These Movies Matter

DVDS Worth Watching,

How to Get the Films We Recommend:

Sources for the movie titles we recommend can be found by clicking the "read full review" link at the end of each critique below.

• Featured Title(s)
• Recommended Titles
• Classics
• Worth a Mention

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Featured Title(s)

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MOUNTAIN PATROL (KEKEXILI), 2005, 95 min., Subtitles, Color

Genre: Drama
Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Lu Chuan

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What It's About: The efforts of a volunteer patrol to stop the poaching of the rare Tibetan antelope, or chiru, on the Kekexili plateau in north-western Tibet. The chiru provides the wool for making shahtoosh shawls, which are much sought after by the wealthy in Asia and around the world. It takes the wool from 3 to 5 antelope to make one shawl and you need to kill the animal to harvest the pelt. Modern demand for this rare commodity has meant that the chiru population on the Kekexili – its only habitat – has dwindled from approximately one million to ten thousand and is now in danger of extinction. Hunting the chiru was declared illegal in the 1970s but that hasn’t stopped the poachers. In response, a group of Tibetans, led by Ritai, a former soldier, have formed a Mountain Patrol. They are short of men, short of money and short of guns, and their existence at all is legally questionable. The poachers are much better equipped and have no qualms about killing anyone who gets in their way, so belonging to the Patrol is basically signing on for a suicide mission. In 1993, the murder of a patroller draws Ga Yu, a young and idealistic photo-journalist from Beijing, to investigate. He is determined to uncover the real story behind the mysterious disappearance of patrol volunteers, the killing of the chiru and the rumuor that the Mountain Patrol collaborates with the poachers. He accompanies the patrol out onto the plateau and an adventure that is strongly reminiscent of their more familiar counterpart, the desperados of the American West.

What to Look For: The story’s hook is the endangered wildlife, but as the drama unfolds we see that it has as much to do with man’s inhumanity to man as to his fellow creatures. Because it is a Chinese production this film may be designed to paint a positive picture of China’s occupation of Tibet. But then again, perhaps it is a metaphor for China’s ongoing aggression against the Tibetan people. We’re not sure about the intent but the film certainly works on several levels. And we are happy to report that the story filed by the Ga Yu’s real-life counterpart prompted the Chinese government to establish the Kekexili as a nature reserve. Beijing has sent its agents to track down the poachers, and now polices the region professionally. The result is that the chiru population has already climbed back up to 30,000 and their numbers continue to increase.

Why It Matters: This drama is closely based on a true story and was shot on the Kekexili plateau at 21,000 feet under extremely difficult conditions, and although it is fictionalized, it retains a strong sense of immediacy. Look for stark vistas of impressive mountains, and a bleached landscape of sand, light and shadow. Note the way Ga Yu changes from an idealistic observer, distanced by the lens of his camera, into someone personally involved in the struggle. And be prepared for the unflinching shots of thousands of antelope carcasses as they lie rotting, abandoned by the poachers after their pelts have been taken. The rawest scene is probably that of a man sinking into quicksand until it covers him and there is nothing to show that he was ever there…. This is a harsh land that has no buffer of civilization between the fragility of human life and the power of nature.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

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Recommended Titles

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THE SUN (SOLNTSE), 2005, 110 min., Subtitles, Color

Genre: Drama
Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Alexksandr Sokurov (Russian Ark)

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What It's About: This is the third film in Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov’s planned tetralogy on historically significant totalitarian leaders. The first two were Moloch, about Hitler and Taurus about Lenin (see below for details). This one takes as its subject the final days of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The director provides us with a stately, minutely detailed observation of the Emperor, from the moment his butler brings him breakfast and he is dressed for the day, through his study of marine biology, the writing of poetry, and his enjoyment of his photo collection – which includes a separate album for American film stars. Only two hours of his day turn out to be directly devoted to meeting with his cabinet and the duties of ruling the empire of the rising sun.

What to Look For: In this week after the bomb and before Japan’s surrender, we see a man in the limbo between an end and a beginning. The Emperor, once a god, is now a man. By renouncing his divinity, he is insuring Japan’s survival, but this act also means the loss of the keystone of the Japanese honour and class system. Where will he and his people find national pride in the face of such a shameful defeat? This is the conundrum which the film explores in the process of putting a very human and vulnerable face to one of the twentieth century’s last gods.

Why It Matters: Japanese actor Issei Ogata’s magnificent minimalist performance as Hirohito, which reveals the Emperor as a quiet, even hesitant, man whose emotions are completely internalized but who has moments when the authority of someone born to divinity shines through. And, the man seen by every child in the Empire as “God in the flesh” – the “sun” for his country and his people – also turns out to have a surprisingly dry and refined sense of humour. One of the most notable moments in the film is a dinner with American General Douglas McArthur during which McArthur tries to understand the complex position the Emperor occupies in Japan's hierarchy. At the end of the evening, Hirohito realizes he must open the door in order to leave – the first time he has ever done anything so mundane for himself.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

UNKNOWN WHITE MALE, 2005, 88 min., Color

Genre: Documentary
Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Rupert Murray

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What It's About: On July 3, 2003, alone on a subway train bound for Coney Island, 37-year-old wealthy British ex-stockbroker turned photography student Doug Bruce lost all his memories. Until that moment, he was apparently healthy and then, for no apparent reason, he lost every memory of his friends, his family, and everything he had ever experienced. The film recreates the first terrifying hours as a disoriented Doug wanders around before encountering the police who send him to the Coney Island Hospital Psychiatric ward where he is given an identity tag reading “Unknown White Male”. A telephone number in his backpack provides a tenuous connection to a woman he had been dating, and finally she collects him from the hospital. Doug started recording his re-entry into the world just one week after the amnesia and this film, made by a friend from his earlier life, uses this footage as part of its documentation of what happens as he embarks on an overwhelming journey of discovery – of his family, photography, the taste of food, and, most of all, his sense of self. For Doug is in the unusual situation of being able to experience the world with the eyes of a child but the mind and body of a man.

What to Look For: This film provides an extraordinary opportunity to explore the composition of personal identity and the relationship between memory and experience; to consider how character is formed, and what happens when everything we know and understand about the world and ourselves is suddenly gone. How do you know if the people who tell you they’re your parents, friends, lovers, are telling you the truth or lying? How responsible are we for actions we can’t remember? And finally, there’s the whole question of whether Doug’s story itself is true or fraudulent – and does it matter? This is a well-made documentary which you will find fascinating watching – but it can also extend into a conversation well beyond a few late-night comments over a bowl of popcorn.

Why It Matters: The fundamental question Doug asks himself and others: "How much is our identity determined by the experiences we have? And how much is already there – pure us?" (Do we really remember our second birthday – or just what we were told?). He seems to have changed as a result of his experience and friends find him more articulate, more serious, more focused – altogether it seems they find him a nicer person. And so another question arises: now that he’s got a new lease on life with two years of memories and a 95 percent chance that his previous 37 years will return too; does he really want his old memories back? As he describes his current life: "The longer that it goes on, the less I care if my memory comes back." This may be fine for Doug, but it affects his parents, his ex-girlfriend and his former friends in most unsettling ways….

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

WATER, 2005, 114 min., Subtitles, Color

Genre: Drama
Director(s): Deepa Mehta

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What It's About: In 1938 Colonial India, against the backdrop of Mahatma Gandhi's rise to power, eight-year-old Chuyia is married for only a few weeks before her husband dies and her family delivers her to a run-down ashram for Hindu widows where she will live in seclusion for the rest of her life. But Chuyia is young, full of energy and not ready to submit. She soon becomes fast friends with Kalyani (Lisa Ray), a beautiful young widow who has been allowed to keep her long hair so that she can be "of service" to the ashram’s corpulent and corrupt matriarch by allowing the local pimp to ferry her favours across the Ganges to wealthy Brahmins. One day, Kalyani meets Narayan (John Abraham) a handsome, young Brahmin lawyer, who champions the progressive ideas of Gandhi much to the dismay of his friends and family. Despite the restrictions placed upon interactions with widows, they manage to meet in secret and fall in love. Narayan is determined to take his beloved away to Calcutta and marry her. However, his idealistic desire to upset the prevailing order, sets loose an uncontrollable chain of consequences in reality, and things begin to unfold in a way that changes not only the lovers’ fate, but that of Chuyia and the lives of all the other widows, from eight to eighty.

What to Look For: This is a visually lush, deeply humanist tale with a remarkably inspirational message. In 2000, the Varanasi shoot was delayed by violent protests organized by Hindu fundamentalist groups supported by the leadership of the local Uttar Pradesh government, and the movie almost didn’t happen. In fact, George Lucas took out a full-page ad in Variety to support the director’s struggle to make her picture. In the words of author Salman Rushdie: "The film has serious, challenging things to say about the crushing of women by atrophied religious and social dogmas, but, to its great credit, it tells its story from inside its characters, rounding out the human drama of their lives, and unforgettably touching the heart." It’s a wonderful viewing experience and we hope you will see it and tell all your friends.

Why It Matters: The traditional plight of Hindu widows: No matter what their age, they must live the rest of the life doing penance for the “bad karma” that caused their husband to die. Their heads shaven, wearing only coarse white saris, subsisting on a single daily meal, they pray and wait for death, already forgotten by the world in this life. Note the visual beauty of the film, which features the ever-flowing waters of the Ganges as the backdrop to the river of the karmas of life. The story advances with the inevitability of an ancient fable, albeit one with modern resonance.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

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Classics

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PRETTY POISON, 1968, 89 min., Color

Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Noel Black

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One of the prettiest little perversions in the world of movies, this darkly comic classic explores the murky depths of a relationship between a newly released mental patient and an all-american cheerleader that has disastrous results. Anthony Perkins plays Dennis Pitt, a psychologically disturbed young man who has just left the psychiatric ward of a jail and started a job as a factory worker in a small and idyllic Massachusetts town, under the watchful eyes of his parole officer. It seems that as a kid he was a bit of an arsonist and burnt down his Aunt’s house while she was inside. Dennis finds regular life a bit boring and so he amuses himself by concocting elaborate fantasies to keep up his own – and others – interest. He’s awkward and weird, but no match for pretty high school senior Sue Ann Stepanek (a young and irresistible Tuesday Weld) who finds his story that he’s a CIA agent with a mission to stop the factory from polluting the river irresistible. Declaring her undying love for him, the impressionable Sue Ann throws herself into helping her lover by murdering one of the factory guards. Dennis is freaked out by this turn of events and unsure what to do, but he’s so naïve – and so flattered by Sue Ann’s interest and support – that he finds himself going along. And then it is too late, and things begin to unravel in a most horrific – but fascinating – way. Tightly told and with exceptional acting, you won’t be able to stop watching even though you may want to.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

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Worth a Mention

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ALMOST STRANGERS, 2001, 238 min., Color

Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Stephen Poliakoff

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A captivating tale that arises when various branches of the far-flung Symon family get together for a once-in-a-life-time reunion at a luxury London hotel. Told through the eyes of Daniel, the only child of dysfunctional parents, whose naivete allows him to penetrate secrets whose existence he has been aware of only at the edges of his subconscious. The story mingles past and present as it reveals the subterranean passions that have been buried deep within the Symon clan’s shared family history. Through Daniel’s actions, the secrets rise to the surface where they begin to unravel. We don’t want to give too much away here so we’ll just say that this is one of the best dramas to come out of TV in years – and it’s presented with all the superb casting and impeccable production values that the BBC is known for.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

BOMBAY CALLING, 2006, 70 min., Color

Genre: Documentary
Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal

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Many of those calls urging you to change your phone service, improve your insurance, or get another credit card originate not in the English-speaking world but in Bombay, India’s largest city, where western corporations outsource much of their call centre work. The workers don’t always speak perfect English, but they are generally more motivated than their western counterparts as they are earning a livelihood for their whole family. In fact, these young telemarketers are paid more money than their parents ever dreamed of – about four times the monthly income of the average Indian family. And, they don’t seem to spend too much time thinking about the substance of what they’re doing but rather in how they can access the “American dream”, Indian style. They like to party and spend much of their wealth at the new brand of all-night discos that cater to their unusual office hours. The filmmakers spent almost a year in Bombay following the lives of call-centre workers to produce this look at globalization from the inside, as a developing nation gets a taste of capitalism – both the riches and success and the fall from grace when the initial boom begins to slow and the telemarketers get fired because they are unable to make more sales. This is globalization in action, and a reality that everyone in North America is experiencing – whether you are aware of where those calls originate, or not. The parents of this new gilded youth are alternately proud of their children’s financial success, and worried by the moral decay their job description and lifestyle represent – especially in the case of newly liberated daughters. And Bombay has all the razzle-dazzle of the bright lights for the stream of people from the countryside who arrive eager to exchange the rigours of primitive rural living for the excitement and opportunity of the big city. This film does an excellent and entertaining job of opening our eyes to the changes this phenomenon is bringing to one of the world’s largest populations.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources

ESCAPE TO CANADA, 2005, 81 min., Color

Genre: Documentary
Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Albert Nerenberg (Stupidity)

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An amusing tongue-in-cheek comedy about how cold, stolid, ignoring Canada, best known for its beavers, Mounties and wind-chill factors has been transforming the meaning of “cool”. Canada is emerging as a place that pushes freedoms, a nation famous for its peace-keepers, support for gay marriage and marijuana, and a high score as one of the best places in the world to live. The story begins in 2003, when by apparent coincidence, gay marriage and marijuana are legalized on the same day, and quiet, boring Canada suddenly explodes. Soon Canadians are not the only ones enjoying the newly liberal climate. Citizens from "The Land of the Free" flock across the border to marry their same-sex partners and connect with marijuana – for both medicinal and pleasurable purposes – and AWOL U.S. soldiers arrive to seek refugee status. The Maple Leaf has become a symbol of progressive politics. This is an amusing and mischievous portrait of a nation’s growing visibility on the world stage, but it is also rather past it’s due date because since the film was made Canada has re-criminalized marijuana and elected a head of state who seems more in tune with US policy than Canada’s short-lived liberal face.

Available on DVD from the National Film Board of Canada at www.nfb.ca/store Select Home Use and either US or Canada.

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KAMATAKI, 2005, 110 min., Subtitles, Color

Genre: Drama
Release Data: September, 2006
Director(s): Claude Gagnon

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A subtly nuanced drama with an interesting, perhaps even unconventional premise. Montreal based Japanese Canadian Ken-Antoine is suffering a deep depression following upon the death of his father and has tried to commit suicide so his mother decides to send him to stay with his uncle, Takuma, in Japan. Ken arrives to discover that his uncle is in fact a famous master of Kamataki (a type of pottery that uses a wood-fired kiln to produce an ash glaze over 8 to 10 days of firing.), with seemingly unconventional values and an unpredictable life-style. His recipe for bringing Ken’s own fire back to life is a combination of craft-related discipline with abundant sex and sake. In this foreign culture, Ken learns to see life in a very different, much more creative and harmonious way, than he did in Montreal; he begins to make something for himself. Takuma has several apprentices, including Rita, a young American girl, with whom Ken develops a relationship. The two are set to work by the master potter to take on a Kamataki firing which turns out to be as much of a psychological firing as a pottery process. The film suffers a bit from unevenness between the excellent Japanese cast and the less experienced Canadian one, but you will learn a lot about Kamataki pottery and the basic principle behind the film is an important and interesting one, so we felt it was worth supporting.

Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources