ABOUT GREG KLYMKIW - un homme grincheux qui aime l'art du cinema: Greg Klymkiw’s 35 years in the movie business includes journalism, screenwriting, script editing, producing and 13 years of service to Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre as the senior creative consultant and producer-in-residence. In addition to producing iconoclastic work by Guy Maddin, Cynthia Roberts, Bruno Lazaro Pacheco and Alan Zweig, his legendary guerilla campaigns as the Winnipeg Film Group’s director of distribution and marketing placed prairie post-modernist cinema on national and international stages. In addition to Klymkiw Film Corner, he writes for POV, Phantom of the Movies' VIDEOSCOPE and among others, Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema. He's writing a book about screenwriting entitled "Movies Are Action" (featuring interviews with the world's best filmmakers). He is the subject of a documentary by Ryan McKenna entitled: "Survival Lessons: The Greg Klymkiw Story". At last count he had seen over 30,000 feature films.
GUIDE TO STAR RATINGS: ***** Masterpiece **** Excellent ***1/2 Very Good *** Good **1/2 Not Bad ** Whatever
*1/2 Poor * Raw Sewage . . . If a film is not quite up to earning a 1/2 star or 1 star, it will earn at least 1 Pubic Hair.
Here is a reprint of some of my musings during the 32nd Annual Genie Awards as they sprouted from my mind, shot through my fingers and spewed into cyberspace.
By Greg Klymkiw
The pre-show show is now going on for the "less important" awards. They gave the Golden Reel Award to Starbuck. This is still the weirdest award ever - given to the highest grossing Canadian movie of the year. Do the Oscars acknowledge the highest grossing film of the year with an award? No, because supposedly such awards ultimately (or supposedly) have to do with artistic achievement.
A Dangerous Method won Best Art Direction and Production Design. Here in the press room, Richard Crouse is up on a mini-stage interviewing him (and other winners) for our benefit while the pre-show is broadcast without sound. Richard graciously takes a lot of time with the winners and allows ample opportunity for questions from the assembled press corps. Still, there are murmurings from a few that they'd rather be watching the pre-broadcast show onstage.
Crouse is now interviewing the winners of the various short film prizes. I think I will eat my hot buffet while this is going on.
Great, the Jutra prize for first feature films is also deemed unworthy of the live broadcast. Way to support emerging talent, CBC!!!! Winner Anne Emond, director of Nuit #1 is gracious in the press room and Crouse does a lovely job interviewing this clearly intelligent, talented young filmmaker. Too bad the CBC didn't think it was worth broadcasting her win to the rest of Canada.
La Nuit, Elles Dansent / At Night, They Dance is the winner of Best Feature Documentary Award. It's about a family of Belly Dancers. Something tells me Julia Ivanova's movie Family Portrait in Black and White about a woman who cares for unwanted mixed-race orphans in Ukraine got hosed.
Fantastic, they're doing the tribute to great Canadians in the movie business who died during the pre-show. Way to go, CBC. Way to support our cultural heritage and the passing of those who contributed to it, by NOT sharing it with the rest of the country.
I'll grant that Starbuck is not much good, but again it sucks that the Best Original Screenplay Award is presented in the pre-show. Way to go CBC! Way to support screenwriting!
HERE IS MY DELICIOUS MEAL:
The live broadcast has begun. Some guy I've never heard of is singing a lame song.
Viggo - not surprisingly - wins Best Supporting Actor. His speech is going on a bit. Big deal. It's Viggo. The orchestra is playing - signalling to Viggo to get off the stage. Viggo is making a funny Canadiens joke. CBC wants Viggo offstage. Now Viggo is unfurling a Habs flag. They still are trying to urge him to leave. What to go CBC! Real classy! I guess they have something better to air after the Genies. God knows, the CBC would not want to go overtime.
Oh Jesus, they have figure skaters skating during the Best Song nominees. Way to go CBC! Kitsch Galore!
Backstage, Viggo admits to wearing a pair of Ken Dryden's old gitch and that in spite of a few holes in them, they're very clean.
Ingrid Veninger has just asked if she should have some lasagna now. I choose not to stop her.
That cute little girl from Monsieur Lazhar just won. In my heart I knew this was the no-brainer decision, but part of me thought that the Academy would toss a nod to The Whistleblower here. I was wrong. Happily wrong.
Oh Jesus, more figure skating!
This show is moving so fast it's kind of oppressively dull because of it. Sort of like how Michael Bay cuts his movies.
Strombo: Wondering how people are doing in their Genie Pools? Genie Pools? Is this some kind of hot tub?
Had myself a nice cigarette outside while Falardeau picked up his Best Director Genie.
Sorry folks, I'm going to switch to Facebook and Twitter for awhile. See you there.
The 32nd Annual Genie Awards
and The First Annual Klymkiw Genie Awards By Greg Klymkiw
A new day is dawning on the Genie Awards (Canada's version of the Oscars) with a whole new Board of Directors and a new head honcho, the inimitable Canadian Cinema Dynamo: Helga Stephenson. I'm also happy to report that the 32nd Awards ceremony is finally back where it belongs and will be broadcast on Canada's Peoples' Network, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). When the CBC decided a few years ago to stop participating in the Genie Awards I was utterly gob-smacked! Ratings be damned! The CBC is a public broadcaster and has a duty to celebrate homegrown cinema. End of story!
In keeping with this momentous event, please find below all the Genie Nominee categories I care to cover. Each category will list the official nominees, but will be accompanied with my own picks for films that SHOULD have been nominated and films that SHOULD have won had the Genie Awards bothered to Nominate them. These categories (highlighted below in bold italics) comprise my picks for The First Annual Klymkiw Genie Awards. You'll also notice in a couple of categories my own personal picks for what's best DO correspond to the Genie nominations.
I will also opine on what of the nominated films SHOULD win (as determined pour moi) and my predictions on what WILL win.
The full list of the First Annual KLYMKIW Genie Awards will Be Summarized at the bottom of this piece, so if you don't feel like going through all the other stuff and ONLY want to see what I think represents the best of Canadian Cinema in 2011, just scroll down.
Some of the Canadian films that I chose for my own accolades didn't even bother submitting their films to the Genie Awards for a variety of reasons - either the fees to enter the awards were too high or they just didn't think the Genie Awards were worth entering. I've personally always had a problem with the idea of producers having to submit their films for consideration and PAY for the privilege. Every film released within the Academy's guidelines should be considered and should NOT have fees attached to them. It lacks class. End of story.
During the awards I will report on the actual winners of the awards live from the Genie Awards Press Room and update this column when this information becomes available. I might also present a few quips along the way at the bottom of this piece and occasionally tweet a few thoughts on Twitter (so you're welcome to check in here and/or follow me on Twitter @GregKlymkiwCFC).
As you'll see below, many of my own nominees and winners differ considerably from the Genie nominees, but as James Cagney says in Raoul Walsh's Strawberry Blonde, "Thet's just the kind of hairpin I am."
I left a few categories right off that I have no opinion on (Best Song and all the shorts), but everything else is detailed below. In reality, I can't imagine too many people outside of the Canadian film industry will be watching and/or care, but perhaps the ratings will prove me wrong. In any event, Let's have a blast.
Just before we begin,
feel free to watch the
32nd GENIE AWARDS TRAILER
Best Motion Picture
A Dangerous Method – Martin Katz, Marco Mehlitz, Jeremy Thomas
Café De Flore – Pierre Even, Marie-Claude Poulin, Jean-Marc Vallée
Monsieur Lazhar – Luc Déry, Kim Mccraw
Starbuck – André Rouleau
The Whistleblower – Christina Piovesan, Celine Rattray
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Daydream Nation - Trish Dolman, Christine Haebler
Father's Day – Lloyd Kaufman, Astron-6
Keyhole - Jody Shapiro
Le Vendeur - Marc Daigle, Bernadette Payeur
Take This Waltz - Susan Cavan
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Le Vendeur - Marc Daigle, Bernadette Payeur
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Monsieur Lazhar – Luc Déry, Kim Mccraw
What Will Win:
Monsieur Lazhar – Luc Déry, Kim Mccraw
And the winner is:
Monsieur Lazhar – Luc Déry, Kim Mccraw
Achievement In Art Direction/Production Design
Jean Bécotte – Funkytown
Aidan Leroux, Rob Hepburn – Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster
James Mcateer – A Dangerous Method
Patrice Vermette – Café De Flore
Emelia Weavind – The Bang Bang Club
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
In Darkness - Erwin Prib
Keyhole - Ricardo Alms, Matt Holm
Le Vendeur - Mario Hervieux
The Mountie - Jim Goodall
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Keyhole - Ricardo Alms, Matt Holm
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Emelia Weavind – The Bang Bang Club
What Will Win:
James Mcateer – A Dangerous Method
And the winner is:
James Mcateer – A Dangerous Method
Achievement In Cinematography
Miroslaw Baszak, C.S.C. – The Bang Bang Club
Pierre Cottereau – Café De Flore
Jon Joffin – Daydream Nation
Jean-François Lord – Snow & Ashes
Ronald Plante – Monsieur Lazhar
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
In Darkness - Jolanta Dylewska
Keyhole - Benjamin Kasulke
Le Vendeur - Michel La Veaux
The Mountie - Rene Smith
Take This Waltz - Luc Montpellier
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Le Vendeur - Michel La Veaux
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Miroslaw Baszak, C.S.C. – The Bang Bang Club
What Will Win:
Pierre Cottereau – Café De Flore
And the winner is:
Jean-François Lord – Snow & Ashes
Achievement In Costume Design
Denise Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method
Farnaz Khaki-Sadigh – Afghan Luke
Ginette Magny, Emmanuelle Youchnovski – Café De Flore
Heather Neale – Keyhole
Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt – Funkytown
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
In Darkness - Jagna Janicka, Nadine Kremeier, Katarzyna Lewinska
Manborg - Astron-6
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Manborg - Astron-6
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Heather Neale – Keyhole
What Will Win:
Denise Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method
And the winner is:
Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt – Funkytown
Achievement In Direction
David Cronenberg – A Dangerous Method
Steven Silver – The Bang Bang Club
Jean-Marc Vallée – Café De Flore
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
Larysa Kondracki – The Whistleblower
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Daydream Nation - Michael Goldbach
Father's Day - Astron-6
Keyhole - Guy Maddin
Le Vendeur - Sebastien Pilote
Take This Waltz - Sarah Polley
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Le Vendeur - Sebastien Pilote
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
What Will Win:
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
And the winner is:
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
Achievement In Editing
Jean-François Bergeron – The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom
Michael Czarnecki – In Darkness
Patrick Demers – Jaloux
Stéphane Lafleur – Monsieur Lazhar
Ronald Sanders, C.C.E. A.C.E. – A Dangerous Method
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke
Le Vendeur - Michel Arcand
The Mountie - Kerry Davie
Take This Waltz - Chris Donaldson
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Michael Czarnecki – In Darkness
What Will Win:
Ronald Sanders, C.C.E. A.C.E. – A Dangerous Method
And the winner is:
Stéphane Lafleur – Monsieur Lazhar
Achievement In Make-Up
Christiane Fattori, Frédéric Marin – Café De Flore
Amber Makar – Amazon Falls
Virginie Paré – Bumrush
Tammy Lou Pate – Snow & Ashes
Leslie Ann Sebert, David R. Beecroft – Take This Waltz
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Father's Day - Steven Kostanski
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Christiane Fattori, Frédéric Marin – Café De Flore
What Will Win:
Christiane Fattori, Frédéric Marin – Café De Flore
And the winner is:
Christiane Fattori, Frédéric Marin – Café De Flore
Achievement In Music – Original Score
Ramachandra Borcar – Jaloux
Mychael Danna – The Whistleblower
Martin Léon – Monsieur Lazhar
Philip Miller – The Bang Bang Club
Howard Shore – A Dangerous Method
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Father's Day - Brian Wiacek
Keyhole - Jason Staczek
Manborg - Brian Wiacek, Jeremy Gillespie
The Mountie - Ivan Barbotin
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Howard Shore – A Dangerous Method
What Will Win:
Howard Shore – A Dangerous Method
And the winner is:
Howard Shore – A Dangerous Method
Performance By An Actor In A Leading Role
Fellag – Monsieur Lazhar
Garret Dillahunt – Oliver Sherman
Michael Fassbender – A Dangerous Method
Patrick Huard – Starbuck
Scott Speedman – Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
In Darkness - Robert Wieckiewicz
Keyhole - Jason Patric
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
Le Vendeur - Gilbert Sicotte
Take This Waltz - Seth Rogen
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Le Vendeur - Gilbert Sicotte
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Fellag – Monsieur Lazhar
What Will Win:
Fellag – Monsieur Lazhar
And the winner is:
Fellag – Monsieur Lazhar
Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role
Antoine Bertrand – Starbuck
Kevin Durand – Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster
Marin Gerrier – Café De Flore
Taylor Kitsch – The Bang Bang Club
Viggo Mortensen – A Dangerous Method
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Father's Day - Mackenzie Murdock
Keyhole - Louis Negin
Marécages - Gabriel Maillé
Marécages - Luc Picard
The Mountie - Earl Pastko
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Keyhole - Louis Negin
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Viggo Mortensen – A Dangerous Method
What Will Win:
Viggo Mortensen – A Dangerous Method
And the winner is:
Viggo Mortensen – A Dangerous Method
Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role
Catherine De Léan – Nuit #1
Pascale Montpetit – The Girl In The White Coat
Vanessa Paradis – Café De Flore
Rachel Weisz – The Whistleblower
Michelle Williams – Take This Waltz
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Marécages - Pascale Bussières
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Take This Waltz - Michelle Williams
What Will Win:
The Whistleblower - Rachel Weisz
And the winner is:
Vanessa Paradis – Café De Flore
Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role
Roxana Condurache – The Whistleblower
Hélène Florent – Café De Flore
Julie Lebreton – Starbuck
Sophie Nélisse – Monsieur Lazhar
Charlotte Sullivan – Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Daydream Nation - Katie Boland
In Darkness - Agnieszka Grochowska
Keyhole - Isabella Rossellini
Le Vendeur - Nathalie Cavezzali
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Le Vendeur - Nathaie Cavezzali
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Sophie Nélisse – Monsieur Lazhar
What Will Win:
Roxana Condurache – The Whistleblower
And the winner is:
Sophie Nélisse – Monsieur Lazhar
Achievement In Overall Sound
Stéphane Bergeron, Yann Cleary, Lise Wedlock
– Marécages
Pierre Bertrand, Shaun Nicholas Gallagher, Bernard Gariépy Strobl
– Monsieur Lazhar
Jean Minondo, Jocelyn Caron, Gavin Fernandes, Louis Gignac
– Café De Flore
Lou Solakofski, Stephan Carrier, Kirk Lynds
– The Bang Bang Club
Orest Sushko, Christian Cooke
– A Dangerous Method
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke, Lou Solakofski, Stan Mak
Le Vendeur - Stéphane Bergeron, Olivier Calvert, Gilles Corbeil
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke, Lou Solakofski, Stan Mak
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Lou Solakofski, Stephan Carrier, Kirk Lynds – The Bang Bang Club
What Will Win:
Orest Sushko, Christian Cooke – A Dangerous Method
And the winner is:
Orest Sushko, Christian Cooke – A Dangerous Method
Achievement In Sound Editing
Fred Brennan, James Bastable, Gabe Knox, John Sievert
– You Are Here
Claude Beaugrand, Olivier Calvert, Natalie Fleurant, Francine Poirier
- Marécages
Wayne Griffin, Rob Bertola, Tony Currie, Andy Malcolm, Michael O’farrell
– A Dangerous Method
Martin Pinsonnault, Blaise Blanchier, Simon Meilleur, Mireille Morin, Luc Raymond
– Café De Flore
Jeremy Maclaverty, Daniel Pellerin, Geoff Raffan, Jan Rudy, John Sievert, James Mark Stewart
– In Darkness
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Keyhole - David McCallum, David Rose, Krystin Hunter
Le Vendeur - Olivier Calvert
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Keyhole - David McCallum, David Rose, Krystin Hunter
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
In Darkness
- Jeremy Maclaverty, Daniel Pellerin, Geoff Raffan, Jan Rudy, John Sievert, James Mark Stewart
What Will Win:
A Dangerous Method
- Wayne Griffin, Rob Bertola, Tony Currie, Andy Malcolm, Michael O’farrell
And the winner is:
A Dangerous Method
- Wayne Griffin, Rob Bertola, Tony Currie, Andy Malcolm, Michael O’farrell
Original Screenplay
Anne Émond – Nuit #1
Eilis Kirwan, Larysa Kondracki – The Whistleblower
Ken Scott, Martin Petit – Starbuck
Jean-Marc Vallée – Café De Flore
Ryan Ward, Matthew Heiti – Son Of The Sunshine
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Daydream Nation - Michael Goldbach
Father's Day - Astron-6
Keyhole - George Toles, Guy Maddin
Le Vendeur - Sébastien Pilote
Marécages - Guy Édoin
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Keyhole - George Toles, Guy Maddin
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
None of them
What Will Win:
Jean-Marc Vallée – Café De Flore
And the winner is:
Ken Scott, Martin Petit – Starbuck
Adapted Screenplay
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
Ryan Redford – Oliver Sherman
David Shamoon – In Darkness
Steven Silver – The Bang Bang Club
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
David Shamoon – In Darkness
What Will Win:
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
And the winner is:
Philippe Falardeau – Monsieur Lazhar
Achievement In Visual Effects
A Dangerous Method -
Dennis Berardi, Mathew Bornett, Mike Borrett, Wilson Cameron, Ovi Cinazin,
Jason Edwardh, Oliver Hearsey, Jim Price, Milan Schere, Wolciech Zielinski
Snow and Ashes
Éve Brunet, Jacques Lévesque, Philippe Roberge
Marc Côté, Stéphanie Broussaud, Gary Chuntz, Vincent Dudouet,
Cynthia Mourou, Eric Normandin, Martin Pensa, Luc Sanfaçon, Sylvain Théroux,
Café De Flore -
Nathalie Tremblay
Bumrush -
Geoffroy Lauzon
Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster -
Tom Turnbull, Ian Britton, Robert Crowther, Tony Cybulski
What Should Have Been Nominated But Wasn't:
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
What Should Have Won
If The Genies Had Bothered To Nominate It:
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Tom Turnbull, Ian Britton, Robert Crowther, Tony Cybulski – Edwin Boyd: Citizen
Gangster
What Will Win:
Tom Turnbull, Ian Britton, Robert Crowther, Tony Cybulski – Edwin Boyd: Citizen
Gangster
And the winner is:
Café De Flore -
Nathalie Tremblay
Best Feature Length Documentary
Beauty Day
– Jay Cheel, Kristina Mclaughlin, Kevin Mcmahon, Roman Pizzacalla
Family Portrait In Black And White
– Julia Ivanova, Boris Ivanov
The Guantanamo Trap
– Thomas Wallner, Amit Breuer, Patrick Crowe
La Nuit, Elles Dansent / At Night, They Dance
– Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault, Lucie Lambert
Wiebo’s War
– David York, Nick Hector, C.C.E., Bryn Hughes, Bonnie Thompson
What Should Win Based Upon The Nominees as They Stand:
Family Portrait In Black And White
– Julia Ivanova, Boris Ivanov
What Will Win:
Family Portrait In Black And White
– Julia Ivanova, Boris Ivanov
And the winner is:
La Nuit, Elles Dansent / At Night, They Dance
– Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault, Lucie Lambert
THE FIRST ANNUAL "KLYMKIW" GENIE AWARDS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Trish Dolman, Christine Haebler
Father's Day – Lloyd Kaufman, Astron-6
Keyhole - Jody Shapiro
Le Vendeur - Marc Daigle, Bernadette Payeur
Take This Waltz - Susan Cavan
BEST PICTURE WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Marc Daigle, Bernadette Payeur
BEST ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN NOMINEES
The Bang Bang Club - Emelia Weavind
In Darkness - Erwin Prib
Keyhole - Ricardo Alms, Matt Holm
Le Vendeur - Mario Hervieux
The Mountie - Jim Goodall
BEST ART DIRECTION/PD WINNER:
Keyhole - Ricardo Alms, Matt Holm
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY NOMINEES
In Darkness - Jolanta Dylewska
Keyhole - Benjamin Kasulke
Le Vendeur - Michel La Veaux
The Mountie - Rene Smith
Take This Waltz - Luc Montpellier
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Michel La Veaux
BEST COSTUME DESIGN NOMINEES
A Dangerous Method - Denise Cronenberg
Café De Flore - Ginette Magny, Emmanuelle Youchnovski
Keyhole - Heather Neale
In Darkness - Jagna Janicka, Nadine Kremeier, Katarzyna Lewinska
Manborg - Astron-6
BEST COSTUME DESIGN WINNER:
Keyhole - Heather Neale
BEST DIRECTOR NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Michael Goldbach
Father's Day - Astron-6
Keyhole - Guy Maddin
Le Vendeur - Sebastien Pilote
Take This Waltz - Sarah Polley
BEST DIRECTOR WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Sebastien Pilote
BEST EDITING NOMINEES
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke
Le Vendeur - Michel Arcand
The Mountie - Kerry Davie
Take This Waltz - Chris Donaldson
BEST EDITING WINNER:
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
BEST MAKEUP NOMINEES & WINNERS:
Father's Day - Steven Kostanski
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
*NOTE* NOTHING COMES REMOTELY CLOSE
TO THE WORK IN THESE PICTURES.
NOTHING! NADA! THIS IS IT!
BEST MUSIC NOMINEES
A Dangerous Method - Howard Shore
Father's Day - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
Keyhole - Jason Staczek
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
The Mountie - Ivan Barbotin
BEST MUSIC WINNERS:
Father's Day - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
BEST ACTOR NOMINEES
In Darkness - Robert Wieckiewicz
Keyhole - Jason Patric
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
Le Vendeur - Gilbert Sicotte
Take This Waltz - Seth Rogen
BEST ACTOR WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Gilbert Sicotte
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR NOMINEES
Father's Day - Mackenzie Murdock
Keyhole - Louis Negin
Marécages - Gabriel Maillé
Marécages - Luc Picard
The Mountie - Earl Pastko
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR WINNER:
Keyhole - Louis Negin
BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Katt Dennings
Father's Day - Amy Groening
Manborg - Meredith Sweeney
Marécages - Pascale Bussières
Take This Waltz - Michelle Williams
BEST ACTRESS WINNER:
Marécages - Pascale Bussières
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Katie Boland
In Darkness - Agnieszka Grochowska
Keyhole - Isabella Rossellini
Le Vendeur - Nathalie Cavezzali
Monsieur Lazhar - Sophie Nélisse
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Nathalie Cavezzali
BEST SOUND NOMINEES
The Bang Bang Club - Lou Solakofski, Stephan Carrier, Kirk Lynds
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke, Lou Solakofski, Stan Mak
Le Vendeur - Stéphane Bergeron, Olivier Calvert, Gilles Corbeil
Marécages - Stéphane Bergeron, Yann Cleary, Lise Wedlock
BEST SOUND WINNER:
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke, Lou Solakofski, Stan Mak
BEST SOUND EDITING NOMINEES:
In Darkness
Jeremy Maclaverty, Daniel Pellerin, Geoff Raffan,
Jan Rudy, John Sievert, James Mark Stewart
Keyhole
David McCallum, David Rose, Krystin Hunter
Le Vendeur
Olivier Calvert
Manborg
Astron-6
Marécages
Claude Beaugrand, Olivier Calvert, Natalie Fleurant, Francine Poirier
BEST SOUND EDITING WINNER:
Keyhole - David McCallum, David Rose, Krystin Hunter
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Michael Goldbach
Father's Day - Astron-6
Keyhole - George Toles, Guy Maddin
Le Vendeur - Sébastien Pilote
Marécages - Guy Édoin
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY WINNER:
Keyhole - George Toles, Guy Maddin
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY NOMINEE AND WINNER:
David Shamoon – In Darkness
*NOTE* NOTHING COMES REMOTELY CLOSE TO THIS ONE,
IT'S GREATNESS AS AN ADAPTED SCREENPLAY CANNOT
BE TARNISHED BY ASSOCIATING IT WITH OTHERS.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS NOMINEE AND WINNER:
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
*NOTE* FORGET ALL THE REST!!!
THIS IS THE CAT'S ASS!!!
THIS ROCKS BIGTIME!!!
BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY NOMINEE AND WINNER:
Family Portrait In Black And White
– Julia Ivanova, Boris Ivanov
*NOTE* NO PUSSY-FOOTING AROUND HERE!
THE BEST CANADIAN DOCUMENTARY I SAW ALL YEAR!
A collection of experts weighed in on "What the Canadian Film Industry Needs Most" via Gayle MacDonald in the March 7, 2012 Edition of the Globe and Mail. On the eve of the 32nd Annual Genie Awards, only one of them directly addressed what I suspect is the real problem. Here then are my responses to some of the comments and my own thoughts on the matter.
What the Canadian Film Industry Needs Most Is Less Punditry. That Said, Here's More Pundrity. It's the Canadian Way!
By Greg Klymkiw
CAMERON BAILEY
Cameron is one of Canada's most astute film critics and since he took over as co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), we're alternately all the better for it (as he seeks out great cinema for us to watch) and all the worse for it (since we don't get to read his punchy, musically-styled prose on cinema on a regular basis). Cameron suggests that English Canadian Cinema needs to snuffle back a bit o' that magical Quebec oxygen. He opines:
"Quebec is turning out films of ambition and depth that look outward rather than just in. I think there's talent equal to Quebec in the rest of Canada, but maybe somebody needs to throw open a window and let some of that air in."
I suspect Cameron would, if given a few more column inches, have admitted the whopping number of Quebec films that do NOT look outward. While many of these indigenously delightful Joual-tinged knee-slappers go through the roof in their home province, they certainly do zero business outside of French Canada (and not just in English Canada, but worldwide and EVEN in French-speaking territories outside of Canada).
Frankly, English Canadian Cinema has, especially since the late 80s and early 90s, often looked outward, and in fact, has performed extremely well in foreign markets. The list includes David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Patricia Rozema, Vincenzo Natali, Brad Peyton and a whole whack of others. On the homefront, though, things are more dire. I shall opine on this later.
RUBBA NADDA
Rubba Nadda is the director of Sabah, Cairo Time and the upcoming thriller Inescapable. Here are her thoughts:
"Sometimes I just think it needs more balls, more courage. The Canadian industry is so afraid of taking risks. When I took the script for "Inescapable" to the United States, everyone wanted to do it. I got the first support from the States, not from Canada. It’s the Canadian way to hesitate."
I have no quarrels with this. Canada (particularly on the English side) is a country that is far too mired in the sort of bureaucracy that places emphasis on "fairness", "committee" decision-making, political correctness bordering on fascism and pathetically obvious self-serving nest-feathering which results in a seemingly conservative approach to all matters cultural. It's the Canadian way to smile whilst stabbing in the back instead of looking directly into one's eye as they gut you. This dweeb-ish cowardice is abominable. The worst thing is when purse-string holders - even within private business - are more apt to hide behind the proverbial "we". "The committee" is the oft-used term as opposed to "I". We need more people within the system to take personal responsibility for their often wrong-headed decisions - rooted in the kind of "well-meaning" approaches that are hardly a conducive approach to the "balls" and "courage" Ms. Nadda refers to above.
KEVIN DEWALT
Kevin Dewalt is one of Canada's most successful producers from Regina. He hits a nail on the head here that's been bugging me since I started in this industry.
"Canadian films need larger budgets to attract bigger international stars to compete in the international market place. There are tax schemes in Britain for private investors to invest in British films. The King’s Speech is a prime example. Without private-equity funding out of the U.K., this movie would never have been made. By creating similar private-investor programs in Canada, we would be able to increase our budgets and compete more effectively in the global marketplace."
Though I'm not sure larger budgets are ALWAYS going to be the answer, this country desperately needs an aggressive and progressive tax shelter. End of story. Everyone focuses upon the negative aspects of the Canadian tax shelter days, but for all the bad movies generated during that period, the number of artistically and/or commercially significant works produced then equals if not betters what's been generated without it. Filmmakers need the freedom to generate truly private investment. My oft-repeated no-brainer formula of aggressive tax shelters, larger tax credits and substantial tax incentives for marketing, exhibition and distribution may seem simplistic, but there's the old screenwriting adage, KISS ("Keep it simple, stupid") which is best applied to most things in life.
ROBERT LANTOS
Robert Lantos is the closest thing Canada has to a bonafide mogul. He began his illustrious career hawking the New York Erotic Film Festival and steadily built more than enough empires in this business based on his vision and astute dipping into every public trough imaginable. Here is the sum total of his thoughts on this:
"Prime-time access to and meaningful investment from broadcasters, as is the case in France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and most other countries where films are made."
Thank you, Robert, for your detailed response.
NIV FICHMAN
Niv Fichman is not only a mensch and a half, he's produced one great Canadian film after another. Beginning his career overseeing some of the most world-class arts and culture productions ever made and then delivering gems like Last Night, The Saddest Music in the World and Hobo With a Shotgun, he can certainly be forgiven for his part in the recent career of Paul Gross (most notably Passchendaele and GOD HELP US ALL - Gunless).
"What Canadian film most needs right now is a new voice. The voice of a young generation that grew up with the Internet and YouTube and digital cameras and [video editing software] Final Cut Pro. A generation that has been making films since they were children and self-distributing their work on YouTube."
In theory, I agree. In practise, I think it's unhealthy to encourage the "anyone can make a film" tradition that's sprouted from the digital revolution. I do agree that genuinely talented young voices need to be supported. Interestingly, I think there already exists a new hope in English Canadian Cinema. They call themselves "Astron-6", a filmmaking collective from Winnipeg that's been generating a series of mind-blowing short films and two features for absolutely no money. Their influences have been 80s direct-to-video genre pictures as well as the post-modern flights of fancy already pioneered by their 'Peg confreres John Paizs and Guy Maddin. In 2011 these psycho kids - who are REAL filmmakers with a distinctive voice - delivered one of the most insane sci-fi love letters to the 80s I've ever seen. Imaginative, naughty and knee-splappingly hilarious, MANBORG, replete with tres-cool visuals, was made for just over $1000. Their other triumph is FATHER'S DAY, a truly brilliant splatter-fest that was made for a mere $10,000 (courtesy of Troma's Lloyd Kaufman) and has played theatrically all over the United States. This particular item focuses upon a serial killer from hell who specializes in raping and butchering fathers and is hunted down by a rag-tag group of brave avengers (led by a one-eyed Jason Statham-lookalike). This a truly warped, sick, funny, disgusting and deliciously bum-blasting masterpiece. Niv! These guys need someone just like YOU! Ditch this Paul Gross fellow and embrace the utter madness that is Astron-6.
INGRID VENINGER
Ingrid Veninger might well be cinema’s only living equivalent to a whirling dervish. Like a dervish, she honours her Creator (cinema), her prophets (Cassavetes, Leigh and others), then whips her creative concoction into a frenzy – literally living and breathing cinema – producing film from within herself, her devotion and life itself. Ingrid has produced a whack of features including the mega-Genie-nominated Nurse Fighter Boy and has directed three terrific features including i am a good person/i am a bad person. Here's what she had to offer:
"Exhibition quotas. Our cinemas should be mandated to screen a percentage of Canadian content, just like our television broadcasters and radio. People say, “Theatrical quotas will never happen. It's impossible,” but I say, “People make the impossible happen every day.” Claude Jutra (Mon oncle Antoine) once said, “Not making the films you want to make is awful, but making them and not having them seen is worse.”
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (as I've said this many times before and will keep saying it), English Canada needs an exhibition quota.
In English Canada, there is one primary target: Cineplex Entertainment. The "Canadian" exhibition chain owns and/or controls more screens than anyone in the country. They'll always argue that their only concern is their stockholders and that they'll play any Canadian movie as long as it makes money. That's all well and good when it comes to no-brainer programming choices like the start-studded Cronenberg spanking-fest A Dangerous Method or Michael Dowse's brilliant hockey splatter fest GOON, but what about the rest of the product?
A secondary target for scrutinous ire-infused debate on the state of Canada's domestic motion picture product is the gaggle of domestic film distributors that adhere to the status quo, but in all fairness to them, they're only going to spend money on the marketing necessary to keep the product on screens if they actually GET screens. Cineplex Entertainment is stingy with those. They have far too many Hollywood movies to play (often to empty or near-empty houses given the ridiculous number of screens said product hogs).
There's no two ways about it. English Canadian cinema lags far behind other indigenous industries outside of North America in terms of audience support for its own work. Canadian audiences are not quick to embrace their own cinema, but in order to embrace it at all, the work needs venues. This, of course, is not (and has never been) a problem in Quebec as the province has had very stringent guidelines regarding Quebec-based distributors and a more-than-level playing field for the exhibition of French-language product - thus allowing for the development of audiences ravenous for homegrown movies.
I'd also argue it's not necessarily always the fault of the product, either. Many decent, perfectly entertaining and/or artistically challenging movies get little chance to be seen.
If screens cannot be secured and held onto, there is no real way to adequately develop an interest in domestic product. Until Cineplex Entertainment does the right thing and gets off its lazy corporate duff and waggles its piggy tail in the direction of Canadian cinema and - even at a loss - does its corporate duty with respect to AGGRESSIVELY making DECENT screens available to said product, thus fulfilling their responsibility in supporting cultural initiatives in this country, then things are going to continue their snail-paced incremental changes.
Here are some thoughts I shared at a previous juncture on this site:
I saw Don Shebib's classic Canadian feature Goin' Down the Road when I was a kid at a huge first-run theatre in Winnipeg. I loved it then and loved it more every time I saw it. When I heard Shebib had crafted a sequel, Down the Road Again, I was imbued with a bit of healthy skepticism. That said, I was still excited to see it.
I was out of town for the first two weeks of the film's theatrical run at Cineplex's flagship Toronto venue, the Varsity Cinema. When I returned during the film's third week of release, I hightailed it down to the Varsity (not bothering to check the showtimes as is my wont) and was shocked (genuinely) that it wasn't playing. I quickly accessed my iPhone movie listings and was even more distressed that the movie, at least for that evening, was playing absolutely nowhere in Toronto.
There was, however, one lone screening the following evening at the Royal cinema, everyone's favourite indie venue in Little Italy. What shocked me even more was that Barbara Willis Sweete's film adaptation of Billy Bishop Goes To War was the other film playing at the Royal the same evening - first run and ENDING!!! Okay, my fault for being out of town, I guess. Excuse me all to hell for expecting movies with a reasonable pedigree by Canadian standards were (a) not available on any Cineplex screen in the country's largest city and that (b) they were both ending.
No matter, I sashayed on down the next night to The Royal. I really enjoyed Billy Bishop. I first experienced it as a kid in Winnipeg when John Gray and Eric Peterson presented the play at the Manitoba Theatre Centre's Warehouse venue. I loved it then and was delighted to see a film that preserved its theatrical roots. (I won't rant about one of my many pet-peeves involving the idiotic, myopic assumption on the part of critics and film types who should know better that anything and everything based upon a theatrical piece MUST be opened up for the cinema. Just don't get me started and I promise to stop now.)
My first thought was, "Hmmm, there are wads upon wads of people my age and older who love this play ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY. This would have been a perfect film to platform wide in the Front Row Centre-styled exhibition format that Cineplex has been exploiting in big cities and beyond." I played out a release pattern for the film in my mind whilst waiting for the Shebib to begin: Coast-to-coast, hugely hyped one-shot screenings of the film at the premium Front Row Centre prices. You'd have to blow a decent whack o' dough on advertising, BUT, with the same kind of thought and elbow grease that USED to go into marketing ANY movies (never mind Canadian films), there would be all sorts of alternate advertising venues with far more reasonable ad rates than traditional outlets anyway. As well, there would be an inordinate number of cross-promotions and tie-ins with theatre companies and arts groups across the country. Hell, target theatre schools also - not just including private companies, or even secondary schools, but given that virtually every post-secondary institution has a theatre program, promote the picture there. In any event, my fantasy release of Billy Bishop then included regular screenings one week later in many of the same venues it played at in the Front Row Centre release. Those post-Front-Row screenings may or may not have had numbers to sustain the secondary runs that long, BUT, the important thing is that Canadians would have been able to see the movie on a BIG SCREEN in a COMMUNAL ENVIRONMENT. This, in turn, would have created a far more advantageous bed of hype and anticipation for any number of home entertainment venues.
Alas, the way the movie was released feels like home penetration was the only real goal.
Whose fault was it?
Well, I can't be sure if the film's distributor considered my aforementioned form of theatrical penetration, nor do I know if the movie was even offered Cineplex. What I can say is this. SOMEONE should have thought about it and SOMEONE should have committed to playing it in this fashion. In fact, give the success of these types of special event showings in the Cineplex chain, you'd think someone THERE might have thought about approaching the film's distributor about mounting the film in this fashion.
Here's the thing. The business has changed for the worst, but it's not impossible to reapply good old fashioned showmanship on both sides of the distribution and exhibition fence. I started my life in this business as both a writer ABOUT movies and then as a film buyer on behalf of independent exhibitors in the late 70s and early 80s. I lived through the "old ways", lamented the shift in delivery and accessibility of product and now I get absolutely livid when I see how complacent and lazy both sides have become.
Down the Road Again was an entirely different story. I loved the picture, but also conceded its theatrical appeal would be limited. Limited, yes - but there IS an audience out there that would have loved to see the movie on a big screen. Part of this IS a distribution issue. However, I also think Canada's major exhibitor is shirking its place in creating a proper venue for Canadian cinema. Responsibility to shareholders be damned. Besides, even leaving Canadian Cinema out of the equation, those shareholders are going to have very little to count on if things don't change in the exhibition industry.
And yes, it IS the fault of exhibition - especially within major chains like Cineplex. They offer no real choice. Pure and simple. They rest on the laurels of whatever crap they're handed. I live for much of the year in a remote rural area. Cineplex has a seven-screen multiplex. All the same movies are locked in there for ages. I can assure you that in the late 70s and early 80s, the small market audiences had FAR more CHOICE in what was available than they do now. And idiotically, it's not that the product is NOT there. There's tons of product. Much of it good and much of it never getting screen time. Yes, having to program and promote such product takes time and effort. Yeah? So? Do it. They call it elbow grease.
As for Canadian product, I will ultimately and vigorously ALWAYS point an accusatory finger at Cineplex. Every major country outside of North America had or continues to have strict indigenous content quotas. Many of these countries have leaps and bounds on Canada by decades in this respect. Many of these same countries are making indigenous product that appeals to their national audiences and, in many cases, to international audiences. Much of this product isn't of the blockbuster variety, either. It often provides entertainment to niche audiences - theatrically. These audiences exist because efforts had been made in the past to ensure cultural sovereignty. These movies mostly do NOT compete with Hollywood, anyway. In fact, they enhance the viability and attraction to theatrical exhibition period.
I do not propose legislating exhibition quotas anyway.
I frankly think it would be good for business if Cineplex undertook a major corporate responsibility in exhibiting Canadian films - EVEN IF THEY LOSE MONEY! Oh horrors! Isn't that horrible?
Down the Road Again needed far more marketing and promotion than it got. This, to be sure, a distribution issue. That said, movies like this will NEVER find a theatrical audience if they are not out there. I personally think a movie like Shebib's sequel DEMANDED being placed in more cinemas across the country and held longer - even at a loss. Take one screen in every bloody multiplex and screen Canadian product exclusively. Take another screen in every bloody multiplex and program product of an indie nature exclusively - booking it, if necessary in a repertory style.
Cineplex is a Canadian company.
Forgive me for thinking Canada is different than our neighbours to the south. We are. We have higher literacy rates, more progressive values AND most of all, we ARE innovators. Cineplex should FORCE themselves to exhibit Canadian films at a loss. (I'm sure there are potential tax incentives that can be whipped up for this anyway.)
Why, you say, at a loss? Because there could well be a pot at the end of the rainbow. If the product - good, bad, middle of the road - is made available on a consistent basis, audiences might eventually develop a thirst for a certain type of product that speaks to THEM.
It's worked everywhere else in the world - out there, beyond the confines of North America.
It was, however, legislated. I say again, though, legislation is no longer the answer. Besides, such quotas would fall under provincial jurisdiction, so getting all the provinces on board would be ridiculous. Cineplex as the most powerful exhibitor in the country should legislate it THEMSELVES as corporate cultural policy within their business mandate. They could actually become world leaders in this extraordinary move to actively build an audience. More importantly, they could take a leadership role even beyond Canadian product and offer theatrical accessibility to a far wider range of product.
This, frankly, is good for Canada, good for foreign product, good for Hollywood, good for AMERICAN independents, good for cinema as the greatest artistic medium of all time and MOST IMPORTANTLY, good for the end-users, the customers, the myriad of movie lovers who have been lured away from the communal experience for many different reasons, but most of all, because of a lack of diversity in programming.
In the meantime, though, the true heroes of Canadian theatrical exhibition are Alliance Cinemas, AMC Theatres, Independent Canadian Exhibitors (The Royal, Revue, Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque, Canadian Film Institute, Pacific Cinematheque, etc.). They all regularly screen Canadian films - both first-run and second. TIFF Bell Lightbox in just over a year has displayed incredible courage and commitment to screening Canadian product theatrically.
They, however, are just a small part of the equation.
It's up to a major corporation like Cineplex to do their duty.
Father's Day (2011) dir. Astron-6
(Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney)
Starring: Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy, Brent Neale, Amy Groening, Meredith Sweeney, Kevin Anderson, Garret Hnatiuk, Mackenzie Murdoch, Lloyd Kaufman
****
By Greg Klymkiw
"Death ends a life. But it does not end a relationship, which struggles on in the survivor's mind. toward some resolution which it may never find." - Robert Anderson from his play, I Never Sang For My Father
A father's love for his son is a special kind of love. As such, Dads the world over face that singular inevitability - that peculiar epoch in their collective lives, when they must chauffeur the apple of their eye from a police station, for the third time in a month, after said progeny has undergone questioning upon being found in a motel room with a dead man covered in blood, après le bonheur de la sodomie, only to return home after dropping said twink son on a street corner, so the aforementioned offspring of the light-in-the-loafer persuasion, can perform fellatio on old men for cash, whilst Dad sits forlornly in the domicile that once represented decent family values and stare at a framed photo of better times, until he succumbs to unexpected anal rape and when doused with gasoline and set on fire as he weeps, face down and buttocks up, frenziedly tears out into the street screaming and collapsing in a charred heap in front of his returning son who reacts with open-mouthed horror as the scent of old penis wafts from his twink tonsils.
For most fathers, all of the above is, no doubt, a case of been-there-done-that - not unlike that inevitable fatherly attempt at understanding when Dad gently seeks some common ground with the fruits of his husbandly labours and offers: "Look son, I experimented when I was young, too."
So begins Father's Day - with the aforementioned, AND some delectable pre-credit butchery, an eye-popping opening credit sequence with images worthy of Jim Steranko and a series of flashbacks during an interrogation with a hard-boiled cop. This is the astounding feature film (the second completed feature this year) from the brilliant Winnipeg filmmaking collective Astron-6 (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney) who have joined forces with the legendary Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment to generate a film that is the ultimate evil bastard child sprung from the loins of a daisy chain twixt Guy Maddin, John Paizs, early David Cronenberg, Herschel Gordon Lewis and Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer. Father's Day combines the effects of asbestos-tinged drinking water in Winnipeg with the Bukkake splatter of the coolest artistic influences imaginable and yields one of the Ten Best Films of 2011.
It is the seed of depraved genius that's spawned Astron-6 and, of course, with the best work in Canadian film, it has been embraced by an entity outside of Canada - that glorious aforementioned sleaze-bucket nutter who gave the world The Toxic Avenger. This collective of five (not six) brilliant filmmakers (including the above named quartet and Steven Kosanski, the F/X wizard, writer and director of Astron-6's MANBORG) are part of a new breed of young Canadian filmmakers who have snubbed their noses at the government-funded bureaucracies that oft-eschew the sort of transgression that normally puts smaller indigenous cultural industries on the worldwide map (including its own - Canada only truly supports such work grudgingly once it's found acceptance elsewhere). In this sense, Astron-6 has been making films under the usual radar of mediocrity and steadfastly adhering to the fine Groucho Marx adage: "I refuse to join any club that would have someone like me for a member."
Imagine, if you will, any government-funded agency (especially a Canadian one), doling out taxpayer dollars to the following plot: Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdoch), is a serial killer that specializes in targeting fathers for anal rape followed by further degradations, including torture, butchery and/or murder. Our madman, Fuchman (substitute :k" for "h" to pronounce name properly), turns out to be a demon from the deepest pits of hell and a ragtag team is recruited by a blind infirm Archbishop of the Catholic Church (Kevin Anderson) to fight this disgusting agent of Satan. An eyepatch-wearing tough guy (Adam Brooks), a young priest (Matthew Kennedy), the aforementioned twink male prostitute (Conor Sweeney) and hard-boiled dick (Brent Neale) and a jaw-droppingly gorgeous stripper (Amy Groening) follow the trail of this formidable foe whilst confronting all their own personal demons.
This frothy brew of vile delights includes some of the most graphic blood splattering, vicious ass-slamming violence, gratuitous nudity, skimpy attire for the ladies, 'natch (and our delectable twink), morality, evisceration, hunky lads, delicious babes, compassion, rape, fellatio, chainsaw action, wholesome content, cannibalism, hand-to-hand combat, gunplay, family values, sodomy, immolation and monsters. It's all delivered up with a cutting edge mise-en-scène that out-grindhouses Tarantino's Grindhouse and delivers thrills, scares and laughs all in equal measure.
The film's sense of humour, in spite, or perhaps because of the proper doses of scatology and juvenilia is not the typical low-brow gross-out humour one finds in so many contemporary comedies, but frankly, works on the level of satire, and as such, is of the highest order. It stylistically straddles the delicate borders great satire demands. Too many people who should know better, confuse spoof or parody with satire and certainly anyone going to see Father's Day expecting SCTV, Airplane or Blazing Saddles might be in for a rude awakening. Yes, it's just as funny as any of those classic mirth-makers, but the laughs cut deep and they're wrought, not from the typical shtick attached to spoofs, but like all great satire, derive from the entire creative team playing EVERYTHING straight. No matter how funny, absurd or outlandish the situations and dialogue are, one never senses that an annoying tongue is being drilled firmly in cheek. Astron-6 loves their material and, importantly loves their creative influences. Their target is not necessarily the STYLE of film they're rendering homage to, but rather, the hypocrisies and horrors that face humanity everyday - religion, repression, dysfunction - all wedged cleverly into the proceedings.
Clearly a great deal of the movie's power in terms of its straight-laced approach to outlandish goings-on is found in the performances - all of them are spot-on. Adam Brooks IS a stalwart hero and never does he veer from infusing his role from the virtues inherent in such roles. Hell, he could frankly be Canada's Jason Statham in conventional action movies if anyone bothered to make such movies in Canada on any regular basis. Conor Sweeney as Twink is a marvel. Not only does he play the conflicted gay street hustler "straight", he straddles that terrific balance between genuinely rendering a layered character, but also infusing his performance with melodramatic aplomb. Not only is this perfect for the character itself, but it's perfectly in keeping with the style of movie that is being lovingly celebrated. Anyone who reads my stuff regularly will know my mantra: Melodrama is not a dirty word - it's a legitimate genre and approach to drama. There is good melodrama and bad melodrama, like any other genre. Luckily, the Astron-6 team has the joy of glorious melodrama hard-wired into their collective DNA and Sweeney's performance is especially indelible in this respect. Brent Neale as the hard-boiled cop is, quite simply, phenomenal. Will someone out there give this actor job after job after job? The camera loves him and he knows how to play to the camera. He is clearly at home with the straight-up and melodramatic aspects of his role and most importantly, he is imbued with the sort of smoulder that makes stars - he's handsome and intense.
Astoundingly, not a single actor in this film feels out of place. Whether they're emoting straight, slightly stilted, wildly melodramatic or, on occasion (given the genre), magnificently reeking of ham, this is ensemble acting at its absolute best.
The entire movie was made on a budget of $10,000 and once again, for all the initiatives out there to generate low-budget feature films, Father's Day did it cheaper (WAY CHEAPER) and better. The movie uses its budgetary constraints not as limitations, but as a method to exploit what can be so special about movies. The visual and makeup effects as well as the art direction ooze imagination and aesthetic brilliance and it's all captured through a lens that puts its peer level and even some big budget extravaganzas to shame. Imagination is truly the key to success with no-budget movies. The Father's Day cinematography is often garish and lurid, but delightfully and deliciously so - with first-rate lighting and excellent composition. The filmmakers and their entire team successfully render pure gold out of elements that in most low-budget films just looks cheap - or worse, blandly competent (like most low budget Canadian movies). It's total trash chic - trash art, if you must.
I attended this spectacular event in France many years ago called the FreakZone International Festival of Trash Cinema which celebrated some of the most amazing transgressive works I'd ever seen. When I expressed to the festival director that I was surprised at the level of cinematic artistry, he just smiled and said, "You North Americans have such a limited view of trash culture - for us, trash is not garbage, we use the word to describe work that is subversive." This was so refreshing. It felt like a veil had been lifted from over me and I realized what EXACTLY it was that I loved about no-budget cinema - as a filmmaker, a teacher, a critic and fan.
Making a movie for no money that is NOT subversive on every level is, frankly, just plain stupid. What's the point? And Father's Day is nothing if it's not subversive. Besides, I've seen too many young filmmakers with talent galore ruined by initiatives that purported to celebrate the virtues of no-or-low-budget filmmaking but then forced the artists to apply the idiotic expectations of "industry standards" - whatever that means, anyway. This has been especially acute in Canada, but to be fair, in other non-North American countries also, where bureaucrats make decisions and/or define the rules/parameters of filmmaking.
Father's Day and the entire canon of the Astron-6 team should be the ultimate template for filmmakers with no money to seize the day and make cool shit. That's what it should always be about. And in this case, it took the fortitude of the filmmakers, their genuinely transgressive gifts as artists AND an independent AMERICAN producer to ensure that they made the coolest shit of all.
What finally renders Father's Day special is just how transgressively intelligent it all is and yet, never turns its proverbial nose up at the straight-to-video-nasties of the 80s, the grindhouse cinema of the 60s and 70s and the weird, late night cable offerings of the early 90s. It works very much on the level of the things it loves best. This is real filmmaking - it entertains, it dazzles, it makes use of every cheap trick in the book to create MOVIE magic and finally, it's made by people who clearly care about film. They get to have their cake and eat it too by having as much fun making the movies as we have watching them.
Father's Day was unveiled at Toronto's premiere genre film event, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2011 where it won the grand prize of Best Film - voted on by the thousands of attendees of the festival. It will be released theatrically in early 2012 by Troma Entertainment and will be followed with the usual forays into home entertainment formats.
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Trish Dolman, Christine Haebler
Father's Day – Lloyd Kaufman, Astron-6
Keyhole - Jody Shapiro
Le Vendeur - Marc Daigle, Bernadette Payeur
Take This Waltz - Susan Cavan
BEST PICTURE WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Marc Daigle, Bernadette Payeur
BEST ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN NOMINEES
The Bang Bang Club - Emelia Weavind
In Darkness - Erwin Prib
Keyhole - Ricardo Alms, Matt Holm
Le Vendeur - Mario Hervieux
The Mountie - Jim Goodall
BEST ART DIRECTION/PD WINNER:
Keyhole - Ricardo Alms, Matt Holm
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY NOMINEES
In Darkness - Jolanta Dylewska
Keyhole - Benjamin Kasulke
Le Vendeur - Michel La Veaux
The Mountie - Rene Smith
Take This Waltz - Luc Montpellier
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Michel La Veaux
BEST COSTUME DESIGN NOMINEES
A Dangerous Method - Denise Cronenberg
Café De Flore - Ginette Magny, Emmanuelle Youchnovski
Keyhole - Heather Neale
In Darkness - Jagna Janicka, Nadine Kremeier, Katarzyna Lewinska
Manborg - Astron-6
BEST COSTUME DESIGN WINNER:
Keyhole - Heather Neale
BEST DIRECTOR NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Michael Goldbach
Father's Day - Astron-6
Keyhole - Guy Maddin
Le Vendeur - Sebastien Pilote
Take This Waltz - Sarah Polley
BEST DIRECTOR WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Sebastien Pilote
BEST EDITING NOMINEES
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke
Le Vendeur - Michel Arcand
The Mountie - Kerry Davie
Take This Waltz - Chris Donaldson
BEST EDITING WINNER:
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
BEST MAKEUP NOMINEES & WINNERS:
Father's Day - Steven Kostanski
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
*NOTE* NOTHING COMES REMOTELY CLOSE
TO THE WORK IN THESE PICTURES.
NOTHING! NADA! THIS IS IT!
BEST MUSIC NOMINEES
A Dangerous Method - Howard Shore
Father's Day - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
Keyhole - Jason Staczek
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
The Mountie - Ivan Barbotin
BEST MUSIC WINNERS:
Father's Day - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie, Brian Wiacek
BEST ACTOR NOMINEES
In Darkness - Robert Wieckiewicz
Keyhole - Jason Patric
Father's Day - Adam Brooks
Le Vendeur - Gilbert Sicotte
Take This Waltz - Seth Rogen
BEST ACTOR WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Gilbert Sicotte
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR NOMINEES
Father's Day - Mackenzie Murdock
Keyhole - Louis Negin
Marécages - Gabriel Maillé
Marécages - Luc Picard
The Mountie - Earl Pastko
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR WINNER:
Keyhole - Louis Negin
BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Katt Dennings
Father's Day - Amy Groening
Manborg - Meredith Sweeney
Marécages - Pascale Bussières
Take This Waltz - Michelle Williams
BEST ACTRESS WINNER:
Marécages - Pascale Bussières
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Katie Boland
In Darkness - Agnieszka Grochowska
Keyhole - Isabella Rossellini
Le Vendeur - Nathalie Cavezzali
Monsieur Lazhar - Sophie Nélisse
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS WINNER:
Le Vendeur - Nathalie Cavezzali
BEST SOUND NOMINEES
The Bang Bang Club - Lou Solakofski, Stephan Carrier, Kirk Lynds
Manborg - Jeremy Gillespie
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke, Lou Solakofski, Stan Mak
Le Vendeur - Stéphane Bergeron, Olivier Calvert, Gilles Corbeil
Marécages - Stéphane Bergeron, Yann Cleary, Lise Wedlock
BEST SOUND WINNER:
Keyhole - John Gurdebeke, Lou Solakofski, Stan Mak
BEST SOUND EDITING NOMINEES:
In Darkness
Jeremy Maclaverty, Daniel Pellerin, Geoff Raffan,
Jan Rudy, John Sievert, James Mark Stewart
Keyhole
David McCallum, David Rose, Krystin Hunter
Le Vendeur
Olivier Calvert
Manborg
Astron-6
Marécages
Claude Beaugrand, Olivier Calvert, Natalie Fleurant, Francine Poirier
BEST SOUND EDITING WINNER:
Keyhole - David McCallum, David Rose, Krystin Hunter
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY NOMINEES
Daydream Nation - Michael Goldbach
Father's Day - Astron-6
Keyhole - George Toles, Guy Maddin
Le Vendeur - Sébastien Pilote
Marécages - Guy Édoin
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY WINNER:
Keyhole - George Toles, Guy Maddin
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY NOMINEE AND WINNER:
David Shamoon – In Darkness
*NOTE* NOTHING COMES REMOTELY CLOSE TO THIS ONE,
IT'S GREATNESS AS AN ADAPTED SCREENPLAY CANNOT
BE TARNISHED BY ASSOCIATING IT WITH OTHERS.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS NOMINEE AND WINNER:
Manborg - Steven Kostanski
*NOTE* FORGET ALL THE REST!!!
THIS IS THE CAT'S ASS!!!
THIS ROCKS BIGTIME!!!
BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY NOMINEE AND WINNER:
Family Portrait In Black And White
– Julia Ivanova, Boris Ivanov
*NOTE* NO PUSSY-FOOTING AROUND HERE!
THE BEST CANADIAN DOCUMENTARY I SAW ALL YEAR!
Family Portrait in Black and White (2011) dir. Julia Ivanova
***
By Greg Klymkiw
The first time I visited Ukraine, the land of my forefathers, two things struck me.
First of all, I felt a strange, overwhelming sense - perhaps due to my own upbringing in Canada - that THIS was where I came from, even though I wasn't born anywhere near the place. The feeling of being from this seemingly magical country, being able to read the cyrillic letters, listening to people talk and realizing I understood more Ukrainian (and to a certain extent, Russian) than I thought I did and even feeling like it was a place I could live in since Canada (or more specifically, the city of Toronto) was really starting to drive me nuts. Even later in the first and subsequent trips when aspects of my time there became utterly horrendous, I somehow was able to explain it away by thinking to myself and/or saying to my (non-Ukrainian WASP wife), "I know my people all too well."
The second thing that struck me was that during my first few days there, I saw absolutely no Black people - not one single person even VAGUELY resembling someone of African descent. This was so overwhelming that even now I can clearly remember the three times that I actually DID see people of colour (excluding Asians, of course, there seemed to be plenty of them - more than enough Ukrainian women were raped when Mongol hordes occasionally pillaged the land).
The first Black person I saw was in a loge in the majestic Kyiv Opera House. He was an extremely handsome, dressed-to-the-nines gentleman with brown skin and a mix of African and Slavic features. The second time, I saw three Black people. They were clearly students, in their early twenties and entered one of my favourite restaurants in Kyiv - the best Ukrainian food I've had since my Baba died and cheap like the proverbial borscht. The third and final time I saw a Black person was on the stage of the Ukrainian National Philharmonic - the acclaimed American baritone Stephen Salters who performed a stunning selection of traditional African-American spirituals that had a standing-room-only house of Ukrainians leaping to their feet again and again and frankly, not leaving too many dry eyes after each and every song.
This latter experience especially came to mind as I watched Julia Ivanova's feature-length documentary Family Portrait in Black and White because it was so shocking to see and hear some of the most virulent racism towards people of African descent that seemed more at home in Alabama (easily the most openly racist place I ever had the displeasure to spend time in), but surely not the same countrymen that were so welcoming and moved by Stephen Salters.
Then again, I had to remind myself that Ivanova's documentary is set in the Sumy Oblast of Eastern Ukraine and that my most horrendous experiences in the country happened in the East. After Stalin butchered millions of Ukrainians and parachuted millions of Russians into Ukraine - most of them settled in Eastern Ukraine and this is where the insular, backwards and ruthless Soviet influence was most prominent. In fact, many cities in the East are rife with corruption and are major centres of the Russian mob.
In this sense, half the country - the East - is kind of like one big, ole' Alabama.
And it's in this setting that the film focuses upon Olga Nenya, a primarily Russian-speaking Ukrainian woman of middle age who has opened her heart and home to children who have been abandoned by their birth parents because of the colour of their skin. Over the years, many African men - primarily from Uganda - have come to Ukraine as foreign students to study. Ukraine has a great reputation for its educational institutions and low tuitions. (A Lebanese acquaintance studied medicine in Ukraine and has a successful practise in Paris - though, speaking of racism, his credentials weren't "good enough" for Canada.) And as any healthy, young lad is wont to do anywhere, but especially when alone in a country populated by some of the most stunningly gorgeous young women in the world (Olga Kurylenko, for one), they'll more than likely partake of the forbidden fruits (as it were). What this has sadly resulted in are huge numbers of Black children abandoned in orphanages.
However, here in the Sumy Oblast, seventeen Black kids have a home and a mother. Granted, the home is physically a shambles (though from my experience, pretty common for Eastern Ukraine), but the kids have a surprising amount of privacy, they have food, shelter, a bed, companionship and yes, a sense of family.
Nenya is a powerhouse - a true Russian-Ukrainian battle axe. She only wants what she thinks is best for the kids - a good work ethic, an education and a chance to get a job and contribute to the "new" Ukraine. That said, two of her children are gifted in soccer and music respectively and she has absolutely no use for this - she has no understanding how these interests will put "bread" on their tables when they leave the nest.
The kids are all expected to do their part - tend to the goats, cook, clean and do well in school. Nenya also has no use for the ignorance and racism of her fellow neighbours and countrymen. She especially detests snooty bureaucrats and in one delightful scene she deals with a barrage of social workers and city officials who pop by for a visit in the only way one can deal with these horrible people - with the sort of contempt that hurls garbage back in their faces. Bureaucrats the world over are all the same, it seems.
Her foster children clearly love her and are grateful that they are treated as family. That said, a few of them have established relationships with foreign families in Italy who sponsor children for holiday visits through a humanitarian program that began after the Chernobyl tragedy. Some of them long to leave Ukraine and move to Italy. Nenya essentially thinks of these foreign foster parents as part-time babysitters who also allow her time off and the opportunity to save some money for those periods the kids are away. Besides, as she points out, a bird can only have "one nest". I can't say I really disagree with this sentiment.
Of all the children, it is probably the story of Kiril that is the most compelling. He's the eldest and closest to leaving the nest. His feelings about Nenya are mixed. He clearly loves her and appreciates that she's made a home for him and the others, but he's also an artistic soul and wishes to pursue his love of music and literature. This, he eventually does, leaving for Kyiv to study journalism at university. Nenya is bitter about this decision and clearly there's bad blood between them that's not resolved.
Then again, there are many unresolved issues in the film. Ivanova has chosen to mostly eschew the oft-expected narrative tradition - especially in recent documentaries. As the title suggests, she is presenting a "portrait" which, delivers a portion, a glimpse, a tiny window into something that is clearly bigger. This is, on one hand, admirable, but it's equally frustrating. Ivanova tries to present all of the children's stories equally and instead, we get not enough of too many. Kiril, is by far the most compelling of the kids and I probably would have preferred more of his story and relationship with Nenya than the others.
What's especially confounding is that the film never adequately addresses how or why Nenya was compelled to undertake this compassionate responsibility. What was it like to take legal charge of these kids? What was the process? What were the challenges? What were the joys? The pain? By the end of the film, we get a portrait of Nenya, but we don't get a bigger picture. I really don't feel like I know enough about her and frankly, I want to. Who is she? What is her extended family like? What was her relationship with her own parents? Did she ever have any friends, lovers, neighbours or anyone other than her foster children that she was close too? Why does she detest Kiril's artistic pursuits and intelligence so much? Is it, as Kiril suggests when commenting on Nenya, that the Stalinist form of communism she reveres and misses, really what drives her? (He calls his mother "the leader" and compares her to Stalin, "the great leader". I really loved this kid!) OR is there something more? She's clearly an intelligent woman, but what is it that drives her to such an anti-intellectual and anti-cultural position?
At a certain point I wanted Ivanova to move beyond the "portrait" because the subject, Nenya, is so fascinating that she demands more. While there might have been exigencies of production that didn't allow for such added probing, the fact remains that based upon the finished product, more was needed.
There are numerous things that are either left maddeningly unsaid or, for all the film's attempts to present things raw WITHOUT a slant, or angle or too much of the filmmaker's voice (all admirable, but not always satisfying), the movie DOES present a few unbalanced issues that feel (intentionally or not) like a very one-sided portrait. At one point, Kiril talks about what it means to be a Ukrainian and that it is a cultural identity he relates to and wants to relate to even more. I'll grant you it is because I feel close to this heritage that I was so deeply moved by this, however, the movie also disturbed me since it provided far too many one-sided negative portraits of Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture.
