Gwai Lo Reviews 62 (!) Movies Screened At The Vancouver International Film Festival!!

I am – Hercules!! I like this “Gwai Lo” fellow; he waited until he saw 62 movies at the Vancouver International Film Festival before he sent in a single review. Four movies earned 10 out of 10 ("Masterpiece"!) in his view: CARLOS CERTIFIED COPY COLD FISH INCENDIES Twelve of the 62 movies got 9 out of 1O ("Excellent"): ARMADILLO BIUTIFUL CELL 211 COLD WEATHER DOWN TERRACE GALLANTS INSIDE JOB IN THE SHADOWS KAWASAKI'S ROSE OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS THE RED CHAPEL 13 ASSASSINS That means 25% of the films "Gwai Lo" saw were "excellent" or better. Not bad! Here’s the whole rundown:

Greetings, Harry et al, from the 29th Vancouver International Film Festival. At sixteen days long and usually featuring 300-400 films on ten screens, VIFF is one of the best moviegoer experiences in the world. TIFF, Sundance and Cannes may get more celebrities and premieres, Fantastic Fest may get the genre goods, but for a pure dose of quality marathon viewing, it’s hard to imagine topping our humble little festival. I’ve been a regular for four years now, and each year I manage to squeeze in more movies. I set a personal best this year and saw, wait for it... sixty-two films. I thought you might be interested in an opinion, or sixty-two opinions as the case may be. All of these blurbs were originally written as Facebook statii, and all of them were written anywhere from five minutes to forty-eight hours after viewing the film in question. I’ve since gone back and revised a little bit, but what you get here are simply my initial impressions. Watching 4-5 films a day (usually on six hours of sleep a night and a diet of shawarma and black coffee) does not allow for much critical digestion, so my main goal was to present a concise logline and as reliable a gut instinct as possible. I’ve tried to avoid some of the common phenomena of marathon film festival viewing. I often find that there is an elation that goes along with discovery: since your eyes are among the first to view a film, there’s a tendency to hype it up and stake your claim as an early proponent. Or there’s the opposite tendency: you check yourself before you wreck yourself and try to approach everything with an eye for fault, to avoid looking like a giddy schoolgirl in retrospect. There’s the problem of your judgment being affected by the previous film viewed: I don’t think FAMILY TREE was a very appropriate come-down from COLD FISH, for example. Or of simple weariness: METAMORPHOSIS was my sixth film of that day. And finally there’s spite: you hear some idiot in line saying something stupid about a film and decide that you’re going to be a contrarian. However, such objectivity is a losing battle. I doubt that any of us can escape our subjectivity. In many cases we have even decided on our emotional reaction long before we even watch a movie, and the rest of the time we’ve usually decided before the movie is over. As soon as we’ve decided our emotional reaction, we begin the process of assembling our “objective” arguments, and try our hardest to give them the veneer of logic. Then we wave them around like proof, priding ourselves when our rationality wins out over a weaker argument. The fact is that there’s no accounting for taste, and my interactions with other festivalgoers have left me with the notion that there’s no qualitative criteria for the wide range of factors that people value or abhor in a movie. Ordinarily I do not like to share numerical ratings. I prefer to let words speak for themselves, and resist the idea that a film can be reduced to a number, or worse, a RottenTomatoes percentage. However, since the 420 character limitation of a Facebook status does not always allow for a comprehensive impression, I decided to include numerical ratings. Try not to put much stock in them. I don’t, but here is my interpretation of their values: 10 – Masterpiece 9 – Excellent 8 – Very Good 7 – Good 6 – OK 5 and below – Poor to Terrible Without further rambling... 1. PROTECTOR - Reinhard Heydrich and his Nazi pals move into Czechoslovakia and make life a pain in the ass for a miserable Gentile and his miserable Jewish wife. The central visual and thematic motif is of a Czech furiously peddling a bicycle and going nowhere. Such were my attempts to engage with the first film of the festival. A joyless film for joyless times. 7/10 2. REVOLUCION - The "cream of the Mexican filmmaking crop" (including actors-turned-directors Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Mexican revolution with this collection of short films. The country has many problems and so do these shorts. 