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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

TIFF12: Special Presentations, Part Two

… And, here are the rest of the films from the Special Presentations slate that I’m most excited to catch at TIFF:

The Hunt
Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark


Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor prize at Cannes for his performance as an innocent man accused of child molestation in this ferociously powerful new film by Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) … As in The Celebration, Vinterberg mercilessly reveals the hypocrisy behind some of his country’s most cherished social ideals, particularly the close bonds of community, the sanctity of domesticity, and the innocence of childhood. The households we see are broken or dysfunctional — Theo and Agnes’ unshakeable conviction that Lucas is guilty would be hard to believe if we hadn’t already witnessed the festering resentments in their own home. Directed with consummate skill and driven by exceptional performances from a stellar cast, especially longtime Festival favourite Mikkelsen (who won the Best Actor prize at Cannes), The Hunt is one of the most troubling and powerful experiences of the year.

Pedigree: Cannes debutante. Also played Karlovy Vary and Telluride pre-TIFF.

Comments: Mikkelsen first caught my eye as Ivan, the endlessly patient priest in 2005’s Adam’s Apples, directed by another of my favorite Danes, Anders Thomas Jensen (who wrote the screenplay for another TIFF film, Susanne Bier’s Love is All You Need, below). Here, Mikkelsen is directed by Vinterberg, whose categorically scathing film The Celebration is among my favorite independent films ever. Here Vinterberg’s again dissecting the values of Danish culture in what looks to be a compellingly told tale, and Mikkelsen walked away with the Best Actor prize at Cannes for his performance. This one looks to be a pretty surefire bet at TIFF, and it’s one of the films I’m really looking forward to catching there.

Love is All You Need
Susanne Bier, Denmark

Pierce Brosnan, Trine Dyrholm and Paprika Steen star in this sparkling romantic comedy from Academy Award® winner Susanne Bier (Brothers, In a Better World), about two very different families brought together for a wedding in a beautiful old Italian villa … Bier’s films have always been marked by their outstanding ensemble casts, and Love Is All You Need is no exception. Dyrholm invests Ida with a nervous energy (she’s constantly adjusting her post-chemo wig) as well as warmth and humour. Brosnan delivers a delightful straight-man performance as the staid Phillip, while Steen is simply uproarious as the lustful sister-inlaw. Hilarious, touching and inspiring, Love is All You Need is a rousing toast to those who have the courage to transform their lives.

Pedigree: Premiering at Venice en route to Toronto.

Comments: Anders Thomas Jensen co-wrote the screenplays for my two favorite Susanne Bier films, After the Wedding and In a Better World, and I’m hoping that bodes well for her latest ensemble drama. Paprika Steen’s presence in the cast along with that makes this one of the film’s I’m hoping to catch at TIFF.

The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson, USA

One of the most anticipated films of the year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s tale of an aimless WWII veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) who befriends the charismatic founder of a new religion (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a provocative study of male camaraderie, deception, and hubris … Like all of Anderson’s films to date, The Master is a study of masculine power: the risks men take, the control they seek, the wars they wage with one another. The context of a twentieth-century, man-made religion is a potent one, allowing Anderson to illuminate new aspects of his recurring themes. Hoffman, Phoenix and Adams give the film the depth only great actors can bring, and the spare score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood (who also scored Anderson’s There Will Be Blood) amplifies the film’s ability to unsettle.

Pedigree: Venice premiere before heading to Toronto.

Comments: C’mon. You know The Master is on my list. Going to get in line early for this one. Strong reviews coming out of Venice, combined with Paul Thomas Anderson’s lofty history as a filmmaker, are no doubt going to make The Master one of the hottest films at TIFF.

On the Road
Walter Salles, France / Brazil

Academy Award®–winning director Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) and producer Francis Ford Coppola finally bring Jack Kerouac’s legendary Beat Generation novel to the screen … At long last, Jack Kerouac’s groundbreaking novel about youth finding freedom, and themselves, has been turned into a film. This most American of books was adapted by Brazilian director Walter Salles and Puerto Rican screenwriter José Rivera, who brought us another unforgettable road movie, The Motorcycle Diaries. Theirs is a vision of American mythology as perhaps only an outsider can see it, a film as lyrical and liberated as the beloved classic that inspired it. On the Road is a portrait of a generation not afraid of breaking rules in their search for meaning.

Pedigree: Cannes debutante.

Comments: I like Walter Salles as a director very much, generally speaking, I’m a fan of Kerouac’s seminal book, and this is a solid cast. Reviews were mixed out of Cannes, but that’s not unusual for that fest, so I’m looking forward to seeing On the Road at TIFF and judging for myself.

