Get ready for a huge number of choices this week and since I’m travelling right now I haven’t even been able to include the biggest of the new films. The Fate of the Furious is the 8th in the Fast and Furious series. The last one was a mammoth hit.
Look at these others though. There are superb films and many Canadians on the list:
Their Finest: 4 stars
Maudie: 4
Gifted: 3
Black Code: 4 ½
Grand Unified Theory: 3
Menorca: 2 ½
Perfume War: 3
Strangers on the Earth: 3
THEIR FINEST: This is surely the most enjoyable of the new films. It’s funny, occasionally poignant, a treat for film buffs and even (despite some carping I’ve seen) a support for women’s equality. It happens in wartime England where Gemma Arterton takes a secretarial job but is assigned to a film unit within the Ministry of Information. She’s asked to write material for propaganda films that will appeal to women. A film about Dunkirk would boost morale just fine, but she encounters a comedy full of problems.
A pair of sisters whose story she’s to tell never got to Dunkirk; the motor on their boat broke down. Can’t use that detail. People would lose faith in British engineering. Also put an American on board; might encourage the Yanks to join the war. Another writer (Sam Claflin) is cynical and condescending and a full- of-himself actor (Bill Nighy) dislikes the “shipwreck of a man” he’s being asked to play. Nighy steals this movie with his antics and is reason enough to see the film. Arterton meanwhile slowly comes to recognize her strengths as a woman. Her growth happens subtly and with lots of wit. Film buffs will also delight in the glimpses they get into how movies were dreamt up and then filmed back in the 1940s. 4 out of 5
MAUDIE: And this is the most moving of the new films. It’s heartwarming but never pushes that mood too much. It prefers understatement and that makes it feel real. Like what might actually happen. Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke are brilliant in the lead roles. She plays Maud Lewis a woman who’s held back, and maybe even shunned, because she suffers severe arthritis. He’s a crusty fisherman in a Nova Scotia village who needs a housekeeper and reluctantly hires her when she comes saying she’s eager and able.
The connection is not easy, especially when she does things he hasn’t asked for. Like painting colorful images on the walls. It’s a true story. Maud Lewis became a celebrated folk artist after she was discovered by a woman visiting from New York. A TV feature boosted her fame and probably provided the black and white film of her we see at the end. (She died in 1970).The story though concentrates on gradually warming up the mood of her employer (they eventually marry) and growing her independent spirit. The film is gentle and calm, even through a sad revelation, and yet highly emotional. It won the People’s Choice award at the Vancouver Film Festival. Aisling Walsh from Ireland directed and Robert Cooper, a veteran of the Canadian and American film industries, produced. 4 out of 5
GIFTED: Here’s a movie that’s emotion-charged and blessed with wonderful performances but undercut by a script that goes in too many directions. There is a strong reason to see it though: the supremely natural acting by Mckenna Grace as a 7-year old girl with an aptitude for mathematics and other learning far in advance of her age. She knows about the euro and government monetary policy in Europe and then is seen playing with Duplo. “Get me out of here” she demands when her Grade one class practices only simple arithmetic. She’s petulant and something of a smart ass at times and a completely charming young girl at others. No Hollywood brat playing a precocious kid.
Life with a “gifted” child like that must be trying much of the time and the film examines it too briefly. Chris Evans plays the uncle who’s raising her and they have a warm relationship with occasional testy arguments. She should be in a special school but he won’t send her; he wants a normal life for her. She doesn’t want to go to any school at all. “People my age are boring,” she says. The film veers away though and becomes a custody battle in court. The girl’s grandmother, played with ice and condescension by Lindsay Duncan, wants a foster home and lots of high-level mathematics for her. The reasons are convoluted and melodramatic but they bring on some gut-wrenching scenes. They’re way off the prime topic but young McKenna makes them work. (International Village and a few suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
CANADIAN FILM DAY: Our own films are getting a huge promotion this coming week. Wed April 19 is called Canadian Film Day and there will be 1,700 screenings across the country most of them free. They’ll be in schools, theatres, legions, community halls. Locally the National Film Board will be at three locations, the Cinematheque is showing works by Anne Marie Fleming, Sarah Polley and Guy Maddin and the VanCity has two Adam Egoyan films, a live appearance by the director himself and a BC film he personally chose (and its director also appearing).
There’s so much but this website can help. You can select by province and by community to see what’s playing. https://canadianfilmday.ca/see-a-film/events-listing/
The VanCity theatre is doing more. It’s filling out the rest of the week with new Canadian films. They’re not free but of the three I’ve seen, two are entertaining and one is an important warning.
BLACK CODE: This latest film about our surveillance society is probably the most alarming yet but it also offers an optimistic vision of an unexpected by-product. I’d say this is a must-see if you’re at all interested in the threats to privacy in this digital age. Edward Snowden is a hero to the people talking here. They’re at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto which made international news when it exposed a world-wide computer spy network run by China, and incidentally that other countries, including Canada use its techniques. Prof. Ron Deibert, director of the Lab, is our guide with dire warnings that surveillance amounts to “acts of war taken against citizens.” He’s got lots of examples from Tibet to Ethiopia to the Middle East and he explains exactly how they’re done.
In the film’s second half there’s a ray of hope. Digital devices have spawned a citizen media. Pictures get to us from the most controlled places. China wouldn’t never allow out video of Tibetans self-immolating but it does get out. A remarkable example from Rio de Janeiro shows guerilla journalists broadcasting live from a demonstration via their cell phones. But what happens then is stunning. A demonstrator is arrested for throwing molotov cocktails. An appeal goes out for cell phone images and they show he didn’t do it. What’s more other images show the guy who did do it and that’s a shocker. As one citizen reporter says: “If you don’t like the media, become the media.” (VanCity Theatre, Fri. to Mon. Ron Dreibert and the film’s director Nicholas de Pencier will talk via Skype after tonight’s screening) 4 ½ out of 5
GRAND UNIFIED THEORY: David Ray learned so much science that he wasn’t able to use when he wrote for the SyFy channel, he decided to make this film. It’s a strange hybrid but continually interesting and entertaining. Plot lines interconnect and wrap around each other to cause effects that swing back in surprising ways to cause other effects. And parallel to all that, the film switches repeatedly to a lecture about the universe by an astrophysicist played by Scott Bellis. (His lecture was co-written by a UBC prof for authenticity).
What happens to him, his family their friends though is a lark. Run-ins with the police, stalled sports ambitions, voyeurism, professional advance sought and argued about. That and more make for a breezy kaleidoscope and a counterpart to the chaotic universe which the lecture says it’s just too big to understand. Life down here is just as hard to make sense of but you can enjoy this interpritation. 3 out of 5
MENORCA: “It’s really hard to stay sharp at anything when you’re stuck at home.” So does the frustrated mother in this film echo what a lot of women have felt. “Kids soccer practice is the worst,” she says and then does the logical but uncommon thing: she drives away, picks up a hitchhiker and has sex with him. She ends up at a rural strip bar fascinated by the power the women there seem to have over their own lives.
Seems like faulty logic but with almost comatose old-timers in the audience and a very game Tammy Gillis playing lead, the film develops a cryptic, mesmerizing attraction. It’s got a David Lynch vibe at times and a nonsensical sub-plot (trying to return a stone to Spain, yes Menorca, for her son’s benefit. Ok, the runaway mother has doubts about what she’s doing but I didn’t think John Barnard’s script (he also directed) got much further than light entertainment in examining them. The movie is fun and spirited but thin. It was filmed in Winnipeg and Spain. (VanCity Sat.--with Tammy Gillis in attendance-- and Thurs.) 2 ½ out of 5
The other Canadian films they’re showing are:
The Gardener which takes you on a visit to a world-famous but hardly ever open to the public garden called Les Quatre Vents. It screens Fri, Sat, Tues and Thurs.
Drone, a suspense film about an IT operator who starts questioning his work. He kills terrorists long-distance by piloting drones. BC plays Washington and India plays Pakistan. It screens tonight at 8:40 and gets a general release in June.
Sensitive Parts, a Vancouver film that explores through comedy and drama how about current relationships and be sabotaged by past histories. Mon and Tues with the director, Brendan Prost, in attendance.
Somewhere To Go, a documentary about Victoria’s lively punk music history. Screens Fri at 10, preceded by live music.
And unrelated to those, there’s yet another Canadian in town.
PERFUME WAR: By rights I should be criticizing this documentary as unfocussed. But life often does throw diverse story lines together like this. It’s fascinating to follow all these and find yourself in some unexpected places. Originally it doesn’t look so great, somewhat confusing in fact. But stay the course. Barb Stegemann, originally from Nova Scotia tells her story and incidentally reveals what a determined woman she is.
Her best friend was seriously injured as a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan . She, recalling that he was “a natural protector who had written a book about Vancouver’s missing women, was motivated to do something. Incredibly that became a small business selling perfume and thereby encouraging an alternative to opium production by Afghan farmers. She buys essential oils from them. To get her product into stores she went to CBC’s Dragon’s Den to ask for support and got it (except for Kevin O’Leary who didn’t see a profit potential). And it keeps going. She went on to Rwanda and Haiti to buy oils, self-published a book and sprinkled this film with quotes from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. (“People exist for the sake of one another”). There’s a sidetrip discussion of patriarchy. Meanwhile, her friend’s rehabilitation at Simon Fraser University is detailed. See? Unfocussed. But a fine story anyway. (Park Theatre) 3 out of 5
And there’s one for the season too …
STRANGERS ON THE EARTH: Perfect for Easter time is this hike along the Camino, the ancient pilgrim route across northern Spain. Here’s part of what Rod Mickleburgh, who’s been there, wrote for me when the film played at VIFF.
Director Tristan Cook’s beautifully-filmed documentary seeks to capture the essence of the increasingly-popular journey and what drives so many to endure blisters and pain to complete it. The film follows the footsteps of American concert cellist Dane Johansen, who back-packed his bulky instrument to record a series of concerts along the way. The soundtrack featuring Bach’s Cello Suites played by Johansen, as the landscape rolls by, is a highlight.
The focus bounces back and forth too much between Johansen and others on the Camino, with no consistent story line. But rewards are many, besides the scenery. Touching moments, profound observations by a number of pilgrims and some surprisingly honest conclusions make Strangers on Earth a satisfying depiction of this incomparable land voyage. I can’t wait to go back. (VanCity Theatre) 3 out of 5