GOON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - A Great Canadian Hockey Movie to follow in the footsteps of Canuck "Lumber-in-the-Teeth" Classics as FACE OFF and PAPERBACK HERO and, of course, the most Canadian Movie Never Made By A Canadian, George Roy Hill's Classic SLAP SHOT

GOON (2011) dir. Michael Dowse
Starring: Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Liev Schreiber, Alison Pill, Eugene Levy, Kim Coates, David Paetkau. Marc-André Grondin

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I kept wondering when a great Canadian hockey movie would come along. The truly cool Golden Age of Canadian Cinema in the 70s and early 80s yielded George McCowan's legendary Face Off (with its phenomenal rare 35mm footage of actual NHL action from the period), Peter Pearson's Paperback Hero (with the irrepressible 70s anti-hero played by Keir Dullea) and Zale Dalen's lovely ode to famed Saskatchewan kids' hockey coach Father Athol Murray, The Hounds of Notre Dame.

Canadian TV-movies in the 90s briefly flirted with hockey thanks to Atom Egoyan's still-pungent Gross Misconduct (about Brian "Spinner" Spencer) and Jerry Ciccoritti's superb Net Worth, which dealt with the struggle for a players' union and was, according to my Dad, not only a fine rendering of the period, but featured - in his opinion - a brilliant performance by Al Waxman as Detroit manager Jack Adams. Dad told me that Waxman captured Adams to perfection. Dad would know. He played briefly for the Red Wings WITHOUT a union in the late 50s and in spite of being cited by goalie Ken Dryden as a personal hero in his book "The Game" was subsequently booted by Adams after he broke his ankle.

So what happened? Where did all the Canadian hockey movies go? It's the country's God-Given national sport, for Christ's sake!

Well, not much of anything happened. Charles Biname's lame 2005 biopic of Maurice Richard, The Rocket, sadly didn't cut the mustard and as terrific as they were, the 90s TV flicks were revisionist takes on the sport Canadians embrace as steadfastly as maple syrup and beaver(s). And the less said about the loathsome Breakway and utterly inept Score: The Hockey Musical the better.

So basically, no great Canadian hockey pictures existed for 30 years - unless, of course, you count George Roy Hill's immortal Slap Shot with Nancy Dowd's delightfully foul mouthed screenplay, Paul Newman's sparkling player-coach Reggie Dunlop and, of course, the Hanson Brothers. Unfortunately, Slap Shot wasn't Canadian, though it should have been, and at times, sure felt like it.

When the movie came out, I was immersed in the world of hockey whilst hanging out with my Dad during the various promotional tie-ins he orchestrated via Carling-O'Keefe Breweries with both the WHA and Alan Eagleson's various "lost" Canada Cup series. The WHA was, of course, the world leader in bench-clearing brawls and I consider the most momentous occasion of my life to have been actually sitting in the Quebec Nordiques bench during their first bench-clearing brawl with the Winnipeg Jets.

Slap Shot nailed it by so indelibly capturing the on and off-ice atmosphere of hockey that I wasn't the only person in Canada who saw the movie dozens of times - ON A BIG SCREEN. In fact, Slap Shot was a huge hit in Canada, but flopped everywhere else in the world.

Oh, but thank Jesus H. Christ! Ah, fuck it! Thank ace Canadian director Michael Dowse!

The wait is over!

The Second Coming is here!

We are all now blessed with a Great Canadian Hockey Movie and the wait was well worth it!

Call it, The Rapture, if you will.

Based upon Doug Smith's novel "Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey" and with a screenplay co-written by everyone's favourite Canuck comic genius Jay Baruchel, Michael (FUBAR I & II, It's All Gone Pete Tong) Dowse renders yet another bonafide contender for masterpiece status.

Etching the tender tale of the kindly, but brick-shit-house-for-brains bouncer Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) who is recruited to a cellar-dweller hockey team in Halifax to protect the once-promising forward Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), Dowse captures the sweaty, blood-spurting, bone-crunching and tooth-spitting circus of minor league hockey with utter perfection. The camaraderie, the endless bus trips, the squalid motels, the brain-dead fans, the piss-and-vinegar coaches, the craggy play-by-play sportscasters, the bars reeking of beer and vomit and, of course, Pogo Sticks - it's all here and then some.

GOON delivers laughs, fisticuffs, mayhem and yes, even a dash of romance in a tidy package of good, old-fashioned underdog styling. Comparisons to Slap Shot, however, are going to be inevitable. GOON does lack the almost Bunuel-like set pieces of George Roy Hill's untouchable classic. Can anyone ever forget the interview with the Quebecois goalie wherein he describes what it's like to be in the penalty box? "You sit there. You feel shame." Or Paul Newman taunting an opposing team member about his wife going "dyke" with the mantra,"She's a lesbian, a lesbian, a lesbian." Or, finally, can any hockey movie - even a Great CANADIAN hockey movie like GOON ever top the Hanson Brothers and virtually anything they did - from "putting on the foil" to manhandling the Coke machine to smacking the helmets of the opposing team in their bench or the immortal slap shot that sends a puck sailing into the side of the organist's head?

Well, Dowse and his team are smart. They know you don't fuck with the Citizen Kane of hockey movies and instead try to move in a more, shall we say, esoteric direction. Whereas Slap Shot had the legend of Ogie Ogilthorpe, the worst goon in hockey history, GOON manages to go a step further and utilize a fabulous Ogilthorpe-styled character who is all flesh and blood.

Ross Rhena (Liev Schreiber) is the goon to end all goons. (Uh, yeah - Liev FUCKING Schreiber! This is one great actor and he delivers one of his best performances here.) Rhena is, in effect, a goon's goon. And what Dowse and team do here is perfect. They create a character with a bit of sentimental, old guard flavour and in one tremendously moving scene, Doug and Ross meet face to face in some squalid diner and engage in a conversation worthy of every great sports picture that ever featured the grand old man and the eager young up-and-comer.

Right across the board the casting and performances are first rate, but the revelation here is Seann William Scott as Glatt. His sweet, goofy, still-boyish appeal is so infectious, you actually enjoy seeing this happy-go-lucky lug doing what God intended him to do - bust heads.

I also suspect Mr. Scott can finally put his American Pie laurels as the immortal Stifler aside.

Glatt now reigns supreme in Le canon de Scott.

While GOON might not have individual set pieces on a par with Slap Shot, it more than makes up for this with quantity. You will never - in your life - see so much man-on-man carnage on the ice as you will in GOON, and it's not just a matter of quantity - the quality of the carnage is pure, exquisite bravura pulverizing.

It is a beautiful thing!

If Slap Shot is the Citizen Kane of hockey movies, GOON is The Magnificent Ambersons of hockey movies only now, imagine a work that rekindles the butchered glory of Orson Welles's masterpiece, but now on the blood-spattered hockey rinks of Canada!

It is a beautiful thing!

And fuck it, let's stretch the Orson Welles metaphor further. A great director needs a great editor. Welles had Robert Wise (an editor with the soul of a director). Dowse is blessed with Reginald Harkema (an editor with the soul of a director, 'natch!). If there are better editors in Canada than Reginald Harkema, I frankly have no idea who they are. The cutting in this film is utter perfection. Harkema slices and dices both comedy and action with equal aplomb.

Now granted, a director had to get the proper coverage for an editor to work such magic, but I was utterly floored by the cutting of the sequences on the ice. The sense of pace and geography is impeccable. Though Dowse has chosen a cuttier mise-en-scene than George Roy Hill, this doesn't result in the horrible mish-mash of cutty confusion in virtually every other contemporary action sequence. Harkema makes every cut a DRAMATIC beat and this is finally what gives GOON both its drive and emotional resonance.

It is, indeed, a beautiful thing!

If I have one quibble with GOON, it's that the filmmakers, due no doubt to exigencies of financing, chose to shoot in my old winter city of Winnipeg to stand-in for Halifax.

Come on, guys. Is Halifax really that pathetic?

"GOON" is in wide theatrical release via Alliance Films.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN - Review by Greg Klymkiw - I find this sort of cerebral, trick-pony approach to horrific events vaguely offensive - artistically and morally. Give me the simple, straight-up, profoundly moving "Polytechnique" anytime.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) dir. Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell, Rock Duer, Ashley Gerasimovich

*1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Some might suggest that bopping around in time and space with dollops of dream imagery is art. It can be, but there is such a thing as bad art. Lynne Ramsay's new film - obtuse, mired in precious imagery, confusing narrative details and oh-so earnest (albeit fine) performances - is exactly the sort of film that appeals to psueds. They desperately desire to be taken seriously (mostly, I suspect, by other pseuds) and need healthy doses of un-sugar-coated horror mired in arty-farty tropes. This allows them to think they're sophisticated, even though they are, in reality, gulping down several gallons of bilge water to justify this pathetic form of self-congratulation.

