Life draws upon the same tropes as other science fiction classics such as Alien
The latest science fiction thriller to hit theatres sucks the life out of a great concept
Space is beautiful, mysterious and, sometimes, deadly. In Life, directed by Daniel Espinosa and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds, what was supposed to be the greatest discovery ever soon turns into a deadly fight for survival.
Life takes place in the International Space Station (ISS). When a probe from Mars brings back a soil sample from the Red Planet, the crew discovers a hitchhiker: a single cell contained in the soil. It is the first evidence of extraterrestrial life.
After the ground-breaking discovery, the scientists start conducting experiments on the organism, reviving it from its dormant state. They are fascinated by what this new life form could mean for the advancement of science and, of course, their careers.
Due to their eagerness to discover more about the physiology of this extraterrestrial being, they ignore scientific protocol. This lack of prudence puts the lives of the scientists in terrible danger, as their specimen, nicknamed Calvin, starts growing larger and larger. A series of gruesome and stomach-turning gore scenes follow, as the extraterrestrial entity proves to be a ruthless killing machine, hunting its prey one by one. The crew must try to survive in the limited space of the ISS while outrunning the alien that is trying to outsmart them at every turn. The surviving crew must not only try to escape, but also prevent Calvin from following them to Earth—where the potential for destruction is unfathomable.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Aside from some superficial differences, Life’s plot exactly matches that of of Ridley Scott’s magnum opus, Alien—a film that revolutionized the science fiction thriller genre. Anyone who has seen Alien can predict how Life will unfold.
Jump scares and killings can be seen coming from a mile away—especially due to the suspenseful music which plays before every gory scene. Moreover, some scenes are too disgusting, lasting several minutes and making for a very uncomfortable watch.
The film has difficulty keeping a realistic tone. Calvin is too smart, too fast, making the story too unrealistic. It took a matter of hours for the single-celled organism to develop and grow into a dangerous, blood-thirsty predator. But more than that, it mapped out the entire ISS layout straight away. Despite its shortcomings in the storyline, the ending is spectacular and redeems the film.
Students given opportunity to access archives from Montreal’s Negro Community Centre for class
Having access to historical archives as an undergraduate student is a rare opportunity. Being able to search through a large collection thoroughly and extensively usually takes months, if not years. The Concordia students taking the history course “Telling Stories” were able to readily access and study a wide variety of documents in a short period of about three months. Standing in the place where archives were created and kept for the better half of a century is something only a few can claim to have experienced. The students are now among those few.
The course aims to immerse students in the historical narrative of a particular topic and provide them with a hands-on learning experience. This semester, it was offered by history professor and founder of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Steven High.
High, who partnered with Alexandra Mills from Concordia’s Libraries Special Collections and research assistant Desiree Rochat to create the class, based the content of it around archives from Montreal’s Negro Community Centre (NCC). The NCC held particular importance in the surrounding community for being the core of integral activities such as music festivals, sports tournaments, and communal meetings. The centre, which was active from the late 1920s to the early 1990s, operated on the basis of acknowledging and improving the status of Montreal’s Negro community. The archives hadn’t been touched since the centre’s closing, giving students the unique chance to have a blank slate and draw their own conclusions from what they found.
Teejay Bhalla, a second-year history student, admitted to being intimidated by the task of creating a historical profile of the NCC without access to any additional information. At the beginning of the term, each student was assigned a box of archival documents, which they had to study in order to draw some sort of conclusion about the NCC’s role within its community. Because the documents are from as early as the 1940s, the students were left to their own devices to come up with any inferences about what they could suggest. “It’s not something that any of us have really ever done,” Bhalla said.
Working with actual documents from a cultural hub such as the NCC presented the students with a surprising challenge. “This stuff isn’t on Google. [These are] internal documents from an organization, and we are representing them. Whatever we write has to be dead on, or at least—if we are expressing our opinion—it has to be based off of fact,” Bhalla said.
