CIFF 2012 Wrap-up

The 13th Annual Calgary International Film Festival featured a mouth watering line-up of films from all corners of the world and excelled in both quality and quantity. Continuing the trend from last year, CIFF had encores of most films and added extra screening slots making it more convenient than ever before to catch the films. CIFF scheduled two weekday matinee screenings (2-2:30 pm, 4-5 pm) in addition to the two traditional weekday evening shows and also had a midnight film for all 10 days. These extra time slots opened the door for a dedicated cinephile to take in more than 50 films and at the same time made it a lot easier to see 40 films than previous years. I mention 40 films because this was a goal for a lot of friends in the past but they always fell short, sometimes ending up at either 36 or 39 films. I briefly played with the idea of making it to 40 films this year but I remembered the painful aftermath of seeing 30 films over 10 days a few years ago. So, I instead opted for a comfortable target of 20 films which allowed me to enjoy all the films with enough time for socializing and discussing films with fellow cinephiles.

Here are the 20 films seen in order:

Wrong (2012, USA, Quentin Dupieux)
The Day I Saw Your Heart (2011, France, Jennifer Devoldère)
See Girl Run (2012, USA, Nate Meyer)
Fat Kid Rules The World (2012, USA, Matthew Lillard)
Amour (2012, Austria/France/Germany, Michael Haneke)
Rust and Bone (2012, France/Belgium, Jacques Audiard)
The Misfits (2011, Mexico, Javier Colinas/Marco Polo Constandse/Jorge Ramírez Suárez/Sergio Tovar Velarde)

Reality (2012, Italy/France, Matteo Garrone)
Holy Motors (2012, France/Germany, Leos Carax)
As Luck Would Have It (2011, Spain/France/USA, Álex de la Iglesia)
No (2012, Chile/France/USA, Pablo Larraín)
Rebelle (2012, Canada, Kim Nguyen)
Battle of Warsaw 1920 (2011, Poland, Jerzy Hoffman)
Margarita (2012, Canada, Dominique Cardona/Laurie Colbert)

The World Before Her (2012, Canada, Nisha Pahuja)
Antiviral (2012, Canada/USA, Brandon Cronenberg)
I’m Flash (2012, Japan, Toshiaki Toyoda)
Mars et Avril (2012, Canada, Martin Villeneuve)
All In Good Time (2012, UK, Nigel Cole)
The Ambassador (2012, Denmark, Mads Brügger)

The relaxed schedule allowed me take something memorable from each of the 20 films and I am glad I was able to attend them. I hope to write longer about the films in the future but for now just some quick notes along with my top 5 films.

Top 5 Films in order of preference

1. Holy Motors: An incredibly wild and creative ride that effortlessly glides through all film genres. Leos Carax has managed to capture the essence of cinema from the silent era to contemporary times while playing homage to key genres throughout. This is pure cinema and proof for why films hold such sway over people.

2. The World Before Her: Back in 2001, I was lucky enough to see Nisha Pahuja’s debut documentary feature Bollywood Bound at CIFF. That lovely film proved Nisha to be a born filmmaker. And she has reaffirmed that with The World Before Her, a perfectly balanced and insightful film that examines two very different camps of thought in India. The two camps, beauty pageants & fundamentalism, contain the essence of issues that are both dividing and driving India. On one hand, western capitalist ideas are flowing through India while on the other hand, traditional religious and cultural values are trying to block the western tide. Nisha Pahuja examines these issues with an objective eye and treats her subjects respectfully thereby allowing them space to bare their souls. The end result is one of the best documentary films of the year, cleverly edited and infused with a refreshing soundtrack.

3. No: Pablo Larraín’s gripping account of the 1988 plebiscite that put an end to Pinochet’s dictatorship may be rooted in Chilean history but the political issues at the core of the film are relevant to any nation trying to break free from an oppressive regime. The film also wonderfully recreates the grainy video look of the 1980’s and surprizingly contains one of the most catchy songs of the year.

