Wandered down the street to catch the bus, and then on downtown to the Granville 7 to catch a 2:10 pm screening of the Turkish film Pandora’s Box or, perhaps, a 3:30 pm screening of Forbidden Door, from Indonesia, although VanRamblings couldn’t necessarily decide on either, so we ended up asking for tickets for both (a tried-and-true film critic ploy to ‘play the field’ at film fests), and thus we hunkered down in the Granville 7 for …
Pandora’s Box (Grade: B-): There’s a ‘paint drying‘ quality to director Yesim Ustaoglu’s Golden Conch winner at the San Sebastian Film Festival, as well as a gorgeous travelogue quality as cinematographer Jacques Besse takes the viewer on a lush journey through the Turkish countryside, and into the heart of modern-day Istanbul. Pandora’s Box is a pleasant enough way to spend a Festival Tuesday afternoon, but given that we were unthrilled, we cut out early to join Shayne for a 3:30 p.m. screening of …
Forbidden Door (Grade: C): No sooner had VanRamblings snuck out early from the screening of Pandora’s Box, and into Theatre 3 for a screening of Forbidden Door, than we realized that entering the cinema to see Forbidden Door was akin to entering the third level of hell. We stayed for, oh say, a whole 5 minutes, and headed out to the Starbucks for a mid-afternoon snack. Mr. Shayne, who somehow stuck it out to watch the Best of Puchon Festival winner gave us this report: “Dramatically incoherent, ambitious (but to what end?), excruciatingly bloody and violent, with one of the most gruesome, most pointless, most viscera-filled final scenes in any movie I would never care to see again.” Mr. Shayne, tell us how you really feel.
Not a particularly salutary afternoon at the Festival, all things considered. Would Mr. Shayne and VanRamblings fare better in the evening?
Around 4:30 p.m., VanRamblings got in line for an evening ticket for R. J. Cutler’s well-reviewed new documentary, The September Issue. We already had our ticket for the 9:15 screening of Mother, snagged earlier in the day.
Upon entering the theatre, VanRamblings was very pleased to see the beauteous, tough, strong, talented, feminist / leftist / progressive, Alejandra Aguirre (our favourite Vancouver-based photographer). Ali even managed to take a better-than-decent photo (below) of Mr. Shayne and VanRamblings, a heretofore unheard of artistic feat …

‘Showbiz’ Shayne & ‘Mr. Know-It-All‘ / VanRamblings (Ray Tomlin) at the Fest

While Ali was across the aisle from J. B. and VanRamblings, who should be sitting in the left aisle seats directly behind us? Yes, our favourite Film Fest attending couple, Donna and Frank (sorry for the blurry photo). So, here we were, in a packed theatre, rarin’ and ready for the 7 pm screening of …
The September Issue (Grade: B+): Not exactly The War Room, director R J Cutler’s stunningly produced documentary covering the Clinton run to the White House in 1992, The September Issue is — with its core message of “it’s not how you feel, it’s how you look” — an energetic, always involving and surprisingly moving portrait of Vogue editor / dominatrix Anna Wintour who, along with a winning ‘supporting cast’ (most particularly, longtime Vogue Features Editor, Grace Coddington) emerges as the feel-good flick of the 2009 Festival, insightful, enchanting and always compellingly watchable.
And, for our final film on a lustrously beautiful Tuesday at the film festival …
Mother (Grade: A): Just your average, run-of-the-mill Korean psychosexual thriller, replete with blood and violence, taboo schoolgirl imagery, raucous consensual sex involving a very young girl, and a mother who will go to any ends to rescue her son from the clutches of the judicial system, including … well, that would be giving it away, wouldn’t it? The most audacious film of the year, from director Bong Joon-ho (The Host), Mother offers a taut tale of murder and suspense that moves slowly in its first half, and in its second half grabs you by the lapels, throws you around, and just doesn’t let go. Plays again on Thanksgiving Monday, Oct. 12th @ 1:20 pm, Gran7, Th7.

