The 2007 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival is now officially over. Paris Hilton is safely out of the country and the most exciting thing going on in the Canadian film world is once again Ryan Reynolds. There’s nothing more left for me to do but wrap up my coverage of the festival and also my career at the Journal. Bad news for me, because I’ll have no one left to publish my rants about movies, but good news for you because you’ll never again have to read them. Stay classy, Queen’s.
Cassandra’s Dream
Who would have ever guessed that Woody Allen—a man whose directorial career is as inseparable from New York City as breathing is to living—would find a second life directing morality dramas set in London? Allen surprised audiences two years ago with the modern noir Match Point and returns to that subject matter again with Cassandra’s Dream. This time around, Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star as a pair of British brothers whose escalating financial problems lead them down a dark path. Revealing the specifics of the plot would spoil the fun of the film, but rest assured it’s every bit as surprising and tense as its predecessor. Allen deftly builds suspense so slowly that it’s difficult to notice you’re being manipulated until it’s too late and his characters are so relatable that it’s painful to watch them cross a line from which they’ll never return. Although this movie doesn’t quite match the moral complexity of Match Point, the two films easily represent Allen’s best work of the decade.
Eastern Promises
Although not as surprising as Woody Allen’s career shift, it has been strange to see David Cronenberg, the founder of body horror, become the world’s leading purveyor of Viggo Mortensen gangster films. Eastern Promises is more of a straight-ahead thriller than the thematically complex A History Of Violence, but it is still far more complicated and carefully constructed than most Hollywood crime movies. Mortensen gives another arresting lead performance, but he’s overshadowed by the underrated French actor Vincent Cassel, whose terrifying gangster is to Eastern Promises what Joe Pesci was to Goodfellas. The film is also a surprisingly restrained effort for Cronenberg who limits himself to only two scenes of gore; however, it must be said that the central moment of violence in the movie easily ranks among the strangest and grizzliest he has ever produced. While definitely a strong movie overall, it doesn’t rank among the best of Cronenberg’s career. Like The Dead Zone, it’s an efficiently constructed thriller that showcases the director’s skill as a storyteller, but lacks the intellectual weight that distinguishes the Canadian filmmaker from most practitioners of shock.
I’m Not There
I’m Not There is an ambitious attempt to tackle the complex life and mind of Bob Dylan. Director Todd Haynes’ solution to dealing with the varying stories and personalities of Dylan was to cast six different actors in the role, each literally embodying Dylan or a character inspired by the singer. It’s certainly a unique concept, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite work. Two ages are brilliant, three are mediocre, and one is completely pointless. The successful ages feature Christian Bale and, oddly, Cate Blanchett as Dylan. Bale plays Dylan during his early folk days, while Blanchett tackles the difficult period in his career when he started to use electric guitar, alienating most of his fan base in the process. Each actor perfectly captures the distinct nuances and inflections of the singer and, had the rest of the film been as successful, it could have been an amazing biopic. Sadly none of the other segments work as well. Richard Gere plays Billy The Kid for some unknown reason and his scenes never cease to drag the film to a screeching halt. None of the other sequences are complete failures, nor are they interesting enough to be worth mentioning. Haynes’s film is a worthy effort with moments of brilliance, but at the end of the day his multi-character concept was better on paper than in execution.
Paranoid Park
This latest entry from Gus Van Sant sees the writer and director continue to develop the lyrical, non-linear style he founded in the noble failure Gerry and continued to develop in the more successful Elephant and Last Days. A free-floating but objective camera follows a skateboarding teen protagonist through a traumatic event of his life, with carefully chosen music and artfully designed cinematography (by brilliant Australian director of photography Chris Doyle) perfectly capturing his state of mind. It’s a wonderful puzzle of a movie with scenes unfolding in an unpredictable order, only fully falling into place during the closing scenes. The unconventional storytelling style isn’t for everyone and will certainly frustrate unprepared audience expecting a linear narrative. But there are rich rewards for those willing to accept Van Sant’s cinematic experiments and follow the director to his conclusion, no matter how abstract the film may become. In other words, it’s arty farty fun for the pretentious film geek inside each and every one of us.
Into the Wild
Actor Sean Penn has slowly been establishing himself as an interesting director and his latest movie Into The Wild, though inconsistent, is arguably his most accomplished effort to date. Based on a book by Jon Krakauer, the film tells the enlightening and tragically true story of Christopher McCandless’ post-collegiate backpacking trip across America. The episodic narrative is filled with fascinating characters and insights into human nature, but the scope of the project is sadly a little too ambitious. At once overlong and underdeveloped, writer and director Penn struggles to condense the essence of the story into a feature-length film. Some sections, such as those with an elderly leather merchant, seem to go on forever, while others, including a great sequence with Vince Vaughn and underrated comedian Zach Galifiankis, feel unfinished and over-edited to an extent that they’re barely relevant. Also, Penn’s typically subdued visual style is replaced by an onslaught of split-screens and crane shots that are effective in isolation but a little overwhelming all together. Yet despite the flaws, the film manages to succeed with its message intact thanks to Penn’s fantastic work with his talented ensemble cast, including a breakout performance by lead actor Emile Hirsch. Into The Wild is certainly not a masterpiece, but it is a film with just enough effective moments to qualify as a success.
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