| While it’s impossible to see all the films at the Calgary International Film Festival, many are worth a look. To help make your decision-making a little easier, here are 25 capsule reviews that separate the essential cinema from the pretenders to the throne.
AMERICAN MULLET (U.S., 2001)
Directed by Jennifer Arnold
October 5, 5 p.m., CSIF
A cross-country journey to explore the mystique of the mullet has potential for a great satirical documentary, but director Jennifer Arnold misses so much that American Mullet is ultimately fruitless. Ignoring the history and evolution of the mullet, it opts for the cursory cultural explanation that those with mullets are rugged individualists, anti-fashion rebels or book-smart lesbians. Of course, the film explores the mainstream cultural biases that suggest the mullet is worn only by white trash, wife-beating, country singers, but it does so with no conviction and therefore has nothing to say. If the mission statement of the film is that making fun of people with mullets is not cool, then Arnold should have focused on articulate subjects rather than some jackass who says, "I think women are attracted to men with long hair because deep down they really want to be with a woman."
BACON, THE FILM (Canada, 2001)
Directed by Hugo Latulippe
October 4, 3 p.m., Globe
Over 300,000 tons of liquid pig manure was spread over rural Quebec in 2001. Today, that amount is growing. Nitrates from such smelly agricultural byproducts penetrate soil, on average, at one metre per year, meaning that today our drinking water has nitrates in it from 10 to 15 years ago, and that the exponential growth of agricultural pollutants today won’t be truly tasted by society for another decade.
Bacon, the Film, takes on government, big business and the ever-consuming globalization current sloshing over Quebec’s agricultural countryside. After a year of shooting and research, this powerful documentary exposes the greasy facts: Canadian democracy plays second fiddle to the tune of big-money, mega-farm hog exports.
Pork aside, the film’s message is clear: the next time you eat bacon, think manure.
BLUE VINYL (United States, 2002)
Directed by Judith Helfand
and Daniel B. Gold
October 5, noon, Uptown
In Blue Vinyl, co-directors Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold examine the problems of bio-accumulation and health hazards associated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production, suggesting that vinyl corporation executives are about as forthcoming and ethical as the folks in Big Tobacco. At its heart, the film has more to do with small-scale activism than with international muckraking: the documentary is structured around Helfand’s crusade to educate her own parents, whose decision to replace the wooden siding on their house with blue vinyl sparked their daughter’s research in the first place. The parents are skeptical, pragmatic and mildly embarrassed – perfect representatives of a class of consumers resistant to the information that their houses may be wrapped in toxic yet durable crap.
CHIEFS (U.S., 2001)
Directed by Daniel Junge
October 1, 9:30 p.m, Uptown
Native American basketball is documented in this candid look at one Wyoming high school’s ability to take "reservation" life to the hoop.
On the reserve, a trend is taking hold: opportunities are squandered, dreams broken and hopes lost. Director Daniel Junge chronicles, in routine fashion, a story not often mentioned, but one worth being told – that of a people once rich in independent identity who are now deteriorating as dependants to the new owners of their sacred land.
Portraying more than just the ups and downs of a basketball team over two seasons, Junge’s documentary reveals how a Native American school with only 161 students can produce warriors on the court that can take on any team from any school in the state. Reality shows, however, that many of these hoop-it-up-warriors are still victims in the battle their ancestors lost against the white man, the legacy of which they are still struggling with today.
CINEMANIA (U.S./ Germany, 2002)
Directed by Angela Christlieb
and Stephen Kijak
October 5, 4 p.m., Plaza
Anyone familiar with screen-hopping at film festivals can appreciate the importance of bringing along extra sandwiches, a travel strategy to hit as many films as possible, and an occasional change of clothing. The fantastic documentary Cinemania profiles a group of New York "film buffs" for whom film passes beyond obsession – more important than jobs, day-to-day relationships and the demands of a human bladder.
Cinemania passes no judgments on a compulsion for which there is no cure. During a recent trip to New York, my travel mates and I sat all of two rows behind one of the subjects of this film, Roberta, who clutched a stack of flyers (which she collects in multiples of 150), carted a bag stuffed with empty Tupperware containers and complained of the day’s unusually cramped cross-town schedules.
While it’s sometimes tempting to make the metaphorical comparison "film is life" – Cinemania shows the inherent dangers in allowing cinema to take over entirely.
