Innocent children. Films reviewed: Lamb, The Rescue, Squid Game
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In movies, little kids and innocent animals are the perfect way to gain our sympathies. But what about adults who have fallen on hard times?
This week I’m looking at two new movies and a miniseries from around the world all about the innocent. There’s a childless couple on an Icelandic farm who adopt a baby lamb; a teenaged Thai soccer team trapped in a cave; and Korean ne’er-do-wells forced to compete at childish games… in a kill-or-be-killed arena.
Lamb
Co-Wri/Dir: Valdimar Jóhannsson
Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) are a married couple who live on a sheep farm in rural Iceland at the base of a snow-capped mountain, beside a twisting brook. Their lives are content but lonely, with just a cat, a dog and each other to keep them company. Their only child died, leaving a gap that can’t be filled. If only they could go back in time… or somehow bring their lost child back to life. Until, one of their sheep gives birth to an angelic baby lamb. And there’s something different about this one. They immediately bring it into their home, feed it milk from a bottle and put it to sleep in their baby’s crib. They name it Ada, after their own child.
What’s so different about Ada? Their face, shoulders and one arm are like any other lamb, but the rest of their body is human. It’s a gift from the gods, they say. They teach Ada nursery rhymes, take them for walks, and dress them like any other child. Ada can’t speak, but understands Icelandic and can nod or shake their head in response to questions. But not everybody is happy with the new arrangement. 
Ada’s mother, a ewe, wants her baby back. She waits outside their window each day longing for her lamb. And Petur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson), Ingvar’s brother, returns to the farm after decades living in Reijkjavik as a rock musician. Can this unusual family stay to gather? Or will outside forces tear them apart?
Lamb is a very unusual movie, a combination, fairytale, love story and haunting family drama with all the complications that entails. It’s pace is slow-moving and rustic — like life on a farm — but not boring, even though the people don’t talk very much. It’s beautifully shot amidst Iceland’s stark scenery, and the acting is good and understated. (You probably recognize Noomi Rappace — best known for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.) And though not much happens, the ending is certainly a surprise. Lamb is a nicely understated film..
The Rescue
Dir: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
It’s June, 2018 in Northern Thailand near the Burmese and Laotion borders. 12 young soccer players — age 11-16 — and their coach go for a day trip to explore the popular local caves. Tham Luang is a miles-long twisting tunnel filed with beautiful limestone rock formations. They are always closed during monsoon season in July, as it’s prone to flooding. But this year the rains came early, and the entire team was trapped, surrounded by rushing water, deep inside the caves. The Thai Navy seals were sent in to rescue them and bring them food, but they were trapped there too. They also recruited some of the best cave divers — a very obscure area of expertise — from
the UK, Belgium, the US, and elsewhere. But as days turn to weeks, time is running out, and the waters keep rising. Can the boys be saved?
This documentary looks in detail at the story — which held the world’s attention for weeks — of the miraculous rescue and the hundreds of people involved in it. It uses archival TV footage, news animation, and brand new interviews. It also re-enacts many of the crucial scenes — never captured on film for obvious reasons, they were too busy saving lives — using the original divers, and some actors. The film is made by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, known for their breathtaking docs following mountain climbers — films like Free Solo. The Rescue (which won the People’s Choice award at TIFF this year) is also exciting and gripping, but not as much as the mountain climbing. This is mainly underwater and in near darkness, plus the fact that nearly everyone still remembers the story from just 3 years ago, no spoilers needed. I would have liked to have heard more from the Thai rescuees and a bit less from the British rescuers, but I guess they didn’t want to give interviews. I enjoyed The Rescue, but I wasn’t blown away by it.
Squid Game
Wri/Dir: Hwang Dong-hyuk
It’s present day Korea.
Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is a compulsive gambler who grew up in a working-class neighbourhood. He is constantly compared with his best friend from childhood Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo), who made millions as a top financier, while Gi-hun spiralled deeper and deeper into debt. His wife divorced him and he rarely sees his 10 year old daughter, whose step father is taking her to The States. On top of this his elderly mother is suffering from diabetes. How can he get some cash — quick? At the racetrack, of course, But his winnings are stolen by a stealthy pickpocket (Lee Jung-jae). And that’s when he receives a mysterious card from a strange man. He is invited to play some games to earn a lot of money. He — and 500 
others — say yes, and wake up in a strange uniform at an unspecified place. He remembers the games from childhood, like Freeze or Statues where you try to cross the line, but have to freeze when the caller tells you too. The difference is, if you move, you get gunned down by snipers! These games are deadly and there’s no way out. But the winner will get all the cash in a giant glass globe suspended overhead. Who will survive? Who is behind this perverse game? And why are they doing it?