Despite being slightly intimidated, a number of the students in the “Telling Stories” course were excited for the rare opportunity to work with physical archives, which included photographs, letters to leaders of social movements of the time, and plans of events that were held at the centre. For Summit Ollivierre, a third-year psychology and German studies student, the motivation to take the class came from a personal connection to the area where the students were going to do their research. The NCC was located in Little Burgundy, a section of Montreal’s southwest that has a history of housing a large African-American population.
Photo by Alex Hutchins.
“I know a lot of people from Little Burgundy,” Ollivierre said. “My family is black, and we’ve been here for a while, so I thought maybe I’ll find something out about my family … and the opportunity to work with archives is not something that ever happens to undergrads.”
On March 20th, the students took a walk through Little Burgundy, which they said their professor planned as a way for them to contextualize what they had found in their research. “We are literally 10 minutes away from all this information,” said Audrey Medaino-Tardif, a second-year honours history student. “We got to actually visualize everything that we’ve been researching.”
The community aspect of their research is something High’s students emphasized often. Some were astounded by how much information they came across that seemed to be such a large part of Montreal’s history, but which they had not been exposed to prior to taking this course.
As Medaino-Tardif explained, “[in school], I learned this very washed-out history. I didn’t learn about African-Americans in Montreal. I didn’t learn that there were slaves in Montreal, that there were slaves in Canada. So there are all these things that I learned [during the course] that were absolutely surprising.”
Her classmate, Lauren Engel, a second-year studio arts student, had similar sentiments concerning the lack of education on this aspect of Montreal’s cultural background in school curriculums. “[This class] has really made me think a lot more about our education,” she said.
Both Medaino-Tardif and Engel expressed that although the NCC was such a central part of 20th century Montreal’s community, it seems strange that most people—whether they grew up in Montreal or not—are completely unaware of its existence.
The students all expressed their gratitude for High, Rochat and Mill’s passion for the subject and constant support throughout the duration of the course. “[High] is really open-minded, really the kind of teacher who makes you want to learn more and ask more questions,” Engel said.
Many students agreed that, the professor’s encouragement, as well as the structure of the class, created a rewarding learning experience. “I think that he wants us to actually create our own history, which is something that, you know, we don’t get to necessarily do in another class,” Bhalla said.
On April 11, the students will showcase their individual projects based on the research they did on the NCC. The event will be held at the Universal Negro Improvement Association’s Liberty Hall in Little Burgundy, and will display a variety of visual pieces, from slideshows to graphic novels.
According to Medaino-Tardif, the choice not to host the event at Concordia was deliberate and appropriate. The showcase will act as a way to display the students’ work, but also as an outreach effort to share the information they discovered with the community. “We don’t want to keep this information—we want it to go back to the community,” Medaino-Tardif said.
Following the presentations by the students, there will be a panel of speakers, including Mills, who will share stories and anecdotes about the NCC and its archives. The Liberty Hall is located at 2741 Notre Dame St. West. The event, which is open to the general public, will begin at 7 p.m. Admission is free.
Students leave a mark that will outlast their student careers
Students from the Loyola Residence Mural Club transformed the Hingston Hall HA 3 common room walls with a bright and punchy mural on April 1 and 2.
Last fall, Alisha Hussey, a community facilitator for Loyola residence at Concordia, pitched the idea of starting a mural club to the residence’s events committee. She suggested painting the walls of the Hingston Hall residence to bring people together and help them feel a greater sense of comfort in their new homes.
“I think there’s a lot of truth to the saying that art brings people together,” she said. “I grew up dancing competitively, and although that’s a completely different art form, I’ve always felt that art is such a great way to incite positive vibes and make people feel part of a group or, in this case, the community within res.”
Hussey spent the last academic year as a resident assistant at the Grey Nuns residence, where the walls were decorated with artwork by previous students. She said the murals made the residents feel less isolated from one another.
“There are murals there that were done [back] when I was a first-year student that are still [at Concordia] today,” Hussey said. “I think the murals themselves help to make the residence building feel more like home to the people living inside.”
Hussey said not only did the murals give residents a sense of home and community, but they also gave students the opportunity to leave their mark.
“It’s a legacy that the residents can leave of themselves and of their time here, but also as a sort of ‘welcome home’ message to those who will move in next year, or for past residents who decide to come back and visit.”
