Daniel Garber talks with Desirée Mckenzie about the Jayu Human Rights Film Festival
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Movies are made to entertain — they should be interesting, novel, funny, exciting, or surprising. But movies can also inform, opening our eyes to important issues. Well, there’s a film festival in Toronto that does all that… and more. The JAYU Human Rights Film festival offers movies, poetry, art talks and films for 
audiences to watch and to discuss afterwards.
Desirée Mckenzie is the iAM Program Coordinator at JAYU — she’s also an award-winning poet, arts educator, and national poetry slam champion.
I spoke with Desirée in Toronto, via ZOOM.
The JAYU Human Rights Film Festival is entering its 10th year; it runs through Dec 10th.
In depth. Films reviewed: The Velvet Underground, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, The Power of the Dog
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
We are all flooded each day with new images and stories, both broadcast and online, but don’t they all seem to be fleeting and ethereal, lasting no longer than the average news cycle or two. Rarely do we get in-depth examinations of anything. But movies can do that, opening your eyes to deeper thoughts. So this week I’m looking at three new movies — a western and two feature-length docs —that look at things up close. There’s cowboys in Montana, First Nations in Alberta, and avant-garde rockers in Greenwich Village.
The Velvet Underground
Wri/Dir: Todd Haynes
It’s the early 1960s. Lou Reed is a Brooklyn-born teenager who lives in suburban Long Island. He’s depressed and his parents send him for electroshock therapy. He teaches himself guitar listening to doo-wop and rockabilly on the radio. Later at university in Syracuse, he studies under Delmore Schwartz. He goes to Harlem with his girlfriend to buy hard drugs and writes poems about furtive sex with men he meets in dark alleys. John Cale is the son of a coal miner in Wales who studies classical music in London. They meet in the Village and start a band within the exploding world of avant-garde film, music, art and poetry. Velvet Underground plays long, drawn-out tones with a dark drone grinding in the background, combining Reed’s dark lyrics and Cale’s musicality (he plays viola in a rock band!) They perform at Andy Warhol’s Factory and Nico, the enigmatic European 
actress, completes their sound. Though never a huge success and breaking up after a few years, the Velvets influenced generations of musicians.
This two-hour doc looks at the band itself (Reed and Cale, along with Moe Tucker and Sterling Morrison) and where it fit within New York’s burgeoning underground scene. Aside from the usual suspects, it talks about or interviews unexpected faces, 
musicians Jonathan Richman and Jackson Browne, and experimental filmmakers like Jonas Mekas and Jack Smith. Aside from its meticulous retelling of group’s history, it’s the look of this doc that really blew me away. Todd Haynes exploits that era’s avant-garde film techniques, from split screens to three-quarter projections, along with a good dose of 60s pop culture. And there’s a constant stream of music from start to finish, including rare tracks of early songs before they found their groove. I had to watch The Velvet Underground on my laptop but this beautiful documentary deserves to be appreciated on a movie screen.
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
Dir: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
It’s the mid-2010s and opioids are ravaging the Kainai Blackfoot First Nation in Alberta (that’s the largest reserve in Canada). Families are torn apart, and hundreds of lives are lost. The abstinence and cold-turkey programs just aren’t working, especially for the most marginalized, who end up homeless in cities. So instead they start up harm reduction centres like those pioneered on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This highly-personal documentary follows a number of addicts — of both opioids and alcohol — as they enter harm-reduction treatments and through its various stages. It’s spearheaded by the filmmaker’s own mother, Dr Esther 
Tailfeathers, a physician, but also includes Social workers, EMS, nurses and councellors, in drop ins, detox centres, hospitals and clinics, both on the reserve and in nearby cities like Lethbridge.
As the title suggests, caring and empathy saves more lives than punishment, threats or abstinence. Rather than kicking people out, it embraces them while standing by to treat overdoses, and on a bigger scale helping them find purpose and meaning, along with food, shelter and medical care. The doc also looks at the intergenerational causes that led to these addictions, from broken treaties to residential schools. Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is gruelling in parts — and not an easy film to watch — but it is one that turns despair into hope.
The Power of the Dog
Wri/Dir: Jane Campion
It’s the 1920s. Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is durned mean cuss. He owns a ranch in Montana with his brother George (Jesse Plemons), and regularly drives cattle with his posse of young cowboys. They always stop by a roadhouse run by the widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her skinny sensitive son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Phil went to one of them Ivy League schools in the east, but they don’t know nuthin about the life of a cowboy. He learned everything from an older buckaroo when he was just a lad, and now keeps a shrine to him in his stables. But like I said, Phil is a mean bastard who directs his venom all around him. He calls his brother fatso, and 
when George marries Rose, Phil torments her and drives her to drink. And he calls her son Pete a pansy. Until… Pete discovers Phil’s secret. He finds his illicit porn stash and catches him in a hidden grove luxuriating in mud-covered self-love. That’s when Phil changes his mind and decides to mentor Pete in the old cowboy ways. But is that what Pete is really after?
I walked into The Way of the Dog at TIFF expecting a conventional Western, but I saw something much bigger than that. It’s a subversive twist on a classic genre. It’s set in the 1920s, avoiding the blatantly racist portrayals of indigenous 
people in most Westerns (the “Indians” in “Cowboys and Indians”) which take place in the 19th century when settlers were slaughtering them with impunity in their western migration. This one is set 50 years later. There are also no hold-ups or show-downs; guns don’t play a major war in this Western. It’s directed by Jane Campion who won big time awards for The Piano thirty years ago, but I hadn’t heard much about her for a long time. So I wasn’t expecting much. But this film really shocked me with its gothic tone, complex characters and twisted plot. The interplay between Cumberbatch and Cody-Smit is fascinating. All of this played out against the wide, western skies (it was actually filmed in New Zealand) makes The Power of The Dog a really great movie.
The Velvet Underground is playing theatrically in Canada for one night only, Sunday, Nov 28th at 8 pm, at the Rogers Hot Docs cinema in Toronto; and Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy opens today, also at Hot Docs; and The Power of the Dog just opened at the Tiff Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
It’s Halloween! Films reviewed: Last Night In Soho, Antlers, Locke & Key
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Awooooooo…!
It’s Hallowe’en again — the perfect time to watch some spooky and scary movies!
This week, I’m looking at a fashion student in London who travels back in time from her attic apartment; a family in Massachusetts who find keys that open locked doors; and a school boy in the Pacific Northwest who always keeps his father’s door locked… from the outside.
Last Night In Soho
Co-Wri/Dir: Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs the World)
Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) is an idealistic young student at a fashion college in North London. Though raised in remote Cornwall, she already sews her own dresses and wants to follow in her grandmother and mom’s footsteps as a designer. She’s also obsessed by the early 1960s — the fashions, the people and the music — and she constantly listens to her grandma’s old discs on a portable record player. But she can’t stand the condescending attitude of her roommate Jocasta and most of the other students. So she rents an attic bed-sit flat in Soho, and gets a job at a local pub to pay for it. But everything changes on her first night in her new home. She awakens to 
find herself in Soho, circa 1964!, experiencing life through the eyes of young woman named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy: Queen’s Gambit)! Where Ellie is shy with mousy brown hair, Sandie is blonde, brash and self-confident. She marches into the Cafe de Paris and declares she’ll be the next singer on that famous stage. When Ellie wakes up in the morning, things are back to normal, but she feels. different. She starts sewing a 60’s style dress based on what she wore the night before in Soho. And she starts mimicking Sandie’s look and lifestyle — dying her hair, wearing makeup and sticking up for herself. But gradually she realizes 60s Soho wasn’t the fun place she imagined — it was actually full of exploitation, violence and organized 
crime. And the separation between the two worlds starts to blur… with the ghosts of Sandie’s far-off dangers appearing in her real life in modern London. Is Eloise losing her mind? And can she ever escape from this dual existence?
Last Night in Soho is a cool, fun and sometimes scary coming-of-age story loosely wrapped in a time-travel theme. Throw in life in London, 60s girl groups, fashion, Soho burlesque and seedy organized crime, and you have a fascinating and unique world to explore. Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace) gives a terrific performance as a young woman trying to hang on to her sanity, while Anya Taylor-Joy (you might recognize her from the TV series The Queen’s Gambit) is a dynamo as her alter ego. Throw in some real ’60s stars — Terrence Stamp as a sleazy barfly, and an almost unrecognizable Diana Rigg as a curmudgeonly landlady — and you’re left with a lot to watch.