Another day, another four movies. And so it goes.
First up today, though: for all of us iPhone users out there, the VIFF Fan Guide went up midday Monday, resplendent with an easy to surf and readable guide to the daily films on offer at the 28th annual VIFF.
Up late again on Monday, but still managed to get downtown by 11 a.m. to pick up four tickets for the day, the first film on tap …
Lost Times (Grade: A-): The Hungarian Film Week top prize-winner, this slice-of-life relationship drama revolves around the lives of three protagonists, a troubled young auto mechanic, Ivan (Jozsef Kadas) who cares for his willful, autistic teenage sister, Eszter (Térez Vass, writer-director Aron Matyassy’s wife), as he also tries to come to terms with his relationship with girlfriend, Ilus (Eszter Földes). A grippingly effective pastoral thriller (tension arises both from circumstances involved in Ivan’s cross-border gas smuggling business, and the fallout from Eszter’s sexual victimization). Still, narrative aside, the real reward offered by Matyassy’s film — as is the case with all other worthwhile VIFF films — is the entirely authentic insight into the humanity and circumstance of the characters on the screen. First-rate filmmaking, due to screen for a final time later this week, on Thursday, October 8th @ 9 p.m., Empire Granville 7, Theatre 4.
Ran into journalist / blogger extraordinaire, Frances Bula, lining up at the Granville 7 box office. We couldn’t help but ‘molest‘ her (VanRamblings is just a tad smitten with the indefatigable Ms. Bula’s very fine mind), but we trust she wasn’t too offended. Then it was off for Frances, her beau Doug, and a weary VanRamblings to Granville 7’s Theatre 4 for a screening of …
Applause (Grade: B+): Cold, desolate, abandoned and alone. Here’s yet another film that reinforces the operating theme of the Festival: wherever you live on our planet, no matter your circumstance or living condition, life is a struggle for every one of us, and just getting through each day has to be considered a triumph of our will just to survive. The narrative thrust of Applause involves imperious aging stage actress, Thea (Denmark’s Paprika Steen, in an outstanding, gritty performance), who has set about to recover her life, following treatment for her alcoholism, by re-establishing ties with her two young sons. That all does not go well is a given. But it is the tenderness of each character portrayal on screen, and the chance for Thea’s redemption that holds us in thrall. Played Monday for a final time.
The most salutary event of our filmgoing day occurred when, for the first time since Fest’s outset last Thursday, we ran into Donna and Frank — who were not able to start their Festival-going til Monday due to work commitments — by far our favourite Festival attending couple lo these many, many years. Somehow, Donna and Frank manage to put up each year with VanRamblings prattling on about one film or another, ad nauseam it must seem to them (and those poor unfortunates listening in). Just knowing we’ll see Donna and Frank each day til Fest’s end is just downright heartening. The Vancouver Film Festival is all about, among myriad other things, relationships, camaraderie, and being in this thing together.
Once again, we also ran into David Bordwell, prominent American film theorist, film critic, author, and Professor of Film Studies, Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who travels to the VIFF each year, and who told VanRamblings he’ll be in town thru week’s end. Aaahhh, the life.
Following a dinner break (we took the bus home to make a homemade organic chicken caesar salad), we rode the bus to Nelson and Seymour, walked the two blocks to the Granville 7, and joined the line for …
Kamui (Grade: B+): Japanese director Yoichi Sai’s stirring adaptation of the 40 year old Manga sword-and-sorcery source material tells an epic tale of treachery and shark hunting pirates through the experience of Kamui, a lonesome young renegade ninja nomad who cannot find a place for himself in the world. Kamui, the film, comes replete with all of the techno-wizardry pyrotechnics you’d expect from a film of this sort, and from beginning to end Kamui is just a helluva good time, a tree-top and seaside ninja battling, saturated ocean vista Asian ‘western’ that satisfies throughout. Plays twice more this week, on Thursday, Oct. 8th @ 10:45 am, Gran7, Th7, and Saturday afternoon, Oct. 10th @ 2:30pm, Gran7, Theatres 3 + 4.
Somehow the inimitable J. B. Shayne and VanRamblings managed to stay out of trouble while we strolled the darkened downtown streets awaiting the beginning of our final film of this glorious filmgoing Monday …
Breathless (Grade: B+): Surprisingly comic, and just about the most foul-mouthed movie you’re likely to see this year, with its jazz-inflected trance score, this low rent Korean gangster flick, even given the gloss and stylized sheen brought to the proceedings by first-time director / South Korean screen star Yang Ik-june, Breathless still manages to explore the same sort of anomie that is to be found in the best VIFF flicks, with it’s combination of melancholy and despair, tempered by just the slightest hint of hope. Plays for a final time this Friday, Oct. 9th @ 1:15 pm, Gran7, Th7.

