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VIFF 2024 Review: Frewaka

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Clare Monnelly plays a student nurse who senses something troubling and beyond her control in her patient’s house in Frewaka.

It’s very rare to see a film in the Gaelic language at the VIFF. Frewaka, from the Altered States series, is that film and a lot more.

The film begins in 1973. There’s a wedding in a local village. The wedding is crashed by village locals in traditional fashion wearing straw masks. The man looks fine about it as it’s tradition but the bride, named Peig, is unhappy about something. She goes outdoors as she’s sick but she spots something mysterious about the goat. The husband tries to look for Peig but can’t find her. Only her wedding ring on the ground. Peig is missing and it begins the story of the runaway bride of the village. Cutting to the present and to a reclusive elderly woman living in an apartment full of Catholic paraphernalia. She hangs herself as one of her crosses lights up red.

The film then cuts to another story in the present of a young woman named Siobhan, or ‘Shoo,’ who has just graduated form nursing school. Shoo’s mother has just died; the woman who hung herself. Shoo clears out her place emotionless, surprising her Ukrainian girlfriend Mila. Shoo never made amends with her mother after the years of abuse. Shoo is suddenly given a last-minute assignment to do palliative care with a woman in a remote village in the North. Shoo is hired mostly for her knowledge of Gaelic as the woman doesn’t speak any English and most of the villagers only speak Gaelic as well. This may come at what should be a very inconvenient time for Shoo, but she accepts it without a problem, leaving the pregnant Mila behind to deal with the stuff.

Shoo may be hard-headed and hard-hearted towards the work she’s about to do but she senses something isn’t right about this. She first senses this as she goes to the town and asks directions to the woman’s place. Two villagers at the store tell her not to go to the house. She also notices as one farm boy from the town looks at her strangely. Then she goes to the woman’s house. The woman’s name is Peig: the ‘runaway bride’ from 1973. She’s elderly now and she’s agoraphobic to the point she won’t leave the house. Shoo senses something very uneasy about Peig’s house. It’s big with a lot of rooms, but aging, crumbly and full of bad taxidermy and various talisman. What Shoo finds most frightening is Peig’s cellar door. It’s painted red and has many good-luck symbols nailed on surrounding it. Jarring noises and phantom images come from that cellar door. Even Peig herself feels that cellar has a frightening spiritual threshold, which she refers to as ‘them.’

Looking after Peig turns out to be a frustration for Shoo. Very often, Peig goes into her dementia and won’t take her medicine. There are many times Peig refuses to leave the house, possibly fearing that something will take her away. Despite that during the time, Peig and Shoo form a bond. The bond seems positive at first, but soon Shoo is haunted by her own past memories. In that time, Shoo feels a drawing that she herself feels she must go to that cellar door to find out what’s inside. Is it the ‘them’ that Peig keeps on referring to? In addition, Shoo also senses the same haunting feeling Peig does, including a crucifix that lights up red just like her late mother’s.

Over the next days, the nursing agency is contacting Shoo about her reports of incompetence on the job and Mila is infuriated with Shoo as she feels she left her abandoned pregnant and with her late mother’s stuff to manage. But Shoo is fixated on the cellar door and the hauntings in Peig’s house. Finally she does go into the cellar and finds out what’s inside. Inside are key clues to Peig’s past, including the ‘runaway bride’ story. Shoo also discovers what is so haunting down there. Within time, Shoo herself becomes consumed by the hauntings and with the appearances of the masked villagers similar to that at Peig’s wedding and they overtake Shoo to leave a haunting ending.

It seems to be a thing now to make a smart horror film. We all remember the guilty pleasure horror movies of the 80’s and 90’s that were for to shock us, scare us or disgust us or even try to add bizarre humor to get us laughing. These past ten years, there have been a lot more smarter horror movies that are a lot like psychological dramas. Some have even made critics’ lists as the best film of the year. This film is another film that makes the attempt at becoming a smart horror film and it does a very good job. This film is also a horror film that includes a lot of cultural elements as well. We see it in the Irish folklore and Irish mythology shown in various scenes and even in villagers and their broom masks. Adding that in is what makes this horror film unique. I think every culture has some mystical spirits or mystical hauntings from old folklore.

It’s not just Irish folklore that add into the affect of horror in the film. There are also ugly pieces of Irish history. One thing that has been vocal in recent decades is how the Catholic Church mistreated people in the past. It’s also been especially vocal in how it treated women. We hear about stories with the Magdalene laundries, we hear other past abuse stories. It’s also possible that Peig’s marriage at the beginning could have been a marriage arranged with some Catholic input and something Peig could not see herself living through it. That could also explain that crucifix in the film that lights up red. Of how Catholicism is now seen more as a curse than a help in Ireland.

This is an impressive horror drama. It tells of a bond between two women who are complete opposites. One is an ailing former runaway bride. The other is a lesbian who chose her girlfriend but gives her neglect. One has lived in the village all her life and as a recluse. The other has lived in the big city her life, well-educated and speaks Gaelic well. They appear to be opposites but over time, both will show to have some things in common. Both have had abusive influences in their life. In both cases, it was religious-based. Both are haunted by the cellar door, what they think is inside the cellar and what is actually inside. As what causes Peig’s fears reveal itself, the ugly irresponsible side of Shoo is revealed. All of it just slowly unravels itself as time presses on and adds to the eerie feeling of the film and for the shock ending.

This is an impressive work from writer/director Aislinn Clarke. This is her first self-made feature since 2018’s The Devil’s Doorway. Although I have not seen it, the storyline from the premise descriptions I’ve read has some similarities with Frewaka. Here, Clarke gives another story of religious spirits haunting those around. It’s well-written and we’ll pieced together. The beginning could have been organized better but the story does make better sense as it goes along and keeps it being the thriller it’s intended to be. Clare Donnelly does a great performance as Shoo. She does very well as a woman who’s strong and stern but soon becomes consumed of what haunts the house. Also great is Brid Ni Neachtain as the elderly Peig who has lived a lifetime of being haunted and traumatized. She is very convincing in her character.

Frewaka is not just a supernatural thriller that one would see in VIFF’s Altered States films. It’s also a film that shows some unique aspects of Irish paganism or Irish occult and ugly parts of Irish history. The elements are just as intriguing as the story itself.

VIFF 2024 Review: Marlina The Murderer In Four Acts (Marlina si pembunuh dalam empat babak)

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Marlina: The Murderer In Four Acts is a thought-provoking drama about Marlina (played by Marsha Timothy, right) and her friend Novi (played by Dea Panendra, left) deal with the mysogyny around them.

Not every film at the Vancouver Film Festival is a film from 2024 or 2023. Marlina: The Murdered In Four Acts is an Indonesian film made in 2017. It was one of four films in the Leading Lights program of VIFF of picks from Pakistani-Canadian director Zarra Khan. It is a good film worth seeing.

The film begins with the first act: The Robbery. Marlina is a recent widow living on her farm on the Indonesian island of Sumba. You can tell she is still hurting as she has her husband’s mummified body in the house. One day, a gang of seven men arrive being led by Markus: the oldest of the gang. Their intention is to steal the livestock and to tape her now that her husband is deceased. Before they commit to the act, they demand she cooks them a dinner. She agrees to cook but poisons the dinner. All the robbers except Markus are affected by the poisoned dinner. Markus then rapes her in the bedroom but somehow she’s able to kill him by decapitating him while in the act and then burns his jungaa (musical instrument) he brought along.

The film then leads into the second act: The Journey. The next day, Marlina knows she will have to go on the run. She knows the surviving robbers will wake up from their poisoned stupor and want to kill her or rape her in revenge. She’s able to get on a bus. While on the bus, she meets a pregnant woman named Novi. Her pregnancy has been longer than nine months. Because of this, her husband Umbu suspects the delayed birth is because of infidelity and has left her. She’s on a trip to find Umbu as she expects the birth to happen soon. Also on the bus is an old widow with a dowry payment of two horses on her way to her nephew’s wedding.

Sure enough, two robbers have awoken and discover the deaths of Markus and other men. As expected, they go on their journey for revenge on Marlina. Much to their luck, the two robbers find the bus that Marlina’s on and hijack it. Marlina is able to find an escape with one of the widow’s horses. The escape is successful but Marlina is not alone. Following her and haunting her is an apparition of the headless Markus playing the jungaa.