Great movie.
Antlers
Co-WriDir: Scott Cooper (Hostiles)
Julia (Keri Russell) is a school teacher in a mining town in the Pacific northwest. She lives with her brother Paul (Jesse Plemons), the local sheriff. She fled to California 20 years earlier to escape her abusive father. But now that he’s dead, she feels safe to move back again. Little does she know there are other dangers in this small town. In any case, she’s having trouble fitting in. None of the 12 year olds in her class participate, or even seem interested, in what she’s teaching. And one kid in particular, Lucas (Jeremy T Thomas) looks malnourished, bullied and fearful. And he draws terrifying pictures at his desk. She reaches out to help him, but though needy, he rejects her. You see, his dad ran a meth lab in an abandoned mine where something terrible happened.
Now his dad and his seven-year-old brother are ill with a strange disease — the can only eat raw flesh. Lucas keeps them locked up in the attic, 
bringing them small animals he traps and any roadkill he can find. But it’s not enough. So here we have a do-gooder teacher who wants to save what she sees as an abused and neglected child, while he’s trying desperately to keep his family alive. But when Lucas’s dad tries some human flesh, he really starts to change, both physically and mentally. Can a little boy keep a monster at bay? Or will it take a schoolteacher to stop this cannibal killer?
Antlers is a bloody and gory — though not all that scary — horror movie 
set among the gorgeous lakes and mountains of Western Canada. Strangely, the monster in the story — modelled on the Windigo, a rapacious half-human, half-animal creature — is part of the Anishinaabe culture in the east, not the Pacific Northwest. And aside from Graham Greene (as a walk-on indigenous explainer), everyone else is white. That said, I like the acting, and the fact the characters are not all strictly good or bad, more nuanced than in your typical scary movie. Antlers is a chilling — though slow-paced — horror-thriller with enough blood and guts to keep you satisfied on Hallowe’en.
Locke & Key
Developed by Meredith Averill, Aron Eli Coleite and Carlton Cuse, based on the graphic novel by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
It’s the present day in small-town Mathesen, Massachusetts. The Locke family — eldest son Tyler (Connor Jessup: Blackbird, Closet Monster ), Middle sister Kinsey (Emilia Jones) and the youngest Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) — and their mom (Darby Stanchfield) have just relocated from Seattle. Their dad died in a terrible incident so maybe a new environment will help them get over it. They move into the stately family home, a huge, but crumbling, mansion known as the Key House. It’s been in the family for generations. While the Lockes know next-to-nothing about their history, everyone in this town knows exactly who they are. The two eldest enroll in the local prep school — Tyler joins the hockey team while Kinsey falls in with a crowd of 
amateur filmmakers — while Bode is left to explore the mansion. And what he discovers is magical — a series of keys, each with its own properties. One lets you walk through a door and emerge wherever you want to be. Another lets you enter someones mind and explore their memories. Soon Tyler and Kinsey join in, but their mother and their uncle Duncan (Aaron Ashmore) can’t comprehend anything magical, even when they experience it themselves. Only kids can remember it. But all is not just fun and games, There’s an evil shape-shifting demon, a beautiful woman known as 
Dodge, who covets these keys for her own nefarious purposes. Who will triumph in the end?
Locke & Key is a wonderful TV series that’s part adventure, part horror, part psychological thriller and part family drama. I’m purposely revealing very little because I don’t spoil the plot, but it’s well acted — with a mainly Canadian cast — and lots of unexpected plot turns and cool special effects. And the series was shot right here, just outside CIUT’s broadcast studios in the gothic hallways of Hart House (pre-Covid, of course.) So if you’re looking for something Hallowe’en-y to binge on, you have to check out Locke & Key.
Locke & Key seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Netflix; Antlers and Last Night in Soho both open this weekend; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Bretten Hannam about Wildhood premiering at #TIFF21!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos of Bretten Hannam by Jeff Harris.
