Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

I was invited to take part in Peter Howell’s annual pre-TIFF “Chasing the Buzz” feature for the Star again this year, but haven’t had a chance to tell you about it around here yet ‘cause my dry-loop DSL dried up and blew away for a few days so I had no internet access. That was fun. And by “fun” I mean “not fun”.

But it’s back now and my breathing has returned to normal. Sad to say I will hafta re-do the computer’s bedroom, though, as my salty language over those few days stripped the paint offa the walls.

Anyhow, like last year, the instructions were to choose the 3 films that we were most keen to see at TIFF, and explain why in one measly sentence for each. Here are my choices, with a little more detailed justification of why I’d like to see them…

(And thanks to Pete for inviting me to participate in it again this year!)

Examined Life, dir. Astra Taylor - Real to Reel Programme

Frankly, it was the title that caught my attention. As it happens, the Socratic quotation being referenced in it–‘The unexamined life is not worth living’– is one that played a pivotal role in my own life. About 15 years ago, I heard someone very influential in my life use this quotation and, startled, realized that I was living an unexamined life… and so I stopped what I was doing and looked around. It was one of those proverbial life-changing experiences. So I am curious to hear the observations of philosophers living examined lives in our times.

Featured are Cornel West (pictured above), Peter Singer, Judity Butler, Avital Ronell, Michael Hardt, Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum and Slavoj Zizek, with whom Taylor made an earlier film called Zizek! (which I put at the top of my ZipList after becoming intrigued by the new one).

Pontypool, dir. Bruce McDonald - Vanguard Programme

I’d thought that Bruce McDonald had never thrown his cowboy hat into the horror genre ring before now. But he has. Just a little bit of research turned up the fact that, in high school, he shot a feature-length zombie movie called Our Glorious Dead on Super-8.

And now, in his latest film, he’s returned to the horror genre and its zombie sub-genre. The story he chose to adapt is Tony Burgess‘ Pontypool Changes Everything. Zombies in smalltown Ontario! The story puts an interesting spin on the zombie mythos… the setting is a talk radio station and the infection is spread by language. How? Beats me, but I am keen to find out!

I couldn’t find a trailer for it, but I did find this interview in which McDonald talks about the film…

Of special note is the fact that McDonald’s film was shot using the newfangled Red One camera. It is the first Canadian feature-length film shot using the Red One and it is the first Red feature to ever be screened at TIFF.

From Super-8 to Red One 4K HD–technologically, anyway, McDonald has covered a lot of ground from one zombie film to the next.

J.C.V.D., dir. Mabrouk El Mechri - Midnight Madness Programme

Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Jean-Claude Van Damme in this film that actually hews close to his real life (drug problems, money problems, child custody battles) before it veers off into fantasy. I gotta hand it to Van Damme (for whom I’d never before spared even a second thought): I think it shows a great intelligence and a delightful sense of self-directed humour for him to be willing to make a film like this.

And, from the sounds of the reviews I’ve read, I wonder if it will re-launch his career–because it sounds as though he gives a performance that no one expected of him. Least of all me.

(On that note, see also… Mickey Roarke in The Wrestler.)

Well, now, this is about as unexpected as the recent X-Files sequel. But infinitely more interesting-sounding to me.

Loved Hard Core Logo, and Bruce McDonald’s new film—Pontypool (based on Tony Burgess’ novel about a zombie plague virus spread via conversation in smalltown Ontario)—is at the top of my TIFF08 wish-to-see list.

The Hard Core Logo tribute night at the Revue Cinema mentioned in the aforelinked article was the night before I was recently in Tronna (which I will tell you about soon), but I’d’ve definitely gone if I’d been around for it. Y’know, the Revue redux is doing some pretty cool, inventive things, I must say—like this, and like the series of screenings of amateur short films they’ve been running this year. Kudos to the organizers! If you live in Tronna, check out the Revue Cinema—it deserves your support!

With my attention happily diverted by the beach, the sun, vacation, and houseguests, TIFF has snuck up on me this year!

When I was poking around the lame-ass website (while all the films have been announced, they still don’t have synopses posted for most of the titles), found that there’s a followup to Last year’s Paris, je t’aime, called New York, I Love You. It made me think of the similarly-titled LCD Soundsystem song that accurately expresses my feelings of disappointment in not getting there before the Rudy Giuliani era…

…however, in a film filled with Werner Herzog’s typically absurd observations, perhaps the funniest (both funny-haha and funny-weird) were those that had to do with penguins. ‘Deranged’ penguins, no less. In one of the many loosely-connected sequences in Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog trains his camera on a lone penguin who resolutely refuses to follow the herd (flock?) and stalks (or, rather, waddles) away from the coastline towards the centre of the continent towards certain death. Was it deranged? Suicidal? Is there such a thing as insanity in penguins, he wonders.

