Reviews - Page 98

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

Winter’s Yearning Review: The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Winter’s Yearning (Norway/Denmark/Greenland, 77 min.) Dir. Sidse Torstholm Larsen, Sturla Pilskog In 2007, when American aluminium giant ALCOA announced it was exploring plans to build a plant in Maniitsoq, Greenland, the venture was seen as the means of creating jobs and securing independence from Denmark. Archive footage of the countrywide celebrations open Winter’s Yearning but the inevitable delays result in the small fishing community being on standby for years. In order to get a better understanding of what life is like in Maniitsoq, the narrative is divided amongst three individuals: a young woman working in the factory, a social worker, and the town’s aluminium

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The Marriage Project Review: Is Love the Best Medicine?

The Marriage Project (Iran/France/Qatar, 80 min.) Dir. Atieh Attarzadeh and Hesam Eslami Several years ago, Iranian filmmaker Atieh Attarzadeh set out to make a film about love. Her goal was to document the joy and sense of freedom that her marriage brought her. As her ex-husband once told her, “love is the only thing that allows you to break the boundaries others have defined for you.” Although her initial cinematic plans derailed with the demise of the relationship, her latest documentary The Marriage Project, co-directed with Hesam Eslami, presents a complicated and riveting exploration of love within the confines of mental

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If It Were Love Review: Confessions on a Dance Floor

If It Were Love (Si c‘était de l’amour) (France, 82 min.) Dir. Patric Chiha Hot, sweaty, and hypnotic, If It Were Love stages an intimate seduction. Patric Chiha’s doc, which won the Teddy for Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, observes the tour and preparations for Gisèle Vienne’s 2018 dance piece Crowd. The work features 15 dancers in a slow and meditative tribute to the rave scene of the 1990s. By chronicling the rehearsals and performances for Crowd, and the intimate encounters between dancers off stage, If It Were Love captures the collisions between art and nightlife. Chiha’s film is relatively simple by

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Meeting the Beatles in India Review: Photographing the Fab Four

Meeting the Beatles in India (Canada, 82 min.) Dir. Paul Saltzman Paul Saltzman grew up during a magical time, the Sixties, when the civil rights movement and the music of rock stars like The Beatles and Bob Dylan exemplified the insurrectionary attitudes of the baby boomers, who were ready to take on the world. Saltzman had already spent a summer helping to get Black voters to register in Mississippi—and getting punched out by the son of a notorious white supremacist for his troubles—before going in 1968 for the first of what would turn out to be many trips to India.

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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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