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.

Four more films to see on Wednesday, the second-to-last full day of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival.
Arrived early for the passholder’s line-up, just before 9:30 a.m., and stood in line to make sure that VanRamblings secured a pass to …
An Education (Grade: A-): Quite as heartbreakingly lovely, and transporting, as it’s been reported to be, with an even lovelier ingenue performance from ‘find of the year’ actress, standout performer and certain Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, in addition to Ms. Mulligan’s breakout performance, the whole cast acquit themselves well, particularly Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike, Cara Seymour and Olivia Williams, although Dominic Cooper, Peter Sargaard, Sally Hawkins and Emma Thompson are hardly pikers. Really, first-rate Oscar bait entertainment, and a VIFF must-see.
Next, we trucked on up to Pacific Cinémathèque, on Howe Street, to see …
Empire State Building Murders (Grade:C+): French director William Karel and co-writer Jerome Charyn have crafted a film in which they’ve remixed classic noir genre footage from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s and edited them to tell an ‘original story’. Essentially, in the viewing, a piffle and much too clever for it’s own good, the movie’s central conceit revolves around the ‘real life’ retelling of a series of murders that occurred within the Empire State Building. James Cagney is the central star of yesteryear, but given that he’s been dead for a few years, actors Ben Gazarra and Anne Jeffries carry the storytelling weight. Clever, yes. Entertaining? Not so much.
Back to the Granville 7, on a rain-drenched Wednesday, Day 14, to see …

A rain-drenched Day 14 of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival

The next film, introduced by writer-director, Alix de Maistre, herself …
For a Son (Grade: B+): Sort of a Gallic take on Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling, Alix de Maistre’s For a Son is teeming with atmosphere and dark, brooding tension, as the psychodrama ratches up the stakes: is ‘Tony’ (Kevin Lelannier), the young man who presents himself as Catherine’s (Miou-Miou) long lost son, in fact her long missing son, or will the detective who originally conducted the missing child investigation, Omer (a very effective Olivier Gourmet) find that ‘Tony’ is a fraud? Abounding with outstanding, natural performances, and first-rate camera work, the audience in attendance at Granville 7 was pleased they caught this VIFF film.
After a fine, natural organic dinner at Nuba, Mr. Know-It-All and ‘Showbiz’ Shayne took the bus (it was pouring outside) five blocks back to the Empire Granville 7 cinema for our final VIFF 2009 screening of the day …
John Rabe (Grade: A): A challenging, but rewarding, way to end an inclement Day 14 of the Festival occurred with the screening of writer-director Florian Gallenberger’s much acclaimed, award-winning epic drama, a moving, historically accurate and effective re-telling of the 1937 Rape of Nanking, when an invading Japanese army massacred more than 300,000 residents of Nanking, China over a six-week period. With a narrative rooted in the real John Rabe’s personal journal, and with breakthrough performances from the whole cast — including Bavarian Best Actor winner Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Brühl (recently seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds), Zhang Jingchu (recently seen, and impressive, in the lead role in Night and Fog, which screened early at VIFF 2009), among others — given that John Rabe is Germany’s Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee this year, you’re likely to see Gallenberger’s very fine film on an art screen near you soon, when you’ll want to ensure you take in a screening. A VIFF must-see.

With just three days to the end of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, Mr. Know-It-All and ‘Showbiz’ Shayne are hard at it, catching as many of the remaining VIFF films as is humanly possible. Your dynamic duo managed to screen five great VIFF documentaries over the course of a very long Tuesday, and have plans to see many, many more of the well-received VIFF fiction films before the Festival wraps late Friday evening.
The first non-fiction film on tap on a chilly, overcast Tuesday morning …

Vancouver International Film Centre, Seymour north of Davie Street

The Inheritors (Grade: A-): The ‘story’ of child labour — focusing on the child labourers themselves — situated in every region of Mexico, and the particularly hardscrabble life these very young children lead, Eugenio Polgovsky’s The Inheritors explores young lives defined by hard work and integrity of purpose. The film’s almost wordless narrative focuses on the three-to-seven year old children as they harvest beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and any number of other vegetable and fruit crops, as they carry a third of their weight in overladen 6 – 8 kilogram pails to the produce transport truck. In addition, we see the children producing and laying earthen bricks, cutting sugar cane, ox-plowing fields and planting by hand. Made for only $35,000, The Inheritors is, throughout, magical and involving, hopeful and, in its own way, transporting. Most assuredly, The Inheritors is one of VanRamblings favourite VIFF films in 2009.
Next, VanRamblings sauntered up to Pacific Cinémathèque to see …
Crude (Grade: B): Part of the VIFF’s ‘Way of Nature‘ environmental series, producer-director Joe Berlinger is better known for award-winning non-fiction dramas like Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, but this time around Berlinger has chosen to go the ‘issue-oriented‘ route, with varying degrees of success. Overall the film does possess its gripping moments — when Berlinger, or a member of his crew, interview a family member whose life has been devastated by Chevron’s mistreatment of the natural environment — but too often the film’s approach is desultory, as it records the struggle of the Ecuadorean people to have the catastrophically impacted jungles of the Amazon remediated. Focusing on Ecuadorian activist lawyer Pablo Fajardo’s David and Goliath court battle with multi-national oil conglomerate Chevron, Crude relays its message through ‘talking heads’, giving the narrative an adverse static feel. As praiseworthy as Berlinger’s non-fiction telling of this little known story may be, he does not entirely succeed in his laudable mission.
Following a quick break for lunch at Starbucks, VanRamblings was off to see …
American Casino (Grade: A): Positing that the predatory home mortgage lenders, and Wall Street, targeted inner-city African American neighbourhoods, and individuals who were in no position to pay a mortgage, even at a sub-prime rate, producer-director Leslie Cockburn’s tremendous Tribeca Film Festival award-winning documentary involves from beginning to end, as it examines the subprime mortgage meltdown and its devastating impact, most particularly, on poor African-Americans across the U.S., all the way through to the equally devastating impact the financial crisis has had on wealthy Californians with swimming pools, whose previously secure lives have now been all but destroyed.
VanRamblings carried on with our VIFF duties by lining up for, and seeing …
Sweetgrass (Grade: B+): Beautiful and evocative, with humour and grace documentary filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor (who addressed the audience before the 7 p.m. screening at the VanCity Theatre, and took questions afterward), and partner / co-director Ilisa Barbash, offer an extraordinary piece of visual anthropology as they track the last sheep drive, in 2003, up Montana’s vertiginous Beartooth Mountains to summer pasture. Unhurried and unadorned, and empathetic to the weather-worn cowboys on the trail who, while on the trail, live in teepees made of branches and canvas, cook from stoves that have been used for generations, and ride on worn saddles across Montana’s gorgeous blue sky country, there’s both a zen peacefulness, and a reassuring ‘old western’ feel, to Sweetgrass that impresses mightily, and at every moment.
And for our final VIFF film on a rainy, overcast Festival Tuesday, Day 13 …
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector (Grade: A-): British director Vikram Jayanti captures Mr. Wall-of-Sound himself, the ever weird — but phenomenally talented, if broken — Phil Spector, responsible for a groundbreaking set of 1960s hits, ranging from The Ronettes’ Be My Baby to Ike & Tina Turner’s River Deep – Mountain High, not to mention his role as producer of the Beatles’ last album, Let It Be, in a series of candid, revealing interviews, recorded in 2007 during his first trial for the murder of 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson. As cultural anthropology, Jayanti’s film can’t be beat. Offering a fascinating insight into a brilliant, if troubled mind, The Agony was fun to watch (no mean feat), if a bit disturbing at times.