THE NOTEBOOK (aka "A nagy füzet") - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Harrowing Hungarian Boys-during-WWII Drama

The Notebook (AKA "A nagy füzet")
Dir. János Szász (2013)
Starring: László Gyémánt, András Gyémánt, Piroska Molnár, Ulrich Thomsen, Ulrich Matthes, Gyöngyvér Bognár, Orsolya Tóth, János Derzsi, Diána Kiss

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Films depicting the horrors of war take on added resonance when they focus upon the innocence of childhood and, like Rene Clement's Forbidden Games or Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, they're especially horrific when they focus upon the sort of insanity which grips children within the fevered backdrop of combat.

János Szász's The Notebook (AKA "A nagy füzet"), based upon the late Agota Kristof's award-winning 1986 novel, is replete with Eastern European rural repression as well as the inevitability that "freedom" from Nazism will lead to yet another form of Totalitarian rule. As such, it's a film that delivers several added layers of pain which represents a reality that all children have and will continue to experience so long as war is as much a part of human existence as breathing is.

The Notebook takes place during the final years of WWII in Hungary and focuses upon a seemingly inevitable decision a family must make that affects their children forever. With war still raging, a mother (Gyöngyvér Bognár) and father (Ulrich Matthes) decide it might be best to remove their sons (László Gyémánt, András Gyémánt) from the city.

Dad is a soldier and is especially adamant the boys be separated as they're twins and stick out more than most siblings. The mother will hear none of that since the boys are inseparable and instead transports them deep into the countryside to stay with her long-estranged and widowed mother (Piroska Molnár) who is placed in the position of being their reluctant Grandmother.

The boys are devastated to be left behind with this abusive, nasty-spirited old woman (referred by the those living in the nearby village as "The Witch"). She makes it clear to the lads that they will be forced to work her farm and earn their food and lodgings. In addition to beating them on a regular basis, referring to them only as "bastards", she tops off her cruelty towards the boys by leaving them locked outside in the cold.

Soon, the twins realize they will have to learn to survive at all costs.

They perform their chores with the same rapt attention they pay to their studies (from an encyclopaedia and Holy Bible) as well as the detailed writings of their experiences in a notebook supplied by their father who previously asked them to recount their lives in his absence. Survival, though, means learning to steal, withstand physical pain and eventually, to kill.

Especially moving, though in a odd and unexpected way, is the mutual love and respect that develops between the twins and their grandmother. They admire her tenacious survival mode and she, in turn, their steely resolve (and inherent nastiness), which she comes to grudgingly recognize in terms of their blood ties (and in spite of hating her daughter for abandoning the village so long ago).

The boys befriend a variety of locals, all of whom contribute in some way to their knowledge, survival and/or experience. An S.S. commandant (Ulrich Thomsen) from a nearby concentration camp takes a liking to them and becomes their unlikeliest protector, a facially disfigured teenage girl the boys cruelly call Hairlip (Orsolya Tóth) teaches them how to steal, a Jewish shoemaker (János Derzsi) who takes pity on them outfits the boys with winter boots and finally a maid (Diána Kiss) bathes the filthy, lice-ridden lads and even considers the possibly of introducing them to the pleasures of the flesh - these are but a few of the primary individuals whose paths the boys cross.

Amidst this strange world, the twins face adulthood through the skewed perspective of war and gain maturity long before they should. Sadly, it's a demented maturity, influenced by the horrors around them. They discover love of family where they least expect it, they reject another aspect of family love they'd never have imagined doing before the war and indeed, they kill and kill willingly - not because they especially want to, but because the circumstances demand it. (They do, however, want to kill one person and succeed in facially disfiguring this person in retaliation for giving up the Jewish shoemaker to the Nazis.)

The Notebook is an extraordinary experience. Screenwriter-Director János Szász elicits a series of performances that sear themselves into one's memory and he delivers a stark, haunting and devastating film by presenting some of the most horrendous acts of inhumanity in an oddly straightforward way, adorned only by the straight, unemotional narration through the boys' voiceover as written in their notebook.

