BROKEN MILE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canadian Film Fest 2017 -Haunting mise-en-scene

Ugliest apartment in Toronto, maybe in all of Canada.

Broken Mile (2017)
Dir. Justin McConnell
Starring: Francesco Filice, Caleigh Le Grand, Patrick McFadden, Lea Lawrynowicz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You know, ugly can be good. Toronto, for example, is plenty ugly. In fact, it might be one of the most monstrously, obscenely, hideously repulsive cities in Canada (and this takes some doing - especially since Calgary exists). Happily (for inveterate Toronto-haters like me), it's never looked more grim than it does in Broken Mile, a visually dazzling sophomore dramatic feature by Justin McConnell who directed, wrote, photographed and edited this oddly compulsive urban neo-noir thriller.

Shaun (Francesco Filice) wakes up in a puke-filled bathtub in an ugly apartment and discovers that his girlfriend Sarah (Lee Lawrynowicz) is bereft of life. There's clearly something shady about her stone-cold stiffness and he takes an immediate powder instead of calling the cops. In his mad dash to an awaiting Uber, he bumps into pal Kenny (Patrick McFadden) and hysterically, mysteriously apologizes to him. Shaun heads to an unbelievably ugly apartment complex and visits his ex-girlfriend Amy (Caleigh Le Grand) who, not surprisingly, lives in an ugly suite with grossly-patterned wallpaper and adorned with decidedly unstylish IDomo-like furniture. He enlists her help and the two of them spend a frantic night running from a (now-gun-toting) Kenny through one of Toronto's ugliest neighborhoods.

A showdown is inevitable as the mystery slowly unravels.

Ugliest apartment complex in Toronto, maybe all of Canada.

There is much to admire in McConnell's film. First of all, he's chosen to allow the drama to unveil as one long extended take with no cuts for the entire 82-minute running time. I'm normally not a fan of any trick pony cinematic shenanigans like this, especially when the "trick" is the only thing that makes the work palatable (the most egregious being dullard Christopher Nolan's backwards-play in his intolerable and overrated Memento). When there's good reason for such chicanery, I'm all for it.

Of course Rope, Timecode and Russian Ark are the most famous examples of the extended take approach and it can certainly be a worthy way to tell a story on film. The desperation of both the situation and characters in Broken Mile are ideal stomping grounds for its director's decision and so much of the film is compelling and suspenseful. Early on in the proceedings, there's an especially fine sequence in which McConnell trains his lens upon the main character as he sits in the back of an Uber vehicle whilst the unseen driver jabbers on to him. The sense of naturalism here is dramatically palpable and damn entertaining.

As the film progresses, the trick-pony stuff continues to infuse the work with all manner of delectably tantalizing properties. What's less successful is the narrative itself. We always feel like there's more here than what meets the eye, but as the movie careens forward, there are a few lapses in logic that feel like "flaws", but are in fact elements built into the narrative which most savvy viewers will recognize as being far less than what crosses our ocular gaze. I pretty much pegged exactly who was who, what was what and how/when we were going to get there. That the denouement is not fraught with darker and "bigger" elements which most noir-like pictures have going for them is a bit of a comedown - especially since we can see it coming.

This might be an unfair complaint since so much of the movie succeeds on a kind of neo-realist level. The world the characters inhabit is so dull, ugly and drained of life that it was a treat to see so many grim interior and exterior locales (many of which are so grotesque that this Toronto-hating critic has, over the years, gone out of his way to seek them out to keep things "interesting").

I also love how "uncool" everything in the movie is. The apartments that the characters live in are so gross - especially the aforementioned joint Amy resides in - and the car the "villain" drives is ridiculously uncool - a super-ugly normal minivan far better suited to someone's Dad rather than a young, purportedly hip denizen of downtown Toronto. There is also a scene in one of Toronto's dingiest Vietnamese Pho restaurants. I've been there many times and it warmed the cockles of my heart to see it in a movie. (The characters also walk by one of the strangest greasy spoons in the city, which is just around the corner from the Pho joint, but sadly, there are no scenes there. Probably because it closes at 4PM and doubles as an accountant's office and tailor shop.) Not only are the selection of locations a treat, but the garish natural lighting and first-rate compositions deliver some mighty juicy goods for us to slurp down with relish.

