Sorry we didn’t report on TIFF. Basically, it started on Friday.
Maybe this reviewer is getting old, but I don’t find the films to be of the same quality as those I remember. There is one classic on Sunday evening, but even the classics chosen don’t seem to be among the best.
Dutch films… controversial? Ask anyone who teaches at a Dutch university what a controversial Dutch film from the eighties or nineties was. Almost all will give the same answer. Ask them to name four, and three will be the same answer. And no, it won’t be the one showing at the festival. That one was just bad, just unwatchable because it is so boring.
If you want some Dutch films, here are two I recommend:
Ciske de Rat
Oh boy, if you give a summary of this film is sounds awful. A little boy steals, smokes, breaks windows, and kills his mother, and you love him for it. Ciske’s mother must have been terrible? She was.
Of course, Ciske does go to jail in the end, we don’t really want him to, but we understand after she locks him in a box, cuts him off from his father, even destroys the memory of his friend. She seems just to hate the boy for existing, any sane person who considered him a burden would let the father take care of him.
This is based on a book, which was adapted to a musical, then a film. Kind of like the Dutch “Harry Potter.”
Kruimeltje
This seems like a tamer version of Ciske de Rat. Kruimultje was abandoned by his mother, and has a little hatred for her, but as time goes on, he learns why she left, and that she regrets it. It ends with a happy family reunion.
But there are so many references to Ciske de Rat, even a similar shot with a Christmas tree, that it is like an alternative universe. I recommend watching these two films together.
And some other alternatives to what is showing:
Rebel Without a Cause
Some Romanian film is showing about a Romanian cop who doesn’t want to arrest a young druggie for fear it will ruin the druggie’s life. Let me tell you something, if you get arrested when you are young, and turn your life around, no one cares that you made a tiny mistake. If it’s a scary crime, then some people are scared of you, but they are even more frightened if you get away with it.
Rebel Without a Cause shows the trouble with lenient society. It was made when people were beginning to learn how to act. Okay, there were those who could act in the old days, but modern acting techniques really came into affect with people like James Dean. (Another early acting piece, Angels With Dirty Faces.)
What about dark comedy?
Fargo was okay, but it’s not really great. You want something from the same era? There are some terrible films, like “Very Bad Things.” It was kind of funny. I found “Silence of The Lambs” funnier, but then I was the only person laughing because it was apparently supposed to be a horror.
Look at the 1970s in Britain and Russia, and you’ll find a lot. Dr Strangelove. I’m Gonna Get You Sucka. Waking Ned. The National Lampoon series. Or a retrospective on Fernandel. Lots of Louis de Funes…
But what is the biggest dark comedy I’ve ever seen? The “darkest?” It was a film in Dutch called “Filmpje.”
Filmpje doesn’t have much of a plot, you can tell it is supposed to be funny. But, it has more of a plot and is funnier than a lot of recent films.
The people who run TIFF seem nice, and it seems well organsied, clean, etc, etc. I just am not too excited about the films this year.