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The 30th Toronto International Film Festival
The 30th Toronto International Film Festival
Having matured from its modest beginnings, the Toronto International Film Festival commences its fourth decade as one of the largest and most respected film festivals in the world. Offering its participants a unique combination of glamorous Hollywood ostentation and thoughtful art-house exploration, the TIFF has become truly global in its scope. The 2006 TIFF boasts over 350 films from over 60 countries, including more than 60 directorial debuts, but still maintains its characteristically Canadian mood with its continued support of Canadian cinema.
This year’s eclectic festival line-up launches with Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute before rummaging through idiosyncratic selections such as Sophie Fiennes’ The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and an absurd mockmentary by Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen entitled Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Additional attractions of the 2006 TIFF include the latest works by international auteurs such as Hirokazu Kore-eda, Takashi Miike, Tsai Ming-liang, Jia Zhang-ke, Aki Kaurismäki, Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Werner Herzog, as well as Ken Loach, who arrives with this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Among this year’s program are a handful of selections designed to arouse fiery discussion, including potentially divisive films from John Cameron Mitchell, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Verhoeven, and Bruno Dumont. Meanwhile Christopher Guest hopes to provide some hilarity with his skewering of Hollywood’s awards-season antics by adding Ricky Gervais to his already reliable comedic troupe. The festival will also lavish a little attention on Canadian filmmakers including, among many others, two entries from Guy Maddin and a retrospective featuring the best of Norman Mclaren.
Beginning September 13th we will present reviews of a number of films from the TIFF, offering a small selection of what cinema has to offer audiences in the coming months. The 31st Toronto International Film Festival will run from September 7th to September 16th, 2006.
Takashi Miike’s latest entry is certainly a departure from his child-friendly fare, but the director still appears fixated on the eternal struggles of youth. Big Bang Love, Juvenile A is not likely to appease his J-horror fanatics who eagerly anticipate the thrills of Miike’s more sadistic work, and certainly is not targeted towards kids awaiting another comic-book adaptation, especially given its mature content. Instead, Miike’s film feels like a brooding existential mystery, frequently kinetic but also periodically pensive, where young men grapple with questions concerning identity and connection.
Accompanied by members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the guidance of composer Jason Staczek, Guy Maddin screened his silent film with a multitude of live-performers in attendance, including three (almost distractingly) expert foley artists, an animatedly droll narrator, and a perplexing piercing “singer” who all executed their duties with astoundingly adroit precision.
Rescue Dawn could be viewed as a balanced, blunt, but occasionally poignant tale of extraordinary survival in modern war, which Herzog has effectively infused with his own fascinations. Conversely, it’s just as possible to view the film as a project designed to cripple the director’s unique delivery, or as a redundant abomination of the director’s usually engaging eccentricity.
Emilio Estevez’s latest film, Bobby, attempts to explore the proceedings of the day on which Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, but functions as more of an idealized exercise in nostalgia rather than as either an accurate depiction of the day or as a sober expression of filmmaking.
Having once depicted Darren Aronofsky as a cinematic sensation after the success of his feverish early films, critics suddenly seemed to be relishing the opportunity to brand the young director as a cocky charlatan posing as an alleged auteur and quickly relegated him to the company of fellow disgraced prodigies, such as Sofia Coppola and Richard Kelly, who had released their own labours-of-love earlier in the year at Cannes, only to be greeted by a similar critical massacre. However, upon watching Aronofsky’s passionate project, I realized that I shouldn’t have feared the worst, but merely anticipated the inevitable.
