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.

If the emergent theme of Day 1 of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival was magical realism, nature and the quest for spiritual transcendence, the operating theme of Day 2 of our glorious, west coast Festival-by-the sea was a decidedly more proactive, celebratory and hard won “running, not ambling, towards an uncertain, but hopeful future.”
First up on a chill autumn Friday afternoon …
La Pivellina (Grade: A): One of VanRamblings’ four favourite films thus far in the Festival, La Pivellina proves to be an absolutely captivating, and utterly original, cinéma-vérité exploration of a tight-knit circus family who come to care for a 2-year-old infant girl who has been left abandoned in a virtually desolate inner-city park. Humane, transcendent in its authenticity it is, throughout, the wondrous “performance” of the film’s central “star” — 2 year old Aia (Asia Crippa) — the ‘la pivellina‘ (the little squirt) of the film’s title, that will render almost any audience, and particularly those who have raised children, to surrender helplessly and in grateful servitude to this at all times magnificent Italian-Austrian co-production. See La Pivellina next Friday, Oct. 9 @ 4 pm, Ridge, or Monday, Oct. 12 @ 9:15 pm, Gran7, Th3, cuz, with no distributor in place, this is one of the 80% of films playing at our glorious Fest that ain’t ever gonna be coming back to Vancouver.
As VanRamblings has said to many (and much to their consternation, we believe) it is the duty of every film critic to fall in love with the actors on screen. This happened early last year with a screening of the Taiwanese short, The End of the Tunnel, when we fell head-over-heels in love with Sandrine Pinna, for us the breakout Asian actress of the decade. And, thus it was that we found ourselves, early on Friday evening, at a screening of …
Yang Yang (Grade: A-): Essentially, an exercise in style, but even more a magnificent showcase for the beautiful and wondrously transporting Sandrine Pinna, the sophomore feature of Taiwanese writer-director Cheng Yu-chieh (Do Over), Yang Yang, with its darkly brooding trance score (which promises cinema-off-the-rails, but doesn’t deliver) is nonetheless an absolutely captivating, melancholic exploration of the life of teenager Yang Yang, the central character, who despite her beauty, humanity and humility, cannot find anything approximating love. Only the running scene at film’s end promises the hope of personal independence and acceptance, and the emerging notion that we must love ourselves first before we may be open to the love of those around us. Trite maybe, but utterly true and transformative. A certain Dragons & Tigers awards candidate, Yang Yang plays once more, next Tuesday, October 6 @ 1:30 pm, Gran7, Theatre 7.
And, finally, to bring Day 2 of the Festival to a close …
The Maid (Grade: A-): Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (drama), and a Special Jury Prize for star Catalina Saavedra, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Chile’s The Maid grips the viewer from the outset, as director Sebastián Silva takes us on a relentless, slow moving roller coaster ride, deep inside the bruised psyche of the film’s central character, the bitter, passive aggressive Raquel, the “maid” of the title, and a wondrous, if sometimes unhinged, character on screen. Again, it is Raquel’s late night run through the streets of Santiago that promises the long sought salvation previously elusive to the film’s woebegone title character. Plays once more, this coming Sunday, October 4th @ 4 pm, Ridge Theatre.

Up a bit late on Thursday, the first day of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival. See my #17 Downtown Translink bus a block away, break out into a sprint and then a run, and jump onto the bus. Arrive at Seymour and Smithe at 10:50 a.m., and rush to join a very long ticket line snaking around the corner of Smithe and Granville.
Was pleased to hear about a change in policy for picking up tickets outside the Granville 7, this year. No longer do you have to line up in the morning for daytime screening tickets, and again at 4:30 p.m. (til 5:30) for tickets for the evening screenings. This year, you can pick up your tickets for the day at day’s outset, thus allowing enthusiastic cinéastes to catch the 3 p.m. screenings that we’ve missed in years past. Kudos to the Fest folks.

