Here in one handy-dandy post are my collected capsule reviews from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. They’re ordered in as near as I can come to an order of preference, starting with the masterpieces and going out on the duds. My feelings on these films will continue to settle over the months and years to come. Last year, for example, I gave an “okay” rating to a low-budget Korean film called Daytime Drinking, but its oddball early-Jarmuschian charm has stayed with me ever since. Especially when I have a shot of soju in front of me.

Upgraded since original rating: Backstory, The Day God Walked Away, Dogtooth, Inferno.

Downgraded since original rating: Bare Essence Of Life.

Typo’ed ratings corrected: Ajami, Defendor, Disappearance Of Alice Creed. It’s too easy to mis-type star ratings while tapping on my netbook in a movie theater seat. Next year I’ll have to switch to numerical ratings.

Every year there's a film that got away—something I wanted to program but couldn’t quite fit, and then heard great buzz about. This year it was the Russian 1950s swing-jazz musical, Hipsters.

Enough with the further ado. Here’s the list, for your clipping and Netflixing pleasure. The best of these will bubble into art houses, VOD and DVD release over the next year or so, with a few obscure titles vanishing forever after.

The Best

Toad’s Oil [Japan, Koji Yakusho] Eccentric stock speculator (Yakusho) struggles to come to terms with the death of his teenage son include a road trip with his best friend and a thoughtless ruse played on his girlfriend via cell phone. This sad, strange and beautiful movie displays such subtle command it's hard to believe it comes from a first-time filmmaker—even if he is also a longtime leading actor.

Wild Grass [France, Alain Resnais] Gentleman whose interior monologue occasionally veers into sinister territory becomes obsessed with a Cessna-flying dentist after finding her stolen wallet. Giddy, teasing puzzle film sashays gracefully between genres, combining the formal control of Resnais' canonical early films with the offbeat loopiness of his more recent work.

Dogtooth [Greece, Yorgos Lanthimos] Office worker and his wife go to bizarre, ritualistic lengths to keep their young adult son and daughters isolated from, and misinformed about, the world. Calmly disturbing parable of authoritarian dominance masterfully doles out new revelations about the characters' plight.

Recommended

Mother [South Korea, Bong Joon-ho] Neurotically protective mother attempts to exonerate her mentally handicapped son from a murder charge. Brilliant variant of the Hitchcockian wrong man theme serves up an unforgettable lead character and a series of bravura plot turns.

Air Doll [Japan, Hirokazu Kore-Eda] Inflatable sex doll comes to life. Tender fable of the hazards of innocence anchored by an astonishing performance from Dun-na Bae in the title role.

White Material [France, Claire Denis] Determined Frenchwoman (Isabelle Huppert) whose plantation-owning family has stayed in Africa a couple of generations too long fights quixotically to bring in the coffee crop as civil war sweeps across an unnamed country. Denis tackles this tale of post-colonial reckoning in typically haunting, impressionistic style.

( More recommended titles, and the rest of the fest, after the jump... )

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Gasp, blink, mumble... another fest has reeled on by. TIFF 2009 has been a year of overinvolved mothers, anti-social child-men, and of course the eternal menace of bears. It feels like I picked too many social realist dramas but, truth be told, it was the historical action epics that let down the side. I'll collect and rank the capsule reviews later, but for the moment here's my very strong roster of final films.

Women Without Men [Germany, Shirin Neshat, ****] On the eve of the 1953 Iranian coup, a small group of women retreat to an orchard haven, momentarily freeing themselves from male oppression. Moments of magical realism and the considerable visual power of the director, a noted mixed media artist making her feature film debut, maintain interest in a story about people who lack the agency to propel a conventional plot.

Symbol [Japan, Hitoshi Matsumoto, *****] While a lucha libre wrestler prepares for a difficult bout, a man finds himself trapped in a mysterious white room studded with buttons in the shape of cherub penises. Hilarious metaphysical slapstick can truly be said to resemble no other film.

Matsumoto, a giant TV star in Japan, previously directed Big Man Japan.

A Town Called Panic [Belgium, Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar, ****] Cowboy and Indian over-order bricks for the birthday barbecue they're building for their housemate Horse; a battle with wall-stealing mer-people ensues. Cheap plastic toys star in a hyperactively anarchic and rib-hurtingly hilarious stop-motion animated feature.

This is the feature version of a series of short films popular on French TV, some of which are apparently on Youtube. Highlight: the way the snowball hurled by the giant robot penguin lands on the frolicking deer.

Mother [South Korea, Bong Joon-ho, ****]Neurotically protective mother attempts to exonerate her mentally handicapped son from a murder charge. Brilliant variant of the Hitchcockian wrong man theme serves up an unforgettable lead character and a series of bravura plot turns.

You probably know Bong Joon-ho as director of The Host.

Disappearance Of Alice Creed [UK, J. Blakeson,****]Two men commence a meticulous plan to kidnap a young woman, but the situation is not what it seems. Twists and betrayals rule this three-character crime thriller; see it without reading or hearing anything more about it.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning [Thailand, Tony Jaa, *] In 15th century Thailand, the child of a murdered local ruler is unknowingly adopted and trained in muay thai mastery by a bandit king. Bungled narrative of this in-name-only sequel shows how crucial the crudely effective storytelling of director Prachya Pinkaew, absent from these proceedings, was to original’s success.

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At this point I find myself questioning what the heck I was thinking when I scheduled an 8:30 AM screening to kick off the second last day. Seeing a Francois Ozon film that doesn't have Canadian distribution yet, that's what. Also, this way I get to have a six movie day, which is a tough feat of programming when none of them have midnight start times.

The Refuge [France, Francois Ozon, ****] In the wake of a near-fatal heroin overdose that also killed her lover, a woman bonds with his gay brother. Ozon sets aside the stylization that usually marks his work to deliver a touchingly honest character study.

The Day God Walked Away [France, Philippe van Leeuw, ***] Tutsi woman struggles to survive amid the Rwandan genocide. Rather than focus on a savior figure or hapless Western observers, this appropriately tough verite account sticks to the viewpoint of its single, ordinary protagonist.

Excited [Canada, Bruce Sweeney, ***] Attempt of golf course owner to kindle a new romance are impeded by the not entirely unrelated problems of an overbearing, grandchild-seeking mother and premature ejaculation. Dour comedy melds the two key themes of English-Canadian cinema, sexual dysfunction and achieving freedom from parental authority.

I've forgotten. What's the extremely long German word for “the sense of relief one feels when the talkative elderly couple who don't understand or like the movie finally get up and leave?”

The Vintner’s Luck [New Zealand/France, Niki Caro, **] Aided by annual advice from an angel, a 19th century peasant (Jeremie Renier) becomes a great winemaker. Completely ridiculous folly nonetheless exerts a peculiar charm.

There's a certain depths of cinematic awfulness achievable only by truly talented director passionately pursuing a thoroughly misguided concept. Over the years the festival has offered its share of these fiascos. The Vintner's Luck falls into an even rarer category, the profoundly terrible movie that is by some weird miracle entertaining despite its glaring flaws. The classic example of this phenomenon would be Howard Hawk's legendarily awful building-of-the-pyramids epic Land Of the Pharaohs. This is not the same as the “so bad it's good” movie that you enjoy cutting up, of which you can no doubt list countless instances. This rare breed is transcendentally fascinating both because of and despite its jaw-dropping flaws.

