NINTH FLOOR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Racism, Civil Disobedience & Canada TIFF 2015

NINTH FLOOR (2015)
Dir. Mina Shum

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's much about Canada that's wonderful and has earned the country a reputation worldwide as a paradise of caring, culture and tolerance. Führer Stevie Harper eroded that view, but in spite of his evil and his fascist government presiding over us for far too long, there is still much about Canada that remains wonderful. Even that fact, though, is a bit of a smokescreen.

In reality - Harper or not - Canada can be downright creepy. It's a country where the War Measures Act was applied against its own citizens and treated innocent people like criminals and terrorists. It's a country where the military has repeatedly been used to bully our indigenous people when they've even moderately protested exploitation at the hands of big business and government. "The Fruit Machine", anyone? This All-Canadian invention was used to identify homosexuals in the civil service and provide the necessary grounds to turf them.

What's creepy about Canada is just how sneaky, nastily backstabbing and "polite" it is when it chooses to fuck people over. A Canadian is just as likely to spit in your face, then immediately apologize for soiling you with their sputum. Because of the country's mask of benevolence, it makes them very good spies, infiltrators and deceivers.

In 1969, one of the most horrendous examples of this Canadian creepiness was perpetrated in Montreal. Its effects resonate to this very day - even though MOST Canadians do not know, care and/or do not remember the events which precipitated a justifiable act of civil disobedience - one in which its participants brought institutional racism in academia to the attention of the world.

Thankfully, the National Film Board of Canada (an equally creepy government agency with its own fair share of blood on its hands - Arthur Lipsett, anyone?) has allowed Mina Shum (Double Happiness) one of Canada's finest filmmakers the opportunity to bring the aforementioned events of 1969 to light in the powerful, superbly crafted Ninth Floor.

In the shadow of Canada's Expo '67 in Montreal, an international celebration of multicultural achievements, a group of Black students enrolled in Sir George Williams University were shocked to learn that their Biology professor was intentionally grading them at far lower levels than the White students. Though he was charged with racism, the university's administration pretty much did nothing about it. The students had only one choice - to take matters into their own hands. They occupied the ninth floor computer lab and brought this shameful incident to the attention of the world - not, however, without consequences and most certainly not without scary police-state-like machinations.

Shum brilliantly uses archival footage, current interviews and effective re-enactments to piece together this story fraught with the sheer evil of Canada's oh-so subtle and, uh, creepy, surveillance. Further presenting the aforementioned materials through the eyes of surveillance cameras adds immeasurably to the creep factor.

Ninth Floor might well be a documentary, but its sizzling storytelling and mise-en-scene places it squarely in the tradition of such brilliant 70s thrillers of paranoia like Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View and Haskell Wexler's immortal Medium Cool. In addition to being creepy and often downright chilling, Shum also infuses the picture with considerable humanity and emotion, placing her work squarely in the tradition of Michel Brault's Les Ordres, the astounding dramatic expose of the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis.

Canadians are especially good at following orders. They're nice, polite bureaucrats who have borrowed from the centuries-old history of British Colonialism, espionage and backstabbing. Shum rightly provides justification for the civil disobedience in the film and canonizes those who fought against one of the most insidious evils in the world.

Canada has always been a world leader at masking hatred against its citizens. Shum's film harrowingly and effectively lifts the veil upon one of this country's most shameful acts of terror and subterfuge.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Ninth Floor enjoys its World Premiere in TIFF DOCS at TIFF 2015.

THE RETURN OF THE ATOM - Review By Greg Klymkiw *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICK*****

The Return of the Atom (2015)
Dir. Mika Taanila, Jussi Eerola

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sometimes The Return of the Atom seems like a chilling political science fiction thriller. In other instances you're laughing so hard it feels like a mad, satirical expose a la Dr. Strangelove (crossed with Kafka, of course). Other times, the lies dispensed by corporate pigs in the nuclear industry are uttered with such straight faces, you won't know whether to laugh or cry or cry laughing, but they seem so ludicrous that one assumes their moronic spin might have been written by Ed Wood for a sequel to Plan 9 From Outer Space. But no, you are watching an ultimately terrifying, eye-opening and thorough documentary about the utter madness of the western world's first major nuclear power plant being constructed after the horrendous 1986 Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine.

Directors Mika Taanila and Jussi Eerola have aimed their cameras squarely upon the folly that is the nuclear industry in Eurajoki, Finland. Shooting over 100 hours over the course of 8 long years, we're privy to several unalterable truths. First of all, this western region contains two of the four working nuclear power plants in all of Finland. Secondly, Eurajoki has a tiny population base over a huge land mass and as such, ANY development on the part of unscrupulous big business is welcomed with open arms by politicians desperate for a larger share of the economy. Thirdly, the region is home to the building of the aforementioned nuclear reactor - a project fraught with so many follies that it's been delayed from completion for almost a decade.

