It’s all about the mood. Films reviewed: Bob Marley: One Love, The Taste of Things
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Many film critics — including myself — say that the most important part of a movie is the story. But that’s not always true. This week, I’m looking at two new movies where it’s all about the vibe, all about the mood, not the plot. There’s a cook cooking in 19th century France, and a musician making music in 1970s Jamaica.
Bob Marley: One Love
Dir: Reinaldo Marcus Green
It’s 1976, in Kingston Jamaica. Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and the Wailers are riding high with a string of worldwide hits. But the city is in turmoil, rocked by gang violence in the run up to a crucial election. US guns are flooding into the country. Bob Marley plans a “Smile Jamaica” concert to bring peace and lessen the tension between supporters of the leftist PM Manning and the pro-American conservative candidate Seaga. Bob — known as Skipper to his friends — is Rastafari, an anti-colonialist, afrocentric religion calling for a return to Africa from Babylon. But just days before the concert, Bob, Rita Marley (Lashana Lynch), and others were shot and wounded in a planned assassination attempt, with cars full of armed gang members invading their compound to stop them from singing. The concert goes through as planned, but they are forced to move to London for safety.
There, they put together their next album, Exodus, and embark on a tour of Europe, to be followed by a triumphant trip to Africa, Bob Marley’s dream. The album is a 
huge hit, and his fame grows. But there’s trouble brewing between Bob and Rita, who have known each other since they were kids. They also face financial questions — are they being cheated out of their money by backroom management? And a wound to his foot from a soccer game isn’t healing like it should. Can Bob and Rita work out their problems? Will they ever make it to Africa? And can Bob Marley and the Wailers return to Jamaica and live in peace?
Bob Marley: One Love is the long-awaited biopic about the musician and his life. Aside from a few flashbacks to his childhood and his start as a musician, the film focuses on two years of his life in the 1970s. So we see the musicians playing, in studio and at stadium concerts, hanging out in nightclubs and concert halls, or writing new songs at home. We also see them smoking spliffs (a Rastafarian sacrament) and playing soccer or fussball in their off hours. But what we don’t get much of is Bob Marley’s inner thoughts, his love life, his heart and soul. This is a common problem in hagiographic biopics that are approved every step off the way by his family.
Bob Marley is sanctified, but not humanized — there seems to be a glass wall separating the audience from the character. At the same time, there are some fascinating revelations about his past, and interesting glimpses into the workings of Jamaican music scene (mainly through flashbacks). So we get to see Scratch Perry in studio, and the Wailers grooving on stage. The script is not great, it drags a bit, but photography is quite pretty, and the acting (largely played by British actors speaking Jamaican patois) is believable. Most important of all is the music, which sets the vibe that keeps the film moving all the way to the finish.
It’s the music that makes Bob Marley: One Love worth seeing.
The Taste of Things (La passion de Dodin Bouffant)
Co-Wri/Dir: Tran Anh Hung
It’s the late 19th century, in France. Eugenie (Juliette Binoche) is an haut cuisine cook at a chateau, surrounded by a lush vegetable garden. She’s preparing an elaborate meal for Dodin (Benoît Magimel) and his fellow gourmets. She’s assisted by Violette, the maid, and supervised by Dodin. And what a meal it is, with each dish requiring multiple stages, and dozens of steps. Even something as simple as consommé is actually a complex, refined broth known for its subtle flavours. We follow each step, from picking vegetables in the garden, to sautéing the meat, simmering it, and removing the scum.
This day, there’s a new face in the kitchen, Violette’s young niece. Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) has a preternatural ability to taste all the elements of a dish, despite not yet developing a refined palate. Perhaps she’ll become Eugenie’s apprentice some day? In the meantime Eugenie takes pains to hide her occasional dizzy spells.
After 20 years, Dodin and Eugenie have an unusual relationship; they work together, 
effortlessly in the kitchen, like a well oiled machine. And at night, if she chooses to do so, Eugenie leaves her chamber unlocked so Dodin can spend the night.
But it’s hard to tell if they are lovers, boss and worker, or husband and wife (with all that entails). What future dishes will they prepare? And will they ever tie the knot?
The Taste of Things is a mouth-watering look at 19th century French cooking. It’s nominally about a relationship, but not really. There’s also a visit to dine with a wealthy prince, and a look at strange new gardening techniques. But the plot is unimportant. As I watched this movie, I wasn’t thinking about why Eugenie has dizzy spells, or trying to keep track of Didot’s gourmet friends. It’s inconsequential.
It’s the food that’s important, the cooking and the eating. I was kept drooling for two hours, trying to guess what they’re making. Oh, that’s vol au vent! What’s with the meringue? Is it Baked Alaska? (a.k.a. omelette à la norvégienne). I was mentally 
cooking alongside the burbling, burnished copper pots on the wood-burning stove. And the eating is remarkable, too, including a scene where the gourmets cover their heads with white napkins as they consume a tiny songbird (known as ortalans) whole.
Certainly, Binoche and Magimel have chemistry — apparently they were once a couple in real life — but not enough to carry the movie. It’s the food — and the mood — that makes watching it worthwhile.
Bob Marley: One Love and The Taste of Things are both playing now in Toronto; 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 Mia McKenna-Bruce about How to Have Sex
Mia McKenna-Bruce Photography: David Reiss, Hair: Ben Talbot, Make-Up: Sara Hill, Styling: Tilly Wheating
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Tara and her two best friends, Em and Skye, have finished school, written their A Levels and want to celebrate. So, like tens of thousands of others, off they go to a mediterranean resort with more sex, drugs, alcohol and loud music than you can shake a stick at. But the elephant in the room is Tara — she’s a “big fat virgin”, and her mates want to make sure she returns home cured of that ailment. But when the time comes, Tara doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, who she’s doing it with, and whether she has any say in the matter. And when it doesn’t go as planned, she doesn’t know what to do, or who to turn to. Turns out she still doesn’t know how to have sex.
How to Have Sex is a stunning bittersweet, coming-of-age 
drama about friendship, cultural expectations and consent. It’s writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s first feature and stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara. The film won the prestigious Un Certain Regard Best Film prize at Cannes, and is nominated for best British film at the BAFTA awards. Mia won Best Lead Performance at the British Independent Film Awards and was named Screen International’s ‘Star of Tomorrow’. She has also appeared in many TV shows and films since 2009, including The Witcher, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Vampire Academy.
How to Have Sex opens in Canada 0n February 9th.
I spoke with Mia in London via Zoom.
Mia won the 2024 BAFTA Rising Star Award on February 18, 2024.
Girls. Film reviewed: Ru, Totem, Four Daughters
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There are lots of movies for girls about princesses, fairies and Barbie dolls, but not many about girls as, well, girls. This week I’m looking at three great new movies about girls and young women. There are four sisters in Tunisia, a Vietnamese girl arriving in 1970s Quebec, and a seven-year-old girl in Mexico going to a strange birthday party.
Ru
Dir: Charles-Olivier Michaud
It’s a small town in Quebec in the 1970s. Tinh (Chloé Djandji) is a young girl who has just arrived with her family in Canada. She feels strange, alienated and out of place. A tiny home in small-town Quebec is totally different from the luxurious mansion they lived in in Saigon. It’s also nothing like the leaky ship and the wretched refuge camps she lived through afterwards. (Her family is part of the so-called “boat people” who fled South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.) Luckily, her family is befriended by the Girards who are helping them adjust to life in Quebec, introducing them to snow, tapping maple syrup and eating peanut butter on toast. And they have a daughter Tinh’s age she can play with. The problem is, Tinh can’t speak French, just Vietnamese. Her parents can — they were well to do and educated in French when Indochina was still a French colony. But the courses are starting to make sense. And she enjoys hanging out at the only Chinese restaurant in town, run by a Haitian man, and listening to the harrowing stories of other Vietnamese refugees (dramatized on the screen). But will she ever adjust to this new — and very different — life?
Ru is a fictionalized retelling of novelist Kim Thúy’s 
childhood. It’s a new — and very different – look at the immigration experience from what you usually see. The film only covers her first few months in Quebec but packs a huge amount of story in that small space. It also shows, through flashbacks, her life in Saigon, and the frightening period she spent at sea. It also riffs on life in Quebec, some funny, others sad. A couple of the scenes struck me as jarring. Tinh is haunted by the killing of a bread vendor she witnessed, but in the movie she’s calling out “bread for sale” but carrying flowers, not bread. (Is this a deliberate aesthetic move by the director or just an editing mistake?) And “moving still photos” was a new gimmick in Quebec film about 15 years ago but looks dated now. Otherwise, though, RU is a fascinating, warm and engrossing look back in time.
I quite liked this one.
TOTEM
Wri/Dir: Lila Avilés
It’s present-day Mexico. Sol (Naima Senties) is a seven-year-old girl getting ready for a big party. She puts on a multicoloured fright wig and a clown’s red nose before her mom drops her off at her grandfather’s house. There will be food and drinks, music and performances, cake and presents, and lots of friends and relatives. She quietly takes it all in. Her bratty cousin Esther cuts up money with a pair of scissors. One neurotic aunt burns the cake she’s baking. Her grandpa — a psychiatrist — is busy pruning a Bonsai tree. Sol wanders off to explore nature, making friends with the snails and beetles she meets. But underlying it all is a dark, unspoken thought that makes everyone tense and depressed. This party is for her Dad (Mateo Garcia Elizonda) a young artist. He’s dying of cancer, and can barely get out of bed. Will he make it outside to the party? How will people react? And what will happen afterwards?
Totem is a lovely movie about a happy and sad party as seen through the eyes of a little girl. It paints a vivid picture of an eccentric, middle-class family in Mexico. It’s filled with realistic details — not the kind that are thrown into a film to make it look quirky or twee; it seems like a real-life family here. Visually, it’s intimate and close up, using a hand-held camera in confined, and sometimes obstructed, spaces. The dialogue is ongoing, but the point of view is constantly changing. And in its tribute to Mesoamerican culture, red, yellow and terra-cotta colours, and Aztec animals, swirls and suns fill the screen.
Totem is a wonderfully happy-sad story.
Four Daughters
Dir: Kaouther Ben Hania
Olfa is a single mom in Tunisia with four beautiful daughters: Ghofrane, Rahma, Eya and Tayssir. There here to tell us about their remarkable lives. Olfa grew up without her dad so functioned as the protector of her sisters. She cut her hair short and dressed like a boy to stop gangs of men from invading their home. She later married a good-for-nothing man she only slept with once a year to have another kid. He didn’t stay very long either when he only had daughters. The girls take different paths. Some become rebels. One dresses like a goth. Another has a boyfriend without her mom’s approval. She spanks her daughters when she thinks they’re going overboard. But when Olfa goes to Libya to earn a living — she’s the only one supporting the family — things start to fall apart, and two of the daughters disappear. What happened and what led them to their strange fate?
Four Daughters is a really unusual docu-drama that retells Olfa and her daughters’ real stories, and then acts them out for the screen. The two younger ones play themselves, but the two older ones are played by actresses (Ichraq Matar and Nour Karoui) because Ghofrane and Rahma aren’t there anymore (no spoilers). And Majd Mastoura plays all the male characters, including Olfa’s lover, a fugitive who escapes from prison during the Tunisian Revolution in 2010. It’s sort of an experimental film that never lets you forget the scenes you’re seeing are true, but not real; they’re recreations. The mother or the sisters themselves are often giving directions to the actresses on camera so they do the scene accurately. But though they are constantly breaking the fourth wall, it still manages to be a shocking and emotional journey through 
their lives. It deals in depth with family, ostracism, puberty, sex, sexism, feminism, violence, men, religion and pop culture in the Arab world like you’ve never seen it before.
Four Daughters is a gorgeous and fascinating film about women in Tunisia, before and after the revolution. It’s a thousand times better than any “reality show.”
