Monday, August 02, 2010
Sunday, August 01, 2010
The Sidewalks are Coming! The Sidewalks are Coming!
I came home from work on Friday to see these blue lines spraypainted along the sidewalk square dividers on our side of the block. I was very pleasantly surprised as this looks to be the vanguard marks of the company actually coming to redo the sidewalks and since the construction holiday ends on the 31st of July, I didn't expect to see anything at least until August. Some super keen worker getting a head start?
What is really cool is that, judging by the lines, where the direction of the arrows indicate which squares will be redone, it looks like not only are they going to be filling in the squares that they tore up for the aqueduct work but that they will also be replacing cracked and damaged squares.
I get a holiday on Monday and while I have to help a friend with his computer, I'm hoping they'll actually start the work then and I can hang around annoying the workers, asking questions and taking pictures.
The real question though is to autograph the fresh cement, thus marking our territory or leave it pristine?
What is really cool is that, judging by the lines, where the direction of the arrows indicate which squares will be redone, it looks like not only are they going to be filling in the squares that they tore up for the aqueduct work but that they will also be replacing cracked and damaged squares.
I get a holiday on Monday and while I have to help a friend with his computer, I'm hoping they'll actually start the work then and I can hang around annoying the workers, asking questions and taking pictures.
The real question though is to autograph the fresh cement, thus marking our territory or leave it pristine?
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Street Line Painter
They are repainting the lines of the bike paths this week. What a crazy-looking contraption! I wonder what kind of turning range this thing has? Do you think you could get it to write in cursive? Imagine commandeering it in the middle of the night and going hog wild writing all over the streets of Montreal. Definitely get you on the cover of Le Journal.
I do not imagine this is an easy job, however I have to say that I am not too impressed with the quality of the work being done here.
Dude, come on!
I do not imagine this is an easy job, however I have to say that I am not too impressed with the quality of the work being done here.
Dude, come on!
Need to move? Go by bike!
These guys crossed my path as I was riding to work. I have to say I was quite impressed to see the loads they were pulling (in very low gear, evidently).
I gave them a "felicitations!" and they seemed psyched. I thought they were just some crazy individuals, but then I saw the words "Déménagement Myette" painted on the side of the trailer. A quick web search turned up their website. It's a full-on bike moving company, started by an idealistic, environmentally-minded entrepreneur. They will also come and pick up heavy and bulky refuse and take it to the ecocentre. A great idea and I wish I had known about them back when I did my hand-truck move (I would have still done all the hand-truck sized stuff myself, but would have hired them instead of the truck we got for the all the big furniture I couldn't do on my own).
Has anybody had any experience with them? If you do choose to hire them, let me know how it works out!
I gave them a "felicitations!" and they seemed psyched. I thought they were just some crazy individuals, but then I saw the words "Déménagement Myette" painted on the side of the trailer. A quick web search turned up their website. It's a full-on bike moving company, started by an idealistic, environmentally-minded entrepreneur. They will also come and pick up heavy and bulky refuse and take it to the ecocentre. A great idea and I wish I had known about them back when I did my hand-truck move (I would have still done all the hand-truck sized stuff myself, but would have hired them instead of the truck we got for the all the big furniture I couldn't do on my own).
Has anybody had any experience with them? If you do choose to hire them, let me know how it works out!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Fantasia 2010 wrap-up and report card
Dead soldiers and the one that got away
(the free pass in exchange for the missed Blades of Blood that I never exchanged)
Overview
I had a great time at Fantasia this year. Things looked a little down after the second week and I was disappointed with the Hong Kong offerings this year, but the last week came home strong with a wide range of excellent North American horror and thriller films. While I didn't take advantage of any of them this year, it is exciting to see the festival evolve and provide some events that aren't just movies. It sounds like they were quite successful. Socially, though my one friend with whom I usually see a lot of movies wasn't around as much (having just moved, a new job and a new child), my wife did a good showing and I got to meet some cool people involved with the festival itself as well as some of the hardcore old-schoolers. I'm really satisfied with the blogging I did. For me, the internet has become a big part of the fun of the festival and this year I actually contributed rather than just consuming the work of others. It also helped me to get to meet some people.The Movies
Movie-wise, it was an interesting year. My slightly gloomy prognosis at the beginning of the festival turned out to be not totally off-base. There really was no movie that completely surprised me, took me somewhere I haven't been before or just blew the back of my mind out with its intensity. However, there was such a rich collection of well-crafted, intelligent and thoughtful movies, that the lack of novelty, innovation and extreme weirdness was mitigated to the point that I didn't even notice it. I was too busy thinking about religious fundamentalism, post-trauma healing and puzzling out how a filmmaker is even supposed to construct a third-act in today's post torture-porn extreme-gore environment.