6/10 3. MORGEN - A Romanian farmer opens his root cellar and his heart to a Turkish immigrant, even though he can't understand a word the man is saying (neither can we, the Turk gets no subtitles). The simple story (which unfolds in single takes) makes a farce of EU border policy. The opening scene says it all, as border police make the farmer dump a freshly caught fish from the safety of a bucket of water to a flopping death on the side of the road. 8/10 4. LUCKY - Lottery winners (and a few hopefuls) share their experiences, and mostly try their hardest to convince us that winning the lottery is a terribly uncomfortable experience. Luckily they can afford the world's smallest violins. 7/10 5. THE RED CHAPEL - A Danish comedy troupe (including two Danish-Koreans, one a self-described "spastic") invade North Korea and manage to smuggle a blisteringly funny piece of subversion past the censors and secret police. There’s a certain novelty in seeing the world's most isolated country. Even with that taken into account, this is ballsy, vital, awe-inspiring guerilla documentary filmmaking. 9/10 6. PSYCHOHYDROGRAPH - Still photography of water interacting with urban and natural environments assembled into time lapse montage with ambient noise on the soundtrack. Would be more at home as an installation in an art gallery than at the cinema. Perhaps useful for personal introspection. ?/10 7. THE MAN WHO WILL COME - Beautiful Italian countryside, meet goddamn stupid asshole Nazis. The Marzabotto massacre is recreated with great attention to historical detail in this Italian war drama. The first half establishes the innocent peasants and their simple pastoral lives with care, the second half destroys all of that with brutal carelessness. Technically flawless, but good and evil are presented with little nuance. 8/10 8. FATHERS AND SONS - Carl Bessai presents four different father/son relationships in one of two contributions to VIFF 2010. Freeform improvisation finds a good balance of comedy and drama. Messy in the right places and easy to like. 8/10 9. MONSTERS - The production values of DISTRICT 9 are somehow achieved with a budget one could put up with a single credit card. The story needs perhaps one more ingredient in its secret blend of herbs and spices to take it over the top into classic territory. Still a tasty little burrito, although I am perhaps more lenient than I would be with a real Hollywood movie due to behind-the-scenes information. 8/10 10. OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS - Adaptation of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A girl is bitten by a rabid dog and, despite the best efforts of a smitten priest, subjected to the standard Spanish Catholic treatment for those possessed by demons. Immaculate cinematography and production design gives me the urge to pour flowery adjectives all over this thing. Sumptuous! Lush! Ethereal and what have you! 9/10 11. LEAP YEAR - A homely Mexican woman with apparent self esteem issues enters into an amorous arrangement with a real charmer who hits her, pisses on her, sodomizes her, puts cigarettes out on her breasts, etc. The usual romantic junk in other words. Vile and repugnant, but also criminally dull, and ultimately empty of meaning. The only redeeming feature I can think of is that it may be mistaken for the Amy Adams rom-com at the video store. 2/10 12. COLD FISH - A lesson in Japanese manhood, parental duty and tropical fish distribution. Here is a gradually escalating series of violent transgressions that leapfrogs over the proverbial top in the early-goings, and hits a point of gleeful absurdity by the unholy bloodbath of a climax. The villain, an aggressively cheerful game show host type, is one for the ages. Where can I sign up for this film's inevitable cult? 10/10 13. FAMILY TREE - A family, a closet and some skeletons gather in the French countryside for a funeral, and conversation. A lot of conversation. Then they listen to Wagner. Then they talk about Wagner. Then they go back to talking about non-Wagner related topics. Writing, acting, cinematography are all fine, but I couldn't bring myself to get too enthusiastic about this stagey dialogue-fest. 7/10 14. BARNEY'S VERSION - The rare Canadian film that works as a mainstream crowd-pleaser without alienating OR pandering to American audiences. All of the necessary ducks are in a row here, thanks to Mordechai Richler's whip-smart writing, uniformly great performances, and TV veteran Richard J. Lewis' polished direction. Irreverent in a safe, Canadian