Deepa Mehta is an always intriguing voice. She has also made some terrific films, and with her new effort Beeba Boys coming out, it’s no shock that TIFF is giving her whole body of work another look. Thankfully the director herself will be on-hand for a In Conversation With… session with TIFF CEO Piers Handling (Oct. 10 at 7 p.m.) as well as for screenings of a couple of her films.
Her “elements” trilogy will likely be the defining effort of her career — Fire, Earth, and her masterpiece Water that she will introduce Oct. 11 at 4 p.m. — and should be enough to hang one’s hat on. This trilogy gives voice to women marginalized within Hindu patriarchal and religious institutions in India.
Heaven on Earth (Nov 8 at 1 p.m.) has some potent and even atmospheric sequences, and it confronts difficult subject matter in domestic violence bravely, but I’m not sure if it works on the whole as a feature film. Her foray into Bollywood comedy Bollywood/Hollywood (Oct 11, 7:15 p.m.) doesn’t do anything for me, even with a recent re-watch, but it has its backers.
The overarching voice of Indian cinema (surely world cinema as well…) Satyajit Ray is one of Mehta’s chief influences and she has decided to introduce the third part of the master’s Apu Trilogy, The World of Apu (Oct. 10 3:15 p.m.) as her “carte blanche” choice. Some people don’t get past Pather Panchali in film studies class, which is a real shame.
Screening Roundup
Unfortunately this post will likely appear after critic Geoff Pevere has commenced his six-part lecture series on Toronto’s history and impact in cinema. Today’s lecture at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema looked at why Toronto, as a city, is “illusive” on film in a way that other great world cities are not. Next week, Oct. 15 at 10 a.m to noon, looks at Toronto as “a place to disappear.”
Pixar’s Inside Out will get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars but I wonder if it won’t just gather enough momentum to win the whole darn thing. Coming out of a fairly lukewarm TIFF (at least in terms of Oscar-bait) one wonders. Catch it on the big screen in 3-D at The Revue in the 1:30 p.m. matinee slot this weekend.
Late to the party on this one, but this column would be remiss not to note the passing of the terrific video store down the street from The Revue, The Film Buff. I spoke with co-owner Scott Worsley last year and he seemed contented with their long run in Roncesvalles and seemed fine with the idea that how we watch movies is simply changing. I will miss good video stores like this and lament that the next generation of buffs to-be won’t have shelves to pore over in the same way.
Toronto Screengrab of the Week
Last week was the fairly standard Wesley Snipes vehicle Murder at 1600. This week we’ll kick-up the Halloween push a bit and go with a horror satire that is (a bit) better than it has any right to be and uses Niagara Falls as a locale despite being largely shot here in the big smoke.
