Luc Moullet (TIFF, November 2025)

 Thanks to Andréa Picard and the TIFF staff for hosting me for this Parpaillon introduction on Sunday, November 23,2025. What a pleasure, and I hope more folks better now appreciate the influence biking has had on Luc Moullet and his cinema. – D.D.

Some general reflections to prepare us for Parpaillon/Up and Down (1993) today and Luc Moullet’s body of work in general:

1. It took me a while to get into Moullet’s films: Brigitte et Brigitte is no Le Beau Serge, and Les Contrebandières is no Les Carabiniers. Moullet’s films lack a certain drama, and he would probably be the first one to admit it (there’s so many self-criticisms within his public reflections). But once you get into his sensibility, the films’ rhythms, it’s fascinating to see the worlds that he inhabits.

Jean-Pierre Oudart described their style as a sort-of “deviant aberration,” which I find apt to describe the New Wave aesthetic in general and Moullet’s films in particular, as per their refraction of reality. 

I find with his Les Sièges de l’Alcazar (1989), about post-war 1950s French cinephilia, and its depiction of the eccentric nature of film-going, through the love-hate relationship between these two Cahiers and Positif critics; there it all sort-of comes together.

It’s one of the best films about French cinephilia alongside Tacchella’s Travelling avant (1987) and Skorecki’s Les cinéphiles (1989).

Currently, as the last living New Wave director (88 years old), there’s a certain surprise when you hear of Moullet’s extra-cinematic activities: he ran marathons, and was an alpine cyclist (among many other pursuits).

For example, for his seventieth birthday, he completed his 229^th mountain pass, Khardung La (5,359 m) in India.

But I guess in a city like Toronto, where contemporary filmmakers like Kazik Radwanski actively runs (and shares about it on his socials), and Matt Johnson, while regularly wearing active wear, can often be seen playing tennis in Trinity Bellwoods; this might be less surprising.

2. I got to see Luc Moullet three times, mostly thanks to Gérard Courant. Twice for interviews at his Parisian apartment (2018, 2024) and once in Montreal at RIDM (2019).

I don’t know if folks are too familiar with Parisian apartments. But, in this particular instance, first you get to his place, Avenue Richard Lenoir, and ring his doorbell at the front door, before he lets you in. You then have to walk five flights of narrow stairs before he greets you at his apartment – it’s the same setting of many of his films so you’re a little shocked by the uncanniness.

My late friend Samuel Bréan informed me that Moullet would judge the physical health of his guests by how long it would take to make it up all of the steps to his apartment, and if you were out of breath or not.

A funny anecdote, I think, and that speaks to the eccentric nature of his body of work.

3. Jean Douchet spoke of the origins of the New Wave as being traced back to the French Occupation, and that of these youth escaping the sad realities of life through the fantasies of these films in cinemas.

Luc Moullet would probably add, that it was through biking that they got around, and travelled from one cinema to the other.

André Bazin was famous for biking from one ciné-club to another, presenting Le jour se lève, or whatever film, to the different communities; or biking to the city outskirts to visit friends.

4. Luc Moullet started biking around Paris at 19-years-old to go to different cinemas and libraries. 

Not only a cinephile, but also a library enthusiast and cyclist-autodidact, he described being secretive about visiting the American Library of Paris just across of the Cahiers office, so that others wouldn’t discover the treasure trove of where he brought them his film news.

5. Apparently in his first short-film Un Steak trop cuit (1960), his brother in it already references the mountain pass Parpaillon. But in Brigitte et Brigitte we already see its characters cycling and in the southern French alps, and which becomes more prominent in Les Contrebandières, before we actually see Moullet biking himself in Anatomie d’un rapport. 

There is even more general biking background visuals in many of his other films, but for sake of time, I won’t get into it.

I bring this up to argue that biking culture was always there in Moullet’s life and body of work.

And what makes Parpaillon so great is that it brings this cycling culture to its forefront.

6. These details were always there. But it wasn’t necessarily an intuitive connection. 

For me, it wasn’t until discovering his personal essay “Mon premier Stelvio” (Des Nouvelles du cinéma, 2004), where he recounts his first cycle (and failed attempts) up this mountain pass in Italy, that revolves around his March 1964 Cahiers article “Nécessité de Trento” on the mountain film festival there, that I took on its full meaning within his body of work

7. A couple of other quotes and paraphrases that are relevant. 

Luc Moullet (Savonette indocile): “I was always adept at biking. For me, the bike always represented God. And the car, the devil.” 

In Anatomie d’un rapport, he speaks of how biking was able to clear his thoughts when he is either romantically or sexually confused or frustrated. 