4. Reality: Matteo Garrone’s film starts with a mesmerizing wide shot of Naples which depicts the vast beauty of the city and proceeds to follow a few different characters and does not settle in on one particular person. This creates the illusion that the film plans to chart the lives of multiple people. However, that illusion is shattered when the camera sets its focus on Luciano (Aniello Arena) and shuts the rest of the world out. This microscopic examination of Luciano results in a devastating case study of a man who is so blinded by his quest for fame that he starts to lose grip on reality.

Luciano bears a close resemblance to a young Robert De Niro which coupled with the film’s topic echoes De Niro’s performance in The King of Comedy. However, Martin Scorsese’s film heads into darker territory while Garrone’s film maintains an air of fantasy about it due to a dreamy musical score combined with a few Felliniesque moments. Reality is not on the same wavelength as Gomorra but it is a remarkable film about society’s obsession with celebrities and how that can cause some individuals to throw their life away.

5. Rust and Bone: Matthias Schoenaerts plays a different shade of his tough character from Bullhead. In Bullhead, Schoenaerts is a physical force of nature but one who has trouble finding love because of a past which has scarred him for life. His character is still physically imposing in Rust and Bone but he has no trouble getting love and can pick up a woman at the drop of a hat. The Dardennes' style used by Jacques Audiard ensures that Schoenaerts and Cotillard’s characters are properly showcased thereby finding beauty in moments of brutality & pain. Also, the visual style is definite proof that Marion Cotillard is gorgeous without any make-up.

A few quick notes on some other films

I unfortunately missed the opening night gala for Midnight’s Children but thankfully I caught the Black Carpet & Closing Night Gala for two other creative Canadian films. The Black Carpet Gala, Antiviral, marked the fascinating debut of Brandon Cronenberg. The film looks at a not too distance future where society’s obsession with celebrity culture results in people lining up to buy meat grown from celebrity cells and happily injecting themselves with the same virus that a celebrity has. Given current addiction to anything celebrity related, such a scenario is not entirely unbelievable so full credit to Cronenberg for extrapolating the present in such a thoughtful film. Martin Villeneuve adapted his own graphic novels for the poetic and meditative Mars et Avril, CIFF's closing night gala film. The visually beautiful Mars et Avril proves that a sci-fi film can be made without any horror or mindless action scenes. Both Brandon and Martin come from famous Canadian cinematic families as Brandon is David Cronenberg’s son while Martin is Denis Villeneuve’s brother. However, both Brandon and Martin have successfully made their own mark with their debut feature films.

Amour: For the most part, a warm film infused with plenty of humour that is hard to recognize as a Michael Haneke feature. Therefore, Haneke has included a scene or two to jolt the audience to let them know that he is still pulling the strings lest someone get too comfortable with the film.

Wrong: Quentin Dupieux’s follow-up to Rubber is a delightful leap forward and is packed with plenty of witty absurd humor.

Rebelle: This powerful film was joint winner of the CIFF narrative audience award along with My Awkward Sexual Adventure. In the hands of another director, Rebelle could have resulted in a violent film but Nguyen has ensured that the camera is not fixated on blood but instead on the characters and their plight.

My earlier preview post mentioned some of the other stellar films at this year's festival including Found Memories, The Bright Day, Unfair World, Teddy Bear, Barbara and King Curling which are some of the best films of the year.

Overall, it was another vintage year even though I missed some worthy features. Still, I preferred to properly enjoy each film as opposed to running from cinema to cinema to see 3-4 films a day, something which I regularly did in past festival editions.

CIFF 2009 Diary, Day 9 & 10

Day 9: Saturday, Oct 3

Oct 3 was all about achieving a personal record of seeing 7 films in a single day. Originally, I had planned on seeing atleast 5-6 films but when an additional screening was added at 10:45 am, the path was clear for me to hit the elusive seven.

Cyborg, She (2008, Japan, Jae-young Kwak)
Time: 10:45 am at The Plaza

The originally scheduled screening for Wednesday night was sold out but the print never arrived on time. So a special screening was added on Saturday morning. But as it turned out, the film-makers still screwed up and sent a print without English subtitles.

