The Brooklyn Rail

For better or worse, society has refined cinema at the crossroads of art and commodity. The 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a brilliant example of this conundrum, due to the excellent programming of award contenders, international films, midnight cult followings, and experimental/unconventional works that won’t likely get distribution at the contested moment. During the SAG-AFTRA strikes, Bell terminating their long-term TIFF sponsorship, and a Ticketmaster fiasco, conglomerates and buyers seek to exploit the people who make and spread movies. Still, there are enough stakeholders and SAG-approved attendees to keep TIFF happening.

This year marks my first TIFF as a neurodivergent Media Inclusion Initiative (MII) participant. Though I’m grateful to TIFF for (partially) funding my trip and accepting my non-apparent disability, they need to do better at centering the next generation of journalists from historically excluded communities. We didn’t know who else would participate until opening night and didn’t receive our stipend until we arrived. There wasn’t a press release/disclosure on who’s selected in contrast to its other Talent Development programs. For an organization like TIFF who is running the MII for its sixth edition, they need to actively promote historically excluded writers and lend secured assistance to our budget before potential last-minute hospitality cancellations. Despite the mishap, I got to see the things I only heard about from past colleagues, particularly with the Andrea Picard and Jesse Cumming-curated Wavelengths program for their implanted artist-driven values that makes followers return annually.

Wavelengths (named after the 1967 Michael Snow film, Wavelength) returned close to its pre-2020 sample in its number of selections after bite-size viewings during the ongoing pandemic. It’s uncanny attending the first short program since Snow’s death, where they kicked off with his hypnotic pans of an apartment in Standard Time (1967). Picard shared words from underground film enthusiast Manny Farber, who noted that Snow’s early short features “his singular stoicism and the germinal ideas of his other films … proposing a particular relationship between image, time, and space.” Picard also harkened on Snow’s frequent presence at the Wavelengths short screenings, gesturing to Snow’s communal involvement for future generations (in)directly indebted to his avant-garde foundation and shouting-out his spouse, Peggy Gale, in attendance at the screenings.

At Wavelengths, Canadian filmmaker Isiah Medina shared his recent feature, He Thought He Died (2023). The film critiques institutions’ interest in profit over artists as the film’s co-producer, Kelley Dong, portrays a filmmaker conducting research in a museum vault. It’s more narrative-driven than Medina’s past oeuvre, where less distinguished individuals state their background and character is a concept. Medina also plays an artist stealing paintings at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. The low-budget thriller evokes Notes on an Appearance (2018) for its simple yet profound aesthetics in expediting the human connection. Medina avoids the grandiose tropes of a thriller by debating art’s purpose through erudite voiceovers on its inescapable relationship with capitalism and commerce. His hard-hitting lyricism generates an obtrusive, political warning of maintaining agency and integrity.

In between party hopping, watching movies, and poor sleep, I learned how the media landscape operates at the MII sessions (some of the tips were not helpful). Past Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television head Helga Stephenson questionably used Harvey Weinstein as an example of a good businessman despite “that thing.” She said, “I wish this [was] not the Harvey that I knew in 2017” and didn’t prioritize his assholery. It was disheartening to listen to this when we are supposed to be safe in our authentic selves. TIFF later sent a follow up email on the statements, claiming that Stephenson “is embarrassed and apologetic and will do better.” They also only identified Weinstein as “a disgraced movie executive.” I wish they could not have cleansed themselves of this accident and given formal context on how she backgrounded his aggressive and bullying attitudes in her off-putting mention of him. It shouldn’t have to make historically excluded writers grapple with their safety.