Cody Swim-Moser, a first-year student studying biology, took on the role of head of the club and asked resident artists to pitch ideas.
“It was brought up in one of the events committee meetings,” Swim-Moser said. “And because I thoroughly enjoy painting, I decided that I would volunteer to take charge.”
Swim-Moser, who was his high school’s arts representative and was enrolled in International Baccalaureate visual arts, began organizing the mural club in October. The design for the mural was later chosen by the Events committee at the end of February.
“I see it as a fun project, and it’s a nice way to leave your mark on your residence,” said Swim-Moser.
The club was only able to lay the first brush-stroke a semester after requesting permission from Residence Life, the Concordia department which oversees the Loyola and Sir George Williams residence buildings.
The mural was designed by resident artist Barbara Bouquet, who presented two drawings to events committee. The first was a collage of waves, musical instruments and flowers and the second, a branch with yellow coloured flowers. She decided to merge them together to create the final product.
“I was looking for something pretty personal. Something I would really like to share with everyone,” Bouquet said. “[There was] just a huge mess of everything going on in my mind.”
Bouquet, a Loyola resident studying communications, said she knew what she wanted to paint from the beginning. She wanted to create “something crazy, but also very pretty,” taking inspiration from some of her previous drawings of flowers and stingrays.
She said whales and stingrays are two animals she loves to draw, and from there she added waves, flowers, clouds and other elements to the drawing to create the mural. She spent more than four hours first sketching her design on the wall, and another two hours outlining it with black paint. On March 26, residents began adding colour to the mural by mixing shades of blues and reds with bright pinks and yellows.
“I wanted to do something for my common room because I thought it was very bare,” she said. “I visualized something, and I thought I could do something good.”
“Next year, a new cohort of people will move in here and they’ll see the amazing artwork on the walls. I think from just looking at it, they’ll know what an incredible place this can be and, hopefully, see the potential for the year to come for them,” Hussey said. “And if that’s not the case, if anything, at least we’ve made one wall a little nicer to look at.”
New exhibition at Espace Projet brings the audience into the artwork
Like an actor spending time in a psychiatric hospital to authentically prepare for their latest role, people immerse themselves in unfamiliar cultures in an attempt to add richness and complexity to their character.
In her latest exhibition, I, interdisciplinary performance artist Nadège Grebmeier Forget creates a performance space which brings the viewer into sharp focus through its minimalism and austerity. It would be wrong to reveal too much about the exhibition, as the description would disturb the natural response of any reader who may decide to participate in Forget’s work. However, it seems appropriate to give a sense of the response the artist might be trying to provoke from the audience.
The pale, pink-lighted space offers the viewer’s wandering eye so little to rest upon that they are inevitably drawn to the other people standing in the room. In this way, the other viewers become part of the exhibition.
However, in Forget’s work, the viewer is encouraged into a state of communal reflection in which they learn from fellow art lovers through their behaviour. According to the artists’ statement, in doing so, Forget hopes to create an inclusive space where personal revelations may be shared verbally, and perhaps even telepathically.
I is an ambitious project which puts our age of digital surveillance and the commodification of the self under a microscope. It makes the viewer reflect seriously on not only why, but how they consume culture. This exhibition brings us closer to ourselves and others by encouraging the scrutiny of those occupying the space.
Whether what we absorb finds its way into the very sinews of our being, or merely flits temporarily through some scene in the performance of our lives, I suggests human behaviour is comprised of a constantly shifting outer layer of knowledge, and a less receptive, yet more faithful core of wisdom. I challenges the viewer to be aware of how this process unfolds in the subjective and objective gestures of the audience.
When we are drawing on the outer layer to inform our actions and interactions, we are performing. Whereas when conduct comes from our inner being, we are expressing ourselves.
If there is a problem with the exhibition, it may lie in the fact that it is almost too minimal. Intellectual fire requires a spark to ignite, but I wanted the viewer to conjure a flame from nowhere. So a vague sense of mystification was perhaps the most palpable reaction in the exhibition space.
