THE CLEANERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2018 Hot Docs Hot Pick: ***** 5-Stars

The gatekeepers of online morality are censors.

The Cleaners (2018)
Dir. Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The scariest word I've heard in quite some time is:

"DELETE"

and it's a word we hear, almost mantra-like in the chilling documentary The Cleaners, a scary portrait of content moderators in the world of social media.

So what, precisely, does a content moderator do? Well, as we discover, they are employees of entities like Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms that have become an almost inextricable part of all our lives. Their job is to scour the internet looking for anything that contravenes company policy, community standards and yes, in many cases, illegal acts (images of child pornography). The offensive material is deleted, and as we experience in the film, it's with a simple keystroke and the utterance of that dreaded word:

DELETE.

Filmmakers Block and Riesewieck focus primarily on a handful of content moderators working in Manila and what we learn early on is that they are not directly employed by any of the aforementioned social media giants, but rather, companies that have been outsourced to provide these services. We're given scant information about how these moderators are actually trained, but what we see and learn is mighty scary.

The moderators are there, in effect, to provide censorship. This would be fine if we were dealing strictly with cut-and-dried materials like child pornography and hate crime/racism, but it goes far beyond this. Nudity, sexuality, acts of violence in war, political satire and/or any personal expression outside of the norm is fair game.

Though the moderators have specific guidelines, this requires them to constantly make judgement calls about what gets deleted and what doesn't. For example, we follow one of the moderators and discover that she is a devout Catholic. Her rabid Christianity is clearly at play in her decisions to "delete".

What's especially impressive about the film is that it employs a fair bit of journalistic balance, but not at the expense of the film's artistry and certainly not at the expense of presenting a point of view that's as progressive as it is scary. What these moderators do is clearly not a good thing. The social media giants are succumbing to all sorts of pressures to restrict/control content - worst of all, from governments that would block the platforms without censorship.

Structurally, the film is cleverly designed to present a myriad of characters and viewpoints. For the most part, the moderators seem like reasonable and intelligent young people, but they are bound both by policy and the fact that they have no choice but to make personal decisions based on their interpretation of said policy. The film also presents the viewpoints of several artists and activists - we see their work, the very valid reasons for its creation and dissemination and then, shockingly, we see moderators discovering the material, applying "policy" to it and then issuing the decree:

DELETE!

We hear about and occasionally see the sort of disturbing and even horrific material these moderators are constantly subjected to and sadly, we learn about how some content moderators are driven to taking their own lives. In countries like the Philippines, we learn that finding a life beyond poverty drives a lot of intelligent young people into the business of content moderation - but for them, the effects can be devastating.

We see American politicians within the context of public hearings as they grill representatives of social media giants about content policies as they relate to child pornography, political interference and terrorism, but clearly the politicians, no matter how well meaning, are completely clueless about social media and the internet in general and the various Google/Twitter/Facebook reps are little more than slick flacks.

What haunts you, long after the film is over are the evocative shots of the moderators themselves as they work. The cameras are trained upon their eyes as they consume endless images on computers screens. If we are looking into the windows of their collective souls, we're looking into hearts and minds of a world mediated by corporate greed, corruption and dedicated to suppression to maintain the highest profit margins possible.

Ultimately, nobody profits - least of all, humanity.

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

The Cleaners enjoys it Canadian Premiere at Hot Docs 2018 in Toronto.

Coincidentally, Michael Walker, a brilliant young Canadian artist who posts his beautiful work to hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram had his account removed by the social media giant the very week I saw The Cleaners.

Yes, someone uttered the words DELETE and with a keystroke, this artist's work was removed.

Feel free to protest this affront to free speech. In the case of Mr. Walker's work, this is a clear act of Homophobia, no doubt perpetrated by a "content moderator" applying flawed, personal standards based on corporate policies that are skewed to protecting only profit margins.

Here is Michael's Story:

DISAPPEARANCE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2017: Sex, Death & Ice-Fishing in Norway

Disappearing in Norway.

Disappearance (2017)
Dir. Boudewijn Koole
Scr. Jolein Laarman
Starring: Rifka Lodeizen, Elsie de Brauw, Marcus Hanssen, Jakob Oftebro

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I do so enjoy entering a frigid cinematic icebox to revel in the spectacle of a parent and adult child acrimoniously slashing away at each other.

Boudewijn Koole's extraordinary film Disappearance is a magnificent new entry into this time-honoured/tested/proven tradition exemplified most notably by the chilly heartbreak of Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece of mother-daughter sniping, Autumn Sonata. Though Koole's film eschews the glorious histrionics of so many films in this genre - think Piper Laurie chastising Sissy Spacek for revealing her "dirty pillows" in Brian DePalma's Carrie or the horrid Gladys Cooper browbeating Bette Davis into a nervous breakdown in Irving Rapper's Now Voyager - Koole and screenwriter Jolein Laarman serve up plenty of roiling bitterness.

We enter the world of this film via the blazing austerity of a cool white light upon a young woman, a child it seems, as she places her diminutive, but nimble fingers upon the ivory keys of a grand piano. She launches into a soulful virtuoso performance upon the massive stage of a concert hall. Soon after, we move from the proscenium vista to the external panoramic landscape of the snow-covered plains, lakes and hills of Norway. Roos (Rifka Lodeizen) is coming home after a year of traversing the globe as a photojournalist to visit her Mother Louise (Elsie de Brauw) and younger half-brother Bengt (Marcus Hanssen).

This is a family of artists. Roos has the "eye", her middle-aged Mom (the pianist we were first introduced to in the film's opening minutes) clearly has an "ear" (though now she channels her art into teaching music) and young Bengt might have the grandest vision of this trio - he utilizes the natural sounds of water, ice, nature, heartbeats and breath to create electronic musical compositions that soar with soulful invention.

Sister and Brother have a special bond, but Mother and Daughter's relationship is stretched far too tautly - at any moment, we sense that the rubber band that is their familial conjunction will snap upon their respective grips, effecting a pain that smarts, but lasts well beyond the initial paroxysm it causes. That's probably because aching convulsions twixt Mother and Daughter have seemingly existed from that point when Roos first agitated about in the natal gelatin of Louise's womb.

At one point, Roos charges that Mom never sang lullabies to her. Louise pooh-poohs this assertion, but when her now-adult child asks her to sing for her, middle-aged Momma can't think of a single tune. During this wrenching moment, a smile crept upon my face imagining Louise launching into a rendering of one of Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. I was not afforded the literal rendering of this perverse fantasia dancing across my cerebellum, but the notion that she might have belted out one of those rousing "Songs on the Death of Children" seems (seemed) perfectly appropriate.

In so many, many ways, Koole and Laarman's astonishing film might well be a cinematic equivalent to Mahler's immortal song cycle. Death looms large in this Norwegian winter wonderland. When a stag connects with a moving vehicle and staggers off into the woods, we follow a group of locals (including a keen, rifle-toting Louise) as they hunt down the mighty beast to put it out of its misery. Later on, in post-coital bliss (in the back of a van parked against a snowy vista on a frozen lake in which they've been ice fishing - what Canadian doesn't know this activity/setting all too well?), Roos admits to her old friend and lover Johnny (Jakob Oftebro) that she is dying. Nothing beats a good round of sexual gymnastics than an après orgasm cigarette and an admission of critical illness. (Jesus, I love European cinema!)

Healing and redemption are round the corner, but they prove to be fleeting. The film makes us (and its characters) work for it. Nothing in life comes easy. So too should it be in cinema. This is a film that teases and tortures the raw nerve endings of the human condition and it constantly finds ways to take our collective breath away when we least expect it. The final third of the film had me shuddering, long, long after its final end title credit. It's with me still and makes me thankful for the life I have had and the loves I have experienced (and continue to be touched by).

Though Disappearance draws considerable parallels to Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sontata, I cannot help but think of the words spoken by dying Agnes in the Swedish Master's Cries and Whispers:

"Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection and I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

No arguments from this fella'.

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

Disappearance is screening at TIFF 2017

PLAYING GOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2017 HotDocsHotPick - Ambulance Chaser as GOD

Ken Feinberg assessed value of 9/11 victims.

Playing God (2017)
Dir. Karin Jurschick
Starring: Ken Feinberg

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's a dirty, dirty job, but someone's got to do it. When tragedy strikes, when a wrong must be righted, when you need someone to assess the value of a human life, not just any ambulance chaser will do. The American Government's learned counsel of choice is none other than "Special Master", Attorney Ken Feinberg. Karin Jurschick's well crafted documentary Playing God provides a compelling, journalistically-well-balanced portrait of the man who presided over the granting of compensation to victims of government cutbacks to pensions, Agent Orange, the BP oil spill and most notably, the 9/11 tragedy.

From start to finish of the film, Feinberg proves to be a straight-shooter with flair. The camera loves him. This is not lost on Jurschick. There is a sequence early on wherein she has her camera in just the right spot upon him in a nicely-framed shot of his upper torso as he sits in his office and explains the facts of life.

"If you get hit by an automobile, if you fall off a ladder, if you eat poison food, if you trip on a sidewalk," he says, and then, with the flourish of a dramatic pause and the tell-tale symbolic physical gesture of rubbing of his forefinger, middle finger and thumb together, he declares:

"Money!"

He continues:

"We will rectify the wrong by having the guilty party, the tort-feasor, pay the victim."

But, according to Feinberg, there's a simple (albeit harsh) reality to all this. "Now, if it's a stockbroker, or a banker who fell on the sidewalk, you're going to pay a lot more than if the person who fell was a waiter or a soldier or a policeman or a fireman."

And it's here where Jurschick displays her flair, as a filmmaker.

Feinberg buttons his speech with this declaration:

"That's the way the system works."