We Need To Talk About Kevin (based on Lionel Shriver's acclaimed novel) drags us through the mire of one family's tragedy through fragments of the main character's mind - battered and deteriorated either by a mental breakdown instigated by a horrendous event or straight-up mental illness that was there from the beginning.

Strictly on the basis of the first time we see Eva (Tilda Swinton), I choose mental illness.

There she is, lolling about in some sort of Parisian outdoor orgy involving hundreds of sardine-packed losers swimming in pools of crushed tomatoes. This is clearly mental illness. Or stupidity. Or both.

Ah, but perhaps I'm being uncharitable. When we're young, surely we all enjoy exploring Europe on $5.00 a day, living in smelly hostels, backpacking through various non-touristy nooks and crannies and swimming in tomato sauce with hundreds of sweaty, unwashed Frenchmen.

We do, however, all grow up and Eva is no different. After swimming in tomato sauce, she puts her youthful penchant for such activities behind her and ends up marrying kindly, but somewhat dopey Franklin (John C. Reilly). They settle into a humungous palatial home in a weird small town in what I believe is some state in the southern U.S. of A.

Franklin appears to have no job, yet they live in an expensive home - one that seems bereft of more than a few sticks of furniture. Perhaps this is because Franklin does not have a job (which again begs the question how they can afford to live there - furniture or not).

Or maybe, just maybe, it's ever-so symbolic of how some people never really move into a home - that the notion of "home" eludes them.

"Good Grief," as Charlie Brown might say.

We get snippets of early romance twixt this mis-matched pair (which THANKFULLY includes darkly lit sexual hijinx) until the bulk of the movie takes us through three periods in their life with first-born Kevin (Rock Duer as toddler, Jasper Newell at age 8, Ezra Miller as teen). Buried amidst Ramsay's precious back-and-forth, this-way-and-that, all-over-the-bloody-place timelines, we discover Eva was indifferent about pregnancy in the first place and that Kevin, from birth it seems, is a nasty, uncaring little bugger with clearly psychopathic tendencies. Eva pretty much can't stand her child and in turn, the kid does everything in his power to make Eva's life miserable. On the other hand, Franklin and Kevin are seemingly perfect father-son soul mates - which, of course, befuddles and angers Eva.

At various points in the messy timelines, we get hints that something horrible has gone down. Seeing as Kevin is a psychopath and that Franklin, who can't see this, encourages his son in the art of archery, it's certainly no surprise early on that Kevin does something - shall we say - not very nice.

Luckily, Eva and Franklin eventually have another child - a sweet little girl, Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich). Given how loveable she is and what a horrid psychopath Kevin is (and, allow me to reiterate his penchant for archery), the occasional flash-forwards to Celia wearing an eyepatch suggests. . . well, I'm sure you get the picture.

I certainly did.

But wait! That's not all. Eyeless Celia is just the tip of the iceberg of horror. We know this because director Lynne Ramsay serves up snippets of Mom being harassed by media outside of a courtroom (sans Celia and Franklin), messy flashbacks and flash forwards to Eva living ALONE in some squalid house that's been splashed with red paint by local vandals and Eva desperately taking a job as a steno girl at a local travel agency.

We're further tipped off to some manner of malevolent shenanigans when Eva is accosted by Bible-Belt types in the street with slaps to her face and most ludicrous of all, a scene where Kevin orders a huge box of bicycle locks off e-Bay and does not offer, nor is even properly probed, for a reason why he's done this.

At this point, I kid you not, I thought: "Hmmm, those locks would be ideal to secure a big room full of people in order to take them all out, one-by-one."

"Good guess," I thought at a later point in the proceedings. Like the aforementioned pseuds, I gave myself a healthy pat on the back.

It's clear, almost from the beginning of this movie, due to the fractured narrative style, that Kevin will be indulging himself in a bit of the old ultra-violence - though perhaps not as entertainingly as that wrought by Alex in A Clockwork Orange.

It is also at this point that Ramsay is not so much presenting fragments of Eva's insanity, but is rather recreating (not all that successfully) the sort of thing most people do when tragedy strikes - they go over and over it, again and again, in order to make sense of it all.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is precisely the kind of movie an artiste makes when it's desired to make some social commentary on things the creator really knows nothing about. The sense of place is completely without realism (the artiste and her supporters might argue this is intentional) and there are holes in the narrative that one can drive a Mack Truck through (also, no doubt - ahem - intentional).

At a certain point in the proceedings, all I could think about was the GENUINE artistry that Quebec director Denis Villeneuve displayed in Polytechnique, his haunting, harrowing cinematic rendering of Marc Lepine's mass murder spree in Montreal. Villeneuve captured a time and place with such utter perfection - delivering a movie that did not live and die by pretentious trick-pony techniques as Ramsay's abominable film does.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is not without some saving graces. The performances of all three actors who play Kevin at various junctures in his life are phenomenal - we DO believe this is the same person throughout. John C. Reilly is, well, he's John C. Reilly - he's always tremendous to watch. Tilda Swinton suffers with her prim professionalism, but frankly seems so out of place in the milieu that it was ultimately impossible to buy her performance. This might not all be Swinton's fault since Ramsay completely botches the milieu. I still have no idea where and when this movie really takes place. Given the sloppiness of the storytelling, I'll concede I might have missed this point. Then again, as it's all through Eva's skewed perspective, it might be all, uh. . . I guess it's perhaps, uh. . . intentional.

Good grief, indeed!

Filmmakers who purport to care about their characters, but can only enter the lives of their characters by affixing some arty-farty technique that's rooted in the filmmakers's unflagging faith in their own apparent "brilliance" pretty much sickens me - especially when these stories deal with acts of violence perpetrated against children.

In Lynne Ramsay's case, this plodding, ugly mess of a movie makes me wonder if she knows ANYTHING about the human condition worth rendering on film and worst all, makes me second-guess the seemingly fine work she did directing her debut 1999 feature Ratcatcher.

"We Need To Talk About Kevin" is currently in theatrical release via E-One Films.

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne - Review By Greg Klymkiw - With magnificently overwrought melodramatic dialogue by Jean Cocteau, Robert Bresson's dark, sexy tale of vengeance is not unlike some alternately vicious and romantic Gallic pairing of Fritz Lang and James M. Cain with healthy dollops of MGM womens' weepies. "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" is part of the continuing TIFF Cinematheque retrospective of the complete works of Robert Bresson as organized and curated by the legendary film programmer and curator extraordinaire James Quandt.

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) dir. Robert Bresson
Starring: Maria Casarès, Paul Bernard, Elina Labourdette, Lucienne Bogaert

*****

By Greg Klymkiw

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and Robert Bresson easily delivers one of the sexiest, nastiest femmes fatales ever committed to film in his truly astounding Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne. Maria Casarès, who played the memorable Nathalie in Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise and was a favourite of Cocteau, takes on the role here of Hélène, a stunningly gorgeous woman of considerable affluence whose boredom and trifling leads to playing a dangerous game of deception and revenge.

Casarès is so astounding in this role, it sometimes shocks me that she wasn't whisked away to Hollywood by the likes of David O. Selznick to bring the sort of exotic foreign flare to Tinseltown studio pictures that the likes of Hedy Lamar, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich delivered. With cheekbones to die for, dark piercing eyes, a stunning aquiline proboscis and lips that were made to alternately plant big wet smooches and to drip with blood, Casarès commands the screen here with the sort of screen presence designed to tantalize and terrorize.

She might well be the original spider woman of cinema - and her kiss is most deadly.

When Hélène seeks to liven things up with her foppish lover Jean (Paul Bernard), she offers up a "Dear John" speech designed to engorge his gonads and get him hot and bothered enough to put some spice back into their affair. Jean, not one to take a hint, boneheadedly admits to feeling similarly. He proposes they maintain their deep love as FRIENDS, but part as lovers.

Jean, take it from me, this was not a good move.

Hélène is cool about it all. Too cool. Her mind calculates a plan to get the ultimate revenge upon Jean - one that's so "take-no-prisoners" in its approach that it threatens to bring more than one innocent party down. She sets the wheels in motion for Jean to fall so madly in love with another woman, Agnès (Elina Labourdette) that he obsessively pursues her (with Hélène's manipulative assistance) until she falls in love with him too.