Link and Travis are half-brothers who live with their physically abusive dad in a trailer park down east. Link hates it there, but it’s the only life he’s known since his mother died when he was three. But when he finds a birthday card his dad has hidden from him, he realizes his mother might still be alive. So the two 
brothers run away. On the road they meet Pasmay, a Mi’kmaq who was kicked out of his home because of his sexuality. Together the three embark on a journey down a twisted path where mi’kmaw and two spirited cultures meet. For Link, it’s an education and an initiation into a world he finds both frightening and alluring. Can this 
mismatched threesome become a makeshift family? And will they ever find out what happened to Link’s mother?
Wildhood is a wonderful new film that’s a romantic drama, a coming-of-age story, and a picaresque adventure all in one. It encompasses brotherhood, family and identity — all told from an indigenous and queer point of view. It’s written and directed by Bretten Hannam and it’s their first feature film.
I spoke with Bretten Hannam from Toronto via Zoom.
Wildhood had its world premiere at TIFF21.
Daniel Garber talks with Tracey Deer about Beans
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s the summer of 1990.
Tekehentahkhwa or “Beans” for short (Kiawentiio) is a typical,
innocent 12-year-old girl who lives near Montréal with her Dad, her ambitious mom, and her little sister. Her biggest worry is getting into a posh private school to guarantee a successful future. But her life is totally changed when the town of Oka tries to grab Mohawk burial grounds to expand a golf course. Protests erupt and her family, being Mohawk, joins in. But when it turns into a blockade and a stand off involving police and the military, it reveals acts of violence and virulent racism she has never witnessed before. Now she has to make a decision: should she 
toughen up like her dad? Or keep to the straight and narrow like her mom? And how will she emerge from these life-shattering events?
Beans is a fantastic new drama – told from an indigenous point of view – that combines the historical record with a highly personal and intimate coming-of-age story. Since it premiered at TIFF last fall, it has garnered dozens of awards for filmmaker, Tracey Deer who has created a work of personal and national importance.
I spoke with Tracey Deer via Zoom.
Beans is now playing in Toronto and all across Canada, from Victoria to Halifax.
Daniel Garber talks with Kourtney Jackson, Max Shoham and Ella Morton about their films at FOFS
What do the following three stories have in common? An Inuk recalling her history, language and culture amidst the ice floes of Nunavut; three diverse black women in Toronto sharing the unique hair problems they faced during the pandemic; and a young, Jewish-Romanian couple meeting aboard a ship burgeoning with refugees adrift at sea during WWII. These stories are all films featured in The Future Of Film 
Showcase — or FOFS. In its eighth year, FOFS has selected 11 new short films made by Canadians under 40.
Kourtney Jackson is a Toronto-based experimental filmmaker whose hybridized, storytelling transcends the physical body. Her film Wash Day looks at three black women talking about bodies, hair, skin, beauty and self-love as they each cleanse themselves in a shower.
Max Shoham, an award-winning, prolific maker of animated short films in diverse genres, has been obsessed with movies since Grade 3. Sophie and Jacob is an animated retelling of Max’s own grandparents’ 
story about how they met aboard a ship.
Ella Morton is an artist whose still and moving images incorporating obsolete techniques have taken her across Canada and through Scandinavia. Her film Kajanaqtuq combines manipulated analog formats along with recordings of an Inuk’s recollections of her life so far in Nunavut.
I spoke with Ella, Max and Kourtney via Zoom.
You can watch all films playing at FOFS on CBC Gem for free until July 22nd.
Daniel Garber talks with Drew Hayden Taylor about Going Native
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
What do vintage wine, comic book superheroes, bison burgers, rap music, survival techniques, sea monsters and the Calgary stampede all have in common? Nothing at first glance. But dig a bit deeper and you’ll find they’re all tied to — and parts of — contemporary indigenous life. A culture that’s being reclaimed, rejigged and rebooted even as we speak… while the rest of the world is just starting to “go native”.