This leads to the third act: The Confession. Marlina is far away from any harm in a village where nobody knows her. She decides to stay in the village because it has a police office and she can file her claim of robbery and rape. At the office, the police ask her some personal questions. Some of which appear narrow-minded.  The officer delivers some unpleasant news. Although they accept her claim, they don’t have the funds to purchase rape test equipment. Such funds will require a wait of a month or so. As Marlina is in the village, she stays at a warung. At the warung, she notices the daughter who has to work the business while the boys are at school or playing football. Marlina develops a bond with the young girl. Marlina is able to get a break from the pursuing robbers but is still haunted by the walking headless body of Markus.

This leads to the film’s fourth and final act: The Birth. The start of this act involves Novi. She finally finds Umbu. Instead of embracing her, he notices she has not given birth and believes a breech baby is a sign of her cheating. He hits Novi and leaves her. Unfortunately it’s Franz, one of the two surviving robbers, who finds Novi. He threatens her to lure Marlina back to Marlina’s house for his revenge. As the three meet at the house and face each other, Novi’s water breaks. Nevertheless Franz demands a dinner. There, Franz is able to reunite Markus’ head with his corpse and place it next to the corpse of Marlina’s husband. Franz thinks he can finally get revenge on Marlina and just when he thinks he does, Novi has another idea and is able to commit it despite being in labor. The film ends with Marlina, Novi and the newborn baby leaving the house the next morning.

This film tells a story of a woman on a mission to avoid being prosecuted for the murder she committed in self-defense and at the same time, avoid one of the men who seeks vengeance. The film also tells a lot in terms of sexist attitudes. We have Marlina who killed her rapist and is on the run. We also have Novi, a pregnant woman who was left abandoned by her husband.

Throughout the film, they face sexist attitudes from the men they’re around. There’s Marlina whom the thieves want to make their ‘slave’ in the robbery and Markus who wants to make her his ‘love toy.’ There’s Novi who is pregnant longer than normal and her superstitious husband sees it as her being unfaithful. There is surviving robber Franz who, more than any other robber, seeks revenge and to rape Marlina. There’s the police who give Marlina narrow-minded questions about the rape and, due to lack of funds, have to delay giving her a rape kit. There’s the girl at the village restaurant who is forced to work while the boys have the leisure time to play football. Finally, there’s Umbu who believes myths about delayed pregnancy and breech birth being sighs of infidelity and slaps Novi. Seeing all this happening to Marlina and Novi makes you wonder is that the sexist attitudes in Indonesia? I know there are different sexist beliefs in every country but are there other countries that have similar mythical sexist beliefs? It really makes you wonder. It also makes you understand why taking the law into their own hands was Marlina’s and Novi’s only option.

The film itself does the right thing in making it a story in four acts. The first act is about the robbery where a gang of robbers seek to rob a recent widow of her live stock and one of them to rape her in the heist. They fail thanks to Marlina’s brave wits but that leaves Marlina to seek justice. The second act is where Marlina meets a woman who would become just the partner she will need in the revenge plot, though she wouldn’t know it at the time. The second act is also where she learns of her revenge plot from surviving robber Franz and where she has to make her escape. The third act is where Marlina learns justice can only help her so much and gets her one day of peace knowing that Franz’s revenge is looming. Then the fourth and final act happens as her partner Novi is left by her husband and Franz’s revenge eventually happens. It becomes apparent the only person who can help Marlina is Novi. It also becomes obvious the only person who can be a person of support to Novi is Marlina. The story isn’t just a rape revenge story nor just a story of vigilantism. It’s also about two women betrayed by people that are supposed to support them when they need it. In the end, both turned out to be who the other needed and a bond was formed. It’s a good way of sending a message without losing focus that there is a drama to tell.

This film is a great accomplishment for Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya. This is the third feature length film she has directed. Along with directing, she co-wrote the film with Garin Nugroho and her husband Rama Adi. She does a great job in presenting the story of two women who not only have their enemies to deal with but a society of sexism. It’s great to see her deliver a story with a message of sexism that does not forget that it’s a dramatic story. She balances it out well. Also excellent is the acting of Marsha Timothy. She does a good job of making her character of Marlina a fierce heroine but also a common Indonesian woman at the same time. Making that balance is not easy and Marsha does a great job. Also great is Dea Panendra as Novi. She does her own great job of playing a common Indonesian woman who soon learns of her own brave courage. Yoga Pratama is also very good as Franz. Sometimes you wonder who is the true villain of the film? Markus or Franz? He even manages to make you feel sorry for him.

When it was released back in 2017, the film has won numerous film festival awards such as a special award at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, the Queer Palm at Cannes, the NetPac Award at the Rotterdam Film Fest, the Grand Prize at the Tokyo FilmEX, three awards at the Festival Film Indonesia including Best Film and an Audience Award nominee at the AFI Fest.

Marlina: The Murderer In Four Acts is more than just a drama of revenge killing. It’s also a revealing look at sexist attitudes and the treatment of women that’s common in other parts of the world. If you see their stories, you can understand why Marlina and Novi would make vigilantes of themselves.

VIFF 2024 Review: The Piano Lesson

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Samuel L. Jackson (left) and Ray Fisher (right) are among those that debate the heirloom status of a piano in The Piano Lesson.

You feel that? That’s your family. That’s your blood.

Every year, the VIFF features films that are bound to spark a lot of Oscar buzz. One that I saw is The Piano Lesson. The story and acting are bound to stimulate a lot of buzz this Oscar season.

The film begins during the Fourth-Of-July 1911 in a Mississippi town. As the white residents are celebrating, an African-American resident and a group of his friends are trying to put a piano in a truck. Why? After the fireworks and celebrations, the white residents burn Sutter’s house down and kill the African-American man inside.

The film moves forward to the summer of 1936 right in the middle of the depression. Boy Willie and Lymon have arrived in Pittsburgh and stop at the Doaker Charles household: household of his uncle. Unfortunately, Boy Willie tells sister Berneice about the death of Sutter back in Mississippi. Berneice, who’s recently widowed, is infuriated and demand her brother leave, accusing him of shoving Sutter down a well. Before Boy Willie leaves, he wakes her daughter Maretha as Berneice claims to see Sutter’s ghost.

In the Doaker Charles household, Lymon notices that piano that was saved. It’s not just any piano but engraved on it are the images of Willie’s and Berneice’s ancestors. Ancestors who were enslaved and carved in so they’re never forgotten. On a piano Willie wants to sell to buy Sutter’s land. Land where his ancestors toiled as those slaves engraved on that piano. Doaker Charles insists Berneice won’t comply and Berneice is infuriated with the plan as well as Willie’s prospective buyers list. Despite the fallout, Willie believes he will convince her but as Maretha comes to Willie at the piano, he teaches her a few things. Including the boogie-woogie.

As Wining Boy visits with Doaker, Boy Willie and Lymon return to announce they found a buyer. Not only is Boy Willie told Sutter will cheat him, but pasts and future desires come to light. It’s revealed the story of Lymon and Boy Willie’s terms in prison are exposed. Although they want to buy Sutter’s land, Lymon wants to be up North because of better treatment, but Willie reminds him that despite the North is not as racist, it still exists. As Wining Boy, who made a career as an entertainer, is asked to play the piano, Wining Boy declines feeling being solely as a piano player is nothing but a burden.

The story of the piano is finally told by Doaker. The piano was an anniversary present from Sutter to his wife. The piano was bought in a slave trade and a mother and child were the currency. Over time, Mrs. Sutter missed the slaves and Mr. Sutter had the sold slaves’ husband/father carve their likeness in the piano as he was a carpenter. On that Fourth of July 1911, it was Boy Willie’s father who stole the piano and he was killed by the whites in retaliation. Willie brushes the stories aside as something from the past but as Willie and Lymon try to move the piano to weigh it, Sutter’s ghost is heard. Berneice tries to stop Willie from ‘selling his soul’ but as the two argue, Mareitha is exposed to the ghosts and screams in terror.

