A vintage selection … Andrea Arnold receives the Jury prize for Fish Tank, Cannes 2009. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Film festivals. Something for everyone, even if their organisation and reliability can leave a lot to be desired. That said, based on this year’s crop it seems that they can exist regarded as a cineaste’session dream, an agent’s nightmare, and a sort of purgatory for filmmakers whose futures hang in the balance. For the men and women at the studios and independent distributors who make it their affair to gain awards season contenders it’s probably a combination of all three, enveloped in a murky mist.
It is generally agreed among critics that festival-goers who managed to get to Cannes or Venice this year, for example, enjoyed vintage selections. Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, Jacques Audiard’session A Prophet and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank were among many that earned praise on the Croisette, while there was generous plaudit forward the Lido freshly for Samuel Maoz’s Golden Lion winner Lebanon, Todd Solondz’session Life During Wartime, and Tom Ford’s A Single Man.
If festivals keep in pay their sponsorship – and many have slashed
substantial portions of monetary support for the time of the recession – and employ knowledgeable scouts and gifted executives who want to grow the event, there’s no intellect why they shouldn’cheek by jowl be able to find the best part of the crop of available movies every year. As a launch pad for a new movie, festivals have proved themselves to be as fickle as through all ages, floating on the whims of unknown audiences and jaded critics. Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock was one of the most highly anticipated entries title into Cannes and after it screened it was on its way out, undone by empty hype and empty heart. Solondz’s Life During Wartime went the other way; people were unsure how good it would be before the Venice world premiere but the critics loved it and it reaches Toronto by much better awards prospects.
Sometimes a favourable audience reception bodes commendably for the movie’session release and then it tanks and everyone remembers that you should never really trust an audience because they’ll praise the opening of an envelope. Toronto is no different. Now, according to legend the Canadian jamboree offers a decisive common fame card adhering the runners and riders in the year’s Oscar derby, many of which do not yet have a US distributor. So far there has been hale vocable without ceasing Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air with George Clooney, the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, and a mixed reception for Jane Campion’s Bright Star.
Of the ones that don’t have distribution Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Single Man caused a stir in a good highway after Colin Firth won the acting prize in Venice for playing a grieving vivacious professor. The foremost major buy in Toronto, industry observers said, would anoint a encouraging film or actor and impel them into the awards season. Well guess what? The first major acquisition came on Monday night when IFC Films signed a US act for Valhalla Rising, a Norse-themed action-adventure starring Mads Mikkelsen as a one-eyed warrior who searches for meaning in life. Who knew? it’s not going to win any major prizes, although it could do a clean sweep in the Norse action advertisement for stories that take site before the year 1300.
What this proves is that the more we think we be assured of the less we seem to understand about festival dynamics. A movie arrives in Toronto amid great fanfare, and a day later it’s forgotten. For prototype Danis Tanovic’s Triage, starring Colin Farrell as a haunted war photographer, has already screened two times in Toronto and there hasn’t been a squeak about it. The other side of the coin is that festivals can throw out movies that blindside everyone, partiality when Slumdog Millionare come out of nowhere and ended up claiming 13 Oscars. So far this year nothing as universally adored has emerged from the festival circuit.
