TIFF -Day 4

Day 4
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Manderlay - Lars von Trier (Denmark)
Sun, Sep 11 2:45 p.m Paramount 1

All Hail the King!
another comback from the master , the most intellectual contemporary director of our times who's also known among friends as the "Weirdo" :)
honestly i was let down , thinking this is going to be better than Dogville (it was more human and accessible) , but i guess my expections were too high, but be it as it may, it still kicks butts!
this man IMHO, is a genious, and fortunately i'm not alone on that assertion.
i think he's become too complex for himself, he actually stated that this triology might be considerd "pretty boring" , ut that's for the average movie-goers- who coincidently never have watched any of his previous works.
the notions of power, justice, racism and democracy have been brutally and calculatingly examined by his surgon knife of cinamtic explorations.
this one might swindle between a study of the American culture and a plain story about how a group of human being can not manage to handle power.
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Mary - Abel Ferrara (France/Italy)
9:30 PM ISABEL BADER THEATRE
this was a true gem, which i have my fate to thank for, being able to see this, and the marvelous Q&A which followed afterwards (the coolest, down-to-earth guests of the festival).

TIFF - Day 2

Day 2
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Day break - Hamid Rahmanian link
Firday Sep 9 - 9:00 PM VARSITY
This movie was probably the best Iranian movie i saw this year, thanks to it's professenial documentry style and directing, well acted, well shot and well scored (David Bergeaud).
it was a stand-out movie among all the other Iranian movies i sa this year, maybe because hamid rahmanian's style is more like the american indies than their Iranian counterparts (he's studied at Pratt Institute in New York).
the plot invloves a man who's awaiting his execution , because of a murder he commited (during a brawl with his boss) and the hell of a life he's living in until his sentance is executed, the victim's family do not show up for 3 times and the fourth time the movie kind of ends with no definite conclusion to his fate.
a risky subject to work with, but the professinalism of Mr. Rahmanian is stunning, specially the performance of Hossien Yari (the protagonist) was amazing. it was some times brutal to watch (specially the tormenting moments of waiting to be executed). overall the movie and script had been well directed, one could exerience the hole agony and torture that the main character was going through, and as opposed to the usual sentimentalism of Iranian movies, the director has been able to maintain a balance, between drama and documentary. the photogrophy was excellent (both the hand held digital and the long shot scenes of nothern iran).
i think Mr. Yari has outdone himself in this movie, i'd never seen such an powerful performance from him before.
according to Mr. Rahmanian 60% of the families usually forgive the accused prisioners and 40% dont which they have to pay for his/her blood money and execute them, themselves (by kicking the bench under the prisoner, the hang them) which -as someone cleverly mentioned from the audience- is still higher than the state of Texas!!!
i'm not sure if Mr. Rahmanian would be able to screen the movie , as is, in Iran and i'm hoping he won't have to go through any censorship or adjustments.
i strongly recommend this movie, to anyone who has the guts to watch a powerful emotional rollercaoster movie about faith, destiny, justice and forgiveness.

Toronto International Film Festival 30th maddness strikes back

this year was pretty good,a dn although I was too lazy to get a pass like previous years, I still managed to see 10 movies.
I'm going to go through them daily:






Day 1
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Gilaneh - Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Mohsen Abdolvahab, Iran, Thusrday 9 pm at the ROM
didn't have a ticket so rushed o the rush line and ended up being the first person - hence lots of hassle followed- but they almost sold the entire rush line.
now my feelings about this movie are kind of mixed:
Acting was almost super, specially Fatemeh motamed aria, which sole the show.I have been a fan of rakhshan's social comedies and even her more recent melowdramas, but I think the second part of this movie is her best work (that I have seen).
the problem of the movie was the inconsistency between the first and second halves.that is partially justified as she basically took the second movie (which was a seperate entity in a 3 episode movie about war) and attached the first part as introduction, and besically wrote the movie based on that short movie.
now this isn't quite working in my opinion and anyone who cares to analyze the structure and form of the movie can figure that out.
the second part is a gem in it's own rights, maybe one of the most real and touching Iranian movies that I have seen, the acting, the athmoshpere, and the cold realism surrounding the movie are quite unique , and given a woman has directed it, makes it more fascinating. she shows much maturity in terms of finding the language that she had experimented before.
one thing which didn't make sense though was that all the characters from tehran, were merely cliches of rich , shallow people, whereas the local people were "real" and that contrast could be strongly felt. as I mentioned before, it seems that the fisrt part had just been tacked to the second part to kind of give the audience an intro to what the characters were coming from and to provide a background, but the 2 just don't go together vey well.
the Iranian turnout was lower than my expectations and the high number of Canadians attending was interesting, furthurmore, the Iranians dominated the rush line as opposed to the Canadians who had tickets, just shows how organized we are as a nation and how much we value planning!
all in all a very good and powerful movie.