The Vancouver International Film Festival, VIFF 2014, Sept. 25 - Oct. 10, 2014 is the best and largest event of its kind in Western Canada. Here are some capsule reviews of previously published pieces with links to the full reviews. By section and alphabetical order within each section, you'll find my reviews on:
VIFF 2014 ALTERED STATES: THE EDITOR
VIFF 2014 ARTS AND LETTERS: ART AND CRAFT
VIFF 2014 CANADIAN IMAGES:
THE BOY FROM GEITA
JUST EAT IT A FOOD WASTE STORY
MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET
OCTOBER GALE
THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER
VIFF 2014 NON-FICTION FEATURES:
MAIDAN
RED ARMY
VIFF 2014 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: FOXCATCHER
VIFF 2014 SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE: L'IL QUIN QUIN
Enjoy!
In Tanzania, if you're born with albinism, a rare genetic condition that severely lightens the pigmentation of your skin and renders you susceptible to dangerous, damaging effects from the sun's rays, you are less than zero. You're considered a living ghost and the only thing you're good for is what can be extricated from you in death by witch doctors who make use of your body parts for all manner of good luck potions . . . The legendary cinematographer and filmmaker Vic Sarin presents a story that is, at once appallingly grotesque, yet also, out of the dark side of the human spirit is a tale of profound and deep compassion.
Maidan (2014)
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Part of me wishes I could just respond to this great documentary as, one supposes, it should be - as a stunning, stirring work of film art that adheres to the tenets of direct cinema by simply focusing upon three key months of the revolution in Ukraine from late 2013 to early 2014. And make no mistake, Maidan, by Sergei Loznitsa is a grand achievement of the highest order. Other than occasional inter-titles describing the historical context in a simple, fact-based manner, Loznitsa allows his exquisite footage to speak for itself. Using long takes, beautifully composed with no camera movement, the film captures key moments, both specific historical incidents and deeply, profoundly moving human elements. As such, the film evokes stirring and fundamental narrative, thematic and emotional sensations which place us directly in the eye of the storm.
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Red Army (2014)
Dir. Gabe Polsky
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Gabe Polsky’s feature length documentary Red Army is as much about the propaganda machine (of Cold War Russia) as it is pure American propaganda unto itself, by placing undue emphasis upon the rivalry between America and the Soviet Union on the blood-spattered battleground of ice hockey competition during the 1980 Olympics. Polsky has fashioned a downright spellbinding history of the Red Army hockey team, which eventually became a near-juggernaut of Soviet skill and superiority in the world. In spite of this, many Canadians will call the film a total crock-and-bull story. A Canuck perspective on the propagandistic gymnastics of of this American-centric film that makes no reference to the 1972 Canada-Russia series, not to mention the numerous Team Canada bouts with the Soviets throughout the 70s and 80s, will inspire more than just a little crying foul over Polsky’s film.
Greg Klymkiw's RATING: *** 3-Stars
Read the FULL article in my Colonial Report column at in the ultra-cool British film mag Electric Sheep - a deviant view of Cinema by clicking HERE which examines the film within the context of an essay entitled: Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.
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Foxcatcher (2014)
Dir. Bennett Miller
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Foxcatcher, one of the most exciting American movies of the year, very strangely employs propagandistic elements within the narrative structure provided by screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, which, in turn, the director Bennett Miller superbly jockeys in his overall mise-en-scène. Astonishingly, the filmmakers manage to have their cake and eat it too. By offering a detailed examination of propaganda within the context of American history and society, as well as a mounting an ever-subtle critical eye upon it, Miller might continue to add accolades to his mantle in addition to the Best Director nod he copped at Cannes.
Read the FULL article in my Colonial Report column at in the ultra-cool British film mag Electric Sheep - a deviant view of Cinema by clicking HERE which examines the film within the context of an essay entitled: Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.
L'il Quinquin (aka P'tit Quinquin) (2014)
Dir. Bruno Dumont
Starring: Alane Delhaye, Lucy Caron, Bernard Pruvost, Philippe Jore
Review By Greg Klymkiw
I pretty much can't stand Bruno Dumont. His oh-so ironic plunges into northern French rural culture have always been rendered with a heavy enough hand that I've found it almost impossible to respond on any level but contempt. I especially hated his inexplicably acclaimed L'Humanite which involved an investigation of an especially brutal act of violence punctuated by scenes of cops actually taking weekends off to go to the seaside, eat cheese and sip wine. The non-thriller exploration of character and culture grew tiresome and just made me long for some of the more straight-up Gallic policiers I'd come to love over the years. Though L'il Quinquin also involves an investigation of a series of serial killings in a similar setting as the aforementioned, I was shocked to find myself sufficiently intrigued to sit all the way through its mammoth length of 200 minutes. Focusing primarily upon a group of kids living in a seaside resort, the film is an all-out comedy and as such, works moderately well.