A Brand New Life [South Korea, Ounie Lecomte, ****] A seven-year-old girl is left at an orphanage, by her father, who neither warns her or tells her that he's abandoning her forever. Autobiographical drama features an incredible performance from its lead child actor and strikes true emotional notes by depicting her anger as well as her sadness.

At the End Of Daybreak [Malaysia, Ho Yuhang, **] Parental discovery of a relationship between a convenience store clerk and an underage girl leads to a series of desperate acts. True crime dramatization shows a strong sense of character and situation; pacing, not so much.

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Okay, festival brain is now setting in and the blogging's getting sloppy. Defendor rated four stars, not five. I've corrected its review as well; like most sentences, the last one in its capsule review was supposed to end with a period.

In addition to brain crash, it's also a day of dashing quickly from one screening to the next, so there's time for the capsule reviews and not much else.

Ajami [Israel, Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, ***1/2 ] A web of deaths and killings is seen, achronologically, from the points of view of various characters on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian border. Ambitious narrative strategy pays off and plays perfectly into the film's political theme, but is not always served so well by the social realist impulse to linger extensively over the textures of the characters' daily lives.

Bonus fun fact: the co-directors of the film are Palestinian and Israeli, respectively.

Bare Essence Of Life [Japan, Satoko Yokohama, **1/2] High-strung village idiot with a yen for pesticide falls for the town's new schoolteacher. There's something interesting going on in this languidly paced, cryptic fable, but it never fully surfaces.

White Material [France, Claire Denis, ****] Determined Frenchwoman (Isabelle Huppert) whose plantation-owning family has stayed in Africa a couple of generations too long fights quixotically to bring in the coffee crop as civil war sweeps across an unnamed country. Denis tackles this tale of post-colonial reckoning in typically haunting, impressionistic style.

Last year Denis was at the festival with 35 Shots Of Rum, which was my favorite film of the whole lot. It has just now opened theatrically in major US markets, so check it out or watch for it to pop up on DVD.

Passenger Side [Canada, Matthew Bissonnette, ***] Sarcastic banter is the order of the day as a disgruntled writer (Adam Scott) reluctantly agrees to drive his recovering addict brother (Joel Bissonnette) around L.A. on a mysterious mission. Low-mileage road movie scores on dialogue and lead performances but loses momentum when they meet other kooky characters along the way.

Air Doll [Japan, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, ****] Inflatable sex doll comes to life. Tender fable of the hazards of innocence anchored by an astonishing performance from Dun-na Bae in the titular role.

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For the first Wednesday morning slot, I always make it a policy to slot in a second-tier choice—often something that I know has distribution—so I can , if need be, reset the alarm and stay in bed. Traditionally the winner of this contest is always a few more hours in bed. Yet this year, rather miraculously, I am perky and in my seat for a morning movie. I'm afraid to say more, lest I offend the gods of sleep, but so far my endurance has been holding up eerily well this year.

So, the Q&A for Vengeance (reviewed yesterday): Johnnie To described the genesis of the project as having been written (by his longtime collaborator Wai Kai Fai) specifically for Alain Delon. This would have been an epochal closing of the circle, as Delon's role in Melville's Le Samourai inspired that seminal work of the heroic bloodshed genre, The Killer. At any rate, Delon passed and To's French co-producers put him onto Hallyday, the now gloriously grizzled icon of French rock.

One questioner asked To about Lam Suet, the portly character actor who features in almost every flick from To's Milky Way Production company. After praising his versatility, To explained that he started out as a set runner. After seeing him repeating the lines of the actors under his breath while slugging boxes and tables around, To realized he was better than some of the actual actors and began to cast him in steadily larger roles. Eventually he had to tell him that he was an actor now and shouldn't be moving stuff around the set.

Programmer Colin Geddes also made a point of tipping the hat to the guy acting as To's translator, identifying him as Sean. (Apologies for missing his last name., if it was supplied.) He works for Milky Way and earned his bones by pointing out how horrible the English sub-titles were on The Mission before it went out to the festival circuit. Colin basically credited him as the guy who fixed the previously dodgy subtitles in all HK movies. I know some people like the mangled translations as part of a campy appreciation of the films, but I for one salute you, Sean.

Leaving [France, Catherine Corsini, ****] Patronized wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) of a control-freak doctor falls hopelessly in love with a workman (Sergi Lopez) performing renovations at their home. Melodramatic subject matter handled in a straightforward, realistic (and steamy) manner, leaving the focus on Thomas' heartbreakingly transparent performance.

The ability to act in French is a huge ace up Thomas' sleeve, career-wise. In English language movies she's already getting matriarch roles, but here she gets to carry a film with a hugely meaty role—the kind of part that Isabelle Huppert gets to play on a regular basis.

Defendor [Canada, Peter Stebbings, ****] Deluded child-man (Woody Harrelson) dons homemade superhero gear to fight crime and corruption in Hamilton, Ontario. Treats what sounds like a spoofy premise with surprisingly real emotional and physical consequences.

Toad’s Oil [Japan, Koji Yakusho, *****] Eccentric stock speculator (Yakusho) struggles to come to terms with the death of his teenage son include a road trip with his best friend and a thoughtless ruse played on his girlfriend via cell phone. This sad, strange and beautiful movie displays such subtle mastery it's hard to believe it comes from a first-time filmmaker—even if he is also a longtime leading actor.

If you're having trouble placing Yakusho's name, he's the leading man in many of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's best films, including Cure and Pulse. He also appeared in Babel and the original Japanese Shall We Dance.

The Unloved [UK, Samantha Morton, ****] Eleven-year-old is placed in a childrens' home after reporting her father (Robert Carlyle) for beating her. Devastating social realist drama strongly evokes the protagonist's feelings and experiences, letting the obvious policy points make themselves.

Samantha Morton was present to introduce the film, which is based in part in her own childhood history. It was made for TV in the UK. In that format you'd miss the full effect of its amazing score and sound design, which contributes heavily to our sense that we're inside the heroine's head as she gets shuttled from one bad situation to the next..

Kamui [Japan, Yoichi Sai, ] In this adaptation of a classic manga, a fugitive ninja hunted by his former colleagues takes refuge in a humble fishing village. Suite of structural problems, including multiple beginnings and a protagonist who lacks an active goal for most of the run time, prevent its various cool action set pieces from escalating into a satisfying whole.

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Another extremely solid day...

Wild Grass [France, Alain Resnais, *****] Gentleman whose interior monologue occasionally veers into sinister territory becomes obsessed with a Cessna-flying dentist after finding her stolen wallet. Giddy, teasing puzzle film sashays gracefully between genres, combining the formal control of Resnais' canonical early films with the offbeat loopiness of his more recent work.

