Tag: Canada

The Young Arsonists

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

The Summer of 1987. Nicole (Maddy Martin), Veronica (Jenna Warren), Amber (Sadie Rose), Sara (Madison Baines); four rural girls on the verge of womanhood, having their periods for the first time. Nicole hasn’t yet got over the death of her older brother Seamus, killed by an accident with a thresher. She’s so wrapped up in this, and in generally being a teenager, that she fails to spend much time with her little brother Brendan.

Her tomboy best friend Veronica spends her time bunking off household chores demanded by her hard-drinking, authoritarian father Gavin (Joe Bostick) and seems to be constantly pushing boundaries. Plus-sized Amber seems timid and easily frightened, and is subject to sporadic bullying by Veronica, yet is a dark horse capable of a shocking practical joke or unexpected, anti-social behaviour.

We never find out that much about Sara beyond that she’s embarrassed by her conservative, aerobics-obsessed mum (Measha Brueggergosman). She’s most definitely the fourth character with Nicole as the main protagonist, Veronica as the second and Amber as the third, in that hierarchical order (was it that way in the script?) And while Veronica’s father Gavin remains largely a dark, troubling figure in the background, we see quite a bit more of Nicole’s family life and parents.

Her dad Dale (Aaron Poole) is out of work and can’t seem to find a job anywhere, although he appears to be actively looking, at least some of the time. Dissatisfied with her husband’s lack of progress on this front, wife May (Miranda Calderon) goes out and gets a job with the company building homes in the area, Happy Haven Development – much to Dale’s disgust.

Meanwhile the four girls (initially five, but one has a run in with Veronica and walks away early on) move in to Nicole’s family’s former home, now abandoned and dilapidated. This is a summer childhood game rather than anything with any legal standing, and at various points they find the front door and windows boarded up with Happy Haven warnings of private property, impending development and no trespassing, which signs are cheerfully pulled down by the bravura Veronica and others.

It’s also an excuse for Nicole to move into her late brother’s room, where she frequently sees and talks to Seamus (Kyle Meagher), who never talks back, asking him questions like, what’s it like to be dead? This aspect of a teenager dealing with sibling bereavement is nicely handled, even if it at one point tips over into the conceit of seeing him standing upside down on the ceiling and her walking up the side of the wall to stand beside him, a competent visual effects job even if one’s not exactly sure what the writer director is trying to say at this point.

That moment is representative of the whole film: it’s constantly going off in different directions and, having established the four girls in their illicit summer property, throws in myriad scenes and plot strands without seeming to know what it’s about or where it’s going. To have two characters driving around a cornfield in an old car may look good, but it doesn’t seem to take the story anywhere and delivers little more than an excuse to play a striking music track in Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart, which doesn’t really add anything beyond immediate, gratuitous, foot-tapping adrenaline rush. Likewise in another scene which throws in Brian Eno’s Babies On Fire. Fabulous music – but why is it here?

This means that final reel attempts to close the narrative feel forced, and even then there are too many such attempts going on at once. A shame that the film can’t make up its mind quite what story it wants to tell (out of several on offer), because the competing narratives are all pretty interesting. Such a shame these problems couldn’t have been fixed at script stage, because the performances have a natural feel while writer-director Pye appears to have genuine vision, albeit unfocused.

As for the title – one character (singular) commits arson towards the end. The is no group of arsonists (plural). Happy Haven or Happy Haven Development might have made a much better title, because all the ideas floating around here seem to relate to the happiness (or otherwise) of the home environment.

The Young Arsonists plays in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. It is part of the brand new Critics’ Picks strand.

Tenzin

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

To live in political exile is to live in guilt; whether it’s not being among your own people or feeling that you haven’t done enough. For Tibetans abroad, including the Dalai Lama himself, the long-suffering nightmare has only just begun. Unable to return to their homeland, even the small outposts of comfort and resistance in their adopted country might be under surveillance by PRC spies.

Tenzin (Tenzin Kelsang) is one of many Tibetans living in a third country, understandably confused about his identity. Working as a trucker in Toronto alongside his cousin, he sleepwalks both through life, unable to come to terms with his relationship with his former homeland. In a neat reference to Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) a strike of a lighter cuts to grainy footage of self-immolation. His brother has killed himself in protest of China’s repressive policies, celebrated as a martyr by fellow members of his community. Tenzin is only going to look inadequate by comparison.

His brother didn’t have the comforts of Western life either: directors Michael LeBlanc and Joshua Reichmann show off the contrast between the urban nightlife of Toronto — generic flashing lights and club darkness; spiced up with some toilet drug-taking— and the vibrancy and colour of Buddhist celebration in a Tibetan centre. The biggest issue is that both elements of Tenzin’s life are presented in basically the same, dreamlike fashion. While it shows how little engagement he has in the world, the lack of contrast gives the audience little to focus on either.

The music, combining traditional droning Tibetan music with a post-industrial electronic sound, drapes the film in a somnambulant tone, reflecting the inability of Tenzin to feel his way through his pain. This is all filtered through Buddhist ideals of meditation and not-wanting, believing that desire is the key to all suffering. As the theory goes: eliminate the self and its wants and you are more likely to lead a happier life.

This is hard when you are working a deadbeat job, Chinese oppression awkwardly mirrored by oppressive boss Ivan (Ivan Mendez Romero) short-shifting a companion on his wages. Tenzin (portrayed with great sensitivity but little urgency by Kelsang) wants to be like his brother in this situation all the while lacking the same conviction. It’s all tenderly captured in hazy close-ups and teary expressions and philosophical voiceovers, but ultimately comes across as rather underwhelming.

While I assume this is kind of the point of the movie — the difficulty of trying to live your own life under the shadow of a martyr — the righteous fury of Tenzin’s brother against the tragedy of Tibet is barely replicated in the narrative itself. For such pointed and politically-intended cinema — literally ending with a Free Tibet postscript that fills up the entire screen — it feels like a lost opportunity to seriously criticise the PRC. For fans of the regime, it’s unlikely that they will change their mind on Tibet either way after watching this film.

Tenzin plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

Wilcox

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

Sean Penn’s Into The Wild (2007) gets an arthouse update in Wilcox, a tale of isolation in the great Canadian wilderness. The second film from Quebec auteur Denis Côté this year after Ghost Town Anthology, it’s a quiet, modest effort that doubles down on his increasingly minimalist approach.

Looking like a runaway member of the army in his khaki clothes, huge backpack and high boots, Wilcox (Guillaume Tremblay) trudges around the countryside, living in the moment and connecting with nature. Breaking into either abandoned or at least unfurnished homes, stealing from the supermarket or relying on the kindness of strangers, Wilcox is a man who lives entirely off other’s contributions. He meets many local, older men, and judging from the smiles on their faces, it’s evident that they get along well. But as we never hear anyone speak, we can never tell for sure.

Wilcox is presented as a film with no dialogue, which didn’t quite prepare me for how quiet it actually is. In fact, the film barely features any diegetic sound at all, Côté overlaying most scenes with a light ambient hum. The camera palette is both filled with light and rather smudgy, as if someone has rubbed their greasy finger over the lens. It gives the film both a dreamlike feel and a distancing effect, forcing the viewer to project themselves onto the story instead of being swept up by it. In addition, brief archival clips of a tortoise with a rabbit, and a man with facial scars are inserted into the story like something from a dream, adding unnecessary flourishes that may increase the film’s artistic cache but did little to invest me emotionally in its story. These aesthetic choice may hamper Wilcox‘s chances of hitting cinemas, but it fittingly stresses his isolation, and perhaps makes it a perfect choice for a feature length installation piece.

Wilcox

As we never hear Wilcox speak, we never know the reasons for his journey. Despite the film’s attention to detail — such as the tragic looking tinned food he eats, the way he sets up a tent for the night, and how he opens windows of other people’s houses — he is more an idea representing social isolation than a fully rounded man in and of himself. This seems to be Côte’s intention, rarely editorialising but allowing the main chunk of the story to speak for itself.

Nonetheless, the beginning and the end of the movie is bookmarked with short texts telling us of North American explorers who abandoned the civilised world and ended up either dead, missing or in jail. These include Christopher McCandless of Into The Wild-fame and Lillian Alling, a Russian expat who tried to walk back home to Siberia, and was last seen about to cross the Bering strait. Wilcox is presented as both compendium and tribute to these daring souls. Nonetheless, by lacking the drive of either McCandless or Alling, Wilcox is a hard man empathise with, making this a fascinating aesthetic experiment which lacks in truly emotive drama.

Wilcox premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It shows in October at the Cambridge Film Festival.