kinda way. 8/10 15. A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN - The great Stellan Skarsgard re-unites with the director of ZERO KELVIN to play an ex-con. True to the film's title, he navigates his post-prison life of petty crime and awkward sex with taciturn detachment. Short on structure, big on weird. I was amused. The lady behind me thought it was so hilarious that she cackled at every line of dialogue and sighed in satisfaction after the heartiest laffs. Your mileage may vary. 8/10 16. INSIDE JOB - This documentary on the financial meltdown and its dubious causes got me so mad that I was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. And as a twenty-something bachelor with a good job and money in my bank account I can't say I've been hit by the shit-storm. It's time to string these criminals up by their ankles and get to shaking. Also: Matt Damon. 9/10 17. CELL 211 - A trainee prison guard gets swept up in a riot on his first day and pretends to be a new inmate in a bid to stay alive. Hairpin plot twists keep the suspense and the intensity at a rolling boil, and the easy outs are never taken. Another international entry in the recent resurgence of the crime film (see also: A PROPHET, ANIMAL KINGDOM, etc.) that bodes well for the genre. 9/10 18. THE MAN FROM NOWHERE - This South Korean thriller is as stylish as most product coming out of Hollywood, but also as flawed as most product coming out of Hollywood. The standard badass rescues precocious child from organ harvesters plot (you know, the usual) is needlessly convoluted and emotionally overwrought, and most of the set-pieces bear the unfortunate hallmarks of shaky-cam/quick-cut (or to quote Vern:) post-action style. 7/10 19. PRECIOUS LIFE - An Israeli documentary about a Palestinian infant who receives a bone marrow transplant, and the mother who has to wrestle with the implications of Israeli help. All of the expected culture clash ensues, and the voiceover narration points it out in case you miss it. The 2008-2009 Gaza offensive occurs simultaneously and is treated relatively critically. Not total propaganda in other words. 7/10 20. RUBBER - This much buzzed about movie about a sentient rubber car tire that wills human heads to explode, SCANNERS style, wore thin for me in about five minutes. A fourth wall gimmick that amounts to "have you ever heard of surrealism?" didn't really have the intended effect on me either. I think I might have loved this as a short, but as a feature it's an amusing concept tediously executed. 6/10 21. BIUTIFUL - Alejandro González Iñárritu's first film without collaborator Guillermo Arriaga ditches the trademark fractured tripartite narrative but retains the penchant for sudden tragedy, deep-seated sorrow and the lower class/immigrant experience. The title is apt, and Javier Bardem burns a hole through the screen with the intensity of his performance as a cancer-ridden father. 9/10 22. KAWASAKI'S ROSE - Like FAMILY TREE, this Czech Republic film deals with long-buried family secrets that find their origins in wartime/collaborationist duress. But this one does it with a much greater degree of sophistication, wit, and beauty. A film like a fine glass of wine. 9/10 23. METAMORPHOSIS - This Kafka adaptation joins the short list of films shot 100% 1st person POV, and the much shorter list of films I've walked out of. Lie in bed with a consumer-grade camera and you will produce something better than this. Make sure to narrate your tedious inner thoughts (a Coles Notes version of Kafka) with the world's slowest subtitles though. And don't forget to miss the point entirely by keeping the "monstrous vermin" human. 1/10 24. 13 ASSASSINS - To quote a promise upheld by the movie: "TOTAL MASSACRE". Takashi Miike channels Kurosawa circa SEVEN SAMURAI without any wink-wink nudge-nudge post-modern shenanigans. Thirteen masterless samurai (Ronin, dontcha know) take it upon themselves to dispatch the shogun's excessively evil brother and his 200-man escort. The blood-soaked finale is spectacular. Total massacre = total fucking blast. 9/10 25. SECRETS OF THE TRIBE - Academic scrutiny is turned on the academics in this documentary about the various anthropologists who have studied the Yanomami Indians. Among their interdisciplinary activities: marrying 13-year-old girls, prostituting young boys, and causing measles epidemics. A good topic, but not particularly good filmmaking. What would Herzog do with this material? 