Marriage bells are imminent and Hélène even offers to completely coordinate the lavish public nuptials. Jean, it seems, has fallen for a former prostitute. Most of Parisian society is aware of this. Jean, blindly and madly in love, is not.

The story, rife as it is with so many foul twists and turns orchestrated by the nasty Black Widow Spider Woman, is a corker. While we follow with pure salacious joy, Bresson makes superb use of Jean Cocteau's ripe dialogue with a mise-en-scene that delivers a grotesque creepy-crawly pace that's punctuated several times with emotional coldcocks upon both the viewer and the characters in the piece whom Hélène victimizes.

After the wedding ceremony, Agnès takes ill when she discovers the guest list is replete with all the men she has serviced as a prostitute. Jean, still unaware of the deception perpetrated upon him is greeted with Hélène's foul scorn when she maliciously announces to him outside the church: "You've married a tramp. Now you must face the consequences. You're suddenly so sentimental. Since your marriage seems to mean so much to you, you mustn't run off. Return to Agnès' side. You won't be the only one to console her. All her lovers are inside. And there are plenty of them!"

Both the dialogue and Casarès's delivery are like a butcher knife to the gut. We've experienced her manipulations, but we've also been dragged through the pain Agnès has felt throughout the film - trying to hide her shame, trying to deny the love she feels for Jean and wishing she could undo everything to finally, for once, experience the sort of joy in life she once imagined having in childhood.

Bresson knocks us flat-out - not just with despair, but in those moments the film flirts with and eventually succumbs to the purity and power of love.

His movie is at once heartbreakingly dark and wildly romantic. Once again, it seems, for all of Bresson's (and his egghead champions) insistence upon avoiding typical tropes of commercial cinema, he yields a movie that offers everything an audience would want - including the kitchen sink.

That said, it's Robert Bresson's kitchen sink and as such, he delivers both the real goods and great cinema all at once. Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is deeply moving and Bresson proves, once again, that he has few equals.

"Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" is part of the TIFF Cinemtheque's major retrospective organized and curated by the legendary programmer James Quandt. Aptly titled "The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson", this and every other Bresson film is unspooling at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto and over a dozen cinemas across North America. The film is screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox Thursday February 23 06:30 PM and Monday March 5 06:30 PM. "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" is also available on a stunning Criterion Collection DVD. This is definitely worth owning, but only AFTER or in TANDEM with seeing the picture ON A BIG SCREEN - ON FILM.

To order tickets and read Quandt's fabulous program notes, visit the TIFF website HERE.

Lancelot du Lac - Review by Greg Klymkiw - Robert Bresson's brilliant revisionist take on the Knights of the Round Table. "Lancelot du Lac" is part of the continuing TIFF Cinematheque retrospective of the complete works of Robert Bresson as organized/curated by legendary film programmer/curator James Quandt

Lancelot du Lac (1974) dir. Robert Bresson
Starring: Luc Simon, Laura Duke Condominas, Humbert Balsan, Vladimir Antolek-Oresek, Patrick Bernard

****

By Greg Klymkiw

While I think my favourite Knights of the Roundtable movie is still John Boorman's Excalibur, Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac is pretty damned extraordinary. Unlike Boorman's lush, baroque approach to the tales popularized by Sir Thomas Malory's famed literary collection of Arthurian legends "Le Morte d'Arthur", Bresson applies a strange, stripped-down rendering that is equally compelling.

We're all familiar with these legends and Bresson pretty much sticks to our expectations on the story front. The Knights have returned to Camelot utterly shagged-out and decimated after a futile search for The Holy Grail. Sir Lancelot (Luc Simon) still loves Guinevere the Queen (Laura Duke Condominas) and she, in turn, has been pining for his manly attentions for far too long. Lancelot, however, bummed-out for boinking King Arthur's (Vladimir Antolek-Oresek) wife, decides he must put an end to the deception as its an affront to King, Country and God.

The nasty cowardly Mordred (Patrick Bernard) starts spreading well-founded rumours about the queen's infidelities and though Lancelot tries to offer his hand in friendship to this foul illegitimate inbred son, Mordred has other plans - nefarious ones, of course. As Mordred tries plying dissent, the Knights start getting antsy because Arthur's closed down the Round Table and has decided to await word from God for their next mission.

To keep them happy and with Knight Gawain's (Humbert Balsan) help, a major jousting tournament is organized. Carnage ensues on the fields of this deadly sport until Lancelot decides to shift gears and become Guinevere's protector once more.

More carnage ensues.

Several elements contribute to the strange phenomenon that is Lancelot du Lac. First and foremost is the briefly aforementioned stripped-down approach to the drama. The film is gorgeously shot as Bresson favours longer takes, few closeups and almost no cutaways during dialogue sequences. Add to this the odd, almost somnambulistic quality of the performances and the movie has a deliciously weird flavour that feels like a cross between Bresson's normal unfettered style with an almost visible and intentional directorial hand in rendering the drama in this fashion.

The action sequences are especially brilliant. Here Bresson employs a far more cut-intensive approach. However, rather than the typically contemporary herky-jerky style of action cutting that seems to drag almost every modern action sequence to ridiculous extremes with a sloppy sense of geography, Bresson employs numerous lightning-quick cuts that emphasize the raw brutality of the violence. The filmmaking is exciting, to be sure, but the acts of violence are not - they're vicious, nasty and almost matter-of-fact.

When Bresson cuts action, he does so in a pounding, visceral fashion, but not to add the sort of fake thrills and suspense modern audiences are sadly getting used to, but rather, to place emphasis on the truly horrific elements of man-to-man warfare. As brutal and brilliant as Boorman's violence was in Excalibur, it was presented as "Boys' Own" derring-do. There's nothing romantic about Bresson's carnage.

During the jousting sequences Bresson brilliantly gives us a clear sense of geography in terms of the division between spectators and participants, but on the field of honour itself, he skews our overall sense of geography and emphasizes individual physical rituals that suck us deeply into the carnage. There are a handful of close medium shots, for example, where the camera is locked down in terms of the frame. In the foreground we see the smooth, clearly powerful and especially deadly end of the lance, while the background moves ever-so furiously forward as knight and horse charge towards their opponent.

Bresson also makes his trademark stunning use of sound with a barrage of rhythmic drums beats, hoof pounding, bagpipe blurts, clangs of metal and the horrendous crunch of lance-against metal/shield/flesh.

The bloodletting, it should be noted, is copious and geyser-like. Whereas it's clearly horrendous in this film, some audiences might be compelled to laugh when they realize how clearly Bresson's violence here must have been a huge influence upon Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones when they directed their own skewed (albeit satirical) portrait of the Knights of the Round Table in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

With Lancelot du Lac, Bresson once again delivers a motion picture that breaks every rule under the sun, but does so with such precision and intent that it works on a level of cinematic-boundary-breaking while providing entertainment that works on emotional, visceral and intellectual levels.

"Lancelot du Lac" is part of the TIFF Cinemtheque's major retrospective organized and curated by the legendary programmer James Quandt. Aptly titled "The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson", this and every other Bresson film is unspooling at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto and over a dozen cinemas across North America. The film is screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox Monday February 20 06:30 PM and Tuesday March 6 09:00 PM. The February 20 screening includes a lecture by Brian Price.

To order tickets and read Quandt's fabulous program notes, visit the TIFF website HERE.

African Phantasms: New African Short Films - Review By Greg Klymkiw - As part of Black History month, the TIFF Bell Lightbox is presenting a major series entitled "Music, Magic, Clash: New Voices in the African Diaspora". This program of short cinema displays the sort of artistry and maturity lacking in so many Canadian and American short films that are often little more than "calling cards" for features or worse, the horrendous, "Look Ma, I can use a dolly. Hire me to direct bad TV."

African Phantasms: New African Short Films
TIFF Bell Lightbox: ""Music, Magic, Clash: New Voices in the African Diaspora"

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I consider short films a genre unto themselves - a form of storytelling with its own unique set of rules (or, when rules are broken, their own unique parameters waiting to be burst open). This excellent series of short films from Africa is playing for one show only at the TIFF Bell Lightbox cinemas in Toronto, and at press time, only three of the five shorts were available for review, but if they're any indication of what I'm missing when they're all screened publicly, I think it's safe to say that this is a series that deserves to be toured as widely as possible and for those living in Toronto, it is absolutely NOT to be missed.

