The Films of Joanna Hogg

Notes on the Six Feature Films directed by Joanna Hogg:

Unrelated (2007)
Archipelago (2010)
Exhibition (2013)
The Souvenir (2019)
The Souvenir: Part II (2021)
The Eternal Daughter (2022)

While viewing Joanna Hogg’s recent film The Eternal Daughter, I noticed that I had never written about any of her films on this blog. This felt like a glaring omission especially since I owned DVDs of her first 3 features Unrelated, Archipelago and Exhibition and saw her films in order of their release. Here finally are some thoughts/notes as a means of correction.

Messy / Strained Relationships

All six of Joanna Hogg’s films depict complicated dynamics of a relationship with brutal honesty. That means, her films don’t shy away from fights, loud arguments between couples and family members that spill out for others to witness. Family tensions are depicted in Unrelated (father-son), Archipelago (mother-sister vs brother), The Eternal Daughter (mother-daughter) while relationships are under a very close microscope in Exhibition (a marriage on the verge of collapse), The Souvenir (toxic male). In majority of these films, the arguments and shouting leave the confines of a bedroom or a dining room but they never leave the space of a villa, house or hotel. That means, her films only examine the impact and fallout of a relationship to those within a closed inner circle and don’t extend to the larger society as a whole.

Joanna Hogg also examines British class differences in the inner circle of these families and their friends. Archipelago stands out in this regard in how a brother and sister differ in their treatment of a hired cook. Edward (Tom Hiddleston) would like to invite their cook Rose (Amy Lloyd) to sit with them at the dinner table but his sister Cynthia (Lydia Leonard) and mother think that is unreasonable. Cynthia even gets upset at Edward’s chats with Rose. Majority of the characters in Hogg's films are financially well off and their elitist behaviour is highlighted in how the characters treat others around them.

Artistic Voice / Challenges

The Souvenir and its sequel, The Souvenir: Part II illustrate the difficulty in making a film starting from the funding process. The films, especially the sequel, highlight the impact a director’s decisions or indecisions can have on the rest of the crew. There are many real life stories about directors shooting a film without a script and such efforts are often lauded as a major achievement but the reality is that there is often a cost impact of wasted film shots or not having a bound script. The Souvenir: Part II shows the frustrations of the cinematographer and rest of the crew in not having clear instructions on where the camera must be placed.

Exhibition examines the creative challenges that contemporary artists have and depicts the equivalent of a writer’s block on an artist (art block). The challenges in expressing one’s vision and having others understand it ties this film to that of the two Souvenir films.

3 year Timeline

There was an equal 3 year gap between the release of her first 3 features: Unrelated,  Archipelago and Exhibition. Then Hogg didn’t release a film for a 6 year gap but the remaining three films were all released within a span of 3 years. This quick release of 3 films in 3 years means that overall, she has maintained a consistent output over the 6 features.

Other Notes

The two Souvenir films have gotten plenty of critical acclaim but Unrelated remains my favourite Joanna Hogg film. Even though it is her debut film, Unrelated is a breath of fresh air compared to how characters are depicted in other British films. Joanna Hogg’s contemplative style allows audience to infer their own sentiments about characters based on snippets of dialogue, body language and how the characters behave. I still recall feeling that Unrelated heralded the arrival of a new director to watch. With just a single feature film to go off, it wasn’t clear what direction her other films would take. Now revisiting Unrelated after having seen all her other features allows me to see how this film fits in with her style. There is a sense of autobiographical element to all her films filtered via focus on relationships and class differences of her characters. We first see this in Unrelated and she expands on this in the subsequent five features.

Tom Hiddleston may be a familiar name now but it is important to note that he made his feature film debut in Hogg’s Unrelated. His second feature film happened to be Joanna Hogg’s second directorial feature Archipelago.

Reference Reading:

Seventh Row on Joanna Hogg.

Hillary Weston Interview on Criterion.

Rachael Rakes on her first 3 features.

Triple Bill of Alexander Mackendrick

The Man in the White Suit (1951)
The Ladykillers (1955)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

I was already a fan of Alexander Mackendrick as evident by the ranking of his two Ealing studio films The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers at #22 and #35 respectively in my Top 60 Comedy films list. I associated Mackendrick with Ealing Studios and the Comedy Genre especially since four of the five films he directed for Ealing Studios were comedies with Mandy (1952) being the exception. All five of his Ealing Studio films: Whiskey Galore! (1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), Mandy (1952), The Maggie (1954), The Ladykillers (1955). 

However, a recent viewing of Sweet Smell of Success led me to rethink Mackendrick’s films in a new light. The 1957 American film starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison is dark look at human nature and on the surface is far removed from the comedic framework of Ealing studio films. Even though, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers have a predominant comedic note, they aren’t pure comedies but contain dark notes. The Ladykillers is a dark comedy laced with crime while The Man in the White Suit is draped with shades of tragedy and irony along its sleeves. Sweet Smell of Success heightens the dark and tragic undertones from these two films and mutes any comedic element to a whisper. 

