Copa America 2024 Film Spotlight Results

A feisty Copa America 2024 ended with Argentina winning their 16th Copa America title. Argentina’s win wasn’t much of a surprise as they were easily the favourites but there were a few pleasant surprises along the way such as the re-emergence of Colombia (reached final and narrowly lost to Argentina in extra-time) and the continuing strength of Marcelo Bielsa’s Uruguay (finished in 3rd place). However, the biggest surprise was Jesse Marsch’s influence on the Canadian Men’s National Team. Canada were very impressive in their run to the semi-finals and unfortunately faced Argentina twice and lost both games. Still, Canada put on a positive attack-minded display even in the games against Argentina and created many chances but their biggest achilles heel in the tournament was their inability to make those chances count.

On the other hand, Canada had a much more of a favourable outcome in the Copa America 2024 Film Spotlight. When it came to films, Argentina and Brazil did much worse than their soccer counterparts. The points system is similar to that used in the Euro 2024 Film Spotlight: match-ups decided by 5 categories of Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography and Production Values. The only exception was that 4 categories of Story, Direction, Cinematography and Production Values were used (Acting was dropped) in the case of a match-up between a documentary (Chilean film) vs fictional film. In the group phases, a win for a film was worth 3 points while a tie was 1 point.

Group film results: top 2 films advanced out of group (in green)

Group A

Argentina: Trenque Lauquen (2022, Laura Citarella)
Peru: The Milk of Sorrow (2009, Claudia Llosa)
Chile: My Imaginary Country (2022, Patricio Guzmán)
Canada:The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers)

Canada (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open): 9
Chile (My Imaginary Country): 4
Argentina (Trenque Lauquen): 4
Peru (The Milk of Sorrow): 0

The length of the Argentine film worked against it when compared to the Canadian and Chilean films. Trenque Lanquen is multiple films within a single film. If I could have taken a slice of 90 minutes from that film and put it against the other films in this group, then the Argentine film would have come out on top. As it turned out, the tight focus of the Canadian and Chilean films ensured progress out of this group.

Group B

Mexico: New Order (2020, Michel Franco)
Ecuador: Cronicas (2004, Sebastián Cordero)
Venezuela:  The Box (2021, Lorenzo Vigas)
Jamaica: The Harder They Come (1972, Perry Henzell)

Mexico (New Order): 7
Venezuela (The Box): 7
Ecuador (Cronicas): 1
Jamaica (The Harder They Come): 1

Unlike the soccer tournament, Mexico advanced easily out of the film competition.

Group C

USA: Showing Up (2022, Kelly Reichardt)
Uruguay: Window Boy Would also Like to Have a Submarine (2020, Alex Piperno)
Panama: The Fists of a Nation (2007, Pituka Ortega-Heilbron)
Bolivia: Viejo calavera/Dark Skull (2016, Kiro Russo)

Bolivia (Dark Skull): 7
Uruguay (Window Boy Would also Like to Have a Submarine): 5
USA (Showing Up): 4
Panama (The Fists of a Nation): 0

Group D

Brazil:  Rule 34 (2022, Júlia Murat)
Colombia: Embrace of the Serpent (2015, Ciro Guerra)
Paraguay: EAMI (2022, Paz Encina)
Costa Rica: The Awakening of the Ants (2019, Antonella Sudasassi)

Colombia (Embrace of the Serpent): 9
Costa Rica (The Awakening of the Ants): 6
Brazil (Rule 34): 3
Paraguay (EAMI): 0

This was easily the toughest film group of the four with Group D being a Group of Death.

Quarter-Finals:

Canada (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) vs Venezuela (The Box)

Canada won 4-2 over Venezuela.

Chile (My Imaginary Country) vs Mexico (New Order)

Chile won 3-2 and advanced to Semi-finals.  

Note: Since the Chilean film is a documentary, only 4 categories were used to judge the films.

Bolivia (Dark Skull) vs Costa Rica (The Awakening of the Ants)

The Costa Rican film won on an emotional penalty shoot-out after both films were tied 4-4.

Colombia (Embrace of the Serpent) vs Uruguay (Window Boy Would also Like to Have a Submarine)

Colombia won 5-1 over Uruguay.

Semi-Finals:

Canada (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) vs Chile (My Imaginary Country)

Canada won 4-3 over Chile in a very tight encounter.

Colombia (Embrace of the Serpent) vs Costa Rica (The Awakening of the Ants)

Colombia edged out Costa Rica 4-3 in another close match-up.

Final:

Canada (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) vs Colombia (Embrace of the Serpent)

Match of two former #1 End of year films. The Canadian film placed first in my Best Films of 2020 while the Colombian entry was first in 2015.

In the end, Canada won 4-3 over Colombia to take the 2024 Copa America Film title. Incredibly, Colombia finished 2nd in both the soccer tournament and film spotlight.

Copa America 2024 Film Winner: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers)

Best Canadian Films of All Time

Wonders in the Dark is running a Best Canadian film poll where each participant is required to submit their top 15 Canadian films.

My Top 15 Canadian Films of All time

1. One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019, Zacharias Kunuk)

The film documents a historical encounter in 1961 Baffin Island between a Canadian government agent and the Inuit leader Noah Piugattuk. The agent wants Piugattuk to send kids from the Inuit communities to schools in a city/town. The film shows a conversation with no violence but it is clear that the next encounter will involve force. Given the recent discovery of children’s remains buried around residential schools in Canada, it is clear that the implications of a ‘friendly conversation’ in Kunuk’s film extended beyond the confines of Baffin island and tragically impacted all parts of Canada.

2. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Kathleen Hepburn/Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers)

3. A Married Couple (1969, Allan King)

4. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001, Zacharias Kunuk)

5. Les Orders (1974, Michel Brault)
6. The Barbarian Invasions (2003, Denys Arcand)
7. The Sweet Hereafter (1997, Atom Egoyan)
8. Montreal Main (1972, Frank Vitale)
9. Incendies (2010, Denis Villeneuve)
10. Fire (1996, Deepa Mehta)
11. The Red Violin (1998, François Girard)
12. Vic + Flo Saw a Bear (2013, Denis Côté)
13. Videodrome (1983, David Cronenberg)
14. Mon Oncle Antoine (1971, Claude Jutra)
15. The Forbidden Room (2015, Guy Maddin)

Honourable Mentions:

Bollywood Bound (2002, Nisha Pahuja)
I Killed My Mother (2009, Xavier Dolan)
My Winnipeg (2007, Guy Maddin)
The World Before Her (2012, Nisha Pahuja)
Waydowntown (2000, Gary Burns)

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Canada/Norway, Kathleen Hepburn / Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers)

In reference to the cinema of 2019, Girish wrote: "I’ve seen no better new film this year than the Canadian drama The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open, directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn." 

Almost a year later, I emphatically second Girish's words. I have not seen a better film this year than The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. Had I seen this last year, it would have definitely been competing with Zacharias Kunuk's One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk for my favourite film of 2019. However, I am delighted to have seen this film in 2020 because the global pause in cinema allowed me the time and space to fully appreciate this film.

The technical aspects of the film are excellent and pure immersive cinema. But it is the film’s treatment and perspective that stood out. As Girish points out:

“We well know how the history of cinema has time and again subordinated and short-changed women’s experiences at the expense of men’s stories. This is an injustice that is only multiplied in the case of Indigenous women. Even on that score alone, The Body Remembers is an invaluable work because its protagonists (and players) are both First Nations women.”

The film goes beyond the conventional newspaper articles about abuse. Majority of those articles don’t give a voice to the victim or properly cover their story but instead reduce things to a statistic (an exception being Robyn Doolittle’s Unfounded series). This is where Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’ film stands out. By depicting events in real time, and keeping the aggressor off-screen, they highlight abuse from the everyday complex decisions that impact people trapped in such relationships. How does one decide enough is enough? How does help arrive? And if one decides they want to change things, who do they turn to, what are the steps they need to take? Cinema never covers such questions. Instead, we get films that either focus on the violence or revenge/redemption. Real life is hardly tidy when it comes to dealing with this complex issue.

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open is an essential film that deserves to be seen as many people as possible.

Enemy

Enemy (2013, Canada/Spain, Denis Villeneuve)

Enemy transports José Saramago’s novel The Double to a David Cronenberg landscape and enhances the material with references to Kafka, George Orwell and Alfred Hitchcock. If that sounds overpowering, then rest assured it is not. The references don’t dominate proceedings but are appropriately stitched in the screenplay and don’t draw attention to themselves.