Going Native is also the name of a new, 13-part TV series, that
covers a wide range of topics, from gourmet food to pop culture, storytelling to spirituality. It’s slick, funny, fast-moving and always surprising. The series is produced, co-written and hosted by Drew Hayden Taylor, the widely-known indigenous novelist, playwright, columnist and humorist.
I spoke to Drew Hayden Taylor via Zoom.
Going Native is having its world premier on APTN on May 8th.
Unsung Heroes at Hot Docs 21! Films reviewed: The Face of Anonymous, It Is Not Over Yet, Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The 28th edition of Hot Docs — Canada’s International Documentary Festival — has begun, with features and shorts streaming from today until May 9th. It’s online-only this year, but with many live events, Q&As and workshops. As every year, a selection of tickets are offered free to students and Students and Seniors (over 60) with new titles released each day.
I’ve started to watch some the films but first let me tell you about a few that I haven’t seen yet but look good. Wuhan Wuhan, by Toronto’s own Yung Chang, goes to the city where the current pandemic was first discovered. Misha and the Wolves tells the extraordinary story of a young Belgian Holocaust survivor who sought refuge by living among the wolves… but was her story true? Sex, Revolution and Islam looks at the first female imams in Europe and how they’re radically changing their religion’s outlook. And We are as Gods looks at an environmental iconoclast wants to de-extinct animals using DNA… an eco-hero or shades of Jurassic Park? These are just a few of the docs playing at HotDocs.
This week I’m looking at three more docs about unsung heroes. There are Danish nurses changing how we deal with dementia, a hacktivist changing world events, and a Mohawk activist who changed history.
The Face of Anonymous
Dir: Gary Lang
It’s the 2000s. The US has invaded Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions, supposedly looking for “weapons of mass destruction” and someone to blame for 9/11, when a video started circulating. It is secretly released by Chelsea Manning and published by Julian Assange at Wikileaks, and it shows footage of a heinous war crime, the gunning down of unarmed journalists in Baghdad by the US military. This leads to a crackdown on the whistleblowers, with corporations like PayPal, Visa and MasterCard trying to choke Wikileaks.
This is when a new group appears in the mainstream media. It’s called Anonymous (previously known for fighting Scientology), and consists of hundreds or thousands of anonymous hackers working in tandem. Together they DDOS (directed denial of service) the corporations and government agencies blocking the truth. And they release scary-looking announcement videos. Their members wear Guy Fawkes masks in public to conceal their faces, and one of their public voices is an unknown person called CommanderX. Later the US government starts a nationwide attack on Anonymous members, arresting many people across the country.
But not Commander X.
The Face of Anonymous gives you this background, but then reveals some things you never knew about. Commander X is living on the streets of Toronto in the 2010s having snuck across the border. He continues to be an active presence, even while he’s sleeping outdoors in a park using his laptop as a pillow. Christopher Doyon. You know why they wore Guy Fawkes masks? Because after V is for Vendetta the masks were sitting on warehouse shelves across the continent at discount prices — so everyone in Anonymous could easily get a hold of one.
This fascinating film follows Commander X, how he travelled from Canada to. Mexico, and where he is now. It reveals he also played a role in the start of the Arab Spring in Tunisia. It also interviews other prominent former Anonymous activists. For me, this is especially interesting because I was talking about We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists a doc that played at Hot Docs a decade ago, without knowing Commander X was here in Toronto at the same time viewing the same movie.
It Is Not Over Yet
Dir: Louise Detlefsen
It’s a nursing home in rural Denmark. The residents come from a wide variety of backgrounds; one woman is a former social worker and sexologist. Another ran one of the country’s biggest pharmacies. But they share a common trait: they’re all suffering from dementia. What’s unusual about this place, though is its approach. It’s an open-style residence, located near a forest. They keep chickens I’m the yard, and they’re encouraged to take walks and hug trees. People sing songs, tell jokes, and are always treated with respect. One thing not present is medications. In Denmark the average patient is on 10 different meds. Here they react with horror when they see the medical record of a heavily-drugged newcomer, whom they determine doesn’t have Alzheimers at all. They all share meals and celebrations to mark the death of any residentn(when the flag outside flies at half mast, their birthdays, and other major events.