Ru and Totem both open this weekend, with Four Daughters — which has been nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar — is on at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto; 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 at work. Films reviewed: I.S.S., Memory, The Teachers’ Lounge
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In traditional movies (and even contemporary ones) men are typically portrayed at work with women at home. But that’s not real life for most people. So this week I’m looking at three new movies about women around the world at work. There’s a social worker in New York who meets a man with dementia; a teacher in Germany with a rebellious student; and an astronaut in space interacting with cosmonauts.
I.S.S.
Dir: Gabriela Cowperthwaite (review: Our Friend)
It’s present day in the thermosphere. Kira (Ariana DeBose) is a biologist on board the international space station, manned equally by Russians and Americans, an example of world peace, scientific cooperation and mutual respect. It’s her first day in space, and she feels weird and queazy living without gravity. She does love the cake and vodka, though. The space station has a ramshackle feel to it, with exposed wires and old video screens, but gets used to it pretty soon.
She’s there to conduct experiments on mice, alongside her Russian counterpart Alexey (Pilou Asbæk). Also on board are Gordon (Chris Messina) a moustached astronaut, and Christian (John Gallagher Jr.) a US Air Force officer; and on the other team, the beautiful and glamorous cosmonaut Weronika (Masha Mashkova) and Nicolai (Costa Ronin), representing the Russian military. Gordon and Weronica — who seem especially close — are impressively bilingual, while the rest get by with broken English and Russian.
In honour of her first day in space, Kira’s teammates show her something very few people have ever seen: a view of the peaceful, blue planet without conflict or national boundaries. But everything changes a few days into her voyage, when communication breaks with earth and secret messages arrive to both teams: Since the US and Russia are in conflict on earth, they’re ordered to seize control of the space station…by any means necessary. What is really happening down there? Can international friendship override their planetary orders? Or is the space station doomed?
I.S.S. is a classic, smart, sci-fi space opera with a contemporary twist. The acting is not bad, though I had trouble distinguishing between the two Russian men who have similar builds, faces and brown beards. And at the beginning of this movie, the non-gravity scenes looked very fake. But after a few minutes everything looked normal again. I liked the taut structure of the film, the constant tension, and the shifting if alliances among the six players. The film also takes you out of the ship, into an unplanned and untethered journey in space. There’s even a guest appearance by the famed Canadarm, but this one was clunky and concrete and a little bit dangerous. With geopolitics as fragile as they are these days, this film’s themes seem especially appropriate. While there is some violence, ISS kept me interested the whole time.
Memory
Wri/Dir: Michel Franco
(review: New Order)
Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) is a social worker in New York at a home for adults with mental disabilities. Sylvia goes to AA meetings regularly; she’s stayed totally dry since the year before her 13-year-old daughter Anna (Brooke Timber) was born. They occasionally spends time with Sylvia’s sister Olivia’s family (Merritt Wever), but she’s very protective; she doesn’t want Anna to start drinking, smoking or taking drugs with her cousins. One evening, heading home after a high school reunion, she notices a man looking at her. He follows her home from a distance and spends the night outside her door in the pouring rain. Who is he and what is their connection? His name is Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) and — according to the card he wears around his neck — his emergency contact is his brother Isaac (Josh Charles).
Sylvia painfully remembers Saul as part of a group of older boys who sexual abused her when she was still in Junior High. It was one of a number of incidents that drove her to the alcoholism and depression she still carries with her. She agrees to meet him in the park so she can make him answer for his crimes. But to her chagrin she learns he has severe memory loss caused by early-onset dementia. She also 
discovers — through a third party — that he could’t have attacked her; he hadn’t even moved to that area yet when the incidents she remembers took place.
Later, Isaac hires her as a part-time caregiver — he says Saul never stops talking about her. She’s just supposed to keep him company in his home and make sure he doesn’t wander away. This puts them in a strange situation. He clearly likes her… but does she have feelings for him? And what will happen if their relationship changes from caregiver/patient to lovers?
Memory is a terrific drama about two troubled adults learning to understand each other despite their own deficits. It’s filled with shocking plot turns and secret revelations that totally change your perception as it goes. But through it all, the heart and warmth of the main characters always comes through. I wanted to see this because it’s by the fantastic Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco (the stunning New Order in 2020), but this one is totally different. While it also deals with issues of class, crime and family, it is as thoughtful and complex as New Order is hair-raising and revolting. Memory comes through as an unexpectedly powerful film while retaining a lightly playful and always unpredictable core.
Really interesting movie.
The Teachers Lounge
Co-Wri/Dir: Ilker Çatak
A public school in present-day Germany. Frau Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a new, Grade 4 teacher, and her kids just love her. She has them instantly clapping twice when noise gets out of hand, and chanting answers to her when she poses daily questions. She does trust games, physical exercises and is always positive, but doesn’t let cheaters get away with it. She also encourages the kids to be creative in problem solving, especially, Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch), clearly the smartest kid in the class.
Between classes, she rests in the teachers’ lounge. But there’s trouble brewing. Someone is stealing cash from other kids’ wallets, and her students are forced — not by Frau Nowak — to point out potential suspects, who are pulled out of class by the admin. This leads to a feeling of distrust and tension. She thinks the problem isn’t with the kids, it’s with grownups — she sees teachers pilfering money from the coffee fund piggy bank. So one day she deliberately leaves her wallet in her jacket and steps out with her laptop set up to tape everything while she’s gone.
Sure enough, she notices some of her money is missing, and an arm (though no face) in a distinctive blouse is recorded reaching into her pocket. She privately confronts a woman wearing the same blouse that day and demands her money back. The woman Frau Kuhn (Eva Löbau) vehemently denies it. She’s a longtime staff who manages the school office, while Frau Nowak is a newcomer. The case goes to the principal’s office and Frau Kuhn is put on leave. The problem is, Oskar — the top student — is Frau Kuhn’s son. And he demands Frau Nowak publicly apologize for lying about her mom — or she’ll
regret it. The news goes viral among the students, staff and even the parents, till it spirals out of control. Can this problem ever be resolved? Who, if anyone needs to apologize? And what will happen if they don’t?
The Teachers’ Lounge is a fantastic drama that explores school life from a dozen angles. While the story is told from Frau Nowak’s point of view, it brings in tons of distinct characters, from the kids in her class, to the journalists at the school paper, to the complaining parents, the gossipy teachers, the bullies, the teachers pets, and the ordinary students just trying to fit in. Leonie Benesch is amazing as Frau Nowak, as she struggles to maintain control while doing the right thing as she sees it, even as she sees her students’ trust crumbling around here. This is a realy great movie, deep, realistic, moving and really well-acted. It’s Germany’s entry as best foreign language film at the Oscars, and I can see why.
Excellent movie.
Memory, I.S.S., and The Teachers’ Lounge all open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And for some great new Canadian films, shorts and docs, be sure to check out the Milton Film Festival next weekend, January 26-28 at the FirstOntario Arts Center, in Milton.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Current cinema. Films reviewed: Destroy All Neighbours, Freud’s Last Session, T.I.M.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s “award season” when prizes are handed out to the best — or most widely publicized — movies. But not every film is prestigious or a blockbuster. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies — one each from the US, Ireland and England — that might otherwise fall through the cracks. There’s a robot with human traits, a music producer turned serial killer, and a psychoanalyst talking about God.
Destroy All Neighbours
Wri/Dir: Jonah Ray Rodrigues
William (Jonah Ray Rodrigues) lives in a rundown apartment with his girlfriend Emily (Kiran Deol) a lawyer. He’s tall, skinny, and wears unfashionable clothes and nerd glasses. He works in a studio at the soundboard, helping bands record their music. But sometimes he feels like he’s just a knob- turner, going through the motions. His real passion is recording the ultimate prog-rock album, and is constantly coming up with new ideas, but never finishing it. Emily encourages him to give up and move on, but he feels he has to do it. But he’s getting more and more tired and frustrated by the people around him. At work, his boss is constantly ragging him for being late. And the latest client, Caleb Bang Jansen is insufferable. Even the panhandler where he parks his car is getting on his nerves. At home, Eleanor, the elderly pothead superintendent (Randee Heller) is constantly calling him for help with the fuses. Another neighbour, Phillip, lets his pet pig roam the halls. But worst of all is the new tenant next door. Vlad (Alex Winter) is hideously ugly, aggressive and incredibly loud, playing non-stop euro disco all night long. Vlad lifts weights using buckets of cement attached to his barbell. He’s a scary guy, William is passive aggressive and terrified of face to face confrontations.
When he finally visits Vlad to ask him to turn down the music, they get in a fight and somehow Vlad ends up impaled on a stake, and — accidentally — decapitated! 
William doesn’t know what to do, but finally realizes he has to dispose of the body. But things have changed since Vlad — new bodies keep piling up — always killed unintentionally by him, by strange coincidences. He becomes a serial killer by default, or a serial manslaughterer, as he likes to say.
But when the all the people he killed come back to life, he realizes something really strange is going on. Can William keep his boss and girlfriend happy, record his prog rock album, stop killing people, and living a normal life? Is he destined for a very dark future? Or is he just losing his marbles?
Destroy all Neighbours (the title says it all) is a comedy/horror movie, with an emphasis on in-your-face, gross-out humour. So there’s lots of disgusting blood and 
gore, but it’s always so exaggerated it’s funny, not scary, in the manner of Monte Python or Army of Darkness. Jonah Ray Rodrigues is the writer/ director/star and the current host of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I admit it’s an acquired taste, and some of the gags and schtick fall flat, but I was laughing more than not. I happen to like that kind of humour (in moderation) but, admittedly, it’s not for everyone. So if you’re into bloody horror-comedy set in L.A.s skid row, or even if you’ve ever had annoying neighbours, I think you’ll love Destroy all Neighbours.
Freud’s Last Session
Co-Wri/Dir: Matt Brown
It’s September, 1939. Germany has invaded Poland and Great Britain is about to go to war. Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) and his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries) left their homes and vocations in Vienna after the Anschluss — the unification of Austria and the Third Reich, and moved to London. His office is decorated with the art and bric-a-brac of home: Persian rugs, African fertility statues and Catholic saints. Anna continues to research and give lectures on psychoanalysis and child psychology, but Sigmund, due to his age (he’s 83) and poor health (he’s dying of cancer) rarely leaves his home now. But on this day he has an unusual visitor: CS Lewis (Matthew Goode). Lewis is a don at Oxford where he teaches English and has written a book about Pilgrims Progress. (He later goes on to write The Chronicles of Narnia.) And he’s still suffering from shell shock from WWI. But why are they meeting? Lewis wants to talk with Freud about God and religion. He once was an atheist but now has adopted theism and Christianity as his guiding light. Freud, on the other hand, is a committed atheist and finds all religions equally fascinating and equally false. Still, they have a spirited discussion on a wide range of issues. But certain topics are taboo. For example, Freud refuses to talk about the fact that Anna has a female lover. And Lewis considers his own sexual relationship with his late best friend’s mother as something too private to share. Meanwhile, air raid sirens are going off, Freud is struggling with the oral prosthetic he calls his “Monster” and nobody knows what the future will bring. Will this be Freud’s very last session?
Freud’s Last Session is a fictional historical drama adapted from the successful stage play. There’s no evidence that an elderly Freud and a younger Lewis ever actually met; the story functions more as an intellectual exercise than a theatrical drama. So it’s not captivating, but it did keep my attention. They try to perk it up a bit with flashbacks — Lewis in the trenches in WWI; Freud as a small child — but I found them lacklustre at
best. There are some clever touches, where Freud ends up reclining on the settee while Lewis takes on the analysts role. Of course it has nice period costumes and sets, but the main reasons to see this film is first the topics and second the acting. The topics range from sex to psychoanalysis to theology. Devotees of Freud and/or Lewis may get a kick out of it, but no major revelations here. The acting, though is delightful. Hopkins walks through his usual role — along with a few artfully-placed wunderbars and ja ja ja and das ist gut! so we don’t forget he’s Austrian. Goode is more passionate, fearful and sad. Best of all is German actress Liv Lisa Fries (from Babylon Berlin) as Anna Freud, who gets to rush around London looking for meds for her Dad.
Freud’s Last Session is not bad, but not noteworthy, either.
T.I.M.
Co-Wri/Dir: Spencer Brown
Abi and Paul Granger (Georgina Campbell, Mark Rowley) are married, professionals, double-income, no kids, moving into a beautiful, modern home in rural England. It’s at the end of a long country road, with open staircases, glass walls and a huge garden, all paid for and arranged by Abi’s employer. She’s an engineer who specializes in AI robotic prostheses. She designs the human-looking hands of robots. Paul is currently unemployed, but is in line for a corporate position in London. They’re both looking forward to their first child, and are working hard at it each night.
Now this house is completely on the grid. Everything’s smart — smart windows, locks, heating, computers, lighting — all controlled through a central console, and co-ordinated with their smart watches and phones. The central console, though, is something her company invented. It’s a Technologically Integrated Manservant, T.I.M. for short, or just Tim. Tim (Eamon Farren) is a humanoid robot with perfect male features, blond hair, and artificial intelligence; he’s constantly learning. He’s a prototype: he can cook gourmet foods, do heavy lifting, play the piano, send and answer emails. Abi’s boss is adamant that all his employees have a T.I.M., so they can get rid of the bugs in the system before the upcoming release. Abi, loves her new toy, but Paul is less enthusiastic. Why did T.I.M. barge into their bedroom while they were making love? T.I.M. says Abi’s blood pressure and temperature had risen, he just wanted to make sure she was OK. But Paul suspects T.I.M. of spying on him. He thinks TIM sends messages to Abi whenever Paul visits Rose their only neighbour (Amara Karan), feeding Abi’s suspicious jealousies. And when he catches T.I.M. perving through Abi’s clothes, he knows something is very wrong. Is T.I.M. morphing into something bad? Can a robot even have feelings? And if things go wrong, who will Abi trust: Paul, the fallible human, or T.I.M., the perfect machine?
T.I.M. is a sci-fi thriller about the potential dire consequences of AI given a human form. This isn’t the first humanoid movie — there have been at least a dozen in the past few years — and some of the plot is predictable. And it does have that “pandemic movie feel” to it, with a tiny cast (just four main characters) located in an isolated country setting, but, in this case, it really works. It’s scary, it’s creepy, it’s interesting. It feeds on your worst fears about electronic devices communicating without your knowledge, and the possibility of the singularity, when humans will no longer be essential. I’m not familiar with any of the actors but the cast is good. The storyline is compelling, and most of all, the movie feels believable. So if you ever feel like your smart phone is a bit too smart, you’ll like this scary, sci-fi thriller. It’s a good one.
Freud’s Last Session opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Destroy All Neighbours is streaming exclusively on shudder.com, starting today; and T.I.M. is now available digitally and on V.O.D.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Famous men. Films reviewed: Anselm, Ferrari, The Iron Claw
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The end of the year is coming up, so it’s a good time to reflect on what we’ve done over the past year — or even longer. It’s also useful to look at what famous people did, and whether you would have made the same mistakes — and accomplishments — that they did. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies — two biopics and a documentary — about famous men from very different backgrounds. There’s a family of pro wrestlers who carry a curse; an Italian industrialist who buries a family secret; and a German painter who digs up unpleasant things from his country’s past.
Anselm
Dir: Wim Wenders
Anselm Kiefer is an artist born into a bombed-out Germany just as WWII was ending. His paintings reflect this, using living, natural media, like wood, grass, leaves, ash and liquified metals. He creates much of his work in isolated factories and warehouses in places like Odenwald, a forest in Germany. He uses the spaces both as a studios and as a source of materials for his work. He resurrects controversial themes once co-opted by the Nazis — like Germanic heroes, nordic gods and Wagnerian winged valkyries— in order to confront a part of his country’s history most of his colleagues were trying to ignore. Especially controversial are a series of photos of himself posing in a Heil Hitler salute in cities across Europe. In fact, though, much of his work focuses on Germany’s history, specifically the Holocaust, featuring quotes from poet Paul Celan. Other paintings show blackened sunflowers beneath cold grey skies, or haunting rows of white sticks. Quite unnerving.
Anselm is a documentary by Wim Wenders that shows him at 
work making his art. It’s filmed in a format more often used in superhero movies. I’m talking 3-D here — very unusual for an art film. And, along with the big screen, it gives you a sense of the grandeur of his paintings, which you just don’t get looking at them on your phone or computer screen. They are huge. He creates his work using enormous blowtorches attached to rubber hoses, bulldozers, forklifts and cast iron vats of liquid metals. He works in buildings so big you’d expect them to be smelting steel or building airplanes not painting canvases. There are also some very cool techniques that only seem accessible in the form of film. For example he uses slide and video projections of his work superimposed on an outdoor cloth screen stretched between trees in a forest beneath a dark, starry sky. It also uses actors — played by his and Wim Wenders own family members — to reenact Keifer’s history and the inspirations of many of his themes, including self-portraits of him lying on his back looking at the sky.
To be honest, I had heard of Kiefer and probably seen a painting or two, but knew little about him before this doc. Embarrassingly I even confused his work with that of Gerhard Richter (who also paints large canvases, at times semi-abstract, with references to Germany’s past, as in this fictionalized story of his life). Not any more. Kiefer is as dark and foreboding as Richter is bright and colourful. Now I can say I know a lot about Anselm Kiefer and his art. Is he my favourite artist? No, not by a long shot, but the doc makes his work more interesting and accessible, and now I’d like to see more of it in person. So if you’re into contemporary European art, or a fan of Wim Wenders, you should see Anselm.