Squid Game is an engrossing nine-part Netflix dramatic thriller about a group of people down on their luck forced to play a deadly game. Aside from Gihun, his pickpocket is also there — she’s a defector from North Korea; as is his childhood best friend who was caught with his hand in the till. Other characters include an elderly man with cancer, a disbarred doctor, a migrant worker from Pakistan, a petty gangster, and an aging, foul-mouthed sex worker with lots of moxie to spare. And an undercover cop, trying to infiltrate the organization to discover what happened to his missing brother. And they’re supervised by ruthless, nameless and faceless guards dressed in pink hooded jumpsuits. What keeps you watching this bloody and violent drama are the characters — they’re funny, quirky each with their own stories to tell. Squid Game is an incredibly popular series out of Korea, one of Netflix’s top TV shows to date. And I can see why. It seems silly, but it’s a great binge-watch, each chapter ending with enough of a cliff hanger to keep you hooked till the end.
This is a good one.
The Rescue and Lamb open this weekend; check your local listings. Squid Game is now streaming on Netflix.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Red and Green. Films reviewed: Wild Mountain Thyme, Sing Me a Song
Hi, this is Danel Garber at the movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This year – with it’s school-closings, rampant unemployment and a province-wide lockdown – surely won’t be remembered as a great Christmas. Especially not for movies. I can barely remember the last movie I saw in a theatre. But on the bright side, this means there’s lots more time watch them, at least at home.
This week, I’m talking about two new movies, a documentary and a comedy romance, that reflect the seasonal colours of red and green. There’s a lovesick Buddhist monk draped in maroon robes, and rural courtship on the emerald isle.
Wild Mountain Thyme
Wri/Dir: John Patrick Shanley
Once upon a time in county Mayo, Ireland, there were two farms. They belong to two families, the Muldoons and the Rileys, and the Rileys, to get in and out of their own farm must cross a strip of land belonging to the Muldoons, with an iron gate on it. So the two families are forever tied. Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) is a strong willed girl who loves riding horses. She is tall and elegant with long ginger hair and will dance a jig whenever shes happy. . Her father tells her you can do anything you want, you’re like the swan in the ballet Swan Lake. But where’s her handsome prince?
Across the hill lives Anthony Reilly (James Dornan). He’s clumsy, tongue-tied and shy. He likes smelling the wild flowers but gets nervous around girls. . He’s secretly in love with Rosemary but is too shy to tell her. Falsh forward a few decades, and nothing has changed. Anthony practices proposing to Rosemary 
by talking to a donkey, thus reinforcing the local lore that he’s more like a Kelly than a Riley, meaning hes stupid and prone to madness.
Finally, his father (Christopher Walken) has had enough. He invites his nephew Adam (John Hamm), a stock trader from Manhattan who drives a Rolls Royce, to come and see the farm… and their still-unmarried neighbour Rosemary. Is this her prince come to rescue her? Or should she keep waiting for Anthony to propose.
Wild Mountain Thyme is a comedy romance that just doesnt work. Its set — I imagine – in the 1990s or 2000s but seems frozen in time. No music except Swan Lake on a phonograph and celtic singalongs at the local pub. as if the radio and TV have yet to be invented and the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80… never happened. Would a headstrong woman really wait decades for a man who lives next door to propose? This was originally a Broadway play that won a Tony, but it 
clearly doesn’t translate well to the screen. The make up is weird, but so are the fake Irish accents and ridiculous plot. Even the art direction is awful — bright red shutters on a white-washed house, artificial looking CGI. Everything looks false and contrived. Emily Blunt is a good actress, but what the hell is this? Shanley wrote and directed the very good Doubt, and Dornan made his fame as a “sexual” movie star with the 50 Shades of Grey series, but this movie is a weirdly nostalgic American simulacrum of an Ireland that never existed. This movie is not entirely without merit; there is one good part – when Anthony reveals his totally unexpected secret fantasy (no spoiler), but its not enough to save this dud.
