A few things that make TIFF its own special film-going experience: Before every movie, when the warning comes up onscreen that recording devices are illegal and the festival staff will take anti-piracy measures, people throughout the audience do their best lusty pirate “Arrrr.” This has been going on for years now. The other pre-movie announcement that always gets a reaction is the slide thanking the festival volunteers. Being good Canadians, the audience claps heartily; being a cynical American, I see this as condescending at best, if not out-and-out (oot-and-oot) patting-ourselves-on-the-back self-righteousness. But that’s probably just me.
Not everything at film festivals is dark, dramatic fare; there’s some levity to be found if you look for it. Take Gregg Araki, whose Kaboom is totally a dumb fun midnight movie, a raunchy pansexual college comedy that also happens to be about witches, drugs, cults, scary animal masks, and the end of the world. It’s kinda John Waters in the Valley, but with much more attractive people and great use of color. Kaboom is uneven and the plot often goes from this to that, so it made sense when the writer-director mentioned that he originally intended the plot to be for a television series.
Peep World could easily be just another dysfunctional family black comedy, in which a group of siblings comes together for the patriarch’s 70th birthday, in the wake of their youngest brother’s very thinly veiled account of their family life in his best-selling novel. So of course wackiness ensues. It’s the cast that makes this film worth a look: Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, Rainn Wilson, Judy Greer, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Lesley Ann Warren.
Back to the heavy, high-minded stuff, with In a Better World, by Danish director Suzanne Bier (Brothers, After the Wedding). Like the rest of her work, it’s a film that requires patience as you allow the story to develop, and even though I saw some of the plot points coming, it’s still a profoundly challenging, mature film. At its basest level, the story’s about two young Danish boys who become friends, but the film ends up being about bullies and bullying (do you take one on, or do you walk away?), nothing less that what it means to be a man, and ultimately, the relationship between the first and third worlds.
And then there was Three (Drei), the latest from Tom Twyker (Run Lola Run, Perfume), and it’s like nothing he’s ever done before. He still employs vivid artful imagery, throwing in black and white footage as well as animation, and striking, non-judgmental sensuality, but this is no thriller. Educated Berliners Simon and Hanna are nearing twenty years together, and their relationship is sometimes more brother and sister than anything romantic. They still love each other to be sure; it’s just a little stale, and as they’ve grown older, they must consider their own mortality. And in this dramedy, that existential state leads to each of them falling for the same man, Adam. How the three negotiate this delicate territory is what makes the film so humane and matter of fact.
Gareth Edwards’ first feature Monsters only cost him $15K, but as he claims, “all of the shoestring budget indies are somehow made for $15K.” He spent that money making a monster movie, in which a space probe carrying samples of alien life blew up over Mexico, leaving about half the country quarantined as an Infected Zone. Six years later, an American photojournalist (Scoot McNairy), in Mexico to take photos of the alien squidlike creatures, has been sent to retrieve the daughter (Whitney Able) of his media mogul boss. Basically it’s a monster road trip flick, as the two travel by boat, pickup, and foot, in an attempt to make it away from the creatures and back to the States. It’s not the most complex storyline, but of course, allegory abounds, from the War on Terror to illegal immigration–consider it District Nueve.