In his article, “Mon travail” (Trafic nº 39), he speaks of how biking was able to help him creatively, giving him ideas for articles, scripts and films.

Just to say, I agree with Fabien Boully, when he writes, “Parpaillon is without doubt the one and only true cinematic love song ever dedicated to the universe of the bicycle.” (Rouge, 2003)

8. Within this presentation I can only talk about so many things relating to Moullet and Parpaillon.

Other topics could have included:

The “roubine,” this odd and beautiful mountain range that he grew around and loves to film. In an interview with Courant, he described the art of cinema comparable to that of the mountain range, never knowing what’s around the corner.

How much he appreciated 90s Iranian cinema, notably the films of Kiarostami (another great mountain director par excellence).

The influence of the pataphysical theorist Alfred Jarry, who receives a reference in the film’s subtitle.

The encyclopedic and essayist nature of his work in general, similar to a David Foster Wallace, there earlier on in his Inspecteur Juross article “Les mystères de Paris” (nº 161). Creating these détournements from the quotidian into the realm of the fantasy.

9. To conclude, I just think it’s best not to perceive Moullet as an esoteric and obscure French filmmaker, as he’s sometimes described, but, instead to see and talk about him as what he truly is, one of the greatest and popular French comedy directors.

I hope you enjoy the screening.

I’m happy to talk more about the film or him after this screening for those interested, or to catch up with folks that just want to catch up from when I was at TIFF or in Toronto in general.

TIFF Review: Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)

There are at least two movies in Nouvelle vague. The one for the Cahiers fans, about the Parisian film culture in the fifties, and the one for Linklater, about the making of À bout de souffle. Not that these two are not intertwined, but it’s good to have clear expectations.

It’s such a curiosity, I would even describe it as odd. Why is this American filmmaker from Austin, the fun Richard Linklater, making his non-English debut, with this French-language film about a young Godard?

I would say it’s definitely not for the first movie, for the Cahiers fans, even though there’s probably still some of that, but more so for the second one.

Does fan-fiction have a bad rap? Maybe a little: stories of erotic encounters between Harry and Hermione in the Harry Potter universe, the Twilight universe, etc.

But nothing is entirely wrong with fan-fiction per se. And I would say that Linklater does it very well. As an independent filmmaker working since at least 1988 (the year I was born), I would say he’s probably more qualified than most to know and show what it’s like being on a film set.

I think it would be crazy to say that this is a “personal” film for Linklater: Apollo 10½ is probably more about his childhood and the Before movies about being young and growing older.

But there is something about Nouvelle vague that captures the energy of being young, daring, and finally making your first feature which I assume Linklater identified with.

There’s something about the energy of It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow or Slacker that I feel like it’s recreating. A certain jealousy of Godard of his peers that have already made it. A good humour of Godard of having his own ideas of cinema and wanting to act on them. And the whole dynamic of the set is very special too. The more mature but scrappy cinematographer Raoul Coutard is ready to follow Godard in his schemes. Pierre Rissient as the bumbling assistant, lovingly and ironically taking orders. Jean Seberg (incredible) as the annoyed but wonderful American starlet. And Godard taking all of these breaks for inspiration to hit.

And then there’s the whole Cahiers mythology. You can tell Linklater and everyone involved was living a dream being in that world during the time of the shoot. Hell, I would be too. And there’s something contagious about that energy. Do these portrait shots of all these historical figures sometimes take us out of the narrative? Perhaps. But it’s fascinating to see the casting. When I saw Luc Moullet he said that he thought the François character was pretty good. And there’s something about the physiognomy and gestures that make some of the characters really stand out: Suzanne Schiffman is pretty great, and so is Rohmer and Rivette in his smaller role.

While writing my university thesis I wrote something along of the lines that the New Wave films were made with conscious film references in mind as inside references for their peers, and my (then) supervisor asked for a reference, which I found annoying. It was more of an intuition, but it was nice to see that it was presented in the film. 

I don’t know, it was cool to see the Jacques, Doniol-Valcroze, Rozier, and Demy coming into life. And you can tell Linklater and his crew either studied or talked to the foremost expert Antoine de Baecque on the subject (without ever being slaves to the mythology). So many anecdotes of this period are on full display here (even though we can always dispute some of the historical accuracy), but there’s a freshness too that’s exciting. 

I can’t wait to rewatch it in the cinemas when it comes out, and then study it in more detail when it’s out on home-viewing on Netflix. There are so many details about Nouvelle vague that I want to further study. Such a rich experience.