The next day, Doaker tells Wining Boy that he saw the ghost of Sutter playing the piano and feels Berneice should discard the ‘cursed’ piano before it can traumatize more of the family. Wining Boy doesn’t agree. After a successful watermelon sale by Willie and Lymon, Wining Boy tries to distract them of their opportunism by selling them is suit and shoes, claiming it attracts women. That same day, Reverend Avery Brown meets with Berneice. He’s been hoping to win her love and tells her she needs to stop hurting over the past, especially her husband’s death. Berenice changes the subject by trying to get Brown to be a reverend and try to get the ghosts out of the house. Instead, Avery tells her by the piano not to be afraid of her family’s spirits. Berneice then tells Rev. Brown the story of the piano. It’s a story that involves her father’s blood and her mother’s tears and she refuses to expose her hurt to all.

Boy Willie returns to the house with Grace: a woman he just hooked up with. An infuriated Berneice demands them out. Just as they leave, Lymon enters. Lymon is disheartened over his feeling he’s not that good at attracting women and confesses his feeling to women to Berneice. Berneice kissed Lymon and is finally comfortable with letting go of her late husband.

The following morning Boy Willie and Lymon are ready to take the piano for selling but Uncle Doaker stops him. Boy Willie confronts Doaker and tells him how he’s determined to sell it. The day of the selling of the piano is inching closer and closer and Willie is excited without caring what Berneice things. That is, until Berneice enters with her late husband’s gun. As Doaker and Rev. Brown see the confrontation, they urge the two to talk it out. Right there, the ghost of Sutter is revealed to all in the house. Rev. Brown tries to pray the ghost out of the house but doesn’t succeed. As Berenice sees this, she then knows she needs to play the piano again as a plea to her ancestors. As she finally play it, the ghost of Sutton disappears and the calm returns to the house. Willie then decides to move back to Mississippi but tells Berenice to keep playing or else he and Sutter will return. Before leaving, Mareitha is given a lesson.

There’s no question the story is about racism. It’s a unique story as it is about one set of family members who are originally from Mississippi, which was a slave state and still faces harsh hostile racism, and another set of family who live in Pittsburgh, which never was a slave state but had its own racism. The story is also about a piano. Carved on the piano are the ancestors of the family. Ancestors who were slaves. One set of the family wants the piano kept because the images of the ancestors maintain a link to the family blood. Others of the family want it sold because it’s an ugly reminder of the slavery their ancestors have endured. Past memories even come to the point images of ghosts of the family are involved. They don’t know how to deal with this. In the meantime, it’s in the middle of the Great Depression where buying the recently-deceased slave owner’s land depends on the sale of the piano.

August Wilson did an excellent job when he wrote this play. The piano lesson isn’t just about a young girl being taught how to play the piano on a family piano. It’s an excellent story about how an African-American family, and their struggle to deal with racism and their family’s horrific past are all encompassed in a single piano. We have Berneice who values the piano. She knows her grandfather carved the family in it, her father died so it can be theirs, but she’s reluctant to play it. There’s Boy Willie who wants to sell the piano so he can buy Sutter’s land. Already there’s a case of the difficulty of dealing with a past of slavery. Berneice considers the piano sacred and a symbol of her family. Boy Willie sees it as a bad memory of slavery and he feels selling it to buy the land his ancestors were enslaved on will be revenge. A case of a brother and sister who don’t know how to deal with the past. Berneice being widowed and having to deal with the ghost of Sutter adds to its theme. It’s right in the moment of the ghost’s presence that both Berneice and Boy Willie have to make resolve both with their family’s past of slavery and the past as a whole.

Those that have seen the play before will be able to understand the film well. The scenes that were added in the film adds to the story and helps those that have never seen the stage play before get a better sense of all that happened in the past. Those that have never seen the play before and may not attend theatre as of may find the story a bit confusing. They may not understand about the piano or the presence of ghosts and even get confused of what genre the film is.

This is the third of three plays of August Wilson Denzel Washington has helped bring to screen. The thing is of the three, this is the film that’s the least fluid and the least together. This is also the first feature length film done by his son Malcolm. Malcolm has mostly directed short films in the past. His lack of experience shows in directing an unsteady adaptation of the play. The adaptation he co-wrote with Virgil Williams who is more experienced at writing is a good adaptation to the screen but its imperfections are noticeable.

One thing that shines biggest in the film is the acting. The best coming from Danielle Deadwyler. She did an excellent job of playing the troubled Berneice who first can’t seem to let go or make resolve with tragedies of the past, but finds it in herself at the end. Her performance was the strongest quality. Also excellent is the performance of John David Washington. He does a great job of playing the character most confused with the situation and what to do with it, and the need to stop having a hard heart. Also excellent is Samuel L. Jackson as the uncle trying to settle the score and try to get Boy Willie to leave his stubbornness behind.. His role as a man caught in the middle of a difficult problem helped add to the film as well. The production design by David Bomba, the costuming from Francine Jamison-Tanchuk and the music from Alexandre Desplat also add to the story and the times.

The Piano Lesson is another ambitious effort to bring August Wilson’s greatest plays to the screen. The film is adapted well but the errors are noticeable. The best thing is the acting is top calibre. Those who watch it will be impressed.

VIFF 2024 Review: Flow (Straume)

Jon The Blogcentric3 Comments
A small dark grey cat (far right) tries to lead animals to shelter after a massive tidal wave in the animated film Flow.

Is it possible to like an animated film with absolutely no human dialogue? The Latvian film Flow attempts to do just that.

For the sake of this film, I will give the animal characters names related to their species. For example, I will refer to the cat as Cat, the main dog in the story as Dog and the capybara as Capybara. The black cat lives on an island in a post-human Earth that is full of animal species. Cat lives his life daily chasing and eating fish, playing with other species and avoiding being chased by wild dogs, predatory birds and a giant whale beneath the river. Cat also makes himself comfortable in one area that was a human home and has statues which appears to make cats God-like. He takes delight in the many things in the house from the bed to the glass balls to the cat drawings.

Then suddenly, a huge tsunami overtakes the area leaving an ocean-like body of water behind without land or a flat surface. Just the roofs of buildings showing through. Cat tries to stay afloat on whatever he can from one of the glass balls to something wooden but soon notices a stray sailboat and a chance for refuge. He tries to jump, but misses and appears to be sucked to the surface of this new ocean. Instead something mysterious carries him up and he’s able to find his way to the back of a whale. Whale is able to float high enough for Cat to make his way on the boat. Finally some refuge.

There’s one problem. The boat also has a capybara, a lemur and a secretary bird. Cat fears for his life but Capybara assures him no one will hurt him. As they sail along with no hope of the water’s subsiding in sight, the animals try to live in the boat the best way they can with no knowledge of how to deal with these changes. The capybara is easily tired, but protective. The lemur takes great interest in the human items in the boat and becomes greedy with them. The bird becomes arrogant. Cat steers the boat but faces competition from other animals, especial Lemur. Then in another boat, they notice a lone Labrador dog. Cat is afraid to have him on board, but the dog is let on board and is warned by Capybara not to mess with Cat.

Over time, Cat becomes friends with Lemur, Bird, Capybara and Dog. Problems still arise, though. As they search for land, Cat gets hungry. Bird helps him find fish but Dog eats it. Lemur gets protective of his possessions. There’s also trying to find land for all of them and fear of Whale capsizing the boat every time he surfaces. One land they spotted was where a flock of elks walked around in a circle, but it was too underwater. Soon land is spotted and Cat gets out, but is met with a flock of secretary birds. Bird comes to his defense and tries to fight the leader. Bird is left weakened by the fight as the other birds fly off and returns with Cat and others to the boat. Cat sees a tall pillar and tries to go to the top with Bird. Soon a great spirit world happens which carries Bird up to the heavens.

The animals must sail on. Soon they notice another stray boat that has four other dogs: Dog’s friends. They are scared on the boat but they are let on. Dog gives his dog friends the warning do not harm cat! Soon the water subsides quickly and land is spotted. Cat jumps out and explores the land. Soon he tries to look for all his friends from the boat. He can’t find them. Even as he sees a group of lemurs, he can’t find Lemur. Then he notices the boat in the branch of a tree in a valley that’s about to fall into the river far below. The water subsided so fast, it left the sailboat stuck in that tree and the other animals unable to get out. Cat comes to the rescue. As each other animal comes out, they try and assist the others before the tree with the boat falls into the river. They succeed, but Dog’s dog friends leave him behind. They have each other. They also notice another problem with the wave subsiding, but it all works out in the end.

