As much as I love living here in rural Nova Scotia, there are a few things I miss about city life, namely dance performances, concerts, theatrical events and film festivals. All of those things are cancelled this year anyway due to COVID-19 … but the Toronto International Film Festival, to it’s eternal credit, noticed that it is 2020 and we have remarkable tools through which cultural events can be shared much more widely than ever before. And Catherine, to her eternal credit, had faith in our spotty, slowish internet service to be able to handle a whole slew of streamed movies. She took the plunge, bought in and selected a fabulous array of fascinating films to ease us across the threshold of Autumn. And what a feast it was!
Her selection criteria were simple: films by women directors, featuring stories by or about women, racial or cultural minorities, indigenous people, disabled characters — folks we don’t hear from every day. And as we have for every film festival in the past, we strapped on our emotional seatbelts in preparation for a 25-film roller-coaster ride. But we never had to leave the house to do it! Better still, many films were watched from the comfort of our own bed, with cats purring on our feet. Heaven!
We kicked it off with Enemies of the State, a documentary with an unusual feature: the film-maker hadn’t made up her mind about her subject’s guilt or innocence before she started shooting the film, and thus the story turned out to be about the slippery nature of truth and the huge challenge of keeping an open mind in this age of social media (mis)information. There’s a Canadian twist to this story with many twists: the young American computer geek and his parents sought political asylum in Canada, believing the American State was out to get them. Many of the re-enactments were shot in actual Canadian courts and interrogation rooms. And the outcome may surprise you!
Enemies was followed by Shiva Baby, an entertaining first feature by a very young Canadian director, Emma Seligman, about coming of age in an upper middle class Jewish milieu replete with characters who seem intent upon producing a living stereotype of themselves. Honesty and authenticity may be the first victims! The filmmaker used techniques from the horror genre to render the awkward everyday tensions of social life, to great comedic effect. Catherine found it hilarious!
Day 2 began with The Way I See It, about photographer Pete Souza, who was one of the house photographers to President Ronald Reagan decades earlier, but was then hired to be the chief photographer to Barack Obama during his 8-year occupation of the White House. I think it’s fair to say that while he respected Reagan, his respect and affection for President Obama and the office of the Presidency was way more profound. The film follows his transition from a strictly non-partisan journalistic observer to an outraged critic of the current occupant, using his powerful photos to “throw shade” on 45 and express his concern for the way the office has been cheapened and degraded. He never raises his voice or seeks attention for himself, but he just couldn’t stay silent in the face of what he was seeing. I love this movie and this quiet, fly-on-the-wall guy.
Second film of the day was No Ordinary Man, a truly fascinating look at a person with a secret carefully guarded until death. This Canadian documentary film is a portrait of Billy Tipton (1914-1989), an influential American jazz musician who was revealed after his death to have been transgender, to the shock of his wife and her children by a previous marriage. The film features current-day transgendered folks “auditioning” to play Billy Tipton in a film. The real achievement of this film is that it includes highly sensitive interviews with Tipton’s son, who loved his father without reservation, but had lived most of his life burdened with a sense of shame and confusion after his father’s gender became a subject of intense interest and gossip after his death. Meeting some of the transgendered folk involved in the film helped him to see his father in a whole new way. This was both emotionally and intellectually moving fare. Highly recommended!
Day 3 began with a really delightful film called Penguin Bloom, blending two of our favourite themes — disability and a very special animal, a magpie named Penguin. Based on a book of photographs by Cameron Bloom, the story follows his beautiful, athletic wife, Samantha Bloom (Naomi Watts), on her recovery from a traumatic spinal cord injury. The role played by their son, Noah, and his “pet” magpie that he rescues and raises saves this film from being “crip inspiration porn”. If you’re not charmed by this lovely film, you’re a rotten cynic!
Second film on Day 3 was Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand as a woman who is “NOT homeless, merely houseless”. She lives in her van and travels here and there, from job to job, from trailer camp to wherever the spirit moves. Here’s a link to an excellent review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nomadland-movie-review-2020 Powerful, simple, moving, beautiful. Don’t miss it.
Catherine and I watched this film drenched in the recent memory of our own fantasies of RVing up the highway from Tucson and home through COVID-infested America. My favourite line from the review above is this: It’s honestly hard to figure out how Zhao has made a film that’s this beautiful in its compositions and somehow still feels like it has dirt under its fingernails. Seriously, don’t miss it!
Day 4 started off with Inconvenient Indian, an imaginative and powerful Canadian documentary based on cultural icon Thomas King’s writing, with Michelle Latimer’s images and characters that become lodged in the brain forever. The trickster coyote driving the taxicab provides an important frame for the enduring messages of indigenous wisdom and warning.
Followed by I Care a Lot — a timely fictional horror flick about nursing home misuse and abuse in a capitalist system. Rosamund Pike is quite the study in evil, while Peter Dinklage competes for the title of evilest. Dianne Wiest is the hapless victim of the “guardianship” system at the root of the evilness, but her innocence is far from pure! It was a lot of fun and a great break from the seriousness of our other choices.
The day was completed by an interview with Saoirse Ronan covering topics from “humidity hair” to COVID to her roles in several memorable films, including Atonement, Lady Bird, Brooklyn and Little Women. No mention of one of my favourite roles — the voice of Marguerite Gachet in the lush hand-painted film, Loving Vincent. I still have to practice pronouncing her name (Seersha, according to her, in another interview about Little Women).
For those of you who have attended film festivals, one of the best parts is the Q&A, often featuring a performer or two along with the director and sometimes a producer or technical person. This virtual film festival couldn’t manage audience questions, of course, but most of the films had a pre-taped introduction, usually very short, then a 20-minute pre-taped Zoom call amongst the usual suspects. A moderator had a few great questions and directed them towards the different team members and it truly felt as close to a film festival experience as anyone could have wished for during this wacky time.
So, is this review worth doing for you, my readers? If it’s boring, let me know and I’ll give you a break, but if you don’t stop me, I’ll go ahead and write up the next six days!
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This is great! What a great idea. And no line-ups for tickets or to get in!
Very interesting summation of the great films you watched as part of TiFF virtual. Hope you can attend in person in 2021.
Actually, I’m hoping they will do it this way again. There’s no way we would go to Toronto for the festival, so it’s the only way we will ever get to do it — and I loved it. So fingers crossed for a virtual repeat next year.
I imagine they will continue it virtually as no doubt it brings in much needed revenue and widens they potential audience.
Hope so!