TIFF 07: Day 2 "this is my winnipeg"
I'm going to get this out of the way now: One of my favorite things about Canada is that everything has a label in english and french. I can't look at anything without thinking of that and smiling deep inside. Don't ask why, I don't know myself.
Most of the day was drab, but the movies, oh the movies.
I made the 30 minute ride into festival-town early on this morning (I got there around 8:30, for a 9:15 showing). And naturally, once I got off the subway, I got lost. Well, to put it fairly, I missed a street sign, but I wasn't far off. Nor was I the only person. Which brings me to today's....
RANDOM STRANGER MOMENT:
I was walking around, headed toward where I thought the Scotiabank Theater was, when all of a sudden this girl asks me if....I know where the Scotiabank Theater is. I guess I looked pretty confident about where I was going. To which I replied, "I think it's this way, I'm going there myself." and so we had the same small talk that I had yesterday, "where are you from?" "syracuse" "school?" "yeah, film" "what're you seeing?" etc. Finally, we find the theater and part ways. In the second movie of the day, I see random stranger and wave. End of random stranger story.
Now the moment you've all been waiting for... the movies. First of the day was:
YOU, THE LIVING (dir. Roy Andersson, 2007):
Brilliant. I loved it. Which naturally means I'll have a hard time writing about it. I really liked Songs from the Second Floor, and after You, The Living I really wish I had the chance to see it in theaters with a crowd. Everyone was receptive, taking in the comedy, laughing and enjoying themselves. Which is even better because Andersson is Swedish, and we know how uplifting Swedish cinema can be. Granted, YTL still has that bleak Swedish-ness to it, but Andersson is probably the closest thing Sweden has to Jacques Tati. Andersson uses more words, but the source of the humor is essentially the same. Like Tati, Andersson's compositions shift between the exceedingly flat and the incredibly deep. Everything plays out in one long take, and most of the time the camera is pretty much static, or moving so slowly that you don't notice.
Technical points aside, YTL really hits on personal communication. Characters are often unable to communicate with each other, which forces some to speak directly to the camera (or in one notable instance, sing). Favorite moments: The opening song, the entire "tablecloth trick" sequence (complete with popcorn at the execution), and the honeymoon.
I was looking forward to this, and it was even better than I expected.
Final Grade: A- (enjoyable, entertaining, interesting thematically and technically, I got tired once)
And then, I waited around for a while (hoping to grab lunch), but failed. Everytime I try to just pick up a quick bite to eat, I fail. I'll have to fix that. So in lieu of lunch, I got ripped off while buying a bag of M&Ms from the concession stand ($4--just awful). And then I got my seat for:
THE BANISHMENT (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2007):
Which I hated. There were two things keeping me from leaving and jumping over to Voyage Du Ballon Rouge (which I should have done): 1) I was sitting in the middle of a row, and getting up would mean a lot of hassle, and more importantly 2) I only had 5 dollars, and wasn't sure if my paycheck was in the bank yet. So I had to sit through an excruciating two and a half hours of everything I don't like about Russian art/literature. By that I mean it was bleak, boring, long, full of suffering (mostly psychological), and lots of references to Jesus. The story was something like: A guy goes away for some job, and his wife has an affair, and ends up pregnant. The husband is pissed, and wants her to get an abortion, and so she does. Then she dies, and the husband's brother has a heart attack and dies too. And it lasted 2 1/2 hours. Lots of long takes that weren't very interesting and lots of pained expressions. Somewhere in there I fell asleep for a few minutes, which I don't regret. After I woke up, the pain continued and then there was this flashback that made no sense to me. I guess it was what happened to the wife while the husband was gone. It lasted forever, but the main point was that her lover wasn't actually the father, it was the husband. Or maybe I missed the point. There was enough unexplained absurdity (and not the good, Roy Andersson variety), that by the end I was stuck trying to figure out what just happened. And I still have no idea.
But, there were a handful of good shots, one was a long take while rain started pouring in the country. Another had to do with water on the windshield, and other things like that. The whole "visual textures" idea. Aside from that though, I didn't like this.
Final Grade (C-, dull, boring, nonsensical at times, but high production values and some good cinematography keep it from the D-level)
After that, I was exhausted, and wanted to try to come back to the apartment and take a nap for a bit. It took me about 2 hours to get back, mostly because I wanted to just stop someplace and get food, and ended up walking in a big circle. I also stopped to refuel my wallet and get some subway tokens (Ripoff of the day #2, I should have got the weekly pass). But I finally got back, rested for an hour and made my way to the Wintergarden theater for...
MY WINNIPEG (dir. Guy Maddin, 2007):
But first, the Wintergarden is an AWESOME venue. It's basically a super nice, older theater with some neat murals and all, but on the ceiling space there's a bunch of faux-foliage, and lots of hanging garden lamps. The proscenium and any other columns look like trees, and it's probably one of the coolest theaters I've been in.
And as for Winnipeg. I'll put it this way: Guy Maddin did with Winnipeg what I want to do with Syracuse. He's made a personal documentary (he calls it a docu-fantasia), about what it's like growing up in a somewhat dreary, winter-heavy, working class city. And it's all in Maddin's silent-era-influenced style. Maddin was there to narrate the film, which for the most part added to the experience. It makes me wish I had seen Brand upon the Brain! in the live setting.
It's hard to really describe the experience of a Maddin film, and My Winnipeg is proving the point. I think I'll have to sleep on it and update when my mind is actually working properly. But for now:
Final Grade: B+ (interesting, funny, stylized, but with a few distractions [mainly the switches to DV])
And there was a Q&A afterwards, which was fun but not terribly informative.
