WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL? Review By Greg Klymkiw - Highly acclaimed by the Film Corner

America is so precious about its border
it kills thousands of people per year.
These are dirt-poor migrant workers.
They'll do work American WhiteTrash
won't do, yet they're murdered.
WHY?

OIL SANDS KARAOKE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Documentary Puts Human Face To Environmental Devastation

Director Charles Wilkinson and producer Tina Schliessler return to the subject of energy and environmental devastation in their engaging and surprisingly buoyant followup to the powerful "PEACE OUT". This time, the energy is Oil Sands workers letting off steam in a local karaoke joint. The environment continues to be assaulted, but this time, the filmmakers put a genuinely human face to the devastation of the planet. It's an entertaining, poignant AND important film - an unbeatable combination.

Oil Sands Karaoke (2013) dir. Charles Wilkinson ****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the most devastating assaults upon Canada's environment continues to take place in the Alberta Oil Sands. For the faceless corporations lining the deep pockets of the very few, one of the largest deposits of petroleum on our fair planet is in - you guessed it - the Alberta Oil Sands. Fort McMurray, Alberta used to be a city until it was amalgamated with a good chunk of the region of the Oil Sands once referred to as (don't laugh, I'm not kidding) an Improvement District. Once the city and the nameless district became one, the city of Fort McMurray was no longer a city, but rather (again, don't laugh, I'm really not kidding) an urban service area.

It seems tax dollars were hard at work coming up with all that in order to more adequately serve the interests of oil companies that would find it more convenient to strip the land of its natural beauty if they only had to deal with one civic bureaucracy. Fort McMurray and surrounding areas are, you see, a major cash cow.

This area is alone responsible for generating two million barrels of oil every single day. This isn't a bad haul considering the world uses 90 million barrels of oil a day.

It is Fort McMurray where Director Charles Wilkinson and Producer Tina Schliessler, the makers of Peace Out, last year's stunning, award-winning documentary on energy consumption, have aimed their lenses. This time, the subjects are not corporate CEOs and environmental specialists, but rather, the people - the real people of Fort McMurray. Including migrant workers, the population of the amalgamated R.M. can hit heights of well over 70,000 and most of them either work in the oil business or are beholden to it with their own non-oil toils.

Corporations often think about their scads of employees as faceless hordes, but Oil Sands Karaoke seeks to give faces and names to those who break their backs out in the oil fields - haul truck drivers, small business owners and scaffolders to name but a few.

This is a movie about people, the people - working people.

Wilkinson's film treats all of them with the respect corporations don't. Focusing on five primary individuals, Wilkinson's camera eye captures who they are, where they came from, what their work is and what they hope their futures hold. Most of all, it captures their one true passion.

Bailey's Pub is a popular magnet for oil workers. It's a Karaoke Bar where the backbone of the oil industry, the hard labourers, come to express themselves through song, through music, through fellowship and camaraderie - Karaoke!

Bailey's bartender puts it simply and best - the working people of the oil industry come there for a small section of limelight, to focus themselves on pure musical (and in a sense, spiritual) expression. "It's a big escape from reality," the bartender states succinctly.

Escaping the reality of toil in the Oil Sands might be the only thing to maintain one's sense of self-worth. Yes, the wages are great, but Wilkinson cannily displays the working conditions. On the surface, all seems fine - state of the art equipment, an accent on workplace safety and the ability to learn and work a trade to the best of one's ability.

This is all, however, skin deep.

Wilkinson uses shots of the land itself as both transition points in the narrative, but to also expose the ruination of the environment, the bleak, manmade hell that is the Oil Sands. Land scorched and scraped beyond recognition, a hazy treeless wasteland and worst of all, endless smokestacks belching clouds of filth into the air are what comprise the world these workers must live in.

It ain't pretty, but every night in the karaoke bar, all that changes. With lights in their eyes and the sounds of genuinely appreciative audiences, the workers who partake of the nightly forays into musical expression get to experience the thrill of connecting with others using their innate talents to perform.

Life transforms into a thing of genuine beauty.

We've had our share of fictional renderings of this phenomenon - whether it be John Travolta's Tony Manero tripping the light fantastic on the disco floors of Saturday Night Fever or Jennifer Beals gyrating ever-so artistically to Michael Sembello singing "Maniac" in Flashdance - but with Oil Sands Karaoke we get the real thing.

Seeing these genuinely decent working class heroes spilling out their innermost dreams through song and knowing they are the real thing - not a construct of imagination, but rather, what and who they are in life - is what provides the sort of resonance that fiction can't always deliver. Sometimes you just need to train your lens on reality.

This is what Wilkinson does so expertly and poignantly.

And yes, he tells a story. The narrative arc involves an upcoming karaoke contest at Bailey's - an event that grips Fort McMurray by the veritable short hairs - especially those who will participate in it.

One of the revelations in Oil Sands Karaoke is the alluring, passionate and genuinely talented Iceis Rain. By day, a small business owner, but by night a chanteuse of the highest order. He claims to have been the first gay person in Fort McMurray to come out and though he might, in other similar working class towns in other countries - oh, let's say, the United States - he might well be taking his life in his hands. As we come to know and love those who patronize Bailey's, he's in good hands (most of the time) - surrounded by warmth and good cheer.

All that aside, Iceis (pronounced like "Isis") Rain delivers one show-stopper after another. By the time we get to the big Karaoke contest, Iceis knocks us completely on our collective asses. The performance is infused with a strange blend of sadness and elation - a kind of melancholy that has the power to lift our spirits to the Heavens - and does so with a virtuosity that captures it so indelibly that many will be moved to tears. I know I was.

Oil Sands Karaoke is quite unlike any documentary about the environment that you'll ever see. It's about the people. And as is my wont when compelled, I'm always happy to paraphrase that great line Jimmy Stewart has in It's a Wonderful Life. With taste and genuine emotion, Wilkinson sheds light upon all those "who do most of the living and dying in this town."

It can't get more environmental than that.

"Oil Sands Karaoke" launches on a limited theatrical run beginning in Toronto November 8 (4pm and 9pm daily) at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas via Avi Federgreen's Indie-Can. Free to visit the Carlton Cinema website directly by clicking HERE.


HERE ARE SOME FANTASTIC DOCUMENTARIES YOU CAN PURCHASE DIRECTLY FROM HERE (AND SUPPORT THE MAINTENANCE OF THIS SITE) BY CLICKING THE HANDY AMAZON LINKS BELOW:

BLACKFISH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - They're stolen from their mothers, held captive and forced to submit.

Blackfish (2013) ****
Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Imagine a world where your child is ripped from your clutches before your very eyes and you can do nothing about it. Imagine that same child then being held captive for the rest of its life in the most abominable conditions. Imagine your child being tortured, deprived of food as punishment and forced to engage in all manner of humiliating, unnatural acts for the foul, perverse edification of those who get off on it. Imagine your child's unending sorrow, frustration and pain - both physical and psychological.

Imagine a point where your child, when given a chance, lashes out at its captors and savagely kills them. Would you blame your child for taking the life of one of its captors? Of course not. If given half a chance you'd tear the sons of bitches to pieces yourself.

Who wouldn't?

The problem here is that this particular pervert, this aberrant, pus-swilling scum-bucket of slime is not your average garden variety serial killer. No, this pile of rancid excrement is amongst the foulest of them all.

Not unlike the Dole corporation that was properly eviscerated by Fredrik Gertten in his groundbreaking Big Boys Gone Bananas and all the corporate filth that torture animals as seen in Liz Marshall's extraordinary The Ghosts in Our Machine, we're talking specifically about the Florida-based SeaWorld, a corporate entity that reeks of the vilest lucre, like any vat of raw sewage would - raking in billions of dollars at the expense of Orcas and other harmless creatures that are stolen from their natural habitats and/or bred against their nature in captivity, then tortured.

By extension, this includes ANY water park that houses ANY creatures of the oceans for the edification of drooling inbred humanoids and their snot-nosed, brain-bereft progeny (including Canada's disgusting Niagara Falls attraction MarineLand with its sickeningly offensive TV commercial jingle "Everyone Loves MarineLand"). No, we do not love MarineLand. Everytime the commercial comes on television, my own little girl used to cry and now that she's a bit older, she tosses whatever she can in disgust at the TV screen.

"The Orca brain just screams out, 'INTELLIGENCE!'" - Blackfish interviewee Lori Marino, neuroscientist

With Blackfish, filmmaker Gabriella Cowperthwaite fashions an eminently compulsive big-screen experience. Structured like a procedural cop thriller, we follow the mystery involving Tilikum, a 5000-kilo Orca - responsible for killing two of its trainers and indirectly, the death of another in three different water parks.

Using an expert selection of archival footage, all brand-new interviews and illustrated reconstructions of data and court proceedings, this is a superbly edited film that initially seems to point its finger at the Orca itself, but as the film proceeds it brilliantly morphs its villain from Tilikum to the amusement parks that house sea creatures for aquatic performances and in particular, SeaWorld.

This is filmmaking of the highest order.

On a journalistic level, it digs deep to expose the truth and on a narrative level, it mines its subject for greater truths. Again, it's proof positive, at least to me, the importance of documentary - not so much a form, but rather, a genre of cinema in and of itself, and as such, delineating the differences between documentary work that is dull and information-based (most TV doc series) with that which goes the distance - using every resource of film as an art to create a work of both scope and profundity.

Even more fascinating is the film's perspective in a journalistic sense. There is no clear (or in the case of a lot of bad films, a sledgehammer) to deliver a Western Union-like "message" to its audience. Certainly in the case of Tilikum's plight (and that of all the poor creatures abused and tortured in such parks), the film could have effectively been structured as a plea to save these animals and end the existence of such parks, but this approach was absolutely not necessary since Cowperthwaite's integrity as a journalist and artistry as a filmmaker allows her to assemble "just the facts, M'am" - giving voice to those whose voices have been stifled for far too long.

The overall effect of presenting factual information in this fashion (wherein the seams of the film's expert craft are invisible) allows audiences to formulate their own response which, for most reasonable and intelligent audiences will be a mixture of anger and sadness that we, as a species, continue to work well beyond the scope of our place in the food chain, to exploit, subjugate and in many cases threaten complete genocidal annihilation of other living creatures (and by extension, our own).

The movie is finally not a WHOdunnit, but rather a bit of a HOWdunnit and a whole lot of WHYdunnit.

Cowperthwaite presents the factual story with the capture of Tilikum off the shores of Iceland on behalf of SeaLand, the grim and thankfully now-defunct Canadian marine park in Victoria, British Columbia. During this segment, we learn that Tilikum was only 4-years-old when it was snatched from its Mother.

Doing the math on that means this: Female Orcas can live up to 100-years-old in the wild, and even though males live traditionally fewer years - an Orca at the age of four is, for all intents and purposes, "a child". It not only needs its Mother, but she in turn is still there to nurture, love and protect.

It's been scientifically proven that whales and dolphins have a part of their brain that not even humans possess - one that allows these animals an extremely rich emotional life - a sense of family, of caring and love are not only inherent in these creatures, but the intensity of these emotions is so extreme it makes the human equivalent pale in comparison.

One Orca fisherman is interviewed about what it was like to capture an Orca toddler from its mother. What he describes - in support of the aforementioned intensity inherent in Orcas - will not only evoke tears from the audience, but is, in fact, something that, in the telling, has the fisherman himself on the verge of breaking down emotionally.

The film describes the physical and emotional trauma to Tilikum due to its kidnapping and subsequent incarceration in the tiniest space imaginable at the wretched SeaLand. It's here where Tilikum kills his first human, a trainer who slipped into the water with him.

Her death was not a pretty sight - especially not to the shocked customers who witnessed the woman's death, yet none of whom were ever contacted by any authority to present their eyewitness testimony. Luckily, Cowperthwaite captures it for the film,

SeaLand in Florida - knowing all too well that Tilikum had killed a trainer in B.C. - bought the Orca. Supposedly it was for breeding purposes only, but eventually it was enlisted to perform in the SeaLand show. Yes, Tilikum's sperm is used for breeding, but the manner in which this is done is presented in the film as clearly painful and cruel for the beleaguered Orca.

It was at SeaLand where Tilikum killed again - this time, a very experienced and beloved trainer who, among other indignities, was scalped, had her arm ripped off to be enjoyed as an Orca snack. The official State agency for health and safety in the workplace took SeaLand to court over this and won a decision to keep trainers and whales separated.

SeaLand is, however, appealing this decision. This is clearly their LEGAL right, but one wonders if it is a MORALLY reasonable right. Corporations are, however, not human. They have no sense of morals, nor do they distinguish between right and wrong in their single-minded hunger to make money.

They are entities unto themselves.

The important feature documentary The Corporation by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan (a companion piece to Bakan's book "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Power") offer perhaps the most astonishing exploration of corporate mentality in recent ddecades. On the film's website we get some excellent background on both the book and film's contentions:

". . . law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends the modern business corporation is created by law to function like a psychopathic personality. [. . .]Corporations are required by law to elevate their own interests above those of others, making them prone to prey upon and exploit others without regard for legal rules or moral limits. Corporate social responsibility, though sometimes yielding positive results, most often serves to mask the corporation's true character, not to change it. [. . .] The corporation's unbridled self interest victimizes individuals, the environment, and even shareholders . . . Despite its flawed character, governments have freed the corporation from legal constraints through deregulation, and granted it ever greater power over society . . ."

Well, shut my mouth! As we see in Cowperthwaite's film, SeaLand's response to pretty much everything discussed in the aforementioned position taken by The Corporation.

Who is blamed for this woman's death? The corporation? Nope. They, certainly won't take the rap.

Uh, Tilikum? Uh, well . . . he is the Orca who chowed down on her, but the spin won't place the blame on the animal (as well, ultimately, it shouldn't).

In the film, we see clearly that the burden of responsibility in terms of SeaWorld's media spin and legal defense is foisted upon the trainer who, of course, is dead and unable to defend herself. (It's kind of like the Orcas. They can't speak "human" and are unable to defend themselves against the indignities they suffer.)

What's even more appalling are the outright lies and inaccuracies shoved into the brains of staff at the aquatic park. Time after time, Cowperthwaite's film delivers a litany of straight-faced ignorance on the part of the park's employees - much of it flying in the face of genuinely expert testimony on the part of other trainers, scientists and researchers the film interviews.

Tilikum is not responsible for the third death we're shown in the film. His sperm is, though. Four of his progeny are sold to a notoriously irresponsible Spanish water park where one of the Mini-Me Orcas dines on another experienced trainer.

By the way, some of the nicest people in the film are all the former trainers interviewed who genuinely display love for these great creatures, but have to sadly admit how they were duped (sometimes even by their own emotions) into believing both corporate spin, outright falsehoods and/or withheld information.

Hilariously and predictably, SeaWorld is going out of its way to attack Cowperthwaite and her film on the eve of its theatrical release. Her film, however, makes it very clear that SeaWorld was given numerous opportunities to present their side of the story in the film, but chose not to.

They can attack the film all they like.

Who in their right mind - save for the boobs who fill such amusement parks with their spawn - will even begin to believe SeaWorld's claims of Cowperthwaite's "unfair" portrait?

Please see this movie! Please see it with your children and discuss it with them! Teachers should urge their media buyers to secure this film and then make sure children see it. They will be less likely to demand their parents take them to these places. Hopefully, a whole new generation of kids can be inspired by this film (and others like Liz Marshall's Ghosts in Our Machine).

Hopefully after seeing this film, audiences will NEVER AGAIN patronize aquatic parks like SeaWorld, MarineLand and all others of the same ilk. Giving money to these corporate entities is to allow them to profit from the torture of animals - all in the guise of entertainment and education.

Sea creatures belong in the sea - not in grubby tanks where they're forced to perform tricks before morons who cough up their hard-earned dough to be entertained by this. There's enough garbage already generated by Hollywood to fulfill the needs of the Great Unwashed for mindless stimulation.

There's no need to torture real animals for that.

"Blackfish" is being released via Kinosmith and will begin its theatrical run at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

Oh, and if you actually do go to one of these aquatic clip joints, and notice that the dorsal fins of the not-so-happy sea creatures are flopped over, please enjoy the following links handily available on the wonderful Ocean Advocate website to YouTube clips posted by Heather Murphy and Jeffrey Ventre that will provide two explanations for this. The first is from SeaWorld. They have many "interesting" explanations for Dorsal Fin Collapse:



However, if the SeaWorld explanation doesn't cut it for you, perhaps you'd be better off with the excellent paper by Wende Alexandra Evans HERE

Or you might also enjoy the following clip (posted by Jeffrey Ventre on YouTube) which features a conversation on the matter with an actual expert in Orca study, Dr. Astrid van Ginneken:



To read my review of Liz Marshall's brilliant, heartbreaking and poignant The Ghosts in Our Machine from Indie-Can Entertainment, please click HERE.

To read my review of Fredrik Gertten's powerful portrait of corporate greed and corruption Big Boys Gone Bananas (including an interview with Gerrten), pleese click HERE.

For more information on The Corporation, visit HERE.

10 BEST FILMS AT HOT DOCS 2013 - By Greg Klymkiw

GREG KLYMKIW'S 10 BEST FILMS AT HOT DOCS 2013

(in alphabetical order)

15 Reasons To Live - My review HERE

Continental - My Review HERE

Devil's Lair, The - My review HERE

Ghosts in Our Machine - My review HERE

Interior. Leather Bar. - My review HERE

Manor, The - My Review HERE

Oil Sands Karaoke - My Review HERE

Special Ed - My Review HERE

Valentine Road - My Review HERE

Who is Dayani Cristal - My Review HERE

HOT DOCS AWARDS - By Greg Klymkiw - I, THE JURY is not only the title of the great book by Mickey Spillane, but the title of this piece which bestows the Hot Docs Awards for the 2013 edition as selected by me.

I, THE JURY - My Choices for the Hot Docs 2013 Awards

By Greg Klymkiw

I am pleased to announce the winners of the Hot Docs Festival 2013 awards as chosen by me. The Hot Docs Awards Presentation, hosted by the late June Tracy (Octagenarian House Burlesque Artist at the lovely Constellation Room in Winnipeg, Manitoba), took place on Friday, May 3, at the Manor Gentleman's Club in Guelph, Ontario. Nine awards and no cash were presented to Canadian and international filmmakers, including awards for Festival films in competition and those recognizing emerging and established filmmakers. A selection of three award-winning films will not have added screenings on Sunday, May 5.

*****

The Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award was presented to 15 Reasons To Live (Director Alan Zweig, Producer Julia Rosenberg, Distributor: KinoSmith) - My Review: HERE

The Special I, The Jury Prize – Canadian Feature Documentary was presented to Continental (Director/Producer: Malcolm Ingram) - My Review HERE

New this year, the I, The Jury Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award (Mid-Length Film) was presented to director Hans Olson for The Auctioneer (Distributor: National Film Board of Canada, NFB) - See my review HERE

New this year, the I, The Jury Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award (Feature Film) was presented to director Shawney Cohen for The Manor (Distributor: KinoSmith) - My review HERE

The Best International Feature Documentary Award was presented to The Devil's Lair (Director: Riaan Hendricks, Producer: Neil Brandt) - My review HERE

The Special   I, The Jury Prize – International Feature Documentary was presented to Who is Dayani Cristal? (Director: Mark Silver Producer: Lucas Ochoa, Thomas Benski, Gael Garcia Bernal) - My review HERE

The Special   I, The Jury Prize – International Mid-Length Documentary was presented to Winter, Go Away 

(Directors: Sofia Rodkevich, Anton Seregin, Madina Mustafina, Elena Khoreva, Anna Moiseenko, Dmitry Kubasov, Askold Kurov, Nadezhda Leonteva, Alexey Zhirayakov, Denis Klebleev Producer: Marina Razbezhkina) - My review HERE

The KCND-TV I, The Jury Documentary Films Emerging Artist Award was presented to director Riaan Hendricks for The Devil's Lair - My review HERE

The I, The Jury Audience Award, voted on by one informed gentleman who declares the following film to be the most entertaining documentary of the festival: Oil Sands Karaoke (Director: Charles Wilkinson, Producer: Tina Schliessler) Read my review HERE

THE DEVIL'S LAIR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICK

The Devil's Lair (2013) ****
Dir. Riaan Hendricks

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is one grim, gritty and nerve-wracking gangster picture, but like the best of them, it's got heart.

The picture's emotional punch emanates from its central character, Braaim, a lean, lanky, almost classically handsome late-forty-to-fifty-something with a whole lot of salt and a dash or two of pepper in his hair. Though he prefers loose shirts and sweats, his wife, a caring, understanding and delightfully full-figured gal (and Mom to his three kids) tries to make sure he's spruced up suitably for important engagements. Their relationship is loving - she never nags, but always throws in gentle reminders and he clearly strives to be a devoted family man, though ultimately, his work has a habit of getting in the way.

He's a wise elder member and boss of NTK (Nice To Kill), a gang specializing in the sale of narcotics. Most gangstas die at half his age, but Braain's got staying power, not to mention plenty of the requisite hard-ass meanness and moxie to handle anything, including s vicious turf war that's being waged against his territory.

Though he wants to leave the neighbourhood and the "business" to make a better life for his family, he's bound by the code of his gang and can't break free until the right people have been whacked. (Makes perfect sense to me.) He wants NTK to be strong and secure without him and ultimately, for peace between gangs to be restored and thus making his dreams of halcyon days come true.

Braaim's wife is alternately resigned to the choice she made in knowingly marrying a thug (albeit a handsome and charming one), but she stills harbours a need for him to at least slightly curtail his activities so he can spend more time with his family. It's a pipe dream she holds onto - dangling and extending an impending divorce over his head - hoping this will change his ways.

This, in spite of many displays of his tenderness, just doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Ultimately, our hero is a been-there-done-that kind of guy. His eyes have seen everything, his spirit has been infused with hatred (when necessary) and he's done what he's had to do to provide leadership and maintain the gang. He has even served a (surprisingly light) seven-year sentence in prison for murder. He's justifiably concerned that he can't ever murder again for fear of having the book thrown at him.

Most of all, Braain hopes his children will never have to follow in his footsteps. He acknowledges that he knows what he knows from growing up in a family where his own father packaged drugs, planned killings and sported a wide variety of guns. He consumed the sins of his father, but desperately hopes this will not be the fate of his own children.

These are not the mean streets of way uptown in NYC or in South Central L.A. Braain and his family live in the flats of Cape Town - a community created by the Apartheid government in the 50s to separate living space between white and black. Though people of colour now have freedom, the chasm between rich and poor is wider than before and most Cape Town Blacks live in the flats.

As well, this gangster picture is not a drama. You might have guessed that one already since it's playing at Hot Docs, but it's so expertly shot and edited (by its clearly gifted director Hendricks), with the right attention paid to narrative detail and character, that the movie feels like Mean Streets on the Cape Town Flats.

There are moments that are simply unforgettable - gunshots echoing in the streets, the gang sucking back crystal meth and planning murder, long talks into the night about shattered dreams, a child playing with a dead cat's corpse in the street, other children playing with toy guns - striking poses of bravado in honour of their fathers and among many other indelible moments, contrasting sequences between Braain and his baby girl where he's like any tender Dad doting on his little one and others where he holds her in his arms as he conducts "business".

These are real people, real locations and real events. There's a touch of Lionel Rogosin to the proceedings, but Hendricks goes way beyond staging improvised scenes based on tales crafted during the shoot itself which is why you're always on the edge of your seat. He's a filmmaker with cinema hard-wired into his genetic code and he makes it seems so easy for us to alternately cringe and weep.

And yet, it was clearly anything but easy to make.

This is a movie I shall not soon forget. Neither will you.

"The Devil's Lair" is playing at Hot Docs 2013. For tickets and showtimes, visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

WINTER, GO AWAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICK

Winter, Go Away (2013) ***1/2
Producer: Marina Razbezhkina
Dir: Sofia Rodkevich, Anton Seregin, Madina Mustafina, Elena Khoreva, Anna Moiseenko, Dmitry Kubasov, Askold Kurov, Nadezhda Leonteva, Alexey Zhirayakov, Denis Klebleev

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Vladimir Putin is evil. He is the worst thing to happen to Russian since the Butcher Stalin. He is potentially another Hitler. Or at the very least, Stalin. And believe me, that's bad enough since Putin believes in nothing but himself and his cronies. He has no beliefs save for the fake sense of nationalism he uses as a public relations ploy to keep himself in power. Oh, actually, I erred somewhat in that last statement. He believes in brute force and open corruption.

This very cool and brilliantly edited documentary comes to us courtesy of Producer Marina Razbezhkina who, for my money, directed one of the genuinely great Russian films of the past twenty-or-so years - the exquisite and poetic avant-garde drama Harvest Time, 2004's ode to and very odd reworking of Dovzhenko's immortal farm collective celebration Zemlya.

Assembling 10 filmmakers to shoot events for the two months preceding Putin's third re-election, Winter, Go Away is not only a stunning portrait of a Russia ideologically and politically sliced in half with two diametrically opposed forces, but it's a harrowing up close and in your face exposé of a police state. If you didn't know or believe it before, the film makes it clear that all those whom Putin has bought and paid for to swing the election in his favour are utter filth. It's the worst Soviet style of wrapping peacekeepers and bureaucrats around one's finger.

The film's "balanced" portrait clearly demonstrates how those who believe in Putin seem as deluded as the Christian Right Wing in the United States. That said, we also see how splintered and disorganized the anti-Putin camp is - all their hearts are in the right place, but none of their bodies and minds come together at the right time.



Moreover the one thing that simply cannot be denied is the content during numerous sequences involving a near-litany of infuriating, flagrant disregard for basic human rights and free expression. With this, the filmmakers expose their agenda quite openly and in fact, the approach taken with the whole film is not unlike the kind of "balanced" portraiture the pro-Putin camp employs (albeit with far more money and power behind it than those who are against him). As far as I'm concerned, this is fine - the film, in spite of ten directors, has a powerful, cohesive and forceful point of view.

The movie on paper might sound like a patchwork quilt, but editor Yuri Geddert fashions a painful and frustrating narrative wherein Putin's win seems like a done deal from the beginning. And yet, we are introuced to so many brave and committed young voters who exude a collective belief system in a Russia free of the yoke of Putin's gangsterism. Just as maddening, however, is how disparate they all seem, but what unites the anti-Putin demonstrators and activists - at least within the context of the film - is seeing their hopes dashed as they are over and over again are beaten and incarcerated by policemen who care only about the status quo and their own, no doubt, healthy pay-offs to keep the peace - Putin Style.

By the time we get to election day, the flagrant abuses multiply exponentially and Putin will once more reign supreme. It's not especially hopeful, but the pure "fuck you" attitude of Russia's youth is something to embrace and champion,

"Winter, Go Away" is playing at the Hot Docs 2013 Film Festival. For tickets and showtimes visit the Hot Docs website HERE. The film is preceded by a short satirical piece entitled "Vladimir Putin in Deep Concentration" which, at just under ten minutes is about five minutes too long to achieve the effect it's trying for.

"THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE" + "CHIMERAS" + "FELIX AUSTRIA!" - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw's Bases-are-loaded HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013) ****
Dir. Liz Marshall

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Okay, so something funny happened on the way to my home in the country. My wife and child, both being inveterate tree-huggers, got the craziest idea. What they wanted to do sounded like one hell of a lot of work. They promised I would not have to avail my services upon any aspect of their venture. Well, good intentions and all that, but now I find I'm not only a gentleman farmer, but involved in the rescue of animals living in horrid conditions and headed for inevitable slaughter. Now, it's not that I'm some kind of anti-environmental redneck or something, but what I love about living in the country is sitting in my dark office, smoking cigarettes, watching movies and writing. I occasionally step over to the window, part the curtains briefly and look outside to acknowledge - Ah yes, nature! I then happily return to my prodigious activities.

You see, prior to becoming a gentleman farmer, I liked the IDEA of nature, the IDEA of being in deep bush, the IDEA of living off-grid on solar energy. Well, more than the ideas, really, since I did enjoy all of the above in practice, but in my own way.

Now, I have animals. Shitloads of them that my wife, daughter and eventually I rescued from misery with the assistance of a super-cool Amish dude.

Needless to say, when watching Liz Marshall's film, I was completely blown away. You see, having experienced the joy of coming to know a variety of animals, I eventually realized that all of God's creatures I mistook for being little more than blobs of meat with nothing resembling character, spirit or intelligence was just downright stupid. I've always had dogs and THEY certainly have character, spirit and intelligence - so why NOT chickens? Or donkeys? Or hell, even bees.

Marshall's film, you see, focuses upon someone I'd have to classify as a saint. Photographer Jo-Anne McArthur is not only an astounding artist of the highest order, but by restricting her activities to mostly photographing animals in the most horrendous captivity, she's risked both her life and mental health. Given my recently-acquired predilection for animal rights, I watched Marshall's film three times. Yes, on a first viewing I was far too emotionally wound up to keep my cap of critical detachment on, but now I'm perfectly convinced of the film's importance in terms of both subject AND cinema. It's a finely wrought piece of work that takes huge risks on so many levels in order to present a stunningly etched portrait of the heroic McArthur and HER subjects - all those animals being tortured to fill the bellies of ignoramuses and line the pockets of corporate criminals. (Not that I'm planning to go Vegan anytime soon, but I do believe that ANYONE who consumes any animal product derived from cruel meat factories as opposed to natural free-range is no better than a torturer and murderer.)

Not kidding about that, either.

What you see in this film will shock you. There is no denying what both Marshall and McArthur see and capture with their respective cameras. Creatures with individual souls and personalities are being hunted, incarcerated in conditions akin to concentration camps and/or bred in captivity and tortured until they are slaughtered. Equally frustrating are the corporate boneheads in a variety of publishing industries devoted to generating purported journalism - the difficulty with which McArthur must suffer to get her work published and to bring attention to these atrocities gets me so magma-headed I need to almost be physically restrained from going "postal".

You must see this movie.

If you're a coward, loser and/or asshole and don't want to see the truth, then fuck you!

Chimeras (2013) ***
Dir. Mika Mattila

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Two artists. One rich and famous. The other - well, not so much. Both are on opposite ends of the art world spectrum. One does commercial art, the other - well, not so much. Is our tale situated then, in the two different NYC worlds of Madison Avenue and the Village respectively? Nope. We're talking China - the nation poised to be the ultimate superpower. And artists, no matter who they are grapple with common issues. They both want to pursue a purely Asian style, which is all well and good until one has to grapple with the intricacies of Communism vs. traditional Eastern philosophy and religion vs. the strange contemporary cusp period China is in which blends the tenets of a free market with Totalitarianism. Add to this heady brew the increasing and almost overwhelming influence of North American culture and artists young and old, rich and poor, seasoned and neophyte - who are grappling with a conundrum of overwhelming proportions. Director Mika Mattila steadies his gaze upon these two poles of experience through two artists and delivers are nicely made exploratory rumination upon these complex ideas. The picture is a tiny bit precious in its approach, but patience will yield rewards for discriminating viewers.

Felix Austria (2013) **1/2
Dir. Christine Beebe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The dandy, well-dressed fellow is Felix Pfeifle from Modesto, California and director Christine Beebe offers up this scattershot, though often mind-blowingly imaginative documentary film which, being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are Viennese high culture, ultra-Austro-Hungarian-aristocracy and Archduke Otto von Habsburg, makes for a mostly intriguing mix of personal journey, obsession and history. Felix has dreams about his obsessions and this is where the film shines. Like some perverse coupling of Guy Maddin and Jan Svankmajer (with dollops of the Brothers Quay), we're treated to the sort of dazzlingly sumptuous cinema magic one would want from a film that focuses upon the aforementioned individual. Less interesting to me is Felix's real life which keeps getting in the way of the glorious dream sequences, his Austro-monarchical fetishes and finally, the astonishing moments where we lays eyes upon the last living descendant of the empire Felix so desperately adores. There is also the interesting exploration of a mysterious, huge box that arrives from the estate of one Herbert Hinckle (which, for some reason forces me to imagine some ancient, wizened version of Travis Bickle in his dotage). The package contains a wealth of materials to keep Felix in a state of perpetual orgasm for the rest of his life and it is elements such as these which make the film ultimately a worthwhile experience.

"THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE", "CHIMERAS" and "FELIX AUSTRIA!" are all playing at the Hot Docs 2013 Filom Festival. For tickets and showtimes visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

THE MANOR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICK

The Manor (2013) ****
Dir. Shawney Cohen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When you are next in picturesque Guelph, Ontario

Please make sure to visit the exquisite gentleman's club 

THE MANOR

A very special ALL NEW treat awaits Gentlemen of Distinction.
The Bottle Service Lounge includes everything you could possibly want for the ultimate night out: Front row seating for all major events, your own private waitress, shower shows and comfortable leather couches in your own section.

So you're a six-year-old red-blooded male and your Dad buys a strip club attached to a dive hotel and it becomes the family business wherein you, your little brother and Mom pitch in.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Even better is that during the first few years the business was operating, your family lived in a suite above the finest Gentleman's Club in Southern Ontario (Le meilleur club pour les messieurs dans le sud de l'Ontario).

Sorry, bro', but this is sounding mighty win-win to me.

I'll admit, though, that time and maturity play nasty tricks on us and in your case, a quarter of a century later, those halcyon days don't seem so golden - if, in fact, they ever were. For example, as a kid, you'd wake up thirsty in the middle of the night, pad down to the bar and pour yourself a Coke from the taps. You remember that during this time, you didn't, for even a second think there was anything "weird" about this.

Hey, bud, why should you? Sounds like some kind of crazy living wet dream to me.

But no, not to you. These days you look around and see your patriarchal 400-pound Dad brashly bullying his way through life, your gentle subservient 85-pound Mom hiding further and further within herself, your baby brother dreaming of owning his own strip club and dating the "help" and you think, is there something wrong with this picture? Is there something wrong with me?

Then you gaze in the mirror and see someone who has not lived up to his potential.

Well, maybe it's not all peaches and cream.

What I see, however, is the kind of filmmaker I dreamed about getting my mitts on during the 13 years I was the Senior Creative Consultant and Producer-in-Residence at Uncle Norm Jewison's Canadian Film Centre.

You know why? You've done what many of them couldn't even dream of doing. You just made one hell of a terrific movie and frankly, your life experience and the talent you display suggests to me that we're going to see some totally amazing work from you in the future.

*****

Director Shawney Cohen, the aforementioned young whippersnapper I was addressing above, clearly needed to explore this situation - if only for himself - but in reality, this process of exploration has yielded something very, very special for all of us. He shot The Manor over a three year period with unfettered access to his parents and their world. What he's crafted here for his first feature is a lovely picture about family, love, loyalty, caring and conflict against the backdrop of a (for some) unconventional setting.

This is one corker of an entertaining movie.

Shawney himself guides us on the journey. His initially dour and vaguely judgemental attitude rubbed me the wrong way, but as the movie progressed, my perception shifted to genuine admiration as the more sour aspects of his character (once he gets a girlfriend, actually) transform into a very moving display of love and caring.

Besides, in both life and art, someone's got to have a voice of reason.

What Cohen does here is pretty damn extraordinary. He exposes a slice of his family's (to some) strange life and makes it completely relatable to everyone. I love how I came to love this family - especially his Dad - a no nonsense, stubborn and unapologetically irascible old curmudgeon who might not always do things the right way, but in his own way, he thinks he's doing the right thing. One of my best friends remarked how frighteningly similar Shawney's Dad was to both my own Dad and, uh, ME. I took it as a compliment. And yes, it was meant as one.

There is, always, a lot of talk about dysfunctional families and there's been much of that in relation to The Manor - even within the film and its promo bumph. I hate that expression. I especially don't believe in how people spread it around like cow shit on the lawn. Unless a family is identical to the fucking Cleavers on Leave it to Beaver, ALL families are dysfunctional - it's simply a matter of degrees.

What I see when I watch Cohen's film is a genuine patriarch presiding over his wife, sons, home and business - old school, for sure - but he is a REAL MAN who LOVES his family. He might not always be choosing the best way to express it, but express it he does.

The Manor, as a slice of life, delivers a great story that's finally all about love.

And why not?

Love is the ultimate unifying force and though many things threaten to split it apart, love - as always - has the last laugh.

"The Manor" is playing at the Hot Docs 2013 Film Festival. For showtimes and tickets, visit the festival's website HERE. It will be released via Kinosmith.

Now Folks, when you're in Guelph, please patronize THE MANOR - I've been there myself and I can personally attest to its abundance of charm. For info, visit the website HERE.

AND LADIES, "THE MANOR" IS A TRULY FEMINIST GENTLEMAN'S CLUB. HOT DOCS GALS MAY WISH TO PARTAKE IN "LADIES NIGHT" ON THE LAST NIGHT OF THE FILM FESTIVAL TO CELEBRATE A GREAT WEEK OF BUSINESS AND PLEASURE!

15 REASONS TO LIVE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

15 Reasons To Live (2013) *****
Dir. Alan Zweig

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Everyone says that Alan Zweig's new picture is a major departure from everything he's made to date. They're wrong. Since his first feature length documentary Vinyl, the first of his semi-unofficial "mirror trilogy" which then included I, Curmudgeon and Lovable, through to his fourth movie A Hard Name, Zweig has always been about humanity and all his work has been infused with compassion.

15 Reasons To Live is more of the same.

Now, before anyone assumes that's a slag, allow me to add that humanity and compassion are elements of existence always worth exploring - in both life and art. (After all, what else is there? Really?)

Oh, I know, all those championing this as a departure are bringing up the fact that 15 Reasons is not overflowing with self-loathing. He's not looking at himself in a mirror and confessing his perceived failings and then using his subjects to bolster and/or change his mind. He's not aiming his camera at ex-cons, overtly exploring their harrowing dark side in order to find glimmers of both hope and forgiveness. Oh, and for those who saw it (and everyone who should have seen it), he's not even in the territory of his first feature, Darling Family, a tremendously moving and well directed adaptation of the play by Linda Griffiths which was, uh, about a couple on opposite ends of a decision to abort a child.

Or, they say, Oh, he's not a curmudgeon after all.

Well, whatever.

I can only reiterate: Alan Zweig's films are about humanity and compassion - period. He's a great interviewer - probing, insightful, funny, thoughtful and entertainingly conversational - and this, if anything, characterizes a good chunk of his style. This wends its way through all his documentaries and it's one of many reasons why it's impossible not to be riveted by them.

He's got an original voice as a filmmaker and, quite literally within his vocal chords. Nobody, but nobody can sound like Alan Zweig and ABSOLUTELY nobody can make movies the way he does.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of Zweig's original approach is that he is, first and foremost, an avid collector. His films are populated with large casts of characters and these individuals are inextricably linked to the themes of the films, but as such, he pulls from them the things that make each one of them unique and what he seems to do is collect all these people with the same passion he collects vinyl or books or movies or tchochkes, BUT unlike the inanimate objects he collects, he can't purge himself of his collection of subjects by dropping them off at the Goodwill Store.

He collects people of all stripes and he gets, through his films, to keep them forever - not just for himself, but for the world.

And THIS, for me, is what's so special and if there's any difference with the new picture from his previous work, it's that he forced himself into maintaining a strict number of subjects to add to his collection. And yes, there is one key surface departure - he tells each person's story separately without the documentarian's crutch of weaving in and out of his subjects' lives, stories and perspectives.

Inspired by his friend Ray Robertson's book “Why Not: Fifteen Reasons To Live?” Zweig chose the 15 chapter headings - Love, Solitude, Critical Mind, Art, Individuality, Home, Work, Humour, Friendship, Intoxication, Praise, Meaning, Body, Duty and Death - and with his inimitable producer Julia Rosenberg (one of Canada's true producers-as-filmmaker that I can count on two hands and half a foot) and his Associate Producer Whitney Mallett, the team searched out 15 stories that best exemplified each reason to live.

With the astounding cinematography of Naomi Wise (she paints every face with light and her compositions are exceptional) and dollops of exquisite animation by Joseph Sherman, the team shot each story separately and then with the breathtaking work of editor Eamonn O’Connor, each story was cut separately until embarking upon what must have been an even more formidable challenge, working with the assembled stories and, well, assembling them. O'Connor's cutting is especially revelatory. Each tale is perfectly paced, to be sure, but the transitions from tale to tale are quite simply, masterful - at times subtle and gentle, while at others delivering my favourite kind of cut - the cut that takes your breath away. Literally. (These cuts, when they work, are not jarring - they kind of slide in and sidle up to you and before you know it, you've been winded.)

And damn if this structural approach doesn't work just perfectly. The film shares an architecture similar to that of "Dubliners" by James Joyce and "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson - each book having several great stories that work just fine on their own, but when taken all together, they generate an effect not unlike some dazzling combination of a full novel meshed with a mesmerizing tone poem. This, if anything, is what launches Zweig into some kind of stratosphere - a film that brings together everything that makes his work so goddamn special; all the compassion and humanity your heart could possibly desire in a perfectly cohesive package celebrating life itself.

I think it's safe to say that 15 Reasons To Live is a film that will have the kind of shelf life that only a genuine masterpiece delivers - a film for now, to be sure, but more importantly, one for the ages.

I don't think there is a single story that will not resonate beyond the here and now.

Witness:

A tale of love against a dream to walk around the world;

A search for solitude amongst the masses;

The application of critical thought in the face of religious dogma;

The appreciation of art when everyone says it'll never be appreciated again;

A slice of individuality from a mysterious source;

A sense of place when one finds a home that means forever;

When work becomes that which fulfills you and feeds your soul;

A sense of humour that manifests itself in a simple, but ultimately layered choice of a name that infuses your identity with one that reflects all your gifts;

Friendship that's thicker than blood when a debilitating disease threatens your quality of life;

A realization that an intoxicant can inspire you to never say never again;

To seek the ultimate outlet to praise and worship that which fills your life more than some spurious non-entity;

Seeking, finding and maintaining the meaning your life gives to yourself and God's creatures;

To honour thine body to honour thine soul to honour the gift of expression through exertion and concentration;

To save a whale;

And finally, the discovery that peaches ARE life itself - sweet and ever regenerating.

These are the individual stories that equal a much bigger and profound story - one in which mankind seeks all those things that give meaning to one's life and how, through faith and perseverance in one's own humanity and place within the universe, anything - ANYTHING - is possible.

And Zweig does all this and more. He gets to have his cake and eat it too. We get to have our cake - his film - and eat it too. Where in previous films, Zweig held a mirror to his face so that it might reflect not merely himself, but us, he takes a step further - he takes grand stories that celebrate life and makes them all the mirror for us to gaze into and realize that what's precious is right in front of us and we've got to seize it and never let go.

The final tale Zweig imparts in 15 Reasons To Live is, without question, a cinematic equivalent to the final story in Joyce's "Dubliners". After first seeing Zweig's truly great film, I thought deeply on my own life and where I had been, was being and where I needed to go. Like the Joyce's final words in the final story of his masterpiece, Zweig's picture, and in particular his animated tale of death made me think about those words - words which give my life solace and meaning when the dark is darkest:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

To paraphrase Joyce, I can't shake the fact that Alan Zweig has, with this future masterpiece of cinema, created a work that will make all of our souls, both the living and the dead, look to that which faintly falls through the universe and makes us all swoon ever so slowly.

"15 Reasons To Live" has its world premiere at Hot Docs 2013. For tickets and showtimes, visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have know Alan Zweig since 1987. I produced his first feature documentary. My daughter is a reason to live (in my life as well as in his film). I love movies. When I see movies I cherish, I need to write about them. End of story.