This is madness and the film is less a swipe at Finland as it is a condemnation of the nuclear power industry worldwide. The corporate pigs are always looking for the fresh meat of underpopulated locales in order to swindle the locals into thinking that this is the best thing for them. Keep in mind, though, that Tanila and Eerola are also not going out of their way to slant things in one direction or the other, since the guilty parties more than do their best at hanging themselves with their obvious spin and lies.

The movie presents several important issues: the increase of leukaemia amongst the populace, general malaise amongst them, the clear common sense arguments presented by scientists, experts and activists falling on deaf ears, the reality that so many jobs need to be filled that foreign workers, NOT locals and in one case, creepily (though not surprisingly), we meet an activist being threatened and harassed until she fears for her own safety.

Perhaps most incredible of all, though, is the sumptuously photographed footage of the plant as it is being constructed (and still not finished) over several years. These sequences are imbued with an eerie and terrible beauty that's unforgettable. Though the film is not without its occasional longueurs, they're ultimately forgivable given the momentous task the filmmakers have set for themselves to capture this important document of man's continued decimation of the earth for profit.

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

The Return of the Atom receives its World Premiere in the TIFF DOCS program at TIFF 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

HORIZON - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Revelatory Gudni Doc *****TIFF 2015 TOP PICK*****

Horizon (2015)
Dir. Bergur Bernburg, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
Starring: Georg Gudni, Viggo Mortensen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

With his painterly eye for humanity and landscape, it seems fitting that Iceland's very own John Ford, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson (Children of Nature, Cold Fever, Devil's Island) has co-directed Horizon, a revelatory documentary portrait of the late, great painter Georg Gudni. Like Ford's beloved Monument Valley, Iceland's landscape has provided a stunning backdrop for Fridriksson's extraordinary canon and I can think of no better filmmaker to bring cinematic mastery to the subject of his old friend Georg Gudni.

Working with what feels like a lifetime's worth of footage of Gudni at work and in interviews, all shot by co-director Bergur Bernburg in collaboration with journalist Bill Rathje, Fridriksson has fashioned an indelible portrait of an artist who singlehandedly brought respectability back to landscape painting - a form often derided by Western art critics and practitioners in recent decades.

Gudni, however, saw something else in the landscapes around him - he was, after all, living in the land of the Askja calderas amidst the mighty, roiling volcanoes of the Dyngjufjöll mountains - an environment so topographically barren (though heartbreakingly beautiful) that it served as a training ground for the Apollo astronauts prior to their moon missions. Iceland is, in spite of its mountainous terrain, a land where the horizon seems infinite and Gudni's eye viewed layers upon layers of ever-so subtle shifts in both land and air.

If Heaven was on Earth, Gudni's remarkable paintings captured it again and again.

The superb footage of Gudni is expertly woven with interviews from a variety of artists, critics and academic historians, but perhaps most fascinating are the sequences with actor Viggo Mortensen, a dear friend, patron and publisher of Gudni's work. All these other voices lend support to Gudni's own words and actions, but Mortensen's observations might be the most moving and passionate of them all.

The other valuable element of Horizon is the jaw-droppingly stunning cinematography which matches the locations and even perspectives of Gudni's art. With the eye of a painter, Fridriksson and his collaborators take us into territory where the landscapes, the horizon, the remarkable light of Iceland weaves its magic before of our very eyes and melds into Gudni's paintings with the flow, force and fiery beauty of lava itself.

Yes, John Ford had Monument Valley, but Gudni and Fridriksson have Iceland - the backdrop of dreamers, poets and visual artists of all stripes - and thankfully, we have this film to make us all familiar with the work of one of the great artists of all time, to capture his genius and beauty forever.

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

Horizon receives its World Premiere in the TIFF Docs program at TIFF 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - *TIFF 2015 MUST-NOT-SEE*

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)
Dir. Kent Jones
Starring: Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher,
Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas,
Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich, Paul Schrader

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Hitchcock/Truffaut" was published in 1966 and remains one of the few genuine Holy Bibles on cinema. In 1962, the acclaimed former film critic and French New Wave director Francois (The 400 Blows) Truffaut sat down with Alfred Hitchcock for an entire week to discuss the Great Master's entire filmography in detail.

Though Truffaut is clearly a fan, he's far more than that. His love for Hitchcock as a genuine film artist borders on the rhapsodic, but he's clearly able to talk with the man in the most penetrating detail. Perhaps most importantly, Truffaut brings the skills of both a great film critic and filmmaker to the table and I can think of no better volume to lay bare the inner workings of a brilliant and complex filmmaker like Hitchcock.

