Movies – Page 9 – Nicolas Demers

Vancouver International Film Festival Review: Insomnia

More Canadian shorts, but these are more focused on art and the artist’s life.

L’année de l’os

Some weird abstract shit. Pretty entertaining under different circumstances, but it was also fairly hypnotic and I think it put me to sleep. Not kidding, but I also blame the fact that I was tired that day.

The Sapporo Project

A lovely animated short featuring the work of Japanese artist and calligrapher Gazanbou Higuchi.

Lippset Diaries

An imaginary peek inside the tortured mind of experimental filmmaker Arthur Lippset

Madame Perrault’s Bluebeard

A disturbing retelling of the story of Bluebeard, where fiction and reality merge.

Figs in Motion

Two butch daddies put on tutus and prance about. Then they put on horse heads and keep going. Very, very cute.

Ghost Noise

The longest film of the series, this is a look at Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona, her life in Cape Dorset, and the strange, wonderful things going through her mind.

Flawed

A long-distance relationship between an artist and a successful plastic surgeon, narrated by the artist herself and illustrated with hand-painted postcards. The resolution definitely counts as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming

Break a Leg

An aspiring actor rehearses a scene with his grandson in a diner. Better than it sounds.

Labour Laws

Anything a woman can do, she can do pregnant! Wait, even pole dancing? Sure! Why not?

Exposed

An elevator breakdown leads to a moment of passion between a photographer and his surprise subject. Hilarious and erotic.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Biddie Schitzerman

An eightysomething standup comedienne’s last show with her loyal sidekick. Or is it? CMoH #2 of the night.

Vancouver International Film Festival Review: Amnesia

Some fine, fine Canadiana on display in this collection of short films! Touching, funny, or just creepy, but most of all, very bilingual! I’m not exactly sure what amnesia has to do with Canada, and I didn’t see any particular theme amongst the films… But anyway, on to the reviews!

Moi non plus (Me Neither)

The first, and weakest, short. A Concordia (I think) student must deal with a relationship with a powerful politician, who seems to be tangled in shady businesses, and a surprise affair with a charming fellow student. Unfortunately the characters weren’t really developed, and the ending was anticlimactic and predictable.

Mind the Gap

But now we’re picking up steam! This hilarious little film pairs up a beautiful but seriously messed up young woman with a sweet older gentleman. Stuck together on a train, she talks his head off about whatever flashes through her tiny brain. We laugh, we cringe, we want to slap some sense into her. Good times.

Naissances

A teenager who just had an abortion and a lonely handyman bond over lies. Quiet, sad and beautifully done.

Transmission

A tow truck driver just struggling to get by finds his day getting worse and worse. A simple slice of life, with disturbingly believable characters.

La dernière rondelle (The Last Time Around)

An old hockey player suffering from Alzheimer’s goes on the ice one last time. Wordless, and deeply moving.

Au milieu de nulle part ailleurs (Nowhere, Elsewhere)

A little boy who can see the Virgin Mary, a grandmother who might see ghosts, and a mother who thinks she might join them. Weird, crazy, dizzying, creepy.

Original Sin

Choices, order, and control freakery. Weird but hilarious.

Chloe and Attie

An old lady who can… make people kill each other through their iPods? I don’t know what that was about, but it was pretty damn chilling.

A Fine Young Man

A hilarious parody of Cold War paranoia and jingoism (filmed on location in Vancouver! Didn’t recognise the street, though…) What’s more important that beating those dirty Commies to the Moon? The answer may surprise you…

The Closer You Get to Canada

And the black humour continues! In the year 2060, overpopulation is no longer a problem. Running out of animals to hunt used to be a problem, but not anymore…

Vancouver International Film Festival Review: Palimpsest

Gustav Shpet: Russian philosopher, teacher, writer, polyglot and interpreter; born in Kiev in 1879; exiled to Tomsk, Siberia in 1935; executed in 1937.

This movie is mostly narrated by Shpet’s 92-year old daughter Marina in a series of informal interviews, intercut with contemporaneous film reels, photos and music, as well as Shpet’s letters to Marina during his exile.

Gustav Shpet: Russian philosopher, teacher, writer, polyglot and interpreter; born in Kiev in 1879; exiled to Tomsk, Siberia in 1935; executed in 1937.

We follow Marina as she visits the university (much changed) where her father taught, the church she occasionally attended in the 30’s (hardly changed); tries to visit the apartment where she lived (security wouldn’t even let the film crew and her through the front door); tells the story of her husband, who died one year after her father, working to take down the Russian coat of arms from the Kremlin’s Spasskaya tower and replace it with the tacky red neon star that still shines today.

