bgilch Reviews

India: Matri Bhumi (1959)

A disappointment

[4/10 · 17 April 2007]

Perhaps it was the incredibly washed-out, virtually monochrome print. Perhaps it was the non-stop painful soundtrack of bird noises. Perhaps it was the overbearing, condescending ceaseless narration.

But mostly this supposed masterpiece reminded me of schoolroom educational films. The camera work is not particularly great; we learn little about actual (as opposed to staged) life in India; though closely immersed in local settings, there is virtually no geographic, historic or temporal overview to guide us; and the staged sequences come across as forced and distancing, most alarmingly with the monkey sequence at the end (it verges on flat out cruelty). Other sections have sudden and jarring outcomes that work entirely against the drawn-outness of the rest.

I can't think of a film that has aged less well than this basic documentary. Just because it's by a master doesn't make it a masterpiece. And yes, I watched it closely, understood its structure and themes and so forth. There are good sequences in the film (the elephant logging and dam building in particular evoke a clearly dichotomous relationship with nature) but it could have been well-trimmed, better contextualized, and shorn of its irritating narration.

What we have here is an outsider's, deastheticized, desaturated, scattershot, only slightly empathetic view of India. Let the images speak! And, most of all, let the Indians speak for themselves. It's taken 50 years to realize we should give them the cameras (Born into Brothels comes to mind.)

Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball (2006)

Excellent, but....

[7/10 · 9 July 2006]

This is an extremely well made, often beautifully shot documentary about the incredible pressure of high-school baseball and team spirit in one public and one private Japanese school.

However, it seems to offer no criticism or external perspective on what is going on; in this way it is fetishistic of baseball pyjama uniforms and team pride and moreover seems to reinforce every stereotype about Japanese culture and team conformity (especially the weird transplantation of American school rituals, themselves insane to begin with).

The scene where the coach cries in tandem with his charge, asking to be a part of his future life is the one moment where the story is nicely humanized.

Perhaps it could be read a primer on how fascism works: Triumph of the High-School Basesball Team Will. And I mean this with respect to the quality of film-making at work.

Chernobyl Heart (2003)

Yes, Heartbreaking

[1 April 2005]

It says a lot for the ignorance of mainstream film culture that this Academy Award Winning Doc Short has generated only three user comments on IMDb and zero external comments. Has anybody seen this film?

It is also bothersome in a way that the film is in HBO distribution because of the context of exploitative fare HBO deals in---all the sex documentaries Sheila Nevins puts out. And then this, sandwiched in-between.

The imagery is beyond exploitative; it so far over the line and yet obviously true. You could find these birth defects almost everywhere in the world but only in isolation. Here, they are in terrible concentration and the kids are suffering in terrible conditions in terrible state hospitals, mental wards and orphanages. All you Ronald Reagan boosting Americans who think 'freedom' won the day, 'won' the Cold War, look at what you have reduced Russia and its sister states to, just look at this and think what massive Lies you grew up under in the 1970's and 1980's and what they have brought about and become.

The next Chernobyl might be caused by internal terrorism in the US, but it will likely be, as the film says, Chernobyl itself. 97% of the radiation is still concentrated there, says the film.

If I seem angry it is from watching the film, the fallout, pardon the ugly metaphor, from the film. Why this is not a full-length film I do not understand. Why are their no officials interviewed, why is there no government response and responsibility? Why is no one from the UN interviewed? Why is the scope so small? Because the film telescopes to discuss the living conditions and medical defects only, it is 40 minutes of nothing but suffering and the small attempts to curtail it, to fix one problem, the 'Chernobyl Heart' defect that seems so tiny a victory in its symbolism.

It is one of the hardest and most necessary pieces of film I've ever watched. But the content is far too important to be compressed into such a painful frame, so stripped of context.

Think of how much the world could change if all the major TV networks in the world agreed to show this in prime time, simultaneously, without commercials.

When I was growing up in the hippiefied 70's, all the grade seven kids in my school were made to watch "Do You Love This Planet?". (Somehow, I don't think it was on the curriculum.) The most lasting, and sensible, propaganda experiment of my childhood. It stuck. There is no reason for this film not be similarly shown.

Gasman (1997)

'Gasman'

[10/10 · 9 February 2005]

I've never been a fan of short films for their 'art-school' and 'experimental' qualities. Simply being a product of those two is not enough. They are almost always too personal, too opaque, and too much obviously serving as 'stepping-stones'.

