VIFF -- a few capsule reviews
The Vancouver International Film Festival is about half-over now, so it's about time I posted a few more brief capsule reviews.
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Atonement (dir. Joe Wright; UK, 123 min.)
I've already written my review, which will appear in print closer to the film's North American release in December. But suffice to say that the film brilliantly engages both the heart and the brain. I would agree with those who think the World War II scenes are a bit of a letdown after the fantastic first act -- at least on first viewing -- but by the end of the film, I was in tears. And I wasn't even sure who, exactly, I was crying for. I want to see this one again.
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My Kid Could Paint That (dir. Amir Bar-Lev; USA, 81 min.)
Is abstract art so simple and undemanding a child could do it? Or does it require a certain maturity of the artist? These are only the most obvious questions raised by the case of Marla Olmstead, a four-year-old girl whose paintings earned over $300,000 -- until a 60 Minutes report did serious damage to her reputation, by interviewing a psychiatrist who said the paintings sold in Marla's name could only have been done by a grown-up. This surprisingly complex film touches on many interesting issues -- such as the nature of art criticism, the exploitation of prodigies, and whether four-year-old girls should even have reputations -- but the one that intrigues me most is the statement made by one of the interviewees, who says that all works of art tell stories, even the ones that are calculated to avoid story-telling. People bought Jackson Pollock paintings, it is said, because they bought into the story of Jackson Pollock -- a story that existed outside of the paintings but was nevertheless read into them by his admirers. So would the paintings sold in Marla's name be just as beautiful (or not) if it turned out that someone else had made them? Or is it Marla's story that people are really buying? I am particularly struck by the fact that one of Marla's paintings is called "Ode to Pollock". Who gave it that name? Surely not Marla herself? Either way, the very title of the painting implies a story too, doesn't it? We hear it, and we either imagine a four-year-old girl sitting at an easel and thinking to herself, "I think I want to pay homage to Jackson Pollock," or we imagine an adult looking at her painting after she's done with it and saying, "Oh, that's very good, honey; this reminds us of Jackson Pollock." Or, perhaps, we imagine an adult creating the painting and calling it "Ode to Pollock" and then trying to pass it off as the work of a little girl. Among other things, My Kid Could Paint That is a compelling look at what happens when the artist loses control of the story behind the art.
Thu Oct 11 @ 3pm @ GR1
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The Savages (dir. Tamara Jenkins; USA, 113 min.)
One of my longstanding pet peeves is the lack of films about adult brother-sister relationships -- so a film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the brother and Laura Linney as the sister (she played a similar part in 2000's You Can Count on Me, where the brother was played by Mark Ruffalo) was a must-see, for me. Hoffman and Linney play siblings who have to deal with the fact that their father is suffering from dementia, and the fact that he was distant if not abusive to at least one of them when they were children makes things a little more complicated, emotionally. I am used to projecting myself and my own sisters onto characters like these, but this was the first film of this sort that I have seen since my twins were born, and I was startled to realize that I was imagining how Thomas and Elizabeth -- toddlers whose diapers I change every day right now -- might have to help me look after myself in 30 or 40 years, just as Hoffman and Linney take care of their father, sometimes bickering over how to do so. I am still mulling over what to make of the film's final moments, and I question whether the father is so old that he would ask to watch The Jazz Singer (1927), and I doubt that a man who has been denied a major fellowship several times would not ask to see the letter -- just out of curiosity -- when someone he knows says she has just been accepted for it. But I really liked the subtle nuances in the writing and the performances. This felt like real life, to me.
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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet; USA, 123 min.)
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a brother in this movie, too -- but instead of a slice-of-life drama, it's a heist-gone-wrong thriller. Like a lot of crime flicks, this one jumps around in time, and it's got style to burn; it's also quite merciless to its characters. Ethan Hawke plays the kid brother who desperately needs money, and the fearlessly naked Marisa Tomei plays the woman caught between the two men (she's Hoffman's wife, but she sleeps with Hawke, too); Albert Finney is also on hand as the pater familias who doesn't know his sons are responsible for the death of his wife. I had heard some great buzz about the film before I saw it, but I don't think it is quite as good as I was led to believe; still, if you're into really bleak stories about divorce, theft, drugs, murder, blackmail, revenge, and all that good stuff, this could be right up your alley. I particularly like the way the film emphasizes the awkward clumsiness with which the crimes are committed.
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Elijah (dir. Paul Unwin; Canada, 88 min.)
