More movies by women. Films reviewed: Moments of Clarity, A Magical Substance Flows Into Me
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is over but fall film festival season is just starting. Over the next year you’ll hear many of the interviews I recorded at TIFF, from Paul Verhoeven to Kore-eda Hirokazu and Alanis Obomsawin. There’s a multionational and multilingual selection of films. Still, by the end I realized that only one of the directors I interviewed was a woman. So to start to balance that out, this week I’m only looking at movies directed by women. There’s a home-schooled Christian in search of people to meet; and a Palestinian filmmaker in search of music to listen to.
Moments of Clarity
Wri/Dir: Kristin Wallace
Claire (Kristin Wallace) is an eccentric woman in her twenties who lives with her obsessive-compulsive mom (Saxon Trainor). She has no fashion sense or social skills to speak of, but is always good natured and optimistic. She acts like a 12 year old girl. She was home-schooled by her mom and kept sheltered from the rest of the world. She only ventures out to distribute to her neighbours the muffins she bakes, and gets nervous when she enters unknown territory. On the 
outside she’s a good Christian girl, but inside she’s a seething cauldron of unrealized sexual fantasies.
Danielle (Lyndsy Fonseca) is the local pastor’s daughter with just the opposite personality. She’s pretty and “normal”, cynical and jaded, but finds joy behind an old camera. Claire wants to be friends wth her. But when her camera is ruined she blames it on Claire. So Claire borrows her mothers wood-panelled station wagon and 
they set out for a used camera store the next town over. But who will they meet on the way? On the run from their respective parents and the police, Claire is exposed to sex, drugs, and the outside world for the first time, and discovers a secret about her past. Can she and Danielle stay friends? And can they both reconcile with their out-of-touch parents?
This is low-budget, buddy/road movie. It’s also a coming of age drama but with a twist… The budding adolescent is actually a fully grown adult, whose life has been stunted by an over protective mother. It’s a fun and simple comedy. I found it hard to believe that a woman in her twenties living in a town surrounded by other people could be that naïve and isolated… but once you accept the premise, the rest falls into place. And Moments of Clarity is written, directed by and starring a Toronto filmmaker.
A Magical Substance Flows Into Me
Wri/Dir: Jumana Manna
Robert Lachmann was a German orientalist and ethnomusicologist who fled Nazi persecution to British Mandate Palestine in the 1930s. Once there, he set about collecting the so-called “Oriental” music of that area, while spurning any music with European or North American influences. He recorded traditional and liturgical music on metal disks, as performed by musicians from indigenous and migrant cultures, all carefully documented and recorded. And he broadcasted them on the Palestine Radio Service. This included Bedouins, Palestinian Arabs in the Galilee, Coptic Christians, 
Kurds, Jewish Yemenites, and others.
Eighty years later, using Lachmann’s original notes and recordings, Palestinian filmmaker Jumana Manna sets out to find modern performers of the same songs. She play the original recordings, talks with members of those communities, and invites them to replay the same songs today.
The film is shot in carefully composed tableaux, with an unmoving camera, often in the musician’s kitchen or garden. She talks about their life and background, and then records an actual performance. This is punctuated with the director reading aloud Lachmann’s handwritten notes.
This is a fascinating movie. There’s an elderly member of the Samaratins — an ancient religion with fewer than a thousand followers split between Israel and Palestine — today shows off his 600 year old prayer scrolls. Then he listens to his father-in-law’s recording and sings along. You can’t find a voice like that anymore, he laments. A Kurdish man discusses pickles and olives. A Coptic Christian who leads tourists around holy sites says business is bad. People are afraid to come out here anymore. They hear about Isis beheadings in Iraq and think it’s all the same. And a Moroccan-Israeli woman celebrates her grandmother’s Arab roots.
This is a quiet film but subtly political. Musical performances are juxtaposed with silent shots of 
Israeli government maps of the occupied territories; shots of graffiti on both sides of the wall separating Israel from Palestine; and the director’s own father, a scholar of Palestinian history. Lachmann’s notes range from priceless records to weirdly dated, orientalist views of “primitive cultures.” Fascinating documentary.
Moments of Clarity opens today at the Carlton in Toronto. A Magical Substance Flows Into Me is 
playing as part of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival this weekend. Go to tpff.ca for details. And there’s Queen of Katwe, (which I talked about last week) the heart-warming story of an impoverished and illiterate teenaged girl in Uganda who wants to become a chess champion. It’s directed by the great Indian filmmaker Mira Nair, and starts today in Toronto. Check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks to director Mahmoud Sabbagh and stars Hisham Fageeh and Fatima Al Banawi about Barakah meets Barakah at #TIFF16
Hi, This is Daniel Garber at the movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Barakah is a municipal civil servant in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He drives a tiny white truck and gives tickets to people defying city bylaws. He lives in a rundown flat with his shrieking aunt (a midwife), and his complaining uncle (a down-and-out former musician).