Arrived too late to see the Mexican film, Nora’s Will, but caught up with friend, John Skibinski, later in the day, who said the film was involving and got stronger as it went along. John told the inimitable Mr. Shayne, and VanRamblings, that Nora’s Will was the first of what turned out to be a two-part Jewish-themed double bill, as he stayed in Granville 7’s Theatre 2 for a screening of Defamation, a hard-hitting Austria-Denmark-Israel-USA produced documentary, which John thought was provocative, even if the film’s theme of “anyone who questions Israel is an anti-Semite” was, for John, unconvincing, “although it did give me pause for thought,” he added.
Chose instead the film that Ralph, and Diane, and a whole host of others had opted for as their first film of the day …
Letters to Father Jacob (Grade: B): In many ways, Letters to Father Jacob perfectly represents why filmgoers attend the Vancouver International Film Festival each autumn. A slice-of-life, transformative Finnish drama, in exploring the remote interior lives of the film’s two protagonists – a bitter, forbidding, disillusioned middle-aged woman recently pardoned from prison, for what we suspect from the beginning is murder; and, a blind, sickly rural parish priest whose grasp of matters spiritual transcend corporeal concerns – with quiet authority director Klaus Haro reminds us that in the human condition it is the good we do in our lives that will lead us to salvation. Scheduled two more times before Festival’s end, first on Sun, Oct 11 @ 7 pm, Ridge; and again on Thurs, Oct 15 @ 6:20 pm, Granville 7, Th4.
Coming out of the theatre, spoke with two Finnish women, Irene and Kaya, who loved Letters to Father Jacob, and thought the film timely given its subject matter, and the recent visit of the Dalai Lama to our shores, to discuss with us the kind of peace and wisdom Haro explores in his film.
Next up on the film trek through our day …
Katalin Varga (Grade: B+): With a relentless, eerily surreal technicolour noir feel about the proceedings, transplanted Brit director Peter Strickland’s bucolic, Transylvania set revenge thriller emerges at all times as gripping and unsettling film fare, the journey through the verdant rural countryside offering needed counterpoint to the film’s darker goings on. A great début feature, and one of the films to catch at the VIFF, Katalin Varga emerges as an early favourite, at this year’s Festival. Screens twice more, Wed, Oct 7 @ 9:30 pm, Gran7, Th3; and Thurs, Oct 8 @ 9:30 pm, Ridge Theatre.
And, on the spur of the moment, snuck into …
We All Fall Down (Grade: C+): Gary Gasgarth’s prosaic documentary look at the story behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. explores the rise and fall of the U.S. home lending system, related by a series of talking heads, including Wall Street bankers, respected economists, public officials, industry experts and homeowners themselves. Unfortunately, anyone who can read, or anyone who’s addicted to MSNBC / CNN / Charlie Rose / 60 Minutes probably knows pretty much everything Gasgarth, and writer Kevin Stocklin, relate in their film. Wait to see this on PBS or, perhaps, the CBC.
Took a break for dinner, at the new Urban Fare on Alberni Street, within the Shrangri-la Hotel, the best – and cheapest – hot deli / salad bar in town.

Ran into broadcaster Pia Shandel while waiting in line, who politely budged into Mr. Shayne’s ‘first in line’ spot, and who proceeded to introduce us to director Pete McCormack, homegrown documentary filmmaker (Uganda Rising, See Grace Fly) who, after touring his film to Film Festival’s across the continent, brings one of the buzz films to this year’s Festival, Facing Ali, a moving chronicle of boxer Muhammad Ali, to Vancouver. About Facing Ali, Pia raved, “brilliantly done!” (she’d seen the film in a media screening earlier in the week). Facing Ali screens next Thursday, October 8th @ 9:30 pm, Gran7, Th7; and again on Friday, October 9th @ noon, Gran7, Theatre 3.
We Live In Public (Grade: B): Director Ondi Timoner’s fast-paced, but ultimately empty, documentary telling of tech visionary Josh Harris’ story, a ‘dot.com’ millionaire who is by turns self-absorbed, ego-maniacal, fascistic, exploitative, narcissistic and puerile, it’s Timoner’s failure to dig below the surface that, finally, frustrates the viewer. Provocative, and well-made, but ultimately erratic and unsatisfying. But, given that VanRamblings seems to be in the minority here, you may want to catch one of the remaining screenings of We Live In Public, either on Friday, October 8th @ 1:20 pm, Gran7, Th2; or, Wednesday, October 14th @ 9:30 pm, Gran7, Theatre 1.
Spoke with two, young Korean women about the films they intend to catch at this year’s Festival. On their list: Pandora’s Box, Air Doll, and two high-energy, much-anticipated ninja films, Ninja Assassin and Kamui.
And, finally, to end the first day of the 28th annual Vancouver Film Festival, our first tour-de-force screening of the fest, Lars von Trier’s controversial, frustrating and transcendent 2009 Cannes’ award-winning provocation …
Antichrist (Grade: A-, the minus for the violence in the 2nd half of the film): For the first sixty minutes, in a rather tranquil, insightful manner Scandanavian director, and cinema’s enfant terrible, Lars von Trier delves deep inside the sorrow of an erudite couple whose tiny infant son has crawled out of the window of their seventh-floor apartment and fallen to his death. Meditative and almost mystical in its telling in the early going, in the second half of Antichrist, von Trier steers the film right off its tracks, turning a well-made psychodrama into a bloody, visceral, hysterical, wretched, fantastical horror film. Really, you’ve got to have a stomach for this sort of thing; nothing you read will prepare you for Antichrist. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg (winner, Best Actress, Cannes) are near mesmerizing in the lead roles. The shocking nastiness of the latter half put aside, Antichrist is true tour-de-force filmmaking, and worth catching. Screens one more, bloody, time: Sat., Oct 3, 11 am @ Gran7, Theatre 7.

