Author: Elijah Bukreev

These six suggestions will resuscitate your faith in the horror genre

If you’re tired of rewatching the same old horror classics every year and have stopped caring for the latest Paranormal Activity or what-have-you, you may want to think outside of the box for this Halloween movie night. Here are six films, all released within the last five years, that will both chill you and give you something to think about. Most of them are independently produced, some of them are foreign, and one of them is a spoof, but all of them are truly original, while carrying along the horror tradition in a time when studios have led the genre down a very narrow path.

It Follows, U.S.A., 2014

This is a real blast—a high-concept, thoroughly terrifying tribute to ‘80s horror, complete with a John Carpenter-inspired score. While the plot may sound familiar—it involves a group of teenagers fighting off a mysterious force—it has a terrific premise and its simplicity makes it all the more effective. The plot is as follows (no pun intended): a young girl gets a sexually transmitted curse, and unless she passes on the curse to somebody else, she will eventually be found, followed and killed by a shapeshifting being. “It” can be anyone in the crowd, walking towards you at a skin-crawlingly slow pace. And even if she manages to pass on the curse to somebody else, it will eventually come back once its next bearers have been killed.

The fact that you know “it” is always walking towards you, even when out of sight, will keep you tense throughout, since you know “it” could catch up with you at any given time. And of course, if you’re willing to dig a bit deeper, you’ll find that, like with all great horror, the film uses its boogeyman as a way to address very rational fears—in this case, fears of mortality, aging and sexual anxiety.

The Babadook, Australia, 2014

Long before the eponymous creature makes its appearance—first as a children’s book and then in an increasingly physicalized form—there is a sense of mounting dread which arises from a single mother’s inability to deal with her young son, a six-year-old boy who obliviously causes destruction and requires vampiric amounts of attention. Through its colour scheme of cold whites and blues, the film is permeated by the untimely death of the boy’s father. It is that interior darkness, which eventually turns the mother into a Jack Torrence-like character, that seems to invoke the “babadook”—a grotesque spirit in a top hat and a cape portrayed, miraculously, through old-fashioned means and not CGI.

The film is psychologically astute and has impressive acting performances, especially from Noah Wiseman in his first role as the young boy. The way it approaches grief, insomnia and children’s fears makes it an almost therapeutic experience, but before you get spooked off by that word, I’ll add that The Babadook has a generous amount of scares, and rarely has it been more terrifying—or fun, for that matter—to scrutinize the dark corners of a basement in the dead of night.

Goodnight Mommy, Austria, 2014

This Austrian import, made with no scare jumps or ominous music, is probably the quietest film on this list, but that doesn’t make it any less sinister. It uses a classic horror film setting—a house in the woods—to tell the story of two young twins who start to suspect that their mother, who has just come back from a facial surgery and is covered in bandages, is an impostor. At first, the boys are set off by her erratic behaviour and aggression, unfamiliar to them from previous interactions, but soon they find a picture of their mother with a look-alike woman, and start thinking their suspicions may in fact be well-founded.

All the same, the film is devilish in that you never know what to believe—when the boys have the woman tied up and are torturing her for answers, the line between victim and aggressor is effectively blurred. Could she simply have forgotten what her son’s favourite song was? Or is she actually not who she says she is? While some final twists may feel a bit forced, this is an entertainingly creepy film and, surprisingly, Austria’s submission to next year’s Oscar race.

Julia’s Eyes, Spain, 2010

Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro has produced several Spanish and English-language horror films over the years, and one thing that implies is a great sense of style. In fact, Julia’s Eyes is distinguished by gorgeous camera work and some delicious gimmickry, which plays on the fact that its main character is starting to go blind.

The young woman must race against time and overcome a disease that slowly plunges her into literal darkness. And as if that wasn’t enough, she also finds herself investigating her sister’s mysterious suicide and trying to find the man who follows her every move without ever being seen.

This is the kind of horror film in which it is the mystery itself that largely acts as the monster figure, and the process of deciphering an enigma takes the viewer on a dark and perilous adventure. It has enough thrills and twists to last you a while, and Spanish actress Belen Rueda is an involving lead who manages to add an emotional edge to the story. If your idea of a good time is a two-hour, startlingly well-shot guessing game, you should go with Julia’s Eyes.

The Cabin in the Woods, U.S.A., 2010

This is a film for people who are sick and tired of horror film clichés and want to see them torn to shreds—which is literally what happens in The Cabin in the Woods. While the film may be a bit short on scares, it is decidedly clever and accomplishes what the original Scream did in 1996—it deconstructs the horror genre from inside out in a way that is both funny and thrilling. It’s hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, but, as has been done to death, it starts with five young people—one of them played by Chris Hemsworth—going to a cabin in the woods for a nice few days. But at the same time, an underground surveillance-like agency seems to be preparing for their arrival, manipulating them as puppets.

Joss Whedon, who co-wrote and produced the film, described it as a “loving hate letter” to the horror genre, and that’s exactly what it is—at once a feast for every horror fan to appreciate and a spoof that will delight those who can’t stand the genre.

I Saw the Devil, South Korea, 2010

Here’s an opportunity to discover South Korean cinema, which has some of the most twisted, violent and brilliant films you’ll ever see. I Saw the Devil, directed by the great Kim Jee-woon, is a demented cat-and-mouse game between a serial killer and a secret agent seeking to avenge his murdered wife. While the agent has the killer cornered rather fast, he decides to leave him alive to enact a slow and painful revenge. However, in doing so he underestimates how much of a monster the killer is.

What qualifies the film for the horror genre is its extreme gore and violence, which caused it to be completely recut in its home country. However, none (or almost none) of it is gratuitous, and serves as an entertaining and weirdly lyrical story. Asian films, and South Korean films in particular, tend to be more violent than films made in the West, but this one takes the palm. I Saw the Devil will take you on a wild ride with Choi Min-sik, of Oldboy fame, as the serial killer.

