It's TEA TIME with THOMAS ZACHARY TOLES, The Film Corner's All New Columnist: Draw up thine comfy chairs for some High Tea at Oxford University, as Rhodes Scholar, young Master Thomas Zachary Toles gives BREAKING BAD a jolly good thrashing.

If you require a better view of Thomas and his illustrious credentials, please click on the friendly masthead just above.

Walter White Privilege: Facile Empathy in Breaking Bad

By Film Corner Tea Time Columnist THOMAS ZACHARY TOLES

Given that Better Call Saul, the spin-off of Vince Gilligan’s universally acclaimed Breaking Bad has placed its first record-breaking season six-feet-under (in slavering anticipation of the second season, ordered by AMC before Season One even aired), it’s high time for a critical reexamination of the series that started it all, a show that pretends to test the limits of our empathy while rewarding its viewers for lazily aligning with a singular, dominant perspective.

Let us examine what is broken and bad with Breaking Bad.

"Let's just blow EVERYBODY the fuck away!"

Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an overqualified chemistry teacher with an ego, is driven to meth dealing and murder by the onset of lung cancer. He hopes to earn enough to cover his exorbitant treatment costs and posthumously bequeath a large sum for his family. The apparent premise of the show is: to what extent can this ordinary man justify his increasingly immoral behaviour with ostensibly compassionate motives? How long will the viewer’s allegiance to Walt last before siding with him becomes impossible?

Breaking Bad’s great fault, however, is that it creates a warped world in which there is effectively no human alternative to Walt. He is the cleverest, coolest, most compelling person in the show, unquestionably a better meth cook than any Hispanic cartel member who preceded him. The genius middle-class white man with crazed ambition (the American dream!) is glorified in his corruption while the devastating effects of meth addiction on impoverished communities are only shown once or twice in the entire series. Walter White is “Whiteman,” America’s presiding figure--a superhero of narcissistic greed.

The emotional consequences of Walt’s actions on his family and other major characters are deceptively insubstantial. The wronged family includes his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn), a character so unsympathetic to most fans that desperately cheating on her lying drug-dealer husband was widely deemed unforgivable. Then there are his children: Walt Jr. (RJ MItte), whose primary arc consists of driving lessons and breakfast consumption, and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich), a baby forgotten as frequently by the show’s writers as Maggie is by Homer Simpson.

Skyler is a controversial case because, as Erin Gloria Ryan (writer and managing editor of JEZEBEL) argued, fan hatred for her was due to misogyny, despite the show’s loud assertions of her blamelessness. I counter that her blamelessness reflects Gilligan’s inability to imagine a rich inner life for the character. Skyler’s existence separate from Walt’s endeavours, and her pain, become increasingly vague as the show takes Walt’s continuing survival as its central concern. Walt also causes anguish for Jesse (Aaron Paul), his partner-in-crime, but Walt’s final sacrifice for Jesse allows the older man’s manipulations to be overshadowed by the real villains of the show.

Breaking Bad ends by establishing a ludicrous dichotomy between Walt (a human with flaws--like us) and the fantasy of truly evil people (neo-Nazis) who, unlike Walt, don’t have their reasons. Walt confesses his selfishness (self-awareness achieved!) and redeems himself by vanquishing actual, uncomplicated evil and rescuing Jesse.

Walter White and Edward Hyde: Happy Bedfellows!

For the show’s legions of viewers, Walt has been a surrogate Mr. Hyde, allowing us to tacitly revel in his immorality from the safety of our couches. Breaking Bad relies on the seductive illusion that our dark sides can be outsourced to Walt, vicariously embraced, and then neutralized with Walt’s death and his accompanying self-awareness (that we are invited to share).

Gilligan expresses his desire to redeem Walt and provide a satisfying, palatable ending in his comments on a possible alternate ending in which Walt shoots up a jail to free Jesse:

“[W]e kept asking ourselves, ‘Well, how bad is Walt going to be at the end here? Is he going to kill a bunch of upstanding, law-abiding jail guards? What the hell kind of ending is that?’”