Watching this film without subtitles is not that bad as there are quite a few stretches without dialogue (one such sequence was atleast 10 minutes long). But I was quite disappointed by this film because it looks like a recycled version of Jae-young Kwak's earlier film My Sassy Girl with a sci-fi angle tacked on. While My Sassy Girl was fresh and funny, the humour in Cyborg, She is stale and predictable.

I Killed My Mother (2009, Canada, Xavier Dolan)
Time: 12:45 pm at the Globe, downstairs screen.

This film blew me away and was easily the single best film of the festival I had seen. Normally, only a few films inspire such strong reactions in me and I was certainly not expecting to be jolted this early in the day.

Dolan's film is raw, funny, emotional and brutally honest. It properly depicts the teenage vs adult struggle that exists in a majority of households in probably every country in the world. Normally, there is a mutual loving bond between parents and children early on in the child's life. But when the hormones start gushing through the children’s blood stream in the early teens, those same loving parents become the children’s enemy and the relationship between the two sides starts to degenerate. In some cases, the relationship starts to mend once the teen has grown up into an adult. For some people, this happens around the mid 20's, for others much later. But Dolan seems to have acquired this understanding a lot early on as he directed the film when he was 19 (and wrote it when he was 17).

The dialogues are sharp and pointed. In one case, the mother remembers the time when her son used to tell her everything and they were friends. To which the son replies "I was 4 and I had no choice". Ouch. Words can hurt, especially if they are always spoken with venom and sarcasm. The mother is unable to cope and the son wants away. Their arguments and fights may be about personality traits and specific issues but they echo the universal teenage angst and sense of rebellion. There have been many films in the past which covered similar topics but most works usually turn into one-sided rants from a teenager's perspective. On the other hand, I Killed My Mother perfectly depicts the struggle that exists on both sides -- it is not easy for parents to raise their kids while it is equally difficult for kids trying to assert their self, despite depending on their parents. We are also introduced to another parental example in the film which shows how a parent tries to be their child's friend. Yet, even that parent gets disrespect no matter how hard she tries. Damned if you let the kids have their way and damned if you stand in their way.

Plenty to take away from this film. Quite simply, a sensational debut.

Gigantic (2008, USA, Matt Aselton)
Time: 3 pm at Eau Claire, Screen #2

Sometimes the indie American films follow a prescribed formula especially by ensuring their stories contain quirky off beat characters who are supposed to generate humour for their unique behavior. Sure there are some tender moments of genuine humour here but for the most part, I didn't react with much enthusiasm. Still, it was a nice relaxing film to watch after I Killed My Mother.

Cooking History (2008, co-production, Peter Kerekes)
Time: 4:30 pm at Eau Claire, Screen #5

This insightful documentary highlights the rarely depicted topic of military cooks who fed the soldiers. Peter Kerekes does an excellent job of ensuring the documentary is vibrant and always interesting by getting the surviving characters to either cook or re-enact the tension of their war time drama. And as an added bonus, Peter Kerekes also provides humour in the form of recipes, in case someone wants to serve their nation by poisoning an entire enemy army. And each recipe appropriately ends with the common ingredient of "a pinch of salt". The final segment which features a cook standing in the ocean is precious, especially his preparation of imaginary dishes for an imaginary sea crew.

note: I missed the first 8 minutes of this film as Gigantic was a 98 minute long feature.

Breathless (2009, South Korea, Yang Ik-June)
Time: 6:30 pm at the Globe, downstairs

For the second time in the day, I was absolutely shook up by a film. But it took a while to appreciate what the director had in mind because the first 20 minutes appear to be routine stuff straight out of most Korean/Japanese gangster films -- punching, swearing and some slapping. The person dishing out all these is Sang-Hoon (played by the director himself), one of the nastiest on screen personas seen in recent years. The violence is put in context via a flashback when we observe a tragic episode in Sang-Hoon’s childhood where his mother and sister were accidentally killed in an episode of domestic violence. Sang-Hoon never forgave his father and after his father is released from prison, Sang-Hoon visits and beats him up frequently. Sang-Hoon’s kicks at his father usually occur at the end of night when a drunk Sang-Hoon ponders over his past. The father quietly accepts the beatings.