CLAUDE JUTRA, AN UNFINISHED STORY (Canada, 2001)
Directed by Paule Baillargeon
October 6, 9:30 p.m., Globe
Creator of the first music video ever put to film, the discoverer of those who would one day become Cirque de Soleil, a friend and colleague of François Truffaut and Bernardo Bertolucci, Claude Jutra was Canada’s first great filmmaker. Director of Mon oncle Antoine and Kamouraska, two of the finest Canadian films ever made, Jutra lived his life for his art and ended it in the St. Lawrence River when the ravages of Alzheimer’s became too much.
Director-narrator Paule Baillargeon’s loving tribute, Claude Jutra, an unfinished story, is an important film for anyone who cares about Canadian cinema. Filled with Jutra’s most lasting images, this documentary traces his career from early home movies to his landmark confessions in À tout prendre and his years in Toronto with the CBC. But Baillargeon is careful to show us the whole man, not just the artist, illustrating the torment, compassion and genius that led to his tragic end.
THE DIARIES OF VASLAV
NIJINSKY (International, 2001)
Written and directed by Paul Cox
October 6, 9 p.m., Uptown
It is difficult to picture Vaslav Nijinsky as anything but the legendary ballet dancer. In 1917, the star severed ties with the Ballets Russes after an exceptional career, and moved to St. Moritz to await the end of war. By the time of the armistice in 1918, Nijinski had suffered a mental breakdown. He never danced again, but during 30 subsequent years of mental illness, Nijinsky recorded his thoughts, expressions and emotions.
The resulting journals are the source and subject of Paul Cox’s film, The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky, narrated in the first person by actor Derek Jacobi. Nijinsky’s mental health is immediately evident, drawing a thin line between genius and madness. The dancer compares himself to Christ and often questions the atrocities of war, but Jacobi drowns the dancer’s words in poetic verse. At 90 minutes, the film drivels on far too long without purpose, a home-movie of gloomy, postmodern images that repeat themselves and never really revive Nijinsky’s former self nor his glory. Would be better as a book-on-tape.
8 WOMEN
(8 femmes, France, 2002)
Directed by Francois Ozon
October 1, 9 p.m., Globe
Forget Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein – judging by recent films like Human Nature and Slap Her, She’s French, what really strikes fear in the heart of America is the French female. 8 Women will only add to the paranoia, as the all-star cast (Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, etc.) of this musical murder-mystery reminds us who invented the femme fatale.
At the opposite end of the stylistic spectrum from his elegiac Under the Sand (a highlight of last year’s festival), this frothy confection would do credit to Pedro Almodovar.
Yet despite being one of this year’s funniest films, 8 Women carries a subtle, bittersweet subtext about the relationship between the sexes. An instant classic.
HORNS AND HALOS (U.S., 2002)
Directed by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky
October 3, 7 p.m., CSIF
Crowned best documentary at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival, Horns and Halos depicts the torturous media blitz fired against author J.H. Hatfield following the publication of Fortunate Son, his controversial biography of George W. Bush, infamous for its allegations that Bush was arrested in 1972 for possession of cocaine.
Horns and Halos picks up with the story as "punk rock publisher" Soft Skull Press purchases the rights to Fortunate Son from the venerable St. Martin’s Press (which not only pulled the book from shelves, but burned every copy). The film then follows Hatfield and Soft Skull’s Sander Hicks from a 2000 appearance on 60 Minutes through to a sparsely attended last-ditch press conference at the 2001 Book Expo.
Despite Hatfield’s criminal background (admitted involvement in an attempted murder), and his long-lasting refusal to name his sources – an act which comes with tragic consequences – Horns And Halos mourns the oft-neglected promise of democracy that freedom of speech shall always remain a fundamental civil right.
I’LL SING FOR YOU (France, 2001)
Directed by Jacques Sarasin
October 3, 4 p.m., Globe
I’ll Sing For You, a documentary set in the West African nation of Mali, looks back to the Malian independence movement of the 1960s, employing the stories, pictures and songs of KarKar (Boubacar Traore), who inspired the transforming nation with music, and became a national hero.
As the story progresses, the film drifts from the Malian revolution to focus its narrative instead on KarKar’s personal revolution – his life after the fiery days of revolt embraces personal triumphs and public failures and he tells tales of time past, dreams revisited and loves lost.
Through it all, KarKar’s smooth, soothing revolutionary Malian blues-folk melodies are the film’s true gems, capturing in the notes a culture very different from our own yet, in many ways, quite the same.
LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY (Canada, 2002)
Directed by Mina Shum
October 3, 7 p.m., Uptown
Mina Shum reunites with the star (Sandra Oh) and co-writer (Dennis Foon) of Double Happiness for her third film, but Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity lacks the lightness of touch that made the B.C. filmmaker’s debut so special. The script clumsily links three separate stories that take place within Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian community, the primary one being the tale of Kin (Oh), an overworked single mom who has little patience with her 12-year-old daughter Mindy (Valerie Tian), and her obsession with Taoist magic. Mindy’s spells cause havoc in the lives of Kin, local butcher Bing Lai (Ric Young) and recently fired security man Hun Ping Wong (Tsai Chin), resulting in much goofy humour and hamfisted whimsy. The sketchy, problematic characters, overly convenient plot twists and inconsistent acting only serve to foul up Shum’s good intentions.
LOST IN LA MANCHA
(U.S./ U.K., 2002)
Directed by Keith Fulton
and Louis Pepe
October 6, 5 p.m., Globe
Bleak enough to make Burden of Dreams and Hearts of Darkness seem like puff pieces on Access Hollywood, Lost in La Mancha is a frank look at a filmmaking disaster. In 2000, Terry Gilliam – the visionary director of triumphs like Brazil and the ill-fated The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – began production on a project very close to his heart: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a freewheeling adaptation of Cervantes’s classic novel starring Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort.
Alas, the "curse" on Don Quixote – which Orson Welles failed to film despite two decades of effort – befalls Gilliam’s production in just about every conceivable fashion. Behold Gilliam’s battle with budget woes, NATO jets that strafe the sky over his shooting locations, torrential rainstorms that nearly wash away his equipment, and lead actor’s Rochefort’s prostate problems. It’s no easy thing to watch a filmmaker who thrives on adversity be so soundly defeated by it.
MAD LOVE
(Juana la loca, Spain, 2001)
Written and directed by
Vicente Aranda
October 3, 4 p.m., Uptown
October 4, 6:30 p.m., Uptown
Juana La Loca is a 15th century period piece based on the arranged marriage between the 16-year-old daughter of the Queen of Castile, Princess Joan (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), and 18-year-old Philip the Handsome of Brussels (Daniele Liotti). Despite the arrangement, Joan and Philip seem passionately happy, until Joan discovers Philip’s womanizing and is driven to "mad" jealousy. At the same time, through a series of deaths, Joan becomes the Queen of Castile and heir to the Crown of Aragon – which only serves to start an internal power struggle between Flemish and Castilian nobility.
The movie is interesting, but falters because it doesn’t balance the political angle with the love story. Plus Joan’s Danielle Steele, "to love is to be jealous" dialogue just doesn’t function in the 21st century – I need a hell of a lot more than that to believe a woman is driven mad without a man.
MAU MAU SEX SEX (U.S., 2000)
Directed by Ted Bonnitt
October 3, 9 p.m., CSIF
Ever see an 84-year-old man describe how difficult it is to film a nude volleyball game without showing anybody’s genitalia?
Film buffs will get a kick out of Mau Mau Sex Sex, a documentary that takes an affectionate look back at the careers of Dan Sonney and David F. Friedman, pioneer exploitation filmmakers supreme. Lifelong friends (and frequent business partners), Sonney and Friedman still enjoy each other’s company, and delight in telling stories of their glory days producing such ground-breaking schlock as She Freak (1966), Mau Mau (1954) and The Defilers (1965). These guys were around from the beginning, and their story is the story of exploitation film. There is a lot of fantastic archival footage, interspersed with scenes of the old boys forgetting where they left their car keys.
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (U.S., 1955)
Directed by Charles Laughton
October 4, 9 p.m., Plaza
Famed actor Charles Laughton’s first, and last, foray into feature film directing flopped at the box office upon its initial release, but is now widely recognized as a masterful film noir fairy tale about the resilience of children and the deleterious effects of religious fervour.
The Night of the Hunter is mostly celebrated for Robert Mitchum’s turn as an overzealous, corrupt preacher – a Christian fundamentalist who talks aloud with God and is perpetually caught between love and hate, the words he has tattoed on the fingers of either hand.
Mitchum is superlative, to be sure, but every element of the film is uniquely engaging – the script by James Agee based on Davis Grubb’s chilling Neo-Gothic novel, the stark black-and-white cinematography by Stanley Cortez and the supporting performances by Lillian Gish and Shelley Winters.
A nightmarish melodrama, this is a film that will put the fear of God – or at least of the God-fearing – into you.
OCD: THE WAR INSIDE
(Canada, 2001)
Directed by David Hoffert
and Mark Pancer
October 3, 1 p.m., Uptown
A man turns off the tap. He watches himself turn off the tap. He can see that he has turned it off, but he doesn’t believe it. So he turns it on and off. It must be turned off, right? No. He does it again and again – on and off, on and off – creating a ritual to make himself believe the evidence of his senses. This is just one of the powerful illustrations of obsessive-compulsive disorder presented in OCD: The War Inside.
Co-directors Mark Pancer and David Hoffert, the latter a victim of OCD, spent three years documenting the lives of six people suffering from varying degrees of the disorder, illustrating its effect on their lives by talking to the patients rather than their doctors. It’s a refreshing idea, making it easier to forgive Pancer and Hoffert for their uninspired filmmaking techniques.
ONE NIGHT THE MOON (Australia, 2002)
Directed by Rachel Perkins
October 3, 7:30 p.m., Globe
October 4, noon, Uptown
One Night the Moon is a unique film-opera set in 1930s rural Australia
Based on the life of Aboriginal tracker Albert Riley (Kelton Pell), this film follows the hunt for a young girl who disappears out her bedroom window into the outback. When her parents (Kaarin Fairfax and Paul Kelly) turn to local police for help, they bring in Albert, their best tracker.
A staunch racist, the father refuses Albert’s help and orders him off his property. After several days of fruitless searching, the mother independently seeks Albert’s help and the two set out on their quest. While the combination of music, singing and film usually yields scary Andrew Lloyd Webberish results, in this case we see an apt use of music, illustrating pain, conflict and racial tension with a blending of Australia’s imported Celtic heritage (violins, violas) and its Aboriginal culture (didgeridoos). Short and tasteful, One Night The Moon strives to carve out its own niche.
PAULINE AND PAULETTE (Belgium, 2001)
Directed by Lieven Debrauwer
October 6, 4 p.m., Globe
Here’s a gem that does something few mainstream movies have yet to accomplish – it’s uplifting without sporting a happy face. Bringing together Belgian screen legends Dora van der Groen and Ann Petersen for the first time, Pauline and Paulette is a feel-good movie that, refreshingly, doesn’t always feel that good.
Van der Groen plays the elderly, mentally disabled Pauline, left without a guardian when her sister Martha passes away. Petersen’s Paulette, another sibling, is a chubby socialite whose existence revolves around her trendy boutique and a stint at the local opera house, although – bucking the trend –when this gal sings, the movie ain’t over. Paulette, drooling over Martha’s will, reluctantly takes in Pauline – a test for her patience, but an eventual cure for her selfishness. Convincing performances enhance the realism of this sometimes gloomy tale, but it’s Debrauwer’s refusal to drown it with sentimental manipulation that truly sells it.
RACHIDA (Algeria/ France, 2002)
Written and directed by
Yamina Bachir Chouikh
October 5, 6:30 p.m., Globe
Writer-director Yamina Bachir Chouikh’s Rachida examines the repercussions of terrorism on civilians. Rachida (Ibtissem Djouadi) is a young schoolteacher in Algiers who is shot by a band of terrorists after she refuses to carry their bomb into her school. Surviving the trauma, she goes into hiding with her mother (Rachedi Bahia) in a more remote village. As the two women learn to re-adapt, violence resurfaces in their village.
After 30 years in cinema, Bachir Chouik finally received international acclaim at Cannes with Rachida. The filmmaker keeps a tight rein on her direction and storyline, and the film’s strength lies in its view of war through the eyes of women. The words "fear," "courage" and "freedom" echo throughout the film, an added reminder that there was truly no escape for the innocents of the war in Algiers. Rachida is a glimpse into terrorism we rarely see on the North American radar.
SACRIFICES (Sunduq Al Duyna, Syria/ France, 2002)
Written and directed by
Oussama Mohamed
October 5, 4 p.m., Globe
Few films bring Arab cinema to a whole new level like Syrian director Oussama Mohamed’s Sunduq Al Duyna (Sacrifices). The writer-director’s second feature since his award-winning Étoiles du jour in 1988, Sacrifices is a highly stylized film concerned with themes of possession, righteousness, innocence and the afterlife.
On his deathbed, a family patriarch agonizes over being able to recognize his grandchildren. Enter three young boys, all nameless cousins. Each seeks happiness: one through practicality, one through love and one through violence and cruelty.
Sacrifices favours sound effects and layered, theatrical imagery over narrative. Carefully shot and framed in continuous, dreamlike sequences, the film depicts some rather disturbing images of children suspended in midair, diseased eyes, bloody knives and the slaughter of hens. A feast for the eyes, Mohamed’s film stirred up Cannes, but has received little attention since. The film is thankfully hitting Calgary after bypassing many other film fests, and shouldn’t be missed.
THE SLAUGHTER RULE
(U.S., 2002)
Written and directed by
Alex and Andrew Smith
October 3, 9:30 p.m., Uptown
The Slaughter Rule is about footballer Roy Chutney’s bleak life in Blue Springs, Montana. After a series of personal losses, Chutney (Ryan Gosling) is recruited by the eccentric Gideon Ferguson (David Morse) to lead a six-man football team. We learn that the slaughter rule, is a forfeit applied when one team gains 45 points on the other. After that we don’t learn much more because the story derails as Roy falls in love, parties and fights with his buddy, deals with his clichéd screwed-up mom and tries his best to navigate through the most boring existential crisis I’ve ever seen. I believe in Gosling’s talent and charm as an actor, but it can’t save this film from the clenches of a bad script. In the end, The Slaughter Rule feels exactly like small-town life – it goes nowhere and gives you no reason to stay.
SOFT FOR DIGGING (U.S., 2001)
Written and directed by J.T. Petty
October 5, 9 p.m., CSIF
Soft For Digging is a film that combines drama, horror and suspense with captivatingly little dialogue. With only 49 words spoken in 74 minutes, the film is insidiously calm and quiet, except for an array of musical numbers that work in dark partnership with the visuals. The pinnacle of this duet occurs when screaming vocals and disturbing images combine to create a devilishly spine-tingling atmosphere.
Not until midway does the audience understand where the film is going – and even then our uncertainty remains (in a pleasant way). While the film does leave loose ends, the majority are cinched up in a quirky closing scene with one particularly misbehaved cat, and one bald hermit touched by evil.
STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN (U.S., 2002)
Directed by Paul Justman
October 1, 5 p.m., Uptown
October 4, 9 p.m., Globe
Standing in the Shadows of Motown is a terrific documentary that pays tribute to a group of musicians unfamiliar to many, even soul fans. Known as the Funk Brothers, these 13 players – most of them seasoned veterans of the Detroit blues and jazz scene – were the guts of the Motown sound, playing on hits by the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations and many other ’60s chart-toppers. The fact that they received so little public recognition for their achievements is a testament both to the ruthless efficiency of Motown’s star-making machinery and to the musicians’ modesty.
Based on Allan Slutsky’s 1989 history of the same name, Paul Justman’s film reunites the surviving Funk Brothers to tell anecdotes (the most hilarious of which involve their most revered member, bassist James Jamerson) and perform at a concert in Detroit.
In the process, Justman reveals how the Brothers’ ingenuity as musicians and closeness as friends helped foment a musical revolution.
TOM (Canada, 2002)
Directed by Mike Hoolboom
October 1, 7 p.m., CSIF
Tom is a biographical documentary as could only be rendered by notorious Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Mike Hoolboom.
Known for his graphically disturbing and aggressively intellectual experimental shorts, Hoolboom might be the last person you’d expect to make an intimate personal film, no matter how fractured and poetic it may be.
Composed predominantly of found footage (clips from newsreels, old movies, etc.), Tom tells the story of New York artist Tom Chomont, chronicling his incestuous relationship with his brother and his battle with Parkinsons, among other details of his life.
The obliquely cinematic framework is occasionally frustrating, and the film feels like it’s been padded to feature length, but Hoolboom has nevertheless crafted a fascinating and sensitive non-fiction portrait of a genius in decline.
LA TROPICAL (U.S., 2000)
Directed by David Turnley
October 6, 7 p.m., Plaza
Romance, rage, desire and despair – all captured in this exceptionally photgraphed and edited documentary – all available in the most musical dance hall in Latin America: Salon Rasado Benny More, also known by locals as La Tropical.
There, a brilliant nightlife exists – fuelled not by tourists, but energized with the timeless spice of local culture. In Havana, Cuba, sultry nights find their heat in furious musical traditions that mimic the passion of the city’s people.
The salsa, the tango, the rumba – it is said that dance is the most important non-religious ritual in Cuba.
And one can see why, as the voluptuous delights of the dancefloor offer escape from the poverty, oppression, racism, abortion and politics that afflict the country during the day.
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