TIFF Review: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (Matt Johnson)

The “M” in Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie should stand for Maturity. In it Matt even goes to see a movie and in it someone says, “Why can’t your friends be as mature as you?” 

But what exactly is maturity for the Nirvanna series?

A first point would be an evolution of their comedy. 

When Matt ends up accidentally travelling back in time to 2008 – the year him and Jay first hatched their dream to play a show at The Rivoli – and goes to see The Hangover, he finally realises that his Orbitz-infused time-travel RV really worked as the slurs in the film are laughed at by the audience (which from the perspective of 2025 hindsight we now understand as insensitive). There’s this same refinement of humour that crosses the series, almost as if Nirvanna was a barometer of our times.

I think it was David Lynch that said that comedy is about “timing” and after years of trying to describe the Nirvanna series as about these two hapless but good-hearted musicians trying to get a show at The Rivoli, I think now it might be more appropriate to describe it as about them not trying to get that show. Because it’s becoming clear – after a web-series, two tv seasons, and now a movie – that if they really wanted to book a show there then it would have already happened

There’s also the maturity of their style. There’s been a long gestation and development process for the film to come into being after the finale of Season 2 in 2018. And with this the question of taking the series to the big screen became essential: What raw material was there to sculpt to do justice to the change of scale?

There was always something democratic about the Nirvanna series: no matter who you were – class, race, age –, if you were lucky enough to be around them, while they were filming in Toronto, you could make it into the show. After Wonderland, the ROM and the underground tunnels of the city – among many other wonderful local sites – they had to dream bigger, so they looked up: the CN Tower.

The beautiful premise of The Movie is that their new effort to get a show at The Rivoli involves skydiving off of the CN Tower to land in the Rogers Centre field during a Jays game to announce to the crowd their performance. But they end up going too late in the day and they don’t make it as its rooftop was closing due to poor weather conditions. So their genius idea? Create a time-machine to re-start the day so that they can go earlier on so that their leap is successful.

After Drake got onto the top of the Tower for his Views (2016) album cover, the Nirvanna guys had to out-do him and show us their spin on the city’s iconic tower. It’s insane and I’m sure illegal all that they were able to film there. But that’s why you love it: They have a way of turning Toronto into this exciting playground and lovingly shows its idiosyncratic character, returning it to the people.

They’re creating an image of Toronto that feels truer than anything else, which is especially meaningful as no one else seems willing to do it (or even can).

It’s interesting to note that at the TIFF premieres yesterday, the prime minister Mark Carney (not a cinephile) was at the John Candy documentary, and that the mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow was at Nirvanna. Real ones know.

One last point in terms of maturity. 

There’s a new darkness in The Movie that wasn’t readily there in the previous work. The cinematographer Jared Raab films Jay in these high-contrast shadows. At the start, when Jay is contemplating leaving Matt and is driving to have his solo debut at the Lafayette in Ottawa, there’s almost a violence and pain in how he’s presented. It reminded me of some of Rembrandt’s late self-portraits or Tom Stern’s work with Clint Eastwood. Engulfing its two heroes in shadows culminates in a memorable scene that I’m still thinking about as there’s something so indelible and mysterious about it: After connecting a power-cord from the top of the CN Tower to a plug outlet at the corner of Queen and Spadina, so that when lightning strikes they can re-charge their DeLorean-style time machine, Matt gets incinerated when it finally hits and leaves only his trademark fedora in the wake. From being obfuscated in shadows to fully disappearing, I feel like there’s something significant taking place there.

There’s still lots to say about the Nirvanna movie: Johnson continues his archeology of film history, foraging from other films on day-dreamer musicians and ambitious rock stars – here Back to the Future – and putting them into the Nirvanna cannon (the film is full of other great Toronto cinephile culture references too – hell, I’m even in it!). The special effects of Tristan Zerafa are really impressive, seamlessly making all of these wild stunts believable. Curt Lobb does wonders editing, making the old and new footage go perfectly together. And we finally find out the inspiration for the Brave Shores track Never Come Down.

There’s still much to think about Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie and I suspect it’ll only keep sharing with us its mysteries in the years to come.

Toronto's Current Film Climate

Here are three Toronto-based end-of-the-year film surveys. -D.D.

1. 2010 Toronto Film Critics Award winners
- The Social Network for Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Best Supporting Actor (Armie Hammer).
- Exit Through the Gift Shop for Best First Feature and Documentary.
- Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress (Winter's Bone).
- Hailee Steinfeld for Best Supporting Actress (True Grit)
- How to Train Your Dragon for Best Animated Feature.
- Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives for Best Foreign Film.
- You Are Here by Daniel Cockburn received the Jay Scott Prize for emerging talent.
- A Special Citation for Bruce McDonald.