Gilligan wants closure and gratification for his audience; he does not want to leave them frustrated or confused. Walt’s redemption purges the viewer’s guilt for fetishizing him, tying up the show’s loose ends on a chilling note of admiration.

Fiction has the power to vividly portray disorder and ambiguity, in ways that may help us reach a wider, more empathetic outlook. Yet Breaking Bad rewards its viewers for lionizing its slick, troubled protagonist, not challenging us to peer at the peripheral figures beyond him.

Countless Americans are indifferent to the commonplace killings of unarmed people of colour by police officers—proclaiming that Mike Brown, Miriam Carey, Eric Garner, and many others just shouldn’t have broken the law. Undoubtedly, many of these same Americans readily accepted Walt’s violent criminality.

Breaking Bad dangerously inhibits empathy for real-life abuses of power because it predominantly asks its viewers to identify with the one character with both authority and explicit motives. Walt is a complex figure surrounded by stereotypes like Tuco’s homicidal cousins, whose non-existent personalities are only justified by their brutish foreignness.

Breaking Bad encourages empathy for yet another white authority figure (who kills, like Darren Wilson or George Zimmerman, when he “fears for his life”), while disregarding the humanity of those less powerful than he.

A narrow vision, indeed.

Breaking Bad is available in Canada by clicking HEREand in the United States of America by clicking HEREand in the Jolly Old United Kingdom by clicking HERE The first 10 episodes of Season One of Better Call Saul premiered on AMC on February 8, 2015.

All photo collages by GJK

THE TIME THAT REMAINS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - In light of the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel, it's as good a time as any to take a look at Elia Suleiman's personal epic journey throughout the history of Israel from 1948 until 2009. Blending humour, tragedy, unconventional narrative and cinematic poetry, Suleiman creates one of the great new films of this millennium. It inspires tears, laughter and thought. One hopes it will inspire change.

The Time That Remains (2009)
Dir. Elia Suleiman
Starring: Elia Suleiman, Saleh Bakri, Samar Qudha Tamus, Shafika Bajiali

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I was initially unable to put my finger on it, but I knew there was something quite perfect about Elia Suleiman’s The Time That Remains.

It became abundantly clear during an extraordinary scene where a group of Palestinian children are sitting in a dark classroom within the confines of an Israeli-colonized Arab School as their wide-eyes are utterly transfixed upon the flickering images emanating from a rickety 16mm projector. The pieces of time dancing before them, projected onto a tiny screen, yet retaining a scope bigger than life itself are none other than the sprawling spectacle of the Stanley Kubrick-directed epic Spartacus – Hollywood’s ultimate big-screen allegory of Zionism.

It is this scene that precisely defines the perfection of Suleiman’s great film for a number of reasons. First of all, the scene flawlessly demonstrates the differences in cinematic approaches to the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Spartacus is, of course allegorical and an epic tale of subjugation presented with all that money can buy. The Time That Remains is also an epic, but with comparatively meagre resources. It focuses, not on spectacle, but on the smaller, more confined details of humanity in the realm of subjugation; an epic and indeed episodic examination of big ideas, bigger conflicts and the biggest need for peace betwixt both entities.

Secondly, the scene demonstrates the perfection of Suleiman’s delicate, poetic and quiet approach to the subject, in direct contrast to the violent, spectacular bombast of Kubrick’s picture which, in fairness to Kubrick is an exquisitely directed gun-for-hire job and not the personal, poetic, from-the-heart and primarily autobiographical approach that Suleiman takes. That said, Suleiman shares with Kubrick that magnificent stylistic approach to the tableau – finding just the right composition and holding on it.