For all their importance to cinema history, Resnais works like Last Year At Marienbad have dated somewhat, in that they put their formal experimentation front and center without worrying too much about adding extra layers of interest. This film shows us interesting people doing interesting things (alb

Sustained my first injury of the festival. I was booting it up Yonge to the Ryerson and saw trouble coming ahead. In front of the youth drop-in center a bunch of teenage kids were watching a buddy attempt to ride a broken skateboard. Broken as in, it was missing its back third, including those all-important wheels. As hard as I tried to deke around the oblivious dude, I still wound up taking a full-on hit to the lower shin from the jagged end of the board as it shot predictably out from under him. He did say he was sorry, but ouch, that's gonna bruise big time. And I've got another quick scramble to execute later today.

This is not as cinematically resonant a hit as being kicked by Atom Egoyan, as happened to Valerie a few years back, but will leave a nastier mark. (The esteemed director wasn't assaulting her, just exiting carelessly from the next seat.

Soul Kitchen [Germany, Fatih Akin, ****] Vicissitudes rain down on a restaurateur as he chooses between his suddenly blossoming establishment and a move to China to be with his reporter girlfriend. Director previously known for hard-hitting dramas lays on the charm for a complication-filled feel-good comedy.

This one reaffirms the well-known truism that there is no movie that cannot be improved by suddenly having Udo Kier show up.

Valhalla Rising [Denmark, Nicholas Winding Refn, ****]Mute, one-eyed Viking killing machine (Mads Mikkelsen) joins Christian warriors headed for the Crusades; they wind up somewhere else. Grimy, gory weird journey fuses exploitation tropes and ultra-violence with meditative Tarkovskian pacing.

Refn and Mikkelsen introduced the film. The director included on a list of the many rigors of shooting in the hills of Scotland the unattractiveness of its women, with Mikkelsen frantically miming his disassociation

Festival tip: When wondering if you are in the right line for the Viking movie, ask yourself if the people standing in front of you are goths having a conversation in German. If so, you are.

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans [US, Werner Herzog, ****]Corrupt, drug-addicted cop (Nicloas Cage) investigates drug massacre in post-Katrina New Orleans. This outlandishly tongue-in-cheek takedown of the maverick cop sub-genre is bizarre on too many levels to enumerate, but the weirdest thing about it is that it's actually pretty darnentertaining.

Among a long list of actors jumping at a chance to work for Herzog, no matter how improbable the project, are Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Brad Dourif, and Fairuza Balk.

Herzog and Cage were present to introduce the film (and for a Q&A, which I missed so I could get into another line-up.) Herzog explained that they had both, after many years of circling one another, realized at the same moment that it was an “outrage” that they had not worked together, and BLPOCNO was the result. He also told us that his frequent instruction to Cage on set was to “let the pig out.” Cage averred that this piece of direction made him nervous, as he still has no idea what on earth that means. Herzog then assured him that he did indeed let the pig out. Having seen the film, I can confirm that the pig was not only let out but allowed to roam at will around the barn.

Any resemblance to the original is essentially coincidental. It's as if the film was made based on an overhead synopsis from someone who hadn't seen the Abel Ferrara version and thought it was a comedy, then translated into archaic Finnish via Babelfish, then retranslated by the ripped-to-the-gills ghost of Hunter S. Thompson. I don't know if it will ever get as appreciative an audience as it had at the Ryerson tonight. I suspect that many reviewers will not realize that Herzog and Cage are in on the joke. Or worse yet, they'll it expect it to be a “normal movie.”

It's a shame, though, that it's a travesty of the very fine and very serious Ferrara movie. The use of the name appears to have been the magic element allowing them to make a movie together. And Herzog's credo has always been that if you get a chance to make a movie, you darn well make a movie.

Vengeance [HK, Johnnie To, ****]French restaurateur with tellingly badass demeanor (Johnny Hallyday) comes to Macau to pursue the men who murdered his grandchildren and son-in-law and critically wounded his daughter. To adds yet another bravura heroic bloodshed movie to his C.V., this time putting a cross-cultural twist on his trademark theme of brotherhood between fatalistic gunslingers.

To and Hallyday were present to introduce the film. To did a Q&A afterwards, which we did stay for, but it’s time for bed. I’ll try to provide some highlights in tomorrow’s entry, if I can still remember them by then.

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Bran Nue Day [Australia, Rachel Perkins, ****] Fleeing from the patronizingly abusive priest (Geoffery Rush) in charge of his boarding school, an earnest young aboriginal man travels with a small band ragtag companions to his distant home town. Exuberant adaptation of a hit stage musical attacks aboriginal rights issues with a joyous mastery of popular cinema techniques.

Rush was on hand to introduce the film and fellow cast mates, amiably subbing for the director, who is about to have a baby. He bites into his the broadness required of the role with obvious relish.

Perkins offers a master class in translating stage musicals into filmic terms. The film's editing style feels fresh and contemporary but never forced. One of her smartest choices is to condense the songs so that they play out much more quickly than they would in a stage show. Long numbers are what you're looking for in a stage production, but in a movie they start to drag as soon as they've conveyed their emotional and story points. On stage, they are the main thing. In film, story is the main thing, and the numbers can't turn into digressions from that.

As a case in point, look at the classic Disney animated movies. If anybody understood the broad strokes of popular storytelling, it was Walt Disney. The songs from those movies, memorable as they are, are extremely short. They accomplish their story objectives and get out. [Exceptions: dance musicals, especially with Astaire or Kelly.]

I overheard a man in the line-up for the next film complaining about this. Which reminds me of why I don't go out of my way to converse with fellow festivalgoers. I have much less patience for wrong opinions in person than I do on the Internet. I mean, I let you guys offer all the wrong opinions you want here on the blog. But here we all know and love one another, right?

The Secret In Their Eyes [Argentina, Juan José Campanella, ****] Retired functionary in the Buenos Aires prosecutor's office revisits the rape-murder case that got away twenty years ago, reawakening memories of the police state years, and his feelings for a beautiful superior. Elegaic, multi-layered police procedural assumes epic proportions and deftly interweaves the political with the personal.

If the early scenes of this film play a bit like Law & Order: Buenos Aires, it's no coincidence: Campanella directs a ton of New York-based TV, including L&O in its various incarnations. As it progresses it gradually scales up until it is much more than a TV episode extended to the big screen. It shows what happens to the intrepid investigators of a police procedural when they suddenly find themselves working for a repressive regime. It's not really an action piece but does include an absolutely stunning chase sequence set in a crowded sports stadium.

Moloch Tropical [Haiti, Raoul Peck, ****]Official celebrations in the Haitian presidential palace slowly give way to chaos as the regime of an Aristide-like priest-turned-activist-turned-tyrant enters its final hours. Scathing satirical drama demythologizes its target by denying him the mythic status of monstrous villainy, instead depicting him as pathetic, unstable, and pathologically disconnected from the political crimes he instigates.

Wheat [China, He Ping, ****] A village of women waiting for their men to return from a climactic battle of the Warring States period takes in a pair of soldiers, who do not reveal that they're deserters from the other side. Historical action-drama recalls Kurosawa in its big acting, classical narrative, and caustic brand of humanism.

The above could use a retitling for the English-speaking market to sound less agragrian and more historical actiony.

Gun To the Head [Canada, Blaine Thurier, ****] Young married guy with sketchy past gets sucked into a night of escalating danger when he ditches an awkward dinner party to meet up with his loose cannon drug dealer cousin. Funny yet believable dialogue drives this noirish indie comedy.