2. TIFF Canada's Top Ten 2010

Canada’s Top Ten feature film selections for 2010:
- Les Amours imaginaires by Xavier Dolan (Alliance Films).
- Barney’s Version by Richard J. Lewis (Entertainment One). December 2010
- Curling – Denis Côté (Mongrel Media). March 2011
- The High Cost of Living by Deborah Chow (Filmoption). Spring 2011
- Incendies by Denis Villeneuve (Entertainment One). January 2011
- Last Train Home by Lixin Fan (Kinosmith).
- MODRA by Ingrid Veninger (Mongrel Media). February 2011
- Splice by Vincenzo Natali (Entertainment One).
- Trigger by Bruce McDonald (Entertainment One).
- Trois temps après la mort d’Anna by Catherine Martin (K Films).

Canada’s Top Ten short film selections for 2010:
- Above the Knee by Greg Atkins.
- Les Fleurs de l'Age by Vincent Biron.
- I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors by Ann Marie Fleming (NFB).
- The Legend of Beaver Dam by Jerome Sable.
- The Little White Cloud That Cried by Guy Maddin.
- Lipsett Diaries by Theodore Ushev (NFB).
- Marius Borodine by Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais (Travelling Distribution).
- Mokhtar by Halima Ouardiri (EyesteelFilm).
- On the Way to the Sea by Tao Gu.
- Vapor by Kaveh Nabatian (Locomotion).

3. James Quandt, senior programmer at the TIFF Cinematheque, best of 2010.
1. Rite of Spring & The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira)
2. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz)
3. Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
4. Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
5. Aurora (Christi Puiu)
6. Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
7. Four Times (Michelango Frammartino)
8. The Mouth of the Wolf (Pietro Marcello)
9. The Wanderer (Avishai Sivan)
10. Static (Steve McQueen)
*****Also, this just in, Mark Peranson in the Editor's Note of the latest issue of Cinema Scope (N.45) writes "So because I have nothing else to do, it’s time for an about face: starting this winter, check out cinema-scope.com for a weekly supplement, reviews and reports of the same quality you’ll find in the printed issues (and quarterly web postings) of the magazine from some of our frequent contributors" and "as well as articles on retrospectives and the like taking place in our immediate and general global jurisdiction. This is a Canadian film magazine based in Toronto, and that’s an important part of the mandate."

I guess that means that my own website will be getting some more competition.

Burton-O-Rama

Books on Tim BurtonBook Title: Tim Burton
Authors: Ron Magliozzi, Jenny He, & Jesse Wente.
Editor: Andrew Tracy
Publisher: Toronto International Film Festival
Price: 14.00$

Book Title: Burton on Burton, 2nd Revised Edition
Editor: Mark Salisbury
Publisher: Faber on Faber
Price: 30.00$

Book Title: Tim Burton
Author: Aurélien Ferenczi.
Publisher: Masters of Cinema, Cahiers du Cinéma Sarl
Price: 12.55$

“Burton remains a filmmaker whose modus operandi is based entirely on his innermost feelings.” – Mark Salisbury

Timothy William Burton was born on August 25th, 1958 and grew up with his parents in the suburbs of Burbank, Los Angeles, before he moved in with grandmother. As a child he is described as being an introvert and a joker. He made short films with friends in backyards and he spent free time in graveyards and watching horror films. His outsider illustrations even at a young age seemed to be publicly recognized by an audience at large as his sketches were on local papers and city vehicles. He received a scholarship to attend the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and his graduation project, The Stalk of the Celery Monster (1979), caught the attention of the Walt Disney Studio who hired him on as an in-betweener and assistant animator. He did drawings for The Fox and the Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985). He hated it and his macabre illustrations were consistently turned down. Later he would use these sketches for inspirations for some of his other work, like the poetry and drawing collection The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories and the MoMA career-spanning exhibition. Tim Burton's first short films were made with the help of his CalArts collaborator, Rick Heinrichs, who turned his sketches into three-dimensional maquettes. The first three short-films were Vincent, Hansel & Gretel (both 1982), and Frankenweenie (1984) for the Disney cable channel. Since then he has made fourteen full-length feature films, the first being Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) and his latest is a re-working of the classic Lewis Carroll story Alice in Wonderland (2010). Other side projects include a series of collectible figures Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys from Dark Horse Comics that were designed in 2003, and a large format collection of artwork, The Art of Tim Burton, in a standard and deluxe edition, that gathers his drawings and paintings in thirteen sections with quaint titles like Misunderstood Monsters, Freaks, Friends & Foes, Love, and The End. There is also the six-video web-series The World of Stainboy (2000) that follows the titular anti-hero, whose superpower is that he leaves stains, as the police captain of Burbank sends him out to round up the cities social outcasts, in an animation style similar to the official Tim Burton interactive website. These videos are a mixture of comedic punch lines and blunt social criticism. Tim Burton now resides in London, England with his wife Helena Bonham Carter and their young son.

