO TULLY and had it screened at the Alamo Drafthouse this morning for me. It's a film by Hillary Birmingham and ya know what folks... It's a real heart filled flick. The cast is basically a bunch of unknowns... but ya know what, that doesn't keep the movie from having a great cast of characters. The story is your old tale about family secrets. You know... those stories you are told as a child to make life easier... but then you find out the truth later on and all hell breaks loose? Well, that's one layer of the film. Another is the relationship between two brothers and the father... all of whom have communication issues. Then you have the whole, lose the farm plotline, as well as a wonderful situation between Anson Mount (who plays the title character or at least the junior version) and Julianne Nicholson (who I and everyone else at the Drafthouse this morning fell in love with). Like TWO FAMILY HOUSE and SMILING FISH AND GOAT ON FIRE.... this is a small film about family, ambition, love and life that is just honest and real... not filled with Hollywood sugar. It is truly a film that you laugh, cry and stay enthused about throughout. I highly recommend you see the film while up in Toronto. Then I also saw THE YARDS and ALMOST FAMOUS tonight... I can recommend both of those as well, with ALMOST FAMOUS being the one that I would stand on a chair to herald at the top of my lungs. NOw... Onto Anton....
Day One
Got out of bed and wandered out onto the balcony. Magdalena has outdone herself this year, finding me a townhouse just north of Casa Loma to stay in. If you haven’t been to Toronto, one of its more unusual features is an honest-to-Goddess castle, nestled at the top of downtown (or the bottom of uptown, depending on your perspective) built by an eccentric millionaire around the turn of the century. I look past it out over the city, bathed in afternoon sunlight. Even with the smog it’s a striking tableau, and sets the perfect mood for what’s to come- beautiful from a distance, but potentially poisonous.
Mags, as always, has left some reading material for me- Harry Potter 4, Wisdom’s Maw by Todd Brendan Fahey and Mansion on the Hill (rock and roll and money, oh my!). Now there’s an odd headspace to live in for a fortnight. I throw on some clothes, grab the Fahey and head out the door.
Bumped into a few people I know, including Mellish and the Fat Baldwin. Oh Jesus. What are they doing here? Of course they want me to send in their reviews for them, like I have time to transcribe their crayon scribblings. Just to make them go away I agree to it- with luck I’ll be gone and out of the city before I see them again.
First on the slate is Stardom, followed by either April Captains or Kippur- I’ll play that one by ear. I have my fingers crossed for Stardom- Denys Arcand has made some great films (Jesus of Montreal, Decline of the American Empire) but that was a decade ago. As the opening night Gala, it will set the tone for the rest of the fest. Here’s hoping.
Stardom (2000, directed by Denys Arcand)
Have you ever had a really hard, nasty, dirty day at work? Maybe you were rooting out the drains, or cleaning out the pigsty or something. Whatever the task, it was evil and smelly, and though you hated doing it you knew it needed to be done. For me, that evil task was watching films in the year 2000. Hollow Man. Me, Myself and Irene. Battlefield Earth. For the love of Goddess, Battlefield Earth. Black thoughts consumed my head. Last year was a mirage, a phantom (pardon the pun), the last gasp of a creatively dead industry. All about me was bleakness, and filth, and woe.
Stardom was the warm, glorious shower at the end of that day of muck.
On the surface, Stardom is the story of a young model, Tina (Jessica Pare). It portrays her rise to greatness and her tumble out of the spotlight, and on this level the film works well. But what Stardom is really about is the cult of celebrity, and on THAT level the film rocks beyond all belief. Shot in a style best described as ‘TV verite’, Stardom charts the course of Tina’s career exclusively through media images- talk show appearances, documentary footage, local news coverage, Entertainment Tonight-style TV shows and the like. And while the story is told chronologically, it jumps seemingly at random from scene to scene in a way that will be very familiar to experienced channel flippers, complete with brief moments of static on the audio track. This also keeps a lot of information in the background, engaging the audience in a way that ordinary television could never do. To cite one of the more transparent examples, Stardom never explicitly states that Tina’s relationships with men are duplicates of the one she had with her father. It forces you to read between the lines and put those pieces together. And while that may not seem like a great feat (it is Screenwriting 101, after all- show, don’t tell) the way in which Arcand plants the clues for you to find is masterful. We chart the course of Tina’s life not through dialogue or action but through hairstyles and wardrobe choices, through the confidence in her gaze and composure before a microphone.
Ah yes, the microphone. One of the films gloriously brilliant ideas is the way in which Tina is never allowed to finish a thought. Her boyfriends, her handlers, interviewers and reporters, all ride rough-shod over Tina’s words, finishing her sentences before she’s even begun them, when they bother to ask her a question at all. The message is clear, but what gets transmitted to the viewer is not feminist rhetoric but Tina’s growing frustration with not being taken seriously. She’s knows she’s not a genius, or highly educated, but she does have things to say. And nobody wants to hear them.
Of course, clever ideas and fantastic technique (and make no mistake, technically this film is outstanding- the recreations of various types of TV shows alone are a riot, and worth the price of admission) would be nowhere without great performances to support them, and Stardom has them in spades. Two stand out in particular. Jessica Pare, in her screen debut, is a marvel. Very much in line (and on a par) looks-wise with Milla Jovovich and Liv Tyler, Pare commands your attention effortlessly. In an increasingly insane milieu, and a technically difficult film, what shines through most about Tina is her humanity. Just when it seems she might become a stereotype Pare throws a vulnerable look or slumps her shoulders just so and reminds you that Tina is a young girl like any other, merely one more attractive than most. The other performance worth noting is that, of all people, of Dan Aykroyd. In a supporting role as one of the older men in Tina’s life, Aykroyd has a midlife crisis right before your very eyes. He’s funny (not always a given these days with him) but he’s also angry, and driven, and desperate. This is quite probably the performance of Aykroyd’s life, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves for it.
Stardom is the first great film of 2000. It’s funny (only in a Canadian film could a supermodel be discovered while she’s playing hockey), insightful (in a way that Woody Allen’s Celebrity could only dream of being), just flat out wonderful. See it if you can, and don’t worry if you don’t get some of the jokes. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a Canadian friend to explain them to you.
Kippur (2000, directed by Amos Gitai)
I can’t say I’m a big fan of Israeli films. I’m not sure why. Cinema is a fickle mistress, though- who can really explain why nations such as Iran and the Philippines are blessed with a seeming abundance of talent, while other nations aren’t? If Israel does have a resident film genius, though, it’s probably Gitai, director of Golem in ’91 and last year’s Kadosh.
Kippur is a film about the Yom Kippur War, but it can’t really be said to be a war film. (Brief history lesson- the Yom Kippur War is so called because Syria and Egypt launched their attack on the Yom Kippur holy day, hoping to catch Israel napping. They succeeded.) A loosely fictionalized account of Gitai’s own experiences during the war, the film follows two soldiers, Weinraub and Ruso, as they try to make their way to the front, and their unit. The unit is never found; instead, they hook up with a doctor and end up as part of an air rescue team that saves downed pilots and evacuates the wounded. They see no actual combat in this capacity, but when the war finally does catch up to them, the results are brutal.
Kippur gets to the true essence of war like few films before it. Its seemingly aimless structure is hardly in Thin Red Line territory, but does get the point across. This is not a film where hardened soldiers go on missions that turn the entire course of the war. The heroics in Kippur are on a tiny scale, and are often futile. War is a mindless whirlwind of blood and chaos and death, and you can only skirt the edges of that whirlwind for so long before it sucks you in. .
Beneath that surface, though, the film is as effective a metaphor for the state of Israel today as I have seen put to film. By having his characters deal not with conflict but the aftermath of conflict Gitai makes some telling points about a country which itself was created in the aftermath of a conflict, and which has survived through conflict. Eventually, someone is going to have to deal with the casualties.
Kippur is a fine, fine film, and I’m now not at all sorry I missed April Captains. What a great kick-off to the fest this year- I’m really stoked for tomorrow now. Best in Show, maybe Almost Famous, Time and Tide, plus the CityTV/MuchMusic SchmoozeFest party thing. Oh, yeah baby!
