TIFF Diary: Ten Years Gone.

Ten years ago tonight I had dinner in Toronto with my good friend Jim Anderson (who used to come north with me for TIFF, before he fell in love and headed to the west coast, and what’s up with that, anyway?). We ate creole food on the patio of a restaurant across King Street from the Roy Thomson Theater, watching the red carpet action from a respectable distance; then we went across the street to stand in a ridiculous rush line before watching the world premiere of Fred Schepisi’s Last Orders.

You may never have heard of that film — it didn’t make much of a splash. But it starred Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Michael Caine and concerned a group of old friends reuniting to dispose of the remains of one of their own. It’s a somber movie of death and life and reflection, which makes it oddly relevant to this particular anecdote. (It’s also a really good movie — I watched it again with my dad last year about this time, and it held up remarkably well.)

I passed that bistro tonight on my way back to my hotel, with Viggo Mortensen being interviewed across the street for A Dangerous Method. It’s not the path I have found myself taking so far on this trip, but for some reason I opted for the road less traveled tonight.

So little has changed, and so much. On my way up to TIFF this week I chatted with my 360|365 colleague about the 9/11 anniversary, and I wondered if there would be any overt remembrance of the event up here. So far nothing has popped onto my radar screen, which doesn’t mean nothing is happening — once again, I’m here watching movies, and the rest of the world is reduced to headlines on newspapers on cafe tables.

One of the first things I did after hearing about the towers on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was try to call my friend who had been working in the financial district. I didn’t get him until the following day, but when I asked him what he thought would happen to the WTC complex, his response (and mind you, this was 30 hours after it happened) was that they should just be rebuilt, so New Yorkers could get back to work and the world could see how we couldn’t be stopped. (Rich, I’m sorry if I’m misquoting you; it’s been a while.)

TIFF, perhaps understandably, has embraced that idea more easily than New York City. The festival is bigger and better (OK, bigger) than ever, with a shiny new headquarters, a longer schedule, and more glitz than I knew existed. It will always seem weird that I’m here each year for the dark anniversary of that singularly American event. But in its own way, it helps serve as just another reminder of something we had a harder time appreciating in the immediate days following 9/11/01: that life goes on.