VIFF 2005 Reviews

Join Korean Director BONG Joon Ho of THE HOST on Friday, Sept. 29th

2006-09-28T08:48:50Z

Korean director Bong Joon-Ho fantasized about a huge imaginary water mutant creature from Seoul’s Han River in highschool…yeah, he was one of those kids. But who knew he would end up being one of the coolest directors in Asia, with tops hits like “Memories of Murder” (살인의 추억) and “The Host” (괴물) (trailer). He’s in town for the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) to present the latter—his childhood fantasy come to life on film.

THE HOST has been dubbed Korea’s “Jaws”…a monster movie with an edge, and Korea’s top-grossing local film of all time (at this moment), it wowed the Euros in Cannes, and Hollywood’s in a frenzy over its remake rights. Bong Joon-Ho worked with outside sources, including the designers behind "The Lord of The Rings", to create a realistic-looking water mutant capable of brutal and heinous violence….HEINOUS!

Come and have an intimate discussion with Bong Joon-Ho this Friday as he discusses the art and craft of the horror genre. You gotta love a guy who says: “My message in this film is that for weak people in society, the world itself can be a monster.”

THE DIRECTOR’S CUT of THE HOST & Discussion with Bong Joon Ho
Friday, September 29 | 10:45pm – 12:00pm
Vancouver International Film Centre
1181 Seymour Street (Davie and Seymour) map.
REGISTER TODAY! CALL (604) 685-3547
INDIVIDUAL SESSION TICKETS - $25 (EXCLUDING NEW FILMMAKERS’ DAY)

For further information, contact The Forum: T: (604) 685-3547 | E: forum@viff.org
Website @ www.viff.org/forum.

Blood Rain

2005-10-17T07:22:16Z

DIR Kim Dae-Seung | South Korea | 2005 | 117mins.
In Korean with English subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Weds. Oct. 5 | 4:00pm | Vogue Theatre
Fri. Oct. 7 | 4:00pm | Granville 7 Theatre, Cinema 7

Reviewed by Yu Gu

]]> After watching this movie, I went to a restaurant with some friends and ordered a kimchi hotpot for dinner. I came home around midnight and I could not sleep. Admittedly, I also drank an almond coffee that night, but it wasn’t caffeine that was keeping me awake. The characters and events of Blood Rain tore at my mind until daybreak.

Weon-Gyu is a young compassionate yet rational investigator sent from the mainland to investigate a series of mysterious and gruesome murders committed on a small paper-making island. This ain’t no American B-movie gore, this is realistic and heart-wrenching rendering of decapitation, impalement and cracking of the human skull set in early 19th century Korea. Each frame isn’t so much sensational and desensitising, but horrifying and memorable. As the investigation continues, things become progressively more strange and perverse. Ranging from scenes straight out of a Victorian gothic novel, to scenes dealing with traditional Korean aristocratic ethos, Kim weaves the often disparate themes and aesthetics into an intricate and fine tapestry.

The island atmosphere becomes more and more claustrophobic and everyone becomes more and more desperate. Blood Rain left me at a loss as to what really happened in its cinematic world, I began to question both logic and superstition. And the title isn’t a lie either.

Eve and the Firehorse

2005-10-17T07:17:09Z

DIR Julia Kwan | Canada | 2005 | 93mins
In English.

SHOWTIMES:
Fri. Oct. 7 | 7:00pm | Ridge Theatre
Sun. Oct. 9 | 11:30am | Granville 7 Theatres, Cinema 3

Reviewed by Yu Gu

]]> Truly refreshing and imaginative, director Julia Kwan’s debut feature paints the lives of two Chinese-Canadian sisters experimenting with religion, magic and identity.

Eve is a nine-year-old firehorse, that is, she was born in the year of the firehorse according to the Chinese calendar. Renowned as fearfully disobedient, many children born in this year were drowned by desperate parents.

The film opens with this image: horses drowning in water, struggling to surface. With this melancholic note of oppression and rejection, the film moves into the everyday life of a Chinese family living in Vancouver in the 70s.