Bonus fun fact: Thurier is also the keyboard player for indie pop stalwarts The New Pornographers.

Sighted in wild: Joe Dante

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The Good Heart [Iceland, Dagur Kari, **1/2] Curmudgeonly bar owner with bum ticker (Brian Cox) trains meets homeless young would-be suicide (Paul Dano) in hospital and takes him under his wing as a replacement. The film's witty script is so perfectly and charmingly executed by its performers that I spent much of the film thinking: please don't screw this up by actually following up on the trite, contrived bummer ending you're so heavily telegraphing. Please don't screw this up by actually following up on the trite, contrived bummer ending you're so heavily telegraphing. But as you can see from the above rating, that's exactly what they do.

As in his previous film, Noi the Albino (which also charms you only in order to go all Nordic on your ass at the end), Kari favors a grim palette of browns, blues, and jaundiced skin tones. The luminous French actress Isild le Besco also appears, demonstrating that she remains stunningly gorgeous under even the most unforgiving lighting conditions.

The film is also very grainy, making it unlikely that it will be seen as the director intended on DVD. Transfer engineers typically destroy any hint of film grain that dares besmirch their monitors, so unless Kari has the clout to override their instincts, it will look quite different on disc.

Perrier’s Bounty [UK, Ian Fitzgibbon, ***1/2] Flight from a vengeful gangster (Brendan Gleeson) provides opportunity for reconciliation between a young inhabitant of the Dublin underworld (Cillian Murphy) and his eccentric dad (Jim Broadbent.) Hardboiled crime comedy serves up the violence and profane verbal gymnastics required by the genre, although does it lay its pipe a tad obviously.

The soundtrack to the above is by David Holmes, which may occasion a purchase if the soundtrack shows up on iTunes.

Eamon [Ireland, Margaret Corkery, ****] While on a cash-strapped vacation at the family cottage, a hyperactive tyke acts as an obstacle to his dad's amorous advances on his mum. Brilliantly modulated naturalistic black comedy of familial Freudian distress.

The Warrior and the Wolf [China, Tian Zhuang Zhuang, *] In ancient China, shepherd-turned-general (Joe Odagiri) campaigning against shamanistic mountain tribesman falls in love with a woman (Maggie Q) who believes their cross-tribal coupling will turn them into wolves. Something has gone badly awry with this attempt at a historical epic, with basic story points either muddled or not presented at all.

It's hard to guess exactly what went wrong with this film, getting its world premiere here. It might simply be that the director, respected for a string of intimate character dramas, was completely flummoxed by the demands of the genre. The few scenes that do work are the two-handers between Odagiri and Q. But with exposition repeatedly delivered in English-language title cards, it's also possible that this is a poorly condensed cut for international consumption. Or there was a battle in the editing suite between director and producers. Or they failed to get the scenes they needed during the shoot. Whatever happened, it's painful to occasionally glimpse the tantalizing contours of the much better film this was supposed to be.

Although even if well presented, this piece, based on a Japanese novel, would still center around my least favorite Asian cinema trope—that it's incredibly romantic to fall in love with and redeem your rapist. And there's a whole lot of rape before you get to the redemption part.

The two stars were present at the screening. I had no idea that Maggie Q was Canadian. Odagiri was rocking a crazy gothic chapeau, Johnny Depp style. Demonstrating an essential qualification of the true movie star, he looked cool in it, while a regular mortal would appear completely ridiculous.

Accident [HK, Soi Cheang, ****] Team of assassins commit murders ingeniously planned to seem accidental. Succeeds as both quietly riveting thrriller and mood piece of loneliness and paranoia. With Louis Koo and Lam Suet.

For approximately the zillionth time, Lam Suet plays a character named Fatty. With Kent Cheng no longer around, calling a character Fatty must be HK shorthand for "hire Lam Suet."

To rent/buy an earlier great film by the same director, check out Dog Bite Dog, a manhunt movie with a devastatingly bleak and grungy atmosphere.

Sighted in wild: Mads Mikkelsen.

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Like You Know It All [South Korea, Hong Sang-Soo, ****] Gormless auteur appallingly wrongfoots a series of soju-fueled social situations as a film festival juror, then makes parallel blunders after visiting a film school as visiting lecturer. Low-key observational comedy draws barbed humor from interactions fraught with dominance, status and sexual longing.

If I'd seen this film at a different time of day, I would have had the chance to nod off at a festival screening while watching a shot of characters nodding off at a festival screening.

One of this film's life lessons: if you find yourself starting a sentence with the phrase, “I wouldn't normally say this, but since we're drinking...”, immediately stop talking.

Shameless [Czech Republic, Jan Hrebejk, ***] Weatherman abandons his family to take up first with a nubile au pair and then with a famous singer a generation older than himself. Amiable light drama uses the mid-life crisis movie as a metaphor for post-democratic malaise.

The Wild Hunt [Canada, Alexandre Franchi, ****] A forest-bound LARP goes badly awry after a reluctant participant dons Viking armor and boffer sword in an attempt to get his girlfriend back. Builds from relationship drama with amusing sub-cultural detail to a tense and disturbing climax.

The filmmakers squeeze impressive production values from a tiny budget by ingeniously employing the costumes and site of a Quebec LARP group. You can see that they did their homework on the hobby.

This brings us to the inevitable question: is it good for the gamers? Although the film does go in the obvious direction of having Things Go Terribly Wrong, it also carefully establishes the way it's supposed to go, complete with a sequence where a ref discusses the proper application of duct tape to a foam sword. It's not as much about the characters who go off the rails losing touch with reality, as allowing their real-world tensions leak into the game. Some might argue it the other way, but overall I'm guessing the tribe will regard it as respectful. If anything, its cinematic heightening of the LARP experience tends to depict it as excessively awesome.

At least they don't wind up playing the Ocean Game...

Irene [France, Alain Cavalier, ***] Veteran filmmaker videotapes his quotidian surroundings while exploring painful memories arising from his wife's1971 death in a car accident. Minimalist visuals lend uneven reinforcement to the director's undeniably powerful narration.

I'm allergic to ragweed, and pollen season is still underway. My mammoth kitbag includes supplies of cetrazine, tissues and Fisherman's Friend. As I've probably mentioned in previous years, during TIFF I feel like I should be wearing a hat or T-Shirt bearing the slogan I'M NOT CONTAGIOUS, IT'S ONLY ALLERGIES. During this last screening it felt like half the audience was suddenly wracked by coughs and sniffles. For a moment, I was worried that the entire Varsity 5 was coming down with H1N1. But everyone seemed to gradually get over it so now I'm thinking that I could make a killing marketing those shirts to the many others who also need them. I smell an untapped pharmaceutical sponsorship for the funding-hungry festival.

Dogtooth [Greece, Yorgos Lanthimos, ****1/2] Office worker and his wife go to bizarre, ritualistic lengths to keep their young adult son and daughters isolated from, and misinformed about, the world. Calmly disturbing parable of authoritarian dominance masterfully doles out new revelations about the characters' plight.

Movies like Dogtooth are why I go to the festival — to see films that make me think, “Wow, I’ve never seen that before.” And, y’know, I’ve seen a few.

