The 2002 Toronto International Film Festival By Brian Owens Brian Owens is the Founder and President of The Bubaker Awards. He studied Film at Indiana University - Bloomington. He also works as a freelance film critic.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) holds a unique place among the major world film festivals. It is the largest, this year showing 345 films on 20 screens in ten days. It is the most "open to the public" festival, allowing hordes of movie buffs to see the stars and catch as many as 50 movies. It also was the only film festival in operation on 9/11, creating a special relationship between the festival and that fateful day. The selections for this year's festival reflect these this.

Toronto seems to do a splendid job of combining the best in current world cinema, North American independents, and big Hollywood productions. Yet, across these vastly different terrains, one can see commonalities.

Biographical, autobiographical films and bio-fictions seemed to be the rage of the festival - especially regarding artists. Many directors seem to be playing with form, using silence, stationary cameras, and creating films composed of one long shot. The melodrama seems to be making a comeback of major proportions, albeit in new and different incarnations. Finally, politics seems to be taking a back seat to the personal. The biopics, melodrama, and new forms of film all reflect this trend. Nearly every director at a special round-table about filmmaking in the post-9/11 era agreed this was the direction he/she saw his/her art form heading.

With all this in mind, let's dive in to the many films that reflect the above-mentioned trends. Of course, we will give some time to filmmakers who transcend trends, avoid trends, set trends, and give the finger to trends.

Bio-pics & Bio-fictions
It seems there are only four people left who have not had a movie made about their life. Among those ticked off the list at the Toronto International Film Festival this year include: Mexican painter Frida Kahlo; rapper Eminem; television actor Bob Crane; and nineteenth-century Korean painter Jang Seung-up. In a slightly different vain, Max tells a fictional account of Adolph Hitler as a young artist, and his friendship with Jewish gallery owner, Max Rothman. Finally, while not truly a "biopic", Brad Silberling invites us back to a difficult period in his life - in essence, creating a film memoir of his early years.

Frida (United States); directed by Julie Taymor; 120 minutes.
The tales of Salma Hayek's long struggle to bring the story of Frida Kahlo have become somewhat of a legend on their own. The film, directed by she of the stunning visuals, Julie Taymor (Titus, Broadway's The Lion King), is little more than a collection of scenes from the painter's life. While occasionally daring, the film suffices itself to simply connect the various dots of Kahlo's life, rather than digging deeper to find the meaning behind the events. Hayek leads the way with a passionate performance.

Chihwaseon (South Korea); directed by Im Kwon-taek; 117 minutes.
One of South Korea's master filmmakers has been making the rounds with his latest. It had its world premier at Cannes, where Im won a Best Director award, and earned the Gala treatment at Toronto. Im takes an interesting approach to his subject. Unlike Kahlo, little was known about Jang Seung-up, one of the most influential painters in Korea's history. Much of the film is speculation. After a slow beginning, where characters seem to be introduced and then tossed aside, Chihwaseon finds its rhythm and becomes a fascinating visual exploration of the inner turmoil of an artist. Chio Min-sik spearheads the film with an energetic lead performance. When a recently dumped lover asks Jang to give her a painting to remember him by, Im takes us in close to the paper. We are literally right there with the artist. As he finishes his final strokes, the camera pulls out and we see the work in its full and glorious beauty. Several moments like this exhibit Im's ability to show the intimate detail, and give us the grand scope of this artist's life.

Max (Canada/Germany/United States); directed by Menno Meyjes; 106 minutes.
Max is an interesting film, if little else. The tale of a Jewish gallery owner's friendship with a young artist named Adolph Hitler leaves one wondering why it was made. Listening to Rothman and Hitler discuss their theories on art and on German post-WWI society is the part of the film that works. The idea of finding the man who eventually became a monster is, in and of itself, a fascinating idea. When the plot machinations are set in motion, is when the film begins to fall short. The transformation of Hitler from a disaffected nerd who wants to paint to most evil man in world history is too brief, too simple, and too difficult to believe.

Auto Focus (United States); directed by Paul Schrader; 107 minutes.
Bob Crane, star of "Hogan's Heroes", led one of the more interesting lives in Hollywood history and his death remains a mystery still unsolved. This was fodder for an outstandingly nasty portrait of a young man in Hollywood led astray by fame and fortune. Unfortunately, it comes across as a simple addiction story where sex replaces drugs or booze. Greg Kinnear is affable as Crane, and he creates a sympathetic character out of one who could easily be no more than pathetic. Yet, Schrader, the daredevil who wrote such classics as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, seems to be holding back on us. It almost feels as if he does not trust his own instincts. Instead of really digging deep into the life of a truly troubled artist, what we get is "How to make a biographical film - 101". I doubt anyone will try again with Bob Crane's story, but if they do, I imagine there is a better film to be made.

