Daniel Garber talks with Ugana Kenichi about The Gesuidouz at #TIFF24
Photograph by Jeff Harris.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Translator: Aki Takabatake
The Gesuidouz are a punk band in Tokyo. Hanako is the band’s leader and vocalist, the only woman in the group. There’s Ryuzo on bass, Masao who wears a fright wig on guitar, and blonde mohican Santarou on drums, who doubles as the band’s cook. They write their own music and lyrics, perform live and have released a dvd album. The only problem is… they’re terrible! There’s no tune, rhythm or meaning to these songs, just a lot of incoherent noise. Almost no loyal fans and their discs are still sitting in cardboard boxes. Their manager issues an ultimatum: he’ll find them a house in the country to live in, but if they can’t write and release a hit single in time, this band is finished. What will become of The Gesuidouz?
The Gesuidouz is a Japanese punk-music comedy that reinvents the rock movie. It’s the work of indie filmmaker Ugana Kenichi. His fantasy films have screened at festivals worldwide, including Slamdance, Porto and many others.
I spoke with Uganda Kenichi in a room at the Hyatt Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival, where The Gesuidozus had its World Premiere.
From Venus to Limbo. Films reviewed: The Strangers: Chapter 1, Limbo
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Festival season continues with Inside Out, the 2SLGBTQ+ film festival which opens this Friday, and runs through June 1st. The opening night show is the comedy My Old Ass, starring Aubrey Plaza, and the closing night show is a must-see for Toronto music-lovers; it’s called We Forgot to Break Up, and features tunes by iconic artists like Peaches, Gentleman Reg, The Hidden Cameras and Torquil Campbell of Stars.
But this week, I’m looking at two new movies — a mystery and a horror — about what can happen when you end up in a small town. There’s a police detective caught in Limbo an outpost in the Australian outback, and a young couple looking for a way out of Venus, a small town in Oregon.
The Strangers: Chapter 1
Dir: Renny Harlin
Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are a young couple driving from New York City to Oregon in a fancy new SUV. Maya is a young architect aiming for a position at a Portland firm, and Ryan is willing to relocate if she gets the job — they’ve been together for 5 years and things are looking good. Until they turn off the highway for a bite to eat, and find themselves in an isolated town called Venus, Oregon. GPS doesn’t work here and wifi and telephone signals are intermittent at best. And the people all seem like extras from the movie Deliverance. And when they come out from the local diner their car — mysteriously — isn’t working anymore. Says the mechanic: We gotta wait for parts before we can fix it. So they are forced to spend the night at an Air BnB, a small cabin in the woods isolated even from the town. It’s a creepy place, filled with scary, old things like… record players! And a piano! And a chicken coop out front! They’re disturbed by a loud rapping on the door by a young woman in a hoody, her face obscured. But when the girl leaves, 
everything seems kinda normal again. So, like the sensible couple they are, he drives back in town, leaving her alone in the cabin to smoke a joint. That’s when things get really scary.
A man in a mask keeps sneaking up on her and spying on her but he disappears as soon as she turns around. Not eventually she discovers it’s not her imagination. There are three sadistic killers chasing her and Ryan all over the place, holding a giant axe. They’re all wearing masks: a burlap sack with a face drawn on it, a baby doll mask, and one that looks like a 1920s flapper. Can Maya and Ryan somehow escape these scary people, and get away from this awful little town? Or will they just die?
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie. Cabin in the Woods movies are sub-genre I like. And the acting is not bad — Madelaine Petsch is Blossom from the TV series Riverdale. You can sympathize with the two main characters. And it even a bit scary. But there’s something wrong with this movie. It’s non-stop deja vue. It’s like a collage of scenes blatantly stolen from countless other horror movies. I’ve seen all these masks before. I’ve 
seen the guy with the axe. The wooden house, the chickens — it’s like they didn’t even try to think up something new. I’m tempted to blame this on AI, but I think it’s just lazy writers. And it doesn’t even make sense. Do the killers wait around for hapless strangers to arrive at random so they can put on their stupid masks and terrify them. And if so… Why? The title should tell you something — it’s “Chapter 1” in a potentially endless series. So don’t expect it to explain anything — maybe that comes in chapter 19 or 20.
I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie, because it’s by Finnish director Renny Harlin who was a big name in the 90s for his classic action thrillers like Die Hard 2, and The Long Kiss Goodnight. But The Strangers is so deeply stupid it tarnishes his reputation.
Limbo
Dir: Ivan Sen
Travis (Simon Baker) is a police detective in South Australia. He has buzzed hair and beard, aviator-style glasses and tattoos all over his body. He’s also a junkie — he carries his paraphernalia wherever he goes. This time, he’s been sent to the outback to investigate a cold case about a girl named Charlotte who disappeared two decades earlier. The police never caught the actual criminal, nor find the missing girl… maybe because she’s aboriginal. So Travis pokes around for clues. Unsurprisingly, the locals are not impressed. Charley (Rob Collins) Charlottes brother, had been blamed for her disappearance.
