TIFF Day Four
Sep. 9th, 2007 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedPlaying catch up on reviews today. I saw one film yesterday, but was doing the solo mom thing the rest of the day whilst the Sweetie went to a couple of screenings so I was utterly knackered by the end of the day.
Today I'm much better, in spite of getting up at 5:45 (yeah, that's a.m.) to see if I could get a ticket to Eastern Promises. Fortunately I managed to score a single ticket and didn't even have to stand in the rush line to do it. Some seats had opened up this morning and I was waiting at the box office at 7 a.m. to grab mine. Which meant I had time to wander over for Fran's (a local 24 hour diner joint), have a leisurely breakfast and still managed to be number 24 in line for the screening. (Yep, I counted. Comes of having a lot of time to kill in line.)
Anyway, onto the reviews...
Title: Mongol
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Country: Germany/Kazakhstan/Russia/Mongolia
P's Rating: Recommended
Sergei Bodrov's latest follows the story of Temudgin, son of an assassinated Mongol khan who survives everything the steppes can throw at him to eventually unite the Mongols under his leadership. Interestingly, for all that there are a number of battle set pieces, Bodrov is more interested in looking at the more human side of the man who will become Genghis Khan: his fierce devotion to his wife and children and the ways in which he breaks from old Mongol traditions to forge a new, better way. Bodrov's cinematography is stunning, and the always dependable Tadanobu Asano brings a quiet tenacity to his portrayal of Temudgin.
Title: Eastern Promises
Director: David Cronenberg
Country: Canada/U.K.
P's Rating: Highly Recommended
This was the film I was most looking forward to this fest, and it didn't disappoint. Viggo Mortensen plays Russian gangster in London who gets involved with a midwife trying to find the family of a young Russian teenager who died giving birth. Cronenberg's storytelling is as tight and effective as it was in A History of Violence, though his unflinching view of the violence in the story isn't going to be everyone's cuppa. Mortensen gives a beautifully controlled performance. For those of you who care about such things (I know you're out there) yes, he is completely nekkid in the bathhouse fight scene, though you'll probably be doing less admiring and more flinching due to the brutality of the scene. And while I may have figured out the major twist relatively early on (no, I'm not going to give it away) the ending still managed to be nicely surprising, with Cronenberg not going for the obvious, crowd-pleasing happy ending.
Title: Joy Division
Director: Grant Gee
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Recommended
When it comes to mopey, post-punk, British acts, I'm more a fan of Bauhaus than Joy Division, but that didn't stop me from finding this a fascinating documentary. Probably doesn't hurt that I'm interested in the cultural history of Britain in the '70s, especially in the north, since the doc goes into the Manchester scene of the time. And it also doesn't hurt that the Joy Division story has an inherent romantic tragedy, what with singer Ian Curtis' suicide and all. Plus the surviving members of the band are pretty fucking funny guys. Especially Peter Hook, who was also on hand to help with the Q&A at the end of the film.
And just for fun, here's a pic of Viggo at the Eastern Promises press conference.
I can't help it, I get a kick out Viggo's crazy moustaches. Somebody really should warn him about wearing a Montreal t-shirt in Toronto, though.
Today I'm much better, in spite of getting up at 5:45 (yeah, that's a.m.) to see if I could get a ticket to Eastern Promises. Fortunately I managed to score a single ticket and didn't even have to stand in the rush line to do it. Some seats had opened up this morning and I was waiting at the box office at 7 a.m. to grab mine. Which meant I had time to wander over for Fran's (a local 24 hour diner joint), have a leisurely breakfast and still managed to be number 24 in line for the screening. (Yep, I counted. Comes of having a lot of time to kill in line.)
Anyway, onto the reviews...
Title: Mongol
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Country: Germany/Kazakhstan/Russia/Mongolia
P's Rating: Recommended
Sergei Bodrov's latest follows the story of Temudgin, son of an assassinated Mongol khan who survives everything the steppes can throw at him to eventually unite the Mongols under his leadership. Interestingly, for all that there are a number of battle set pieces, Bodrov is more interested in looking at the more human side of the man who will become Genghis Khan: his fierce devotion to his wife and children and the ways in which he breaks from old Mongol traditions to forge a new, better way. Bodrov's cinematography is stunning, and the always dependable Tadanobu Asano brings a quiet tenacity to his portrayal of Temudgin.
Title: Eastern Promises
Director: David Cronenberg
Country: Canada/U.K.
P's Rating: Highly Recommended
This was the film I was most looking forward to this fest, and it didn't disappoint. Viggo Mortensen plays Russian gangster in London who gets involved with a midwife trying to find the family of a young Russian teenager who died giving birth. Cronenberg's storytelling is as tight and effective as it was in A History of Violence, though his unflinching view of the violence in the story isn't going to be everyone's cuppa. Mortensen gives a beautifully controlled performance. For those of you who care about such things (I know you're out there) yes, he is completely nekkid in the bathhouse fight scene, though you'll probably be doing less admiring and more flinching due to the brutality of the scene. And while I may have figured out the major twist relatively early on (no, I'm not going to give it away) the ending still managed to be nicely surprising, with Cronenberg not going for the obvious, crowd-pleasing happy ending.
Title: Joy Division
Director: Grant Gee
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Recommended
When it comes to mopey, post-punk, British acts, I'm more a fan of Bauhaus than Joy Division, but that didn't stop me from finding this a fascinating documentary. Probably doesn't hurt that I'm interested in the cultural history of Britain in the '70s, especially in the north, since the doc goes into the Manchester scene of the time. And it also doesn't hurt that the Joy Division story has an inherent romantic tragedy, what with singer Ian Curtis' suicide and all. Plus the surviving members of the band are pretty fucking funny guys. Especially Peter Hook, who was also on hand to help with the Q&A at the end of the film.
And just for fun, here's a pic of Viggo at the Eastern Promises press conference.
I can't help it, I get a kick out Viggo's crazy moustaches. Somebody really should warn him about wearing a Montreal t-shirt in Toronto, though.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 04:23 pm (UTC)Re: Joy Division doc. comments
Date: 2007-09-10 05:14 am (UTC)someone would make a doc. about them.
I love so many bands from Manchester that
I went there for 2 weeks back in summer of '03
just to check it out and get a feel for the place.
Oh wanted to mention that I got to see your M.U.N.C.L.E.
vid "Moscow drunk club" at E.M.C. a couple of weeks
ago and it was excellent. Such a riot.
Yeah I love Bernard and Stephen Morris I can't
wait to see it. It makes me laugh that back in
the early 80's during their Freestyle period they
used to hang out in the Bronx!
Best,
J.A. '69
Re: Joy Division doc. comments
Date: 2007-09-10 04:25 pm (UTC)Very glad you liked Moscow Drug Club. Once they get the bloody DVDs out, maybe I can do another UNCLE vid.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-13 11:27 pm (UTC)But I couldn't get over how they missed all the signs of Ian's demise. "We didn't listen to the lyrics." *facepalm*
Still, a fascinating collection of footage.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 09:56 pm (UTC)"We didn't listen to the lyrics." *facepalm*
Yeah, well, they're boys. Oy.