Here there's a breathtaking cut from the office window. The sound of a whoosh and roar overtakes the shot as an airplane passes by, followed by the sound of a sickening impact as we get another breathtaking cut into the maw of 9/11 Hell.

Wham! This is powerful stuff. We're not dealing with just anyone slipping on a sidewalk, we're dealing with the families of those who lost loved ones when terrorists slammed planes into the Twin Towers, Vietnam veterans suffering from the cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, fishermen's livelihoods ruined by BP's scumbaggery, and the list, goes on. And on.

However, Jurschick doesn't utilize her considerable craft simply to take the wind out of Feinberg, but rather the cold, hard-hearted truth of the "system". Her film doesn't let him off the hook, but it doesn't tar and feather the dude either. She gives us as full a portrait as would be humanly possible, given what it is that Feinberg does for a living. Her style isn't as insanely intense as that to which someone like Errol (The Fog of War) Morris might have brought to bear on the subject, but her voice, though occasionally a wee bit too balanced for my taste is still very clear and definitely all her own. She transcends the pitfalls of so many documentaries that eschew film art in favour of journalism and this is to be celebrated.

Yes, there is balance here, but it ultimately serves the film, the subject and the audience. She gives us a unique opportunity to know and understand this extraordinary individual.

Tellingly, we learn that Feinberg wanted to be an actor, but that he took his father's sage advice to take his passion into something more practical. Hence, law. We also experience a cultured, intelligent, erudite human being who is also filled with deep compassion. This takes some doing since Jurschick's film applies equal balance in presenting a series of harrowing points-of-view from a wide variety of victims. Feinberg is charged with assessing the "value" of their suffering, the value of their very lives and/or those whom they have lost.

We see a man who, on one hand, must figure out the precise amount to "award" corporate pigs in the bank bailouts and, on the other, determine if the government has a legal right to severely cut the pensions of simple working people.

Yes, it's a dirty, dirty job, but Playing God is ultimately all about humanity - on both sides of the coin, and most of all, what resides within each side - no matter how slender or thick the coin actually is.

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

Playing God enjoys its World Premiere at Hot Docs 2017.

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO: 25th Anniversary Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Greenaway dallies with biopic like some Ken Russell wannabe.

Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015)
Dir. Peter Greenaway
Starring: Elmer Bäck, Luis Alberti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This cellar-dwelling Ken Russell wannabe biopic of Sergei Eisenstein, the famed Soviet filmmaking genius and chief cinematic propagandist for Communist and Stalinist totalitarianism is replete with a wide variety of stunning visuals, but really does nothing to cast a light upon either its subject's work, career and sexuality.

How much of this dull, overwrought Greenaway nonsense you can take will mostly be determined by just how much Peter Greenaway you can hack. All others can stay at home and rent some Ken Russell movies instead.

No matter how outrageously rife with historical deviations (and nutty visuals) Russell's biopics were, I always loved how he plunged to the very roots of his subjects' artistry and not only captured the spirit of the work, but did so by presenting how the said work inspired him. Russell's films were as personal as they were cheekily respectful, not as oxymoronic as you might think, since his delightfully perverse sense of humour added the necessary frissons to reinterpret and/or re-imagine the artists' work.

It was a delicate balance and one Russell didn't always successfully achieve, but his best films were genuinely insightful, thought-provoking and yes, outrageous. For example, I always loved Russell's interpretation of Gustav Mahler's conversion from Judaism to Christianity in Mahler when he created the astonishing set piece of the title character leaping through flaming hoops adorned with the Star of David as Cosima Wagner in pseudo Nazi regalia, complete with what appear to be chrome hot pants, cracks a circus whip like some Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Valkyrie.

A close second to this pantheon of Russell's loving insanity is, for me, the sequence in The Music Lovers when Richard (Dr. Kildare) Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky, explodes the heads off everyone in his life with cannon balls with the 1812 Overture raging on the soundtrack.

I will accept all this heartily.

Alas, Greenaway delivers the equivalent of a few wet farts in this tradition.

Nothing so inspired occurs in Eisenstein in Guanajuato. Greenaway chooses to focus on the time Eisenstein spent in Mexico and essentially squandered his opportunity to make an epic feature film which Stalin himself gave his blessings to. Most of the film is devoted to Elmer Bäck's mildly entertaining nutty performance as he spouts endless bits of florid dialogue, discovers the joys of shoeshines, the heavenly experience of showering (as he cocks his buttocks saucily and swings his dinky about with abandon) and, of course, sodomy.

Yes, Greenaway does not disappoint here. Sergei's anal deflowering is genuinely worth the price of admission. Alas this delicious set piece is buffeted by far too much flouncing about, presented with triple-paned homages to both Eisenstein and Abel Gance until our mad hero is tossed out of Mexico, but not before donning a death masque and racing into the infinite behind the wheel of a roadster.

Heavy, man.