7/10 26. CITIES ON SPEED: MUMBAI DISCONNECTED - If there are any competent people dealing with the problems of overpopulation in Mumbai, these documentary filmmakers didn't find them. This chapter of CITIES ON SPEED is entertaining, but has an unfortunate slant of condescension that leaves its various subjects looking like bumbling fools. 6/10 27. A NIGHT FOR DYING TIGERS - Terry Miles' latest zero-budget ode to the self-important bourgeoisie Vancouverite douchebag is further confirmation (see also: RED ROOSTER) that his mildly enjoyable debut WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD was a fluke. A man's impending prison sentence is the platform for this "story" of stilted, unnatural dialogue, pregnant pauses, and “oh give me a break” conflict. I liked this when it was called 25TH HOUR and, you know, good. 4/10 28. TRANSFER - An elderly German couple purchases a pair of svelte young Africans to inhabit for twenty hours a day. Smart sci-fi with intriguing philosophical and political underpinnings, with a focus on character over spectacle. All it lacks is a more satisfying follow-through in its third act to turn our minds thoroughly inside-out. 8/10 29. DAVID WANTS TO FLY - A recent film school graduate (it shows) is inspired by the passion of his idol, David Lynch, to investigate Transcendental Meditation. After much naive meandering, he discovers it is indeed a business like any other. This also just in: grass green, water wet, sky blue, etc. 5/10 30. DISSOLUTION - An Israeli man wanders around listlessly for 88 minutes. This is the type of pretentious junk that lends itself to pseudo-meaningful symbolic/thematic interpretations (ie. off-screen murder = a culture of concealed violence. Oooh, deep!), if that's your thing. It's not mine. 3/10 31. END OF THE ANIMAL - It's hard to describe this oddball film from a first-time South Korean director. A hapless pregnant girl finds herself stranded on a country road as a quiet little apocalypse takes shape. She contends with snarling but unseen monsters, opportunistic humans, and some sort of higher power with unlimited omniscience. A palpable sense of dread develops. Tony Rayns' program guide hyperbole didn't screw me over for once. 8/10 32. THE EYE 3D – LIFE AND SCIENCE ON CERRO PARANAL - A no-nonsense science documentary about the world's largest telescope, housed at the VLT Observatory in Chile, and the astronomers that use it for their studies. A refined educational experience that makes exceptional use of its 3D effects. 8/10 33. DOWN TERRACE - Pitch black comedy about a Motley crew of Brighton criminals who at first appear only slightly pricklier than your average English family unit. What starts out as a caustically funny prison homecoming story gradually morphs into something much darker. The transition may be jarring for those expecting a harmless laugh, but if you’re on the right wavelength this is humor in a jugular vein. 9/10 34. GUIDO SUPERSTAR: THE RISE OF GUIDO - An aggressively idiotic screwball comedy about an Italian immigrant recruited to pose as a Sicilian in order to infiltrate an Asian gang. The filmmaking is as crude as the humor. If you liked MACGRUBER but found its sensibilities too highbrow and sophisticated then I have a recommendation for you. 3/10 35. TWO INDIANS TALKING - Well, the title is appropriate. A university educated twenty-something and a reservation educated thirty-something have a dialogue about First Nations issues as they wait for some Cree to show up for a highway blockade. The character conflict occasionally works (although a last minute romantic subplot falls completely flat), but from a filmmaking standpoint this is strictly a point-and-shoot affair. The adoring audience I was with didn’t seem to mind. 5/10 36. PLUG & PRAY - A documentary about the dubious implications of artificial intelligence, and a robotics industry hell-bent on reproducing the human brain electronically. As a disciple of Stanislaw Lem I have to wonder why we aspire to the limitations of our own species' intelligence, when computers would perhaps fare better in the pursuit of their own unique evolutionary course. 7/10 37. THE UGLY DUCKLING - A Russian stop-motion adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy-tale, set to the symphonic strains of Tchaikovsky. Very well made if you're into this type of thing, although at a barely feature-length 75 minutes the familiar story feels stretched and the musical numbers are repetitive. Kids should see this, but in its current subtitled state it might be a hard sell. 8/10 38. GALLANTS - I'll never look at elderly Chinese men the same way again. Three geriatric kung fu masters and a young disciple take on a martial arts competition in one last bid for glory. Funny, touching, and insanely energetic. One of the directors is an Eric Hamber alum, but you'd never guess it from the end result: an authentically Hong Kong tribute to classic Shaw Brothers. 