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Classics from Canada
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The three-day Canadian film festival will showcase some of the country's best celluloid works
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THE OPENING of the Canadian Consulate and Trade Office in Chennai is a joyful event for film buffs, thanks to the three-day feast organised at the Film Chamber of commerce by the Canadian High Commission, New Delhi, in collaboration with Chennai's Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation. Starting with "Jesus of Montreal" and "Dance Me Outside" (10 April, 4 p.m.), the fest moves on to "Men with Brooms" (2002), and "Love, Sex and Eating the Bones" (2003) on the following days (6.30 p.m.). Short? But the festival offers samples of the high quality and variety associated with Canadian cinema today.
The opening film is a classic of its kind. "Jesus of Montreal" (1989) has five characters enacting the Passion play, their script including recent findings about Christ, unpalatable to the Church. Auteur Denys Arcand does something extraordinary and heart wrenching with the old play-within-film ploy. As the actors find themselves uncannily close to the parts they play, the universal myth of good and evil transcends its biblical frame. It is now the contemporary human struggle to stay upright, and do right. The wrath of `Jesus' when `Mary Magdalene' is dishonoured by a lecherous producer, is not just drama, it shows how silence can be sinful when every individual can register protest against any oppression. The film is Arcand at his best in word, visual and `message', forceful but not didactic.
Must see — and must hear — "Dance Me Outside" (Bruce McDonald, 1995) surrounds Silas Crow and friend Frank Fencepost in haunting music. Living in a Reserve in Ontario, the boys try to join a course in Toronto to train themselves as mechanics. The director adopts the First Nations point of view for the most part, weaving in prophecies and long-held beliefs. Spirituality and reverence for Nature are spontaneously part of the ancient race decimated by the White man, with the same ruthlessness he showed in destroying forests and prairies. There are raw patches as the film narrates Silas' account of life in the Reserve, with a brink-of-tragedy pathos and humour. The First Nations actors are compelling.
Comedy is in
Comedy is in with original rock music as the "Men with Brooms" (2002) decide to reactivate their curling team after ten years. They want to win the Golden Broom championship as a tribute to their coach. Director Paul Gross also plays Chris Cutter, who reassembles the original team. Each has demons to wrestle with. Chris himself has to forge new links with his estranged father, and the alcoholic sister of the bride he abandoned.
The festival ends with the cannibalistically titled "Love, Sex and Eating the Bones" (David Sutherland, 2003). A porno film addict watches kilometres of the stuff, before making the inevitable discovery — surprise! surprise!! — that love is the real mantra, not sex.
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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