Who says Canadians lack edge? (At least according to some of my fellow New Yorkers. Never mind that I am from Texas, but let's keep that between us, okay?)

In Thursday's edition of the daily published by the Toronto International Film Festival, a fellow called Nobu Adilman published a piece declaring himself director of the event--big news, I am sure, for co-directors Piers Handling and Noah Cowan. He claims that the festival "has never had a non-white director, nor anyone under 5'11"." (Adilman is half Asian, half Caucasian, per the article.) For a huge festival that tries to balance esoteric art fare with star-laden (and often sub-par) Hollywood movies, he offers a solution: "I will institute a one-year moratorium on Hollywood films: Every red carpet needs to be vacuumed." And he will not allow inertia to creep in. "If things get dull, I will ply an up-and-coming filmmaker with drugs and alcohol to sprout another Fassbinder. I will fund revolutions in foreign lands to provide fodder for young artists to reflect upon their countries' hardships."

Satire, yes, and with a bite--something sorely lacking in the Canadian film that inaugurated this 32nd edition of the festival last night. Jeremy Podeswa's Fugitive Pieces [pictured above] is the antithesis of Adilman's prose. It is so enervated that even its fragmented editing is soft. Podeswa adapted Anne Michaels's novel about a young Jewish boy in Poland who sees the Nazis kill his parents, but does not know the fate of his beloved sister. He is raised by a Greek archaeologist who finds him in the Polish forest while on a dig, then takes him first to Hydra, then on to Canada. The great actor Rade Sherbedgia is so magnetic as the surrogate father that his performance only highlights the black hole at the core of the enterprise. It's all so, so...careful.

I detest the use of the term Lite to characterize anything other than beer or soda pop, but Fugitive Pieces is Hollywood, make that Hallmark, Lite. Still, it is to the festival's credit that it opened with a Canadian picture whose most recognizable actor is Stephen Dillane. Adilman must be a happy, if unemployed, fellow. And revelers at the afterparty at the Exhibition Space of the Liberty Grand Entertainment Complex enjoyed themselves, no matter what they thought about the film.

The Holocaust has been a hovering presence over Israel and its policies, both domestic and foreign, since it became a state three years after World War Two was over, and the Nazis' concentration camps became common knowledge. Israeli director Amos Gitai, a politicized filmmaker who does not shy away from controversy, has created a fiction, entitled Disengagement, about the forced withdrawal of the ultra-religious Jewish settlers in Gaza by the Israeli military in 2005. I doubt it was Gitai's intention, but to me the movie sympathizes too much with those who had to leave: Never mind that they were part of an illegal occupation.

Juliette Binoche, who is battling Nicole Kidman in the race to see who can do more work with the world's artiest, most intellectual filmmakers, stars as an Israeli-born woman in Paris who returns to the country of her birth to find the daughter she gave up for adoption 20 years before. Yes, she ends us wandering through Gaza in her pursuit of the girl, who is now a full-fledged Orthodox Jew confronted by those mean Israeli soldiers. Being an Oscar winner and therefore valued prop, Binoche wanders through an Orthodox settlement, even among praying men in a synagogue for no discernible reason, and it is clear from reaction shots in several scenes that she hasn't a clue what people addressing her in Hebrew or Arabic are saying. These misfires and Gitai's usual pretense irritate.

It is unseasonably hot in Toronto, so the theaters offer a nice respite. Many of the movies that seem to be most interesting are screening this weekend, and the parties get going as well. Not to sound like poor Miss South Carolina, but "personally, I believe" that the films will get better and better, from the greatest hits of Cannes to the multiple world premieres. And if they lack edge, I'm going to....boycott backbacon. How's that?

# posted by Howard Feinstein @ 9/07/2007 06:35:00 PM

Comments (2)

 
I think Afro-Punk played at TIFF; if I recall correctly. Or at least this year there is White Lies, Black Sheep & also Eat For This Is My Body (exact title? from France), both films by non-"white" filmmakers. But of course the dude was probably joking about there never being non-"white" filmmakers at TIFF.

- Sujewa
# posted by  The Sujewa @ 9/07/2007 8:39 PM  

 
but what about the star-studded sub-par Hollyood films.
# posted by  Anonymous @ 9/08/2007 11:12 AM  

Post a Comment