TorontoFilmFestivalReviews.com: Canadian Retrospective - Films of Peter Mettler

Canadian Retrospective—The Films of Peter Mettler

Canadian Retrospective exhibits the work of Canada’s film history, enlightening the audience on the tradition of Canadian cinema. Past years showcased the works of Don Owen, Jean Pierre Lefebvre, Nell Shipman and Allan King. This year’s Toronto International Film Festival features the works of Peter Mettler.

In Mettler’s Balifilm, a travelogue investigating concepts of art and traveling, Mettler reveals the philosophy of images with the role of art in transcendence.
Balifilm features captivating music as the credits remark, “a live recording of musicians playing Indonesian gamelan instruments during the projection of the film.”

Through Mettler’s use of exaggerated close-ups and slow-motion movement, Balifilm shows the rawness of the discomfort an individual feels when peering in at a foreign culture.

Catch Balifilm on Wednesday September 13th at 11:30 a.m. at Al Green Theatre and on Saturday September 16th at 12:00 p.m. at Varsity 7. 

Tectonic Plates—another Mettler film— is an adaptation of Robert Lepage’s stage production and is set in Montreal, Venice and New York. Lepage’s version employs the tectonic plates to symbolize the manner in which people morph their identities. With Lepage as an art teacher in Mettler’s film, Tectonic Plates boasts improvised camera work across several wide spaces.

You can view Tectonic Plates on Tuesday September 12th at 11:30 a.m. in the Al Green Theatre and on Saturday September 16th at 2:15 p.m. in Varsity 7.

Gambling, Gods and LSD unfolds the intellectual journey across physical and mystical ground. The film opens with a scene at a Christian ministry and contrasts that atmosphere with the search for a link to something sacred. As the film progresses, we see that in Las Vegas, people search for frenzied transcendence while people in India and Switzerland comparably rotate between impressions of natural and technological environments. In Gambling, Gods and LSD, Mettler reveals how people attempt to surpass their daily and mundane existences all the while latching onto their material tendencies.

Don't miss Gambling, Gods and LSD on Monday September 11th at 5:15 p.m. in the Al Green Theatre and on Saturday September 16th at 7:15 p.m. in Varsity 7.