The entire film is a mystery that is quite open to interpretation yet there are enough clues to guide one along the way. One prominent clue is the repeated symbol of a creature at different points in the film. The others are the graffiti on the walls and the content of the lecture given by Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal). Adam talks about dictatorship and that throughout history those in power kept the masses occupied with food and entertainment. The Romans he says used “bread and circuses”, words that mirror contemporary society and also the world depicted in the film. Adam comes to life when teaching his class but once he leaves the classroom, his life appears to follow a boring pattern. However, that pattern changes when a colleague recommends a locally produced movie for Adam to watch. Adam is captivated not by the movie but a few scenes where he notices an actor who looks just like him. It turns out that this actor Anthony lives in the same city. Adam manages to track him down and is shocked to see that this actor is an identical replica, right down to the voice. Adam wants to meet with Anthony and eventually convinces him via a series of phone calls but not before Anthony’s wife becomes suspicious of the phone calls. She manages to see Adam secretly from afar and is stunned to see the resemblance. But as she reveals to Anthony, there is a reason why Adam exists and puts the blame on Anthony. Her certainty about Adam’s existence furthers the mystery, something that is not fully solved out by the end.

The open nature of the ending has certainly fueled some of negative comments against this film, which is often the case for films that don’t explain everything. Also, some of the harsh criticism of Enemy is regarding the consequential nature of the plot where everything appears to be tied tightly together and follows one path after another. But that is not the case, especially since almost everyone in the film is a pawn while those in power hide in the shadows. Reading reviews about Saramago’s novel, it appears that the doppelgänger element is not fully explained either and instead the story is a recursive loop. Enemy is not a recursive loop but thanks to Javier Gullón and Denis Villeneuve’s screenplay, the film shifts into another genre altogether, thereby making it rich for interpretation. Nicolas Bolduc’s cinematography deserves a lot of credit as well because Toronto has never looked this sinister and terrifying. Also, shooting everything with grayish/brownish tints transforms the entire city into a futuristic world. The score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans (both worked on Martha Marcy May Marlene and Ruben Östlund’s Play) also adds to the nail-biting tension.

Enemy is one of the most exhilarating films I have seen in a cinema this year. It is a 2013 film but has only gotten an official Canadian theatrical release in 2014.

CIFF 2013

Every year I look forward to the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) in order to catch-up with some of the best Canadian & foreign films from around the world. However, this year due to unforeseen events I missed almost half the festival. Thankfully, the damage was not that bad as most films had multiple screenings which allowed me to catch an excellent crop of films.

Here are my top 10:

1. Like Father, Like Son (2013, Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda)

A beautiful and quietly devastating film that shows the two-way impact parents and children have in evolving each other’s personalities. It is well known that children absorb what they observe from their parents but very few films show how parents are often forced to change, for the better, because of their children. Hirokazu Kore-eda has continued the cinematic tradition of Yasujirô Ozu but has also managed to carve out his own style. One of the year’s best films!

2. Vic + Flo Saw a Bear (2013, Canada, Denis Côté)

Denis Côté toys with the audience by making a specific genre film under the cover of another genre. I am not going to reveal what the specific genre is because it is worth seeing this film cold without any prior knowledge. Côté clearly alerts the audience what to expect but his alarms are mistaken for humor which is why when the film does eventually reveal its true nature, it jolts the senses.

3. The Fifth Season (2012, Belgium/Holland/France, Peter Brosens/Jessica Woodworth) 

The two directors earlier work Khadak was infused with color but all color is mostly drained out of The Fifth Season in order to depict a bleak winter like feeling. Such a depiction works because this transmits the desperation and misery that hangs over the village. At times, the film hinges on dark comedy mostly associated with the cinema of Roy Andersson while some of the bar/tavern scenes and apocalyptic dread evokes Béla Tarr.

4. The Past (2013, France/Italy, Asghar Farhadi)

Examines the complicated and messy aftermath of a separation. As the film shows, a separation does not guarantee a better future but instead can lead one down a never-ending hole of misery.

5. Thou Gild’st the Even (2013, Turkey, Onur Ünlü)

This gorgeous black and white surrealist love story is unlike any film released in the last few years. It is packed with surrealist images that are seamlessly integrated within the ordinary fabric of town life. As a result, the film's blend of humor and shock results in a darker blend of comedy that most palates have not yet encountered.

6. Borgman (2013, Holland, Alex van Warmerdam)

The initial premise appears to be taking a page out of Haneke’s Funny Games but that is a red herring as Borgman takes multiple unexpected turns resulting in a remarkably unpredictable film.

7. Antarctica: A Year on Ice (2013, New Zealand, Anthony Powell)

A stunning and gorgeous film that covers a year long working assignment in Antarctica, capturing the tasks that are required for the workers, including their living quarters and various experiences. The end result is a perfect travelogue for a region which most people will never get a chance to visit. Essential viewing!

The film won both Best Documentary and Discovery Documentary Awards at CIFF 2013, with the two categories voted by the audience.

8. OXV: The Manual (2013, UK/Australia, Darren Paul Fisher)

A mathematical metaphysical coming of age film that incorporates romantic and apocalyptic notes. The underlying layer of science means this films forms a worthy companion piece to Upstream Color. OXV also shows that with some creativity, it is possible to create an engaging sci-fi world without any special effects or a large budget.

9. The Missing Picture (2013, Cambodia/France, Rithy Panh)

Rithy Panh has used a very creative method of mixing archival footage with clay figures to recount a painful and devastating moment in history, not only of his family, but of Cambodia. Such is the smart usage of Panh’s direction that after a while, the clay figures seem to be alive, inviting us to into their lives. Along with The Act of Killing, The Missing Picture shows the power of cinema to preserve history for generations to come.

10. The Tears (2013, Mexico, Pablo Delgado Sanchez)

Pablo Delgado Sanchez’s graduate film shows all the signs of a director whose work belongs to Contemporary Contemplative Cinema (CCC). The initial setting inside a Mexican apartment recalls Nicolás Pereda's Juntos but once the two brothers leave for camping to the countryside, the film recalls the earlier works of Lisandro Alonso. While Alonso’s film are about a solitary figure, the presence of two brothers creates a different dynamic in The Tears.

Strong & worthy viewings

Even though I missed a handful of films, 2013 proved to be an excellent balanced program for CIFF. All the 26 films I saw were worthy of inclusion and enriched the overall festival.

Here are some brief notes on a few of those other films, in no particular order:

The Grand Seduction (2013, Canada, Don McKellar)

A perfect opening gala film which uses a beautiful Canadian setting with an excellent cast to generate plenty of humor. The incorporation of Cricket & Lamb Dhansak enhances the film greatly.

In the Name of (2013, Poland, Malgorzata Szumowska)

At first, the film feels like an examination of a priest's challenge to balance his faith and inner desires. But there are two sequences which transform the film from a singular perspective to a larger examination of the religious establishment. The film starts off by showing that a rotten apple can spoil the barrel while the ending indicates that perhaps the whole barrel is now rotten.

Goltzius and the Pelican Company (2012, UK/Holland/France/Croatia, Peter Greenaway) 

Peter Greenaway's visual tour de force manages to creatively fuse theatre, literature & art thereby creating a feast for the senses.

Pandi (2012, Canada/India, Maria Saroja Ponnambalam)

The film takes us on an emotional ride with the director and her family as they put together the pieces surrounding her uncle Pandi’s death. Even though this is a personal tale, there are some universal themes the film explores, such as the desire to make movies. However, a significant aspect this film depicts is regarding mental health which is not openly discussed in some ethnic communities. The treatment of such a sensitive manner is handled in a dignified manner by the director.

After Tiller (2013, USA, Martha Shane/Lana Wilson)

A gut-wrenching film about people who seek abortion at a late stage (third-trimester) in their pregnancy and the doctors that help carry out such a procedure. The reasons some people go down this path are shown and their opinion is placed against those who call such an act murder. It is not an easy film to watch given the material. However, it is a well made documentary that tries to give multiple points of view, including the moral and ethical issues involved.

The Rocket (2013, Australia, Kim Mordaunt)

Set entirely in the beautiful locales of Laos, The Rocket is a heartwarming film that bursts with life. For people who rarely see foreign films, The Rocket is a perfect way to win them over and show the vibrant cinema that exists in other parts of the world.

The film won the audience narrative award at CIFF 2013 and should be a strong candidate to win the foreign film Academy Award in 2014.

Lily (2013, USA, Matt Creed) 

Takes a page out of the French New Wave as the mostly singular focus on Lily as she wanders the streets of New York evokes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7. Matt Creed has done a very good job of drawing audience into Lily’s world and the film always maintains a positive hopeful tone throughout.

The Right IP Address

A few years ago, Verena Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki’s Foreign Parts got some critical love and was a must-see film. The documentary’s setting in the Queen’s auto parts lanes besides the New York Metz stadium was also the setting for Ramin Bahrani’s Chop Shop, a film which made it across Canada. However, Foreign Parts has remained foreign and not touched my local Canadian shores theatrically or rental DVD. Currently, Amazon.com streams the film for $2.99 (USD), a few weeks ago that price was $2.35. The website also sells a digital copy of the film for $9.99. But one can only rent or buy this digitial film if they live in the US. The only legal option for me to view Foreign Parts is to buy the film's DVD. Amazon.ca sells a DVD of Foreign Parts in Canada for $29.71 (CAD). Hardly a fair differential to view the same film but people in Canada are used to paying more for everything. Even Canadian oil is cheaper in the United States than in the Canadian spots that extract the crude variety out of the ground.

Often excuses of tariffs, taxes, population and currency disparity is used to explain the price difference. None of these excuses matter when it comes to a digital streaming file which does not have to travel across a physical border. In fact, the price difference feels worse when it comes to streaming a digital file from a remote server which may be located in one common location. For example, iTunes US rents most new releases for $3.99 (USD) while the same film costs $4.99 (CAD) in iTunes Canada. At the current currency rate, USD 3.99 = CAD 4.09. And this ignores the fact that for most of last year, the Canadian dollar was on par or above the American dollar.

Then there are the lack of legal streaming options in Canada compared to the US. Fandor and Hulu don’t stream in Canada while Netflix.com has almost 10,000 more titles than Netflix Canada. SundanceNOW also has more streaming films in the US than in Canada. Licensing rights are blamed for lack of film availability in Canada. But there are many titles that have no distributor or rights holder in Canada. To make matters worse, in a few cases Amazon.com won’t ship a DVD to a Canadian postal code even though there is no place in Canada that sells the DVD. I ran into this problem last year when Film Movement confirmed in an email that they don’t have legal rights to sell The Country Teacher in Canada. As a result, Film Movement and Amazon.com won’t ship a DVD of The Country Teacher to a Canadian postal address.

When seeking reasons for the lack of film title availabilities in Canada, some say it is due to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulations. But the CRTC can’t be blamed in all cases. Regardless of who is to blame, the fact remains that many films remain unseen.

If one followed the legal path, then one won’t have access to most films. But if a computer has the right IP Address, an American one in this case, then one has access to a world of films. But if a computer has a Canadian IP Address, then one must continue to be frustrated and see the message that the film is not available.

Top 10 Canadian Films of 2012

2012 was a really good year in Canadian cinema as demonstrated by the titles below but also by a few that narrowly failed to make the list such as Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle (War Witch). Any other year, Rebelle would have been in this list. Also, there are quite a few attention worthy films that I missed seeing last year such as Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways, Peter Mettler’s The End of Time & Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell.

Top 10 Canadian Films of 2012

1) The World Before Her (Nisha Pahuja)

A perfectly balanced and insightful film that examines two very different camps of thought in India. The two camps, beauty pageants vs fundamentalism, contain the essence of issues that are dividing and ruining India. Given the recent brutal crime in Delhi, The World Before Her is one of the year’s most relevant films which should kick-start a debate about improving women’s rights in India.

2) Take This Waltz (2011, Sarah Polley)

Perfectly etched characters depicted in a beautiful fluid manner. Plus, Leonard Cohen's title song elevates the film emotionally.

3) I’m not a Rockstar (Bobbi Jo Hart)

Bobbi Jo Hart has edited over 4 years of footage to craft a documentary about the struggles and journey of a young girl, Marika Bournaki, to become a pianist. There are few scenes which show Marika’s natural talent but for the most part, the film shows her relationship with her father and the sacrifices the father makes for her success. This focus on father-daughter is why the film works so well as we get to know both of them better and even listen to things that we should not have access to. The subject matter applies to all arts in general and highlights pitfalls that can trip up young artists.

4) Mallamall (Lalita Krishna)

A highly relevant Canadian documentary that looks at India's economic rise via the countless malls being constructed there. The film also highlights a Canadian connection crucial in developing these mega stores, something that is hardly ever seen in any newspaper headlines.

5) Lowlife (Seth Smith)

This unique film follows two characters who get high on slugs. Their repeated usage of slugs blurs the line between reality and their slug induced nightmares. The drug visions are shown in black and white while reality is shown in color but as the film progresses that changes, especially with a jaw dropping ending.

6) Midnight’s Children (Deepa Mehta)

Midnight’s Children is such a dense rich novel that it seemed too difficult to ever adapt into a film. Of course, if anyone could accomplish this feat, it could only be Salman Rushdie himself. He has used his story telling strengths along with his well documented love of cinema to carefully adapt segments which contain the novel’s essence while providing a smooth cinematic flow. Huge credit also goes to Deepa Mehta for smartly using Rushdie’s narration to smoothen over the decade long gaps in the story without losing a beat. Rushdie’s voice comes across like a wise story teller preparing us for events we are about to see before our eyes. Also, the presence of many actors, regardless of their screen time, enhances the film as each actor adds a distinctive ingredient to the overall flavor.

7) Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)

This carefully constructed Cronenberg limo was cruising towards the #2 spot on my year end list until it hit a roadblock. That caused the driver to get out of the car and inquire the damage. However, the young passenger Eric Parker got frustrated and jumped from back of the limo into the driver’s seat. He sped the car past the roadblock and made it to his destination in an impressive manner. Unfortunately, he arrived a little bit too late for the end of 2012 party. Still, Eric didn’t realize that his quick thinking allowed him to narrowly edge past another Cronenberg vehicle hot on his tails.

8) Antiviral (Brandon Cronenberg)

An absolutely juicy debut film that one can sink their teeth into. Antiviral looks at a not too distance future where society’s obsession with celebrity culture results in people lining up to buy meat grown from celebrity cells and happily injecting themselves with a celebrity’s virus. Given current addiction to anything celebrity related, such a scenario is not entirely unbelievable so full credit to Brandon Cronenberg for extrapolating the present in such a thoughtful film.

9) Mars et Avril (Martin Villeneuve)

Martin Villeneuve adapted his own graphic novel for the poetic and meditative Mars et Avril. The film is a labor of love and demonstrates that beautiful visuals can be made on a tight budget and a sci-fi film can be made without any horror or mindless action scenes.

10) Bestiaire (Denis Côté)

At first, this Denis Cote documentary looks like a peaceful observation of animals in a zoo. However, that perception is quickly shattered when the first agonizing sounds of animals wanting to break free from their cages are heard. The camera angles also emphasize the struggles most animals have in coping with a harsh winter which restricts their roaming space. Once summer arrives, Cote smartly frames his camera to give the appearance that it is the humans who are in cages and are observed by the animals. This shift of just who is the real observer coupled with the indoor winter shots raise plenty of burning points about caging of animals.

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Interestingly, Antiviral & Mars et Avril also extended the cinematic family tree of two famous Canadian names. Brandon is David Cronenberg’s son while Martin is Denis Villeneuve’s brother. However, it is good to see that both Brandon and Martin have successfully made their own mark with their debut feature films.

CIFF 2011 -- All about the Mavericks

Calgary International Film Festival 2011

Every year I joyfully look forward to the 10 day cinematic adventure that is the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF). Normally, I have my festival specific routines and relish tweaking my schedule as the festival goes on, adding in extra films or altering my plan to get some rest. However, this year my schedule for the opening weekend was decided well in advance because I was invited to be on the three person jury to judge the Mavericks competition award. The Mavericks competition featured eight films from first time directors. The goal was to watch all eight films in the cinema along with the audience during the opening weekend and then deliberate to come up with the award. As per the film schedule, I had two options to see all eight films:

1) 2-3-3: Start off with two films on Friday and then take in three each on Saturday or Sunday.

2) 3-3-2: Three on the opening day and end the weekend with two.

I opted for the second option and added two more films for personal viewing, making the format a much more soccer friendly 4-4-2. This format also allowed me to give my full attention to the Mavericks films.

The eight Mavericks films seen in order of viewing:

Maria, my Love (2011, USA, Jasmine McGlade Chazelle)
Heat Wave (2011, France, Jean-Jacques Jauffret)
The Sacrament of Life (2008, USA, Joseph Sorrentino)
Flowers of Evil (2010, France, David Dusa)
Radio Free Albemuth (2010, USA, John Alan Simon)
Old Goats (2010, USA, Taylor Guterson)
The Whisperer in the Darkness (2011, USA, Sean Branney)
Sunflower Hour (2011, Canada, Aaron Houston)

All the eight films are quite wonderful and different from each other which made it fascinating to judge the competition. The eight films are also clearly a labor of love by the filmmakers and it was a great experience to hear the stories about how some of these films saw the light of day. I had the pleasure to listen to Jasmine McGlade Chazelle, Joseph Sorrentino, Sean Branney and John Alan Simon talk about their films and had a very nice chat with Joseph Sorrentino. These films highlight the importance of film festivals in helping to showcase talented filmmakers whose works would otherwise be lost in the overpowering Hollywood dominated North American cinemas. I relished viewing all these films and hope they get the larger audience they deserve.

In the end, we chose Flowers of Evil as the winner of the Mavericks award.

Here is our jury statement:

Flowers of Evil is a bold, innovative film brimming with fresh new ideas. David Dusa has crafted a unique film that smartly integrates social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube within the film’s visual language while maintaining the story’s flow. Dusa’s film contains living breathing three dimensional characters who draw the audience into their lives thereby creating an emotional connection with the characters lives in Paris and a revolution taking place in a far off land.

In addition, Flowers of Evil also features a grooving soundtrack and makes great use of Shantel’s Disko Boy song.

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The other two films that I saw on the opening weekend were Kill List and Alps.

Kill List (2011, UK, Ben Wheatley)

Ben Wheatley’s film packs quite a powerful punch and increases the tension and violence as it races along at a riveting pace. One remarkable aspect of the film is that it keeps certain elements off the screen thereby allowing the audience to fill in their own version of certain events related to the characters background story and even to the cult group. The violent scenes cause plenty of discomfort although the film’s most shocking scene won’t seem as a surprize to those who saw a certain 2010 film.

Alps (2011, Greece, Giorgos Lanthimos)

Lanthimos’ follow up to Dogtooth features far more deadpan humor and less of the strangeness that might have put some people off Dogtooth. That is not to say that ALPS is without its quirky dark humor but it is presented in a much more accessible manner than Dogtooth. The material that is presented in ALPS only seems much more darker and sinister when one walks away after seeing the film and thinks about the characters and their lives.

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Some quick comments on other films that showed at the festival:

Guilt (2011, Canada, Marc Bisaillon)

This excellent Canadian film is based on a true story and raises some worthy moral questions about guilt/punishment. There is some humor as well regarding how the champ jock is given preferential treatment but the humor is subtle and does not draw attention to itself.

In Heaven, Underground (2011, Germany, Britta Wauer)

The story about how the Weissensee Jewish cemetery survived the Nazi era and continued to operate for more than a century is certainly extraordinary. Surprisingly, this is a very light tender film about the heavy topic of death and features many poetic and contemplative moments.

Target (2011, Russia, Alexander Zeldovich)

Like all good sci-fi films Target uses a single topic, elixir of youth in the film’s case, to explore larger issues about human behavior and morality in society. Plus, the film uses current trends of China’s growth to extrapolate a future where the political power balance is altered. One forgets the sci-fi element 30 minutes into the film after which the story unfolds like an epic Russian novel, carefully highlighting the disintegration of the principal characters. The ending shot certainly evokes Tarkovskiy’s Solaris as do certain other aspects in the film.

Journey of a Dream (2011, Canada co-production, Shenpenn Khymsar)

This worthy documentary is a fascinating mix of a memoir, a road journey, a political film about Tibet's struggle of independence and a look at the underground music scene in Darjeeling. Each part contains many engaging aspects which are nicely tied together in the end when the filmmaker draws a line between his Buddhist beliefs and love of metal music.

Le Quattro Volte: I wrote about this film previously and it is still a front-runner for one of my favourite films of the year.

George the Hedgehog (2011, Poland, Wojtek Wawszczyk, Jakub Tarkowski, Tomasz Leśniak)

And now for something completely different...George the Hedgehog is a Polish animated film that is a blend of political and social satire packed with plenty of sexual innuendo and some nudity to boot. The film is surprizingly liberal with its sexual depiction and is not afraid to offend with its crudeness and racial jokes. George the Hedgehog also smartly includes the impact that online videos can have in swaying public opinion and starting a revolution of sorts.

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The ones that got away

The opening weekend certainly exhausted me and that meant I had to give away some of my film tickets over the next few days just to recover. So I missed seeing Take Shelter, Monsieur Lazhar, The Skin I Live In and The Bengali Detective. On top of that, family commitments meant that I missed the closing gala film Take That Waltz along with three of my must-see picks for the festival -- Le Havre, El Bulli and The Salt of Life. Still, CIFF 2011 was another great festival experience highlighted by the outstanding Mavericks competition.

Oh Canadian weather

CIFF has always taken place place in the final week of September and usually spilled over into the first few days of October. As a result, my memories of the fall season have always been associated with CIFF because my waiting in line for films has gone hand in hand with a chill tinged air. However, remarkably last year the weather during the first week of the festival was summer like thereby making the walks in between the cinemas pleasant and fun. Incredibly, this time around the first weekend of the festival (Sept 23 - 25) featured temperatures in the range of 29-30 deg C thereby meaning some of the warmest summer weather of the year took place in the fall. If this summer like weather occurs during the festival next year, then it will certainly be further proof of the changing weather pattern.

Montreal -- World Film Festival

Montreal’s World Film Festival is now in its 35th year but somehow it is invisible to most of English speaking Canada and much of North America. A quick look at the line-up gives an idea why this may be. The festival is devoid of big name Hollywood films so that ensures that majority of the mainstream media would likely stay away. But one would think that a festival with hundreds of foreign films should be able to attract cinephiles and film critics? Unfortunately, North American film magazines and critics hardly cover the festival either. In the last few years, I have never seen a mention of the festival in either Film Comment or Cinema Scope (a Canadian publication nonetheless). In 2010, I came across a report by Cineaste but the article was only restricted to the web and not in their full magazine. The reason for ignorance from film magazines or cinephiles could be that Montreal does not get most of the big name Cannes films which have their exclusive Canadian or North American premier in Toronto. Yet, if cinephiles and critics are not seeing any of the films shown in Montreal, then how would they know what they are missing?

For example, these are this year’s competition feature films:

ANTOKI NO INOCHI, Dir. Takahisa Zeze, Japan.
CHE BELLA GIORNATA, Dir. Gennaro Nunziante, Italy
CINCO METROS CUADRADOS, Dir. Max Lemcke, Spain
CORAÇÕES SUJOS, Dir. Vicente Amorim, Brazil.
COTEAU ROUGE, Dir. André Forcier, Canada.
CZARNY CZWARTEK, Dir. Antoni Krauze, Poland.
DAVID, Dir. Joel Fendelman, United States.
DER BRAND, Dir. Brigitte Maria Bertele, Germany
DER GANZ GROSSE TRAUM, Dir. Sebastian Grobler, Germany
HASTA LA VISTA, Dir. Geoffrey Enthoven, Belgium
INJA BEDOONE MAN, Dir. Bahram Tavakoli, Iran
KRET, Dir. Rafael LewandowskI, Poland - France
L'ART D'AIMER, Dir. Emmanuel Mouret, France
LA RUN, Dir. Demian Fuica, Canada
PLAYOFF, Dir. Eran Riklis, Israel - France - Germany
TAGE DIE BLEIBEN, Dir. Pia Strietmann, Germany
TATANKA, Dir. Giuseppe Gagliardi, Italy
WAGA HAHA NO KI, Dir. Masato Harada, Japan
WAN YOU YIN LI, Dir. Tianyu Zhao, China
ZILA-BILA ODNA BABA, Dir. Andrey Smirnov, Russia

Only CHE BELLA GIORNATA and DER BRAND are 2010 films with the rest being brand new 2011 films from around the world, untouched by negative press that almost accompanies ever single Cannes festival title. In fact, I have not seen a single mention of any of these films anywhere. The only film that I am slightly aware of is Tatanka but that is because of a personal interest in the film as the story is written by the incredible Roberto Saviano whose book Gomorrah is one of the best books I have read in the last few years.