Thirdly, the scene expresses the notion that all cinema, no matter what side of the political fence it sits on, is rooted firmly in some form or another of a perspective that is almost always propagandistic in nature. The Time That Remains takes a side and sticks to it in a black and white manner with an occasional splash of grey in order to present its tale of subjugation with an equal mixture of sadness and humour.

Set against the backdrop of the city of Nazareth, the film charts the life of a simple, loving Palestinian family during the formation of Israel from 1948 to the present day and is delivered to us in a number of different time periods. Based on his father’s diaries and his own recollections, Suleiman presents the lives of his family, friends and neighbourhood and examines the absurdity and injustice of people being forced to live as strangers in their own land. In fact, the Palestinians who choose to remain in Nazareth instead of being exiled are categorized by their oppressors – not as Palestinians, but as Israeli-Arabs.

Suleiman presents all of this with a strange mixture of humour and tragedy. In one scene – which is as beautiful as it is bizarre – the same group of children described above are seen proudly singing a rousing, pro-Israeli song in Hebrew on a national holiday while a group of adults look on proudly. In yet another, a group of young Palestinian men sit outside a café in the blazing sun and watch with a poker-faced bemusement as a soldier runs back and forth, occasionally asking which way he should go to the battlefield and when told which way to go, he argues that it must be the wrong way – especially since the sounds of battle seem to be coming from every which way.

Another great scene blending the deepest black humour and tragedy involves Israeli soldiers decked out in Arab gear and marching along the street when a Palestinian woman congratulates them on their victory. She receives a bullet to the head for her salutations in a shocking, deadpan, horrific and mordantly funny manner – recalling that famous moment in (of all movies) Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones casually blows away the sword-wielding turban-adorned bad guy. Suleiman is clearly recapturing the "spirit" of Spielberg's colonial-tinged fantasy, forcing us to laugh and almost just as quickly, forcing us to confront our laughter.

Since Suleiman’s film spans several different periods and doesn’t follow (on the surface) the traditional and comfortable storytelling checkpoints, it’s not an easy movie to describe in terms of plot, but in a nutshell – it is a story that begins with resistance to subjugation, moves through to acceptance of subjugation and ends up in a seemingly ambiguous place of “Where am I?”

While the movie feels unconventional, Suleiman does indeed adhere to the principles of basic storytelling with a three act (or, if you will, three movement) structure, but cleverly masks it to create the feeling that with the passage of time, not much changes. In spite of this, he reminds us that things DO change, but the changes are incremental, subtle and so tiny that one is confronted with the horrifying reality that full-on change could take an eternity, if at all..

The primary reason for this overwhelming sense of the unconventional is that Suleiman establishes a rhythm and structure early on in the film and adheres to it passionately – one that involves the repetition of certain actions and situations – the funniest being one in which the family’s neighbour, a mad old gent, unsuccessfully and repeatedly attempts to immolate himself, dousing himself with kerosene and lighting his match improperly, and upon subsequent tries is continually talked out of it by Suleiman’s father.

As a character in the film, we also follow Suleiman who, in the early portions casts some extraordinary look-alikes to play himself in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood before taking over the role proper in the latter sections of the film. Suleiman and his surrogates continue his silent Keaton-like poker face from earlier films to especially powerful effect in this new picture.

Many have commented on Suleiman’s debt to the likes of Keaton, Harry Langdon and Jacques Tati and while I will not quarrel with this, I also feel strongly that he infuses his work and performance with the same sublime qualities so prevalent in the best work of Chaplin. The Time That Remains has several moments that come close to matching the incredible emotional wallop of Chaplin’s final smile at the end of City Lights.

It is, I think Suleiman's mastery of all the elements needed to create one indelible and sublime sequence after another that makes watching this film such a breathless and awe-inspiring experience. The Time That Remains is most probably a masterpiece.

Time, and in particular, that which remains, will, as always, be the ultimate judge.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

THE TIME THAT REMAINS AND OTHER FILMS BY ELIA SULEIMAN ARE AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY. FEEL FREE TO ORDER BY CLICKING DIRECTLY ON THE LINKS BELOW AND, IN SO DOING, CONTRIBUTE TO THE ONGOING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER.

