La Presse at the 47th TIFF | We only talked about the Queen, King Street

(Toronto) We were just talking about that, King Street, Thursday afternoon. The Queen City was both in celebration and in mourning, as it rolled out the red carpet of the Toronto International Film Festival to the gratin of world cinema “in person”, for the first time since 2019.

“I was asked if we were going to cancel screenings. I hope not ! We worked so hard on it,” a young Festival employee confided to me, a few minutes after the announcement of the death of Elizabeth II. A volunteer in her 60s was distressed that the queen could not live until at least next June. Why is that ? I asked him. “Because it would have been exactly 70 years since his coronation! »

My bad. Sorry. I should have known. I dared not add anything. The royal extent of my indifference could have offended certain sensitivities. With the two solitudes, you can never be too careful.

I was on my way to the screening of one of the Festival’s most anticipated films – after an exceptional reception last week at Telluride –, Women Talking by Toronto’s Sarah Polley, based on the novel by another famous Canadian, Miriam Toews, about sexual assault in a Mennonite religious community (from which the Manitoba novelist comes).

Among the stunning cast (Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara, Ben Whishaw, etc.) of this hard-hitting film is Claire Foy. The same one that was revealed by the role of young Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series The Crown. Everything is in everything, as Anaxagoras said.

My seatmate was a British publicist who wondered if we were going to have to change all the sterling notes right away to put the face of Charles III on them.

Sarah Polley’s first feature in nearly a decade has nothing to do with the monarchy. It’s a full-throttle charge against the patriarchy, well beyond religious shackles.

A dozen women, victims of rape and violence in their community, are wondering if they should stay or leave, do nothing or react. They are asked to forgive their attacker, on pain of being excommunicated.

They do not all agree, vote and debate the consequences of their choices (will they still be welcomed into the “kingdom of heaven”?). The profound injustice they suffer, the state of slavery, of ignorance in which they are kept – they are illiterate – are appalling. It feels like the Middle Ages, while the story is set in 2010.

This tense closed door, with a theatrical style Twelve angry menby Sidney Lumet, terribly harsh and poignant, brings to mind both the white ribbon by Michael Haneke and The Scarlet Maid by Margaret Atwood. The most successful film of Sarah Polley’s career, it is due to be released next December.

An exceptional story

“Our thoughts are with all those, here and around the world, who mourn the loss of Queen Elizabeth,” TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey said at the outset, addressing the audience of the film. opening, The Swimmersat the Princess of Wales Theatre.

A statement of circumstance, diplomatic and, I presume, almost obligatory in the Queen City, the irony of which did not escape me.

To my knowledge, there is no leader of a cultural event who denounces more regularly – with good reason – in his public declarations and on social networks, the ravages of colonialism. In this regard, historically, the British monarchy does not give its place…

The subject of the opening film of 47^e TIFF, if it is not directly linked to colonialism, is interested in refugees and the exile of populations. The Swimmers, produced for Netflix, tells the true story of two sisters, Yusra and Sarah Mardini, who fled the war in Syria in 2015, saved other refugees from drowning braving the Mediterranean, crossed Europe to Germany, before becoming an Olympic swimmer and humanitarian worker respectively. I wonder if Angela Merkel regretted letting them in.

The two sisters were at the Princess of Wales Theater on Thursday evening, with the film crew from director Sally El Hosaini, who grew up in Egypt but was born in Wales (unlike King Charles III; yes, j come back to it).

This exceptional story unfortunately did not inspire an exceptional work. Whether The Swimmers is far from the disaster of Dear Evan Hansen, TIFF’s musical opener last year, it’s far from a great film. Sally El Hosaini manages to move people, but without avoiding the blue flower pitfalls of staging “experienced facts”. It’s well acted, by two sisters (Nathalie and Manal Issa), but as with the pool scenes, there are a lot of lengths (don’t excuse her).

What is clear is that this film was not worth the $130 the ticket for this world premiere cost me. No, there are not too many zeros. Only problems with online ticketing and access to screenings, which irritated festival-goers discussed almost as much as the death of the queen on Thursday. I don’t mind inflation running rampant, but $130 a ticket is expensive a minute. Especially when you’re not from the royal family.