VanRamblings started our Festival dark — Without, Tyrannosaur, and Michael — two weeks back, and we’re ending our Festival the same way: with Pure on Thursday night, and perhaps the darkest of the dark night of the soul film at this year’s VIFF, Sean Durkin’s Sundance psychological thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which we saw Tuesday evening.

At the 30th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, the word audacious might appropriately be employed in discussion of some aspect of a film screening at VIFF30 merely three times …

• Alicia Vikander’s stunner of a performance, dark, disturbing and utterly humane, if ever so twisted in the realization of such, in Pure;
• Eva Ionesco’s enthralling début film, My Little Princess, this film more than any other screening at the Festival employing every key element of the craft of filmmaking — sound, colour, words and feeling — in what has to be considered the cinematic and artistic triumph of the year; and
• Elizabeth Olson who, as in the case of Vikander and Ionesco, finds herself at the centre of a film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, in which she surrenders deeply and hauntingly to the inexorable passage through the hours of her existence, and whatever horror may come from the move forward through her shuddering life.

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 13: An Enlightening Darkness Settles In Once Again →

VanRamblings is, this week, ramping down our coverage of the 30th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, as the Festival sets about to screen its final film this Friday evening, October 14th. And, of course, that will be it for VIFF30, resplendent with cinema from across the globe, 375 features and 100 more short films having screened at five venues across Vancouver.
Still, there are a few more films we’d like to write about, beginning with …

• My Little Princess (Grade: A): The most audacious directorial début we can recall in recent memory, Eva Ionesco’s trenchant, autobiographical film offers a disturbing, accomplished and authentic tale of Ionesco’s unconventional relationship with her mother, Irina, in the most fully realized and beautifully sweeping cinematic fever dream of a film we’ve screened at the 30th annual Vancouver International Film Festival.In the 1970s, Ionesco’s mother rocked the Paris art world with photographs of her naked, pre-pubescent daughter. In interviews, Ionesco recalls that her mother began posing her provocatively when she was just four. In My Little Princess, Violetta (played with exquisite perfection by newcomer Anamaria Vartolomei, in the most auspicious and moving début performance we’ve seen at VIFF 30) is ten when her wildly unconventional mother, Hanna (Isabelle Huppert), takes the fun of dressing up in old clothes to a new and decidedly troubling level.As Irina increasingly sexualizes her daughter, Violetta turns into a Lolita figure, standing forlornly in the school playground in tight hot pants, swaggering into the classroom in full make-up and wearing clothes that could only be deemed inappropriate. Twelve-year-old Vartolomei is the saving grace of the film, as she gives a tough, moral, centered and very strong performance, always true to herself and to the character she is portraying, lending the film an integrity that otherwise may have not been present, in the process taking the film from what might have been considered demeaning and exploitative film fare to the realm of art.

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 12: As The Festival Wends Its Way To a Close →

Brie Koniczek & Maja Klempner, VIFF exhibitions staff, out front of the Empire Granville 7

Although VanRamblings continues to harbour much affection for volunteer co-ordinator Iulia Manolescu, who during this Festival has taken on the venue management responsibility for the Granville 7’s Theatre 5, we have this year made daily contact with, and come to depend on, Brie Koniczek and Maja Klempner — who, no matter what time of the day or night — may be found at their post near the entrance to the Empire Granville 7 facilitating the best possible Vancouver International Film Festival for you.
Brie and Maja have made VanRamblings’ Festival in 2011. No matter that we might feel the tribulations arising from a lack of sleep defined by a tendency towards a confused state of mind, or when at some point in the day we find ourselves in a curmudgeonly mood, out front of the Empire Granville 7, you will find Maja, her face aglow with that warm, wonderful, and welcoming smile, so beatific that any patron’s concerns would simply melt away. Brie, as is the case with Maja, simply exudes a hardy competence and, as you can see in the photo above, her smile is not only welcoming, but calming. Brie co-ordinates the passholders’ ticket table, which in these latter days has come to run with a sense of systemic élan. In 2011, Brie is the heart of the exhibitions staff, who possesses an administrative skill par excellence (she’s sees everything out front of the Granville 7 - lines moving in efficiently and well? you can thank Brie).
VanRamblings is grateful to Brie and Maja. Thank you so very, very much!

Continue reading VIFF 2011, Day 11: A Thanksgiving Tribute to the VIFF Staff →