After their grandmother’s death, Eve and her sister, Phoebe, begin exploring the life philosophies of Buddhism and Christianity. They mix childhood wonder with religious tenets that result in often hilarious encounters with people around them.

While Phoebe becomes strictly Christian, Eve always keeps her magical perspective on the world. A world where Jesus is caught waltzing with Buddha, and a gold fish is the reincarnation of her grandmother. For her, imagination triumphs over the restrictions and oppressions of life.

What I loved about this film was that it created a beautiful story about imagination and growing up, while grounding it within a Chinese-Canadian experience. Eve and the Firehorse won the audience award for Most Popular Canadian Film at this year’s festival and is due out in theatres in late January, in time for Chinese New Year.

OX HIDE

2005-10-17T07:12:15Z

DIR Liu Jiayin | China | 2005 | 110mins
In Chinese with English subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Sat. Oct. 1 | 9:45pm | Granville 7 Theatres, Cinema 2
Sun. Oct. 2 | 3:15pm | Pacific Cinematheque

Reviewed by Yu Gu

]]> A work of love about strife, Liu Jiayin’s mysterious mix of documentary and fiction is a personal contemplation on her family life. Ox Hide is this year’s winner of the Dragons and Tigers Award for emerging Asian cinema. The film is constructed from twenty-three non-moving shots of Liu and her family in her small, often claustrophobic, Beijing apartment. Each shot can be called a self-contained scene with a catalyst and a conclusion or opening. Every scene is gingerly framed in cinemascope and the action unfolds with impeccable pacing.

From the very first shot, their family dynamic is exposed. Liu’s father makes one-of-a-kind leather purses and owns a shop. But times become tough and he gradually needs to make increasing changes to his way of artistry and business. As he unrolls a piece of ox hide, Liu’s father comments on the number of scars from whips and branding that the ox has suffered. He laments that doesn’t do the poor ox justice by selling his purses at such a discount. On the other hand, his wife advocates adapting to what the customer wants in an effort for survival. Ideals of dignity, honour and justice are fought at the family dinner table, where loving gestures and words can instantaneously turn into screaming and resentment. Never framed in a wide shot, these scenes are intimate looks at the delicate structure of a family struggling in modern China.

Ox Hide truly stands out in this year’s pool of Dragons and Tigers nominees. While other films, such as Gie, have high production values and deal with epic themes, Liu’s debut marks a refined and masterful experimentation in truth and beauty. It is a credit to the Dragons and Tigers programmer, Tony Rayns, and VIFF, to champion such innovative emerging talent.

Live and Become (Va, vis et deviens)

2005-10-14T21:07:35Z

DIR Radu Mihaileanu | France/Israel | 2005 | 140 min.

SHOWTIMES:
Thu, Sep 29 | 9:00pm | Granville 7 Theatre 4
Wed, Oct 5 | 2:20pm | Granville 7 Theatre 3
Thu, Oct 6 | 9:30pm | Pacific Cinematheque

Reviewed by Gloria Wong

]]> Between November 1984 and January 1985, some 8,000 Ethiopian Jews (so-called “Falashas”) were transported to Israel as part of ‘Operation Moses’. Faced with civil war and widespread famine, thousands of desperate Jewish families fled Ethiopia on foot in hopes of being smuggled into ‘the land of milk and honey’, overwhelming Sudanese refugee camps, separating children from parents, and taking an incredible human toll. The last living child of a non-Jewish family is forced by his mother to migrate to Israel, though she cannot follow. He assumes the identity of a recently deceased Jewish boy, promising to keep his real name, birth religion and non-orphan status secret. In Israel, he is re-named Shlomo and placed with a nice, white, left-wing family.

