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.

MATT SHEPARD IS A FRIEND OF MIND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - He's a friend to us all

Matt Shepard
is a Friend of Mine (2015)
Dir. Michele Josue

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Michele Josue manages to pull of the near impossible. She not only tells us a very personal story about her friendship with the sweet, brilliant young man named in the film's title, she constructs a biographical documentary of his life, whilst etching an indelible cinematic portrait of his unique spirit and character. Josue is so successful juggling these elements that I left the cinema wanting to be Matt Shepard's friend too. In fact, I can't imagine anyone seeing this film and not feeling likewise.

What a great guy!

In spite of the fact that this is a film, it uncannily manages to do what only the best cinema can do by using all the gifts and wonders the medium can bring to bear upon a subject and plunge us deep into its very essence. Matt Shepard might well be Josue's friend, but she's neither self-tub-thumping the fact, nor is she hoarding this beautiful human being all to herself.

Matt Shepard is, indeed, a friend to all of us.

First and foremost, because he is a human being and we're given this opportunity to get to know him. Granted, it's a mere ninety minutes of running time, but Josue expertly weaves home movies, photographs, interviews with friends, family and teachers, Matt's private writings and his vast correspondence with all those dear to him. It seems, no stone is left unturned.

Sadly, none of us will ever really get to know him, but Josue's created the next best thing.

Josue begins with what ended Matt's life. On Oct. 12, 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, the 21-year-old Matt Shepard was beaten, tortured, tied to a fence and left for dead. For all intents and purposes, he might as well have been. He died soon after in hospital. A young life, so full of promise, was cut short by a senseless act rooted in hatred.

Matt Shepard was murdered by two hate-filled young men because he was gay. Even harder to believe is the news footage of supposed Christians parading homophobic, hate-spewing filth on placards and hurling anti-Gay invective from their mouths when Matt Shepard's life was being celebrated at his funeral.

In death, however, Matt Shepard became a symbol, an emblem, a trademark if you will, for the anti-hatred lobby. Josue's film does not ignore this important element of Matt's legacy and weaves it into the fabric of the film superbly. Still, though, we come back to what Josue does so well - she gives us Matt in as much glory as possible.

We learn about his charmed childhood, his loving family, his delightful antics in childhood like leaving pretty stones in the mailboxes of his neighbours, dressing up as Dolly Parton for Halloween and always being the centre of attention - not that he demanded it at all, but rather, he was such a dazzling, compelling young man that he naturally commanded it. We're privy to his private struggles with coming to grips with his sexuality, to be sure, but that's merely one element of seeing a young man blossom as he searches for everything he's all about. His love for family, friends and travel seemed limitless. His sense of humour and sensitivity unparalleled. His time during an American boarding school in Switzerland becomes almost magical. Sure, we're in the Alps. That's damn magical, just as it is when we follow him on trips with his friends throughout Europe. However, what is magic, real magic, is his love for his friends and theirs for him.

If anything, the magic of this film is love and most of all, the love Matt Shepard gave.

There is darkness in his life. Vacationing with his school chums in Morocco turned into a nightmare that never seemed to leave him when he was beaten and gang-raped in a dark Marrakesh alleyway by six thugs. Here, his life did indeed change. He began to carry himself inwardly, like a victim. He kept his pain to himself. He stopped his activities in the theatre and became a haunted shell of who he once was.

Most of all, he wanted to come home. This meant returning to his home state of Wyoming where he enrolled in college in the small city of Laramie. Here, he seemed to begin to find himself again. Here, he was at home. Here, was where Matt Shepard was kidnapped, beaten and tortured to death for being gay.

The anger and frustration one feels just watching this play out seems almost incalculable - even as a mere viewer of a film. One can't even begin to imagine the feelings of Matt's family and friends and by extension, the whole community of mankind that expressed and felt the deepest shock over someone being murdered simply out of hatred. Josue nails it here, though. She introduces an element into the film in its final third that presents a deeply harrowing, haunting, moving and finally spiritual sequence which forces all who watch it to look into the mirrors that reflect their own souls.

This is one great documentary. Try to see it in a movie theatre with the fellowship of other human beings. You'll all be soaring.

Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine begins its theatrical Canadian run via VFRPR at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas in Toronto February 20th, 2015, with additional cities and screens to follow across the country. Judy and Dennis Shepard, Matt Shepard's Mom and Dad to host select opening weekend screenings. If it's not yet playing in your city, DEMAND IT! Matthew's memory has been enshrined in the good work of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and in the passage of the The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. Be sure to read Remarks by President Obama at a Reception Commemorating the Enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act by clicking HERE.

In Canada - BUY GAY THEMED FILMS HERE, EH!

In USA and the rest of the world BUY GAY THEMED films HERE

IT'S ONLY MAKE BELIEVE (Eventyrland) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Joys of Liberal Norway Just 4 U

Norwegian Wood = Hot Norwegian Babe With Phallic Shotgun

It's Only Make Believe (Eventyrland) (2013) Dir. Arild Østin Ommundsen **
Starring: Silje Solomonsen, Iben Østin Hjelle, Vegar Hoel, Egil Birkeland, Ole Romsdal, Fredrik Hana

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Come to lovely Norway
We have lovely fjords
And you will NOT be
Raped Anally unless
you want to be!!!

The first thing our eyes are drawn to in the opening shot of the lightweight Norwegian crime thriller It's Only Make Believe (Eventyrland) is a pair of horking, mean-ass stainless steel clippers which we immediately hope will be used to snip off someone's appendage(s) and/or get slammed repeatedly over a skull. No such luck. A Babe (Silje Solomonsen) and her boyfriend (Fredrik Hana), the holder of the aforementioned clippers, are patiently waiting for an accomplice to show up before they pull a supposedly simple job. This is Norway, you see.