In Sweet Smell of Success, Tony Curtis’ Sidney Falco character is constantly joking, laughing but his character has an air of desperation about him while the entire film has tragedy written all over it. Sidney is a press agent who gets promotion money from owners to promote their club. All he needs is a good review or a mention of the club in a newspaper article from J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Sidney would go to any lengths to get on J.J’s good side including trying to fulfill J.J’s request to breakup his sister’s (Susan Hunsecker played by Susan Harrison) romance with a jazz musician. As Sidney tries to do whatever it takes to break up the romance, he starts to cross moral and ethical boundaries from which there is no turning back.

Sweet Smell of Success is a brilliant portrayal of American society at a time when newspaper reviews meant the world for financial survival for restaurants, theatrical plays and even movies. While traditional newspapers have been in decline in recent decades, some of the core elements of the film such as a smearing someone’s reputation, publishing false stories or personal affairs have sadly been amplified in our contemporary social media dominated world. In that sense, Mackendrick’s film and script co-written with Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman is still as relevant today as it was back in 1957.

Sweet Smell of Success belongs to a different genre but it is unified via 2 threads to Mackendrick's two Ealing Studio films. All three films are a keen insightful observation of characters while also provide an overarching commentary on society. The Man in the White Suit highlights the invisible hand or supply-demand forces that make things work. All the clothing textile company owners want the invention of an indestructible and dirt repellent fabric to fail as that would make people buy their clothes less. In The Ladykillers, the bank robbers try to justify their crimes as saying that no one would be hurt by the missing money because it would be a blip for the banks since insurance would cover it all while the robbers can use the money for their families benefit. There is a financial truth to what the robbers say as has become evident with all the banking and insurance frauds that have become much more commonplace since the film was released. Sweet Smell of Success shows a world where favours can open doors for people and the scenarios in the film are aptly described by the phrase “you scratch my back, I scratch yours”. This phrase still makes the world go around and allows careers to flourish and is at the core of our broken political machine.

I was a fan of Alexander Mackendrick before but after seeing Sweet Smell of Success, I am an even bigger fan. He clearly was one of the best directors to have worked in cinema, yet not as widely appreciated as his peers.

The Pemini Organisation

I hadn’t heard about the Pemini Organisation until I came across Powerhouse Films/Indicator Series Box-set of these 3 movies:

HUNTED (1972, Peter Crane)
ASSASSIN (1973, Peter Crane)
MOMENTS (1974, Peter Crane)

The name Pemini comes from the first 2 letters of the three friends: Peter Crane, Michael Sloan and Nigel Hodgson. Peter Crane directed all 3 films written by Michael Sloan. Incredibly, all 3 were very young when the organisation started making the films as Peter was 21 years, Nigel 22 and Michael 24 years old.

Lone Wolf, Gun for hire

Assassin movies are now part of the global film landscape and every year we get a new harvest of films which depict solitary male or female characters going about killing their enemies. Majority of such contemporary assassin films focus on body count and gruesome manner characters are killed in. However, Pemini Organisation’s first 2 films get at the core of who an assassin is and what makes them tick.

At the start of Hunted, we don’t know the main character John Drummond (Edward Woodward) is looking to kill. Instead, he is looking to rent out an apartment. During the course of a conversation between Edward and the realtor Margaret (June Ritchie), it dawns on Margaret that he is looking to commit a crime. When she confronts him with this, John admits his intentions and make it sound like he randomly intends to shoot people down on the street. But as the two continue to talk, she realises that his killing act may not be as random as he made it out to be. The engaging and taut Hunted is powered by a very smart screenplay and lively performances of Edward Woodward and June Ritchie.

While no killing is shown in the Hunted, Assassin takes that lone gun character and brings him to life in the form of a character (played perfectly by Ian Hendry) hired by organisations to kill select targets. The film shows the daily mechanics, preparation and process an assassin goes through to stalk and hunt their victim for money. Yet, the film isn’t confined to the solitary character but shows the people who pull the strings behind the killing. The film shows how a target is selected, a killer or a team is hired and how loose ends are tied up. Assassin lays out the template that so many films have used over the decades most notably Anton Corbijn’s The American (2010).

Ghosts in the hotel halls

Moments is a change of topic and pace from the previous two Pemini films. Peter Samuelson (Keith Michell) goes to a hotel in Eastbourne (South Coast of England) and reminiscences of his childhood when he spent time in the hotel. Peter visits during the offseason when majority of the hotel is empty. However, he is isn’t there for any fun trip but instead plans to end his life by turning his gun inwards. In this regard, the film is still tied to Hunted, albeit in a different manner of gun usage. But a knock on the door by a young woman Chrissy (Angharad Rees) gives him pause.

The depiction of the vast empty hotel with its empty halls bring to mind Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. However, Moments was released 6 years before The Shining (1980). Given the difference in tone of the films, it is hard to know if the hotel and its hallway shots inspired Kubrick’s film. The last shots in Moments show the Grand hotel in Eastbourne from an aerial distance with the hotel getting further away as the credits roll. This finale and many other moments end up making the hotel a character in itself, something echoed by The Shining as well.