8 Mile (United States); directed by Curtis Hanson; 118 minutes.
Easily the hottest ticket at this year's festival (scalpers were getting as much as $275 for a ticket), 8 Mile does not overtly state that it is a film based on the life of rapper Eminem. Take a look at the facts: it is set in Detroit; it is about a young white man who turns to hip-hop as his emotional release and ticket out of poverty; he hates his mom and his ex-girlfriend. Who does that sound like to you? If you are one of the many who would prefer Eminem tripped and fell in a hole and was never heard from again, you will be angry at this movie - because, from all reports, it is very good, and so is Em. In fact, some have said that 8 Mile could do for Eminem what Saturday Night Fever did for John Travolta. Hopefully, that does not mean Eminem will be starring in Battlefield Earth 2.

Moonlight Mile (United States); directed by Brad Silberling; 112 minutes.
Unlike any of the other films in this section, Moonlight Mile is included because writer / director Brad Silberling openly admits that this is based on an incident in his life. He claims it is the story he has wanted to make since he began filmmaking. It is too bad then that his vision seems to be so myopic. While perfectly acted by Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon and newcomer Ellen Pompeo, the story collapses into a mess of clichés. Film is so often referred to as a collaborative art. Sometimes, filmmakers choose to make stories so close to their hearts, they need an outside influence to keep it from becoming too personal. Thus is the case with, Moonlight Mile.

With the exception of Moonlight Mile, each of the above strives to tell us more than just the personal tale presented on screen. Frida, Chihwaseon and Max each give us the political turmoil through which the artist at the center of their tale completed their work. Auto Focus and 8 Mile each look to fame through a wider societal lens. Ultimately, each film represents one director's personal vision and focuses on the individuals, rather than the politic climates in which they find themselves.

The Return of the Melodrama
Perhaps one of the most striking trends at this year's TIFF was the return of the long-thought-dead melodrama. A few simple tweaks and twists, and three filmmakers, most specifically, have brought back this style of filmmaking with great aplomb. Pedro Almodovar has long flirted with true melodrama and parodying the form. With his latest, he steps even closer to celebrating the moving stories that can be told within the context of this aging (often vilified) style. Todd Haynes pairs with his star of choice, Julianne Moore, and dives into the form more brazenly than any artist has since the genre died out so many years ago. Finally, France's enfant terrible, Francois Ozon, delivers a spry comedy that takes the melodramatic approach of the classic American "sudsers" of the 1950's - not true melodrama, but a fun example of why the form has generally tossed by the wayside.

Melodramas have one requirement - the obstacle the hero must overcome in reaching her goal is society's rules of conduct. Ultimately the film discusses the way humanity deplores personal freedom. Usually the subjects of the film were women, and the films were derisively called "women's pictures". The American master of the style was Douglas Sirk, whose All That Heaven Allows is counted amongst the greatest of the genre, and serves as the inspiration for Haynes' Far From Heaven.

Talk to Her (Spain); directed by Pedro Almodovar; 116 minutes.
Mr. Almodovar has always included elements of American melodrama in his pictures. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is one of the best in tweaking the style. He has always identified with women. It would make sense, then, that he would utilize the style of "women's pictures" to create his works. What makes his latest most interesting is his change of focus to the men who love women. Delving further than he ever has into melodramatic territory, he mines a variety of emotions in this unusually moving film. Benigno (an outstanding Javier Camara) has been Alicia, a ballet student who is the women of his dreams. He crosses paths with Dario, an Argentine travel-guide writer. What brings the two together is that the women they love are both comatose. Dario is distressed and questions his ability to maintain his love for Lydia. Benigno, on the other hand suggests that Dario simply talk to her, as he does to Alicia, and their love will remain strong. Giving away the directions the film moves in would be sinful of me. Rest assured, though that Almodovar gives us many of the things that we look for in his films, and then some. He has created what may well be considered his masterpiece. Combining so-called feminine filmmaking techniques and a male story, Almodovar finds himself at the top of his craft.