Since the original audio recordings and amazing photographs taken during the week-long meeting of minds still exist, one wonders what took so long for anyone to make a feature documentary based on this amazing book. Now that such a film exists, it's with a heavy heart that I must declare what a disappointment Hitchcock/Truffaut, the documentary, is. Director Kent Jones had access to all the aforementioned materials, plus all the gorgeous film clips money could buy and interview subjects like Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader to expand on the materials selected from the historic interviews.

One big problem is that the film can't begin to come close to capturing the sheer importance of this event. Director Jones employs a kind of by-the-numbers chronological approach to the material smattered with illustrative clips from the films and occasional interviews with a whack of contemporary directors. Sure, we certainly get breathless (albeit all-to-brief) moments as to why Hitchcock was so great, but we seldom get the feeling just how important he was to the art of cinema. The movie speeds along like a standard TV-style documentary and few of the interview subjects are allowed enough time to expound on the material in the same manner Truffaut himself did.

No need to slag here with specific finger-pointing, but several of the subjects aren't even worthy to kiss Hitchcock's feet. Their inclusion seems relegated to an ooh and ahh effect - mostly, it would seem, for those too bone-headedly convinced that some of these filmmakers have opinions on the matter (or any matter) worth considering. Thank Christ, Jones didn't shoehorn Christopher Nolan into this thing. He gets points for that.

Some of those who are worthy are given short-shrift. Anyone who has spent any time listening to Peter Bogdanovich in person or in interviews as he waxes eloquent upon Hitchcock knows just how magnificently The Last Picture Show director can discuss both the work and the man. Bogdanovich is a first-rate raconteur and his Hitchcock impersonations are second to none, yet he's barely on-screen. Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Paul Schrader have insightful observations, but we simply don't get enough of them and, fuck it, I'll point one finger and say that the insufferable Olivier Assayas has nothing to say at the best of times - either in person or in his pretentious overrated films, so that his inclusion here is a huge downer.

Happily, we get a few healthy dollops of Martin Scorsese, who comes closest to the insight Truffaut demonstrated in the unexpurgated interviews in the book itself. In fact, Scorsese, with his clinically insane ability to recall individual moments, shot by shot, beat by beat, might actually have had observations to give Truffaut a run for his money. Alas, we still feel hungry for further Scorsese. Less, in this case, is certainly not more.

It's impossible to know what filmmaker Jones tried to accomplish here. It's a hodgepodge and at best feels like an elongated DVD supplement. As such, though, this is somewhat insulting to the truly great DVD supplements we've seen on the Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber labels and occasionally on the Universal and Warner Brothers supplements. The great filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau has created the best - bar none - documentary materials on Spielberg, Hitchcock, DePalma, Polanski, Friedkin and the list goes on and on.

Bouzereau brings a distinctive voice to his work - so much so that one is not only tantalized by the films he focuses upon, but one can identify his work within a minute or two of watching them. As a documentary filmmaker specializing in cinema, he's the real thing, and then some.

Alas, with Hitchcock/Truffaut, I certainly have no sense of who Kent Jones is and perhaps even less than zero a sense of what in hell kind of movie he wanted to make.

By default, mostly because of Scorsese, Jones's film has about 20 genuinely engaging minutes. The rest of it feels like the supplemental materials cobbled together for a lower-drawer DVD release. Given that the movie's running time is only 80 minutes, but feels twice that length because of its dull, ham-fisted structure, one thinks Mr. Jones might best tend to his duties as the Director of Programming for the New York Film Festival. His previous cinema documentaries, most notably his mediocre Val Lewton doc, are equally dull. This one, though, represents some kind of nadir.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One and a Half Stars

Hitchcock/Truffaut plays in the TIFF DOCS section of TIFF 2015.

TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER (TIFF 2014 - TIFF DOCS) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

KILLER.
CRACK WHORE.
FILMMAKER.

Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014)
Dir. Nick Broomfield

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's quite possible Lonnie Franklin Jr. murdered over 100 women. Undetected for at least 25 years, he ran amuck through South Central Los Angeles as the Grim Sleeper serial killer and even now, under arrest, charged with 10 murders and still awaiting trial, the idiot police are trying to piece everything together, now, rather than during the heyday of this madman. The police knew they had a serial killer on their hands in the 80s. They even had a forensic sketch, but they did nothing. After all, why should the police have bothered to make a serial killer connection between so many unsolved murders? Hell, why bother to make anything resembling a concerted effort at all? Most of the victims were poor African-American women and many of them were prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless, abused and/or alcoholics. These weren't women anyone should care about, least of all, the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD have always had bigger fish to fry. You know, like being on the take and/or randomly beating and/or killing young Black men.

So who ya' gonna call when you need answers?

Well, you don't need to call maverick investigative documentarian Nick Broomfield. Chances are, he'll call you or as is his wont, the surly, dogged, sniping Brit will drop by all on his lonesome. All this crusading pit bull needs is a whiff of incompetence, laziness, ignorance, racial inequality and/or social injustice.