I was therefore happy to see Lynne Ramsay's short films as the chrysalis for her superb feature films. I was also impressed to learn that she won the Cannes short-film prize, *twice*. And now I can see what others saw in her, for _Gasman_ is the best short film I have ever seen.

Available on the Criterion DVD with _Small Deaths_ and the less good _Kill the Day_, _Gasman_ is a fully-fledged, visionary film that translates directly into the skill and grace of _Ratcatcher_.

_Gasman_ moves directly from the first piece of _Short Deaths_, with the distant father and Lynne Ramsay Jr. again taking centre screen. But _Gasman_ comes to a kind a fruition--a full story with many of the same themes and techniques of _Ratcatcher_: closely observed yet elliptical human behaviour, housing projects, slum-beauty, children's natures, a jumbled impressionistic world caught in partial body closeups and shots from behind people.

The film 'tells' nothing, but the story is dead clear and builds slowly to an emotional pitch that is almost unbearable.

This is a film of jaw-dropping beauty. Sounds trite, but that's how I feel. When the Da and two kids walk on the tracks, the camera is set to a partially closed iris which intensifies the available light and colour in an otherworldly sheen--one that is gone when they return on the same tracks at night, in disappointment. Beauty in service of story is the key.

This *is* the best short film I have ever seen.

Joyeux Calvaire (1996)

Unsentimental View of Homelessness

[7/10 · 25 January 2005]

A kind of 'Waiting for Godot' in mirror-reflection--peripatetic, ambulatory, not hopeless.

Two homeless men walk from place to place in Montreal, one a good talker, one a good listener. We see the routine, the expectations and treatment of homeless people in this city. Nothing much happens to the main characters; rather, we see their connections to the people they once were via flashback and the connections they have now lost to society; we also see other homeless people who are in far worse shape.

Denys Arcand's directorial style is unsentimental and certainly unprepossessing. The camera generally follows them around not looking for pseudo-poetic moments; instead, it regards them. Many, if not all, of the characters really are homeless people, but this is done without an overt intention to re-dramatize as it is simply to hear stories told or see what people offer of themselves in a short space of time.

This is not a message movie but one that holds a mirror up to the way these two people and the people they meet live and talk. That, in itself, is enough. I suppose you could consider this as part of a genre of 'walking' movies, if you wanted to include Richard Linklater's work, and Gus van Sant's 'Gerry', but the tone here is neither philosophical nor introspective. It is simply put a day in the lives of these two men, with more pointed flashbacks.

Arcand's reputation took a bit of a hit with this film, in the sense that it was something to do between major fiction projects, and in the sense of 'so what', 'we know this already', but it is enough for me for this film to have captured a time and place and the people in it. One thing for sure, Montreal in '95, '96 was at the bottom of its economic cycle. The city is much improved since then, mercifully.

The Uncles (2000)

Nice little film

[7/10 · 11 August 2003]

This is a well-crafted small Canadian film about a restaurant manager trying to juggle work, family and love, though the three are all unfortunate in one way or another. Chris Owens (yup, Agent Spender) is very good in the central role and manages to hold things together with his solid, careful performance. He obviously had his heart in this script and film. He took a good role in a small film.

Digital Video quality is not great, but the direction is efficient and understated. The script is good and manages to pinpoint the truth in its characters. The sound quality is also good (see Chutney Popcorn to hear how bad sound quality is worse than bad visual quality). What's best of all in the film is its eveness of tone and its recognition of limitations, in that it keeps the course without faltering from trying too hard. Sure, it won't change your life, but it is worthwhile. And no shaky-cam!

Two cheers to James Allodi for seeing his project through. It ain't Rohmer or Pasolini (silly comparisons) but it's honest and shows promise. Someone should give this guy a chance to make a film with a bigger budget for he has the tools and will impress. I kept on thinking how much more I would enjoy it on proper film.

Ratcatcher (1999)

beautiful

[9/10 · 15 March 2003]

Mike Geraghty Jr. says it all his review of this beautiful film.

And Ken C. from Hertford is a twit for calling this a British film. It's Scots, through and through, and beautiful.

Ramsay's 2nd feature, _Morvern Callar_ is also good, but go out of your way to see _Ratcatcher_. Well worth it.

Jude (1996)

greatness

[10/10 · 12 March 2001]

The best film of the 1990's.

