TIFF 2008: The City Masters

The Dungeon Masters (Keven McAlester)

It feels like we've seen way too many documentaries about RPG nerds by now, and surprisingly before this one we'd only seen two, both of which were sharper in focus (LARPing in Darkon, MMOs in Second Skin) than this fairly general pen & paper RPG doc. Centering on the separate lives of a few game masters (the player who creates the stories and keeps track of the rules for a group) there are some interesting moments here—usually especially striking moments of cinematography, such as a Gulf Coast-based "dark elf" standing amongst the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina—but the main problem (as with all of these kind of docs) is that when they play for laughs, it's not to laugh along with their subjects; which makes the moments of pathos seem false. Disposable. 2/5

The Dungeon Masters plays at the AMC 10 at 3:15 p.m. and on September 12th at the AMC 9 at 9:00 p.m..

24 City (Jia Zhang-ke)

A nostalgic if not downright mournful look at the history of a factory complex ("Factory 420") within the center of Chengdu, which produced aerospace equipment for the Chinese military until being demolished and replaced with luxury apartments, 24 City is a strange film. Though it's presented in a documentary format, it's best to think of it as a work of fiction, as even though there are honest testimonies here, large segments are fictional monologues from famous Chinese actresses or staged situations. We guess we've all gotten too used to the concept of the fictional documentary as the comical "mockumentary" to not find this jarring, but once you get used to this, 24 City is actually a truly beautiful film, using the documentary format to paint truths from fiction vividly. The cinematography, from Yu Lik-wai (director of the lamentable Plastic City) is the true star here though. 4/5

24 City plays at the AMC 2 at 6:15 p.m..