Horror in this world, seen through the eyes of children, is presented as a simple matter of fact and this might be the most moving and disturbing thing of all. It's about children forcing themselves to not feel pain, to suppress all emotion and to never, ever cry. It's a film that might well be set in World War II, but it's as vital to the horrific world we now live in as if the events recounted were happening now. Most shocking and telling is the portrayal of Russian soldiers as the "liberators" of Hungary - marching in after the Nazis flee, but then, as Russians are won't to do, achieving little but stealing from the Hungarian farmers, hunting down anti-communist Hungarians as if they were war criminals and at one point, gang raping a young woman and murdering her for pleasure.

Not only do the boys learn there's no room for tears, but "liberator" is just another word for "oppressor".

The Notebook is a Mongrel Media release currently unspooling at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER ANYTHING FROM AMAZON BY USING THE LINKS BELOW. CLICKING ON THEM AND THEN CLICKING THROUGH TO ANYTHING WILL ALLOW YOU TO ORDER AND IN SO DOING, SUPPORT THE ONGING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER.

AMAZON.CA

AMAZON.COM

AMAZON.UK

ILO ILO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - In childhood, solace is fleeting and that which soothes, aches in the face of losing it. Stunning feature length debut from young director from Singapore.

TIFF 2013 - DISCOVERY
Ilo Ilo (2013) ****
Dir. Anthony Chen
Starring: Koh Jia Ler, Angeli Bayani

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Kida can really be horrid little things. Ten-year-old Jiale (Koh Jia Ler) is no exception to the rule.

It's 1997 and Asia's economy is crumbling. Jiale's Mom and Dad are struggling to make ends meet as it is, but they're determined to do so at a level that will maintain a solid lifestyle - not only for themselves and their son, but in anticipation of the new child growing in Mom's belly. Both parents are working full time and they hire Terry (Angeli Bayani, in a performance of staggering power and sensitivity), a nanny from the Philippines to help out.

Jiale is prone to acting out his brattier instincts at the best of times, but with a new nanny in the home, the floodgates open and he becomes a holy terror - most of all to Terry. That said, one of the extraordinary aspects of first time feature director Anthony Chen's direction is the delicate and subtle manner in which he builds the myriad of "small" things in a child's life that can seem so huge and insurmountable.

We experience and discover all of this through Chen's observant lens and narratively, we seamlessly, effortlessly shift our point of view between Jiale and Terry - allowing for maximum dramatic impact.

The relationship of genuine love and friendship between nanny and child shifts gradually into the deeply felt, but also confusing emotions which begin to develop as the lines between care worker and surrogate parent begin to blur – especially given the mounting pressures Jiale’s parents must deal with. Jiale can tell something is not right, but as a child he can’t possibly understand why he feels distance between himself and his parents and an ever-intensifying bond with Terry.

It doesn’t help that his parents are trying to mask these pressures. Jiale’s father loses his job and in secret, he shamefully takes on whatever he can to bring money into the home, while his mother continues in the employ of a company that treats its employees – especially female secretaries – like slaves and yet she too tries to keep her troubles to herself.

The physical and psychological hardships his parents experience affects Jiale – at first in the adversarial stance he takes against Terry, but eventually as his dependence and love upon her grows. Terry herself seems soulful almost beyond words, but she too has a breaking point with Jiale’s nasty behaviour and she needs to make it very clear to the child that she’s not going to take it.

Ilo Ilo is one of the best films about childhood I've seen in quite some time. It's a movie that feels like it comes straight from the heart and its storytelling techniques are so simple and pure that one feels you're in the hands of a master filmmaker. The emotions are never mawkish or contrived in obvious ways, but there are several big set pieces that alternate between rich, full bodied human comedy and deeply moving, gorgeously observed and downright heartbreaking moments designed to wrench tears from you. These moments are honest, however, and they feel like the stuff of life.

Sometimes the pain of childhood is the realization of love when you least expect it and in ways you could never have imagined and sometimes events conspire to snatch away newly discovered joy and warm memories offer only fleeting solace - it's like that which soothes you aches and gnaws at your very being in the face of losing it.

"Ilo Ilo" is enjoying its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013 (TIFF #13). For tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is distributed by Film Movement.

