Reviews - Page 148

Giving you our points of view on the latest docs in release and on the circuit.

Review: ‘Exit Music’

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Exit Music (USA, 75 min.) Dir. Cameron Mullenneaux International Spectrum (World Premiere)   A young man has to help lead his family accept that he is ready to die in the simple, but sensitive Exit Music, which addresses the end of life as a collective experience. Given a last-minute change from its more flippant original title,_ How Do You Feel About Dying?_, this debut documentary from Cameron Mullenneaux mixes almost three decades worth of home video footage with material shot by the filmmaker as she became involved with the Rice family—parents Ed and Edith and older brother, Devlin—in the last

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Review: ‘Alt-Right: Age of Rage’

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Alt-Right: Age of Rage (USA, 104 minutes) Dir: Adam Bhala Lough Programme: Special Presentations. (Canadian Premiere)   “The best lack all conviction,” wrote WB Yeats, “while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” A barrage of passionate intensity from the worst threatens to numb viewers of Alt-Right: Age of Rage. A project that launched before Donald Trump got elected, the movie aims at offering a comprehensive, at times visceral depiction of the Alt-Right, a term coined by Richard Spencer, one of director Adam Lough’s main characters. The educated, articulate Spencer, a fixture on cable news, toys with Nazi images and

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Review: ‘McQueen’

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McQueen (USA, 111 min.) Dir. Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui Programme: Special Presentations (International Premiere)   Move over, Daniel Day-Lewis! The gorgeous gowns of the House of Woodcock have nothing on the threads of Lee Alexander McQueen. Mind you, the designer of Phantom Thread never had the stones to let a boob hang out of his dresses, nor did he have the audacity to channel his culture of toxic masculinity into his clothes. The iconoclastic McQueen, however, had a wardrobe full of violent and visceral get-ups that repulsed and ravished onlookers with their unconventional elegance. This doc by Ian Bonhôte

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Review: ‘Braguino’

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Braguino (France, 49 min.) Dir. Clément Cogitore Programme: The Changing Face of Europe   Deep in the Siberian taiga, 1000 kilometres from the nearest settlement, live the Braguines, a family of Old Believers. Wanting to escape the corrupting influences of civilization, the family settled out in the middle of nowhere, where they hunt for food and live harmoniously with the pristine forest and river that surround them. But not with the neighbours. Yes, there are neighbours: the Kilines. The families’ compounds, surrounded by thousands of kilometres of empty land, sit directly next to each other, separated by just a fence.

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Review: ‘Love, Gilda’

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Love, Gilda (USA, 84 min.) Dir. Lisa D’Apolito Programme: Special Presentations (International Premiere)   The dead celebrity cinematic universe gets a new hero in Love, Gilda. Like the adventures of Iron Man, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and the Hulk, this enjoyable doc is one we’ve seen before. In fact, audiences saw it five years again when it was called Love, Marilyn. The difference is simply the personality that graces the screen. Director Lisa D’Apolito performs a respectable rinse and repeat job with Liz Garbus’s poetic approach to Marilyn Monroe. Love, Gilda/Marilyn produces a multifaceted portrait(s) of the tragic icon by

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Review: ‘Call Her Ganda’

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Call Her Ganda (USA, 97 min.) Dir. PJ Raval Programme: World Showcase (International Premiere)   The headline at the movies this year might be gender parity and #MeToo, and rightfully so, but one would be remiss to overlook the notable transgender stories at Hot Docs and within the film scene more broadly. Films like Michael Del Monte’s compelling Transformer, for example, with its fascinating study of gender roles, performance, and power in the tale of weightlifting Janae Croc. (See the current issue of POV for an article on the topic by Matt Hays that looks at films such as Transformer,

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Review: ‘Laila at the Bridge’

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Laila at the Bridge (Canada/Afghanistan, 96 min) Dir. Gulistan Mirzaei and Elizabeth Mirzaei Program: The Good Fight (North American Premiere)   A young mother in a traditional Afghanistan scarf and shawl speaks to the camera as she prepares a syrupy mixture in a bottle for her crying baby. The baby begins to suckle, and quickly falls asleep. No wonder: the drink contains opium, the prevalence of which has been a secondary effect of the interminable war there. In the last few years, a number of news stories have focused on the Pul-i-Sokhta bridge over the Kabul River in western Kabul,

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Review: ‘The Artist and the Pervert’

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The Artist & the Pervert (Germany, 96 min.) Dir. Beatrice Behn and René Gebhardt Artscapes. Program: (North American Premiere)   A smack of politically incorrect racial sex play, a spanking of gender-inappropriate kink and a touch of genius entitlement add up to a happy creative marriage in the provocative, warm-hearted film The Artist & The Pervert. Co-directed and shot by Beatrice Behn and Rene Gebhardt, this German-made documentary focuses on the relationship between Georg Frederick Haas, a renowned Austrian modern music composer in his sixties and his wife, Mollena Williams-Haas, an American kink educator and performer, in her late forties.

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Review: ‘Nothing without Us’

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Nothing Without Us: The Women Who Will End AIDS (USA, 67 minutes) Dir. Harriet Hirshorn Programme: Silence Breakers (International Premiere)   Nothing Without Us demands we learn the names of women activists across the globe in the fight to end HIV/AIDS. The fight for visibility, recognition and access to services is impeded by gender, race, location and economic disparities. Nothing Without Us addresses these issues head on by centring the voices of those most affected by the virus. All of the main characters are women of colour living with HIV and working within their communities. Most of them are doing

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