Reflecting back on this film, I don’t think this film has a sociopolitical message in it. I’ve seen entertainment of beings on an Earth without humans before. I feel it’s just a story that presents it well with a lot of moments of humor and a lot of moments of wonder. The film possesses two key ingredients for making an animated film work. The first is dazzling graphics. One thing I look for in an animated film is for it to take you to another world or mesmerize you. This film succeeds in delivering mesmerizing images to capture the viewer’s imagination. The world created in this film is a world of mystery and wonder and makes the story.

The second key ingredient in this film is an excellent story. It’s funny that there is no human dialogue — just animal noises — but you get the messages by the animals’ body language to each other and the ways they communicate with their animal sounds. You just have to watch the film itself and you will get the messages very clearly. The story itself appears to be a mesh of the Biblical Noah’s Ark story and the film The Life Of Pi. You can sense those aspects in the story. The story also keeps you wondering what will happen next. Will this world stay mostly underwater? Or will the flood subside? How will the animals live on? You’re left wondering throughout.

This film also got me thinking of how animals are depicted in animation. I’ve seen a lot of animated films and television shows and I can honestly say I have never seen one where animals are 100% with their animal characteristics. You’ll always sense some human characteristics in the characters. I’m sure throughout your childhood, you’ve seen cartoons of talking animals with human movements. Those are the least animal-like in cartoons. Also there have been many where animals still use their animal noises but move and behave in human manner. In this film, the animals all have a good amount of their animal characteristics in them. The more human characteristics all come out at the right times. I could not sense one instance where there was the wrong type of behavior for the characters.

This film is an excellent accomplishment for Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis. All of his previous animated films have been wordless from shorts like Followers and Oasis to his first feature: 2019’s Away. It’s an accomplishment of a film which he not only directs, but he co-wrote with Matiss Kaza, co-produced, co-composed the score with Rihards Zalupe and did the cinematography, art direction and film editing all himself! The film is also a big improvement from his first attempt at a wordless animated feature in Away. Here the story makes better sense and the visuals are as good at telling the story as they are eye catching. If any film should have Disney looking over its shoulder, it’s this film here!

Interesting to note this film is Latvia’s entry in this year’s Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. I find it interesting that under the rules, or lack of such a rule, a film without any human dialogue is allowed to be entered into this category. In the past and when the category was titled Best Foreign Language Film, the category consisted of solid rules like the film had to be in the nation’s national language or have at least some dialogue of it if another language dominates. Will this film lead to revisions in language rules in this Oscar category? Only time will tell. Outside of the Oscars, this film has won many an award and nomination like animated feature awards at film festivals in Guadalajara, Ottawa and Silk Road. It’s also won other film festival awards like Best Picture and the Audience Award in Athens, the Bright Horizons Award in Melbourne and various awards at the Annecy Animated Film Festival. Other noteworthy nominations include Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and European Animated Feature for the upcoming European Film Awards.

Flow is an incredible film and an excellent story. The visuals and the animal interactions do a great job of telling the story for you and the images are a delight to see.

VIFF 2024 Review: Paying For It

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Emily Le and Dan Beirne play a couple who try open love and go in unorthodox directions in the oddball romance Paying For It.

I first took an interest to Paying For It knowing it’s directed by Sook-Yin Lee. I had no clue of what to expect. Boy was I in for a surprise!

Chester Brown and Sonny Lee are a Toronto couple in a tough situation. They’ve had a romantic relationship together for years and do a lot together, but they haven’t had sex in a long time. Both Chester and Sonny come from two different worlds in the arts. Sonny is a video jockey on the music channel Max Music and Chester is an illustrator/author of cartoon books that detail his personal life. Sonny has a few friends at her place of work while Chester frequently meets with his work colleagues from the same writing community and has a close friendship bond with them. Sonny has a lot of success but Chester is struggling to make a name for himself. Chester is quite introverted and keeps to his circle while Sonny’s not afraid to meet new people.

Sonny recommends they try open love. Maybe they were or weren’t meant for each other and maybe they need time away to figure it out. Sonny being famous on national television has no problem finding other men. Chester on the other hand struggles. His author friends warn him jealousy will sink in pretty soon. Chester does become frustrated how Sonny is able to find many a nightly partner. It even reflects in his illustrations. Chester tries an unorthodox route advised from one of his writer friends: prostitutes. Besides, he’s given up on romantic love.

Over time, both find a lot of pleasure from what they get into but they struggle to find the one. Every other man Sonny hitches up with, he’s a great passionate lover but they’re not as fun as Chester and they don’t relate to her as well. Also at work, she learns one of her female colleagues is attracted to her. Meanwhile each prostitute and escort Chester gets involved with involves something complicating or some kind of discomfort. Many are willing to give Chester what he wants that night but most of them completely back off of any commitment. Some even have demands of their own. Despite it all, Chester is finding a quality in this he feels is missing in monogamy.

Simultaneously, both have difficulties and challenges at their own jobs. Sonny had no problem being a VJ while the alternative rock wave of the 90’s was riding high, but the wave has become a ripple and in came the tsunami of boy bands and other teenpop acts Sonny does not like introducing at all. Over time, Chester and his friends question about what’s going on with his many hook-ups and it affects the art for his latest literature. Especially since Chester hasn’t found ‘the one’ and it’s frustrating for him.

Then things change over time. Chester’s writing career and the careers of his writer-colleagues get a boost. Chester also spends the night with an escort who’s her own madam and it changes his life. Sonny, on the other hand, won’t be silent about the frustration with her job and her life, even on live TV. That eventually leads her to be dropped form Max Music. The two eventually reunite during a tragic moment. The death of her dog. It’s as they mourn together they learn they had something so special, no new love of theirs can replace that, even though they have to move on.

The film is about this complicated thing called love. I’m sure a lot of you look at the situation in your relationships and find yourselves asking why can’t we just love? Why do we have to make it complicated? This film itself is about that human fallibility of making love more complicated than it should. In this case, it’s not just creating the freedom of an open relationship but also the types of people both of them date during that time. Then there’s the mix of the two professions that are similar that they’re both in art or entertainment, but very different. Then there’s the talking with friends. The people they most trust to confide into and divulge their personal feelings. Then there are the changes in their lives. Then there are human idiocies and their attitudes. All that is what makes love more complicated than it should be.

Basically this is a story about a relationship that was doomed to end. Chester and Sonny are close, but complicated. The expired birth control should send that message. Eventually Chester and Sonny grew as different people and learned in the end, they were best as friends. Chester may have found a new love with an escort who’s her own madam but his relationship with Sonny made clear he’ll never have a closeness with another that’s the same. Sonny may have found men that were better at making love, but she learned they all made lousy partners. It was Chester who had no problem with her squirt gun or her dog or any of her other oddities. The ending gave a message I have seen often enough where two in a relationship couldn’t succeed as a couple but they could succeed as soul mates.

The film does give a lot of humor and in a lot of ways is somewhat biographical of both Brown and Lee. For those that remember MuchMusic during the 80’s and 90’s, you will remember Sook-Yin Lee as one of the VJ’s in the 1990’s. Yep, Canadian Generation Xer’s like me and early Millennials will have fond memories of her. Those of us who remember her from that and see the film will see the humor in how what’s happening in the film mirrors her own life and will laugh at the humor involved. Those who have read the book Paying For It will know that Brown and Lee were romantically linked and it detailed the complications. The film does some changes with the dates as it has the film taking place as Sonny’s career is bustling while Brown’s is struggling. In real life, Brown started his relationship with Sook-Yin in 1992, before she was signed onto MuchMusic and the relationship ended in 1996 just shortly as Sook-Yin’s MuchMusic fame took off.

This is a great alternative comedy from director Sook Yin-Lee. It is a very personal story to her and she’s able to show the comedy in it in this story she co-wrote with writer Joanne Sarazen. She’s also able to make some of the changes in chronology work for the flow of the film. There were some elements of shock in the film, but the story and settings made the shock humor work. Emily Le is great as Sonny Lee. She’s great at doing the comically side of the story as well as some of the more serious moments. She may not be Sook-Yin’s twin as far as personality goes but she knows how to do it well. Dan Beirne was also great as Chester Brown. I myself never knew Chester or read his works so I’m judging his performance for how well Dan did his role. Beirne was very good at playing an introvert engaging in a sexual activity most introverts wouldn’t normally try and it changes him. His awkward traits made the character and the story. The addition of the other supporting characters like Chester’s writer friends or Sonny’s ‘other men’ also added to the storytelling and the comedy of the film.