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Here are this year's capsule reviews, ordered, as always, in my order of preference, starting with favorites and descending from there. There were fewer films I outright disliked this year than any other, but also fewer reaching the absolute top rank. The professional press is calling this the worst TIFF ever. As a longtime veteran, I laugh at this notion. Now 1988, that stank: epic badness across the board, including a raft of disappointments from major directors. My 2008 fest was by contrast a year of solid craftmanship, with lots of titles to look out for in the months to come.

The Best

35 Shots of Rum [France, Claire Denis] Laconic commuter train driver nudges his devoted daughter from their cozy state of mutual domesticity. Gorgeously moody character piece in which the casual gestures of everyday life are charged with submerged emotion.

Recommended

A Christmas Tale [France, Arnaud Desplechin] Black sheep son who may be a blood marrow match for his terminally ill mother (Catherine Deneuve) is allowed to attend family Christmas for the first time in six years. Rich, novelistically dense family drama masterfully depict the distance between our awareness of the characters and what they believe about each other and themselves.

Goodbye Solo [US, Ramin Bahrani] Voluble Senegalese cabbie insinuates himself into the life of a gruff passenger who he fears is planning suicide. Beautifully acted tale suffused with rich sense of place shows represents a new level of mastery for a previously very promising director.

Snow [Bosnia/Herzegovina, Aida Begic] The women of a village whose men were all taken away to be massacred in the Bosnian conflict struggle with an offer to sell their land to developers. Builds from a verite-style observation of village life into a compelling narrative featuring a large cast of deftly-drawn characters.

All Around Us [Japan, Ryosuke Hashiguchi] The death of a child early in a couple's marriage for a period of many years. Epic timeline meets intimate scale in this moving, delicately drawn family drama.

Achilles and the Tortoise [Japan, Takeshi Kitano] Talentless painter pursues his creative obsession throughout a life of rejection and personal catastrophe. Satirical drama is less experimental in form than the previous two installments in Kitano's trilogy of creative paralysis, but even more sweepingly despairing in its portrait of the artist as moral idiot.

Waltz With Bashir [Israel, Ari Folman] Filmmaker contacts fellow veterans of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in attempt to recover his suppressed memories of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Category-straddling mix of documentary and memoir, animated as per Waking Life, allows a fresh approach to the eternal horrors of war.

Hooked [Romania, Adrian Sitaru] After hitting her with their car, bickering lovers see no choice but to invite a suspiciously chipper roadside prostitute to accompany them on their picnic. Dogme-style psychodrama dekes around the obvious as it delivers an ever-twisting series of power shifts between its characters.

Ocean Flame [Hong Kong/China, Liu Fendou] Blackmailing pimp loses his icy control after embarking on a mutually destructive affair with a beautiful young waitress. Alternately lyrical and brutal gangster drama never roots for its protagonist's psychopathy.l

Still Walking [Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda] Family reunites on the anniversary of the death of its favorite son, setting up the younger son for his annual dose of parental judgment. Knowing, naturalistic comedy of manners gets at the weight of cruelty and resentment found even in outwardly functional families.

Tokyo Sonata [Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa] Fragmented family, headed by a father who's an arbitrary tyrant at home and a hapless mouse in the outside world, leads separate, secret lives. Naturalistic drama accented by flashes of absurdist humor.

Borderline [Canada, Lyne Charlebois] A writer raised by a mentally ill mother and grandmother copes with the fall-out from her sex addiction and general disregard for personal boundaries. Empathetically acted and propelled by powerful images, this drama is unafraid to hit the melodramatic notes demanded by its lead character and subject matter.

Flame & Citron [Denmark, Ole Christian Madsen] The most wanted assassins of the Danish Resistance face betrayal and double-dealing. Fact-based wartime thriller tells its involved and murky story with tension and clarity.

Genova [UK, Michael Winterbottom] After her careless gesture results in her mother's death in a car accident, a little girl's father (Colin Firth) takes her and her rebellious older sister to live in Italy. Winterbottom applies his hallmark hyper-real style to a family drama infused with slowly ratcheting foreboding.

Vacation [Japan, Hajime Kadoi] To qualify for vacation time to honeymoon with his new wife and her young boy, a withdrawn prison guard volunteers to assist at an execution. Quiet drama poses a striking contrast to Hollywood capital punishment movies, both in its eschewal of big acting and issue-oriented speeches, and in the furtive quality of the official procedures it depicts.

Three Blind Mice [Australia, Matthew Newton] Trio of young naval officers undergo a tumultuous night of shore leave, knowing they'll be shipping out to Iraq in the morning. Crackling dialogue and snappy acting charge up often funny drama based on well-worn dramatic device.

Uncertainty [US, Scott McGehee and David Siegel] Young couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lynn Collins) are seen in two simultaneously occurring alternate storyline: a Brooklyn-set family drama and a Manhattan chase thriller. Absorbing metafiction where each of the intercut genres gives the other an element it would ordinarily lack: the slice-of-life gets forward momentum, and the suspenser gains emotional investment in the characters.

Tears for Sale [Serbia/Croatia, Uro Stojanovic] In a bizarro fairy tale version of 1920s Yugoslavia, nubile sisters who work as professional mourners are forced by the sex-starved women of their manless village to capture and bring back a functioning male. Ultra-Freudian fantasy brims with effects, wild production values, and doom-laden brio.

Sexykiller [Spain, Miguel Marti] Tightly-wound girly-girl serial killer falls for a young coroner working her case, believing him to share her vocation. Bubbly gore comedy spatters the audience with crazy scene transitions, sly genre references, and repeated assaults on the fourth wall. And there's zombies.

Chocolate [Thailand, Prachya Pinkaew] Autistic girl (Jijya Yanin) teaches herself muay thai martial arts, which come in handy when bad guys stand between her and her mother's cancer treatment. Ong Bak director showcases a new star in the ass-kicking firmament with crunching, head rattling fight choreography.

Lovely, Still [US, Nik Fackler] A sinister undercurrent runs beneath the touching romance between a widow (Ellen Burstyn) and an elderly store clerk (Martin Landau.) What seem to be he wayward tonal choices of a novice director are eventually revealed as audacious pieces in a Serlinesque puzzle. Which is more than you should know about this going in, so forget that you just read this.

Deadgirl [US, Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel] The bond between two high school outcasts is put to test when they find a helpless, distressingly hot zombie in the basement of an abandoned asylum. With a tone evoking River's Edge reconfigured as a transgressive midnight movie, it concerns itself more with psychosexual moral horror than the simply physical variety.

Parc [France, Arnaud des Pallières] In an odd reality in which Paris has US-style gated communities, the details of a weird crime involving a mysterious neighbor and an industrialist's depressed son fall gradually into place. Coolly freaky puzzle narrative with political undertones adapts the John Cheever novel Bullet Park.

Detroit Metal City [Japan, Toshio Lee] Drippy would-be popster suffers chagrin over his secret life as sinister rock icon Sir Johan Kaiser. Very broad, life-affirming comedy about death metal, based on a popular manga.

Empty Nest [Argentina, Daniel Burman] A woman's efforts to reinvent her life when her children leave home provokes a midlife crisis for her prickly novelist husband. Tone and subject matter recall Woody Allen in serious mode (one of the good ones) but without the pitiless gaze.