A film that got me away from this drama for its dreamlike imagery is Phạm Thiên Ân’s debut Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023). A brainchild of Tsai Ming-Liang and Chantal Akerman, the three-hour opus focuses on Thiện’s path to becoming a caretaker for his nephew after his sister-in-law was murdered in a motorcycle accident. Through strategic (on and offscreen) exposition, Phạm instills deft dexterity into Thiện’s leadership transition. Notwithstanding its production design of the mist in the Vietnamese mountains, the film interrupts Thiện’s arc in its gorgeous, long takes of the setting. Slow cinema and the film’s largely improvisational outline gravitate the audience into majestic, beautiful spaces, but gazing at the ephemeral landscapes a bit too long strains the narrative. I’m sucked into this meditative environment and it can make me forget what I am focusing on. However, the story and visuals’ cohesiveness return at the end after Thiện’s newfound journey. Pham strengthens them by indoctrinating Thiện’s new meaning of home when he is acquainted with his family’s traditions. Yellow Cocoon is a spellbinding metamorphosis that wanders us into settings we take for granted.

Known for its gratitude when it comes to honoring film history through naming sections Wavelengths and Platform (after the 1998 Jia Zhang-ke movie), it’s logical for a fest like TIFF to commemorate legends. Notable through its Luminaries tag, the designation comes off as ageist, particularly with how people treat eighty plus year-olds as the-end-is-nearing seniors instead of respecting them as elders with knowledge and experience. No one should be assuming anyone’s health. The Boy and the Heron (2023), a recently-confirmed non-swan song from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, served as the fest’s opening night film. The film follows Mahito grieving over his mother’s death from a 1943 hospital fire. Mahito moves to his other family’s home and forms a buddy-comedy-esque relationship with the eponymous bird to rescue his mother. It is a riveting addition to Miyazaki’s interrogations of historical trauma in Japan, like the postwar My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and the Muromachi setting of Princess Mononoke (1997). Frederick Wiseman’s look into the eponymous restaurant in Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (2023) is a splendid, soothing take on artistry and preserving wealth. While hoping to have more unexpected joyful insights at a dining place, as in The Store (1983), Menus-Plaisirs is worthwhile for its construction of external perfectionism. After honoring elderly filmmakers who put work in the forefront of their minds, Wavelengths looked back to the ones who are no longer alive.

Wavelengths deployed a subversive memorialization outside traditional compliments, showcasing works that inform one’s trajectory or potential. Chantal Akerman: Her First Look Behind the Camera (2022) consists of four silent shorts from Akerman’s film school application; they feature her mother Natalia, her sister Claudine, and Marilyn Watelet—eventual co-founder of her production company Paradise Films. The shorts (filmed by Akerman) have many of the imperfections of a student touching a camera for the first time; shots are out of focus and poignant, despite inconsiderate handheld cinematography by Akerman as she shoots life on the streets, at home, at the store, and at an amusement park. Akerman imbues an intimate sensibility when her characters navigate domestic life. Her attentiveness informs loneliness and healing from trauma that were later unraveled in her documentaries Hotel Monterey (1972) and News From Home (1976). The section also tributed what one could have done further with Jean-Luc Godard’s posthumous incomplete film Trailer Of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars (2023).

Phony Wars is a video essay about the future of culture and language when revisiting locations. With a flair of The Image Book’s (2018) narration and the intertextual references across several mediums of Goodbye to Language (2014), there’s loss, mourning, and enlightenment when the unexpected audio shocks the audience. Through Godard and an unidentified female-presenting voice, we examine how a place’s physicality may not correlate with one’s moods and memories. It is a consolidated analysis of a cinephile fraught with art, tactility, and martyrization.

While lionizing Wavelengths, it’s apparent that the section faces mainstream neglect. It appears that Wavelengths has an indirect relationship with lousy luck and became a butt of the joke on TIFF Twitter/X when the postponed P&I showing of The Beast (2023) overlapped with Wavelengths 2 due to the infamous projection issues at Scotiabank’s IMAX theater that affected several screenings. Though common to prioritize the industrialized aspects for laypersons, Picard and Cumming manage to cultivate Snow’s and avant-garde/expanded cinema’s legacies. After entering its consequential chapter, it’s unique to attest to Wavelengths’ brawn after its setbacks amidst its ubiquitous, standard-looking counterparts with its loyal, sold-out turnouts.