Bibi is a hugely popular culture critic and fashion plate with a 
million followers on Instagram. She shares her opinions and photos…but only from the lips down (to keep her identity a secret). She’s rich, famous and single.
After a series of chance meetings, Bibi and Barakah realize destiny is at play, and the two of them just might belong together. Problem is: how do you date in a country where unmarried men and women can’t kiss, hold hands… or even appear together in public without an escort? Will Bibi and Barakah ever get to know each other? And how can two people of different backgrounds bridge the gap between them?
Barakah meets Barakah is a cute romantic comedy having its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s a humorous look at the troubles of dating inside restrictive Saudi Arabia. But it’s also a lament for the loss of the once vibrant Saudi culture. It’s directed by Mahmoud Sabbagh, and stars Hisham Fageeh and Fatima Al Banawi, as the star-crossed lovers.
Barakah meets Barakah is only the second contemporary Saudi film to screen in Canada. I spoke with Mahmoud, Hisham and Fatima on location at TIFF16.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
Is VR the New 3D? Movies reviewed: Ben Hur, Truman PLUS POP 03
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Does the future of cinema lie in virtual reality? Not yet, but it’s starting to make inroads in all movie forms. VR gives you a more experiential viewing experience than anything we’ve seen so far, expanding the margins to 360 degrees. A pop-up exhibition at TIFF (called POP 03) explores VR in the context of experimental and avant 
garde short films and experiential games.
Inverse Dollhouse puts you inside a virtual dollhouse. Floating hands move giant tables and enormous couches all around you. It’s terrifying! A Viceland documentary takes you on a ride-along in a pickup truck with Justin Trudeau. He’s visiting Shoal Lake, a First Nation reserve entirely lacking in drinkable water. There’s Food Fight, trippy Exploding Fractals morphing all around you, Guy Maddin’s psychedelic Seances, and lots more. It’s put on by the National Film Board and TIFF, and you can see it through Sunday. I saw it just an hour ago and still digesting it. Amazing stuff.
This week, I’m looking at a 3-D reboot of a sword-and-sandal classic about brotherhood and faith; and a European drama about friendship and loss.
Ben Hur
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov
It’s around 30 AD in Jerusalem. They’re under Roman rule, but bands of zealots are trying to drive them out. But oblivious to all these troubles are brothers Judah and Messala. Judah Ben Hur (Jack Huston) is Jewish royalty and lives a life of luxury. His brother Messala Severus (Toby Kebell) was a Roman orphan adopted by Judah’s family as a child, but keeps 
his Roman name religion and identity. The two of them love escaping to the desert to race on horseback. Messala, who is not of royal blood, feels the need to justify his existence. So he leaves his family to prove his strength on the battlefield, and returns home to Jerusalem triumphant.
He is asked by his commander to ensure safe passage through the city for 
Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate is the prefect of Judea for Rome, who struts around in foppish fur coats. The Zealots despise him. So when the procession passes the Ben Hur home, a zealot hiding there, shoots an arrow and misses. Ben Hur is blamed for this by his own brother, his family is crucified, and he is turned into a galley slave, rowing Roman warships 24/7. Years later, the ship is sunk and he washes up on shore. He is taken in by a chariot race entrepreneur (Morgan Freeman, in grey dreads!) and made into a charioteer. But so has his brother, Messala Severus, who is the 
champion Roman chariot driver. A big race is coming soon, and Ben Hur wants revenge. Which of the brothers will triumph and which one will die?
This is a remake (in 3-D) of the 1959 movie, starring Charlton Heston, made during the heyday of sword-and-sandal Roman movies. It’s two hours long, but keep in mind the original was 3½ hours long! This is like the condensed version. Lots of royal 
politics, family rivalries and revenge. The whole movie is overlaid with a religious story. Jesus of Nazareth regularly appears on the streets of Jerusalem, preaching to the people to love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek… sort of a gospel greatest hits. The third part is the chariot race itself: exciting and gripping – very well done. Ben Hur may feel old fashioned, too long, too religious, and holding few surprises (if you’ve seen the original) but I still liked it.