Night and Fog (Grade: A): Still. Based on the actual 2004 Tin Shui Wai murder-suicide involving a mainland immigrant, her Hong Kong husband, and their two children, Ann Hui’s dark, muted and harrowing tragedy unfolds in flashback, from movie’s outset tracking how Lee Sum (Simon Yam) came to murder his wife Ling (Zhang Jingchu) and their twin 6-year-old daughters. Given the film’s arresting subject matter, it is Zhang Jingchu’s utterly still portrayal of Ling that will endure for audiences long after the film has ended. Screens twice more, on Monday, Oct. 5th @ 6:20 pm, Gran 7, Th 4, and Monday, Oct. 12th @ 4:00 pm, Ridge Theatre.

Next up on the ‘still‘ theme, this absolute gem from Sweden …
The Girl (Grade: A): More than an idyll, director Fridrik Edfeldt’s The Girl explores the summer days of 10-year- old Anna (Blanca Engström), left (unknowingly) alone to care for herself amidst the uncertainty of all that may unfold as the days and weeks pass. That tragedy, or near tragedy, awaits seems inevitable. Still, there’s a hot air balloon ride, catching frogs in the creek with her friend Ola, and the knowledge that by movies’ end, despite all, Anna has survived, quiet, alone and with uncommon bravery. One of this year’s must-see films, The Girl screens twice more: Wed, Oct. 7th @ 1 pm, Gran7, Th 6, and Thu, Oct. 8th @ 7:15 pm, Gran7, Th 6.
Ran into neighbour, Festival programmer, Guide editor, chief projectionist and all-around ‘go to’ guy, Jack Vermee, meditating outside the Granville 7 — looking none-the-worse for wear, given his almost fatal car accident last year — as he was preparing to introduce Kill Daddy Goodnight director-screenwriter Michael Glawogger, before the 9:15 screening in Theatre 3 …
Kill Daddy Goodnight (Grade: C): This is what one sardonically refers to as a “kitchen sink drama”, as in the filmmaker has thrown everything and the kitchen sink into a potboiler mess of a film, bereft of engaging characters, and in this instance with a plot that remains incoherent throughout, as it delves none-too-deeply into a Nazi massacre and pending parricidal genocide, among myriad other ‘themes’. Kill Daddy Goodnight screens at noon today, Gran7, Th 3, and Thurs., Oct 8th @ 12:15 pm, Gran7, Th 6.

Saturday, October 3rd, Day 3 of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, proved to be a banner day, one of the best full days VanRamblings has experienced at the Film Festival in recent years, with five films on tap, and every one as confrontational, transporting, important, and life-changing as any filmgoer would wish to be the case. Watching the very best in film from Russia, the U.S., Tibet, Hong Kong and Japan, may have tuckered us, but at the conclusion of our filmgoing day we felt stronger, more human, wiser and better for the experience.
Film informs our lives. Once again this year there are hundreds of Festival-goers who have taken two weeks away from the prosaic activities of their “usual” lives to immerse themselves in Vancouver’s annual Film Festival, who have joined a revolutionary cadre of like-minded cinéastes, all of whom know that it is our connectedness and our common humanity that unites us in common cause as, together — each in her or his own way — we strive toward a better, a fairer and more just world, not just for those of us who reside in Vancouver, on our little lambent and beautiful spot on the planet, but for us all, in every country on our spinning globe.
Together, we will continue our struggle, our inexorable journey towards the realization of a time of peace and justice for all, a time which draws closer with each passing day. The films at Vancouver’s annual Film Festival help to remind us that we are all in this together, that it is not our politicians who ‘rule’ us, it is we who are self-determinant of the future of our world.
As the first film of the day and, perhaps, what will emerge as our favourite fiction film of the Festival, from director Alexey Balabanov (The Brother) …
Morphia (Grade: A+): A cautionary fable, on the effects of morphine on the body politic, and more specifically in the life of a young rural physician in the
hinterland of Russia, circa 1917, with it’s comic burlesque soundtrack offering counterpoint to the otherwise tragic goings on, and given the film’s historical sweep, and graphic insight into early, breakthrough surgical techniques, Morphia throughout emerges as humane and grand, yet achingly intimate, as we the viewer are offered a portrait of Russia at a turning point. For its naturalness and uncommon level of intimacy, Morphia has become our favourite film thus far in 2009’s annual Vancouver Film Festival, and the best, and most worthwhile film, we expect to see in 2009. Screened for a final time at 12:15 pm Sunday. Let’s hope the programmers include Morphia for a “Best of the Fest” screening, in our Fest’s latter days.
Would there be any film screening at this year’s Fest that could compete for our affection for Morphia? Well, yes, there is. And, it’s the documentary …
Soundtrack for a Revolution (Grade: A+): Words cannot be found to express just how moving, and how powerful an historical a document Soundtrack for a Revolution will prove for contemporary viewers, and will remain for generations to come, as an utterly essential chronicle of the U.S. civil rights movement in the late 1950s thru the late 1960s, and of the role music and song played in carrying through one of the great revolutions of our time. Stanford University professor and documentarian Bill Guttentag (in attendance at this year’s Fest), with his filmmaking partner Dan Sturman (Nanking), present contemporary and never-before-seen historical and archival newsreel footage — as well as stand-out performances by the Blind Boys of Alabama, Richie Havens, Joss Stone, The Roots John Legend, Wyclef Jean, Mary Mary, Angie Stone and host of others — to tell a riveting story of hope, of the peaceful freedom marchers, of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr., and of the tens of thousands who finally triumphed in the struggle for justice and equality. Soundtrack for a Revolution played for the last time on Saturday at the Fest, but is due for release in 2010.