THURSDAY TILL SUNDAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The heartbreak of childhood, the pain of growing up

Thursday Till Sunday (2013) ****
Dir. Dominga Sotomayor Castillo
Starring: Santi Ahumada, Francisco Pérez-Bannen, Paola Giannini, Emiliano Freifeld, Axel Dupré

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Children know everything. We know nothing. Their sense of intuition is so intense, so acute and so otherworldly that very little escapes them. What keeps kids kids, is innocence, but it doesn't take long for them to slowly lose it.

And it's all our fault.

Some call it growing up - which, I suppose it is, but I sure wish it was not such a necessary evil and most of all, that it could come without having to experience the heartbreak of loss.

Thursday Till Sunday is all about loss, but as such, it provides a bedrock of hope that delivers the illusion that through their pain, they will experience a light we sometimes find elusive, that they will, from our mistakes create a world of more perfect balance for themselves. Most of all, we hope - no matter how much pain we've tried to suppress to keep them pure - that this pain has not seeped to deeply into their pristine state of being.

Writer-Director Dominga Sotomayor has crafted a film of great truth and even greater drama by allowing her camera to capture endless small details of life through long, perfectly composed shots - often in close proximity to the exquisitely etched characters.

She begins her alternately poetic and Neo-realist tale under the cover of darkness as parents secret their sleepy children into the back seat of a car. There's nothing at all malevolent about this - nothing most parents haven't done when setting off on an early morning road trip to make the most of the day.

We do, however, get a hint that all is not well when a brief verbal exchange between the husband and wife suggests some confusion as to whether or not both of them will be coming along. It's not a big thing, but the movie, like life, is full of these small details signalling that which can be so much bigger.

So it is that we begin a movie set firmly on the road as the family of four - Mom, Dad, the older sister and the little brother - engage in an extended long weekend trip from their home in Santiago to the wilds of northern Chile to take in some sights, some swimming, some camping and a gander at a parcel of land that Dad's father has left to him in his will.

Anyone who has been on a similar road trip with their parents will knowingly recognize the endless nature of the proceedings - especially to kids. Dominga brilliantly and steadfastly sticks to the older child's point of view. Lucia (Santi Ahumada) is 12 - that annoying, frustrating cusp of burgeoning hormonal and psychological changes that allow for moments of recognition that cannot be fully understood, nor acted upon.

It is ultimately, through Lucia's eyes and/or in her presence, that we slowly realize the portent and utter weight of this road trip - one that will be the last these four will ever take as a family. Separation looms like some dark cloud of inevitability and it is painful - not just for the parents and the children, but for the viewer also. Even more astonishingly, one almost senses the filmmaker's pain by the manner in which her clever mise-en-scène never waivers from its resolution to create such rich dramatic truth.

Dominga plants the camera in one position (often within the car) and events play out the way they would in life. When cuts are employed, they're not so much jarring as they are fluidly leading us ever forward into the story. They're there, but many of the transitions feel invisible - as they should in a story told with such a measured pace and an eye for detail. In fact, some might even feel the details are of little interest, but Dominga manages to craft the film in such a manner that most audiences will give over to its rhythm early on and catch small details that do indeed provide important pieces of the story's puzzle.

There isn't a single performance in the film that feels off. Ahumada, though, is exceptional. The camera loves her and she displays intelligence and maturity, but also dollops of all those elements that betray her age. The film almost seems to build on her performance and character. We're bored when she's bored, angry when she is, joyful when she is and most heartbreakingly, though we catch on much earlier to the clues and facts of the matter than she does, we are indeed caught by surprise when she is during those moments of painful realization.

Ahumada, through Dominga's insightful eye, ultimately takes our breath away and we're led to a point where it's simply impossible not to share in the sorrow of a child, to shed the tears we've experienced and continue to experience as adults, but with the special and deeply painful pangs of recognition that remind of the tears of childhood - those tears that stream down our cheeks and never seem to end.

We can almost taste their salt.

It's a beautiful film.

"Thursday Till Sunday" opens theatrically July 26 via Vagrant Films Releasing and Publicity and plays in Toronto at the Magic Lantern Theatres Carlton Cinema and Kingsway Cinema.

WAR WITCH (aka REBELLE) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Further to yesterday's review of IVAN'S CHILDHOOD, here's a piece about a contemporary film that relates to the recent "Save The Children" report on the collapse of childhood in war. Now available on DVD from Mongrel Media, this was a recent Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2013 Academy Awards.

