TIFF 2011: Drive, First Position and Sarah Palin

Sunday was my first three day movie of TIFF this year and I saw three pretty different films.

First up was Drive, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan (making this my third year in a row of seeing one of her films at TIFF). The movie premiered earlier this year at Cannes and won a Best Director award there for Nicolas Winding Refn. Gosling plays the Driver (no other name given), a man who works at a garage and drives stunt cars on movie sets by day and criminals fleeing the scene of the crime by night. He lives alone, doesn't say much and has no personal life to speak of. He meets his new neighbour Irene and her adorable son in the hallway of their building and finds himself getting pulled into her life at the same time he's also getting pulled into a new business venture by his boss and mentor Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Other people involved in these entanglements include mobsters (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman), thieves (Christina Hendricks) and ex-cons (Oscar Isaac).

It is a very well done, very stylistic, and very violent movie. I was a bit unprepared for the level of violence and must confess that I watched several scenes through finger covered eyes. Even so, I really liked the movie. Gosling is fantastic and I don't know whether this or Ides of March is more likely to get him an Oscar nomination this year, though it's unfortunate that the two great performances may end up working against him and splitting the vote. I renew my girlcrush on Carey Mulligan every time I see her on screen and though she didn't have all that much to do here, there were a few moments where she and Gosling had entire conversations without saying a word that were pretty magical.

More impressively for a 9:00am screening the morning after the premiere (and considerable partying I'm sure) Winding Refn, Gosling, Cranston and Brooks showed up to do a Q&A after the film. I fully believe that a couple of them had not yet been to bed. Winding Refn is clearly a bit insane (in the best possible way of course). He talked about how the movie got made (which somehow started with a story about how he wanted to kill Harrison Ford in a movie but didn't get to), how he and Ryan are 'telekenetic' and interjected some other bizarre comments as the discussion went along. Not counting being able to stare at Gosling, Cranston was easily the best part of the discussion, quick witted, very funny and entertaining.

Next up was First Position, a documentary by first time filmmaker Bess Kargman. The movie follows 6 different children from around the world between the ages of 10 and 17 who are competing in the Youth America Grand Prix ballet competition, which every year awards scholarships and even job contracts to those trying to make ballet a career.

It was a lovely, entertaining and heartfelt movie. You can't help but fall a little in love with these kids as you see how hard they work and hear about some of the hardships they've had to deal with in their young lives. The film was described as a labour of love by Kargman, herself a former dancer in her childhood, who has done a really good job with her first film. She seemed very excited to be presenting the movie at TIFF and was very grateful for the enthusiastic response of the crowd. I really hope she manages to sell the movie cause it would be nice to find it on the Movie Network or HBO Canada sometime and watch it again. She also brought along a few of the subjects of the film to answer a few questions and they were all very cute and pretty well spoken.

I finished up the day with the world premiere of Sarah Palin: You Betcha!, the newest documentary from Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill which strives to tell us something new about the former mayor of Wasilla.

Broomfield and Churchill spent about three months in Wasilla, interviewing family members, friends and former friends, and enemies of Palin and also travelled to various locations in the states to pop up at Palin book signings to try to get an interview with the woman herself.

It's not a flattering picture of Palin, though I can't imagine anyone would expect one. She comes across as someone who could be dangerous with enough power. I thought the movie was good, but not great, and didn't really tell me much that I didn't know or already think about the woman. The one area that was somewhat new to me was the extent of the evangelical background and faith which seems to inform most of her decisions. I still can't believe that this woman is taken so seriously by so many people. The filmmakers were asked about fears for their safety (they're being optimistic and not worried), their thoughts on the political outlook (they think she might run) and their filmmaking style. They've already sold the movie and I'm pretty sure you should be able to find it in theatres in most major cities by the end of the year.