Andy's Film Journal for
The 27th Annual Toronto International Film Festival (2002)

Well, it looks as if I survived yet another year of the Festival. I only missed two films of the 33 I had selected, one at the beginning of the Festival The Converstaion (1974) that was part of the Dialogue - Talking With Pictures portion of the program and the final Saturday Midnight Madness entry Cabin Fever . The first film I skipped due to work committments and the second due to fatigue. By the time Saturday the 14th rolled around, 10 days and 31 films later, I had hit the wall.

My Festival Journal suffered as a result of my film load during the festival. What little free time I had available during the festival was taking care of those pesky little chores like sleeping, eating and the occasional interaction with other humans. I am writing this post-festival wrap up as starting point for my thoughts on the festival. I hope to work back through my ten days of the festival over the next week or two and post my thoughts here on this site.

All and all it was an enjoyable film festival, I only had a handful of films that were dissapointing to the point of being dismal and fortunately nothing so brutally bad that I was forced to flee the theatre screaming. On the other hand, there were no real gems in my opinion either. That's not to say there weren't some lurking there somewhere at the festival, I just managed not to select any in my schedule. There were no rare finds like previous festival finds Amelie from 2001 or Memento from the 2000 Festival that had managed to blow me away.

What did leave indelible impressions on me we're a handful of well crafted films that both looked good, had something to say and didn't just lie there.

Russian Ark probably came closest to blowing me away with its majestic sweep of Russian history, stunning visuals, and unique technical flourish (i.e. it was all done in one take). Expect a full review soon for this and the other films.

Roger Dodger directed and written by Dylan Kidd and starring Campbell Scott was perhaps the most entertaining and well written thing I saw at the festival. Virtually all dialogue, the story follows fast talking "ladies man" Roger through an evening with his young nephew Nick as Roger tries to impart his "wisdom" of how to seduce women.

On the flip-side of the coin, the best movie with virtual no dialogue in it was a Hungarian film called Hukkle by first time director György Pálfi. Centered around a small rural village where a murder (or murders) have taken place, the audience is left to piece together the puzzle from the various scenes of daily life the director shows on the screen. The film was visual stunning and the director's ability to capture fabulous nature shots left you wondering how he pulled it off. His ability to contrast the nature shots with close up shots of machinery also set a nice rhythm throughout the film. It'll be interesting to see what else he can do in the years to come.

Also worth mentioning is the Japanese animated film Miyazaki's Spirited Away which is being released sometime in September 2002 through Walt Disney's Buena Vista Pictures distribution arm in a dubbed version. A great adventure picture with a child protagonist, and amazing visuals. I was fortunate enough to catch the subtitled version of the film at the festival. Miyazaki is probably best known to North American audiences for Princess Mononoke (1999) or his earlier 1989 animated film Kiki's Delivery Service which was only released in North America in 1998.

Off the top of my head, those are the things that stood out over ten days. I may supplement this list once I have had a chance to go back and review the entire 31 films that I watched. I've decided to scale back my viewing next year, to make room for some day to day living during the festival and enjoying the festival instead of treating it like a marathon. I think I could have easily dropped five of the films I saw during the festival and still had an enjoyable festival. Of course I'll be increasing my odds that the bad will out weigh the good, but its a chance I am willing to take.