Paying For It isn’t just a sex comedy full of sex humor and some shock humor. It’s also quite a smart comedy about a couple that could no longer be but have a special bond. It’s even a comedy that tells about our own idiocies when it comes to love.

VIFF 2024 Review: There, There

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
A young home-care nurse (played by Katie Mattattall) and her elderly patient (played by Marlene Jewell) form an unlikely friendship in There, There.

One thing at the VIFF is that it’s known for showcasing works from various filmmakers from Canada. There, There is the latest film from Nova Scotia director Heather Brown. It tells of an unlikely friendship of two people.

Ruth is an elderly woman living in her small Halifax home. She is doing the best she can to live her life but she is limited in both her physical ability and her mental ability. She does get home care from a young nurse named Shannon. Shannon helps with Ruth through her daily life and even helps her with playing television bingo and getting bread crumbs for Ruth to mix seeds and feed birds. Feeding birds is a favorite past-time of Ruth. Shannon is roommates with her best friend who is a social media influencer. Sometimes Shannon helps with her videos.

Soon, we learn both women are going through difficulties in their lives. For Ruth, her memory has been declining. She sees a doctor concerned she may be developing dementia. She also notices her house has been getting more insects. She buys bug spray from her local store and tapes dead bugs on paper to show the doctor. She fears the bugs are entering her body. She experiences incontinence one day. As for people in her life, Shannon is the only one who visits and the storekeeper appears to be the only other person who talks to her.

As for Shannon, she’s pregnant. Her boyfriend, who has goals of being a race car driver, has abandoned her. Even blocking her communication from social media messages. Despite that, she’s looking to get her boyfriend to face up. She even goes to the racetrack to no avail. She searches for a lawyer to take him to court once the baby is born. Meanwhile her best friend seems to be more focused on social media than on their friendship.

For a while, the two are able to find the time they need to relax. Ruth is able to make her way to the parks or the street areas where she’s able to feed the birds. Despite her pregnancy, Shannon is able to find time for a night out. The two are also helpful to each other in their own ways. There was one time when Shannon was in tears while nursing and Ruth gives her comfort. Shannon also gave Ruth her phone number in case any problems. Then almost simultaneously, everything changed. Ruth found herself stuck in an unknown place and lost in the night. Around that same time, Shannon goes into labor.

Also simultaneously, both women experience the changes in their lives. Ruth is unfit to live alone anymore. Her dementia has gotten so bad, she now has to be in a nursing home. Shannon has given birth to her daughter. For a period of time, the place she lives in becomes a place for three. Both women also learn the new changes in their lives cause them problems. Ruth may get fed, bathed and included in activities of vitality, but she can’t go out of her nursing home to feed the birds like she used to. The doors are securely locked so none of their residents can leave unassisted. As for other belongings, most of hers are now gone and she relies on donations. One donation bag, she finds a baby doll she keeps. For Shannon, her friend moves out of the place because she finds living with someone else’s baby a discomfort for her life. Shannon is still trying to pursue her boyfriend. One time, she goes to a car wash after spotting him in hopes of confronting him and showing him his child.

One day, a ray of hope. Shannon pays a visit to Ruth at the nursing home. They watch a show together. Shannon brought some bread crumbs and is able to take Ruth out to a park to feed the birds. During the visit, Ruth claims no one has visited her in years. Shannon lets her know she’ll be there. The film ends in a quiet moment with both women at their place of rest and symbolizing how they both share a bond.

This is a film of two types of women who would be seen as getting the short ends of the stick. We have a lonely elderly woman in the last years of her life concerned for her physical and mental well-being, but still trying to life as vital of a life she can. We also have a young woman who’s pregnant sooner than she hoped through a boyfriend that ended up to be irresponsible. In what should be a carefree time in her life, she faces a lot of pressures and frustrations and it’s slowly becoming a discomfort for her roommate. I’m sure you may know a woman in either of these situations. Although it’s a case where they are normally supposed to be associated with each other just as nurse and patient, it becomes a lot more over time. Just as the sudden changes happen for both of them, they reunite and it becomes obvious they have a bond between them. The story becomes a case of two lonely Halifax women of different backgrounds finding a type of unity with each other. It’s as much heartwarming as it is heartbreaking.

Some people may dismiss this as a boring film. It’s important to know when you go to a film not knowing what it’s about or just going to a film because it’s available for you to see, you should welcome what you see and judge once it’s over. From how I’ve seen it, this is a story of two women of two backgrounds that are quite common in our society. The story moves slowly but each scene tells a lot of what the two women are dealing with and how they live their lives at any given point of time. For those that have seen this film, you will notice many scenes where there is no dialogue. It’s likely the scenes were meant to do its own storytelling by imagery instead of words. With each scene without dialogue, it does a very good job of telling its story and creating the scene. The film’s mix of using scenes of dialogue and scenes of wordless imagery help in telling the stories of both women, their separate lives and their unique bond.

It’s been said by many that films should not answer everything about the story. It should have the audience asking questions or forming their answers. What the film shows presents a lot. What the film doesn’t show also presents a lot too. After seeing the film, it did leave me with a lot of questions about both Ruth and Shannon. For Ruth, it had me wondering about her past life. It left me wondering was she ever married? Does she have any family of her own, like surviving siblings, nieces or nephews? How come it’s only Shannon and the storekeeper that treat her like she exists? For Shannon, it leaves me wondering about her present and her future. Will she raise her daughter well? What about her own family? Does she not keep in contact with them? Also will she get her boyfriend to face the music? He owes her and the child. This film is very good in getting me to ask a lot of questions.

As is, this is a very good film by Nova Scotia director Heather Young. This is her fourth film and second feature. She presents a good story of two women who would be overlooked in our society but form a bond not just by one being dependent on the other but sharing a closeness that words don’t need to make present. It’s by the actions, by the moments together and even by the time alone. Young also does a smart job of choosing to have non-actors play the two main roles. Having non-actors helped with the performances here. The performance from Marlene Jewell of the elderly Ruth is very good and very believable. A retired nurse herself, she is probably very familiar with women in this type of setting or situation. She plays the part very believably. Katie Mattatall is also excellent in her role as Shannon. I don’t know of her own life but she played the frustrations of a young abandoned pregnant woman very well and very believably. She makes you feel Shannon’s situation.

There, There is a unique story about two different women who develop a special bond. It’s also a story that tells more in its images than its dialogue. That’s the most unique element of the film.

VIFF 2024 Shorts Segment Review: Forum 3

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

Once again, I achieved a VIFF goal when I attended Short Forum 3. This forum of eight shorts is more international and has a wide variety of styles and subject matter.

–Jane’s In The Freezer (USA – dir: Caleb Joye): It’s a quiet day at the pier at the lake in Detroit. A woman who’s just gazing tried to develop conversation. Her name is Jane. The conversation doesn’t last long. She goes to the mall. At one store, she pretends she’s a worker and helps to assist with a customer’s purchases. While at the liquor store, she sees a man she claims is her son and tries to ide herself from him. After he’s gone, she sets up a dating profile on a website and goes to a nearby bar where she hopes to meet someone new. All the young men ignore her or reject her passes.

The main theme of this short film is about loneliness. It’s a common topic nowadays as it seems that it’s at an all-time high thanks to modern technology. In this story, we have a middle-aged woman trying to connect with someone. Anyone. No matter where she goes, she’s either ignored or shunned. She looks for constant opportunities to make some new friends or a new love time and time again and looks like she won’t stop. She also appears like she’s either trying to either hide or recover from a past where she estranged herself from her son. The film succeeds in getting the viewer to feel sorry for her and also wonder what her past was.

–My Dog Is Dead (Japan – dirs: Tasuku Matsunaga and Takehiro Senda): Riko is a young woman in the big city of Tokyo who lives with her boyfriend Yoshiki. Just recently, she received a phone call from her mother that her dog Koppe died. She has to return back to her town. Yoshiki agrees to take her there but views the trip as tedious. She’s quiet but he treats it like a road trip and they frequently squabble over the choice of radio station. At the private memorial service with Riko, her mother and Yoshiki, Riko is in tears but Yoshiki gives her an odd look.