Tibet in Song (Grade: B+): With compassion and resilience, Fulbright scholar, and former political prisoner, Ngawang Choephel, presents his Special Jury Prize winner at Sundance this year, an autobiographical story of the filmmaker himself and, more importantly, a risk-taking chronicle of the struggle of the people of Tibet to regain their culture, even and in spite of the onslaught of China’s ongoing “cultural revolution.” For human rights activists and ethnomusicologists, Tibet in Song is essential filmmaking. Screens twice more, on Sunday, October 11th @ 6:30 pm, Granville 7, Theatre 2, and Monday, October 12th @ 1:50 pm, Granville 7, Theatre 2.
Written By (Grade: A-): A time-bending, phantasmagorical meditation on love, loss and sorrow, and a contemporary ghost story, Dragons and Tigers candidate, Wai Ka-fai’s sensationally compelling and, at all times, emotionally resonant Hong Kong set film, Written By tells the story of Lau Ching-wan, a lawyer who dies in a car accident, leaving his daughter, Melody, blind and his wife a widow. In setting about to help her mother overcome her grief, Melody pens a novel in which the family died but the father survived. In her novel, to deal with his own grief, the father writes his own book, in which he died in the accident but his wife and daughter survived. And so it goes in an endlessly recursive loop as the dead are resurrected in fiction, where the reality of tragic circumstance becomes fantasy, and the mourning and grief of children and their parents transform from melodrama into a fantasia of familial grief resurrected as hope and emotional transcendence. With a lovely, evocative, whimsical soundtrack, Written By plays twice more, Tuesday, October 6th @ 11 am, Granville 7, Theatre 7, and Monday, October 12th @ 2:30 pm, Granville 7, Theatre 3.
And, finally, the perfect way to end a glorious third day at the Festival …
Air Doll (Grade: A): An entirely engaging ode to love, and a meditation on the human condition, director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s beautifully rendered tale of urban alienation tells the story of Nozomi (Bae Doo-Nai), the air doll (inflatable sex doll) of the title, as she comes alive and sets about to explore the world through the innocent eyes and the curiosity of a young child. As the story somehow manages to retain its sense of childlike innocence throughout (given the ‘role’ of the title character), as the main character learns to come to terms with the human heart, Kore-eda’s urban fairytale explores the themes of the objectification of women and girls in contemporary society, the inherent disposability of our consumerist culture, the human yearning for fulfillment and connection, heartbreak, solitude, life, death, and the idiosyncratic nature of human experience, Air Doll emerges as one of the must-see films at 2009’s Vancouver Film Festival. No more screenings available (the last one was today at 4 pm), so let’s hope that the folks at the VIFF brings Air Doll back for 2009’s Best of the Fest series.