Truman
Dir: Cesc Gay
Julian and Tomas have been best friends since their schooldays in Argentina. Nut now they live continents apart. Julian (Ricardo Darin) is an actor who lives in Madrid now, performing on stage, in wigs and costumes, in plays by Moilere. He’s divorced, with a grown son, with just his enormous dog Truman to keep him company. Tomas (Javier Cámara) is married to a Canadian woman with two small children and lives in Montreal. He works as an engineer 
specializing in robotics. The two friends have an impromptu reunion — after many years apart – when he shows up, without notice, at Julian’s door, in Spain.
Why did he come from such a distance. Well, he’s heard the news.
The news is Julian is dying of cancer. Julian’s cousin Paula (Dolores Fonzi), another Argentinian living in Spain, told him all about it. So Tomas is there to spend a few days with him and help him out – as a friend should do.
Even though they’ve been apart for many years, they’re able to jump right back into their friendship, including the running jokes, wordplay and petty grudges. In the presence of a third person they can pick up on subtle clues and cover for each other. Doesn’t matter that Julian is a habitual liar who finds it hard to 
face the truth. He wants to tie up loose ends, say goodbye to his family and friends, and find a new home for his dog Truman. And to face his own mortality.
This is a great movie. The story is as simple and straightforward as the performances are nuanced and complex. It’s sad and funny and quite touching. I haven’t seen many movies from Argentina, but it’s funny that I remember all of these actors from previous roles. Great actors leave a lasting 
impression. Ricardo Darin is one of the best Argentine actors around. From Oscar winning films like The Secret in their Eyes, and Wild Tales. Meanwhile you may have seen Javier Cámara in lots of number of Almadovar movies – a good comic actor. I even remember the beautiful Dolores Fonzi from EL Critico a few years back. Great acting in the main and all the side roles. Even the dog is well-cast. Truman is definitely worth seeing.
Ben Hur and Truman both open today in Toronto: check your local listings. The POP 03 is on this weekend at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Old-school Heroes. Films Reviewed: Gleason, Anthropoid PLUS #TIFF16
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The Toronto International Film Festival, opening in September, has announced some of its big ticket premiers. And a running theme is heroism. TIFF opens with Antoine Fuqua’s 
(Training Day) remake of the classic spaghetti western The Magnificent Seven (based, of course, on Kurusawa’s Seven Samurai). Another movie filled with heroes is Oliver Stone’s biopic Snowden. It’s about everyone’s favourite whistleblower 
Edward Snowden who revealed the chilling fact that the NSA is spying on all of us.
India’s great director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) is bringing us Queen of Katwe about a young girl in Uganda who is sent to Russia to become a chess champion. This one looks so good, and co-stars Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo. And then there’s a political documentary about IF Stone’s investigative journalism. The theme is in the title: All 
Governments Lie. I haven’t seen any of these movies yet, but they do sound interesting.
But there’s no need to wait a month for your share of heroes. This week I’m looking at two new movies with old fashioned heroes. There’s a wartime thriller about two men fighting for their country, and a documentary about an NFL running back fighting for his life.
Gleason
Dir: Clay Tweel
Steve Gleason is a running back. Smaller than the average football player, he makes up for it with his lightning speed. He plays for the New Orleans Saints. Just a year after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, he sets the crowd wild with a legendary play at the Superdome. It’s labelled a symbol of the city’s rebirth. Steve is the antithesis of the stereotypical football player: long-haired, adventurous, smart and articulate. He’s like a punk hippy. He’s a great guy, a free spirit, a local hero. He meets Michel – a wonderful woman, equally unusual and 
independent. They get married enjoying the fun and laughter of young love.
He retires from football and just a couple years later, he notices a physical change. It’s just a small change, but he goes to a naturopath and then to a doctor to check it out. And in January, 2011, he is diagnosed with a neurological condition: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. ALS, also known as Lou Gerhig’s disease, is a 
degenerative condition where you gradually lose your ability to walk, talk, move and eventually even to breathe – your awareness and perception of the outside world doesn’t change, but your ability to move and express yourself does. And just a few weeks after his diagnosis Michel discovers she’s pregnant.
This film is a record of his life with ALS. It shows the very rapid decline in his abilities over the course of just a year. But during that time he and Michel decide to devote their lives to raising awareness of ALS. He makes appearances at football games, and becomes friends with musician Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. And he raises lots of money so that all people with ALS are provided with devoices to give them a voice after they stop talking. This film is also a video letter to their son Rivers so he won’t grow up 
never hearing his Dad’s voice.
This is a touching personal movie about faith, disabilities and family relations. It chronicles the day-to-day difficulty and drudgery of living with ALS, including lots of scenes you may not want to think about: like surgery, bowel movements, food chewing and marital difficulties. There’s also Michel caring for two people at once – her husband and her baby. And his Dad, an evangelical Christian who believes in faith healing. Steve’s faith is very different.