The Pemini Organisation (1972-74)

In an essay accompanying the boxset, Peter Crane mentions the financial difficulties of making and distributing these films. The organisation ended in 1974 and didn’t make any more films. That is a pity given the impressive quality of these films. Assassin is the brilliant standout film from the trio but all 3 films are far superior than majority of the Hollywood studio films that take over cinemas on a weekly basis.

CUFF 2013

This past April marked the 10th anniversary of the Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) and the festival celebrated it by having the strongest lineup in their history. The remarkable aspect about the selection was that it felt like someone read my mind in booking the films. 7 titles from my must-see list played at the festival. I had been eagerly waiting to see Berberian Sound Studio, Computer Chess, Frances Ha, Pieta, Sightseers, The Act of Killing and Upstream Color. So I was delighted CUFF booked them. Unfortunately in the end, I could only see 5 of those titles:

Berberian Sound Studio (2012, UK, Peter Strickland)
Upstream Color (2013, USA, Shane Carruth)
Pieta (2012, South Korea, Kim-ki Duk)
The Act of Killing (2012, USA, Joshua Oppenheimer)
Computer Chess(2013, USA, Andrew Bujalski)

I also missed out on Clip, Vanishing Waves, The Rambler and The Final Member, films that got really strong word of mouth buzz.

Here are some brief notes on the films, arranged in order of preference.

1) The Act of Killing

Even though the documentary is rooted in Indonesia, it is universal in depicting how men kill with the aid of media and politicians. The depiction of torture/killing could easily be set in Latin/South America/Africa while the media manipulation applies to most nations. But no individuals will ever admit their crime with such brutal honesty as those in The Act of Killing, making it a living digital document. The killers walk about the city freely, sometimes boasting about their murders. Such honesty ensures the film hits like a ton of bricks but it is one of the most essential and relevant docs ever made.

2) Computer Chess

A playful look at various computer programmer personalties, ranging from the very shy to those whose supreme confidence borders on arrogance. The black and white visuals coupled with the video footage give the film a 1980’s look and feel, at a time when computers were bulky machines that required some effort to transport from room to room. The humor is derived from the collection of eccentric personalities and as a result, the scenarios feel natural and not forced. As a bonus, the film also literally depicts HAL's birth.

3) Berberian Sound Studio

An eerie slow-burning film that smartly uses sound manipulation & cues to abstract a horror genre. As a result, one can appreciate the few elements that make a horror film nerve racking and terrifying. This aspect is reinforced by the decision to not show the film-within-film, thereby letting viewers fill in their own worst images.

4) Upstream Color

A multi-shaped puzzle that assembles the look and feel of a Lynchian nightmare with a Malickian landscape. The film manages to find a balance between sci-fi, horror and nature by rapid fire editing and a score that contrasts the mood of the images that the viewer is seeing. The film’s two editors, Shane Carruth and David Lowery, cover a lot of ground in the opening minutes. One can make 2-3 features from the opening 20 minutes of Upstream Color. After the fast paced opening, the film settles down a little, allowing viewers to get a brief footing before heading off in a different direction altogether.

Credit must be given to Andrew Sensenig whose wordless performance speaks volumes and lends the film a graceful covering. Also, Upstream Color also extends Godard's quote: "All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl" plus some pigs & worms.

5) Pieta

I believe Kim Ki-duk made this film on a bet. He must have wagered with friends that he could make a sloppy film in a few days and throw enough heavy references to fool critics into thinking the film meant something. And his ploy appears to have paid off with the top prize at Venice 2012, even though festival rules prevented The Master from getting that prize. Still, it is hard to imagine that jury, which consisted of Michael Mann, Matteo Garrone, Pablo Trapero, Marina Abramovic, Ursula Meier, Ari Folman, Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Laetitia Casta, Samantha Morton, could not have picked any other film if they could not select The Master. Maybe the jury picked Pieta to prove a point that if they could not pick the best film in the competition, they would pick the worst. But given the praise Pieta has gotten in some quarters, it does feel like maybe some in the jury gave the prize on merit.

The entire film feels like a joke on the audience. Pieta contains shocking scenes for no reason other than to get a reaction from people while the acting and editing give it a B-grade appearance. As painful as the experience proved to be, I managed to get through it. Thankfully, the many other stellar films at CUFF quickly washed away the experience of Pieta.

Tony Scott

The aftermath of Tony Scott’s shock death revealed how his films divided cinephiles and were not given much thought. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s excellent article points to this:

While the last few years have seen Scott embraced by a certain cinephilic community (the Cinema Scope  crowd, the Mann-Scott-Baysian "vulgar auteurists," etc.), he remains, for the most part, a director of immensely popular and commercially successful films who has never been all that popular or successful with critics or "serious film types."

