Tag: film

Categories
Arts

Behind the scenes with Donato Totaro

Concordia’s professor and editor shares his passion for film with students

Spaghetti western enthusiast, film studies lecturer and editor of the world’s longest-running online film journal, Donato Totaro has been teaching part-time at Concordia for the past 27 years. The courses he teaches, including “Introduction to Film Studies” and “Film Aesthetics,” are all within the film studies program, part of the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, where he shares his passion for film with his students.

Photo courtesy of Concordia.

Totaro completed a bachelor of fine arts at Concordia, a master’s in fine arts at York University and received a PhD in film and television from the University of Warwick. He is one of the reasons why Concordia has been the main venue for the Fantasia International Film Festival for the past 14 years and counting. He is every cinephile’s dream professor, as his motion picture knowledge will astonish all film buffs. His passion for film began when he was just a kid, trying to stay awake for his first late-night horror film. “I was 13 or 14. My uncle was only seven years older than me and he said: ‘This weekend at midnight, there’s a film called ‘I was a Teenage Werewolf.’ It’s a horror film from the late 50s. I was so excited that I would splash water on my face to stay awake,” said Totaro. It was the experience of doing something a little dangerous and subversive that sparked his interest at that time, he said. “I started watching films that I wasn’t supposed to be watching. I am doing the same with my son now, getting him to watch films that maybe he shouldn’t watch,” said Totaro.

It started as a fun activity but turned into a more serious endeavour after Totaro read Film as Film, a book by renowned British film critic, Victor F. Perkins. “It was the first book that made me think about cinema from an intellectual standpoint,” said Totaro. Film as Film touches on film criticism and the importance of paying attention to description. “For Perkins, the best films were realistic, expressive films,” Totaro said. “The book is essentially film theory applied to film criticism.” Years later, Totaro went to study at Warwick University in Coventry, England, where Perkins taught. “I always remembered that book and I followed his career and wondered, ‘Where is he teaching?’ I contacted him and ended up working with him as my PhD supervisor. Sadly, Perkins passed away in the summer of 2016, at the age of 80,” said Totaro.

Totaro decided early on to focus on the academic side of film instead of the production side. However, during his master’s at York University, he got the chance to do some film production and screenwriting while he specialized in film studies. “I think it’s important to learn how films are made. If you are criticising film, at least you have an understanding of what went wrong from a technical standpoint,” said Totaro. Totaro began teaching part-time at Concordia in 1990.

From 1997 to 1998, Totaro took some time off teaching to pursue his PhD. It was also at that time that he became the editor of the online film journal, Offscreen. The French online film journal, Hors Champ, which started up in 1996, was looking to expand and create an English sister magazine, Totaro said. At the time, one of Hors Champ’s editors was taking a class at Concordia taught by film professor Johanne Larue, who still teaches at Concordia today. “The editor of Hors Champ asked Johanne Larue if she wanted to be the editor of the English version, but she did not have the time,” Totaro said. “She recommended me, so I gave it a shot.” This is how Offscreen started. “The first few years, I would just publish whenever I would have enough articles,” Totaro said. “Now, I do a new issue every month, which is five articles per month.” Offscreen, which regularly receives funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, is the longest-running online monthly film journal on the web—it has been active since 1997. “It [requires] a lot of networking,” Totaro said about maintaining the journal. “I speak to graduate students and I go to conferences and film festivals where people reach out. I also encourage young writers because the journal needs new blood and I want to give students their [first] chance at writing for a public,” said Totaro.

Before leaving Concordia to pursue his PhD, Totaro met with some of the original creators and programmers of the Fantasia Film Festival—Pierre Corbeil, Mitch Davis, Karim Hussain and Martin Sauvageau. “I met Davis and Hussain at a year end screening party. They were two crazy cinephiles. They were energetic and they were talking nonstop about cinema. They were also working on creating this festival,” said Totaro. In 1996, Totaro went to the first edition of the Fantasia Film festival at the Imperial Theatre. In 2002, the Imperial Theatre shut down temporarily for renovations, which resulted in the cancellation of the Fantasia Film Festival for a year because it had no home. Totaro had the idea of contacting Cindy Canavan, the person in charge of the screening facilities at Concordia. “She always had it in her mind that she wanted to make Concordia a venue for festivals. I introduced the creators of the festival to Cindy, and since then, the Fantasia Film Festival has taken place at Concordia for 14 years,” said Totaro.

Totaro returned in 1998 to continue teaching part-time at Concordia. The professor said being the editor for Offscreen may not have been possible if he were a full-time faculty member. “When you are not working full-time, you do not have the same salary, you don’t get the same privileges or resources, but you also don’t have as much administrative work, so it frees you up to do other things,” said Totaro. Nonetheless, it is teaching that is most important to him. “I still teach almost as much as I want to teach. I still have that engagement with students which is really what I love. I love film and research, but it’s the teaching that is really important,” said Totaro.

Donato Totaro with Ray Harryhausen on Concordia Campus. Photo courtesy of Donato Totaro.

