| Intriguing stories told through the artistry of dance have become the specialty of Canadian filmmaker Moze Mossanen.
A pioneer in the fledgling genre of cine-dance, writer and director Mosannen features many of Canada’s finest dancers in his innovative work. Viewers will be able to peruse a collection of his more notable works on March 1 in the one-night Tribute to Moze Mossanen on Bravo!
A common theme in this four-film presentation is the all-consuming power of attraction. Whether it’s between a man and a woman, two men or two women, Mossanen renders imaginative portraits of longing and desire. In their order of presentation, here are the films featured in Bravo’s tribute:
From Time to Time – This is a half-hour presentation of the hour-long film that will debut on CBC’s Opening Night on Thursday, February 26. Featuring the music of Joni Mitchell, From Time to Time traces the emotional arc of a suburban woman’s life through four decades of her existence. As performed by dancer Emma Lu Romerein, we see our heroine progress through the tumultuous ’60s and the sexually uninhibited ’70s up to the dawn of the new millennium. This new work from Mossanen also features acclaimed dancers Ted Banfalvi, Roberto Campanella and Rex Harrington. The Mitchell songs featured in the presentation are taken from her albums Both Sides Now and Travelogue.
Year of the Lion – Here is yet another loose interpretation of the 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. While actors from John Malkovich to Sarah Michelle Gellar have been featured in the book’s previous cinematic adaptations, Mossanen calls upon dancers Roberto Campanella and Gulaine St.-Onge to head up this time-honoured tale of lust, seduction and betrayal. Year of the Lion opens with a Brazilian ball sequence featuring many dancers in a twirling celebration of lavish proportions. But its most intriguing segment comes later in the tale in a performance known as "Duet for City Streets." In this section, dancers Campanella and Ted Banfalvi are corporate-world denizens battling each other for prominence. The cutthroat competitiveness of hungry suit-and-tie types is adeptly rendered through aggressive choreography and dazzling side-by-side dance elements.
The Rings of Saturn – An earlier, somewhat flawed effort by Mossanen with five distinct segments tied together by the narration of a pre-teen girl played by Kendra Baker. Each piece deals with a private longing. There’s a single woman who covets her best friend’s husband, a middle-aged male doctor attracted to his much younger male patient and a man at a swimming pool fantasizing about a shimmering beauty in a silver bathing suit. The pool segment delivers ample heat as man and woman glide above and below the water’s surface in an erotic ode to unfulfilled desires. Also of note, The Rings of Saturn features a subtle and enticing dance performance from veteran Canadian actor Sonja Smits in a chapter involving a handsome young shoe-store employee.
My Gentlemen Friends – This film takes a much more traditional narrative style to its subject matter. No elaborate interpretive dance segments here. Instead, we see a trio of elderly gay men reflecting on the dance-troupe experiences and personal trials that built the foundation of their friendship. In My Gentlemen Friends, the men’s tales are presented as part of a documentary film that’s going through the editing process. This sets up a power struggle between the movie’s director (Christina Collins) and her executive producer (David Dunbar) who is determined to sanitize the film of its most dramatic moments. There’s also a "will they or won’t they" storyline regarding the complicated attraction between the Collins character and a female co-worker. This only serves to muddle a film that works best when its three elderly male stars (Aron Tager, Francois Klafner and David Gardner) are holding court.
A Tribute to Moze Mosannen airs Monday, March 1 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on Bravo! |
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