I was certainly not aware of this polarization even though I should have figured something was amiss given the lack of articles exploring his works. I had seen 12 out of his 16 directed features but I couldn't remember reading a single in-depth critical analysis of his films, although many articles have now surfaced, some of which were written a few years ago. One of those older must read articles is Cinema Scope’s brilliant piece which uses Deja Vu as a jumping point to gaze at other Tony Scott features.

All the wonderful articles on Tony Scott inspired a quick film spotlight. The starting point was obviously to catch up with the 4 missing films from my viewing list, The Hunger (1983), Revenge (1990), Man on Fire (2004) and Deja Vu (2006). I revisited a few other titles to have an eight film spotlight, half of Tony’s total feature output.

The Hunger (1983)
Revenge (1990)
Days of Thunder (1990)
True Romance (1993)
Man on Fire (2004)
Domino (2005)
Deja Vu (2006)
Unstoppable (2010)

Trying to maintain control

"Control is an illusion," Kidman already said to Cruise’s NASCAR driver way back in Days of Thunder (1990), and in hindsight it seems an announcement of themes, even style. -- Cinema Scope 29

Christoph Huber and Mark Peranson hit the nail on the head with regards to “control” in Tony’s films. Obvious examples are films in which characters try to control fast moving objects such as planes in Top Gun, cars in Days of Thunder and a speeding train in Unstoppable. However, control is not limited to objects and a few of Tony Scott’s films explore emotional control. Crimson Tide is about staying calm and in control, something which is required in Domino & Man on Fire as well. On the other hand, The Hunger, True Romance & Revenge depict events that unfold when characters give in to their urges and fail to keep their emotions in check. It is incredibly difficult to maintain control when love is involved so it is not a surprize to find that a lot of Tony Scott’s films have love at their core. True Romance and Revenge are clear examples but Tony’s films are not limited to physical love but explore compassion and parental love as well. In Spy Game, Brad Pitt’s Tom Bishop puts his life in danger because of a woman (Catherine McCormack’s character of Elizabeth Hadley) while Nathan Muir (Robert Redford) puts his life savings and reputation on the line because of the father-son like relationship he shares with Bishop. A parental concern is also echoed in Man on Fire with Denzel Washington’s desire to save young Pita (Dakota Fanning). Deja Vu shows that love can manifest itself even when two people don’t share the same physical space. In the film, Denzel Washington’s Doug Carlin falls madly in love with Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) just by looking at photos and pixels of her.

Love is present in many of Tony’s films but that emotion does not dominate the films which are jam packed with thought provoking ideas packaged in a pulsating framework. Spy Game is set against the backdrop of complicated political policies, Man on Fire looks at corruption and kidnappings in Mexico, Deja Vu examines the possibilities when space-time is folded while Domino is a fierce commentary on reality television. As a result, Scott’s films are not hollow entertainment but offer an insight into society and human behavior in general.

Top 5

There are many Tony Scott films that I have enjoyed and revisited multiples times over the years but the following would be a current rough ordering:

1. Deja Vu: The film perfectly mixes elements of Rear Window and Minority Report with a tender loving touch.

2. Spy Game: Espionage, terrorism, compassion and some clever trickery while the clock ticks away.

3. The Taking of Pelham 123

4. Unstoppable: Besides the obvious attempt to control a runaway train, the film is also a brilliant take on the modern economic crisis by showing how an employee's blind rush results in a problem that gets bigger with each passing minute. If this employee had taken an extra few minutes to properly complete his job, then a small one person problem would not have turned into a gigantic mess that impacted millions.

5. Domino

Of course, just like Deja Vu this list would have been completely different four days ago.

Final thoughts

Domino (written by Richard Kelly) and True Romance (written by Quentin Tarantino) also show that Tony Scott nicely incorporated the writers sentiments with his visual take on the material. One can observe seeds of Kelly’s Southland Tales in Domino with regards to an over hyped pop culture while Tarantino’s trademark crisp dialogues and love of movies are all over True Romance.

And lastly, if I had to pick one frame to depict the sentiment of control and speed shown in Tony Scott’s films, I would pick the wheelchair race in Days of Thunder that takes places in the hospital between Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) and Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker). In the scene, a nurse is pushing Rowdy’s wheelchair down the hall when Cole’s wheelchair enters the frame. For a few brief seconds, Cole and Rowdy find themselves side by side before Cole decides to edge his chair forward a bit. Cole’s act is a call to war for Rowdy who then pushes himself ahead. And it isn’t too long before both Cole and Rowdy are racing down the hospital in their wheelchairs. A race that started in cars continues in wheelchairs. And even if there were no wheelchairs, both characters would have still found a way to race against each other. No injury could remove the urge to speed from their DNA.

We have to talk about Franklin, the hunting teacher

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011, UK/USA, Lynne Ramsay)

Early in We Need to Talk About Kevin we see a helpless Eva (Tilda Swinton) trying to calm her baby down. The baby, Kevin, keeps crying and despite Eva’s best efforts refuses to settle down.

Eva is exhausted and worn out by the time her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) returns home in the evening. Franklin does not understand or believe about Eva’s struggles with Kevin because Franklin only sees a quiet and content baby. Franklin goes on to lovingly cradle the baby and play with the child.

Such a scene is not fiction and takes place in virtually every household where there is one stay at home parent and one working parent. The stay at home parent spends an entire day looking after the baby with no time for playing and is exhausted by the time evening rolls around. So when the working parent returns home in the evening, they usually find a calm baby and freely go about playing with the child. As a result, the working parent is often the fun parent while the stay at home parent is the workhorse looking after every need of the baby. In most cases, the stay at home parent is the mother while the father gets to be the cool parent. In a sense, such roles have existed for centuries dating all the way back to prehistoric times. During the stone ages, cavemen were the hunters who spent all their time looking for prey while the women stayed in the cave taking care of the children and cooking the food. We Need to Talk About Kevin examines the continuation of these roles in modern times and highlights the similarity by depicting archery as Franklin’s main bonding activity with his son. Franklin is passing down the ancient art of hunting to his son so it really should not be a surprize when Kevin uses this training to go hunting for live prey.

Raising a child is a difficult task and that task is much more difficult if only one parent is left to do everything. Franklin is an absent parent and he is not shown to contribute in any raising of Kevin. He tries his best to be Kevin’s friend and leaves all the disciplining to Eva which is clearly a mistake as Eva cannot handle the child on her own. When Eva loses her temper and manages to break young Kevin’s arm, she alienates Kevin who grows up to resent her. Kevin’s hatred extends beyond his mother to his young sister who also gets mistreated by Kevin. Franklin never clues in and fails to ponder over any questionable actions. When Kevin orders a box of padlocks, Franklin believes Kevin’s statement that he intends to sell the locks to make a profit. Franklin even pats his son on the back and likens him to a young “Donald Trump”. However, Kevin’s words seem dubious as he has never exhibited any entrepreneurial ambition but Franklin would be the last person to notice that.

Kevin lives in a family where he is free to do whatever he pleases because neither parent comes in his way. Both Eva and Franklin have a hands off approach towards Kevin for different reasons. Eva cannot muster up the courage to say anything to Kevin because she is tired of getting insulted by him. Also any attempt by Eva to be friendly towards Kevin backfires as Kevin is never in any mood to spend “quality time” with his mother. So Eva keeps her distance and comforts herself with a bottle of wine. On the other hand, Franklin thinks he is Kevin’s buddy and tries to play it cool. But even Franklin is not spared as his friendly behavior leads him getting stabbed in the back. Eva and Franklin are not shown to be bad parents but instead they come off as parents who cannot cope with their child and as a result neglect him. Not all neglected children grow up and turn violent like Kevin but when parents neglect their child, they leave the door open for outside forces to influence and shape their child. The film does not show any of these outside influences and as rightly observed by Srikanth Srinivasan, the film is from the perspective of Eva, which means we never get to see the full picture of how Kevin is influenced. The film’s title and layers of symbolism in each frame highlights the guilt that Eva feels with regards to Kevin’s violent act. The repeated images of blood seen throughout the film clearly indicate that Eva feels responsible for the bloodshed. As a result, Eva sees blood on her house, car, face and hair. The strange looks the neighbours give Eva when she is sanding her house indicate that the neighbours don’t see the blood but only she does.

Interestingly, the film starts off with a scene where the color red represents freedom for Eva. A series of scenes from the Spanish festival of tomatina portray that red once symbolized a time when Eva had no worries or responsibilities.

However, that same red color ends up being a burden for Eva because it represents her guilt for Kevin’s act. Naturally, the images of blood are only wiped clean after Eva has found resolution and stopped blaming herself.

We Need to Talk About Kevin saves itself from heading down a slippery slope by not including any outside influences that helped shape Kevin’s motives. When Eva presses him for an answer about his violent act, Kevin replies "I used to think I knew. Now I'm not so sure." Usually, there is no quick answer that can suffice but instead the answer lies in years of neglect, anger and resentment that comes to a boil in a single moment. The film gives snippets of these resentful moments from Kevin’s childhood into his teenage years but only from Eva’s memories. Even if the film tried to incorporate Franklin into the perspective, it is hard to think any worthwhile memories would be generated from his vantage point. Franklin unknowingly supervised Kevin’s killer training yet Franklin is blood free for all but one scene. More importantly, Franklin fails to be there for Eva. Franklin never believes Eva when she tells him about Kevin’s negative actions nor does he observe his son’s rude behavior towards his mother or sister. As a result, Eva can never approach Franklin to get him to discipline Kevin. There is clearly a problem in Franklin and Eva’s marriage but since we never learn anything about Franklin, we can only assume he is not interested in any responsibility whatsoever. In the end, Eva is left to run the household and is forced to pick up the pieces after all the arrows have been fired. One day, perhaps we can talk about Franklin and what was so important that he completely ignored his family.

Note: the casting of Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller as the younger and older Kevin is certainly a great decision as both reflect each other nicely. On top of that, both nail their role perfectly and the older Kevin oozes hatred and evil when needed.