While we wait for the third wheel to appear, our attractive Norwegian leads rest calmly in the dark and talk about how much they love each other since the babe reveals she's preggers with her beau's seed. Seems the lad's Norwegian Wood yielded just the right pay dirt during one of their copulatory trysts. After some soulful yapping, their accomplice doesn't make an appearance, so the babe and her true love wander over to a humungous greenhouse and - SNIP - the cutters open a chain and they wander in.

Finding a whole whack of drugs and a shotgun, they're ready to blow the popcorn stand, but as these things go, someone unexpected shows up. After a mad dash, the babe starts to pump out lead from the shotgun and sooner than you can say Kris Kringle (that's Norwegian, right?), the intruder is lying dead and hubby-to-be is wounded. The result of these shenanigans is that beau-boy survives, but must live the rest of his life as a vegetable in an institution. Happily, as this is Norway, the babe pops the vegetable's progeny and spends ten years in prison.

As it's a Norwegian prison, it pretty much looks like a country club and we never get a single instance of some Linda Blair Born Innocent action with our Norwegian Babe being held down nude on a tile floor whilst being raped with a broom handle. In fact, Norwegian prisons look so humane that instead of, say, John Vernon as the warden pulling some Chained Heat hot tub rape action on our Babe (much like Vernon did to Linda Blair in that immortal 1983 chick-in-prison picture), she saunters out on release day with a friendly and oh-so-genial fatherly hug from a prison official.

Isn't Norway grand?

It's grander than you think, let me tell you. The babe's daughter has been raised by an affluent foster mother and for the little murderess's entire prison term (uh, only ten years for killing one guy and turning another into a vegetable), she's actually been allowed day-trip visits with the kid. Man, those Norwegian hoosegows are really progressive. And now our Babe, who merely popped the little bugger in a nice, clean Norwegian prison hospital, wants to take her spawn from the woman who's been its real mother.

Fat chance. Norway might be liberal, but it's not completely run by bleeding heart retardates. The babe can only get custody of the kid again if she can prove that the pretty little babe-ette daughter (Iben Østin Hjelle) will be better off than she is now. This is going to be quite a challenge since the babe's apartment needs new plumbing and she can't afford it. She pays a visit to the scumbag accomplice (Vegar Hoel) who never showed up that fateful night and he agrees to pay for plumbing. He even helps her steal some paint so she can doll the place up with a few fresh coats and brightly coloured drawings of ponies and other nice girly things.

Isn't Norway a wonderful place?

Well, it's not all peaches and cream in the Land of Liberal Fjords. It seems the brother (Ole Romsdal) - at least I think he's the brother - of the man she killed, is one mean mo-fo who wants to make her pay dearly. With his grotesquely psychotic henchman, who goes by the name of - HAH! - Eddie Vedder (Egil Birkeland), our Babe is going to be in a real Norwegian pickle barrel. She has to do all manner of drug deals to pay off her "debt" and if she refuses, her little girl will be used as the bait to make sure she complies.

She's just got to get out of this sticky wicket somehow, but if you have any doubts that she will, allow me to remind you that this entire ludicrous, precious, but compulsively watchable movie is set in - you guessed it - NORWAY!!! Seriously, it's a great place to raise a family. Just like our babe-o-licious murderess, you can romp around with the daughter you've never really known while lame, on-point Norwegian Eddie-Vedder-wannabe songs play on the soundtrack. In Norway, it's like life stops every so often and turns into a music video.

You know, I can't stress Norway's magnificence enough. Norway, you see, is truly the Land of Make Believe! How make believe is it, you ask? Norway is so make believe that when the bad guy holds down the babe face flat in the dirts, pulls her pants down and orders Eddie Vedder to rape her in the ass, Eddie refuses to do so.

I don't know about you, but I'm booking a one-way ticket to Norway next week. Who wouldn't want to use a bit of that magical Norwegian Wood on Norwegian Babes and be able to refuse orders to forcibly sodomize them in a land of milk, honey and, uh, fjords.

It's Only Make Believe (Eventyrland) opens theatrically at the Carlton Cinemas in Toronto via Vagrant Films. Alas, there are no promotional tie-ins with the Norwegian Tourist Bureau.

THE WAGNER FILES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Imagining such a film by Ken Russell instead of this clown.

Something tells me phones didn't exist
during the mid-19th century.

Docu-bio-pic on composer Richard Wagner offers unconventional glimpse into a sordid life that spawned some of the greatest music ever written.

The Wagner Files (2013) **
Dir. Ralf Pleger Starring: Samuel Finzi, Pegah Ferydoni

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's nothing dreadful about this extended music video documentary bio-pic of Richard Wagner, but then again, there's not much that's good about it either. Utilizing dramatic recreations - none of which are rooted in the 19th Century, but stylized 20th Century facsimiles - director Ralf Pleger patchwork-quilts the whole affair with computer graphics, talking heads of Wagner experts, dollops of animated graphic novel images (which, Pleger clearly thinks are clever) and a cornucopia of staggering topographical visuals all of which are set to Wagner's glorious compositions.

On the plus side, many of the experts called upon to opine and/or furnish biographical details are genuinely passionate and even entertaining as they deliver the actual narrative of the man whose music ("Ride of the Valkyries") is oft-remembered for its inclusion during Francis Coppola's helicopter attack sequence in Apocalypse Now. Unfortunately, it's Pleger's half-baked indulgences that get in the way. We learn that Wagner was a cheat, thief, liar, anarchist, revolutionary, virulent anti-semite and philanderer who required cross-dressing to inspire his act of composing great works of art. We get to follow the jolly little fellow as he tears about Europe trying to establish his career, dodge creditors and law enforcement officials.

The movie certainly gives us a decent enough portrait of the more lurid aspects of his life - which, are admittedly quite entertaining, but we never really get a genuine sense of the mad genius who, in spite of his clear failings as a human being, managed to write some of the most exquisite pieces of music ever wrought. Pleger, however, appears annoyingly self-satisfied with his attempts at stylistic flourishes, that by the end of the film, we get a sense of the keystones that marked Wagner's life, but absolutely none of the genuine passion, flair and invention he must surely have possessed as a musical prodigy. Ah, Ken Russell, where were you when we needed you the most?

