Thank heaven for the Oscars. Three new films this week weren’t available to preview but a batch of Academy Award nominees were. Including all the shorts. They’re showing at the Van City Theatre and will help if you’re getting into an Oscar pool.
Meanwhile note these other events:
This year’s Rendez-vous French Film Festival starts Wednesday and runs for about two weeks. The thirty or so films being shown are from France and Quebec and include award winners, crowd pleasers and favorite stars. There are three films with 11-time Cesar nominee Fabrice Luchini and one film with Jean-Louis Trintignant, Anouk Aimée and Monica Bellucci directed by Claude Lelouch. To learn more visit http://www.rendez-vousvancouver.com/
And tomorrow the VanCity Theatre also kicks off its annual series of films for Black History month. They start with the wonderful Spider-Man film Into the Spider Verse (11:45 am). There’ll be a panel of local artists to talk afterwards including Pearl Low, who worked on one of the Oscar nominees that I write about below. The next films will be on Monday: Harriet and Boyz in the Hood. For more info visit https://viff.org
Today’s reviews:
Corpus Christi: 4 stars
Oscar Shorts Live Action: 4 ½ (aggregate)
Oscar Shorts Documentaries: 4 (aggregate)
Oscar Shorts Animated: 3 ½ (aggregate)
Gretel & Hansel: --
The Rhythm Section:--
Rabid: --
CORPUS CHRISTI: That core belief of the Catholic Church has multiple facets in this superb film from Poland. Events lead up to the annual feast day of the same name. The sacrament is performed in several masses in the film. And a young man metaphorically joins with the body of Christ in the story. Remarkably, it’s not a somber, religious tale but a cleverly-told fable apparently based on a true story. Now it’s one of the five nominees for the Oscar in the international category (formerly known as “foreign language”). It’s a very engaging film.
Daniel, who we first meet (and see roughed up) in a juvenile detention centre wants to be priest. He’s barred from any seminary but is sent to a small town to work in a sawmill. That doesn’t appeal to him and in town he claims to be a priest thereby getting an invitation to fill in just one time for the real priest who’s asleep drunk. That’s extended and his unconventional style and charisma in celebrating mass and hearing confession prove popular with the townspeople. So, how long before he’s found out and how will it happen? That’s one story line. A second involves a feud that’s divided the town after a tragic road accident. What can he do about that? There’s more than one way to do good, is said early in the film and demonstrated through the rest. It’s moral in its own way and also cheeky by asking what good are confession and priestly celibacy anyway? (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
OSCAR SHORTS (LIVE ACTION): Of the three categories this is the best. There’s not a dud among these five films and a couple are supremely powerful.
BROTHERHOOD: The director, Meryam Joobeur lives in Montreal and filmed this highly engrossing tale back in Tunisia where she was born. Among her revelations: Family and personal honor are paramount. The title recalls both a key Islamic precept and the Muslim Brotherhood. And some people in Tunisia, including her central character, have red hair and freckles.
The story is set on a sheep farm where a young man has just returned from Syria where he went to join ISIS. He’s brought his pregnant wife and gradually we learn a complex backstory. The Arab Spring aroused a wave of idealism. The son’s participation estranged him from his dad; his wife’s experience was dreadful. The family has a struggle ahead to accept them. All that is told in just 25 minutes. Two festivals ago at TIFF it won the award for best Canadian short film.
NEFTA FOOTBALL CLUB: Also set in Tunisia, but a French co-production this time, it’s a lighthearted episode with the best comedy pay-off in the series. Two brothers argue the soccer talents of Messi or Mahrez while searching for some lost goats. They find a donkey carrying bags of drugs.
The younger thinks it’s laundry detergent; the older knows what it is and has plans to sell it. Things don’t work out as he expects, in very funny way.
A SISTER: This is a gripping thriller in 16 minutes. A woman being driven on a dark road by an apparently abusive man says she has to phone her sister who is taking care of her child. Actually she phones an emergency help line and has to communicate cryptically to explain her situation and where they’re driving. The film from Belgium is skimpy on details but very good at tension building.
