James's Toronto Scene Report #1: The Morning After the Night Before the Day Before

There's an old joke, funny because it's true:

How do you get a bunch of drunk Canadians out of your swimming pool?

You say 'Pardon me; would you drunk Canadians mind terribly getting out of the swimming pool?"

But this morning, at about 3:20 a.m., it became not funny because it was true. Finding a small group lined up stupid-early for the Toronto International Film Festival public box office -- three hours and forty minutes before the first possible sale of tickets outside of the pre-Festival coupon-based ordering system or the Visa screening series at the Elgin theater -- two security guards asked a small group of eight people to please leave the basement of the College Park retail complex, home to one of the Festival's box offices, until the building re-opened at 5:30. There was no shouting; any hard feelings came out sighed softly; everyone grabbed their things and moved to the outer door. The movie-drunk Canadians -- bearing their catalogs and wish-lists and blankets -- got out of the swimming pool.

I'm not relating this second-hand.

The Toronto International Film Festival's different from Cannes or Sundance. You can -- security-induced shuffling aside -- walk up to the box office and buy tickets, without being a member of some elite, without traveling to some remote, exotic location. It's kind of awesome that way. And for the past few years -- even though I've had press accreditation -- I've stood in those early lines so I can be there when the box office first opens.
Because maybe I wanted to see a Midnight Movie at midnight. Or because I wanted my dad to come and see the re-make of The Four Feathers with me. (Growing up an hour's drive from here, in what felt like the middle of nowhere, I watched the '39 version with him, on Ontario public television's 'Saturday Night at the Movies,' hosted by Elwy Yost, and it was a fever dream, a lightning bolt, a revelation.) Because Don McKellar was introducing a new, uncut print of Cronenberg's The Brood, and how could I miss that? Because maybe pulling an all-nighter makes me feel young (or stupid, which is often the same thing), even though I most assuredly am not.

I don't know the stories everyone else in line has, but eavesdropping on their sharing of notes and tactics in the quiet before the box office opens, I'm sure they're similar. If you're in this line, you like movies, and if you're in this line, maybe you like them a little too much. And this town - for the busy, dizzy ten days of the Festival - is a great place to be if you love movies.

There are movies playing here this year I've been fortunate enough to see already (at other festivals, at San Francisco pre-screenings, somehow) that were amazing; there are movies playing here this year I've already seen that were OK, and some that I didn't like at all. But there's one thought in my head right now, even as I'm tapping this into a BlackBerry to distract myself from the night and occasional raindrops and light chill in the air. It's been in my head at all of the film festivals I've been lucky enough to go to -- a quiet, still voice saying one simple thing:

Surprise me.

And that's what I've followed here. It's not a high-minded inner voice; it's not exhorting me into pursuing world peace or inner peace or better schools or any of the things that would make for a better world, a strong, though loving, world to die in. But I come away from every film festival knowing things, or closer to knowing them, and maybe that's true for you and your movie-going: you glimpse how people lived in different times. Or how people live in different lands. Maybe some previously-unseen aspect of the human condition will unfold before you; perhaps some manufactured fiction of love will make you realize what true love is to you; maybe some cheap trick will make you shudder, bone-chilled, with a reminder of what you're really afraid of. Maybe you have completely different reactions, but we've all had a transcendent moment at the movies; film festivals just increase your chances of having that happen, rigging the odds in your favor one small bit.

And all of that's worth staying up for, one night of the year: One sleepless night seems like a small down payment to make for ten days of dreams.