This is the official story of the man that can be disseminated by reading the three books: Masters of Cinema: Tim Burton, TIFF: Tim Burton, and Burton on Burton. Each of the books offers a perspective and emphasis that is different then the other. There is an art critic, a film critic and the man himself. Though they all have a biases and flaws what they do highlight is insightful to better understand the context and depth of Tim Burton’s art.

Ron Magliozzi's, who is an assistant curator in the department of film at the Museum of Modern Art, essay Tim Burton; Exercising the Imagination focuses on Tim Burton’s biography and place within art history. He gathers diverse elements of Tim Burton’s childhood and traces his transition to adolescence and to adulthood. He does this consciously and vocal of Tim Burton intrinsic contradictions, like how Mr. Burton wants to frighten and be comic, as well as how he is an outsider who wants be accepted. Ron Magliozzi’s essay also contextualizes Tim Burton within art history. He posits that Tim Burton is an appropriation artist whose influences come from the American pop culture, so things like television, cartoons, B movies, comic strips, advertising and toys. As well as with other dark and macabre illustrators (Maurice Sendak, Charles Addams, and Edward Gorey), mainstream cartoonist (Henry Syverson, Angelo Torres, Gahan Wilson), the Carnivalesque, Pop Cubism, and Pop Surrealism (Robert Williams and Mark Ryden).

Jesse Wente’s, TIFF head of film programmes, essay Beautiful Outsider; Tim Burton and Hollywood emphasizes Tim Burton in the history of cinematic stop-motion animation. Jesse Wente traces the history back to the animation pioneer Willis O’Brien, who did the special effects on the 1933 King Kong then to the inspiring Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts). Jesse Wente writes “Even more importantly, Burton has occasioned a greater recognition and respect for the supposedly “outdated” medium of stop-motion animation, restoring a vital part of film history to pride of place in a film world ever hungry for novelty.” Jesse Wente highlights the turning point in making Tim Burton a brand with his-name-above-the-marquee in the film The Nightmare Before Christmas that his fellow animator and collaborator Henry Selick directed. As well because Tim Burton has proved that it is viable to create these offbeat and gothic films, Jesse Wente posits that it has inspired studios to entrust into similar visions by up-and-coming directors.

Similar to the first TIFF Bell Lightbox publication, Essential Cinema by Michael Connor and Noah Cowan, where in a published conversation between the two in a casual tone they evoke personal responses to the video-art that was in the TIFF exhibtion Wunderkammer and around the city during the 2010 festival. These personal reactions are similar to the essays in the new TIFF Tim Burton monograph as they are both meditations on art and personal receptions to it.

Burton on Burton consist of a series of interviews with Tim Burton shortly after he made each of his films, though with a prolific director like Tim Burton the 2006 book already feels dated as the last interview is for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). There are synopsis of each film, production background and biographical context. Tim Burton provides shooting anecdotes, like the hardships of location shooting, and personal anecdotes, like how when he was making Big Fish his father recently passed away, he says “It was an amazing catharsis… because you’re able to work through those feelings without having to talk to a therapist about it.” As well there is much discussion on the role of casting and being able to get the right actors who can bring exactly what the role demands of them, a balance of emotional commitment and human exaggeration to visually translate Tim Burton’s original sketches and conceptions. The emphasis is on honesty of feelings and a focus on character psychology and background, but not necessarily on any historical accuracy, which gives the impression that his films are in a world of their own. The Burtonesque. He also laments CGI-laziness to the detriment of the stronger emotional resonance of the more human handmade quality special effects, which Nicolas Saada elaborates in an extract from his review of Beetlejuice, “Scare Me”, in the Masters of Cinema: Tim Burton book.

