BORG/MCENROE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Opening Night TIFF 2017 Gala a major dud!

Good Boy/Bad Boy of Wimbledon find common ground.

Borg/McEnroe (2017)
Dir. Janus Metz
Scr. Ronnie Sandahl
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgård, Sverrir Gudnason

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the greatest rivalries in professional sports remains that of 80s tennis champs Bjorn Borg (the height of Swedish civility) and John McEnroe (the nadir of American vulgarity). As such, one might expect a decent enough sports biopic inherent in the subject matter. Not so with Borg/McEnroe.

Director Janus Metz and screenwriter Ronnie Sandahl serve up this tepid misfire with one sloppy volley after another. What we get here is little more than a series of uninspired recreations of tennis matches, a whole lot of clichéd flashbacks leading up to the famed Wimbledon match and little in the way of genuine drama. So much of the movie feels like a Made-for-TV affair, but without the kind of crisp competence that might have made the movie watchable.

The tennis sequences are supremely disappointing - the lack of solid wide and/or long shots, way too many frenetic cuts and no sense of geography all adds up to a whole lot of nothing. The dramatic childhood and early adulthood flashbacks yield by-rote brush strokes of the pair and the most potentially interesting thing about them, their eventual friendship (borne out of rivalry and mutual sporting admiration) is left as a simple post-script at the picture's end.

LaBeouf continues to dazzle as an actor, relishing the opportunity to madly roil and saltily cuss his way through the proceedings. Sadly, poor Gudnason is allowed little more than stoicism as Borg ruminates upon his upcoming death-match at Wimbledon. Skarsgård is relegated to the ho-hum loyal coach perch.

Aside from the picture's near incompetence, it's a bore. That might be its greatest sin.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One Star

Borg/McEnroe is a Mongrel Media release at TIFF 2017.

PATERSON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Dullsville meets Poetry in New Jersey.

Impossibly gorgeous Iranian women who marry
bus drivers in Paterson, New Jersey NEVER have to work.

Paterson (2016)
Dir. Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Henley,
Cliff Smith, Chasten Harmon, William Jackson Harper, Masatoshi Nagase

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Look, I love Jim Jarmusch as much as the next guy, but the fact remains that he really hasn't made anything worth seeing in a long time. That said, I have no intention of ever giving up on him. After all, the man gave us Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law and Mystery Train - all terrific pictures. His new film Paterson, is however, so utterly, mind-numbingly mediocre that it's really tempting to never see another one of his movies ever again.

Here's the deal: Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey (birthplace of the immortal Lou Costello). He lives in a modest post-war bungalow with his impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and their super-cute, mega-wrinkly bulldog. Now, maybe it's just me, but do New Jersey bus drivers make enough money to own a bungalow (albeit modest) and support impossibly gorgeous Iranian wives who appear to do nothing for a living? Well, maybe they can. After all, this couple appears to not do much of anything.

Every single day is pretty much the same. (Jarmusch used to be a master of making "sameness" both entertaining and thought-provoking, but in this movie, it's anything but. It is 118 minutes long. That's what it is.)

Bus drivers in Paterson, New Jersey can support impossibly
gorgeous Iranian wives who don't work. They can also be
poets like fellow Patersonians Ginsberg & Williams.

Starting with the title card "Monday" and cycling through an entire week, this is what happens - each day.

Paterson wakes up and engages in his morning ablutions.

Sometimes he talks to his impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife, or at least nuzzles her.

Paterson walks to work.

Paterson sits in his bus, waiting for his shift to begin. He writes (supposedly good) poetry in his notebook. His boss comes by and talks about his personal problems.

On the road, he listens in on one key conversation between a couple of passengers.

At lunch, he eats and writes more (supposedly good) poetry in his notebook. (This makes sense, I suppose, since Paterson, New Jersey was the home and/or birthplace of many notable writers including Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams. Pretty cosmic, if you ask me.)

When he returns home, he discovers his impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife Laura working on some ornate, hand-crafted interior design element for their modest post-war bungalow. They talk and nuzzle. Their conversation usually consists of his impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife Laura reminding him that he absolutely must photocopy his poetry notebook and/or the baked goods she is planning to prepare for a weekend market. The conversations are often punctuated with shots of their super-cute, mega-wrinkly bulldog.

After dinner, Paterson leaves his impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife Laura home alone and takes their super-cute, mega-wrinkly bulldog on a walk. He stops at a local bar, ties the dog outside, goes in, orders a beer, talks to some fellow patrons and always has a conversation with the bartender.

That, folks, is all there is. Day in. Day out. There is no conflict, save for a subplot involving a bar patron and the woman he loves (but who refuses to love him back).

Impossibly gorgeous Iranian nuzzles loving bus driver.

On the weekend, Paterson and his impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife Laura go to a movie. Upon their return they discover that the super-cute, mega-wrinkly bulldog has destroyed the (not-yet-photocopied) notebook of (supposedly good) poetry. His impossibly gorgeous Iranian wife Laura feels badly, but still manages to chide him for not photocopying his notebook.

On Sunday, Paterson is depressed. He sits on a park bench. An older Japanese man sits next to him. For some reason, he knows Paterson is a poet. He gifts him a brand new empty notebook.

Gee, I wonder what Paterson is going to do next? Perhaps he'll write some (supposedly good) poetry. Perhaps we'll find out if Jarmusch ever bothers to make a supposedly good sequel to this supposedly good movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** (Two Stars)

Paterson is a Special Presentation at TIFF 2016. It is a Mongrel Media release.

ELLE - Review By Greg - TIFF 2016 - Verhoeven manages unimaginable, makes boring film

Elle (2016)
Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Scr. David Birke
Nvl. Philippe Djian
Starring: Isabelle Huppert

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It seems unthinkable that Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Showgirls, Total Recall) could actually make a boring movie. That he could make a film that's repugnant - in all the wrong ways - is equally shocking. He's done it with Elle, though.

Michèle LeBlanc (Isabelle Huppert) is raped by a ski-masked scumbag in her tony Paris digs, but she doesn't report it to the police. She has other ideas.

Michèle happens to be a dynamo in the world of gaming production. Failure eludes her because she makes her designers, colleagues and programmers suffer her sharp-tongued wrath. She knows what her gameboy customers want and, irony of ironies (ugh), the lads living in front of their gaming consoles want big boobs, blood and rape, especially rape.