The Vancouver International Film Festival remains one of the largest film festivals in North America, and a première Canadian cultural event. Founded in 1982, in its 28th year VIFF continues as a fall fixture on the international film festival circuit, and the largest Asian film festival in North America.
The 2009 edition of the Festival takes place a bit later than usual this year, from October 1st thru 16th, when more than 150,000 locals, and those traveling to our city from afar, will choose from a selection of more than 640 screenings of 377 films, from 80+ countries from across the globe.
The 24th edition of the Film and TV Forum, established to foster the art of cinema, facilitate the meeting of cinema professionals from around the world, and to stimulate the motion picture industry in BC and Canada, began Tuesday and will conclude Saturday, with New Filmmakers’ Day. The Forum offers 5 days of classes, seminars, and roundtable discussions for budding local cinéastes, and those interested in the filmmaking process.
As to the Festival proper, the 28th edition features 217 feature length fiction films, 92 feature length documentaries, and 140 shorts. There are 89 Canadian films in the programme, consisting of 20 dramatic features, and 13 non-fiction features.
OPENER/CLOSER: The opening night gala attraction will be A Shine of Rainbows, a Canada-Ireland co-production from Indian-born Canadian filmmaker Vic Sarin (Partition), which tells the story of an extraordinary woman who helps an orphan boy find self-acceptance and love through her unique gifts of colour and magic. The film stars Connie Nielsen.
The Festival ends 16 days later with a screening of Queen To Play, Caroline Bottaro’s directorial début which employs chess as metaphor for life while exploring class and gender empowerment. The French-German co-production stars the always radiant Sandrine Bonnaire, and Kevin Kline.
GALAS: Between these two glitzy bookends, three other high-profile films will be given special premières and gala celebrations: on Oct. 2nd, Excited, the Canadian Images gala film, from Vancouver-based director Bruce Sweeney, offers a romantic comedy about sexual dysfunction; on Oct. 8th, Japanese director Yakusho Koji’s Toad’s Oil, a sprawling, magical fantasia about fathers, sons and truth and lies in relationships, as this year’s Dragons and Tigers Award Gala; and, on Oct. 10th, the Anniversary Gala film, An Education, given that it’s 2009’s buzz Sundance film, stars certain Best Actress Oscar nominee, Carey Mulligan, in an absorbing, evocative, superbly constructed coming-of-age character study; most assuredly a sell out at its gala screening, and the two other scheduled screenings.
WORLD CINEMA: The spotlighted country this year is Japan but, as usual, the French presence pummels the competition with more than 28 features, including new work from Jacques Audiard, the Grand Jury Prize winner at Cannes this year, A Prophet; Catherine Breillat (Bluebeard); Alix de Maistre (For A Son); and Alain Cavalier (Irène).
Other international marquee names include Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar (Broken Embraces), Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson (Mammoth), the Czech Republic’s Jan Hrebejk (Shameless), Germany’s Maren Ade (Everyone Else), Grand Jury Prize winner in Berlin this year; Taiwan’s Cheng Wen-tang (Tears), and Hong Kong’s Wai Ka-fai (Written By).
AWARD WINNERS: From Sundance, in addition to Audience Award Winner, An Education, this year’s VIFF has programmed four other Sundance winners, including Chile’s The Maid, World Cinema Prize, Drama; Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Grand Jury Prize; Tibet in Song, World Cinema Special Jury Prize; We Live In Public, Grand Jury Prize, Documentary; and, from this year’s Berlin Film Festival, in addition to Maren Ade’s Grand Jury Prize winner, Everyone Else, VIFF has programmed Gigante, winner of the Silver Bear, and Best First Film awards; from New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, Ireland’s The Eclipse was awarded a Best Actor Prize for Ciarin Hinds; and, from Cannes 2009, Canada’s I Killed My Mother, winner of three prizes, including Best Director, Director’s Fortnight; Police, Adjective (Romania), Jury Prize winner (Un Certain Regard); and Michael Haneke’s eagerly anticipated The White Ribbon, Palme D’Or winner.
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL: This year, as in past years, the heavily juried New York Film Festival (Sept. 25 – Oct. 11) overlaps with Vancouver’s International Film Festival. At the opening press conference in early September, Festival Director Alan Franey proudly pointed to the following films, which will play both prestigious film festivals: in addition to those films already mentioned (Precious, Broken Embraces, Bluebeard, Everyone Else, Police, Adjective, and The White Ribbon), the VIFF will present Lars von Trier’s latest provocation, Antichrist (winner, Cannes’ Best Actress award, Charlotte Gainsbourg); 100 year-old filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira’s, Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl; Dragons and Tigers candidate, Independencia; recent Venice Film Festival award winner, Lebanon; Bong Joon-Ho’s, Mother; Pedro Costa’s Ne change rien; Andrey Khrzhanovsky’s, A Room and a Half France’s breathtaking documentary, Sweetgrass; and, Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues’ touching To Die Like A Man.
NON-FICTION FEATURES: In the non-fiction / documentary feature film category, the following films have garnered awards, including Gerald Peary’s magnificent For The Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism; Salt, Fredricks and Michael Angus’ breathtaking 2009 Best Australian short winner; Dana Perry’s Boy Interrupted; Mexico’s The Inheritors; Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers; and, Libby Spear’s controversial Playground, chronicling the child sex trade in North America.
For a full rundown on the 377 films, a schedule and ticket and series pass information, go online to www.viff.org/home, or order tickets at the VISA advance box office at the VanCity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street, noon til 7 daily. All Festival attendees must purchase a $2 membership. You can also charge by phone, at 604-685-8297, noon til 7 through October 15th.