Thematically, religion was a big theme this year. The Devils, Black Death and the Last Exorcism were the films that addressed this directly, but it seemed to be hanging around in general. Psychological healing was another big theme, especially with the two documentaries I saw, Marwencol and Feast of the Assumption: BTK and the Otero Murders. In general, there seemed to be a strange hesitation this year, an avoidance of the traditional satisfying, crowd-pleasing decision. Even the relatively big budget Centurion didn't really have a true antagonist. On the one hand, it's a sign of smarter movies, but on the other there may be a little too much self-awareness going on. Sometimes you just really want the badguy to get smashed in the face.
I noticed this particularly in what I'll call the third act problem. There was some criticism in the way many of the movies ended this year, in particular Black Death and the Last Exorcism. They built up such a beautiful approach and then never really exploded. As I was watching the movies, I shared a similar sense of dissatisfaction as I was watching the movies, but I also really enjoyed the endings. I almost think the dissatisfaction is because we've been so trained to receive the orgasmic money-shot conclusion, that is either some explosively dramatic resolution of the narrative or extreme violence or gore that has surpassed what has gone on before. The problem is that, at least for the violence and gore, we've all already gotten it all. So far, in terms of pure martial arts awesomeness, where do we go after Ong Bak? And extreme gore is now a genre in and of itself. I think torture porn is very much the result of a cinema reaching out for greater and greater shocks because we've shown every other possible form of violence on the screen. So you can't finish a film with some ones head blowing up or a beautifully choreographed fight scene where the good guy just manages to beat the bad guy. What's a director to do?
What I saw that they were doing this year was taking a step back from the spectacle and taking the time to play out the theme of the movie, to address the issues that had been brought up. Black Death, with the shifting of audience sympathy and the dark coda, is the obvious example of this. But I think Revenants did this as well, pushing the story to its logical conclusion in an ending that many felt was unnecessary and drawn out (too many screenwriting classes, methinks). The Last Exorcism entirely avoided an expected special effects showdown for a quick conclusion that completely turned everything on its head and perhaps even made a statement in favour of religious fundamentalism. I appreciate a bit more intellectualism of this kind (which could also be a manifestation of the greater trend of genre films and arthouse films overlapping), but I also like a good, simplistic and satisfying ending. Too much thinking in movies can lead to boringness and moral relativism (a looming danger as evinced by the embarrassing praise of critics towards A Serbian Film). We are walking a narrow path in very interesting times for the range of once-marginalized cinema sub-genres that Fantasia does such a fantastic job of collecting. How can you be subversive and transgressive when you can leap from reading this to goat clown porn with the click of a mouse? [Wait, don't go yet, I'm almost done!]
FANTASIA 2010 REPORT CARD
Movie-wise, it was an interesting year. My slightly gloomy prognosis at the beginning of the festival turned out to be not totally off-base. There really was no movie that completely surprised me, took me somewhere I haven't been before or just blew the back of my mind out with its intensity. However, there was such a rich collection of well-crafted, intelligent and thoughtful movies, that the lack of novelty, innovation and extreme weirdness was mitigated to the point that I didn't even notice it. I was too busy thinking about religious fundamentalism, post-trauma healing and puzzling out how a filmmaker is even supposed to construct a third-act in today's post torture-porn extreme-gore environment.
Thematically, religion was a big theme this year. The Devils, Black Death and the Last Exorcism were the films that addressed this directly, but it seemed to be hanging around in general. Psychological healing was another big theme, especially with the two documentaries I saw, Marwencol and Feast of the Assumption: BTK and the Otero Murders. In general, there seemed to be a strange hesitation this year, an avoidance of the traditional satisfying, crowd-pleasing decision. Even the relatively big budget Centurion didn't really have a true antagonist. On the one hand, it's a sign of smarter movies, but on the other there may be a little too much self-awareness going on. Sometimes you just really want the badguy to get smashed in the face.
I noticed this particularly in what I'll call the third act problem. There was some criticism in the way many of the movies ended this year, in particular Black Death and the Last Exorcism. They built up such a beautiful approach and then never really exploded. As I was watching the movies, I shared a similar sense of dissatisfaction as I was watching the movies, but I also really enjoyed the endings. I almost think the dissatisfaction is because we've been so trained to receive the orgasmic money-shot conclusion, that is either some explosively dramatic resolution of the narrative or extreme violence or gore that has surpassed what has gone on before. The problem is that, at least for the violence and gore, we've all already gotten it all. So far, in terms of pure martial arts awesomeness, where do we go after Ong Bak? And extreme gore is now a genre in and of itself. I think torture porn is very much the result of a cinema reaching out for greater and greater shocks because we've shown every other possible form of violence on the screen. So you can't finish a film with some ones head blowing up or a beautifully choreographed fight scene where the good guy just manages to beat the bad guy. What's a director to do?