SARIA is an American film about a horrendous tragedy in Guatamala. Three years ago 41 girls in an orphanage died in a fire. The film shows what came before: girls plotted to escape and make their way to the US (hear that Mr. Trump?) because of conditions there. They’re mistreated and in a loud protest taunt their guards to “Rape us again.” Saria is the name of one of the leaders. This film is very strong and might make you cry.
THE NEIGHBORS’ WINDOW starts like a comedy but ends on an extremely poignant note. A couple can’t help noticing another pair in a nearby building, newly moved in and performing vibrant sex without drawing any drapes. People in high rise apartment buildings, like in the west end here, will understand.
The wife (Maria Dizzia, known from Orange is the New Black) resolves not to watch but is drawn anyway. She picks up binoculars, sees a drama evolve far beyond sex and this seemingly light and comic film lands a moving impact. This is the 4th time that Marshall Curry, the writer/director, has been nominated for an Oscar.
OSCAR SHORTS DOCUMENTARY: These five range from potent to mild and will take you quite some time to watch: 20 minutes short of three hours, in fact.
IN THE ABSENCE: A ferryboat sinking six years ago in South Korea is still argued about furiously over there and here’s everything you need to know why.
That was the MV Sewol in the horrible accident that drowned over 300 people, most of them school children, resulted in the ousting of the country’s president and exposure of a series of bureaucratic ineptitudes. The film has striking footage of the listing ship, then partially sunk and then when only the bow was still above water. Over them it plays radio transmissions that indicate bewildered officials, a slow to react (but early to abandon) captain and the president’s “limited understanding.” Earlier action might have saved many. Parents dug out the facts in court; the film gets across the anger.
LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WAR ZONE: Trivial? No, stick with it and you’ll find out. These girls in Afghanistan (“one of the worst places to be born a girl”) are denied education, officially, and have to be given it secretly in hidden programs. So why are they also taught to skateboard? This British film by Carol Dysinger shows them both in class and on the ramps and gradually we see the connection. They discuss courage (it must take some just to let their faces be shown here) and then take their turns in pushing off, balancing and steering, wobbly at first, falling a lot, but improving. They learn about equality, that girls can do the sport too, and they get the pride of accomplishing and achieving. A very hopeful film.
LIFE OVERTAKES ME: This is a heart-breaking film that reveals a condition I’d never heard of before: Resignation Syndrome. It was first identified in Sweden around the year 2,000, has been found in Australia since then and probably exists elsewhere. Children of refugees and asylum seekers retreat from the world and lie in a coma for months, years in some cases. The parents have to feed and tend to them and comfort them. Doctors and psychologists work with them and try to understand, generally concluding that the children are having an extreme reaction to the trauma they felt where they came from, and the uncertainty over Sweden’s tightening regulations that might send them back. There have been hundreds of cases. The film shows three, lying still in bed, feeding tubes in their mouth, parents talking to them trying to get through, sometimes taking them out in a wheelchair for stimulation. And one who wakes up after over a year of this. You’ll feel a lot watching this one.
ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN: He was one of the activists in the Ferguson racial battles; he’s now an elected member of the Missouri legislature but Bruce Franks Jr., as seen in this film, is still just a regular guy from the hood. He talks and dresses like one, wins a rap slam against a guy named Antonio “Bone” Williams and has emotional baggage in his past. He saw his brother shot on a street, has been to 167 funerals and relives them all in his dreams. The film follows his attempts to get a law passed pertaining to youth gun violence. “This system wasn’t built for us,” he says, referring to the blacks and the poor where he lives. But speaking to ex-cons, to a radio interviewer or at an anti-gun rally he appears committed and sincere. The film is co-directed by Smriti Mundhra of Los Angeles and Sami Khan based in Toronto.
WALK RUN CHA-CHA: This is the mild one. A bit insipid, if I dare say so. An elderly couple take dance lessons in Los Angeles and re-affirm their connection. They met years before in Viet Nam during the war there. She didn’t think he was her type but they enjoyed dancing. When the Communists came he left without a word, later wrote letters to her (“so romantic”) and then managed to get her out and join him in LA. They recall it all on the dance floor 40 years later. Dance is another level of freedom, he says. “We’re making up for lost time,” she says. “We’ve only just begun” the song that’s playing says.
OSCAR SHORTS ANIMATION: The distributor cautions that the themes are heavy this year and the over- all aura is melancholy. Well that’s because the fun items have been kept out and appear as also-rans. One film starts out humorous but makes a sudden switch before it ends.
HAIR LOVE: This one, from the U.S., also starts funny. A young girl with a giant untamed Afro hairdo needs help styling it. Dad takes the assignment and struggles amusingly with its hard-to-control predisposition.
Later we find out why dad had to do the job and it’s one of those heavy themes. The film is also about black fathers being there for their kids, according to Pearl Low of Vancouver who worked as a story artist on it. She was invited on because of a comic book she wrote about her own hair problems. She’s half Chinese and half-African.
DCERA (DAUGHTER) is from the Czech Republic is a moody film with paper mache puppets acting out a family drama. The daughter sits at her dying father’s hospital bed and flashes back to incidents in their life, particularly one that she can’t forgive. He wouldn’t help her heal an injured bird. But a succession of images like empty subway cars, bus station or even a hospital bed, makes her rethink the incident and her dad.
SISTER is listed as a China/USA production. A man over here recalls life with his sister over there. “She liked to take my toys.” Brothers anywhere will understand and laugh with recognition. But there’s a dark turn that comes up suddenly.
MEMORABLE: This one from France has already won some 30 awards at festivals for its touching impressions of dementia. An old man is at the centre but his world dims and unfocusses, objects de-construct, memories recede and come back as the filmmaker, Bruno Collet, imagines how a victim of Alzheimer’s perceives his condition. He uses stop-motion puppets and computer effects to convey how he images it. It’s not fun, but it is artful and stylish.
KITBULL: Reconciliation is a big theme this year and played here out in a junk-filled alley between an abandoned kitten and an angry dog. They bond as the roll a plastic bottle top back and forth. It’s economical story telling and presumed to be a front runner because its from Pixar.
To fill out the running time to 85 minutes, there are also four runners up in the program. Two of them should have been nominated.
MAESTRO is a rousing two-minute tribute to opera with various wetlands animals performing an aria by Bellini.
HORS PISTE is an uproarious French film about a ski patrol rescue in which everything goes wrong. It reminds me of some of the old Laurel and Hardy shorts.
THE BIRD AND THE WHALE has an orca try to save a bird trapped underwater still in its cage. There’s a union of the souls of two very different creatures.
HENRIETTA BULKOWSKI always looks at the ground because of a deformity but she yearns to fly. A junkyard guard (voiced by Chris Cooper) tries to stop her but then helps her to restore an abandoned plane and get her wish, and ultimately learn a life lesson.
Three more films are now here but weren’t available for me to preview.
THE RHYTHM SECTION: Blake Lively plays a woman looking for revenge after her family is killed in a plane crash. She associates with Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown on her quest.
GRETEL & HANSEL : The horror that was only implied in the fairy tale, is amped up into something called “terrifying evil” in this modernized version. It was filmed in Ireland but added re-shoots in Langley, possibly because Burnaby’s Bron Studios is one of the production companies behind it. But why they allowed media previews only in Toronto is a mystery.
RABID: The horror-loving Soska sisters, Jen and Sylvia, from here in Vancouver, re-imagine one of David Cronenberg's early films and according to some do him one better. Laura Vandervoort plays Rose a would-be designer in the women's clothing industry. She's in a traffic accident, suffers severe damage to her face and becomes the victim of a mad surgeon with an experimental stem cell treatment. The side effects include a lot of gore.
It's at International Village and coincidentally the original will on late tonight at the Rio, so you could compare if you had a mind to.