Toronto Film Fest 2006, Day Five
Sep. 13th, 2006 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedThis would be the day I hit the sleep deprivation wall. Not helped by the fact that I had to teach all day before doing two films.
Title: Fay Grim
Director: Hal Hartley
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Recommended
I love Hartley's films, with their lightening fast dialogue and deadpan performances, though he seems to have been struggling of late. Fay Grim isn't quite a return to the heights he achieved in Trust and Amateur, it is better than the last few of his films that I've seen. The film is a sequel to Henry Fool, which I wasn't too fond of, and is an extended riff on the spy genre. I don't know that there's as much going on under the surface as there is in a lot of Hartley's films, but it's an entertaining ride. And the performances are wonderful, from Parkey Posey as the titular character, searching for her vanished husband, to Jeff Goldblum, playing a world weary CIA agent.
Title: Congorama
Director: Philippe Falardeau
Country: Canada/Belgium
P's Rating: Recommended
Michel is a struggling Belgian inventor who suddenly finds out he was adopted. Louis is a Quebecois inventor who discovers that his father might have been more than the crackpot Louis always thought he was. And over the course of the film, we discover the ties linking these two men together. Congorama is a delicate puzzle of a film, with the director doling out little morsels of information to both characters and audience until we all put the story together. It's also frequently quite funny, in a very deadpan way.
Title: Fay Grim
Director: Hal Hartley
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Recommended
I love Hartley's films, with their lightening fast dialogue and deadpan performances, though he seems to have been struggling of late. Fay Grim isn't quite a return to the heights he achieved in Trust and Amateur, it is better than the last few of his films that I've seen. The film is a sequel to Henry Fool, which I wasn't too fond of, and is an extended riff on the spy genre. I don't know that there's as much going on under the surface as there is in a lot of Hartley's films, but it's an entertaining ride. And the performances are wonderful, from Parkey Posey as the titular character, searching for her vanished husband, to Jeff Goldblum, playing a world weary CIA agent.
Title: Congorama
Director: Philippe Falardeau
Country: Canada/Belgium
P's Rating: Recommended
Michel is a struggling Belgian inventor who suddenly finds out he was adopted. Louis is a Quebecois inventor who discovers that his father might have been more than the crackpot Louis always thought he was. And over the course of the film, we discover the ties linking these two men together. Congorama is a delicate puzzle of a film, with the director doling out little morsels of information to both characters and audience until we all put the story together. It's also frequently quite funny, in a very deadpan way.