What I saw that they were doing this year was taking a step back from the spectacle and taking the time to play out the theme of the movie, to address the issues that had been brought up. Black Death, with the shifting of audience sympathy and the dark coda, is the obvious example of this. But I think Revenants did this as well, pushing the story to its logical conclusion in an ending that many felt was unnecessary and drawn out (too many screenwriting classes, methinks). The Last Exorcism entirely avoided an expected special effects showdown for a quick conclusion that completely turned everything on its head and perhaps even made a statement in favour of religious fundamentalism. I appreciate a bit more intellectualism of this kind (which could also be a manifestation of the greater trend of genre films and arthouse films overlapping), but I also like a good, simplistic and satisfying ending. Too much thinking in movies can lead to boringness and moral relativism (a looming danger as evinced by the embarrassing praise of critics towards A Serbian Film). We are walking a narrow path in very interesting times for the range of once-marginalized cinema sub-genres that Fantasia does such a fantastic job of collecting. How can you be subversive and transgressive when you can leap from reading this to goat clown porn with the click of a mouse? [Wait, don't go yet, I'm almost done!]
FANTASIA 2010 REPORT CARD
Programming: B
First of all, it's really easy to give out a grade to a group of people who worked their asses off and clearly put their heart and soul in to seeking out the best movies every year. I recognize that a big part of this slightly disappointing grade is a function of the state of genre cinema itself. I'm not so in the scene that I actually know this, but I highly doubt there was anything better out there. As I said before, a really strong slate of interesting, well-crafted films, but nothing that blew my mind. And there are two areas that could be improved. I felt the midnight movies have been not great in the last two years. A big part of it again is my personal taste, but I feel like there is too much reliance on Japanese extreme gore. Re-Animator was a great choice and I probably should have gone and seen Birdemic, but over all there just was nothing really out there. My major criticism, though, is the lack of classic kung fu movies. I'll get into that more at the end. So still a rock solid year, but with room for improvement. (Also, note that I am comparing this year against past Fantasia's, not against other film festivals. Fantasia simply blows the curve out of the water and would get an A++++ every time, so it's useless to put it up against mediocre mainstream media wankfests like TIFF or Cannes).
Operations: A
Everything about the festival this year has improved significantly. The website is always solid, but the downloadable calendar additions is a huge improvement. The online and phone ticket service doesn't have the personality of the 8-hour wait in the Hall building, but that's a sacrifice I'll take. The second ticket booth over at [REDACTED-INFO NOT TO BE SHARED] is a huge win. Every single movie I went to started on time this year, except where the situation was out of Fantasia staff's control (the double evacs in da Sève and VivaFilm and Universal's marketing paranoia clusterfuck). The staff and volunteers were uniformly efficient, helpful and friendly. Projection, lighting and sound quality were all rock solid. CJLO rocked as usual with finally some hip-hop (keep Mister Vee in the line-up for next year!). The website was rock solid and very active. Really the only reason this category doesn't get an A+ is because I want to push the staff to get a bit tougher with big-name guests like VivaFilm for them to get their shit together. Really, though, ongratulations due all around.
Internet Participation: B-
This category is kind of fluid and tough to grade because there are so many disparate parties. It encompasses all the stuff I like to do on the internet during Fantasia when I'm not actually at the movies. A big part of the fun for me is reading other people's reviews and experiences, arguing about movies, and so on. I have to say that while there were some bright spots, I was a bit disappointed this year. First of all, if I am actually posting more quantity (not to say any of it is any good) than major sights (who send multiple correspondents and get press passes), then something is wrong. Twitch Films, The Gazette, zTele just really didn't offer much beyond brief capsule reviews. And what happened to Dread Central? They used to have the best social coverage, with great wrap-ups of each day, pictures from the afterparties as well as very thorough reviews. There were some bright spots though. Jay's Movie Blog did a man's job. Sinistreblog as well, in french, kept it coming (and were great about responding to comments). Sound on Sight is a real discovery, with a great range of articles on Fantasia (not just reviews) and a thorough and entertaining podcast. Finally, and this is nobody's fault, I really long for a centralized discussion site where Fantasia fans can just really interact and talk about the movies.
Movies I wish I'd bought tickets for
Rubber, The Loved Ones, [Rec] 2, Castaway on the Moon, Merentau, Little Soldier
Best Audience Moment
Tie between Daniel proposing and the drunk angry nerd hugging it out with the director of the original I Spit on your Grave
Best Starfucking Moment
Alan Tudyk showing me pictures on his iPhone of the wall in his Hollywood home made of antique yardsticks. Eat your heart out, Browncoats!
My recommendations for 2011
1) BRING BACK CLASSIC KUNG FU FLICKS! Is this not obvious? Why have these great Shaw Brothers movies been taken off the slate? The fans love them, they play great on the weekend days, bringing in families and older people from the Chinese community as well as the kung fu geeks. I spoke with King Wei-Hu who is the martial arts programmer and he said this decision is entirely in the hands of Pierre Corbeil, the festival director. Pierre, if you are listening, kung fu is the heart and soul and the foundation of Fantasia. They are also great movies, exciting, beautiful to look at, full of movement and colour. You don't notice how much everyone loves the trailers for them? Please bring these back.
