Toronto, Day 1: The ragged troops assemble

(Rinko Kikuchi in "The Brothers Bloom")

How do you know you're in Canada? When the retired college professor sitting next to you in a bar is working himself into a throbbing-vein fit over the high price of hockey tickets.

The 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival begins today in a spirit of mild but nagging confusion. A lot of the fall's major releases aren't here at this, the by-now traditional starting gun of the annual Oscar race. The lingering aftereffects of last year's writers' strike means that Oliver Stone's George Bush drama "W." is still in the final tinkering stages, as is Baz Luhrmann's epic "Australia," the biopic "Milk" (starring Sean Penn as assassinated gay politician Harvey Milk), and David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Banjamin Button," in which Brad Pitt ages in reverse. Adding to the general malaise is a bum overall market this year for independent films and documentaries -- no one's buying rights and, aside from the modest success of "The Visitor," no one's watching the movies -- and the shuttering of studio specialty divisions like Warner Brothers' Picturehouse and Warner Independent. A good film festival is supposed to feel like a celebration, but this year no one's certain exactly what we're celebrating.

And yet there are 312 movies screening at Toronto, give or take, and 500 stars and filmmakers in town to promote them. The wattage is high indeed: Pitt's here with the new Coen brothers movie, "Burn After Reading" -- the word is that it's a return to antic Coen snark and something of a comedown from the Olympian heights of "No Country for Old Men" -- and the gossip columns are clucking that he may run into his ex, Jennifer Aniston, who's here promoting the romantic comedy "Management." Anne Hathaway is present to chat up "Rachel Getting Married," a hopeful return to form for director Jonathan Demme. Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Viggo Mortensen, Spike Lee are among the many others. Parties are planned and, no, you can't get into the VIP room. So it's a festival.

Toronto has always been a two-headed beast, though. One head is the autumn marketplace where Hollywood shows off its most prestigious wares (in theory at least). The other head is the actual "international festival," in which films from 64 countries come as close as most of them will ever get to the inside of an American movie theater.

"35 Rhums" ("35 Shots of Rum") is one of the latter: a slice of life from director Claire Denis ("Chocolat") that's spare, lucid, and oddly tender. The film sketches out a few months in the life of a subway motorman (the regal Alex Descas), his college-student daughter (Mati Diop), and the neighbors (Gregoire Colin, Nicole Dogue) who pine for them, and it plays for all the world like an Ozu movie set among black Parisians. (Specifically, it reminded me of Ozu's 1949 classic "Late Spring," also about the relationship between a father and daughter.) At times, "35 Rhums" is so subtle and allusive that it dissipates into thin air; a colleague wasn't sure whether the penultimate scene took place at a wedding or a funeral. (It's a wedding. I think.) But it's also strangely moving and, in its wordless way, conveys the bone-deep intimacy that comes from living with someone you love. Points to Denis, too, for taking a scene in which the four main characters dance to the Commodores' 1985 cheese landmark "Nightshift" and making it spine-tinglingly erotic.

From the sublime to the ridiculous: I followed "35 Rhums" with "The Brothers Bloom," the second film from the talented Rian Johnson, whose debut, "Brick," was one of my favorites of 2006. This, by contrast, is a full-on sophomore work, woozy with filmmaking ambition and abandon yet lacking the chops to back it up. A comedy/drama/shaggy dog story/con game, it follows two grifter brothers (Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody) as they try to fleece a rich, lonely heiress (Rachel Weisz) before going their separate ways. Sounds straightforward enough, but Johnson goes heavy on the whimsy -- I mean, heavy -- to the point where "Brothes Bloom" makes a Wes Anderson movie look like a plea for sobriety. It's a film typified by the random shot of a camel swigging whiskey from a hip flask, which actually sounds weirdly delightful and is, for 45 minutes or so. It keeps going, though, cornering you like a drunken know-it-all at a party. Still, I'm glad I saw it, I'm glad Johnson got it out of his system, and I'm really glad someone is giving work to Rinko Kikuchi, "Babel" Oscar nominee and here a silent demolition expert with headwear taste to die for. That's Kikuchi in the photo at top, in one of her more sedate moments.