Currently, Totaro teaches “Introduction to Film Studies” which is a course open to anyone at the university. “I introduce students to all these themes and approaches and theoretical paradigms and different types of films,” said Totaro. The professor also teaches “Film Aesthetics” which is a flagship course for all cinema major students. “This class teaches students about sound, colour, montage, moving camera aesthetics and film analysis. It’s a course that is particularly appreciated by production students,” said Totaro. According to Totaro, over the years, many former students have reached out and expressed how much they loved the class. “The course is well-made and it was initially designed by full-time professor John Locke who still teaches today,” he said.

“I think that old expression applies to this course… if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

On the other hand, there are issues within the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association (CUPFA) that Totaro feels should be addressed. “It takes too long to get our collective agreements ironed out. We were once close to seven years without a collective agreement. Now, we are nearly two years into negotiating a new collective agreement,” said Totaro. The collective agreement is the contract between the university and the union that outlines working conditions—it regulates the terms and conditions of faculty members. The issues part-time professors are dealing with are not only financial but also have to do with course diminution. “Job security is clearly an issue. As part-timers, we have to reapply every year. The pool of courses is getting smaller so it’s more difficult. The people at the top with more seniority get the courses and then there are no courses left for other part-time profs,” said Totaro. Totaro also said it would be beneficial to set aside a consistent number of credits per year to allocate to the part-time faculty members.

Donato Totaro with John Carpenter at Imperial. Photo courtesy of Donato Totaro.

According to Totaro, part-time professors are losing teaching opportunities because of the increasing number of courses taught by graduate students, LTAs (limited-term appointments)—based on short term contracts and ETAs (extended-term appointments)—longer term contracts. “We want to make sure that this percentage doesn’t get larger and that our pool of courses doesn’t get smaller and smaller,” said Totaro. The part-time film professor shares his office with anywhere from five to 12 other part-time film professors. “We have to negotiate schedules so we don’t conflict. It’s a minor thing but all we want is to feel like we are part of the university and that we are respected,” said Totaro. According to Totaro, part-time professors also do not have the same resources to apply for grants. CUPFA does a good job supporting its members with its own Professional Development Fund, Totaro said, but having more research opportunities and projects with greater sustainability could also greatly benefit the part-time faculty association.

Totaro was recently excited about teaching a class about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, one of his favourite spaghetti westerns. “I was talking to my students for weeks before not to miss this class because I was screening a 35mm print, which is rare these days,” Totaro said. “Tarantino called it the greatest film ever made.” Totaro remembers a few years back, when he screened it in class, that once the movie ended, the whole class started clapping. “I was so surprised, I almost felt like crying. I touched them. It was great to get that spontaneous reaction from students.”

“I don’t think my students make a separation between if I’m a full-time or part-time teacher. They see me and they make a distinction based on my ability as a teacher. Am I engaging? Do I seem to care? Those are the things that matter.”

Categories
Arts

Julieta: Almodovar’s magnum opus

Spanish filmmaker spins tale of motherly love, lost love, and spurned love

Watching foreign films can sometimes feel intimidating because of their experimental nature and art-house feel often associated with them—it’s an unfamiliar feeling for Western viewers used to Hollywood blockbusters.

But not all foreign films are three-hour-long experimental features that are understood only by the director.

Julieta, Pedro Almodovar’s latest film, is a good place to start dabbling in non-American cinematography. Released last week, Julieta is the Spanish filmmaker’s 20th feature, and stars Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as older and younger versions of the film’s protagonist, Julieta. It was submitted to the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and was selected to compete for the prestigious Palme d’Or.

Julieta follows the usual Almodovar format of a female protagonist in the middle of an emotional/nervous breakdown induced by uncontrollable external circumstances.

The film begins with Julieta meeting a woman who informs her that her daughter is married, has three children and is living in Switzerland. Julieta, who hasn’t seen her daughter in 12 years, is taken aback by this sudden news. The reasons for their estrangement remain unknown to the viewer. This encounter forces Julieta to adjust her previous plans of moving from Madrid to Portugal with her boyfriend Lorenzo. Instead, she chooses to embark on a search for her daughter.

The film is fast-paced, and the first 10 minutes leave little room for the viewer to breathe. Julieta’s breakdown is sudden and intense. This is reflected through the cinematographic techniques used, such as jump cuts and rushed dialogue. As the film progresses, the overall tone slows down as the film transitions into a flashback. Julieta starts writing to her daughter, explaining how she met, and eventually lost her father. What unfolds is a tragic tale of a woman who lost everything because of circumstances that were out of her control.

In the end, Julieta finally lets go of the grievances between her and her daughter, and heads to Switzerland with Lorenzo.

Julieta is also a story of women competing against each other in order to attain ever-higher ‘ideal’ levels in society. The female characters hate each other and continuously try to outdo one another to impress the men in their lives. This bleak image of relationships in the modern era has been explored by several directors, but Almodovar adds his own quirky and sarcastic flavour to it.

The film also explores the grieving process a mother goes through after the disappearance of her child. It is a heart-breaking film streaked with instances of humour that can be appreciated by a wide audience.

Categories
Arts

Swept under the red carpet

Graphic by Florence Yee

When it comes to scandals and sexual assaults, mum’s the word at the Academy Awards

Awards season is well underway, but critics and fans alike are already predicting who will take home the golden statuettes in February when the 2017 Academy Awards airs.

