I Want Your Tree...your tree also..I want all your trees

Taming the Garden (2021, Georgia/Switzerland, Salomé Jashi)

“A picture is worth a thousand words”. 

In this case, the picture left me speechless but instead raised many questions. Why is a tree in the middle of a body of water? Looking closer, it isn’t fixed but is instead being transported? Why is it uprooted and being transported?

I tried to guess the answer but I wasn’t even close. Some answers arrive thanks to Salomé Jashi’s lovely Taming the Garden but the documentary raises even more questions.

Let’s get back to my original question. 

Why is a tree in the middle of a body of water?

The tree is being transported because Georgia’s former prime minister’s unique hobby is to collect century old trees. This means he gets his men to go around the countryside locating these trees, then uprooting them and figuring out how to transport them to his private garden.

The film shows us without many words the challenging Engineering tasks in carefully taking a tree from the original spot in which it has been there for decades and finding a way to move the tree across land and water.

As for the men doing the job? They don’t ask many questions and are often surprised as well at the job they are doing. What they say are rumours or hearsay. Some even wonder if they should ask any questions. As for the locals, all they can do is stand around with cellphones taking pictures. At least, they can do that and aren’t banned from taking pictures of the displaced trees.

There are no men officially going on the record in Salomé Jashi’s film and certainly the Man himself doesn’t make an appearance. He is in the shadows. Maybe the Man doesn’t exist. Maybe he is a tree himself. We won’t ever find out. 

We get a tiny peek at that secret magical garden itself but that raises even many more questions, starting with the biggest one, WHY?

Sure people collect books, vinyl records, movies, wines, paintings, sculptures, [insert other artifacts]. So why not trees?

What about the environment? What about changing the landscape? What about the logistical and engineering task of transporting the tree? What about the carbon footprint? Of course, greenhouse gases and carbon footprint gets a whole new meaning via moving trees.

Oh, stop with the questions.

You have a tree that I want. I will send my men to take it. And you will quietly observe or film. Ok, no more questions. Leave.

Taming the Garden is only 86 minutes long and it is a film that I didn’t want to end. I loved watching it but I have so many more questions still...

oh, beloved tree, will you ever come back?

Take the Ball, Pass the Ball

 Take the Ball, Pass the Ball (2018, Spain, Duncan McMath)

 

Based on Graham Hunter’s book, Barça: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, Take the Ball Pass the Ball looks at Barcelona’s team between 2008-12 when the arrival of Pep Guardiola transformed the way Barcelona played and revolutionized the overall game. The film features interviews with key players such as Messi, Xavi, Thierry Henry (whose electric screen presence and words elevates the material) and also Barca’s former president, staff and journalists, including Graham Hunter and Sid Lowe.

Divided into multiple chapters, the film shows the influence of Johan Cruyff and how his ideas led to a new philosophy in Barcelona. Frank Rijkaard continued the work before Pep Guardiola elevated those ideas to a new level, including the incorporation of the Rondo which was created by Laureano Ruiz (also interviewed in film). A separate section is obviously dedicated to Messi, who truly thrived in a new role under Guardiola. Another separate section highlights the tension and hostility between Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho. 