Masters of Cinema: Tim Burton by Aurélien Ferenczi is a general introduction to Tim Burton’s films with reviews, criticism and an industry perspective. The book is full of glossy larger format illustrations and the writing is concise and astute, though some times the choices are problematic. I disagreed on a couple of assessments. Aurélien Ferenczi writes on Mars Attack “But at best it remains a rather slack and pointless parody.” while, I think, it is one of his stronger films for its critique of society as the Martians destroy the American military and politicians. It has this anger and social critic element, which to me, is where Tim Burton truly excels, like the devastating flashback at the end of The World of Stainboy and the barber knife throat slashing in the masterpiece Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). There is just something so honest, no matter how impolite, about these moments. Aurélien is not always generous towards the director, on the MoMA show he quotes the art critic Ken Johnson who writes “Amalgamating the styles of Edward Gorey, Ralph Steadman, Edward Sorel and other cartoon expressionists into his own less-than-original Victorian-Gothic-Grotesques, Mr Burton has created countless cartoons resembling illustrations for cutely perverse greeting cards.” I wonder how Positif’s French-language book on Tim Burton differs as that magazine has always been more generous. The Masters of Cinema series is a Cahiers du Cinema publication. Though Aurélien’s final comments seems apt “It seems he [Tim Burton] has opted to alternate very dark – and no doubt more personal – films like Sweeney Todd with works like Alice that are aimed at a more general audience”.

The Tim Burton exhibition that was organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York recently arrived at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on November 26th 2010. It consists of drawings, sculptures, maquettes, costumes, props, and videos. Though not all of the work from the original MoMA exhibition made it due to a space limitation and apparently the additional work showed how he refined his initial characters to be able to transplant the vision for the live-action counterparts. The storyboard etchings place him alongside other cinematic draftsmen like Sergei Eisenstein and Federico Fellini. While his gothic antecedents are the likes of Edgar Allen Poe and Vincent Price. Cinematically speaking, the shots (medium), camera movements (crane shots, pans, punch-line shots), and editing (shot-reverseshot) are very standardized and his films usually have an engrossing score by his regular film composer Danny Elfman. But how Tim Burton truly distinguishes himself, is not by thinking out-of-the-box, but by taking scissorfingers to that box(!), and using it to create his own unique vision. In his most recent films there seems to be something new going on, a youthful rejuvenation. As Tim Burton’s is now working with a new generation of younger actors, people like Mia Wasikowska as Alice in Alice in Wonderland and Jamie Cambell Bower as Anthony Hope and Jayne Wisener as Johanna in Sweeney Todd, which achieves a new relevancy. Finally, Tim Burton’s explores the subject of the transition from adolescence to the world of adulthood and its accompanying loss of innocence with a remaining feeling of melancholy. He uses the folkloric as a guise to explore this subject, that of making sense of the chaos of existence, in a heightened way, and over and over again and with each new film, the breath of his imagination has grown and so is his personal philosophy. - David Davidson

L.A. Zombie

This is my third out of three TIFF film reviews and I will also be writing a festival report. - David Davidson

L.A. Zombie (Bruce La Bruce, 2010)
** (Worth Seeing)


Bruce LaBruce's L.A. Zombie was enthusiastically presented by Noah Cowan at its TIFF 2010 premiere. The big controversy about the film was that it was turned away from the Melbourne International Film Festival for being too vulgar. Mr. LaBruce describes L.A. Zombie as an alien-zombie-gay-pornographic film and boasted about the zero star ranking in the Toronto Star, “Its just as hard to get no stars as it is to get four”. L.A. Zombie begins with scenic establishment shots of a Los Angeles beach with the water crashing against rocks and sand. The water goes off into the horizon, seagulls are standing on a rock and then an eerie naked zombie (François Sagat; a freakish male porn star) comes out of the ocean, ready to wreck havoc. In an original twist of the Romeroean zombie fable where traditionally the undead infects victims by biting them, François as the zombie has to stick his alien penis into his victims and then ejaculate a black fluid onto their open wounds, whether it is in their stomachs or a hole in their head.

In an interview between Bruce LaBruce and the artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival Olivier Père, Mr. LaBruce says “Zombies can very easily be interpreted as a fear of AIDS. So to create a zombie who heals and brings people back to life through sexual contact and the dissemination of fluids is a strong reversal of the usual paranoid representation of gay sex and AIDS” . In L.A. Zombie François comes out of the ocean looking like a decease, he is bald, has deformed vampire molars, he is muscular and naked, and is painted in bruised blues, bacteria greens and irritated reds. His first victim does not say much. The victim picks up a staggered and shredded clothes François on the side of the lonely highway. There is a fade to black. The car crashes. The man dies. For a brief moment there is so much compassion directed towards this man with the camera lingering around the corpses accompanied by a melancholy tune. This driver picked up the deceased zombie that this led to his early death. There is a moment of silence before the Zombie infects him. Los Angeles homelessness is a supposed subject of the film, similar to LaBruce’s Hustler White (1995), but the gorilla style of inconspicuous filming usually films the Zombie from a distance who has little contact with the surrounding homeless people. I guess, it is more a portrait of the L.A. homeless/schizophrenics in the vein of something like, say, The Soloist (2009), but it is not a subject that is fully explored instead of just presented.