War Witch (aka Rebelle) (2012) ***1/2
Dir. Kim Nguyen
Starring: Rachel Mwanza, Alain Lino Mic Eli Bastien, Serge Kanyinda

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When Central African rebel soldiers invade a peaceful village to forcibly recruit "volunteers" for the cause, 12-year-old Komona (Rachel Mwanza) is ordered to kill her own parents. If she refuses, she's told that death for her Mother and Father will be long and painful and she has the chance, the power, the "opportunity" to end their lives swiftly. Looking into the pleading eyes of the man and woman who brought her into the world, nurtured her and loved her, the real question is whether she has the will to shoot them - to snuff out their lives so they will not be tortured to death.

Komona has no real choice in the matter.

Eventually bundled off into the jungle, she and the other kidnapped children are handed AK-47s and informed that the guns will henceforth be their mothers and fathers. They're sworn to uphold the values of the rebels and do battle to the death.

If we are witness to "the collapse of childhood" as defined by the recent and utterly shocking Save The Children report entitled "Childhood Under Fire", this is surely it - though horrifyingly, these opening minutes of Canadian director Kim Nguyen's unrelenting feature drama War Witch (aka Rebelle) is merely the tip of the iceberg with respect to the "collapse" of Komona's childhood.

Save the Children's report details how societal breakdown during the current war in Syria (now in its third year) is yielding strife in terms of malnutrition, sanitation, lack of medical supplies, no schooling, improper access to heat, shelter, clothing and, not surprisingly, constant physical assaults upon children resulting in both physical and psychological trauma and death. Most sickening are the statistics revealing how children are recruited as pawns or active participants in the conflict.

In Nguyen's fictional, but fact-based drama, Komona - like so many children in war - are individually and/or collectively helpless in the face of such violent conflicts, so much so that they're instilled with the sorrowful need to join the conflict if it can't be beaten. Worst of all, they're pretty much terrorized into submission.

As the film progresses, Komona is raped by the rebel leader and eventually gives birth to a child. She is befriended by a young albino boy and together this strange family unit faces even more horror while attempting to hold on to some vestige of humanity during the conflict. Poor Komona even narrates the tale as an extended monologue to her child - wondering if she'll ever be able to love it the same way her own parents loved her. Under the circumstances, one cannot really find fault in her for these feelings and we eventually experience a further collapse in the childhood of her baby.

Introduced to the hallucinogenic qualities of a special tree sap, Komona is able to numb herself to the pain of her life, but she's also instilled with a six sense which puts her in an extremely valuable position with the rebels. She's become a war with and will remain protected - so long as her sap-induced prophesies prove irrefutable.

God help this child if and when she makes a mistake.

Nguyen unfurls this tale with an almost restrained quality which lends an even more creepy mise=en-scene (replete with gorgeous, floating hand-held photography). The performances by mostly non-professionals are rooted in experience. Seeing non-actors portraying people who have had such a collapse in their childhood is nothing short of devastating. Knowing that all these actors have, in one way or another, been borne out of such experiences lends a kind of credence one would NOT get if played by mere sctors.

War Witch is clearly one of the most moving experiences you'll have.

"War Witch" is currently available on DVD via Mongrel Media.



To Download the PDF of the devastating Save The Children report entitled CHILDHOOD UNDER FIRE, click HERE


-->

-->

IVAN'S CHILDHOOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Perhaps the greatest film about war and childhood ever made, Andrei Tarkovsky's first feature film is indelibly presented on Blu-Ray via the visionary Criterion Collection

Ivan's Childhood (1962) *****
Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Nikolai Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov, Stepan Krylov, Valentina Malyavina, Irina Tarkovskaya

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Before the war Ivan would walk down the stream
Where there grew a willow, no one knew whose.

No one knew why it loomed over the stream;
No one knew this was Ivan’s willow tree.

In his canopied raincoat, killed in combat,
Ivan came back to his willow’s shade.

Ivan’s willow,
Ivan’s willow,
Like a white boat, it floats downstream.

-"Ivan's Willow" by Arseny Tarkovsky, father of Andrei Tarkovsky

According to a recent study published March 13, 2013 by the non-profit organization Save The Children, the ongoing Syrian conflict (now entering its third year) "has led to the collapse of childhood".

