Hot Docs 2011: May 5 (Thursday)

Reviews of screenings from the 2011 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, Canada.

Vodka Factory (Dir: Jerzy Sladkowski)

In a Russian backwater town a thousand miles from Moscow, it seems like everyone either works at the vodka factory, consumes its products, or both. Whether it's the cause of or escape from broken homes and broken dreams is a general question lurking in the background as we follow Valya around. Valya married too young, had a kid, and is now a single mother who dreams of bigger things — often at the expense of those around her. Prone to suddenly showing up at friends and relatives to drop off her toddler for babysitting, Valya wants to be an actress. She is certainly filled with dreams and strong emotions, even if she can't really express them in rehearsals — or even with her friends. Meanwhile, the possibility of some late-life happiness for her mother could be undercut by Valya's self-centred demands. Not an entirely sympathetic central character, but a good sketch of life is a somewhat bleak town.

Knuckle (Dir: Ian Palmer)

A look inside the secretive world of the Irish Travellers, which just happens to revolve around bare-knuckle boxing matches known as "fair fights". This is seemingly their central cultural preoccupation, so do be warned that there's no shortage here of guys pummelling each other bloody. Filmed over a ten-year span, the movie tracks the interactions of several clans as feuds spark and wan, but mostly centres on James Quinn McDonagh, an occasionally reluctant fighter. The film wonders about the inevitability of the cycle of violence — but also if this ritualized steam-release valve keeps the violence limited to a certain level. This movie plops us into a unique way of life, with fascinating results. And for lovers of spoken language and slang, this film is worth it just to hear the Travellers' gift of the gab and talent for colourful insults.

Housing (Dir: Federica Di Giacomo)

A thoroughly frustrating and uninteresting account of the housing crisis in Bari, Italy. Perhaps some of it is down to cultural/social differences, but the premise, introduced with a single title card, seems so outlandish that a lot of the film is hard to take. In a city that hasn't added any social housing in decades, people are so afraid of losing their apartments to squatters that they are afraid to even leave for groceries — which seems simply absurd. In exploring this, the film follows several people dealing with housing issues, but they're not particularly compelling, which makes the conceptual confusion all the more painful. Some viewers might see this as a cautionary tale about socialism gone too far, with the hand of a secretive bureaucracy controlling people's living arrangements. Plus, as far as I know, the film never explores why the private sector hasn't stepped in to fill the demand. It just all kind of dragged along, and there was a steady trickle of people getting up and leaving during this screening. Eventually, I joined them, so I don't know — and don't care — how it ended.

Timothy Findley: Anatomy of a Writer (Dir: Terence Macartney-Filgate)

Part of the Outstanding Achievement Award Retrospective programme honouring Terence Macartney-Filgate, which contained less titles than usual this year. A portrait of Canadian author Timothy "Tiff" Findley that managed to relate his personality and life story while also focusing on his creative method. Findley, who came to writing via a stage career, is a natural on camera, a spirited bon vivant as he rambles around his rural Ontario property. And in exploring his working methods and how his character-based writing develops through numerous drafts, the film switches from a traditional documentary mode to show actors (including no less than William Hutt) deliver a scene that Findley is working on in several different ways as the author writes and re-writes to get to the heart of the material. A sheer joy to watch.

Screened with Up Against the System (also dir: Terence Macartney-Filgate), part of an NFB series focusing on social issues, investigating the plight of the poor in the welfare system in 1969. Stylistically quite different than its companion piece, this features gritty interviews with the underclass. Most striking is the extent to which it felt pretty contemporary today, in the problems faced by those in poverty as well as the pitfalls of the "welfare system".

Vinyl (Dir: Alan Zweig)

The first of Zweig's "mirror trilogy", at one level this is fascinating to watch to see Zweig stumbling onto his trademark method. Turning the camera onto himself for a series of soul-baring confessionals put him at the same level as the subjects he presents with some probing questions. And while the subsequent I, Curmudgeon and Lovable focus more on abstract ideas, all of that emotional stuff is very much in evidence as this movie examines a very specific form of commodity-fetishism. Obsessive record-buying isn't just about the music, and Zweig talks to a series of collectors who display varying levels of awareness of that fact. Honest and perhaps scarring for some like-minded people who might be drawn to it, this is also a thoroughly hilarious film. Excellent stuff. Plus, besides being an engaging subject as always in the Q&A session Zweig provided perhaps the festival's best added value by bringing along a box of old records to give away after the show.