There are many unknown films in other categories but surprizingly it is only in the Out of Competition category that some familiar titles show up:

This is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb)
Black Bread (Agusti Villaronga)
The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
What Love May Bring (Claude Lelouch)

There is indeed a very good chance that most of the films shown at Montreal will disappear without a trace. For example, I have not seen most of the previous year’s award winners. Just taking a small subset of award winners from a few categories produces many undiscovered older titles.

In 2010, the top three prizes went to:

Grand prix des Americas: 
OXYGEN (ADEM) by Hans Van Nuffel (Belgium/Netherlands)



Special Grand Prix of the jury: 
DALLA VITA IN POI (FROM THE WAIST ON) by Gianfrancesco Lazotti (Italy)



Best Director ex-aequo:


LIMBO by Maria Sødahl (Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Trinidad and Tobago)

TÊTE DE TURC by Pascal Elbé (France)

I have not seen any of these 2009 winners even though I have seen a few of Tony Gatlif’s previous films.

Grand prix des Americas: KORKORO (FREEDOM) by Tony Gatlif (France)

Special Grand Prix of the jury: WEAVING GIRL by Wang Quan’an (China)

Best Director: VILLON’S WIFE (VIYON NO TSUMA) by Kichitaro Negishi (Japan)

Thankfully, I have seen the 2008 award winner, Departures:

Grand prix of the Americas:
OKURIBITO (DEPARTURES) by Yojiro Takita (Japan)

Special Grand Prix of the jury :
THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE (CE QU’IL FAUT POUR VIVRE) by Benoît Pilon (Canada)

Best Director :
THE TOUR (TURNEJA) by Goran Markovic (Serbia/Bosnia and Herzegovina)

However, if I keep going back through other years, I draw a blank for the award winners. And these are only for the films that got an award. There are hundreds of films waiting to be discovered via the archives.

The global film world is large indeed and one needs a proper fishing net to capture a good set of the films that exist. Unfortunately, the global distribution network only moves a select few titles around. Cannes plays a big part in this distribution stream as most of its new titles blindly get booked by a majority of film festivals and eventually get a DVD release. Sundance provides North American theaters with a few alternatives to Hollywood films while Rotterdam, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Buenos Aries, TIFF, VIFF and Pusan also help in injecting new titles into the mix. Yet, despite all these festivals, a good number of international films still remain out of reach.

I appreciate what Montreal is doing and I am glad that a film festival exists that is helping bring many new and unknown titles out of the shadows. The distribution framework to give these films a life outside of Montreal may be broken but awareness of titles is the first step.

Venues & Outdoor cinema

During my stay for Fantasia, I saw plenty of banners and advertising for the World Film Festival because the festival was going to kick off 11 days after Fantasia ended. As it turned out, my hotel was very close to two of the World Film Festival venues. I was also within touching distance of the Cinema Under the Stars location and since I was very close to a Metro station, the remaining three cinemas were also very easily accessible. Of course, given Montreal’s excellent Metro system, most locations are easily within reach.

As indicated by the name, Cinema under the Stars films are shown outside on a closed-off street. This year, the collection features a few Hollywood and Bollywood musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain, All That Jazz, Chicago, Devdas, Lagaan along with two Jacques Demy films The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Les demoiselles de Rochefort . Combined with the great summer weather in Montreal, Cinema Under the Stars will make for some fun viewings while the amazing selection of brewpubs and third-wave cafes in Montreal should provide enough fuel to discover films that apparently most of North America is unaware of.

Note: The Cine Files blog on Montreal Gazette’s website is providing coverage of the World Film Festival including links to some of the film trailers.

Fantasia 2011

Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival is in a class of its own. It is one of the best genre film festivals in the world and as such entertains, thrills, chills and jolts its audience with fascinating films from all corners of the globe. The festival has gone from strength to strength in its 15 years of existence under the magnificent direction of Mitch Davis. Fantasia runs for a staggering 3.5 weeks (24 days) and is a film festival truly for the fans. When it comes to film festivals, one hardly talks about the atmosphere generated by film fans but in the case of Fantasia, for years I had heard about the rocking atmosphere that took place in the Concordia Hall theater when 700 fans brought the cinema down. Attending Fantasia was on my wish list for a long time so this year, in the 15th anniversary of the Festival, I decided to finally take the plunge.

8 in 3 days

I attended 8 films during my first trip to the Vancouver Film Festival in 2006, the same number as I did at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The common number was just a coincidence but in both cases this total allowed me to enjoy a decent selection of films, spend time with family/friends, get some rest while taking in some of the best the cities had to offer. So this time around, I decided to go with the number 8 again, but the overall breakdown ended up being different. In Vancouver, I had a 3-4-1 tally with 3 films on a Friday, 4 on a Saturday and a single film on sunday while in Toronto I registered 4-3-0-1 with 4 films on a Thursday and a single one again on the sunday. For Montreal, the number ended being 2-5-1, starting with 2 on a friday. I could have packed in more films at Fantasia but I also wanted to spend some time visiting the city’s numerous brewpubs and third-wave cafes.

So the lucky 8 films in order of viewing:

Blackthorn (2011, Spain/USA/Bolivia/France, Mateo Gil)
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2011, Canada, Panos Cosmatos)
Gantz (2010, Japan, Shinsuke Sato)
Gantz: Perfect Answer (2011, Japan, Shinsuke Sato)
Article 12 (2010, UK/Argentina, Juan Manuel Biaiñ)
Dharma Guns (2010, France/Portugal, F.J. Ossang)
Morituris (2011, Italy, Raffaele Picchio)
Redline (2009, Japan, Takeshi Koike)

I had planned my trip long before the final film schedule was released so it turned out many of the films from my wish list were not playing during my visit but I still had plenty of hope from my picks. On paper, Blackthorn appeared enticing. It marked the English language directional debut of Mateo Gil, a writer I held in high regard because of his excellent writing for Thesis, Open Your Eyes, The Sea Inside and The Method. The cast of Sam Shepard, Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea and Magaly Solier (she stole the show in both Claudia Llosa features Madeinusa and The Milk of Sorrow) was equally tantalizing. Plus, the fictional account of Butch Cassidy’s apparent survival and secret life in South America (Bolivia) had all the making of a cult film. Unfortunately, the film is a disappointment. Even though Blackthorn contains many memorable sequences, good acting and some picturesque shoot-outs, the good individual parts never add up to a complete whole. The film does contain some memorable lines especially regarding how three different characters curse Bolivia because they were ultimately defeated there. Interestingly, Che Guevera was also defeated in Bolivia, so there is certainly a cinematic possibility in exploring the political games played out in Bolivia.

Beyond the Black Rainbow had plenty of buzz around it and Todd Brown’s excellent write-up was certainly inviting:

Born of the pre-teen fantasies of writer-director Panos Cosmatos as he browsed the selection of early 1980s Canadian science fiction and horror VHS tapes that he would never be allowed to rent, BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW is a psychedelic head trip of the highest order. Cosmatos captures the aesthetics of an era effortlessly while fusing those influences into something bold and visionary and entirely his own. The accomplished music video director — he’s done work for the Handsome Furs, among others — plunges the audience into a sort of sensory overload as he fuses elements of Reagan-era paranoia, social engineering run amok and a drug-fuelled step up the evolutionary ladder to create a hypnotic experience that plays out like a Tarkovsky-style science fiction picture as filtered through the visual style of LOGAN’S RUN. Michael Rogers delivers a mesmerizing performance as Barry Nyle, his cold and clinical exterior concealing a layer of obsession and... something else. But as gripping as Rogers is, it’s the world that Cosmatos creates that is the real star, the visuals providing a truly immersive experience matched by the original score, composed by Black Mountain’s Jeremy Schmidt entirely on vintage analog synthesizers. Just let it all wash over you.

Panos Cosmatos has indeed done an excellent job in recreating the 1980’s feel and I felt I was watching a horror/thriller from that era on a VHS tape. On top of that, the film’s bright neon tinged palette leads viewers on a tipsy hallucinatory psychedelic ride. Unfortunately, when the stylistic layers are peeled off, there is very little depth in the film. There are plenty of references to conspiracy theories/experiments but those references appear to be elements inserted in the film to allow audience to draw their own interpretations and add more meaning to the film than there really is. For majority of the film, the style dominates but once the bright lights are turned out, the film comfortably settles into B-grade mode.