The Place Beyond the Pines
Derek Cianfrance, USA

Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes star in this multi-generational crime drama from director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), about a motorcycle stunt rider whose moonlighting a bank robber brings him into conflict with an ambitious young cop … Cianfrance proves himself both an accomplished stylist and a filmmaker of substance. He trained under avant-garde master Stan Brakhage, and can craft moments of pure, transcendent emotion from simple combinations of image and sound. But he also understands the primal pleasure of narrative. The Place Beyond the Pines is above all a powerful story, told in classic form, even with its surprises. And its theme is an eternal one: the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son.

Pedigree: TIFF World Premiere.

Comments: Ryan Gosling, re-teaming with the director of Blue Valentine, one of my favorite films of 2010? Oh, I have to make room on my TIFF sched for this one.

Rust and Bone
Jacques Audiard, France / Belgium

Marion Cotillard (La Vie en rose) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead) star in this gritty, moving and emotionally raw love story from Cannes Grand Prix winner Jacques Audiard (Un prophète) … Audiard constructs this character study with masterful precision, blending Dardennes-style naturalism with dreamily impressionistic visions and tense, staccato cutting. Physicality is at the core of the film, and he captures visceral images with unflinching matter-of-factness. His two leads, meanwhile, generate an irresistible chemistry in their strange romance: fresh from his breakout performance in last year’s Bullhead, Schoenaerts is that rare combination of imposing presence and vulnerability, while Cotillard gives a bold performance, emotionally raw and achingly soulful. Echoing the film’s vivid contrast of brutality and tenderness, Alexandre Desplat’s powerful score is interspersed with a surprising selection of pop songs; Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” provides one of the film’s most moving and unexpected moments.

Pedigree: Cannes debutante. Playing Telluride before heading to TIFF.

Comments: I was quite a fan of A Prophet, and the cast and combined buzz from Cannes and Telluride has piqued my curiosity and bumped this one up higher on my “need to see” list.

Spring Breakers
Harmony Korine, USA

James Franco, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens star in the wild new film from perennial provocateur Harmony Korine (Trash Humpers), about four flat-broke co-eds whose spring fling in Florida turns into a booze, drug and violence-fuelled bacchanal … The film lands on the more narratively linear end of Korine’s career and has moments that recall each of his previous films, especially the virtuosic tableaux of Gummo and the agonizing desperation of Mister Lonely. But Spring Breakers also brings a few new tricks to the table, including remarkable shifts in mood and a breathtaking cinematographic confidence; there are signature moments of montage in this film that will influence generations to come.

Pedigree: Playing Venice before heading to TIFF.

Comments: I was not on the Trash Humpers bandwagon at all, but I did rather like both Gummo and Mister Lonely, and I can’t deny that Korine’s vision isn’t quite like that of any other director. This one’s worth checking out … maybe this will be the one to put me firmly in Korine’s camp at last. We’ll see.

To the Wonder
Terrence Malick, USA

Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem and Olga Kurylenko star in the new film from Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), about a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart … As Malick liberates himself more and more from the restrictions of conventional narrative and pursues a more associative approach, he gets closer to eliciting pure, subconscious responses from his viewers. It is gratifying to note that the same man who long ago wrote an uncredited draft of Dirty Harry now finds freedom in the transcendental.

Pedigree: Playing Venice before heading to TIFF.

Comments: It’s Terrence Malick. Must see this. End of line.

Yellow
Nick Cassavetes, USA

A young substitute teacher escapes from her drudging everyday life by fantasizing bizarre parallel realities, in this wildly inventive and visually dazzling head-trip from director Nick Cassavetes … No plot summary could do justice to Yellow; this film is far more than the sum of its parts. Determined to blow apart the niceties and decorum of conventional narrative, Cassavetes joyously explores as much of the visual potential of the medium as he can cram into one film. Set pieces of incredible, surreal imagination abound, built around such simple events as a bike ride, or a family dinner. Busby Berkeley, Duchamp, Artaud, Cirque du Soleil, Yellow Submarine — those are just some of Cassevetes’ influences here, and the director lets his ensemble of acting notables revel in the freedom and experimentation of his invention. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

Pedigree: Playing Venice before heading to TIFF.

Comments: I kind of hated both The Notebook and My Sister’s Keeper, a pair of sap-fests that were surprisingly tame and uninventive films for the son of John Cassavetes to direct. But here, Nick Cassavetes seems to potentially tapping into richly imaginative paternal roots. Will this herald a new direction for Cassavetes? Sure hope so. I’ll give it a shot, anyhow.

*(All film descriptions are from the TIFF catalog.)

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon