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
Kick-Ass Women! Movies reviewed: Ravage, Lucky Grandma, Jazz on a Summer’s Day
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week I’m looking at three movies – an action/thriller, a musical documentary, and a dark comedy – all featuring kick-ass women. There’s a photographer in the Appalachians pursued by killer rednecks, a grandma in Chinatown pursued by Red Dragon gangsters; and a parade of jazz singers in Rhode Island pursuing musical bliss.
Ravage
Wri/Dir: Teddy Grennan
Harper Sykes (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) is a professioinal photographer who travels the world looking for rare wildlife. She’s in the Watchatoomy valley in Virginia searching for an endangered species when she stumbles on something she isn’t supposed to see: a group of men brutally torturing a stranger in the woods. She is shocked and sickened but pauses long enough to record the awful event from behind a tree. Then jumps in her pickup and rushes to the nearest police station. But things don’t go as planned. She’s kidnapped and dragged by tow truck to a barn, and awakens to find herself barefoot, tied up and suspended from the rafters. Ravener (Robert Longstreet) is a nasty evil redneck with a gang of meth-head henchmen. (He’s a lot like the character Negan in Walking Dead, only not as menacing.) In this valley, they don’t trust outsiders. So anyone who ventures in gets tortured and fed to the hogs. And there’s no way out.
The thing is, they don’t know Harper. She’s a regular G.I. 
Jane, a female McGuyver who can get out of any tight situation, using whatever’s close at hand. She gradually turns herself from victim to killer, taking down her opponents one by one. She thinks she’s safe when she takes refuge in an isolated home, where a kindly old man lives (Bruce Dern). But he turns out to be as obsessed with evil torture as the rest of them. Can she ever escape from this hell-hole?
Ravage, as the title suggests is an action/vengeance/horror flick, and it’s a B-movie at best. There are plot holes, weird editing, and a silly ending. But it doesn’t matter. Dexter-Jones is great as the kick-ass Harper, who escapes from tight spaces, makes rafts out of empty barrels, drops bullets into campfires and sabotages her pursuers in ingenious ways. Really cool. The gross-outs and shock scenes are silly, but – if you don’t mind extreme violence – this is a fun flick, perfectly suitable for drive-ins.
Jazz on a Summer’s Day
Dir: Bert Stern
It’s 1958 in Newport Rhode Island. There’s a jazz festival set up in a vast field with an outdoor stage and wooden folding chairs in neat rows. On stage are some newcomers plus big names like Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk, and Chuck Berry, playing jazz, blues and R&B. But it’s the women who really stand out. Anita O’day sings scat in Tea for Two, Big Maybelle rumbles her voice, Dinah Washington 
soars and Mahalia Jackson hushes the crowd whith her heartfelt gospel. This is all taking place at the Newport Jazz Festival in a posh summer resort with the Americas Cup – sailboats and yachts – floating past in the water.
The concert is captured on film without commentary, playing songs we’ve all heard before, but the camera 
doesn’t stick to the stage. Equal time is given to the audience: girls in pearls, boys in nautical ware, middle aged men in black knee socks, women in straw hats and cardigans, all unconsciously cool. College kids drinking Rheingold beer and making out in the shadows, couples dancing in the grass and hipsters nodding their heads on the off-beat. 
Model T Fords carrying a Dixieland jazz band sputters past, with experimental musicians jamming in the attic of an old wooden house. Everything’s captures on film, now completely restored with glowing orange klieg lights, bright red lipstick, rippling blue waves. It’s a concert and also a documentary that perfectly captures this slice of time. Something to watch and relax to on a hot summer’s day…
Lucky Grandma
Co-Wri/Dir: Sasie Sealy
Grandma (Tsai Chin) is a retired and elderly widow who lives alone in a cramped apartment in New York’s Chinatown. She likes aqua fitness, smoking cigarettes, and sipping congee. Her son wants her to move to their house in the suburbs and spend time with her noisy grandkids. It’s not safe living alone in the city, he says. But she’s stubborn, and wants to 
stay on familiar ground. Life’s tough but at least it’s hers. And things change when her fortune teller insists there’s a huge streak of good luck coming her way on the 28th. And when she wins an unexpected sweepstakes, she knows the odds really are on her side.
So she withdraws all her cash and goes to a casino to wager everything on number 8. She wins and wins and wins again. Until, at a game of blackjack she loses it all – tens of 
thousands – to old Mr Lin. It doesn’t make sense. But when Lin drops dead in her lap on the bus back home, luck is on her side again. She takes back the duffel bag of cash and sneaks home. Looks like she can finally retire in luxury.