No, not a film about the biblical prophet -- though that would be nice, some day -- but rather, a film about Elijah Harper, the aboriginal politician from Manitoba who single-handedly defeated the Meech Lake Accord in 1990 and thus either saved the country or brought it close to ruin, depending on your point of view. (I lean towards the former view, myself.) Produced for TV, this is in some ways a conventional biopic, but it jazzes things up every now and then with irreverent history-lesson cartoons and other satiric touches. My favorite bit is the scene where Prime Minister Brian Mulroney says he cannot meet with the Native leaders personally because he has to meet Nelson Mandela; at a time when there were only a few days left to pass the Accord, because of a deadline built into it, the man who insisted that passing the Accord was some sort of moral imperative could not be bothered to meet with his own country's natives, all because he was hosting a recently liberated native leader from some other country. I was curious to see if the film would allude to the real-life Harper's faith in any way, but I am not too surprised to find that it doesn't; I believe he returned to Christianity a few years after the events depicted here. So if religion comes up at all here, it is usually in the context of things like the residential school system -- a big black mark on this country and all the churches involved in that.
Mon Oct 8 @ 1:30pm @ PCT
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Atonement (dir. Joe Wright; UK, 123 min.)
I've already written my review, which will appear in print closer to the film's North American release in December. But suffice to say that the film brilliantly engages both the heart and the brain. I would agree with those who think the World War II scenes are a bit of a letdown after the fantastic first act -- at least on first viewing -- but by the end of the film, I was in tears. And I wasn't even sure who, exactly, I was crying for. I want to see this one again.
-
My Kid Could Paint That (dir. Amir Bar-Lev; USA, 81 min.)
Is abstract art so simple and undemanding a child could do it? Or does it require a certain maturity of the artist? These are only the most obvious questions raised by the case of Marla Olmstead, a four-year-old girl whose paintings earned over $300,000 -- until a 60 Minutes report did serious damage to her reputation, by interviewing a psychiatrist who said the paintings sold in Marla's name could only have been done by a grown-up. This surprisingly complex film touches on many interesting issues -- such as the nature of art criticism, the exploitation of prodigies, and whether four-year-old girls should even have reputations -- but the one that intrigues me most is the statement made by one of the interviewees, who says that all works of art tell stories, even the ones that are calculated to avoid story-telling. People bought Jackson Pollock paintings, it is said, because they bought into the story of Jackson Pollock -- a story that existed outside of the paintings but was nevertheless read into them by his admirers. So would the paintings sold in Marla's name be just as beautiful (or not) if it turned out that someone else had made them? Or is it Marla's story that people are really buying? I am particularly struck by the fact that one of Marla's paintings is called "Ode to Pollock". Who gave it that name? Surely not Marla herself? Either way, the very title of the painting implies a story too, doesn't it? We hear it, and we either imagine a four-year-old girl sitting at an easel and thinking to herself, "I think I want to pay homage to Jackson Pollock," or we imagine an adult looking at her painting after she's done with it and saying, "Oh, that's very good, honey; this reminds us of Jackson Pollock." Or, perhaps, we imagine an adult creating the painting and calling it "Ode to Pollock" and then trying to pass it off as the work of a little girl. Among other things, My Kid Could Paint That is a compelling look at what happens when the artist loses control of the story behind the art.
Thu Oct 11 @ 3pm @ GR1
-
The Savages (dir. Tamara Jenkins; USA, 113 min.)
One of my longstanding pet peeves is the lack of films about adult brother-sister relationships -- so a film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the brother and Laura Linney as the sister (she played a similar part in 2000's You Can Count on Me, where the brother was played by Mark Ruffalo) was a must-see, for me. Hoffman and Linney play siblings who have to deal with the fact that their father is suffering from dementia, and the fact that he was distant if not abusive to at least one of them when they were children makes things a little more complicated, emotionally. I am used to projecting myself and my own sisters onto characters like these, but this was the first film of this sort that I have seen since my twins were born, and I was startled to realize that I was imagining how Thomas and Elizabeth -- toddlers whose diapers I change every day right now -- might have to help me look after myself in 30 or 40 years, just as Hoffman and Linney take care of their father, sometimes bickering over how to do so. I am still mulling over what to make of the film's final moments, and I question whether the father is so old that he would ask to watch The Jazz Singer (1927), and I doubt that a man who has been denied a major fellowship several times would not ask to see the letter -- just out of curiosity -- when someone he knows says she has just been accepted for it. But I really liked the subtle nuances in the writing and the performances. This felt like real life, to me.
-
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet; USA, 123 min.)
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a brother in this movie, too -- but instead of a slice-of-life drama, it's a heist-gone-wrong thriller. Like a lot of crime flicks, this one jumps around in time, and it's got style to burn; it's also quite merciless to its characters. Ethan Hawke plays the kid brother who desperately needs money, and the fearlessly naked Marisa Tomei plays the woman caught between the two men (she's Hoffman's wife, but she sleeps with Hawke, too); Albert Finney is also on hand as the pater familias who doesn't know his sons are responsible for the death of his wife. I had heard some great buzz about the film before I saw it, but I don't think it is quite as good as I was led to believe; still, if you're into really bleak stories about divorce, theft, drugs, murder, blackmail, revenge, and all that good stuff, this could be right up your alley. I particularly like the way the film emphasizes the awkward clumsiness with which the crimes are committed.