While these films are generated by "new voices", what struck me about the three shorts I did see is that they're actually ABOUT something. Having seen thousands of short films in my life (and far too many of them Canadian), I'm constantly distressed to see movies that are little more than "calling cards" for features or worse, the horrendous, "Look Ma, I can use a dolly. Hire me to direct crappy TV." There is this really appalling sense of "careerism" in Canadian and American short cinema - films not being made because they HAVE to be made, but because far too many basement dwelling rich kids think filmmaking would be a better "career choice" than having to work for a living. This attitude is supported by far too many educational and training institutions to keep tuition fees flowing in and/or to maintain their relevance/existence (and to keep things nice and cushy for the nest-featherers who administer such programs).

Cinema, however, is a calling - it's not a "career choice". Cinema chooses YOU! When a film is to be made, it should be made with the sort of passion and belief that the story MUST be told and that not doing so would render its maker doomed to a kind of artistic purgatory until it IS made.

The three of five short films I saw in this program are all infused with the sort of vitality of commitment to the medium and storytelling that makes me feel secure in the knowledge that cinema is still alive - somewhere! Granted, they are all rooted in places that, on the surface, are removed from the traditional North American experience. Though frankly, I'd argue there are corollary settings that are not being explored in North America because THOSE filmmakers are often passed over for the sort of pathetic garbage I detailed above. (Or worse, some genuinely good filmmakers avoid them in order to kowtow to the above.)

It sometimes sickens me when I realize just how many short films I have seen - especially from North America. The dross I've subjected myself to includes (but is not limited to) pallid rip-offs of John Hughes, Wes Anderson and/or Quentin Tarantino, juvenile philosophical dark ramblings that should have been left in the trash bin of the Existentialism 101 classroom and most horrific of all, the "joke" short - one in which the punchline, or "twist" is what drives the film.

Ugh!

In any event, do yourself a favour and catch the shorts in this series. Hopefully they'll be coming to a theatre near you beyond the borders of downtown Toronto.

Here are brief reviews of the three I have seen.

The Cassava Metaphor (2010) dir. Lionel Mata
Starring: Ricky Tribord, Mata Gabin, Daniel Ndo

****

By Greg Klymkiw

The film begins, as does Coco's (Ricky Tribord) day, with the ritual of washing. From within the interior of a car we watch as soapy water splashes luxuriously upon the windshield while a sponge sweeps back and forth, removing the dust that's settled upon it from the previous day. In a tiled shower, water cascades down Coco's leg as he bends down to meticulously wash his feet, taking care to scrub between each toe on each foot. He dresses and regards himself - it seems he might be going out on a date or have an important meeting. His brief reverie is shattered when a text message comes from his landlord that he's seven days overdue in paying his rent.

No date. No meeting. Just another normal day for this Yaoundé cab driver.

Luckily, his first fare of the day suggests his debt-load might be lightened and, for good measure, his dour spirits. A friendly, attractive young woman (Mata Gabin) sits primly in his back seat and she's headed for the airport.

He flirts with her good-naturedly - the banter worthy of any fine romantic comedy - but alas, things in life are not always what they seem. This is, one of the film's primary narrative strengths. It delights us with what at first seems like a romance, then moves deftly into borderline absurdist humour and finally into a deeply and profoundly moving dénouement.

With the sage assistance of an airport security guard (Daniel Ndo) Coco learns, as do we, that sometimes a cassava is just a cassava - nothing more and nothing less. And much like the cassava plant, which can grow heartily in dry, drought-prone climates, the film offers a glimpse into the resiliency of humanity within a continent that yields so much of this bittersweet staple.

Efficiently directed, beautifully acted and written with humour and tenderness, The Cassava Metaphor is one of the finest short dramas I've seen in many years.

It's a heartbreaker.

Drexciya (2011) dir. Akosua Adoma Owusu

****

By Greg Klymkiw

For experimental cinema to soar to the heights of great poetry, the images must be powerful, the rhythm impeccable and the structure very sound. Drexciya succeeds magnificently on all these fronts. The film directs its gaze upon the crumbling ruins of a derelict Olympic-sized swimming pool in Accra, Ghana. The topography surrounding the pool is flat, dusty and dry. In the distance is a building that looks unfinished. Local residents gather at the empty pool to dryy their laundry or just pass the day.

Director Akosua Adoma Owusu then places her camera to capture what seems like every crack and crumble and refuse located within the faded green tile of this long-abandoned pool. Finally, she focuses upon the rusting tower of what was once an Olympic-sized series of diving boards. Like some massive crucifix dominating both the frame of the camera and the big sky of Ghana. Up to this point, the soundtrack has been replete with both the sounds of the natural world of the pool brilliantly mixed with sounds of what must have been when it was in operation.

In this finale, focusing upon a cross-like structure - so infused with the notion of indignity, sacrifice and resurrection - the powerful African-American spiritual "Wade in the Water" takes over the soundscape. Sound and image blend perfectly and while watching it, I felt the gooseflesh rising mightily indeed. Both the rhythm and structure of the film leads you to this point so cannily and expertly that the poetic strength of both sound and image yield an extremely visceral and emotional response.

I suppose it didn't hurt that I'm extremely familiar with "Wade in the Water". I first heard it as a kid in a movie (I wish I could remember which one) and then as a teenager, I found a great recording (for those who need to know, the long-defunct "Records On Wheels" on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg) - perhaps even the same one used in the film - on vinyl, and almost wore out the album from playing it so many times. The song dates back to pre-Civil War America and its lyrics urge the African-American slaves to avoid the flat ground and hit the water to avoid the trusty noses of the slave-traders' bloodhounds.

Ironically, the album was lost to a flood in my parents' home some years ago.

In any event, this is a picture that worked precisely on a poetic level and is an example of cinema's truly great potential to move beyond that of a bauble. Interestingly though, while I don't think I especially misread the film on a first viewing, I discovered after seeing it, that the film is inspired by the 90s Detroit-based electronic group Drexciya who created within their music the myth of an underwater world a la Atlantis which was populated by the spirits of babies born to African women that had been thrown off slave ships bound for the Americas.

Knowing this merely added to my appreciation of the film on a repeat viewing.

The Adventures of Mwansa The Great (2011) dir. Rungano Nyoni
Starring: Samuel Mwale, Owas Ray Mwape, Anna Mithi, Mwansa Bwalya, Becky Ngoma

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I normally have an aversion to short dramas that act as "calling cards" for feature films - especially when the shorts just feel like truncated features - but The Adventures of Mwansa the Great is one of those rare instances when a short film works perfectly as such, but frankly, is so entertaining that one wants to see more. I have absolutely no doubt that there is a first-rate feature that could even be franchised from this material. It's that good!

Set in a dry, seemingly-water-bereft (this seems to be a recurring motif amongst all of these shorts) village in Zambia, a group of children enact the most delightful adventures based on characters that have been told to them by their late father. In full costume, they romp and play with abandon. When Mwansa (Samuel Mwale) accidentally breaks his sister Shula's (Owas Ray Mwape) doll, she is utterly heartbroken. It was crafted from "magic mud" by their departed Dad. Never fear, Mwansa truly believes he is Mwansa the Great (a sort of mythic superhero) and he leads Shula and the rest of the kids on an odyssey to retrieve more "magic mud" to repair the doll.

The clay is, in actuality and movingly, slag from the nearby copper mine where Dad worked (and presumably died). Blending the real-life excursion with the fantasy elements that spring to life, we're led on a delightful, heartfelt journey wherein many obstacles must be overcome to reach the quarry.

And, let it be said, that through the power of imagination, a little boy believes he can truly fly.

I started watching this movie with two ten-year-old girls preparing meringue cookies behind me. Within seconds, they abandoned their culinary activities and joined me on the chesterfield. They, like I, were utterly entranced.

As the end-title credits hit the screen, my daughter yelped out, "Wow, Dad! That was a great movie!"

Indeed it was!

"African Phantasms: New African Short Films" is playing at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto for one show only Sunday February 19 at 7:00 PM. In addition to the aforementioned shorts, two others will be screening ("The Deliverance of Comfort" by Zina Saro-Wiwa and "Hasaki ya suda" by Cédric Ido"). For further information and tickets, click HERE.

Here is a scene from MWANSA THE GREAT


Here is a scene from THE CASSAVA METAPHOR


Here is a short experimental film from the director of DREXCIYA











32nd GENIE AWARDS TRAILER

MONSIEUR LAZHAR - French Canada's Oscar Nominee is a crock; an entertaining and well acted crock, but a crock nevertheless.