Putty Hill, The Arbor

Innovative Cinema

A character is busy doing something but suddenly the character stops what they are doing and looks towards the camera to answer questions by an unseen interviewer. Once the character has answered the questions, the camera steps back allowing the character to jump back into the fictional story that continues until the next stoppage to address the audience.

Such a unique and innovative approach in Matthew Porterfield’s Putty Hill manages to blur the line between documentary and fiction by incorporating interviews within the framework of scripted cinema.

This same technique of addressing the audience directly can also be found in Clio Barnard’s The Arbor where actors talk directly to the camera before the film continues.

However, there is a difference in the technique between Putty Hill and The Arbor. Porterfield’s film is fiction that uses mostly non-professional actors but The Arbor uses professional actors to lip-sync a true story. This technique is needed in The Arbor because this method is similar to the work of Andrea Dunbar on whose plays the film is based on. Clio Barnard describes this direct address technique in the film's DVD booklet:

Andrea’s fiction was based on what she observed around her. She reminded the audience they were watching a play by her use of direct address when The Girl in The Arbor introduced each scene.

I see the use of actors lip-synching as performing the same function, reminding the audience they are watching the retelling of a true story.

My work is concerned with the relationship between fiction film language and documentary. I often dislocate sound and image by constructing fictional images around verbatim audio. In this sense, my working methods have some similarity to the methods of verbatim theatre.

Verbatim theatre by its very nature (being performed in a theatre by actors) acknowledges that it is constructed. Housing estates and the people who live there are usually represented on film in the tradition of Social Realism, a working method that aims to deny construct, aiming for naturalistic performances, an invisible crew and camera, adopting the aesthetic of Direct Cinema (a documentary movement) as a short hand for authenticity. I wanted to confront expectations about how a particular group of people are represented by subverting the form.

I used the technique in which actors lip-sync to the voices of interviewees to draw attention to the fact that documentary narratives are as constructed as fictional ones. I want the audience to think about the fact that the film has been shaped and edited by the filmmakers.....

This verbatim theatre and direct audience technique results in a rich work that is a fascinating blend of improv theatre, scripted cinema and a documentary. Often, examples of all three methods take place in just one sequence.

For example, an actor describes the context of the scene the audience are about to observe.

The actor then jumps into character in a theatrical set constructed in the middle of the exact same living space the story is based on. So reality feeds into fiction which in turn reflects reality.

This direct address technique also gives the appearance of interactive cinema. In both Putty Hill and The Arbor, the camera pans across the screen before slowly stopping on a character who then addresses the audience. On first glance, this looks to have the same level of control as when a user clicks on an object of interest when scrolling across a user interface. However, this level of control is a bit misleading since it is not a two-way interaction because the audience does not have full control to listen from any character. Instead, the characters that speak up do so as per the film director’s discretion. The directors carefully adjust the audience attention on a particular character via the camera movement (pan combined with a slow focus) thereby arousing curiosity in the mind of viewers. As a result, when a character speaks up, it is not unexpected nor intrusive. In fact, the character’s words are welcome because it allows viewers to learn a bit more about events in the story.

The following example from The Arbor shows how such a one-way interactive moment takes place. This scene shows characters engaged in a heated debate which threatens to get out of hand.

A policeman leads one of the characters away.

The camera tracks the two characters and settles in on a face in the crowd

who then gives the addresses the audience directly.

Both films share a direct address technique although The Arbor has roots in Verbatim theatre while Putty Hill is a fluid blend of documentary with fiction. The two films are innovative works that break free from the conventional cinematic mould and are essential viewing.

Three Films by Mohamed Al-Daradji

The following three films from Iraqi director Mohamed Al-Daradji all take place in 2003, the pivotal year in which Iraq's history changed drastically.

Ahlaam (2006)
War, Love, God & Madness (2008)
Son of Babylon (2009)

The core of Ahlaam takes place after the American invasion but the film goes as far back as 1998 when Iraq was bogged down by sanctions. Back in 1998, the title character of Ahlaam (Aseel Adel) was on the verge of marriage while Hasan (Kaheel Khalid) was having doubts about staying in the army because he didn’t believe in serving Saddam. Mehdi (Mohamed Hashim) was troubled because his father’s past would stand in the way of him going for higher studies. These characters lives was clearly not great to begin with but their plight gets worse as the film moves along. Ahlaam’s marriage is ruined because her fiancée is taken away by the Iraqi police. She is pushed to the ground which subsequently damages her mind, eventually landing her in a mental hospital. The lack of order after the invasion causes the looters to move into that mental hospital forcing all the patients, including Ahlaam, out on the unsafe streets of Baghdad. As the film shows, most people suffered from poverty while living under the oppressive regime of Saddam. However, things got subsequently worse after the bombs started to fall in 2003 as the locals had to deal with extra problems such as looting, lack of electricity and water. The chaos and looting that spread like wildfire in 2003 causes the lives of the main characters in Ahlaam to spin further out of control. Ahlaam's fate is unresolved at the film’s end, but it is clear that it can’t be hopeful.