Sing me a Song
Dir: Thomas Balmès
Laya is a town built around a buddhist monastery in the remote, mountainous kingdom of Bhutan. Peyangki is a teenager studying there to become a lama, or a buddhist priest. This means lighting oil lamps, and memorizing sutras and mantras with the other novices. He tries hard, but is not a great student. But he owes it to his single mom (his father was frightened to death by a bear the day he was born) to pray for her when she dies. He earns some extra money foraging for wild mushrooms with his sister. But while he’s training there, the country is electrifying (joining the power grid) for the first time. This means sattelite dishes, TV, cel phones and social networks. All entirely new conceots in Bhutan. Soon, the former novices are glued to their cels playing video games instead of meditating.
He meets a woman on Snapchat named Ugyen, when he asks her to sing him a love song. He thinks she’s pretty and nice and has a good voice. But what he doesn’t know is she’s a hostess who works at a karaoke bar in the capital. And
that she’s divorced with a kid. And when they meet for the first time in person, both of them are very disappointed. Ugyen is the urban sophisticate, who is aware of the outside world and longs for the bounty money can buy. For Peyangki, even the capital is new to him, — he has no desire for money. But he soon adjusts to the thrills of arcades, fashions and virtual reality. Can this relationship work? Will Peyangki leave the monastery? And what about Ugyen’s goals and desires?
Sing me a Song is a fascinating documentary about the modernization of Bhutan as seen through the eyes of the two main characters. Its told as a narrative, with the audience following both of the characters. So we know their secrets, but they don’t… that’s revealed on camera. The director Balmès — he made the wonderful movie Babies — has a way of enteringthelives of his 
subjects. Its beautifully shot,often in darkness only lit by candlelight or the flashing glow of video screens. Some of the scenes seem planned or contrived, so you womder would this have happened the way it did without the camera there? And as a westerner — he’s a French film maker — is he also an influence on his subjects lives? — but you cant lie about the look and the faces and the feelings of the subjects. You really feel for them. This wonderful doc gives a rare inside look at the people in the remote kingdom of Bhutan.
Wild Mountain Thyme is now playing and Sing Me a Song starts on January 1st across North America; 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.
Good not good. Films reviewed: Bombshell, A Hidden Life, Cats
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Ever watch something that’s bad, but still has good parts? Or a beautifully rendered piece of art that doesn’t live up to its potential? This week, I’m looking at three new films, that I liked but didn’t like, or hated but still enjoyed. There’s one farmer in wartime Austria, three women at Fox News, and a hundred cats in London.
Bombshell
Dir: Jay Roach
It’s Fox News studios in New York City. Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) is a top TV journalist and news anchor, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is co-host of Fox & Friends, Donald Trump’s favourite show, and newcomer Kayla Pospisal (Margot Robbie) is a committed conservative evangelical, trying to advance her career. What do these three women have in common? Theyre all smart, conservative and attractive (Carlson is a former Miss Minnesota.) And they were all hired by Roger Ailes (John Lithgow). Ailes is the highly profitable Fox News CEO, the man who singlehandedly shifted cable journalism from neutral news-source to a font
of blatantly partisan right-wing talking points, leaving CNN in its dust. He’s also paranoid and hideously ugly, called Jabba the Hut behind his back.
The Fox News he runs is a place where cameras are positioned to show off female newscasters’ legs. Male employees advance because of their work. Female employees are also judged on looks, and work in a blatantly sexist office culture. And Ailes is the centre of it all, using his position power to exploit, harass and sexually assault young women. Kelly shares her 
concerns with her husband and Pospisal with her lesbian lover and Fox News staffer (Kate McKinnon) who says she doesn’t want to hear about it. But Carlson refuses to take this lying down. She launches a lawsuit against Ailes and Fox News. But will other journalists, like Kelly and Pospisal (a composite character based on real people) join her struggle, or stay loyal to Ailes?
Bombshell is a fast-paced news drama based on recent real-life events. It’s told in a light, punchy and easy-to-digest format, which makes the few dramatic scenes showing sexual harassment all the more powerful. Theron, Kidman and Robbie are all terrific and believable in their roles. On the ther hand, the movie barely touches on the awfulness and deceit of Fox News itself. And while it skewers Ailes it leaves the notorious Rupert Murdoch strangely untouched. Bombshell tells a great story, as seen by three strong women, around sexual harassment, but doesn’t concern itself with other political matters.