Once Upon a Time in Rio [Brazil, Breno Silveira] Star-crossed love ensues when a vendor from the favela falls for a rich girl from Ipanema. Heartfelt, socially informed popular entertainment strikes the necessary balance between surprise and the inevitability mandated by its classic storyline.

My Mother, My Bride and I [Germany, Hans Steinbichler] Middle-aged mama's boy goes brings home Romanian spitfire. Family drama addresses its straightforward thematic opposition of repression versus openness with warmth and a sense of emotional reality.

Good

White Night Wedding [Iceland, Baltasar Kormakur] As his second marriage approaches, emotionally disconnected academic recalls the events leading to the demise of his first. Bergmanesque moral angst leavened by boozy helpings of wacky townsfolk comedy.

Country Wedding [Iceland, Valdís Óskarsdóttir] Buses containing a bickering wedding party uncertainly lurch toward inevitable logistical and emotional catastrophe. Wrings steady laughs from familiar premise.

Yes Madam Sir [Australia/India, Megan Doneman, Documentary] Reform-minded Indian police official Kiran Bedi, is incorruptibile, uncompromising, and a woman -- causing the political and justice systems to target her for career destruction. Adoring portrait of an activist heroine shows the personal costs of being a transformative thorn in the side to an entrenched establishment.

At the Edge of the World [US, Dan Stone, Documentary] Two ships from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society sail to the Antarctic to conduct direct interference operations against a Japanese whaling fleet. The sequences of actual confrontation between ships are riveting and would be more so if the rest of the film was tightened a bit.

Blood Trail [UK, Richard Parry, Documentary] Over fifteen years as a freelance war photographer, Robert King transforms from naive bumbler to dissolute ace and then to world-weary family man. Shoot-from-the-hip doc parallels its personal arc with changes in journalistic access from Sarajevo to Baghdad.

Zift [Bulgaria, Javor Gardev] Convict in 1960s Sofia wins early release, then runs afoul of an old accomplice. Stylish and profoundly Slavic nod to film noir classics full-throatedly embraces the genre's implicit misogyny.

Easy Virtue [UK, Stephan Elliott] Young aristocrat brings home unacceptable bride in the form of a glamorous race car driver (Jessica Biel.) Noel Coward adaptation takes a while to warm up, because only Colin Firth properly underplays the dialogue.

Okay

The Other Man [UK, Richard Eyre] Left by his wife (Laura Linney), a software CEO (Liam Neeson) stalks her lover (Antonio Banderas.) Sirkian melodrama dares to be peculiar.

Peace Mission [Germany, Dorothee Wenner, Documentary] Nigerian film producer and activist Peace Fiberesima takes viewers on a tour of the issues and personalities of the Nollywood film industry, a burgeoning entertainment scene releases thousands of homegrown video features every year. Doc shares the rough and ready vibe of its fascinating subject matter.

Daytime Drinking [South Korea, Young-seok Noh] Young guy's friends agree to go away with to help him get over being dumped, then flake on him, leaving him stranded in a chilly off-season resort area. Amusing if slight downbeat comedy.

Four Nights With Anna [Poland, Jerzy Skolimowski] Simple-minded hospital crematory operator stalks young nurse. If you want to be placed inside the limited awareness of a pathetic yet predatory protagonist, look no further than this masterfully unpleasant crime drama.

Horn of Plenty [Spain/Cuba, Juan Carlos Tabío] Handsome engineer and wacky extended family pursue a legendary inheritance. Delivers Tabío's usual blend of sexy comedy and good-natured satire.

Winds of September [Taiwan, Tom Shu-Yu Lin] Septet of high school screw-ups test the limits of group loyalty. Nostalgic coming-of-age effort from debuting young director is strong enough to raise hopes for more ambitious work in the years to come.

Kabuli Kid [Afghanistan, Barmak Akram, France] Put-out cabbie struggles against the petty obstacles of the Afghan capital to reunite a baby with the mother who abandoned it in his cab. Gently paced Neo-Realist piece conveys sense of daily life in today's Kabul.

Real Time [Canada, Randall Cole] Gangster (Randy Quaid) offers heavily indebted young gambler (Jay Baruchel) the chance to do whatever he wants before he kills him, which will happen in seventy-eight minutes. Modest two-hander is all about the interplay between the two leads.

Native Dancer [Kazakhstan, Guka Omarova] Gangsters unleash violence and misfortune when they drive a shaman from her healing center. Anthropological element provides an intriguing twist on the kidnap drama, even if the resolution doesn't quite land.

The Ghost [Russia, Karen Oganesyan] Author of a popular series of hitman novels meets his protagonist's real life inspiration. Engaging thriller but it feels as if a plot twist or two got left on the cutting room floor.

Not Good

Plastic City [Brazil/China, Yu Lik-wai] Illicit businessman (Anthony Wong) and his adopted son (Joe Odagiri) fight to retain their Sao Paolo counterfeit goods empire. Overlong, mystical gangster movie, like many efforts by cinematographers turned director, is strong on image, mood, and place, but weak on structure, pacing, and character.

Dernier Maquis [France, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche] Labor issues collide with questions of faith when the owner of a shipping facility sets up a mosque for his workers. Slice of life drama establishes fresh milieu and a promising conflict--which it fails to develop or resolve.

Pernicious

The Dungeon Masters [US, Keven McAlester, Documentary]] The Dungeons and Dragons phenomenon is studied as a contrast to the quiet desperation characterizing the lives of three avid gamers. Although the filmmakers clearly believe that they're presenting an affirmative take on the roleplaying hobby, they're not only advancing a trite, easy thesis, but blindly abusing the trust placed in them by their subjects.

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Achilles and the Tortoise [Japan, Takeshi Kitano, ****] Talentless painter pursues his creative obsession throughout a life of rejection and personal catastrophe. Satirical drama is less experimental in form than the previous two installments in Kitano's trilogy of creative paralysis, but even more sweepingly despairing in its portrait of the artist as moral idiot.

The overall press take on the fest is that has been the weakest in years for high-profile arty fare. Last year was very strong, and then all the good movies came out at the same time and killed each other off at the box office. So as they say all the time in Balkan movies, "What can you do?"

The Wrestler got the best press buzz. Rachel Getting Married is receiving fond notices tempered by the worry that it's a critic's movie that will elude a broad audience.

The film scoring the most line-up buzz is JCVD, the metafictional action movie in which Jean-Claude van Damme plays himself and delivers an astonishingly good monologue scene. Valerie saw it and loved it. She called Slumdog Millionaire as the word-of-mouth title even before it won the People's Choice Award.

Sexykiller [Spain, Miguel Marti, ****] Tightly-wound girly-girl serial killer falls for a young coroner working her case, believing him to share her vocation. Bubbly gore comedy spatters the audience with crazy scene transitions, sly genre references, and repeated assaults on the fourth wall. And there's zombies.

As I head into the home stretch my personal fest has seen a push toward the middle. Significantly fewer bad or completely uninteresting films, but also I'm also coming up light on masterpieces. It feels like the year of the solid, well-wrought film. The magical, the surprising, and the challenging seemed to have gone into hiding. The best films came from known quantity directors working in their characteristic modes, at a high level of execution. A large percentage of these films were closely observed naturalistic dramas. Although many of these were excellent, I found myself hungering for contrast--for films willing to use the entire palette of cinema: music, camera movement, editing flourishes, unconventional narrative choices, even the odd moment of heightened acting.

