Reviews: Films from this year’s Kingston Canadian Film Festival @ various venues in Kingston
Another year, another successful Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Here are reviews of some of the highlights from this year’s festival.
EMPz 4 Life
Celebrated Canadian documentary filmmaker Allan King was the guest of honour at this year’s festival. King’s classic films, A Married Couple and Warrendale, were screened, as well as his latest feature, EMPz 4 Life, which focuses on a group of black teens growing
up in a suburb of Toronto. Shot in King’s classic cinema verité style, the movie follows Brian Henry, a volunteer worker assisting in the education and guidance of at-risk youth in Scarborough’s Malvern community. Through his eyes we see how these young black teens struggle in an educational system that marginalizes them, while they deal with constant prejudice and racial profiling from their local police. While all of the subjects in the movie show promise when given special tutoring outside of class
time, it’s unclear whether they will ever be given an opportunity to succeed within the system. The film presents no easy answers to the questions it raises, instead offering audiences an open and unbiased view of these teens and their world.
If nothing else, EMPz 4 Life proves that at 76, Allan King continues to be one of the finest and most important documentarians working today.
End Of The Line
Maurice Devereaux’s creepy subway horror movie was this year’s midnight movie and proved to be an excellent choice for the time-slot. The film revolves around a religious cult that murders subway engers, convinced they are saving their victim’s souls from a fast-approaching apocalypse. The concept is effective and Devereaux proves to be quite talented at directing horror set pieces.
Unfortunately, the movie falters whenever the characters speak—the stiff dialogue and clichéd haracters are only made worse by a group of C-list Canadian actors. Luckily, Devereaux’s main interest is clearly not plot or character, so the dialogue scenes, though distracting, are never overly long. As the plot advances, the focus turns to the horror, and the weaknesses become less and less apparent. Although budgetary limitations clearly forced the filmmakers to work on video rather than film, they used the medium well and it was never distracting. While End Of The Line could never be classified as high art or even a great horror movie, it’s hardly a bad one. The movie pushes the boundaries of good taste on several occasions and offers several frightening moments throughout the running time. It’s a fun, dirty little horror movie that’s worth watching, just as long as you’re not expectinga masterpiece.
Fido
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what started it, but since the turn of the millennium, cinemas have been overrun by a wave of zombie movies. Fido is the Canadian entry in this recent zombie resurgence. Fido presents a world where zombies have been tamed and are sold as family pets. This world is also a false reconstruction of 1950s America and the entire movie builds to a parody of Lassie where a young boy sends his pet zombie off to find help. It’s a cute premise, but cute and horror are an uneasy mix. Fortunately, a uniformly strong cast prevents the movie from delving too deeply into self-parody. Carrie-Anne Moss, Tim Blake Nelson and the underrated Dylan Baker elevate the picture above its B-movie origins. Billy Connolly stars as the titular zombie, and although it’s at first strange to see the famously verbose comic in a silent role, he proves a surprisingly effective physical comedian. Zombies may be cheap and easy for filmmakers to produce, but the stiff, lifeless antagonists are also fairly boring by design. It’s time that the undead were let back into their caskets for a few more years.
Guide de la petite Vengeance
This year’s closing film was the latest work by French-Canadian director Jean-François Pouliot. The movie follows a mild-mannered ant whose life is controlled by his overbearing boss. A chance encounter with an apparent stranger leads him to perform little acts of vengeance on his boss, which gradually increase in severity until he ends up robbing his employer. The concept is simple enough and could have easily been forgettable, but thanks to several impressively layered performances and some slick directing from Pouliot, the movie is engaging and entertaining. While there are no poor actors in the cast, Michael Muller is a standout as the stranger who leads the protagonist down his dark path. Muller is the comedic highlight of the first act, but also proves to be a gifted dramatic actor in the film’s more serious denouement. Pouliot directs with style and flair, easily weaving his way through the many tone changes of the script. The transition from gentle comedy to dark thriller in the final third of the film feels a little awkward and forced, but by no means ruins the movie.
Monkey Warfare
Monkey Warfare is the third film from director and editor Reginald Harkema and was one of the finest films screened at this year’s festival. The movie is a bittersweet dramedy about a pair of former politcal activists (played wonderfully by real-life couple Don McKellar and Tracy Wright) who have long since given up the cause and now live a ive life selling found objects on eBay while diluting their senses and emotions with marijuana. Complications arise when a beautiful young woman starts selling drugs to the couple and becomes interested in their radical past. Ultimately a commentary on the futility of violent activism, Monkey Warfare is an engaging movie with a strong sense of style and a clear point of view. Aside from a few self-indulgent homages to Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave, the movie has no major flaws. Canadian cinema is often criticized for being somber, slow and boring, but Monkey Warfare proves this need not be the case.
Sk8 Life
Made by a group of Queen’s University graduates, Sk8 Life bustles with energy and visual innovation, but offers little in the way of plot, character or focus. The faux-documentary stars skateboarders (including pro Kris Foley) playing characters with their own names, but their awkward delivery makes the scripting obvious. The cast is made up of skateboarders rather than actors—and it shows. While the skateboarding sequences are impressive, the dialogue scenes connecting them are flat and lifeless. The actors are clearly more at home on their boards and stumble whenever they have to speak. But they are never given much to say; short of money problems and the potential loss of a house, little happens to the characters in the film. This seems to be a deliberate choice, with the filmmakers attempting to present a non-narrative representation of this world, not unlike Larry Clark’s Kids. However, Clark’s film succeeded because he’s able to uncover some rather disturbing inner truths about his characters; unfortunately, the characters in Sk8 Life really have no inner demons to unleash … or much of anything interesting to do or say.
After the screening, the director announced that he had made an alternate “skater-cut” of the film targeted at the skateboarding audience, which is almost exclusively tricks. In most cases, this would seem like a crass commercial decision made to capitalize on a niche market; with Sk8 Life, I’d imagine it would be an improvement.
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