Gantz came in second place for the Audience Awards at the New York Asian Film Festival and was one of the films I was most looking forward to. So were about 699 other people. Only in Fantasia can 700 people be packed in a theater at 11:25 am on Saturday morning and be in amazing spirits. Each frame of the film was cheered on until the opening credits and after that, the film’s key scenes elicited huge roars of approval. Gantz has an incredible opening sequence, perfectly outlined by Rupert Bottenberg in the Fantasia film guide:

Two young men wait among the crowd on a subway platform, a flicker of recognition passing between them. Before they can speak, a man falls, helpless, on the tracks. One youth jumps down to save him. The other reaches down to help, and falls himself. The train is coming, fast, and they don’t have time to climb back up out of its way. The train slams into them — and they find themselves, from one split second to the next, in a clean yet unfurnished apartment overlooking Tokyo. In the room with them are several other men — a gangster, a slacker, a pair of nervous salarymen — who seem just as confused and disoriented as they are. Also in the room is a sphere. A large, smooth, hard black sphere, which quickly reveals itself to have strange and amazing powers. Text scrolls across the sphere, explaining that the old lives of all in the room are now over. Their new lives belong to the sphere. That’s when the weapons come out, and the players’ first target for extermination revealed.

The mysterious black orb is naturally Gantz and it controls all the players lives and wants them to fight aliens that are living among humans on Earth. It scores the players based on their performances in exterminating the aliens. If a player reaches 100 points then they can either use the points to return to their lives or use the points to resurrect another player but be stuck in the game themselves. The first Gantz film spends time developing the characters and lays the foundation for how the players learn to use their new found powers. The second film Gantz: Perfect Answer promises to answer everything but instead it creates more subplots and weaves an even bigger web of mystery around Gantz. The film introduces a palm sized black orb which is instructing a former Gantz player to kill other people to introduce them in the game. On one hand, Gantz is getting people killed and introduced in the game while on the other hand, players are on the verge of returning to their former lives. Eventually, the mystery around the two black orbs are tied and the film offers many answers but still many things are left untied, presumably for a future sequel or even a prequel. Put together the two films are very entertaining but each film contains many disposable sequences that simply draw out the plot longer than needed. The first film is a better overall work than the second film which spends a generous amount of time on players vs alien fight sequences. Still, Gantz is worth watching and will certainly create a huge fan base.

Article 12 explores how modern technology is reducing people’s right to privacy without people’s awareness. The film features prominent speakers, including Noam Chomsky, and echoes George Orwell in exploring the eroding private/public boundaries in modern Western society. However, the 75 minute film basically contains 10-15 minutes of interesting ideas and spends the rest of the time repeating the same messages over and over. As a result, the film easily wears
out its welcome and ends up being quite tiresome.

F.J Ossang’s Dharma Guns is a film with great potential and incredible style. The first image in the film is in color but the rest of the film is in black and white and features a possible end of the world scenario where a mysterious drug is turning people into zombies. The key to save the world lies in an unfinished script that Stan Van Der Decken cannot complete because of his memory loss. On top of that, he cannot get a hold of his mysterious agent and is hounded by an underground group called Dharma Guns. No zombie is ever shown on screen and that gives the film an air of mystery and doubt. Plus, there are many engaging ideas presented in Dharma Guns but unfortunately, the end result is a lackluster film that cannot thread all the elements together.

One of the things I was most looking forward to in Fantasia was seeing a midnight feature in the Hall theater. The opportunity to witness a packed audience elevate the thrills of a horror feature was one I did not want to miss. So I was surprized when the midnight feature Morituris was not even half full. The feature prior to Morituris was jam-packed and had an after-party around midnight so maybe that drew some people away. Or people were more interested in the International Fireworks competition taking place in Montreal that night. Whatever the reasons, it turned out the audience was smart enough in staying away. However, the lack of crowd did not deter director Raffaele Picchio who was in great spirits because this screening marked the international premier of his film. He told the audience that they would witness a "nasty" film and he was right. Although before the nastiness started, Morituris starts off in a flashback mode with found camera footage showing a family’s picnic going horribly wrong when the family is killed by a mysterious evil force from within the forest. The film then cuts to the present when a speeding car packed with five people, three men and two women, is en route to the same forest for a rave party. The conversations flow naturally among the five in the film’s best segment. However, once the five enter the forest, things go wrong as expected. In keeping with the horror film template, the nasty things happen to the women first. The suffering of the men is not far away but when the evil finds the men, it is in the form of men in body paint and gladiator attire, looking more comical than scary. There are some torture segments in the finale but the film ends up being an awful viewing, mostly due to uninspired direction in the final third. As an aside, one would think that in this day and age needless abuse of female characters in horror films would stop but directors keep thinking of new ways to inflict pain to female characters, all for the sake of shock.

Redline, the eight film, was pure fun. Once again, it was incredible to see a packed hall at 11 am on sunday morning, this time cheering on a Japanese anime. The story of the film features incredible car-racing sequences in a futuristic Japan where races take place on various planets between aliens and humans alike. The cars of Speed Racer have nothing on Redline which feature nitro-powered cars flying at unimaginable speeds. The high speeds led to the racers eyes on the verge of popping out and eventually result in complete breakdown of the cars. One incredible sequence in the film features a disintegration of a car but the human drivers fly across the track to still finish the race.

Ratings & Overall comments

A rough ratings of the films out of 10:

Blackthorn: 5.5
Beyond the Black Rainbow: 6.5
Gantz: 8
Gantz: Perfect Answer: 7
Article 12: 5
Dharma Guns: 6
Morituris: 2
Redline: 8

Unfortunately, my picks may not have resulted in too many stellar films but overall, Fantasia was the best film festival experience of my life. As diverse as the films were, they still demonstrated purposeful programming and each film fit perfectly within the festival’s desire to hunt the world for genre films which push the envelope and are not afraid to take risks. Plus, the framework around the festival ensures a great experience. The two main theaters, Hall (capacity 700) and J.A. De Seve Theater (capacity 173), are not only across the road from each other but are connected by an underground tunnel. The tunnel also leads to the Metro, the most efficient metro system in Canada, which ensures one can get to most spots around Montreal in minutes. Also, there is an excellent selection of restaurants, cafes and brewpubs around the two theaters which means a person is always well nourished in between the films.

The timing of the film festival in summer also means that one can enjoy the great weather of Montreal which makes for relaxing walks in-between destinations even late at night (say 2 am after a midnight feature) when downtown is still bursting with life. Given that that film festival lasts 24 days means a minimum of a one week trip is required to properly assess the films and soak in the best that Montreal has to offer.

Note: some of the brewpubs and cafes I sampled during Fantasia are listed in a separate post.

The Actuality Dramas of Allan King

The first time I heard a film described as an actuality was when Allan King mentioned it in the Q&A session following a special screening of his film A Married Couple. The word perfectly described A Married Couple because the film was an actual documentation of the ups and downs of a married couple’s relationship. Sadly, a few months after the special Calgary Cinematheque screening Allan King passed away. That made the screening of A Married Couple even more special.

The 2008 screening of A Married Couple meant that the film was once again starting to get some attention almost four decades it was released. Then last year, Criterion released a box-set of Allan King’s films, naturally called The Actuality Dramas of Allan King. Having already seen A Married Couple, the other four films were part of this spotlight.

Warrendale (1968)
A Married Couple (1969)
Come On Children (1972)
Dying at Grace (2003)
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (2005)

The subject material of all five films is sensitive and intimate. Warrendale captures day to day life in a rehabilitation home for emotionally disturbed kids, A Married Couple shows the turbulent and tense moments of a marriage, Come on Children brings forth some teenage concerns and attitudes, Dying at Grace shows terminally ill patients in their final moments of life and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company sheds a light on behaviour and moments associated with human aging.

The only film out of the five that is not shot in its original location is Come on Children. Warrendale is shot exclusively inside the rehabilitation home, A Married in Couple takes place in either the couple’s home or their office and both Dying at Grace and Memory... are shot respectively in the health center and nursing home where the patients lived. On the other hand, Come on Children required the subjects to leave their natural homes to go live in selected location. This is how the idea for the film came about:

King interviewed three or four hundred people between the ages of thirteen and nineteen from the middle-class suburbs of Toronto about their unsatisfactory presents and desired futures. The most common comment he heard was that they wanted to be left alone by hassling cops, teachers, parents, and other authority figures. So King granted their wish, inviting a cross section of them (five boys, five girls) to live on a remote farm for ten weeks, without supervision, to be filmed at all times.