Mourinho’s feud with Pep started because Mourinho expected to become the Barcelona manager in 2008 but instead the club selected Pep. Interestingly, one vital nugget of information about Mourinho is provided by Xavi in the film. Xavi mentions that the Barca players trained regularly with Mourinho especially the Rondo. Mourinho was part of Barcelona for 4 years from 1996 to 2000 working closely first with Bobby Robson and then with Louis van Gaal. Given that history, Mourinho expected to become Barcelona manager but when that didn’t happen, he ended up as a fierce rival, starting first with his Inter Milan’s win over Barcelona in the 2010 Champions League semi-final. A month after that win, José became Real Madrid’s manager but the rivalry truly started after José came up with an aggressive physical and confrontational game plan to derail Barca’s passing game. Part of that plan was the constant off-field mind games that José played, especially constant complaining about how refs favoured Barcelona. The film glosses over these controversial refereeing decisions especially those en-route to Barcelona’s 2009 and 2011 Champions League victories and instead refers to them simply as ‘luck’. For example, Iniesta’s last minute goal against Chelsea to tie the game 1-1 is talked about in the film but there is no mention of the multiple penalties that were denied to Chelsea. Then the film doesn’t talk about the bizarre decision to send off Arsenal’s Robin van Persie in a vital moment at the Nou Camp in the round of 16 game in 2011. Of course, Mourinho’s biggest refereeing complain is Pepe’s red-card in the semi-final of the 2011 Champions League. In the film, Xavi mentions how even a year after that decision, the red-card still split the Spanish squad at Euro 2012. The intensity of the fights between Real and Barcelona, especially during 4 quick El Clásico games between Barcelona and Real Madrid from April 16-May 3 2011, played a key part in Pep’s decision to leave Barcelona in 2012.

Overall, Take the Ball Pass the Ball is an ode to the beauty of the game. The football that was played by that Barcelona team between 2008-12 was some of the best the world has ever seen. Given how sterile the game has become now, it is incredible to think it wasn’t long ago that Guardiola’s Barcelona team produced many jaw-dropping moments. Perhaps, sometime in the future, another team will produce such football again. Until then, there are the highlights and this film.

Snapshots of Havana

Rooftop View

Havana, from on High (2019, Canada, Pedro Ruiz)

Following images are from the documentary.

At the start of the film, we get to witness some local's morning coffee preparation.

Street View

Some of the best images of Havana and Cuban coffee are in Drift Magazine, Volume 3.

A few other Havana images can be found on Drift magazine's instagram page.

A Machine to Live In

 A Machine to Live In (2020, USA, Yoni Goldstein/Meredith Zielke)

A city is made by its people, within the bounds of the possibilities that it can offer them: it has a distinctive identity that makes it much more than an agglomeration of buildings. Climate, topography and architecture are part of what creates that distinctiveness, as are its origins. Cities based on trade have qualities different from those that were called into being my manufacturing. Some cities were built by autocrats, others have been shaped by religion. Some cities have their origins in military strategy or statecraft. — The Language of Cities, Deyan Sudjic

All cities have their own unique identity even though a city may have many common elements with other cities. When people use words such as “City of Love”, “City of Dreams” or “City that never sleeps” to describe a city, it isn’t just one aspect that causes a city to get such a label. Instead, it is the overall essence of a city and the feeling it generates that cause people to label a city. Sometimes, the description of a city is amplified by paintings, literature, films, music or political/social acts that cause people to associate a city in a certain way.

What to make of Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil?

 

When I first saw pictures of Brasilia years ago, my first thought was the city wasn’t real. It didn’t look like it was constructed by humans but instead felt like an extraterrestrial city. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke’s A Machine to Live In looks at Brasilia from various angles and tries to capture some of the realities, myths and cultish beliefs about the city.

A Machine to Live In isn’t a pure documentary but feels like a docu-fiction hybrid, especially since the film defies genres due to its multiple tones and cinematic references. In some moments, the film takes on a serious tone in highlighting discussions of aliens and Brasilia’s architecture. And then a few moments later, the entire tone feels similar to that of Todd Haynes’ Safe in highlighting the frauds who have their own agenda in perpetuating certain beliefs.

The film has many quotes from Oscar Niemayer, one of the chief architects of Brasilia, and the brilliant writer Clarice Lispector which lends gravitas to proceedings while the hypnotic music coupled with stellar images produces a trance like impact.

The end result is a film that aligns more with a dreamy vision of Brasilia even though the camera is looking at the real city itself and features some of the residents who toil away in the city.

Notturno

Notturno (2020, Italy/France/Germany, Gianfranco Rosi)

Gianfranco Rosi’s Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) depicted the arrival of refugees to the Italian island of Lampedusa. So it made sense that his follow-up film would go further and examine where the refugees are coming from. Rosi could have gone to Africa but instead he traveled to the Middle East for Notturno.

