When you get to the Toronto International Film Festival, the first thing that really hits you is how far the city’s dedication to Sparkle Motion goes where this festival is concerned. TIFF is different from that other big North American film festival Sundance in that it’s held right in the middle of a huge, functioning city rather than out in the middle of nowhere. The amount of the city’s downtown that gets completely taken over by the festivities is astounding. There are festivalgoers everywhere, festival volunteers on every corner, and booths hocking free samples of who knows what as far as the eye can see. Take that picture to the right for instance. That’s one of the city’s main arteries, Yonge Street, blocked off for blocks so that celebrities can step right out of a car, directly onto a red carpet, and into the theater where their film is being shown. Well la-de-da.
The other thing that has surprised me most about a film festival packed full of so many interesting movies is that the talk around town isn’t much about the movies at all, it’s all about the actors; or the “movie stars” in the parlance of the man on the street. You get a lot of people crowded together in lines and behind barricades, and none of the talk is about which movies are the best, or which ones were disappointments. It’s all about, which movie star did you see? Who drew the biggest crowd outside their premier? Were Brad and Angelina enough to steal some of Clooney’s thunder? Which stars are going to be at this theater tonight? Where is Bono going next? Sure, you get a lot of people fully engaged in the festival and going to lots of movies; but they don’t seem to have any idea what they’re seeing going into the theater. They’re here collecting film titles like Pokemon Cards: gotta catch ‘em all. Did you meet the director after the film? Wasn’t he lovely? I’ll have to remember his name. I can’t wait to txt Nancy!
After the three-hour ordeal of standing in line at the main festival box office and collecting my tickets, I did end up seeing a couple movies on day one. Check out my thoughts after the break.
Elles
Though director Malgorzata Szumowska is a Polish lady, Elles is a French language film set in Paris. It’s about a mother, wife, and journalist named Anne (Juliette Binoche) who is writing an article for “Elle” magazine about young students putting themselves through school by turning to prostitution. The two girls that she interviews, Charlotte (Anais Demoustier) and Alicja (Joanna Kulig) are different sorts; one is sweet natured and accommodating, the other is a bit of a rebel and a rapscallion. Anne relates to them in different ways, but ends up growing close to both. So much so that thinking about their lives and professions becomes a bit of an obsession for her, and it begins to affect her family life and day-to-day routine.
The film succeeds because of the strength of its performances and because of the vision behind its crafting. Juliette Binoche deserves a huge amount of the credit, as she gets the bulk of the focus and she manages to make a lot of scenes that must have appeared very dry on the page captivating despite themselves. She’s so compelling, in fact, that the audience I saw this with gasped, laughed, and cheered, all while watching dialogue free scenes of Binoche doing things like preparing dinner, or doing laundry. The girls, Demoustier and Kulig, both give strong performances as well, and all three of the ladies are stunningly gorgeous; so Elles would be pretty easy to watch no matter what else it had going on.
What else it has going on is pretty good as well though. The photography is always gorgeous, always interesting. It sticks to a natural light filled aesthetic, and it’s not afraid to break into the actor’s personal bubbles of space to record an intimate moment; but never in an annoying way. There is one scene where Binoche and Kulig start off silly drunk girl dancing and end up kind of seducing each other that was insanely powerful because of the performances of the ladies and the way the camera films their interactions. And, you know, also because of how hot it was.
There are some interesting ideas going on in the film. The sex that the girls have with their clients is presented in very frank, unflattering ways. The girls derive no pleasure from the filthy acts committed on them, and they treat performing sexual acts with a systematic, utilitarian approach. But, contrary to that, the life of a prostitute gets kind of idealized and romanticized. There is one violent act committed against one of the girls that is very uncomfortable to sit through, but other than that what they do is presented as being an easy way to make great money, and kind of an enviable lifestyle.
Binoche’s character especially becomes taken with their lives, and parallels begin to be drawn between her and the girls. We get images of the routine of her preparing food and doing housework juxtaposed with the routines of the girls giving fellatio and being peed on. There seems to be some commentary going on about everyone being prostitutes, just in different ways. Eventually thoughts of the girls’ sexy lives begins to affect Binoche’s sex drive as well, and when she starts acting on some urges herself, her momentary indulgence sits next to her domestic life in unsettling ways. The film seems to say that sex is always dirty, regardless of who you are, especially when presented next to images of you hugging your children, so why not keep that stuff separate from your life and professional?
Or maybe that’s not what it says; maybe it’s not really saying anything at all, but just being provocative. This isn’t really a story in the traditional sense of the word after all; it’s more of an ambiguous character study. It raises questions, but it doesn’t seem to have any real viewpoints. You’re put inside of these girls’ lives, you’re asked to feel what they feel, but nobody really grows or changes or accomplishes anything. Due to the strength of the filmmaking and the skill of the performers, I think they did a good job of stirring up the appropriate emotions in their audience. Despite the fact that the film never really reaches a traditional climax, I never found myself feeling like it needed to move itself along or get to the point. I was content just spending time with the girls and having some empathy forced upon me.