The end result is a cinematic experiment decades ahead of its time. Basically, the film predicts modern day reality shows such as Big Brother by having a camera capture the life of its subjects round the clock. Initially, the constant presence of the camera draws hostile reactions from two teenagers with one of the teens trying to place his hand on the camera and telling the camera man to get lost. But eventually, the teens go about their lives naturally as the camera becomes a part of their lives.

Memories and Death

We have a desperate need as human beings to understand reality, and we go to desperate ends to avoid that reality......

The curious thing is that when you do look at reality and face it, it is no longer fearsome. -- Allan King

Both Dying at Grace and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company go to great lengths to portray that reality and as such present plenty emotionally touching and tearful moments. It is hard to imagine how Peter Walker shot both films objectively because the material certainly would not have been easy to film, especially that of Dying at Grace where some of the patients pass away in presence of the camera. At times, it feels intrusive to observe intimate family moments when a loved one has passed away but the film was conceived with the blessing of the patients and their families. In that regard, one hopes audience find positives in observing such tender moments.

Interestingly, Allan King’s first and second last feature complete a cinematic circle. In Warrendale, there is a significant moment when the staff talk to the children about the death of a cook. This discussion leads to the film’s main crisis point as some children emotionally break down and become difficult to control. In Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company, the nursing home staff talk about the death of Max to the other residents. Naturally, given their age and health, the reaction of the other residents is muted and different from the children in Warrendale. Yet, the discussion about death is similar in both films even though the people listening to the news are on opposite ends of an age spectrum.

Overall

Personally, A Married Couple is my favourite overall film from the five. Also, it is a film that one can objectively observe without letting any emotional filters get in the way. Any person who has experienced a relative losing their memory as they aged would find Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company a tough viewing while Dying at Grace would be more difficult to view for anyone who has ever lost a loved one. Warrendale is an amazing film from a cinematic technique but some of the methods for the children's rehabilitation are not the easiest to digest. The weakest film in the group ends up being Come on Children. That has a lot to do with the subjects captured on camera. The children had total freedom to do as they pleased but after a few days, they settled into a routine of singing and lying around. Their biggest struggle came when they had to discuss who had to clean the kitchen. No amount of editing could have enriched the material but still the film offers an interesting case study about the behavior and concerns of some teens in the early 1970’s.

Actuality = Direct Cinema - embedded presence

Allan King’s debut feature Warrendale is an incredible piece of cinema that lays out the actuality filming style King would follow in his subsequent films. This style involved shooting primarily in an indoor location, acutely observing humans in tender and sensitive moments without the presence of a director or a narrator. Allan King removed himself from the room while his cinematographer lived and filmed freely without inhibitions. The fact that Allan King was not present in the room during filming is what probably differentiates his actuality style from Direct Cinema which required the filmmaker to be embedded constantly in their shooting environments. The tender and sensitive subject material of Allan King’s films necessitated him to be absent from the room because his presence would have indirectly influenced his subjects or would have broken the intimacy that could be offered by a silent cinematographer whose job was to shoot everything without any filters or editing.

Allan King’s techniques should be treasured and his works deserve a wider appreciation. His topics may not find many takers but the technique used in his actuality films can certainly lead to a more rich and pure form of cinema.

note: The subject material of Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company reminded me of Jean-François Caissy’s Journey’s End, a Canadian film that I saw at last year’s CIFF. Journey’s End also observes its elder subjects without any voice-over narration and offers an unfiltered look at their lives.

The Direct Cinema of Michel Brault

"This is Canada?"

These were the words that came to my mind when I first saw Michel Brault’s Les Ordres a few years ago. The film showed how in 1970 hundreds of citizens in Quebec were arrested without a warrant and held indefinitely without ever getting a charge laid against them. It was eye-opening to see such an incident took place on Canadian soil and Brault’s film was my first introduction to this portion of Canadian history. As it turns out, Les Orders was also Brault’s most accessible film on DVD and part of that reason might be because the film won him a best director award in Cannes 1975. Brault's remaining films remained out of reach until I came across National Film Board’s (NFB) box-set of his earlier films from 1958-1974. The five disc collection contains four features, nine shorts and two bonus documentaries on Brault.

My spotlight of four features and four shorts is based on a subset of films from that box-set:

Les raquetteurs (1958, 15 min)
La lutte (1961, 28 min)
Québec-U.S.A. ou L'invasion pacifique (1962, 27 min)
Pour la suite du monde (1963)
Geneviève (1964, 28 min)
Entre la mer et l’eau douce (1965)
L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? (1971)
Les Ordres (1974)

The NFB package also contains an excellent collection of essays & articles on Brault’s films in French and English. However, as per the introduction all the essays are presented in their original language without translation, which means there are more French essays than English ones. Still, the few English essays provide an essential look at Brault’s filming methods and even the concept of "cinéma direct" ("Direct Cinema"), a movement that I was completely unaware of.

Candid Eye

The road to Direct Cinema starts off with the Candid Eye productions of the CBC. In the essay How to Make or Not to Make a Canadian movie (La Cinémathèque canadienne, Montreal, 1967) included in the box-set, Wolf Koenig describes how the inspiration and genesis of the Candid Eye movement started. The original idea that Koenig and others proposed to the CBC for their films was:

..Record life as it happens, unscripted and unrehearsed: capture it in sync sound, indoors or out, without asking it to pose or repeat its lines; edit it into moving films that would make the audience laugh and cry (preferably both at the same time); show it on TV to millions and change the world by making people realize that life is real, beautiful and meaningful, etc. Management was understandably puzzled by this proposal. We were told that films cannot be made like this -- that there would be difficulties...

Some of the difficulties that Koenig and other Candid Eye filmmakers encountered are still a challenge for art, independent and foreign filmmakers today.

....We roamed the grounds with haunted looks searching for reality, ready to siphon it into our Bolex whenever it should appear. We got some pretty pictures but it was impossible to cut them into film.

This unconventional kind of documentary film presented new and disconcerting problems. For instance: How does one get an audience to look at a film that doesn’t have a story or even a conventional message? Worse: how does one get script approval from management for a film without a script? Or: how can one get close to the subject with all those clumsy cameras and lights and microphones, without scaring him off? And how, in God’s name, could we be sure of being present when the moment of truth arrives? We couldn’t very well shoot every boring minute of the hero’s life, waiting for his soul to reveal itself (although, at times, we did). There were many such questions...

The breakthrough and inspiration for Koenig came courtesy of a ..book of photographs called The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Koenig goes onto explain that the book’s "foreword became our bible. We followed it verbatim."

Sections of the foreword are included by Koenig and those are reproduced below.

The picture-story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye and the heart. The objective of this joint operation is to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding, and to communicate impressions. Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses -- for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude towards something that is moving...

We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory...for photographers, what has gone, has gone forever...Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor must we manipulate the results in a darkroom...

...In whatever picture-story we try to do, we are bound to arrive as intruders. It is essential, therefore, to approach the subject on tip-toe --even if the subject is still-life. A velvet hand, a hawk’s eye- --these we should all have...

The profession depends so much upon the relations the photographer establishes with the people he’s photographing, that a false relationship, a wrong word or attitude, can ruin everything. When the subject is in any way uneasy, the personality goes away where the camera can’t reach it. There are no systems, for each case is individual and demands that we be unobtrusive, though we must be at close range...
There is subject in all that takes place in the world, as in our personal universe. We cannot negate subject. It is everywhere. So we must be lucid toward what is going on in the world, and honest about what we feel.

Subject does not consist of a collection of facts, for facts in themselves offer little interest. Through facts, however, we can reach an understanding of the laws that govern them, and be better able to select the essential ones which communicate reality...

If a photograph is to communicate its subject in all its intensity, the relationship of form must be rigorously established. Photography implies the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things. What the eye does is to find and focus on the particular subject within the mass of reality. What the camera does is simply to register upon film the decision made by the eye...One does not add composition as though it were an afterthought superimposed on the basic subject material, since it is impossible to separate content from form. Composition must have its own inevitability about it...

I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds -- the one inside us and the one outside us. As a result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate. -- English translation of "Images à la sauvette" (èd, Verve, Paris, 1952).

And so the Candid Eye movement was born.

Direct Cinema

Our films have, above all, been
an impassioned appropriation
of the social environment.
The picturesque (the outsider’s view)
has yielded to the familiar; the myth
has yielded in the face of reality.
-- Gilles Carle, Parti Pris, 7
(April 1964)

David Clandfield’s insightful essay From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964) begins with this quote from Carle, who was a member of the French Unit at the National Film Board. As per Clandfield, Carle made the above comment when the direct cinema movement was coming to an end because "..the tightly knit group of francophone filmmakers at the NFB was dispersing."

