Although not as strong as the first week, the second week of the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival has possessed enough credibly realistic cinematic endeavour (in other words, fucking good cinema) as to gladden the heart of any true Festival-goer. Honestly, the 2007 VIFF has emerged as the strongest Festival in years, not just for the films VanRamblings has attended and swooned over, but also for the dozens of others films for which the buzz is near euphoric.
In addition to the films VanRamblings has written about previously, there are ever more films that are must-sees, films without conventional distribution which we can only hope (if there is a God in the heavens) that Mark Peranson and the programming crew at the VanCity Theatre will bring back during the next year …

Battle in Seattle (Grade: A): One of the two punch-in-the gut films to screen at this year’s Festival (the other, London To Brighton), offering a fictive treatment of the World Trade Organization’s 1999 meetings in Seattle, Battle in Seattle is the single most gut-wrenching film we’ve seen this year. The scene with Charlize Theron in the alley way is simply the most devastating two-and-a-half minutes of filmmaking you’ll see this year. Who’da thunk that a fictional rendering of the 1999 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Seattle would prove both so moving and movement-oriented? A tour-de-force work by first-time helmer Stuart Townsend — with outstanding, Oscar worthy performances from Charlize Theron, Sam Riley, Michelle Rodriguez, Woody Harrelson, Andre 3000 and Ray Liotta — Battle in Seattle is an absolute must-see when it returns for its regular run later this year. One of the best films of 2007.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Grade: A+): Easily the best film at the 2007 VIFF, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is also the best film of the year (quite simply, you won’t see more accomplished cinema this year). From the wrenching central performances of Marie-Josee Croze and Mathieu Amalric to the work of the film’s outstanding supporting cast (Max von Sydow and Emmanuelle Seigner, among others), from Janusz Kaminski‘s cooly luminous cinematography to Ronald Harwood‘s erudite script, and mostly for its humanity and hopeful reflection on the human condition — man, woman and child — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is must-see cinema. Slated to open in Vancouver on Christmas day.

The Edge of Heaven (Grade: A): German cinema is particularly strong at this year’s Fest, but the best trend overall in world cinema in 2007 is the taut, spare nature of filmmaking from across the globe. Not ponderous American hoo-haw, but honest-to-goodness storytelling about real people, in films that don’t dawdle and lead you on, but get in, rip your heart out with the story that is being told, and get out, leaving you devastated, changed, a better person for the experience. How wonderful to see Hanna Schygulla after all these years, and how wonderful, too, to witness the birth of a cinematic auteur in writer-director Fatih Akın. How fortunate for you that The Edge of Heaven screens twice this week — Tuesday, Oct. 9th at 1 p.m. at the Granville 7, and Wednesday, Oct. 10th at 10 a.m., again at the Granville 7. You’ll want to skip work to see The Edge of Heaven.

Ran into Festival Board Chair, Michael Francis, in the early afternoon, at Bean Around the World on 10th Avenue, in Vancouver’s West Point Grey neighbourhood. An impromptu discussion of this year’s Festival ensued, and a number of topics were covered, including …

• Length of the Festival: In recent days, there’s been a rumour floating throught the line-ups and the cinemas that in 2008 VIFF will shorten the length of the Festival to 10 days, from its current 16-day run. “Not so,” says Francis. “I’m not sure where that rumour might have originated, but we’ll be a 16-day Festival next year, as we’ve been for many years.”
• Box Office Is Up 30% This Year Over Last: This past week the rumour floated around that box office was up 30% in the first week. “True,” says Francis. “But, overall, we’ll probably be up 4 or 5% in 2007 over 2006. Because so many people are purchasing their tickets online, over the Internet, and because so many patrons purchased their tickets in the first week of the Festival, box office was indeed up approximately 30% over last year, but that figure won’t sustain through the end of the Festival.”
  “Something else we’ve done this year, as well, is keep a closer eye on the box office, and when it was deemed appropriate, and when we became aware of increased demand to see a particular film, we changed venues for the popular films to a larger venue, like Theatre 7 at the Granville 7 Cinemas, or increased the number of screens on which a film is available. That innovation served to increase box office in the first week.”

VanRamblings offered to Francis that the 2007 VIFF was one of the strongest in years, a sentiment with which Francis was in full accord. “Of particular note, too, is the success of the Film Forum this year, probably our most successful year ever,” Francis enthused. “So not only do we have strong, important films from across the globe screening at our Festival this year — at a time when international cinema has never been stronger — interest in the craft of filmmaking has also emerged as an ever stronger focus of the Festival and Festival participants.”
Francis and VanRamblings also spoke briefly about our favourite films at the Festival this year, about Festival director Alan Franey (about whom we are both supportive), and the general all-around good feeling among Festival-goers and Festival staff this year. “2007 very much feels like the beginning of something new, as if we are just now embarking — as is world cinema — on a new and more vibrant path, that the previous 26 years have laid the foundation for an even stronger Festival in the years to come.”
And, so one might hope.
C’mon back on Monday, October 8th, for snapshot reviews of second-week favourites (Battle in Seattle, Edge of Heaven, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and buzz films not already reviewed on this site (Bliss, Empties).