While not an easy film, I think it raises awareness of ALS a lot more than dumping buckets of ice water on your head.
Anthropoid
Dir: Sean Ellis
It’s WWII in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Jan and Josef (Cillian Murphy, James Dornan) are two members of the resistance. They are based in London with the government in exile, but are parachuted back into their country late at night. Along with a handful of others, they are there on a mission known as Operation Anthropoid. Their goal? To assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich is considered the third most powerful man 
in Nazi Germany, after Hitler and Himmler, and is in charge of the SS in occupied Czechoslavakia. Because of his infamous cruelty and mass killings, he is known as the Butcher of Prague.
The two men make their way into the city to carry out their assignment. But when they meet up with what remains of the local resistance fighters, they discover broken men. They have completely lost their moxie. They don’t want to fight;
their only goal is to stay alive. They warn Jan and Josef that their mission is impossible and will lead to torture and death.
They meet two young women to pose as girlfriends so as ot to raise suspicion. Marie (Charlotte Le Bon) is beautiful with pale skin and raven hair. Her friend Lenka (Anna Geislerová), is an elegant redhead. Together they plot a complex plan to ambush the 
heavily-guarded Heydrich at a city intersection. Can false relationships turn to real love? Will their plan succeed? And if they do succeed who will survive the wrath of the occupying forces?
Anthropoid is a classic wartime thriller, based on real events. I liked this movie, though parts of it bothered me. Why do the main characters all speak English but with fake Czech accents?
And for a thriller, it starts out slow, with lots of waiting around… though it picks up handily later on, with a gripping and exciting battle scene. The main cast – the men are Irish, the women Canadian and Czech – is very attractive, almost more like models than actors. The period costumes, sets, and locations are beautifully done. So all in all, Anthropoid is an enjoyable espionage thriller.
Gleason and Anthropoid both open today in Toronto: check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with On Again Off Again director Arsalan Shirazi
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM
Sami meets Jasmine at a party, and sparks fly. With each date affection grows, and turns into love after trip to the cottage. But is it a 
physical reaction or something deeper? Will this love last or will it change like the winds, 
blowing on again and off again, week by week?
On Again, Off Again is also the name of a new movie about romance and relationships. It’s 
having it’s world premier tonight at the Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival. The film was co-produced, co-directed, co-written and starring a first-time feature filmmaker named Arsalan Shirazi.
I spoke to Arsalan at CIUT to find out more about On Again, Off Again.
At a Crossroad. Films reviewed: The Seventh Fire, Cafe Society, Phantom Boy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Your life may seem to follow a straight path, but at some point we all face a crossroads. This week I’m looking at movies about points of change. There’s a man in Minnesota heading to prison, a boy from the Bronx heading to Hollywood, and a flying boy with cancer heading toward the stars.
The Seventh Fire
Dir: Jack Pettibone-Riccobono
Rob is an Anishnaabe man in his 30s who lives near Pine Point. It’s a small town on a reserve in rural Minnesota. He’s spending his last week as a free man, before he is sent back to prison. He turned himself in. He is giving up a thriving business with lots of eager customers. He makes a dry pink powder, adding things like laxatives to his meth to add a more dramatic finish, he says.
It’s a life of bingo games and gang tats, burning sofas and leach traps. House parties turn to coke fests and fistfights. But, Pine Point is his home. Now he has to leave it pay for his past and live with his legacy – and what it did to his community.
This film follows three people: Rob, a young man looking to leave the state, and a young pregnant woman, as they decide where to take their lives. Their voices, on- and off-screen, narrate the story. This verite documentary shows a bleak — if realistic – slice of life on an impoverished reserve (and in a prison). But it’s visualized amidst striking scenic beauty, along with occasional whimsy and hope.
Café Society
Wri/Dir: Woody Allen
It’s the 1930s, the Great Depression. Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) is nebbishy kid who lives with his parents in the Bronx. He has two older brothers. One is a communist intellectual, the other, Ben (Corey Stoll) is a gangster. Bobby heads west to find his own fortune. He shows up at his uncle’s office. Phil (Steve Carell) is a Hollywood bigwig, a shaker and mover. An agent to the stars, 
he is seen with his wife at all the best pool parties and cocktail lounges in town. Bobby is pasty and pale, dressed in a woolen suit amidst suntanned beauties — a real greenhorn. He gets to meet socialites by the dozen, including Rad Taylor (Parker Posey) who promises to show him the highlife if he ever goes back to NY. But when Bobby asks his uncle for an actual job, Phil balks. He says there aren’t any. Instead he gets his secretary, Vonnie, to show Bobby around.
