The Air Up There
As winter melts into spring in the city, the Museum of Modern Art celebrates our chilly northern neighbors with the eighth annual Canadian Front showcase, March 16–21. In association with Telefilm Canada, MoMA hosts the New York premieres of eight Canadian films—which proves that the Canucks have a distinct, if slightly odd, voice in the international cinema scene.
Opening the showcase is Patrick Demers’ ambitious Jaloux (Suspicions). Written with the aid of his three stars (Sophie Cadieux, Maxime Denommée and Benoit Gouin), Jaloux is an intimate thriller shot over 16 days in a secluded, woodsy cabin. Demers’ first feature, the film was largely improvised and uses cool tones, an inhospitable landscape and a dubious stranger to keep the viewer guessing until the surprising and quite bloody ending.
The first screening of Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie also takes place March 16. Somewhat following the template of An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary alternates between touching personal scenes with renowned Japanese-Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki and a taping of his final lecture at the University of British Columbia. At 75, Suzuki engagingly reflects on his time in an internment camp during WWII, his experience producing environmental television and the destructive progress of the human race.
Canadian Front’s second documentary is neither so dire nor so touching. Closing the showcase March 20 is Beauty Day, a film chronicling the foibles of Ralph Zavadil, aka Cap’n Video. From snorting raw eggs to body-sledding off his roof, Zavadil pushed the limits of idiocy on Canadian public television in the 1990s. Pulled from the air after a controversial Easter stunt and a broken neck that resulted from leaping from a ladder into a covered pool, Zavadil faded into obscurity and was overtaken by the Jackass phenomenon. Jay Cheel delves into the life and times of this irrepressibly irresponsible television pioneer.
Seemingly to represent every genre, Canadian Front bizarrely features two musical films. March 17, Ed Gass-Donnelly’s Small Town Murder Songs oddly and artfully meshes a film-noir aesthetic with the exuberance of a musical. The next day, Score: A Hockey Musical exhibits a lesser form of the art. Imitating High School Musical, the film follows a home-schooled pacifist as he navigates the choppy social and athletic waters of organized hockey. Sporting a crawling plot, average acting, inconsistent choreography and only one catchy refrain, Score is good only for a few awkward laughs before the sheer sincerity of the piece becomes overwhelming.
The showcase’s final three films cover similar thematic ground, each exploring the circumstances of women in an urban setting. Sophie Deraspe’s Les Signes Vitaux (Vital Signs) focuses on the story of a young woman who finds grace in laboring in a nursing home. This is Deraspe’s second film in the fest (her first film, Missing Victor Pellerin, was a highlight of Canadian Front in 2009), and it’s also an investigation into the conflict between actors and nonprofessionals, with the boyfriend played by a professional actor and the female character played by a first-time actor. Jeanne Crépeau’s semi-autobiographical La Fille de Montréal (A Montreal Girl) is a story that many an urban dweller can relate to: It’s about someone moving out of a ratty apartment after 25 years. Finally, Naghmeh Shirkhan’s The Neighbor follows a community of Iranian refugees living abroad in Vancouver, and centers around ideas of foreignness, loneliness and how a woman can adapt.
While some of the featured films may seem derivative of American trailblazers, Canadian Front has made an effort to showcase cinema with a unique voice. It may just be the air up there, but these Canadian films do have something slightly offbeat to offer any curious moveigoer.