TIFF 2007 Day 1: 2 down, 28 to go

It was a packed house at the press/industry screenings for day 1 in Toronto – many journalists having arrived the day before were in full festival mode cranking out back to back screenings at the Varsity theater (conveniently located in a mall means that there was more than popcorn aroma during in between screening breaks). The more popular titles were The Brave One – Jodie Foster who finds her mean streak in a revenge flick from Neil Jordon, Michael Clayton – the George Clooney pic with the great poster one sheet, there was a heavy crowd for one of my Cannes favorites in Control (the rise and fall of the lead singer of Joy Division, there was the opening film of the fest in Jeremy Podeswa's Fugitive Pieces and while I saw Michael Moore (he walks funny) I didn't see his documentary about wrestling with pro-Bush college seniors in Captain Mike Across America. I opted for:…

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution takes it sweet time in exploring the workings of an attempted assassination and infiltration during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. The film certainly “looks the part”, but film critics that have viewed the film either at Telluride or Venice aren't that far off when they state it could have been “trimmed” a little. I'm not one to complain about 3 hour opuses and I've been one of the few recommending the Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao Hsien's work, but so much of this drama is filled with void – Lee could have speeded up the female protagonist's apprenticeship. Though this is not to say that this is a horrible diversion – several areas work (most of the technical stuff costume and art direction is award worthy and mention worthy) but I wonder how much of an audience will this be able to grab with NC-17 status and subtitles. 

I then parked myself in the same theater seat for the following film – winner the Grand Prix Crystal Globe at Czech fest Karlovy Vary, Baltasar Kormákur’s Jar City (Mýrin) is seeking domestic distribution and it will probably go the same route as his last film A Little Trip to Heaven (meaning buyers might find it “too Nordic” to fit in their slates). Iceland is a kooky place, and I definitely would like to visit it…but if the people slightly resemble the characters in Jar City then I'd be less inclined to go. Based on a homegrown detective novel, the film has performed extremely well in its theaters (how many theaters are there to serve less than half a million people?), but I had difficulty being caught up in a the whole genetic murder mystery – one too many sequences that I didn't care for in what is ultimately a long cookie crumb case with a lead role character who looks more like a depressed bank teller than a detective.