From Damien Chazelle’s La La Land to Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, the films and performances being considered for Oscar nominations this year are quite diverse. However, the controversies surrounding some of the potential nominees are being ignored by the Academy, as well as the media.

The Oscars are not new to scandal—just last year, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite dominated social media platforms after the Academy neglected to nominate any actors of colour, prompting many to boycott the show. This year’s debacle? Two potential nominees have been accused of sex crimes and no one seems to be talking about them.

Casey Affleck—brother of Ben Affleck and frontrunner for the Best Actor award for his role in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea—has two separate sexual harassment allegations against him, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In addition to Affleck, director of the critically-acclaimed drama The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker and his longtime co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin were accused of rape back in 1999. According to entertainment website Vulture, Parker was acquitted of all charges, while Celestin was sentenced to two to four years in prison. He ended up only serving a little over a year, according to Vulture. Last summer, entertainment magazine Variety was the first to report on the allegations, just as they started promoting their film, which features—SPOILER ALERT—a scene in which a female character is raped.

Critics and moviegoers are questioning how they can watch the film knowing the director has been accused of rape and frankly, so am I.

If news of these allegations seems shocking, you’ll be sad to learn that the ignorance of sex crime allegations against male actors has been going on in Hollywood for decades.

According to the New York Times, in 1992 actress Mia Farrow, who was then married to revered director Woody Allen, alleged that their daughter, Dylan, told her she had been sexually assaulted by Allen. That same year, it was revealed that Allen was in a relationship with his step-daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was just 19 at the time. They married several years later.

The claims haven’t hurt Allen’s career, though—at 81, he has written and directed nearly 100 films and has worked with some of the best actors in Hollywood.

Last month, a 2013 interview with The Hollywood Reporter with director Bernardo Bertolucci resurfaced in which he confirmed that the use of a butter stick in the rape scene in his film Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider was not consensual. Schneider, who was a teenager at the time, was not made aware of the fact that Brando would be using a stick of butter to simulate the rape, and Bertolucci admitted in the interview that he conspired with Brando to keep that information from her, saying: “I wanted her to react as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated.”

In a 2007 interview with the Daily Mail, Schneider said she “felt a little raped” after filming the scene and did not receive apologies from her director or her co-star.

Schneider went on to work steadily until her death from cancer in 2011, but she certainly did not have the same career as her co-star Brando, who won his second Best Actor award for his work in The Godfather the year after they filmed Last Tango in Paris.

While Schneider did not reveal her true feelings regarding the rape scene until 2007, Brando has been accused of sexual assault by several other women, including actress Jackie Collins, who said Brando pursued a relationship with her when she was still a teenager, according to The Telegraph.

The allegations against Affleck, Allen and Brando speak to a greater issue. When a man—predominantly a white man—is accused or convicted of a sex crime, he can still get work. He can still be on the cover of magazines, he can still be on every late-night talk show. He can still be a movie star. He can still be elected President of the United States.

Parker, on the other hand, has not been able to escape the backlash and it has affected his film’s box-office success. Not only are his chances of winning an Oscar now slim to none, The Hollywood Reporter predicted that the film will lose an estimated $10 million for its production company, Fox Searchlight.

Meanwhile, Manchester by the Sea is not poised to lose any money due to the allegations against its main star.

But let’s be blunt—Manchester by the Sea, a film that has been described as an “all-American family drama,” is much more appealing to audiences than Parker’s film, a historical account of slavery and racism in America, written and directed by an African-American director.

There may not be an #OscarsSoWhite hashtag this year and #OscarsSoFullOfMenAccusedOfSexCrimes might be too long for Twitter’s word limit, but it is important, as the consumer, to be conscious of where your money goes.

Your dollars speak volumes. Use them wisely.

Categories
Arts

A look back at some 2016 silver screen successes

La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, is a revival of the musical genre.

Despite some rough seas for the film industry, there were some hidden gems

The year 2016 came and went like a hurricane, leaving many dumbstruck film fans from the unusually high list of casualties within the film industry. But, as hurricanes do, the year also washed ashore hidden gems and treasures—let’s look at the ones to be most thankful for.

  1. Paterson

Who, other than Jim Jarmusch, could have made a film this quiet, profound, ironic and heartfelt about a bus driver whose uneventful existence is enriched only by his poetry writing, which, perhaps, no one will ever read? Adam Driver nails the part, making a return to independent filmmaking after becoming a household name for his role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This one is about as far from intergalactic warfare as you can get. So if you’re currently feeling any Jedi and superhero fatigue—hop right in.

  1. 10 Cloverfield Lane

This is a loosely-connected sequel to the 2008 found-footage film, Cloverfield. No one saw it coming and few wanted it until it was here, yet what a pleasant surprise it turned out to be. A tense and claustrophobic mystery-drama, it improves upon the marketing-savvy original on every possible level. It plays out like a feature-length version of a Twilight Zone episode. You walk into it lost and wide-eyed, much like the film’s heroine, and even when you think you have the story figured out, you don’t. You never want to blink as you watch John Goodman’s sublimely ambiguous and terrifying character lead you through the rat maze.