Sang-Hoon is a loner with no friends but one day he comes across a fiery teenage girl, Yeon-Hue, who refuses to take his abuse and fires back. The two form an unusual friendship and take comfort in each other’s presence, even though the two swear and put each other down. It turns out that another example of domestic abuse is taking shape in Yeon-Hue’s house, where her teenage brother is just starting to assert his “manliness” by taking his anger out on his sister. The abuse that Yeon-Hue suffers is two fold because her father is mentally disturbed (triggered most likely after his wife and Yeon-Hue’s mother’s death) and hurls profanity at his daughter frequently.

A few years ago, I had seen an Israeli documentary where someone asks an Israeli woman how her fellow countrymen could treat the Palestinians so badly considering the suffering Jews underwent. The Israeli woman replied that if a young boy saw his father slapping his mother, would the young boy be a peaceful person when he grew up? Her reply was negative and she said most likely the young boy would grow up into a man who would in turn slap his own wife. Her words came to my mind while watching Breathless because the film shows that kids who witness violence in their youth will grow up and re-enact those same episodes onto others. While the film may not be the most pleasant to watch, it takes a brave stand in drawing a direct line from domestic abuse to gangster violence. There are some examples of youth joining the gang due to unemployment but the film emphasizes the cycle of violence aspect quite clearly.

There are many movies out there which have graphic scenes of violence and horror and the directors of such graphic films defend their works by emphasizing their movies are anti-violence and the violent scenes are meant to prove a point. But in most cases, these movies end up glorifying violence because the consequences of violence is never fully explored. On the other hand, Breathless clearly depicts the danger of a violent life, whether that life is in a household or in a gang. There is a consequence to every violent action and Yang Ik-June’s film is the only one I can think of that has a purpose for every scene of violence and abuse. This film should be shown to every teenage and adult male. And if after seeing this film, those males would still opt for a violent life, then there is no hope not only for those people but humanity in general.

And to think that Ddongpari (Breathless) is just a debut feature by Yang Ik-June! Wow. Easily one of the year’s best and relevant films!

Seven Minutes in Heaven (2008, Israel, Omri Givon)
Time: 9:30 pm at the Globe, downstairs

There is a good story idea in this Israeli film but while the idea may have worked perfectly for a 20 minute short film, it is painfully worn out in a full length feature. The needless repetition and spoon-feeding do nothing for the story but merely pad the time, and when the interesting twist on the story is revealed near the end, it is too late.

Daybreakers (2009, Australia, the Spierig brothers)
Time: 11:30 pm at the Plaza

For the seventh film, I was back at the location where I started my day, almost 12.5 hours earlier at 10:45 am. I got to the Plaza at 11:15 pm and the long line up had me worried. There were two lines, one for the advanced ticket and pass holders, and the other for rush tickets. Only a certain amount of pass holders are let in and when that quota is reached, the pass holders have to join the back of the rush ticket line. Since I was a pass holder who was at the end of the advanced ticket line (only 5 people were behind me and they all had tickets), I was certain I would not make it. But amazingly, I just made it.

As for the film itself, after an impressive start and good setup, it was a huge letdown to see the film settle into a comfortable Hollywood template, complete with loud music, some explosions and even a car chase. The film does redeem itself with a good ending. There are lots of neat elements in the film not covered by other vampire movies, especially the “Daytime Driving” aspect, which could also serve as the film’s alternate title. I thought the film had a great idea in combining a vampire tale with a sci-fi & political angle and there are many aspects which add something new to the vampire genre. So it was especially frustrating to see the film contain a very dull and average middle segment.

