Just got home from the Sept 7, 2006 1st screening of Ten Canoes at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In what was apparently a film can foulup, the print that we saw had English language narration for the general overview parts but no subtitles whatsoever for all of the indigenous language dialogue that occurred on screen. We knew we were missing a lot of the film and definite humour (since the characters themselves were laughing) but the entire audience stayed and watched on regardless.
The director and festival programmer reacted in horror when they were told this in the Q & A. Which makes you wonder is there no advance checking of the print whatsoever or were we a test audience to see how the film would play without subtitles.
I think most people found it fascinating because this was the first time ever to see an Australian aboriginal film story played out and the beautiful cinematography and ambient sound (and/or brilliant foley) and indigenous music on the soundtrack made it a magical experience regardless.
Director Rolf de Heer gave very thorough and enthusiastic replies to audience questions at the Q & A afterwards after having only been in Toronto 2 hours from his flight from Australia. You could tell how impassioned and pleased he was about the film and his entire experience with the community that helped him make it. It seemed that he could have told anecdotes for hours about it and overall I think he gave the most detailed replies that I have ever heard a director give at TIFF (and I've seen probably a few hundred films there over the years).
Still, I wish we had gotten to know the jokes and the 50% or so of the story we missed.
I'm giving this a 7/10 with the sense that it could easily be an 8 or 9 once I've seen a version that I can completely understand.
In what was apparently a film can foulup, the print that we saw had English language narration for the general overview parts but no subtitles whatsoever for all of the indigenous language dialogue that occurred on screen. We knew we were missing a lot of the film and definite humour (since the characters themselves were laughing) but the entire audience stayed and watched on regardless.
The director and festival programmer reacted in horror when they were told this in the Q & A. Which makes you wonder is there no advance checking of the print whatsoever or were we a test audience to see how the film would play without subtitles.
I think most people found it fascinating because this was the first time ever to see an Australian aboriginal film story played out and the beautiful cinematography and ambient sound (and/or brilliant foley) and indigenous music on the soundtrack made it a magical experience regardless.
Director Rolf de Heer gave very thorough and enthusiastic replies to audience questions at the Q & A afterwards after having only been in Toronto 2 hours from his flight from Australia. You could tell how impassioned and pleased he was about the film and his entire experience with the community that helped him make it. It seemed that he could have told anecdotes for hours about it and overall I think he gave the most detailed replies that I have ever heard a director give at TIFF (and I've seen probably a few hundred films there over the years).
Still, I wish we had gotten to know the jokes and the 50% or so of the story we missed.
I'm giving this a 7/10 with the sense that it could easily be an 8 or 9 once I've seen a version that I can completely understand.