It Is Not Over Yet is a slow-paced but tender look at the final years of some elderly Danes. It’s told in a “fly on the wall” manner — so we get to see the nurses and attendants discussing their cases, their interaction with the residents, and among the elderly themselves; their friendships, loves, and quirks. It’s not so much about dementia or dying as it is about living life to the fullest.
Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again
Dir: Courtney Montour
It’s the 1960s. Mary Two-Axe Earley is a Mohawk woman from Kahnawa:ke who marries a non-indigenous man. She is immediately told that she is no longer an Indian and must leave her home and community. (This rule is part of the Indian Act). She is shocked and flabbergasted but refuses to follow orders. I am Mohawk, I am an Indian, despite what they say, and you can’t take that away from me. She starts up a group, Indian Rights for Indian Women, and takes it to Ottawa to testify before Parliament. The hypocrisy of it all: can you imagine a brother and sister, one considered indigenous, the other not? A woman marrying a non-native man, even if later divorced, lost her Indian status for life. Even after death, she can’t be buried in her ancestral land. (In contrast, a man who marries a non-native keeps his status).
Other women’s groups join in solidarity. Mary Two-Axe struggles for many years until she triumphs, changing the law. And she — and 100,000 others — are finally able to say they are Indians again.
This loving and brilliant short film uses decades-old recordings made by Alanis Obomsawin at the NFB, played publicly now for the first time. It’s illustrated by period footage — historic figures like Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque pop up frequently — as well as still photos and new interviews with others involved in the struggle. Mary Two-Axe Earley died in 1996, but her legacy lives on.
This is a hero everyone should know about.
Mary Two-Axe Earley: I am Indian Again, It is Not Over Yet and The Face of Anonymous,…are all playing at Hot Docs now through May. 9th.
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 Trevor Cameron about his new documentary Shadow of Dumont at ImagineNative
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Trevor Cameron is a Toronto-based writer who has always wanted to make a film about his ancestors… and one in particular. Gabriel Dumont the famed Métis leader who fought in the Battle of Batoche in the Northwest Rebellion (also a famed translator, buffalo hunter, war hero and storyteller). But Trevor didn’t know much about him. Where did he come from, where did he go after the rebellion, what did he do with his life and what became of him?
To answers these question, he got in a camper van and headed out west, to follow in Dumont’s footsteps more than a century later. And he documented his journey on film. The result? A light-hearted road movie about one man discovering his past called Shadow of Dumont.
Shadow of Dumont was written and directed by Trevor Cameron, the award-winning screenwriter, director, and roller-derby champ, known for his work on TV shows like Wapos Bay and Guardians: Evolution. Trevor Cameron’s new documentary Shadow of Dumont premiered at the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto.
I spoke with Trevor via Zoom.
Against the Grain. Films reviewed: Judy vs Capitalism, Monkey Beach, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Fall Film Festival Season continues with ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival, the world’s largets indigenous film festival, and Rendezvous with Madness, the first and largest arts and mental health festival in the world, both running through Sunday, the 25th.
This week I’m talking about three new movies – a doc, a drama and a courtroom pic – about people who go against the grain. There’s a young woman resisting ghosts, another woman fighting anti-abortion activists; and boomers protesting the war in Vietnam.
Judy vs Capitalism
Dir: Mike Holboom
Judy Rebick is a well-known activist and writer in Toronto. As a former Trotskyite revolutionary turned writer and TV commentator, she’s a pro-choice feminist and socialist known for slogans like “Radical is Practical”. She can be seen everywhere, from CBC panels to tent-city protests. A new documentary looking at her life divides it into six stages: Family – her dad was a baseball player quick to pick fights; Weight – she says she has a pair of hips “like two battleships”; Feminism – women’s bodies and the violence they face; Abortion – her hands-on role in legalizing reproductive rights in Canada; Others – her struggles with depression and mental health; and End Notes – her views on various political topics, like the rise of neo-liberalism, 
the war in Gaza, and as head of NAC, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
Did you know she single-handedly fought off a man trying to stab Dr Henry Morgantaler with a pair of garden shears? This film includes footage of that in slow motion. Each section begins with a speech – some mundane talks in lecture halls, others shouted through a bullhorn at a rally. Judy vs Capitalism is directed by artist/filmmaker Mike Holboom in his patented style: clear sound and straightforward narration, combined with avant-garde images: slow motion, high speed, underwater photography, blurred and melting visuals, random faces… basically Holboom’s interpretations of Rebick’s moods, memories, thoughts and ideas rather than the typical clips you might expect in a conventional biography. Judy vs Capitalism is an experimental look at a Canadian icon.
Monkey Beach
Dir: Loretta Todd (Based on the novel by Eden Robinson)
Lisa (Grace Dove) is a young woman who lives in East Vancouver. She’s been there for the past two years with nothing to show for it but a bad hangover. Till her friend Tab tells her it’s time to go home, back to her family in the Haisla community in Kitimat. So she does. Her family is shocked but delighted to to see her – they weren’t even sure she was still alive. There’s her mom and dad, her little brother Jimmy (Joel Oulette) a swimming champ, and her Uncle Mick (Adam Beach) who told her at an early age to say “f*ck the oppressors!” Then there’s her grandma Ma-Ma-Oo (Tina Lameman) who taught Lisa everything she knows… including things she doesn’t want to know. Like why a little man with red hair keeps appearing. A crow talks to her, and ghosts (people who should be dead) appear to her in real, human form. (Tab, for example, was murdered but she’s still around.) Worst of all are the dreams and premonitions she keeps having – that her brother Jimmy, the swimmer – is going to drown. Are her 
powers a gift or a curse? Can she ever live normally? And can she keep Jimmy out of the water?
Monkey Beach is a good YA drama filmed in the gorgeous forests and waters of Kitimat in the pacific northwest, with a uniformly good indigenous cast. It incorporates traditional Haisla culture and practices with contemporary, realistic social problems, sprinkled with the supernatural. And it flashes back and forth between the present day and Lisa’s childhood. I like this movie but I can’t help but compare it to the CBC TV series Trickster, which is edgier, faster-moving and more complex. They’re both based on Eden Robinson’s novels – Monkey Beach was her first, showing many of the themes later explored in Son of a Trickster. That said, if you’re a fan of Trickster, you’ll want to see Monkey Beach, too.
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Wri/Dir: Aaron Sorkin
It’s the summer of ‘68 in the USA, and the youth are restless. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King had just been killed, with demonstrations springing up across the country. The US is embroiled in an increasingly senseless war in Vietnam and it’s an election year. So droves of young people converge on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to have their voices heard. The protests are brutally crushed by police and state troopers. Nixon is elected in November, and the protest leaders, known as the Chicago 7, are arrested and put on trial. The defendants are from the SDS – Students for a Democratic Society, a radical group that sprung out of 
the labour movement – led by Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); the Yippies, founded by Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin who use performance and pranks to forward their agenda; anti-war activist David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch); and Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) co-founder of the Black Panther Party, known both for its militant image and progressive social programs. The charge? Conspiracy, even though these group leaders had never met one other.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is two-hour film that manages to condense hundreds of days of testimony into a few key scenes. This includes a shocking re-
enactment of the binding and gagging of Bobby Seale in the courtroom. The script’s pace is fast, the production values excellent, and the acting is superb, especially Baron-Cohen in an unusual funny-serious role, Mark Rylance as their lawyer, William Kunstler, Frank Langella as the unjust judge Julius Hoffman, and Lynch as the veteran pacifist. Women are invisible in this film, except as receptionists, wives-of and one undercover FBI agent. I was glued to the screen the entire time. Still, it leaves me with an uneasy feeling Aaron Sorkin has done some subtle, historic slight of hand. He portrays the anti-war movement as mainly about honouring and saving the lives of American soldiers, not Vietnamese civilians. It buries the aims of the defendants beneath petty squabbles. And somehow he takes a protest aimed squarely at Democratic politicians — the hawks and conservative Democrats in a city and state run by that party — into a Democrats vs Republican division…!
Hmm…
Judy vs Capitalism is at Rendezvous with Madness; Monkey Beach is at ImagineNative, both through Sunday; and The Trial of the Chicago 7 is now streaming on Netflix.
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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