Toronto Dispatch: L'Enfer and Brokeback Mountain

by Karina Longworth Sep 12th 2005 // 9:30AM

Filed under: Toronto, Festival Reports


l-r: Danis Tanovic, Marie Gillain, Karin Viard

In this installment, guest blogger Taylor Barratt has his hopes crushed by gay cowboys and the new People's Choice voting system.

Before I get to the two screenings we caught today, I want to get further up on the soapbox over the change to the People's Choice award this year.

First off I should explain the way it used to work. See, they had ballots. You wrote down the name of the movie you felt was the best. You dropped it in a box. Congratulations, you’ve just voted.

Now, since the award sponsor in previous year isn’t doing it this year, the festival group is handling it. And the method they chose is, and I think will prove to be, a problem. To start, the goal is for the audience to rip a piece of the ballot handed to them at the beginning of every screening. Their tear will rate it from 1 to 5.

The first problem here is not everyone is handed one in advance of the screening. The next problem is, I’ve seen 7 screenings now, and only at one did they explain how the ballot works. I basically assumed it would be exactly the same as in previous years so I had ignored the ballots until that point. Then the final and largest problem is actually getting the ballots back to the volunteers.

The problem is that at some venues, a volunteer can just stand at the exit with a big bag for everyone to drop them in into on their way out, but at the Elgin Theatre or Roy Thompson Hall, there are a dozen different exits and as I left the Elgin tonight, or last night, I didn’t see any of its exits covered. My fear here is that films screened at the Elgin or RTH are only receiving potentially half the ballots then films screened entirely elsewhere? Personally, after 7 screenings I’ve only been able to conveniently cast a ballot for one of them.


 
And that particular film was our first of Day 3, L’Enfer. L’Enfer means Hell, and is the 2nd of Krzysztof Piesiewicz’s Dante's Trilogy screenplays. The first one was completed a couple years back in the form of Tom Tykwer’s Heaven. The third, Purgatory, is yet to be produced. Hell is one of those films that, despite its depressing story, is so masterfully executed that it’s simply exciting just to watch it unfold. The film follows the lives of three sisters well into adulthood and shows us their personal hells… all of which involve love in various forms, and all of which are partially derived from the actions of their mother and father at a critical time in the past. The film definitely takes a bit of a neutral stance on the unfolding drama, suggesting that it’s all part of nature, just like the baby Cuckoo we see through the wonderful mood-setting opening credits knocking out the un-hatched eggs from its nest. Then at the start of the film, one of the characters does something they think is right, and the result is further destruction. I was pretty much sold the first few minutes in. Though I must say the soundtrack feels like it may have been lifted from the Harry Potter score trashcan, it was still quite effective in establishing mood.

Following the screening there was a Q&A session with the director and two of the actresses. Nothing overly revealing came from it, other than someone out there didn’t know why the film was called L’Enfer... I sometimes wonder what some people’s criteria are for going to see a film. Though perhaps I’m simply far too anal when it comes to choosing and would benefit from a little more ignorance in selection.


l-r: Brokeback Mountain hairdresser Mary Lou Green, producer James Schamus, Linda Cardellini, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams

The next screening of the day was Brokeback Mountain. During the introduction for the film, it’s announced that Ang Lee could not be there to introduce the film, but we’re told it’s because shortly after arriving in Toronto yesterday, he was told to get back on a plane, and go back to Venice as the film had just won the Golden Lion award, an announcement to which everyone enthusiastically cheered for. I mean, why not? We figured they had a sure winner about to be served up in front of us, and I know I believed this film should be a big contender for the People’s Choice award considering the director, cast, subject matter and the likeliness that the Toronto audiences will vote for a film that pushes the boundaries, especially when they’re political or social subjects.

However, I must say after screening Brokeback Mountain, I hope that’s not the best the festival has to offer. That isn’t to say I didn’t think it was a good film, I think it’s more an issue that I personally surpassed the film’s moral state about 10 years ago and therefore the impact of the film is largely lost on me, which leaves me to examine what’s left to absorb. All I can conclude is a fairly uninteresting story about only partially realized love under social restraints, and I’ve seen that theme before in films involving interracial relationships. So for me the film doesn’t break ground in my world. Though the impact it is likely to have on American audiences could be substantial and as such I can see it hyped to the point of Oscar award contention. Furthermore, I really only feel Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams turn in convincing performances, while the others come off awkward in their clothes and environment. Then again, not only can I not relate to socially restricted love, I can’t exactly relate to cowboys either. I expected devastation, and while I felt sadness for the characters, I didn’t feel devastated.

16 Comments

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M. White5

9-14-2005 @ 11:34AM

M. White said...

I agree with the poster named John... the issue of violence/intolerance against homosexuals is still a very topical issue. And comparing the relationship in this film to interratial romance is just ignorant - for one thing, it's not ILLEGAL for people of different races to get married. Saying this issue no longer has any impact because of Stonewall is like saying that Juliane Moore should have run away with her gardener in Far From Heaven because the 1950's were long after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Sounds like you would rather that the love that dare not speak its name would just shut up.

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