9/10 39. IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE - With less than two weeks left in his prison sentence, a desperate inmate takes a young intern hostage with a shard of glass, and sparks a tense but ultimately futile standoff. Real simple meat and potatoes stuff, captured in a gritty verité style. The Romanian cinematic Renaissance keeps on truckin'. 8/10 40. HARRAGAS - Ten Algerians attempt a treacherous passage across the Mediterranean Sea in a small boat, hoping to find a new life in Spain. The film never finds the suspense of, say, LIFEBOAT, but I would have liked this one better had the main character not narrated the whole thing in classic Irving the Explainer fashion. It's a cliché, but show, don't tell! 7/10 41. ROUTE 132 - A grieving father happens across an old friend in a bar and skips out on his son's funeral to embark on a cross-Quebec odyssey. I liked spending time with these characters and taking in the scenery, but the ambling story could use a bit of a trim. Most sensibly from the out-of-place bank robbery subplot, which contributes to the WTF ending. 7/10 42. COLD WEATHER - For about 30 minutes I had a sinking feeling. I just wasn’t in the mood for a dose of the dreaded ‘M’ word (that would be ‘mumblecore’), even if the performances were incredibly naturalistic. There was no plot catalyst in sight. But then, without warning, a mystery snuck in. Suddenly our lazy hero (a forensic science drop-out) is given a chance to emulate his hero, Sherlock Holmes. And suddenly the naturalism came in handy: these felt like real people thrust into the machinations of genre. A fresh and consistently surprising shaggy dog story that plays on your underestimations. 9/10 43. CERTIFIED COPY - I was expecting a Tuscan romance. Kiarostami gave me a puzzle worthy of Antonioni. Did this couple just meet, or have they been married for fifteen years? The clues are scattered throughout the intellectual parries and thrusts of their dialogue, reflections in windowpanes, body language, facial expressions. In the end, does it matter? What is the difference between an original, and a certified copy? 10/10 44. ANOTHER YEAR – Friends I trust placed this amongst the year’s best, but I was relatively unmoved. By now you’re most likely familiar with Mike Leigh’s M.O., and if it’s a taste you’ve acquired you’re unlikely to find fault here. I found difficulty connecting with the main characters: a judgmental married couple and their flaky friend, who remain relatively static throughout. Perhaps that’s the point: another year, same old same old. But with chapters denoting the seasons as the only discernible structure, the story seemed to lack a clear point, a raison d'être. 7/10 45. IN THE SHADOWS - Hard as nails. A badass Nathan Fillion doppelganger is released from prison and immediately goes about reclaiming what's his. True to the title, the stoic German appears and disappears into the chiaroscuro shadows like a ghost. The plot unfolds with clockwork precision, our quiet anti-hero a coiled spring at the center. In the end, we're left with something like a zen kōan. 9/10 46. OUR LIFE - A father struggles to make ends meet in the wake of his wife's death-by-childbirth. Emotions run high, finances run low, but the archetypically Italian institution of family is what binds it all together. This is pure kitchen-sink drama, and it never transcends its humble design. But the charismatic lead makes it well worth watching. 8/10 47. THE NEIGHBOR - More like THE NEIGH-BORE! (Sorry.) Three generations of Iranian women go about their daily lives in North Vancouver, without the inconveniences of anything resembling a plot. Cultural isolation, modern malaise, blah blah blah. My Persian girlfriend assures me that the acting in Farsi is as terrible as the acting in English. 4/10 48. AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE - This survey-level documentary look at exploitation films in their natural habitat is only really recommended if you know nothing of the subject matter. Given the nebulous criteria for what qualifies as "exploitation" or "grindhouse", the information here is far from comprehensive. I would, however, be impressed with this if it was a special feature on the GRINDHOUSE DVD or something. 