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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.