Vonnie (Kristin Stewart) is a charming, plainspoken woman from Nebraska. She doesn’t mince words. When Bobby senses some mutual attraction, Vonnie nips it in the bud. I have a boyfriend, she says. Little does Bobby know, her boyfriend is his Uncle Phil – and Vonnie is his mistress. Which one will she choose? Young Bobby or established (but married) Phil?
Years later, Bobby finds great success in Manhattan. He hosts a popular nightclub – that’s the café society of the title – that his gangster brother snatched from a competitor. Bobby hobnobs with the in crowd, but he still seems lonely. 
Has he made the right decisions in his life?
Woody Allen narrates Café Society as a bittersweet look back to the 1930s, loaded with period costumes and music. Even so, it felt like a mishmash more than a movie. In only 90 minutes, it goes off on side plots and tangents about crime and family differences, high society and black jazz clubs, NY and LA. There’s even a painfully laborious scene about Bobby’s misadventures with a Hollywood prostitute – but why? Is it even from the same movie? What does it have to do with the love of Vonnie and Bobby?
Jesse Eisenberg and Christen Stewart also co-starred in last year’s American Ultra, (a stoner-comedy/action-thriller) but don’t have nearly the chemistry as they had in that one. Eisenberg is excellent as a surrogate Woody Allen, he has the accent and hesitation down pat, while Kristen seems honest and likeable as Vonnie. While Cafe Society does have a good finish, it’s clearly not one of his best.
Phantom Boy
Dir: Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol
Leo lives in New York with his parents and little sister. He’s a gawky kid in a baseball cap and a smiley-face shirt who is crazy about mysteries, especially detective stories. He’s in hospital now, undergoing chemotherapy. But he has a secret power: while he sleeps his phantom self can leave his body and float through walls, high in the sky, all around the city.
Detective Tanner is a great cop, singlehandedly stopping criminals, solving crimes and saving lives. He meets Mary Delaney, a prize-winning investigative journalist, when he stops two men robbing a grocery store 
they’re both shopping at. But his captain regards him as a pain in the ass — too much paperwork. So he gets assigned to a crime-free zone, patrolling the docks.
Meanwhile, an ingenious master criminal is terrorizing the city. He looks like a Picasso painting… but from his cubist period. His face is a patchwork of bright colours. He plunges the city into darkness, until he’s thwarted by Detective Tanner who spots him on the docks. But he escapes capture and Tanner ends up in hospital with a broken leg. While unconscious he encounters Leo, or Phantom Boy. Phantom Leo is only visible to injured or dying people while they are dreaming.
But somehow, the detective remembers his dream and recognizes Leo when he’s awake. But he can’t leave the hospital with his broken leg. Leo says he can help him catch the criminal. Here’s how: when Leo is semi-conscious his phantom self can float around the city, while the corporeal Leo, though asleep, can murmur to the cop what he sees. And Mary the journalist can investigate it all on foot.
But can they beat the master criminal, or will he kill them all.
This is a terrific animated kids movie. I saw this one last year – the original French version – last year and I loved it. Beautiful, classic animation, simple lines, elegant design. The one opening today is the English dubbed version, also great, but sounds a bit cornier to my English speaking ear. In any case, it still brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful music, great story, beautifully done.
The Seventh Fire, Café Society, and Phantom Boy all open today in Toronto: check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks with Our Little Sister director Kore-eda Hirokazu at #TIFF15
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 fm.
Three adult sisters — Sachi, Yoshino, and Chika — live together in a spacious, old-fashioned house beside a shady plum tree. They last saw their father years before when he left to shack up with another woman. Their mother also moved on leaving the three girls to function as a family unit. But when they go to their fathers funeral in a far away town, they first meet Suzu their 
father’s youngest daughter, who is now an orphan. In a sudden decision, they invite her to come live with them, as their new little sister.
Our Little Sister is also the name of a new film premiering at TIFF. It’s directed by Japanese master filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu. Kore-eda is known for his subtle but deeply moving dramas looking at life, death, kinship and unusual families. I spoke to him in September, 2015 at the Intercontinental Hotel during #TIFF15.
Our Little Sister opens today in Toronto.
Photos by Jeff Harris
Anti-heroines. Films reviewed: The Bride Wore Black, Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Anti-heroes aren’t hard to find. They’re in films, novels, and comic books: Hell Boy, Travis Bickle, or the characters in any private eye or crime novel.
