Reviews - Page 69

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

Coral Ghosts Review: More About the Man than the Mission

Coral Ghosts (Canada, 90 Min.) Dir. Andrew Nisker Climate change is damaging the globe at an alarming rate. One just needs to observe the rapidly deteriorating coral reefs in the oceans for an example of this threat. As Andrew Nisker’s Coral Ghosts notes, coral reefs build the foundation for marine life. When they die, so do the eco-systems that depend on them. While the situation is dire, there are individuals like marine biologist Dr. Thomas J. Goreau racing against time to save the ocean life. Bringing greater attention to the underwater world that few rarely see is more than a passion project for

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Last and First Men Review: Swinton Makes Extinction Seem Grand

Last and First Men (Iceland, 71 min.) Dir. Jóhann Jóhannsson A highlight in the great world of parody Twitter accounts is the now tragically defunct handle @NotTildaSwinton. This take on the eccentric Oscar-winning actress perfectly embodies the thespian’s signature brand of cool strangeness. @NotTildaSwinton’s tweets are poetic ramblings about wigs made of yak wool or affectionate nods to “mother,” who takes the form of a comet or a cicada depending on the tweet. There’s just something weirdly and appropriately prophetic about the way she tweets about the world. @NotTildaSwinton might be the first Twitter parody account to receive a documentary portrait,

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Company Town Review: Compassion for Oshawa’s Auto Workers

Company Town (Canada, 2020) Dir. Peter Findlay Less than two years ago, in late November 2018, General Motors announced the closing of their automotive plant in Oshawa, ending a century-long commitment to Canadian workers and the company town that sprang up after the establishment of the auto factory. Canadians responded with anger and consternation to the news. It had only been a decade earlier that the federal and provincial governments spent billions to bail out GM and keep it in Canada. But, as the Canadian classic documentary The Corporation (2003) told us long before the bailout, you can expect nothing else from

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There’s No Place Like This Place, Anyplace Review: Neighbourhood Character

There’s No Place Like This Place, Anyplace (Canada, 75 min.) Dir. Lulu Wei When I first tried moving to Toronto, I enjoyed an extended temporary stay on my twin brother’s couch. He lived on Markham Street, just steps from Mirvish Village. The first time we celebrated our birthday with friends in the city, it was over dinner at the Cajun restaurant Southern Accent. (I even got the little plastic baby in cake to win an encore dinner.) We spent many nights at the Victory Café. And I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford the move if not for Honest

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‘Queen of Hearts’ an Adoring Portrait of Artist Audrey Flack

Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack (USA, 75 min.) Dir. Deborah Schaffer and Rachel Reichman Deborah Schaffer and Rachel Reichman’s Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack offers audiences a retrospective look at the career of the eighty-eight year old American artist, most known as an early photorealist painter of the 1960-70s. This is a documentary portrait of a metamorphosing artist with a unique point of view, but Queen of Hearts is a largely conventional film that forgoes a critical approach to its subject in favour of an adoring, sometimes saccharine lens. This conventionality comes as a slight disappointment, considering Flack’s career-long artistic unconventionality. Structurally, Queen of Hearts might

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Epicentro Review: Confronting Cinema’s Colonial Gaze

Epicentro (Austria/France, 109 min.) Dir. Hubert Sauper “Cinema is witchcraft,” says one participant in Epicentro. The latest doc from Hubert Sauper (Darwin’s Nightmare, We Come as Friends), Epicentro confronts the power of images—how they lie, how they shape history, and, most significantly, how they cast spells over viewers’ minds. If cinema is indeed witchcraft, then Sauper wears his pointy hat very well. He knows how to blend eye of newt and tail of rat. Epicentro is a complex and boldly realised film that unpacks the curses of imperialist history. The film sees Havana through the eyes of its residents, as well as the American capitalist dreams

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Jia Zhang-ke’s Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue Is Grounded Poetry

Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue (China, 112 min.) Dir. Jia Zhang-ke Faces are the recurring interest of Jia Zhang-ke’s Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue, the director’s third film in a “trilogy” of arts based documentaries that began with Dong (2006) and Useless (2007). The reminiscing, reciting, emoting, boring, or thinking face becomes a site of great interest, as if in an attempt to imbue the camera with the writerly perceptiveness embodied by the subjects of this film. Here, the principal subjects are a trinity of renowned contemporary Chinese writers who focus on rural life: Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, and Liang Hong.

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Lunenburg Doc Fest Review: European Tour ’73

European Tour ’73 (Canada, 15 min.) Dir. Ross Munro Watching another family’s home movies can often be a bore, but Ross Munro has fun sharing his family’s adventure in European Tour ’73. This energetic short doc sees the filmmaker reflect upon his family’s titular excursion to the other side of the pond. Munro opens up a box left behind by his father and revisits upon some Super 8 footage shot during the tour. He humorously plays the part of the ignorant tourist whilst pointing out all the sights they encountered along the way. Munro, his four brothers, and their parents breeze

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