Monsieur Lazhar (2011) dir. Phillipe Falardeau
Starring: Fellag, Émilien Néron, Sophie Nélisse, Danielle Proulx

**

By Greg Klymkiw

When a popular teacher in a Montreal public elementary school commits suicide, she is replaced by the title character Monsieur Lazhar (Fellag), an Algerian immigrant who helps the children heal while hiding his own political refugee status as well as the fact that his wife and children were murdered by extremist terrorists in his home country.

Lazhar blends "old world" teaching methods with clearly personal and unconventional approaches. He eschews curriculum in favour of both practical AND philosophical areas more suited to genuinely providing deeper learning to kids who have clearly been traumatized by this horrific action. His insistence upon using Balzac for dictation opens up areas of learning that otherwise would have been ignored. This even inspires a gifted young student, his pet, to suggest he try using Jack London's immortal "White Fang" instead of the Balzac. This is one of many lovely details that desperately compel one to forgive the serious storytelling flaws that keep the film from attaining the greatness it should otherwise have attained.

The kids fall in love with this rascally Algerian and so do we. (There's also a delightful sub-plot where one of his colleagues falls for him romantically.) A large part of the character's winning qualities are due to Fellag's exquisite performance. Lazhar's good humour, his zest for teaching, his love of children are all worn on this magnificent actor's sleeve whilst he alternately displays, deep in his eyes, the pain of loss that haunts him.

The hurt the kids feel from the suicide of their teacher is tackled by Lazhar's sensitive handling of the problem. He makes a difference in their lives - he's a teacher AND a friend.

This all sounds like perfect Oscar bait to me: Immigrant mends his broken heart by mending the broken hearts of children. And sure enough, the movie has garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film, a whack of Genie Award (Canada's "Oscar") nominations, a spot on the TIFF Canada Top Ten, glowing reviews, The Toronto Film Critics prize for Best Canadian feature film and excellent box office. The movie is well made in so many respects (lovely mise-en-scene, great performances all around and a heart nestled firmly in the right place), but the story itself is rife with far too many lapses in logic and/or credibility for the movie to be taken seriously as anything but a feel-good wallow for the less-discriminating.

Lazhar's journey allows HIM to live with the pain and guilt he feels for his own family being slaughtered by extremists in Algeria and make no mistake - this NOTION is profoundly moving, but it's an element of the tale that sadly loses the depth it could have had.

The narrative's first major stumbling block occurs early on when it is revealed that there are no takers for the replacement position because of the perceived stigma attached to replacing a teacher who has hung herself in her own classroom. This plot detail stunned me. Things might be different in La Belle Province, but given the fact that there are jobless teachers all over the country who can't get work, let alone steady work, it's pretty much impossible to buy that the school's principal (Danielle Proulx) can't fill the open spot.

Granted, things in Quebec tend to march to the beat of their own drum more than in English Canada (or for that matter, the rest of the world), but given the strength of unions - particularly teaching unions - issues of seniority, etc. would definitely come into play here no matter what the circumstance.

I also grant that over ten years ago there was a weird generational cusp period all over North America where a teacher shortage did indeed exist and substitute teachers with little or no qualifications were hired at the discretion of principals in emergency situations. The movie appears to be contemporary and if, at any point it emphasizes being set during the turn of the new millennium, it does so rather ineffectively.

Here's the problem with such a lack of attention to these details. All the aforementioned speed bumps paraded through my thoughts while watching the movie and severely impeded my ability to go with the flow.

Further to the above, then, is that Lazhar is hired by merely dropping off his resume, expressing an emphatic interest in teaching AND the fake excuse the movie delivers about not being able to find a replacement for the teacher who snapped her neck. Again, the requirements to get a teaching job with any school board are so stringent and the hiring process so carefully regulated, that this is absolutely impossible to swallow. (Sure, stuff can slip through the cracks, but for this to register narratively in a believable manner, would have required a much more careful set-up.)

Other impediments to the flow of the drama are the fact that Lazhar is required to do is fill out some Ministry forms shoved at him by the principal and that while awaiting a ruling from the courts as to his eligibility to be considered a landed immigrant on the basis of political asylum, he seems to be completely oblivious to the seriousness of misrepresenting himself in order to get a job as a teacher. Astonishingly, we know early on that he actually ran a restaurant in Algeria and that his late wife was, in fact, a teacher. Surely such an understandable need to continue her work in the "new world" is a lovely character-touch, but is not at all exploited for its value in terms of both the moral issue of misrepresentation and the tension/conflict this could have added to the narrative.

Some might argue that all movies (and all stories, for that matter) require - to certain degrees - a suspension of disbelief. Yes, true; to an extent. But given that the above elements are so huge, so overwhelming that no matter how beautifully acted and directed the proceedings are, no matter how exquisite individual scenes and sequences are, no matter how important the themes of healing and acceptance are - if a movie doesn't do its job and address narrative elements that have so much potential to provide stumbling blocks, then the picture is not doing its job - period.

I'm willing to concede that this problem might have more to do with the original source material used to adapt the tale to film. Evelyne de la Cheneliere's play "Bachir Lazhar", a one-man show, would have been written closer to the period when a teaching shortage existed. That this appears to have been completely ignored in the film's journey from stage to screen is, however, a major lapse.

Given director Falardeau's welcome lack of the annoying Quebecois stylistic excess of the majority of the province's artier fare and his attempt to provide a mise-en-scene that's rooted in reality, it's shocking to me that the screenplay never bothered to address any of the above issues in any serious fashion. I still can't, for the life of me, figure out (or buy) how Lazhar got the job in light of everything detailed above.

As the movie unfolds, it's very hard to just sit back and enjoy the movie. I'd argue these holes and unaddressed issues would have all been easy fixes. In fact, if more had been made of the fact that Lazhar had to have brazenly and intentionally falsified his qualifications, there might even have been added elements of suspense in terms of his courtroom battle to gain political refugee status.

If Monsieur Lazhar was some Hollywood nonsense like Dangerous Minds, it might have been a bit easier to swallow, but because Falardeau is clearly a gifted filmmaker dealing with a story infused with important thematic issues of healing in a world so rife with strife, the narrative flaws are a bitter pill. It is not only hard to swallow, but ultimately, impossible to swallow. The movie tries to shove an oversized horse pill down our throats and in so doing, inspires our collective gag reflexes to work overtime.

So much in this film is so beautiful and yet, in spite of a desire to fall in love with it, I was unable to do so because of its sloppy storytelling.

That said, the tale's dishonesty might be enough to win it a surprise Oscar over the powerful Iranian favourite A Separation. Such a win, however, might well open the floodgates for more of the same. This will be a good thing, if any subsequent works inspired by Monsieur Lazhar take better care addressing basic issues of logic.

"Monsieur Lazhar" is nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar and currently in theatrical release via e-One. In Toronto, it is playing to sellout houses at the Toronto International Film Festival TIFF Bell Lightbox. While it has widened its reach to Cineplex Entertainment cinemas, if you must see it, try to see it at Lightbox or your local independent cinema for the best projection and to support venues that support Canadian Cinema.

MONSIEUR LAZHAR TRAILER











32nd GENIE AWARDS TRAILER

LE VENDEUR - Review by Greg Klymkiw - This stunning Quebecois kitchen sink drama is so raw and real, the pain evoked so acute, you'll be devastated by its quiet power while at the same time dazzled by its cinematic genius. The film had its World Premiere in Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011 and was cited as one of Canada's Ten Best Films of the year in the Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) CTT. That it has not garnered one single nomination for a Genie Award is an utter disgrace! Don't miss it!

Le Vendeur (2011) dir. Sébastien Pilote
Starring: Gilbert Sicotte, Nathalie Cavezzali, Jérémy Tessier and Jean-François Boudreau

****

By Greg Klymkiw

It's a rare experience for me, but when it occurs, there's nothing like it. Sometimes I see a movie and after the final end-title credit has faded and the lights come up, I bolt from the cinema to be alone with my thoughts and to savour and extend the emotional response I had. Off the top of my head, other movies that made me feel this way were Au Revoir Les Enfants, Les Bons Debarras, The Straight Story, Ivan's Childhood and seeing the restored print of Nights of Cabiria. The experience, so indelibly etched into my soul, is as close to soaring as I'm ever likely to get.

And now, there's a new gun in town, pardner.

