Critical Eye

One and a half weeks, 8 films. I still laugh when people consider this an impressive statistic. Not to say that it isn't, I guess, but being someone who knows what the festival is like, I'm impressed when the woman who's standing in line behind me has seen 30+ films and it's not even the last day yet. That's an average of 4 films a day. I think I read somewhere that someone once saw 6 films in one day. That would probably mean that they didn't stick around for any Q&A's, or see the end of a lot of films for that matter.

But I digress. As promised, a little recap of the week's highlights and a sneak peek at some films about hit a theatre near you:

Les Revenants (They Came Back): Not your typical zombie movie. Everywhere in France, the recently deceased start walking into towns and villages. No blood and guts, no feasting on brains. The citizens of the town in the movie begin to reintegrate the dead back into society, reuniting them with their families, giving them jobs, etc. But the dead behave differently than the living, and they discover that they are resistent to disease and don't die quite as easily as they did the first time. Fear takes over, and then some really weird stuff starts happening. Not likely a movie you'll see at the Cineplex, but still interesting.

Haven: If you liked Traffic or Love Actually, you will like this film. Three groups of people converge in the Cayman Islands, with plenty of sex, drugs, violence and millions of dollars in offshore accounts to go around. Anyone who thinks that Orlando Bloom only gets pretty-boy roles will be happy to know that he becomes physically disfigured during the course of the movie. During the Q&A, there was a question to the cast asking them which aspect of the Caymanian culture made a lasting impression on them. Bill Paxton replied, "The jerk chicken is just excellent." (Watch the film to understand the joke)

Beyond the Sea: Hitting your local theatre on November 24th. A biopic that blends fantasy with reality with a bit of song and dance thrown in. Kevin Spacey was really impressive, singing all the songs himself. He's a really funny guy in person too. When the film fest dude was telling the audience that anti-piracy devices were going to be in use during the screening, Kevin added, "I'M the anti-piracy device...I'll chase your motherfuckin' ass down the street!" The film itself is set up so that it appeared as though Bobby Darin was actually directing the film about his life, so you get the "film within a film" idea. He talks to his 10-year-old self quite a bit, and the boy who plays the young Bobby, William Ullrich, is really talented. He's already done 4 Broadway musicals. My mom thought that the real Sandra Dee was way prettier than Kate Bosworth. All in all, a highly recommended film.

White Tower: Unfortunately, not at all what I was expecting, and mostly disappointing since it could have been much more interesting. It's a documentary about the deaf in China. Since we NEVER ever see or hear anything about the physically handicapped or how they're treated in that country, I thought it would be enlightening. It was a couple of hours of watching the camera move back and forth while deaf people talked to each other. The other problem was that there were technical difficulties with the projector, and everything was kind of blurry, which was really bad since subtitles were extremely essential. They stopped the movie after half an hour, spent about ten minutes fixing the problem, and then, at the request of the directors, started the movie again from the beginning. Oy. There was a story (a partially deaf man fell in love with a deaf girl who was already involved with a deaf Taiwanese man), but it was really hard to watch. However, it answered my question about how the Chinese sign a word that doesn't have a sign (since there's no alphabet). They just write the word in the air with their finger or on the palm of someone's hand. I doubt that anyone will see this film in a theatre in North America.

A Good Woman: Funniest film of the lot. Set in the '30s, a woman with questionable morals (Helen Hunt) leaves New York and heads to Italy to target a newlywed couple (one half of which is Scarlett Johansson). Based on the Oscar Wilde play, "Lady Windermere's Fan". Some of the best lines I've heard in a movie in recent years. A lot of social commentary about men and women and relationships between the two. And there's a twist in it. It will likely be in theatres eventually.

Siblings/Trouser Accidents: The latter is a five-minute short film about accidents caused by pants. It's like a mock-documentary, with what appears to be actual statistics of pants-related mishaps. It also compares them to accidents caused by other household items (brooms, newspapers, etc.). But it's important to keep in mind that the statistics are a little misleading, since there are some trouser accidents that are not reported, or reported under a different category. Siblings is a great film. Four kids who are not blood-related to each other or the people they call "Mom" and "Dad" accidentally-on-purpose kill the parents after their grandfather dies. A black comedy, to say the least. The parents are the worst people on the face of the earth. The little girl has the best lines in the movie, as she tries to come up with ways of killing the parents and making it look like an accident. Film fest veteran Sarah Polley has a supporting role. Go see this film. Support Canadian cinema.

Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes): This was by far the most serious of all the films I saw. It's based on a true story, and takes place in El Salvador in the 1980s during the civil war. The Salvadorean army "recruits" 12-year-old boys by force and trains them to become soldiers. The story centres around 11-year-old Chava, who, with his family, is caught in the crossfire almost every night. After being introduced to an underground radio station by his uncle, Chava begins to fight back in his own way. The kids in this movie were amazing.

L'Équipier (The Light): A predictable but still nice French film about a wounded veteran who takes over a position in a lighthouse on the Breton island of Ouessant. The residents are furious about the idea of an outsider taking the position over a local. But he slowly wins some of them over, and falls for the wife of a fellow lighthouse keeper. A lot of humour, and a tiny bit of action too.

So...that's it. Good thing I didn't see 30 films, huh?