The film is as much about the boyfriend in the relationship as it is about the trip home. Things appear normal in the relationship but that appears to change after Koppe’s death. Riko wants to mourn Koppe one last time but it appears Yoshiki thinks it’s odd. Even that change of radio stations sends a message that maybe he’s not the right boyfriend for her and has an immature side about him. It’s a story that says as much from the images as it does from the dialogue.

–Shoes And Hooves (Hungary – dir: Viktoria Traub): An animated story, pedicurist Paula has been in search for love but has always felt inferior because her upper body is human and her lower body is horse-like. She lives in a world full of full-humans, full-animals and those like her who are half-and-half. One day, she meets an alligator man named Arnold. On the first date, there’s a sense of chemistry between the two, mostly from Arnold, but Paula senses the relationship is doomed.

This is a unique story about self-image and self-acceptance. Paula needs to deal with her insecurities and her desires. With it being an animated film, it tells its story in an array of creative story telling mixed with unique imagery and metamorphosis that only animation can do. It’s as good of a creative story with a message as it is dazzling to watch for the visuals.

–Nemo 1 (Canada – dir: Alberic Aurteneche): The only documentary of the eight films here. The film is shot around the Chittagong Ship Breaking Yards in Chittagong, Bangladesh along the Bay Of Bengal where ‘dead ships’ are scrapped for recycling metal. The film gives a good look as the Nemo 1 ship is the latest ship being scrapped from the various areas being broken to how high above the waters or ground they have to work. Then words from a Bangladeshi writer are shown as images of other older scrapped ships are shown. The film ends with ugly details of this yard.

There is no dialogue or spoken word here as far as the images of the ships. Only the spoken word parts are spoken. This documentary is about the images we see and the accompanying music. We see something so big and something we don’t know if we should find disturbing or not. The inclusion of the spoken word is a philosophical message of what happens if we do wrong. Unfortunately, wrong is happening as the work is deadly and the year cuts safety corners. This documentary has a lot to say and says it in its style.

–Tayal Forest Club (Taiwan – dir: Laha Mebow): In a small Taiwanese town, a teenaged tribal boy named Yukan buys a bottle of wine at the store. He goes with his best friend Watan on a nature trek to the forest and to offer the wine to his ancestors. It’s a good escape from Yukan’s drunken father. They leave the town but not after passing the town drunk. As they go in the forest, they have fun until they learn their wine offering is missing. Within hours, the two find themselves lost in the night. What will happen? Soon a spirit man comes who looks like the town drunkard. Soon they are safe.

This is a good story of two young Taiwanese tribal teens. It’s also a reminder to us of how it’s not just in Canada and the Americas where Indigenous people or tribal peoples face discrimination. It’s a worldwide problem. There you see two teen friends who are misfits just like the other tribal peoples in their town. As they go out in their trek in the wilderness, they learned they forgot their wine offering and end up lost, but they get a connection to the nature that other Taiwanese wouldn’t know. Their tribal connection helps lead them home.

-Chuff Chuff Chuff (dir: Chao Koi Wang): A man from Hong Kong appears to be on a train asleep as the train passes through forest land. He wakes up and sees his home being like it’s inside a train car. He thinks it’s just a dream but the Cantonese-speaking woman reminds him it’s not. What he sees on the TV screen of the view from a train car is really happening.

This is a surprisingly fast film (six minutes). At first you will wonder what this film is about. I’m sure you can’t get the full message after watching a six-minute film. You will need to think about it more after watching. It appears the film is about a case of the common barrier of dreaming and reality and of how it’s not as far apart in this world. The addition of the turtle in the living room floor adds to the concept of the two wanting what’s out of reach.

-Nietzschean Suicide (Iran – dir: Payam Kurdistani): It’s in the 1930’s. The pharmacist, who is expecting his wife to give birth soon, is one who works strictly by the book and won’t play games. When he learns the town midwife is coming to him for a death wish requesting cyanide, he refutes her pleas, declining her fake prescription. Soon his son is born and he’s being sued by a client for agreeing to something ‘Nietzschean.’ He’s now ready to grant the midwife her wish in a unique way.

This is a unique drama as it does capture the cold feelings of the time. The silence adds to the intensity of the situation of the midwife’s death wish and the pharmacist caught between waiting for his son to be born and what he feels is the right thing to do. It keeps the viewer interested in what will happen next and will he give in?

-Darker (USA – dir: Matazi Weathers): Los Angeles is in a dystopian time. A pandemic has taken over and caused people to return to their homes. There’s word of a prison riot that is spiraling out of control. The riot grows to fire and unrest on the streets. At the same time, black insurgents and trans hackers along with their allies promote an uprising.

This film doesn’t exactly have a beginning, middle or end. It looks more like it captures a moment of when all hell breaks loose. Not just any hell. A hell fueled by the anger of racism and other types of discrimination. Images of the riots of 2020 and news stories talking of 1992 give the sense this film is sending a message. If we don’t solve the problem of racism and other forms of discrimination, all hell will break loose again and it will be worse than ever.

And there you go! That’s my look at the eight films as part of VIFF’s Short Forum 3. There was only one Canadian film. There were four Asian films, two American and one European. Most were dramas. There was one documentary and one animated film. All eight films are unique in their own ways and all are very creative.

VIFF 2024 Review: Luther – Never Too Much

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Luther: Never Too Much is an intriguing documentary of Luther Vandross whose music we remember, but we didn’t know the whole story.

I’m sure most of us who were teens from the 80’s or 90’s will remember the music of Luther Vandross. The documentary Luther: Never Too Much is a documentary that showcases the R&B legend’s career but also tell us of personal sides of the singer we never knew.

The film starts by showing Luther performing on stage and then focuses on his childhood. Luther comes across as the type of child which music was born in him. He was born in a housing project in Manhattan to a father who was a former singer and mother who was a nurse. At three, he taught himself how to play piano by ear thanks to having his own record player. At 9 and shortly after the death of his father, the family moved to a rough area of the Bronx. His older sister Patricia sang for the group The Crests, most famous for the hit 16 Candles. His sisters took him to the Apollo theatre to see acts perform for free. For Luther, that was his way of escaping the threat of street life. There, he not only got to see legends perform on stage but he studied the performers, their movements and their singing.

As an adult, music was so much a passion for Luther, he dropped out of college to pursue it. Despite trying to make it in the music business being very tough, Luther was very driven. He led a Patti LaBelle fan club, finally got on stage at the Apollo as part of the group Shades Of Jade, and then formed his own vocal group Listen My Brother. Listen My Brother got to perform on some of the very first Sesame Street episodes! Vandross tried other routes in music such as writing songs for Patti Labelle and the Blue Belles, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Donny Hathaway and Chaka Khan. He also sang back-up for artists like Gary Glitter, David Bowie, Carly Simon, Donna Summer, Sister Sledge and Flack. He would also create jingles for many commercials, including many fast food franchises.

The whole time, many felt Vandross had what it took to make it as a solo singer with his singing and his drive. There were some critics who felt his weight is what kept him from having star potential. The turning point was when in 1980, he was ‘fired’ by Roberta Flack as he was a back-up singer on his album. Flack told him he was too good to be a back-up singer. He deserved better. It’s that move that finally started his drive to make it as a solo singer. The first crack as his singing career started in the summer of 1981 with his album Never Too Much. It went double platinum and the title song hit #1 on Billboard’s R&B chart and #33 on the Hot 100. That would be the situation through the first years of his solo career. His songs would become big hits on the R&B chart but would very rarely hit the Top 40 on the pop chart. The album also helped him achieve his first two Grammy nominations.

Vandross would get more notice in the public eye as he continued to release music over the years. Becoming known as the ‘Velvet Voice,’ his Grammy nominations made him one to watch. His jingle singing would be made fun of by Eddie Murphy in his comedic monologue of singers. Of which, Vandross responded by singing his KFC jingle while Murphy was in the audience. Vandross would also get nasty flack about his weight. His concerts drew huge attendance and his hits started getting bigger on the pop chart despite not making the Top 10. On the negative side, he would get more Grammy nominations and wouldn’t win. His weight was a constant struggle throughout his life and it appeared in the mid-80’s he was finally losing weight. Then in 1986, he drove recklessly with Jimmy Salvemini, a singer he was working with, and his manager brother Larry. The car spun out of control and crashed, killing Larry. Vandross was badly injured, was sued by the Salvemini family, and returned to overeating.