While its thematic concerns and narrative are both timeless and universal, and though it is set in a small factory town in Quebec, I was profoundly moved and deeply taken with just how Canadian Sébastien Pilote's astounding film Le Vendeur is. This staggeringly powerful, exquisitely-acted and beautifully written motion picture is easily the first genuine Quebecois heir apparent to the beautiful-yet-not-so-beautiful-loser genre of English Canadian cinema of the 60s and 70s (best exemplified by films like Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road, Peter Pearson's Paperback Hero and Zale Dalen's Skip Tracer).

The title character of Pilote's great film is ace car salesman Marcel Lévesque (Gilbert Sicotte). He lives in a small town on the brink of complete financial collapse - the primary industry has shut down production and locked out its workers and yet, while people are starving, losing everything, moving away and many local businesses shutting down forever, Marcel turns a blind eye to all this. He's not the undisputed Salesman of the month in the dealership for nothing - and not just one month, but EVERY month, for years on end.

Financial crisis be damned! There are cars on the lot and they need to be moved.

And they will be moved.

At any cost.

Marcel, you see, has nothing. With a healthy nest-egg and no financial commitments, he's at an age when most men would retire and enjoy life. For Marcel, life is selling cars. His late wife has been six feet under for a long time and his only real human connection is to his daughter Maryse (Nathalie Cavezzali), a hairdresser and single mother to Antoine (Jérémy Tessier). If it weren't for them, he'd have even more time to sell cars.

He is, however, in spite of this obsession, a devoted, loving and caring father and grandfather. He makes regular visits to his daughter's shop, attends local events with her, watches his grandson play hockey in the local arena whilst gently tut-tutting any suggestion from his only surviving blood relations that perhaps he should retire.

He is a friend to everyone in town, yet in reality, he has no friends. His effusive manner with all he meets is part of his ongoing schtick - he knows damn well that people will buy from someone they like.

And he must be liked to be successful.

His colleagues love him too. It's no matter to his fellow salesmen that he outsells them ten to one. He's a great guy and because he's a great guy they all believe his prowess and luck will rub off on all of them.

And then there are the locked-out workers at the factory he passes every morning on his way to the dealership. They stand in the frigid Quebec climate, snow piled up around them and warming themselves on the fires raging in steel drums as they keep vigil over their only hope for employment - their placards demanding fair treatment while the factory's fat-cats get bonuses and they potentially lose their jobs, benefits and pensions.

No matter to Marcel.

The unemployed need to buy huge, gas-guzzling American cars they can't afford as much as the next guy.

And he's just the man to make the sales. Marcel prides himself on remembering and knowing as many details about his customers (past, present and future). For those times he needs his memory jogged, he maintains a collegial and caring rapport with the guys who work in the service department. He plies them with daily cans of Coke from the pop machine and when he spies a familiar vehicle up on a hoist, he gets as much info as he needs from the mechanics about the owner of the ailing vehicle. He then consults his files to confirm he actually sold the car (and any salient details that can breed added familiarity), finds the "mark" in the waiting room, greets him as if they've known each other their whole life and slyly presents options available to trade-in the old and buy the new.

One such mark is the sad-sack François Paradis (Jean-François Boudreau), an out-of-work labourer locked out of the factory. This is a man who is unsure of where his family's next meal is coming from, but all Marcel knows is that a trade-in (at a loss to the customer), easy financing (at usurious interest rates) and cars on the lot that must be moved are the ultimate order of the day.

A sale is imminent.

So too is disaster.

Marcel's single minded need to sell knows no bounds. When this results in not just one, but two major tragic events, Marcel holds the ultimate key to his own survival - he can sell.

Pilote has crafted an astonishing screenplay - rife with details that are indelibly rooted in the realities and truths we all have experienced and/or recognize. As a director, he renders his screenplay with one jaw-droppingly poetic shot after another and yet, as exquisite as Pilote's eye is, the frame is rife with the reality of both beauty and despair.

And it is so Canadian: The endless snow, the frosty breath permeating the air, the crispness of the night, the sun and clear skies beating down on a frozen Earth, the constant parade of tractors clearing the streets, removing ice from the windshields, plugging and unplugging one's car to keep the block and interior heaters working overtime in sub-zero temperatures, the hot cups of java in the local diner, steaming hot chocolate in the hockey arena, the forays onto the frozen lakes to ice-fish and the ice-and-snow-packed highways that convey people from one solitary place to another - sometimes even as solitary as death.

Pilote's mise-en-scene has been rendered with the keen eye of cinematographer Michel La Veaux and I submit this might well be one of the best shot Canadian films in years. The compositions are often painterly, but most astounding is both the lighting of the interiors (starkly beautiful with a delicate grain and considerable detail) and the stunning exteriors wherein La Veaux paints with natural light. One of the shots I'll take to my grave is an interior of a snow-packed frigid car - that special beauty of darkness and light that we've all experienced at some point or another as we enter a vehicle that's yet to be swept free of the layers of frozen precipitation. This is great shooting and puts so much of the more expressionistically flashy Quebecois cinematography to shame.

Finally, the most Canadian image of all in Le Vendeur is the bloodied carcass of a moose who has strayed in the path of a car cascading along the black ice on a wilderness-enshrouded highway and the twisted wreckage of said vehicle that has collided with the huge, lumbering beast. I'd argue that anyone who has not seen this with their own eyes, experienced it themselves or, at least knows or knows of someone involved in such an accident can't possibly be Canadian - or, at the very least, lives a very sheltered life from one of the more characteristic experiences of Canadian life. (I've accidentally hit everything from rabbits to porcupines to coyotes to deer on the highways of northern Canada and a dear friend was invalided for life after hitting a moose. I can assure you, it's not a pretty sight.)

This is Quebec. This is Canada. And this is a film replete with so many aspects of indigenous familiarity that adds to the already tremendously moving narrative of Le Vendeur.

Yet amidst these details that speak to our culture - both English and French - there are the details of both the character and narrative which reflect realities as profound and universally recognizable as such works as Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" or David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross" or Joseph Heller's "Something Happened" or Saul Bellow's "Seize the Day". These are stories of men and families torn to shreds by the seeming freedom of capitalist society.

And so too is Pilote's Le Vendeur.

While watching the film, I could not get the aforementioned canon of English-Canadian loser cinema out of my head. For the townspeople who leave Le Vendeur's northern Quebec - especially the young men, I thought about Joey and Pete in Shebib's Goin' Down the Road, leaving their small Maritime town for new horizons, yet facing equally uncertain futures once away from the nest. I imagined the future of Marcel's hockey-playing small-town grandson and wondered, if fortune allowed him a full blossoming, would he too remain a big fish in a small pond like Rick "The Marshall" Dylan (Keir Dullea), the boozing, brawling, womanizing small potatoes hockey player from Peter Pearson's Paperback Hero? Worse yet, I wondered if Marcel himself was actually Joey or (more likely) Pete from Shebib's masterpiece if either had stayed in their small town and channelled the malevolent drive to succeed at any or all cost as imbued in the character of John the psychopathic debt collector in Zale Dalen's Skip Tracer?

Look, I doubt any of the aforementioned English Canadian films registered with Pilote when he wrote and directed Le Vendeur, but what's truly uncanny is just how connected and rooted to the English Canadian experience and aesthetic his film is. Perhaps the two solitudes are not as solitary as some would like to believe.

Like those films, Pilote has crafted what may well become a masterwork of CANADIAN cinema and one that is rooted in an indigenous cultural tradition no matter what side of the French-English fence one is on.

Le Vendeur is from Quebec.

And it is truly Canadian!

This is a good thing.

"Le Vendeur" is in limited release in English Canada via E-One Films. It begins a theatrical release in Toronto February 3 at the Alliance Atlantis Cumberland Cinema. Alas, it lasted one week there and moved over to the loathsome Canada Square Cinema for a mere two shows per day. If it's not playing in your city, demand it be shown at your local Cineplex Entertainment or independent theatre. It had its world premiere in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2011 and was wisely - VERY WISELY - cited by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Canadian Top Ten (CTT). How it has not garnered one single Genie Award nomination is not only beyond me, but frankly, a disgrace. (Even the Quebec-based Jutra Awards have egg on their face for ignoring Pilote's direction, but citing the film in other categories - but the Jutras are regional and the Genies are national. They should know better.) In any event, do yourself a big favour and DO NOT MISS "LE VENDEUR" ON A BIG SCREEN WHERE IT MUST BE SEEN.

