Reduplicatives. Films reviewed: Didi, Sing Sing, Kneecap
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Any given movie can be placed somewhere between truth and fiction — just depends on how close a fictionalization sticks to the true story. But when actors play themselves it tends to shift toward the truth side. This week, I’m looking at three great new movies that deal in dramatizations, semi-autobiographies, and fictionalizations. There’s a group of actors in a maximum security prison, some Irish rappers in Belfast, and a Taiwanese-American adolescent in the Bay Area.
Didi (弟弟)
Wri/Dir: Sean Wang
Chris (Izaac Wang) is a preteen schoolboy in Fremont, California in the Bay Area. He lives with his Mom (Joan Chen) his big sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) and his elderly grandmother Nai-nai (Zhang Li Hua). Missing from this picture is his dad who supports the family from his job in their native Taiwan but whom they rarely see in person. Home life is fractious at best — Chris is waging a long war with Vivian, and their practical jokes are getting increasingly extreme. Nai-nai feels isolated and takes out her anger on his mom, while she just tries to keep the family from falling apart. At school and in the streets, Chris’ best bro is Fahad (Raul Dial), who hangs with the rest of their crew. They’re all Asian-Americans — Filipino, Korean, Indian — but no one else is Taiwanese. He goes to his first house parties, and decides to meet a girl. He has crush on Madi (Mahaela Park) but doesn’t know what to do once they meet. And this is a seminal year. Vivian is heading off to college, and Nai-nai is rapidly aging. His mom pressures him to take tutoring with her friends’ kids, but he can’t stand that group.
When his first try at dating ends ends up in a fiasco, he feels betrayed by his usual crew. So he tries to make new, cooler friends. He approaches three skaters at a skate park and proposes shooting their videos. He doesn’t know the first thing about it, but at least he has new friends to hang with. He reinvents himself and hides his 
ethnicity (I’m half, he says). But as his anger, frustrations, insecurities and self-doubt build up, and his whole life feels uncertain, he doesn’t know which way to turn. Can Chris survive the unbearable pressures of adolescence?
Didi (the title means younger brother in Chinese) is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about Sean Wang’s own life growing up in Fremont in 2008. It feels honest and real, full of the angst and heartbreak of youth. It’s full of myspace and early texting, his computer screens filled with nihilistic accidents and explosions. Something about this movie really hit me; yes it’s a coming-of-age story with many of the expected scenes, but without any of the usual cliches. The acting is all-around great and for a first feature this one’s a real accomplishment.
I quite liked this one.
Sing Sing
Dir: Greg Kwedar
It’s Sing Sing, the infamous, maximum security prison, 30 miles up the river from New York City. Divine G (Coleman Domingo) is a long-time prisoner there, known for his acting and oratory skills, as well as his kind and giving nature. He’s also a star of the plays they put on at the prison. And they’re looking for new participants. Like Clarence “Divine Eye” Macklin (played by himself). Macklin shakes down people in the yard and always displays a tough, gangsta image. But Divine G recognizes his talent and encourages him to join up. And at the same time he’s working on the play, he also helps other prisoners appeal for parole or pardons. He himself was wrongfully convicted, but has less luck than the people he helps.
Now prisoners don’t just act there, they also direct, come up with the story, and do the production work as well. But despite his efforts to help him, Macklin brushes him off and puts down the acting exercises. This year’s play is made up of a fantastical amalgam of concepts: pirates, aliens, ancient Egyptians, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to name just a few. But obstacles threaten the whole production. Will Divine Eye learn to get along with Divine G? And can this experimental play work?
Sing Sing is a wonderfully revealing and well-acted drama about people putting on a show while incarcerated. It tells, sequentially, all the stages of putting on a play: auditions, 
exercises, read- throughs, dress-rehearsals and the show itself. Some of the main characters are played by accomplished actors, like the wonderful Coleman Domingo, and Paul Raci as the director. But co-star Clarence “Divine Eye” Macklin plays himself; the film is based on his own story. Other formerly incarcerated performers play themselves or other prisoners. More than that, it fleshes out the true stories of the characters they play. Some of the actors — huge bruisers with facial tattoos — if you ran into them in a dark alley, you’d probably scream and run away. But they’re actually nice, creative, and intelligent guys who needed something like this. Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) is a highly successful program that gives meaning and purpose to the lives of prisoners. Within three years of being released from prison in New York State, 43% are back behind bars. But for participants in RTA the 3-year recidivism rate is less than 3%. That shows you how important it is.
Despite the desolate, horrific and overcrowded conditions in prisons, this drama will make you feel good about the world again.
Kneecap
Co-Wri/Dir: Rich Peppiatt
(Co-written by Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara)
JJ teaches music and the Irish language to bored students at a public school in West Belfast. He also speaks Irish at home with his girlfriend. They’re interrupted in bed one night by a phone call asking her to translate at the police station. She doesn’t want to, so JJ goes in her stead. The suspect is Liam, a lad in trackies arrested at a rave in the woods, who claims to speak only Irish no English. The detective wants JJ to help with the interrogation. She’s also curious about Liam’s notebook, filled with scrawled poems. Thing is, speaking Irish has a political dimension, too — it’s been an act of rebellion since long before independence from the British. So JJ stealthily sides with Liam, pocketing the book while Liam distracts the detective. JJ loves the rhymes, and wants Liam to rap them, in Irish, to hip hop beats (something never done before). Liam says, never without Naoise, his best pal and business partner.
They’re childhood friends, since Naoise’s IRA dad taught them to speak Irish before he went underground. Now they’re not just besties, they’re the main local dealers in drugs and hallucinogens. They agree to make a go of it, and come up with a name, Kneecap. (Kneecapping was a form of torture and punishment during The 
Troubles). Naoise calls himself Móglaí Bap, Liam’s handle is Mo Chara, and JJ is DJ Próvai. But he has to hide his face behind an Irish-flag-striped balaclava, or risk losing his job. Their first gig is at a local pub before a handful of old geezers. But word spreads, and soon enough, kids everywhere are copying their rhymes to JJ’s backbeats.
But not everyone loves them. The police detective is watching them closely, with veiled threats. A vigilante group — Radical Republicans Against Drugs — threaten physical punishment for snorting coke on stage. Naoise’s dad says their performance jeopardizes the cause. And even Liam’s clandestine girlfriend, Georgia — a Protestant no less! — hurls abuse at him as they have passionate sex in her bedroom. Will this Irish rap trio become famous? Or will they die trying?
Kneecap is a fast-moving musical, and a sex-and-drug-filled romp, with a large dose of Irish republican politics. This hilariously fictionalized biopic of the hiphop trio shows the nitty gritty of their sketchy lives. Surprisingly, the three chose to play themselves… and more surprising, they can actually act! They’re good. The rest of the cast are pro actors, including Josie Walker as the cop and Jessica Reynolds as Georgia, Liam’s sex friend. Gerry Adams plays himself, and Michael Fassbender — who was Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen’s gruelling Hunger — plays a similar role as Naoise’s underground Dad.
The film is stylized in presentation, with lots of cute animated details worked into the live action, plus occasional drug-filled fantasies using claymation. Even the violence — be it from guns or police clubs — is fantasy-like not gruesome. Most of the dialogue, and the rap, is in Irish/Gaelige, a once nearly dead language having a modern renaissance. Now, I don’t speak the language, but still, many of the Irish speakers in the movie sounded like absolute beginners, sounding out the words; but at least the three mains were speaking like it’s their native tongue, which is quite remarkable.
I found Kneecap a lot of fun.
Didi, Sing Sing and Kneecap all open in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox 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.
Women around the world. Films reviewed: Nina Wu, White Elephant, French Exit
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring is here and so is Toronto’s film festival season, even with all the theatres still closed. First up is the Canadian Film Fest which is on now.
This week I’m looking at three new dramas about women around the world. There’s an actress haunted by an audition in Taipei; a high school girl crushing on a white guy in Scarborough; and an insolvent socialite retiring in Paris.
Nina Wu
Dir: Midi Z
Nina Wu (Wu Kexi) is an aspiring actress in Taiwan. Originally part of a rural theatre company, she moved to Taipei to make it big, but so far, six years on her big break has yet to show itself, So when her agent offers a possible role in a festival-type feature looking for an unknown actress to play a complex character in a psychological drama, she jumps at the chance. But there’s always a catch: the part calls for full frontal nudity and explicit sex. That’s not all — there’s a gruelling, and highly competitive hiring process she has to past through first. Luckily she lands the lead role. Unluckily, the director, in order to get a “real” performance out of her, treats her like hell on set and off. He works her into a frenzy, slaps her face, insults her and puts her very life in danger. She understands what an actor has to go through to deliver a spectacular performance. But that’s not all. A dark, hidden 
secret from the recent past, still haunts her, and is gradually pushing her to the edge. Someone is stalking her. She has disconnected memories of walking down endless narrow corridors in a red gown, passing identically dressed women at every corner. What is happening? What does it all mean? And can she survive?
Nina Wu is an exquisitely beautiful mystery-thriller about the life of an actress suffering from PTSD. It’s about her, her dreams and hallucinations, as well as the movie in the movie. 
So at any given moment she could be acting her role, having a nightmare, or experiencing a hallucination — and you don’t always know which one it is. Nina Wu is a collaboration between the director, Midi Z, originally from the Shan State in Myanmar, and Wu Kexi a stunning and emotionally powerful Taiwanese actress, based on her own experiences. With haunting music, striking costumes and set, beautiful cinematography and a fascinating story, Nina Wu shows the dark side of the movie industry coated with a vibrant and flashy gloss.
White Elephant
Dir: Andrew C
Its the mid-nineties at a Scarborough high school. Puuja (Zaarin Bushra) is a
16-year-old Toronto-born girl who doesn’t quite fit in. She’s too Canadian for her Indian-born friends Preet and Amit (Gurleen Singh, Dulmika Kevin Hapuarachchi), too Indian for Indo-Caribbeans, and too brown for the white kids. Her main pastime is going to movies and hanging at Tim Horton’s. But when a random encounter at a theatre with a white guy she thinks is cute, things start to change. Trevor (Jesse Nasmith) doesn’t go to her school, but he’s from the neighbourhood, and hangs with his friends nearby. He seems to like her, at least as a friend. Pujaa starts lightening her hair, changing her style and wearing green-tinted contact lenses to fit in. But can a brown girl date a white guy in Scarborough? Or is their Romeo and Juliet friendship bound to fail?
White Elephant is a look at the racial division, rivalry and prejudice among kids in a multi-cultural community, as seen through the eyes of Puuja. It’s a shorter than average-film, just one hour long, but it covers a lot of ground.
There are some strange details. I’ve never heard of Canadians putting their hands on their hearts during the national anthem — that’s an Americanism. And why would Pooja’s Calcutta-born Dad scolds her for not speaking Hindi. (Wouldn’t he speak Bengali?) But these are minor quibbles. Acting was good all around, the costume design was fun, and the film gave a voice to groups rarely seen on the screen.
French Exit
Dir: Azazel Jacobs
(Based on the novel by Patrick DeWitt)
Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a Park Avenue socialite known for her attitude. She can cut down the fiercest critic with a withering glance, and if snubbed by a waiter she’s apt to set her table on fire. She’s not one to be underestimated. When her husband died she withdrew her nondescript son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) from prep school and brought him home. Eight years later, the coffers run dry, and she’s insolvent. So she sells her jewelry and paintings and pulls a “French exit” —an unannounced getaway — on an ocean liner with a satchel full of Euros. She’s accompanied by Malcolm and their cat. Malcolm is sad because his girlfriend Susan (Imogen Poots) refuses to follow him to Paris. (Oh to be young-ish and in love-ish again, says Frances.) They set up house in her best friend Joan’s pied à terre and start to enjoy life in Paris. And they soon have a motley crew of friends 
dropping by: Madame Reynard, a lonely fan, Madeleine, a psychic, Julius, a private detective, and others. Frances is spreading the wealth, handing off wads of cash to everyone she meets. It’s almost as if she’s trying to use it all up before she says goodbye. But first she must find her runaway cat, whom she believes is a reincarnation of her late husband. Can Malcolm adjust to life in Paris? Will he ever see Susan again? What is the real reason Frances came to Paris? And what will happen when her money runs out?
French Exit is a leisurely-paced, whimsical story, based on a novel. Lucas Hedges as Malcolm is so low key and introverted, you can barely notice him; while Michelle Pfeiffer Frances is a fantastical creation. It feels like a modern-day version of Auntie Mame. It’s written by Canadian novelist Patrick DeWitt based on his own recent book, which gives it lots of room to develop characters and supply funny lines. It may be light and inconsequential, but it’s a pleasure to watch.
French Exit and Nina Wu both open today; and White Elephant is playing at the Canadian Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Daniel Garber talks to director Mahmoud Sabbagh and stars Hisham Fageeh and Fatima Al Banawi about Barakah meets Barakah at #TIFF16
Hi, This is Daniel Garber at the movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Barakah is a municipal civil servant in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He drives a tiny white truck and gives tickets to people defying city bylaws. He lives in a rundown flat with his shrieking aunt (a midwife), and his complaining uncle (a down-and-out former musician).
Bibi is a hugely popular culture critic and fashion plate with a 
million followers on Instagram. She shares her opinions and photos…but only from the lips down (to keep her identity a secret). She’s rich, famous and single.
After a series of chance meetings, Bibi and Barakah realize destiny is at play, and the two of them just might belong together. Problem is: how do you date in a country where unmarried men and women can’t kiss, hold hands… or even appear together in public without an escort? Will Bibi and Barakah ever get to know each other? And how can two people of different backgrounds bridge the gap between them?
Barakah meets Barakah is a cute romantic comedy having its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s a humorous look at the troubles of dating inside restrictive Saudi Arabia. But it’s also a lament for the loss of the once vibrant Saudi culture. It’s directed by Mahmoud Sabbagh, and stars Hisham Fageeh and Fatima Al Banawi, as the star-crossed lovers.
Barakah meets Barakah is only the second contemporary Saudi film to screen in Canada. I spoke with Mahmoud, Hisham and Fatima on location at TIFF16.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
October 28, 2011. Hallowe’en! Films Reviewed: Paranormal Activity 3, Rabies, Anonymous PLUS Guillermo del Toro’s Devil’s Backbone & Cronos, NFB, Face-Off 40th Anniversary re-release, and Stop Concussions!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies, for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, genre and mainstream movies, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference
I’m going to dive right with some movies to watch this Hallowe’en weekend ’cause there’s lots to cover.
Now, I know about the weird phenomenon of Holiday Creep (where one day celebrations get stretched into month-and-a-half long marketing seasons) and that hallowe’en has been totally commercialized and stolen from kids so the grown-ups can have a good time, but I’m not complaining. We get to act like idiots, eat poorly, imbibe substances in excess, and disguise our identities. Anonymity rules the day. So get ready to stuff your faces with peanut-free snacks, put on your zombie blood and stripper outfits, and swarm out, en masse, to some hallowe’en movies. Go with someone who can handle a nails-in-the-palm hand squeeze. Because they’re scary. This week I’m talking about a ghost story caught on tape, a horror story in the woods of Israel, and a historical drama about anonymity and disguise. Plus some movie classics.
Paranormal Activity 3
Dir: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Julie, her two kids, and her boyfriend Dennis have moved into a new suburban, California home. Dennis likes video cameras – he works as a wedding photographer, so he’s always in a room editing VHS tapes. But when they try to film a provate sex tape, something scary appears on the footage. And her youngest daughter Kristie Rey’s imaginary friend Toby… might not be imaginary. So Dennis sets up cameras around the house to try to catch some paranormal activity on tape. But he might uncover some stuff he shouldn’t mess with.
This is the third of the Paranormal seres, and it’s pretty scary, with little
surprises, shocks, and lots of red herrings. The idea is, the two little girls will grow up to be the young women of the first two pictures. And that this whole movie is just excerpts of found footage from a box of old 1988 VHS tapes. So it jumps around, sometimes even in mid sentence, to the next tape, or fast forwards in the middle of scene, like we’re watching the private videos but someone else holds the remote control. Lots of things are never explained they’re just there and they’re scary. But, strangely enough, it’s completely understandable, even though it’s all over the place, like watching youtube. It’s the building tension that’s great, and wondering what’s happening just off camera that you can hear but not see. The scenes shot by a camera taped to a slow moving oscillating fan, that pans left and right, left and right, are really good and scary. If you want to have nightmares on Hallowe’en, this is the one to see.
Rabies
Wri/Dir: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Two young men in tennis shorts clothes and two women in track suit tops and white skirts drive down some out-of-the-way road as they look for tennis courts. They meet up with a guy named Ofer – after hitting him with their SUV — who is trying to rescue his sister who is trapped in a hole – possibly an animal trap –underground. Meanwhile, a middle- aged forest ranger is out inspecting the reserve when his German Shepard disappears. And a truly sinister killer in a green jumpsuit is doing various bad things.
So the three guys go out to search for the missing girl and the women stay behind to wait for the cops. But one of the cops is a skeeze-bag molester who insists on a full-body search, which puts the girls in a- uncomfortable position. From there, most of the characters end up splitting-up and and gradually either getting killed or doing the killing in various gruesome ways, involving things like bear traps, explosions, knives and rocks. Is it the woods, or the blood, or is it something in the air? I’m not saying. But they all seem
driven to extreme behaviour. In between, everyone communicates using static-y walkie-takies, adding to the surreal feel.
The killings are mainly off-camera, but they spare no expense on blood splashes and missing body parts. Afterwards you get to see people so mushed-up they look like extras in a zombie movie… but no zombies here.
Rabies is a comic mystery/horror/ slasher movie, apparently the first of its kind ever made in Israel. Like most horror movies, it’s partly for the thrill and the shock and the tension, and partly just to show attractive, scantily dressed actors running into trouble on screen. It’s more gross than it is scary – but it’s shot in the daytime which gives it a good, creepy and eerie tone. Its great, all-star cast includes Henry David (Restoration) as Ofer, Ania Bukstein (Secrets) as the tough-assed tennis player Adi, and Ran Danker (Eyes Wide Open) as Mikey.
Anonymous
Dir: Roland Emmerich
This movie is about a rich nobleman, Edward De Vere of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (played by Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter Joely Richardson as the old and young Queen) who, because of his status, must disguise his writing talent. He gets a commoner, playwright Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto), to anonymously mount the plays Edward writes. Johnson, in turn, passes them on to a talentless, greedy, bumbling and illiterate actor named… William Shakespeare!
Edward has to deal with an evil, manipulative father-and-son team of the puritanical and art-hating Cecil family who are the Queen’s closest advisors, and his biggest rivals. IN his youth, he has an affair with the so-called Virgin Queen and unknowingly leaves an illegitimate child. Will a pretender succeed Queen Elizabeth? Will he be able to continue his writing undetected? Or will the Globe theatre be closed down for it’s political plays? And will the nefarious Cecils or the good Edward emerge triumphant?
So it sounds like a good movie – there are a few good scenes, and I’ll
admit, it kept me interested, more or less, for the whole movie. Enough not to walk out. Problem is, it’s just a hard movie to watch. It has flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks, with tons of similar-looking characters (the men all seem to have little black van-dyke moustaches) emerging during different time periods, with different actors playing the same role. Especially for a movie about Shakespeare, the lines are not particularly beautiful or clever – they often sounds like ESL; the plot’s muddled, the score is intrusive, the motivations are confusing, and it is one of the gaudiest movies I’ve ever seen: Every pole has a vine around it, every wall has distracting tapestries, every crowd scene has extras in tableaux from Breughel or Hals, every outdoor shot has to have a bit of mist or fog floating past, every chimney has CGI smoke… Give it a rest! It made me long for a scene without neck ruffles and flickering candles. You’ve heard of minimalism? This movie is maximalism.
Anonymous is historically revisionist. It says a common person like Shakeseare could never have been so great — only a member of the nobility. And women in power (even a Queen) were all helpless biddies who can be easily manipulated by men.
It does have some shockingly unexpected plot twists, but not enough. You should leave this movie to an anonymous fate.
The Devil’s Backbone and Cronos
Dir: Guillermo del Toro
In Devil’s Backbone, Carlos, is a kid placed in an old orphanage during the 1930’s Spanish civil war, who meets a strange boy in a closed off part of the building. He might be a ghost who holds the untold secrets of the place, and he caries a warning.
In Cronos, a kindly old antique dealer finds a mechanical gold bug that can bring eternal life, but at a frightening cost – the bug attaches itself to a person and makes him do bad things.
If you’ve seen Pan’s Labrynth, you’ll recognize a lot of the character types
from these movie– the stern but beautiful middle-aged woman, the kindly grey-bearded older guy, the cruel but handsome fascist soldier, and the quiet, observant child – a boy in Backbone, a girl in Cronos. I loved both these movie, and they rarely play on the big screen. They’re on Sunday night as a double feature at the Bell Lightbox. Go to tiff.net for details.
Also on, this weekend only, at the NFB is a free animated film show, showing New short cartoons. It’s on everyday this weekend. For more information go to www.onf-nfb.gc.ca.
And coming next week, right after the release of the sequel to Goin’ Down the Road, is the first release on dvd of another Canadian classic, Face-Off, about a small-town player who joins the Maple Leafs. Tagline: He’s a Rookie, She’s a Rocker! It’s especially apropos now with all the controversy about hockey goons and head injuries. The message now is avoid head trauma at all costs. Speaking from personal experience, the last thing you want is to injure your brain in any way. So there’s a special charity screening of this movie next Thursday at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Go to stopconcussions.com for more info.
Paranormal Activity is playing now, Anonymous opens in Toronto today, check your local listings, and Rabies is playing one show only, on Sunday, October 30th at 8pm at Innis College. For more information go to www.tjff.com.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for CIUT 89.5 FM, and on my web site, Cultural Mining.com.
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