Blog From The Bench

Toronto Film Festival 2007

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

In Eric Rohmer’s Les amours d’Astrée et de Céladon (The Romance of Astrea and Celadon), the ethereal, almost magical pastoral landscapes of 17th century France are treated with such reverence (the area is now long since destroyed by urbanization, a lengthy opening title card laments) that I just automatically assumed that Rohmer was setting us up as parody of Hónore d’Urfé famous, five-volume novel. But as the film goes on, and the beautiful but poor shepherdess Astréa (Stéphanie Crayencour) spurns her lover (the equally beautiful but wealthy Céladon, played by Andy Gillet) that results in his suicide attempt, it becomes obvious that Rohmer is playing the material straight, asking—or more accurately, demanding—the we the audience put aside our postmodern, Monty Python-induced cynicism of all depictions of the Middle Ages and buy wholeheartedly into the courtly love tradition where it’s perfectly plausible that Céladon, after surviving his suicide attempt, refuses to reunite with the heartbroken Astréa because of an offhand comment she had made during their lovers quarrel. The film takes its time, indulging in digressions and meandering in and out of erudite philosophical discussions. But when the film hits its final third, and the reunion of the two lovers seems inevitable, Rohmer switches modes and the film is suddenly a light on its feet, comical game of cat-and-mouse, complete with pagan rituals, cross-dressing antics and gender confusion. At the final, inevitable kiss closes the film I was shocked to realize how subtly Rohmer had built to a rapturous concluding crescendo—I exited the theater beaming like an idiot. A delight, and without a doubt my biggest surprise of the festival.

One of my biggest regrets of the festival is not getting an opportunity to explore the Canadian Retrospective program, celebrating the work of director and cinematographer Michel Brault, in more depth. The one token entry I was able to catch, and one of my “holy-grail” films for a while now, was Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s groundbreaking Chronique d’un eté (Chronicle of a Summer), in which Brault served as cinematographer. As a Brault biographer noted, introducing the film, Chronique is an extremely uneven film, a series of dialogues and interviews among a swath of Parisian society during the summer of 1960 (the biographer rather cattily commented that most of the more interesting segments can be attributed to Brault). Admittedly, the film does start out very slowly, and I found myself fighting the urge to doze. But as the film goes on these rather extended clips of interviews (which was later termed cinéma vérité), at turns funny, touching, even harrowing, all become extremely compelling, and the influence of the style can be observed in everything from reality television to “confessional” YouTube clips. It’s more of a film to admire than to really love—but the film does manage to transcend its dusty historical importance through the reverberations, for better or worse, that we are still being felt today.

Two days before I left for Toronto I received in the mail via Greencine a DVD of Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 Oscar-winning The Virgin Spring. I sent it back the next day, unseen, hoping that I’d be able to get a ticket for TIFF’s showing of the film, being presented by its star, legendary actor Max von Sydow. Maybe the act of blind faith served as a good luck charm, because I was indeed able to get a ticket for the screening, ultimately one of the highlights of the festival. The film itself is a return to Medieval Scandinavia and many of the themes and elements that Bergman first explored so brilliantly several years before in The Seventh Seal resurface in varying degrees. Inspired by a traditional Swedish folk tale, the film revolves around the tragic circumstances surrounding the murder or the beautiful, petted daughter of a wealthy farmer played by von Sydow, and (inevitably, since this is Bergman we’re talking about here) the crisis of faith it inspires. Dramatically shot by Sven Nykvist (it was the first of many collaborations between director and cinematographer), the film is certainly not among my favorite Bergman films, but contains a lot of moving, quintessential Bergman moments, particularly von Sydow’s harrowing spiritual (and physical) breakdown. Astutely, von Sydow called the film “a drama of the two faith,” the clash of the “heathen” codes of faith being replaced by Christianity.

Certainly the highlight of the evening was the hour or so Q&A time that followed with von Sydow—I took four pages of notes, frantically trying to capture the eloquent actor’s comments on everything from the beginnings of his career through his famous collaborations with Bergman and the friendship he had with the director. I hope to type these up in readable form, and I’ll post them as soon as I do.

-jesse