So was the aromatic stench from the Grim Sleeper a Broomfield alarm bell.

The director of Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, Kurt & Courtney, Biggie and Tupac, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer and host of other penetrating documentaries, has never let anything stop him, though sometimes he's placed himself in harm's way to get answers.

Usually, Broomfield goes it alone. He operates his own sound and has one cameraman. His research is often done on the fly with cell phones. Here though, Broomfield secures a full-fledged partner, a former (and self-identified) "crack whore" by the name of Pam Brooks who first falls in his lap as a subject.

She quickly and simply joins him at the hip, drumming up clues, additional subjects for interviews and essentially becoming Watson to Broomfield's Holmes. She's a marvel and joy to behold and in spite of the utterly sickening backdrop, it's incredibly uplifting and yes, entertaining, to see this woman quickly gain a sense of her own pride, self-worth, talents, intelligence and doggedness to rival that of Broomfield.

This Dynamic Duo end up doing a far better job than the LAPD, digging up a whole whack of people who knew Franklin but who now, in retrospect are able to shed light on his suspicious behaviour from the past (he loved boastfully waving his handgun before neighbours, friends and acquaintances). Most importantly, the pair discover more women who might well have murdered or, extraordinarily escaped being murdered by Franklin's choice methods of snuffing out his victims - a point blank shot from a .25 calibre handgun or just good, old fashioned strangulation. Franklin, you see, was a hobbyist extraordinaire. He photographed hundreds of unclothed women in provocative poses who all appear to be dead, or asleep. Some of these photos might even be more victims.

What Broomfield's film ultimately sheds a huge light upon is how a killer openly went about his tireless, prodigious business - pretty much in plain view. The LAPD, not surprisingly, refused Broomfield's requests to be interviewed. We only see the cops on camera through news footage wherein they're extolling their "genius" at cracking the case through good, old-fashioned police work. As Broomfield's film more than ably proves, the police pretty much did nothing, save for bragging about how much they did. "Hypocrites", "liars" and "pigs" are words that come appropriately to mind.

The real story here is how nobody did much of anything while one woman, after another and another and another, ad nauseam, were brutally murdered.

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

Tales of the Grim Sleeper is in the TIFF Docs series at TIFF 2014. Financing and sales come from HBO Documentaries.

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BURT'S BUZZ - Review By Greg Klymkiw - One of Canada's Most Dynamic Filmmakers Shoots the King of Bees.

In addition to having it's World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013, Burt's Buzz, Jody Shapiro's fine documentary portrait of Burt Shavitz, the public face of Burt's Bees health products, was released by FilmBuff theatrically and via iTunes download in the USA on June 6, 2014 and will begin its theatrical launch in Canada on June 13, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival). After you read the review, please note that just below it on this page is a preview and link to a major feature length story entitled Jody Shapiro: A Guy For All Seasons in "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema", focusing upon the director of Burt's Buzz, Jody Shapiro, one of Canada's most legendary young filmmakers.

Burt's Buzz (2013) ***1/2
Dir: Jody Shapiro
Starring: Burt Shavitz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jody Shapiro began his career in film as one of the truly genuine creative producers in Canada, or rather, as a producer, he was always easy to look upon as a filmmaker (as opposed to the annoying assumption that a filmmaker and a producer are two different things).

Working with Guy Maddin in the latter stages of the great surrealist's career, Shapiro brought his artistic instincts to bear and was never shy about leaping into the fray with a movie camera and shooting like a madman. That Shapiro went on to be Isabella Rossellini's chief collaborator as a co-director and producer on her utterly insane Green Porno series of shorts speaks volumes about why he might have been the perfect director to document the life of Burt Shavitz.

Any producer attracted to as many eccentric projects and working closely with as many genuine eccentrics as Maddin and Rossellini has proven indeed that Shavitz could not have been luckier than to have someone like Shapiro infuse Burt's Buzz with his keen eye for the joys of, well, eccentricity. Shapiro's feature documentary is a loving portrait of the famed old bearded hippie whose face has adorned the packaging of the Health Store mainstay products "Burt's Bees". Though Shapiro interviews associates, sponsors and family, the film is mostly all Burt all the time - which is great because the camera loves him and he has a nice low key irascibility.

Shapiro delivers all the fascinating biographical details of how this city boy made his way to the backwoods of Maine and eventually became an avid beekeeper. With the assistance of the woman he loved, the company grew to gargantuan proportions. There's a melancholy to the tale also since Burt by his own admission was not happy nor especially cut out for corporate life and he sadly sold his shares in the company and his "brand" for peanuts. Considering Burt's Bees sold to the Clorox Corp. (I kid you not!), the sale was worth over 900 million dollars. Burt's not seen a cent of that and makes his living as a kind of travelling personal appearance spokesman.

Shapiro bounces between the solace of Burt on his farm and the genuine adulation he receives during live appearances. This is a simple, but effective juxtaposition and was the wisest way to present contrast, conflict and the two sides of the current coin that is Burt Shavitz.

Given the ubiquity of the Burt's Bees brand, you'd think we were dealing with a typical hippie-turned-corporate-sellout, but Shavitz is anything but that. He's a man of nature who's happiest on his farm in Maine and it's within the context of this that Shapiro trains his camera. Though there's probably a film to be made about a natural health company being owned by one of the most heinous producers of environmentally unfriendly consumer goods - this is NOT that film.

It's a sweet, funny and loving portrait of a man, his dog and his farm and how he needs to drag himself out to trade shows and malls to do a horse and pony act for the privilege of living a life of solitude amongst the hills and the trees.

And, of course, his bees.

He might not be a multi-millonaire, but you know, it could be worse.

Burt's Buzz was released by FilmBuff theatrically and via iTunes download in the USA on June 6, 2014 and begins its theatrical launch in Canada on June 13, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival). AND NOW, HERE'S ALL THE INFO YOU NEED ON HOW TO ACCESS MY FEATURE LENGTH STORY ON JODY SHAPIRO, THE DIRECTOR OF BURT'S BUZZ:

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS by Greg Klymkiw

can be read in Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema

by accessing UK's coolest online film magazine HERE

JOURNEY

with Jody Shapiro
into the very heart, soul and mind of Burt Shavitz

DISCOVER

the special bond twixt two men
from two generations

who share one object of affection

LIVE

the humble beginnings of a nice Jewish Boy

in the neighbourhood of Mel Lastman's North York

EXPERIENCE

Shapiro's post-secondary adventures at York University
and his STRICT tutelage under Niv Fichman

ENJOY

an ALL-EXCLUSIVE Guy Maddin pitch
for a highly-charged erotic scene involving
Jody Shapiro

BASK

in the glory that
IS
JODY SHAPIRO
as STEVE GRAVESTOCK,
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
and GAY MADDIN
extol the Great Man's
considerable virtues

DELVE

into Shapiro's most intimate personal fantasy
involving culinary arts and wildlife

SHARE

a rare fantasy with two men among men

ALL THIS AND MORE WHEN YOU READ:

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS

BY GREG KLYMKIW at ELECTRIC SHEEP

JODY SHAPIRO GETS A SMOOCH
FROM FORMER GF
LOUELLA NEGIN.

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY - the award winning feature film by Alan Zweig Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw *****

Alan Zweig's latest film, WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY, winner of the Best Canadian Feature Film Award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2013) opens theatrically via KINOSMITH in Canada on Nov. 15 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema and to be followed by playdates across the country. To read my review (which also encompasses Zweig's entire feature canon, feel free to read my latest Colonial Report column at the very cool UK film magazine: Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema. Click HERE!

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - ***** Alaz Zweig Premieres TIFF 2013, then Theatrically

Alan Zweig's latest film, WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY, winner of the Best Canadian Feature Film Award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2013) opens theatrically via KINOSMITH in Canada on Nov. 15 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema and to be followed by playdates across the country. To read my review (which also encompasses Zweig's entire feature canon, feel free to read my latest Colonial Report column at the very cool UK film magazine: Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema. Click HERE!

"When Jews Were Funny" is part of the TIFF Docs series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. Visit the TIFF website HERE.

BEYOND THE EDGE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - Edmund Hillary Mt. Everest recreation ruined by 3-D.

Beyond The Edge (2013) **1/2
Dir. Leanne Pooley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There aren't many stories of sheer endurance for endurance's sake as awe-inspiring as Sir Edmund Hillary's legendary climb to the top of Mt. Everest in 1953. I wish I could say that Leanne Pooley's film, Beyond The Edge, is better than it is since it comes to us on the 60th anniversary of Sir Eddie's achievement.

The film - on one level is a fine coming-together of technical wizardry, exhaustive research and a very challenging approach to storytelling. Poole had seemingly unrestricted access to all manner of archival material - gorgeous 16mm colour footage, Alf Gregory's legendary 35mm stills and what seems like every audio interview with the participants that's ever been laid down to tape. This is all to the good. Adding to the mix is newly-shot footage in the Southern Alps that recreates key points of the expedition. Though I will confess to not being a big fan of recreations, I must concede that Poole does a fine job matching every aspect of the new stuff with all the archival material both narratively (very good) and visually (well, close but no cigar).

From a story standpoint, the movie will grip you in ways that many other movies could not have possibly achieved. Kudos to Poole's writing and direction on this front. Unfortunately, one is constantly taken out of the story by two things - the use of the abominable 3-D process for one, and the attempts to match the myriad of audio-visual materials in terms of the actual colour grading.

To the first point - 3-D seldom adds to the genuine enjoyment of a picture. The process is still flawed as it requires wearing uncomfortable glasses and worse, the glasses are polarized and darken EVERYTHING to distraction. Where this hurts the most, frankly, is in the 16mm motion picture and 35mm still footage - the colours of which are so heartbreakingly vibrant that in 3-D, they pale in comparison to what you know is there. Just try popping the glasses off periodically and you'll see precisely how egregious the process is. In fact, you can do this for pretty much ANY 3-D movie, but it hurts the most when utilized with real film footage from a time when colours were naturally more vibrant than what we're used to seeing now.

As well, some form of digital enhancement would have had to be employed to render these period images in 3-D and the images blown up (even when the original aspect ratio is maintained) feel horrendously compromised. For me, making "old" look "new" or "better" can often result in it looking far less stellar than it should.

To the overall colour timing, I'm even more disappointed as the attempts to match everything add another layer of muting which is continually disappointing. For me, I'd have been perfectly fine if the filmmaker did NOT try to match things in the colour grading and perhaps added some post-modernist layer to the proceedings for us to accept it. This, however, was NOT the intent. In terms of intent, I suspect it's state of the art - or, as state of the art as it's ever going to be.

Where I plan to give the film another chance is at home, on flat (not 3-D) Blu-Ray. I suspect for a whack-job like me, it will work beautifully. For everyone else, especially those who are more (wrongly and indiscriminately, I'm afraid) accepting of the 3-D process, they will no doubt not be bothered by this and hopefully can concentrate on the storytelling.

For me, the storytelling suffers.

"Beyond The Edge" is part of the TIFF DOCS series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013 (#TIFF13) and you can order tickets directly for the TIFF website HERE.

THE DARK MATTER OF LOVE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - Sub-Par Adoption Doc is Strictly Dr. Phil

The Dark Matter of Love (2012) *
Dir. Sarah McCarthy

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I will admit upfront I had a slightly personal bias here that kept me from responding to this tale of love and bonding between three Russian orphans (among the last to be allowed adoptive parents from outside Russia) and their new Apple Pie American family. Having spent a considerable amount of time in Ukraine’s orphanages, I remember meeting a variety of potential parents from all over the world and while this might betray my own prejudices with respect to America, I’ll always remember feeling an overwhelming sense of pity for the Ukrainian children destined for America rather than France, Italy, UK, Switzerland, Germany and, of course, Canada.

For me, it all boiled down to values - the seemingly gluttonous consumerist “free-market” American variety, as opposed to a highly cultured, literate and far more liberal approach to the world. Again, this was merely a personal observation during a pre-9/11 time frame, but as I watched The Dark Matter of Love within it’s contemporary post-9/11 context, it was a weirdly prophetic viewing experience.

Seeing these Russian kids flung into an America that had spun the world into a major financial crisis and various wars since those more “innocent” times, an America that seemingly learned nothing from the chaos created by its political and corporate leaders and worst of all, that sense of gaudy consumerism I recognized so many years ago coming to life on-screen before my very eyes - all conspired to make me wonder what that movie would have been like to see instead of this one - which, sadly, is not very good.

It is ultimately supposed to be a story about three kids who have lived in the hell of Russia’s orphanages (perhaps even more grotesque than the Ukrainian institutions) and who need love, even want love, but have never experienced love. How do you give love to a child that doesn’t know what love is?

Well, it’s not rocket science - with great difficulty and patience.

The American family in question are clearly fine and generous people with plenty of love to give. One can even understand when we see their frustration at not getting love back, or the jealousy experienced by their biological daughter over all the attention given over to the Russian kids and the overall turmoil the building of this new family unit results in. This is potentially harrowing stuff, but is frankly undermined by the application of certain psychological principles that are rooted in the film’s title - that love is a matter of science and in extreme situations such as this, one must turn to medical professionals.

From a strictly moral standpoint, I had problems swallowing this - for my liking it’s all too typically Dr. Phil (the famous reality TV talk-show shrink who presents a hugely rated barrage of suffering Americans and offers all manner of platitudinous pop-psychology to ease the pain). Worse yet, the film emphasizes the gobbledegook of a duo of scientists and trains its camera on them as they watch footage of the family trying to cope - spewing their babble as if they were bloody sports commentators and that the emotional gymnastics of the family was a particularly strenuous football match.

The film never really allows us an opportunity to experience what could have been a very moving document - children who have never known love and their relationship with a family that knows love all too well and wants to give it. There is, or was, a great movie in here and it could have been one of several movies far more engaging and vital than this one proved to be.

"Dark Matter of Love" is in the TIFF DOCS series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. Visit the TIFF website HERE.

BURT'S BUZZ - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 Jody Shapiro Trains His Lens Upon King of the Bees.

TIFF #13 TIFF DOCS
Burt's Buzz (2013) ***
Dir: Jody Shapiro
Starring: Burt Shavitz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jody Shapiro began his career in film as one of the truly genuine creative producers in Canada, or rather, as a producer, he was always easy to look upon as a filmmaker (as opposed to the annoying assumption that a filmmaker and a producer are two different things).

Working with Guy Maddin in the latter stages of the great surrealist's career, Shapiro brought his artistic instincts to bear and was never shy about leaping into the fray with a movie camera and shooting like a madman. That Shapiro went on to be Isabella Rossellini's chief collaborator as a co-director and producer on her utterly insane Green Porno series of shorts speaks volumes about why he might have been the perfect director to document the life of Burt Shavitz.

Any producer attracted to as many eccentric projects and working closely with as many genuine eccentrics as Maddin and Rossellini has proven indeed that Shavitz could not have been luckier than to have someone like Shapiro infuse Burt's Buzz with his keen eye for the joys of, well, eccentricity. Shapiro's feature documentary is a loving portrait of the famed old bearded hippie whose face has adorned the packaging of the Health Store mainstay products "Burt's Bees". Though Shapiro interviews associates, sponsors and family, the film is mostly all Burt all the time - which is great because the camera loves him and he has a nice low key irascibility.

Shapiro delivers all the fascinating biographical details of how this city boy made his way to the backwoods of Maine and eventually became an avid beekeeper. With the assistance of the woman he loved, the company grew to gargantuan proportions. There's a melancholy to the tale also since Burt by his own admission was not happy nor especially cut out for corporate life and he sadly sold his shares in the company and his "brand" for peanuts. Considering Burt's Bees sold to the Clorox Corp. (I kid you not!), the sale was worth over 900 million dollars. Burt's not seen a cent of that and makes his living as a kind of travelling personal appearance spokesman.

Shapiro bounces between the solace of Burt on his farm and the genuine adulation he receives during live appearances. This is a simple, but effective juxtaposition and was the wisest way to present contrast, conflict and the two sides of the current coin that is Burt Shavitz.

Given the ubiquity of the Burt's Bees brand, you'd think we were dealing with a typical hippie-turned-corporate-sellout, but Shavitz is anything but that. He's a man of nature who's happiest on his farm in Maine and it's within the context of this that Shapiro trains his camera. Though there's probably a film to be made about a natural health company being owned by one of the most heinous producers of environmentally unfriendly consumer goods - this is NOT that film.

It's a sweet, funny and loving portrait of a man, his dog and his farm and how he needs to drag himself out to trade shows and malls to do a horse and pony act for the privilege of living a life of solitude amongst the hills and the trees.

And, of course, his bees.

He might not be a multi-millonaire, but you know, it could be worse.

"Burt's Buzz" is n the TIFF DOCS series of the Toronto International Film Festival 2013 (TIFF 13) and feel free to visit the festival website to get your tickets HERE.

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013- Moe Does Donald Good - Does Him REEL Good

The Unknown Known (2013) ****
Dir. Errol Morris
Starring: Donald Rumsfeld

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ace master documentary filmmaker Errol Morris is back in familiar territory with this one-on-one exploration of the life and times of George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the clearly gifted master of political doubletalk, misinformation, disinformation and perhaps one of the most dangerous, despicable and evil Americans of the past decade. Much like The Fog of War, Morris' exploration of Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary during the Vietnam War, Morris hits his new subject with tough questions. Blending archival footage, graphs, charts and an assortment of Rumsfeld's memos (numbering over 20,000 he issued during a six-year period) the veteran documentarian attempts to paint as honest a portrait as possible of a political mastermind of legal mass murder, or, if you will, the war against terror. (The only thing missing is a Philip Glass score - inexplicably replaced with a so-so Danny Elfman score.) McNamara was a different beast, though. He at least seemed to be telling the truth. None of that - truth, that is - appears to be on display here.

With a malevolent grin, Rumsfeld makes you think he's letting the cat in the bag slip out, but in the same breath, he's letting you know the cat's still in the bag and that his final word on the matter will always ensure that the bag's indeed, in the river. In fact, we never get a clear picture of anything from Rumsfeld. It always seems clear, but never feels truthful. In several contexts, Rumsfeld is caught completely contradicting himself and hilariously ignoring and/or talking his way out of his obvious falsehoods and/or contradictions

The film delivers a good deal of personal and historical detail on Rumsfeld, the most fascinating of which is his keen interest in and study of history - especially, not surprisingly, in terms of war. When he discusses America's past, one gets a clear sense of how his own decisions are colored by his analysis of past American failures and triumphs. For example, he refers to America's unpreparedness for the attack on Pearl Harbor as "a failure of the imagination". Of course, he prides himself on his own imagination and how it leads to a constant state of "worry" - one which he maintains is the ultimate state of preparedness. He goes so far as to suggest that great nations must never accept the notion that peace can ever be achieved.

"If you wish for peace," Rumsfeld maintains you must immediately begin to "prepare for war."

Morris usually keeps his cool as the off-screen interviewer, but on occasion, his utter incredulity with respect to Rumsfeld's delectable twisting of the truth is genuinely entertaining. We're witness to one magnificent turn of phrase after another. The man is a master spin doctor and even more astoundingly, he might actually be the best generator of juicy sound bites in the world - ever. Here's a tiny, but choice grocery list of a few of them:

"All generalizations are false, including this one," he proclaims.

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," he opines on weapons of mass destruction or lack thereof in Iraq.

Of course, Rumsfeld treats us to one of his astounding humdingers (which Morris uses for the film's title): "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we don't know we don't know. The unknown known, however, is a thing that we know, but are unaware of knowing."

And there are even some sound bites that feel genuine, almost moving, such as his response to 9/11 and an explanation for his subsequent actions: "Something terrible happened on my watch."

If Rumsfeld seems less up-front in this film than McNamara was in The Fog of War, it doesn't make him any less fascinating and Morris expertly presents us with a movie that might have even more obvious entertainment value. The almost-easy-to-swallow nature of The Unknown Known in terms of how engaging it is as a movie, also doesn't make it any less an important record of contemporary American history - and by extension, world history.

The whole movie, in fact, is a hoot from beginning to end, but what we're ultimately presented and left with is 96 minutes of lies - or, at the very least, what Rumsfeld wants us to hear, even if we don't believe a word.

The man has no shame. None. He could have been a President.

"The Unknown Known" is part of the TIFF Docs series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. Visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is being distributed via E-One.

JODOROWSKY'S DUNE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - TIFF DOCS - The Epic Story of the Greatest Epic Science Fiction Movie Never Made

TIFF 2013 - TIFF DOCS
Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) ***
Dir. Frank Pavich
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, Brontis Jodorowsky, Nicolas Winding Refn, Richard Stanley, Gary Kurtz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

If we imagine a world without Star Wars, we can probably imagine a world where cinema was no longer being driven to the slow, painful death it is suffering now. More importantly, if we imagine a world where Alejandro (El Topo, Holy Mountain) Jodorowsky, the mad, obsessed/obsessive visionary director had been able to make his film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune - beating Star Wars to the punch and laying the groundwork for a new and different kind of spectacle in the cinema rather than the empty state of the art blockbusters of the 80s - we can imagine a far greater world than we live in now (especially those who love and care about movies).

Frank Pavich's fascinating feature documentary is as close as we're ever going to get to seeing what might have been one of the greatest movies of the late 20th Century - a film that was a mere five million dollars short of becoming a reality, a film that would have starred Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali and Orson Welles, storyboarded by Moebeius, with effects by Dan O'Bannon, costume and creature designs by H.R. Giger and, of course, the legendary Jodorowsky at the helm.

To see this documentary is to be caught up in the creative excitement that went into every second of preparing this epic motion picture. Jodorowsky himself transports us to a time, place and state of being that captures every thrilling story beat in the development of this insane, passionate and mind-blowing film.

As the story proceeds, we're caught up in the fervour - nay, the fever pitch that never abated over several years of trying to make Dune a reality. And of course, as things start taking turns for the worst and we experience the whole enterprise crumble under the weight of cheap, vision-bereft studio chiefs who all eventually turned the movie down for the last financing piece of the puzzle. we feel like we're being dragged through the coals of sheer decimation of a staggering work of art - one that would have clearly changed the way we see movies.

Even more depressing, but almost strangely uplifting, is seeing storyboard and art designs from Dune that were outright stolen copiously by a who's who of Hollywood's artistic power brokers. There isn't one single mega-hit from a period of over 30 years that doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to the movie that now only exists on paper. It's also kind of cool to discover that not even Jodorowsky knew just how long his movie was going to be. All he knew was that it would be as long as it needed to be.

One of the more maddening revelations is how studio heads loved everything about the film, but hated it's director and yet, it was that same director who rallied the talent, guided the vision and drove the creation of the very materials the bean counters were in love with.

An all star cast of artisans, filmmakers and pundits join Jodorowsky in this tale of the movie that was never made. Best of all we are able to experience the sheer joy and twinkle in Jodorowsky's eye as he launches into one passionate tale after another about the making of the film, but also the film itself. Most extraordinary of all we experience his pride in being able to influence several generations of filmmakers from the fruits of his labours that led at once to a heartbreaking end and to another, seeds for the future greatness of others.

His pride and happiness about this is ultimately what makes him one of the great artists of cinema history.

"Jodorowsky's Dune", programmed by Colin Geddes, is part of the TIFF Docs series during the 2013 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. For more information and tickets, visit the festival website HERE. The film is to be released by Mongrel Media.