Mr. La Bruce seems to be a Toronto fixation as the Cinema 2 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (approximately four-hundred seats) was packed to see L.A. Zombie. The tiff Bell Lightbox artistic director, Noa Cowan made it appear that the festival has always been a long advocate for the local director and prides itself on premiering his films. The work of Bruce LaBruce is also written about in the book Toronto On Film (tiff publications; 2009). My criticism of the L.A. Zombie is that it is embarrassingly shot and the set design seemed like it was at an elementary school level. The performances were done in a canned theater style, similarly to Sidney Lumet’s gay murder mystery Deathtrap (1982). While the closest relative to it that I can thing of is those late night nymphic soft-core porn movies that would play on Quebecois broadcasting networks. You know, the ones with those bizarre child-like fairy tales with weird costumes and unabashed sex every five minutes. L.A. Zombie leaves one scratching their head more then anything else. Anyways, I can appreciate all the recommendations (i.e. Eye Weekly, Mubi, Cinema Scope, Locarno, TIFF) and I hope more people get a chance to see L.A. Zombie. It is probably going to be a little seen film, and the more recommendations, hopefully will lead to more people seeing it. What the film truly showcases is the visualization of Bruce LaBruce’s imagination and no prudish morals should interfere with its presentation and distribution. – David Davidson

(BELL Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON)

Sad Movie

This is my second out of three TIFF film reviews and I will also be writing a festival report. - David Davidson

Promises Written in the Water (Vincent Gallo, 2010)
**** (Masterpiece)


Vincent Gallo’s third full-length feature Promises written the water is radical, impolite, and punk. Though it is a little unclear, the story is about a guy, Kevin (Vincent Gallo), who is yearning an ex-girlfriend and opts for a job as a funeral director. There he takes up the role of the host of the funeral home, driver of the hearse, helps out at the mortuary and picks up the corpses. This is similar to Vincent Gallo who spreads himself all over filmmaking by being the director, editor, and producer of his films. The funeral director title is also apt to describe the guy as in his films he usually kills off his girlfriends.

He sees this women Malory (Delfine Bafort; a gorgeous thirty-one-year old Belgium model) and they go out to eat where they have a conversation about Kevin’s ex-girlfriend. In this scene, Kevin recites that Colette has left him for a fifty-five year old and that they are going to Thailand together, but she said that he would always be her favorite. What is so fascinating here is that he repeats the line five times, almost like a record skipping, but with slight variation; emphasizing the nuances of his performance, thematically bridging the film, while also expanding and creating a distinct film-language. Vincent Gallo’s music albums (i.e. When) provide interesting extensions to his films. The two are very lyrical like how the guitar strings hint towards the films tranquility and an EP like So Sad hints towards his sadness and repetition.

Kevin walks into his old apartment and picks up a pair of shoes. A mafioso tries to get him to take up a new job. He refuses. There are a lot of close-ups on his sorrowful mug and the Bressonian scenes of him walking emphasize his loneliness. Kevin pours his heart out to Malory, tells her he loves her, asks her to marry him, he plans for them to move into his house and he has money. Though she brings men home, Kevin wants her to find the one person to make her happy. It is hinted that Malory has a terminal illness and the interspaced scenes of her naked in a white bathtub foreshadow her eventual suicide. Kevin’s love for her though, his promises to her written in the water, are part of the baggage he will carry after she goes. The water motif is brought forward at the begging of the film with its opening shot of Lake Los Angeles.

There are obvious influences of Vincent Gallo’s recent collaboration with Francis Ford Coppela on the movie Tetro. The two are digital productions, they both are shot in black-and-white, Vincent Gallo’s bad ass is more rounded compared to The Brown Bunny, and they both include a dance sequence. Though Francis Ford Coppola said his cinematography is more inspired by Elia Kazan and Powell & Pressburger. Vincent Gallo and his director of photography Masanobu Takayanagi are harder to characterize but there are some semblances with works by Ashby, Antonioni, Dreyer, Cronenberg, Cumming, and von Trier. In this film there is now more dialogue, especially compared to The Brown Bunny where words were very sparse.

