Judy Garland revived; a yeti wonderfully animated and more picks to see at VIFF

He was our 10^th Prime Minister, a bachelor, a mama’s boy all his life and a weirdly fastidious individual. Rankin found how strange he was by reading his diaries and got much of that into this film. Nothing about his war-time leadership or his political acumen, but lots about sex with shoes, clubbing seals, a national inferiority complex (“long have you smoldered in your disappointment”) and a generally impish view of our history as espoused by Rankin. King, played by Daniel Beirne, is a nebbish. Mom, played by Louis Negin, a tyrant. Her insistence that King is great, propels him. The film shows him and every Canadian institution with a skewed twist, usually with hand-painted backdrops, once riding a giant duck, later in a funhouse loop. BC is a hill of tree stumps. Dazzling, inventive and mischievous fun. It plays Sat late and Mon evening.

THE WORLD IS BRIGHT: This film has everything: intense drama, a true story, a mystery, outrage, concerned parents trying to get answers and later an apology. It’s one of the stronger features at VIFF this year and brings back a story that was in the news years ago. A young man died in Vancouver; his parents in China were told he had been murdered, then that he had committed suicide and that he had already been buried. A year later the death certificate finally arrived and that allowed the parents to come and find out what had really happened. The film takes you intimately on every step of their search. Ying Wang in Richmond spent ten years getting to know them, filming them and documenting the story for this bracing and highly affecting film. She included some re-created scenes to fully tell it.

Shi-Ming Deng (the first name means bright world) was here to get a western education. He suffered set-backs, growing paranoia, a bar fight, a day in jail, a dispute with an immigration officer, a deportation letter and then suicide. Two days later there was money withdrawn from his bank account. That’s never been explained, but the parents, aided by lawyer Lawrence Wong, found out most everything else. He had married, then divorced. He felt he was being followed and carried a knife. He felt he was mentally ill but couldn’t tell his parents. It carries a big stigma in China. There’s much more: failed lawsuits, emotional scenes with the parents both here and in China, and an arguable conclusion by the director. In a postscript she blames unrecognized mental health problems among immigrants. She hasn’t proved her point conclusively, but she’s made a gripping film. It gets a world premiere Sunday evening and screens again the afternoons of Oct 3 and 9

WHITE LIE: This intriguing film from Toronto, starring Kacey Rohl from here in Vancouver, is getting international attention from a company in France. You can catch the wave early and you’ll be pleased because it’s a tense, well-acted and involving movie about deception and trying desperately to avoid being exposed. Directors Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas have a future once this absorbing film gets known.

It tells an unlikely story absolutely convincingly. Katie, played by Rohl, is raising money to go for an experimental cancer treatment. The problem is she’s lying. She doesn’t have cancer. She’s only pretending and has to work hard to keep the scam going when her father (Martin Donovan) tweets for everyone to know that she’s lying. She pays a young doctor to get her a falsified hospital record but major problems and considerable suspense get in the way. She’s got a rocky psychological background that sort of explains why she’s doing this and a shaky love affair with her girlfriend which adds to the exotic character of her life. Surprisingly, you don’t condemn her. You try to figure her out and that makes the movie work. It screens early this afternoon and Tuesday late afternoon.

BIRTHDAY: I can’t think of another film I’ve seen that’s as sensitive an exploration of the grief that people feel after a death or as wrenching as it crescendos into a flood of tears. What’s that got to do with a birthday? Well, there’s apparently a tradition in Korea that a loved one who has died should be commemorated on what would have been his birthday. The grieving of one couple is the entry for director Lee Jong-un to recall a notorious disaster. A ferry boat sinking five years ago drowned several hundred children on a school trip and later drove a president from power. The film shows the aftermath.  

A family support group formed and kept the issue out in public but as the film brilliantly shows people differ on how to keep it alive. They demand compensation; some don’t want it. Families break up. The central one in this film has the mother and father strongly disagreeing. She wants to mark her son’s birthday; he definitely does not want to. The sharply written and intensely-acted drama explains why. He was away at the time of the accident; she blames him for being away when he was most needed. A lot of highly-charged arguments happen before a celebration is held. It turns into the most intense and prolongued crying sequence I can remember in a movie. The film is not dreary, just strong. It screens this afternoon and Sunday evening.