WATCH THIS TRAILER. DON'T MISS THIS MOVIE!!! (Note to Anglos: The trailer has English subtitles, but for some reason it tags the film with its English title THE SALESMAN, but when you look for the title in your movie listings in English Canada, it will most likely be listed as "Le Vendeur" - as it should be.) And again - DON'T MISS THIS MOVIE! SEE IT THEATRICALLY ON A BIG SCREEN WHERE IT MUST BE SEEN!




The film's official website can be found HERE










32nd GENIE AWARDS TRAILER

ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN - Review by Greg Klymkiw - Blood spills, spurts and sprinkles every which way upon the streets of Rio in this slam-bang action epic from José Padilha, Brazil's coolest documentarian AND action director, plus Bráulio Mantovani, the screenwriter who gave us "City of God".

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2011) dir. José Padilha
Starring: Wagner Moura, Irandhir Santos, André Ramiro

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Criminal activity wends its way through a metropolis like a labyrinth. When the city itself is Knossos-like; when around every corner, in every nook, every cranny, under every rock, behind every brick, perched on every rooftop and practically dropping from the Heavens are adversaries more formidable than a Minotaur (and armed with automatic weapons, knives and machetes), not even Theseus himself would stand a chance unless he was backed up by an elite para-military force. Such is the delightful Brazilian vacation hot-spot Rio de Janeiro and such is the setting of this spectacular fact-based action picture that plunges you deep into the maze of criminal activity - so insidious, so viral, so unbeatable that even when you think it's been wiped out, it's morphed into something even more powerful.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is a sequel to director José Padilha's hit 2007 hit Elite Squad which was based upon the book by real-life Rio crime-fighter Rodrigo Pimentel and part of Padilha's trilogy on criminal activities in Brazil that began with his harrowing feature documentary Bus 174. Elite Squad 2 as it's known in Brazil is that country's highest grossing theatrical release of all time and has even left James Cameron's Avatar choking in its dust. This is no surprise. If even a tiny percentage of the activities detailed in this film are true, one can only imagine how powerfully it would have captured the imaginations of its indigenous peoples.

The film details the efforts of Nascimento (Wagner Moura), leader of Rio's para-military police unit known by its acronym BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais). These guys are monsters and easily as brutal as the criminals they fight. They're armed well beyond what normal law enforcement officers use in their day-to-day work. They specialize in urban warfare and more often than not, act as assassins - going into the favelas (slums) of Rio to engage in wholesale mass-executions.

The movie begins with Nascimento leading a BOPE unit within Rio's largest prison which is comprised entirely of three drug cartels (all separated from each other in three different wings of the prison). Incarceration is not a deterrent to their activities. Behind the prison walls, it's business as usual and a deadly one at that.

When a riot breaks out, Nascimento goes into immediate action and if necessary, he'll just blow everyone away including their hostages (criminals from a rival cartel - so no real loss). Fraga (Irandhir Santos), a leading academic/activist is called in by the political powers-that-be to mediate and when he's taken hostage, one of Nascimento's best men blows the bad guy away and saves Fraga's life. Alas, Fraga's pro-peace shirt is spattered with the blood of the man who would have slaughtered him like a pig. As any good bleeding heart Liberal would do, he uses this opportunity to make a case in front of the media that BOPE are nothing more than human rights violators of the highest order.

The government fires Nascimento to pleaae the bleeding hearts, but then promotes him to Head of all Security measures in Rio to please the majority of the population and right-wing elements who have hailed Nascimento as a hero. Once our crime-fighting cop becomes a high-level government bureaucrat, the movie (which has already begun with a major series of wallops) zooms into major overdrive and the events that follow become even more insane.

This is the section of the film I found especially gripping and fascinating. Every effort made by Nascimento to clean up the crime is detailed, carried out successfully and thrillingly and then, a whole new form of criminal activity morphs out of the rubble of what once was and becomes even more difficult to battle. The story takes on an epic sweep over several years and we're often open-mouthed at the various transformations within the constantly shifting crime scenes which, in turn, parallel the shifts in government policy and internal corruption at every level of law enforcement. As well, one of the chief conflicts of the film is between Nascimento and Fraga as they both rise on opposite ends of the law enforcement divide until they eventually are forced to play by the same rules.

There's great writing here. Juggling the constant power shifts and myriad of characters while infusing the movie with resonance beyond a Jerry Bruckheimer-styled actioner with Brazilian spice is handled with both intelligence and efficiency. I was less fond of the subplot involving Nascimento's family (and the somewhat hackneyed use of Fraga as a current lover to Nascimento's wife), but it works on a level of proficiency in terms of adding that audience-pleasing "now it's personal" touch.

Padilha coaxes superb performances out of his entire cast and his direction of the action scenes is top-flight. He uses his keen documentary eye to deliver a flavour of immediacy and real-life frissons, but at the same time, not resorting to the overly herky-jerky approach used by bargain basement Paul Greengrass wannabes. Frighteningly, Padhila's mise-en-scene inspires me to predict that the almost Third-World conditions of the United States might well mirror all of this in our lifetimes.

But, let's put those concerns aside for now. For little boys and those little boys that never grew up, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is first-rate derring-do and I'd be remiss to leave out how cool BOPE's uniforms are - they're easily on a par with the totalitarian Triumph of the Will-influenced uniforms in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers and the real-life emblem of BOPE (a skull with crossbones comprised with deadly weapons) is cooler than cool.

Best of all, the guns are shot and framed like steely penile implants that explode superior firepower.

Damn! I can hardly wait to see the next movie from Padilha.

He rocks. Big time!!!

"Elite Squad: The Enemy Within" is currently available on DVD and BLU-Ray. In Canada it's available through VVS Films. If your favourite video store is not stocking it, DEMAND IT! And if you love action/crime pictures, it's definitely worth owning anyway. I've even seen it for sale at Wal-Mart, so you have no excuse.












32nd GENIE AWARDS TRAILER

IN DARKNESS - Review by Greg Klymkiw - This powerful true story of the Holocaust, a Canadian-Polish co-production, has been nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar. The true story of a Polish war profiteer in the Ukrainian city of Lviv during WWII is replete with great performances, a fine screenplay by David F. Shamoon and expert direction from Agnieszka Holland.

In Darkness (2011) dir. Agnieszka Holland
Starring: Robert Wieckiewicz, Benno Fürmann, Michal Zurawski, Kinga Preis, Agnieszka Grochowska, Maria Schrader, Herbert Knaup

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Whenever a new film about the Holocaust appears, the oft-heard refrain is, "Not another one!" It's as if the subject itself is enough to inspire such dismissive reactions - which, frankly, I've never understood. Genocide is one of the greatest blights upon mankind as a species and given the especially horrific events of the 20th century, stories such as In Darkness must be told.

Set in the Ukrainian city of Lviv during World War II, we're introduced to the Polish plumber and sewer-worker Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz) who supplements his livelihood during the Nazi occupation by thieving and black marketeering. A group of people in the Jewish ghetto have burrowed into the sewers in order to escape the impending horrors that await them. Socha happens upon the Jews and agrees to hide them beneath the old city where nobody will find them - for a price, of course.

A major payday awaits when Socha's old friend Bortnick (Michal Zurawski), a member of the Ukrainian SS, mentions the substantial reward available for pointing officials to Jews in hiding. Socha gets the bright idea of soaking his Jewish charges until their money runs out and THEN betraying them for the bounty.

War, however, has different effects upon different people. Some take the easy road, while others face up to who they really are and make sacrifices with their very lives.

Much of the film takes place in the dank, dark sewers of Lviv and we are privy to the horrendous conditions the Jews must live in order to survive. While we follow Socha's adventures above ground, life for the Jews is presented in clear juxtaposition.

Here is where David F. Shamoon's screenplay adaptation of Robert Marshall's book really shines. Given the number of characters, above and below ground that must be juggled, he presents a series of evocative portraits on both sides of the divide. Above ground, not everyone is a villain, whilst below ground, not everyone is a saint. The screenplay provides humanity with a layered dramatic resonance.

The fine script allows for a flawless cast to deliver a series of performances that will burn in your memory long after seeing the film. Holland's direction is precise and classical. She doesn't miss any dramatic beats and it's finally a movie that never lets up - it's compelling, surprising, shocking and finally, profoundly moving from beginning to end.

I have one major quibble, however. I will admit that it would probably not even be a problem if I was NOT of Ukrainian heritage, but luckily I am, because it allowed me to pinpoint a missing political element that might well have added an even deeper layer to this fine film.