As the opening credits inform us, Notturno was “shot over the past three years along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon.”

That is the only bit of geographical guidance the film gives. After that opening, we are plunged into various unnamed locations providing glimpses of tragedy, ruins, heartbreak and people deploying creative means of survival.

A mother mourning her son. Collapsed buildings, broken roads.

Women forced to fight. Soldiers defending borders while waiting. Endless waiting.
 

The collapsed buildings and empty streets mean displaced people forced to live in refugee camps.

We also see some of those terrorists/criminals responsible for the fighting in prison.

It becomes apparent from watching events unfold that even if all the fighting ended tomorrow, it would take decades before people can get back to any form of normality. In one of the most heartbreaking depictions, we see children recalling images of destruction, violence and losing loved ones. This shows the multi-generational impact of violence where a new generation is born without a home and knowing only war. Memories of this war will be passed down to their offspring. A chain of events that will take a lot of work to break.

The violence continues while the Western World turns a blind eye, even though the Western World is responsible for the mess in the first place.

At the start of the film, the following words appear:

“After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the end of the First World War, the colonial powers sketched out new borders for the Middle East.

Over the following decades, greed and ambition for power gave rise to military coups, corrupt regimes, authoritarian leaders and foreign interference.

Tyranny, invasions and terrorism fed off each other in a vicious circle, to the detriment of the civilian populations.”

On first glance, these are accurate words that describe the situation in an objective manner. No taking of sides, no casting blame on colonial powers or the Western nations.

These politically correct words signal the film’s intent. The purpose of Notturno isn’t to place blame but instead to illustrate a state of things. The words “the detriment of the civilian populations” emphasize that the film will cover how citizens have been impacted by the power games that are still playing out in the Middle East. And that is what the film does. It shows suffering of everyday people and how their lives are still impacted.

A play in the film has words and images which provide some historical context on how events unfolded in Iraq. However, those brief dialogues and archival footage don't even scratch the surface.

Who is playing the power games in the Middle East? Answering this question is not the purpose of this film. For that, one has to dig deep in the words “foreign interference”.

These two words don’t even come close to describing the situation that continues to unfold in the Middle East because they don’t describe how decades of political assassinations and foreign supply of arms and money have destabilized the Middle East.

“Over the following decades, greed and ambition for power gave rise to military coups, corrupt regimes, authoritarian leaders and foreign interference.”

Will audience in Western nations understand who is referred in “greed and ambition for power”? The Western nations are still implicated by these words along with Middle Eastern dictators, governments and terrorist organizations.

Rosi shot the film himself and Notturno is packed with stunning images that pose relevant questions. There is beauty to be found amid the ruins and a world constantly aflame and echoing with sounds of gunfire. One haunting segment shows how the burning oil wells light up the night sky allowing a local to go duck hunting. As the world burns around him, he quietly goes about his way.

Frederick Wiseman's Films

 doc·u·men·ta·ry
noun: documentary; plural noun: documentaries
    a movie or a television or radio program that provides a factual record or report.

A documentary film is a un biased non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record”. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_film
 

Frederick Wiseman’s name can be put against the definition of documentary because his films have documented places, people, cities, organizations, institutions, communities and buildings. He is highly prolific and has directed almost one film per year since his debut documentary in 1967 (Titicut Follies). The recent City Hall (2020) is his 45th feature documentary. However, for the longest time, it was hard for me to see his films in the same year as it was released. This is because his films were released at select film festivals and their length of 3-4 hours ensured that they never made it to my local city. In the years between 2005-2013, the gap between his film getting released and my time to see it got reduced to 2-3 years. Then in 2014, I finally saw a Frederick Wiseman movie in a cinema (National Gallery) in the same year of its release. That good fortune continued in 2015 when I saw In Jackson Heights a few months after its release. Finally, this year’s City Hall (released on PBS Dec 22) is the 3rd Wiseman film I have seen in the same year as its release. On top of that, his films are now more accessible than ever. Since 2018, all his films are  available to stream via Kanopy, which means anyone with a library card (at least in North America) can see his movies.