Though there are many situations that can lead to such a "collapse", war has invariably proven to be the most powerful assault upon a time in all lives wherein innocence should prevail.

The report, entitled "Childhood Under Fire", details how societal breakdown during this war is yielding strife in terms of malnutrition, sanitation, lack of medical supplies, no schooling, improper access to heat, shelter, clothing and, not surprisingly, constant physical assaults upon children resulting in both physical and psychological trauma and death.

Most sickening are the huge statistics revealing separation from family (including being orphaned), experiencing and/or knowing about the death of friends and loved ones and in many cases being recruited as pawns or active participants in the conflict.

This, of course, is one of just many conflicts happening worldwide - currently, recently or impending. Idiotically, all such conflicts are rooted in religious/cultural fundamentalism, economics or both. We all need to know it has to stop, but there is this overwhelming sense of being individually or even collectively helpless in the face of war and this becomes even more acute amongst our children - so much so that it instils an even more sorrowful response in them - the need to join the conflict if it can't be beaten.

Ivan's Childhood, the first feature by the acclaimed Soviet director Ivan Tarkovsky, is perhaps the greatest film about war and childhood ever made. Forming an almost Holy Trinity of international cinema devoted to the "collapse of childhood" during wartime (specifically, World War II), it joins two other great films that focus on this theme: René Clément's 1952 masterwork from France, Forbidden Games (Jeux interdits) and Steven Spielberg's 1987 adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun.

Clement's is set on a farm wherein a recent war orphan and the boy who befriends her, seek solace from the horrors of war by building a secret graveyard for animals and stealing crosses from the local church cemetery to mark the resting places of all the creatures that have expired in the area (including the girl's little white dog).

Spielberg with the clarity of distance and imagination, delivers a near epic exploration of a young British lad's descent into madness when separated from his parents after the takeover of Shanghai by Japanese forces and subsequently falls in with a pair of unscrupulous American war profiteers.

All three films view the horrors of war through the eyes of children, but it is Tarkovsky who plunges into the deep waters of dream, memory and poetry - all of it tempered with a realism that veers from the muck and grime of warfare to backdrops tinged with bursts of expressionism. In Ivan's Childhood, the title character works prodigiously in the field of battleground espionage - driven by his hatred for Germany, an enemy responsible for the loss of his beloved parents to Nazi bullets - whilst amassing several lifetimes of experience on the fields of battle. He's not only good at his job, but because he's tiny, quiet and can slip into enemy territory unnoticed, he's become invaluable to the Russian battalion he serves.

The job becomes increasingly dangerous and his commanding officers become so wracked with guilt over using a child that they wish to ship him away to safe haven and enrol him in military school. This notion of being packed off does not sit well with Ivan. Yes, he is a child, but his sense of childhood has long since collapsed and he is - first and foremost - a soldier. His experience and prowess is equal to that of his colleagues - in some instances, he proves to have moved into a realm of soldiering that might even exceed that of many of the men in the battalion.

What little is left of Ivan's childhood is what remains in his dreams.

It's probably safe to say that no country suffered the horror of WWII more devastatingly than the Soviet Union. Nearly 3,000,000 children were orphaned in Russia and Ukraine. Doing the math on that in terms of the loss of immediate family, then tossing in extended family for good measure, represents a mere fraction of the loss of human life. That said, the sheer brute power and resiliency of the nations born from the ancient Kyivan Rus eventually made mincemeat of the Germans on the Russian front.

Russians and Ukrainians paid dearly, however, and the biggest losses were suffered by the millions of orphans who lived through the utter depravity of war. Tarkovsky was wise beyond his years when he made this film as a relatively young man. Using dreamscapes to counter the sheer terror of death and destruction allows the audience (and yes, even Ivan himself) the ability to experience - if only during sleep - what childhood innocence must be like.



There are moments in this film that are imbued with a heartbreaking beauty - both in reality and dream. None will forget the sheer romance of a young soldier and the woman he loves straddling a trench in a clutch of passion whilst surrounded by Russia's glorious birch trees. And in what is perhaps the film's most memorable dream sequence (and one that is probably one of the most indelible in screen history) involves a ride in the back of an apple cart in the rain. Tarkovsky creates such magic here that we soar like the children laughing in the piles of glistening apples.