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After 7 films in a day, sleep. Precious sleep. zzzzzzzzzzz

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Day 10: Sunday, Oct 4

The Prophet (2009, France, Jacques Audiard)

I had first heard of Jacques Audiard about 4 years ago when I was in London. His film The Beat that My Heart Skipped earned rare reviews, especially from Peter Bradshaw. So I decided to check the film out during its opening weekend in London and was left in awe of both the film and Roman Duris’ performance. Duris was already a favourite of mine, especially from his performance in the pulsating Exils, but he was mesmerizing in Audiard’s well crafted film. I made a point to see the next film that Audiard would direct.

Fast forward to 2009 and when Audiard’s Un Prophet hit Cannes, I lay in eager anticipation. My excitement only grew over the coming months and hit a high point when I was in Paris where almost every cinema seemed to be showing the film. I waited for its CIFF debut and quickly snapped up my ticket. And it was a good thing I had an advanced ticket because the film was sold out on its 7 pm show on the festival’s final day.

The Prophet dives into the heart of the gangster world, right from the prison cells to the controlling ports and cities. The prison’s hierarchy and daily routines are outlined with a fine observant eye, which at times recalls the work of Jacques Becker in his brilliant film Le Trou. We observe a criminal (Malik El Djebena played by Tahar Rahim) elevate himself through the ranks by his quick intelligence, observant and diplomatic skills. There are plenty of neat references (religious are the common ones) tucked away in this film which will ensure a second viewing will also provide a pleasurable experience. Overall, quite an amazing film.

note: In the second half of the film, I found Tahar Rahim to resemble a bit like Robert Pires. Since at one point in my life I considered Pires to be a footballing God, I found the presence of his look like in a film called The Prophet to be appropriate.

Pianos, Karmic Cycles and a Joint Security Area

The Beat that My Heart Skipped (Directed by Jacques Audiard): Rating 9/10

The only reason I went to see this movie was because of Romain Duris and I was not disappointed. Duris is quite good as the reluctant gangster. He plays Thomas, a real estate enforcer who is brought into the business by his dad. Thomas and his gang hunt for open real estate property, take it over and then sell it for redevelopment. Sometimes they have to be tough and kick people out, but it is all part of their shady business. One day, Thomas runs into his old Piano teacher. His teacher always felt Thomas had potential and was Thomas’s mother’s teacher. He wonders if Thomas is keeping up with his training and after Thomas replies in the affirmative, his teachers asks him to come for an audition. That gets Thomas motivated and he finds a new zest in life. The music moves him and he believes that is his one chance to escape his current way of life. So does Thomas succeed? Well the movie is very realistic in its approach and manages to show an ending which is alternate to the two obvious options – one where Thomas succeeds in music and the other where he fails and returns to his old way of life. It is an engaging movie for sure.

Running on Karma (directed by Johnny To): Rating 7/10

The second half of the movie is not your typical Johnny To stuff but it works, somewhat. A beefed up male stripper is arrested by the cops. But as it turns out, this former martial arts monk has special powers – he can see people’s futures based on their karma, meaning he knows what will happen to someone based on that person’s former actions. The fake body suit on Andy Lau looks funny as first but after a while, you get used to it. The karmic angle to the second half of the flick is interesting enough but I wish the movie had gotten there earlier. Ofcourse, the required fights and chases are necessary in the first half. The transition between the two halves gives the feeling that Running on Karma is really two movies spliced together.

Joint Security Area (directed by Chan-wook Park): Rating 7.5/10

Long before there was the Revenge trilogy (OldBoy and the two Vengeance movies), Chan-wook Park actually worked on normal movies. Plain, simple stories with no chopping and cutting! This movie centers on a border check post between North and South Korea. A massacre has taken place and a neutral party consisting of Swiss and Swedish personnels is sent to investigate. It so happens that one of the Swiss investigators is a woman of Korean heritage who has never been to Korea before. As she works to peel the truth and tries to understand the accused and defender, she learns a little about her father as well. JSA is an interesting movie which highlights the absurdity of man made borders.