  1. Finding Dory

Now here’s a sequel that few saw coming but everyone wanted. So did it live up to the original? Maybe not, but, like Monsters University in 2013, it offers a sweet reunion with characters we grew up loving. It’s not so much a continuation as it is a side story, told with the usual winning ingredients of a Pixar film: as-yet-unsurpassed animation and uproarious humour and emotion that creeps up on you before you know it.

  1. Hail, Caesar!

This is a Coen brothers film, so you can expect things to be more complicated than they appear. Senselessly over-complicated even, to the continued incredulity of the characters. Whether you want to contemplate the philosophical questions buried within the texture of the film or simply enjoy it as a zany period comedy is entirely up to you. Either way, it is great fun—a loving look at 50s Hollywood in which the Coens contemplate cinema as something of a religion. The cast is simply phenomenal, with George Clooney and Alden Ehrenreich as world-class idiots.

  1. Midnight Special

Many of last year’s most interesting films are united by a deep-seated nostalgia for cinema’s past. Some take their inspiration from the 50s and 60s. Others, like this one, are a clear throwback to the early Spielberg blockbusters of the late 70s. In other words, the people who are used to saying “They don’t make them like that anymore” must have rested relatively easy. Midnight Special is a smart sci-fi film, one that focuses on human drama instead of becoming a special effects extravaganza. Just the way it should be.

  1. The Student

A Russian film that hasn’t been seen much yet outside of the festival circuit, The Student offers a brutally honest look at religion in a once-atheist country. Filmed as a simple, if bleak tale of radicalization spreading uncontrollably in a society suspicious of rational thought, the film remains cool-headed and close to life even in its most surreal passages.

  1. American Honey

Speaking of cinematic experiences, few were as intensely engrossing and immersive as this one. A nearly three-hour epic road trip shared with a group of young outcasts, American Honey feels unscripted, with one choice leading naturally to another. Here’s a world of vibrant colours and infinite possibilities, with freedom-seeking characters who inspire in us a mix of hopelessness and awe. It’s an unusual film, a journey of discovery, a search for belonging in the vast, diverse and strange land that is the United States.

  1. The Handmaiden

The Korean film industry is one of the most creative, risk-taking and fun-loving in the world, and director Park Chan-wook is rightfully the leader of the flock. This might be the most purely entertaining film he has done, taking devilish pleasure in unraveling the story’s mysteries and deceiving expectations right until the end. Park continues to take inspiration from Hitchcock, while upping the level of violence and sexuality to something rarely seen in Western cinema—almost never gratuitously, of course.

  1. Nocturnal Animals

It appears Tom Ford was always meant to be a filmmaker. This second work confirms him as a master of style, a romantic visionary who knows how to imbue stories with his own sensibilities. It’s a haunting and dreamlike drama, bursting with symbolism and meaningful colours—the work of a perfectionist, who leaves nothing up to chance. At times terrifying and ultimately tragic, it is amplified by a large cast of performers at the height of their power, leaving an indelible impression.

  1. La La Land

This one’s going to be for the ages. It takes everything we—and director Damien Chazelle—appreciate about classic musicals, and rewires it as a bittersweet, old-fashioned story of idealized love and outlandish dreams in modern L.A. The music is stupendous—fantastically joyful at times while deeply melancholic at others—and the visuals are on par. The film conjures the kind of magic we stopped expecting from movies a long time ago. If La La Land doesn’t make you fall in love with movies—and someone dear to you—all over again, perhaps it’s just not meant to be.

Categories
Arts

Superhero Fatigue: The fine line between innovation and saturation

Superhero movies might be all the rage now, with several more movies planned for the next few years. But how long will this golden age of superhero movie last?

Superhero films are all the rage with audiences, but how long can this golden age last?

Superheroes have flooded our screens, be it in record-setting, box-office blockbusters like The Avengers or beloved Netflix original series, such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones.

But why did comic book characters become so omnipresent? There has been a paradigm shift in the entertainment industry, and this trend seems here to stay, as Doctor Strange’s success has hinted at.  Despite their continuous popularity, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and tired of the sheer amount of superhero-related content being produced on a regular basis. How did Hollywood become so obsessed with caped crusaders?

According to Lance Ulanoff, editor-at-large and chief correspondent at Mashable, an entertainment company, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002) was the first film to catapult the superhero genre into mainstream entertainment. Despite being incredibly popular upon its release, the film has aged poorly, as the visuals and storyline that were so revolutionary at the time now feel cliché and outdated.

However, in 2008, The Dark Knight and Iron Man gave the superhero genre the momentum it needed to become the next big thing in Hollywood. Both movies impressed fans and critics alike—Heath Ledger was even awarded a postmortem Academy Award for his portrayal of the Joker.

The incredible success of both films gave their production companies, DC and Marvel, the indication that a cinematic universe featuring their iconic characters would be well-received by audiences. Fast forward a few years and several films later, and the drawback of these expanding universes is that they are becoming increasingly hard to keep up with. What with the series offered on Netflix and the constant introduction of new heroes, it is no longer feasible to see only one superhero movie a year and still be in the loop when it comes to the superhero genre.