Even then, though, all is never too sun-dappled since the dreams have the ability to morph into pure nightmare. And it is finally the nightmare of war that becomes the reality children have always had to face and that whatever respite dreams can offer are fleeting - especially when the dreams of childhood are ultimately death dreams.

The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of "Ivan's Childhood" is a monumental must-own item. The film has never looked nor sounded so exquisite as it does here. There are a number of fine extra features including: an unparalleled Hi-Def restoration and my special favourite, an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. There are several worthy interviews with the likes of Tarkovsky specialist Vida T. Johnson, cinematographer Vadim Yusov and Ivan actor himself, Nikolai Burlyaev. The added booklet is lovely and features essays by Dina Iordanova and Tarkovsky himself.

To Download the PDF of the devastating Save The Children report entitled CHILDHOOD UNDER FIRE, click HERE

REBELLE (WAR WITCH) - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

War Witch (aka Rebelle) (2012) ***1/2
Dir. Kim Nguyen
Starring: Rachel Mwanza, Alain Lino Mic Eli Bastien, Serge Kanyinda

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When Central African rebel soldiers invade a peaceful village to forcibly recruit "volunteers" for the cause, 12-year-old Komona (Rachel Mwanza) is ordered to kill her own parents. If she refuses, she's told that death for her Mother and Father will be long and painful and she has the chance, the power, the "opportunity" to end their lives swiftly. Looking into the pleading eyes of the man and woman who brought her into the world, nurtured her and loved her, the real question is whether she has the will to shoot them - to snuff out their lives so they will not be tortured to death.

Komona has no real choice in the matter.

Eventually bundled off into the jungle, she and the other kidnapped children are handed AK-47s and informed that the guns will henceforth be their mothers and fathers. They're sworn to uphold the values of the rebels and do battle to the death.

If we are witness to "the collapse of childhood" as defined by the recent and utterly shocking Save The Children report entitled "Childhood Under Fire", this is surely it - though horrifyingly, these opening minutes of Canadian director Kim Nguyen's unrelenting feature drama War Witch (aka Rebelle) is merely the tip of the iceberg with respect to the "collapse" of Komona's childhood.

Save the Children's report details how societal breakdown during the current war in Syria (now in its third year) is yielding strife in terms of malnutrition, sanitation, lack of medical supplies, no schooling, improper access to heat, shelter, clothing and, not surprisingly, constant physical assaults upon children resulting in both physical and psychological trauma and death. Most sickening are the statistics revealing how children are recruited as pawns or active participants in the conflict.

In Nguyen's fictional, but fact-based drama, Komona - like so many children in war - are individually and/or collectively helpless in the face of such violent conflicts, so much so that they're instilled with the sorrowful need to join the conflict if it can't be beaten. Worst of all, they're pretty much terrorized into submission.

As the film progresses, Komona is raped by the rebel leader and eventually gives birth to a child. She is befriended by a young albino boy and together this strange family unit faces even more horror while attempting to hold on to some vestige of humanity during the conflict. Poor Komona even narrates the tale as an extended monologue to her child - wondering if she'll ever be able to love it the same way her own parents loved her. Under the circumstances, one cannot really find fault in her for these feelings and we eventually experience a further collapse in the childhood of her baby.

Introduced to the hallucinogenic qualities of a special tree sap, Komona is able to numb herself to the pain of her life, but she's also instilled with a six sense which puts her in an extremely valuable position with the rebels. She's become a war with and will remain protected - so long as her sap-induced prophesies prove irrefutable.

God help this child if and when she makes a mistake.

Nguyen unfurls this tale with an almost restrained quality which lends an even more creepy mise=en-scene (replete with gorgeous, floating hand-held photography). The performances by mostly non-professionals are rooted in experience. Seeing non-actors portraying people who have had such a collapse in their childhood is nothing short of devastating. Knowing that all these actors have, in one way or another, been borne out of such experiences lends a kind of credence one would NOT get if played by mere sctors.

War Witch is clearly one of the most moving experiences you'll have.

"War Witch" from Mongrel Media premieres at TIFF 2012.

-->

-->