Far From Heaven (United States); directed by Todd Haynes; 107 minutes.
No film left Toronto with better buzz than Haynes' unabashed return to the melodrama. Led by a remarkable performance by Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven is sure to take a place in film history for its brilliant ability to tell a moving story while maintaining its anachronistic artifice. Moore is Cathy Whitaker, the devoted wife of Frank Whitaker. Frank however has a dark secret. It's revelation will send Cathy on a singular adventure that sets her firmly against what society says she should do, but leads her ultimately to a more truthful existence. Films that deal with sexual orientation and race relations are nothing new. What Haynes does that makes this film special is facing the issues exactly as a filmmaker of the time would likely face them. Not only does his style reflect the period, so does the films moral code. It is a nifty trick, but not as nifty as the way the film becomes more than an experiment - it becomes a truly moving story of one woman's struggle for self-definition.

8 Women (France); directed by Francois Ozon; 103 minutes.
You will find no such messages in Francois Ozon's incredibly goofy 8 Women. While also returning to the fifties, Ozon prefers to skewer the time period and its pre-feminist ways by burying his film in clichés of many genres popular at the time, among them, the soap-opera stylings of the melodrama. For good measure, the film is also part Agatha Christie murder-mystery, and part musical (styles vary from torch-song to beach-blanket). Most everyone at the festival was able to turn himself or herself over to this madcap comedy, starring the who's who of French actresses (Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, and Emmanuel Beart make up half the cast). The stuffed shirts did not seem so taken with Ozon's tribute/slap-in-the-face to "women's pictures" however, and pooh-poohed it as nothing but silliness. Of course, one could respond, "That is all it is, and what's wrong with that?" Indeed.

Three highly respected directors go in three distinct directions within the same general style - melodramas. The musical seems to be on its way back into mainstream filmmaking. With the success of the genre at Toronto, is the melodrama set to return to the forefront of cinema? Unlikely, but expect many other directors to play with the form in the future.

Playing with the form
Many of the world's major artists have been trying to figure out what to do within the form to challenge themselves. The results of such challenges were on display in Toronto. American former bad-boy turned inspirational Hollywood storyteller, Gus Van Sant clearly had enough of doing things Hollywood's way. He does a complete 180-degree turn with his latest. Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami made a clear statement after he finished The Wind Will Carry Us. He will no longer work with film. His desired medium from then on would be digital video. Toronto gives us the first glimpse at his new direction. Finally, Russian filmmaker Alexandr Sokurov presented himself with the biggest challenge of all - his film was shot in one 97 minute take, unedited and uninterrupted.

Gerry (United States); directed by Gus Van Sant; 103 minutes.
If Matt Damon's name attracts giggling teenage girls to this film, they will likely be dumbstruck, awestruck, or bored to sleep depending on their varying intellectual capacities and levels of patience. Gerry is a demanding and challenging film. Sadly, I doubt most audiences are up to the challenge. The audiences at Toronto were not - most called it the worst film at the festival. Gerry is the story of two young men named Gerry who get lost in the desert, and in their efforts to find their way out, collapse, slowly into insanity. Mind you, everything in Gerry happens slowly. Transitional shots of clouds rolling by will last two and a half minutes. One 360-degree rotation around Casey Affleck lasts nearly five minutes. A shot of Damon and Affleck crossing the desert lasts over eight minutes. Van Sant has definitely set out to fight against the quick-cuts and MTV-style edits that seem to dominate filmmaking in the current climate. Most will say he has overstated his case to the point of driving audiences away. When this film is released in February of 2003, it will be one of the toughest marketing challenges in modern history. Most cineastes will approve of the experiment, whether they actually like the film or not.

10 (Iran); directed by Abbas Kiarostami; 94 minutes
Anyone who has seen Kiarostami's previous works (The Wind Will Carry Us, A Taste of Cherry, Beneath the Olive Trees) knows he is a minimalist. i takes that minimalism to new degrees. The "10" of the title is ten conversations, all of which take place in the front seat of a Tehran taxicab. Kiarostami takes a digital camera, mounts it to the dashboard of the cab, and points it at either the driver or her passengers. That's it. No exterior shots, no camera movements, little to no editing. We open with an uninterrupted fifteen-minute shot of the woman driver's willful seven-year-old son. He is still angry with his mother for divorcing his father and remarrying. The two of them try to reach common ground and get along, but it proves too difficult. The remaining conversations (with the son arriving two more times) are with various women of Tehran (a female driver cannot take male passengers with who she is not related). One is an elderly woman on her way to prayer. Another is a prostitute with highly liberal sexual attitudes for such a repressed nation. Each conversation allows us to get to know the driver a bit better, but ultimately, the statement is one about the position of women in modern Iran. Like Gerry, it is an interesting experiment, and it proves that one can do much with little. Ultimately though, the experiment grows tiresome. Perhaps 7 would have been more tolerable.

