I get excited about the Vancouver International Film Festival more than I do any other blockbuster film. Maybe it’s because a decade’s worth of the Dragons and Tigers series is still imprinted on my retinas or maybe it’s because there’s no better way to spend the fall.
Javier Bardem haunts me. He pissed me off in Eat, Pray Love, but his turn as mob figure and devoted single parent in Innaritu’s Biutiful is a reminder that when outside the taint of Hollywood’s shadow, there’s some truly amazing film being made. Expect to see this one get picked up and do the mainstream theatre circuit.
You can trust in the VIFF to bring through at least one Takeshi Miike epic a year and this year was no exception. Miike’s made his name on the delirious headfucks of films like Visitor Q, Audition and Ichi the Killer, but he’s not one to pass up a buck either. 13 Assassins is his tribute to the old school samurai flick in the same vein that Sukiyaki Western Django was his spaghetti western. 13 warriors, one feudal lord and a suicide mission like no other. A sheer classic.
The other big one that was likely to stay out of the western eye was Feng Xiaogang’s Aftershock. The film brok every box office record in China this summer to become the most popular Chinese blockbuster in history. The beauty of it is that it’s promoted as a disaster movie and starts like a disaster movie… but it’s so much more than that. Part propaganda, part heart wrenching soul destroyer and beautifully shot, it’s everything Titanic wanted to be.
That’s only three films and the VIFF showed hundreds. Thankfully the rain only kicked in ten days into the festival. Well, you can’t win them all.