I planned a mini-spotlight which included re-viewing Titicut Follies after more than a decade and seeing a few other films for the first time. The goal was to finish viewing all films in time for premiere of City Hall on Dec 22.

Titicut Follies (1967)
Welfare (1975)
Canal Zone (1977)
Public Housing (1997)
Belfast, Maine (1999)
City Hall (2020)
 

Of the above films, Welfare is a remarkable film that left me in awe. The film came out in 1975 and shows the challenges in trying to judge/handle individual welfare cases. The problems related to housing, unemployment, welfare have gotten much worse since the film came out as the gap between rich and poor has widened in the last 45 years. On top of that, the topic of welfare has been heavily politicized in America with politicians and certain media outlets dehumanizing those on welfare over the last few decades. The welfare system is shown be struggling to handle all the cases in 1975. It is hard to image how this system has coped in 2020 and will cope in 2021 with more job losses and a government that isn’t interested in helping address the core issues of poverty. The political parties and their media mouthpieces are not interesting in providing any solutions related to retraining people who have lost their jobs or how to diversify jobs.

There is a hint of a solution to some job creation provided at the end of Public Housing  (1997) which contains ideas on how residents can form their own businesses to generate some wealth. It is not clear how much such ideas made a difference or if they gained traction because one of the stats mentioned in City Hall (2020) shows that the average wealth of African Americans is substantially behind those of White Americans. This disparity is related to other minorities as well. In City Hall, a hispanic contractor mentions his plight in trying to win big contracts and not getting anywhere over 30 years. He says that there is clearly a disparity in how city council awards its contracts to companies but the film shows discussions and ideas on how to make things better.

The films of Frederick Wiseman shed light on relevant topics of economic disparity but are these films seen by anyone who is in the power to mount a change? Are these films merely meant to be praised by those on the left but they lead to no policy or political change? The protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing raised topics of systematic racist policies that have existed for decades and some of these policies are indirectly reflected in Wiseman’s films but only the recent City Hall shows a mayor with some words about making a relevant change.

It isn’t only economic disparity that has gotten worse in America but racism has gotten worse in the last few decades. In Welfare, a racist man speaks his mind to a black security officer. The racist is shown to be an isolated individual in the context of the film because everyone else in the film is shown to treat the welfare cases with some degree of patience and compassion. However, the words spoken by that racist have sadly now become part of the mainstream American landscape in 2020.

Location, Location

The films of Frederick Wiseman certainly help to give a sense of life in a community. Even though sometimes we only see a subset of a community, we can still get a feel for how people go about their daily jobs, their routines, their struggles and beliefs. Sometimes, the omissions tells a story in itself. One reason I wanted to see Canal Zone was to see how the way of life would be shown and what amount of history would be covered. The day-to-day canal operations related to the Panama canal locks and logistics around ships are fascinating but none of Panama’s history is shown. Instead, what we get is a very American way of life as the film mostly shows Americans involved in running the canal and going about their lives in exile. This shouldn’t be a surprise as the  film came out in 1977 and the US was still in control of the Canal. Hence, the overly American perspective devoid of the history of how the Canal came to be and the US’s involvement in Panama’s history.

After years of negotiations for a new Panama Canal treaty, agreement was reached between the United States and Panama in 1977. Signed on September 7, 1977, the treaty recognized Panama as the territorial sovereign in the Canal Zone but gave the United States the right to continue operating the canal until December 31, 1999. Despite considerable opposition in the U.S. Senate, the treaty was approved by a one-vote margin in September 1978. It went into effect in October 1979, and the canal came under the control of the Panama Canal Commission, an agency of five Americans and four Panamanians. Reference: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/panama-to-control-canal

Reality fiction/Cinema vérité/Direct Cinema/Actuality

A few locations in Wiseman’s films made me think of Allan King. Wiseman’s Titicut Follies set in Massachusetts Correctional Institution came out in 1967, the same year as Allan King’s Warrendale set in Toronto’s Warrendale mental treatment facility. Wiseman’s Near Death (1989) is set at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and looks at staff providing care to those in their final moments, an aspect covered in King’s Dying at Grace (2003) which looks at terminally ill cancer patients at Toronto Grace Health Centre.