There are, for example, very few Ukrainians presented who share Nenya's compassion for these children. I just find this hard to swallow. Ukraine is a country that has suffered under the yoke of Russian, Polish, Turkish, Austrian, German and Mongolian oppression for its entire history as a nation and culture. Maybe I cannot proclaim the entire country or nation as being open to relating to the African experience on (at least a level of repression and/or genocide) based solely upon a few hundred Ukrainians weeping and cheering the African-American spirituals sung by Stephen Salters in Kyiv, but for all the documented racism, there are always two sides and some balance might have been nice. Why, for example, does Ivanova go out of her way (it seems) to present ONLY fuck-witted Ukrainian skinheads or Nenya's drunken, ignorant racist neighbour? And what about that neighbour? What drove him to drink to the point where he LOST his children? Why present such a one-sided portrait without even attempting to understand where this comes from? Who knows? Eastern Ukrainians suffered a great deal under Stalin and subsequent Soviet regimes (including the ethnic Russians forced to move there). The repression, poverty, discrimination could well be traced back to policies of genocide and Russification.
Another oddly offensive one-sided portrait is of the Ukrainian women who supposedly "abandoned" their Black children in orphanages? Why are they portrayed as so thoughtless? So heartless? For a multitude of Ukrainian women - no matter what or who their children are - placing their children in orphanages is their only hope that maybe, just maybe their children will have a better life than they can provide them?
What of the African men who have seduced and abandoned their blonde, blue-eyed living sex toys and by extension the results of their seed-scattering - the children? Are they blameless? Throughout the entire film I kept wondering if we were ever going to get an interview with an older African male in Ukraine. I would have loved to hear the opinions of some of the Ugandan students on the fates of these children who were sired by fellow members of their country? And finally, when Ivanova DOES present an interview with ONE African man who DOES care about his children and wants them back. It's a brief interview that takes place well into the film and the context it's presented in, once again, raises more questions that the film doesn't bother to answer. The man claims he will wait in Ukraine until the children can legally leave the care of Nenya so he can be their father. He states that the Ministry presiding over Ukrainian orphans are asking him to prove, via DNA testing - at his expense - that the children are really his. Well, uh, yeah! Makes sense to me. Anyone can say they're the biological father of a child. It has to be proven. If he can't afford it, what is his embassy or consulate doing about it? Has he even tried to secure their financial and/or political assistance?
This is a movie so full of magnificent moments that I kept longing for it to soar as it had the potential to. It's finally never enough for any movie to present a "portrait". When there are too many questions left unanswered, when there are endless one-sided perspectives as unfair and hateful as those presented amongst some of the film's subjects, part of me thinks that the filmmaker didn't get the job done. That said, Ivanova clearly has the soul of a filmmaker. She shot the film herself and there are images of such poignance, beauty and artistry, that I simply cannot believe that this is all there is.
Maybe, just maybe, there's enough material on the cutting room floor and, more importantly so much more material yet to be shot, that eventually, Ivanova, like Michael Apted and his extraordinary "Up" series will return to these people and this subject and present a lifetime document as anthropologically and artistically important as Apted's.
I hope so. She owes it to the kids, to Nenya, to the country and its culture. She certainly owes it to herself to take potentially wonderful material to even greater heights. Most of all, she owes it to the audience and potential audiences. With Family Portrait in Black and White, I personally see the beginnings of something that could be imbued with significance and staying power beyond its wildest dreams.
That's what makes it art.
"Family Portrait in Black and White" is in limited platform release across Canada via Vagrant Films (with a current playdate at Toronto's Royal Theatre). It played at the Sundance Film Festival and is a Hot-Docs Award Winner. It has been nominated for a Genie Award for Best Feature Documentary.
L'Argent (1983) dir. Robert Bresson
Starring: Christian Patey, Caroline Lang, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Vincent Risterucci
*****
By Greg Klymkiw
Robert Bresson died in 1999. During his forty years as a director, he made only 15 feature films. On one hand, it's somewhat disgraceful that his uncompromising vision made it so difficult for him to secure financing. On the other, when one looks at filmmakers of equal genius (albeit very different filmmakers), the ease with which they were able to grind out film after film left quite a few stinkers in their canons and as their careers progressed into their august years, the work itself adhered strictly to the law of diminishing returns. For me, Ford and Capra (who, in fairness often took gun-for-hire gigs with studios) are those who fall into this category. There were exceptions to the rule like John Huston, who made his fair share of stinkers, but in his last years generated several terrific pictures and in the case of The Dead, his last film, a bonafide masterpiece.
L'Argent was Bresson's last film and made 15 years before his death. I hate to imagine what those final 15 years were like NOT making a film, but one hopes he took some solace in the fact that this was exactly the sort of final work that every artist dreams of leaving behind. Not only is this picture the ultimate Bresson film - a culmination of his deeply original approach to cinematic storytelling - but is, in fact, a deeply important film; artistically and morally. This is a film that, on its surface seems utterly stripped of redemption for its lead character, for the world and finally, for humanity. This, I believe, IS purely surface. L'Argent may well be one of the great humanist works of the 20th century - up there with the greatest films of Jean Renoir, if not in a stratosphere far above.
While Bresson's work was always secular in its humanism, there was also an adherence to faith - lapsed or otherwise and importantly, never in the sense of religious humanism. L'Argent presents a world where any sense of faith is betrayed and/or quashed and yet, in spite of this (and in spite of the almost cold, calculatingly precise manner in which the tale is rendered), this might well be Bresson's most emotional and affecting film - his most profoundly moving work.
It should probably come as no surprise that L'Argent is based on a literary work by Leo Tolstoy - a writer who practically defined the modern art of narrative (as I'd argue Bresson did with cinema), a great thinker/philosopher (again, not unlike Bresson) and a believer in both faith and a higher power, but ultimately eschewing the corruption and hypocrisy of organized religion (and again, Bresson being cinema's Tolstoy in this regard). Where Bresson and Tolstoy appear to part, at least literally, is that Bresson chose to base his film upon only Part I of Tolstoy's novella "The Forged Coupon" and not touch Part II of the work - the part wherein redemption was sought and found.
For Bresson's great film, this was a brave, brilliant and strangely apt choice.
There is, finally, something mysteriously affecting in Bresson's almost under-a-microscope study of how one immoral action sets off a chain of events, domino-like, of one unethical act after the other until we are faced with the ultimate evil, actions of the most viciously immoral kind - conducted with no remorse, no feeling (not even hate, it seems) and certainly - no redemption.
The tale Bresson spins is relatively faithful to Tolstoy's (though updated to contemporary France). A forged bill is passed on to a hapless soul who is powerless to fight the punishment he receives after unwittingly passing on the fake money. Losing his job and any reasonable prospect of employment to support his wife and child, he takes on the job of a getaway driver during a heist. He is caught, sentenced to prison and loses his child to a fatal illness and his wife who decides to move on and begin a new life. Upon his eventual release from prison, he has nothing. His soul seems drained and his actions become increasingly violent.
Upon committing an utterly heinous and unpardonable sin/crime, he calmly turns himself in - not out of redemption or guilt or compassion, but to further an opportunity to be incarcerated with the person who passed him the bill in the first place - to extract cold, calculated revenge (and by this point, without even the extreme emotion of hatred - revenge becomes almost a base need).
It is here where Bresson offers one of the most astonishing final images and cleaves it off literally with a picture cut to black that is so exquisite, so precise, so emotionally and viscerally powerful, that experiencing it invokes a physical response that is literally breathtaking.
Tolstoy offered us redemption. Bresson denies it to us. Two different approaches to the same material, however, yield similar results. We so desperately cling to the hope that redemption will come to Bresson's central character, that it's OUR HOPE, that IS, finally the redemption. Bresson allows us to seek humanity in ourselves through the inhuman actions of another.
This is a masterpiece.
To not see it, to not acknowledge this, to not revisit this great work again and again and again is to deny cinema and the power of cinema - one that even Tolstoy himself in his final years lamented not having an opportunity to tackle.
Cinema is a great gift.
Bresson, however, was the greatest gift to cinema.
L'Argent is his greatest film.
"L'Argent" is screening as 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 Saturday March 17 at 4PM and Sunday March 18 at 4:45PM . Tickets are available HERE. "L'Argent" is also available on DVD.
Greg Klymkiw has seen over 30,000 movies. For 13 years, as a Senior Creative Consultant and Producer-in-Residence at the Canadian Film Centre (founded by Norman Jewison) he nurtured, taught and mentored young Canadian filmmakers on all aspects of cinematic storytelling. At the CFC he was a substantial creative influence on over 50 short dramatic films, 100s of production exercises and 12 feature films. He has produced numerous films including the first 3 features by Guy Maddin (TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL, ARCHANGEL and CAREFUL), THE LAST SUPPER by Cynthia Roberts (1995 Best Feature Film Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival), CITY OF DARK by Bruno Lazaro Pacheco and VINYL by Alan Zweig. He has been a rep cinema programmer, a film buyer for small town theatres and as the Director of Distribution and Marketing for The Winnipeg Film Group he developed the campaign that created an international cult sensation out of TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL and many other films from the rich tradition of Prairie Post-Modernist Cinema. He is currently co-writing several screenplays, a book on screenwriting and contributes to several noted publications on cinema.
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