2) DO SOMETHING ABOUT TEXTING DURING THE MOVIE!! This is not Fantasia's fault, but it is starting to become a real problem. I would ask that maybe the organizers think about making an announcement or perhaps throwing in a fun short film/PSA about them at the beginning of the movies. It's not simply a question of people being rude. Some people actually think it's okay and get angry when you ask them to stop. Warning to those of you who will open your cellphone around me, I will escalate.
My Heartfelt Thanks!
All in all, another fantastic year. I had a total blast. A huge thanks to everyone involved with Fantasia, from top to bottom. Whatever brief rest you get, you have earned it. You did a top-notch job once again. One more fully-connecting roundhouse kick to all the other pretender film festivals out there, reminding them that Fantasia is boss! You are one of the major highlights of my life (which is already pretty awesome) here in Montreal, so I really do appreciate all the work that you do.
My Final Movie Rankings
(The list I keep on the right during the festival is going to be taken off, so I'll post it down here for future reference.)
- The Last Exorcism
- The Housemaid
- Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
- The Disappearance of Alice Creed
- The Shrine
- Gallants
- The Revenant
- Marwencol
- Vampires
- The Devils
- Woochi
- Black Death
- Mesrine: L’ennemi public n°1
- The Perfect Host
- Centurion
- Ip Man 2
- Secret Reunion
- I Spit on Your Grave
- The Feast of the Assumption
- Re-Animator
- We Are What We Are
- Mesrine: L'instinct de mort
- Raging Phoenix
- High School
- At World's End
- Lemmy
- Accident
- La Meute
- Bodyguards & Assassins
- The Clash
- If a Tree Falls
Thanks for reading, Fantasia fans. Stick around if you want, as I resume my normal meanderings on life in Montreal, being an anglo in Quebec, Canadian politics and the occasional rant against the cellphone companies.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Fantasia Day 21 - Mesrine
And so it ends. It is with mixed feelings that I type my final review of the 2010 Fantasia Festival. (I will be doing a wrap-up post as well.) I'm pretty weary and ready to get back to my real-life (kung fu is going to be very painful tonight), but I will miss having the opportunity to see one great film after another, night after night.
Last night's screening of the two-part epic gangster bio-pic Mesrine was an interesting event. It felt totally different than the rest of the festival. It was much more connected to the Quebec community at large and much less geek-focused. It barely felt like I was at Fantasia. First of all, the media was all over the place, which surprised me, as I thought last night was the big night. I didn't realize that this film and Roy Dupuis' presence as going to be such a big deal (it also explained why the closing night was last night; that was actually a reschedule as Mesrine was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but Roy Dupuis wasn't available so they swapped them).
Like flies to shit.
As he ages and his head widens, Roy Dupuis looks more and more like Bruce Campbell. I was not alone in this assessment, as my friend had independently remarked upon seeing Bruce Campbell recently in Burn Notice how much he looks like Roy Dupuis!
The other difference was that big blocks of seats were pre-reserved and there were well-dressed young women directing people to their seats. A lot of them were for media and people associated with Alliance Vivafilms, but there was also a big chunk of contest winners for Le Journal. It made for an interesting mix, with the classic, younger, geeky/hipster Fantasia crowd in the back and an older, more pure laine Québécois group in the front.
Resentment fades when I realize that these seats are reserved for the people!
The thing that really caught me off guard, though, was that the line-up started moving early. I was totally not expecting it. I turned around and suddenly the people in front of me had disappeared. It felt kind of like someone had suddenly taken away the wall I had been leaning against. Unfortunately, the efficiency of the Fantasia crew (and once again I applaud how well run the festival has been this year from a logistics standpoint) was undermined by the people managing the Alliance Vivafilm participation. The seats were full by 6:30, when the film was scheduled to start, but nothing was happening. Nothing happened until 6:50 when the crowd broke into spontaneous clapping. Finally, someone from Fantasia came up on stage and we were psyched. But oh no, once again, we had to have an interminable string of thank yous and empty platitudes from the distribution company.
It was clear that they were stalling and the crowd was getting truly annoyed. What was funny was that it was actually the older crowd who were the most cantankerous. The Fantasia regulars just seemed psyched to have any opportunity to yell out, while the middle-aged woman next to my wife was really griping ("On s'en fout!", "Voyons, commençons!") and the old guy in front of me went outside and complained furiously. I like Quebecers in a group like this. They aren't scared of making their feelings known.
[I'd like to make a brief aside about the guy sitting in front of me. He was a petit older guy, nicely but modestly dressed and I noticed he was reading a booklet with a black and white image on it. When I looked closer, I saw it was a picture from The Housemaid. I apologized for reading over his shoulder and asked what he was reading. It turns out it was the booklet for the DVD release of the re-mastered The Housemaid. We had a nice conversation about the movie and he said that the remake was really good as well. "Oh, yes, I heard it was quite good. Where did you see it?" I asked. "At Cannes," he replied. I was impressed.]
The delay is not a good thing, but the way it was handled was worse. The woman from VivaFilm didn't seem to know who was and was not present, but seemed to be trying to get them to come up anyways. Then she basically blamed the talent for the delay, saying that there were a lot of media interviews, which is good. Well it's good for you, but not for us! No real apology from her, no real thanks for our patience and then, with mic in hand, she takes out her blackberry and starts checking her text messages! Finally, Roy Dupuis saunters in, gets a big applause, looks around as if he is staring into the cosmos and then heads to the stage. He and several other actors stand there for a few seconds and then leave. It was awkward, but at least the movie was starting finally!
This is what I came for and it took a while for me to get it!
The two films are L'instinct de mort and L’ennemi public n°1. In the Fantasia schedule, they both had Mesrine: in front of the title, but in the movies themselves they didn't. I will refer to the two together as Mesrine. Though the two movies differ in style and pacing somewhat, they are definitely of a piece and were meant to be seen together (though whether you need to is another matter).
I have mixed feelings. During the movie, especially the first half of the first one, I was feeling really disappointed. It is very much standard bio-pic stuff. It was full of all the obligatory scenes: the arbitrary, excessive violence against a rude patron in the bar, the screaming match with the once naive now weary with children first wife, the taking the bullet out of the wound (and why do the bloody slugs always have to be dropped into a glass of water?!). What's worse, the intensity and fast pacing that were promised were nowhere to be found. The story moves forward briskly but the scenes themselves were quite slow. It is beautifully produced and shot and Vincent Cassel was great, thoroughly absorbed and absorbing. But there was nothing new here for me.
Things get much better when he goes to prison in Quebec. The movie takes a nastier turn and adds a much needed political edge. The escape is also quite exciting. Fortunately, the second movie, for the most part, keeps with this trend, focusing almost clinically on his two famous escapes. The pacing and style really pick up as well, with a lively camera. The character also comes alive and Cassel is fantastic at projecting his ego and charisma and just sheer force of personality. When he's ranting at the judges in a trial, you kind of hate him because you know he is mostly full of shit and using politics and cheap rhetoric for his own ends but you can't help loving him at the same time. [The petit guy in front of me, who had been lukewarm about the first movie was absolutely loving the second part, laughing and shaking in his chair.]
The closing act, the end of which opens both films, involves Mesrine and his girlfriend trying to sneak to a new hideout. They are staked the entire way by the cops who finally block them on the street with a truck and gun them down. This act really encompasses my ambivalence to the scene. It is very long and detailed, with multiple camera angles of things we'd already seen in the beginning (except that time, inexplicably, it was done with multiple frames, a stylistic device I like if you don't just decide to throw it out the window for the rest of the movie, thus rendering it weirdly out of place). I was feeling quite weary by this point and you already know what is going to happen, so there is no real suspense. Yet the scene keeps trying to amp up the tension, by having nervous cops in their hiding places freaking out as he gets closer to them. I found myself sort of frustrated and wanted them to get on with it. Then I realized, oh wait, this is like a totally slickly shot, cool-looking and very detailed observation of a tightly-organized police surveillance operation taking place in the 1970s, I love this shit, why aren't I into it?
After the movie, I went and did some research on Mesrine and he really had a crazy criminal career. Both films start with a little quote saying that basically saying the movie should not necessarily be taken as the total truth. But there is really nothing exaggerated in the movie. On the contrary, it seems like it was actually quite faithful to the facts of his life. The two prison breaks are extremely tight reproductions of what actually went down. (Check out this newspaper diagram of his escape from the high security Prison de la Santé; if you saw the movie you will see how detailed and accurate a re-enactment it was.)
I share this info with you because it is at the root of my ambivalence about the film. As I was watching it and immediately after, I felt that it lacked both a compelling narrative and any kind of thematic depth. But now after having done some research on the actual guy (who seems to be a big part of french popular culture, judging at least by the amount of websites about him), I see how much effort was done to try and capture what actually happened. Furthermore, I really appreciated the lack of sentimentality. The question I was torn about in the final scene (why am I watching this?) applies to the whole movie. Had I known about Mesrine's life and career beforehand or had I been fully prepared for a history lesson, I suspect I would have had a much more enjoyable time. Because I think the mission of the movie was simply to tell the story of his life without too much commentary either way. The slow pace and clichéd choice of scenes in the first part is less forgivable, though, and I think tried my patience and endurance too much.
This is a long movie with a lot of stuff in it that I haven't mentioned. I think if you are a fan of the history of the period or of Mesrine, you should see the whole thing. If you are a fan of the crime, heist and escape genres than I would suggest only seeing the second one (the Quartier Haute Sécurité prison escape is truly top-notch). Personally, I really wish that Roy Dupuis had been available on Tuesday, because Tucker and Dale would have been the perfect movie to truly close the festival and would have made Mesrine much more appreciated in reflection.
