Century of Birthing (Lav Diaz, The Philippines)—Visions By Christoph Huber If you want the entire experience of the 68th Venice Film Festival bottled up into one grand (almost) six-hour marathon, surely there’s no better way than Lav Diaz’s Orizzonti sidebar closer, which was—as always seems to be the case with Venice screenings of the Filiipono…

Goon (Michael Dowse, Canada)—Special Presentations By John Semley A bloody ballet of hockey violence that, gracefully, never gets too balletic, Michael Dowse’s latest drops the gloves on neutered, toothless hock-u-dramas of the Score, Breakaway etc. variety. As brawler Doug “The Thug” Glatt, Seann William Scott further elbows his way out of typecast wincing douchebaggery, playing…

By Bart Testa The Toronto International Film Festival’s experimental film series Wavelengths was begun by Cinematheque Ontario programmer Susan Oxtoby a decade ago as an outgrowth of her popular year-round Cinematheque series The Free Screen—and not of anything happening at TIFF itself, which has consistently displayed little interest in avant-garde films. Wavelengths continued with Oxtoby’s…

Elles (Malgoska Szumowska, France/Poland/Germany)—Special Presentations By Sergio Baldini In Elles, a female journalist from the woman’s magazine Elle (played by Juliette Binoche, whose presence reinforces the sub-Hanekean tenor of the film) is investigating student prostitution. She interviews two young women, one French, one Polish, living in Paris, who have turned to hooking to finance their…

Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany)—Contemporary World Cinema By Jay Kuehner Young love, Paris 1999. Surprisingly, there is no moratorium on the subject among French directors, not even the youthful Mia Hansen-Løve, who at 30 has three films to her credit that exhibit maturity beyond her years. Loosely autobiographical, Goodbye First Love is no exception…

Arirang (Kim Ki Duk, South Korea)—Real to Reel This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Iran)—Masters By Mark Peranson An amateurishly shot “self-interrogation,” the Cannes Un Certain Regard-winning film Arirang is cannon fodder for the enemies of director Kim Ki Duk, and of those the director rightly claims there are many; there…

Cinema Scope 48 Preview: City Sisters: Buenos Aires in the Spotlight at TIFF By Quintín One of my town’s most remarkable landmarks is a really awful globe made of concrete that sits on Main Street. It was donated by the local Rotary Club in association with some California branch of the institution. The reason for…