TIFF 2009, Day Three
Sep. 12th, 2009 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedSaw two films today, both were very good, so it's been a good fest so far.
Title: Colony
Director: Ross McDonnell & Carter Gunn
Country: Ireland
P's Rating: Highly Recommended
This is an extremely interesting documentary about bees, and the Colony Collapse Disorder that has seen one third of all bees in North America disappear. (Beekeepers go to their hives and they're completely empty. And this can happen with thousands of hives at a time.) What makes all this especially disturbing is that much of the crops grown for food depends on honey bees for pollination. The filmmakers chose to follow several beekeepers, two veterans with thousands of hives who are trying to determine if CCD is caused by the pesticides that came in use about the same time bees started disappearing, and a deeply religious family that have only recently started in the beekeeping business. The film is nicely shot (not always a given with documentaries) and well-edited, and the filmmakers treats their subjects sympathetically without providing pat answers for what is going on with the bees.
Title: The Vintner's Luck
Director: Niki Caro
Country: New Zealand
P's Rating: Recommended
This is one of the films I was most looking forward to, and it's the one I was most worried about, but it all turned out well in the end. It's based on a very good novel by Kiwi writer Elizabeth Knox about a French vintner, Sobran, and his relationship with the angel who shows up in his father's vineyard when he is a very young man. Sobran wants something more out of life than working for the local Marquis' vintner; Xas, the angel seems to want friendship or perhaps something more. The two agree to meet in the vineyard every year for the rest of Sobran's life. It's a lovely film, full of the dirt and grime and complication of real life. And I'm sooo glad that they didn't shy away from the sexual aspect of the relationship between Sobran and Xas. (That was what had me most worried, frankly, since the trailer had almost no Xas in it.)
Title: Colony
Director: Ross McDonnell & Carter Gunn
Country: Ireland
P's Rating: Highly Recommended
This is an extremely interesting documentary about bees, and the Colony Collapse Disorder that has seen one third of all bees in North America disappear. (Beekeepers go to their hives and they're completely empty. And this can happen with thousands of hives at a time.) What makes all this especially disturbing is that much of the crops grown for food depends on honey bees for pollination. The filmmakers chose to follow several beekeepers, two veterans with thousands of hives who are trying to determine if CCD is caused by the pesticides that came in use about the same time bees started disappearing, and a deeply religious family that have only recently started in the beekeeping business. The film is nicely shot (not always a given with documentaries) and well-edited, and the filmmakers treats their subjects sympathetically without providing pat answers for what is going on with the bees.
Title: The Vintner's Luck
Director: Niki Caro
Country: New Zealand
P's Rating: Recommended
This is one of the films I was most looking forward to, and it's the one I was most worried about, but it all turned out well in the end. It's based on a very good novel by Kiwi writer Elizabeth Knox about a French vintner, Sobran, and his relationship with the angel who shows up in his father's vineyard when he is a very young man. Sobran wants something more out of life than working for the local Marquis' vintner; Xas, the angel seems to want friendship or perhaps something more. The two agree to meet in the vineyard every year for the rest of Sobran's life. It's a lovely film, full of the dirt and grime and complication of real life. And I'm sooo glad that they didn't shy away from the sexual aspect of the relationship between Sobran and Xas. (That was what had me most worried, frankly, since the trailer had almost no Xas in it.)