Scandinavian cinema makes a stop in the U.S.A.

All sorts of great things can happen when a foreign director makes a film in the U.S.A. without compromising his or her own style. A somewhat overlooked entry at this year’s Festival du nouveau cinéma, Louder Than Bombs is a deeply moving portrait of a family two years after a mother’s suicide—which makes it sound much darker than it really is.

There certainly are tough scenes, but overall it is filmed with great amounts of light and offers great hope for its characters. It’s strangely feel-good, and not in the Hollywood way—it subtly avoids formulas and trite resolution, going for a non-linear structure that alternates between various points of view.

As the film starts, we quickly learn that it’s been two years since Isabelle—a successful war photographer from France (played by Isabelle Huppert)—died in a road accident, leaving behind her American husband, Gene (Gabriel Byrne), and two sons, Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devin Druid). Gene and Jonah seem to have moved on—Gene is seeing Conrad’s school teacher, Hannah (Amy Ryan), while Jonah, a recent PhD graduate, just became a father. Conrad, however, is a troubled teenager left mainly to himself.

Conrad—who is the closest thing to a central character—also doesn’t know that his mother purposefully caused the road accident that killed her. His mother’s close colleague, Richard (David Strathairn), is preparing to publish an article that reveals this fact, so Gene is finally forced to tell his son.

This is a challenge because the communication between the two is very limited. Gene attempts to anonymously hang out with his son by playing the online video game on which the teenager spends his nights, but is unceremoniously slain. When Gene tries to initiate an in-person conversation, Conrad would rather put a plastic bag over his own head and start choking himself rather than listen to his father.

For a good part of the film, the viewer has no idea of what goes on in Conrad’s head and that silence is frightening. However, as soon as you start seeing things from his perspective, and once he lets his brother Jonah into his world by sharing a short essay he wrote, the film’s most visually adventurous sequences start rolling out in a torrent of empathy.

The cast is too good for words. While you’ve come to expect that level of commitment from Huppert or Byrne, one of the film’s main qualities is a spectacularly promising performance by Devin Druid as Conrad. He embodies teenage angst—the loneliness and confusion—but also an interior life of turmoil in a way that hasn’t been done this well in a long time.

The Norwegian director Joachim Trier chose to set the film in the U.S.A. but has given it a freedom of form more widely associated with European cinema. The scenes that are intertwined with the narrative to tell the story are not so much flashbacks as thoughts, memories and dreams. The characters’ inability to express their feelings and rationalize Isabelle’s suicide, which didn’t seem to be rooted in any clear motive, results in long stretches of coldness—a characteristic of Scandinavian cinema—that are punctuated by brief outbursts of aesthetic power.

Louder Than Bombs may be one of the best films of the year—a surprisingly unsentimental but quite emotional look at the process of grieving, but also teenagehood and family dynamics. The director allows for his characters to be flawed and approaches them with sympathy as they try to better themselves and the understanding they have of each other.

An NFB-produced documentary puts the spotlight on Canada’s troubles with race

Say you find a time portal and end up in Montreal during the late ‘60s. You would likely be overwhelmed by the pizzazz, the optimism, the resourcefulness brought on by Expo 67, the legendary World’s Fair.

Dig a little under the surface, however, and, just like in a David Lynch film, you’ll find that a great darkness may be hiding behind idyllic appearances. In the context of Ninth Floor, a new documentary produced by the National Film Board, that darkness is xenophobia, the fear of people from other countries.

“If we walk into a room together, you might be afraid of me, and then that just mounts into what might become a fire in the end,” said director Mina Shum in an interview with The Concordian. It is that fear, coupled with a lack of dialogue, that resulted in an actual fire on the ninth floor of Concordia’s Hall building in 1969.

At the time, headlines such as “black students destroy computer lab,” could be read in major newspapers’ coverage of the incident, known as the “Sir George Williams affair”—hundreds of SGW students occupied Hall’s computer lab over a two-week period, which came to an end after the RCMP deployed its riot squad. Even Selwyn Jacob, who produced the documentary, acknowledges that he initially only judged the incident by the headlines, and felt the students were in the wrong.

It was the details of the case, many of which are included in Ninth Floor, that made the whole difference for Jacob—the students had occupied the computer lab in protest, after an allegation of racism made against a professor named Perry Anderson had, according to the documentary, not been dealt with by the school administration. As the film shows, the students had waited patiently to no avail. The students had a reason to mistrust authorities after their group had been infiltrated by a CIA-trained, RCMP-employed agent, who was attempting to incriminate students by making suggestions like bombing the school with dynamite. And the students, according to Jacob, are unlikely to have started the fire that destroyed the lab, an act which they are still blamed for to this day.

The event, which “might not have happened if [the students and the administration] had spent two weeks in a room together,” said Shum, resulted in 97 arrests—where, as told in David Austin’s Fear of a Black Nation, many students were brutally beaten and one died of her wounds, —a reported two million dollars in damages—although Jacob said that amount was vastly exaggerated by the media—and an indelible stain in Canada’s history.

Ninth Floor tells this story by combining interviews with surviving key participants of the protests, several of whom went on to become politicians, with footage obtained from the Concordia University Archives, but also newspaper articles of that time along with recent footage made by Shum to illustrate the mood of the film, such as songs and historical reconstructions.

There are two equally striking and surreal moments in the film, both shown and recounted by participants at the same time. The first is of occupiers of the lab throwing computer cards from the ninth-floor windows in a desperate bid for attention, the white papers falling all across Mackay Street like an early snow. The second is of a mob on the same street chanting “Let the niggers burn,” in both English and French while the computer lab is on fire, dark clouds of smoke coming through the windows.

“Why did I not know this story?” lamented Shum. “It’s crazy! Why was I not taught this in school?”

“You would never have heard of it because it is not part of your narrative, but it’s a part of my narrative,” answered Jacob. Jacob, who, like several of the protesters was born in Trinidad, said the riot is one of the stories that inspired him to get into filmmaking in the first place and that he had been waiting for 45 years to make it into a feature film.

The film was made in a spirit of reconciliation, and, commendably, avoids any form of vilification. A parallel is drawn between the son of accused professor Perry Anderson, who gets to speak out, and the daughter of Kennedy Frederick, one of the main protesters. Both were affected in a similar way, with their respective fathers still suffering from stress and depression caused by the events.

Anderson’s son, Duff Anderson, and Frederick’s daughter, Nantali Indongo, as well as several of the former students featured in the documentary, including Senator Anne Cools, were present at a screening of Ninth Floor on Oct. 9 at Concordia’s Hall Theatre—the very room in which the occupation of the computer lab was voted over 45 years ago.

In our interview, while describing her approach, Shum mentioned a self-defense tactic that involves looking your attacker in the eye, so that they see you as a human being. “No one was willing to look the students in the eye,” said Shum.

According to Shum, while the events didn’t lead to immediate change, “at least the question of race was suddenly on the table, [whereas] before everyone thought we were an ‘Expo 67 land’, where it was all good.” While it would be a mistake not to acknowledge the progress that Canada has made since then, Jacob remarked that the police, who were quick to resort to violence during the ’69 riots, have not had a change of mentality. Police officers who were active at the time were interviewed for the documentary, but the footage didn’t make it into the final cut. As Shum explained, “Some of the police still seem quite racist to me. It was very deliberate not to have them look worse than they [already] do.”

Shum said she worries that, by not talking about such events enough in the last 45 years, we might have become complacent, and she made the film to encourage people to keep on improving themselves. In our day and age, such improvements would involve, for example, not politicizing the prejudices many may hold against the Muslim community, Shum said.

As a final statement, Shum calls for an open dialogue instead of politeness and political correctness. “Let’s not be nice, let’s actually get into it so that we don’t end up killing each other with our niceness,” she said.

The MIBFF opened and closed with a speech, a prize, and a documentary

As it has every year since 2005, the Montreal International Black Film Festival has come and gone, but its high points will echo in attendees’ minds for a long time. These, this year, have been the opening and closing of the festival.

The opening was held on Sept. 28 at the gorgeous Imperial Theatre and started with festival founder Fabienne Colas explaining the festival’s goal of celebrating black heritage and promoting both films that would have remained unseen and causes that would have remained unheard.

Big names took part in this year’s edition of the festival, the first of whom was Martin Luther King III, son of legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. King followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps by becoming a community activist, and the MIBFF sought to pay him tribute by awarding him its 2015 Humanitarian Award.

In his acceptance speech, King praised the progress that the world has seen in the last 50 years but also acknowledged the challenges that may lie ahead for his country, such as tackling wealth inequality. “We really do have a much better world when we include people,” said King. “Exclusion is always a formula for disaster.”

After King, it was Pras Michel, whose stage name is Pras, co-founder of the Fugees and two-time Grammy Award winner, who took the stage to introduce the festival’s opening film, Sweet Micky for President, a documentary which he produced. “This [doc] … is basically the aftermath of what Mr. King … and his father had inspired my generation to do—when something happens to your community or to your people, you use your platform,” he said.

Documentary making, the platform Pras used, is not one he is used to, but it was an effective tool to take on post-earthquake Haiti and the country’s political situation. The footage he and director Ben Patterson managed to get is astonishingly extensive, and the honesty with which the main players all speak is rare for American or European audiences.

Sweet Micky for President is an eye-opening documentary. The average viewer will know little about Haiti, so the fact that the movie opened with some backstory was more than welcome.The Caribbean country has a rich history—Haiti gained its independence way back in 1804, after a slave revolt fueled by the French Revolution.

That’s not, however, the subject of the film. The story it covers is truly stranger than fiction, and if, like me, you have never followed Haitian politics, you will find it unpredictable and as exciting as any fictional political satire. It follows Michel as he convinces fellow singer Michel Martelly—very popular in the country for his outrageously inappropriate dance performances—to run for president.

“We really didn’t know what we were doing,” said Michel. The two men start working on the campaign together with no program in mind but to dethrone a corrupted regime that seems to have conspired with all major candidates.

The movie is electrifying, alternating between thrills and comedy. Sometimes it combines both, as in a scene which depicts the destruction of the National Palace during 2010’s earthquake—a sight worthy of any disaster film—and then shows an interview with then president René Préval, who admits he’s not sure where’s he’s going to spend the night.

A lot of the comedy arises from Martelly, who is an unceremonious and outspoken character. His public image is that of a clown, and that’s how the documentary portrays him in the early scenes, as in the beginning of his campaign, which incidentally took place in Montreal. In later scenes, as the stakes get higher, he has no choice but to take a serious approach.

As tempting as it may be to research Haitian politics immediately and read the whole story beforehand, I would recommend knowing as little as possible about the subject when you watch the movie. It will then become a whole other experience with unexpected twists, like when Wyclef Jean—Michel’s band member—suddenly decides to run against Michel Martelly for the presidency. “I guess there won’t be another [Fugees] album,” jokes Jean in one scene.

Emotions ran high during the screening, with applause and laughter sometimes drowning-out all sound from the film—which you could then only follow by reading the subtitles.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with Michel, who said the documentary’s goal was to show Haiti’s culture rather than make a political statement. He was inspired to show a different side of Haiti after realizing that everything he heard about the country in the U.S. was negative. “Haitians had AIDS—[the disease] started in Haiti—or it was the coup that Papa Doc did in the ‘80s … it wasn’t until later on that I knew about Chicago being discovered by a Haitian … [Haiti becoming] the first black republic in 1804, The Three Musketeers [being] written by a Haitian [descendant].”

Yet Pras’ complaints about the present state of Haiti—“There’s no real education, …  there’s no real infrastructure, there’s no real medical [care] in Haiti, there are no civil jobs … there’s no electricity … there’s no roads … there’s no progress”—drew him the ire of two obstinate audience members who got into a shouting match with the rapper.

“You can’t go on saying ‘I’m here to shed positive light,’ and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is shit,” said one audience member.

“Why [is it that], in Cuba, 98 per cent of people can read and write, and in Haiti, 98 per cent of Haitians can’t read and write! How is that progress!” Pras repeatedly shouted in answer before the individuals left the room.

Pras concluded by saying: “That gentleman right there, he may disagree with me, but you know what, when he’s going to go home and try to prove me wrong, how is he going to prove me wrong? He’s going to try to find out more things to see how he can help Haiti.”

The MIBFF closed on Oct. 4 with an awards ceremony held at Concordia’s Hall Theatre, followed by a screening of The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. This 2015 documentary is directed by Stanley Nelson, who had examined various facets of American history in his previous works, and this time chose to chronicle the rise and fall of the Black Panthers.

The film consists mostly of interviews with participants of the movement, historians and former police and FBI agents, combined with extensive archive footage. Although the Black Panthers may be remembered negatively by many for the unambiguous calls to violence some of their leaders made, Nelson prepares the viewer to a different outlook on the movement from the first minute of the film. It opens with the age-old tale of the blind men feeling an elephant to understand what it is like; they end up disagreeing, because each is touching a different part of the elephant’s body.

The Panthers were created in 1966 in Oakland, California as a reaction to widespread police brutality towards the African-American community. The Panthers would stalk police officers and stand watching—loaded rifles and shotguns within reach—exercising their constitutional right to bear arms.

Needless to say, some lawmakers were not pleased. It is hard to imagine today’s Republicans arguing for gun control, but those in the late ‘60s, including then-California governor Ronald Reagan, were. A bill was introduced to make the carrying of loaded guns illegal, which the Panthers protested—also a shock by today’s standards—by making an armed entry into the California State Capitol in Sacramento.

After that protest the Panthers were fully ingrained in the American public’s consciousness. There was hardly any black youth who didn’t want to be a part of the movement, and seeing them on the big screen today, it’s clear they had a lot of appeal. The ‘60s were a time of revolution—social in the U.S., literal in other countries. It was a romantic era, spearheaded by young people with hopes and dreams, but perhaps also some naïveté and delusions of grandeur.

As some ex-Panthers admit on screen, the group’s downfall came from putting too much trust in leaders like Huey Newton, all while underestimating the police and the FBI.

A considerable part of the film is concerned with the J. Edgar Hoover-led FBI and its efforts to destroy the Panthers both from within and out. A whole operation, named COINTELPRO, was created in order to prevent what Hoover called “the rise of a black messiah.” Ethically, the operation hit rock bottom with the cold-blooded murder of a Panther leader by police forces and the literal gagging of a defendant in a courtroom.

It is on that solemn note of remembrance that ends the 11th edition of the MIBFF. After such a richness in terms of guests and programming this year, Fabienne Colas will have to work very hard to outdo herself come next year’s edition. And now on to Montreal’s next film festival!

Clear your schedules—the good, the strange and the foreign films of the year are coming to town

It’s already that time of year—the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, arguably Montreal’s most high-profile film event of the year, opens on Oct. 7. Every year come October, it offers an astonishing variety of works from every corner of the globe—this 44th edition will have 364 films from 68 countries—with all genres and age categories covered.

Films are divided into sections that each serve a particular purpose. The Focus section puts the spotlight on Quebecois and Canadian cinema. The Temps Ø section, as its quirky name suggests, hosts the most rebellious and weird films, often of a violent or sexual nature. It will open with Gaspard Noé’s Love, which has been banned in Russia. The Panorama section is devoted to world cinema, promoting the young and the underseen.

The Présentation spéciale section usually gets the most attention, as it brings you films from the biggest names in today’s independent cinema—this year, among many others, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth and Al Pacino’s double-bill Salomé and Wild Salomé, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s infamous play.

The Compétition Internationale section offers a selection of international films, one of which will be awarded the festival’s highest honour, the Louve d’Or—a wolf being the festival’s token image.

There are two wholly separate categories in the festival—FNC Lab and FNC Pro, which, respectively, allow audiences to expand their conception of film through various experimentations, and interact or network with industry professionals at talks and round tables.

Several homages, retrospectives and masterclasses are planned. The hommages will be dedicated, among others, to the Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira—largely believed to be immortal until his death earlier this year at the age of 106—and the late acting legend Omar Sharif. Retrospectives will include a very rare look into North Korean cinema and some of its classics, completely obscure to the rest of the world.

Masterclasses will be given by the French-Algerian director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche and the Iranian producer Barry Navidi, who has worked with stars such as John Huston, Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.

Since its creation in 1971, the FNC, which counts Concordia University and the Canadian government among its many sponsors, has become one of Montreal’s cultural landmarks. While there are yearly traditions the festival will keep following, it is also very sensitive to the latest trends and events.

As Nicolas Girard Deltruc, executive director of the festival, wrote in his welcoming statement, “the application of the provincial government’s austerity plan has not made putting the 44th edition together easy, but out of precarity new ideas emerged and doors have opened in terms of content and partnership … The world is in turmoil but we firmly believe that from this chaos something constructive will emerge [in terms of film].”

The festival runs from Oct. 7-18. For information on prices and programming, please visit nouveaucinema.ca.

Black Mass is a traditional gangster film with a stellar cast

Scott Cooper’s Black Mass may as well have been called Black Mamba because it gives you the same feeling you’d get from observing a predatory snake at the zoo. Johnny Depp has previously played an informant in Donnie Brasco and a famous gangster in Public Enemies, and now he plays James “Whitey” Bulger, a real-life figure who happened to be both a gangster and an informant.

Depp’s Bulger is truly snakelike, fearless and unpredictable. You can almost imagine him hissing as he sweet-talks his prey, his light blue eyes glowing hypnotically in the dark. It is remarkable how deep he is willing to immerse himself in his characters. Even in some of his worst films, he manages to involve the viewer, because he seems to operate on a different level than the filmmaker, as if in direct communication with the viewer. He never limits himself to the lines that are written for him, instead laying bare his character’s heart and soul, as dark as it may be.

Bulger’s portrayal in this film has caused controversy because of the pain Bulger has inflicted in his home city. The crime boss, who agreed to cooperate with the FBI to bring down a rival crime family (and as a result was allowed to rule with impunity over South Boston throughout the ‘80s) subsequently went into hiding and was only apprehended in 2011, after spending nearly two decades under an assumed identity.

The film starts in the late 1970s and, without exactly chronicling Bulger’s rise to power, shows scenes that help contextualize it. Early on, you meet John Connolly, the crime boss’ childhood friend who has grown up to be an FBI agent but never grew out of his doglike devotion to Bulger. Their relationship is an integral part of the film, as Bulger starts cooperating with the FBI through Connolly, but ends up exploiting it for his own purposes under Connolly’s neglectful watch and eventual corruption.

What you get is not the traditional rise and fall story, but snippets of different times and events in the life of Bulger and others connected to him, which makes it feel like you sat down on the remote control and accidentally pressed fast-forward. You see inside the FBI headquarters as agents investigate crime in the city. You see Bulger lose his six-year-old son after succumbing to Reye’s syndrome. And then you see Bulger take many lives of his own.

Bulger is responsible for countless murders, rapes and other atrocities, so it is understandable that families of victims would object to scenes presenting him as more of a softie and family man, a loving son, father and brother.

As a piece of cinema, Black Mass is entertaining and, while it hardly transcends its genre, it compares well to other recent gangster films. It delivers not only an impressive centerpiece performance from Depp, but solid work from the rest of the cast, which includes Joel Edgerton as John Connolly, Bulger’s childhood friend and FBI agent; Benedict Cumberbatch as Bulger’s brother and big-shot politician; and Peter Sarsgaard in a small but intense role as a junkie who gets in Bulger’s way.

French filmmaker François Truffaut once shared his thoughts on the war film genre in an interview with film critic Gene Siskel for the Chicago Tribune, saying that “I find that violence is very ambiguous in movies. For example, some films claim to be anti-war, but I don’t think I’ve really seen an anti-war film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.”

Revealingly, the most entertaining scenes in Black Mass are ones of violence and murder, which is why Truffaut’s comment may also apply to gangster films. Whether they want it or not, filmmakers make the violence so exciting that they can’t help but end up glorifying a criminal lifestyle. Even classics like The Godfather are not immune to such criticism. Despite this, it also seems fair that a filmmaker, as any artist, should not have to answer for his creative choices, or have responsibilities to his audience. A film should not necessarily have a moral, or morals, as long as it is true to itself and to its author’s vision.

A film such as Black Mass is inherently structured so that dialogues set up future bloodshed. The bloodshed, in turn, becomes a payoff, rewarding the viewer for his attention. It is hard to watch such a film and not come out thinking of Bulger as a monster, and yet at the same time, if I enjoyed seeing him kill a character onscreen, does that make me a bit of a monster, too?

Cinéclub Film Society offers classic movie screenings students can enjoy on campus

Going to the movies used to be a big deal. You’d sit down in a state-of-the-art cinema, get your fix of news from a short news reel, sink into your chair as you enjoyed a short cartoon, then immerse yourself in a double-feature, interrupted only by an intermission. That’s right, no advertisements, only a few exclusive trailers you would find nowhere else, naturally, on scratched film print and in glorious Technicolor. Philippe Spurrell, the founder of the Cinéclub Film Society, wants to bring you back to that pre-Netflix era, or at least provide that experience as a ready alternative to the streaming site or modern multiplex.

The volunteer-run Film Society, which is now partly sponsored by Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, began its activity in 1992, which makes it older than quite a few of you. It went from venue to venue before finding a new home at Concordia University in 2012.

“It’s the best place we’ve had, and we’re quite happy to be there,” said Spurrell, adding that his mission is to help people make pleasant new discoveries about film. During screenings, which take place every other Sunday, films are shown on 16mm and 35mm reels.

In fact, the Film Society’s first mandate is the conservation of film: it has its own archives of film prints, which serves to feed its programming. The second mandate is to expose the public to these classic films, which tend to be from the 1960s, although some are from the 1890s and only a handful are from present-day.

Digital has become commonplace in modern filmmaking, but film still has defenders among directors and scholars. Spurrell largely prefers film, arguing that “it gives you the opportunity to experience a film the way people did in its original format … Imagine, one day, there are no more acoustic guitars. Everything’s electric guitar, right? And then, somebody pulls out an old acoustic and says, ‘Hey folks, this is the original guitar, come and listen.’”

Screenings take place at Concordia, so the setting is academic, but Spurrell stressed that they’re held in a purely non-academic approach. “It’s a chill atmosphere, we have intermissions, we have tea and coffee and homemade desserts,” he said.

For fundraisers, which take place twice a year, the Film Society rents out an old gothic church near Vendôme metro to screen silent films accompanied by live music—percussion, strings, piano and a church organ. The next one will take place on Oct. 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m. at 4695 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, and will feature Carl T. Dreyer’s 1932 vampire classic Vampyr, followed by a 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Student tickets are $9.

Guest speakers attend about half of all screenings, and have in the past included many experts in particular fields working in the film industry, ranging from animal trainers and stuntmen to sound designers and art directors.

“In the age of Netflix and downloads and everything, people can say ‘well, you know, I can watch that at home.’ But if you’re watching a silent movie, you’re not going to get a live musician at home, for example. You won’t get a guest speaker in your living room,” said Spurrell.

Mostly, these guests have been “people that are kind of hidden behind the scenes, or maybe not as celebrated as they should be in Montreal,” said Spurrell. Some of these people have included one of Buster Keaton’s last directors and Marlene Dietrich’s personal assistant. Expected guests for early 2016 include the daughter of Nicholas Ray, who directed the James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause.

Entrance for students is $6 per screening. You can find more information and programming at cineclubfilmsociety.com

The scariest part of The Visit is the filmmaking

Night Shyamalan just can’t seem to get it right anymore. Once one of the most promising American film directors, he’s since become a laughingstock in the industry. People come to his movies in amusement, waiting to see if his latest is, in fact, worse than the last, as ratings would suggest.

I’m not easily amused by all these demeaning jokes and insinuations. Shyamalan made The Sixth Sense, which was masterful in every possible way, and even in the horrid After Earth, I could still feel a potency, a natural gift for atmosphere and creating tension out of thin air. So I said to myself—and he must have read my mind—that he needed to make a horror film, as low-budget as possible, relying on nothing but his wit and directorial flair, with no added artifice. Well, he’s just done that, and now I’m afraid we’re all out of options.

The Visit, which Shyamalan self-produced in hopes of regaining artistic control over his films, may be even worse than the rest, and there’s no one to blame but himself. A tale of two siblings who visit their disturbed and increasingly threatening grandparents—whom they’ve never met—this film tries its hand at found-footage horror and dark comedy, and fails at both. Shyamalan is known for his plot-twists, and this one is clever enough that it could almost work, if it weren’t followed by a sappy attempt at tearjerking and some of the worst rap I’ve ever heard delivered on-screen. The overall effect was so overwhelmingly negative that it could only logically be explained as self-sabotage.

As low as Shyamalan’s films have sunk in his later years, they were at least partially kept afloat by solid cinematography, and fine music by his long-time collaborator James Newton Howard. Both had to be sacrificed this time to little avail. A found-footage film—such as Paranormal Activity—requires at least some degree of naturalism in order to work, but The Visit is too overacted, and too nicely shot and edited to be even remotely in the realm of plausibility. The performances are all unnatural, especially from the main actress, newcomer Olivia DeJonge, playing Becca, a young girl who speaks like a seasoned filmmaker—a clear and poor attempt at self-portrait by the director.

But the film’s biggest misstep is its use of mental illness as fodder for cheap laughs and scares. Why must it be funny that Nana, the grandmother, runs around naked at night? The first time we see odd behaviour from her, she is seen vomiting all around the house. The granddaughter sees this, but instead of talking to her or trying to help, she just runs to her room and locks the door. This illustrates that the director only treats the grandparents as movie monsters, and never as human beings, which is sad.

There are interesting episodic moments, all given away in the trailer, especially the scenes in which Nana asks her granddaughter to get inside the oven to clean it, in an obvious but effective reference to a fairy tale. These little moments will be of little consolation to fans, as this is another embarrassment from Shyamalan. He has gotten himself in a hole, and it will take major soul-searching and head-scratching to get out of it.

Be it singlehood, cultural identity or gay marriage, Andrew Searles has it covered

Imagine getting on stage to deliver a few jokes and discovering your life vocation is to do stand-up comedy. This is what happened to Andrew Searles, a JMSB alumnus who has gone on to do shows all across the country, and will now be headlining his first show in his hometown of Montreal.

Searles, a comedian, actor and “self-proclaimed amazing lover” has been doing stand-up for nearly 10 years, and now he brings us a show that he has written and produced himself.

The show is titled C’est moi! C’est Papa Chocolat! in reference to Searles’ previous 2013 show C’est moi! C’est Chocolat! which is a recurring punchline of his.

The added “papa” is explained by the fact that fatherhood—or lack thereof—is a central theme in the new show. In fact, Searles is set to take a humorous look at the fact that he is still single while many of his friends are married with children.

His situation will be relatable to many—singlehood is a rising and much-covered phenomenon. “Most comics will do a show of ‘Oh, hey, I’m a father now.’ My show is about being a single guy while everyone around you is having kids,” said Searles.

Other themes are as diverse as cultural identity, vaccinations and gay marriage. Searles, who grew up on Russell Peters and Dave Chappelle, is willing to touch on hot topics straight out of today’s headlines. With that approach, he draws inspiration from our southern border neighbours, but he is also eager to distinguish himself from them.

On the question of cultural identity, he tackles the absurdity of applying African-American stereotypes to black Canadians.

In his own words, “When you think about black comedy, it’s always American black comedians talking about growing up in the hood. As a black Canadian, I grew up in Pierrefonds. There is no hood, I don’t know what these people are talking about!” So Searles’ intention is also to help promote a distinct black Canadian identity, an underrepresented culture in today’s media.

What makes the Montreal stand-up comedy scene so special, according to Searles, is multiculturalism, which is part of its DNA.

“So many cultures mix and interact with each other. Here, in Montreal, a black person would know when a Jewish holiday is, and what the Chinese calendar is, as opposed to, when you’re out west, in Calgary or Vancouver, the Asians hang out with the Asians, the Jews hang out with the Jews, the Italians hang out with the Italians,” he said.

This multicultural quality, along with it being bilingual, gives our city a big advantage, as far as Searles is concerned. He may well be right, and he certainly adds to the diversity in a way that both compliments the city and defuses tension around topics you should know how to laugh about.

C’est moi! C’est Papa Chocolat! will run at ComedyWorks on Sept. 24 at 8:30 p.m., and Sept. 25-26 at 8:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. For more information, visit Andrew Searles’ website at andrewsearles.com

A different kind of teen movie, an honest look at a girl’s sexual awakening

It is mildly depressing that while humanity has been able to collectively solve many issues over the past centuries, there are certain life experiences that each must still go through on their own, as helpless and confused as they may be. While The Diary of a Teenage Girl has a cliché-sounding title, it is actually an involving dramedy concerned with the loss of virginity and the difficult passage into adulthood.

Just as movies for, and about, teenagers have sunk low in the last decade with the advent of the commercially-minded “young adult” genre, three independent films this year have reminded us that a genuine look at that age group is still possible—they are Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which explores friendship, Dope, which explores racial identity, and The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which explores sex. All three, as any movie about teenagers intrinsically is, are coming-of-age stories. I would strongly recommend these three to any person in their late teens as an alternative to the latest fanfiction, poor man’s dystopia or schmaltzy romance—not to name any names.

This film is set in 1976 San Francisco and is coloured like an old photograph of the era. In fact, by its structure, it can be compared to the Polaroid card 15-year-old Minnie asks to have taken of her right after she’s had sex for the first time—for the whole film, we watch her life slowly come into focus through funny, tough, and all-around weird experiences. She is at the centre of the film, recording her rambunctious thoughts on a tape recorder, so when we hear her voice-over narration, it’s not being read from paper—the viewer is listening to the voice recordings she makes. Like many people who keep diaries, she starts hers from a half-conscious desire to be heard, so you shouldn’t feel too bad about listening in.

Minnie is played by Bel Powley, a newcomer who infuses her character with endearing and sometimes scary naiveté, but also a confidence that is odd for a character who thinks so little of herself—Marie Heller, a first-time filmmaker, is equally confident in her directing. It’s that confidence that ultimately gets Minnie “laid” when she flirts with her mother’s boyfriend and manages to seduce him. At first, she is thrilled, and proudly informs her tape recorder that she is now officially an adult—this is the line that opens the film.

Powley is yet another in a long list of young new British actors who are more convincing as an American than most Americans are. She mostly recalls Giulietta Masina in The Nights of Cabiria for her wide-eyed look and hopefulness that is entirely misplaced in an environment that wants to suck all life out of her. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is often disturbing in ways that the main character is not aware of, and that’s why these passages are portrayed in a mostly positive light, as they are seen through Minnie’s lack of experience. While this film doesn’t have the combination of mystery and sexuality of a Gregg Araki film—for some reason, it seems like Minnie always has it all figured out—it is terrifically cast and introduces you to another lovely actress in a way that shows how much she has yet to give.

Film festival season is kicking off in Montreal and MIBFF is one of the first in line

Every major film festival has had to start somewhere. Cannes wasn’t always Cannes. The Toronto International Film Festival once attracted 35,000 people, and now attracts over 10 times that number. The Montreal International Black Film Festival has only existed since 2005—during half of which it was known as the Haitian Film Festival—but it has now established itself as an important yearly event and attracts international stars, most notably Spike Lee during last year’s instalment. This year’s program was announced last Wednesday and it’s hard not to agree with its founder, filmmaker Fabienne Colas, when she said it will be the “biggest edition yet.”

This film festival’s unusual focus is on its many events, talks, tributes and exhibits even more than on its screenings, some of which will take place on campus. This year is a symbolic year for the black community, and many events will be devoted to American history. In fact, it’s been 50 years since the Selma march portrayed in last year’s Selma, 50 years since Malcolm X’s assassination and 60 years since Rosa Parks held on to her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama.

These anniversaries will be marked by the following events: a tribute to Martin Luther King III—Martin Luther King Jr.’s eldest son—will be held on Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Imperial Theatre, and King III will be attending the event; the closing film, The Black Panthers: Vangard of the Revolution is an exploration of the Black Panther Party, with interviews of both supporters and detractors, and will be screened on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. at Theatre Hall-Concordia; a movie-talk on the power of nonviolence preceded by a screening of Selma and attended among others by Martin Luther King III will take place on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. at Concordia’s D.B. Clarke Theatre; an exhibit titled We Have a Dream, honouring 25 African-American women who changed the world, will be running from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 at the former National Film Board of Canada.

The festival isn’t forgetting its Haitian roots either. It’s been five years since the Caribbean country was hit by a powerful earthquake from which it still has not fully recovered. A tribute to Paul Haggis and David Belle will be held on Oct. 2 at Cineplex Quartier Latin at 7 p.m. You may know Haggis as the Oscar-winning Canadian director and screenwriter who delivered 2004’s socially-conscious Crash. What you may not know is that Haggis was one of the first to rush to Haiti after the earthquake, and founded an organization which provides help in education and health care to Haitian youth. You may know David Belle as the French founder of the Parkour discipline, but what you may not know is that Belle founded the Ciné Institute, purportedly Haiti’s only film school. Both Haggis and Belle will attend the tribute, which will be followed by the screening of five films directed by former students of the Institute.

The opening film, Sweet Micky for President, is also about Haiti—it is a documentary on an unlikely presidential candidate, a controversial musician whose campaign is organized by Pras Michel of The Fugees. The screening will take place on Sept. 29 at the Imperial Theatre at 7 p.m. Pras Michel will be attending, and will host a party after the screening.

The Montreal International Black Film Festival runs from Sept. 29 to Oct. 4. The programming can be found on their website: montrealblackfilm.com.

As we bid farewell to the summer, here are five books we read while on vacation

 

1. Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill (By Lydia Anderson)
   

 

Maybe it was because I read it lying underneath trees and blue skies on grassy knolls, but Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Montreal’s own Heather O’Neill, was a book that surpassed the rest of the reads on my summer book list. Little did I know how fitting it would be to read this novel when I first returned to Montreal—most of the novel takes place in this fair city. The book is written from the perspective of Baby, starting from her 12th birthday, and follows her as she navigates her youth with a heroin-addicted father. Not well-off to say the least, the two bounce around apartments as Baby grows more knowledgeable about street life with each passing chapter. Baby’s is a perspective that maintains some innocence and remnants of a childlike worldview, but also introduces readers to the realities of her rougher situation. From foster homes to becoming involved with a pimp, the readers follow Baby as she navigates her reality and speculates about what she’s experiencing. O’Neill’s ability to embody tainted innocence was impressive and prevented me from leaving the book out of my hands for too long. The weather still allows for some reading on a nearby grassy knoll, but not for long, so grab a copy of this novel and enjoy it as much as I did.

 

2. You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery by Mamrie Hart (By Marco Saveriano)

When I look back at my summer, the first things that come to mind are STIs, hallucinogenic drugs, and endless drunken nights. No, I didn’t spend the last few months on shrooms, getting drunk, and having sex with strangers—my loss, I know—but I did read all about it in Mamrie Hart’s You Deserve A Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery.
In a world where it seems like every YouTuber has a book deal, it’s hard not to write them all off, but Mamrie Hart is an exception. Anyone who watches Hart’s videos (notably, her “You Deserve A Drink” series) knows that she has great comedic timing and a gift for coming up with perfect puns—as well as being a master mixologist. I had no doubts that her book would be equally as hilarious.

You Deserve A Drink flawlessly captured Hart’s voice and shared stories so outrageous that if it were anyone else, I would have assumed they were exaggerating. Even though I was tucked away in my basement, curled up in a ball with her book, I felt like I was right there with Hart on spring break at a gay nudist resort, or when she accidentally set her coat on fire—twice—while tripping on shrooms at a Flaming Lips concert. The best part is that Hart never seems like she’s trying too hard. She’s authentically funny, which made for one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in a while. After restraining myself from reading this book cover to cover in one night, I definitely deserved a drink.

 

3. Paper Towns by John Green (By: Alex DiMeglio)

While vacationing in Paris I decided to pop my John Green cherry and give Paper Towns a read. The coming-of-age novel follows Quentin “Q” Jacobsen as he spends his last days of high school searching for the love of his life Margo Roth Spiegelman when she goes missing after a night of debauchery.
​Whether I was reading the book on the sands of Saint-Tropez or at a café in Paris, I always managed to forget my surroundings and fall for the witty writing and engrossing mystery, which frustrated me to the point where I just kept on reading because I craved the answers to all the ridiculous questions brought about by the novel. This novel was bought from the ‘young adult’ section, but should be required reading for all of our inner-teenagers that we still cling to, because youth reminds us that we are alive and we should be embracing such a precious gift, as opposed to complaining about it day in and day out. This novel managed to transform an unlikeable main character into a likeable one because his tireless pursuit taught him a valuable lesson. Our life is like a novel—what sort of things can you do to make others want to read it? A truly remarkable read from start to finish, full of humour, passion, romance, a few surprises and enough cheese to remind you that the word impossible shouldn’t exist in our vocabularies.

 

4. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins (By: Jessica Romera)

Despite it being nearly 400 pages, I devoured Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get The Blues in a matter of days during my summer break. I was away in Europe for about a month which meant lots of trains, planes and bus rides, so a ridiculous amount of time for reading. I had never read anything by Robbins before, but now my bookshelf is spilling over with more of his novels. This is the story of Sissy Hankshaw, a stunning girl growing up in small-town America. She embodies most of the feminine ideal—Sissy appears to be nearly perfect, except for the fact that she has gigantic oversized thumbs. While she sees these thumbs as a gift, everyone else around her sees them as a grotesque deformity. This prompts her to pick up hitchhiking and she ends up crisscrossing the country. She eventually finds herself on a ranch run exclusively by cowgirls and Robbins weaves Sissy’s narrative into theirs. He uses satire unapologetically while tackling larger social issues predominant during that time, like feminism, free love, experimental drug use and cultural identity (the book was published in 1976). Robbins’ style is easy to digest and ridiculously fun to read—he’s crude, but not unecessarily gross. He uses a ton of vivid descriptors to paint his scenes, but his words are not gratuitously flowery and redundant. If you’re looking for a funny, yet smart read for an upcoming trip, I recommend you give Even Cowgirls Get The Blues a shot.

 

5.  Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (By Elijah Bukreev)

Longing for more after falling in love with the prose and style of Madame Bovary, I found myself reading Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education. Like the main character, I was a young student living in Paris—it was during the last month of my exchange. I found the novel in a second-hand bookstore. It was brand new, probably bought by a high schooler for a French class, never read, and discarded as soon as the year was over. And now it was mine. I read it all over the city, sometimes in the very places that were being described.

As with Madame Bovary, which, as far as film adaptations go, has been somewhat misunderstood, it is acutely caricatural, with vibrant characterizations. If in Bovary Flaubert was mostly concerned with deromanticizing typically romantic characters, in Education he was drawing a portrait of the social and political life of his time, the mid-19th century, through the story of a young bourgeois man’s absurd infatuation with an older, married woman, which lasts for decades. Reading it now, in France, it is surprising to see that many things have remained the same.

One of the most poignant passages is the detailed description of a revolution, each step being thoroughly documented. The events unfolded unexpectedly and with shocking speed. Many speeches covered in the novel are things that are still being said today, and there is such recognizable dissatisfaction with the government in the air that many of Flaubert’s points still stand in today’s political landscape.