Toronto International Film Festival : Day 3

Sunday was a really long, but good day. Luckily the first film didn't start until 9:30am so I got to sleep in a bit later, and the Night Bus runs down Yonge at frequent enough intervals as to not be a problem.

9:30AM - House of Flying Daggers

Ryerson

From the same genre of chinese filmmaking that produces movies like Hero and Crouching Tiger, House of Flying Daggers stands up really well. I'd say I enjoyed it as much as Hero and more than Crouching Tiger. This is a much more intimate story and the verbal swordplay between Mei (Zhang Ziyi) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is as delicate as the fight scenes are magnificent.

THe basic plot is that the current dynasty is fading and a rebel faction "The House of Flying Daggers" has risen up in rebellion. Two local police officers hatch a plan to find a kill the new leader, using a blind dancer from a local entertainment house whom they suspect of being the old leaders daughter as a lure. Of course nothing is what it seems and many layers of deception are revealed by the end. By far my favorite scene comes at the beginning of the movie in the Peony Pavilion. An amazing game called echo plays out that is amazing to watch and as a bonus has deeper meaning later in the film. The scenery is, as always, amazing and I really thought the wire-work was much more natural then I've seen in most movies of this type.

1:00PM - Walk on Water

Paramount

I'd heard a fair bit of buzz about this film in lineups up to this point, so my expectations were fairly high going in. I'm glad to say I wasn't disappointed (sounding like a pretty good festival so far) as this film turn out to be much more revealing and personal (for the characters) than I expected. Eyal is a member of the Mossad tasked with pretending to be a tour guide to a German Man/Youth whose grandfather (a Nazi) is suspected of still being alive in order to find out the truth. Throughout this journey Eyal is constantly brought back to the very recent suicide of his wife and the emotional effect that has on him intensifies as he grows closer to the German brother/sister.

What it's really about is the Isreali Male Psychy, Loss, Grief, Prejudice, and Politics. The interaction between the three main characters is rich and complex. The story does not go where I expected it to and that's a rare and beautiful thing.

After the fact I learned some very interesting things from the QA session with the director/producer. Eyal is a name without much extra meaning, which is rare for an Isreali name and sets the main character up as an everyman. The Lead actor is quite renowned in Isreal and taking on a role like this caused a fair bit of commotion (because of the outcome of the movie). The story is loosely based on a story told the director by a psychologist.

4:00PM - Symmetry

Paramount

Symmerty was not quite what I expected. It reminded me a lot of Showshank Redmeption in that the main character is wrongfully accused of a crime and sent to prison, where he has to find his place. Prison in this case is a Polish holding prison, apparently even being accused of a crime can get you up to a year in this holding jail. What makes this different is that unlike Shawshank the main character here makes choices that push him futher into the prison system and farther from those he loves. Over a period of a few months Lukasz goes from innocent to inmate, after having to make several moral choices to stay in his "syndicate", a cell-based gang that keeps him from being one of the jailhouse "Losers".

I didn't leave this film with as posative a feeling as the others I've seen so far. Maybe I expected more to happen, although the finale was unexpected and mildly disturbing. The movie did do a very good job of showing the dirty gritty reality of inprisonment and the lower prison system in Poland, as far as I can tell without actually knowing.

Posted at 06:16 PM to Film By: John Fairley