A Hidden Life
Wri/Dir: Terrence Malick
It’s WWII in Austria. Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl) is a simple farmer deeply in love with his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner). They live with his mother, her sister and their three little girls inthefoothills of a dramatic mountain range. Together with their neighbours they till the fields, harvest the grain and carry it, on the back of a donkey, to the miller. They go to church on Sunday and dress up in masks and costumes to honour the harvest. Their life is idyllic until… Franz gets drafted for army duty a second time. Enough, he says. I’m not going. No more Heil Hitler’s, no more military uniforms, no more separation from my wife and kids. Enough! Neighbours and government officials try to convince him to sign a loyalty oath, but he refuses. He is sent to prison, leaving his wife and sister-in-law to plow the fields among neighbours who aren’t friendly anymore. Only their constant letters keep them sane and I love. Will Franz sign the oath, or will he stay steadfast to his beliefs, even at risk of death?
A Hidden Life is a lush and beautiful rendering of a simple act of resistance in wartime anschluss Austria. It’s directed by Terrance Mallick, and is instantly recognizable by its swirling images, breathy voiceovers, lush music and stunning camerawork. People clutch earth in their fingers, and reap fields with scythes. Good passionate acting, featuring cameo performances by Matthias Schoenaerts, Franz Rogowski, and the late, great Bruno Ganz.
On the other hand… it’s three hours long. Three hours! Why does it take so long to tell such a simple story? Why? It’s not exactly boring or tedious since it’s done so beautifully, but similar stories have already been told (and in a more dramatic fashion, like Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 13 Minutes/Elser – Er hätte die Welt verändert). As a movie critic, I try to avoid terms like “self-indulgent”, but this movie is strictly for fans of Terrence Mallick.
Cats
Dir: Tom Hooper
It’s nighttime in a fantastical, pre-gentrified London, where abandoned alley cats rule the streets. The Jellicle Cats are gathered for their annual meeting, presided over by Old Deuteronomy (Judy Dench), who will choose one cat to be reborn. Each contestant performs before the queen: There are dancers (Francesca Hayward, Steven McRae) singers (Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson), comics (Rebel Wilson, James Corden), a 
magician dressed in black and white (Laurie Davidson) and even an old theatre cat (Ian McKellen). But the age-old ceremony is challenged by the evil Macavity (Idris Elba) who is kidnapping each cat after their performance. Who will be chosen to ascend to the skies? Will peace and order return to the Jellicle cats? And can newbie Victoria join the gang?
Cats is a strange hybrid of theatre, and movie special effects. Each act is performed on a vast soundstage, keeping close to how it would look before a live 
audience. The cat people’s faces and bodies are human, but augmented, using CGI, with cat ears, moving tails and furry bodies. Some of them wear elaborate costumes, while others run around “naked”, covered in sleek fur. But they’ve all been digitally neutered, with no sign of breasts or genitals anywhere. The script is abysmally bad, almost babyish, with “jokes” like cat got your tongue? and relentless fat jokes. Fat jokes? Really?
Music ranges from torch songs to chorus lines. There are a few great scenes, like cockroaches 
doing elaborate Busby Berkeley formations as Rebel Wilson eats them, one by one; and impressive dance routines, along with some good songs… but I can’t figure out who the movie is trying to appeal to? Small children? Theatre buffs? Taylor Swift fans? I don’t think it knows, either.
Still… I kinda liked it, if just for the spectacle of it all. It’s bad, but it’s watchable and loaded with great singers dancers and prize-winning actors all of whom are far, far more talented than the material they’ve been given.
And I think these weird cat people will haunt my sexual nightmares for years to come.
Bombshell, A Hidden Life and Cats 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.
Far from the Madding Crowd. Films reviewed: Border, The Drawer Boy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall festival season is coming to an end in Toronto but there’s still some left to see. This weekend, watch out for Blood in the Snow. Not literally. BITS is the all-Canadian film fest that shows horror, genre and underground films at the Royal Cinema. And at the ROM this weekend, presented by Ekran and The Polish Filmmakers Association, you can see films with historic themes celebrating 100 years of Poland’s Regained Independence, featuring Andrej Wajda, Roman Polanski and other great Polish directors.