Here's the problem, as I see it. The city of Lviv was, prior to the Nazis marching in, already an occupied city. Poland had claimed a huge portion of Western Ukraine as its own and parachuted (so to speak) huge numbers of Polish citizens to populate and run the city. Many Ukrainians were forced out and eventually settled in outlying areas of the Oblast. Being in the midst of researching my own family tree, I have discovered that a great many of my blood ancestors were driven out of Lviv by the Poles. Ironically, many of them formed their own village which also bore my surname. The village was subsequently destroyed by the Poles when they decided to build a dam and flood the whole village. From there, my ancestors split up and settled even further West in and around Ternopil.

I have to admit that in light of this research I was troubled that the script ignored the fact that this "Polish" city was, in fact, already an occupied city prior to the Nazis. I was further disturbed that the only Ukrainian character in the tale was portrayed as a vile Jew-hating pig who doesn't collaborate with the Nazis for the usual reasons Ukrainians collaborated (many were duped into believing the Nazis would be their liberators from both Polish and Russian oppression). These are issues of ethnocentric ignorance that are hurtful, but let's cast them aside for a moment and think about this otherwise compelling story if it had added the element of Poles being an occupying force to begin with who were, in turn occupied. From a narrative standpoint, I'd argue this might have made the piece far more interesting and added an additional layer of complexity to one in which the filmmakers do not present easy Hollywood-style answers to the dilemmas facing all the characters.

It's the fact that the screenplay so diligently creates drama and conflict by presenting a myriad of complexities within the characters that it disappoints me the film did not take the time or effort to explore this avenue also.

This will no doubt be seen as an easily dismissed and biased quibble, but the fact remains that World War II and the Holocaust are fraught with horrendous sufferings and issues that are not black and white.

Some biases, it seems, are acceptable, while others are not.

The bottom line though, is that it's a terrific film. That said, even great pictures have potential to be greater and I believe my "bias" might well have improved the tale considerably.

"In Darkness", 2011 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film is currently in theatrical release and now playing in Canada via Mongrel Media.

Les Anges du péché - Review by Greg Klymkiw - WOW! Bresson does nunsploitation with, of course, that Ole' Bresson Black Magic! "Les Anges du péché" is part of the continuing TIFF Cinematheque retrospective of the complete works of Robert Bresson as organized/curated by legendary film programmer/curator James Quandt. MAJOR NEWSFLASH FOR TORONTO MOVIE-GOERS - AN ADDITIONAL SHOW HAS BEEN ADDED DUE TO PUBLIC DEMAND!!!! (see below for more info)

Les Anges du péché (1943) dir. Robert Bresson
Starring: Renée Faure, Jany Holt

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Robert Bresson does nunsploitation like no other!

Well, I guess Les Anges du péché doesn't really count as nunsploitation, but I'd hazard a guess that many of those crazed practitioners of the popular Euro-trash genre of the 70s would have been acquainted with Bresson's weird, compelling semi-thriller (and, for good measure, Powell-Pressburger's crazed-nutty-nun-o-rama in the Himalayas, Black Narcissus).

Nunsploitation, much like Nazisploitation (Ilsa: She-Wolf of the S.S.) and the Women-in-Prison pictures (Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat), was one of those weird 70s genres involving sex, sadism and gore-galore. The nunsploitation flicks featured extremely attractive Euro-babes in nun habits indulging in all manner of perversion - including the requisite nun-on-nun-action, due, of course, to their cloistered Über repression. There'd often be a strict Mother Superior (not unlike a concentration camp commandant or prison warden), a good nun, a bad nun and everything in-between. Les Anges du péché is populated with similar characters, though you might have to use a bit more imagination conjuring up the decidedly salacious details of its 70s grandchildren.

The nun pictures, were always my favourite of these disreputable 70s genres (perhaps being brought up in the twisted Eastern-Rite Ukrainian Catholic Church had something to do with it, in addition, no doubt, to the fine programming available at the delectable array of urine-soaked, cum-stained, hooker-heaven grindhouses in my old Winter City of Winnipeg). Many of them, like Guilio Berruti's delightful Killer Nun with Anita Ekberg and Joe Dallesandro, Joe D'Amato's deliciously sexy The Nun and the Devil and Gianfranco Mingozzi's genuinely fine Flavia the Heretic with the phenomenal Florinda Bolkan, all featured critical portraits of the Catholic Church. However, amongst such "serious" anti-Papal thematic concerns, they were blessed with generous dollops of flagellation and fleshly desires. (Flagellation can, of course, be found in Carl Dreyer, but you've gotta scratch below the surface to find it in Bresson. Fleshly desires in Bresson, are a bit easier to pinpoint, though.)

I doubt Powell-Pressburger would have minded the (somewhat) dubious distinction of being a precursor to the nunsploitation genre with their own Black Narcissus, but something tells me Robert Bresson might have had a thing or two to say about it.

Les Anges du péché is a tremendously entertaining picture. It's often considered his first film (though he had already delivered the delightful musical-comedy Affaires publiques about ten years earlier).

And what a movie!

Though it features the beginnings of what would become his trademark style, as well as themes not dissimilar to those on display in the later Diary of a Country Priest, Bresson delivers a gorgeously photographed, almost expressionistic semi-thriller in a studio-bound melodrama.

We follow the tale of Anne-Marie (Renée Faure), a young (babe, 'natch!) who abandons her life of privilege to join a convent of nuns to serve God in his work amongst the female criminals in a nearby prison.

(Yee-haaa! Bresson does nunsploitation AND women-in-prison! Sorry, Robert, I'm no doubt forcing you to spin in your grave.)

One of Anne-Marie's goals is to work on the unrepentant prisoner Thérèse (Jany Holt). Not unlike the 70s women in prison pictures, she's lacking remorse for her "crime" because she's taken the fall for her loser boyfriend who was, in fact, the real thief. She just wants to serve her time quietly (not unlike the silence of the nunnery).

Disaster strikes when a brutal murder is committed and the nuns are forced to provide sanctuary. The bourgeois Anne-Marie faces an even greater challenge here - one that leads to a deadly dénouement.

Good Lord! Bresson even provides a cinematic precursor to the delightful Gialli popularized by the likes of Dario Argento ande Mario Bava, etc. (Yes, Robert, I know - you're spinning like a dervish now!)

Seriously, though, this is really terrific stuff.

Not only do we experience Bresson delivering a picture replete with both his style AND the tropes of mainstream suspense, but the movie - made during the Nazi occupation of France - deals very cleverly and subtly with the way in which the nunnery operates in comparison to the prison and most importantly, how the secular world is essentially the Vichy and the religious world, the Resistance.

There's no other way to describe it - Les Anges du péché is cool!

No, it's Über-Cool!!!

Some might find it odd to equate this picture with the aforementioned genres of the 70s, but I think it's important for Bresson to be viewed outside of the normally rarefied atmosphere of critical deification that his work is so often subject to. He inspired and influenced filmmakers of every stripe and I'd argue that his best work, while truly extraordinary, is as gripping and entertaining as that of those who worked and continue to work - not only in art films, but in genre pictures and the mainstream.

Bresson is probably one of a handful of directors who deserves to be considered one of the best of all time. I find him untouchable, in that sense.

However, in the words of an old-time film distributor I used to know, Bresson puts one "one helluva great show!"

"Les Anges du péché" is part of the TIFF Cinemtheque's major retrospective organized and curated by the legendary programmer James Quandt. Aptly titled "The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson", this and every other Bresson film is unspooling at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto and over a dozen cinemas across North America. "Les Anges du péché" is also available on a stunning import DVD. This is definitely worth owning, but only AFTER or in TANDEM with seeing the picture ON A BIG SCREEN - ON FILM.

"Les Anges du péché" is screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox for ONE SHOW ONLY Thursday February 16 at 6:30 PM. DO NOT MISS THIS!!! ONE SHOW ONLY!!!

YO! YO! YO! HOLD THE PHONE! NOT JUST ONE SHOW! DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND, A SECOND SHOW HAS BEEN ADDED!!! SO NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!

The second show is playing Sunday, February 26 at 8pm.

To order tickets and read Quandt's fabulous program notes, visit the TIFF website HERE.

To read my opening tribute to Bresson and this series, feel free to visit The Robert Bresson Man-Cave™ HERE. I am reviewing every film Bresson ever made. In case you missed it, my review of "A Man Escaped" is HERE, my review of "Pickpocket" is HERE, my review of "Mouchette" is HERE and my review of "Diary of a Country Priest" is HERE.












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