Last weekend, had you ventured down Festival Street, that section of King West closed off for the Toronto International Film Festival, you would have encountered many kinds of queues: for free giveaways, for food trucks, for games and other activities, for gawking at red carpets and, of course, for screenings.
But one line, snaking toward a white delivery truck, was different: it was much longer than most, and allowed visitors entry into the vehicle, whose sides simply read “The Criterion Closet.”
“Criterion” has long been a word that has carried a lot of meaning for movie lovers. Mentioning this American video label and streaming service is a signal of taste — it’s a declaration that you wish to go beyond mainstream Hollywood cinema to dabble in classic, independent, experimental and international film. For more than 40 years, Criterion, which loads its DVDs and Blu-rays with bonus content, has made these kinds of movies accessible, popular and trendy.
Through these featurettes and its info-packed website, Criterion has become a vital source of discovery for the nascent and experienced cinephile alike. On criterion.com, you can find top 10 lists from artists and film workers, as well as videos from the Criterion Closet, a storage room in the New York office where actors, writers and directors select discs and gush about them on camera (see Denis Villeneuve talking about “The Seven Samurai” and Michael Cera praising “The Wind Will Carry Us”).
These video clips have become so popular on social media that last year, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, Criterion introduced a mobile version of the closet: a truck, stocked with discs, that visits film festivals across the U.S.
This year, to mark the 50th edition of TIFF, the Criterion Mobile Closet crossed the border. From Sept. 4 to 7, cinephiles in Toronto had the chance to have their own Criterion experience — select movies, talk about them to the camera inside the truck, and receive an instant photo of themselves with their picks. The discs weren’t free, but visitors could save 40 per cent and avoid hefty shipping fees.
I went inside the truck, stationed right across from TIFF Lightbox, on Saturday morning. The interior, roughly three feet wide and 10 feet long, had floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with movies — it felt bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside.
I was told I would only have three minutes and would be allowed to choose three films, so I came prepared: I had my top three written on a notepad, along with a few alternates. Criterion’s films are assigned chronological spine numbers upon release, so I had written those down as well. I wanted to select two movies I already love (David Cronenberg’s “Scanners” and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cure”), along with something I had yet to see (Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”).
The line for the truck started at 9:30 a.m. and was officially closed off an hour later, despite the closet only opening to the public at 11, so those in the back would have to wait up to six hours to get their three-minute turn inside.
Steven Lee was not one of these people: he would reach the closet within the first hour. Lee is a programmer for the Fantasia International Film Festival, working specifically with Asian films.
“Asian cinema has always been one of my biggest passions in life,” he told the Star. “And what I really love about Criterion is that their selection of Asian movies is so vibrant and rich.”
Lee was seeking Alice Wu’s “Saving Face,” Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s “Take Out,” and Bong Joon-ho’s “Okja.” While the first two are indie films, the last had a $50-million budget and was released on Netflix. Why buy a film that is easily available to stream? “I like physical copies,” Lee explained.
It’s a sentiment shared by many people in line, including Carson Kroeker, who was there with his girlfriend, Estella Haensel. They’re both in their final year of university and arrived at the closet two and half hours early. “I had never heard of it before, but I’ve never seen him so excited about something,” Haensel said. “I thought: ‘I have to be here for this, I have to see what it’s all about.’”
“I love owning movies,” Kroeker said, adding, “I love (Criterion’s) artwork and director’s commentaries.”
Just behind them were Matt Cole and Justin Dickerson. “The thing about Criterion is that there is a love and care for the special features that you feel in the final product,” Cole said. “(These featurettes) give a lot of independent filmmakers and newcomers work to do as they create the write-ups and booklets, so it’s helping keep the community alive in its own way. There are very few distributors that do work like that.”
Cole was in search of three films he had already seen. Dickerson, on the other hand, was going in for three he hadn’t. For him, surprise goes hand in hand with collecting: “My dad started me on collecting movies: we had our own film closet at home.” Dickerson would end up missing his turn in the closet as he had to leave the line two hours later to go to work.
Iza Rincon, an actress originally from Mexico, said this was her first time lining up for anything in Toronto. “This is going to be worth it,” she said, having arrived three hours earlier.
Two of the movies she’s searching for were made by Mexican directors: Alejandro Iñárritu’s “Amores Perros” and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Y tu mamá también.” For many, the appeal of Criterion is that it offers access to international cinema by subtitling previously inaccessible works; browse through its catalogue and you’ll find films in Albanian, Wolof and Mooré. Though Isa’s first language is Spanish and she does not need English subtitles herself, she has a different reason for seeking out these two movies: “My friends here in Canada don’t speak Spanish. This lets me share my favourite films with them.”
At one point in the afternoon a passerby asked me what everyone was lined up for. “A truck filled with movies,” I responded.
This is of course the truth, but it doesn’t come close to capturing the care in curation that Criterion programmers apply to their catalogue and the appreciation that cinephiles feel in return.