God Bless America
God Bless America is, quite frankly, a visceral catharsis. It’s a giant middle finger stuck up at popular culture, a violent lashing out at the glorification of stupidity and the obsession with shallow concerns that permeate our social consciousness. It’s a mental high five to anyone who has ever had the thought that they’re surrounded by idiots. Director Bobcat Goldthwait follows up his autoerotic asphyxiation comedy World’s Greatest Dad with the story of a common man (Joel Murray) and a plucky young teenager (Tara Lynne Barr) who get pushed so far by mindless reality TV and everyone else’s senses of entitlement that they go on a killing spree, mowing down the bratty teens of MTV and the conservative pundits of Fox News with gleeful abandon.
God Bless America is the movie that Idiocracy would have been if Idiocracy were able to fit its social satire within the framework of an effective movie rather than just becoming kind of stupid itself. Whereas that movie came out of the gate with a bunch of big ideas and sharp satire, by its end it just became a stupid action movie with easy solutions and tired storytelling tropes. God Bless America, conversely, gets more interesting as it goes on. At first it seems like it’s going to just be a gauntlet of destruction, going from points A to Z in a very straight, shoot ‘em up line; but several complications get introduced throughout and the film becomes more interesting as a result. The relationships grow, they become more complex. The plan changes, people’s motivations develop. And by the time you get to the climax you care enough about the characters that it actually means something to you.
Much of that credit needs to be given to Joel Murray. He is just great as the lead character Frank. He’s complex, expressive, relatable, and he lends a lot of weight to scenarios that would have played as ridiculous in the hands of a lot of other actors. Tara Lynne Barr is good as the young spitfire Roxie as well, though less polished as an actor. Despite that, she’s got an innate charisma and is so full of peppy vim and vigor that you can’t help but like her. I imagine her work here is going to lead to several more opportunities for the actress in the future. Watching the two actors play off of each other is a joy. Despite the fact that they are both frustrated killers, they don’t share the same motivations. He is gruff and beaten down and she is still full of youthful exuberance. She wants to off everybody who manages to annoy her throughout the day, but he wants to save their violent outbursts for people who really deserve to die. That means that Diablo Cody gets a pass, but Glen Beck must go down.
Surprisingly, where the film falters is in the parodies and satire that act as its initial hook. We get facsimiles for most of the more annoying bits of modern culture: American Idol, TMZ, and the like. Frank takes them down a peg in extended verbal tirades, and he takes them out with violent outbursts. A lot of it is funny, and every once in a while he makes you cheer; but it’s also in the jokes where the writing gets the clunkiest. Whenever Frank went off on a rant it immediately took me out of the movie. His speeches are so crafted and purposeful that you don’t buy them being delivered off the cuff. You can feel the film stopping while suddenly Bobcat’s voice comes in to tell you his worldview. Every once in a while Frank says something awful that you’ve thought yourself a thousand times, and there is a moment of joy in that, but ultimately I think things would have flowed better if the film didn’t keep pausing to explain itself to you.
And the script gets a little too specific with the pop culture references. Instead of lampooning the dumb stuff that everyone watches by coming up with his own stupid shows that are a reflection of what we watch in real life, we get exact copies of things that really exist. Instead of TMZ there’s TMI, instead of American Idol there’s American Superstar, complete with caricatures of all the people who appear on the real shows. After a while it began to feel like I was watching an extended SNL sketch. And the fact that a lot of the film dealt with Frank’s thoughts about MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen, a show that already hasn’t been relevant for a couple of years already, it became clear real quick how badly the rest of it is going to age over time. By making references to very current, sure to be briefly relevant pop culture phenomenons, God Bless America truncates its own relevance. It puts itself in danger of becoming one of the disposable channels of pop culture regurgitation that it hates. Strong effort overall though, and worth checking out.
And the script gets a little too specific with the pop culture references. Instead of lampooning the dumb stuff that everyone watches by coming up with his own stupid shows that are a reflection of what we watch in real life, we get exact copies of things that really exist. Instead of TMZ there’s TMI, instead of American Idol there’s American Superstar, complete with caricatures of all the people who appear on the real shows. After a while it began to feel like I was watching an extended SNL sketch. And the fact that a lot of the film dealt with Frank’s thoughts about MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen, a show that already hasn’t been relevant for a couple of years already, it became clear real quick how badly the rest of it is going to age over time. By making references to very current, sure to be briefly relevant pop culture phenomenons, God Bless America truncates its own relevance. It puts itself in danger of becoming one of the disposable channels of pop culture regurgitation that it hates. Strong effort overall though, and worth checking out.
