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Road to Toronto: The 28th Annual Toronto Film Festival
Keith Simanton reports:
Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi, based upon the popular series of film and televisions shows about a blind masseuse/samurai warrior, won the coveted AGF People's Choice award at the 28th Annual Toronto Film Festival yesterday. In second place was Ron Mann's Go Further, which followed actor/activist Woody Harrelson, a crew of like-minded folks and the Simple Organic Living tour as it made its way down the Pacific Coast. Though the lobby buzz gave some inclination that Zatoichi was in the running, the most that seemed to have been said initially about Further was that it was the catalyst for Harrelson to organize one of the world's largest yoga sessions during the festival.
The Toronto City award for Best Canadian feature went (huzzah!) to Denys Arcand's Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions). The select jury stated, "In this film, the profound complexities of the modern world are reflected through the lives of its beautifully wrought characters...and exhibits a clarity and refinement of storytelling from a filmmaker at the peak of his form."
The 12th annual FIPRESCI Prize, given to a feature film directed by an emerging filmmaker, went to Achero Mañas's Novembre ""for its freshness, its original blending of fiction and documentary techniques, its humanistic message, and the high quality of all the performances."
What was remarkable about the Toronto films this year, particularly after the disappointments of Cannes and Sundance, is that so many films could have fit that above description. Though, as always, there were some big studio flops and even more independent migraines on the whole it was a great festival including: Richard Linklater's School of Rock, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's 21 Grams, George Hickenlooper's The Mayor of Sunset StripGood-bye Lenin!, The Fog of War, and interesting near misses such as Wonderland.
Shannon Gee reports:
So what’s the big deal with The Brown Bunny? I compared notes with one Cannes Festival attendee and it sounds like this “final version” which unspooled the last weekend of Toronto with 30 minutes shaved off, was not significantly different than the version that was booed at Cannes and prompted an apology from director/producer/editor/writer/cinematographer/actor Vincent Gallo. Sure, the film, which follows the cross country journey of a motorcycle racer Bud Clay (Gallo) has the slightest of plot to hang on before it culminates in a hotel room where Daisy (Chloe Sevigny), the racer’s ex-girlfriend, fellates him in a scene that may or may not be only in Bud’s mind. But whether you choose to spend 75 laborious minutes watching Bud’s drive across country and the last fifteen watching the difficult ending is yours. Some critics have called it indulgent, banal, crude and a waste of time. I say I’ve seen worse.
A much different type of road movie captured the imagination of many filmgoers. The Russian film The Return, which also arrived from the Venice with that festival’s grand prize, is a beautifully rendered tale of two boys who finally meet their long lost father, and it’s not the joyful reunion that one might expect. The circumstances around his twelve year absence are mysterious, and he packs the boys into a car on a double duty camping trip and business quest which turns tragic in many ways. Quietly constructed and brilliantly performed by actors Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov and Konstantin Lavronenko, first time feature director Andrey Zvyagintsev uses his eye for landscape and careful pacing to deliver a devastating film about father and son relationships.
There is no father-son relationship in Shattered Glass, the story of the notorious journalist Stephen Glass who allegedly made up many of his stories that he wrote for The New Republic in the nineties, but there are relationships between editors and writers, which makes for a surprising moral drama that impressively plays out in what amounts to an office building locale. Hayden Christensen will put all worries to rest about his acting abilities (George Lucas, take note) in his portrayal of the main character whose reporting ethics are as manipulated and loose as they come but whose personal resolve and conviction of self is as frighteningly clear as his last name. It’s a fascinating performance by Christensen with solid support from Hank Azaria, Peter Sarsgaard, Melanie Lynskey and …Chloe Sevigny.
Although the Toronto festival seemed to wind down a bit early this year, it kept a steady pace through the last weekend. Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi played to a packed house on the final day of the festival and walked away with the AGF People’s Choice Award. Other festival winners include Rhinoceros Eyes (Discovery Award), a tale about a prop-house employee, Les Invasions Barbares (Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature) and Achero Manas’ November (FIRPRESCI Award), the story of a troupe of actors, based loosely on the seventies non-profit Spanish theater troupe El Piojo Picon.
Though the festival is over make sure to check out the usual, magnificent photo coverage from our good friends at WireImage for the 28th Annual Toronto Film Festival.
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