stdesjardins

I probably wouldn't have gone to The Turin Horse if it weren't a Hungarian film, and honestly I wouldn't have missed it much. A father, his daughter, and their horse are trapped in their house by a windstorm and grow ever more pessimistic. Kind of bleah. The most interesting part was my advancing Hungarian skills; I was often able to almost understand the dialogue in real time. (Mostly, I'd mishear the dialogue—"Feküdt Marla" (Marla went to bed)— then realize what it must have been—"Feküdj már le" (Come to bed already).)

Bunohan, a violent Thai flick, was a disappointment. I should remember next year that whenever I tell myself, "I generally don't like this kind of film, but", that the sentence is already too long.

When director Ralph Fiennes was looking for a bad-ass action star, able to deliver a stone-cold quip to an enemy or a rousing speech to his troops, the sort of man who could enter a city of a thousand enemies alone and emerge covered in blood, he naturally turned to himself. Coriolanus was the film I was most looking forward to, and the one which exceeded my expectations by the widest margin. Fiennes makes good use of filmic shorthand (a brief clip from a cable news show captioned "Civil Unrest in Rome" replaces a whole speech), and he integrates Shakespeare's language into a modern setting better than any production I've ever seen. Absolutely wonderful.

Billy Bishop Goes to War is a stage play about a Canadian World War I hero that's been running for thirty years with the same actors, in the form of reminiscences, poetry, and music. One of the actors said during the Q&A that in the stage version it feels like the narrative is the spine of the show, while in the movie the music is. Regardless, the film benefits from the polish of being done so many times. Really a very nice film.

From Up on Poppy Hill is a Studio Ghibli film from Hayao Miyazaki's son, and unfortunately it's not as interesting as his father's work. Not bad, just not exceptional. A Letter to Momo, a film from the guy who made Ghost in the Shell, on the other hand, was really delightful. Three goblins are sent from Above to watch over a mother and daughter on behalf of the dead spouse, and the daughter accidentally gains the ability to see them. The animation is generally superior, and the characterization seems richer.

And that's about it for the festival. I haven't discussed all of the thirty-six films I saw, but I've hit all the high points.