Dazzling and heartbreaking in every way imaginable.

Eccleston and Winslet give career performances, Hossein Amini's screenplay is judicious and honest, and Winterbottom's direction and cinematography capture everything there is in Hardy's greatest novel.

Unmissible, unparallelled, and devastatingly beautiful.

The Accompanist (1992)

another winning film from france

[9/10 · 7 December 2000]

A seemingly small but strongly rendered film. Sophie, 20, lives in the poor quarter of Paris but is a talented and completely understated pianist. She gains employment as the accompanist for wealthy and daringly honest woman, a professional singer who graces the film with lush performances from Massenet, Brahms, Mozart etc... Yet she is a woman beholden to her husband who is himself in 'import-export' during WWII, ie. playing off both sides as long as he can. He's outspoken, she's a songbird with emotional depth and secrets, and the accompanist is near mute--observing, spying, daring herself to act and to reveal secrets, yet always loyal to her master.

Over and over the film goes to Sophie's face, watching her reactions, gauging what she's thinking of and what she might do next. And always, Romane Bohringer is up to the task. This is a great performance by a young French lead, comparable to Elodie Bouchez in La Vie Revee des Anges, but here she is wholly deferring, only gaining enough courage to talk to herself in the mirror. Always on the precipice of action, her almost blank impassive face gives the film tremendous suspense and great feeling.

The metaphors of the film are simple and mercifully left unspoken: if accompianment subsumes the self to the master performer, collaboration is a marriage that cannot be tolerated. In this way, the film speaks to the French dilemma and guilt of WWII but does so through the lens of marriage and the distant observer who becomes wound closer around the marriage bond than even she realizes, with startling results. If the key moment is about misdirection, then the film as a whole is about whether we allow ourselves to be misdirected.

The focus is small, but the themes are large and subtlely drawn. Likewise, the production is top notch--clear and never showy. The direction is near flawless, and the music is bright and finely wrought. You'll watch it for the music, for Bohringer pere et fille, but the story is every bit as interesting and patiently rendered as it needs to be. This is neither avant-garde, nor epic as we tend to expect much French fare is; it is closer in spirit to Patrice Leconte's work, but even more muted, but no less honest and surprising.

Sumo Bruno (2000)

fat + fit = fun

[4 September 2000]

The fun--if lightweight--fable of a 420lb German softie who toughens himself to go after the World Sumo Championship which coincidentally happens to be held in his hometown. Gentle performance by our big hero in a gently perfunctory script. Some good sight gags and an attractive love interest keep the movie bouncing along towards a fairly determined ending. We could have had more of the Japanese coach (where is the necessary philosophical doctrine, the mantra?) and a bit less of the mean ex-boyfriend. Real sumo fans may be disappointed with the fairly limited sumo action. Somewhere between a kid's movie and a fable for fattie adults, the movie is enjoyable on its primary level as a mild comedy. The opening and closing credits are a delightful treat. The Canadian lumberjack sumo was also a howler. Mike G. liked this movie even better than I did. The director also showed up at our screening in Montreal and he was the nicest guy imaginable and terribly funny.

Hello Cinema (1995)

Act!

[9/10 · 20 April 2000]

A remarkable small film from Iran. A director holds a casting call for 100 actors to appear in his next film. 5000 people show up, some desperate, some bewildered, and some self-absorbed. The director calls in each person, sometimes in large groups, and asks them all why they came. He then requests that they act, some he even demands to laugh or cry within 10 seconds because that's what actors can do, indeed must do. Alternately cruel and cajoling he is relentless in his pursuit of the truth of acting. 'Can they act' enfolds within it, 'why act'?

Anyone interested in the process of filmmaking, of acting, in documentaries, and in a open-faced discussion of what art is and what artistic responsibility is will find much to laugh, cry, and think about in this film. The consequences of the director's questions and the veracity of the answers will surprise you. Somewhere amongst playing God, the director discovers a genuine democracy.

Walter & June (1983 TV Movie)

tough to watch

[8 April 2000]

A study of a mentally-retarded adult as he copes with the decrepit British social services system of the Thatcher years. He keeps pigeons, walks aimlessly in the slums, can't hold a job, gets thrown in the worst hospital in England, and comes to love someone much like himself.