With the growth of the Marvel and DC cinematic universes, the concern is that the extensive story connecting cities, countries and worlds in these universes will collapse under its own weight. With each addition to the franchises, the studios will have to jump through more and more hoops and push the boundaries of creativity in order to keep audiences interested.

According to Business Insider, Marvel and DC are projected to release 24 superhero films within the next five years. It might prove impossible to sustain a high-quality output within such extreme production conditions. It will be interesting to see how the studios reinvigorate the genre while sticking to the source content, and whether fans will cling to the franchise or gradually flock to the next big thing. Just like westerns, musicals and film noir, all of these genres had their golden ages followed by a slow decline—so, too, will the superhero genre.

Categories
Arts

Rowling’s wizarding world is back

A hunt for missing magical creatures soon becomes much more complicated when dark forces appear.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them brings a whole new wizarding world to the big screen

Demiguises, erumpents and nifflers are just some of the fantastic creatures that have slipped out of Newt Scamander’s (Eddie Redmayne) magical suitcase, causing havoc in 1926 New York City in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

The film, adapted from J.K. Rowling’s book of the same title, is directed by David Yates and stars Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell and Dan Fogler. Written by Rowling, it has the same familiar feel the Harry Potter series offered. This familiarity makes it easier for the audience to relate to the film, although this era of the wizarding world is much darker.

Newt Scamander is a magizoologist studying all manner of magical beasts and creatures, cataloguing them for a book he’s writing. After disembarking in New York City, a mix-up between suitcases leads to a few of his creatures roaming free in a city rocked by anti-wizard sentiment. Newt, no-maj (American term for muggle) Jacob Kowalski (Fogler) and disgraced auror Tina (Waterston) team up and attempt to round up the magical creatures. Although they aren’t dangerous per se, these creatures can be annoying. One of Newt’s nifflers, a mole-sized creature attracted to objects that shine and sparkle such as coins and gems, gets into trouble ransacking a jewelry store and storing its contents in its marsupial-like pouch.

Things get more complicated when Newt discovers an obscurus is on the loose. This dark magical entity, taking the shape of a roiling black cloud, is a creation that comes about when a magical child tries to suppress their powers for fear of discovery by the non-magical community. While Newt wishes to find the child to save them from themself, other forces wish to use the obscurus for their own agendas.

The world we are introduced to in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a fractured one. The beginning sequence emphasizes this: headline after headline warning of humans suspicious of magical activity, calling for a second Salem witch-hunt in Manhattan. At the same time, there is fear of a magical war being sparked by Grindelwald, a powerful wizard tired of hiding from no-majs. Divisions exist between no-majs and wizards and between wizards themselves. Newt’s journey to document magical creatures brings him to the epicenter of these tensions, and he becomes entangled in an effort to prevent an all-out war.

Rowling’s incredible imagination is once again brought to life on the big screen. The creatures she’s whipped up are funny and troublesome, dangerous and sneaky. For a film that needed to introduce a whole other subsection of a hidden world, the pace is quite good, albeit a little information-heavy at times. It might have been worthwhile to take some more time to develop Newt’s character, especially seeing as how Fantastic Beasts is set  to be a five-part series. Newt is a funny character who has trouble interacting with humans. Instead, he finds refuge in his suitcase, which contains a whole ecosystem of creatures, beasts and magical things.

Fantastic Beasts is now in theaters.

4.5 stars out of 5

Categories
Arts

Highlights from Cinemania film festival

Kristen Stewart, who has avoided being typecast in her roles, plays a fashion assistant who attempts to communicate with the dead in Personal Shopper.

Slack Bay and Personal Shopper were the talk of the town at the Cannes film festival this year

As a rift grows between the more conspicuously commercial elements of the French film industry and the personal, unconventional auteur pieces that defined French cinema for much of its golden era, it is the latter that continues to be a staple of international film festivals. Montreal’s Cinemania festival, which celebrates the brightest French productions of the year, featured two films that have been attracting attention since their premiere at Cannes this past spring.

Ma Loute, known in English as Slack Bay, is singularly grotesque. What could have been a straight comedy—the slapstick, satire and absurdity—is instead an entrancing, if unsettling experience. The film’s humour is so relentlessly over-the-top it seems to be mocking its own audience. Even the viewer’s act of marveling over the striking setting—a coastal region of Northern France, home to director Bruno Dumont—is ridiculed during the film.

Who are we to identify within this caricature of class warfare? On one side, we have a decadent bourgeois family, played by well-known actors who overact as if in a state of drunken insanity. On the other, a mysterious family of oyster farmers and ferrymen, played by eerie-looking locals whose presence intensifies the surreal style of the film, making it seductively hostile.

It is an often baffling, unclassifiable work, comparable in part to David Lynch and Monty Python but bathed in French sensibilities, incorporating both theatre and carnival traditions. It will alienate viewers who find it suspect for being fundamentally unexplained, or frustrating for its deliberate lack of cohesion. However, those curious to immerse themselves in a foreign vision, one that is unpredictable and perhaps beyond reach, may come out pleasantly mystified by the experience.