As it turns out, the overlap in location and topic is only on the surface. It is clear after watching the films, there is a different method at work in Wiseman’s films compared to Allan King. When it comes to Allan King’s films, they can be called ‘Direct Cinema’ or ‘Actuality films’ (as per the Criterion Eclipse Series 24: The Actuality Dramas of Allan King).

By definition:

The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things, yet unlike the documentary is not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coherent whole. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuality_film

The above doesn’t apply to Frederick Wiseman’s films which indeed are structured “into a larger argument”. Instead, Wiseman called his film “reality fictions”.

He has called his work “reality fiction,” an acknowledgement that even nonfiction is usually a narrative form and that narrative is one person’s method of storytelling.

In an early interview for the American Bar Association, Wiseman explained his method. “There’s no such thing as an ‘objective’ film. I try to make a fair film. By that I mean that the final film is in a sense a report on what I saw and felt in the course of the shooting and editing.” Many hours of footage are edited down to a few hours of final film that is, he says, “subjective, impressionistic, and compressed.” Reference: https://daily.jstor.org/frederick-wiseman-realty-fictions/

He never liked the term ‘cinema vérité’:

Frederick Wiseman never liked the term cinema vérité — it is “just a pompous French term that has absolutely no meaning as far as I’m concerned,” he once said — but his kind of non-fiction filmmaking is a case study in the philosophy and practice of its ideals. Reference: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/cinema-verite-the-movement-of-truth/

The editing and selection of interviews, subjects, locations indeed add up to a picture that Wiseman intends to show.

Useful reading:

1. Mark Binelli recently in NY Times:

“The fact that Wiseman’s half-century-long project is a series of cinéma-vérité documentaries about American institutions, their titles often reading like generic brand labels — “High School,” “Hospital,” “The Store,” “Public Housing,” “State Legislature” — makes its achievement all the more remarkable but also easier to overlook. Beginning with “Titicut Follies” (1967), a portrait of a Massachusetts asylum for the criminally insane that remains shocking to this day, Wiseman has directed nearly a picture a year, spending weeks, sometimes months, embedded in a strictly demarcated space — a welfare office in Lower Manhattan, a sleepy fishing village in Maine, the Yerkes Primate Research Center at Emory University, the flagship Neiman Marcus department store in Dallas, the New York Public Library, a shelter for victims of domestic violence in Tampa, Fla., a Miami zoo — then editing the upward of a hundred hours of footage he brings home into an idiosyncratic record of what he witnessed. Taken as a whole, the films present an unrivaled survey of how systems operate in our country, with care paid to every line of the organizational chart.” Mark Binelli, NY Times 

2. A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, NY Times, 2017

“One of the most important and original filmmakers working today, Frederick Wiseman has been making documentaries for 50 years. His movies are about specific places — institutions, organizations, cities and communities: the New York neighborhood of Jackson Heights; the coastal town of Belfast, Me.; the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind; American Ballet Theater; the National Gallery in London. What interests Mr. Wiseman is how these institutions reflect the larger society and what they reveal about human behavior.” A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis (2017)

3. Ben Kingsberg NY Times 

4. Michael Ewins, BFI, 10 Essential Films 

5. Louis Menand on City Hall

HOMO SAPIENS

HOMO SAPIENS (2016, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Austria/Switzerland/Germany)

In 2006, ruins were a tiny portion of Jia Zhang-ke's STILL LIFE and Pedro Costa's COLOSSAL YOUTH. But a decade later, they are the main focus of HOMO SAPIENS, an absolutely stunning documentary from Nikolaus Geyrhalter.