And that penguin may not be the only one (possibly) ‘deranged’ in Antarctica.

The people who find themselves drawn to life in Antarctica do, indeed, seem to have something in common with that penguin… And they have something in common with the sorts of people that Herzog is frequently fascinated with: loners who are obsessed, who may seem a bit ‘off’ because of that obsession, and who often seem to be oblivious about their ‘offness’. They are poets, linguists, philosophers, and probably a few of them are even fugitives from the law. They are thoroughly fascinating, often delightful, sometimes a little bizarre. Kind of like Herzog, himself.

Herzog again stretches the boundaries of the definition of “documentary” with this new film. He is not above creating sequences for effect–to bring out what he calls the ‘ecstatic truth’ that underlies it. So, for instance, after a conversation with scientists who tell Herzog about the sound of the ice and the creatures below it, he films the three of them lying prone under the ever-sunny sky, ears pressed to the ice, listening. A total setup, he has admitted in interviews. He says they’d've never done that on their own. And he admits, chagrinned, that he made them lie there so long one of the scientist’s ears became frozen to the ice. Oops.

His voiceover narration is unlike anyone else’s. Herzog speaks in his German-accented monotone, often making the type of absurd observation that makes the viewer’s brow furrow (and this viewer frequently burst into laughter), and he says it all matter-of-factly. I mean, he asks the biologist whose life’s work is studying penguins if there is such a thing as a gay penguin. Can they possibly be ‘deranged’? And then we get the sequence that features that lone possibly suicidal, possibly deranged penguin setting off into the sunset towards a lonely death by starvation. As he waddles past the biologist (the penguin, I mean–not Herzog), the scientist looks into the camera and shrugs. He cannot impede this animal’s progress–that is a rule he set for himself. He is only there to observe. All the while, Herzog’s words echo in my head… ‘deranged’, ’suicidal’. As the penguin waddles away from the camera.

After my disappointment with last year’s Rescue Dawn (and I seem to have little company in that) and my frustration with this film’s predecessor, The Wild Blue Yonder, I am relieved to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Encounters at the End of the World.

Plus, there’s that whole monkeys-riding-goats thang.

Look for it on Discovery Channel.

Coming out of this film, I again wondered why so many Americans look down their noses at their 39th president. Jimmy Carter was well-regarded by the rest of the world, after all. He has always had the persona of a humble, gracious, honest humanitarian and I don’t think it’s just a facade. The seemingly indefatigable Nobel Peace Prize winner is in almost every frame of Jonathan Demme’s film. And he seems quite comfortable there; he has nothing to hide.

Demme trains his cameras on Carter as he travels coast to coast on a book tour, promoting his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The book has stirred up some controversy because of its use of the word “apartheid” and because (it seems) most people have formed opinions about it before they’ve actually read it. (What else is new?) Interspersed with sequences from various promotional stops on his tour are personal reflections (e.g. Rosalynn Carter talking about what tipped the Peace Accord scales at Camp David) and vintage footage–some of which showed how eerily prescient Carter was as President (e.g. urging research into alternate fuels and less reliance upon foreign oil during the energy crisis of the 70s). He was a president ahead of his time, perhaps…

And there’s the rub. Or, rather, the subtext. On the surface, it is an affectionate portrait of the peace-crusading former president but, just below the surface, surely the viewer is expected to reflect upon the current sad state of affairs…

Towards the end of a rambling introduction to the North American premiere of his film late Tuesday night, director Julian Schnabel said he wanted to introduce his friend Lou. “Lou, stand up.”

Lou Fucking Reed. In the audience. Now, there was something I’d not counted on! In fact, just a few minutes earlier, I had been pondering the idea… and had decided that hell would likely freeze over before Lou Reed would sit in a movie theatre audience and watch himself perform onstage onscreen. Shows you what I know, eh?

Let me admit right up front that Berlin has never been one of my favourite Lou Reed albums. I know, I know… that makes me a heathen. I agree. But, damn, it’s just so full of anger and sadness and loss… and drugs… and violence… and death. And, (again) honestly, I have just never really been into “concept” albums. They strike me as hopelessly cornball.

Nevertheless, I must say I loved the experience of watching this album being performed onstage in this film. It really turned me upside down in my opinion of the record. The arrangements were lush, the musicians looked like they were really enjoying themselves (even Lou cracked a smile or two!), the set (designed by Schnabel, himself) was dreamy and mysterious, and he used snippets of what were meant to feel like home movies of “Caroline”–shot by his daughter, Lola. And I’d never heard of this guy before, but backing vocalist Antony has an incredible voice and does a fabulous job on one of the encores in duet with Lou. I just wish the performance were longer–I’d've happily sat there for another coupla hours.

I’m told by a friend who saw it that Schabel’s other film at TIFF07, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (for which he was awarded the Best Director award at Cannes earlier this year), is quite brilliant.