Watching the film one imagines how exquisitely the late Ken Russell might have handled this material. Though oft-criticised for his over-the-top, wildly surreal film biographies of Tchaikovsky, Mahler and, among many others, Franz Liszt, I've always felt Ken Russell still managed to convey his love for the music. Though he bent the facts in order to extol the artistic virtues and lives of the composers he chose to immortalize on film, one also got - albeit perversely - numerous details of their lives. I suspect nobody will ever forget Tchaikovsky conducting the 1812 Overture in The Music Lovers as canons fire rounds at individuals in the Russian composer's life, resulting in a series of exploding heads, or the clearly mad notion that Wagner stole all his music from Franz Liszt in the magnificently goofy Liszt-O-Mania and, given Pleger's unremarkable flights of fancy with respect to Wagner's relationship with his second wife Cosima Wagner, one needs only recall the image of Cosima adorned in swastika-emblazoned S&M garb in Mahler as she leads the Jewish composer through an inspired fantasia involving his conversion to Christianity - cracking her whip, licking her lips and thrusting her steel-kickered pelvis as Mahler leapt through flaming hoops with Star of David centres.

Pleger's attempts at revisionist imagery are dull and unimaginative.

Wagner enthusiasts might well enjoy this film, but I suspect the rest of us will sit through it and try to imagine how a real filmmaker, like Ken Russell, might have tackled the life of Richard Wagner - with genuine passion, aplomb and madness as opposed to Pleger's geek-boy gymnastics.

"The Wagner Files" plays theatrically at Toronto's Carlton Cinemas via Vagrant Films."

GRIOT - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Griot (2013) ****
Dir. Volker Goetze
Starring:
Ablaye Cissoko,
Volker Goetze

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Griot is, at least from my own interpretation of Volker Goetze's film, the very essence of African history and culture. These hallowed individuals are singers, storytellers, community leaders, praise-bearers and keepers of oral histories and traditions. To learn of their history and to be introduced to one of the truly legendary Griots, Ablaye Cissoko was a truly and deeply personal revelation to me.

I'm not African by any stretch of the imagination, but like all of us on this planet, I share the blood of humanity with the African people as they do with me. We are, ultimately the product of stardust and as such, we are the progeny of the Heavens. Call it God, call it a higher power, call it a supreme being, call it dark matter, call it quantum physics, call it the Drake Equation - call it whatever you like. We are all one and it is with both awe and respect that I feel blessed to have been introduced to the dazzling power of this great musician.

Griot is a stirring, colourful and moving documentary and as such, a lyrical and poetic exploration of the West African tradition of the aforementioned Griot, an important personage in African culture with a clear relationship to the indigenous populace, but more importantly, how it seems to have influenced the entire African diaspora - especially in America.

The structure of the film is simple - all the better as this exposes so many factual, historical and finally spiritual properties of the Griot. You will experience heart achingly gorgeous music, you will see it performed, you will experience the joy of dance and musical expression and most of all, you will learn of the great lament of the Griot in the contemporary world. Culture and tradition is a blood right, but history has toyed with it, colonialism and slavery has tried to suppress it, contemporary African leaders seem to have no interest in its preservation and finally, even the Griot is an a world where the very role needs to both grow and yet return to its very roots.

I truly believe the concerns of the Griot are ALL of our concerns and the message Cissoko imparts via Goetze's cinematic eyepiece is truly universal and something that touches us all.

It might even touch you personally as it did me.

Allow me to share a deeply personal and cultural connection to this great story. My heritage is Ukrainian - a culture and language that has been battered, slaughtered and oppressed for over a thousand years - primarily by Russia. Perhaps the most horrific piece of recent history that has always haunted me is the systematic destruction and brutalization of the Ukrainian culture and its people by the Butcher Joseph Stalin. He not only orchestrated the genocide of ten million Ukrainians during the man-made famine known alternately as the Harvest of Despair and the Holodomor, but for me, the most horrendous genocide was a cultural decimation. Stalin not only implemented forced Russification amongst the Ukrainians, he destroyed one thousand years of history.

Here is why I was so personally moved by this film - my people were agrarian in nature and their entire history and culture was maintained in a very strict oral tradition by men who were not unlike the West African Griots. In Ukraine, they were called Kobzars. Like the Griot, their talent and place in the world was not through formal training, but through blood. They were the keepers of the country's history. Joseph Stalin invited all the Ukrainian Kobzars to Russia for a national conference to celebrate and discuss how the Kobzars would remove the yoke of Czarist oppression and adopt a new direction in praise of the revolution, of communism, of Stalin. Once all the Kobzars were assembled under one roof, Stalin had them all shot. One thousand years of history gone in one fell swoop.

To see the brilliant, caring, committed Ablaye Cissoko as he laments the horrid lack of a proper cultural centre, the indifference of a government to tradition and a millennia of history and culture was so profoundly touching. All the more so because the Griot still exists and his place in African culture - bound by blood - will only be eradicated if it is done so by force. Thankfully, we have filmmaker and musician Volker Goetze to put this important tradition in front of a camera and preserve its sound, image and yes, even soul so that the tradition can travel well beyond the borders of West Africa, beyond the borders of its intended audience - to travel into the hearts and minds of humanity all over the world.

My people lost their Kobzars, but as long as the Griot exists and thrives, I am confident that through the power of stardust, the river of blood that binds all of us and most of all, through the soul cleansing grace and beauty of the Griot's music, the history and tradition of man will be reflected in the words and teachings of the great people of West Africa. This is a film that gives me so much hope that culture is what binds all of us.

As Cissoko states, "Without culture one becomes a person without an identity."

He has nothing to fear, however. His blood flows as does the blood of others like him. It flows into the music of the soul and it cascades out via the tributaries of the Earth and thank whatever power is responsible, but the Griot thrives. Cissoko is here to soothe us, to offer praise to the heavens and to the ancestors - who ultimately are the ancestors of all of us.

For we are one.

"Griot" is launching a cross-Canada tour via Ryan Bruce Levey's Vagrant Films Releasing and Publicity. The film begins at the gorgeous Royal Theatre in Toronto - a perfect launch pad as it's still the one standalone cinema in the city with the most exquisite sound and picture quality. The film, miraculously, will be launched by a concert that features blaye Cissoko and Volker Goetze. For tickets and further information about the concerts and screenings across the country, please visit the official Griot website HERE.

THURSDAY TILL SUNDAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The heartbreak of childhood, the pain of growing up

Thursday Till Sunday (2013) ****
Dir. Dominga Sotomayor Castillo
Starring: Santi Ahumada, Francisco Pérez-Bannen, Paola Giannini, Emiliano Freifeld, Axel Dupré

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Children know everything. We know nothing. Their sense of intuition is so intense, so acute and so otherworldly that very little escapes them. What keeps kids kids, is innocence, but it doesn't take long for them to slowly lose it.

And it's all our fault.

Some call it growing up - which, I suppose it is, but I sure wish it was not such a necessary evil and most of all, that it could come without having to experience the heartbreak of loss.

Thursday Till Sunday is all about loss, but as such, it provides a bedrock of hope that delivers the illusion that through their pain, they will experience a light we sometimes find elusive, that they will, from our mistakes create a world of more perfect balance for themselves. Most of all, we hope - no matter how much pain we've tried to suppress to keep them pure - that this pain has not seeped to deeply into their pristine state of being.

Writer-Director Dominga Sotomayor has crafted a film of great truth and even greater drama by allowing her camera to capture endless small details of life through long, perfectly composed shots - often in close proximity to the exquisitely etched characters.

She begins her alternately poetic and Neo-realist tale under the cover of darkness as parents secret their sleepy children into the back seat of a car. There's nothing at all malevolent about this - nothing most parents haven't done when setting off on an early morning road trip to make the most of the day.

We do, however, get a hint that all is not well when a brief verbal exchange between the husband and wife suggests some confusion as to whether or not both of them will be coming along. It's not a big thing, but the movie, like life, is full of these small details signalling that which can be so much bigger.

So it is that we begin a movie set firmly on the road as the family of four - Mom, Dad, the older sister and the little brother - engage in an extended long weekend trip from their home in Santiago to the wilds of northern Chile to take in some sights, some swimming, some camping and a gander at a parcel of land that Dad's father has left to him in his will.

Anyone who has been on a similar road trip with their parents will knowingly recognize the endless nature of the proceedings - especially to kids. Dominga brilliantly and steadfastly sticks to the older child's point of view. Lucia (Santi Ahumada) is 12 - that annoying, frustrating cusp of burgeoning hormonal and psychological changes that allow for moments of recognition that cannot be fully understood, nor acted upon.

It is ultimately, through Lucia's eyes and/or in her presence, that we slowly realize the portent and utter weight of this road trip - one that will be the last these four will ever take as a family. Separation looms like some dark cloud of inevitability and it is painful - not just for the parents and the children, but for the viewer also. Even more astonishingly, one almost senses the filmmaker's pain by the manner in which her clever mise-en-scène never waivers from its resolution to create such rich dramatic truth.

Dominga plants the camera in one position (often within the car) and events play out the way they would in life. When cuts are employed, they're not so much jarring as they are fluidly leading us ever forward into the story. They're there, but many of the transitions feel invisible - as they should in a story told with such a measured pace and an eye for detail. In fact, some might even feel the details are of little interest, but Dominga manages to craft the film in such a manner that most audiences will give over to its rhythm early on and catch small details that do indeed provide important pieces of the story's puzzle.

There isn't a single performance in the film that feels off. Ahumada, though, is exceptional. The camera loves her and she displays intelligence and maturity, but also dollops of all those elements that betray her age. The film almost seems to build on her performance and character. We're bored when she's bored, angry when she is, joyful when she is and most heartbreakingly, though we catch on much earlier to the clues and facts of the matter than she does, we are indeed caught by surprise when she is during those moments of painful realization.

Ahumada, through Dominga's insightful eye, ultimately takes our breath away and we're led to a point where it's simply impossible not to share in the sorrow of a child, to shed the tears we've experienced and continue to experience as adults, but with the special and deeply painful pangs of recognition that remind of the tears of childhood - those tears that stream down our cheeks and never seem to end.

We can almost taste their salt.

It's a beautiful film.

"Thursday Till Sunday" opens theatrically July 26 via Vagrant Films Releasing and Publicity and plays in Toronto at the Magic Lantern Theatres Carlton Cinema and Kingsway Cinema.

THE PATRON SAINTS - Review By Greg Klymkiw

"WHAT AM I DOING HERE?"

The
Patron
Saints
(2011) ****
dir. Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky
Review
By Greg
Klymkiw


"What am I doing here? Please tell me." says the old woman. She wants to know why she isn't home with her mother. She wonders if she'll ever go home to be with her mother ever again. And then, "I don't know where I am. I don't know how I got here."

The old woman is in a nursing home, of course. She's not going home. She's there until she dies.

"All around this place are these hills with trees on them and they're so nice to look at," says a fat, seemingly punch-drunk old goodfella from the bed he never seems to leave. He's been institutionalized for most of his life - from foster homes to prison and now a nursing home. A bit of nature, even though it's in the distance, is just what the doctor ordered for a man whose only freedom were those ever-so brief moments when he held a gun in his massive fists while striding into liquor marts, convenience stores or banks to hold them up. At least, that's what we imagine.

The joy those distant hills give him is short-lived. The sentimental symbol of escape into the natural world yields slightly cynical and forced laughter. The hills, he explains, are really piles of garbage that could be stacked no higher and were covered over with sod and seed, resulting in trees sprouting to the heavens from mounds of filth.

"I believe in God. He wants me to lose a little more wright and He's going to get me up walking. I don't pray for nothing. I pray to get out of here." says the old goodfella. "God's got a plan for all of us. Though I'm really not sure what He's got planned for all of us in this nursing home."

His question is no doubt on the minds of most of the nursing home's residents - at least those who have something resembling their faculties. Looking at one resident, a blind, twisted, toothless and bed-ridden old woman, one can only guess what God's plan is for her. Spending a lifetime of rape and abuse at the hands of her brother, a brother who is still allowed supervised visits to the sister he brutalized, one can only imagine what plan God has for her?

And what, God forbid, does she dream about? What will be those final images flashing in her mind before she's enveloped in the darkness and light of death?

The Patron Saints is an unremittingly agonizing documentary film by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky that focuses its lenses upon the residents of a nursing home for the aged. As harrowing as the experience is, the filmmakers employ a strange amalgam of fly-on-the-wall direct cinema techniques with a dash of cinéma vérité. In the former documentary style, the lives of the inmates are presented without narration, no questions, no overt manipulation and seemingly no intrusion on the part of the filmmakers. To the latter style, however, there are subtle, skillfully engineered aspects to the process in that one can recall nary a single shot that is not stunningly, gorgeously, sumptuously composed.

The filmmakers not only point their cameras in the direction of the inmates. We are shown the dedication and compassion of those who try to make the lives of these people better. And yet, for all these affirmations of man's kindness to man, the filmmakers punctuate many sequences with exterior images of airplanes flying endlessly over the facility, the weeds sprouting like an ocean around the institution itself and yes, those mounds of garbage in the distance, adorned with flora to hide the filth beneath.

And if we do get images of flight, of escape, they're presented from within the back of an ambulance, a motionless body strapped to a gurney, leaving its place of incarceration, its spirit hopefully journeying to some better place.

There's a strong sense that the camera, like those forests touching the skies whilst rooted within the filth of the landfill below, perform a similar service. In fact, I'd say the filmmakers provide a twofold service. The camera, through the eyes of the artists, captures the last days, weeks and/or months of this mass of forgotten humanity - sometimes with humour, but mostly through an unremitting sadness which, in direct cinema terms is completely and utterly unavoidable given the circumstances. Much as we might want to repress it, what the cameras expose is the reality of where ALL of our lives are headed, unless of course we mercifully die before. As life itself is dichotomous, so too is the reality as presented by the film. In a sense, the cameras provide these people, in spite of the aforementioned bleakness and whether they're aware of it or not, a voice and a presence in the outside world. Most importantly, though, the beauty and artistry of the compositions provides a kind of love and compassion - the eyes of the artists deliver a terrible beauty to these peoples' lives and in so doing, force us, the audience, to do the same.

No matter how dire and desperate the final days of these people are, it is finally cinema that speaks for them.

This is the power of movies and ultimately, thanks to the talent and sensitivity of the filmmakers, it is why The Patron Saints is one of the most haunting, moving, original and important documentary portraits of the elderly ever committed to film.

"The Patron Saints" is currently unspooling at Toronto's Royal Cinema via Vagrant Films and will roll out on a platform release prior to a variety of home entertainment formats. It's a big-screen experience. Intimacy on this level deserves more than watching it on a small screen.

GREG KLYMKIW'S TOP DOCS 2012 - KLYMKIW PICKS THE VERY BEST DOCUMENTARIES OF THE YEAR

GREG KLYMKIW'S TOP DOCS 2012
KLYMKIW PICKS 20 TITLES AS
BEST DOCUMENTARIES OF THE YEAR

By Greg Klymkiw

I've seen over 100 feature documentaries this year. The best documentary of all of them is - BAR-NONE - Sarah Polley's astonishing STORIES WE TELL. It's a genuine, bonafide modern masterpiece and will live for many decades to come. Polley's picture is the best of the best and this in a year where documentary as a genre sang louder than ever. Without further ado (and now that we've got the declaration that Polley's film sets the bar very high), herewith are the best docs I've seen. There were quite a few others that were just fine, but simply didn't quite make this list. The titles cited here were those most memorable to me in terms of both subject matter and execution. Do whatever you can do see all of them. You won't regret a single second.

In ALPHABETICAL order, the Greg Klymkiw TOP DOCS of 2012 are:.

BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING dir. dir. Neil Berkeley
It's astounding to think that in the same year, this portrait of American artist Wayne White is unleashed upon the world along with the Norwegian Pushwagner - two films that are so geographically and culturally apart and yet, successfully deliver experiences that have the same goal - to joyously and delightfully celebrate art. Beauty is Embarrassing is one of the most entertaining and inspirational documentary portraits of an artist's process I've ever seen. So is Pushwagner. At some point, a double bill of these extraordinary works seems to be in order. A great deal of the credit for Beauty is Embarrassing's success must go to the extraordinary life, career and personality of its subject, Wayne White, a country boy raised in the great state of Tennessee who made the decision to take his talents to New York and then Los Angeles. White always looked back for inspiration and it's this strong sense of place, of memory, of reverence for who he is and where he's from which makes his work and subsequently this film so rich.

BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS*! dir. Frederik Gertten
The feelings engendered by the great paranoid thrillers of 70s American Cinema are alive and well again - crackling with the same terror, dread and mounting odds against one man or a handful of individuals who are fighting oppressive, almost dystopian, virtually Orwellian dark forces. The difference, though, is that our central figure is NOT Warren Beatty's reporter stumbling on political assassination conspiracies in The Parallax View, nor is he Donald Sutherland's Department of Health bureaucrat battling the ultimate scourge upon the human race in the 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and among many others in this tradition, it's certainly not Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman cracking Watergate in All The President's Men. What unfolds is a true story about Gertten himself - a documentary filmmaker embroiled in the dark, nasty manipulations of an evil corporate entity. In 2009, Gertten made Bananas*!, a shocking and moving film about the Dole corporation's irresponsibility to its own workers and how, in the name of profits, the company knowingly used pesticides that caused horrendous medical conditions upon fruit pickers. Gertten was sued by Dole and faced a barrage of Dole-influenced negative publicity that questioned his integrity as a filmmaker. He didn't give up and began documenting his nightmare which became this film. Like a Kafka nightmare through a David Lynchian dreamscape of terror, this great movie depicts an artist going through the legal torture inflicted upon him by a multinational corporation (and everyone on their payroll). It's stomach-turning.

DETROPIA dir. Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing
This harrowing exploration of Detroit's decline is not only a fascinating portrait of urban blight, but amidst the crime, poverty and decay, there's still a pulse and heartbeat of something very cool. Ghosts. It's a city full of ectoplasmic activity of days gone by and amidst its crumbling ruins, this is almost less a story of Detroit, but that of a great nation descending to levels of a Third World Country and a New World Order intent upon keeping it that way - to widen the gap between rich and poor even further in order to maintain power and wealth. Focusing on both sides of the wealth persuasion in Detroit (as nothing seems to genuinely exist in the middle) we follow a number of stories: from a young artist who enters long-abandoned, crumbling buildings to experience, photograph and capture what was once great within the crumbling ruins, to a woman who refuses to accept welfare handouts but because of recent cuts to bus services, she has no adequate way to get to her job and finally, an auto show where American dealers welcome a time when their own country will be operating similar to China in order to exploit the workers further and generate greater profit margins. When a city like Detroit goes down, America is not far behind.

DRAGAN WENDE - WEST BERLIN
dir. Lena Müller, Dragan von Petrovic, Vuk Maksimovic
"I said to the guy: 'Pay 99 euros and fuck all day! If you have no teeth, just lick her pussy.'" - Dragan Wende, brothel doorman, pimp and dealer in the all-new, reunified Berlin. This line from the subject of this documentary pretty much says it all. a strange and dazzling display of direct cinema that bounces between a cinéma vérité approach to the squalid reality of Dragan Wende's contemporary life, punctuated by garish 70s archival footage assembled like a weird combination of straight-up TV documentary of the period and the 30s/40s-styled Warner Brothers montages (often fashioned by the likes of Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Wise). Most of all, though, it is a documentary that feels very close to the world etched by John Cassavetes in his stunning crime drama The Killing of a Chinese Bookie or, for that matter, in Peter Bogdanovich's magnificent adaptation of Paul Theroux's Saint Jack - but here, Dragan is a real-life version of the characters played by Ben Gazzara in both films - sleazy, charming, corrupt, living on past glories and yet, so very, very cool.

THE END OF TIME dir. Peter Mettler
Nobody makes movies like Peter Mettler, so it stands to reason that when Peter Mettler makes documentaries, you're in for an experience like no other you've ever seen before. This hypnotic, riveting, provocative and profoundly moving exploration of time is one of the most original films of the new decade. And yes, time! TIME, for Christ's sake! Of all the journeys a filmmaker could take us on, only Mettler would have the almost-gentle Canadian audacity to explore the notion of time. And damned if Mettler doesn't plunge you into an experiential mind-fuck that both informs and dazzles. Lava flows both scarily and beautifully in Hawaii, Switzerland's particle accelerator seeks answers to the questions of creation, the place of Buddha's enlightenment reveals that the end of time, might just well be the beginning - all this and more are all under the scrutiny of Mettler's exquisite kino-eye (one of the best in the world, I might add). Mettler always journeys far and wide to seek answers, enlightenment and maybe, just maybe, both terrible and beautiful truths. And he lets us all come along for the ride.

FINDING NORTH dir. Kristi Jacobson, Lori Silverbush
49 million American citizens have, at any given moment, no idea where their next meal is coming from. Many of those affected by hunger are children. The rates of unemployment and poverty are skyrocketing. So too is obesity and Type 2 diabetes - especially amongst children. In this important feature documentary by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, the reality of poverty slams you in the gut - time and time again. The cinematic litany of wrenching emotion from the poor and starving is evocatively rendered and delivers maximum impact where it counts - firstly on an emotional level and then as a call to action. the cameras do not lie. I watched, enraged, as one well-meaning politician after another delivers words of agreement and encouragement, their faces revealing only resulting ineffectuality, their words, seemingly truthful, but ultimately hollow and their subsequent actions even more useless and infuriating. Impassioned lobbying on behalf of regular folk inspires the government to rob Peter to pay Paul. Or rather, they steal from the poor to give to the poor.

FORTUNATE SON dir. Tony Asimakopoulos
This stunning personal documentary is a perfect companion piece to Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell. Telling a brave and identifiable story about love, loyalty and family that extraordinarily mirrors the lives of all who watch it, the picture demonstrates the inescapable truth that love is not easy. For love to BE love, for love to really count, it takes work, courage and fortitude. It means giving up ephemeral happiness for the happiness of endurance, of perseverance, of never giving up - the happiness and fulfillment that really counts. Tony Asimakopoulos is one of Canadian cinema's great unsung talents. His work has been charged with a unique underground flavour - a kind of Greek-Scorsese "boys in the 'hood" quality of obsession, dapplings of George Kuchar melodrama and lurid high contrast visuals. And Fortunate Son is, quite simply, a genuinely great film.

GIRL MODEL dir. David Redmon, Ashley Sabin
The exploitation of Russian girls as young as age 13 in Japan is examined in a chilling portrait of shattered hopes and dreams within a modelling industry that values youth, beauty and the sexualization of pre-pubescence. Japan, it seems, always needs meat - fresh, tender, young meat. In the Land of Nippon, the vast publishing industry can never get enough young models to feed the bottomless pit of periodicals that place emphasis upon extolling the virtues of creamy, white, wide-eyed, innocent and highly sexualized female flesh. And as this chilling documentary points out - the younger the better. The harrowing film focuses upon a 13-year-old girl flung into the nightmare of exploitation in Japan and a former child model who acknowledges the horror and pain she went through, yet continues to procure young Russian girls to satisfy the perverse lust of Japanese men. This is an important film. See it with your daughters.

THE GUANTANAMO TRAP dir. Thomas Sellim Wallner
This eminently fascinating and moving film was inspired when the filmmaker was placed on America's terror watch list for five years when he refused to take part in a retinal scan. His shock and anger was so considerable that the impetus was initially vengeance. As he proceeded, he realized he needed to strip away his voice as much as he could in order to present the effects of war upon humanity. Focusing on the illegal kidnapping of several innocent people, their subsequent incarceration on Guantanamo and being held without formal charges, hearings or trials for years and being tortured in order to spill their guts about spurious accusations of terrorist activities, Wallner's film is a stunning examination of an America that operates as one of the most corrupt oligarchies in the world. Insanely going to war to enhance the economic power of the rich, America has duped millions upon millions of its own citizens and both foreign and domestic lenders out of billions of dollars - sending the world into a major economic crisis. The America that now exists has reduced the majority of its populace to an existence of poverty and near-Third World conditions while spending billions on a false war on terrorism. In spite of it all, Wallner keeps his cool, focusing on those betrayed by America and in so doing, delivers a picture that stands powerfully on its own two feet as one of the great humanist documentaries of the new millennium.

HERMAN'S HOUSE dir. Angad Bhalla
This is an extraordinary film about extraordinary people in a country that has sadly learned nothing since 1776 but the right of might, the power of the dollar and the exploitation of the poor - a country that purports to be the most powerful democracy in the world, but is little more than a backwards Totalitarian State - run by a greedy, mean-spirited, prejudiced Old Boys Club. To paraphrase Michael Corleone in Godfather II: They're all a part of the same hypocrisy. The people, the Real People, are the victims. Surprisingly they persevere. The tale told is that of a passionate young artist who attempts to give hope to Herman Wallace, a man incarcerated within the American prison system - tortured for over 40 years due to the inhuman experience of spending all that time in solitary confinement. The "real people" shed their victimhood by fighting back - not with fists, but with the weaponry of activism, the fighting spirit of the soul. This is a movie that will anger, frustrate and yet finally, move you to tears as it explores real compassion and understanding amongst those with the only power they have - their hearts, their minds and most of all, imagination.

THE INVISIBLE WAR dir. Kirby Dick
America loves rape. It's used as a weapon to both violate and steal. When America goes to war, its boys need to fulfill their manly desires for power, violence and subjugation in order to properly serve their country (and their own sick desires), so they happily rape whomever they like amongst civilian populations or partake in various exploitative offshoots akin to rape when civilian women of all ages are sold into sexual slavery. Perhaps the most appalling and shocking of all rape cases can be found in the hundreds of thousands of sexual assaults perpetrated by American soldiers upon American soldiers. This is not a typographical error. Kirby Dick's film presents a shocking portrait of rape within America's own armed forces and the general acceptance and covering up of these actions. The film focuses on several women and men who all suffered rape at the hands of their fellow soldiers and in many cases, their superior officers. Dick's approach is simple - he lets the victims speak for themselves, buttressing their horrendous experiences with a few salient facts, along with interviews from those trying to fight this injustice and those who remain blind to it, and as such, are complicit in these heinous crimes. The victims seek compensation, acknowledgment, justice, sweeping change and/or medical support. We follow their attempt to mount a class-action suit that results in a ludicrous Supreme Court decision that when one decides to serve in the military, rape is, quite simply, an "occupational hazard".

PEACE OUT dir. Charles Wilkinson
This a powerful, persuasive and important film that focuses upon the environmental decimation of Canada's northwest. It's about energy and the horrible price we all pay for our hog-at-the-trough need for Hydro. The picture takes you by surprise and leaves you breathless. Diving into this vital film, we're witness to activist cinema of the highest order. Clever, subtle juxtapositions, smooth transitions between the beauty of nature, the destruction of the environment, the fluorescent-lit government and/or corporate offices, the dark, almost Gordon Willis styled shots of energy executives and in one case, an utterly heartbreaking montage of energy waste set to Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #1 - all of these exquisitely wrought moments and more, inspire sadness, anger and hopefully enough of these emotions will translate into inspiring action - even, as a Greenpeace interview subject suggests - civil disobedience.

THE PUNK SYNDROME dir. Jukka Kärkkäinen & J-P Passi
"Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day" is, without question, one of the greatest punk bands of all time. They are the unforgettable subjects of this breathtaking feature documentary that declares: "I demand your immediate attention or you die, motherfucker!" The film entertainingly, provocatively and powerfully focuses on this quartet of hard-core, kick-ass, take-no-fucking-prisoners mean-machine who pull no musical punches as they slam you in the face with repeated roundhouses - turning your flesh into pulpy, coarsely-ground hamburger meat. In true punk spirit, they crap on hypocrisy, celebrate a shackle-free life and dare your pulse not to pound with maniacal abandon. Their songs - many of them ripped straight from band leader Kurikka's diaries - take aim at government corruption, mindless bureaucracy and pedicures. Yes, pedicures! This is a band that writes and performs songs from the pits of their respective guts, from experience - their unique experience in the world as mentally disabled men. Brave, passionate and talented men. And yes, mentally disabled. And they are so cool. How cool? They record their first single on vinyl. That's how cool! Just like this movie!

PUSHWAGNER (2012) dir. August B. Hanssen, Even Benestad
Pushwagner rocks! It rocks hard! This has easily got to be one of the best documentaries I've ever seen about a contemporary living artist. And WHAT an artist! What a movie! On the surface, we learn very little about Norway's septuagenarian bad boy beat-punk maniac artist and yet we learn EVERYTHING we need to know. What's fabulous about the picture - among so many things - is that it never slips into the horrid doc-cliches of so many biographical portraits. We meet who we need to meet. We hear who we need to hear from. We learn what we need to know. No endless parade of ex-friends-lovers-family-pundits. No endless, boring details about his life (just the good stuff, thanks). No annoying insert shots. No twee solo guitar strumming or piano tinkles in the background (just a stunning, vibrant musical score from composer Gisle Martens Meyer). Even the central conflict of the film, the title subject's court battle to regain control of all his artwork that he mistakenly signed over to a former associate, is handled in a compact manner evocative of the artist himself. Mostly, all we need to know is what we get in spades - Pushwagner is clearly some kind of genius, an astounding artist and totally fucking cooler than cool!

ROOM 237 dir. Rodney Ascher Blending cine-mania with conspiracy theory, this clever & funny documentary opens your eyes wide shut to new insights on Kubrick's hiorror masterpiece The Shining - things that you never knew, and perhaps, were even too afraid to ask. Using a treasure trove of clips and stills from Kubrick's canon, director Ascher interviews five people who have spent an unhealthy number of their waking hours (over an ever MORE unhealthy number of years) studying and dissecting the hidden meanings they purport are found buried within The Shining. Ascher's picture is not a traditional making-of documentary or even a critical appreciation in the usual sense. Instead, we examine each one of the subjects' theories. All of them believe Kubrick used subliminal messages in the film and generated a high-profile horror movie to act as a mere foreground mask for its real meaning(s).

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN dir. Malik Bendjelloul
For over 50 years the virulently racist National Party policy of Apartheid in South Africa subjected its indigenous peoples to forced segregation. The resulting horrors must never be forgotten; nor should the struggle of the colonized nation's Black majority to free themselves from the brutal and degrading lifestyle imposed by the minority White rulers. In the 70s and 80s, there existed an unlikely (and unwitting) hero of the anti-Apartheid movement - a man of almost insurmountable artistic gifts who came to represent a ray of hope and inspiration - an American singer whose albums in South Africa yielded a superstar bigger than the Beatles, Bob Dylan and remarkably, Elvis Presley. It is the backdrop of Apartheid that Malik Bendjelloul's glorious feature documentary presents a biographical portrait of the film's primary subject. Bendjelloul, a storyteller par excellence, structures the remarkable movie as a mystery and blends a variety of tools including animation, news reel footage and a multitude of gorgeously lit and composed interview segments to investigate one of the great show business head-scratchers. The story of a musician who nobody had heard of outside South Africa and who disappeared as mysteriously as he came.

Polley Delivers Best Documentary of the Year

STORIES WE TELL dir. Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley’s latest work as a director, a bonafide masterpiece, is first and foremost a story of family – not just a family, or for that matter any family, but rather a mad, warm, brilliant passionate family who expose their lives in the kind of raw no-guts-no-glory manner that only film can allow. Most importantly, the lives exposed are as individual as they are universal and ultimately it’s a film about all of us. Love permeates the entire film – the kind of consuming love that offers (as does the film itself) a restorative power of infinitesimal proportions. Sarah Polley is often referred to as Canada's “national treasure”. She’s far more than that. She’s a treasure to the world – period. And so, finally, is her film.

THE VANISHING SPRING LIGHT: TALES OF WEST STREET
dir. Xun Yu
Grandma Jiang is dying. Wracked with pain after suffering a massive stroke, she lies in her bed, physically unable to assume her usual perch in front of the family home on her beloved West Street (where she's lived for over 50 years). Xun Yu's beautiful, elegiac and sometimes heart-breaking film is a testament to Grandma Jiang and all those who lived their lives as she did. Though it's about death, this great documentary is also a celebration of life. Through the changing of the seasons, the increasing metamorphoses of West Street and the diminishing health of Grandma Jiang, Yu trains his eye upon the passage of existence. Simple, often beautifully composed shots in very long takes create a rhythm that is hypnotic and compelling. This is a document in its purest and most poetic form. Yu allows his camera to capture all the pleasures, sorrows and intricacies of lives that are well, and in some cases, not-so-well lived. Through his caring and carefully placed lens we come to know and care for Grandma Jiang and those around her as if we were there ourselves.

VITO dir. Jeffrey Schwarz
Growing up in New Jersey during the 1950s, young Vito Russo knew early on that he wasn't like the other boys. Though warm and quick-witted, he was smack in the middle of post-war Italian Catholic machismo and always felt out of place amidst the rough, and tumble posturing of his peers. Vito knew he was gay and that discrimination, disdain and outright hatred ran rampant. This, decided young Vito Russo, was wrong. And he was going to do something about it. Vito Russo fought for Gay rights, but in so doing, he fought for all of those who felt marginalized, disenfranchised, ignored, bullied and condemned. As a lover of movies, he also became the leading expert on gay images in cinema. Jeffrey Schwarz's superbly crafted feature documentary is dazzling! With peerlessly selected and edited archival footage, blended with new interview material, Schwarz delivers a movie that's as entertaining as it’s incendiary, as soaringly joyful as it is profoundly moving. See it, embrace it and demand that your Board of Education include it in their media libraries and demand that it be used in the social studies syllabi of all schools. It's one hell of a picture, but it also has the power to effect change for the better.

THE WORLD BEFORE HER dir. Nisha Pahuja
What is the future for the young women of modern India? Is it adherence to thousands of years of subservient tradition or finding success through beauty? Is it deepening their love for the Hindu religion through rigorous paramilitary training or maintaining their ties to religion and culture while engaging in the exploitation of their sexuality? The chasm between these two polar opposites couldn't be wider and yet, as we discover in Nisha Pahuja's extraordinary and compelling documentary feature The World Before Her, the differences are often skin deep as parallel lines clearly exist beneath the surface. All of this makes for one lollapalooza of a movie! Vibrant, incisive, penetrating and supremely entertaining, director Pahuja and her crackerjack team deliver one terrific picture - a genuine corker!

Here are a few fine documentaries (in alphabetical order, of course) that made my Close-But-No-Cigar Sweepstakes:

An Affair of the Heart by Sylvia Caminer
Legend of a Warrior by Corey Lee
Neil Young Journey by Jonathan Demme
Paul Williams Still Alive by Stephen Kessler
Queen of Versailles by Lauren Greenfield