[There is a term I've learned here called Vox-Pop, which I think may exist only in french or in Québec, even though it was also called vox-pop on the english sides of the releases. It's when viewers share their opinion about the movie and are filmed, I guess the footage is used for publicity, maybe for various entertainment shows that are hyping the film. Some of these people actually sounded like they had some interesting stuff to say on the movie and I would have loved to eavesdrop, but they seemed nervous enough in front of the camera without me leaning in. I wonder if anyone was critical?]
Monsieur...
...et madame tout le monde are not shy about sharing their feelings about the movie. And that is the way it should be.
Last night's screening of the two-part epic gangster bio-pic Mesrine was an interesting event. It felt totally different than the rest of the festival. It was much more connected to the Quebec community at large and much less geek-focused. It barely felt like I was at Fantasia. First of all, the media was all over the place, which surprised me, as I thought last night was the big night. I didn't realize that this film and Roy Dupuis' presence as going to be such a big deal (it also explained why the closing night was last night; that was actually a reschedule as Mesrine was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but Roy Dupuis wasn't available so they swapped them).
Like flies to shit.
As he ages and his head widens, Roy Dupuis looks more and more like Bruce Campbell. I was not alone in this assessment, as my friend had independently remarked upon seeing Bruce Campbell recently in Burn Notice how much he looks like Roy Dupuis!The other difference was that big blocks of seats were pre-reserved and there were well-dressed young women directing people to their seats. A lot of them were for media and people associated with Alliance Vivafilms, but there was also a big chunk of contest winners for Le Journal. It made for an interesting mix, with the classic, younger, geeky/hipster Fantasia crowd in the back and an older, more pure laine Québécois group in the front.
Resentment fades when I realize that these seats are reserved for the people!The thing that really caught me off guard, though, was that the line-up started moving early. I was totally not expecting it. I turned around and suddenly the people in front of me had disappeared. It felt kind of like someone had suddenly taken away the wall I had been leaning against. Unfortunately, the efficiency of the Fantasia crew (and once again I applaud how well run the festival has been this year from a logistics standpoint) was undermined by the people managing the Alliance Vivafilm participation. The seats were full by 6:30, when the film was scheduled to start, but nothing was happening. Nothing happened until 6:50 when the crowd broke into spontaneous clapping. Finally, someone from Fantasia came up on stage and we were psyched. But oh no, once again, we had to have an interminable string of thank yous and empty platitudes from the distribution company.
It was clear that they were stalling and the crowd was getting truly annoyed. What was funny was that it was actually the older crowd who were the most cantankerous. The Fantasia regulars just seemed psyched to have any opportunity to yell out, while the middle-aged woman next to my wife was really griping ("On s'en fout!", "Voyons, commençons!") and the old guy in front of me went outside and complained furiously. I like Quebecers in a group like this. They aren't scared of making their feelings known.
[I'd like to make a brief aside about the guy sitting in front of me. He was a petit older guy, nicely but modestly dressed and I noticed he was reading a booklet with a black and white image on it. When I looked closer, I saw it was a picture from The Housemaid. I apologized for reading over his shoulder and asked what he was reading. It turns out it was the booklet for the DVD release of the re-mastered The Housemaid. We had a nice conversation about the movie and he said that the remake was really good as well. "Oh, yes, I heard it was quite good. Where did you see it?" I asked. "At Cannes," he replied. I was impressed.]
The delay is not a good thing, but the way it was handled was worse. The woman from VivaFilm didn't seem to know who was and was not present, but seemed to be trying to get them to come up anyways. Then she basically blamed the talent for the delay, saying that there were a lot of media interviews, which is good. Well it's good for you, but not for us! No real apology from her, no real thanks for our patience and then, with mic in hand, she takes out her blackberry and starts checking her text messages! Finally, Roy Dupuis saunters in, gets a big applause, looks around as if he is staring into the cosmos and then heads to the stage. He and several other actors stand there for a few seconds and then leave. It was awkward, but at least the movie was starting finally!
This is what I came for and it took a while for me to get it!The two films are L'instinct de mort and L’ennemi public n°1. In the Fantasia schedule, they both had Mesrine: in front of the title, but in the movies themselves they didn't. I will refer to the two together as Mesrine. Though the two movies differ in style and pacing somewhat, they are definitely of a piece and were meant to be seen together (though whether you need to is another matter).
I have mixed feelings. During the movie, especially the first half of the first one, I was feeling really disappointed. It is very much standard bio-pic stuff. It was full of all the obligatory scenes: the arbitrary, excessive violence against a rude patron in the bar, the screaming match with the once naive now weary with children first wife, the taking the bullet out of the wound (and why do the bloody slugs always have to be dropped into a glass of water?!). What's worse, the intensity and fast pacing that were promised were nowhere to be found. The story moves forward briskly but the scenes themselves were quite slow. It is beautifully produced and shot and Vincent Cassel was great, thoroughly absorbed and absorbing. But there was nothing new here for me.
Look he shoots a guy in the leg in a bar fight and that shows us how he is willing to go jusqu'au bout which will help him rise to the top in his career as a gangster.
Things get much better when he goes to prison in Quebec. The movie takes a nastier turn and adds a much needed political edge. The escape is also quite exciting. Fortunately, the second movie, for the most part, keeps with this trend, focusing almost clinically on his two famous escapes. The pacing and style really pick up as well, with a lively camera. The character also comes alive and Cassel is fantastic at projecting his ego and charisma and just sheer force of personality. When he's ranting at the judges in a trial, you kind of hate him because you know he is mostly full of shit and using politics and cheap rhetoric for his own ends but you can't help loving him at the same time. [The petit guy in front of me, who had been lukewarm about the first movie was absolutely loving the second part, laughing and shaking in his chair.]
The closing act, the end of which opens both films, involves Mesrine and his girlfriend trying to sneak to a new hideout. They are staked the entire way by the cops who finally block them on the street with a truck and gun them down. This act really encompasses my ambivalence to the scene. It is very long and detailed, with multiple camera angles of things we'd already seen in the beginning (except that time, inexplicably, it was done with multiple frames, a stylistic device I like if you don't just decide to throw it out the window for the rest of the movie, thus rendering it weirdly out of place). I was feeling quite weary by this point and you already know what is going to happen, so there is no real suspense. Yet the scene keeps trying to amp up the tension, by having nervous cops in their hiding places freaking out as he gets closer to them. I found myself sort of frustrated and wanted them to get on with it. Then I realized, oh wait, this is like a totally slickly shot, cool-looking and very detailed observation of a tightly-organized police surveillance operation taking place in the 1970s, I love this shit, why aren't I into it?
After the movie, I went and did some research on Mesrine and he really had a crazy criminal career. Both films start with a little quote saying that basically saying the movie should not necessarily be taken as the total truth. But there is really nothing exaggerated in the movie. On the contrary, it seems like it was actually quite faithful to the facts of his life. The two prison breaks are extremely tight reproductions of what actually went down. (Check out this newspaper diagram of his escape from the high security Prison de la Santé; if you saw the movie you will see how detailed and accurate a re-enactment it was.)
I share this info with you because it is at the root of my ambivalence about the film. As I was watching it and immediately after, I felt that it lacked both a compelling narrative and any kind of thematic depth. But now after having done some research on the actual guy (who seems to be a big part of french popular culture, judging at least by the amount of websites about him), I see how much effort was done to try and capture what actually happened. Furthermore, I really appreciated the lack of sentimentality. The question I was torn about in the final scene (why am I watching this?) applies to the whole movie. Had I known about Mesrine's life and career beforehand or had I been fully prepared for a history lesson, I suspect I would have had a much more enjoyable time. Because I think the mission of the movie was simply to tell the story of his life without too much commentary either way. The slow pace and clichéd choice of scenes in the first part is less forgivable, though, and I think tried my patience and endurance too much.
This is a long movie with a lot of stuff in it that I haven't mentioned. I think if you are a fan of the history of the period or of Mesrine, you should see the whole thing. If you are a fan of the crime, heist and escape genres than I would suggest only seeing the second one (the Quartier Haute Sécurité prison escape is truly top-notch). Personally, I really wish that Roy Dupuis had been available on Tuesday, because Tucker and Dale would have been the perfect movie to truly close the festival and would have made Mesrine much more appreciated in reflection.
[There is a term I've learned here called Vox-Pop, which I think may exist only in french or in Québec, even though it was also called vox-pop on the english sides of the releases. It's when viewers share their opinion about the movie and are filmed, I guess the footage is used for publicity, maybe for various entertainment shows that are hyping the film. Some of these people actually sounded like they had some interesting stuff to say on the movie and I would have loved to eavesdrop, but they seemed nervous enough in front of the camera without me leaning in. I wonder if anyone was critical?]
Monsieur...
...et madame tout le monde are not shy about sharing their feelings about the movie. And that is the way it should be.Wednesday, July 28, 2010
An aside on reviewing movies - Spoilers
I'm starting to see how reviewing movies is a complex business. They are easy to do and I'd argue not all that hard to do well (not that I'm doing them all that well, but relative to other forms of writing, they are on the easy side, I would say). But when you start doing a lot of them, you do begin to come up against some slippery, tricky issues that take real intelligence and experience to figure out, I suspect.
The first one that I keep bumping into is spoilers. For my own experience, I am super uptight about spoilers. If I know that I want to see a movie, then I try my best to limit my knowledge as much as possible. Even for movies that are straightforward, the less I know the better. Some of my best movie-going experiences have been when I had no idea what I was getting into and got totally blindsided. The more you know about a movie, the more you start to set expectations and the experience becomes more and more one of comparing your expectations against what is actually happening on the screen as opposed to a pure viewing experience where your brain has to deal with what it is getting without having any handholds or guidelines.