The documentary War, Love, God & Madness depicts the struggles and challenges in the making of Ahlaam. In 2003, Mohamed Al-Daradji and his crew entered Iraq posing as journalists (Al-Jazeera being the magic word) otherwise they feared their camera would be taken away. Once in Baghdad, Al-Daradji tried to find the only working film camera while recruiting local actors. He found it quite challenging to select a female lead especially since prospective leads backed out when they learned about the rape scene in Ahlaam. Things are further complicated when one of the crew members walked off suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, the lack of electricity and safety complicated the daily shoot schedule. Al-Daradji was on the verge of giving up and leaving Iraq but he ignored the advice of others around him and stayed to produce a sharp end product in Ahlaam despite all the stress and complications.

Son of Babylon is set a few weeks after the invasion of 2003 and starts off far away from the Iraqi capital. An older woman Um Ibrahim (Shazada Hussein) goes in search of her missing son when she learns that certain prisoners of war have been freed in Iraq. She take her grandson Ahmed (Yasser Talib) along as her missing son is Ahmed’s father.

Their road journey is not an easy one because the country is in a state of flux especially when horrific truths about the past are unearthed on a daily basis. One of the film’s most emotional sequences is when the traveling duo encounter a funeral procession of recently discovered buried bodies. There are no words spoken but Um Ibrahim’s silent expressions convey her worst fears about her son’s fate.

The film manages to showcase Iraq's vast and picturesque countryside, something hardly ever seen on screen.

Also the film depicts the challenges posed by the cultural and linguistic diversity of Iraq. Um Ibrahim is Kurdish but she cannot speak Arabic so she has to rely on her grandson for translation. People have enough problems to begin with so the language barrier only adds to their frustration and confusion. Yet, no matter what language an Iraqi speaks, they are united in their suffering. The ending of Son of Babylon is even more emotional than the one in Ahlaam but such films cannot have a happy ending, not especially when there are so many unresolved matters. The end credits in Son of Babylon lists that more than a million men, women and children have gone missing in Iraq in the last 40 years. By April 2009, more than 300 mass graves were found containing between 150,000 - 250,000 bodies. The remaining are still missing so there are countless stories waiting to be told about Iraq.

Transfer of suffering

Ahlaam and War, Love, God & Madness are about the suffering of the living. However, Son of Babylon shows that suffering does not end when someone dies. In fact, their suffering gets transferred to their living relatives. And in cases when relatives have no closure about a loved one, the next generation of family members start their lives burdened with a heavy dose of pain.

Smoke and Sounds

Ahlaam is a very well made film that smartly uses a grayish/dark palette to depict the chaos after the 2003 invasion. On the other hand, Son of Babylon is bright and vibrant yet most scenes feature smoke in the background thereby depicting the constant blowing up of things.

War, Love, God & Madness captures the sound of gunfire and bombing that locals have to endure on a daily basis. The documentary also features many conversations with locals in cafes and on the streets. In this regard, the film shares a bond with Sinan Antoon’s About Baghdad. It is quite fascinating to think that both Antoon and Al-Daradji were probably in Baghdad at the same time in 2003 filming their respective documentaries. Their films do feature a bit of hope because the locals believed that being rid of Saddam would eventually lead to a more happier life. It would be interesting if someone revisited the city now and interviewed the same people again because as bleak as things appeared in 2003, we now know that the coming years brought on more uncertainty.

The documentary title War, Love, God & Madness comes from an observation by a person that changing one letter in arabic transforms the word "war" into "love" and "God". That is a fascinating observation as wars are something that take place in the absence of love yet wars also take place in the name of God or if one side has too much love of their God. And when wars take place, madness is unleashed, thereby setting one on the path towards more wars.

Voices and Stories

There are plenty of books and films about Iraq yet very few of these works give an Iraqi perspective. One of the big reasons for lack of an Iraqi voice is because most of these works are based on experiences of western journalists who were living inside the Green Zone or embedded with foreign troops so their viewpoint was always a bit restricted. When these journalists went to meet the locals, they were accompanied by a translator or a bodyguard (soldier or private) and as a result, there were always filters and barriers which prevented a true Iraqi perspective from emerging. There are some exceptions such as James Longley’s incredible Iraq in Fragments which covers different parts of Iraq and outlines realistic problems facing the country. However, most films about Iraq hardly feature any Iraqis or are even shot in the country. Therefore, Mohamed Al-Daradji’s films are a pleasant surprize because they are shot entirely on location and manage to give voice to the local Iraqi people.

Mohamed Al- Daradji’s films are not made to collect box-office receipts or to win acclaim. Instead, they are made to depict essential human stories about citizens of a country the world has largely ignored even though the country name itself is regularly featured in headlines. These films won’t change the world but atleast it is good to know that there is still some relevant cinema out there that is not manufactured to win awards.

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.

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.

Bridging East & West

West is West (2010, UK, Andy DeEmmony)

East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling’s overused line held true in the absorbing East is East (1999) when George Khan (Om Puri) failed to instill Pakistani values and traditions in his British born children. However, West is West shows that it is indeed possible to bridge East and West provided one has the right teacher and the right book, which in the film happens to be Kipling’s Kim.