FOR TICKETS AND FURTHER INFO, VISIT THE VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WEBSITEHERE
VIFF 2014 ALTERED STATES: THE EDITOR
VIFF 2014 ARTS AND LETTERS: ART AND CRAFT
VIFF 2014 CANADIAN IMAGES:
THE BOY FROM GEITA
JUST EAT IT A FOOD WASTE STORY
MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET
OCTOBER GALE
THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER
VIFF 2014 NON-FICTION FEATURES:
MAIDAN
RED ARMY
VIFF 2014 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: FOXCATCHER
VIFF 2014 SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE: L'IL QUIN QUIN
Enjoy!
VIFF 2014 ALTERED STATES:
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| Great giallo must have babes screaming. |
The Editor (2014)
Dir. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy
Dir. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy
Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Paz de le Huerta, Udo Kier, Laurence R. Harvey, Tristan Risk, Samantha Hill, Conor Sweeney, Brent Neale, Kevin Anderson, Mackenzie Murdock, John Paizs
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Okay, ladies and gents, strap-on your biggest vibrating butt-plugs and get ready to plop your ass cheeks upon your theatre seat and glue your eyeballs upon The Editor, the newest and most triumphant Astron-6 production to date and easily the greatest thrill ride since Italy spewed out the likes of Tenebre, Inferno, Opera, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Beyond, Strip Nude For Your Killer, Don't Torture a Duckling, Hitch-Hike, Shock, Blood and Black Lace, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Kill Baby Kill and, of course, Hatchet for the Honeymoon. You will relive, beyond your wildest dreams, those films which scorched silver screens the world over during those lazy, hazy, summer days of Giallo. But, be prepared! The Editor is no mere copycat, homage and/or parody - well, it is all three, but more than that, directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have done the impossible by creating a film that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time. It's laugh-out-loud funny, grotesquely gory and viciously violent. Though it draws inspiration from Argento, Fulci, Bava, et al, the movie is so dazzlingly original that you'll be weeping buckets of joy because finally, someone has managed to mix-master all the giallo elements, but in so doing has served up a delicious platter of post-modern pasta du cinema that both harkens back to simpler, bloodier and nastier times whilst also creating a piece actually made in this day and age.
What, for example, can anyone say about a film that features the following dialogue:
BLONDE STUD: So where were you on the night of the murder?
BLONDE BABE: I was at home washing my hair and shaving my pussy.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE
VIFF 2014 ARTS AND LETTERS:
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| The Good Father prepares... |
Art and Craft (2014)
Dir. Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
Co-Dir/Editor: Mark Becker
Review By Greg Klymkiw
For thirty years, Mark Landis travelled the highways and byways of the United States of America in his big, old red cadillac, donating priceless works of art to innumerable prestigious galleries. In return, he asked for nothing. He wanted neither recognition nor money. Hell, he didn't even want tax breaks. All Landis wanted was to give. And damn, he gave! He gave, in the Red Cross parlance, ever-so generously. Curators, administrators and various art mavens were happy to accept his donations and mount the works of art in their galleries. Everything from Picasso to Matisse to Charles Courtney Curran graced their walls. The list, it seems, goes on and on. And on. And on. And on. But here's the rub . . .
THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE
VIFF 2014 CANADIAN IMAGES (in alphabetical order):
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The Boy From Geita (2014)
Dir. Vic Sarin
Review By Greg Klymkiw
In Tanzania, if you're born with albinism, a rare genetic condition that severely lightens the pigmentation of your skin and renders you susceptible to dangerous, damaging effects from the sun's rays, you are less than zero. You're considered a living ghost and the only thing you're good for is what can be extricated from you in death by witch doctors who make use of your body parts for all manner of good luck potions . . . The legendary cinematographer and filmmaker Vic Sarin presents a story that is, at once appallingly grotesque, yet also, out of the dark side of the human spirit is a tale of profound and deep compassion.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE
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| Idiot Food Stores Reject Edible Food Because Idiot Customers want the food to LOOK aesthetically pleasing. All of it goes to a landfill because there are simply too many STUPID PEOPLE in the world. |
Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story (2014)
Dir. Grant Baldwin
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Vancouver residents Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer seem like your normal garden variety bourgeois couple, replete with a fix-it-upper older home with trendily remade/remodelled interior design/decor, so why, you might ask, do they eat from garbage bins?
Well, to make this film, of course.
And what an eye-opener it is!!!
THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars
Read the full review HERE
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| Canada's Great War Hero, Andrew Mynarski VC, Shooting Star of Selfless Sacrifice, a man of Bronze. |
Mynarski Death Plummet (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre,
Robert Vilar, Louis Negin
Review By Greg Klymkiw
The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE
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| A great movie for steno-girls, retail clerks and 70-year-old women looking for cheap thrills on cable TV. |
October Gale (2014)
Dir. Rubba Nadda
Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Scott Speedman, Tim Roth,
Aidan Devine, Callum Keith Rennie
Review By Greg Klymkiw
I went to see this movie knowing only the title and that it was starting at a time when I had nothing else to see. Usually, this is perfect. Knowing nothing about what you're going to see at a film festival is what yields the greatest treats. However, I knew I was in for trouble when the picture started in black with one sole, sombre note plunked on a piano.
Ugh!