And we visit a Tomsk museum to Siberian exiles. Shpet is just one of hundreds of names that came to Siberia, one face on a whole wall of faces. The museum curator tells visitors that the NKVD actually planned their purges and ethnic cleanses, with expected minimums (quotas?) of roundups for each region per year.

In the end this is not a story about one man, smart and accomplished though he was. It’s a story about memory, connecting with our past the better to understand our present. And it’s about a past that’s always present no matter how much we try to erase it—streets and buildings, phrases, memories. The Soviet regime did their best to erase ideas, thoughts, and people. To a degree they succeeded, but only to a degree. Shpet told his daughter that “culture, culture, not politics” is what will keep us moving forward. Without going into too much detail, I tend to agree. Culture, memory both individual and collective, this is vitally important to identity and progress.

Palimpsest was preceded by the short Heart in the Wrong Place (original title: Tener el corazón en el lugar equivicado), featuring the extremely awesome experimental filmmaker José Antionio Sistiaga.

Vancouver International Film Festival Review: The Eye 3D

This hour-long film takes us on a tour of the Very Large Telescope array in Cerro Paranal, Chile—the most powerful deep-space telescope in the world. We hear the scientists and technicians describe their work and discoveries, and through them get a tantalising glimpse of the cosmos.

I expected to see lots of grand starscapes, as in that IMAX movie on Hubble, but we only see a little bit of those right at the beginning, to get us in the mood. The rest of the movie is very down to earth, a lot of it dealing with life at a compound in the middle of nowhere, and the nitty-gritty details of scientific research and making those ginormous telescopes work. And you know what? This was just as inspirational. The people there absolutely love their work: the phrase “dream come true” comes up at least twice from resident scientists; one relatively minor technician also waxes rhapsodic about the VLT’s work in pushing back the boundaries of knowledge, and awesomely refers to the community of workers as his second family.

But we also hear about the science, and it is beautiful: from the supermassive black hole at the core of our galaxy (indirectly detected from tracking the movements of nearby stars, themselves detectable only by the VLT), to another scientist’s research into extragalactic black holes and how our own black hole applies to that, to monitoring the ancient light of unbelievably faraway galaxies… Man, working there really would be any astronomy geek’s dream come true.

The ESO is planning an even larger telescope array, called the Extremely Large Telescope. The location still hasn’t been decided as far as I know, but one candidate site is not too far from the Cerro Paranal—it’s really an ideal region, high up and very dry all year round. Even now the next generation of astronomers, in high school or university, are dreaming and working and a select few will get to work on the ELT, looking for Earth-like planets around distant stars and studying light remnants from the first generation of galaxies.

PS: The movie was in 3D, which I found pretty unnecessary. I’m no fan of 3D to begin with, and with most of the scenes being talking heads, or indoors, I really didn’t see why I had to wear an extra pair of glasses. Meh. Still, that was the only sore point.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival: Final Thoughts

Wow, what a trip it’s been. Going to so many screenings and then blogging about them will really take it out of you, but it was so worth it! I’ve seen some truly excellent movies this year, along with some… not so excellent ones. Well, they can’t all be winners, right?

But what made this year different was my decision to see as many movies as humanly possible, and then blog about them. Two years ago, I wrote a single blog post on The Coast Is Queer. One year ago, I wrote one blog post with short reviews of all the movies I saw (all 6 of them.) This year? A separate post for every single movie, in most cases written within a day of the actual showing (and never more than two): the longest, most intense sustained blogging I’ve ever done!

Let’s recap the festival a bit:

Number of shows I’ve seen: 14

Number of nights I did not see a movie: 3, including the opening and closing galas (I had to miss Wednesday night because of volleyball). One day I’ll remember in time that the opening and closing shows are not covered by the festival pass. I already had plans for the 12^th so that couldn’t be helped, but I could have gone to the closing gala. Next year, I promise!

Number of wonderful, lovely people I met during the festival: lots

Favourite feature-length movie: Pornography: A Thriller

Favourite short film: Ooo, tough question. That’d be a tossup between The Heist and That’s Right Diana Barry, You Needed Me

Least favourite feature-length movie: Watercolors

Least favourite short film: No, I’m not going there. There were some shorts that didn’t speak to me, but none that I actively disliked.

Movies that I wanted to see but didn’t get the chance to: Children of God (who everyfuckingbody is still raving about); Gayblevision, which I had originally planned to go see until I realised the Zombie Walk was on that day and it’d be too hard to go all the way to Granville Island in time, and then back downtown to watch The Fish Child; the opening and closing gala screenings, Undertow / Contracorriente and Strella.

Favourite app: Okay, trick question, because there’s only one: the VQFF iPhone app, custom-made by the fine folks at Creative B’stro, the same ones responsible for the VQFF web site. It’s sharp, hip, pretty, and loaded with terrific features. Screening list, venue list, your own schedule, even your choice of pickup lines for when you’re standing next to a cute boy/girl/etc in line for a movie. Pity I could never get the “Compatibility” feature to work, for some reason it wouldn’t connect to other phones. Oh well.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: The Fish Child / El Niño Pez

This is the story of Lala, the teenaged daughter of a rich Buenos Aires judge, and her lover Ailin, a maid in her family’s house. The pair plans to to run away together to Ailin’s family home in Paraguay near Lago Ypoa, but when Lala’s father is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Ailin takes the blame to protect her lover. What will happen to them now? Can they escape the law and live out their dreams?

The Fish Child is a magnificent movie, and the above summary really doesn’t do it justice. The synopsis says “[Director Lucía] Puenzo makes a conscious decision not to make the clandestine lesbian love story the central dilemma. Any stigma attached to the Lalaâ€™s sexual orientation is secondary to the obstacles imposed by Argentinaâ€™s sharp class divide.” And it’s true: nobody’s really shocked at the girls’ relationship, but Ailin has had to endure emotional and sexual abuse from Lala’s father, her own father, the police commissioner, not to mention being a poor member of a racial minority.

But the movie also speaks of the power of love and dreams to take us through those trials. Lala’s plans to escape with Ailin and build a little house by Lake Ypao may seem naive, but after they’re on the run it’s all they have. Maybe that’s enough; the movie leaves that an open question, and that’s okay.

This hasn’t been an easy review to write. A lot of scenes are pretty dark and disturbing, and the exact timeline of events was a bit hard to follow at first. The movie uses flashbacks a lot, and drops the viewers right in the middle of the story. Plus, this is a movie with layers, a lot of which I’m sure I haven’t gotten right now, but which will become clear on a second viewing.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: From Coast To Coast Is Queer

It’s good to be queer and Canadian! This brand-new installment complements The Coast Is Queer to show queer shorts from all over this fair land of ours. The program included a dozen titles, but I’ll only list the ones that made a strong impression on me.

The Island

Filmed in Cold Lake, Alberta, I believe. Cold Lake looks… cold. I guess it’s probably not just miles and miles of snow every day of the year, but damn. Anyway, the snow forms a great contrast to the cute animation and cuter fantasy of an all-gay tropical island.

Lesbian National Parks

Oh, sure, it’s full of easy jokes about endangered lesbian species like the Marxist-Feminist and Bull-Dykus Americanus, but I didn’t care. So funny!

Au pays des esprits

The only French language short of the night (with subtitles). In a letter to his father, the narrator draws parallels between Louis Riel’s resistance and his own. Lovely use of archival footage, but I’m not sure I really got it. I’d probably have to watch it a couple more times.

Labels

Okay, so having a fetish for cowboys makes you Alberta-sexual? Ha! This cute little movie by David C Jones questioned the importance of all the labels we put on our preferences. Incidentally, it got me thinking about The Butch Factor, where some of the men also downplayed the importance of the label “gay”. The difference is, they didn’t play it for laughs.

The Reason Why

One man’s open letter to four of his exes, all named Mark. Drama and humour in equal amounts

Basin

Native drumming and shots of the Athabasca River basin—lovely pristine water and nature, contrasted with the devastation caused by tar sand extraction. Sort of reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi.

Love Exiled

This film focuses on American or half-American couples who had to move to Canada to get married. They speak of being exiled, unable to return because their marriage wouldn’t be recognised. Grandparents are separated from grandchildren, families are split… this is the human cost of bigotry. Not that the bigots care.

Mind you, there’s a potentially happy ending. The movie was done before Judge Walker struck down Prop 8, so an update may show same-sex marriages happening again in California. We can but hope.

That’s Right Diana Barry, You Needed Me

Canada has given us Anne Murray and Anne of Green Gables. Put the two together and what do you get? A sing-along to Anne Murray’s You Needed Me, with shots of Anne Shirley and her bosom friend (heh) Diana Barry, of course! There’s nothing like a little lesbian subtext and audience participation. This was by far the best short of the night, and a serious contender for best short of the whole festival.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: Plan B

Well, that was pretty good: an odd little love triangle out of Argentina, with some very cute moments, excellent acting, and nice cinematography.