But word gets out and Red Dragon gangsters start dropping by uninvited in her apartment to intimidate her. But she won’t give in their tactics. Instead she hires Big Pong (Hsiao-Yuan Ha) a huge but simple-minded bodyguard 
from a rival gang. But things start to heat up, bullets fly and now everyone seems to be after Grandma’s cash (which she insists she doesn’t have). IS this old lady stubborn enough and tough enough to fend off deadly killers? Or has she bit off more than she can chew?
Before I saw Lucky Grandma, judging by the poster I was expecting a cute, slapstick, throwaway comedy. So I was pleasantly surprised by how good a movie this actually is. It’s a low-key, but funny, realistic and poignant picture of life in Chinatown. And this is because of the star Tsai Chin, who gives a nuanced, perfect performance. Every line is just right. Who is Tsai Chin? She’s been a star since the late 50s with a hit single in HK in 1961, was a Bond Girl in You Only Live Twice, appeared in Antonioni’s Blow Up, starred in countless plays in London’s west end, and was Auntie Lindo in the Joy Luck Club. Now, in her late eighties, she’s as good as ever. Don’t miss Tsai Chin in this really good, Chinese-language American movie.
You can watch Jazz on a Summer’s Day on virtual cinema at Hot Docs, Lucky Grandma is now on digital and VOD, and you can see Ravage at drive-ins across Ontario; 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 dramas. 1917, Uncut Gems, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
A good drama is hard to find, and this week I’ve got three of them. There’s an action drama set in Europe in WWI, a melodrama set in Rio in the 1950s, and a dark comedy set in present-day Manhattan.
1917
Dir: Sam Mendes
It’s April, 1917 in the trenches. Two soldiers, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George Mackay) are summoned by an officer with an important mission. The Germans seem to be retreating and frontline soldiers are preparing to cross over no man’s land. But it’s a ruse. If the troops try to cross the fields they’ll be gunned down like lambs to the slaughter. And the telegraph lines are down. It’s up to Blake and Schofield to take a crucial letter to the isolated troops before they’re all wiped out. And to get there, they have to pass through enemy territory, inside German trenches, and across enemy lines. Why are two ordinary soldiers chosen for this impossible task? Blake has a brother in the squadron they’re warning. And Schofield? 
He happens to be nearby when Blake is summoned. Can the two men young men make it there in time? Or are they just another couple of casualties in this War to End All Wars?
1917 is a thrilling action movie set during WWI. It’s full of narrow escapes, shootouts, explosions and hand-to-hand combat, with our heroes riding, running, flying and swimming, all to get to their goal. It uses lots of tricks you’d expect to see in horror movies: from sudden encounters with piles of rotting corpses, to shocking encounters with rats. It’s also a “War is Hell” movie but it’s a bit foggy on the Us and Them narrative of a war from a hundred years ago. Should WWI German soldiers still be portrayed as evil, drunken cowards while British soldiers are brave, kindly, steadfast and resolute? Still, you do find yourself rooting for the heroes hoping beyond hope that they’ll survive.The acting, especially MacKay, is fantastic and it’s fun to spot all the famous actors with bit parts as military brass include Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong and Colin Firth. But the best part of this movie is in an unexpected area. Roger Deakins camerawork is incredible, with shadow and searchlight, glowing candles and burning flames throwing chiarascuro images across the screen. It’s stunning to watch.
Uncut Gems
Dir: Josh and Benny Safdie
It’s the diamond district in present-day Manhattan. Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is a successful Bling jeweller peddling pricy kitsch to therich and famous in a small boutique encased in bullet-proof glass. He supports an unhappy suburban Jewish family, also setting aside money for his own peccadilloes: a mistress in a midtown apartment and tickets to NBA games. But he’s also a compulsive gambler throwing money at bookies. He’s in debt up to his neck, and the gangsters are circling. Two thugs in particular. Loan sharks, pawn shops, bookies, and legit 
business associates are all asking for their cut. But when Howard lands a lump of Ethiopian opals – the “uncut gems” of the title – he thinks all his problems are solved. By gazing into the glowing, coloured rocks he loses himself in a fantastical universe. He embarks on a complex plan: sell the gem to a superstitious star basketball player, pawn the priceless gaudy ring the player leaves as a deposit, and bet it all on a mammoth Las Vegas sports gamble. Will his plan pan out? Or will it all come a-tumbling down?
Uncut Gems is the latest Safdie Brother’s look at sympathetic, small-time losers and petty criminals, and the destruction they leave in their path. There’s a bit of excitement, but it’s more like a dark, absurdist comedy than anything else. They say Adam Sandler makes one credible acting movie for every ten horrible comedies. He proves his bona fides in this one, hands down. He’s great as the irrepressible and irritating Howard Ratner, complete with fake crooked and gummy teeth. But he’s a hard character to like…his problems are all of his own making, and his adulation for celebrity, sportsteams, cars and The Big Win is unattractive. I kinda sympathize with Howard but not really; I saw this four months ago at TIFF and remember feeling bothered and a bit angry by the end. But the humour, great acting, music, images, and elegant plot – from start to finish – helps redeem the unfomfortable feeling it leaves you with.
