The Toronto International Flim Festival is long over, but one theme of the festival is still very much alive.
TORONTO (djc Features) — “Extreme films for extreme times.” That’s how documentarian and Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) volunteer Theepan Naguleswaran described the theme of the illustrious weeklong event, which wrapped up recently.
Indeed, this is how festival director Piers Handling explained the unusually antagonistic tone behind many of this year’s films, citing current events like the Chechen crisis and the war in Iraq. As the world becomes sensitized to shocking, horrific images, it behoves cultural events like TIFF to offer viewers something even more scandalous to take home.
Thus, the presence of such films as Christophe Honoré’s Ma Mère, with its offhand depictions of incest and violent sexual deviances. Or Anatomy of Hell, a film with something to offend everyone, with its hellish scenes of rape and degradation. Then there’s Asia Argento’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, a semi-surrealist punk-horror that packs as much perversion and grief as one screenplay can handle, including a man/boy love scene with special guest Marilyn Manson.
Perhaps more appropriately for an era of terrorism, a number of TIFF’s offerings dealt with notions of ruthless and random violence, while others put U.S. politics under a critical spotlight. The themes of child and animal abuse also came up often. One example: Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy had its Korean star chewing and swallowing a live octopus. It took four takes to get it right.
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The documentary titled Casuistry: The Art of Killing of a Cat delves into the minds of the Toronto art students who videotaped themselves torturing and killing a stray cat named Kensington in 2001. — Photo by Chris Hogg, djc Features |
No film, however, attracted more attention or remonstration than Zev Asher’s documentary Casuistry: The Art of Killing of a Cat. Although protesters made their home outside the Cumberland Theatre on several occasions, Casuistry‘s screening drew a larger crowd outside than some of the red-carpet entrances at Four Seasons next door.
The documentary delves into the minds of the Toronto art students who videotaped themselves torturing and killing a stray cat named Kensington in 2001. When the case first appeared in the media it received an enormous amount of public outrage and damning publicity. Because Asher’s film lets the original “filmmakers” explain their motivations, animal-rights advocates protested its showing, claiming it puts them on a pedestal.
Personally, I thought Casuistry was a compelling, well-crafted movie that in no way condoned violence against animals. There were a couple of moments that could, however, be considered “gratuitous” — it opens with unsettling scenes from a similar film made in the 1980s, by incendiary artist Istvan Kantor. There’s also a clip of Powers beheading a chicken and holding its up head with vacuous pride, in a scene suggestive of recent hostage-slaying videos from Iraq.
Though it lets Powers explain himself, it’s obvious he’s filled with regret and disgust over his act. Because of this, it’s perhaps regrettable that Asher decided to subtitle the film “The Art of Killing a Cat,” which was destined to be misread.
It is, by now, a well-known joke that most of the protesters never saw the film and therefore had no clue what it’s about. Critics like the Toronto Star‘s Geoff Pevere dutifully lambasted the protesters in his review, writing, “To consider the film as an endorsement of what the cat-killers did is absurd.”
If anything, the film not only resuscitates the memory of Kensington but also brings forth some radical, thought-provoking ideas about animal rights. Naguleswaran, the volunteer who happens to be vegetarian noted, “The irony is the film supports the protesters’ point of view.”
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Police calm the crowd outside the opening of Casuistry: The Art of Killing of a Cat at Cumberland Theatre in Toronto. — Photo by Chris Hogg, djc Features |
I interviewed Suzanne Lahaie, cofounder of Freedom for Animals and the organizer behind the 125-person strong protest. I believe her argument is based entirely on a dubious conspiracy theory.
She believes the film’s creators are in cahoots with head cat-killer Jesse Powers. “They want to take his evil, cruel intentions and continue his work,” said Lahaie, who has a tattoo of Kensington on her chest. “This is all a premeditated thing to shock people.”
You could reasonably say that this year’s festival intentionally tried to create a stir; to shock us out of our seats and, yes, ignite a loud media buzz. But that is its role. Contemporary film festivals are, to a degree, what punk rock is to pop music or what college newspapers are to journalism — something to shatter our complacent views of art and good taste.
This has always been true of TIFF and its cousins; the only thing that changes is the specific controversy. More disturbing than any specific film, in my opinion, is the bizarre aura of censorship and disapproval we’ve seen this year.
Why is this? Perhaps it’s just a symptom of today’s “Protest Generation.” Given the success of so many global demonstrations these past few years, it has become all too easy to rally the troops behind today’s particular cause. Just post the time and date on your website, sketch a few placards and you’ve got instant outcry.
In a fully connected society, things become more democratic. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that 2004 marked the first time TIFF allowed moviegoers to purchase tickets online. By slightly de-snobbifying the process, the event becomes more inclusive and accessible.
It could theoretically lead to an even healthier discourse and a more spirited debate.
When the debate is completely uninformed, however, it is simply hollow, counterproductive and a little bit scary.