7/10 49. CARLOS - 330 tightly-wound minutes covering 21 years in the life of Carlos the Jackal, brilliantly and fearlessly rendered by Bourne opponent Édgar Ramírez. A sprawling epic that never lets up or slows down, plunging headlong into a dense web of international intrigue. The incendiary figure is treated without glorification or villification, he simply is. Olivier Assayas' electric direction accomplishes the scope of CHE at the pace of MUNICH. A masterpiece. 10/10 50. AFTERSHOCK - It's comforting to know that other film industries are capable of product just as bloated and maudlin as anything Hollywood has to offer. China's biggest box office hit of all time milks cheap and easy tears from the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan and its schism effect on one family. Even the soap opera melodrama is poorly handled, with major emotional beats missing or botched. 3/10 51. INTO THE WIND - Every Canadian knows the inspirational story of Terry Fox. No doubt the cancer survivor who ran over 3000 miles on a prosthetic leg before succumbing to a relapse is a (now inter)national hero. This documentary, co-directed by NBA MVP Steve Nash, tells that oft-repeated story. But it never really rises above the grade of a made-for-TV PSA. 7/10 52. OF GODS AND MEN - A group of French monks in an Algerian monastery choose to sit tight as the Mujahideen bring the mothafuckin' ruckus. Quiet, contemplative, austere. I didn't find the religious content overbearing. Nonetheless, I had trouble making a connection to the material beyond the cerebral. 8/10 53. KING'S ROAD - Iceland is broke, but I didn't realize they were creatively bankrupt to boot. Several quirky trailer park denizens engage in quirky mishaps. Quirky! How did the editor of ETERNAL SUNSHINE FOR THE SPOTLESS MIND manage to turn out a movie in which every scene is so obnoxiously pointless? The only surprise here is that this quirky quirkfest isn't an English Canadian indie. 2/10 54. INCENDIES - To name the Greek tragedy at the soul of this retina-scorcher would spoil too much. Suffice to say the drama is writ large and hurts like a knife in the heart. The twin children of a deceased Lebanese expat return to their homeland and attempt to uncover a past buried in the horrors of religious warfare. This is one of the finest Canadian films ever made. I left the theater shaking. 10/10 55. R U THERE - OK, so I fell asleep for about an hour of this one. I saw the beginning where we're introduced to some dork who goes to Taipei for a videogame tournament. I saw him start to get massages from some girl who plays Second Life. I woke up later and it was wrapping up. I have been avoiding descriptions of cinematography in my blurbs but hey, I'm at a loss here. This one looked nice. ?/10 56. HEARTBEATS - Xavier Dolan's follow-up to last year's I KILLED MY MOTHER abandons matricidal tendencies for the frustrations of modern dating. The cherubic airhead who functions as the objet du désir here is representative of the hip culture lovingly gazed upon, even fetishized, by Dolan's camera: vain, self-absorbed, hedonistic, fickle. It would be shallow if it were any less accurate. 8/10 57. NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT - The second doc I've seen on astronomy in the Atacama desert (see also: THE EYE 3D). This one draws a tenuous comparison between astronomers looking into the past through their telescopes (light takes a long time to reach us from anything worth observing in the sky) and Chileans looking into the past in their search for victims of the Pinochet regime. 7/10 58. THE TREE - Loved ones continue to drop like flies in this year's VIFF. This time the departed is a husband/father, leaving Charlotte Gainsbourg, her four children, and an enormous fig tree to fend for themselves. The precocious 8-year-old daughter comes to believe that the spirit of her father inhabits the tree, which threatens to destroy the house with its wayward growth. Formulaic drama ensues. 7/10 59. ARMADILLO - I haven't seen RESTREPO, but ARMADILLO covers similar ground. A Danish military unit battles the Taliban. The program guide mentions a "war crime", but this documentary conveys the absurdity of following rules of engagement against an enemy who, well, doesn't. How do you exercise due caution when the hostiles look like friendlies? The filmmakers have the cojones to get right into the shit. 9/10 60. ME, TOO - Down's Syndromers need love too. A university graduate/gainfully employed thirtysomething who also happens to have the aforementioned affliction falls in love with a coworker and encounters the expected skepticism from friends, loved ones, and the coworker herself. Before you gag a bit, the conflict is handled with self-awareness and tact. Not bad at all. 8/10 61. THE TWO ESCOBARS - Colombia's 1994 bid for the World Cup was punctuated with the death of two unrelated Escobars: Pablo, who funded the team with drug money, and Andrés, who was killed shortly after a tragic "own goal". This documentary digs fearlessly into an exceedingly violent national history (Colombia was the murder capital of the world at the time) with often astonishing footage. 8/10 62. THE WHITE MEADOWS - An episodic, mystical tale of an Iranian tear-collector. I'm not kidding. Dude rows around in a boat visiting various communities on the edge of Lake Urmia (which to my eyes looks as sodium-rich as the Dead Sea) and bottles the salty discharge of their sorrows. This movie got the director arrested in Iran, but the politically charged symbols and metaphors flew right over my Western head. 8/10 MISCELLANEOUS – Other bits and bobs… FATHER’S CHALLENGE – This South Korean short preceding METAMORPHOSIS was a bit like Guy Maddin filtered through Babelfish. 4/10 PLASTICITY 3D – This 3D short preceded THE EYE 3D – LIFE AND SCIENCE ON CERRO PARANAL. The program guide informs me that it was about: “A girl (who) is forced to choose between her life of solitary freedom and conforming to live among other people in a 3D world.” I must have missed all that, but I can certainly think of poorer uses of my time than this five minute Norman McLaren-esque experiment. 7/10 THE WARDEN – This year VIFF abandoned their usual comedic pre-show shorts (previous years have offered delightful intros that lampoon inaccurate subtitles, rush line disappointment, pseudo-artistic surreality, pretentious film analysis, and hardcore festivalgoers like myself, etc.) and instead opted for a 16-part experiment (a new short scene every day, meant to add up to a coherent narrative by the end) called THE WARDEN. The results: an unmitigated fiasco. Well before the final reveal it was obvious that many of the scenes were redundant or completely pointless. Reactions ranged from uncertain laughter, to mock applause, to outright derision. But hey, judge for yourself at thewardensixteen.com. The idea to feature a different intro clip every day was a good one (I usually tire of seeing the same damn intro over and over well before the end of the festival) but dear VIFF: please go back to funny. 2/10 That about covers it. I will admit that I am slightly relieved that the marathon is over. I’ve caught up on sleep and returned to a somewhat normal life, although I now have to catch up on theatrical releases I’ve missed (THE SOCIAL NETWORK, BURIED, NEVER LET ME GO, JACKASS 3D, LET ME IN... although I managed to sneak in FUBAR 2 halfway through the festival). I will say this: 2010 has been a discouraging year for film thus far. Prior to the festival I’d seen about eighty 2010 releases. Without hesitation, I’d trade the sixty-two festival films for the eighty non-festival films. I’d be giving up INCEPTION, ANIMAL KINGDOM, GREEN ZONE, WINTER’S BONE, TOY STORY 3, THE TOWN, THE SQUARE, THE AMERICAN, UNDISPUTED III: REDEMPTION, SHUTTER ISLAND, THE RED RIDING TRILOGY, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, BROOKLYN’S FINEST, THE GHOST WRITER, MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE, SPLICE, HARRY BROWN, LEAVES OF GRASS, FUBAR 2, CATFISH, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION, VALHALLA RISING, to name some of the stand-outs. But note how many of these favorites are non-Hollywood product. Many of them only made their way to my attention through word of mouth and reviews from other festivals. To be fair, we’re only just now entering awards season, when the year’s best movies debut. But I wouldn’t be much of a film fan if my only source for cinema was the pap that’s been coming out of California. I’ve been watching THE LAST AIRBENDER out of the corner of my eye as I’ve typed up the essay sections of this article. That says it all, really. That’s why film festivals are so vital. Once a year I’m reminded that there’s a whole world of film out there that relatively few of us are exposed to, where movies are still valid forms of artistic expression that don’t require budgets equal to the GDP of a small country to entertain. Where I see dozens of films that aren’t thought of as “franchises”, that aren’t concerned with commercial viability or the commercial viability of the source material they’re derived from. So it is with these parting words that I urge you to seek out some of these titles, and support your local festival (or VIFF!) if you can. If you use this, call me Gwai Lo. I’ll be around in the talkbacks to answer any questions, comments, or ridicule.

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