The Romance Of Astrea and Celadon [France, Eric Rohmer, ***] Beautiful shepherdess, believing her handsome lover to be dead, can't release him from her rash command never to approach her again. Adaptation of 17th century play is, if anything, perversely faithful unduly to its source material, requiring a pre-existing affinity for Rohmer and/or baroque literature.

Valerie reports that, on exiting her early screening at the Ryerson, she was blocked by a security guard from using that venue's (already inadequate) washrooms. I work myself into high dudgeon mode. You can't have an event in a large hall like that and then bar them from the facilities afterwards! Worried about traffic flow, you say? Well, that's not the only thing that'll be flowing unless you rethink this brain-dead policy!

Then I check my schedule and see that I have only one more screening at the Ryerson. This battle will have to be someone else's.

The Mourning Forest [Japan, Naomi Kawase, ****] Nursing home resident, approaching dementia and pining for his long-dead wife, leads a young attendant with bereavement issues of her own on an unexpected trek into a mountainous forest. Affecting drama assembled from very simple elements.

California Dreamin' (Endless) [Romania, Cristian Nemescu, ****] Corrupt small town station master thwarts efforts of a US commander (Armand Assante) trying to get a NATO supply train to the Kosovo conflict. Witty satirical epic draws its characters keenly, deftly swerving around the obvious or expected choices.

In an odd way, it's sad that this movie is good as it is, because it's the debut film from a director who was killed in a car accident (along with his sound designer) late in its post-production phase.

Assante's performance is the best I've seen from him. In a hackier version of this movie, the character would be written and played as a caricature. Here he comes across as a real guy. You come to empathize with his superbly modulated slow boil.

Wow. An incredible run of bad luck re: people sitting nearby. Talking and seat-kicking are positively rampant today. You will say "not a statistically valid sample" and you will be right, but so far 100% of chatters have had American accents. I'm just sayin', people...

Slingshot [Philippines, Brillante Mendoza, ***] Against the backdrop of a corrupt election campaign, Manila tenement residents scratch out a desperate existence via petty crime. As long as there is grinding, corrosive poverty in the world, we're going to see remakes of Los Olvidados; this one at least displays a propulsive energy and an eye for specific local detail.

Secret Sunshine [South Korea, Lee Chang-dong, ****] Young widow moves with her son to her late husband's home town, where she acquires an oddball suitor and confronts an even more devastating tragedy. Novelistic meditation on the nature of suffering maintains an masterly control of tone while showcasing a pair of powerhouse performances.

Tags: cinema hut, toronto international film festival

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