From Prairie Tales 9
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Prairie Tales 9 includes works by Alberta artists and filmmakers at every stage of their careers — some proficient, some figuring out the details of how to make a good movie. The support of local media centres like Quickdraw Animation Society, Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers (CSIF) and EMMEDIA is evident here, as their mandates to provide equipment and foster the creation of independent media artworks touch nearly every local work in the program, including some true gems.
The best narrative work in the program unfolds at the Calgary Public Library. Opening and closing with shots of the city skyline, Michael Peterson’s The Song is a lusty imagining of what goes on in the library after dark. A cute hipster gal peruses the stacks, picks out some hot reads and parks herself at the opposite end of a reading table from a dude who’s obviously awestruck. Their subsequentwild book-lust induced makeout session inspires two clone-ish security guards to get gay in the surveillance room, and we’re even treated to some romantic librarian-on-janitor action. Made with support from the CSIF, this is where Peterson’s indie production values really shine: the DIY feel of this film manages to convey just the right amount of nerdy earnestness that’s a perfect match for a story set in the local library.
In Cea, Dominique Keller and Andrea Pass establish a shot in a wide-open prairie field. A human figure creeps slowly out of the wheat and this landscape becomes animated by a group of dancers. The movements of this sprightly bunch resemble the motion of grasses rippled by wind, growth cycles and even conjure the odd creature hopping around in this rural ocean. Flawlessly synchronized choreography between the dancers would have made this work really sing, but it still manages to be a gorgeous interpretation Alberta’s landscape.
Like The Song and Cea, the screening’s most successful films stay away from stock techniques and avoid inserting random “arty” clips into otherwise cohesive pieces. Julia Burns’s You've Got Nothing but Light, Let it Shine, however, is bravely dedicated to the pure experimental quality of film collage. The program compares her method with early Stan Brakhage, one of experimental film’s greatest progenitors. Indeed, she busts out the classic techniques in her series of hand-processed film clips —the ocean, a bird on a fence and the carnival— under a screen of gentle visual static characteristic of Super-8 film and accompanied with music by C. Bjerring and Oldseed.
Three animations appear as short blips within the program. All short to a fault and relatively colourless, they function as quick sketches for what could become larger projects. The inclusion of animation within Prairie Tales has always left me a tad cold, because it certainly deserves a place in the program, but without more ambitious, longer works, audiences miss the strong animation work being created in centres like Calgary’s own Quickdraw Animation Society.
The Perfection of the Moment is a witty “choose your own adventure” short that mediates on queerbashing and plays off the stereotypes that seem oh-so-Alberta: hillbillies are tooling around in their pickup truck lookin’ for one o’ them faggots to git. Tag, you’re it! Sigh, not again. Do you blow a kiss, make a fake call to the girlfriend, bust a kung-fu move or run away? This work could have a substantial message underlying the comedic staging, but luckily for him, the dude’s just a metrosexual with a minor concussion who is easily consoled with a blowjob from his doting girlfriend. Is it funny? Yes, but that certainly doesn’t provide any dialogue or comfort for those who actually are targets of homophobic violence in Alberta.
Thanks to Trevor Anderson and his tongue-in-cheek gay rock ’n’ roll experiment, Rock Pockets, the screening ends on a high note at the festival formerly known as Klondike Days. With cinematic eye candy and an energetic queer rant, Anderson’s piece is a refreshing counterpoint to some of the program’s more clichéd nods to the prairie esthetic.
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