TIFF - First Sunday

[seabream]

I'm at, I think, six hours of sleep, split into three parts, in the past 78 hours. So while I saw other interesting screenings, three with standing ovations, I'm just going to make sure to talk about "Trigger". My tweet immediately after leaving the theatre read: "Holy holy holy. "Trigger" is human, painful, and beautiful. It is what it should be. I love this city". That was slow and respectful, almost reverential repetition at the beginning. And the end was because this film, beautifully shot, is very much a Toronto film. Not just the setting, but in who took part in its making, in the choices of the particular parts of the city for the story to unfold in, in the way that it portrays the moods of the place. One of the audience members said that the movie clearly shows the city in a way that leads you to like it. And she's not from here. Which the director said was funny since people from out of town aren't supposed to like it. I'd agree with the surprise seeing as Toronto bashing is said to be the third unofficial national sport behind bank bashing, and hockey. I fall in love again. And the middle because it does explore, and ask, and portray our familiar, deep, questions about purpose, meaning, past demons, future ghosts, longing, living, love, and death, all the more poignant for being pushed forward to get it filmed before Tracy was going to die. There are lines of dialogue that, might as a sequence of words on a page be overly forced stagey poetry, the calibre of the actors is such that the sense is merely familiar, natural, and right. There were lots of people in the audience with reddened eyes before the credits.

"Trigger" will be returning for a run at the Bell Lightbox after the festival. I recommend it highly. Especially to those of you who are Torontonians.

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