I don't think I need to go into Hollywood's terrible practice of telling the entire story in the trailer (though sometimes it is a good thing as often you don't even have to bother seeing the movie, as in Brothers, which you would never actually want to see but if they had kept some of it hidden, you might have been at least tempted to find out what happens). At Fantasia, this concern seems paramount, as most of the movies are being shown for the first time. Furthermore, many of them have plot twists and surprises, these elements being staples of the genres Fantasia celebrates. If it's good, I want you to see it. But I don't want to ruin anything for you.
On the other hand, many of these movies are really interesting and like most good movies, demand discussion afterward among those who have seen it. I can do that with my friends and the other Fantasia geeks one gets to know over time in the line-up. The internet has added a new wrinkle. Now I can share my thoughts and read the thoughts of other people who have seen the movies and in a lot of cases I really want to respond. There were many cases of the reviews that I wrote where I had a lot more to say, but cut it out because I would have had to expose a chunk of the story to explain my position. I was thinking it would be cool to have two datastreams: the current one for people who haven't seen the movies and another one for those who have (you have to type in a serial number on your ticket stub to get access).
I think there is a real skill in reviewing a movie without revealing too much. For popular consumption, such as newspaper reviews that come out on the day of the release, you have to give away a bit of the movie, or you just won't have enough to write about, I suspect. But for the internet, where you can write as little or as much as you feel is appropriate, you can be fairly discrete. It is a real writing challenge to sell a movie without giving any of the good stuff away. In some movies, even knowing there is a twist can alter your perception of your viewing of the film. If you think about it, though, isn't writing a review using all the good stuff from the movie actually cheating? You are using the material created by the artist to entertain to fuel your own entertainment. But then what's wrong with borrowing art? A tricky business, as I say.
I've obviously erred on not giving away any spoilers and sometimes I find my writing to be embarrassingly vague. There are several adjectives—interestingly often in the present participle form as opposed to a true adjective—that have gotten badly overworked here in the last few weeks (poor "entertaining" and aching "engaging"). It's been good training, though and I hope that if you do see any of the films I've lauded this year that you'll appreciate my discipline on this matter (or more likely you'll be thinking why did that over-enthusiastic geek make me watch this piece of crap again?)
(this comic from Saint Gasoline; click on the link to find more nerdy comics.)
The first one that I keep bumping into is spoilers. For my own experience, I am super uptight about spoilers. If I know that I want to see a movie, then I try my best to limit my knowledge as much as possible. Even for movies that are straightforward, the less I know the better. Some of my best movie-going experiences have been when I had no idea what I was getting into and got totally blindsided. The more you know about a movie, the more you start to set expectations and the experience becomes more and more one of comparing your expectations against what is actually happening on the screen as opposed to a pure viewing experience where your brain has to deal with what it is getting without having any handholds or guidelines.
I don't think I need to go into Hollywood's terrible practice of telling the entire story in the trailer (though sometimes it is a good thing as often you don't even have to bother seeing the movie, as in Brothers, which you would never actually want to see but if they had kept some of it hidden, you might have been at least tempted to find out what happens). At Fantasia, this concern seems paramount, as most of the movies are being shown for the first time. Furthermore, many of them have plot twists and surprises, these elements being staples of the genres Fantasia celebrates. If it's good, I want you to see it. But I don't want to ruin anything for you.
On the other hand, many of these movies are really interesting and like most good movies, demand discussion afterward among those who have seen it. I can do that with my friends and the other Fantasia geeks one gets to know over time in the line-up. The internet has added a new wrinkle. Now I can share my thoughts and read the thoughts of other people who have seen the movies and in a lot of cases I really want to respond. There were many cases of the reviews that I wrote where I had a lot more to say, but cut it out because I would have had to expose a chunk of the story to explain my position. I was thinking it would be cool to have two datastreams: the current one for people who haven't seen the movies and another one for those who have (you have to type in a serial number on your ticket stub to get access).
I think there is a real skill in reviewing a movie without revealing too much. For popular consumption, such as newspaper reviews that come out on the day of the release, you have to give away a bit of the movie, or you just won't have enough to write about, I suspect. But for the internet, where you can write as little or as much as you feel is appropriate, you can be fairly discrete. It is a real writing challenge to sell a movie without giving any of the good stuff away. In some movies, even knowing there is a twist can alter your perception of your viewing of the film. If you think about it, though, isn't writing a review using all the good stuff from the movie actually cheating? You are using the material created by the artist to entertain to fuel your own entertainment. But then what's wrong with borrowing art? A tricky business, as I say.
I've obviously erred on not giving away any spoilers and sometimes I find my writing to be embarrassingly vague. There are several adjectives—interestingly often in the present participle form as opposed to a true adjective—that have gotten badly overworked here in the last few weeks (poor "entertaining" and aching "engaging"). It's been good training, though and I hope that if you do see any of the films I've lauded this year that you'll appreciate my discipline on this matter (or more likely you'll be thinking why did that over-enthusiastic geek make me watch this piece of crap again?)
(this comic from Saint Gasoline; click on the link to find more nerdy comics.)
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