He tells Travis to fuck off. Emma (Natasha Wanganeen) the waitress in the town diner, wants to help — and likes having Travis around. And the three kids she takes care of also want to find out what happened to Aunt Charlotte. And then there’s Joseph (Nicholas Hope), a sketchy old guy who lives in a cave, and who used to run dodgy party nights for teenagers with a friend. He denies any involvement but seems to know a lot. Meanwhile, Travis is stuck there till they fix his car — he’s forced to drive around in an ancient jalopy. Can he get the locals to talk? Will he ever discover what happened to Charlotte and why? And as he uncovers deep dark secrets, will the people there end up better or worse?
Limbo is a detective drama about an old mystery. It’s a slow burn — very slow in fact — more like a revelatory drama than a mystery. It deals with dark secrets and the pervasive class divisions and racism toward the indigenous people there. It takes place in the lunar landscape of an area once exploited for opal mines, with deep tunnels drilled into the ground and hills made of the rubble they dug up. The hotel he stays in has walls drilled into the earth. Everything is dirt, sand, rock and sun. The people all seem to live in caves or mobile homes.
This indigenous Australian director, Ivan Sen, is also the writer, producer, cinematographer, editor and the composer of the soundtrack, so it has a completeness about it, the work of a single mind. It has amazing panoramic views, all done in black and white. The production design and aesthetics of the film — sets, costumes, cars — is very cool as well. And great acting. If you want to watch a moody, noir-ish drama under a bright summer sun, I think you’ll like Limbo.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 opens theatrically this weekend; check your local listings. Limbo is now available on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Some gems at #TIFF23. Films reviewed: The Movie Teller, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, The Promised Land
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is coming to an end this weekend, but plenty of movies still playing, with free screenings of Peoples Choice winners, including the Midnight Madness and Platform series. But this week I’m talking about three gems that played the festival, from Chile, Romania and Denmark. There’s a performer in the Pampas, a driver in Romania and a would-be farmer in Jutland.
The Movie Teller
Dir: Lone Scherfig (An Education, The Riot Club, One Day, The Kindness of Strangers)
Based on the Chilean novel by Hernán Rivera Letelier
Maria Margarita and her three brothers Minto, Mauricio and Marcelino, live in a remote company- town in the Pampas where they mine saltpeter. Her mother is a beauty, obsessed with radio soap operas, her father a gruff man with a big moustache. Their biggest source of pleasure is their weekly trip to the local cinema. But when their dad is badly injured — but not killed — in a work accident, they are suddenly without income. And their father, now in a wheelchair, can’t go to the movies anymore.
So the four kids decide to take the movies to him, by describing what they saw. The three brothers were not very interesting but Maria Margarita blew them all the way with her renditions — the love scenes, the fights, the commentaries all perfectly reproduced. Soon word spreads and everyone in town wants to watch her perform. But will it solve their deeper problems? And can it bring their mother home again (she abandoned her family once her husband was injured)?
The Movie Teller is a magnificent, romantic coming-of-age story (each of the four kids are played by three different actors as they grow up). The main events of their lives — like Maria Margarita’s fight with with a dust devil, or her first date with the son of the union organizer — are played out against historical events in Chile, culminating in the US-backed coup that killed Allende and brought dictator Pinochet to power. (You can guess what year it is by the movies they’re seeing). Though a bittersweet story, it feels like a classic drama. Despite the fact they’re in the middle of a desert the film is rich, lush and colourful. And it’s filled with quirky, endearing — or hateable — characters. Danish director Lone Scherfig makes a movie about movies in a cinematic style.
Wonderful.
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
Dir: Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Angela (Ilinca Manolache) is an overworked PA working for a low-rent film studio in Bucharest. She has bleached-blonde hair and wears a dress covered in metallic sequins. She spends long hours driving across the city on minor assignments. Her latest? To interview people who were badly injured while working at a foreign-owned furniture factor. She sees people missing fingers, paralyzed, or in wheelchairs. But this is not an expose; the company wants this for a promotional campaign telling people to wear their helmets… though most of them weren’t injured on their heads.
Everywhere she goes, she pulls out her smart phone and records a short video she posts on Instagram or TikTok swapping her face with a cartoonish version of Andrew Tate’s. She calls her persona Bobito, who spouts a series of bawdy, obscene, misogynistic, and reactionary punchlines, told in the most offensive way possible. Later she picks up marketing exec Doris Goethe (Nina Hoss) from the Austrian furniture company they’re making the film for. Will Angela survive another gruelling day? Or will tiredness turn to a fatal traffic accident?
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World is a 
biting satirical film about contemporary Romania. It mocks pop culture, government censorship, corporate greed, in a way sure to offend almost everybody. Thereme, Deloitte, KFC, Ukraine, Orban, Putin, Germans, American gun culture, nothing is off limits. This is an avant-garde film, not a conventional one, with very long takes — as long as half an hour — with no cuts. The scenes in her car are grainy black and white, while other scenes are brightly coloured. There are also clips from a 1981 Romanian movie about a female cab driver in Bucharest and the macho Transylvanian man she meets (the same actors appear in this film 40 years later.) And what Radu Jude film would be complete without a a seemingly endless montage of photos, almost like a slide show?
