

By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: Toronto Wrap
TIFF is a mess! Well, that’s not exactly true, but the anarchic element that is the Toronto International Film Festival is part of its charm and vitality.
Not many remember the early Festival of Festival years, as well as all the baby steps and strides that have brought the Ontario metropolis into the ranks of hosts of great annual film showcases.
And yet it remains a kindred event to Cannes, Berlin and Venice in its gravitas, spectacle and quest for discovery and invention. But unlike that august trio, and let’s toss Rotterdam and Sundance into the mix, Toronto always refused to take what should have been the next logical step of a formalized competition.
The event does dole out a swath of awards, including a critic’s prize, juried section kudos and most famously, a people’s choice award that this year went to the musical romance La La Land. But unlike the other big guns, Toronto lacks the weight that others have as promoters of worthy underdogs.
Toronto also refuses to incorporate a formalized film market. There is a rough equivalent dubbed a Sales Office and there’s no question that a lot of business is done at TIFF from acquisition and sales to pre-financing.
Still the division between competitive sections and market titles would be a healthy line in the sand. It struck home with this weekend’s theatrical release of Deepwater Horizon, which I caught at TIFF 2016. It has its virtues—a strong cast, adroit direction, remarkably visual recreations—but it is not a “festival” film. It’s an entertainment that fails to delve beneath the surface of fact to provide deeper resonance.
This year the festival screened about 350 features and with that type of volume, even excluding galas where the emphasis is to generate ink, there will be dross. This is not meant to impugn the hard work of programmers. Year after year Toronto comes up with the goods among new movies.
Some chroniclers of this year’s slate have been downbeat, but you have to keep in mind that the selection unquestionably reflected the best of the new season. Going for a week and seeing 35 to 40 films ultimately means missing a lot of the program.
My 2016 shopping list included two films that left me cold to the point that I gave up and a lot of good, solid efforts that were “respectable,” “professional” “engaging” and from time to time arid and dry. Only two films jumped out as having something extra, including Toni Erdmann that I discussed in an earlier column.
The other gem was Jackie, a grueling bit of history that focuses on the days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy from the perspective of his widow. It also interweaves an interview between Jackie and a reporter that takes place sometime (but not too long) afterward. It is a film that gets under your skin in a positive way, owing in large part to the structure. There’s something unsettling yet organic about the material that allows for a chilling dichotomy (abetted by an unvarnished performance by Natalie Portman in the title role) between being in the moment and reflecting on it.
Whatever qualms one has about TIFF 2016, you have to concede that it’s awfully nice to have this level of cinema on offer on the same continent as one’s home and available via a direct air route.