Russian Ark (Russia); directed by Alexandr Sokurov; 97 minutes.
Sokurov is fast emerging as Russia premier filmmaker. With Russian Ark, he creates a film that has made history. This 97-minute feature was shot uninterrupted with a Sony HDDV camera. It is the longest recorded shot in film history, and is the first High Definition feature in history. Is it a good film becomes the question. The answer, evidently, is that it is fascinating. Sokurov has always loved The Hermitage, the grand art museum in St. Petersburg that used to serve as the royal palace. Utilizing the many works that line the walls of this world-famous monument, he has crafted a sort of Russian historical travelogue. Our tour guides are a French diplomat and a documentary filmmaker who never appears on camera - he is behind it. We follow the turbulent history of the world's largest nation through Peter & Catherine to Tsar Alexander to the last Royal ball held in the Hermitage in 1913, just days before the Bolshevik Revolution. Expect cineastes to talk about this one for years to come, not for what is being told, but for the revolutionary ways in which it unfolds.

Most film festivals have separate programs for films that challenge the audience with new ways of making cinematic creations, yet are not quite far enough astray of standard storytelling to be called "experimental". Many of these films fail to find distribution. The power of Toronto and the success of these films at other festivals assure their eventual release here in the United States. The more difficult question is will audiences - even art house crowds - follow these filmmakers down their daring paths; or will they get lost, like the subjects of Gerry?

The Independents
American and British independents seem to be following the move to the more personal tales as well. Politics takes a back seat to a moving family tragedy of Greek proportions in Ken Loach's latest. After directing for television for years, Karen Moncrieff gets her big-screen break with the tale of a disaffected young woman who turns to poetry for solace after her parents' divorce. Finally, newcomer Todd Louiso works with inimitable Philip Seymour Hoffman to tell the tale of a man who falls into addiction after the death of his young wife.

Sweet Sixteen (United Kingdom); directed by Ken Loach; 106 minutes.
Ken Loach returns to his old stomping grounds with Sweet Sixteen. More reminiscent of his great work in My Name is Joe and Ladybird, Ladybird than his more obviously political films Land and Freedom and Bread and Roses, Sweet Sixteen is not so much a revolutionary film as it is the revelation of young actor Martin Compston. Mr. Compston plays Liam, a fifteen-year-old Edinburgh lad who is trying to set up a nice home for his mother upon her release from prison. He wants to live with her away from her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend. He takes ironic steps to earn the money to get a nice apartment for the family ultimately leading to tragedy. If you have seen Loach's work before, you will know exactly where the film is going. Regardless of that predictability, you will be amazed at the raw, powerful performance of Compston. This young man, who has ruefully announced his retirement from acting already, has a presence that reminds one of the great actors of the fifties and sixties. He is a complete natural, and even as he is doing the nastiest things, he build's empathy for his character. What one appreciates about Loach's directorial work is that he let's the politics of poverty take a backseat to storytelling. The resulting Sweet Sixteen is in parts funny, moving, and always real.

Blue Car (United States); directed by Karen Moncrieff; 87 minutes.
Moncrieff's feature debut is one of those films where you have expectations going in, and you get exactly what you expect. Unfortunately, when the film is about a high-school girl who writes poetry, the expectations are not terribly high. Moncrieff works very well with her actors. Young Agnes Bruckner gives an assured performance as the damaged Meg. The always-reliable David Straitharn is certainly on par with his young co-star. What brings the film down is the unfolding of the story. Things begin to happen in the film that make you think, "This could only happen in an independent film." The poetry is believably high school, which is a mixed blessing - it makes it real, but hard to sit through. Miramax paid a pretty penny for this one, and it will be tough to take it terribly far in the market. Ms. Moncrieff should sit together with Mr. Silberling (Moonlight Mile) and help each other whittle their scripts back into something more believable.

Love Liza (United States); directed by Todd Louiso; 90 minutes.
Todd Louiso gets immediate points for working with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who delivers his finest performance to date in this small film. Hoffman is Wilson, a web designer whose wife has recently committed suicide. Slowly, he begins to shove everyone away - his coworkers, his late wife's mother (Kathy Bates, in another great supporting part), and all of the friends he and his wife made while she was alive. There is a remarkably moving scene where one such couple invites Wilson over for dinner. The three of them sit facing the empty chair and the woman breaks down into tears. Oh yeah, and Wilson likes to huff gas. Louiso never takes the easy road in this daring little film. While is does begin to collapse toward the end, it is a stirring debut, and should propel Hoffman into the status he has deserved for quite some time.

Bucking the trends
There are those filmmakers who will never fit into a trend, or may simply buck the trend because they are ornery. Anyone who has had the pleasure of experiencing the films of Japanese animation king, Hayao Miyazaki, knows the difficulty of describing his filmmaking style. Anyone who has seen Roger & Me, The Big One, or his television show "The Awful Truth", knows that Michael Moore will do the opposite of what everyone else is doing just to piss a few people off for our pleasure. Finally, the Midnight Madness selections keep crazed audiences awake with bizarre and amusing tales.

Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Japan); directed by Hayao Miyazaki - dubbing directed by John Lasseter; 125 minutes.
Thanks the spirits that convinced Japan's top animator to come out of retirement to make this beautifully rendered film. The spirits that infected Mr. Miyazaki and sparked the creation of this masterpiece are rare indeed. Watching Spirited Away, you almost feel as if you were privy to the manuscript for "Alice in Wonderland." This film is about a young girl transported to another world where human logic does not exist, but that jumping off point is the only thing the story has in common with Carroll's classic tale. The visions that Miyazaki has dreamed up are so unique and so imaginative as to leave the audience in awe. Check out the walrus-like "Radish Spirit". Watch the "Stink Spirit" sludge its way through a bathhouse for the gods. Cringe at the disturbing giant baby, as he demands our hero, Chihiro, play with him. When Chihiro boards a train that travels over slightly submerged tracks, the moon reflecting off the water, a lonely ghost at her side, you will be amazed. Many report that Miyazaki is a hero to the animators at Disney. One hopes their studio treats this film with the respect it deserves as they release it to American audiences. It is truly something to behold.

Bowling for Columbine (United States); directed by Michael Moore; 118 minutes.
Another master who may well have created his masterwork is America's devil's advocate, Michael Moore. The film was the runner-up for the AGF People's Choice Award. Bowling for Columbine gets its title from the examination of the likings of the Columbine shooters. We all know that they liked violent videogames and Marilyn Manson music, right? That surely contributed to the deadly shootings, right? Moore informs us that they enjoyed bowling just as much. Could bowling have been responsible? Moore's film is his most daring and most dangerous. For the first time, he does not purport to have the answers to the questions he is asking. Indeed one scene in the film finds our mouth hero speechless. He presents some very uncomfortable scenes. We actually see security footage from the Columbine shootings. His surprise interview with NRA president Charlton Heston is reportedly the most difficult documentary interview captured on film.

Bubba Ho-tep (United States); directed by Don Coscarelli; 92 minutes.
What can anyone say about a movie that tells the tale of a still-alive, elderly Elvis Presley and an old black man who thinks he's JFK joining forces to save their nursing home from an Ancient Egyptian mummy who sucks out the souls of the elderly out through their anuses? This is the definition of midnight madness, and the so-far undistributed film deserves wider, drunker audiences. This one wears its B-movie badness on its sleeve with pride. Great performances from Evil Dead front man, Bruce Campbell, and classic actor Ossie Davis drive this adventure forward with a zany and contagious energy. Special effects that would drive George Lucas insane only add to the fun. Bubba Ho-tep does the seemingly impossible: it goes so far on the bad scale, that it circles its way back around to genius. Look for this one to join Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, and Peter Jackson's Dead Alive on the list of outstandingly horrible horror-comedies.

9/11
Last year, the Toronto International Film Festival went black on the tragic day. No one was terribly interested in movies. The anniversary of that tragic day held an interesting pall even over this year's festival. On that day, the festival offices and theaters remained closed until 11 AM, allowing time for festivalgoers to attend memorials held throughout the city. Festival programmers geared the gala presentations that day toward remembrance of the anniversary.

The Guys (United States); directed by Jim Simpson; 98 minutes.
Jim Simpson served as director of this play written by Anne Nelson about her experience helping a fire captain write eulogies for eight of his men who perished on duty at the World Trade Centers. Simpson and Nelson adapted the story for the screen, and got Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia to reprise their roles as fire captain and journalist. Many describe the film as good, but not great. Most who attended the Gala premier thought it surely would not have been a Gala were it not for the subject and day.

11'09"01 (France); directed by Ken Loach, Claude Lelouch, Danis Tanovich, Sean Penn, Amos Gitai, Shohei Imamura, Samira Makhmalbaf, Youssef Chanihe, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Mira Nair, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu; 135 minutes.
This collection of short films, each one 11 minutes, 9 seconds, and one frame, sparked a vast variety of reactions. Nearly every one agreed the most moving entry was Makhmalbaf's. The Iranian filmmaker focuses her short on an Iranian teacher, working with Afghani children, trying to explain to her children what has occurred. The children have no understanding of what a skyscraper even is. To illustrate her lesson she has them stand next to the town's smokestack. The innocence of the film won universal praise. Mexican filmmaker, Inarritu uses the power of a black screen and sound to take us as close as we can possibly come to being there. He punctuates the film with frightening flashes of bodies falling from the towers. Over a black screen, he ends with the deafening sounds of the floors collapsing on each other. The result left audiences gasping. From Burkina Faso, Ouedraogo's short comedy is about a young boy who thinks he has found Osama Bin Laden, and is trying to find a way to capture him and turn him in to the American government to collect the $25 million reward to help his poor mother and country. The Israeli and Egyptian entries received both boos and applause. Prior to the beginning of the program, a screen advises the audience that each filmmaker had full freedom of speech. If the film does receive American release, expect some audiences to respond negatively to more than one of the shorts.

Conclusions
No film festival is complete without controversial entries. Along with some of the shorts of the 9/11 collection, Toronto had Gaspard Noe's Irreversible, which has what has been described as an "impossible to watch" nine minute rape scene. Kids director, Larry Clark, was back with Ken Park, a sexually explicit tale of teenage suicide, sex, and skateboards. The winner of Venice's Golden Lion, The Magdalene Sisters, from first-time director Peter Mullan (star of Loach's My Name is Joe) won a Discovery award at Toronto. The Catholic Church has blasted the film for being vehemently vicious to the Church and its ideals. American distributor, Miramax defends the film as being an honest discussion of the treatment of women sent to the Irish convent in question. Mullan went even further, blasting the church for denying the brutality that took place inside the convent's walls.

By now, most have heard about the controversy regarding press/industry screenings and critic extraordinaire Roger Ebert. He was denied entrance into the screening of Haynes' Far From Heaven. And he raised a stink. This lead to columns back and forth between he and critics from "The Toronto Globe and Mail" complaining about the festival and its first-come-first-served policies. What makes the whole deal interesting is the fact that the very policy about which Ebert complains is what makes the TIFF so interesting. (Editor's Note: While a great deal was made of this incident, Ebert was not arguing, essentially, about the openness of TIFF, but about the proliferation of non-press industry types "stealing" seats from critics. There were a number of critics other than Ebert who were denied entrance to Far From Heaven. One festival attendee told me that many industry members, non-press, are able to simply purchase press passes, which basically takes those passes away from legitimate members of the press. While Ebert may have oversold the situation with flagrant behavior, his position is, by most accounts, an honest one.)

Many described this year's festival as "good, but not great." The overwhelming choices could easily lead to different conclusions from different festivalgoers. Some other entries that receive fairly universal praise that were not mentioned include Tom Tykwer's Heaven, Catherine Breillat's Sex is Comedy, Lukas Moodysson's Lilya 4-Ever, Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, and of course, AGF People's Choice Award winner, Whale Rider, directed by Niki Caro. Whale Rider received resounding standing ovations, and inspired Australian actor, Sam Neill (who attended a public screening simply based on the film's buzz) to stand and thank the filmmaker on behalf of the entire audience.

That is truly the beauty of Toronto and its festival. Each film is nearly sold-out, and, unlike other festival audiences, they tend not to boo films they do not like. When an audience appreciates a film, they let the filmmaker know with resounding applause. Fans line up hours in advance for the chance to see their favorite stars. Adam Sandler fans lined up a full fifteen hours in advance of the first screening of Punch Drunk Love. The fact that Toronto is the only major festival to celebrate B-movies with its Midnight Madness selection proves its lack of pretensions. It is refreshingly human, eclectic, and enjoyable - much like its host city.

                                                                 © FILM JOURNAL 2002