I think this film is brilliant, just like his previous one, but much easier on the eyes. If you’re OK with political satire and unconventional cinema, you should check this one out.
The Promised Land (Bastarden)
Co-Wri/Dir: Nikolaj Arcel
It’s Jutland in Denmark in the 18th century. Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) is trying to start a farm in an expanse of inhospitable heath land. He wants to make his fortune, live in a mansion, and be knighted by the king. He’s the illegitimate son of a nobleman and his maid, who served 25 years in the German army, but left with only a meagre pension. He has Royal permission to start a farm there — many have tried, none have succeeded — but faces unexpected obstacles. First, there are few people who want to work there. He ends up hiring a husband and his wife, Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin), fleeing servitude in a manor house at the hands of a noble. He was cruelly tortured, she was sexually assaulted.
Then there’s the noble, Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg) a snotty young man, who craves absolute power over all of Jutland. Just by existing on the land, Kahlen challenges his authority, and de Schinkel goes out of his way to stop him. It also doesn’t help that his beautiful cousin Edel doesn’t want to marry him — she only has eyes for Kahlen. Then there are the vagabonds who live in the woods attacking any passing visitors. That’s where he meets a foul-mouthed little girl named Anmai Mus (Hagberg Melina), who the thieves use as a lure. After much squabbling, and dramatic happenings, he, Ann Barbara and Anmai Mus form a 
makeshift family to face the elements as they attempt to produce the first crop ever grown on that land. Will he succeed or fail?
The Promised Land is an epic and novelistic historical drama, about a stubborn and driven man looking to fulfill his big dreams. It’s full of sneak attacks, and revenge plots. Mads Mikkelsen is marvellous as Kahlen, a man who risks his life for the sake of a title or rank, at the expense of the people he really cares about. The large cast is terrific (I mentioned only a few of the Dickensian characters) and the cinematography is panoramic.
This is a fantastic movie.
The Movie Teller, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, and The Promised Land all played at #TIFF23, which runs through tomorrow. Go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Scary? Films reviewed: The Beasts, The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is Emancipation Month in Toronto, commemorating the end of slavery in the British commonwealth, including Canada. So in honour of that there’s a free screening of RasTa: A Soul’s Journey, at Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park on August 13th.
But this week I’m looking at two new, scary movies. There are sailors who want to abandon ship, and farmers who don’t want to leave their land.
The Beasts
Co-Wri/Dir: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) are a middle aged professional couple living in Galicia in northwestern Spain. He’s a burly, reserved man, while she is direct and no-nonsense. They gave up their lives and careers to settle among the rocky hills, growing organic tomatoes and vegetables. They love the simple life, working hard, breathing the fresh air and taking long walking through the nearby forests and hills They get along well with some of their neighbours, but not all of them. And especially not Xan and Lorenzo, a pair of wiry, adult brothers who keep nomadic horses. Lorenzo (Diego Anido) may be simple-minded but is prone to cruel, practical jokes, with Antoine as the victim. Xan (Luis 
Zahera) is much worse. Xan insults him, calls him a derogatory name for French people, mutters veiled threats and even spits at him.
At the centre of their dispute is a contract which Antoine and Olga refuse to sign. A multinational energy corporation wants to turn the village into a wind farm. But after all the money, time and work they have put into it, they don’t want to throw it all away for a small buyout. It’s their home. This is what makes their neighbours so angry. They want to leave their ancestral homes forever. And as their fight grows, it gradually turns to violence. What will become of them?
The Beasts is an intense, dark drama played out in a clash of cultures and class. The film starts with a group of men physically wrestling with horses in slow motion. This motif comes up later in the movie in an 
unexpected way. It’s billed as a thriller, but it’s not — I’d call it more of a slow-burn drama, spread out over more than two hours. The dialogue is in French, Spanish and (I’m guessing) Galician, since it doesn’t sound like any Spanish I’ve ever heard before.
Is it a good movie? I like the characters, and the acting and the drama, and its beautiful cinematography, locations and music. But the film has a weird structure, with a very long ending after an intense chapter in the middle. It’s less thrilling or scary than it is creepy and disturbing, though it does have a satisfying finish. I just don’t quite get the point of this movie. If you like feeling uncomfortable for a couple hours but not really challenged, then you’ll probably like The Beasts.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Dir: André Øvredal
It’s the 1890s and the three-masted Demeter is loading at a Romanian dock, preparing for its voyage to Dover, England. Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) has mustered all his sailors on the ship, as well as Wojchek, his first mate (David Dastmalchian), Joseph, his bible-thumping cook (Jon Jon Briones) and his eight-year-old grandson Toby (Woody Norman). It’s the captain’s last voyage so he wants to pass on some of his lore. The only unfamiliar face is Clemens (Corey Hawkins), the ship’s doctor. Not a sailor, but he does hold a medical degree from Cambridge (very uncommon for a black man in Victorian England). But with such a small crew, even the doctor has to take his turn steering the ship and on night watch. But the most unusual thing is this ship’s cargo: a series of large wooden crates filled 
with dirt and branded with a sinister-looking mark. The locals refuse even to board the ship, but the crew is happy that there’s a big cash bonus if they deliver the cargo in time.