In late-1989, his fortune made a turn for the better. He released a Greatest Hits album co-titled ‘The Best of Love.’ The compilation went triple-platinum and it gave the hit Here And Now that became his first-ever US pop Top 10 hit, peaking at #6. The hit also helped Luther win his first Grammy after nine previous nominations. Further pop success continued with the album Power Of Love in 1991. The album peaked at #7 on pop albums, certified double-platinum, spawned two more Top 10 hits on the pop chart and won two more Grammies. Additional pop success came over the years with two more Top 10 duets with Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey.

Despite all the success, Vandross was still going through a lot of personal problems. He had health problems, continuing struggles with his weight and difficulty confronting his sexuality. The early-90’s saw the rise of hip hop and its eventual revolution with the African American music scene. Vandross’ career soon faded and he would be dropped from Epic records. In the early 2000’s, Vandross made less public appearances and was quietly teaming up with Richard Marx to create what would be his last album: Dance with My Father. The album went double-platinum and the title song went platinum and would win the Grammy for Song Of The Year. Unfortunately a year earlier, he had a stroke that left him bound to a wheelchair and unable to sing. Vandross’ mother accepted the award on his behalf. After two years of struggling with the effects of his stroke and diabetes, he died in 2005 at the age of 53. His funeral was well-attended by legends of R & B like Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder.

This documentary is more than just a common biographical film of a musician. It’s also a good focus at a lot of garbage musicians face in the music business. Luther was an excellent singer, musician and songwriter, but making it in the business was hard. The music business always gives its performers commercial expectations or else they will dropped in favor of a rising star with better selling potential. All too often, talented people get overlooked by singers or performers with better looks. All too often when a record label looks to hire a solo male singer, they expect him to look like a “Prince Charming” or a “Mr. Hot Stuff.”

Luther was the case of person who loved music so much, he was determined to make it whatever way we could. Even as he was frequently shunned because of his weight n the 70’s, his musical work, back-up singing and songwriting ability is what made him be active in the business. Even after he made it, he still faced the difficulty of racism in the music business, pressures from his record label and personal setbacks. His biggest problems were about his weight and his closeted sexuality. In the 80’s and 90’s, he was in the public eye and judged. If he was overweight, he was ridiculed in the press. When he lost weight in the mid-80’s, he was rumored to have AIDS. He would admit in talk shows that food would be his drug or source of solace. As for his sexuality, it was a case back in the 80’s and 90’s that a male singer with a romantic voice couldn’t come out. He had to keep it hidden throughout his life. It’s only after his death it came to light.

The film is as good at showing some of the problems Vandross faced in his music career as it is about his music. It was good at showcasing his many achievements. Many of which, some of his biggest fans wouldn’t have known about. The film is also very good at getting even some of the most personal information about Luther from some of the people Vandross was closest to from musical colleagues to family members. As a musical documentary, it doesn’t offer too much in terms of a new and different way of presenting its story. There are times it feels like the common formula in music documentaries. Also in terms of chronology, I noticed there were times in which some of the musical events in his career weren’t shown in fluid chronology. Whenever the film focused on a particular year, some songs were shown years before their release.

This film is a good achievement from Dawn Porter. Porter is known as a documentarian whose works primarily focus on African American subject matter. It started in 2013 with Gideon’s Army and still continues well. She also has in plans a documentary of the Mandela’s coming up. Here in this documentary, she does an excellent job of presenting a life of a man who loved music and had to make a profession of it however he could and was lucky enough to be a famous singer. She also presents well the personal troubles and difficulties Vandross went through. The documentary of Vandross’ life and career also makes a good lesson to wannabe musicians who want to make a career. The obstacles he went through are common big names in the music business go through and have to overcome. It’s easy to see how so many either don’t make it or get swallowed alive even if they do.

Luther: Never Too Much is an intriguing look at an R&B great that shows the singer’s drive, his fame, and his struggles, both physical and personal. His story is showcased in a format common in music documentaries but it presents its story very well.

VIFF 2024 Review: The Thinking Game

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
The Thinking Game is a documentary that makes understanding A.I. pioneer Demis Hassabis to be as much about trying to understand how A. I. came to be and how it evolved to what we have now.

The topic of A.I. is something to provoke a lot of discussion. Some will regard it as a revolutionary breakthrough in technology. Others see it as a threat that devalues human abilities. The documentary The Thinking Game gives an insight into A.I. as navigated by one of its biggest pioneers.

The film begins with a look at Demis Hassabis: the British CEO of the technology company AlphaGo. It shows of his current working with A.I. and also his intrigue of developing AGI: Artificial General Intelligence. As we learn more about attempts to develop AGI, which is like A.I. but appears closer in developing the feelings similar to that of humans, we are introduced to Hassabis and his intrigue with the human mind. Hassabis was born to a Greek-Cypriot father and a Singaporean-Chinese mother in 1976. He grew up in East London and his above-average intelligence was noticed as he developed a love for chess. Soon he became the second-ranked chess player in the world for his age range and a chess master at 13.

Everything changed one day during a chess tournament he played in. It was a game when he was thirteen that he lost and he was out of the tournament. He was sad about it, but did not leave the playing area. While sitting, it got him thinking of all these people around him still playing and all the brain power going on. It got him thinking of a human’s brain power. Are there any limits to what human thinking can solve? Soon Hassabis bought a computer with his chess winnings and learned programming from books. One day, he won a contest to win a job at a video game company: Bullfrog Productions. Soon he helped with Bullfrog’s work and invented a game of his own: Theme park.

Theme Park became a hit and helped him make enough money to attend Queen’s College at Cambridge. College was difficult because he wanted to study artificial intelligence and he was chastised by the professors about it. He did graduate from Queens College with a Computer Science Tripos. He also went to the University College London where he achieved a PhD in Neuroscience. In between and after his stints at college, he continued his work in video games and programming going from Lionhead Studios to founding his own game studios Elixir. His fascination with the human mind never left him. He felt that through computers, he can create something with artificial intelligence that can even tap into human emotions. Something commonly referred to as Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI.

In 2010, Hassabis and his colleagues Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman created the artificial intelligence laboratory DeepMind. The activity on artificial intelligence at DeepMind started when Hassabis worked ways to get a computer to play old video games from the 1970’s and 1980’s. The AI system was taught nothing of the game and would have to learn by constant play. Over time, the A.I.’s learning system worked and they would master the games. Interest in DeepMind grew and it attracted investors like Elon Musk and would be owned by Google from 2013 to 2014. Then in late-2015, they created AlphaGo: a computerized version of the game Go with A.I. as the opponent. They would soon challenge the world’s highest-ranked Go players to matches and win.

For DeepMind, it was enough to declare victory. For someone like Demis Hassabis, it wasn’t enough. Hassabis has a lot of ambitions on his mind. One of which was protein folding. Solving the problem can help with solving Alzheimer’s, dementia and developing new drugs. Hassabis and his colleagues would create the program AlphaFold to perform the predictions of protein structures. For years, it was all trial and error. As one of the colleagues put it, they were the best in the world at it but they were awful. Then during the pandemic while everyone had to isolate and work at home, the code was cracked. It doesn’t end there for Hassabis as it appears he wants to crack every uncracked code that’s out there.

A.I. and A.G.I. are two things that are admired for what they do and despised for what they do. Through computer technology, they’re able to solve a lot of problems human’s either can’t solve or can’t solve fast enough. Because of that, many people see this as a threat to humanity, especially in terms of employment and the constant automating of jobs. Even Hassabis himself has been both praised for his discoveries and achievements and vilified by some in aiding something that many feel devalues human abilities. There are many people from his co-workers to journalists to his former professors that ask the big question when will it stop? Yet Hassabis comes across as the type who doesn’t want to stop until everything’s all solved.