But what about anti-heroes who are women? They’re a much rarer bird. This week I’m looking at two movies about anti-heroines. There’s a British comedy about two women who like to add names to their lists; and a French mystery/thriller about a woman who wants to cross names off her list.
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
Dir: François Truffaut
Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) is a pretty young woman dressed in black. She should be happy after her recent wedding, but she’s not. Something went wrong and she’s depressed. Jump-out-the-window depressed. When her repeated suicide attempts are thwarted, she sets of on a journey. She leaves with just a small suitcase and a list of five names: Bliss, Coral, Fergus, Morane and Delvaux. Who are these people, what do they have in common and and why does she want to meet them?
It turns out they are all men, all strangers – she’s never met them, nor they 
her. They live in different places across France, and work at wildly different jobs. Nothing seems to connect them.
Julie sets out on her mysterious mission. Her first stop? The handsome young playboy named Bliss (Claude Rich). She leaves him flowers and messages. Bliss is intrigued – he wants to meet this mysterious woman, described as beautiful by the man at the front desk. He’s about to get married but figures there’s always a chance for another notch in his bedpost. But things don’t go exactly as planned. He’s in for a big shock.
She crosses his name off her secret list and heads off to meet Coral, a lonely, petty office worker (Michel Bouquet). He lives a solitary, depressing life, marking his liquor bottles in case his nosy landlady takes a nip while he’s away. Julie meets him at a concert and joins him in his bleak rented room. He thinks his success with women is finally changing. It is, but not in the way he expects.
There’s Delvaux, a shady gangster who works in a junkyard, heading out to commit a crime. And Morane, a successful, married man with a son. She sends his wife off on a fake emergency, then talks her way into his home by 
convincing him she’s her boy’s schoolteacher, despite the kid’s denials.
Her most difficult case is Fergus, a successful artist (Charles Denner). She becomes the live model for a painting he’s working on, of a naked woman holding a bow and arrow. He’s sure he knows her, but he can’t put his finger on it.
Who are these men? What do they have in common? Why does Julie want to meet them? Is it love, revenge, or bloodlust?
The Bride Wore Black is a fantastic mystery from 1968, Truffaut’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock. He filmed this right after publishing his famous book of interviews (I spoke about last week) called Hitchcock/ Truffaut. The directing and editing were done in Hitchcock’s spare style. (He doesn’t explain the backstory — it;s up to the viewers to figure out). He even hired Hitchcock’s favourite composer Bernard Herrmann to write the soundtrack, and based the story on a book by crime writer Cornell Woolrich. (He wrote the story for Hitchcock’s Rear Window.) And it’s playing as part of the TIFF Cinematheque retrospective.
Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie
Dir: Mandie Fletcher
Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) is a rich Londoner who lives an all-female life. She works in the woman-dominated world of publicity, specifically fashion PR. She lives with her widowed Mum (June Whitfield), her single daughter Saffie (Julia Sawalha), and her granddaughter, Lola. And works with her 
eccentric Lancashire assistant Bubble (Jane Horrock) who handles the day-to-day. But she spends most of her time with her best friend Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley).
Eddie and Patsy are different from most people. Self-centred hedonists, they don’t think about ordinary things like food or money. (they don’t even know 
what that is) Life is one long party, followed by a perpetual hangover. They subsist on cigarettes, drugs, champagne and vodka straight out of the bottle. Self-conscious Eddie always worries about her weight, while Patsy remains rail thin. She’s always ready for a roll in the hay 
with any man between 15 and 90… she’s not picky.
At home, plain Saffy acts like the de facto mother, worrying about money and manners and responsibility, and disapproving of Eddie’s lifestyle. Eddie longs to be loved, but acts like an irresponsible whiney, spoiled teenager. Patsy is the bad friend who always leads Eddie into trouble. The two of them are the epitome of baby-bomer excess without any conscience.
But life is good. Money seems to appear magically in Eddie’s bank accounts (from her ex-husbands). Until now. Suddenly, the champagne supply goes dry, the bank accounts are empty, and Eddie has no new clients. They have to find someone to represent. But in a frenzy to sign a supermodel, Eddie accidentally pushes Kate Moss off a balcony into the river Thames. She’s a murderer!
Patsy and Eddie are on the lam. They flee to the French Riviera, to find a billionaire for Patsy to marry. If the police don’t find them first….
Absolutely Fabulous (aka AbFab) is based on the cult British sitcom from the mid 1990s. Created by the famous comedy team French and Saunders it portrayed women, for the first time, as aggressive, selfish, trend-obsessed, politically-incorrect characters. They are hilarious and shocking in their audacity.