Unfortunately, things start to go wrong pretty quickly. First, a female stowaway is found on board — and sailors considered women on ships bad luck. Anna (Aisling Franciosi) is half dead, speechless and frightened. Clemens keeps her alive with frequent blood transfusions. Then all the ship’s animals — from livestock, to a dog, to even the rats hidden in the hold — are found dead. And then the crew starts disappearing, one by one. Is this a disease? A stowaway killer? Or something even worse? And will the Demeter and its crew ever reach its destination?
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a well-crafted thriller/horror about a vampire on board a ship, based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And — no spoilers here — if this vampire looks familiar, it’s because he’s Nosferatu, the cadaverous, long fingered, pointy-eared creature made famous by the silent German expressionist masterpiece by FW Murnau, released a full century ago (1922). This Nosferatu can fly, 
swim, hypnotize its victims and seemingly pass through walls. He’s almost indestructible. The film is beautifully shot in a German studio, with the camera flying down long passageways, into the galley, under tables and up to the sailmasts. The soundtrack is punctuated with tapping sounds that reverberate the length of the ship. The acting is quite good all around. And this vampire is a scary one.
The one thing that’s missing is pathos — with a few exceptions, you don’t feel close or attached to most of the characters. But that’s a minor problem in a good horror movie. And this one gives new life to a very old vampire.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter and the Beasts are both opening this weekend in Toronto, with The Beasts playing 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.
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
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Troy Ruptash about They Who Surround Us
It’s 1987 on a farm in Vegreville, Alberta, east of Edmonton. Roman is a happily married farmer with a young son. But their world is torn apart when his wife is killed in a terrible accident (which he blames on himself), leaving Roman and Mykola unprotected and alone. The son turns inward, not eating or speaking, while Roman lashes out. He has a total meltdown, revealing deeply hidden memories of his childhood in war-torn Ukraine. He directs his rage and frustration at everyone he once 
relied on – his sister, his neighbours and the Church. Can Roman handle on his own what God hath wrought? Or does he need to embrace “they who surround us”?
They Who Surround Us is a moving drama about one man’s struggle with death, mourning, history, family and religion. It’s set within the Ukrainian-Canadian community of east-central 
Alberta, where the prairies meet the bush, a land replete with grain elevators, onion-dome churches, and a railway line cutting right through it. This film is produced, directed, and written by the well-known Canadian actor Troy Ruptash, who also plays the lead role.
I spoke with Troy in Vegreville, Alberta from Toronto via ZOOM .
They Who Surround Us opens theatrically in Toronto and across western Canada on August 27th.
Travelling for love. Films reviewed: Make Up, Identifying Features, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
They say love is true, and some people travel far and wide to keep that love alive. This week I’m looking at three new movies, directed by women in Hungary, England, and Mexico, that explore this theme. There’s a teenaged girl who moves to Cornwall to spend time with her boyfriend; an American surgeon who moves to Budapest to be reunited with her lover, and a Mexican farmer who crosses the country in search of her missing son.
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Dir: Lili Horvát
Marta (Natasa Stork) is a 39-year-old, successful surgeon from New Jersey. So what is she doing at a run-down hospital in Budapest? She moved there, spontaneously to join up with a man she met a conference. They shared a night of passion and swore to meet up again on a bridge in Budapest at a specific time and date. (Marta is originally from Hungary but immigrated to the U.S.) But when she sees her bearded lover Janos (Viktor Bodó) he says he has ever seen her before in his life. She faints on a downtown street, where a young man named Alex (Benett Vilmányi) comes to her rescue. Marta is overcome with emotions. Is she going crazy? Was it all a dream? Or is Janos gaslighting her for some unknown reason?
She gets a job at the hospital where Janos works to be close to him. Meanwhile
Alex turns out to be a young medical student who develops an infatuation with Marta. So this turns into a three way stalk fest with Marta spying on Janos and Alex following her. Where is love? IS it real or imaginary? And can Marta come to terms with her new strange life?
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is an intriguing mystery-romance-psychological drama about passion and illusion, alienation and obsession. Marta deals with sexist colleagues and petty bureaucrats, as she tries to navigate a culture she’s not quite familiar with. It’s filmed on the lovely streets of Budapest with a fair amount of unexpectedly strange sex (no spoilers). The movie is a bit confusing in its tone, with, rather than a huge dramatic turning point, it culminates in an oddly absurdist, anticlimactic finish. Preparations is a good movie, but probably not what you expect.
