Up today is a set of films out of our neighbor to the north, starting with the breakout film of director Atom Egoyan, 1994’s Exotica. This is one of those films with a ton of moving parts, which all come together as the film progresses. Francis, a tax auditor, frequents the strip club Exotica. He goes every other night and always pays for a dance from the same girl, Christine, who is the club’s “dirty little schoolgirl,” starting out in a school uniform before stripping. At some point during her dance, she’ll lean in to him and whisper words, which we are not privy to. Those seemingly tender moments drive her ex-boyfriend, Eric, insane. He’s the club’s DJ, and sees Christine with Francis every single time. While Francis is at the club, he pays teenager Tracy to babysit. However, as we soon learn, Francis doesn’t have any kids; Tracy just goes into his empty house and practices flute for band while he’s away. You definitely get creepy vibes when Francis drives Tracy home at the end of the night, but nothing untoward ever happens. A separate storyline revolves around Thomas, who smuggles animal eggs across the border, and who is getting audited by none other than Francis in his day job. When Francis is coaxed with going too far with Christine by Eric, he is kicked out and barred from the club, and Francis gets Thomas to go in and continue to get news from Christine. I always like films that tie everything together in the end, and this film certainly does that, but it also leaves you wondering about the motives of some its characters. I can’t say more without giving away a lot of the surprises, but just about every character has some deep unresolved issues (don’t we all?). Very well put-together film and entertaining through the last minute. ★★★★
Crash, from director David Cronenberg, is one messed up movie, and that’s saying something coming from this director! It stars James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Elias Koteas (who I just saw in the above Exotica as Eric!). James and his wife Catherine are in an open marriage, but despite sleeping with other people, only seem to be able to get off when they describe their affairs while sleeping with each other. They’ll each find a new way for sexual pleasure after James is in a horrific car accident, a head-on collision which kills the driver in the other car. The dead man’s wife, Helen, survives, and after they heal up, she and James begin a new affair. A leftover side effect of the accident though now means that James can only get seriously aroused by car wrecks and scars from those wrecks. Helen is into it too, and introduces him to Robert. Robert is all about wrecks; he even runs a club that reenacts car crashes that killed celebrities, complete with stunt car drivers who risk their lives to make the accidents as authentic as possible for the fetish-driven audience. As James and Robert grow close (as well as romantically at a point), James pulls Catherine into his new world of sex and crashes, and before you know it, everyone on screen is having sex in cars, rubbing their scars together, and driving haphazardly, flirting with death for that ultimate release. When I finished the film, I went online and read some outlandish reviews about how it is a metaphor for this, that, or the other. Maybe it is, or maybe the director just wanted to push buttons, which seems to have always been his MO. ★★½
Cheating just a hair with Brand Upon the Brain!; it was filmed in Seattle with local actors, but was written and directed by Canadian Guy Maddin, whose next film is on this list today too. Unfortunately I should have just stuck with the next film; this one was pretty awful. Produced on a budget of $40k and filmed over 9 days, it is a silent film with narration over it. The film tells the story of a fictional version of Guy returning to his childhood home, an orphanage housed within a lighthouse. He’s been tasked by his mother to paint the lighthouse as a way of cleansing the place and closing the bad memories associated with it. Once Guy gets to painting, the rest of the film is told in flashback about his childhood on the island. And it is bizarre. From his dad who was performing experiments on the orphans (and his own children) by sucking “nectar” out of their brains, to “Savage Tom”, the oldest orphan, who engaged in pagan rituals, to Guy’s sister “Sis” killing their father, only to see their mom raise him from the dead with a pair of jumper cables. Weird film, and it shown in a chaotic, avant-garde, almost Brakhage kind of way. I will say, I laughed at some of the nonsense, but the visual style of the film was not my cup of tea, and it was, for me, hard to get past that. It really wore on me after awhile. ★½
I don’t often do documentaries, but Maddin’s My Winnipeg is not your typical documentary. He described it as a “docu-fantasia,” and it is a blast, complete opposite from Brand. Born in Winnipeg, Maddin set out to show some of the city’s quirky history, as well as tell biographical moments of his life growing up there. The film begins with a version of himself on a train, trying to flee the city which seems to never let people go. From there, the movie moves from place to place and story to story. The backdrop becomes Maddin’s childhood home, which he sublets for one month from its current owner (a little old lady, who humorously decided at the last minute not to leave, so she’s in all the shots too). Maddin filled out the house with actors portraying his brothers and sister, even the family dog, and his “real” mom (which is also an actress, but not everyone is in on the joke). His “mom” wanted dad there too, but as he died many years ago, they settled on putting a fake body under the rug in dad’s place. They reenact a few moments from Maddin’s youth, as well as talk about strange facts about the city. Like the tree that grew in the middle of the road which brought protests when the city decided to cut it down. Or the 50-year-running TV show LedgeMan, which his mother stared in, in which every episode showed a man on the ledge threatening suicide, only to be talked down by the end of the episode. Obviously some of these stories are made up, some are real, but Maddin is telling us which, so it gives the movie a surreal-like feel. Through it all, Maddin’s narration and storytelling is supremely entertaining. There are also very poignant moments, the best being when the city tears down the arena which used to house hockey’s Jets before they moved away (a new team with the same name would come back years after this movie came out). Maddin interspersed stories of his dad, so when he’s saying farewell to the stadium, he’s giving his dad a goodbye too. ★★★★½
I’ll admit I almost didn’t watch Mon Oncle Antoine due to the personal life of its director. Claude Jutra was hailed as one of Canada’s greatest directors in his lifetime, but 30 years after his death in 1986, a biography came out in 2016 which showed that he was a pedophile, apparently an open secret within the business. Immediately streets and awards that were named for him were changed, but his legacy in film lives on. And despite the evil he did in real life, this film is still a good one. A coming-of-age film in 1970s rural Quebec, the movie follows a boy named Benoit. He lives with his uncle and aunt and works in their general store. Like most small towns, uncle Antoine pulls double duty; along with the store, he is the town’s undertaker. Also in the “family” is Carmen, a girl Benoit’s age who is boarding at the store, and Fernand, the store’s clerk. Most of the film takes place over a single day, Christmas Eve. The store has decorated and is expecting their busiest day of the year, but in the afternoon, a call comes in from a remote household that a son has died. Antoine and Benoit head out to recover the body, through blizzard conditions, and it doesn’t help that Antoine is a high functioning alcoholic, until he hits the bottle hard, as he does on the journey to and from the house. Benoit, who in the beginning of film seems like your typical innocent boy (flirting with Carmen, getting into trouble with his friends) will see things that make him come face-to-face with adult situations, including the death of the boy they are picking up, one about his own age, and the infidelity of his aunt with Fernand. I generally like a little humor in my coming-of-age films; this one is as harsh and bleak as the weather, but it is beautifully filmed and exudes a very real feeling of innocence lost. Too bad the director was a douche, or I might look up more of it his stuff. ★★★½
- TV series currently watching: The Rings of Power (season 1)
- Book currently reading: Star Wars A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller
Jons Movie Takes 