David Clandfield describes the emergence of direct cinema, its similarities and differences from the Candid Eye films of the NFB.

Technically, of course, both movements had much in common: shooting without script or conscious staging, use of light-weight equipment, a search for the real which deliberately shunned the dramatic of the heroic.

However, the two movements differed when it came to the involvement of the filmmakers with the project.

For the Candid Eye filmmakers, the subject of the film was its subject matter rooted in objective reality. The starting point was a social or human event-- ephemeral, inscribed in an ephemeral world-- the form and meaning of which require the mediation of the filmic process to become evident. The function of the filmic process, then, was not to mould but to reveal form, and with it meaning.

For the cinéma direct filmmakers, the point of departure is the filmmaking process in which the filmmaker is deeply implicated as a consciousness, individual or collective. It is this process--this consciousness--which gives form and meaning to an amorphous objective reality. Instead of effacing their presence, the filmmakers affirm it.

Instead of rendering the technical process transparent (supposedly), they will emphasize its materiality. Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in. Their search for the authentic will involve not only the critical detachment of the empirical investigator in order to strip away “myth” or misconception, but also commitment to the social project under investigation in order to avoid the pitfalls of he aesthetic or the “picturesque.” The overt personal involvement of the subject-filmmaker in the object-reality of the pro-filmic event was, then, the key distinguishing factor of the Québécois cinéma direct from the Anglophone Candid Eye.

.....Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in.

These words from David Clandfield’s essay about the Direct Cinema technique made me think of embedded journalism. In the last few years, embedded journalism has come to refer to the reporting style where journalists travel along with the military units they are covering. This also means that the journalists share the same working space as the military officers. It turns out that Direct Cinema used such closeness a long time ago as part of its filming methodology. The personal involvement of Brault is apparent from L’Acadie l’Acadie?!?, a film which shows the Acadian identity struggle that took place in the University of Moncton in New Brunswick. As part of their protests, the university students locked themselves in the university buildings. Brault was also locked indoors with the students and that allowed him to get close to the students and record their true feelings/actions.

In a sense, embedded filming was a key component of Direct Cinema, which means Direct Cinema was a pure form of cinema because the filmmaker inserted himself/herself into the environment of their subject and filmed without any inhibitions or filters. The filmmaker did not direct his/her subjects nor did the filmmaker interfere in the subject’s words or actions. This detachment allowed the filmmaker to portray reality as objectively as possible.

Heavy camera, Mobile movement

One of the original problems of the Candid Eye movement that Wolf Koenig posed was the difficulty of heavy camera equipments:

Or: how can one get close to the subject with all those clumsy cameras and lights and microphones, without scaring him off?

Nowadays with light digital cameras such problems do not exist. However, this was a relevant problem back in the late 1950’s through early 1970’s. Yet, this problem did not prevent Brault from making remarkable films where his camera’s presence is non-existent. His films demonstrate mobile camera movement that captured a wide array of shots, often taken with a single camera and no multiple takes. Such a feat would be difficult today, but it is truly remarkable to think that he and his crew managed this five decades ago. The film that is a shining example of Brault’s techniques is L’Acadie l’Acadie?!? where the camera directly places the viewer within the same university halls as the students thereby making the audience a silent member of the political discussions taking place. Brault does now allow the camera to merely record at a distance but manages to allow the audience to get close with a few select vocal leaders of the student union by varying camera angles when the students are shown during heated debates or in moments of silence. The camera moves in close when it needs to and pulls away appropriately to provide a more complete picture. Such movement and closeness of the camera allows the camera to be an invisible interviewer that is probing the subject to get their true feelings out.

Culture, Rituals & History

Michel Brault’s films are not only about beautiful technique but they document Canadian cultures, traditions and history that would otherwise be lost over time. Les Raquetteurs records the celebration and tradition surrounding a snowshoe competition in Sherbrooke in the late 1950’s while La lutte shows the rituals that were identified with professional wrestling in Montreal Forum and also in back-street wrestling parlours across Montreal. Pour la suite du monde shows a traditional whale-catching practice that was part and parcel of life in Île-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River. The film is also a reminder of the complex nature of Canadian history. In the film, a short discussion about Jacques Cartier between two town residents shows that Canada’s history changes when it is viewed either via French, English or Native perspective. In his wonderful book A Fair Country John Ralston Saul mentions that a true picture of Canadian history has to take Métis and other First Nation ethnicities into account. Such an inclusion would mean a three pronged view of Canada’s past as opposed to the current situation where Canadian history is only viewed through either English or French eyes. Pour la suite du monde is from a French perspective but it raises the point if the origin of some rituals, such as Beluga whale hunting, would change when Natives would recount their history.

In 1969, New Brunswick became the first and only bilingual province in Canada. However, the journey to get bilingual status was anything but easy. L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? shows a fraction of this struggle by highlighting the efforts of students in the University of Moncton to get bilingual status so that they could continue to speak in French and thereby preserve their Acadian identity. The film is from the perspective of the University students but a segment shot in city hall illustrates the divide between the English speaking majority and the Francophone minority in Moncton. In the city hall meeting, every time the University of Moncton students tried to speak, their voices were attempted to be drowned out by coughs and disapproval from the English speakers. Interestingly, this divide over language extended to cultural differences as well about Acadian identity. Such debates about cultural and language freedoms have reignited recently in Canada, especially in Quebec, as new waves of immigrants enter Canada. So L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? is a timely reminder that a society can never be fully functional if one side tries to ignore the history and cultures of another side.

Les Ordres shows what happened in Quebec under the cover of the 1970 War Measures Act. As part of the War Act’s wide ranging powers, ordinary citizens were arrested without cause. The citizens were not physically tortured and eventually released but as the film shows, threats of death and murder were used to keep some prisoners in a constant state of mental agony. In a few segments it becomes apparent that some of the prison guards were on a power trip and were enacting their own version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Les Ordres is based on a collection of interviews from some of the more than 400 arrested citizens and is essential viewing because it shows how easy it is for a democratic society to descend into a police state.

Identity, Modernity & Roots

Brault’s first fiction feature Entre la mer et l’eau douce is a fascinating film that shows the rise to fame of an ordinary young man who leaves his small isolated village to find work in booming cosmopolitan Montreal. The film’s title is explained perfectly by André Loiselle:

The title comes from the diary of Jacques Cartier, read by Alexis Tremblay in Pour la suite du monde, in which the 16th century French explorer describes beluga whales as snow-white fish that live in the river between the sea and fresh water. For Brault, however, what lives between the sea and fresh water is less the whale than the young French-Canadian man who is torn between two worlds: the sea, the past, the country and the elders, and the fresh water, the city and modernity.
-- André Loiselle, Tradition and Modernity from Montreal to Acadia and Brittany. Entre la mer et l’eau douce, Éloge du chiac, L’Acadie l’Acadie?!? and Les enfants de Néant.

In Entre la mer et l’eau douce Claude Tremblay (played by Claude Gauthier) leaves behind his Native lover in his village when he goes to Montreal, where he drifts in between jobs and affairs. Yet, he cannot forget his original love or his country roots despite swimming in a modernized city. His past is a contradiction with his present situation and that tension offers inspiration for his music. Claude’s portrayal and the film title can also refer to the tensions regarding Quebec’s nationalistic identity with the rest of Anglophone Canada and even with its native past. The fact that Claude left his Native lover behind could be taken to mean that in order to proceed ahead Quebec and thereby the rest of Canada moved away from its true origins. In the film, the question of Quebec’s independence is brought up by an Anglophone in a bar. The stranger who made the comment was drunk but his words are ones that have been echoed by many sober people across Canada over the decades. Even though Entre la mer et l’eau douce was released in 1965, questions about Quebec’s independence have never gone away and have been exploited over the decades by various politicians (both anglophones and francophones) to divide the country.

Films & Comments

Michel Brault’s films are essential viewing not only because of the fascinating Direct Cinema technique but also because they are a valuable asset to understand Canadian history. His films may be centered around Eastern Canada but one needs to hear the French Canadian perspective in order to get a better understanding of how Canada has evolved to become what it is today.

Thankfully, some of Brault’s films are available for free viewing on NFB’s website.

Note: I have only verified the films are viewable in Canada and I am not sure if they will also play in other countries.