Brain food (TIFF08 - Day 8)

This morning was rough. Dance parties and early morning industry screenings make for uneasy bedfellows let me tell you. But if one thing can get me out of bed in the morning, it's a new Bruce McDonald film. Now if that film happens to be a thinking man's zombie movie, then I will run - not walk - to the screening, however loud the throbbing in my head, however bilious the churning in my stomach.

Pontypool took care of my hangover like shotgun blast to the head. This low-budget Canadian update of the zombie flick is a wildly entertaining as it is clever. Set almost entirely in the basement recording studio of a small-town radio station, it delivers thrills on many levels: a political allegory, a metaphysical comedy, an intellectual mindgame, oh yeah, and a gory horror movie.

There's something wrong with the residents of Pontypool this wintry morning, but as far as talk show host Grant Mazzy is concerned, it's business as usual: whiskey-spike coffee goes in, acerbic commentary on the day's news comes out. The thing is, the day's news seems to be mostly about angry mobs and violent deaths - it seems that the locals are turning into cannibals. The horror progressively makes its way to the door of the studio, forcing Mazzy to face the facts: it's up to him and his cyncial baritone voice to guide those Pontypool residents who are not yet (un)dead through the apocalypse.

The hilarious tagline reads "Shut up or die", but it could also have been "In the End was the Word". Brimming with wit and dark humour, Pontypool is a film about resistance, the hypthesis that one needs to stop making sense of senseless world to even begin to understand it. At its heart is a winning performance by Stephen McHattie as the caustic radio jock. A zombie movie set entirely in one room wouldn't have worked without talented actors, a razor-sharp script and an inventive filmmaker who thrives on limitations. Pontypool - based on a novel by Tony Burgess - has got all that and more. It eats the brains out of most recent zomcoms.

I then had a sunny brunch with an old mate of mine, who now works for one of Europe's most famous film personality (a writer, director and producer at the head of a mini empire and possibly Europe's most successful's film export). He filled me in on the latest in the world of high-stakes film distribution, a subject I'm increasingly interested in.

After another catch-up stint at the festival's video library I caught Michael Winterbottom's exquisite Genova, which would end up being my last screening at the Festival. This affecting drama begins with a tragic car accident in which a mother of two (Hope Davis) perishes, leaving her family in shatters. Her academic husband (Colin Firth, great here) takes his two daughters to Italy in an attempt to come to terms with the tragedy.

The versatile Winterbottom is up to the task of making a film about guilt and grief without resorting to cliches. The exotic setting helps, as does the distintly European observational style which refuses to indulge in sentimentality. Like with Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now, a sense of foreboding and unease permeates the entire film, taking the story on a tense crescendo without resorting to sensationalism. It's impossible not to feel for these broken characters portrayed with restraint and grace by some wonderfully gifted actors. The young Perla Haney-Jadine, in particular, does an amazing job as the youngest daughter haunted by her part in the accident and unable to let go of her mother.

I ended the day in various bars as far from the festival venues as possible (the expensive and materialistic Yorkville district is unfortunately what most visiting delegates will know as Toronto). This was a good chance to catch pieces from the Festival's Future Projections program, which places experimental work in non-traditional venues across the city, including a particularly interesting installation by Clive Holden.

It's been a great week productive and enjoyable in equal measures. I spent a year in this vibrant city ten years ago, and each visit to the Festival (this is my eighth I think) reminds of how much I love the people here, the city's diversity and this truly amazing event. Signing out!

Brain food (TIFF08 - Day 8)