This careful and painful film shows McKellen and director Frears at their best. Not easy to watch and cruelly unsentimental, it is nonetheless an important classic of grit-level British realism. This film convinced me at a young age that I would never live in an England that treated people like this.

Screenplay: Love Lies Bleeding/L'Inconnue de Belfast (1993) Season 8, Episode 1

Difficult but rewarding

[8/10 · 13 January 2000]

Another dark and gritty film belmed by Michael Winterbottom, this time set in the tangle and poverty of Belfast, not where one would expect this Oxbridge director to appear.

Mark Rylance (Angels & Insects) gives a superb and challenging performance as Conn, a murderer who has served 12 years and is let out for a 24 hr pass to spend with his family. His mind says the political struggle is behind him but he is obsessed with revenge for his lover Laile.

His 24 hr journey goes from Catholic to Orange territory and back and weaves through the infolded divisiveness that is the state of Northern Ireland. But politics is not the issue, nor violence; instead, nothing is simply laid out. The low key speaking voices and the twisting plot make this film difficult to follow at times but its insistence at keeping at Conn's level and avoidance of exploding the issue work to maintain a superior psychological portrait.

Another realist portrait by Winterbottom and another success.

The Young Poisoner's Handbook (1995)

Sick 'n Brilliant

[9/10 · 11 January 2000]

This delightfully evil confection should warm the cockles of any mad scientist's heart. Our 14 year old hero dispenses antimony with precision glee and soon graduates to thalium before getting caught. But that's just the beginning really. A preternaturally good perfomance in the lead role, superior period decor of the hideous early sixties, a score to bless Purcell's heart, a cool and steady directorial hand and a wicked sympathy for the young man in question work to maximal effect. This may be the first quality film I've seen that genuinely crosses the line of sympathy for the evildoer; toss in lots of vomit and the best gotcha jump scene ever carried off, and there's lots to shy away from--for the faint of heart. Oliver Sacks sometimes writes about the joys and freedoms for the mind of a young chemistry set owner in the old days before restriction but I don't think he had this in mind. And my girlfriend wonders why I shy away from potluck dinners.

Peppermint Frappé (1967)

almost worthy to bunuel

[8/10 · 6 January 2000]

Anyone familiar with Bunuel will find a treat of similar proportions in Peppermint Frappe's fascinating study of a fetishistic mind. This film is so carefully gripping that its mild-manneredness hides its thriller nature; instead, the film favours a meticulous reconstruction of a man's past desire projected into a vertiginous present he now creates. For all the layered desire and sexual tension, however, it is the subtle power of sublimation that works best. Consider the long, breath-taking seduction scene of the radiologist, the nurse & the rowing machine. The art direction is excellent and the opening credit music is great. Where the film loses its edge is in the direction, which is not as skilled as that of the dedicatee. This is more noticeable at the end, where the camera movement gives way to freeform and has a very dated late 60's look. A pivotal song in the film is likewise hard to take seriously. Still, the film is mesmerizing & scenic, & Jose of the 4 names- the radiologist, gives a tremendously controlled performance. It's his film and he carries it brilliantly. Ana, the nurse, is excellently portrayed as well. Overall, fascinating but not sharp enough

Dog Park (1998)

How could this have happened?

[1/10 · 25 September 1999]

Bruce McCullough was the drollest, the most acerbic of the Kids in the Hall. He made the best vignettes--remember, It Was the Night of the Cow??

But with this film, he's produced a maudlin, agonizing bore devoid of laughs or insight. Painfully stilted acting and writing reveal a wholesale lack of mind at work. Ostensibly a sensitive romantic comedy, it's a mutt in need of paper. It makes The Truths About Cats & Dogs look like genius in comparison. McCullough proves he knows *nothing* about other people and how they live and act.

Euthanasia please.

Temptation of a Monk (1993)

Highly enjoyable medieval spaghetti eastern

[9/10 · 5 September 1999]

"Temptation of a Monk" has a bit of everything. It starts out as a dry morality tale of a kingdom collapsing under historical duress. Here it is pretty and easily mimics Chen Kaige. It then turns into a wandering ronin movie with comedic touches and low culture carnival. But then our hero, the exiled and chased bodyguard, hides in a monastery and brings violence and sex that threaten the spiritual lessons of the cloistered environment. And so on.

