Author name: Blake Williams

I haven’t seen Greenaway’s Nightwatching, his other film on Rembrandt’s famous, potentially infamous, painting The Night Watch; nor have I seen any Greenaway films until now (embarrassing, I know; still waiting for that Criterion The Cook, The Thief…). Rembrandt’s JAccuse is, from what I understand, another incarnation of Greenaway’s obsession over solving The Night Watch; Nightwatching is a fictionalization of the process and aftermath of painting the piece, and J’Accuse is a handheld walk through the ’30 mysteries’ of The Night Watch, narrated and theorized by Greenaway himself. To say that I didn’t learn anything from this film would be a lie, same for saying that most of it wasn’t surprisingly entertaining; but, I still question the point of it. Most of the information in this film could just as easily have been conveyed in a well-organized and elegantly designed brochure (and much quicker, too). The film is literally divided into 30 chapters, each numbered and dedicated to one of the apparently well-known 30 mysteries. Much of the ‘solving’ of the mysteries in the film is done by showing clips from Nightwatching, with a picture-in-picture frontal view of Greenaway speaking to the audience (why this ugly box, placed just below the center of the frame, couldn’t have been eliminated in favor of a simple voiceover, I do not know). Over-dramatic music is pervasive, and evoked the decade’s other bizarre, painting-solving film, The Da Vinci Code. The picture-in-picture narration, as well as all kinds of clip art swipes, wipes, hops, zooms and scrolling texts gave the film a Powerpoint aesthetic that cheapened an otherwise well-produced assemblage. There are questionable things in the ‘clues’ that Greenaway relies on in the film (most obviously his claims that the man in the center of the painting is holding a right-handed glove, when it is clearly left-handed), but much of it is thought-provoking, if a bit Art History 101. The cumulative effect is likely to make someone more curious about the subtext and symbolism in 16th and 17th century paintings, which is commendable.

This is initially a pretty perplexing follow-up to Zweig’s ‘narcissism’ trilogy, of which I have only seen the first, Vinyl. As a filmmaker whose career seemed to be completely fixated on his own troubles, A Hard Name is refreshingly selfless, following 6 or 7 subjects who had recently been released from prison, and have spent a very large fraction of their lives in prison. The film is comprised almost entirely of interviews and talking heads, but my memory of it has so many variances to that structure, where much of the film, in retrospect, feels as if it takes place in either a prison or on the streets. Doing exactly what I love to see in interview documentaries, Zweig makes sure to keep his questions in the film, which helped to expand the film’s conversation to the viewer. And Zweig asks great questions, too. He is less confrontational and more respectful thank Michael Moore, and actually appears to be interested in his subjects aside from the meat they provide for his film; Zweig has all of Moore’s good qualities and then some. Zweig asks these ex-prisoners what we want to ask them ourselves, and these subjects trust him enough to open up completely. Words cannot aptly describe how potent this film is; it does full justice to big ideas like self-destruction, forgiveness, and environmental corruption.

This film is just as bad as Clubland, only it feels twice as worse because the material had so much more potential. This film is an offensive misfire that is the definition of how NOT to make a documentary. As a ‘study’ on modern advertising it is one-sided in its unquestioned praise of commercial ads, narrow in its look at, almost exclusively, television commercials made since the 1980s for major companies (Apple, Nike, Budweiser, etc.), boring in its narcissistic use of music, polished cinematography of things that have nothing to do at all with advertising (rockets going into outer space, satellites, industrial factories, etc), and maddening for being a ‘well’-produced enough documentary that another, unquestionably better one won’t come along in a long time, if ever. At least 15% of the film involves watching a commercial that everyone has already seen too many times (Mac’s 1984 commercial, Budweiser’s frog commercials, Got Milk commercials, Nike ‘Just Do It’ commercials, etc.) in their entireties, often as a lead up to nothing more than an inane interview with the guy that thought it up, in which he talks about how much of a genius he is. The rest of the film plays indie rock while revealing, in text, ‘critical’ facts about modern culture, like “Americans watch so-and-so hours of TV every day” Boo hoo.