That was the end of the day, I came back, ordered a pizza (naturally), and now I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is the first 4 movie day, and I've got no naptime, so until then.
Most of the day was drab, but the movies, oh the movies.
I made the 30 minute ride into festival-town early on this morning (I got there around 8:30, for a 9:15 showing). And naturally, once I got off the subway, I got lost. Well, to put it fairly, I missed a street sign, but I wasn't far off. Nor was I the only person. Which brings me to today's....
RANDOM STRANGER MOMENT:
I was walking around, headed toward where I thought the Scotiabank Theater was, when all of a sudden this girl asks me if....I know where the Scotiabank Theater is. I guess I looked pretty confident about where I was going. To which I replied, "I think it's this way, I'm going there myself." and so we had the same small talk that I had yesterday, "where are you from?" "syracuse" "school?" "yeah, film" "what're you seeing?" etc. Finally, we find the theater and part ways. In the second movie of the day, I see random stranger and wave. End of random stranger story.
Now the moment you've all been waiting for... the movies. First of the day was:
YOU, THE LIVING (dir. Roy Andersson, 2007):
Brilliant. I loved it. Which naturally means I'll have a hard time writing about it. I really liked Songs from the Second Floor, and after You, The Living I really wish I had the chance to see it in theaters with a crowd. Everyone was receptive, taking in the comedy, laughing and enjoying themselves. Which is even better because Andersson is Swedish, and we know how uplifting Swedish cinema can be. Granted, YTL still has that bleak Swedish-ness to it, but Andersson is probably the closest thing Sweden has to Jacques Tati. Andersson uses more words, but the source of the humor is essentially the same. Like Tati, Andersson's compositions shift between the exceedingly flat and the incredibly deep. Everything plays out in one long take, and most of the time the camera is pretty much static, or moving so slowly that you don't notice.
Technical points aside, YTL really hits on personal communication. Characters are often unable to communicate with each other, which forces some to speak directly to the camera (or in one notable instance, sing). Favorite moments: The opening song, the entire "tablecloth trick" sequence (complete with popcorn at the execution), and the honeymoon.
I was looking forward to this, and it was even better than I expected.
Final Grade: A- (enjoyable, entertaining, interesting thematically and technically, I got tired once)
And then, I waited around for a while (hoping to grab lunch), but failed. Everytime I try to just pick up a quick bite to eat, I fail. I'll have to fix that. So in lieu of lunch, I got ripped off while buying a bag of M&Ms from the concession stand ($4--just awful). And then I got my seat for:
THE BANISHMENT (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2007):
Which I hated. There were two things keeping me from leaving and jumping over to Voyage Du Ballon Rouge (which I should have done): 1) I was sitting in the middle of a row, and getting up would mean a lot of hassle, and more importantly 2) I only had 5 dollars, and wasn't sure if my paycheck was in the bank yet. So I had to sit through an excruciating two and a half hours of everything I don't like about Russian art/literature. By that I mean it was bleak, boring, long, full of suffering (mostly psychological), and lots of references to Jesus. The story was something like: A guy goes away for some job, and his wife has an affair, and ends up pregnant. The husband is pissed, and wants her to get an abortion, and so she does. Then she dies, and the husband's brother has a heart attack and dies too. And it lasted 2 1/2 hours. Lots of long takes that weren't very interesting and lots of pained expressions. Somewhere in there I fell asleep for a few minutes, which I don't regret. After I woke up, the pain continued and then there was this flashback that made no sense to me. I guess it was what happened to the wife while the husband was gone. It lasted forever, but the main point was that her lover wasn't actually the father, it was the husband. Or maybe I missed the point. There was enough unexplained absurdity (and not the good, Roy Andersson variety), that by the end I was stuck trying to figure out what just happened. And I still have no idea.
But, there were a handful of good shots, one was a long take while rain started pouring in the country. Another had to do with water on the windshield, and other things like that. The whole "visual textures" idea. Aside from that though, I didn't like this.
Final Grade (C-, dull, boring, nonsensical at times, but high production values and some good cinematography keep it from the D-level)
After that, I was exhausted, and wanted to try to come back to the apartment and take a nap for a bit. It took me about 2 hours to get back, mostly because I wanted to just stop someplace and get food, and ended up walking in a big circle. I also stopped to refuel my wallet and get some subway tokens (Ripoff of the day #2, I should have got the weekly pass). But I finally got back, rested for an hour and made my way to the Wintergarden theater for...
MY WINNIPEG (dir. Guy Maddin, 2007):
But first, the Wintergarden is an AWESOME venue. It's basically a super nice, older theater with some neat murals and all, but on the ceiling space there's a bunch of faux-foliage, and lots of hanging garden lamps. The proscenium and any other columns look like trees, and it's probably one of the coolest theaters I've been in.
And as for Winnipeg. I'll put it this way: Guy Maddin did with Winnipeg what I want to do with Syracuse. He's made a personal documentary (he calls it a docu-fantasia), about what it's like growing up in a somewhat dreary, winter-heavy, working class city. And it's all in Maddin's silent-era-influenced style. Maddin was there to narrate the film, which for the most part added to the experience. It makes me wish I had seen Brand upon the Brain! in the live setting.
It's hard to really describe the experience of a Maddin film, and My Winnipeg is proving the point. I think I'll have to sleep on it and update when my mind is actually working properly. But for now:
Final Grade: B+ (interesting, funny, stylized, but with a few distractions [mainly the switches to DV])
And there was a Q&A afterwards, which was fun but not terribly informative.
That was the end of the day, I came back, ordered a pizza (naturally), and now I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is the first 4 movie day, and I've got no naptime, so until then.
posted by js munoz at
11:20 PM
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