West is West takes place a few years after the first film and once again depicts an authoritative George Khan. George’s ways have led all his children, except his youngest son Sajid (Aqib Khan), to leave home. Sajid is tired of getting bullied at school over his Pakistani roots and clashes frequently with his father. After yet another painful episode at school, Sajid insults his father’s heritage. George is shocked by his son’s behavior and decides that the only way to salvage Sajid is to force his son to live and study in Pakistan. George tells Sajid that they are going to Pakistan on vacation in order to visit his elder brother Maneer Khan (Emil Marwa) who left England more than a year earlier. Sajid only learns the truth about his trip after they arrive in Pakistan and is understandably upset. However, a wise sage, Pir Naseem (Nadim Sawalha) comes to the rescue and takes Sajid under his wing. Pir treats Sajid with respect and answers all his queries calmly. The fact that Pir explains the importance of traditions to Sajid wins the young boy over because Pir’s ways are completely opposite from George’s methods. George never explained why his children must follow certain rituals but instead always demanded that everyone obey him without question.

Pir also manages to broaden Sajid’s perspective so that the boy can better mesh his Eastern origins with his Western life. A simple example from Pir explains to Sajid why his father acts the way he does. Pir describes a scenario where he encounters a cobra on his usual way home one day. He questions whether he should continue along the path and risk getting bitten or seek an alternate path to get home. Through this example Pir explains to Sajid that the alternate path is a method to adapt to a different culture and a way of surviving in a foreign land. George never adapted to British life but tried to live his Pakistani life in England and continued moving in the only path he knew.

Sajid is not the only one who goes through a transformation or coming of age process. George is also forced to face his own values and old life. George left his wife and children behind in Pakistan when he moved to England and instead of returning back, he married again in England and had more children. He continued to send money back home in the belief that he was being a good man. However, he neglected his first wife and family, leaving them to endure a life of hardship and struggles. George returns back home after a period of more than thirty years to face his first wife Basheera (Ila Arun) and her wrath. She rightly blames him for abandoning her, especially since she was only fifteen when she got married and was forced to tend to the fields and look after the kids on her own. George is responsible for ruining Basheera’s life but he is also to blame for making life difficult for his second wife Ella (Linda Bassett). Ella is forced to concede that she spent her life trying to force her children to be more Pakistani than English while George himself abandoned his family back in Pakistan. There is a tender moment in the film when both wives sit face to face and even though neither of them can communicate in the same language, they are able to recognize each other’s misery. Puri’s character is constantly frustrated and abusive but unlike a sinister villain, his character comes off as a man caught in a war of traditions. He acts the way he does because he believes it is his duty to enforce the “right” cultural values on his children but in West is West he finally realizes that his ways have alienated him from both his traditional Pakistani and English lives at the same time. George’s behavior was always seen as hypocritical in the first film and that point is emphasized in West is West again, where it is pointed out that he changed his name from Jahangir to George and married a British woman, despite wanting his children to be Pakistani.

George may be a fictional character but his plight is similar to that of countless other immigrant stories. Millions of immigrants moved to new lands through the 1950’s to 80’s with a snapshot of values from their homelands. While their homelands moved ahead and adopted newer values, the immigrants kept their beliefs alive despite being surrounded by a differing set of values. The lack of satellite tv and internet meant that the immigrants had limited information about the changing values of life back home but instead continued to live in their new country with traditions and beliefs which were now frozen in time. Such a way of life may have been acceptable for the parents but it created struggles for their children who were born in foreign countries. East is East and West is West are just two examples of films that depict the cultural clash between first generation immigrant parents and second generation Western children. Even though many films exist on this topic, director Andy DeEmmony and writer Ayub Khan-Din manage to ensure their work is still engaging and contains a warm heart. Ayub Khan-Din had also written the first film and as a result, he is able to provide continuity with the characters even though the second film has been made more than a decade after East is East. It is credit to the returning actors as well that they are able to recreate the same persona from the first film. Om Puri deserves a lot of accolades for presenting his angry character with the same energy even though he picks up his character after a long gap. The new actors perform their parts quite well, especially Ila Arun and Aqib Khan. Arun is well known to fans of Indian cinema for her amazing vocals as a playback singer but she also sometimes plays small roles in Indian films. West is West gives her a bit more screen time than what she normally gets and this allows her to shine. Aqib Khan turns in a commendable performance in his debut film. At the start of the film his character is angry and constantly on edge as one would expect of a teenager, but as the film progresses, we see growth in his character and he matures to care for those around him. He even plays matchmaker for his brother and chases his brother’s dream woman in a hilarious sequence.

West is West contains the same style of humor that made East is East a pleasure to watch but this new film has a calmer core than the first film and that is solely because of the character of Pir Naseem. Pir’s warm smile and philosophical words takes the sting out of any anger that Sajid has. The story may not be new but the presentation and quality of acting manage to make this a pleasurable film to watch.