Though physical survival is no longer an issue for nine-year-old Shlomo, he still faces many challenges in his new life - adjusting from his rural farming community upbringing to Israel’s highly-industrialized society, learning two new languages quickly, pretending to be a Jew. Depicting his arrival and early months in Israel as well as two later times in young Shlomo’s life, a greater challenge emerges – anti-African sentiment. A clear indictment of Israel’s divisive political atmosphere, we see protests (both for peace and against granting the Falashas the privileged true Jew status) and news broadcasts creating rifts within the family, and underscoring the problems for Shlomo in the outside world.

Live and Become has already won audience awards at festivals around the world. It’s easy to understand why. It’s a beautifully acted, seamlessly executed and genuinely touching piece about courage, resilience and love – things we festival-goers seem to eat up. Luckily in this case, those qualities are just the beginning.

Manderlay

2005-10-14T21:04:27Z

DIR Lars Von Trier | Denmark/France/Germany/Netherlands/Sweden/UK, | 2005 | 139 min

SHOWTIMES:

Fri, Sep 30 | 9:30 pm | Visa Screening Room @Vogue
Sat, Oct 1 | 1:00 pm | Visa Screening Room @Vogue

Reviewed by Hugo Passarello Luna

]]> Lars Von Trier is back with a history of violence in the US of the 1930s. The second part of a trilogy about America that started with Dogville, Manderlay takes Dogville’s character Grace (with Bryce Dallas Howard replacing Nicole Kidman) to a small cotton plantation called Manderlay in Alabama.

Manderlay is run by a dying older woman (Lauren Bacall) who still uses black slaves some 70 years after abolition. Grace unexpectedly arrives at the plantation just as Timothy, a strong slave, is about to be whipped. She decides not only to stop the whipping, but vows to end this oppressive system at Manderlay.

From the very beginning of the film, one cannot help but link its story to today’s news. Grace’s determination to introduce freedom, democracy and constitutional rights to the workers at Manderlay is conveniently similar to Bush’s declared mission in Iraq (at the end of the film, we even see photos of the President and troops stationed in Iraq).

The concept is very similar to Dogville - and to most of Trier’s films. A female main character is exposed to suffering despite her good intentions and naiveté. The set is, once again, minimal. It has no walls and contains only the most essential elements for the story to move on. Trier’s use of video instead of film proves valuable in conveying the story; at all times, we can see events from almost every point of view. The spectator has an exclusive view to this experiment in democracy.

One element critical to making sense of Manderlay is a book that the dying woman kept under her bed for years. With meticulous descriptions of every slave in Manderlay, the book orders them by rough psychological features (the proud slave, the pleasing slave, the wise slave, etc). Those words attest to decades of systematic, institutionalized oppression. However, the secrets of those pages become deeper, such as Grace’s problems trying to ‘free’ Manderlay.

The narrator offers the grim observation: “Black people were ready for America, but America was not ready for Black people.”

Police Beat

2005-10-14T20:58:38Z

DIR Robinson Devor | USA | 2004 | 80 min.

SHOWTIMES:
Sun, Oct 9 | 9:45pm | Granville 7 Theatre 2
Tue, Oct 11 | 9:45pm | VanCity Theatre
Thu, Oct 13 | 12:30pm | Granville 7 Theatre 2

Reviewed by Gloria Wong

]]> A man kills a goose in a city park. A woman is ‘attacked’ by a falling tree branch in her front yard. A schizophrenic tries to walk across a lake. Such are the calls that West African transplant turned bicycle cop ‘Z’ encounters on a daily basis in Robinson Devor’s dreamy, ambitious film. Shot in over 100 different Seattle locations, “Police Beat” is a cop film that’s not a cop film. The numerous crimes that are portrayed in the film – all based on real incidents featured in screenwriter and journalist Charles Mudede’s police blotter column for “The Stranger” – range from the exotic to the mundane, from absurdity to brutality, and serve as a backdrop to the ‘real’ story. It’s a love story, or maybe, the end of a love story. Z’s (white) girlfriend Rachel has decided to go camping with her (male) roommate and hasn’t called him. With each passing day, Z goes about his thankless work as his mind bends further and further around one obsessive thought - that she might be cheating on him.