Ferrari
Dir: Michael Mann
Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is an automobile industrialist with a passion for race cars in Modena, Italy in the 1950s. It’s a typical morning: he kisses his wife Lina (Shailene Woodley) and says goodbye to his son as he drives away from their isolated villa into town. He has a meeting planned with a new racing car driver for the company’s team. Less typical is the reception he gets when he arrives at his city home and a woman pulls out a gun and shoots him. Laura Ferrari (Penélope Cruz) — is his actual wife! Luckily the bullet misses, but their relationship is clearly not doing well. Their son died and the business is on the rocks. She controls half of Ferrari — they founded the company together with Enzo doing the engineering and Laura handling the business side.
Ferrari makes their money by selling hand-made sportscars to
very rich people around the world. And to keep their reputation, they also race. If Ferrari’s team wins, the company’s value goes up and more people buy their cars. But they’re also Enzo’s passion. And though Modena may be a small city, it’s where Italian race cars are made — Not just Ferrari but Maserati, De Tomaso, Lamborghini — they’re all built in or around there. Can Ferrari win the upcoming race? Can the company survive on its own or will they be taken over by a bigger, foreign corporation? Will Enzo ever admit he has a lover and a son? And will his relationship with Laura ever turn back to normal?
Ferrari is a biopic about the founder of the famed Italian car company, his family and his racing cars. It has some nice locations and authentic looking costumes and sets. Other than that I can’t think of many good things to say about it. This movie is a real clunker. It’s a corny, melodramatic story filled with stiff dialogue and acting or the occasional overacting by people like Penelope Cruz. The non-italian actors all speak 
with terrible fake accents. It’s directed by Michael Mann, the notorious 80s TV director who brought us shows like Miami Vice — never known their deep emotions.
And what’s with Adam Driver? Does he think putting on a suit and hat is enough to turn you into an Italian CEO? He made House of Gucci just two years ago and now he’s Ferrari. While Gucci was total kitsch, at least it was memorable and (unintentionally) funny. But this one is just a bore.
The Iron Claw
Wri/Dir: Sean Durkin
It’s the late 1970s in Denton, Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth.
The von Erich family is known for its athletic prowess in the world of pro-wrestling for two generations. Their Dad, Fritz, runs the Dallas Sportatorium. He and his wife Doris have four sons, all very close: Kevin (Zac Efron) is following his dad into the world of pro wresting, and adopting his signature move — the Iron Claw of the title. He’s a heavyweight wrestler, big and vascular, and wants to win the coveted heavyweight belt. But he’s shy and tongue-tied whether inside or out of the ring. Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) is on the US Track & Field Olympic team in training for the upcoming games in Moscow. David (Harris Dickinson) is a pro wrestler, too, tag-teaming alongside his brother. He’s not a heavyweight like Kev, but he’s agile, bright, and great at trash talking to the crowds. And Mike (Stanley Simons) the youngest one, is staying away from wrestling altogether, turning instead to music — he’s the lead singer in a band.
Their lives are lived under the close watch and heavy hand of
This image released by A24 shows Zac Efron, right, in a scene from “The Iron Claw.” (Brian Roedel/A24 via AP)
their father, a hard-ass manager and coach. Winning is everything. Their mom won’t get involved in family disputes — it’s for the boys to work it out. But Fritz is relentless, forcing his sons to do things they don’t really want to do. It’s a rough and hostile world. And hanging over everyone is the von Erich curse. This is because their oldest brother died in a terrible accident when he was just a boy. Kevin finally meets a woman, Pam (Lily James) and the family continues to be close as they pursue their futures as a team. But a dark cloud seems to be holding them all back. Can the brothers survive the harsh world of pro wrestling and the toxic atmosphere created by their father? Or will they succumb to the von Erich curse?
The Iron Claw is a great drama based on the lives of the actual von Erich family. It’s tense, exciting, and emotionally draining. The wrestling scenes are shot in extreme close-up, bringing you right into the ring. Zac Efron (The Greatest Beer Run Ever, At Any Price, Baywatch) plays it strong and dumb, looking like he’s OD-ed on steroids and botox. Jeremy Allen White (he’s the star of the TV show The Bear) is intense and angry. Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper) plays a tragicomic character, and newcomer Stanley Simons is a naive innocent kid, totally unsuited for the ring. This is an honest look at the good and bad side of the sport and what a famous wrestling family went through. (Surprised it’s not about the Hart family, but that would be a different movie.)
I went into this film expecting a cheesy biopic, but it had me bawling in my seat by the end. The Iron Claw is a terrific tear-jerker.
Anselm is opening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this weekend, with The Iron Claw and Ferrari also playing this weekend in Toronto; 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.
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.
Autobiographies? Films reviewed: North of Normal, A Compassionate Spy, Shortcomings
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
August is here in Toronto, a great time for some outdoor screenings. TOPS — Toronto Outdoor Picture Show — is showing films for free, after dark at Christie Pits, Corktown Common, Bell Manor, Old Fort York and the Evergreen Brickworks, with no tickets or advance registration required — just show up and sit on the grass.
This week I’m looking at three new movies — a memoir, a doc and dramedy. There’s a hippy in a tipi in Yukon, a spy in Los Alamos, and a frustrated filmmaker in Oakland.
North of Normal
Dir: Carly Stone
Cea Sunrise Person (Amanda Fix) is a teenage girl experiencing city life for the first time. She’s both naive and worldly. Her mother Michelle (Sarah Gadon) gave birth to her when she was only 15, and acts more like a sister than a mom. Since she was a child, she’s been raised, hippy style, in Yukon, by her grandparents, including Michelle’s dad Papa Dick (Robert Carlyle).
They shoot animals, go fishing and gather foraged foods. She grew up living in a tipi, where any visitor to their mobile encampments likely slept with one or more of the adults. She’s familiar with the concepts of free sex, a barter economy, and the use of soft drugs, as well as living off the grid, avoiding any government interference — Papa Dick hasn’t paid taxes in decades. So life down south (in an unnamed Canadian city) is totally alien to her. Though bright and friendly, she doesn’t understand school rules or social norms, and gets into fights with the locals. But she gradually adjusts — well, kind of — to a new life. But she really doesn’t get along with her mom’s new boyfriend, Sam (James D’Arcy) who happens to be a 
married man. Why does Michelle always fall for the bad boys? But one thing keeps her steady: Cea holds onto a childhood wish to move to Paris; she carries an Eiffel Tower snow globe wherever she goes. So when she is approached on the beach by a legit modelling scout, she wonders if this will be the fulfillment of her dreams.
North of Normal is a touching, coming-of-age film based on Cea Sunrise Person’s memoir about her unusual life (she ended up as a professional fashion model and entrepreneur.) She’s beautifully portrayed by Amanda Fix as a teenager and by River Price-Maenpaa as a little girl. And it’s shot amongst the forests and lakes of Canada’s north. The plot is eliptical, bouncing back and forward in time as her suppressed memories are gradually revealed, while leaving out large parts of her life. Even so, I liked this story.
A Compassionate Spy
Dir: Steve James
It’s the 1940s and WWII is raging, and there are rumours the Third Reich is developing an atomic bomb. So the US government initiates the secretive Manhattan Project in Las Alamos, supervised by the Army. It’s a collection of scientists brought together to create the ultimate weapon before Germany does. Most of the names are already famous: Oppenheimer, Teller, Niels Bohr, von Neuman. But the youngest one of all is Ted Hall. Only 18 years old, the child prodigy has already graduated from Harvard. He’s an ardent leftist, and wants to defeat fascism in Europe. As a drafted soldier, he has to wear a uniform and sleep in a barracks on the site, but otherwise he works each day beside other scientists. Aside from his age, he is different from the rest of them in another way. He is passing intel to the Soviet Union. Hall is disturbed by the idea of an impending nuclear holocaust, and doesn’t trust the US government to show restraint, if they’re the only holder of such a dangerous tool. So totally independently — with the help of is best friend, Savvy Sax — he seeks out the Soviets to tell them what’s going on. Is he arrested? Put in the electric chair like Ethel and Julius Rosenberg? No, he (and his wife Joan) keep their secret for half a century.
A Compassionate Spy is a fascinating documentary packed with info that sheds light on what Hall did and why, and what became of his 
life afterwards. Hall worked on cancer cures at the Sloane Kettering institute, and later became a professor at Cambridge University. Most surprising is that while he opposed the bomb, his own brother created and built ICBMs — Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles which may have brought the two sides closer to destruction.) The doc is made up of a confessional video Hall made before he died, new interviews with his wife Joan and their kids, as well as with Savvy Sax’s family. It also recreates dramatic scenes from the period, along with contemporary newsreels, diaries, letters and photos. Joan Hall is this really fascinating and feisty character who tells most of the story. Equally important, the film presents a lot of crucial information that is glossed over in the recent hit biopic Oppenheimer. Like the fact that many scientists (including Hall) petitioned FDR and Truman not to drop the bomb on Japan; the letter was stifled by Leslie Groves, and never sent. I never knew the US threatened to use the bomb on the USSR in 1946 after the Russian army occupied Iran. And lots more eye-openers. A Compassionate Spy is an excellent documentary by the Oscar-winning director of Hoop Dreams.
Shortcomings
Dir: Randall Park
Ben (Justin H. Min) is an aspiring filmmaker in Oakland, California. After dropping out of cinema studies at Berkeley, he’s now he’s the manager of an art house theatre, so he still has a peripheral connection. He loves all women but treats any man as a potential competitor. His best friend is Alice (Sherry Cola), a queer Korean American. They hang together ogling girls in local cafes — for Ben, that’s mainly women with blonde hair. He acts as her beard, posing as her fiancé when she has to visit her conservative family.
He lives with Miko (Ally Maki) who also wants to make films; she’s involved with the local Asian American Film Festival. She’s the love of his life. But despite the fact that he, his girlfriend and his best friend are all Asian American he is quick to point he feels no racial identity or kinship, and loathes identity politics. His abrasive and defeatist attitude leads to frequent arguments with Miko. But everything changes when she suddenly moves to NY City for a film internship, leaving Ben unexpectedly unmoored. Does their temporary separation offer him a chance to explore his sexual fantasies (that is, sleeping with a white woman)? Or will he try to win Miko back again?
Shortcomings is a hilariously deadpan look at the life and thoughts of an Asian-American man. Its observations are simultaneously scathing social satire and self-deprecating humour. It’s based on the graphic novels of Adrian Tomine whom I’ve read for decades now, so I was worried the comics wouldn’t translate well into film. 
Luckily, Tomine wrote the screenplay, and it’s told, like his comics, in a series of connected vignettes. The characters are brilliant — Justin H Min is sympathetically annoying as Ben, the guy who never misses a chance to mess things up. Sherry Cola is equally brilliant, as are the many priceless side characters — Autumn, a performance artist who photographs her own toilet use, Sasha, a frustrated bisexual, Leon, an annoying fashion designer who Ben calls a rice king, and Gene, a smug popcorn maker.
From the opening parody of Crazy Rich Asians to the closing scene, this perfect comedy has no shortcomings to speak of.
North of Normal is now playing; Shortcomings opens this weekend across Canada, check your local listings; and A Compassionate Spy is on now at the Rogers Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto.
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 Lina Rodriguez about So Much Tenderness
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Aurora is an environmental lawyer from Bogota whose husband is murdered because of the work she does. So she flees to Toronto as a refugee. She’s later joined by her daughter Lucia. While Lucia quickly adjusts to Canadian life, things take longer for Aurora. And just when she starts to feel at home, with a steady job and a potential lover, she thinks she sees her late husband’s killer on the Subway. Will Aurora ever escape her past? And can she reconcile her new life with the one she left behind?
So Much Tenderness is a new, mature drama by Toronto’s own Colombian Canadian director Lina Rodriguez who also did the writing, production, editing and sound design. It’s a tender and moving experimental film about family, loss, mourning, guilt and new 
beginnings, as played out within the immigrant experience. This is her third feature-length drama, and her films have played at festivals including Berlin, TIFF and Locarno, with retrospectives in Spain, Argentina and Colombia. I last spoke with Lina in 2017 about her previous film Mañana a esta hora.
I spoke with Lina in Toronto via Zoom.
So Much Tenderness opens in Toronto this weekend at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
“I” and “L”. Films reviewed: Every Body, Blue Jean
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Film Festival continues with ICFF, the Italian Contemporary Film Fest, once again showing movies out of doors in the Distillery District. The seats are huge and comfortable, complete with large puffy earphones, and there’s a great selection of movies to watch, starting Tuesday with Freaks Out, a fantasy about a circus in Rome in the midst of WWII. The festival continues through July 22.
But this weekend, there’s another big event in this city, the Pride Parade. So, in honour of that, I’m looking at two new movies, a drama and a doc, that fall into the alphabet soup of 2SLGBTQQI+, specifically in the L and the I categories, meaning Lesbian and Intersex. There’s a gym teacher facing trouble in Thatcher’s England, and three Americans coming out as Intersex.
Every Body
Dir: Julie Cohen (RBG)
What is meant by intersex? And why is it kept a secret? And what medical practices and procedures and popular beliefs should be challenged? Intersex refers to people who don’t fall neatly into our typical male/female definitions of sexual anatomy, reproduction and genetics. But it’s not just one thing, it’s many things; there are over 40 different types of people who fall under that definition. And until recently, it was relegated to the shadows and almost never mentioned in public. This is changing.
This new documentary looks at three intersex Americans and what they’re doing to give people like themselves a public face. Alicia Roth Weigel is a political consultant in Austin, Texas who rose to fame when she testified before state hearings on a so-called Bathroom Bill, intended to prevent trans people from using public washrooms that don’t match their “biological sex”. The thing is, although Alicia presents physically as a woman since birth, her chromosomes are XY — according to this bill she is “biologically” male, and thus should be barred from using 
women’s washrooms. River Gallo, a stage actor and screenwriter from New Jersey, was born without male gonads but brought up by their Salvadoran parents as a boy. And as a teenager doctors surgically implanted prosthetic testicles so they could feel more “male”. Now River presents as a woman but with a notably deep voice. They’re fighting to stop doctors from performing unnecessary cosmetic surgery on kids with atypical genitals. Sean Saifa Wall is a PhD student and intersex advocate originally from the Bronx who was raised as a girl. He was born with testicles inside his body, but doctors castrated him at puberty, saying they could lead to cancer. He ties his struggle for intersex rights with his equally intrinsic identity as a black man.
The documentary first follows all three subjects as they tell their stories, and then talks to them as a group. They are shown the notorious case of David Reimer. Born as a twin boy in Winnipeg, David’s penis was badly damaged in a botched hospital circumcision. Under the guidance of Dr John Money at Johns Hopkins University, he was raised as a girl. Money theorized any child’s gender is fluid until the age of two, and used him as a celebrated case study that proves his theory. But in fact, it didn’t work, and as a child he continued to strongly resist the gender and new name imposed on him, and upon reaching puberty he refused to go on female hormones. Though his case is now well-known in Canada — he made his story public as an adult — a generation of doctors were trained using his specific case as the basis of numerous medical decisions. Finally, the movie brings intersex people together as part of a movement, one that is little known but quickly growing.
Every Body is the first documentary I’ve seen that turns to intersex people for their information, rather than using them as objects to be examined or as research subjects. It shows you a group of people more common than you think — up to 1.7% of the population share intersex traits — and what should be done, politically, medically, and socially, to better recognize their rights.
Every Body has fascinating stories — a real eye-opener.
Blue Jean
Wri/Dir: Georgia Oakley
It’s 1988 in Newcastle, England. Jean (Rosy McEwen) is a Phys Ed teacher at a state school. She’s pretty and athletic with bleached blonde hair in a pixie cut. By day, she coaches the girls’ netball team. By night, she plays snooker at a lesbian bar. She loves spending time with her girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes), who is buxom and butch with a buzz cut. But what she doesn’t want is for the two sides of her life to overlap. Boundaries are crucial. Especially since Thatcher’s government is introducing harsh anti-gay laws; Section 28 would prohibit the “promotion of homosexuality”.
Though broadly sweeping in its scope, the new measures seem aimed particularly at state schools. So Jean keeps her private life completely private. Boundaries! Then there’s her family life to make things even more complicated. Jean is divorced and wants nothing to do with her ex-husband. But when her sister suddenly appears with her five-year-old nephew when their mom has a 
stroke, the privacy of her relationship with Viv is also called into question.
Meanwhile, there’s a new girl in her class. Lois (Lucy Halliday) is confident and outspoken with tousled brown hair. Jean likes her and encourages her to join the netball team. And Lois seems to have a bit of crush on her favourite gym teacher. But she has to deal with Siobhan a ginger rival on the team, who is loathe to lose her status as top player, and is prone to starting fights. As a teacher Jean knows how to defuse student problems — she does it on a daily basis. But everything starts to fall apart when she spots Lois playing snooker at her lesbian bar. If Lois comes out at school, and is somehow associated with Jean, her career would be finished. What is a woman to do?
Blue Jean is an intimate drama about the problems facing a young lesbian teacher in Thatcher’s repressive England. It’s moving and romantic with a rising tension permeating the story. Radio and TV reports in the background about Thatcher’s Section 28 along with period music, provide a constant thread that holds the narrative together. And her mundane work life is presented in opposition to the sex, music and spectacle of her nightlife. This may be writer/director Georgia Oakley’s first film, but she manages to bring together great acting and a compelling story without ever resorting to treacle.
I liked this one a lot.
Blue Jean is now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and Every Body opens on July 30th in Toronto; 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.
WAIT THREE SECONDS BEFORE TURNING OFF
culturalmining.com 
leave a comment