At the Edge of the World [US, Dan Stone, Documentary, ***½] Two ships from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society sail to the Antarctic to conduct direct interference operations against a Japanese whaling fleet. The sequences of actual confrontation between ships are riveting and would be more so if the rest of the film was tightened a bit.

My doc choices underwhelmed. Nothing I can fairly describe as compelling regardless of your pre-existing interest in the subject matter. (If you classify the animated war memoir Waltz With Bashir as a doc it would fit the bill for both emotional impact and formal innovation, but for my money it's too far along on the fact-fiction spectrum to qualify.)

Theme-wise my version of the 08 fest seemed to represent a retreat from the political and ideological issues that have dominated since 2002, and toward the personal and familial. Family gatherings abounded. A Christmas Tale and Still Walking told much the same story. There were two Icelandic wedding movies, with overlap between the casts. The sensitive, naturalistic Snow and nutso fairy tale Tears For Sale as films about Yugoslavian villages who had lost all their men to war, looked at each other from wildly different sides of the same mirror.

Plastic City [Brazil/China, Yu Lik-wai, **] Illicit businessman (Anthony Wong) and his adopted son (Joe Odagiri) fight to retain their Sao Paolo counterfeit goods empire. Overlong, mystical gangster movie, like many efforts by cinematographers turned director, is strong on image, mood, and place, but weak on structure, pacing, and character.

The Other Man [UK, Richard Eyre, ***] Left by his wife (Laura Linney), a software CEO (Liam Neeson) stalks her lover (Antonio Banderas.) Sirkian melodrama dares to be peculiar.

Chocolate [Thailand, Prachya Pinkaew, ****] Autistic girl (Jijya Yanin) teaches herself muay thai martial arts, which come in handy when bad guys stand between her and her mother's cancer treatment. Ong Bak director showcases a new star in the ass-kicking firmament with crunching, head rattling fight choreography.

The usual omnibus post collating the capsule reviews will come soon...

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Empty Nest [Argentina, Daniel Burman, ****] A woman's efforts to reinvent her life when her children leave home provokes a midlife crisis for her prickly novelist husband. Tone and subject matter recall Woody Allen in serious mode (one of the good ones) but without the pitiless gaze.

I've been asked to compare The Dungeon Masters to Mazes and Monsters.Mazes says that D&D is bad because it might drive you crazy. Dungeon says that D&D is good because it helps the beautiful losers who play it to escape their drab and painful lives. That distinction doesn't neatly fit on a 1-10 scale. Depending on how many people see it, the documentary may do more to discourage people from entering the hobby than the laughable TV movie. The idea that D&D makes you go nuts is more extreme but easier to counter.

The producers are gamers and brought in an experienced documentarian to direct. He steered them away from the historical survey they wanted to make, arguing (correctly) that this was too boring an idea to sustain a feature film. (The only director who might have been able to pull off an entertaining survey of gaming as art form and cultural movement would be Ron Mann.)

It's not at all fair to say that the filmmakers picked the three worst basement dwellers they could find. I am concerned that the subjects, who have not yet been shown the film, will find it hurtful. I hope I'm wrong and they're fine with it. My going into further detail at this point won't help, so this is the sound of me shutting up now.

Country Wedding [Iceland, Valdís Óskarsdóttir, ***½] Buses containing a bickering wedding party lurch uncertainly toward inevitable logistical and emotional catastrophe. Wrings lots of laughs from familiar premise.

Daytime Drinking [South Korea, Young-seok Noh, ***] Young guy's friends agree to go away with to help him get over being dumped, then flake on him, leaving him stranded in a chilly off-season resort area. Amusing if slight downbeat comedy.

Parc [France, Arnaud des Pallières, ****] In an odd reality in which Paris has US-style gated communities, the details of a weird crime involving a mysterious neighbor and an industrialist's depressed son fall gradually into place. Coolly freaky puzzle narrative with political undertones adapts the John Cheever novel Bullet Park.

The above film, which you can see that I dug, palpably baffled and annoyed a large chunk, possibly the majority of, the audience I saw it with.

Easy Virtue [UK, Stephan Elliott, ***½] Young aristocrat brings home unacceptable bride in the form of a glamorous race car driver (Jessica Biel.) Noel Coward adaptation takes a while to warm up, because only Colin Firth properly underplays the dialogue.

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Last night as I attempted to drift off to sleep, my sensorily overloaded mind decided it had heard enough French that it was time to try to learn the language. I don't believe it had much success.

Hooked [Romania, Adrian Sitaru, ****] After hitting her with their car, bickering lovers see no choice but to invite a suspiciously chipper roadside prostitute to accompany them on their picnic. Dogme-style psychodrama dekes around the obvious as it delivers an ever-twisting series of power shifts between its characters.

A big national news story over the past week has been a listerosis outbreak linked to the Maple Leaf meat processing plant. The last time I saw a figure, ten people had died from this food-borne infection. Its extreme flu-like symptoms can be deadly in patients with pre-existing conditions and pose a danger to pregnant women. Last night Valerie happened to spot a news crawl naming our local cheese shop, Cheese Magic, as the subject of another listeria recall. A couple of weeks ago the results of a health inspection crackdown were all over Kensington Market, where I shop. One produce shop had been shuttered completley. Cheese Market had been told to move the product usually heaped on the counter to refridgerators in the back of the store.

Up until this morning, Valerie and I have been starting each festival day with a breakfast including, as its protein component, a bit of tasty cantenaar from Cheese Magic. (For the record, there's no reason to think that Valerie's early bug was listerosis.) Anyhow we seem to have dodged a bacterial bullet.

I hope the shop, and its sister bakery a few doors down, survive this incident. They're both staples of my regular grocery expedition.

Winds of September [Taiwan, Tom Shu-Yu Lin, ***] Septet of high school screw-ups test the limits of group loyalty. Nostalgic coming-of-age effort from debuting young director is strong enough to raise hopes for more ambitious work in the years to come.

Clever script tricks seen this week:

* introducing an obvious, necessary and hard-to-sell story point by immediately preceding it with a delightfully out-of-left-field reversal

* laying pipe for the obvious outcome of the script's premise, then going in another direction entirely

The Dungeon Masters [US, Keven McAlester, Documentary, *] The Dungeons and Dragons phenomenon is studied as a contrast to the quiet desperation characterizing the lives of three avid gamers. Although the filmmakers clearly believe that they're presenting an affirmative take on the roleplaying hobby, they're not onlyv advancing a trite easy thesis, but blindly abusing the trust placed in them by their subjects.

In other words, this confirmed my worst fears, in spades. The best we can hope as an industy/hobby is that it disappears with little trace. As a piece of PR it is a disaster.

There's much more I could say about this, but not sure how much I should say, at least for now.

Tokyo Sonata [Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, ****] Fragmented family, headed by a father who's an arbitrary tyrant at home and a hapless mouse in the outside world, leads separate, secret lives. Naturalistic drama accented by flashes of absurdist humor.

