Tales from the film festival queue

Today I saw two films at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Altogether I bought tickets to see 10 films during the festival:

Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
Shake Hands With the Devil (Roger Spottiswoode)
Chacun son cinema (35 directors)
Useless (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)
No Country for Old Men (Ethan and Joel Coen)
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (Wayne Wang)
Le voyage du ballon rouge (Hou Hsaio-hsien)
It's a Free world... (Ken Loach)
Short Cuts Canada Programme (various)

The procedure for buying the tickets had to be done in stages and was very complicated.

Although I have tickets, it is still necessary to queue up outside the various theatres for at least 45 minutes before each film to get a good seat and prevent the festival from reselling the ticket.

Today I saw Chacun son cinema and No Country for Old Men at the Elgin Theatre on Yonge Street.

The line up for Chacun son cinema was uneventful. I heard later in the day that the film wasn't very well attended so the balcony in the 1,200-seat theatre wasn't opened to the public.


The rake of the orchestra level is not steep enough to see over heads in front properly for film screenings--especially if there are subtitles.

Chacun son cinema is a collection of three-minute films by 35 directors from various parts of the world. Jane Campion's dark and sinister contribution is the only one made by a woman.

These snippet films give spectators a good understanding of how the world's most accomplished directors can play with and manipulate the medium.

Most of the stories use elements of cinematic tradition to highlight characteristic aspects of movie going. Thus, the film in its entirety--which was made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes film festival--has appeal for both film aficionados and standard movie audiences.

The directors make many references to films which are considered among the most important in film history for their technological and artistic innovation.

Three such films are Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory directed by Auguste and Louis Lumiere in 1895, The Rules of the Game directed by Jean Renoir in 1939 and 8 1/2 directed by Frederico Fellini in 1963.

But equally important is that the film provides an example of the way watching films on a mobile phone--a fairly recent technological innovation with a potentially huge impact on spectatorial viewing conditions--could become successful and satisfying in a three-minute format with the right director in charge.

David Cronenberg stars in his three-minute film, which is titled "At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World". It's a commentary on the--at times--absurd coverage of breaking news on television.


QUEUE MAYHEM

There was chaos in the queue outside the Elgin this evening before the screening of No Country for Old Men directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. I got into line about 45 minutes before the 6 p.m. start time. About 15 minutes later I noticed another queue forming alongside mine. I asked a film festival volunteer why it was formed. He said it was for people with special tickets and platinum or gold Visa cards.


About 10 minutes after that, I discovered that it wasn't for people with special tickets, but that it was for people with platinum or gold Visa cards.

It wasn't fair that the rules weren't made clear from the outset. Some people were able to benefit by trading places with those who had been told that the line-up privileges were for people with any kind of Visa card. However, it also meant that some people got booted from spots that were quite far up in the line because they didn't have a card.

Unfortunately, my spot in the line did not give me a clear view of the celebrities who showed up to the delight of fans massed against barricades across from the entrance to the theatre. I shot a few Hail Marys with my very unsuitable camera, but came up with pictures of unknown cops and people.

BALCONY SEATING

I decided to sit the balcony for the Coen brothers screening. A huge amount of seats had been reserved for Visa dignitaries of some sort who never showed up. The seats were later released so that "regular" people could sit in them.

The Coens and a large number of cast members were on hand for the screening, but the brothers only introduced the talent and said nothing else about the film.

Not surprisingly, the narrative of No Country for Old Men is laced with bizarre coincidences and acts of violence. It has all the familiar auteurist qualities of a Coen brothers film. The extent of the unrestricted narration makes it difficult to stick with and identify with any single character.