This film actually spends more time focusing on Hassabis and his accomplishments than on the subjects of A.I. and A.G.I. The film showcases Hassabis as someone who many feel deserves the praise equal to that of other computer technology pioneers like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Sometimes the film shows Hassabis as having acclaim ‘unsung’ compared to the two. The film also shows Hassabis as one of those child geniuses who was able to find a way to make better use of his brain than winning chess tournaments. It does show Hassabis to display a lot of genius traits both in action and personality but it doesn’t show him to be as much of an eccentric like many other famous geniuses.

The film is able to mesh Hassabis’ life story of how he went from a chess prodigy to being on the forefront of A.I. development with the current developments of A.G.I. his current lab. It chronicles his achievements while it also shows how workers in his lab are working to perfect his A.G.I. technologies to match human feelings and emotions. It doesn’t spend a lot of time on the news stories involving his lab and of A.I. research. It also spends a small amount of time on people who feel threatened by the latest wave of A.I. technologies. Especially the actors who went on strike last year. The film does leave out the times Hassabis has focused on the topic of existential risk from A.I. which Hassabis has spoken out and warned against. Hassabis has even stated the risk from extinction from A.I. is as much worthy of concern as nuclear war or another pandemic, but there’s no mention of it in the film here.

It’s interesting that this documentary comes out in the very year Hassabis and his AlphaFold partner John Jumper were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the very protein structure prediction they were experimenting on in this documentary. The documentary does make it interesting how meshing games with work appears to be Demis’ life. He calls chess a good thinking game as a child, does game development as a teenager and young adult, uses A.I. to challenge people at chess, then using A. I. to challenge the world’s best Go players, to using A.I. to work protein structures. It seems like everything Demis has worked on in his lifetime appears to be another ‘thinking game.’ Leaving the film, maybe the film shows that science itself in all of its trials, errors and experimentations has always been a ‘thinking game.’

Director Greg Kohs delivers a documentary some could find intriguing or some could find to be missing information. It does a good job in getting us to see Demis’ achievements in a topic that has many people intrigued in. It can also lead people to scratch their head about what this film is about. Is it about Demis? Is it about A.I. or A.G.I.? Is it about his inventions and contributions? Is it about a person we’re to blame for what threatens us now? Is it even the world through Demis’ eyes? Or even is it about science as a whole with all the many failures before the successes?

The Thinking Game is an ambiguous documentary that is as much about A. I. evolving over the decades as it’s a biographical film of Demis Hassabis. It doesn’t focus too much on the controversies of A.I. Instead it focuses on Demis’ intrigue into A.I. and how it would greatly pave the way to what we have now. Whether it rightly or wrongly glorifies Hassabis, that’s up for the viewer to decide.

VIFF 2024 Review: Balomania

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Balomania is about balloon artistry in Brazil. An art that’s illegal in its country of origin.

Is setting a big artistic stylish balloon in the air a crime? Balomania is a documentary that focuses on the popularity of balloon art in Brazil that is illegal.

The film begins with Danish-Spanish filmmaker Sissel Morell Dargis detailing her move to Brazil at 19. She soon became a graffiti artist and became known popularly as ‘Simba.’ During her first years, she noticed what she thought were stars floating from the favelas of Sao Paulo. Her Brazilian friends told her they’re balloons and they were launched in the air by a secret society called the ‘baloeiros.’

That discovery started a fascination in her of that ‘balloon world’ that still continues to this day. The balloons are the hot air balloons launched without passengers. They come in all sorts of artistic designs. Some include a wide banner hanging from underneath it. Some include hundreds of small burning candles in colored cups whose arranged image adds to the balloon’s allure. Some even include fireworks. These balloons are very expensive to make but those involve with it believe it runs in the blood and is passed from generation to generation. This group of balloon launchers she meets with launches balloons once a week.

This balloon culture is also illegal in Brazil. In the past, it was common for Brazilians to release such artistic balloons in the sky. Then in 1999, the government felt it was happening more often than it should and they criminalized it. The government claims the reasons for these bans on balloons are because of public safety, air flight safety and for environmental issues. Dargis feels there’s something more underlying to it. Possibly classism of peoples.

She meets with the many men involved in this balloon culture and are part of these ‘balloon mafias.’ She meets the artists, the crafters, the launchers, and the catchers who catch the balloon in time so that no one is arrested and will eventually have to relaunch that balloon one day. She meets with those like Zulu, Tron, legend Sergio and young father Jaba. They talk of the balloon works they’ve done in the past. They talk of how expensive it is and how they don’t get paid anything for it. Just the thrill of dazzling people who view them. Jaba talks of how he wants to break the record of the biggest balloon ever launched.

Over the ten years, Sissel films this sub-culture, she showcases the balloons crafted and launched, the catchers who catch and relaunch, and the personal lives of many of those involved. She especially focuses on Jaba as he is a father to a six-year-old son and Jaba’s seen as the future of this balloon group. Sissel also films news stories of how the governments feel they’re not doing enough to stop this and feel the best solution is to toughen the jail sentences to 5-8 years. Sissel also gets opinions from people in Jaba’s favela who speak their mind about it. The favela has divided opinions. Some feel criminalizing this is just an excuse to distract form the real problems of the nation like defeating poverty, drug crime and corruption. Some people do favor the criminalization and see it as a safety threat. We even see one case where a balloon launched in the night burns up in a similar way the Hindenberg burned up. Jaba’s son tries to convince his grandmother that it’s art.

The COVID pandemic hits Brazil. Sissel is reminded her filmmaking of this balloon underworld was a distraction to her main purpose for life in Brazil, which was making video games. Sissel did however create a video game about balloon launchers called Cai Cai Balao. During those years that passed, Sissel wonders if Jaba achieved his goal. Balloon godfather Sergio has died. Jaba left creating and launching balloons for the sake of becoming a responsible father to his son. The project of the balloon of Jaba’s dreams, the biggest balloon ever with half a ton of fireworks, did not die and is carried on by his group. Although he’s not an active member anymore, he is still part of the group. The influence never leaves. We see it being launched in the air successfully with more than a hundred men involved..

I think it’s a common thing that can happen in any nation at any time. Even in the nations with the most freedom. A style of art that the nation’s government feels uneasy about or so much contempt for, they criminalize it. We’ve seen it before in the past with genres of music or literature. Paintings and statues have also come under government scrutiny for centuries. Here in the big cities of Brazil, we have balloon launching. The setting off of these eye-catching balloons. It was done commonly in the 80’s and 90’s but the government criminalized it because it was done too much and fear of safety both in the air and on the ground. If I was a Brazilian politician, I wouldn’t criminalize it, but I would have people who know how to do it properly licensed to do it.

Here in this documentary, it presents the art and those involved through a variety of angles. Since this is about the balloon art, there has to be a lot of scenes of the crafts they launch in the air. It’s part of Brazil’s culture. It’s eye-catching. There’s a set of people who are involved in this and it’s like a whole culture of these baloeiros. It’s an art that costs in the tens of thousands to make and they get paid nothing for it. It’s also the passion for it where you’re still a part of it even after you’re no longer active with it. It’s something these men do sometimes at the expense of family relations. It’s also a source of controversy among the public. Is launching an artistic balloon in the air a crime? Is it worth having these alleged criminals in prison for years? The film also uses news stories, talk from politicians and even debate from citizens about this. One scene I liked is the debate between Jaba’s son and his grandmother who thinks it should be criminalized. She asks him why he thinks it’s art and his response: “Because it’s very beautiful and if it’s beautiful, it’s art.” Smart way of thinking!

This documentary is an accomplishment for Sissel Morell Dargis. It’s natural for a creative person who takes an interest in some topic or some subject to want to do a film about it. This film is ten years of film footage from Dargis of those involved with the craft, those who watch and those who fear it. It succeeds in getting the audience interested in those involved with the craft as it succeeds in dazzling their eyes with the images of the balloons created and launched. It also succeeds in convincing one that the criminalization of this craft is foolish while also presenting the side of those who support the criminalization. Although it appears to side more with those that consider it art, it still tries to let you decide for yourself. It’s no surprise that due to the nature of touching on a craft that’s criminalized, Dargis has to do most of the filming on simple hand-held cameras. The documentary is as intriguing to watch as it is about the filmmaker making her point.

Balomania is an intriguing documentary that shows the art, the artists, the tricks of the trade and the opposition they face. It’s also about the director making the film and making friends along the way. It’s an art documentary that becomes a lot more.