Vincent Gallo is one of the more exciting contemporary independent directors. He takes roles in larger films to support his independent productions. The latest film he acts in is Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Killing. Like Jacques Tati’s Mr. Hulot’s character, the Vincent Gallo by Vincent Gallo character is a reoccurring projection of a melancholy romantic. When Kevin helps out the mortician, carrying a corpse and says, “ I don’t want to do it.” He still goes ahead with it. There is a strange urgency in his films. His uncompromising perseverance to keep making the kind of movies he wants to make places him, alongside Harmony Karine, as one of today’s punk American independents. John Cassavetes would be proud. – David Davidson

(Isabel Bader Theater, 93 Charles Street West, Toronto, ON)

TIFF Review (Boxing Gym)

This is my first out of three TIFF film reviews and I will also be writing a festival report. - David Davidson

Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman, 2010) *Director in attendance
*** (A Must-See)


There are three superstar documentary auteurs whose films reflect both their areas of interest and their recognizable approach to filming them. They are Frederick Wiseman, whose approach is of that of the fly-on-the-wall observer and his subjects are institutions; Errol Morris, whose technique is interviewing and his subjects vary though the focus is usually politically topical; and Werner Herzog, who has the uncanny ability to render the familiar into the surreal. Coincidently all three of these filmmakers have new movies premiering at TIFF 2010, Mr. Wiseman has Boxing Gym, Mr. Herzog is bringing his 3-D Caves of Forgotten Dreams, and Errol Morris’s new doc is called Tabloid.

Frederick Wiseman’s PBS documentary Boxing Gym is about an old-school boxing gym in Austin, Texas that is run by old-timer Richard Lords. It was filmed in 2008 before Mr. Wiseman filmed La dance – le ballet de l’Opera de Paris. Mr. Wiseman is a man who thinks that boxing is a noble sport; elegant and choreographed. He said he chose the Lords Gym after only twenty seconds within it. It is an obvious choice because the people there and the building have so much character. The gym boasts a plethora of boxing paraphernalia, colorful characters, and well-worn equipment. On the wall there are Nike boxing posters with Greek wrestlers (a subtle way to contextualize the history of the sport the goes back to ancient Rome), and a poster of Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980) [a way to contextualize the representation of the sport; I would also add King Vidor’s The Champ (1931) and Robert Wise’s The Set-Up (1949) and Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)].

Mr. Wiseman is both the director and editor of the film. Though it is in the editing process that Mr. Wiseman’s vision comes together, as he moulds all his cinéma vérité footage, without any voice-of-god narration, into a portrait of a community. This community of both sexes, people of different life stages, multi-ethnicity and viewpoints form a positive microcosm for the United States of America.

The way the documentary progress is also very interesting. It begins with a sunrise and the younger gym members training. Children training and babies in cribs are one of the first subjects and as Boxing Gym progresses the age of the subjects increase. By the end there has been the entire life cycle including adolescents, emerging adults, adults, and seniors. Boxing is with these people their entire lives and it hints that it is a sport that is passed down through parents. As well to contrast the opening sunset (which in the bottom of the frame includes the small sign that indicates where at the Lords Gym), the film ends with an extended sequence of sunsets.

The documentary is not about the boxing fights themselves, if you wanted that Mr. Wiseman rebuttal is that you can just turn on TV any evening of the week. Boxing Gym is more concentrated on the process of becoming physically fit and disciplined. Here is Roland Barthe's on boxing from his essay The World of Wrestling in the book Mythologies:

This public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a demonstration of excellence. One can bet on the outcome of a boxing-match: with wrestling, it would make no sense. A boxing- match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator; in wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not the passage of time. The spectator is not interested in the rise and fall of fortunes; he expects the transient image of certain passions. Wrestling therefore demands an immediate reading of the juxtaposed meanings, so that there is no need to connect them. The logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling-fan, while on the contrary a boxing-match always implies a science of the future.

Boxing Gym is about this "science of the future" and how a person through will, training and dedication can overcome perceived limitations and take up the sport. It is about how one refines ones body and familiarizing oneself with the sport to the point where training and acting becomes second nature; a similar subject explored in La dance – le ballet de l’Opera de Paris.

Boxing Gym is relatively limited to what goes on in the gym except for a few apt establishing shots. These shots not only establish the setting, the time of the day and the progress of the films cycle, but also they contextualize the gym within a larger city, thus rendering these personal experiences more universal. There is a wife who wants to buy her husband a membership to the gym. She wants to give her husband a chance to pursuit his dreams. There is also a weighty gym member who trains really hard. He is pushing himself, giving it his all. This sequence renders the participants in Mr. Wiseman’s films overarching common attributes, which is “a perpetual desire to see their dignity recognized”. It is this celebration of individual efforts that make Mr. Wiseman’s film so rich. – David Davidson

(AMC Yonge & Dundas 24, Toronto, ON)