Day Two of the 29th annual Vancouver International Film Festival proved to be everything that Day One was not. Which is to say that VanRamblings loved each of the three films we took in on Friday, our most favourite …
The Man Who Will Come (Grade: A): A devastating tone poem, winner of the Jury Prize and Audience Award at last year’s Rome Film Festival, The Man Who Will Come tracks six months in the lives of the inhabitants of a small Bolognese Apennines village circa 1944, almost all of whom were massacred in reprisal for the village’s support of partisans fighting against their Nazi occupiers. As observed through the eyes of 8-year-old Martina (Greta Zuccheri Montanari, in a spellbinding performance), the young girl acts as a mute but powerful agent for her family and a ‘narrator’ for our perception of the film’s events. With engaging, naturalistic performances, a superb musical score and lambent cinematography by Roberto Cimatti, The Man Who Will Come emerges as a tragic tour-de-force and one of the must-see films at this year’s Festival. (Screens again on Mon., Oct 4th @ 11:40 am, Gr. 7 Th3, and Tue., Oct 12th @ 9:30 pm, Park Theatre)
The Man Who Will Come, Hilda Hidalgo’s Of Love and Other Demons, and SIFF winner, Reverse
Ordinarily, we’d post upon arriving home from a day of filmgoing at the Vancouver International Film Festival, but Thursday, September 30th turned out to be such a strange day, and the films we managed to get to so underwhelming that we’re simply going to wait til Friday, Day 2 of VIFF, to have our socks blown off, as the inimitable Mr. ‘Showbiz’ Shayne and Mr. Know-It-All (aka VanRamblings) take in screenings of …
The Man Who Will Come, a dense historical drama that earned the Silver Grand Jury prize at the Rome fest, as well as the Audience Award (12:15 pm, Gr7, Th7).
Reverse, a darkly comic story about three women, set in both the present and in 1950s Warsaw. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the recent Seattle International Film Festival. (6:45 pm, Gr7, Th2), and
Of Love and Other Demons, about which Andrew Barker wrote in his Variety review: “In her startlingly assured debut … Costa Rican writer-director Hilda Hidalgo has seemingly unlocked the key to translating the cerebral sensuality of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s writing into film, providing one of the few screen adaptations worthy of the Colombian novelist’s source material.” (9:15 pm, Gr7, Th4)
The Vancouver International Film Festival will celebrate its 29th birthday September 30th thru October 15th, all across Vancouver.
For the first time, VIFF will offer screenings at the Park Theatre on Cambie Street, which replaces longtime Festival venue The Ridge. Otherwise, venues operating throughout the entire fest are the same as last year: the Empire Granville 7 (again, ‘home’ to VIFF), Pacific Cinémathèque on Howe Street, and the VIFF’s own Vancity Theatre on Seymour.
On those screens, VIFF will unspool 600 screenings of 230 feature-length films and 150 shorts, from 80 countries. And, as always, 80% of the films screening at VIFF will never screen in Vancouver again (so see them now).
As Canada’s largest Festival venue for Canadian film, in 2010 VIFF will present 87 Canadian films, including 20 dramatic features, 16 nonfiction features, one mid-length film, and 50 ‘shorts’. Selected from 700 submissions, VIFF will also present 115 non-fiction films, of which 98 are feature-length. The Non-Fiction Features series represents Canada’s second-largest “documentary festival,” with an estimated 63,000 of VIFF’s total 150,000 admissions last year attending this portion of the fest.
As in past years, in 2010 overall VIFF will present 85 premières: 12 world, 23 international, and 50 North American.
This year’s Festival officially kicks off this evening with Barney’s Version, Mordecai Richler’s acclaimed 1997 satire, which tracks the life of Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti), a Montreal Jewish mensch, marital philanderer, foul-mouthed social liability, hard drinker, self-hater, low-grade TV producer and possible murderer, through four decades of his messily authentic life. Directed by Richard J. Lewis, Barney’s Version arrives in Vancouver after débuting at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.
VIFF will close two weeks later with a gala screening of master animator Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist (Gala, Fri, Oct 15 7 pm, Empire Granville Th7; & Fri, Oct 15 9:45 pm @ Empire Granville Th7), a follow-up to his award-winning 2003 tour-de-force, The Triplets of Belleville. Bathed in self-aware melancholy and lightened by slow-burn humour and a sensibility rooted in silent-era filmmaking, The Illusionist offers plenty to look at, all of it magnificently rendered, as it deploys superb hand-drawn imagery to bring to life an unproduced screenplay the late Jacques Tati finished in 1959.
In between — during the 17 days of the Festival — are numerous special events and multiple daily screenings, as many or more screenings, says VIFF artistic director Alan Franey, than in previous years.
In 2010, VIFF places a focus on a Best of Cannes 2010 film series, including Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Recalls His Past Lives, which screens next Wednesday, October 6 at 9 p.m. (Granville 7, Theatre 3) and Tuesday, October 12th at 4:15 p.m. (VanCity Theatre).
