TIFF Report: The Sea Inside and Kontroll

Starting my night outside the beautiful Elgin theatre chatting with folks and TIFF volunteers in line I knew little of The Sea Inside. “It’s about suicide”, said one volunteer, “That’s all I know”. So fueled by a couple of free shots of coffee from the Starbucks staff outside the theatre Todd and I ventured forth into the virtual unknown.

Driven by Javier Bardem’s solid, solid performance and equal performances from his supporting cast Amenábar tells the story of Ramón Sampedro, a quadrapalegic of 23 years, 4 months and some days, and his desire to ‘die with dignity’. Tired of only being able to offer his mental participation in life around him and not the physical Ramón seeks the legal expertise of his lawyer Julia, the stunning Belén Rueda. It brings to question what is living? What constitutes a life? One can fall in love but what do you do when you cannot love? Not having any thoughts or opinions on the issue on euthenasia prior to this viewing I don’t have much to say on the subject of this film. Though it does seem that Amenábar and fellow screen writer Mateo Gil seem to have their own opinion of it as stated in the epilogue.

But what I can say about the film is that it is beautifully crafted. Special recognition goes to the dream sequences. Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe and production designer Benjámin Fernández, together with Amenábar, bring us a film of great craft and beauty. Don’t be surprised if you see The Sea Inside in the Best Foreign Film category come March. It’s a good film. Not a great film. But a good film. I doubt that it deserved the standing ovation that it got. And it probably would have kept on going had not Amenábar and Bardem just turn around and left their seat box.

Having endured the ‘Why aren’t you standing?!?’ looks from the audience around us Todd and I made for a quick exit and joined Opus, Nick and the masses at the Ryerson theatre for another dose of Midnight Madness. The evening did not start out all that hot. Colin Geddes was the bearer of bad news and informed all ticket holders for this morning’s viewing of Kung Fu Hustle, a viewing I would be at right now actually, would not go on since they ruined the third reel during a private screening. Boo-urns.

Anyhow, having that cloud of dissapointment hanging over our heads our attention was quickly brought back to light by the introduction of the film, Kontroll, by it’s writer-director Nimród Antal. “I can’t believe that so many people came to watch a movie made by a guy named Nimrod”, he said, “Thank you for coming.” Lights down. And there is, what I am led to believe, an official from the Budapest Transit Commission reading a disclaimer about the BTC [I’m just guessing that’s their name here] and their involvement in the film. “We’re not really this bad. Our staff aren’t this bad. I still believe in this picture”. And while it was delivered quite seriously the audience got a great kick out of it and we settled back to enjoy the film. Or half of a film anyways. Let me explain.

We’re not quite sure what happened to the story. Amongst all the hyperkenetic energy, throbbing industrial and eastern block techno remixes it just seems that Antal forget to finish his story. The story settles around Bulcsú [Sándor Csányi] and his group of rowdy ticket inspectors working the Budapest subway system. You meet the cream of the crop of Budapest’s nightlife: hooligans, pimps, hookers, punks and a girl in a teddy bear suit. About two thirds of the way through the film you find out that Bulcsú hasn’t been the surface in a very long time [days? months? years?] and left behind what seemed to be a very promising future to spend his life in the subway system, sleeping on the platforms at night. And that’s it. You don’t know why he went below. You never find out what it was he left behind. Or who for that matter.

What we do know is that there is a hooded figure pushing unsuspected victims into the paths of oncoming subway trains. An unfortunately reality we have had to endure here in Toronto. Each team of ticket inspectors is encouraged by their supervisor to find out what they can about these suspected jumpers and try to stop them. And that’s it. You don’t get an actual confrontation between a ticket holder and this hooded killer until well into the third reel, the final minutes in fact. It’s almost as if Antal was having so much fun making this film that he sat back during editing and realized, ‘Holy Crap! I have’t finished the story!’ By then it’s too late to fully bring the story back in full circle because we’ve become so distracted with subplots and such.

The filmmaking is adventurous.  Antal takes full advantage of the stark architechture and Eastern Bloc design to create stunning images. The banks upon banks of flourescent lights coming on was a personal favourite. It just worked. Bulcsú’s ragtag team provides much of the humour in the film though I felt that most of the jokes were carried on too long. You wouldn’t think that a young woman in a bear suit is hot [hey! I don’t point fingers at your fetishes!] but Eszter Balla certainly isn’t that hard on the eyes. Especially once she emerges from her fuzzy cacoon and spreads her wings. No really, she does.

But I just can’t help but go back to the story and wonder what happened during the writing to filming process and where they forgot they had a story that they started and seemingly lost sight of the end of it. So much potential. So much style. So much lost in the duration of the film.

Sadly, my Midnight Madness experiences this year are found wanting. Where has it all gone wrong?