I'm back in Toronto! If you want, I'll tell you about my trip to Japan!
(11-27 Sept 97)
The Toronto International Film Festival
is well under way, and is bigger and more popular than ever! Publicists say it is now the second-largest festival
in the world after Cannes. Tickets are hard to come by, but I managed to take
in a few of the offerings:
Delirium (Philippines; Dir: Peque Gallaga) *
A pair of lovers find they can't live with or without each other.
Standard melodramatic story is about half an hour too long.
Interesting from a linguistic standpoint: not a white character in
the entire movie, yet half the dialogue is in English, either as
whole sentences or interspersed words!
Office Killer (USA; Dir: Cindy Sherman) ***
Carol Kane
turns in another portrayal of a quirky individual, this time
a proofreader who gets downsized by her magazine and is told to work from home.
She proceeds to recreate her office in the basement of her house.
This was right at home as part of the popular "Midnight Madness" series of offbeat,
sometimes stomach-turning films! Great opening credits.
Short films:
La Leccion de Natacion (Canada/Mexico; Dir: Sheri Elwood) **
Simple little film about a girl who overcomes her fear of the ocean with the help of a baby sea turtle;
Anna a la Lettre C (Anna at the Letter C) (Canada; Dir: Hugo Brochu) ***
A lexicographer gets together with a man who has been...watching her.
On her project at work, she is up to the letter "C", which has two sounds, hard and soft,
paralleling her choices with respect to her admirer;
Cotton Candy (Canada/Japan; Dir: Roshell Bissett) ***
About Japanese high school girls who date businessmen in exchange for cash and designer gifts
(enjo kosai). Director Bissett seemed disappointed that her accurate and realistic film
raised nary an eyebrow in Japan--perverted as it is, it's old news, just business as usual!
From Son To Salsa (Cuba/USA; Dir: Rigoberto Lopez) ***
A documentary about the history of the Cuban dance music marketed around the world today as "salsa".
Features rare archival footage and interviews with living legends like Tito Puente y Celia Cruz.
This movie brought some much-needed Caribbean sunshine to my dreary, overcast Toronto day.
Mother and Son (Germany/Russia; Dir: Aleksandr Sokurov) ***
A son looks after his dying mother. The prolonged stationary shots and
leisurely pace were reminiscent of many Japanese films like
Nemuru Otoko (Sleeping Man) last year and
Maboroshi two years ago.
Many people couldn't stand the inaction and walked out of this one.
The film was shot on days with broken clouds, and I enjoyed the resulting lighting effects
as they moved across the sky.
Moe No Suzaku
(Japan; Dir:
Naomi Kawase) ****
This quiet film about a mountain village that is slowly depopulating
has been shown almost everywhere but Japan, to great acclaim.
Simple, beautiful.
Onibi (The Fire Within) (Japan; Dir: Rokuro Mochizuki) ***
An ex-yakuza befriends a young woman and tries the straight life, unsuccessfully.
Scenes of placid domesticity contrast with explosive bursts of violence,
similar to Takeshi Kitano's
Sonatine.
The overheard opinion of a young ryugakusei: "Cho baka na eiga datta!"
Gokudo sengokushi: Fudoh (Fudoh: The Next Generation) (Japan; Dir:Takashi Miike) **
The high-school-age son of a Fukuoka yakuza boss decides that the family business
needs expanding and takes matters into his own hands, with the help of some schoolmates.
An over-the-top violent romp with a visual style that owes as much to manga as it does
to old samurai epics. Another in the "Midnite Madness" series.
(05-10 Sept 97)
The Cabot Voyages by Mark Ceolin ***
"The old country is just a dream now. To the people back there we are but ghosts."
A play about the immigrant experience and searching for roots.
Events in the life of a present-day Italian Canadian family parallel
the story of
John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto),
an Italian explorer who settled in England then landed in Canada 500 years ago.
The set changes were a bit lengthy--this maybe was a function of the venue,
but better use could have been made of the time, perhaps adding a voice-over reading
Cabotrivia like:
Caboto wanted to name his ship after his wife, but there was no
English equivalent of "Mattea", so it was called
"The Matthew".
(06 Sept 97)
I went to Ivor Wynne ("I Never Win") Stadium in Hamilton ON with a visiting Japanese doctor
who wanted to see the East Conference half of the
Canadian Football League Labour Day Classic,
featuring (as always) the
Hamilton Tiger-Cats vs.
the Toronto Argonauts
Apparently American football has a
fringe following in Japan.
The game was a blowout, with the Boatmen taming the Tabbies 46-3.
In some ways, it was as much of an intercultural experience for me as for my guest:
"Arrrrrrrrrrgos!" is easy enough to explain, but not so Pigskin Pete's cheer of "Oskie Wee Wee, Oskie Wa Wa".
What *is* this and where does it come from!?
Here's how Canadian football differs from American football: