Hot Docs: Friday, May 1

Reviews of screenings from the 2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, Canada.

Jumping in with both feet. It's worth noting that although there's no "official" connection anymore, the b-side website still is covering Hot Docs this year, and their scheduling features are much better than those at the Hot Docs website.

Four NFB Films

Labeled by programmer Sean Farnel as an ode to labour, these four vintage NFB shorts were each striking in thier own way. Paul Tomkowicz: Street-Railway Switchman, a portrait of a soon-to-retire Winnipegger, almost feels like Engels Noir, shot in the dark Winnipeg night in the late 50's. Nails, with a jazzy soundtrack some crate-digger is probably busily sampling right now, is a beautifully choreographed meditation on the production line vs. the craftsman. The Back-Breaking Leaf, following an Ontario tobacco harvest, has a direct cinema feel bringing to mind the work of Richard Leacock. Neat stuff to see. Sort of the other side of a coin to a program presented at the Worldwide Short Film fest last year entitled "Accidentally Funny" (which included several NFB shorts of similar vintage whose earnestness were so over the top they edged into comedy), these shorts feel timelessly elegant.

Nobody Waved Good-Bye (Dir: Don Owen)

A Classic work of Canada's and Toronto's culture, it was a gift to see this on the big screen. Also notable as the first non-documentary screened at Hot Docs, the verité style of this is so true, it actually was treated in some quarters (and won awards)as a documentary when released. A story of youthful disaffection in the homogeneous prosperity of the mythical Toronto the Good, the improvised acting in this film works excellently in nearly every scene.¹ It's raw, unmannered style makes it feel as fresh today as classic works of the Nouvelle Vague. Also worth it to try and spot the local locations. Fun fact: our antihero shoplifts a book in a scene filmed at a Coles on Yonge and Charles Street — just a block away from the Bader theatre it was being screened in! Don Owen, all of twenty-five when he shot this in the early '60's, was in attendance and was a warm presence at the Q & A.

Incident at Restigouche / Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child (Dir: Alanis Obomsawin)

The first of a series of screenings in this year's tribute to Alanis Obomsawin. Leading off with the shorter film, a portrait of an Albertan Métis boy who committed suicide after a life shuffled between foster homes and state institutions. A quiet but powerful indictment of the system's failure to protect this child, the film also humanized (rather than demonized) the generally well-meaning non-native foster parents who were Richard's wards along the way.

Incident at Restigouche traced the story of a clampdown of Micmac fishermen in Québec in the early 80's. Some wonderful period footage, and great interviews with the local subjects powerfully expresses the "Indian viewpoint". The true centrepiece, however, was the interview with the Québec fisheries minister, who, after building his blithe wall of genteel power, has a strip torn off him by Obomsawin — which aroused a round of applause from the film's audience mid-film!

Obviously a quiet-looking exterior holding a powerful voice, I had to duck out before hearing Obomsawin in the Q & A, but look forward to seeing more of her films in the retrospective.

Cat Ladies (Dir: Christie Callan-Jones)

Screening with: Statistics (Dir: Solveig Melkeraaen)

Examining the legend of the "crazy cat lady", this doc followed five self-proclaimed members of the tribe. Varying wildly in age, status, and degree of self-awareness, the movie was generally sympathetic to the characters, but sometimes rode the fine line between laughing with and laughing at — and then sometimes made the laughs turn sour. This was a decent doc, but not earth-shaking.

Its short companion, the Norwegian Statistics, was an enjoyable and humourous look inside a call centre, following veteran employees and a nervous newcomer. Some of the cultural references might have slid by the audience, but it was full of good laughs and well done.

Fig Trees (Dir: John Greyson)

Given that the standard idea of a documentary is to put the "facts on the screen" and to be objective, any doc that upsets arrangement is often viewed with suspicion. And when combined with the structure of an open-ended Art Film that refuses to lay all its cards on the table or connect the dots for the viewers, a doc risks alienating its audience. I left Fig Trees unsure if I liked it at all, and woke up the next morning thinking it was good. Using Gertrude Stein's opera Four Saints in Three Acts as a jumping-off point, this film tosses out strands in all directs as it tells the story of two AIDS activists, in Toronto and South Africa. Although it felt to a certain extent like the director said "I'm fascinated with these five unconnected things, so I'll make a film about them and somehow it'll all make sense!", there are a series of connections to be made between all the strands. Filled with split-screens and playful subtitles, this is also a beautiful movie to look at, and although I'm not particularly an opera fan, there were some nice moments there as well. A bit of a challenge, then, but probably worth it to those who want to try and decode it.

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¹ Also contains a fabulous turn by a young John Vernon, in a small role as a chiseling parking-lot operator.