I don’t know what it is about Best Worst Movie that makes me want to call it a guilty pleasure; perhaps it’s that it is based on one of the ultimate guilty pleasures of cinema history, Troll 2, or that it is destined to be the documentary of choice for geeks and fanboys across North America for the next year or more. It could also be that, while most definitely being the most entertaining and enjoyable documentary in Hot Docs this year, it doesn’t actually function in many of the ways a ‘good’ doc does. It is all of the above, of course, but mostly the latter. The film has at least half a dozen spectacular characters that really couldn’t have been scripted any better. George Hardy, the father in Troll 2, is an excessively amiable dentist, charming in his good intentions and naivete. Claudio Fragasso, the original film’s director, and his wife, the screenwriter, are completely oblivious to the cult following that their film has developed, and we get to witness their epiphany first-hand, in all of its bitterness and confusion. Don Packard, the drugstore owner, is every bit as mentally unstable and frightening as one could have hopes he would be. And then there is Margo Prey, the mother. Poor Margo – the revelation of what she has turned into is too good to be spoiled, and really has to be seen to be believed. I have never seen Troll 2, but I came away from Best Worst Movie with an appreciation for the film that is on par with Sleepaway Camp, Dead Alive, and The Re-Animator: the best of trashy, cult, camp horror. As a documentary that studies the impact of making/starring in a terrible film, and the trauma that the cast must have experienced, shifting over the years into hyperbolic worship and praise, is hit and miss. The film works best when the tragedy of fallen dreams is shown to have taken its toll on the cast and crew in its most heartbreaking form, and even more when that tragedy morphs into joy and euphoria after those years of suffering. The first half hour of the film, I thought it was in trouble. Many of the laughs and set-ups were satisfied simply by showing footage from Troll 2, a cheap and lame reliance on the source material instead of the substance and craft of the documentarian. The substance does get better (much, much better), but it still feels like a lot of luck, rather than talent. Nagging criticisms aside, though, fans and the un-converted (as I am) of Troll 2 are almost gauranteed satisfaction from this feel-so-bad-it-feels-good film. I laughed till I cried, it’s true.

Audition feels like it could have been made by an inexperienced Abbas Kiarostami, which is supposed to be a compliment. The filmmaker goes to Afghanistan to audition civilians for a role in a film that she is making, and she films the audition process and gathers interviews about the experience one goes through in Afghanistan after appearing in films, or even photographs. Predictably, the women have a tougher time with it than the men. Many women who are approached by Pazira for an interview immediately cover their mouths and decline, while others around often begin teasing. To have one’s image taken in this country is seen to be shameful, and somehow taints the image of those who are filmed’s entire families. One of the film’s two bravura moments occurs when Pazira asks a man if he would behead his sister if he found out that she had been filmed, and he easily said yes. He then asks her why she came to Afghanistan to shoot this film, and her answer is bold, eloquent, and ballsy; it caused gasps.

A amoxicillin dosage big decision was made to keep many of Pazira’s questions and replies in the film, which I think is essential, and something that most documentaries should be doing. How can I expect to appreciate and understand what a subject is answering if I do not know what was asked? To have the question, then the answer is to have the full, unabridged picture of the experience. The only moments of diegesis in the film are with intermittent voiceovers accompanied by superfluous , non-diegetic music where Pazira inexplicably tells the viewer what we will be seeing in the next scene. After the editor made such a good decision to leave the questions in with the interviews, it is nearly undone by this silly idea.

The film poses some fun, but pretty pointless comparisons of male auditions and female auditions. Basically, the men are goofy and terrible, while the women shown are sensitive, and serious. Such a limited sampling means pretty much nothing, but it did allow for a pretty great scene in which three male actors all perform terrible examples of crying, and then a young woman is asked to cry, and then she just starts to flat out weep on demand, one-upping the brilliant audition in Mulholland Dr.

Jackpot, a 50-minute documentary that tracks five regulars of Ontario’s Delta Bingo, is sweet, funny, melancholic, and nostalgic. Bingo halls, which have a small-town, vintage aesthetic that is similar to bowling alleys, feel like a homier incarnation of a casino. This makes for a film that really pops visually, with a minimal, but bright, palette of blues, purples, yellows, pinks and neon lights. The film’s charm comes from the superb selection of subjects, all of which wallow in the simple game as a way out, whether it’s from divorce, deceased companions, or a disability. Margaret, the elderly woman in the picture above, comes to bingo six days of the week, and spends her winnings on more bingo. A moment toward the end when she is shown descending a staircase in her home while saying that she would die without bingo, is cute at first, but grows more tragic when you realize that this is absolutely true. A divorced man who spent many years crying over the absence of his ex-wive and his children found solace in his trips to the bingo hall, and even met his new partner there. Another man, whose wife passed away ten years ago, says, clearly choked up, that his wife would never come to bingo when she was here, and that he just started coming regularly after she passed. Bingo, like slot machines, is pure luck, one of the few games that really is 0% skill, lending another degree of pity to these characters who find so much pride in winning a game that they have no control over. It’s a glimpse of lowered expectations, but also of the simple things that can bring someone happiness. The film could have benefited from looking a bit at the history of bingo, and a look at supposed strategies, as well as the game’s history and development in Canada.

A drawn-out commercial for the already excessive Toronto club scene, Clubland is too superficial to provide any insight for Toronto residents who are familiar with the city’s club scene, the largest in the world, and won’t hold any interest for anyone who doesn’t live in Toronto. Aside from a phony, raspy voiceover that sounds like it belongs to the voice of a midnight radio DJ, the film is obviously filmed to glamorize the clubs rather than question them. The film spends as much time documenting Paris Hilton’s visit to one of the clubs as it spends on a major conflict, that of residents vs. clubbers. It studies this for about ten minutes by interviewing two sets of residents, both over the age of fifty, and forges the conflict, then, as the reserved elderly vs. the lively young. The film also doesn’t address the fact that Toronto clubs give very little of the money that they make back to the city, despite the fact that the city funds the police that have to constantly be on guard to maintain the 50,000+ drunks every night. The producer of the film, who was present for a brief Q & A, also shrugged off criticism from an audience member who asked why the film didn’t at least mention the city’s 1970s rave scene, the clubbing niche that allowed the Toronto clubs to blossom into what they are today. He seemed more interested in heading off to the after-party than defending his putrid film that has zero format that it could be useful in: no cinemas, no cable, no VJs.

This was a sweet but limited insight of the lives of four ‘cat ladies’ in Ontario. Two of the women are somewhat novices to the cat lady moniker (have less than twenty cats) while the other two each have over a hundred cats. The film tracks the women’s household activities with the cats, then an attempt at explain why they do this (the novices are lonely and/or had abusive childhoods, the crazies took in every homeless cat they could find for shelter), then the ridicule they get from the Humane Society, neighbors, and the press, and finally a bit of self-regret for becoming this stereotype (though one woman, who has the least cats (less than ten I think), is convinced that cats will always be her one, true loves). The film annoyingly ignores the 2007 discovery of an actual parasite that is believed to be the blame for the ‘illness that is being a cat lady. The parasite comes from cats, and can migrate to the brain, where the effect is a tendency to collect cats (this sounds too good to be true, maybe, but it was a big story that can be read here). The film mostly ignores the death of these cats, and the emotional devastation that may or may not come from being around so many deaths for an animal that these women love so much. If you have 120 cats, several must die every year, which I would have been curious to see how they handle it. Also, I know the film is Cat Ladies, but the perspective from a male collector would have been welcome. The film was filmed in pristine video (must have been 4K), the cats are cute, and the women are crazy and entertaining. Watching the film (in a theatre filled with cat ladies, no doubt) was fun, but not much more than a superficial look at a limited sampling of a fascinating illness.

This must be one of the most beautiful looking films ever made; the photography of nature is absolutely magical, and the portrayal of time, and jumps in time, are the most effectively disorienting of any of Tarkovsky’s films. I don’t know what he does, if he artificially created the gusts of wind that pause time at exactly the right moments, but the flames, rains, and winds seem to be on their very best behavior for this film. Surreal moments are not only more plentiful than any of his other films, but also more believable in this film versus, say, the final scene of Stalker when the glasses are telekinetically guided across a table. The woman floating in her sleep towards the end of Mirror is realistic enough that it wouldn’t be out of place in a J-Horror film; it’s more than a little bit terrifying (not to mention the similar, earlier scene in which the same woman raises her wet hair about of the tub, and seems to be simultaneously moving forward and backward in time as the ceiling crumbles around her. I was especially drawn to the visuals of the film because, on first viewing, this film is so difficult to assemble and make sense of, that I gave up on comprehension and just stared in awe at the eye candy. The shifts through time, multiple roles for the actors, and self-references made me think of INLAND EMPIRE, a film that, formally, I think has a lot in common with this one.

Speaking of David Lynch, I was also reminded of The Straight Story when the we see the burning home (as well as Days of Heaven). As Mirror is a film heavily attuned to the feelings of childhood and memory, I thought it was an interesting thematic symbol, having a burning home as a representation of a troubled childhood, that this film shared with Straight Story. Alvin Straight loses control of his lawn mower when the brakes fail and races violently down a hill. In the background a large house is in flames, and grabs Straight’s attention. The burning home represented the incident in which his (slightly mentally disabled) daughter Rose lost the rights to care for her children after she was blamed for a house fire. The flames of the homes in both of these films are filmed very Romantically , suggesting a disturbing correlation pertaining to the relationships between parents and their children. If Mirror is a telling of childhood, which I believe it obviously is, it is certainly not a pretty one.

So much of the film beckons for deeper readings and interpretations, like the opening scene with the seance, and of course the mirrors, that I would just make a fool of myself to act like I can write something insightful about it. But it would be oh so nice if Kino could take their feet off of their greedy hands and give the rights to this and every Tarkovsky film they have over to someone who will transfer it for Blu-ray. It would make revisiting it even more exciting.

Some minor spoilers below.
Of Kiarostami’s films that I have seen so far, The Wind Will Carry Us is easily the most elusive and mysterious. An Engineer arrives in a small town with a small crew, and the only information given about their journey to this area is that they are anticipating the death of a hundred year-old woman and the subsequent ceremony. The Engineer receives phone calls from a woman who naggingly checks up on the status of the project a few time a day, and he befriends a boy who, much to the pleasure of Kiarostami, considers his studies to be the most important part of his life. As the days wear on, the old woman shows signs of improvements, and from here the tension in the film mounts. The phone calls, which require the Engineer to drive up to the top of a hill for better reception, become more frequent, an earthquake buries a man alive, and the young boy refuses to speak to the Engineer he scolded him for giving out information to someone who he shouldn’t have. The film will end with many of these plot points unresolved.

Much of this film is about the ‘between’ step, the limbo of a process. When the Engineer receives a phone call, every time, it is put on hold while he runs to his car, and then drives up a typically winding path where he can resume the conversation, out of breath. A man digs a trench at the top of this hill, the job handicapped and stalled after the tremor. The Engineer befriends a woman across from the balcony of his lodging who is pregnant with her 10th baby, living in the disabling trek between conception and labor. And then there is the viewer’s relationships with these people, rarely fully developed if only because we never see them or know their names. I believe the only character who is given a name and a face is Farzad, the boy studying for his exams. This distinction creates a crux of his character, one that directly contrasts the films other crux, the dying invalid. Farzad is thriving and growing and learning while the invalid, and the visiting crew, awaits her death. The Engineer, the film’s protagonist, dwells between these two poles of life. Farzad finds a domain in the school and the invalid a domain in her deathbed, but the Engineer runs from place-to-place, racing back and forth from the hilltop, fetching milk, and scampering away from his tea time, absentmindedly leaving behind his camera, at the slightest distraction.

The bone in the end drifts, zigzagged again, down the stream, between the top and the bottom. It is one of the most overt symbols of mortality, a bone without flesh. While the bone may still exist, it is a reminder that the mind of the person who used to rely on this leg bone for walking doesn’t; the mind that has escaped the limbo that is life, the stopgap between oblivion and oblivion. Up until this film, I’d have described every film by Kiarostami that I’d seen, save for his early The Traveler, as the simplest and purest representations of love, not the weepy swoony kind that occurs between two lovers, but the essential love and respect that occurs being two beings, regardless of how they feel toward each, or how well they know each other. The Wind Will Carry Us falls in this category. It’s there amongst the Engineer and Farzad, and it’s between the Engineer and the invalid.