In CANADA - BUY The Time That Remains HERE, eh!

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HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Genuine Big Screen Version

Here's a terrific wifflegif.com rendering of the immortal Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown for thine pleasure

Le ART film du Miley
Hannah Montana - Le Film

Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
Dir. Peter Chelsom
Starring: Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Emily Osment, Jason Earles, Peter Gunn

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When a middle-aged man wanders alone into a theatre full of 8-year-old girls and their Moms, then plops down front row centre, is it fair to automatically assume he is a child molester? What if this gentleman grew up in a simpler age when the likes of scrumptious childstar Hayley Mills delighted not only little girls and their mothers, but little boys as well? Though a lad couldn't admit he loved Hayley Mills, it was assumed his mates were equally enamoured with the sweet-faced star of Pollyanna.


Alas, whenever I walked alone into a theatre showing the likes of The Lizzie McGuire Movie or the Lindsay Lohan remake of Freaky Friday, the looks of disdain I'd receive from the mothers in the audience gave me a taste of what it must feel like to be of any non-caucasian racial persuasion walking into a Ku Klux Klan rally (only not quite as dangerous in spite of similar glares of hatred). This happens less now that I am usually accompanied by my own daughter to such extravaganzas, but I did initially find myself alone during an opening weekend theatrical screening of Hannah Montana: The Movie and once again I received the wary glares of Moms which said, loud and clear: “CHILD MOLESTER!”

It was, of course worth it, because I enjoyed myself very much. Having subsequently had the pleasure of watching every extant episode of the Disney series Hannah Montana on DVD (with my daughter, of course), followed by a few too many screenings of Hannah Montana: The Movie on Blu-Ray (with my daughter, of course), I recall that halcyon first theatrical screening of the big screen rendering of Miley Cyrus's Hannah Montana picture wherein she became my favourite contemporary child star.

The title character – much like Superman – bore two identities. By day, she was normal kid Miley Stewart, but by night she became pop music sensation Hannah Montana. Somehow, by merely donning a different-coloured wig, nobody – including characters who should know better - could seem to cotton on to the truth. Well, it worked for Clark Kent with a suit, tie and ultra-nerdy spectacles, so why not Miley/Hannah?

In the big screen version of Hannah’s adventures, her widowed Dad and manager Robby Ray Stewart (Miley’s real-life Dad, country singing sensation Billy Ray “Achy Breaky Heart” Cyrus) is concerned that his daughter needs a break from her hectic life as a pop sensation. Miley's wildly erratic behaviour (a far cry from Cyrus's real-life shenanigans these days) includes a public catfight with Tyra Banks over a pair of shoes in a swanky shop and an unexpected rift with her best friend Lily (Emily Osment).

Wise Dad brings his daughter back to their idyllic family farm in the sleepy White Trash hamlet of Crowley Corners, Tennessee. It is here where Miley finds herself re-connecting with childhood sweetheart Jackson Stewart (hunky, drool-inspiring Jason Earles), a whole passel of (no-doubt inbred) family and the simple joys of country life. Threatening her happiness is the muckraking celebrity journalist Oswald Granger (Peter Gunn) who is on to the Miley/Hannah ruse and is about to expose her to the world. As well, Crowley Corners is facing destruction at the hands of evil developers and only Miley/Hannah can save it.

Does everything work out happily? Well, it’s probably not a spoiler to say that it does.

Why wouldn’t it?

This amiable, pleasant and wholesome family entertainment with its picture postcard photography was subject to derision from pretentious critics, but the fact remains that the movie itself proved to be extremely engaging. Not only was it everything one would want to occupy the attention spans of kids, but it also fulfilled the very necessary function of promoting family values of the highest order. Miley’s Dad, for example, is a single parent, but not because of divorce, but because her Mom died. This is so much more palatable than parents who are too selfish and immature to put their kids first.