-
Elijah (dir. Paul Unwin; Canada, 88 min.)
No, not a film about the biblical prophet -- though that would be nice, some day -- but rather, a film about Elijah Harper, the aboriginal politician from Manitoba who single-handedly defeated the Meech Lake Accord in 1990 and thus either saved the country or brought it close to ruin, depending on your point of view. (I lean towards the former view, myself.) Produced for TV, this is in some ways a conventional biopic, but it jazzes things up every now and then with irreverent history-lesson cartoons and other satiric touches. My favorite bit is the scene where Prime Minister Brian Mulroney says he cannot meet with the Native leaders personally because he has to meet Nelson Mandela; at a time when there were only a few days left to pass the Accord, because of a deadline built into it, the man who insisted that passing the Accord was some sort of moral imperative could not be bothered to meet with his own country's natives, all because he was hosting a recently liberated native leader from some other country. I was curious to see if the film would allude to the real-life Harper's faith in any way, but I am not too surprised to find that it doesn't; I believe he returned to Christianity a few years after the events depicted here. So if religion comes up at all here, it is usually in the context of things like the residential school system -- a big black mark on this country and all the churches involved in that.
Mon Oct 8 @ 1:30pm @ PCT
posted by Peter T Chattaway at 1:46 AM
6 Comments:
One small correction: it is not true that Elijah Harper “single-handedly defeated the Meech Lake Accord” as you state, because there were two provinces (Newfoundland as well as Manitoba) whose legislative assemblies had not approved the Meech Lake Accord by the deadline.
I’ve been posting reviews of VIFF films on my blog.
Well, even if Newfoundland had approved the Accord, it wouldn't have meant much, because Harper's refusal to back the Accord was all it took to prevent approval of the Accord in the Manitoba legislature. (Just as federal laws required the Accord to be approved by all ten provinces, so Manitoba laws required the Accord to be approved unanimously by every member of the provincial legislature.)
But FWIW, my recollection is that Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells had actually agreed to support the Accord -- but then he pulled the plug when Mulroney made arrangements to extend the deadline for Manitoba. Wells's reason had something to do with Manitoba getting special treatment that Newfoundland was not getting, IIRC. But this all happened 17 years ago, and my memory might be a bit hazy.
I remember it pretty well. You are wrong about Manitoba's laws requiring that the Accord be approved unanimously. Rather, unanimous consent was required for the introduction of the resolution in the legislative assembly without proper notice. (The movie depicts this accurately.) As for Newfoundland, what happened generally was this: an agreement was reached at a first ministers’ conference in early June 1990. Prime Minister Mulroney believed that Clyde Wells had agreed to get the Accord passed by the Newfoundland legislative assembly. However, Clyde Wells said that he was required only to let the legislative assembly vote on the Accord, but he and his government would not be required to vote in favour of it. In the end, Wells did not bring the Accord to a vote in the Newfoundland legislative assembly: Wells said there would be no point considering that Manitoba had not approved it.
But even if Manitoba’s legislative assembly had voted on and passed the Accord, there was little chance it would be passed in Newfoundland. Thus I agree that Elijah Harper had some part in the Accord being defeated, but he did not “single-handedly” defeat it. The real effect of Harper’s actions was that aboriginal groups were invited to participate in the next round of constitutional negotiations (the Charlottetown Accord).
Incidentally I also saw the other films you reviewed in this post. I agree with you about My Kid Could Paint That (which I discussed in my blog here and here). Did you think the filmmaker was taking a position on the question of whether Marla had done the paintings by herself? Some people have said that the filmmaker was neutral on this question. I thought, however, that the way the film was edited, particularly the sequence near the end juxtaposing the work Marla painted on the DVD with the other works attributed to her, constituted an argument that her father had been the principal creator of most of Marla’s oeuvre.
I saw a second interesting film at VIFF on the theme of a grand hoax, Forbidden Lie$, which was interesting but not quite as successful as My Kid Could Paint That.
I have a question about The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun, which you reviewed earlier. I was confused about why Mr. Vig had chosen the Russian Orthodox church. Was he a lifelong member of that church? Or had he offered his estate to other denominations beforehand and been turned down? I didn’t get much of an impression of how prominent the Russian Orthodox church was in Denmark. Would this be its first monastery in the country? Did it already have congregations or some form of hierarchy in Denmark? Not sure whether this was alluded to in the film and I just missed it, or the film was assuming its audience would have that background information, or if it was considered unimportant.
