For me TIFF started with an absolute masterpiece, Portrait of a Woman on Fire, a stunningly realized movie about two women falling in love in the 18th century that avoids every cliche in the book, just a beautiful character study of two likable, believable characters. It was directed by France's Celine Sciamma, director of Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood. Put one way she directs "women's" movies' but don't let that put you off because the definition of that term is changing radically. If that term is enough to scare you away these days, you will regret it.
"Women's" movie had its heyday in the 50's but has stayed with us since then. There are the romantic pot boilers and tragedies associated with, for example, the work of Douglas Sirk who directed Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession and Written on the Wind among many, many others. Today's quality director of this genre is Todd Haynes (Wonderstruck, Far from Heaven, Carol), who makes tonier versions of the type of film that Sirk directed. The vintage examples usually starred the likes of Lana Turner, Susan Hayward and Jane Wyman and dealt with women as powerless, romantic victims who needed a man to make their lives whole. Real tear jerkers. Well, that was then and this is now. Many of today's "women's" movie are feminist in nature, about women as people, about agency and power, and deal with a host of hot button issues that movies of the past wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole. One thing many such movies have in common is that they are not about victimhood or if they are, they look at the subject from a very different perspective. This transformation is a mixed blessing--as many such movies can be as tedious as the women's movies of the past, just in a different way. Sciamma is certainly a feminist, but she is not into grievance. Her movies are about women (or girls) and they are as fresh and beautiful as any films being made anywhere right now. To avoid her movies because they are about real women is the equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Don't do it.
The Festival this year consists of over 300 movies and for the first time are equally divided between male and female directors. I had mixed feeling about that. It seemed to me a necessary and welcome correction, but did it go too far? The move seemed terribly politically correct. Movies should be chosen on the basis of their own merit. But though that makes perfectly good sense to me, I realize that there is another way of looking at it--a less male way, let's call it. I am reasonably sure some of the movies by female directors at TIFF have the possibility of being tiresome. But Sciamma's work, and that of many of her cohorts, shows that movies about women's lives can be beautiful, revealing and marvelously entertaining. Don't miss this one.