The story is that Bruno’s ex, Laura (who he still wants to get back together with), has a new boyfriend, Pablo. Perhaps intending revenge, perhaps just to sabotage their relationship to leave Laura available to him, Bruno starts making friends with Pablo, but the two eventually fall for each other.

I think what really stands out in this movie were the little moments. The two men bonding over a favourite TV show. Asking each other “If you were a toy, what kind of toy would you be?”—and later, as things get a little more serious, buying each other those same toys. Pablo quietly breaking into tears upon realising the game Bruno was playing. The mutual undressing scene near the end, so hilariously awkward. There was a spark there, but the men still didn’t quite know what to do with it. I don’t know if the actors were straight or just damn good at their jobs, but they really sold that scene.

Though some things were lost in translation. I’m not talking about the subtitles, but the style and aesthetics. Like most South American movies I’ve seen, Plan B’s pace is very slow, with loving attention paid to cinematography—either the beach, or the cityscapes. There was a bit near the end where, for a couple of minutes, the movie was nothing but a slow collage of buildings, each cut at least ten seconds long. It just seemed so pointless, the audience was confused, and then started cracking up. To be honest, I joined them. But looking back, I can’t help wondering how South American audiences would see that bit. Maybe there’s meaning there that I’m not getting. Or it could just be self-indulgent directing, who knows?

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: Watercolors

Wow, that was… really not good at all. A deadly earnest, by-the-numbers coming out story that felt ripped straight out of an after-school special.

Wow, that was… really not good at all. A deadly earnest, by-the-numbers coming out story that felt ripped straight out of an after-school special. Sensitive nerdy gay boy, check; his feisty PC fag hag BFF (not a minority, but disabled, which still counts), check; broody and tormented jock he falls for, check; gay bashing scene, check; PG-rated sex scene that’s over-the-top perfect and magical and everything, check; oppressive soundtrack that swells like The Song That Goes Like This whenever a Big Dramatic Moment comes up, check. Oh, and the jock dies at the end, having tragically succumbed to his tormenting issues. Check? Sure, why not.

Oy.

Apart from all the clichés, the movie did a lot of things wrong. First, the framing story of an adult Danny (a.k.a. Sensitive Nerdy Gay Boy) as a successful artist who got famous on paintings and drawings of Carter (a.k.a. Broody And Tormented Jock) really doesn’t work. Not only does it depressingly show him as still not over Carter’s death, it’s frankly unnecessary and distracting. The final scene of him reconciling with his boyfriend and presumably moving on for good was kind of sexy but would have been a lot more effective if we’d known anything about the boyfriend or cared about their relationship.

Speaking of sexy, Danny and Carter’s first time was… just weird. What the hell was up with the rain? Was there some kind of symbolism there, or did the director just want the actors to glisten? I don’t get it.

As for Carter, the writers did aim for “broody and tormented” but actually landed on “asshole”. Stealing from Danny’s mother to support his drug addiction was bad enough, but stealing the BFF’s crutch when they visited the museum? That wasn’t cool, it wasn’t funny, it just made him a gigantic prick who doesn’t deserve to be in the same zip code as Danny.

So yeah… this movie had potential, especially with a gay nerd main character— we sure don’t get enough of those—but it turned out to be a huge disappointment. The one serious dud of the whole festival.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: The Taqwacores

This movie kicked ass! Bursting with energy, funny, some great cinematography, good character development and of course some great music (I’m not into punk, but damn, you couldn’t not like it). Educational, too: The Taqwacores served as a crash course on Islam, and a look into a culture I’m really not familiar with.

The viewpoint character is Yusef, an innocent and observant Muslim who moves into a household of Muslim punk rockers. Too punk for mainstream Muslims, too Muslim for other punks, they and many others formed their own scene and community of outsiders, calling themselves “Taqwacores”. Though at first appalled by their weird habits, Yusef finds that they are as devout as him, each in their own way; though there’s quite a bit of friction (especially with the hardcore straight-edge landlord Umar), there’s also mutual respect and openness, and they manage to live together in something like harmony.

The movie only has one queer character, and not a very major one; this is still a change from the novel on which it’s based. Along with a couple of major female characters (especially Rabeya, the “burqa girl”), he adds a nice dash of gender and queer politics into the mix.