The movie continues where the TV show left off, and the actors — especially Saunders and Lumley — are all flawless in their timing. The movie is packed with celebrity cameos so it could be compared to Zoolander 2, but that would be an injustice — this one is much, much better. Not every joke is funny, the TV laugh track is missing, and it’s a shock to see these TV faces 30-feet-high on a movie screen.
But it’s still as funny as it ever was.
For more anti-heroines, you can catch the classic Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! presented by the Retropath and Ladies of Burlesque at the Royal Cinema. Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. The Bride Wore Black is screening next Thursday as part of Hitchcock/Truffaut: Magnificent Obsessions series playing at TIFF Cinematheque. Go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Unexpected combinations. Films reviewed: Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite, Hitchcock/Truffaut
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
What do these movies have in common? Cockneys vs Zombies, Cowboys 
and Aliens, Bambi Meets Godzilla. Obviously, they’re all movies with unexpected combinations. So this week I’m looking at two new movies (though nothing like the ones I mentioned) that combine things in unexpected ways. There’s a documentary about the historic meeting of two very different directors, and a ghostly horror movie… set in Russia.
Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite
Wri/Dir: Svyatoslav Podgayevskiy
It’s a snowy day in a Russian city. Four teenagers – Anya, Matya, Matvey and Seryozha – are playing a game. Matyev is a jock, Seryozha (Sergey Pokhodaev, Leviathin) is a nerd with glasses, Katya is an older redhead (Valeriya Dmitrieva), and Anya (Alina Babak) while tough is still just a 12-year-old girl who lives with her divorced mom.There’s an urban myth that says you can summon the Queen of Spades, a dead spirit, if you draw a door on a mirror in lipstick by candlelight, and repeat her name three times — Queen of Spades, Queen of Spades Queen of Spades. (Don’t try this at home, kids…) Naturally, nothing happens – well not right away.
After the game, the four friends go back to their respective apartments, as usual, but at night 
— that’s when the scary stuff begins. Turns out the Queen of Spades was a Russian aristocrat who murdered kids for their money. She was caught and the cut out her tongue and shaved he head, left to roam the streets in black rags – hence the Queen of Spades. But her spirit, if that’s what it 
is, will come to you by night with a scissors to snip off your hair, and kill you.
When the kids start dying, one by one, Anya’s and her divorced parents (Igor Khripunov, Evgeniya Loza) flee the father’s apartment. Will the ghost follow them there? Eventually they track down a former doctor (Vladimir Seleznyov) in a dacha in the woods.He’s an expert at getting rid of 
ghosts — and holds a grudge against this o ne in particular. But can anyone defeat the Queen of Spades?
This is a good scary horror movie. It feels like those creepy Japanese movies from the 90s like Ring and Dark Water (Hideo Nakata), with a good dose of the Exorcist thrown in. The plot is very conventional, but what I found so interesting was the look of the film. So that’s what a Russian funeral looks like. Or a hospital, or even a public toilet with curved tiled walls inside. And I never knew people upholster their front doors. Great austerity and cold creepiness.
The acting is generally good, and the suspense keeps you watching, but it’s the look I really like from this ghostly Russian pic.
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Dir: Kent Jones
Francois Truffaut is today known as a great French Director and one of the founders of the nouvelle vague, the French New Wave. But before he was a director he was a film critic. As a young movie enthusiast, he was taken under the wing of andre Bazin, and brought into the fold of an extremely influential magazine, the Cahier du Cinema. It’s the Cahier du Cinema (and Truffaut himself) that changed the way we look at films as a body of work of a single artist. Directors became 
“auteurs”, the authors of a series of films. Before that, they were employees of the huge factory mentality of Hollywood — important and well paid, for sure, but a cog in the wheel.
In the 1960s, the fledgling French director wrote to the incredibly successful Alfred Hitchcock. He asked if they could meet for a week in Hollywood for a series of detailed interviews for a book. Now, Hitchcock was rich and successful and his 
movies were often hits. But what he didn’t have was critical praise, He was dismissed as unimportant, popular entertainment. And he never received an Oscar.
So Hitchcock said yes.
The result was Hitchcock/ Truffaut an incredibly influential book that served as a bible for future directors. This film, with the same name, shows the original recordings and photos those interviews. It’s illustrated with crucial stills and clips from the two directors’ works. And many of the directors they influenced — Scorsese, Fincher, Linklater, Wes Anderson, Paul Schrader, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and many others — appear to talk about these movies.
You find out Hitchcock didn’t have a great relationship with his actors — he said they were cattle that had to be moved around.
It turns out Hitchcock was a total perv and so were most his characters! He calls Scottie (the Jimmie Stewart character in Vertigo) a necrophiliac.
