Toronto 2007

Abstract

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 With a festival as big as Toronto's, pinning down a general theme about its line-up each year would seem to defy its promise of something-for-everyone, as this year's slate of 349 films from 55 countries showed. Although larger media outlets named discernible themes among the festival's subsections anyway - "frustrated youth" for one; "war in Iraq and global terrorism" for another, the most engaging films this year were apt to be foremost of all, engaging and well-told stories. Here are ten examples: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania 2007)The waning period of the Ceausescu regime sets the stage for a young woman's labours to arrange a back-alley abortion for her college roommate. Although the illegality of the undertaking furnishes much of the plot's intrigue, the film's gravitas owes much to Mungiu's calibrated direction, which eschews reactionary...