Month: September 2007

Encounters at the End of the World, Jellyfish, and It’s a Free World…

Encounters at the End of the World

In his latest exciting documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, which had its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Werner Herzog takes on Antarctica, the only continent he has yet to explore. Encounters tells the story of Herzog’s six-week trip to Antarctica, during which he stayed both in a main base camp, and traveled around the continent, including to the South Pole. The film gives us a glimpse of the fascinating research going on down south, from the dynamic life of an iceberg, to life under the sea, to the study of volcanic activity. Herzog also chronicles his personal encounters with a series of outcasts or eccentrics that ended up making their way to Antarctica: the linguistics PhD student that now lives in a country without a language, the woman that traveled across South America huddled in a sewer on the back of a truck, and a man from communist Russia that still keeps a bag packed should he ever need to leave at a moment’s notice.

Though the subject matter alone would make the movie a worthwhile see, Herzog’s eccentricities, his perspective, and his running yet unobtrusive commentary ground the film in a personal journey, without overtaking the subject matter as a lesser filmmaker, like Michael Moore, might do. I always wondered how documentary filmmakers managed to string together a series of interviews from articulate people. Herzog’s strategy, apparently, when he interviews someone that just can’t get to the point, is to do a voiceover of “blah blah blah, what he’s really trying to say is …”. I wouldn’t be surprised if his subjects were a little bit offended, but it’s hilarious, and the film does have a lot of heart without being heart-warming.
Continue reading “TIFF 2007 Coverage : Part II, The Highlights”

Les Chansons d’Amour and The World Unseen 

Les Chansons d’Amour

Les Chansons d’Amour is a beautifully shot tour of Paris, set to lame, cheesy love songs, and a strange story that doesn’t quite work, derailing into a plot that it never manages to satisfactorily set us up to expect. Ismael (Louis Garrel) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) are a young couple in love – I think – but they’re too scared to admit their true feelings to one another, and instead of trying to work things out, talk things through, and enter the scary territory of a meaningful relationship, they choose, instead to start a ménage a trois with Alice. It’s never quite clear who the threesome is for; I think it’s for the both of them. With a third party around all the time, the young couple never really have to deal with their feelings or affections for one another; they can, instead, focus on playing mind games of power politics and jealousy with one another. I had expected the movie to be about how the relationship between the two women and Ismael develop, how they hurt each other, confuse each other, and either ultimately end up miserable, or actually manage to work things out. That would be an interesting film.

But that is not the film I saw. Continue reading “TIFF 2007 Coverage : Part I”