This is Hungary’s nominee for best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Make Up
Dir: Claire Oakley
It’s winter in Cornwall, England. Ruth (Molly Windsor) is an 18 year old woman, staying at a deserted summer holiday park so she can spend time with her boyfriend. She’s been dating Tom (Joseph Quinn) for 3 years. But rather than a romantic getaway, she’s staying in a grey, gloomy collection of jerry-built cottages near the sea. Everything is covered in plastic sheeting. And her relation with Tom is fraught with tension and jealousy. When she finds a hair in her sheets, that clearly isn’t hers, she takes the bedding to the laundry to wash it clean. There she meets an older taller woman named Jade (Stephanie Martini). Jane makes hair pieces for a local hospital — it takes 30,000 knots to make a single wig, she says.
Now Ruth has someone she can hang around with, talk to, and tell her secrets, none of which she’s getting from Tom. But her obsession with her boyfriend’s possible mistress drives Ruth into an unexpected situation. Can her relationship last? Or will she find a new path among the windswept sand dunes?
Make Up is an impressionistic coming-of-age story about a young woman looking for love while trapped in an almost surreal setting. It’s full of the screeching foxes, detached sexual sounds and blurry vistas set against the banality of service jobs. Molly Windsor is really good as the bewildered Ruth. The movie itself is a straightforward drama but shot almost like an eerie ghost story. This is an excellent first feature from a young filmmaker.
Identifying Features
Dir: Fernanda Valadez
Chuya (Laura Elena Ibarra) is a farmer in Guanajuato, Mexico. She’s a single mom who’s raising her teenaged son Jesus in a small farmhouse. But when he suddenly tells her he’s heading north with his best friend to take a job in Arizona, she packs his bag and says goodbye. And that’s the last she hears from him and his friend. Are they kidnapped? Lost? Or dead? She reports it to the police to no avail. His best friend is found but nothing is found of Jesus except the bag 
Chuya had packed. And when a woman she meets tells her not to give up, she sets out on a journey to try to find her son, or else confirmation that he’s dead.
On the way she falls in with a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) who was recently deported from the US. He is looking for his mom who lives in Ocampo a region plagued with crime. 
It’s also where Chuya thinks she can find the answers to her son’s disappearance. Will she ever find out what happened to him? And can an ordinary, kind woman survive in a society filled with greed, suspicion, and murder?
Identifying Features is a deeply moving and gripping mystery/drama that looks at the lives of Mexicans, trapped within larger forces — el migra, organized crime, and a corrupt police force — over which they have no control. It takes you into fascinating places, rarely portrayed — like indigenous villages, hostels for migrants — that tell an unforgettable story with a shocking ending. Stunning cinematography, and natural acting combined with compelling drama, makes for a terrific film.
Make Up just opened on VOD across North America. Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, and Identifying Features both open today at the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Not about the US election. Films reviewed: The Crossing, The Kid Detective, Major Arcana
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
I’m recording this on Thursday before the US election has been settled. So with all the tension and stress, it’s a perfect time to watch some entertainment entirely unrelated to politics. This week I’m looking at three new movies about growing up. There are Norwegian children facing adult responsibilities; a grown-up kid detective fighting real crime; and a man trying to grow up and act his age.
The Crossing (Flukten over grensen)
Dir: Johanne Helgeland
It’s Christmastime in 1942. Norway is occupied by Nazi Germany with the blessings of the Quisling government. Food is rationed and times are tough but life goes on. Gerda (Anna Sofie Skarholt) is a little girl with rosy cheeks and blond hair. She’s obsessed with the Three Musketeers and wears a floppy hat, a cloak (made from an old apron) and brandishes a pie cutter: en garde, rogue! But one day she spies her older brother Otto (Bo Lindquist-Ellingsen) through a window –he’s at a Nazi meeting! Their parents are firmly opposed to the occupation… why is Otto there? Meanwhile, strange things are happening at home –the cocoa is disappearing… and their arents keep talking about sacks of potatoes. Things come to a head when the police bang on the door in the middle of the night. As they’re 
taken away their parents shout the Christmas presents are in the basement! Take them to your aunt Vigdis! What do they mean? Turns out there are two kids their age hidden behind a wall. Daniel (Samson Steine) and Sarah (Bianca Ghilardi-Hellsten) a brother and sister just like Otto and Gerda except they’re Jewish. With their parents in jail, now it’s up to Gerda and Otto to take them across the border to neutral Sweden. Can they take Daniel and Sarah to safety? Or will they be caught?
The Crossing is an adventure story about friendship and family in a wartime setting. It’s a kids-against-grown-ups situation – most of the good adults have been arrested, while the bad ones – Nazi and local collaborators – seem to be everywhere. They are real life villains, almost witches and monsters in the children’s eyes. There are good people too, but it’s hard to know who to trust. Gerda is excited by their journey, Otto is reluctant to join them, while for proud Daniel and innocent Sarah it’s a matter of life and death. Though made for children, the movie is full of action, close calls and near escapes. It’s also a tear jerker, with some every emotional scenes. Though fictional and clean-scrubbed, it’s an exciting look back at adventures in occupied Norway.