If you’re into movies, film criticism, cinema studies, or if you’re a filmmaker yourself, this one is a must-see. Fascinating documentary.
Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite opens today in Toronto: check your local listings; Hitchcock/Truffaut is part of a TIFF Cinematheque retrospective Hitchcock/Truffaut: Maginificent Obsessions running all summer long, with films by those two great directors. (Stay tuned, I’ll be covering some of the films later on this summer.) Go to tiff.net for showtimes.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Multiple stories. Films reviewed: The Debt, Wiener-Dog
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Although every movie is different, most tell a single story. But there are exceptions. This week I’m looking at two new movies that tell a whole bunch of stories, stories that are somehow tied. There’s a dark comedy with a dog-related plot, and a drama related to a plot of land.
The Debt
Dir: Barney Elliot
This movie is made up of three or four linked stories all set in Peru.
Oliver (Stephen Dorff) is a successful financier who works for a multinational bank. He specializes in vulture funds with debt bonds from distressed economies. His current goal? To corner the market in Peruvian real estate debt. He works with his idealistic Peruvian friend Ricardo (Alberto Ammann) to snap up debt at deep discount. But will Ricardo agree to business that might hurt his country?
Maria (Elsa Olivero) is a nurse at a Lima hospital. She’s trying to arrange an 
operation for her mother who suffers from painful rheumatoid arthritis. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t get surgery scheduled for her mom. Will she have to resort to illegal methods?
Meanwhile in a remote mountainous area, a slick real estate developer named Caravedo (Carlos Bardem) is promising the sky to gullible farmers. Health clinics, electricity, telephones… They are quick to sell, except one die-hard farmer named Florentino (Amiel Cayo). He is angry and will never give in.
And on Florentino’s farm, his son, Diego (Marco Antonio Ramírez) is fascinated by the helicopters he sees. They carry wealthy investors from far away. But they also wreak havoc with his llamas, whom he depends on..
The Debt is a complex story, that brings the diverse plot together by the end. It’s done in the style of movies like Paul Haggis’s Crash – lots of interrelated characters who interact in unexpected ways. It deals with big issues – multinational economies, farmers driven from their land – but in a rather ponderous way. Lots of guilt, responsibility, betrayal, selfishness – things like that. Not my favourite type of movie, but it held my interest and I liked all the Peruvian actors.
Wiener-Dog
Wri/Dir: Todd Solondz
This movie also has four stories, but told in a linea way, and only peripherally connected. They are all set present day New York City and the suburbs and towns around it.
Remy (Keaton Nigel Cooke) is a young boy recovering from chemotherapy. He’s a survivor. His rich but uptight parents (Tracy Letts and Julie 
Delpy) They buy him a short haired dachshund at a puppy mill. But they don’t realize it will open a whole lot of hard-to answer questions. Like do dogs have feelings? What happens if they get sick? Why should she get spayed. — what if she wants to have kids? His mother is forced to concoct more and more outlandish stories to answer the boy’s questions.
In the second story the depressed and friendless Dawn 
Wiener (Greta Gerwig) meets her old teenage crush, the bully Brandon (Kieren Culkin). Brandon is passing through town and sees the girl he used to call Wiener Dog with her very own Wiener dog. On a whim, she agrees to join him on a mysterious road trip to Ohio. What’s in Ohio? She asks. Crystal meth. On the way they meet a band of mariachi hitchhikers and Brandon’s Down syndrome brother.
The third story is about Schmertz (Danny Devito) an over-the-hill scriptwriter with only a wiener dog to keep him company. He is forced to teach self-centred rich kids at a Manhattan film school. His students all write plotless scripts based on their gender-studies relevance not their stories. Where’s the What If? He always asks them. “You gotta have a what if.” But if he doesn’t come up with a what if for his life, he risks being fired.
In the final story, we see an angry depressed grandmother 
(Ellen Burstyne), cared for by another old woman. They never speak, except the occasional requests: Yvette — Kaopectate! Her new pet — wiener-dog of course – she names Cancer. It just seems appropriate. But she has to to come to terms with her own past and precarious future when a visiting granddaughter drops by.
I love Todd Solondz’s movies, even the ones that don’t quite work. They’re all fascinating, funny and deeply depressing. He
creates complex, reflexive stories often with repeated plotlines. The Wiener Family has also appeared in his first movie Welcome to the Dollhouse as well as Palindoromes, so if you follow his movies, it’s gratifying to see what happens to those characters. I love his painfully sad comedies, including this one. The acting is fantastic, especially Ellen Burstyn.
Wiener-dog is great.
The Debt and Wiener-dog both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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