The oh-so-glorious 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival wrapped on Friday, October 16th. More than 377 films, from 70+ countries across this planet of ours, the VIFF films screened more than 640 times, on 10 different cinema screens over 16 days … and, it’s over for another year. With a mixture of sadness and elation (the latter because of all the fine films we saw this past two-plus weeks), VanRamblings returns to our prosaic life. And it was always thus. Of course, there’s always next year.
Today, in our final VIFF 2009 post, VanRamblings will provide insight into our favourite fiction, and non-fiction, films at VIFF 2009 …
In the fiction film category, VanRamblings absolutely loved … Morphia: A Russian film, set in 1917 against the backdrop of the pending Russian revolution and telling the story of a young physician practicing in the hinterlands, this was epic, historic, humane filmmaking of the first order, by far our favourite film at this year’s Festival. The Girl: Always subdued, powerfully affecting, the story of a 10-year-old girl left behind by her parents on the family farm, expecting that her aunt will care for her, but doesn’t, with two months on her own, we worry about her safety, and her ability to prevail. But, almost miraculously, she does. Lost Times: Next to The Girl, the most affecting film we saw at VIFF 2009, this Hungarian import told a story that was always, always compelling to watch onscreen. You lived with the characters, and came to care for them deeply. Is there any more apt tribute to the filmmaker, and the performers, than to say that you came to love, and care for, the characters onscreen? Night and Fog: VanRamblings saw Night and Fog in preview, and immediately fell in love with Zhang Jingchu (who was also in John Rabe), our favourite VIFF performance this year. Ms. Jingchu is gonna be a big star! Written By: A heartrending, but surprisingly ‘magical’ story about a family in distress following the death of the father/husband, from the recursive storyline to the affecting performances, to the cinematography, Written By had style to burn, but kept things low key, and always human scale. Air Doll: Who’da thunk that a film about a ‘sex doll’ who finds a heart and comes to life would emerge as one of the most affecting films we’d see at this year’s Festival? From beginning to end, writer-producer-editor-director Kore-eda Hirokazu held us in sway, as he explored themes ranging from the objectification of women to hearbreak. First-rate filmmaking. The Exploding Girl: A gentle character study about Ivy (Zoe Kazan), an absolutely lovely film about a young college student with epilepsy who comes home for her semester break, director Bradley Rust Grey’s melancholy film looks closely and deeply at Ivy’s capacity for love, her vulnerability, and the ordinary day to day things young people do during an uneventful summer in Brooklyn. Outstanding, first rate cinema, all around.
VanRamblings was also mightily impressed with … Mother: About a mother who desperately searches for the killer who framed her son for a horrific murder, director Bong Joon-ho (The Host) creates a viscerally intense psychological study about a mother’s capacity for love. John Rabe: Epic filmmaking, writer-director Florian Gallenberger’s true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38, when Gallenberger’s film arrives back in theatres (and it will), you’ll want to rush out to catch it. Breathless: Foul-mouthed and involving throughout, Breathless is just what you’d expect from great South Korean cinema: gripping, no-holds barred movie-making. Writer-director Yang Ik-June delivers in spades. La Pivellina: Who’da thunk that writer-directors Tizza Covi and
Rainer Frimmel could create a film that revolves, almost entirely, around a 2-year-old girl (Asia Crippa). But they did, and what a wonderfully affecting film La Pivellina turned out to be. Yang Yang: Last year, we fell head-over-heels in love with Sandrine Pinna. So, when we saw that she had the lead role in a new film by writer-director Cheng Yu-chieh, we rushed right out to make sure that we had tickets for Yang Yang. A bit of a piffle, the film focuses entirely on Ms. Pinna, a warm, able actress, and the next big star from China. We were in heaven! The Maid: Even given that Catalina Saavedra (as the maid) is hardly a sympathetic character, you just couldn’t take your eyes off the screen, wondering what was going to happen next. Writer-director Sebastián Silva creates award-winning cinema. One of the audience favourites at VIFF 2009. Antichrist: ‘Showbiz’ Shayne’s favourite film at VIFF 2009, although VanRamblings found Antichrist to be very well made, and loved the first half of this film, when proceedings went off the rails, we were somewhat less enamoured. With Antichrist, provocateur Lars von Trier outdoes himself.
Of course, there were non-fiction films VanRamblings loved, especially … Soundtrack for a Revolution: Far and away, VanRamblings’ favourite documentary at VIFF 2009, Bill Guttentag and Dan Furman’s powerful film traces the history of the American civil rights movement through the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. American Casino: By far, the most effective film in the ‘Follow The Money‘ series at VIFF 2009, Leslie and Andrew Cockburn’s lively, if depressing film (given that the subject matter deals with the financial devastation of Americans across the U.S.), ‘Casino‘ takes an effective, and moving, look at how the Wall Street meltdown has impacted working class Americans. Playground: Not didactic in the least, Libby Spears’ eye-opening documentary tracks the child sex trade across North America in a non-pedantic, impressively effective, always moving, informational and cinematically compelling manner. You’re guaranteed to learn some things you would never have expected to be the truth. A first-rate film. The Inheritors: Producer-director Eugenio Polgovsky brought one of the most affecting, well-made and moving documentaries to VIFF 2009, with his compelling non-fiction film about child labour in rural Mexico, where he sets about to effectively examine the legacy of hard work in the Mexican family.