The film is a haunting and beautiful glimpse of our world without humans. We see real locations that are either abandoned or in a state of ruin. The film lets the everyday sounds filter in, sometimes the noisy waves or winds or in some cases birds flying in and out of the spaces. The end result is mesmerizing, engaging and contemplative. The film provides us enough moments to see our world with new eyes, complete with its waste and needless objects. It also gives a snapshot of what would happen if people had to leave a location immediately and what they would leave behind.

At times, the images evoke the Zone in STALKER and SATANTANGO. In this regard, we are given a view into the ultimate apocalyptic event without the usage of any special effects.

One of the best films of 2016!

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.

Leviathan

Leviathan (2012, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel)

Every now and then comes a film that changes the way we think of cinema or even the world. Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel’s Leviathan is such a film because it forces the viewer to experience the world in a new light. The fluid immersive style that Leviathan employs jolts one’s senses thereby allowing one to have a heightened awareness of nature’s beauty and even horror. The reason the senses of the audience are awakened is largely due to the multiple cameras the directors use which gives a different perspective of the surroundings. Then the various perspectives transition in such a smooth manner that it is hard to tell where the edits are. Instead, it appears that a single camera is omnipresent and taking the viewers on a dizzying ride.

Leviathan is also a film where the description does not even come close to describing the finished product. The following is the imdb summary: 

A documentary shot in the North Atlantic and focused on the commercial fishing industry.

But this is no ordinary documentary where a camera passively watches events unfold. Instead, the directors use multiple cameras which are attached to the fishermen, to the ship and even on the nets. Therefore, when a net is flung into the deep dark water, the camera gives us a perspective from underneath the water, looking at the birds flying in the sky above. When the net is hauled back, we see the fish face to face lying on the deck, looking into their eyes. With a quick shift, we see the fishermen at work, slicing the fish, before the camera goes zipping off again. The cameras are never at rest, moving constantly as there is work to be done on the fishing vessel. As a result, a viewer is knocked off their balance constantly and have to readjust to get a bearing on the surroundings. For example, near the start of the film, we see the birds up in the air from the water but near the end, the camera is looking down on the birds and the ocean looks like the sky instead.

The camera finally lets the audience catch their breath just after the hour mark as the fishermen are tired after a long day and relax in front of the tv, trying to fight sleep. In these few minutes, the camera is static and the film finally looks like a traditional documentary. But that restful moment does not last long and the camera plunges into darkness again.

Darkness is constantly present as the film starts and ends with it. But light filters in small dosages, creating a mesmerizing effect, as the viewer is forced to decipher what they are seeing before their eyes. For example, the following image looks like a figure surfing on the giant wave. Instead, it is the ship seen from a distance.

The presence of darkness plus images of the blood and slicing sounds also make Leviathan feel like a horror film. The constantly shifting perspective adds uncertainty and contributes to the feeling of the unknown as well, raising some fear and tension. Leviathan also manages to realize M.C Escher’s Sky and Water paintings in a remarkable manner. The light and dark shades from the painting are depicted at different points in the film with similar shots of the birds in both day and night time. We also see the birds flying down into the water to eat the left over portions of the fishes, thereby fusing Escher’s images.

Forza Bastia

Jacques Tati's last directed work was a football film!

Tati directed Forza Bastia, a 26 minute documentary, in 1978 but the film only surfaced in 2001 thanks to his daughter Sophie Tatischeff. The film was shown at the Kicking + Screening Soccer Film Festival in Amsterdam 2011 and can currently be viewed online in its entirety.

It is a remarkable film that shows the excitement in Bastia leading up to their first leg of the 1978 UEFA Cup final against PSV Eindhoven. Tati's focus is on the dedicated and loyal fans, showing their pre-game rituals along with their tension and anxiety during the game. There are some amazing sounds captured of the game itself which was played out on a water logged pitch and ended 0-0. Overall, this film is a great treasure not only of football's history but of cinema itself.

For the record, PSV won the second leg 3-0 to win the 1978 UEFA Cup.

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.