Nonetheless, this sense of awkwardness is a genuine human reaction from the inner core, and observing how people attempt to engage and be enthusiastic about nothing was an interesting and informative experience.
I runs at Espace Projet until April 22. The exhibition space is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission to the exhibition is free. There will be a special presentation from the artist on April 7 from 5p.m. to 7 p.m.
Rupert Sanders’ take on the cult anime is both faithful and entertaining
Taking place in a futuristic dystopia where the line between biology and technology has all but vanished, Ghost in the Shell brings big-time thrills and stunning cinematography to the big screen.
The film, directed by Rupert Sanders, is an ode to the 90s Japanese anime of the same name, and stars Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek and Takeshi Kitano.
The movie revolves around Major Mira Killian (Johansson), a robot with the brain of a human saved from a terrorist attack. Though the robotic enhancement of human limbs and organs has existed in this world for several years, Major is the first complete cyborg—a weaponized human enhanced to be the perfect soldier. Her existence is the result of the cooperation between the Japanese government and Hanka Robotics, the world’s leading developer of augmentative technology.
Major’s purpose is to serve as the government’s special law enforcement agent in the hopes of overcoming terrorist plots. When someone starts killing Hanka’s executives, Major is instructed to find the perpetrator.
As she starts working on the case, Major uncovers compromising information about Hanka, as well as the truth of what happened to her human body. The film dwells on the moral complexities of fusing technology and human bodies.
The more she uncovers about her past, the more Major battles with existential questions and her place in society. She is neither fully human—shown by her inability to feel physical pain—nor fully robot.
When the creation of an American adaptation of Ghost in the Shell was first announced, both fans and critics were worried about the project, especially considering how white actors were cast for the leading roles, bringing on accusations of whitewashing. However, Sanders’ take on the beloved franchise has succeeded against all odds to be a faithful and entertaining adaptation of the original cult classic.
The movie is visually stunning, and every shot is framed with calculated expertise. The visuals are reminiscent of the anime’s futuristic style. The robotic components humans use to enhance their bodies look unsettling, resembling torture devices more than limbs.
There is a creepy tone maintained throughout the film, which leaves the viewer at the edge of their seat. The film explores themes of individuality, humanity and privacy through Major’s quest to find herself as well as the killer on the loose. Ghost in the Shell is a beautifully complex and haunting movie worth watching.
Concordia alumnae shine light on female Indian boxing champions in new documentary
MC Mary Kom, who was born in Manipur, India, financed her early boxing career by squirreling away whatever money she could until she had enough to buy her first pair of cheap boxing gloves. Despite winning match after match in the ring and slowly climbing in the rankings, Kom kept her involvement in the sport a secret from her family.
After she won the boxing state championship, her story was featured in a newspaper–her parents found out she was a boxer.
Kom’s story is one of many told in With this Ring. The documentary, directed by Concordia alumnae Anna Sarkissian and Ameesha Joshi, examines the reality of female boxers in India. Despite earning numerous titles and medals, the athletes reside in a country where old traditions and societal pressures discourage women from participating in sports such as boxing.
The documentary follows several female boxers over a period of six years as they train to become the next world champion, competing on the global stage. In addition to showing the grueling training schedule, the film also highlights the challenges these women face outside the ring, such as the huge pressure for young Indian women to marry.
For many athletes in the film, boxing is more than just a sport. It’s a source of income, or an escape from poverty, or a means to get a job. Yet, for all the successes of India’s female boxing team, the top-ranked in the world, recognition is hard to come by.
“Our ultimate goal was to share the boxers’ stories with Indian society and hopefully the rest of the world too, so that they can be recognized for everything they’ve sacrificed and achieved. We wanted them to be known,” Sarkissian said.
The film draws its strength from the way it is structured. Rather than telling the viewer what exactly is happening, it opts to show it instead. There is no narration, and the only intrusion on behalf of the directors is intermittent text insertions to give context or explain a concept. This allows the boxers to tell their own stories—to explain their own hardships, their own accomplishments and their own pains. In addition to the athletes’ points of view, the film also includes short segments in which regular citizens are asked their opinions on women in sport. Most times, the answers are very traditional: the boxing ring is no place for a woman, as her face might get scarred, which would prevent her from finding a husband.
When Joshi and Sarkissian decided to commit to producing this film, the original plan was to go in for two months, embed themselves in the boxers’ lives, then head back home. Instead, producing the documentary has been a decade-long adventure. The filming section of their project took six years and included four trips to India.
“People may think that being a filmmaker is quite glamorous, but it often involves having a day job and spending evenings and weekends on a project you’re really passionate about,” Sarkissian said. “There are lots of highs and lows in this type of work.”
With this Ring will be screened as part of Cinema Politica’s program on April 3 at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation. The screening will take place in H-110.
Area Codes art exhibition addresses multiculturalism, marginality, and identity
Right to Campus McGill hosted an intersectional feminist art exhibition at Studio XX on March 23. Area Codes was curated by Concordia students Madelyne Beckles and Leah Schulli.
The exhibition featured the work of Concordia and McGill students, as well as other up-and-coming artists. The contributors shared their personal experiences of marginality and social oppression, and boldly confronted the issues from a female-identifying perspective. Area Codes aimed to raise awareness about these emerging artists’ work, but also to publicly recognize International Women’s Day, Anti-Street Harassment Week and the Commission on the Status of Women, a UN intergovernmental body dedicated to empowering women and promoting gender equality.
Right to Campus McGill is a student-run organization that aims to promote social equality and facilitate the right to public space on the McGill campus. The organization is part of an initiative taken by Women in Cities International, a Montreal-based non-profit association that focuses on “the empowerment, safety and inclusion of women and girls in urban settings,” according to Right to Campus McGill’s Facebook page. Right to Campus McGill organizes a variety of events with this goal in mind, including documentary screenings, art exhibitions, discussions and panels. The curators collaborated with Women in Cities International for this exhibition.
The Area Codes exhibition featured 12 installations, one of which was a performance piece by Anika Ahuja. During her performance, which lasted about five minutes, everyone in the gallery gathered around the artist and watched attentively. It blended well with the other pieces, but also added another layer of intrigue and engagement with the audience.
The artist sat cross-legged in one corner of the room with a bowl of red dye, a bowl of water, a scrub brush and a towel. Ahuja applied the dye to the palms of her hands and the tips of her fingers. She repeated this motion a number of times before washing her hands, scrubbing the dye off and then beginning to apply the dye again.
According to the artist’s statement, the performance, titled In Attempt to be Definitive, “addresses the conflict of the intangible cross-cultural space, and considers ideas of inherent versus chosen identity, denial and shame.” It is described as a representation of the artist’s attempt to take ownership of her various cultural identities that conflict with one another. By repeatedly dying and washing her hands, Ahuja seemed to be torn between accepting and ridding herself of any cultural significance that could be attached to her identity.
Janina Anderson, a teaching assistant who works in the Fine Arts Department at Concordia, contributed her piece titled Cut Outs. The piece consisted of two large collage pieces that were mounted on Bristol board and hung from the ceiling of the studio. The collages commanded the attention of gallery viewers due to their size and conspicuous placement—they hung just above the heads of the crowd. One piece featured a photo of a young African-American girl sitting with what seemed to be an open box in her lap. The other collage piece displayed a photo of an African-American man loosely floating in the fetal position with his arms tucked into his chest. The photos were taken from National Geographic magazines published in the mid-20th century. The artist explained that, by removing the surrounding environment from the photos, in other words, decontextualizing them, she wanted to highlight the “social, political and cultural values through which they are constructed and disseminated.” Her work provokes questions surrounding identity and multiculturalism through the medium of collage.
Liz Xu’s interactive piece was simply a tent emoji. Xu constructed a small tent out of synthetic material, and screen-printed grass, flowers, trees and mountains onto the inside of it. From the outside it appears to be a plain white tent, but upon entering, the viewer is encircled by mountains and a forest lit up by a lamp in the centre of the tent. In her artist statement, Xu explained that her piece “functions as a physical representation of the boundary between human and nature.” Though humans may attempt to break this boundary by immersing themselves in nature through activities like camping, the materials and supplies needed to do so are man-made and therefore maintain the division between man and nature. Xu’s piece may also be interpreted as a broader comment on Western society—the modern consumer and its relationship to the natural world—by presenting a blatant example of a man-made object combined with forms of the natural world. While sitting inside the tent, one feels relatively isolated from the everything outside the tent, which enforces a feeling of separation between oneself and the outdoors.
The exhibition also included the works of Sophia Borowska, Simone Blain, Molly Caldwell, Sara Graorac, Salina Ladha, Lindsey Lagemaat, Alicia Mersy, Hayley O’Byrne and Amery Sandford. Pieces ranged from sculptures and oil paintings to digital art and posters.
The first Power Rangers film in 20 years takes itself too seriously
Over the past few years, nostalgia has taken over the film industry. The TV shows and movies millennials grew up with in the 90s and late 80s have been adapted and revamped for a new generation of moviegoers, as well as the original fans who never sold their VHS cassettes.
This new trend in cinema has led to inconsistent results, from hits such as the much-loved live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book, to misses such as the hardly watchable Jem and the Holograms, both released last year.
This wave of adaptations and reboots shows no signs of stopping, as Beauty and the Beast had great box-office results during its release last week. This film was quickly followed by Power Rangers, another film riding the wave of 90s nostalgia.
The last Power Rangers movie dates back 20 years, and therefore, this latest installment devotes its first half to explaining the origin story of the main characters to benefit the general public who is not familiar with the storyline. The Power Rangers are a group of rowdy teenagers who come together to form an unlikely team. They have to learn to work together and embrace their differences to fight a supernatural villain. During their quest to become great fighters, they learn to overcome the obstacles they face in their lives. The characters have a good sense of humour, and the actors have great chemistry as a unit. Moreover, Elizabeth Banks’ performance as Rita Repulsa is extremely enjoyable as she completely loses herself in the character to become a campy supervillain.
The set of teenage characters resembles The Breakfast Club formula of having a character who encompasses a different stereotype. There is a cheerleader, a football star and even the “new girl.” This dates the film terribly, as screenwriters have not used this writing trope seriously in a while. What is surprising about this movie is the lack of action scenes, as the first two thirds are character-driven. The main issue with the lack of action sequences is that a Power Rangers movie shouldn’t take itself seriously.
The directors missed an opportunity by not embracing how ridiculous the original TV series was. By taking itself too seriously, the film loses its flavour. Even if there are a few fight scenes, they are poorly executed and the visuals are not aesthetically pleasing. There is a problem with the film’s tone, as its serious approach does not mesh with its cartoon-inspired fight scenes.
I Don’t Feel at Home In This World Anymore will keep you laughing while on the edge of your seat
While Netflix has a dedicated “originals” section, it can be hard to differentiate between what is actually good and what is just completely unwatchable (ahem, The Ridiculous 6).
Despite the previously mentioned Adam Sandler flop, Netflix Originals has delivered mostly solid content, and this is best showcased in their original television series. Shows like Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things have been among some of the most-watched television series in the last couple of years. Since 2015, Netflix has begun to develop and release their own original films, and the recent I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore, Macon Blair’s feature film debut, is one to watch.
I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore is so much more than just a mouthful of a title. Starring Melanie Lynskey—arguably the queen of weird indie films like Happy Christmas and The Perks of Being a Wallflower—it tells the story of Ruth, a depressed alcoholic who, after her home is burglarized, teams up with her troubled neighbour (played by Elijah Wood) to track down the thieves.
The dark comedy had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival back in January and won the festival’s Grand Jury Prize for the U.S. Dramatic competition. It also received tons of critical acclaim before premiering on Netflix on Feb. 24, with Collider describing it as a “satisfying story of two people who have decided the only way to behave in a mad world is to be a little mad.”
Lynskey easily gives one of the best performances of her career as Ruth, a pushover with no direction in life. However, Ruth is given new purpose when her home is invaded and her laptop and late grandmother’s china collection are stolen. But she doesn’t care so much about the stolen goods. She describes the robbery as a “violation.” She can’t get past the fact that a stranger was in her home. She doesn’t feel safe anymore.
We see Ruth overcome her people-pleasing ways as the story progresses—whether it’s cutting in line at the grocery store or angrily questioning a potential suspect, the traumatizing experience of having her house broken into forces Ruth to take charge of her life.
The film keeps you hooked as you watch Ruth and Tony (Wood) on their vigilante endeavours, and also features a killer soundtrack. With an array of eccentric characters dressed in flannel shirts and 70s-inspired mobster garb, and a bloody ending you won’t see coming, I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore gives new meaning to the term “weird little indie film.”
Most of all, I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore has a certainty in its uniqueness that makes it truly enjoyable to watch. If this is what Netflix’s original films have to offer, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s to come.
RENTON (Ewan McGregor), SPUD (Ewen Bremner), SICK BOY (Jonny Lee Miller) BEGBIE (Robert Carlyle)
Sequel to 1996 hit plays it safe, falls short of its predecessor
A lot of care went into T2 Trainspotting. What holds it back is a strong sense of sentimentality, which prevents it from going as far down a dark path as it could have. The gritty reality of drug addiction takes a backseat to slapstick comedy, coupled with elements usually found in romantic comedies.
T2 Trainspotting, directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller, is the sequel to the 1996 hit Trainspotting. The original cast returns to Edinburgh to pick up where they left off—living fast, getting in trouble and going straight down to rock bottom.
Although a genuinely funny film, some audience members might not enjoy how some serious subject matters are addressed. The tone of the film is reminiscent of Trailer Park Boys in that it brings dark humor to serious issues. It could have been a dreary experience given the presence of drug use, relapse, depression and death. However, it ops for a good time, and viewers should expect a comedy.
T2 is a self-aware film, with many references to the original source material, sometimes so much so that it seems preoccupied with its predecessor’s success.
Under all the jokes, pop music and surprising amount of slapstick humor, T2 could be seen as a decent film about relapse into addiction. When things are going good for the characters, the film is a fun time. It’s a night out with your best friends, it’s choosing life and loving it. When things aren’t going so well, the film takes an emotional dip, as all hope seems to be lost. Whereas the first film was timeless because of how it handled the seriousness of heroin addiction—the sequel does not delve deep enough into the topic. T2 plays it safe.
The original film dealt with addiction in a way that hadn’t been done before, and so comparing T2 to Trainspotting is unfair. But T2 is so rooted in the last film that viewing the first is practically mandatory. Yet, this film does not match up to the 1996 classic.
However, despite the shortcomings that keep T2 from being a classic itself, there are some moments which are truly great, such as when Simon reminisces with Mark about the first time they got high—a beautifully heart-breaking moment when two young men effectively destroy their lives for good.
Once the film finally comes to an end, it is clear this is a story about redemption more than relapse— but while T2 accurately depicts relapse, it does not fully delve into the subject.
Honesty Rents by The Hour, a play produced by Infinitheatre, is more than just a hook-up story
The play Honesty Rents by the Hour tells the story of three mismatched strangers who meet at a seedy motel in Montreal for an anonymous threesome. Danny, a student living in the McGill ghetto, is joined by two other carnal pleasure-seekers: Chantal, a wife and mother from St-Eustache, and Pinchas, a Hasidic Jew living in Outremont.
Produced by Infinitheatre and written by Michael Milech, Honesty Rents by the Hour is a provocative play about the complexity of human nature, relationships and identity.
“They all have comfortable lives that are filled with all the objective markers of happiness, but clearly something is missing. They want more and they have that in common with each other,” said Milech in a phone interview. “As much as they are from different backgrounds, they all have difficulty expressing their unfulfilled needs to their loved ones.”
Honesty Rents by the Hour tackles issues of sexual, religious and linguistic identities and their corresponding prejudices. According to Milech, the play raises questions about “who is our real self—the person that we show everyday, something we keep hidden, or is there any such thing as a real self?”
Faced with these difficult questions, the characters’ desire for a sexual encounter quickly starts to wane. They strike up a conversation that helps peel away inhibitions, revealing truths previously suppressed. Chantal is cheating on her husband, who she finds boring. Pinchas is still coming to terms with his bisexuality, and his parent’s reaction to it. Danny keeps a cool facade, which hides his lack of confidence. This proves to be liberating and encourages reflection on the reasons for keeping these secrets.
About his character Danny, actor Patrick Keeler said, “Danny questions things about himself that he is uncomfortable with, things that he hasn’t dealt with fully for a long time … He thinks he’s got everything figured out.”
“I think he has to come to terms with his own shortcomings and the fact that he is not as honest as he thought he was,” Keeler added.
Honesty Rents by the Hour was featured at the 2016 Montreal Fringe Festival, where it snagged an award for best text. This is Milech’s first professionally-produced play, and features a bigger set than when it premiered at the Fringe Festival.
“Last time, it might have felt a little lighter and a bit more on the side of comedy,” said Matt Jacobs, the play’s director. “There are still plenty of laughs, but now it’s got a real grounded feel and a realness that we were not able to reach before.”
The characters are well crafted, interesting and easy to relate to, as are the dilemmas they face. “I really think one of the reasons this play is so strong is that we, the audience, do not necessarily relate to the characters on the outside immediately, but throughout the play each of them reveal pieces of themselves that I think are universal and really reach out in that way to many, many people,” Jacobs added.
Jacobs hopes Honesty Rents by the Hour will help the audience “look inward and consider the choices that one makes on a day-to-day basis in order to live a happy life.”
Honesty Rents by the Hour runs from March 10 to March 26 at Rialto Infinitheatre Studio. Tickets can be purchased for $17-$25.
The play sheds light on Marie-Josèphe Angélique’s questionable conviction
Black Theatre Workshop has partnered with Tableau D’Hôte Theatre to produce the award-winning play Angélique, written by the late Lorena Gale. The play gives new life to the real and forgotten story of an 18th-century African slave who was publicly hung for starting a fire that destroyed most of New France, what we now know as Old Montreal.
Marie-Josèphe Angélique’s conviction at 29 years old was based on unreliable evidence and her guilt remains questionable. Gale’s play creates a space for us to reflect on how black people have been and are still treated by authority figures and to question the relationship between the government and the Black Lives Matter movement.
This story focuses on the last four years of Angélique’s life and the usual aspirations that young adults dream of. “I just want to show people that she was a strong and determined human being with goals and dreams, and who was sometimes nice and other times not,” said Jenny Brizard, who plays the protagonist.
“I’m not interested in telling the slave story—we know that one. So, if we’re going to dig a little bit deeper into this story, then we have to look at the people,” said Mike Payette, the play’s director. “For me, the core of this play is really the human condition and those people who are born into, or are privileged to be in a particular circumstance, and what they do with that … it becomes a human story above all.”
Payette and Mathieu Murphy-Perron are Concordia grads who, in 2005, while still students, created Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, to increase the number of Canadian writers’ works being presented on Montreal stages.
Murphy-Perron said, over the years, they had considered staging Angélique: “We knew off the bat that to do it alone would be a disservice to the production and that it would be best if we were able to pool resources with some of the other fantastic companies in town.” He added that Black Theatre Workshop’s mission of fostering and promoting the black Canadian experience created “a seamless collaboration that has resulted in a perfect marriage of a very Canadian story and a very black story.”
The production will be the play’s Quebec premiere, and is being put on to celebrate Montreal’s 375th anniversary. Many of the cast members are Montreal natives. Gale was born in Montreal and was a highly-respected actor and director.
“There’s been a lot of conversation happening about systemic racism, and those are good conversations to be having. We see racism in the judicial system when really it’s much deeper than that, since our institutions were built on white supremacy. So, when we sign petitions for a parliamentary commission on systemic racism, it is important to look at its beginnings in this country, and I think Angélique does that,” Murphy-Perron said.
Angélique runs until April 2 at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts. For more information, visit www.blacktheatreworkshop.ca.