I'm not sure what I was supposed to take away from any of this movie in terms of what made Eisenstein tick nor, frankly, what Greenaway himself admires about one of the true masters of film art. All I really know is that Greenaway continues to make "purty pitchers" and has it in him to craft one lollapalooza of a sodomy scene.

Well, maybe that's enough.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** 2 Stars for the movie, **** for the sodomy

Eisenstein in Guanajuato is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

QUEEN AND COUNTRY, THE WONDERS, THE RESURRECTION OF A BASTARD, ON THE TRAIL OF THE FAR FUR COUNTRY, THAT GUY DICK MILLER - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - A ridiculous number of first-run offerings yields a bumper crop of delights

5 movies
All screening this weekend

All yield first-rate entertainment!
5 Film Corner Film Reviews for the price of 1:

*****

QUEEN AND COUNTRY

THE WONDERS

THE RESURRECTION OF A BASTARD

ON THE TRAIL OF THE FAR FUR COUNTRY

THAT GUY DICK MILLER
*****

Queen and Country (2014)
Dir. John Boorman
Starring: Callum Turner, David Thewlis, Caleb Landry Jones, Richard E. Grant, Tamsin Egerton, Vanessa Kirby

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In 1987 John Boorman (Deliverance, Point Blank) delivered his sweet, funny and happily (as well as sadly) nostalgic Hope and Glory, the autobiographical journey of Bill Rohan, a young lad growing up in London during the Blitz and his subsequent adventures when moved out to the country for safety. One of the strangest and most delightful aspects of Boorman's picture was how it focused on a boy and his chums discovering that their bombed-out city had transformed into one big playground. Tempering this were the more sobering realities of life, love, family and yes, even the realities of war when they creep into Bill’s view beyond his mere child’s eyes.

It's now 25 years later and the 82-year-old Boorman delivers a sequel, Queen and Country. Bill (Callum Turner) is now a young man and he's been called up for two years of mandatory military service to dear old Blighty. Much to the chagrin of the regiment's commanding officer (Richard E. Grant), he forms a veritable Dynamic Duo with his cheeky, irreverent chum Percy Hapgood (Caleb Landry Jones) in which the lads wreak considerable havoc in the barracks - from basic training through to the end of their short military careers.

The lads' chief nemesis is the humourless, mean-spirited, borderline psychotic, stiff-upper-lip and decidedly by-the-book Sgt. Major Bradley (David Thewlis) who proves to be the bane of their existence. That said, the boys turn those tables quite handily and indeed become an even huger bane of Bradley's existence - pilfering the beloved regiment clock, ignoring protocol during typing lessons (YES! Typing lessons!) and eventually using "the book" to gain an upper hand over their superiors.

The humour and events are mostly of the gentle and good-natured variety - from Bill courting Ophelia (Tamsin Egerton) a beautiful ice-Queen with a dark secret, to Percy wooing Dawn (Vanessa Kirby), Bill's sexy sister during a happy leave-time in the country where the entire Rohan family joins in the thrill of unboxing a television set, madly attempting to get the roof antenna reception just right and gathering round the flickering monochrome cathode ray images which capture the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth.

There is darkness to Boorman's tale, however, and though our characters are far away from the explosive Hope and Glory rubble of the Blitz, the very real and scary prospect of being called up for active duty in Korea looms large. As well, the horror of war slowly creeps into the character of Bradley when eventually the shenanigans perpetrated upon him reveal why his mask might not be as firmly affixed as anyone thinks.

The final third of the film is imbued with one emotional wallop after another including a court martial, harrowing trips to a veterans' hospital, military prison and finally a very sweet and deeply moving tribute to both love and cinema.

Queen and Country is a lovely, elegiac capper to the long, illustrious career of a grand, old man of the movies. That said, I desperately hope Mr. Boorman has it in him to deliver one final instalment in the early life of Bill Rohan. We've been treated to the Blitz, post-war England and now, I do think an excursion into the Swinging 60s is in order.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Queen and Country is currently in theatrical release in Canada via Search Engine Films and in the USA via BBC Worldwide America.

*****

The Wonders (2014)
Dir. Alice Rohwacher
Starring: Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Alba Rohrwacher, Luís Huilca Logrono, Monica Belluci

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Director Alice Rohwacher displays such love for all the tiny details of traditional farm life in rural Italy that we slip into the slow delicate rhythm of each day and come to view even the most mundane actions in her second feature film The Wonders with breathtaking awe and excitement.

One thing we cannot miss, however, is the crumbling ancient farmhouse, the endless dirt and dust, often grey, cloudy skies and the filthy decrepitude of the honey extraction lab where the film's central character, young teen Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu) expertly plies the trade her stern father Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) has encumbered her with; the family is comprised of four daughters and lacking a son, she is Dad's "natural" heir to the family business of beekeeping. Our gaze is so fixed upon every meticulously rendered action involving the bees and honey that we almost want to dismiss the clear visual signs that subtly symbolize a way of life that is sadly dying.

If you ever wanted to know how honey is brought to your table, the film is so infused with a sense of neo-realist style that there's an almost direct cinema documentary approach to the scenes of beekeeping. One of the most fascinating scenes involves the retrieval of a colony of honey bees that have swarmed. It's presented, as all the farm life scenes, as directly related to both character and drama. Here we really see and understand how brilliant Gelsomina is as a beekeeper, in spite of her innate desire to break free of the shackles of rural life. Upon discovering the empty hive, she's the one who leads the way to the escaped bees with a quiet intensity. Once she expertly locates them, Rohwacher trains her lens upon an almost nail-bitingly suspenseful scene in which Gelsomina climbs up the tree to where a veritable mound of bees, thousands upon thousands of them, have affixed themselves in the shape of a traditional oval hive to a branch high up. Wolfgang is not far behind with the open, empty hive while Gelsomina kicks at the branch repeatedly and waves the startled bees towards the box her father holds upwards which, the bees hightail into for safety and security. (Now I know what to do with my own daughter the next time we have a swarming amongst our hives. I'm sure she'll be thrilled. Or, maybe not.)

In spite of the film's measured quality - actually, even because of it - the central conflict the family faces is being shut down by local health authorities for running an old-fashioned honey extraction lab which does not conform to the standards of the bureaucracy. Bringing it up to snuff will cost a small fortune and the family is dirt poor. Though they're getting a small amount of extra money when Wolfgang insists they take in a young juvenile delinquent (Luís Huilca Logrono) as a ward, it will hardly be enough. However, the lad proves to be a decent added pair of "male" hands and to Dad's chagrin, a definite romantic interest for his burgeoning young lady of a daughter (whom he insists is still a child in spite of grooming her and forcing her to work as an adult).

Gelsomina is far ahead of her father's limited curves and even has plans to save the farm. Though Dad objects, she is inspired to enter her family in "Countryside Wonders", a cheesy reality-TV show searching for the most impressive traditional rural farmers. Enchanted by the gorgeous, gaudily-attired, Fellini-like host of the show (Monica Belluci), our plucky teen protagonist goes ahead and secretly enters the family anyway.

The film is full of stunning images, though none of them are of the picture-postcard variety. Captured on real Super-16 film stock, there isn't a single frame of picture that is not tied to the drama (albeit of the muted kind). Rohwacher continually dazzles us, but there's one set-piece in her beautiful film that is as magical and moving as any that have been captured in the grand history of Italian Cinema - the reality TV-show itself and the family's participation in it; especially a haunting, moving and almost-heartbreaking performance in which the family's juvenile delinquent ward whistles a strangely mournful tune as Gelsomina, often in extreme closeup opens her mouth to allow actual bees to slowly clamber from within and to walk gently upon her beautiful face.

There aren't a lot of films out there right now which qualify for instant classic status, but The Wonders, winner of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix, most definitely does.

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

The Wonders is currently in theatrical release via FilmsWeLike.

*****

The Resurrection of a Bastard (2014)
Dir. Guido van Driel
Starring: Yorick van Wageningen, Goua Robert Grovogui, Juda Goslinga, Jeroen Willems

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I've seen plenty of crime pictures in my time, probably more than most. As such, I've probably seen every conceivable act of violence concocted by filmmakers and/or reproduced from reality. I thought I'd seen everything, but until seeing graphic novelist/artist Guido van Driel's feature debut The Resurrection of a Bastard, I had never seen a criminal remove someone's eyeball through the intense suction of a vacuum cleaner's hose.

I'd say my life is now relatively complete.

This, by the way, is not the only shocking display of ugly, brutal carnage in van Driel's grim and darkly (at times, screamingly) funny existential crime picture, but the real joy in the work is found in its atmosphere of viciousness.

We follow two stories presented in slightly skewed order which eventually converge to yield a staggering conclusion. The primary tale involves Ronnie (Yorick van Wageningen), a (mostly) poker-faced strong-arm debt-collection thug for James Joyce (Jeroen Willems), a scumbag, guitar-picking drug kingpin. Much of the film involves Ronnie and his sad-sack right hand man (Juda Goslinga) as they drive about the Dutch countryside (where most of their activities take place) and the film slowly reveals the reasons behind the vicious thug's neck brace and his almost ethereal comportment.

The other tale involves Eduardo (Goua Robert Grovogui), a recent immigrant to Holland who is trying to build a new life and fulfil his dream of becoming a car mechanic like his father. Mostly, though, he's trying to forget the horror of the unspecified African nation he's fled from as a political refugee. We get a salient clue as to what this gentle man with haunted eyes left behind. When a friendly cab driver asks him about his father, Eduardo reveals that his Dad is now dead from, "Chop, chop, chop." (Given all the extreme violence in the film, this is, in fact, one of the most powerful expressions of it.)

Both men have pain and regrets. One has had a near death experience which is eerily reproduced, the other has more than likely experienced one. What we experience of the latter character are the implications of a literal (or even figurative) resurrection.

In one case we see a man whose viciousness gives way to contemplation, in the other, a gentle man whose pain explodes during a scene involving the cruel killing of a rat. Both men find each other in a place of seeming solace, but rustling with the leaves of despair.

While The Resurrection of a Bastard might occasionally veer too deeply into art-house reverie and utilize a couple of too-obvious nods to Quentin Tarantino, there is no denying the film's power and the fact that it signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in filmmaking.

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

The Resurrection of a Bastard is currently in theatrical and VOD release via Syndicado.

*****

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country (2014)
Dir. Kevin Nikkel

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Canadian filmmaker Kevin Nikkel has achieved what might be considered an impossibility with his film On the Trail of the Far Fur Country. Literally following in the footsteps of groundbreaking filmmakers almost a century earlier, he presents a stirring document juxtaposing the lives of northern Aboriginal people then and now.

In 1919, Harold Wyckoff was hired by the then-mighty Hudson's Bay Company to shoot footage for a feature film to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the company's building blocks, the fur trade in northern Canada. The company had been granted one-twelfth of the world's available land to carry out their business from 1670 onwards. The land was not really "available" since it was essentially stolen from the indigenous nations living upon it, but such is the history of Canada. This rich, powerful British firm, self=proclaimed as "The Company of Adventurers" built itself on the backs of indigenous labour. The film was, in fact, meant to be a glorified advertisement for the company to inspire sales and settlement of lands the Canadian Government essentially stole to grant to a major corporation. (Again, not much has changed in Canada on that front.)

There was, however, another theft looming - aesthetic thievery of the HBC's film which, unlike the eventual thief, at least went out of its way to present title cards in the Inuit language.

The result of HBC's efforts was The Romance of the Far Fur Country, a groundbreaking motion picture which was comprised of footage Wyckoff and an assistant shot during a perilous, arduous journey years before Robert Flaherty would shoot and release Nanook of the North (often considered the first documentary of its kind, but actually pre-dated by Wyckoff's film). In fact, Wyckoff's shooting techniques were so ahead of their time that Flaherty pretty much ripped many of them off for his much more famous and somewhat spurious "document" of "Eskimos". Even though Wyckoff's film is fraught with numerous instances of ethnocentrism and stereotyping, he genuinely sought to capture life as he saw it and, unlike Flaherty he did not overtly manipulate footage to tell the story he wanted to tell, but utilized techniques of cinema that he was experimenting with to capture narratives that were unfolding naturally.

In 1920, the HBC presented Wyckoff's stunning images, captured in sub-zero conditions on nitrate film stock and early, primitive (by today's standards) cameras. The movie was released throughout Canada in major centres, often accompanied by a full orchestra. Sadly, Flaherty's film stole all the thunder a couple of years later. As the Hudson's Bay Company shifted their focus from the fur trade to a huge chain of department stores, Wyckoff's film was lost to the sands of time. Over twenty reels of original film were shoved into Britain's National Film Archives (eventually the British Film Institute) who wisely made a protection master of the film, but still kept everything buried in the vaults.

Nikkel, however, has found a fascinating way to honour both Wyckoff and the indigenous peoples who lived as they were captured on film. Following Wyckoff's trail as closely as possible, Nikkel recreates footage, shoots in the same locations and most importantly, brings footage of Wyckoff's film to screen for all the contemporary children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of those captured in the pioneering filmmaker's lens.

Watching real people who, for the first time in their lives are seeing images of their ancestors is deeply and profoundly moving, as are the comments of young contemporary Native peoples describing the exploitation, colonization and assimilation forced upon the forefathers and how the wilful theft on the part of the Canadian Government, their lies and deceit, continue to this very day.

Nikkel has made a very engaging and important work. I do wish the musical score had not felt so stereotypically spare in that way documentaries even now fall back on and though Nikkel's narration is superbly written and rendered, I do also wish the voiceovers of Wyckoff's letters and journals had been presented in a much-less hammy fashion than they are here. These are, finally, minor quibbles. Nikkel's film is a vital document which captures historical, anthropological and aesthetic details which shed light upon a period of Canada's history that is, in the overall scheme of things, so close and yet, so far away.

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

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country is currently playing in specialty venues, including the mini-festival "DOCUMENTING THE ART OF EXPLORATION VII" presented by The Arts & Letters Club of Toronto and The Explorers Club of Canada on March 28, 2015. The film is released via The Winnipeg Film Group.

*****

That Guy Dick Miller (2014)
Dir. Elijah Drenner
Starring: Dick Miller, Roger Corman, Francis Doel, Joe Dante, John Sayles, Allan Arkush, Mary Woronov, Corey Feldman, Zach Galligan, Lainie Miller, Belinda Balaski, Gilbert Adler, Tina Hirsch, Ernest Dickerson, Jonathan Haze, Larry Karaszewski, Julie Corman, Fred Dekker, Steve Carver, David Del Valle, William Sadler, Robert Forster, Jonathan Kaplan, Jack Hill, Adam Rifkin, Fred Olen Ray, Chris Walas,

Review By Greg Klymkiw

He's been in over 200 movies.

His career has lasted over 60 years.

We all know who him.

He's "that guy".

You know, when you're watching The Terminator and Schwarzenegger visits the gun shop, who's behind the counter? "That guy." Then there's the wiseacre, know-it-all owner of the occult bookstore in The Howling who chews out the legendary "Famous Monsters of Filmland" publisher Forrest J. Ackerman for browsing, but also provides a wealth of knowledge about lycanthropy. Again, it's "That Guy". And, of course, there isn't a kid alive who doesn't know the legendary character of Murray Futterman from Gremlins, but most of them don't know his name. He's simply "that guy" whom they seen in everything.

This is a supremely entertaining and good-natured documentary portrait of a genuinely great character actor whose arrival was signalled in early and immortal roles in two classic 60s Roger Corman pictures, first as Walter Paisley, the nebbish "artist" in Bucket of Blood and the hilarious flower gourmet who brings his own salt shaker to add flavour to the petals he devours in the Little Shop of Horrors.

As the title of the doc clearly states, he's "That Guy Dick Miller".

The film is a who's who parade of the best, brightest and greatest genre filmmakers and actors, all extolling Miller's virtues, sharing great behind the scenes adventures and telling a whole whack of personal stories. And there's Miller himself - amiable, intelligent, sharp and funny - a real mensch among mensches.

He's accompanied by his longtime, still gorgeous and sexy wife Lainie Miller (you might remember her as the stripper who catches Dustin Hoffman's eye in The Graduate). She loves him to death and the feeling is clearly mutual. One of the film's highlights is seeing this absolutely perfect couple in their august years, interacting with each other as if they'd met only yesterday.

It's a fun and informative picture which not only sheds light on Dick Miller, the man, but also serves as a fascinating history of six decades of cinema. So load up on some soda pop, beer and lightly salted flowers, sit back, relax and enjoy the delightful film-clip-packed ride with one of the most important, vital forces in American Cinema.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3 Stars

That Guy Dick Miller is currently playing at the MLT Carlton Cinemas in Toronto via Indiecan Entertainment.

KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - True-Life Hostage Drama Opens Today in Limited Theatrical in Toronto and VOD in the rest of Canada Via VVS FIlms

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015)
Dir. Daniel Alfredson
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Mark van Eeuwen, Tom Cocquerel, Jemima West

Review By Greg Klymkiw

By 1986, many young North American lads of distinction had abandoned the domestic brands of beer their fathers drank and opted for the prissy Dutch elixir of hops and brewers' yeast in the imported long-necked green glass bottles which adorned the majority of tables in many a university pub throughout the 80s. After all, its dashing founder Freddy Heineken had himself become a household name a mere three years earlier when he'd been kidnapped and held for ransom in a daring caper pulled off by five good friends with no criminal experience whatsoever and elicited the highest payout of the time.

All this would change, though, when David Lynch released Blue Velvet, which featured the notorious exchange of dialogue between upright young whippersnapper Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan) and the sexually deviant thug Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). It went thus:

Frank Booth: What kind of beer do you like?
Jeffrey Beaumont: Heineken.
Frank Booth: Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!

This oft-quoted exchange, rather than sending the European brew of choice for North American academic effete elites even further into the stratosphere, managed to inspire a healthy return to the working class American beer of American Dads. No matter, though, as the aforementioned daring kidnapping and the dogged pursuit of the kidnappers and meticulous research of crime journalist Peter R. de Vries worked considerable magic upon the Heineken brand's worldwide sales for many years nonetheless.

It's taken over 30 years for a big-screen feature film to be made of this notorious abduction, but alas, the wait has yielded mixed results. A decent screenplay by William Brookfield condenses the intricacies of the massive de Vries text superbly and focuses mostly upon the close friendship of the five kidnappers as well as the claustrophobic and tense setting of the holding cell Heineken is held in.

The direction by camera jockey Daniel Alfredson, who helmed The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, the two remaining parts of the original Lisbeth Salander Millennium Trilogy based on Stieg Larson's bestselling novels, here, as in the two uneven followups to Niels Arden Oplev's superbly directed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, yields mixed results.

Alfredson pulls of the early going rather well as he introduces us to the five young pals attempting to establish their own business during the early 80s economic downturn. Upon being turned down for bank loans, the men come up with a plan to kidnap Heineken.

Realizing they'll be pegged as amateurs by the authorities, the friends pull off a huge bank robbery to finance the perfect crime of abduction in order to make law enforcement believe they're a well-funded criminal organization. So long as Alfredson sticks to the intricacies of character, the film is reasonably compelling - especially during the sequences in their hiding spot one they have Heineken in their grasp.

As he did with the two Dragon/Millennium pictures, Alfredson displays his utter ineptitude with action and hard-core suspense. His herky-jerky, sloppily shot and edited action throw the film completely off-kilter and render a finished product that's infuriating since the writing and performances are so genuinely fine. (Anthony Hopkins, not chewing the scenery as per usual, delivers an especially engaging and revelatory performance as Heineken - maybe one of the best he's delivered in years.)

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is pretty much a mixed bag of nuts. It's a story worth telling as a film, but as directed, the picture is spoiled by a few too many unripe or rotten ingredients.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** 2-Stars

Kidnapping Mr, Heineken opens today in a limited theatrical release day-and-date with access to VOD via VVS Films.

RADICAL FRIENDS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2014 Planet in Focus Film Festival

Discovering Green activism
within cultural roots.

Radical Friends (2014)
Dir. Chihiro Geuzebroek

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Amongst all the documentaries dealing with environmental activism, director Chihiro Geuzebroek has hit upon a winning formula to detail something that's so often rendered with the sledgehammer of didacticism. First of all, she's the subject of the film, a personal journey undertaken by a cute, plucky "little Dutch girl" (of Bolivian heritage) which, frankly, goes a long way to rendering a picture that's not merely palatable, but includes a wealth of information in an agreeable, entertaining fashion. Secondly, the movie is equal parts earnestness and humour, the latter of which comes mostly from Geuzebroek herself and in sufficient quantity (and quality) to temper the potentially deadly effects of the former. Finally, the film really kicks in when it focuses upon her personal journey that's as much tied into exploring cultural roots as it is devoted to becoming the best activist she can possibly be.

Setting up her "thesis" as quickly as possible, delivering a smattering of her life and ideals and setting up her trip to Bolivia, all blasts along amiably and soon we're plunged into the meat of her journey proper as she allows us to follow her travels in the country she was not born in, but is quickly falling in love with as she connects with the country's progressively green approach to governance and also, uniting with her extended family. Experiencing Bolivia's environmental victories as well as its challenges on the Green front are all through Geuzebroek's eyes as she discovers them for herself. Scenes with her family are ultimately the most powerful and moving of all. On their on, they'd be plenty affecting, but against the environmental backdrop, they're positively heart-wrenching. The movie occasionally relies too heavily upon a series of cutesy-pie chalkboard-style animation that occasionally drove me right up the wall. I'll grudgingly concede others might not be quite so intolerant of them as I and in fact, might derive considerable pleasure from their overly jaunty, uh, quality.

Alas, these animated sequences border on the whimsical and compel me to be desirous of punching someone in the face. In fairness, though, I'll quote from James Cagney's character in Raoul Walsh's Strawberry Blonde: "That's just the kind of hairpin I am."

The film's denouement is somewhat unsatisfying if only because of the direction the journey genuinely takes. As a filmmaker, Geuzebroek gives it the old college try and put a positive spin on what happens, but a little part of me wished she'd ended her film before that, or perhaps waited to finish it if and when a more satisfying turn of events transpired. As the film is right now, it's kind of begging for a sequel. That might have even been the intent. If so, I do look forward to it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3 Stars

Radical Friends plays during Toronto's 2014 Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival. The filmmaker will be present for the screening. For further information, check out the festival's website HERE.

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ELEPHANT FEET - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival 2012 (Toronto) - Official Selection (Someone To Watch Over Me)

Elephant Feet (2011) dir. Dan Geesin

***

Review By Greg Klymkiw

We've all had weird BandAid jobs in our lives. God knows, I've had a few. You know, the sort of occupation that provides temporary financial relief when one needs cash - any cash - like a boo-boo on your finger that feels so much better when you squirt some Polysporin on it and then cover it up with a good old fashioned plastic bandage.

Usually these jobs are so out of our element that we often feel like strangers in our own land.

Thomas (Josh Meyers) goes one step further - he's a foreigner in Holland and takes a decidedly brain-dead McJob in an all night gas station and convenience store.

He's a stranger in a strange land, multiplied by two.

With Elephant Feet, Writer-Director Dan Geesin marries vaguely surreal with borderline neorealist styling to deliver a very funny short film about a night in the life of this clerk and the parade of late-night denizens of the dark who enter his dull-as-dishwater domain. Geesin cleverly sets up the dull procedures of Josh's work, follows him through the toil and at times brilliantly shifts perspective and point of view so that we're never quite sure if our protagonist is being watched by the surveillance cameras and/or someone and/or something else.

The movie is often as disquieting as it is funny and Meyers delivers a fine performance as the man who would rather not be there, but eventually attacks his McJob with unexpected relish.

We've all been there and done that, but what's especially creepy and compelling about the film is just how rooted in the reality of the unreal it is - not unlike life, really.

"Elephant Feet" is playing at the Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival in the Official Selection programme entitled "Someone To Watch Over Me" at the Isabel Bader Theatre: Thursday June 7, 7:00 pm and Bloor Hot Docs Cinema: Saturday June 9, 4:30 pm. For more information, contact the Festival website HERE.