Yes, she eventually tracks down her rapist, but not before Verhoeven can provide rape flashbacks and rape dreams. And isn't this all going to be oh-so Francais? She may or may not be out for revenge, but mostly, she seems fuelled by the cat and mouse aspects of the rapist stalking the rape victim and vice versa. Super Ugh!

Working with a ridiculous script, his first in the French language (from what must be a dreadful novel), Verhoeven has made a film that's vagina-stuffed with lame satirical jabs, mostly of the easy-poke variety against gaming and gamers to justify what turn out to be the rape fantasies of his leading lady.

The picture's not funny, nor suspenseful and worst of all, it's a mega-bore. I love Verhoeven, but this is a total misfire. I imagine most psueds and/or film critics will defend the picture and applaud its "bravery" and purported nods to "empowerment", but this is the domain of pinheads, not anyone with taste, compassion and humanity.




THE FILM CORNER RATING: Lowest Rating:
TURD DISCOVERED
BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL
AND DINING LOUNGE

Elle is a Mongrel Media Release playing TIFF 2016

I, DANIEL BLAKE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Bureaucrats Who Kill With Joy

I, Daniel Blake (2016)
Dir. Ken Loach
Scr. Paul Laverty
Starring: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Dylan McKiernan, Briana Shann

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a world where it seems that the poor are better off dying than face the indignity of their supposed benefactors, one wonders what's more evil - the government or its vile, petty bureaucrats who coldly implement policies designed to keep people down whilst supporting the greed of the 1%.

Ken Loach, one of cinema's great humanitarians, takes us on a harrowing roller coaster ride of those caught up in the cold-blooded silos of social assistance in contemporary Britain. I, Daniel Blake tells the story of a 59-year-old skilled construction worker (Dave Johns) who suffers a heart-related accident on the job and rightfully applies for benefits. In spite of his serious condition and a desire to get better and return to work, a soulless clerk purporting to be a "medical expert" ticks off a ludicrous series of boxes which deny him basic care.

He is allowed to appeal, of course, but the process to do so is fraught with hurdles clearly designed to keep people like Daniel Blake from getting what's rightfully due to them. He's eventually shuffled into a spurious bandaid program which forces him to look for work even though he is medically prohibited from doing so.




His journey makes for the stuff of great drama, but screenwriter Daniel Laverty and leading man Johns create a character of considerable humour and warmth. Even as we furiously engage in his plight (to the point of wanting to put our fists into the faces of all the fools on the government side of the desk), I, Daniel Blake is almost endlessly laugh-out-loud funny, often downright joyous.

A concurrent subplot involving Daniel's friendship with Katie (Hayley Squires) a struggling single Mom and her two kids caught up in a similarly infuriating bureaucratic is the source of deeply moving humanity. Though Daniel's character slips into an old-fashioned patriarchal disdain for Katie's tough employment choice to help her kids, Loach allows us to be both angered by his response whilst understanding it completely.

The film creates a rich tapestry of supporting characters, a superb sense of place and small victories which take on the force of tidal wave-like power as Loach plunges us into a world that never feels false. Funny, bittersweet and tear-wrenching, I, Daniel Blake will preach to the converted with aplomb, but should be required viewing for every petty bureaucrat in the world.

Those callous shits need to be strapped into chairs like Alex in A Clockwork Orange and forced to see this film. It will provide a searing mirror image, but also an unflinching portrait of the damage they cause to all those who do most of the living and dying in our world.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

I, Daniel Blake is a Mongrel Media Release at TIFF 2016.

TONI ERDMANN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Teutonic Father-Daughter Hilarity

Toni Erdmann (2016)
Dir. Maren Ade
Starring: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Hüller

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If you do the wrong math on Toni Erdmann, you might be tempted to assume a 162-minute running time and its country of origin (Germany) will yield an unbearably dreary slog, so whatever you do, don't be a dumkopf in your calculations; Maren Ade's lovely picture yields one of the funniest, most heartwarming and celebratory experiences you'll have at the movies this year.




Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) is a hangdog retired old schlub who perks up his life (and those around him, when they're so willing) with a seemingly endless supply of practical jokes which he pulls off with costumes (including fake buck teeth) and a totally straight face.

His adult daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller), a public relations executive in the field of international relations is less amused. Her poker face in the joy department matches Winfried's in the gag sweepstakes. There's clearly a deep love between father and daughter, but also an estrangement as she's tried to move on and create a life and career for herself.

When Winfried comes to visit Ines in Romania, unannounced no less, he finds her in the midst of an important campaign involving the outsourcing of jobs (and an attempt to lessen the blow of the optics). Daddy Dearest wastes no time insinuating himself upon Ines and her world. Donning a series of ridiculously cheesy sport coats, buck teeth and a moronic wig (a la Peter Sellers in What's New Pussycat), he assumes the fictional role of "Toni Erdmann", proving to be a blessing and curse to his daughter's business dealings.




This movie is so funny, I needed to constantly gasp for air, but when the picture settles into genuine pathos, tears were shed with equal abandon. Father-daughter relationships have their own unique complexities and writer-director Ade captures this dynamic with considerable artistry.

Toni Erdmann is easily the most joyous experience I've had at the movies in a long time. You laugh, you cry, but most importantly, you soar.

Soaring is good. Trust me.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Toni Erdmann plays at TIFF 2016. It is a Mongrel Media release.

NATASHA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Stellar Opener for Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2016

Natasha (2015)
Dir. David Bezmozgis
Starring: Alex Ozerov, Sasha K. Gordon, Aidan Shipley, Deanna Dezmari

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Given the ongoing richness of the immigrant experience in Canada, a country with an official policy of multiculturalism, it's so important for our cultural industries to tell these stories and reflect our mosaic as it shifts across time. Natasha, written and directed by Canadian filmmaker David Bezmozgis is an especially layered, intelligent and evocative portrait of immigrant life in Canada.

To think of the utter waste of Canadian taxpayer dollars on a mind-numbingly mainstream and mediocre international co-production like Brooklyn (uh, a period piece about an Irish colleen finding romance in post-war New York) leaves a bitter taste, especially considering all the great stories to be told by talented filmmakers in Canada. Thankfully, the bilious sapidity forced upon our country's cultural palate by the sickeningly twee Brooklyn is replaced very nicely with the exquisite taste of Natasha.

Based on an original story by Bezmozgis, he has skillfully adapted it from a 90s setting to the contemporary northern suburbs of Toronto. Using the rich backdrop of the Eastern European (primarily Russian) Jewish community, we follow the story of handsome 16-year-old Mark (Alex Ozerov) as he whiles away his summer days amidst the relatively affluent greenery of the pleasantly sleepy enclave of wide streets, big garages and the seemingly endless rows of tastefully-designed (though unexceptional in their very modernity) homes.

Into this world comes the beautiful 14-year-old Natasha (Sasha K. Gordon). She is the daughter of a recent middle-aged immigrant from Moscow who will be marrying Mark's nebbishy Uncle. Family is family, though and Natasha will be Mark's cousin, if only by marriage. As such, he's recruited to be a tour guide to this seemingly shy young girl who speaks only Russian. She's not shy for long, though - at least not in Mark's presence.

It seems inevitable that they should fall for each other, but as the film progresses, deep secrets of Natasha's life in Russia are parcelled out and several family conflicts begin to rear their ugly heads to threaten the relationship. What's especially telling is the differences between the "new" immigrants (Natasha's Mother) and those who've had time to establish themselves in the "New World" (Mark's family). These contrasts are brilliantly juggled throughout the film since it is the differences which tend to provide the greatest conflict, but they do so in tandem with "old world" values which tend to creep into the proceedings.

The film is gorgeously written, most notably in terms of charting its narrative and rich characters in ways you never expect. Its very surface simplicity is what yields so many layers of complexity, humanity and rich, believable surprises. The film's subplots involving Mark's family and his friend, an amiable wealthy young man with a not-so straight-up interior, are also woven perfectly into the fabric of the story in ways that always surprise us.

There is, ultimately, no denying that Natasha is a love story within a coming-of-age tale, but in spite of its occasional forays into the familiar (that come with the territory of the genre) and the delightful gymnastics of youthful romance, Bezmozgis delivers a film that is as bitter as it is sweet. Bittersweet qualities in this genre can also be a dime a dozen, but happily the film shies away from the all the aforementioned tried and true elements by etching story beats that twist the familiar, all in ways closer to life itself.

As well, the movie is blessed with a stylistic adherence to letting drama play out naturally and the picture succeeds because of the filmmaker's very deft approach to neorealism.

Visually, Bezmozgis seeks simple, but dramatically resonant shots. With expert cinematography by Guy Godfree and first-rate production design elements (in particular the nice, subtle touches in the interior set dressing) and in addition to the very real locations, Bezmozgis allows his drama to play out with flourishes that are always discriminating. What's nice, and not unlike so many of Vittorio De Sica's masterful visual approaches, is that the film blends very classical shot structures with those that are as equally naturalistic (especially inherent in Godfree's lighting).

As a director with far more experience than this sophomore effort implies, Bezmozgis blocks the action of his cast so that they seem genuinely rooted in the place and time they occupy and the occasional plumes of breathtaking visuals occur in terms of both camera and the gorgeously paced and narratively effective editing by Michelle Szemberg. Like the best neorealism, we always feel like we're in a real place and time with equally real people (thanks also to a perfect cast), but, when dramatically necessary, our filmmaker sneaks a delicious frisson into the film to tantalize us and move us forward.

Bezmozgis achieves this by investing his imagery with several important visual signposts which have the effect of working on us inconspicuously - rooted naturally in setting and, most saliently, in the dramatic language of the film. Perhaps the most glorious example of this is the basement window of Mark's home, one which looks into his living quarters and reflects the light of day (or night) as the story proceeds. It's so evocative that it eventually becomes a kind of deliriously romantic image via Mark's point of view in the basement. When Bezmozgis reveals this point of view in reverse, the effect is heartbreaking.

Darkness is what ultimately wends its way through this moving, romantic tale. It makes the light seem brighter when it needs to be, but on occasion the light of day - in both exterior and interior settings - take on a portent which ultimately delivers on a classical coming-of-age story that hurts as much as it offers hope.

The hurt, is familiar - not familiar in terms of the filmmaking, but in the haunting and decidedly unidealistic experiences felt by the film's characters that we, as an audience, recognize in our own experience.

This, of course, is what makes terrific pictures. Natasha is one of them.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Natasha is the opening night film of the 2016 Toronto Jewish Film Festival and opens theatrically May 6, 2016 in Canada via Mongrel Media.

I SAW THE LIGHT, MILES AHEAD, BORN TO BE BLUE - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - Why so many music Biopics all of a sudden? 3 movies about 3 musicians released within 2 months. Go figure.

Top: I SAW THE LIGHT ***
Bottom right: MILES AHEAD **
Bottom left: BORN TO BE BLUE *

Born to Be Blue (2015)
Dir. Robert Budreau
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Carmen Ejogo, Callum Keith Rennie,
Stephen McHattie, Janet-Laine Green, Dan Lett, Kevin Hanchard, Tony Nappo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If you've seen Let's Get Lost, Bruce Weber's haunting 1988 feature-length documentary about the sad, sexy, tragic genius Chet Baker, there's no reason to see Robert Budreau's dreadful biopic misfire Born to Be Blue. Weber's documentary succeeds because it harrowingly focuses on Baker's drug addiction as much as his turbulent life and extraordinary music. Rather than obviously charting tried-and-true rise-and-fall beats in Baker's life, we get subtle glimpses into just how Baker's demons were as much a part of his art as they were what ultimately destroyed him.

Born to Be Blue is a fruit-loopy, simple-minded fantasia on Chet getting his musical mojo back after having his teeth knocked out by some scumbag dealers. Writer-Director Robert Budreau's film reduces Baker's life to some kind of Brian Grazer-like "winner" story dappled with plenty of fake dark touches. Amalgamating all of Baker's wives into one convenient punching bag/inspiration (Carmen Ejogo) feels horribly by-the-numbers and on-point.

Hello, my name is Ethan Hawke.
I can be tortured, eh. Just like Chet Baker.

I'll concede the film could not have possibly shoehorned Baker's whole existence into ninety-or-so minutes, but why it felt the need to concoct so much nonsense and avoid even a smattering or pie-slice of the man's genuiely fascinating life as a microcosm of the whole, is beyond me.

Ethan Hawke is a fine actor when he's in good movies, but he seems to take on a lot of garbage. He must know when it's crap, but sometimes, how's a fella to really know? I'm sure he thought the role in Born to Be Blue would have been a supreme challenge and maybe even Oscar bait, but aside from bearing an occasional resemblance to Baker, his performance is never more than skin-deep. We see no demons in Hawke. All we experience is an actor pretending that they're there and working overtime to prove it.

Most of all, though, Baker is presented as a man on the road to self-discovery, hence "success". Neither the film nor Hawke let us forget it. Give me a break.

Skip this. Just watch Let's Get Lost again.

Born to Be Blue is an IFC Films picture in very limited theatrical release.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Shaft? Superfly? Nope. Don Cheadle as Miles Davis.

Miles Ahead(2015)
Dir. Don Cheadle
Scr. Steven Baigelman & Cheadle
Starring: Don Cheadle, Ewan McGregor, Emayatzy Corineald

Review By Greg Klymkiw

As jazz legend Miles Davis, there's no denying Don Cheadle's charismatic work as an actor. Veering from the afro-and-shades-adorned 70s cocaine addict to the suave, dapper young man in the 50s flashbacks, Cheadle is never less than engaging and his performance comes close to capturing the genius of this great musical artist.

Unfortunately, we have to put up with the film. Reducing the 70s Davis to some kind of participant in a lame, TV-movie version of a Blaxploitation programmer, then clumsily flashing us back to Davis's loving, but ultimately abusive treatment towards his wife (Emayatzy Corineald), the picture is all over the place and rife with dullsville cliches.

STARSKY and HUTCH? Nope!
The Miles Davis Story as Cop TV show
melded with supremely lame 70s Blaxploitation.

Worse yet, we have to put up with the increasingly insufferable Ewan McGregor. Here he plays a scruffy freelance writer pretending to be a Rolling Stone journalist. Far too much of the movie is Cheadle and McGregor verbally jousting, and not too convincingly at that. What really begins to pale, though, is an endless subplot involving the disappearance of Davis's master tapes to his new album and McGregor helping him retrieve them. The whole movie turns into an endless episode of "Starsky and Hutch", replete with a supremely lame car chase and gunplay action.

Cheadle's direction is, at best, mildly competent and at its worst, barely competent. That said, his performance, especially during his coked-up crazy-ass scenes, is never less than a blast. There was probably a terrific movie with Cheadle as Miles Davis - somewhere out there. Miles Ahead, sadly, is not it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two Stars

Miles Ahead is currently in theatrical release via Mongrel Media.

Tom Hiddleston as fine a Hank Williams
as Gary Busey's Buddy Holly was.

I Saw the Light (2015)
Dir. Marc Abraham
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Maddie Hasson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Marc Abraham's Hank Williams biopic might not go too far beneath the surface, but it hits key points in the life of the famed post-war American country crooner with a spate of lovely performances and an evocative attention to period detail. With only enough manipulation of the facts and compression of the events to make approximately 10+ years of Williams's life pass by amiably and entertainingly in a surprisingly breezy 123 minutes, this is by far the best of the recent trio of musical biopics.

Abraham's screenplay for I Saw the Light is based upon the book “Hank Williams: The Biography” by Colin Escott, George Merritt and William Macewen and as such, it seems less concerned with exploring the ennui which contributed to the singer's unique renderings of hits like the title track, “Why Don’t You Love Me,” "Move it on Over" and among others, “Lovesick Blues”, as it is with charting key events in Williams's life. We go from his romance and marriage to first wife Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen), when he was a local radio performer and follow him on his endless gigs in smoky honky-tonks until he eventually achieves the necessary chops to headline at Nashville's "Grand Ole Opry".

The story doesn't shy away from his Jekyll and Hyde-like transformations from kind, loving and charming to mean-spirited, hard-drinking and philandering. He's both a good father and a negligent father. He's as caring as he is violent. As he rises to the top, we see him abandon his first wife (who insisted too strongly upon performing with him - her voice was, at best, spiritedly competent and at its worst, bordering on caterwauling) and eventually settling down with second wife, Billie Jean Jones (Maddie Hasson).

Husband and Wife Duet
One Sings, The Other Doesn't

Abraham lets the narrative plane touch down on Hank's squabbles with the record company and promoters, his debilitating back pain and his eventual reliance upon highly addictive painkillers. A good chunk of the film is imbued with a pleasing sentiment and basks in the warm glow of Dante Spinotti's gorgeous cinematography.

The real star of the picture is the music. Leading man Tom Hiddleston (Loki in the Thor movies) is nothing less than compelling when voicing Williams's work and much of the running time is pleasingly toe-tapping. If anything, I Saw the Light shares a great deal with Steve Rash's Buddy Holly biopic with Gary Busey - it's old fashioned and goes down easy.

The picture's like a nice, mellow moonshine. It cuts through the dust in the throat, clears the pipes, the senses, the raw emotions and finally keeps us glued to the proceedings just long enough to leave the cinema satisfied, but also compelled to whip out our own vinyl and CDs of Hank's music, so we can keep our toes a tapping and the tears a flowing.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

I Saw the Light is in national release via Mongrel Media.

SON OF SAUL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Best Film of the Year & theNewMillennium

Son of Saul (2015)
Dir. László Nemes
Scr. László Nemes, Clara Royer
Starring: Géza Röhrig

Review By Greg Klymkiw

After seeing Son of Saul, I thought, well, there's not much reason to see anything else. It's a feeling that's certainly followed me throughout the myriad of pictures I've watched since, and even though some are very good, if not even exceptional, this extraordinary film by László Nemes is even suppressing films from my consciousness that I have seen before it - not just in the recent past, either. What Nemes accomplishes here as an artist is what we hope and pray great art will do.

I've only seen the picture once and I simply cannot shake its devastating effects. It has been seared upon my brain and weeks after seeing it, I keep playing the film over and over in my mind. The picture is beyond recollection, beyond reminiscence.

I feel that the act of seeing it is to finally experience a dramatic work, which is as close to bearing witness to events, emotions and experiences as any film I've ever seen. I feel that the act of seeing it is to finally experience a dramatic work, which is as close to bearing witness to events, emotions and experiences as any film I've ever seen. It's so grippingly real the sights and sounds feel like they're accompanied by a smell - pungent, horrific odours of death, filth, fire, rot and decay.

We know what occurred during the Holocaust, we know how insane and reprehensible genocide of any kind is, we know these things. We've seen Night and Fog, Shoah and Schindler's List, but I cannot think of any film which will ever do what Son of Saul has done.

Nemes places us in the very eye of this hurricane of devastation, this Hellfire on Earth, this 20th Century abomination which forces us to question how and why we continue to accept any hatred which is responsible for genocide.

Nemes and his co-writer Clara Royer spare nothing to plunge us directly into the madness of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the astonishing mise-en-scene of never leaving the face of Saul (Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian-Jew who works an "enviable" concentration camp job in the Sonderkommando. This group of prisoners are worked to the same levels of exhaustion as other inmates, but they are afforded a slightly loftier place in the pecking order of eventual extermination. They get slightly increased rations and slightly more "humane" work-shifts for herding their fellow Jews into the gas chambers.

The film begins with a group of prisoners forced to strip, then shoved into a shower room. Throughout the whole process, Nazi guards offer words of solace - placating the doomed prisoners with lies of a better life. Once locked into the shower room, Saul and his fellow Sonderkommando madly rifle through the clothing to extract all items of value as the screams of the nude prisoners pierce through the steel walls of the gas chamber.

Once the screams dissipate, Saul and the others drag the bodies ("the meat") out of the chamber, stack them, clean the chamber of all "filth" (urine and faecal matter expunged in both horror and death) and, of course, point out prisoners who are still alive.

These poor souls are shot or strangled. Some of them are selected by the "mad scientists" for autopsy in order to glean information as to how they survived.

It's here where Saul discovers a young boy who appears to be his son. He watches as the child is snuffed out and then tagged for autopsy. As if we, through Saul, have not already experienced a living nightmare, Nemes ramps things up even further.

The Nazis are attempting to beat the clock as the allies are ever-approaching and everything begins over again as new groups of victims are herded, stripped, gassed, piled like meat and transported to be burned.

Saul's goal is to keep up appearances, but to also obtain a proper Jewish burial for his son. The rest of the film is devoted to this, in addition to the ever-increasing pace of destruction.

The camera almost never leaves actor Géza Röhrig's face through any of this. It occasionally arcs around for us to get Saul's point of view, but these moments are fleeting and we can never escape his look of mad determination, whilst in the background, we see and hear the endless factory of death.

There is no musical score. If anything, the score is the soundscape of destruction - clangs, screams, gunshots.

Our senses are jangled, as actor Röhrig manages to keep the same face throughout, modifying it only slightly to move through the madness and achieve his goal. This might well be one of the greatest works any actor has done in any film.

The horror never lets up, but there is one sequence involving mass shootings and burnings as Saul fiercely attempts to achieve his goal, but to also convince some over-zealous Nazis that he is not to be shot and burned, that he is Sonderkommando. This sequence might well be the only time we will witness Hell on a movie screen - any movie screen. We are beyond jangled and pummelled here. The mise-en-scene forces us to experience Saul's elevated levels of horror.

The film continues to build to ever-intensifying crescendos of terror and Nemes inflicts a final cut to black that we don't see coming and winds us so painfully and horrendously that we physically feel the need to gasp for air.

This is a first feature for Nemes. One can't even imagine where he goes next as an artist, but with what he's created here, he has extraordinarily vaulted himself into the position of a Master.

There is, within the context of Saul's story, no hope, but the very act of experiencing it and bearing witness allows it anyway. No matter how devastated one is by the end, an overwhelming sense of hope swirls over us. We have experienced a work of art that we have had to experience. This is a film that defines the word "necessary".

Anything and everything we can do to urge others to see the film is our mission.

This is the hope.

The world needs to see this film and maybe, just maybe, there will be hope that the world can, because of this film, because of bearing witness, because of its mere existence, become a better place.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Son of Saul is a Mongrel Films release and currently playing in Canada at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

SON OF SAUL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Since I think this is the best film of the new millennium, it stands to reason that it's going to be the best film you'll see all year.

Son of Saul (2015)
Dir. László Nemes
Scr. László Nemes, Clara Royer
Starring: Géza Röhrig

Review By Greg Klymkiw

After seeing Son of Saul, I thought, well, there's not much reason to see anything else. It's a feeling that's certainly followed me throughout the myriad of pictures I've watched since, and even though some are very good, if not even exceptional, this extraordinary film by László Nemes is even suppressing films from my consciousness that I have seen before it - not just in the recent past, either. What Nemes accomplishes here as an artist is what we hope and pray great art will do.

I've only seen the picture once and I simply cannot shake its devastating effects. It has been seared upon my brain and since seeing it, I keep playing the film over and over in my mind. The picture is beyond recollection, beyond reminiscence.

I feel that the act of seeing it is to finally experience a dramatic work, which is as close to bearing witness to events, emotions and experiences as any film I've ever seen. It's so grippingly real the sights and sounds feel like they're accompanied by a smell - pungent, horrific odours of death, filth, fire, rot and decay.

We know what occurred during the Holocaust, we know how insane and reprehensible genocide of any kind is, we know these things. We've seen Night and Fog, Shoah and Schindler's List, but I cannot think of any film which will ever do what Son of Saul has done.

Nemes places us in the very eye of this hurricane of devastation, this Hellfire on Earth, this 20th Century abomination which forces us to question how and why we continue to accept any hatred which is responsible for genocide.

Nemes and his co-writer Clara Royer spare nothing to plunge us directly into the madness of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the astonishing mise-en-scene of never leaving the face of Saul (Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian-Jew who works an "enviable" concentration camp job in the Sonderkommando. This group of prisoners are worked to the same levels of exhaustion as other inmates, but they are afforded a slightly loftier place in the pecking order of eventual extermination. They get slightly increased rations and slightly more "humane" work-shifts for herding their fellow Jews into the gas chambers.

The film begins with a group of prisoners forced to strip, then shoved into a shower room. Throughout the whole process, Nazi guards offer words of solace - placating the doomed prisoners with lies of a better life. Once locked into the shower room, Saul and his fellow Sonderkommando madly rifle through the clothing to extract all items of value as the screams of the nude prisoners pierce through the steel walls of the gas chamber.

Once the screams dissipate, Saul and the others drag the bodies ("the meat") out of the chamber, stack them, clean the chamber of all "filth" (urine and faecal matter expunged in both horror and death) and, of course, point out prisoners who are still alive.

These poor souls are shot or strangled. Some of them are selected by the "mad scientists" for autopsy in order to glean information as to how they survived.

It's here where Saul discovers a young boy who appears to be his son. He watches as the child is snuffed out and then tagged for autopsy. As if we, through Saul, have not already experienced a living nightmare, Nemes ramps things up even further.

The Nazis are attempting to beat the clock as the allies are ever-approaching and everything begins over again as new groups of victims are herded, stripped, gassed, piled like meat and transported to be burned.

Saul's goal is to keep up appearances, but to also obtain a proper Jewish burial for his son. The rest of the film is devoted to this, in addition to the ever-increasing pace of destruction.

The camera almost never leaves actor Géza Röhrig's face through any of this. It occasionally arcs around for us to get Saul's point of view, but these moments are fleeting and we can never escape his look of mad determination, whilst in the background, we see and hear the endless factory of death.

There is no musical score. If anything, the score is the soundscape of destruction - clangs, screams, gunshots.

Our senses are jangled, as actor Röhrig manages to keep the same face throughout, modifying it only slightly to move through the madness and achieve his goal. This might well be one of the greatest works any actor has done in any film.

The horror never lets up, but there is one sequence involving mass shootings and burnings as Saul fiercely attempts to achieve his goal, but to also convince some over-zealous Nazis that he is not to be shot and burned, that he is Sonderkommando. This sequence might well be the only time we will witness Hell on a movie screen - any movie screen. We are beyond jangled and pummelled here. The mise-en-scene forces us to experience Saul's elevated levels of horror.

The film continues to build to ever-intensifying crescendos of terror and Nemes inflicts a final cut to black that we don't see coming and winds us so painfully and horrendously that we physically feel the need to gasp for air.

This is a first feature for Nemes. One can't even imagine where he goes next as an artist, but with what he's created here, he has extraordinarily vaulted himself into the position of a Master.

There is, within the context of Saul's story, no hope, but the very act of experiencing it and bearing witness allows it anyway. No matter how devastated one is by the end, an overwhelming sense of hope swirls over us. We have experienced a work of art that we have had to experience. This is a film that defines the word "necessary".

Anything and everything we can do to urge others to see the film is our mission.

This is the hope.

The world needs to see this film and maybe, just maybe, there will be hope that the world can, because of this film, because of bearing witness, because of its mere existence, become a better place.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Son of Saul is a Mongrel Films release and screens as a Special Presentation at TIFF 2015.

THE DAUGHTER - Review By Greg Kymkiw - Ibsen-o-rama *****TIFF2015 TOP PICK*****

The Daughter (2015)
Dir. Simon Stone
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie,
Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto, Anna Torv, Odessa Young

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"If you take the life-lie from an average man, you take away his happiness as well." Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck

Though one seldom discovers sentimental bones in the body of Henrik Ibsen's greatest work, it's definitely imbued with the properties of melodrama, which many directors eschew completely, or worse, are unable to work with properly.

The Daughter, a contemporary film adaptation of Ibsen's "The Wild Duck," taken from screenwriter-helmer Simon Stone's stage production, strikes the perfect balance twixt the manufactured artificiality of the play's gloriously melodramatic form twixt the deep core of emotional and thematic truths pulsating under the surface. This yields a genuinely gripping and ultimately moving film experience.

Henry (Geoffrey Rush) is the richest man in town. He and several previous generations of his family have provided the local populace of a sleepy Australian hamlet with its entire reason for being. Unfortunately the devastating emotional downturn of recent years has forced him to shutter his formerly lucrative pulp and paper mill; in turn forcing most of the area's citizenry into seeking employment elsewhere and as such, potentially turning the community into a ghost town.

Ghosts have been lying dormant there for years. A ghost town might be an ideal place to house these hidden spirits as the film contrasts Henry's deeply-entrenched ruling dynasty and that of the working class family headed by Oliver (Ewen Leslie), wife Charlotte (Miranda Otto), daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young) and reclusive grandpa Walter (Sam Neill).

Out hunting for sport (as the rich are wont to do), Henry wounds a beautiful wild duck. He hasn't the "heart" to put it out of its misery. Somewhat ironically, he's happy to maintain his vast fortune rather than operate his company at a loss to save the life of the community, but he indeed sees a way to save the life of his prey. The duck is dispatched to Grandpa Walter who runs an unofficial animal sanctuary with Hedvig, the latter of whom develops a special attachment to the beautifully feathered creature and its desperate need to fly in spite of a severely wounded wing. (And yes, Hedvig reveals a deep emotional wound later on, which also requires "flight".

Though the recent travails of the mill shutdown wreak considerable devastation upon nearly everyone, our central working class characters seem happy enough to grin, bear it and hope for something new. This element quickly comes in the form of Henry's prodigal son Christian (Paul Schneider) who's lived 15 years in America. It's his first time back since he left and he's grudgingly in attendance for his father's wedding to the very young housekeeper of the estate.

He is, however, extremely delighted to spend time with his old school chum and best friend Oliver, taking a special liking to the whole family - almost taking the place of his own fractured family life.

Here is where the magic of Ibsen and Stone's direction really come to the fore. Slowly and compellingly, the very existence of heretofore repressed secrets are made clear and each major story beat imparts answers which tantalize, but also beg more questions. Stone's direction is intelligent and assured, but he's especially gifted in parcelling out several exquisite melodramatic (in the very best sense of the word) set pieces.

The final third of the film becomes such a powerfully charged and exquisitely wrenching melodrama, that most audiences will be compelled to squirt copious tears in the direction of the big screen. And, of course, the terrible truth behind Ibsen's great line of dialogue rings so sadly and evocatively true, in spite of the film's attempt to yank something vaguely positive out of the whole affair. As far as I'm concerned, THIS is the heart and soul of the film, the play and life itself:

"If you take the life-lie from an average man, you take away his happiness as well."

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half-stars

The Daughter is a Mongrel Media and Mongrel International Release receiving its North American premiere as a TIFF Special Presentation at TIFF 2015. For tix, times, dates and venues, visit the TIFF website HERE.

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Take a bath w/ Guy Maddin @TIFF2015 A Film Corner *****TIFF 2015 TOP-PICK*****

Marv (Louis Negin) teaches you how to take a bath in THE FORBIDDEN ROOM

LOUIS NEGIN is MARV

The Forbidden Room (2015)
Dir. Guy Maddin
Co-Dir. Evan Johnson
Scr. Maddin, Johnson, Robert Kotyk
Addl. Writ. John Ashbery, Kim Morgan
Edit. John Gurdebeke
Prod.Design Galen Johnson
Cinematog. Stephanie Anne Weber Biron and Ben Kasulke
Prod. Co. PHI Films, The National Film Board of Canada, Buffalo Gal
Starring: Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, Louis Negin, Céline Bonnier, Karine Vanasse, Caroline Dhavernas, Paul Ahmarani, Mathieu Amalric, Udo Kier, Maria de Medeiros, Charlotte Rampling, Géraldine Chaplin, Marie Brassard, Sophie Desmarais, Ariane Labed, Amira Casar, Luce Vigo, Gregory Hlady, Romano Orzari, Lewis Furey, Angela La Muse Senyshyn, Kimmi Melnychuk, Kim Morgan, Darcy Fehr, Jean-François Stévenin, Judith Baribeau, Graham Ashmore

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to take a bath with Guy Maddin in his closet of tantalizing shame, his forbidden room. God knows I have partaken on occasions too multitudinous to enumerate. So please, allow me to assure you, bathing with Maddin is a most gratifying and sensual treat for the mind, body and most of all, your very soul.

So then, my dear ones, do yourself a favour and hop into the stew with the Crown Prince of Prairie Post-Modernist Cinema and revel in the myriad of pleasures that motion pictures can offer: the fleshly, the ectoplasmic, the magically incorporeal, the visually and aurally celestial and, most assuredly, the cerebral complexities of all human existence in this world and the next, as filtered through the mind (within an enormous head of magma) of the great Icelandic Satyr who worships - nay, attends to all the needs of that Bacchus who rules over us all, the most holy and resplendent gift that IS the great silver-embossed photoplay, the magic bestowed upon our world by the immortal Brothers Lumière.

The Forbidden Room is 130 glorious minutes you'll want to experience over and over and over again. If, God Forbid, you find you're unable to experience it more than once, or worse, if you're compelled to not see it at all, you either don't care about cinema and/or have no taste and/or hold the unenviable dishonour of exhibiting little more than bone matter twixt thine wax-filled ears and behind eyes of cement.

I, for one, must confess to having seen the film five times now. My fifth helping occurred precisely at the scheduled time of the first public screening in Park City, Utah at the Sundance Film Festival, which I was sadly unable to attend.

I did, however, attempt to replicate the joy of said event, in an outdoor soft tub, located at the northernmost tip of the penetratingly puissant peninsula dividing the moist Great Lake of Huron and its clitoral Georgian Bay, surrounded by the glories of the natural world, the horses, ponies, donkeys, dogs, squirrels, beavers, hibernating bears, coyotes, wolves and chickens, puffing fine tobacco purchased from my Aboriginal Brothers on their cheap-smoke-shoppe and hunting lands down the road, with jets of hot water massaging my rolls of flesh and every so often, just now and then, mind you, the hand not gripping a stick of sacred, smouldering, oh-so natural leaves of First-Nations bliss, would plunge greedily into the bubbly water, seeking netherworlds of sheer exultation to grip, to manipulate, to squeeze and tug with abandon until finally, emitting an ejection, an eruption (if you will) of jubilant gratification, a cascade, a geyser, a blast of liquid force in honour of the grandiose cinematic pulchritude before me.

By a waterfall, bath-time with Guy Maddin is calling yoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

As a matter of fact - pure and simple - I do not even wish to imagine how many more times I shall partake of this scintillatingly sudsy broth that celebrates the incalculable joys of life, shame, regret, sorrow, love, death and cinema, all those things which render our otherwise pathetic existence with meaning. Even one helping of The Forbidden Room can drain a feller (or lassie) more powerfully than several months of Sundays infused with gymnastics of resplendent amore. Yes, a drain in more ways than one:

Lo! This motion picture is most assuredly one drain we all must want to be slurped down, down, down into. Please, dear ones.

Let me try to explain why.

MAESTRO UDO KIER:
DEEPLY OBSESSIVE
WORSHIPPER
of DELICIOUS
DERRIERES

The Forbidden Room opens with an astounding credit sequence which stutters and sputters by like fragments of decaying film on nitrate stock (not unlike that of Peter Delpeut's 1991 found-footage documentary Lyrical Nitrate, unleashed upon North American audiences by Zeitgeist Films, who also gave us Maddin's Archangel and Careful as well as the similarly stylish work of the Brothers Quay). The imaginative way of placing gorgeous period title cards announcing key creative elements is an equally brilliant way to dispense with the ludicrous number of producers and the decidedly non-period acknowledgments to gouvernement du Canada et gouvernement du Manitoba agencies like Telefilm Canada and Manitoba Film and Sound, etc. (At least the National Film Board of Canada makes sense given the significance of Holy Father John Grierson's efforts during that historical period detailed in Pierre Berton's book "Hollywood's Canada".)

Once these are all dispensed with, the film opens proper with the John 6:12 passage:

When they were filled,
he said unto his disciples,
Gather up the fragments that remain,
that nothing be lost.

It's a powerful passage, to be sure, but its resonance, its weighty thematic substance and, in fact, the very Raison d'être for The Forbidden Room is clutched almost parsimoniously by John's recapitulation of Our Lord's words.

Though the film is comprised of several different stories, they represent fragments of cinema from days long-gone-by which, through the ravages of time and the lack of care ascribed to film preservation during the first half-decade-plus of its history saw so many pieces of time go missing without a trace, or indeed, pieces of time that never even existed, but should have. Maddin, not unlike Georges Melies is a magician of sorts. His film conjures up fragments of films lost, stolen or suppressed, brilliantly re-imagined (or rather, just plain imagined) by Maddin and his co-director Evan Johnson and the pair's co-writer Robert Kotyk. They have been gathered up, these fragments, these very ghosts of cinema, "so that nothing shall be lost".

The Forbidden Room is a structural marvel. Kudos to Maddin and team for creating it so solidly from what must have been reams of magnificent footage written, prepped, shot and cut during the over-four-years it took to make this grand epic that honours both cinema and the lives of ghosts. In fact, the movie astonishingly adheres to (an albeit slightly skewed) three-act structure in terms of story and tone. The first third establishes its series of problems and obstacles right off the bat. The middle act slides into a journey in which said obstacles must be encountered and hurtled over or deviated into delicious nap times of dreams and reveries which provide even more obstacles to be hurtled over or deviated into, well, nap time for sure, but in this middle section one will find some of the most heart-achingly beautiful and tear-squirtingly moving emotions and images. And then, there is the third act - more on this later, but suffice to say it's an insanely eye-popping affair.

Tonally, then, the first third is jaunty, fun and occasionally sinister.The middle act is supremely elegiac with dapples of madness, humour and absurdity.

The third act is a hurricane.

Many tales are interwoven throughout and our first story (the writing of which is additionally supplied by John Ashbery) is a garishly coloured industrial documentary featuring a flamboyantly bath-robed Marv (Louis Negin), our host on the journey to the joys inherent in taking a proper bath. Marv recounts the history of bathing, then narrates all the proper steps needed to take a bath. Twixt Marv's peacockish descriptions and asides, we're delighted with images of pretty young ladies (Angela La Muse Senyshyn, Kimmi Melnychuk) bathing each other, then followed by the buff fortitude of a male bather (Graham Ashmore) carefully applying Marv's instructions as he settles into a nice, steamy, frothy tub. The man is especially eager to get to Marv's most important instructions of all:

"Work down to the genitals. Work carefully in ever-widening circles."

The sensual digital manipulations within the steamily sopping froth give way to another tale, another film infused with the serous lifeblood (and yes, danger) of water itself. A submarine carrying dangerous explosives and rapidly depleting oxygen is stuck between a rock and a hard place as the pressures of the sea above will be enough to send the vessel into a massive eruption of its deadly cargo and though the necessary slow journey it undertakes to avoid disaster is the very thing that will guarantee another disaster, the lack of oxygen which could kill every man on board. Luckily, there is some solace taken in the constant serving up of flapjacks, which in spite of their culinary monotony, are found to be full of porous insides which offer added oxygen to extend the men's precious lives.

Roy Dupuis is a dreamy, hunky, handsome woodsman
searching, ever-searching for his lady fair.

When a dreamy, rugged and brave Woodsman (Roy Dupuis) appears in the sub, the narrative becomes even more tied into other films and as the movie progresses, its literary properties seem rooted in a kind of Romantic period use of concentric rings (albeit skewed in ways they never should be).

One story after another, either recounted by characters in one film and represented by another or told as stories within stories or, my favourite, as dreams within dreams, flash by us ever-so compellingly, taking us deeper into a liquid-like miasma, a ripe flatulence of wonder, a churning, roiling sea of volcanic lava - DEEPER, EVER-DEEPER INTO THE VERY CORE OF EXISTENCE AND CINEMA!!!!!

We follow Roy Dupuis's Woodsman into a cave of scarlet-furred-lupine-worshipping barbarians who have kidnapped his lady love. We see his infiltration into this den of murderers, kidnappers and thieves as he successfully proves his worth during several challenges including:

- finger snapping;
- stone weighing;
- offal piling and, my personal favourite;

- BLADDER SLAPPING!!!!!

GERALDINE CHAPLIN
THE MASTER PASSION
Le Dominatrix
des adorateurs derriere

When we meet the Woodsman's lady love, the film takes us into her mad dreamworld wherein she acquires amnesia and we're assailed with glorious images of native dancers, sexy crooners, and a delicious pitstop involving a sexy anal dominatrix, The Master Passion (Geraldine Chaplin) and then, an even more delectable pitstop involving a madman (Udo "Who the fuck else?" Kier) obsessed with bottoms who is then worked upon by an equally mad doctor who performs open brain surgery to slice out viscous portions of cerebellum afflicted with buttock obsession and climaxing with the ultimate fist-fucking as the doctor plunges his whole hand into the buttock-like brain of Udo Kier to attack the deep core, or prostate, if you will of the man's anal intrusions upon his very mind, his very soul.

There's the tale of a kindly bone specialist who operates upon a sexy motorcyclist who has 47 broken bones after a horrific accident in which she swerves to avoid a family of ducks in her path. Of course, the doctor must take special care to lay his hands upon her prodigiously in order to heal her broken breast bones and, in so doing, falls madly in love with her before being seduced and kidnapped by a bevy of sexy skeleton women who are under the control of a skull-headed medical insurance fraudster.

In DreamLand, Crooners Croon of Derriere Worship.

One yarn after another assails us and as they emit their fantastical glories, constantly astounding us as to how they dovetail in and out of each other - a tale of a mill keeper and his gardener, a tale of a train psychiatrist and his screaming patient and seductive ways, a tale of volcano worshippers always on the lookout for living sacrifices, a tale of a forgetful husband (Mathiu Almaric, that great French actor whom one can watch for an eternity) who ends up murdering his loyal manservant (Udo Kier - AGAIN!!!) to cover-up his gift-giving incompetence, a tale of the manservant in death as his moustache hairs dream about taking him for a final visit (or several) to his little boy and blind wife (Maria de Medeiros), a tale of a consular official and his gorgeous fiancé (Sophie Desmarais) and the man's obsession with a cursed bust of Janus which turns him into an evil Mr. Hyde-like defiler-of-women and the tale of . . .

Have I mentioned the vampires yet?

Oops. Sorry. My bad!

They're called ASWANG (pronounced ASS-WANG).

You will not want to take a bath with any of them - except maybe the ultra-sexy Aswangs.

Will the submarine blow up? Will the woodsman be reunited with his lady love? Will she be cured of her amnesia?

Will we be able to count how many times Louis Negin appears, Franklin Pangborn-like, in different roles?

Will we be able to count how many times Udo Kier appears, Eric Blore-like, in different roles?

Will we ever meet the mysteriously missing Captain of the submarine?

Will we meet his MOTHER!!!!!

Will we survive the mad, fever pitch of a climax, that flings us into the most mind-blowing trip of visual splendour since Stanley Kubrick's stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (replete with . . . colliding zeppelins)?

What HAVE I missed?

Have I missed mentioning that the editing of John Gurdebeke and the production design of Galen Johnson are both as inspired and brilliant as Guy Maddin's most-assured hand? Have I missed mentioning that the exquisite lighting and camera work from cinematographers Stephanie Anne Weber Biron and Ben Kasulke provides the eyes to reflect Maddin's soul? Have I missed mentioning how astonishing the work that all of Mr. Maddin's creative collaborators proves to be in this, his greatest achievement?

I hope not.

I, for one, will take yet another bath with Guy Maddin.

We've taken so many together over the past 30+ years.

What's one (or a few) more.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

The Forbidden Room is enjoying it's Canadian Premiere in the TIFF Wavelengths Program during TIFF 2015. For tix, dates, times and venues, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is being distributed in Canada and sold internationally by Mongrel Media. In the USA, it's distributed by Kino-Lorber.

FULL DISCLOSURE

Oh, and for fuck's sake, lest someone point a boneheaded accusatory finger, I present to you the full disclosure that Maddin's late father Chas was business manager of the Winnipeg Maroons, and my own father Julian, who will, by virtue of his stubborn, curmudgeonly qualities, live-forever, played goal for the same team. Both fathers accompanied the team to various European bouts as the Maroons were, indeed, Canada's national hockey team during the early-to-mid-sixties. Maddin and I have been friends for over thirty years, we were flat-mates for many years, we have shared many strange adventures together and I produced his first three feature films (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Archangel and Careful). I am, however, a true fan of his films. Always have been. I'm perfectly able to assess his work critically and the day I ever hate one of his films (which I have, in fact), I'll goddamn well say so (which I have, in fact, and done so with constructive viciousness).