Re: My Kid Could Paint That
People who aren't involved in art usually don't care to appreciate how much actually goes into abstract art. Many people think you just slap paint on and *presto* there's a painting. With good artists, there is method in the (apparent) madness and it takes a certain maturity to make outstanding abstract art.
While I would havce to see the painting up close, I doubt Marla could have done the piece behind her. It looks like 1st-2nd year College level art, with the two main colour in the foreground squeezed from the tube directly onto the canvas and then smeared using a palate knife of some sort.
However, it is the background the gives me pause. The rich brown behind hints at canvas prep, something you learn to do - not something that is instinctively done. It might be straingt out of the tube too, but it is hard for me to tell from the photo.
Rather, unanimous consent was required for the introduction of the resolution in the legislative assembly without proper notice. (The movie depicts this accurately.)
I stand corrected, then; the nuance of that particular bit of dialogue must have slipped me by.
In the end, Wells did not bring the Accord to a vote in the Newfoundland legislative assembly: Wells said there would be no point considering that Manitoba had not approved it.
I still think there was a little more to it than that; a very brief bit of Googling turns up this page, and this bit, which squares at least somewhat with my earlier recollection:
Then, came Senator Lowell Murray's attempt to extend the deadline for approving Meech Lake so Manitoba could hold its public hearings. Newfoundland, however, was to get no such extension. That did it.
Premier Wells told the House of Assembly, "That's the final manipulation. We're not prepared to be manipulated again. . . . " Mr. Wells then called a halt to the free vote in the House of Assembly.
Time magazine had a similar spin:
The federal government made a last-ditch attempt to save the deal. Mulroney's chief constitutional negotiator, Senator Lowell Murray, announced that the government would ask the Supreme Court to extend the June 23 deadline, thus giving Manitoba time to complete its ratification. The maneuver had the opposite result. The premier of the other dissenting province, Newfoundland's Clyde Wells, complaining bitterly of the "fabricated precipice" of the June 23 deadline, then called off his own legislature's vote. Murray announced an hour later that the accord had expired.
But you're right, Wells and his colleagues had apparently received many, many letters against the Accord, and would likely have voted against it in any case.
Re: My Kid Could Paint That:
Did you think the filmmaker was taking a position on the question of whether Marla had done the paintings by herself? Some people have said that the filmmaker was neutral on this question.
I think the filmmaker took a personal position without making the film itself take a position, if I can put it that way. He has doubts, and he explains his doubts, but he allows the viewer to make up his or her mind. That said, I think it's very telling that he includes details like that shot of Marla trying to tell her dad that it was her (younger!) brother and not she herself who did "the green one" -- and her dad seems oblivious to the fact that she's trying to talk to him. If "the green one" is one of the paintings on display (I can't recall exactly), then it would seem that either Marla's brother is an even bigger prodigy, or her dad has been shepherding both of his children. I doubt Marla would have made up a lie or a story about something like that.
I saw a second interesting film at VIFF on the theme of a grand hoax, Forbidden Lie$, which was interesting but not quite as successful as My Kid Could Paint That.
Oh, but it gives you a definite villain to boo and hiss! With My Kid Could Paint That, you feel really bad for some of the people involved: for Marla, either because you doubted her or because she has been exploited by so many people; for her mother, who genuinely seems to care for Marla and appears to be oblivious to the "con" if, indeed, there is one; and even for Marla's father and the curator who "discovered" her, if you are inclined to believe they are innocent. With Forbidden Lie$, though, you don't feel any guilt at all.
I have a question about The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun, which you reviewed earlier. I was confused about why Mr. Vig had chosen the Russian Orthodox church. Was he a lifelong member of that church? Or had he offered his estate to other denominations beforehand and been turned down?
I got the impression that he had had no particular religious ties prior to his deal with the Orthodox; in fact, when the nuns arrive, they find Buddhist artifacts in the castle, which may or may not have been left behind by previous tenants. It seemed to me that Mr. Vig wanted someone, anyone to help him set up "something enduring" in his castle, and it was the Orthodox nuns who "stuck".
I didn’t get much of an impression of how prominent the Russian Orthodox church was in Denmark. Would this be its first monastery in the country? Did it already have congregations or some form of hierarchy in Denmark?
The Russian church specifically, I do not know. I do know that St. Ansgar, the "Enlightener of Denmark", is an Orthodox saint; he brought Christianity to Denmark in the 9th century, a couple hundred years before the great schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism. But as to what sort of presence Orthodox churches have had in Denmark since the schism -- and what sort of presence the Russians have had specifically -- I could not say.
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