Raining outside. Again. First up on the film schedule tonight was …
The Counterfeiters (Grade: A): Truly one of the strongest films at the 2007 VIFF. Telling the true story of a disparate group of imprisoned artists, financiers and master forger / counterfeiters secretly assembled in a Nazi concentration camp to forge millions of pound and dollar notes to support the German war effort, Stefan Ruzowitzky’s tense, award-winning WWII story of survival and martyrdom offers testament, once again, to the strength of German filmmaking on the world scene, and serves to remind us too of the inhumanity of the German nation state in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Counterfeiters plays again Tuesday, October 9th at 2 p.m. at the Granville 7, and Wednesday, October 10th at 7 p.m. at The Ridge.
And for the second part of Monday night’s double bill …
London to Brighton (Grade: A-): Ordinarily VanRamblings’ memory is pretty good, but somehow we walked into this film thinking it was a gritty, British caper crime drama, sorta like Layer Cake. And we were wrong, way wrong. Instead what London to Brighton offers is a terrifyingly accomplished cinematic roller-coaster ride in which the lives of an abandoned 11-year-old street kid (played with devastating force by newcomer Georgia Groome, in a frighteningly tragic début performance) and Kelly (Lorraine Stanley), a tough Cockney hooker with a swollen left eye, are in peril and on the line.
A big hit in Great Britain, but with no distributor in North America, either you set about to catch the next screening of London to Brighton on Wednesday, October 3rd, 4 p.m. at the Granville 7, or at 7 o’ clock next Monday, October 8th at The Ridge or you’ll miss it, and won’t even be afforded an opportunity to watch it on DVD. Which even if you don’t realize it now, would represent a loss of relatively significant proportion for you. Almost needless to say, this is yet another must-see at the 2007 VIFF.

The rains continued to pour down throughout the day, the only respite a few stolen hours inside a darkened movie theatre watching independent, foreign and documentary film that, in all likelihood, will never find its way back to our sodden west coast shores. And, it was ever thus. The talk in the early part of the day was of Telefilm Canada, the idealist versus the pragmatic argument: can't Canada produce better films, says one, while the other replies: Telefilm Canada exists to provide an opportunity for novices in the filmmaking industry to gain experience. Still, the question remains: Can't Canada make better films, films which reflect who we are and present Canadians to the world in a way that expresses our distinct culture?

The first film of the day, on a soggy Sunday morning, was …

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Grade: A): Downbeat, harrowing at times, with an unforgiving strain of melancholy throughout, director Cristian Mungiu sets his Romanian tale of an unwanted pregnancy in 1987 Bucharest, employing a handheld dogme filmic style to track Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and her friend, Găbiţa (Laura Vasiliu) through the arrangements the two make for a black market abortion. Minimalist filmmaking, with extended tracking shots that serve to explore the discomfort of the protagonists, however difficult 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days may be to watch, there is no question that this is tour-de-force filmmaking. Screening again Monday, October 8th at 7 p.m., and Thursday, October 11th at 4 p.m., once again this is must-see 2007 VIFF film fare.

Taking a midday break and a journey home, VanRamblings returned to the Festival wars at 3:30 p.m. for a screening of …

For the Bible Tells Me So (Grade: B+): A conventional documentary that has something of importance to say, that presents its arguments against intolerance in a reasonable and sincere manner, without seeming to hector you, or lecture you … just good old-fashioned advocacy filmmaking. As Justin Chang writes in his Variety review, "Filmmaker Daniel Karslake lobs a grenade into the culture wars with his heartfelt, provocative and unabashedly polemical For the Bible Tells Me So, which examines the intersection of homosexuality and religion …" Another 2007 VIFF must-see.

Bookending the day was the Cannes winner for Best Actress …

Secret Sunshine (Grade: B): The story of a distraught mother who, first, loses her husband, and then her son, there was something unsettling and threateningly magical realist about this story of loss and salvation gone wrong. Intriguing and compelling to watch, yet somehow distant and dramatically unsatisfying, there's no question Jeon Do-yeon gives a startlingly vivid performance as a woman coming to terms with unfathomable family tragedy, and for that alone this film is worth catching.

VanRamblings will slow posting throughout the week (actual "being at the office" work beckons), yet we'll attempt to post sporadically. For the next couple of days, this is what is on our film schedule radar …

On Monday …

The Counterfeiters, and the raucous London to Brighton.

And, on Tuesday …

Iska's Journey, which Variety reviews here. And, in the late evening …

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which is reviewed by Variety here.