Wild Grass (Resnais, 2009)

Anticipating TIFF (2009)

I just received my ticket order confirmation. I have a 50-ticket pass but will probably only — only — see 36-40, so I went ahead and double-booked several time slots and will make a last-minute decision about which tickets to use. The last day of the fest is especially tricky. As much as I’d like to see the new Kore-eda film, I’m guessing I’ll probably begin the day with the crazy-awesome-looking David Lynch (!) and Werner Herzog (!!) collaboration, see the new Denis film again, and then collapse at my hotel room in front of some college football.

Thursday, 9/10
L’Enfer de Henri-Georges Clouzot Inferno (Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea)

Friday, 9/11
Like You Know It All (Hong Sang-soo)
Face (Tsai Ming-liang)
La Pivellina (Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel)
Wavelengths 1: Titans
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)

Saturday, 9/12
Antichrist (Tars von Trier) OR Vision (Margarethe von Trotta)
Independencia (Raya Martin)
Women Without Men
Le Père de mes enfants (Mia Hansen-Løve)
Wavelengths 3: Let Each One Go Where He May (Ben Russell)

Sunday 13
Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont)
Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Petropolis (Peter Mettler)
Wavelengths 4: In Comparison
Wavelengths 5: Une Catastrophe
Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)

Monday, 9/14
Moloch Tropical (Raoul Peck)
The Man Beyond the Bridge (Laxmikant Shetgaonkar) AND Wavelengths 6: Flash Point Camera
OR Mall Girls (Katarzyna Roslaniec) AND Colony (Carter Gunn & Ross McDonnell)

Tuesday, 9/15
Wild Grass (Alain Resnair)
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)
White Material (Claire Denis)
Lourdes (Jessica Hausner)

Wednesday, 9/16
Scheherezade, Tell Me a Story (Yousry Nasrallah) OR Defendor (Peter Stebbings)
Karaoke (Chris Chong Chan Fui)
To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues)
The Wind Journeys (Ciro Guerra)

Thursday, 9/17
Ajami (Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani)
Samson & Delilah (Warwick Thornton)
Hiroshima (Pablo Stoll) OR I, Don Giovani (Carlos Saura)
Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl (Manoel de Oliveira)
Carcasses (Denis Côté)

Friday, 9/18
I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino) OR Les Derniers Jours Du Monde (Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
I Killed My Mother (Xavier Dolan)
At the End of Daybreak (Ho Yuhang)

Saturday, 9/19
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog)
Air Doll (Hirokazu Kore-eda) OR White Material (Claire Denis) OR Between Two Worlds (Vimukthi Jayasundara)
AND MAYBE Once Upon a Time Proletarian (Guo Xiaolu)
Huacho (Alejandro Fernández Almendras)


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8 responses to “Anticipating TIFF (2009)”

  1. Bob Turnbull

    If I get all my picks (being in Box 33, it's unlikely), we share two screenings – the initial "Enfer" (boy that's a beautiful trailer) and "At The End Of Daybreak". Hopefully we run into each other this time…

    We share another 5 films (just different times) and 4 of yours are also second choice picks.

    Have a good trip up!

  2. Nick

    If you have time, I'm wondering how "Like You Know It All" was. Not looking for review, just pondering catching it later in the week

  3. Darren

    I liked it a lot, but I'm not a very good judge of his work. I've seen six or seven of his films, and I'd be hard pressed to distinguish the "good" ones from the "disappointing" ones.

  4. Bob Turnbull

    Darren, I think I stared right at you as you came into "Le Pere De Mes Enfants" today – and I didn't say Hi. To be honest, I wasn't sure it was you as you were in shadows. I was talking with James and after you passed by, I realized it might be you. We were going to find you after the Q&A, but I noticed you snuck out early…Anyway, just wanted to say I wasn't actively avoiding you! B-)

    Hope to see you Monday…

    I'm seeing the Hong Sang-soo on Wednesday.

  5. Darren

    "That guy looks familiar. Who IS that guy? Should I say hello? Is that Bob? It IS Bob. No, maybe not." I guess I should have said hello. 😉

  6. Nick

    I unfortunately had to miss a screening of The Prophet last night and ended up catching Like You Know It All instead, so I didn't see your response until after seeing the actual movie itself. Sorry to have wasted your time!

    I was interested to see your comments on Moloch Tropical. I don't think I'd go so far as "interesting in theory": for me, the dinner scene and its associated material alone justify the film. But depending on how extreme a view of "editing" you're taking, I probably agree with you on that. There was a lot I liked but it was bogged down in stuff that seemed unnecessary and just didn't work nearly as well. I'm pretty sure it doesn't need anything at all added. It's just a 107 minute good film with a 80-90 minute great film hiding inside.

    But then, that's been my reaction to a lot of things I've seen at TIFF this year. I loved Spring Fever, but I think it would have been stronger if, say, two characters had been chopped out of the plot almost entirely. Like You Know It All had a lot of funny/painful sequences, but I also felt that a fair percentage of the film didn't really contribute much of anything and really dragged. There are some films that need to be two hours long but I don't think either of those two falls into that category. There's nothing wrong with a 90 minute film, people!

    Most things I've seen have been quite good though and now that I'm less sleep deprived, I think I'll be less impatient. Still, highly looking forward to White Material tomorrow. (Though perhaps I should probably lower my expectations from the absurdly high heights that 35 Rhums raised them to last fall.)

  7. Darren

    Nick, the dinner scene is my main reason for not dismissing Moloch Tropical completely. I liked that the president was the more charismatic and sympathetic character there, and that his point about the difficulties of exercising power justly wasn't undermine by irony. (That's how I read it at least.) It's a complicated scene.

    A good editor could cut it all down to about 85 minutes, lose the Hollywood movie subplot and some of the stuff with the wife, and it would be a lot better.

  8. Blake Williams

    Hey Darren, it was nice meeting you and Girish briefly. I'm curious which film you ended up seeing the morning of the 18th, I Am Love or the Larrieu bros., and what you thought of whichever one it was. I enjoyed both quite a bit.
    take care, Blake