Still Walking [Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda, ****] Family reunites on the anniversary of the death of its favorite son, setting up the younger son for his annual dose of parental judgment. Knowing, naturalistic comedy of manners gets at the weight of cruelty and resentment found even in outwardly functional families.

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Last year, the Bell Lightbox, the uber-cinematheque/condo complex that is to serve as the festival's new HQ, would debut at TIFF 2009. Now they're talking 2010-2011. Or as newly installed co-honcho Cameron Bailey said in a film intro yesterday, "in two years or so." The fear is that TIFF is selling its soul as the populist people's festival to build this complex. This year tickets to the second-biggest venue, where some of the starrier flicks play, were jumped to $40 a pop and, in a development many purchasers discovered only after the fact, made unavailable to festival pass holders. Purchasers of these premium tickets then found there was a priority line-up allowing Lightbox donors in the house first. Donors were also exempted from the ticket lottery, having their orders processed before the general public. To the extent that this additional donor class is comprised of new festival-goers, this makes it less likely that the rest of us will get the movies they want. Lottery losers get nailed harder than ever before. (Anecdotally it seemed like lost lottery horror stories were scarier than ever before.)

My ox has not been gored -- yet.. I program a world cinema track with side helpings of cult, doc, and indie. I don't go to the fest to see high-profile films before anyone else, or to see celebs troop briefly onstage before a screening. It's the see it first crowd who've been hit the hardest by the division between the gives and give-nots. But when Lightbox donors are given benefits that squeeze out others, they cease to be donors and become purchasers of a premium service. And if the fest, in its desperation to raise the $46 mil it still hasn't found for its building, goes much further down this road, it'll lose the audience-centric philosophy that grew it into the event it is today.

A Christmas Tale [France, Arnaud Desplechin, ****½] Black sheep son who may be a blood marrow match for his terminally ill mother (Catherine Deneuve) is allowed to attend family Christmas for the first time in six years. Rich, novelistically dense family drama masterfully depict the distance between our awareness of the characters and what they believe about each other and themselves.

Four Nights With Anna [Poland, Jerzy Skolimowski, ***] Simple-minded hospital crematory operator stalks young nurse. If you want to be placed inside the limited awareness of a pathetic yet predatory protagonist, look no further than this masterfully unpleasant crime drama.

At the AMC the seats are pitched slightly back, allowing you to lean cozily into plush head rests. This however poses a hazard to the contents of one's pants pockets. During a screening the other day I heard my house keys gently jingle out into the seat mechanism. Since then I've been successfully remembering to switch my keys to my shirt pocket when entering this venue. If I am very clever I'll remember this next year without another near miss. It took me several separate moments of panic in successive years to definitively cement in memory the wallet-eating properties of the seats at the Ryerson and Elgin. (Though with the new $40 tickets you could argue that Elgin tickets will eat your wallet no matter where you put it.)

My face has begun to twitch where it has never twitched so far.

Uncertainty [US, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, ****] Young couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lynn Collins) are seen in two simultaneously occurring alternate storyline: a Brooklyn-set family drama and a Manhattan chase thriller. Absorbing metafiction where each of the intercut genres gives the other an element it would ordinarily lack: the slice-of-life gets forward momentum, and the suspenser gains emotional investment in the characters.

50% of the films I've seen today quote Puck's exit soliloquy from Midsummer Night's Dream.

The hardcore fest mindset is a ruthless one. Upon seeing an ambulance, the thought is not, "I hope the person it's for is okay," but "This better not delay my screening!"
Borderline [Canada, Lyne Charlebois, ****] A writer raised by a mentally ill mother and grandmother copes with the fall-out from her sex addiction and general disregard for personal boundaries. Empathetically acted and propelled by powerful images, this drama is unafraid to hit the melodramatic notes demanded by its lead character and subject matter.

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Feeling better today, after a deep corpse-like sleep.

Three Blind Mice [Australia, Matthew Newton, ****] Trio of young naval officers undergo a tumultuous night of shore leave, knowing they'll be shipping out to Iraq in the morning. Crackling dialogue and snappy acting charge up often funny drama based on well-worn dramatic device.

You could argue that a bit too much happens in the above film but, given its choice of the "one crazy night" sub-genre, that's like complaining that a kung fu movie is all about fighting, or a romance has too much kissing in it.

Genova [UK, Michael Winterbottom, ****] After her careless gesture results in her mother's death in a car accident, a little girl's father (Colin Firth) takes her and her rebellious older sister to live in Italy. Winterbottom applies his hallmark hyper-real style to a family drama infused with slowly ratcheting foreboding.

It is always a treat when a film's oddly long run time turns out to be a program error. You film get a movie of sensible duration, and a surprise extr a break between screenings. Genova certainly wouldn't have worked with an extra 40 minutes in it.

Flame & Citron [Denmark, Ole Christian Madsen, ****] The most wanted assassins of the Danish Resistance face betrayal and double-dealing. Fact-based wartime thriller tells its involved and murky story with tension and clarity.

After the day or two of heavy allergy symptoms, it's the standard day of mainlining Fisherman's Friend to combat low cough and froggy throat. Although this time I went with a generic alternative, so I guess really it's Fisherman's Fake Friend.

Peace Mission [Germany, Dorothee Wenner, Documentary, ***] Nigerian film producer and activist Peace Fiberesima takes viewers on a tour of the issues and personalities of the Nollywood film industry, a burgeoning entertainment scene releases thousands of homegrown video features every year. Doc shares the rough and ready vibe of its fascinating subject matter.

Kabuli Kid [Afghanistan, Barmak Akram, ***] Put-out cabbie struggles against the petty obstacles of the Afghan capital to reunite a baby with the mother who abandoned it in his cab. Gently paced Neo-Realist piece conveys sense of daily life in today's Kabul.

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Hit the wall hard today. Monday is early for this inevitable moment. Ragweed pollen is the primary culprit.

My Mother, My Bride and I [Germany, Hans Steinbichler, ****] Middle-aged mama's boy goes brings home Romanian spitfire. Family drama addresses its straightforward thematic opposition of repression versus openness with warmth and a sense of emotional reality.

White Night Wedding [Iceland, Baltasar Kormakur, ***½] As his second marriage approaches, emotionally disconnected academic recalls the events leading to the demise of his first. Bergmanesque moral angst leavened by boozy helpings of wacky townsfolk comedy.

Native Dancer [Kazakhstan, Guka Omarova, ***] Gangsters unleash violence and misfortune when they drive a shaman from her healing center. Anthropological element provides an intriguing twist on the kidnap drama, even if the resolution doesn't quite land.

Deadgirl [US, Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, ****] The bond between two high school outcasts is put to test when they find a helpless, distressingly hot zombie in the basement of an abandoned asylum. With a tone evoking River's Edge reconfigured as a transgressive midnight movie, it concerns itself more with psychosexual moral horror than the simply physical variety.

Tears for Sale [Serbia/Croatia, Uro Stojanovic, ****] In a bizarro fairy tale version of 1920s Yugoslavia, nubile sisters who work as professional mourners are forced by the sex-starved women of their manless village to capture and bring back a functioning male. Ultra-Freudian fantasy brims with effects, wild production values, and doom-laden brio.

Tags: cinema hut, toronto international film festival

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