This week, I’m looking at two movies set far from cities. There’s a Canadian actor who thinks a farmer’s stories don’t smell quite write; and a fairytale-like Swedish customs officer who can sniff out crime.
Border
Dir: Ali Abbasi
(Based on a short story by John Lindqvist, author of Let the Rght One In)
Tina (Eva Melander) is a customs officer at a remote ferry dock in rural Sweden. She lives in a cabin in the woods. She feels a kinship with the local foxes and reindeer, more so than with people. She shares her home with a redneck dog trainer named Roland, but rejects his
sexual advances. It just doesn’t feel right. She’s resigned to a life of celibacy, partly because of her very unusual appearance. She’s kind and friendly, but… pretty ugly. She looks almost neanderthal, with her heavy brow, scarred skin, scraggly hair, and a nose like a lion’s. And with that nose 
comes an amazing sense of smell. She can detect the hidden emotions – shame, cruelty, and evil intent – of smugglers and criminals passing through her customs line. When she sniffs out kiddy porn on a businessman’s cel phone, the local police begin to take notice. They ask her to help them uncover a kidnapping ring.
Meanwhile, one day at the customs house, she sniffs out a strange man. Vore (Finnish actor Eero Milanoff) looks like her and sniffs like she does. She’s suspicious at first but notices a definite attraction. When they finally get together, their sex is explosive! He urges her to run away with him and stop living “like the humans”. Wait… what?!
If they’re not human what are they, exactly? And what other secrets is Vore hiding?
Border is a fantastic Swedish movie, a combination horror and supernatural thriller that manages to be funny, repulsive, touching and shocking (not for the faint of heart). It also deals with a wide range of unexpected topics, from intersexuality and gender transformation, to ostracism, folklore, mental illness, and a whole lot more. The acting is fantastic, the look and feel of this movie is amazing.
If you want to see something truly different, this is a film for you.
The Drawer Boy
Dir: Arturo Pérez Torres, Aviva Armour-Ostroff
Based on the play by Michael Healey
It’s the early 1970s in rural southern Ontario. Miles (Jakob Ehman) is an earnest young actor, part of a Toronto theatre collective that wants to create a play about farmers and farm life. He arrives with a bunch of other actor/hippies, each staying on different farms, who get together, every so often, to rehearse and compare
notes. Miles’s new home is run by two men who have lived there since 1945 after serving together in the army. Angus (Stuart Hughes) bakes bread in the kitchen and keeps the books. He seems a bit touched in the head. In fact he has no short term memory – 
there’s a metal plate in his brain from a wartime explosion. Morgan (Richard Clarkin) is more like the boss, handling the heavier farm work. Morgan lets Miles stay there as long as he adapts to farm life. That means 3:00 a.m. wake-ups, hard work, and “don’t ask too
many questions”. Angus doesn’t like thinking about troubling memories… it gives a headache.
Morgan talks slow and low, like a farmer, but he’s smarter than he looks. He feeds gullible Miles lots of halftruths and impossibilities, which Miles dutifully scribbles down in his ever-present 
notebook. Things like “dairy cows eat pigs”, and are terrified of humans, knowing they could be slaughtered any day.
Morgan also tells a story to Angus each day, to restore his lost memories. It’s about a boy who draws, two tall sisters, and a house on the farm they were all supposed to share. But when the actors perform their workshop in a barn for all the local 
farmers, including Angus, something clicks. Seeing his own story performed on the stage, suddenly, like a knock on the head, unleashes a flood of memories. Memories that Morgan doesn’t want Angus to know…
The Drawer Boy is a film adaptation of the famous Canadian play from the 1990s, which itself was about the making of an earlier play in the 1970s. I’m always cautious about plays turned into movies – sometimes the media just don’t match. But don’t worry, this play makes a wonderful movie. It incorporates the drama of the original while adding special effects and scene changes hard to show on stage. The three actors are all excellent, and seeing it in a real barn with real cows, tractors and bales of hay just adds to the realism. The Drawer Boy is a great movie about storytelling, memory, loss, and relationships… a perfect dose of Canadiana on the big screen.
The Drawer Boy and Borders 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.
culturalmining.com 
1 comment