Another film at Cinemania is the much less compelling and blandly titled Personal Shopper, starring Kristen Stewart as a fashion assistant who attempts to communicate with the dead. Stewart, made famous by the Twilight series, has become something of a darling in France—she was the first American actress to win a César Award, which is comparable to an Oscar, and the film’s director Olivier Assayas called her one of the best actors of her generation. While it is true that she has successfully avoided being typecast and has proved herself to be a reliable talent, such enormous praise remains puzzling. Assayas’ assertion back in September that Stewart has “an infinitely [large] range” is at odds with the fact that she is notoriously inexpressive, and rarely has that been more obvious than in Personal Shopper, which barely gives her any character material to work with.

A ghost story provides ample excuse for suspense and frights generated by an invisible, watching presence, but such luxuries are in short supply here. The film works best when dealing with the supernatural, but it is essentially a parable for grief, more akin to a European existential drama than to, say, this year’s gripping Under the Shadow.  Personal Shopper indulges in long, empty scenes that involve Stewart’s character walking through a deserted manor or shopping for clothes and accessories—not an activity most audiences are likely to find exciting.

No release date has been announced yet for Slack Bay. Personal Shopper will be released in theaters on March 10, 2017.

Categories
Arts

Performance art and history

Howard J. Davis brings forgotten racial injustices to the forefront in C’est Moi, his filmmaking debut.

Performing artist, Howard J. Davis, debuts his film, C’est Moi, based on black Canadian history

Performing artist Howard J. Davis marked his debut as a filmmaker with C’est Moi, a story based on a little-known event in black Canadian history. It is a reminder of the many forgotten incidences of racial injustices that pepper Canada’s past.

Set in 18th century New France—now known as Montreal—C’est Moi is the tale of Marie-Josèphe Angélique, a slave in her late 20s who was convicted, tortured and hung for starting a fire that ravaged what is now Old Montreal. The fire was allegedly part of her plan to escape her slave-owner, but the evidence presented at the trial was inconclusive. “The beauty of storytelling is that the audience should be left to decide,” said Davis.

Angélique is “an emblem of resilience against slavery in Canada,” said Davis. He added that a big inspiration for imagery in the film was Joan of Arc.

C’est Moi was filmed in Montreal, with dancer Jenny Brizard starring as Angélique. The music and lyrics were composed and written by Davis.

The creative process for C’est Moi began eight years earlier, in 2008, during his first year at Ryerson Theatre School, said Davis. He said the story was first performed as a dance, then in spoken word before Davis decided to make it into a film. Davis decided on cinema as the most appropriate way to tell Angélique’s story because of the intimacy this medium allows.

Unapologetic about the length of time it took him to complete this project, Davis said, “I am at such a formative stage of my career that I should be allowed to take my time, and to let things sit and see how they resonate.”

Born in Britain, and of mixed race, Davis was raised in Kelowna, B.C. and lives in Toronto. Davis said he was attracted to the performing arts at a very early age, and he can’t think of a time when he was not performing—either at home with his two sisters or while at school.  Despite the fact that neither of their parents were involved in the performing arts, Davis’ sisters are also performing artists. He added that, while growing up, he idolized British actor and comedian Sir Norman Wisdom, and was mesmerized by the films he starred in.

Davis is  a member of the Dora Award, an annual arts award in Toronto, winning ensemble for Passion Play, and also a cast member of the Dora Award for nominated play Bombay Black.  More recently, Davis was promoted on set of Downsizing and was given a speaking part. Downsizing is a soon-to-be-released film directed by Alexander Payne.

Davis said he submitted C’est Moi to several film festivals and has launched a crowdfunding website to help defray the associated costs. The trailer for C’est Moi is available at www.howardjdavis.com/c-est-moi, where anyone interested in viewing the film can sign up to receive information on screening dates and locations.

Categories
Arts

The rare case of a seemingly justified sequel

RENTON (Ewan McGregor), SPUD (Ewen Bremner), SICK BOY (Jonny Lee Miller) BEGBIE (Robert Carlyle)

The trailer for the T2:Trainspotting sequel has fans and critics jumping for joy

Heroin consumption is a bleak topic. One would be pressed to find a single positive aspect of opioid consumption, as it is known to destroy lives and relationships. That’s what makes Trainspotting (1996) such a memorable film—it explores the topic of heroin addiction with a weirdly realistic sense of humour. The characters realize the futility of their habit and make fun of each other’s horrible life choices. However, the movie is still a sincere story of the void created by drugs. The film has developed a cult following due to its great script and highly-effective editing.

It is worth mentioning the film only lasts 90 minutes and concludes with an open-ended scene. This abrupt ending leaves the viewer wanting more, and rightly so. The movie was based on a then-unfinished series of books written by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh.  The book’s sequel, Porno, was published in 2002—almost a decade after the first installment. The cinematic sequel to Trainspotting will be loosely based on this second book and will explore the unorthodox topic of porn-addiction and vices.

However, Trainspotting was released 20 years ago, which makes its scheduled January 2017 sequel seem unnecessary for those who haven’t seen the original. According to Mohamad Hassan Bassal, a film studies student at Concordia, the movie industry is filled with reboots and remakes which often come much too late for them to be justified. For instance, Alice Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to the blockbuster hit Alice in Wonderland, proved to be a massive box office and critique failure, one of the reasons being the film was released six years after the original. This delay hurt the film’s ticket sales and the sequel seemed unjustified by fans and critics who found the film devoid of the charm of the first movie. Therefore, it is understandable for fans of Trainspotting to be weary of the upcoming sequel only being a cheap attempt at using nostalgia to lure people into the theater.

Despite these negative speculations, the trailer for T2: Trainspotting, which was released last week, has considerably increased interest in the story’s continuation. The trailer showcases the original cast, including big names such as Ewan McGregor, whose role in Trainspotting catapulted him to Hollywood stardom. The trailer does not reveal specific plot points but instead proves to have kept the overall feel of the original. The famous “choose life” speech, which has been endlessly quoted by cinema fans, is given a modern spin as the narrator tells the audience to “choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hope that someone, somewhere cares.”

The trailer is full of little nods to fans of the original, as it uses locations and songs from the first film. As the film has not been released yet, only time will tell if producer Danny Boyle will be able to capture lightning in a bottle for the second time.

Categories
Arts

2010 G20: A dark moment in Canadian history

Lucius Dechausay's short documentary, Kettle, showcases footage from the mass arrests at the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit

Protesters who were held hostage by the Toronto police share their story in new documentary

The 2010 Toronto G20 summit will forever be remembered as a sad moment in Canadian history. According to the Toronto Star, the event marks the largest mass arrest in Canada, as over 1,100 people were detained. The majority of these individuals were never charged, since there was no valid reason to warrant their arrest. It is a moment most Canadians would like to forget, as it projected an overwhelmingly negative image of our police force onto the international stage. At Cinema Politica’s latest screening, filmmaker Lucius Dechausay’s short documentary, Kettle, showcases footage from the protest and interviews with people who were detained by Toronto police.

What is shocking is how mundane the initial protest was. There were just a group of people standing in an intersection protesting the G20 summit. According to Terra Dafoe, one of the protestors, the atmosphere was quiet and rather calm. It was a spur-of-the-moment demonstration. After a couple of minutes of peaceful protesting, a large crowd of police officers advanced on the group, banging on their shields. What ensued was the kettling, a term used to describe the cops’ technique of boxing in a large group of people, both protesters and bystanders.

The documentary shows footage of those who were left standing in the heavy rain without proper clothes or shelter. Since the event took place in June, some protesters were wearing tank tops and flip-flops and were not given any blankets. Erin Macpherson, one of the protesters interviewed in the film, joined the voluntary line-up for arrest, thinking she would at least be able to escape the cold weather by surrendering herself to the police. Instead, she was handcuffed and left standing in the rain for hours while waiting to be processed.

A lot of those who were held in the kettle were not involved in the protest. Some were only walking home from work, some were kids enjoying a day downtown or mothers running errands. They were people in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Some were detained for 24 hours, simply because they were standing on a public street.

One of the main reasons the situation got so out of hand was the clear miscommunication between protesters and police. There was no warning to disperse nor any use of crowd dispersing equipment. Law enforcement officers were waiting for instructions from Supt. Mark Fenton, who instructed his team to arrest every person caught in the kettle. Fenton latter publicly apologized for the mass arrest order, as it “demonstrated a lack of understanding to the right to protest.” In 2015, The Toronto Star reported that Fenton was convicted on two counts of unlawful arrest and one count of discreditable conduct relating to two incidents of kettling.

This documentary reminds us why we can’t allow ourselves to shove critical moments in our history under the rug. We owe it to those who were affected by the mass arrest at the G20 summit to determine why such an embarrassing situation was allowed to unfold. Even though Kettle is uncomfortable to watch, it conveys the shortcomings of our police system.

Categories
Arts

Marvel’s superhero ranks grow once more

Doctor Strange uses his time- and space-bending abilities to save the world from destruction.

Doctor Strange brings another superpower to the Marvel cinematic universe: Magic

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) includes people gifted with incredible genius, raw power, cunning intelligence and the strength of gods. Now, it’s adding magic to the mix.

Directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rachel McAdams, Doctor Strange is an interesting and worthy addition to the Marvel franchise. It has the same core formula (reluctant hero, powerful item, final showdown) that Marvel has perfected, yet it also brings something new to the genre.

Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a brilliant neurosurgeon whose intellect is surpassed only by his ego. His world collapses after his hands are shattered in a terrible car accident, in which his vehicle goes careening off the road one rainy night. Broken both inside and out, Strange goes to great lengths to repair his hands—the tools that allow him to perform his life-saving miracles. When Western medicine fails him, a desperate Strange travels to Nepal to dabble in the mystic arts as a last resort. There, he meets the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton).

In a psychedelic montage that must have been inspired by some drug-induced trip, Strange gets a glimpse of this new world of mysticism: rushing lights, hands growing on fingers, mirror dimensions and endless universes. From there, Doctor Strange begins his tutelage in the arts of mysticism, where he learns to manipulate time, matter and space.

The cinematography of the film is incredible, featuring beautifully composed shots and incredible montages of a city folding and bending in on itself. The depictions of magic and spells are interesting and creative.

Aficionados of the superhero genre will find a breath of fresh air with this atypical Marvel film. We might not have needed another superhero origin story, but we got one anyway and it is an interesting direction to take the MCU in.

Unlike other Marvel movies, Doctor Strange doesn’t rely as much on explosions and grand finale battles. Rather, the fights occur in different dimensions where gravity is subjective and, in order to vanquish your opponent, you must bend space and time at your will. Think Inception meets The Avengers.

What’s interesting about Strange’s character is that he went searching for this power. Unlike Spider-Man, who was bitten, or Bruce Banner, who accidentally radiated himself, Strange goes out of his way to learn the mystic arts—but not under the guise of being a hero. His intentions, like his character, are self-centered. He wishes to heal his hands and become the surgeon he’s always been. Having worked on the cutting edge of science and medicine, he transitions to the harder-to-grasp mystical arts, something none of his PhDs will help him understand.

Doctor Strange is yet another piece of the Marvel puzzle, and it will be interesting to see how they all fit together.

⅘ stars.

Categories
Arts

Art and film in the post-Holocaust era

László Rajk spoke at Concordia about how artistic representations of the Holocaust have changed over time. Photo by Katerina Gang

Hungarian set designer László Rajk spoke at Concordia about his oscar-winning film, Son of Saul

Hungarian set designer, architect and activist László Rajk was at Concordia on Friday, Nov. 4  to discuss post-Holocaust art and his film, Son of Saul.

Rajk was the production designer for the Oscar-winning film, Son of Saul. The film was controversial in Germany and France because it focused on the Sonderkommando—work units made up of death camp prisoners who were forced to herd others into gas chambers and clean up corpses.

“This is still very touchy—you can never know if they are victims or if they are just cold-blooded murderers,” said Rajk. “There is not an agreement on this. It is still something we have to discuss.”

Son of Saul does not take a narrative approach. It does not show the barracks, the tragedy or the people. The story is told using noise—soldiers talking, people screaming, footsteps down corridors. “Noise became a partner for my visual design,” said Rajk, “because sometimes it’s the noise which describes the set and not the set itself.”

The camera focuses on protagonist Saul Auslander’s face almost exclusively, blurring the sets Rajk created. It forces you to “concentrate on the man, on the person, and not on the surroundings,” said Rajk, “because you understand [the background] without seeing it.”

Empathy, said Rajk, made the technical aspects of set design difficult as, “on one hand, you have to be very cool, almost cynical. Not cynical, but almost; on the edge,” said Rajk. “On the other hand, you cannot—you must not—be cynical, because then you lose all the emotions. To balance it out, that’s a very, very hard thing.”

Rajk talked about how art after the Holocaust evolved from taboo to personal. He also explained the debate over whether it was right or wrong to produce art about the Holocaust—if one even could.

Some artists, like Claude Lanzmann, known for his Holocaust film Shoah (1985), believed the only acceptable art was documentary or eyewitness testimony. Art about the Holocaust initially documented what happened, with drawings produced by liberators, Rajk explained.

Immediately after the Holocaust though, Rajk explained, art entered an “amnesia” period. “People didn’t really talk about it—there were very few oral histories about those people who survived,” said Rajk. “They rather wanted to forget.”

Abstract commemorations were erected, as narrative pieces were taboo. Similar imagery was used worldwide, like Moses’ broken tablets and the Star of David. These monuments were huge, Rajk said, to show the weight of the Holocaust.

Art moved into a naturalistic period during the 50s and 60s, explained Rajk. Monuments depicted the tragedy – often featuring starved and brutalized depictions of people. The focus, however, began to shift from tragedy to victory in the 60s, when socialist countries began to shift the narrative to their resistance.

In the late 60’s Holocaust art began to shift, according to Rajk, from depicting people as a group of victims to honoring individuals. Monuments and museums focused on names, photographs and belongings. Artists began laying stomping stones, meant to commemorate those who died during the Holocaust, outside victims’ homes with their names on them.

“In front of my house, there is a stone. I don’t know the family, but I’m sitting on the same stairs—I’m using the doorknob. It’s a very smart monument,” said Rajk. “It really gets into your mind and it’s always there, somewhere.”

Rajk created the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum exhibit for Hungary in 2004. It tackles personal aspects of the Holocaust, through the lens of missing culture. “All those people had been killed. They didn’t have a grandson, they didn’t have a family, they didn’t compose their symphony, they didn’t build their houses,” said Rajk. “There is an unbelievable gap in the European culture.”

Rajk has also been at the forefront of many Hungarian activist movements. He was part of the Democratic Opposition during the Soviet Regime, and was a member of Hungary’s first post-Soviet Union parliament for six years. “After a while, as a creative artist or a creative intellectual, you start to realize you cannot do your creativity,” said Rajk, referring to life within the Soviet sphere of influence. “It’s boring to be a slave, to be not free.”

Rajk’s fight for human rights continues. Rajk recently returned his state awards to the government after they gave state honours to a few racist and anti-Semitic individuals. “The government is probably not directly supporting anti-Semitic movements, but doesn’t put an obstacle,” he said. “It doesn’t want to stop it. It’s just kind of laissez-faire.”

Exit mobile version