Miley Cyrus herself is terrific. In addition to being a talented comic actress, she’s got a great voice and truly shines during her musical numbers. She also proves that she’s got the right stuff to be a romantic lead. Daddy Billy Ray is an actor of – to put it mildly – limited range, but he’s perfectly pleasant in a down-home-corn-pone way.

The movie also features a musical number that rivals (I kid you not!) Luis Bunuel in the surrealism sweepstakes – a barn dance replete with step dancing AND (I kid you not!!) hip-hop moves and set to the song (I kid you not!!!) “Hoedown Throwdown”.

To this day, I am unable to shake myself of the lyrics:

Pop it, lock it, Polka dot it,
Countrify, then,
Hip-hop it!

I believe the aforementioned poetry will be etched on my mind until my last breath.

What makes the big-screen version a winner, is that it cleverly delivers a stand-alone movie that requires no prior exposure to the series. HOWEVER, once watching the series (yes, I must admit this to myself sometimes, if not the rest of the world), it's obvious how the same-said theatrical version provides oodles of connections for all those familiar with the TV show. More importantly, the film's makers realized that one needed to adhere to the heart and soul of the series, but ALSO up the ante with a whole new location, some new characters and also infuse the whole affair with the sort of big-screen scope that makes you feel like you're watching a bonafide theatrical motion picture as opposed to an overlong episode of the TV show.

Walt Disney’s Blu-Ray release of the feature film is a dream-come-true. It includes a gorgeous Blu-Ray transfer that captures the Tennessee locations and Miley’s exquisite, milky skin with equal perfection. There are deleted scenes and bloopers hosted by the amiable director Peter Chelsom (who, without talking down, manages a very kid-friendly approach to the material), several music videos, the usual making-of shtick and an equally kid-friendly commentary track from the aforementioned director. The cherry on this sundae of extra features is a how-to video on the utterly insane Hoedown Throwdown dance. My child loves it (and no doubt yours will too). What awaits are hours, days, weeks, months and – God forbid! – years of pleasure dancing along to this feature. In addition to the Blu-Ray disc, the deluxe edition also includes a DVD disc for portable players so your kid doesn’t scratch the Blu-Ray all to hell and – God Bless! – a disc that creates a high-resolution digital copy for iTunes, iPods and/or iPhones. It’s a great package!

If you’re not eight years old or a Mom or a middle aged man who loves Miley Cyrus, the likelihood of you enjoying this movie is considerably lower than that of a Muslim extremist wholeheartedly accepting Zionism. So do please enjoy.

Or not!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Hannah Montana – The Movie is available on Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER ANYTHING FROM AMAZON BY USING THE LINKS ABOVE OR BELOW. CLICKING ON THEM AND THEN CLICKING THROUGH TO ANYTHING WILL ALLOW YOU TO ORDER AND IN SO DOING, SUPPORT THE ONGING MAINTENANCE OF THE FILM CORNER. BUY MOVIES HERE FOR SOMEONE YOU LOVE! OR HELL, BE SELFISH, AND BUY THEM JUST FOR YOURSELF

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IT CAME FROM KUCHAR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Terrific Documentary about the Kuchar Bros is a MUST-SEE! Don't miss it in anticipation of TO BE TAKEI, a new film by Jennifer M. Kroot, the superb American documentary filmmaker who provided this lovely film biography on the Kuchar Brothers and in turn, delivered a lovely portrait of Star Trek's "Mr. Sulu" opening August 22, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox via Anchor Bay Entertainment

NOTE: The Film Corner's Star Ratings will now appear at the end of the review.

