Thursday, September 11, 2014
Welcome back! Thanks for checking out my Day #8 blog of my TIFF adventures.
This morning was so different than the others. I slept in! Because I didn’t need to be in line by 7:00, I woke up at 9:15 instead of 6am. It was glorious!
My first film of the day was LOVE IN THE TIME OF CIVIL WAR – a French-Canadian film about a 20-something guy with a crack problem. An alternate title for this film could be DON’T DO CRACK. I’ve never seen such a gruelingly monotonous film about drug use. The lead character smokes to get high, has some sex (in what is generally very unsexy footage), buys some drugs and gets high again. Sometimes, he has to find money – so he robs someone, gets paid for sex and then buys more drugs and gets high. This film could essentially be a 2-hour PSA about the horrors of crack. As much as I wanted to go, I felt like I needed to stay. I didn’t make the right decision.
There is no trailer available for this film. Below is a picture.
I went into my next film with a qualifier in place. If the film failed to reel me in within the first 12 minutes, I would leave to go to a different selection. It failed and I walked. The next selection was worse. Including eye-rolling situations with characters that were much too twee or playing on archetypal stereotypes, I failed to see the backbone of good storytelling…so I left that screening and got lunch instead.
After a 30-minute nap, I was off to AN EYE FOR BEAUTY – the new film from Denys Arcand (director of BARBARIAN INVASIONS, JESUS OF MONTREAL and more). It’s the story of a married man and how he’s both interested in another woman and dealing with the mental instability of wife. This film is full of stunning landscapes, the changing seasons, and well-written dialog.Though fully engaged, I felt the film fell flat with a lack of focus.
There is no trailer with English subtitles, but take a look at this anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1QO8SXywHs
THE IMITATION GAME was my final film for the day. I am quite certain that this film will be nominated for “Best Picture.” I’ll bet the farm on it! Based on the story of Alan Turing and the breaking of the Enigma codes, this film is filled with familiar NEON favorites Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode. The art direction is superb, the story is touching and suspenseful with quite a few laughs, and the packed 1200+ audience was truly engaged. Though I wasn’t as emotionally attached to this film as I was to THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, I still think this film will play very well. (For those who know the story, NCR was only mentioned once very quickly. No other mention of Dayton was made.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM
A last-minute decision for a late-night cocktail in the neighborhood where I’m staying ended up creating a nice evening. I ran into some old and new friends and was able to talk about highlights of the festival before wrapping it up for the night. More than likely, I’ll see at least 3 films tomorrow…and I head home Saturday.
More soon!
Thanks for reading,
Jonathan