The Kid Detective
Wri/Dir: Evan Morgan
When Abe Applebaum was little (Adam Brodie) he was the smartest kid in town. He solved mysteries at school, figuring out who broke into a locker or cheated on a test. He worked out of his treehouse. His fame grew – the pop shop owner promised him free icecream for life, and the town chipped in to get him a real detective’s office. But people grow up and things change. A 10 year old caught snooping for clues in a little girl’s closet is adorable; for a man in his thirties it’s not cute at all. His reputation tanked when he failed to solve the mystery of a missing girl. Now, Abe is an alcoholic detective, eating alone in neon-lit diners, and addicted to anti-depressants. But things take a turn when he is approached by an innocent student named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse). They soon uncover clues – a photo of a naked woman in a tiger mask and some origami roses – that harken back to the disappearance 20 years earlier. 
Is he just a wash out? Or will the former kid detective solve this new, terrible mystery and regain his self worth?
The Kid Detective is a totally watchable and cute comedy drama. It starts as a high concept movie – what happens to heroes from kids’ books (like Encyclopedia Brown) – when they grow up? It’s full of kid-ified versions of cinema noir clichés, seen through a mist of bittersweet adult nostalgia and small town life. It starts out a bit slow and silly, but picks up quite nicely. I saw this at TIFF immediately after a shockingly violent horror movie, and it left me with just the right combination of watchable entertainment and warm feelings (with an unexpected and shocking twist). I thought I’d hate it, but I actually liked this movie.
Major Arcana
Wri/Dir: Josh Melrod
Dink (Ujon Tokarski), who is far from dinky, is a tall and rangy alcoholic drifter travelling across America looking for work as a carpenter. He’s a fit man in his thirties, with long hair, a scraggly blond beard; sort of a homeless Jesus. Four years ago, he left his depressed town in rural Vermont under a dark cloud, vowing never to come back. But like the prodigal son, here he is again. His father died leaving him a broken-down shack, some cash and 50 acres of forest. And he’s off drugs and alcohol now, living clean and sober. So he decides to turn his life around.
He pitches a tent and thinks about his future. In the morning he begins, spontaneously, to build a wooden home from scratch with his bare hands. He fells trees with an axe and chainsaw, cuts beams and clears a field dragging lumber across the forest floor. He survives on aerosol cheese and uncooked hotdogs. But his past still haunts him: his shrewish, gambling mom (Lane Bradbury) and his former lover, Sierra (Tara Summers). She’s voluptuous but tough, slapping his face for past transgressions on one night, but showing up at his tent on another. And Dink is still helplessly in love with her. Will he
complete his task? Will Sierra leave her boyfriend? And can he show his face in a town that hates him?
Major Arcana — the title refers to a tarot card reading that Sierra does for Dink – is about major changes, life lessons and destiny. It’s a bumpy love story, and a drama about a man trying to redeem himself. While there are some revelations and conflicts this is mainly a meditative look at a man building a cabin in the woods. It sounds kinda dull, but it’s actually a really soothing, healing and life-affirming film. There are hints at spirituality, but it’s not sanctimonious or heavy handed. There’s enough nudity, sex, pain and misery — this is no Sunday school – to keep you watching. The measured pace and natural beauty makes this movie an incredibly relaxing and pleasant experience.
Not my normal choice of film, but I quite liked it.
The Crossing is one of many movies that played digitally at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Fall edition; The Kid Detective opens theatrically today across Canada; and Major Arcana is available for viewing on VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Art and Sport. Films Reviewed: The Miracle Season, Final Portrait, PLUS Steve Reinke’s films at Images
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Images, the International Festival of Moving Image Culture, opens next Thursday with Canadian and international video artists and filmmakers… featuring the work of Steve Reinke. This week, I’m going to talk about films by artists, and films about artists, with some sports thrown in, too. There’s an American volleyball team, a Swiss sculptor, and a Canadian video artist.
The Miracle Season
Dir: Sean McNamara
Caroline and Kelly have been best friends since childhood. “Line” (Danika Yarosh) is the always chirpy optimist who Kelly (Erin Moriarty) looks up to. Growing up in rural Iowa, they share their secrets amidst big barns and cornfields. In high school they play volleybal together. With Line as team manager and setter they win the State Championships. Of course the other team members, andtheir hard boiled coach (Helen Hunt) are important, but it’s really Line who leads the team to victory.
But the next year things take a turn for the worse. The team is dispirited and Line’s Mom has cancer. Then the unthinkable happens; Line dies in a crash. Kelly feels guilty, and so does Line’s dad Ernie (William Hurt) who used to throw team parties and boost the players. With no Line around to pull people out of their misery, the team slides to last place. They don’t even want to be happy – it’s 
disrespectful. It falls to Kelly to turn the team around. Can she do it, and will the team ever win again?
The Miracle Season is a nice movie about teamwork and overcoming loss. It has good acting and a conventionally inspiring story. “Nice” is the key word here. Based on a true story, it was made by permission of the charity founded by the Line’s father. So as you can expect, anything not super “nice” has been scrubbed from the plot. No sex, no violence here. They could show this movie at Bible Camp without raising an eyebrow. Which makes it a nice memorial for teammates and family members, but for the rest of us, it’s just a dull and predictable movie. But, like I said, it’s still nice.
Final Portrait
Dir: Stanley Tucci
It’s early 1960s. James Lord (Armie Hammer) is a young American living in Paris who writes biographies of well known artists. He’s friends with both Picasso and the Swiss-Italian sculptor Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). Giacometti is famous for his sculptures of people with crusty and extremely elongated arms and legs. But he also paints. And one day he asks James to pose for him for a few hours. He sits down in Alberto’s 
studio dressed in khakis, navy blue sports jacket and shirt and tie. But the one-day painting turns into a project lasting days and then weeks, until no one knew if it would ever end. Each time he paints his face, Alberto rubs it all out and starts again. Meanwhile, various 
people in his life walk in and out adding colour to the story. His brother Diego (Tony Shalhoub) has seen it all before. His neglected wife Annette (Sylvie Testud) refuses to pose for him anymore. And his mistress Caroline (played by the delightfully-named Clémence Poésy) would rather go for a jaunt in their sportscar than just hang at the studio. Final Portrait has some fun parts, but basically this movie is 90 minutes of watching paint dry.
Steve Reinke
Steve Reinke is a queer Canadian artist and filmmaker, originally from the Ottawa valley but now based in Chicago. I’ve seen a lot of his films in the past 20 years, but for the 
first time I spent last night binge-watching them all together (which is quite an experience). If you’ve never seen Reinke’s stuff before, you should.
He’s been shooting films and videos that chronical his life, his thoughts, aesthetics, and interests — both intellectual and sexual – beginning in the late 1970s and continuing till now. And unlike 
a lot of gallery video artists, his films are never boring. (This is important.) Like porn, a Reinke film is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. (But that doesn’t mean you’ll understand it.)
Taken at face value, his collection is an ongoing, partly-fictional memoir told through video art (predating blogs and youtube by decades). His 
images are partly found footage/partly original, narrated both by voice and by titles. Take What Weakens the Flesh is the Flesh Itself, a recent film he made with James Richards. The film alternates grotesquerie with erotica and mundaneness, with the edges sometimes blurring among the three. Grotesque as in a dead piglet; mundane, like a naked man eating grapes or an ice fishing hut shot with a distorted, fisheye 
lens; erotic like a poisonous snake having its venom extracted in a laboratory. The film begins with photos by the late German photographer Albrecht Becker. He was imprisoned in Nazi Germany for his sexuality. His work consists of photos of himself reduplicated with an imaginary “twin”. Over time, as 
his photos become more stylized and experimental so does his body, which gradually transmogrifies — before still cameras — into a work of art using tattoos, body modification, and a whopping-big metal thing hanging from his scrotum. (Ouch!)
Reinke’s flms are transgressive and a total mindfuck. Like he’ll show you an alien monster with pointy ears making out with a faceless, sexless human, encased in a skintight black PVC outfit. And then later he’ll show an unborn dead calf being pulled from a cow’s belly with 
the same black shininess.
This is weird stuff, alternating between jarring pictures of sex and death overlayed with anodyne intellectual musings. Who else would compare Casper the Friendly Ghost to Wittgenstein? What other filmmaker offers a film called Anal Masturbation 
and Object Loss that’s actually just Steve Reinke pasting the pages of an academic psychiatric textbook together? Or show thousands of unidentified military photos before telling you this: [SPOILER ALERT] these are pics of all the American military casualties of the Second Gulf War arranged in order of attractiveness. Shocking stuff.
It all feels like you just watched a story, but one arranged with enough sudden changes and musical distortion that you’re not seduced into it. Steven Reinke’s films leave you 
disturbed and unsatisfied but you don’t quite know why.
Films viewed:
What Weakens The Flesh Is The Flesh Itself (2017)
Atheists Need Theology, Too (2016)
Joke (Version One) (1991)
*Watermelon Box (1990)
*Michael and Lacan (1991)
*Room (1991)
*Barely Human (1992)
Anal Masturbation and Object Loss (2002)
Squeezing Sorrow From an Ashtray (1992)
Hobbit Love is the Greatest Love (2007)
A Boy Needs a Friend (2015)
*not included in Images series
The Miracle Season and Final Portrait both open today in Toronto; check your local listings. And Steve Reinke’s films are showing at Toronto’s Images Festival — featured in its Canadian Artist Spotlight series — beginning next Thursday. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Made for the Big Screen. Films reviewed: Suburbicon, Human Flow, Faces Places
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Do you find it hard to keep up with all these Fall Film Festivals? Here’s some coming in November whose names are nearly self-explanatory: EstDocs shows documentaries from Estonia – This year is Estonia’s 100th anniversary since it first declared itself a republic. ReelAsian is one of Toronto’s biggest festivals, showing features from East and South Asia and their diasporas. And guess what Black Star shows? It’s a curated series of classics at TIFF featuring black movie stars: Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones, Sidney Poitier in In The Heat of the Night, and Denzel Washington in Malcolm X.
This week I’m looking at some movies — a thriller and two art documentaries – with strong visual elements that deserve to be seen on the big screen. These films are about migrating across continents, driving across France… or just staying put in the suburbs,
Suburbicon
Dir: George Clooney
It’s the late 50s in a cookie-cutter suburb. Nicky (Noah Jupe) is a twelve year old boy who lives with his mom and dad in a middleclass, white, Episcopalian home. His father, Mr Gardner (Matt Damon) works at a middle management office job, while his mom (Julianne Moore) stays at home. She uses a wheelchair to get around since she was almost killed in a car accident a year earlier. Her sister (also played by Juliane Moore) helps out around the house. Life is bland, suburban and normal.
Then two big things happen.
First, a middle class black family moves into the house behind theirs. This makes Nicky happy because they have a son his age– someone he can play baseball with. His all-white neighbours, though, didn’t like it one bit, and try to intimidate them into moving away. The second thing is a home invasion 
by a pair of lowlife criminals. They tie up the family to chairs at the dinner table and knock them out with ether. And when Nicky wakes up, his mom is dead and the killers are gone. Stranger still, his aunt quickly moves in to take her place and dyes her hair to look exactly like his real mom. What’s going on?
Then things get worse. White violence scalates against their new black neighbours escalates. A detective visits Gardner at his office investigating his wife’s murder. He’s suspicious. So is an insurance investigator. Then the killers themselves show up again making new demands. What do they want from 
him? When Nicky catches his Dad and his fake-mom in a compromising position on the pingpong table he realizes something is very wrong.
Suburbicon is a zany — but violent – mystery/thriller that looks at the dark side of a 1950s suburb, as seen through the eyes of a little boy. It also deals with segregation, but that’s really just a subplot — an attempt to give it relevance. It’s written by Joel and Ethan Coen, with the usual over-the-top violence and absurdist comedy, but it doesn’t feel like a Coen Brothers movie. This is George Clooney’s work. Aesthetically, it’s amazing, with incredible art direction that brings to life a stylized version of suburban America.
It’s a fun story, but that’s all it is — entertaining fluff.
Human Flow
Dir: Ai Weiwei
Millions of people around the world are housed temporarily in makeshift shelters. These refugees flee their homes or villages in fear for their lives. Many more are migrating across borders looking for a place to call home, now that war or famine or poverty has made their previous homes uninhabitable. This human flow, these crowds of people risk their lives qs they walk through deserts, through fields and cities, crossing oceans in leaky boats, as they search for sanctuary.
This movie follows refugees and migrants around the world: 
Rohingya in Bangladesh, Syrians walking through Europe, central Americans climbing those walls at the US/Mexican border. It takes us to Gaza, Kenya, Afghanistan, Turkey and Hungary, looking at how these people fare in unwelcoming environs.
Human Flow is huge, epic in scope and very long for a documentary – almost 2 ½ hours. It takes you to different locations without any narrative or order, punctuated with 
poetic quotes and info scrolling across the screen. There are some exciting parts — like the rescue of migrants in boats on the Mediterranean – but much of the film has a constant “flow”, just drifting to scene after scene. Ai Weiwei is primarily an artist so the filming is gorgeous and grandiose. It uses drone shots looking down from way, way up in the air where refugee camps look like tiny white pills arranged in neat rows. Then it zooms down, until you gradually see what looks like ants and then finally, real people with faces. Human Flow is visually stunning and informative.
I just wish it were an hour shorter.
Faces Places (Visages Villages)
Wri/Dir: Agnes Varda and JR
Agnes Varda is the Belgian-born artist and filmmaker who rose to fame in the French New Wave. JR is a contemporary artist known for his postering. He plasters his work — giant-sized, black and white paper photos – onto outdoor walls. Together they travel across France taking pictures of ordinary people they meet on their way: a coal miners daughter, a waitress, a farmer, and a woman who raises goats. They also pay homage to 
important figures from Agnes’s past: a man who modeled for her on the beach, the grave of photographer Cartier-Bressson, and Jean-Luc Godard’s home.
They make strange pair. Agnes is short, with a pageboy haircut, her white hair partly dyed with a red halo around the fringe. She’s 88. JR is tall and lanky. He won’t reveal his real name and keeps his face disguised with a fedora and dark glasses. He’s 33. They travel in JR’s little truck that has the image of a 
camera lens on the side. It functions as a photobooth that prints out the huge paper photos he take. And Agnes films it all, recording the process and people’s honest reactions to JRs art. The posters might wash off of walls by the next high tide , but they will remain longer on film.
Faces Places is a delightful personal documentary about art and photography, both still and in motion. It shows us the transience of people and images.
Human Flow is now playing, and Suburbicon and Faces, Places 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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