Offscreen Notes
World Film Festival 2010: A Preview
Once again we are faced with the biggest challenge of the film-going year in Montreal: which films to see at the World Film Festival (WFF)? In terms of feature-length films, there are fewer new titles—exactly 200 if one counts the two Canadian student features (a first); 208 including all new films over 45 minutes long. At first glance, the line-up doesn’t look as strong as last year, although the same could be said about TIFF’s screening list in Toronto. As we know, the WFF can’t possible compete for the year’s hot films (from Cannes, let’s say), but there are surprising omissions from both festivals this year: Kiarostami’s new film starring Juliette Binoche, for example. According to the catalogue, there are 52 World Premieres and 69 International Premieres in Montreal—well over half of the films—and, obviously it is tough to select films no-one has seen, but we’ll do our best to recommend 10 films this year. You can still purchase a 10 coupon book for $65.
Starting with the Official Competition—and we haven’t been able to see any of these, as they are all World or International Premieres—we would definitely take a chance on the Opening Film, Luis Bélanger’s Route 132, from Québec. I found his Gaz Bar Blues (2003) to be one of the four or five best Canadian films of the last decade, and, considering that his latest film is also being showcased at TIFF, we are tipping this to be the best bet, and likely one of the few films to sell out. You might have to move fast to get a ticket…
The strongest national selection this year looks to be the Japanese. There are new films by a number of well-known directors, including the outrageous “new wave,” “pink” director Wakamatsu Koji (Caterpillar), Morita Yoshimitsu (Bushi no kakeibo??/ ??Abacus and Sword, a World Premiere), best known for The Family Game (1983), both in the Hors Concours Section, and Nakata Hideo, of Ringu (1998) fame with Inshite miru: 7-kakan no desu gêmu (The Incite Mill), a World Premiere in the Focus on World Cinema section. But, I am recommending a competition selection, Hisshiken torisashi (?? Sword of Desperation??), directed by Hirayama Hideyuki who, according to young Japanese film scholar, Alexander Jacoby, “has been responsible for some of the more original and diverting Japanese films of recent years.” (Warning Jacoby also calls Hirayama’s Samurai Resurrection (2003), “a large, dumb action movie…”)
I should mention that both Japanese films that were given press screenings were good: Yazaki Hitoshi’s Suîto ritoru raizu (Sweet Little Lies) is a very sophisticated treatment of adultery, starring the amazing Miki Nakatani (Memories of Matsuko, 2006), and our next recommendation in the First Films World Competition is a co-production filmed entirely in Taiwan, Torocco (Rail Truck), directed by Kawaguchi Hirofumi. A remarkably accomplished 1st feature, Torocco presents an interesting critique of Japan’s colonial past in Taiwan, while featuring a gorgeous treatment of the rural, island landscape, aided considerably by Mark Lee Pin Bing’s cinematography. (Pin Bing is a veteran of over 50 films, including most of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films).
Our fourth recommendation is a fairly conventional historical melodrama focusing on a troupe of performers in 1930s Spain who struggle to survive the interventions of Franco’s fascist forces. It is hard to believe that Emilio Aragón’s Pájaros de papel (Paper Birds) won’t win a major prize in the First Films Competition. The acting is uniformly excellent, and, apart from a passage near the end, in a train station, which is un-necessarily “over-the-top,” Paper Birds is consistent and sober in its emotional tenor and does a good job on the political front, too. According to the WFF catalogue, Cuban- born Aragón is something of a renaissance man, having been a TV presenter and actor, series creator, producer, humorist, manager, musician, clown and screenwriter!
Our fifth recommendation goes to the first half of Tehran Tehran, an Iranian film in the World Cinema section, which is a World Premiere. It is a two-part anthology film, the second of which, “The Last String,” directed by Mehdi Karampour, contains a very strange build up to a contemporary music video. But, the first part, “Days of Acquaintance” directed by Dariush Mehrjui, shows us things we don’t think we’ve ever seen in a post-Revolutionary Iranian film. Mehrjui is nothing if not a “survivor,” having continuously made films in Iran since the late-1960s, and here, maintaining his gaze on the bourgeoisie, he shows us an architectural portrait of the rich, golden, brightly colored world of the Shahs! It is also a comedy.
A film in the Focus on World Cinema section that arrives with strong “word-of-mouth,” is a Cuba/Russia co-production, Lisanka, directed by Daniel Díaz Torres, who is best known as the man who made Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas (Alice in Wonderland, 1991), the first Cuban fiction feature to be banned on the island. Remarkably, the director’s career in Cuba flourishes. He is one of the most highly respected teachers at EICTV, the independent film school at San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. Lisanka promises to be a political/romantic comedy, set during the Cuban Missile Crisis!
Something that the WFF continues to do well is showcase films directed by women. This year, some 42 features are directed or co-directed by women. One that I am looking forward to watching is the historical epic, Kongzi (Confucius), directed by Hu Mei. Ms Hu was one of two women who were members of the 1983 Beijing Film Academy “Fifth Generation” to become immediately successful as film directors. The other was Li Shaohong. Interestingly both have become even more famous as directors of hit TV, historical epic series, and Confucius marks Hu Mei’s return to the big screen. It will also be interesting to see Chow Yun-fat in the starring role, and to note if there is any resemblance to the 1940 film, directed by classical Chinese film director, Fei Mu.
Brasilian Sandra Werneck is no stranger to the WFF, having had her films Little Book of Love (1996) and Possible Loves (2001) play here. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any of her work, and perhaps I have been mistaken in not watching her films. Her latest, Sonhos roubados (Stolen dreams), which concentrates on the adventures of three poor, but trendy, young women who live in a favela (slum) in Rio de Janeiro, could be a good place to start…
We have already seen our third choice of a film directed by a woman: Montreal resident He Xiaodan’s The Fall of Womenland. This documentary on the matriarchal Mosuo Culture of Yunnan province (where Ms He is from) is extremely well structured and quite surprising in its trajectory. It is a fairly conventional, but important, feminist addition to ethnographic film work, and needs to be seen more widely. Martin Doepner’s digital cinematography complements the power and beauty of the Mosuo culture and landscape.
To be fair, we should give a recommendation to at least one of the 33+ French films in this year’s WFF. Surely, it isn’t necessary to mention Bertrand Tavernier’s La princesse de Montpensier, one of the very few selections to have been shown at Cannes this year. No doubt I will be among a large crowd flocking to see this film, as well as the latest by Georgian-born Otar Iosselliani, Chantrapas, also at Cannes, which promises to be one of the most experimental films on view. But, we reserve our final recommendation for a film I barely glimpsed this Monday: I saw the first two long takes of the striking, yet weird Dooman River, a Korea/France co-production, directed by Zhang Lu (who is a Chinese poet). If you are interested in watching at least one “experimental” film at the WFF, this could be a very rewarding experience (or not…).
Bon cinema, Peter Rist