The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão
Dir: Karim Aïnouz
It’s 1950 in a middle class family in Rio de Jeneiro. Guida and Euridice are inseparable sisters who do almost everything together. Guida (Julia Stockler) is 20 years old, small, buxom, adventurous and mature. She’s looking for love in all the wrong places, where she meets Iorgos, a handsome sailor from Greece. She leaves a note with her sister that she’s off on a ship to Europe to marry her love and will be back in Brazil soon. Euridice (Carol Duarte) is 18, the good daughter, tall with long, curly hair. She devotes all her energy to practicing the piano, with the hope that someday soon she’ll be accepted into the conservatory in Vienna.
But both of their plans are stymied by unwanted pregnancies. Guida comes home, pregnant and alone. Iorgos is a rat, with a wife and kids in Greece and a girl in every port. But when she walks through her door, her father throws her out, saying, 
“you’re dead to me, I never want to see you again”. She’s forced to move to a working class neighbourhood, get a job (she works as a welder at the docks) and raise her son.
Meanwhile, Euridice gets married to Antenor (Gregório Duvivier) the son of a business partner of her dad who owns a bakery. He’s a boor and an inconsiderate lover. She’s preparing for her Vienna audition in a few months but despite her church-sanctioned birth control methods, she ends up pregnant too, scotching any plans to study in Vienna. Guida assumes her sister is in Europe, and Euridice thinks Guida has disappeared without a trace (their parents block any communication with Guida, and both sisters have no idea the other is living in Rio.) Will the sisters ever see each other again? And will their ambitions be realized?
The Invisibie Life of Euridice Gusmao is subtitled, “a tropical melodrama” and that’s what it is: a passionate, lush story about the lives of two strong-willed women, torn apart against their will. Guida forging a new life as a single, working class mom, as Euridice navigates Brazil’s repressive middle class life in the ’50s. I loved this movie.
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is now playing in Toronto, and Uncut Gems and 1917 both opened on Christmas Day; 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 filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn about “The Price of Everything”
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Art can be beautiful, shocking, moving or novel. It can function as a historical record or signal future changes in how we view the world. But it has never been a commodity, an investment, a future or a stock to be leveraged. That is until its steadily rising value proved irresistible to investors, many of whom know “the price of everything… but the value of 
nothing.”
The Price of Everything is the title of a fascinating new documentary that takes us behind the scenes of the monetary side of fine art. It talks with curators, collectors, historians, critics, dealers and auctioneers… people trying to determine — or change — the 
perceived value of a work of art. And it talks to the artists themselves who either embrace or reject the Long Game.
It’s written and directed by award-wininng American filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn, best known for the Oscar-nominated My Architect.
The Price of Everything showed at Hot Docs 18 in the spring and is now opening in theatres in Toronto.
I spoke with Nathaniel, via telephone, from CIUT 89.5 FM.
Daniel Garber talks with Sean Garrity and Jonas Chernick about their new film Borealis
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Trouble is brewing in Winnipeg. Jonah (Jonas Chernick) is a compulsive gambler – he can’t pass a card table without placing a bet. He’s in debt up to his neck to a bookie named Tubbie. Jonah is also a relentless liar — even his girlfriend doesn’t know why he needs 10,000 bucks, stat. And when the doctor tells him his estranged, teenaged daughter Aurora (Joey King) is about to go blind he keeps his cards close to his chest and doesn’t tell her. He packs up his car and vows to show
Aurora the northern lights in far-off Churchill, Manitoba. But will she see Aurora Borealis before she goes blind… or before the bookies catch up to them?
Borealis is a new feature now playing at the Canadian Film Fest and opening next Friday in Toronto. It’s a buddy pic, a road movie, a coming-of-age drama and a new look at the far edges of 
Manitoba. It’s funny, surprising and calmly beautiful. It’s made by two long-time Winnipeg collaborators: award-winning director Sean Garrity and the equally notable actor/writer Jonas Chernick. I spoke to Sean in studio at CIUT, and to Jason (on set) by phone. We talk about road movies, gambling, romance, Sean’s hometown, travelling, card games, Churchill, cold weather, polar bears, Joey King, Bruce McDonald, Paper Moon… and more!
Sean Garrity won the DGC Ontario Best Director award for Borealis at the Canadian Film Fest.
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