Fans of Mudede’s “Police Beat” column should know that the film is not an adaptation. Where Mudede’s writing focuses on the humanity of the strange, often haunting crimes he finds, Devor uses the source material to create an atmosphere of disconnection. Both the growing emotional schism between Z and his Rachel and the striking contrast between Z’s eloquent inner monologue (in his native Wolof) and his linguistically minimalist interactions with criminals and citizens become metaphors for a lost sense of community, allowing people to hurt each other in such brutally casual ways everyday. In a pleasing reversal of recent American media, Z, a black Muslim immigrant, the outsider becomes a sort of moral centre for the world he inhabits, helping troubled people when, well, it’s the right thing to do.

The Bridesmaid

2005-10-14T20:47:19Z

DIR Claude Chabrol | France | 2004 | 141min
In French with English subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:

Fri. Sep 30 | 9:30pm | Ridge Theatre
Sun. Oct 2 | 2:00pm | Granville 7 Theatre 4
Mon. Oct 10 | 4:00pm | Visa Screening Room @Vogue

Reviewed by Hugo Passarello Luna

]]> A master of suspense, legendary French director Claude Chabrol brings a new story full of enigmas, passion and death.

Set in a small suburban town not far from Paris, the film centres around a sympathetic middle class family (with no father).

Philippe (Benoît Magimel), the oldest son, is the perfect example of what a son should be: hard working, nice, honest, adored by all his clients, praised by the boss. His two younger sisters, however, are not like him. One just wants to get married and the other is a rebellious teenager. Michel’s mother is a loving and naïve lady who tries to makes ends meet and fails. Accordingly, Michel always has to lend her money. Chabrol sets this scenario for us and, slowly and with the utmost subtlety, he shakes it up and down.

It is the bridesmaid at Michel’s sister wedding, Senta (Laura Smet), who triggers everything. She is a beautiful, mysterious woman that conquers Michel’s love. Chabrol offers us an excellently portrayed psychotic in Laura; her love can only be proved through death: “To prove that you love me, you will have to kill for me.” For us, as for Michel, these are strange words, taken with a level of skepticism.
Soon, however, we become witnesses to Michel’s involuntary change.

On the same date that his rebel sister ends up at the police station, Michel the perfect son will stop being so perfect. Unable to control the circumstances, Michel slowly sinks into unknown depths. Chabrol displays the fatality of our destinies and our powerlessness in facing any situation.

Takeshis'

2005-10-12T09:44:34Z

DIR Kitano Takeshi | Japan | 2005 | 108 min,
In Japanese with English Subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Sun. Oct. 2 | 9:45pm | VOG
Sun. Oct. 9 | 4:00pm | VOG

Reviewed by Loretta Sarah Todd

]]> I want to be in a Kitano Takeshi film. You can be absurd and smart, you can improvise, and if you want to tap-dance (or maybe pow-wow?), Takeshi will let you.

In Takeshis’, Kitano plays both his celebrity alter-ego self, film and TV star "Beat" Takeshi, as well as a failed actor, also named Kitano Takeshi, who works in a convenience store and goes to auditions but seldom gets a role. As these two Takeshis intersect, we enter a world of doppelgangers, where time is no longer linear and dreams and fantasy are reality. The loser Takeshi imagines he is Beat Takeshi—and he is and he isn’t, as he wades deeper and deeper into his imagination and his desires.

Takeshis’ is buoyant with life and tap-dancing, filled with cinematic shoot-outs to rival cinematic shootouts, and highlights a taxicab ride along a road of dead bodies. The lively character of the film may be explained by realizing that Takeshis’ is a result of Takeshi’s interest in making a film called Fractals. Fractals come out of chaos theory; fractal geometry is a new language used to understand complex forms in nature. The term fractal was coined as recently as 1975, from the latin fractus or "broken". Before that, fractals were called monster curves.

Here is cinema that structures beyond cause and effect, beyond the three-acts and plot points. It is fractal, or string-theory, or perhaps chaos cinema; in any case, it is removed from the limits of the linear. In fact, Takeshi himself stated:

“The film can be solved using algebraic solution or factorization with x,y,z,_,_,even_, but there is one element which is logarithmic ellipsis, so there would be one thing which is unsolvable.”

And I love it, even if there are some corny moments. In addition to the fractals—or perhaps because of them—the director plays with cinema, as well as his image and persona. Takeshi “the loser” is literally a clown at times and has a groupie who waits outside his low-rent apartment each night to thank him for his work.

Of course, not everyone loves Takeshis’. There were boos at the Venice Film Festival—but perhaps that has more to do with our times, where some audiences want absolutes when in reality there are only relationships and monster curves.

Grain in Ear

2005-10-12T06:28:39Z

DIR Zhang Lu | China/South Korea | 2005 | 110mins
In Chinese and Korean with English subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Sun. Oct. 2 | 12:00pm | Granville 7 Theatre, Cinema 1
Tue. Oct. 4 | 7:30pm | Granville 7 Theatre, Cinema 1

Reviewed by Yu Gu

]]> When director Zhang Lu went on his first trip to scout possible locations for Grain In Ear, he found the perfect place after driving about 45 minutes outside Beijing. They came across a small abandoned building next to a deserted train station. It was perfect, claims Zhang. The small brick bungalow is the home of Grain In Ear’s feisty yet reserved heroine, Cui Shunji, and her only son. Taking a walk through the train station, Zhang happily discovered that behind it, farmland stretched to the horizon. This formed the inspiration for his closing shot, the only time where the camera is in motion.

In China, there are about two million Korean-Chinese. They are considered one of China’s 50 national minorities. Zhang is also a part of this community. Aside from a few minutes of stage-time during Chinese new year variety shows, the Korean-Chinese community is essentially without the power that territory and unified culture afford to many other minorities. Cui Shunji is one of these Korean-Chinese who has settled in a small industrial Northern town and supports herself and her son by selling kimchi (Korean pickled vegetables) from a mobile cart. She develops some tentative relationships with three men around her, a married Korean-Chinese, a policeman and her neighbour.

On the surface, Grain In Ear deals with the interplay of dichotomies in modern China: men and women, rich and poor, good and bad, repression and freedom, stasis and movement. In a recent interview with Zhang, he expressed that all the males in the film are selfish and destructive while the women, especially Cui and even her band of prostitute neighbours, are essentially kind and nurturing. However, he also admits that these characters and relationships are not so simple. As Cui herself states in the film, she may not be a completely wholesome woman. What is striking about Grain In Ear is that Zhang complicates these personal relationships so that sex, economics and social class are all inter-related and inseparable. As a victim who is barely living throughout the film, Cui is forced in the end to commit an awful equalising act; albeit one that puts her on the same level as her previous oppressors. Zhang explains his film is essentially anti-terrorist. Not at all in the way of Bush’s political agenda, but on the scale of everyday life, how we as humans terrorise those around us.

April Snow

2005-10-12T06:25:19Z

DIR Hur Jin-ho| South Korea | 2005 | 105min
In Korean with English subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Sat. Oct. 1 | 4:00pm | Vogue Theatre
Mon. Oct. 10 | 9:30pm | Vogue Theatre
Wed. Oct. 12 | 7:00pm | Vogue Theatre

Reviewed by Yu Gu

]]> You and I have probably both seen Korean TV serials – family or romantic melodrama at its best, infused with a strong Confucian core and plenty of good-looking stars for eyecandy. April Snow is one of these romantic dramas trying to be more, but not completely succeeding.

The film follows the stories of a pair of lovers, In-Su and Seo-Young, that meet by accident, well, literally by accident. Their respective spouses are involved in a car accident that throws them both into comas. Through the remains of their tell-tale belongings (such as a condom), it is revealed that they were having a hot love affair. The lead male, In-Su, is played by TV serial superstar Bae Yong-Jun (Winter Rhapsody). In-Su and Seo-Yeong’s relationship begins to grow and blossom after they discover their shared pain through embarassing encounters.

Unlike Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love that supplements character development with tone, art direction and music, April Snow seems to be grounded in a realism that depends on poetry to take it to another level. One example of this poetic kinesis are the poignant love scenes where desire and loss are inherent in the process of shedding clothes or fingers touching flesh.

However, the two characters are repressed and bound by their duty to their spouses and the film seems to be similarly repressed in its drama – everything from Bae’s acting to the storyline. Although on the whole, April Snow subtlely veers away from Confucian values of marriage, and in an interesting way, applauds sudden moments of miraculous abandon.

Crying Fist

2005-10-12T02:17:39Z

DIR Ryoo Seung-Wan | South Korea | 2005 | 135min
In Korean with English subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Thurs. Sept. 29 | 9:30pm | Granville 7 Theatre, Cinema 7
Fri. Sept. 30 | 11:00am | Granville 7 Theatre, Cinema 4

Reviewed by Yu Gu

]]> I have never liked boxing much so thank goodness Crying Fist isn’t actually about boxing. Yes, a bit ironic but let me explain. The story follows the lives of two men and their eventual fight to win the amateur boxing championship. Gang Tae-Shik (Choi Min-Sik of Oldboy) was a silver medalist in the Asian games ten years ago and is now an alcoholic whose wife left him with his son. To make a living, he is forced to let people on the street beat him up for a few dollars. Then there is Yoo Sang-Hwan, a young delinquent who comes from a poor family and gets thrown in jail for his violent crimes. While in prison, he becomes the target of brutal brawls.

The first two acts of this film serve as a window into the human drama of these two characters’ daily lives. We hate Gang for abusing his wife, for his reckless self-destruction; but we love him as a caring father, as a courageous man without pride. We love and sympathize with Yoo as a repentant son, his father’s death and his ailing grandmother; yet we hate him for his unwarranted violence, for his moronic anger and youth. Then finally we get into the boxing and the two characters come face to face in the fight for the champion title. As the rounds continue, the two seem to come closer to embracing than fighting. Ruthlessly and wonderfully rooted in modern Korean society, these two men, one young and one old, are both unique and iconic. Crying Fist examines masculinity, duty, family and individual worth in a compelling and entertaining way.

Heart, Beating in the Dark (1982; 2005)

2005-10-11T04:17:19Z

DIR Shunichi Nagasaki | Japan | 1982 | 2005 | 104 min
In Japanese with English Subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Sun. Oct. 2 | 7:00pm | VOG
Mon. Oct. 3 | 2:00pm | Granville4

Review and Interview by Christie Charles

]]> Heart, Beating In The Dark (1982), the original film, is a story about a young Japanese couple that stays in a room for rent for a night as they run from a loan shark. Throughout the hours of darkness, the couple reminisces about the old times and recalls memories of their child, who they brutally murdered. The film deals with several large issues, including the murdering of their own children by Japanese young couples at the time. Character reversal and experimental shots are sprinkled throughout the film and help push the story along. At times, one can’t help but wonder if all of the story could have happened in one night, one room. Yet, when we compare it to happenings of real life, it all becomes relevant; perhaps it is only because we are so conditioned to the media’s shortening of stories as a means to sustain our attention that we are unaccustomed to watching a film that focuses on the events of just one evening.

In Heart, Beating In The Dark (2005), the original actors reappear in their present day form. The director also introduces two new characters and includes snippets from the 81’ version. Background knowledge of the original film is incredibly helpful in understanding the sequel. The movie follows several stories: returning characters Ringo and Inako meet up for the first time in twenty-three years, and new characters Toru and Yuki experience similar issues as characters from the first movie. The sequel utilized more role reversal than the original, thereby adding to the complexity of the story. Experimental shots throughout the film once again add to the artistic aspect of the film, and with use of the DV camera (as opposed to the original shot in Hi 8), the sequel comes across as a much more enjoyable presentation.

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with the writer and director Shunichi Nagasaki to ask him about his films. He explained that the reasoning behind the new Heart, Beating in the Dark was to witness the life passage of the actors and actresses and their progressions to this day. As for the muse of the film, Nagasaki explained that the significant amount of murders by young parents at the time inspired him to spin the phenomenon into a personal story from his perspective. Of all his films, Nagasaki claimed to have no particular favourite, because he put his whole self into every film that he makes. Currently, Nagasaki is working on a few scripts and evolving his style.

I also had the opportunity to chat with the actresses of both versions of Heart, Beating in the Dark, Shigeru Muroi ( a.k.a. Inako) from the original and Kaori Mizushima from the new. It is Muroi’s first time at VIFF, and I was pleased to hear her say that Vancouver feels like a big family that she would like to return to every year. Although Heart, Beating in the Dark deals with some dark themes, Muroi tells us that the film was nonetheless enjoyable to shoot, thanks to the light and fun atmosphere created by the staff. While Heart, Beating in the Dark (1982) was originally intended to be a small addition on her resume, Muroi’s character in the film was imprinted in the back of her mind for the past twenty-three years and therefore it was natural to slip back into character for the 2005 film.

Mizushima, featured in the 2005 production and wife of Nagasaki, has been working in the film industry for twenty-six years. Upon reading the new script, she knew she wanted to be involved with Heart, Beating in the Dark.

A story about growing up, Heart, Beating in the Dark (2005) complements its original make to question that it means to be a loving parent, among other thought-provoking themes.

Wild Side

2005-10-11T04:09:53Z

DIR Sebastien Lifshitz | France | 2004 | 94 min.
In French with English Subtitles.

SHOWTIMES:
Tue, Oct 4, 3:00pm, GR1
Sat, Oct 8, 9:30pm, GR7
Sun, Oct 9, 9:45pm, VCT

Reviewed by Gloria Wong

]]> It took a while for me to figure out why this quiet character drama was called Wild Side. Granted, the central character is a transsexual prostitute who lives in Paris in a three-way relationship with two men. But, in the context of the story, it all seems pretty tame. Filled with scenes of tenderness, sweetness and intimacy, the film tellingly starts with Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) bending his impossible delicate voice around “Fell in Love with a Dead Boy”.

Stephanie’s partners are Jamal, a North African from the Paris projects, and Mikhail, an illegal immigrant from Russia. When Stephanie’s mother becomes ill, Stephanie, Jamal and Mikhail all come to her rural family home to help out. In most films, this situation would be an opportunity for either farmhouse farce or emotional confrontations and we get neither, really. Instead, the situation conjures memories, leading Stephanie to think about her childhood, her older sister and father and her relationships with her partners. The film’s elliptical narrative gets a little tiring at times but individual scenes – like one in which Stephanie washes her mother’s hair with a jug and basin – linger in the mind like dreams.

Why We Fight

2005-10-11T03:47:48Z

DIR Eugene Jarecki | USA | 2004 | 98 min.

SHOWTIMES:
Sun, Oct 2, 1:00pm, GR7
Wed, Oct 5, 9:30, GR7

Reviwed by Gloria Wong

]]> Once a festival, a film comes along that is so precisely of the moment that it seems to capture a disproportionate number of people’s attention at once. The new documentary from Eugene Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger) is such a film. Like 2003 VIFF Audience Award-Winner The Corporation, Why We Fight tackles important subject matter in a clear and cogent manner that’s entertaining without having to rely on cheap humour and affecting without being melodramatic. The subject of the film is U.S. militarism in the twentieth century. A true dissection of the military-industrial complex, Why We Fight picks up where the largely superficial Fahrenheit 9-11 left off, earning indignation through a well-researched and deftly assembled argument.

The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Why We Fight features candid interviews with former CIA officials, former and current members of the US military, think-tank wizards, pundits and even John McCain. Framed by the chillingly prescient farewell address by President Eisenhower in the 1961 who warned against the profit-based motivations of the military-industrial complex (a term he himself coined), Why We Fight is absolutely essential viewing for anyone interested in learning something about why America is the way it is today and how it became that way so quickly.