When this happens, I usually think, "Oh fuck, another Canadian movie with a crappy piano score." No sooner did the next plop on the keyboard resonate in my auricular cavities when the soul-sucking credit "Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada" did spew, like a spray of chunky regurgitate onto the screen. Though the opening score continued with a bit more variety of piano plunking, it sounded like something rendered by a Ferrante and Teicher tribute artist on a HiFi LP in the $1 bin at a used record store.
THE FILM CORNER RATING:
"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND
HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE"
(LOWEST RATING: Below One-Star and One Pubic Hair)
"TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND
HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE"
(LOWEST RATING: Below One-Star and One Pubic Hair)
Read the full review HERE
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| A maze begins in childhood & never ends. |
The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer (2014)
Dir. Randall Okita
Review By Greg Klymkiw
One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths. Mixing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, blending it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE
VIFF 2014 NON-FICTION FEATURES:
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| Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovitch, the corrupt puppet of Russia (pictured bottom left with blood of Ukrainians on his face and conferring with the pig Putin), inspired the massive revolutionary actions in Kyiv's Independence Square ("Maidan"). The war continues, but for several months, the spirit of the Cossack Brotherhood was gloriously rekindled, rising up in defiance to lead the charge against a scourge as evil as the Nazis. The early days of revolution are captured vividly in Sergei Loznitsa's great film MAIDAN. |
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Part of me wishes I could just respond to this great documentary as, one supposes, it should be - as a stunning, stirring work of film art that adheres to the tenets of direct cinema by simply focusing upon three key months of the revolution in Ukraine from late 2013 to early 2014. And make no mistake, Maidan, by Sergei Loznitsa is a grand achievement of the highest order. Other than occasional inter-titles describing the historical context in a simple, fact-based manner, Loznitsa allows his exquisite footage to speak for itself. Using long takes, beautifully composed with no camera movement, the film captures key moments, both specific historical incidents and deeply, profoundly moving human elements. As such, the film evokes stirring and fundamental narrative, thematic and emotional sensations which place us directly in the eye of the storm.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE
Dir. Gabe Polsky
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Gabe Polsky’s feature length documentary Red Army is as much about the propaganda machine (of Cold War Russia) as it is pure American propaganda unto itself, by placing undue emphasis upon the rivalry between America and the Soviet Union on the blood-spattered battleground of ice hockey competition during the 1980 Olympics. Polsky has fashioned a downright spellbinding history of the Red Army hockey team, which eventually became a near-juggernaut of Soviet skill and superiority in the world. In spite of this, many Canadians will call the film a total crock-and-bull story. A Canuck perspective on the propagandistic gymnastics of of this American-centric film that makes no reference to the 1972 Canada-Russia series, not to mention the numerous Team Canada bouts with the Soviets throughout the 70s and 80s, will inspire more than just a little crying foul over Polsky’s film.
Greg Klymkiw's RATING: *** 3-Stars
Read the FULL article in my Colonial Report column at in the ultra-cool British film mag Electric Sheep - a deviant view of Cinema by clicking HERE which examines the film within the context of an essay entitled: Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.
VIFF 2014 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS:
Dir. Bennett Miller
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Foxcatcher, one of the most exciting American movies of the year, very strangely employs propagandistic elements within the narrative structure provided by screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, which, in turn, the director Bennett Miller superbly jockeys in his overall mise-en-scène. Astonishingly, the filmmakers manage to have their cake and eat it too. By offering a detailed examination of propaganda within the context of American history and society, as well as a mounting an ever-subtle critical eye upon it, Miller might continue to add accolades to his mantle in addition to the Best Director nod he copped at Cannes.
Greg Klymkiw's RATING
****
4-Stars
Read the FULL article in my Colonial Report column at in the ultra-cool British film mag Electric Sheep - a deviant view of Cinema by clicking HERE which examines the film within the context of an essay entitled: Canada vs. America: The Politics and Propaganda of Sports in Gabe Polsky’s Red Army and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.
VIFF 2014 SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE
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| Ah, the bucolic lives of rural inbreds. |
Dir. Bruno Dumont
Starring: Alane Delhaye, Lucy Caron, Bernard Pruvost, Philippe Jore
Review By Greg Klymkiw
I pretty much can't stand Bruno Dumont. His oh-so ironic plunges into northern French rural culture have always been rendered with a heavy enough hand that I've found it almost impossible to respond on any level but contempt. I especially hated his inexplicably acclaimed L'Humanite which involved an investigation of an especially brutal act of violence punctuated by scenes of cops actually taking weekends off to go to the seaside, eat cheese and sip wine. The non-thriller exploration of character and culture grew tiresome and just made me long for some of the more straight-up Gallic policiers I'd come to love over the years. Though L'il Quinquin also involves an investigation of a series of serial killings in a similar setting as the aforementioned, I was shocked to find myself sufficiently intrigued to sit all the way through its mammoth length of 200 minutes. Focusing primarily upon a group of kids living in a seaside resort, the film is an all-out comedy and as such, works moderately well.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars
Read the full review HERE
FOR TICKETS AND FURTHER INFO, VISIT THE VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WEBSITEHERE