This film manages to make numerous changes of course and imitates almost every genre of historical Chinese filmmaking. From the high culture ideal of the court to the equal severity of the cloister to the comedic about face of the hot-tub scene, director Law shows a playful seriousness and the power of mimicry as she rapidly changes forms--even as the film heads towards a seemingly inevitable spaghetti eastern showdown replete with fire and destruction to make Clint Eastwood blush. That is, if Clint hadn't already blushed at the fabulously hetero sex scene. Stoic lust never looked so good, or so demanding.

The acting is very strong; the cinematography first-class and often breathtaking with its numerous different landscapes and set constructions. And the battle scenes are of course expertly delivered.

SUM: This film is knowledgeable fun for those who know the high forms of Asian cinema but who want the swords put to good, if tasteful, use. Deserved winner of numerous Hong Kong film awards 8.5/10

Guinevere (1999)

I really wanted this to be a good film. It just wasn't.

[3/10 · 4 September 1999]

I just saw of this film at the Montreal World Film Festival. Stephen Rea and Sarah Polley were in attendance. You could not ask for two better actors. Rea plays a 45-50ish photographer who seduces 20 yr. old Sarah Polley to give up her law school career and become an artist and his live-in- lover.

The director and writer, Audrey Wells, also directed and wrote The Truth About Cats and Dogs. I intensely disliked that film because it was implausible, not grounded in any reality, and because even the luminous Jeneane Garafalo couldn't save it. Audrey Wells also wrote Inspector Gadget; clearly, her writing leaves something to be desired. In this film she manages to put interesting situations (May-September romance / high vs. low class) forth but whenever they approach any hard edges here comes the soft humour or easy way outs or just plain ambiguously unrealized character motives. Polley's character would get to say one disturbing or strong thing, then have go on acting so obviously well below her & her character's intelligence.

I consistently thought scenes were misdirected and that the writing gave up on itself and fell into cliche, sapping it of any force it had. And with the potential force between these two great actors never realized it was a sad loss. This is no Lolita or Educating Rita. Consider even the ballyhooed scene were Jean Smart, in a good job, takes down Rea's character in front of her daughter (the 'awe' scene.) The camera focusses intently on Smart's malice. Think how much better that little diatribe would be if we were watching *Polley's* reaction while hearing the *mother's* words. That would be a real dislocation. Then we could see the full range of which Polley is absolutely capable.

Also, the soundtrack music was very synthetic and touchy-feely and it worked completely against the (potentially) creepy aspect of the film, until the white-light hogwash of the end. But if you liked all that white-light business in "Kissed" & if you could tolerate the preposterous situation of Cats & Dogs, then maybe you will like this film. As it was, I found it singularly unconvincing, the moreso as it went along.

ps. Sandra Oh is very funny with the two minutes of screen time she gets. Sandra Oh is always excellent. If you want to see a good Sarah Polley & Sandra Oh film, rent "Last Night". It's brilliant. For Stephen Rea, look forward to his next Neil Jordan film.

The Hanging Garden (1997)

Hanging Garden is a small, intensely felt film abo...

[9/10 · 7 August 1998]

Hanging Garden is a small, intensely felt film about a family in tatters and a son whose own problems are eclipsed until he does something he can't take back. Given the film's major conceit is a breach in family fabric that can't be woven back in, magic realism is an applicable term--but only so if shot through the caustic self-wounding humour of the Maritimes, where I lived for six years. If this seems dour, then consider the take-off marriage sequence that opens the film: drunkeness, homoeroticism, Celtic music madness and four-dozen f-words. This film is a gorgeous if painful tribute to growing up in a remove that already seems past its age, in an ocean playground whose garden has gone to seed. This film was ranked, and fairly, as the best Canadian film of 1997 by the Jay Stone of the Globe & Mail (Canada's national newspaper), and if that makes Americans laugh, then consider this is a ranking ahead of Sweet Hereafter, which only made it to the Best Director Oscar Nomination and Cannes Recognition for Atom Egoyan and was also Roger Ebert's #2 film of the year. Adulations all around are deserving for this home-grown production. The film only suffers from inexperience with some actors and having to come up with a conclusion for a tale that can't logically have one. And the parents are excellent in it too, especially the mum. At the singular, crucial sequence of the film all the elements of the film - colour, symbolism, lamentation and ladyslipperknots - fuse in breathtaking splendor, and I mean so in the inhaled gasp that graces the east coast 'yes '. It still stuns me in memoriam. Four Stars * * * *