This is one solid picture and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing more from this do-it-all dude.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-Half Stars

Broken Mile enjoys its Toronto Premiere at the Canadian Film Fest 2017

SKULL WORLD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Feature Documentary Offers Mild Entertainment But Shies Away From The Tough Questions

Skull World (2013) **1/2
dir. Justin McConnell
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Maybe it's just me, but if I was going to spend two years shooting a documentary about a 30-something gravedigger living in a godforsaken suburban wasteland where he and other like-minded and mostly single men of a similar age engage in Box War role playing games, chances are pretty good I'd be looking for some answers - REAL ANSWERS. To do that, I'd have to be a prick - like most reporters and documentarians, really. At first, you're their best friend, but you use that to whatever degree you have to in order to yank shit out of your subjects that's going to go way beyond the surface. I have no problem with that approach at all - when you're making a documentary focusing upon oddball (some might say aberrant) activities - you need to go the distance in order to truthfully examine certain elements of the human condition.

With Skull World, director Justin McConnell delivers a straight forward, amiable look at Greg Sommer and his pals as they construct elaborate costumes and play-weapons out of cardboard boxes. On weekends, scads of similarly adorned enthusiasts meet in the great outdoors and whack each other with cardboard. Eventually, Greg gets super serious about his hobby and begins to build a Canadian league of box-wearing combatants.

Fair enough. Different strokes and all that. God bless them, everyone.

But seriously, a 100-minute uncritical ode to these guys?

Look, the last thing one would want to do is make fun of them, right? Well, actually - WRONG! It'd be good for quite a few hearty guffaws and knee-slaps, but after awhile, this approach would start feeling super stale, super fast. Making fun of these guys would ultimately be like shooting cows tethered to a post with a rocket launcher - way too easy and rife with potential to get repetitive and dull.

McConnell takes his subjects seriously enough that he treats them with respect and genuinely wants to understand, and subsequently allow us to have some insight into their activities. It seems to me though that he's almost going out of his way to put them in a positive light, though as the film's on-screen "host" and narrator I do think he's completely on the level. He's a nice guy, not without talent and he so seriously wants to get his subjects' perspective that he even straps a camera to his head and jumps into the fray of a Box War.

Look, no problem. The movie has decent and occasionally exceptional production value, but there are so many loose ends that are touched upon, then left dangling. One of many examples is Sommer's job at the graveyard. Okay - let me at him. This is phenomenal stomping grounds for some serious lines of questioning. Even Sommer eventually quits the job to concentrate on his freelance work and the Box War activities which makes total sense, but he fleetingly mentions the vibes, the dark spiritual emanations that weigh him down emotionally.

Call me the biggest spoil sport in the world, but this is way more interesting than any of the Box War stuff. So interesting that it could have actually shed light on the Box War activities in truly incisive ways. We occasionally get shots in the early proceedings of Sommer at work - actually in freshly dug open graves. I longed for the filmmaker to dive in there with the camera and just start talking to the guy about his job. After all, Sommer's Box War persona is the "Skull Man" and he even admits how much he enjoys some of the darker, supernatural elements of heavy metal music.

God, this Greg Sommer guy is, to my mind, far more interesting as a human being than his hobby, but by focusing upon his obsessive involvement in the game itself and his need to legitimize it has only surface resonance. Sommer is clearly an artist. There's nothing "weird" about him, he's trying to push the boundaries of life - have fun, make art and furthermore, live his life as if it WAS a work of art.

For some, what's on display will be enough. Again, aside from feeling a touch longer than it needs to be, it's well crafted, BUT... a BIG BUT - it falls short of its potential.

The movie finally feels like an extended pilot for a speciality channel TV series rather than a theatrical documentary with real scope - one that finds truth and substance in Sommer's journey to the extent that it does him the justice I believe he deserves as a very complex individual and furthermore allowing the audience opportunities to examine their own lives by holding up the lives of Sommers and his cohorts as strange mirror images of all of us.

What's even more frustrating is that Sommer's work at the graveyard is just ONE of numerous interesting tidbits in his life beyond the Box Wars that are thrown at us and dropped. I wish the director had plumbed this stuff with far more diligence and intensity. I suspect he might have found himself with a movie that bordered on the kind of depth and importance that would have placed it well beyond its current ephemeral and meagre entertainment value, but his very approach hemmed him into a position that he perhaps had only one was to go with it - the one we see now.

For me, it's a major league drag. The movie dabbles with aspects that are potentially harrowing, but never delivers beyond what is served up on the surface.

Skull World gives us the bones, a genuine structure and story arc, but where's the real meat? The stuff we can REALLY sink our teeth into?

"Skull World" is playing at Toronto's Canadian Film Fest at the Royal Cinema on March 22.