In anticipation of TO BE TAKEI, a new film by Jennifer M. Kroot, the superb American documentary filmmaker who studied under the late, great and legendary avant-garde filmmaker George Kuchar at the San Francisco Art institute, I am presenting this all-new rewrite of my first review of her brilliant first feature IT CAME FROM KUCHAR which I filed five years ago. A lovely portrait of the man we all know and love as navigator Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series and the six classic feature film spin-offs, TO BE TAKEI just enjoyed two sellout screenings at the famed FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal and will be opening theatrically in Canada at TIFF Bell Lightbox on August 22, 2014 followed by a DVD release from Anchor Bay Entertainment via Starz Digital. In the meantime, read about Kroot's magnificent tribute to a pair of filmmakers whose influence changed the shape of independent cinema and, given that it's the kind of film portrait that any artist would die to get should give you some idea of what you, the movie-goer have to expect with TO BE TAKEI. (I suspect Mr. Takei feels as blessed to have Kroot as his film biographer as the Kuchar Brothers.)

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It Came From Kuchar (2009)
dir. Jennifer M. Kroot
Starring: George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar, John Waters, Bill Griffith, Buck Henry, B. Ruby Rich, Wayne Wang, Guy Maddin, Christopher Coppola and Atom Egoyan.

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Whenever I asked young filmmakers whose work they adored or what they thought was especially cool, I'd get the same pathetic responses: Christopher ("One Idea") Nolan, Wes ("Geek Chic") Anderson, Quentin ("I finally made a genuinely Great movie") Tarantino and, God Help Us, George ("I used to make cool movies before Star Wars") Lucas. (All parenthetical slags mine.) On rare occasions, I'd breathe a sigh of relief whenever someone mentioned David Lynch.

However, when I'd mention the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Waters, The Brothers Quay, Jan Svankmajer, Ulrich Seidl or Doris Wishman, their faces became as blank as a sheet of Kinkos/FedEx paper waiting to be fed into a copier. Granted, I'd almost forgive the upcoming generation of cinema-belching Philistines when they'd scratch their ignoramus noggins at legendary names like Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas, Bruce Conner or Hollis Frampton, but most disturbing to me was seeing their faces dissipate into some sort of optical effect of nothingness that reminded me of Claude Rains transforming into The Invisible Man when I mentioned the coolest of them all, the Kuchar Brothers (George and Mike).

This was and still is truly depressing. The Kuchar Brothers are as important to cinema as any genius iconoclasts like Dovzhenko, Eisenstein, Welles, Corman, Altman, Kubrick, Fellini, Pasolini, Bunuel, Bergman and among many others, yes, even Quentin Tarantino (post Pulp Fiction, of course).

And guess what? The Kuchars aren't only important, they're cool.

At the risk of sounding like my father, my generation fed gluttonously at the buffet of cool movies because we wanted to make movies that were as cool, if not cooler than those that came before us. Most importantly, we learned things that could become springboards for our own ambitions - not just from the very recent past, but from over the entire breadth of cinema. And I reiterate, the coolest of the cool were George and Mike Kuchar.

And, Thank Christ Almighty (or whatever deity strikes your fancy), because someone has finally enshrined these cool cats in a feature length tribute worthy of their status, genius and historical importance in the development of cinema.

It Came From Kuchar is a finely honed and entertaining documentary that also carries with it a considerable degree of import to burgeoning (and even seasoned) filmmakers as well as cineastes. Some documentaries are important for content, some for form, and yet others for both. The fact that this documentary focuses so winningly (in form and content) upon the brothers' work, their influences (and influence over other filmmakers), plus their remarkable personal lives, is more than enough to make this a must-see motion picture.

Such is the filmmaking dexterity of the doc's director Jennifer M. Kroot. Granted, she is one of the converted, having been George Kuchar's student at the San Francisco Art institute where he became her mentor. As such, this paid off in spades. Kroot learned from the Master well and in turn painted both a loving portrait and a movie with a strong narrative support beam that draws audiences magnetically to its subjects.

At first, the movie simply, seamlessly and amusingly places the Kuchars within the context of 20th century cinema. Through a series of introductory interviews with the likes of Buck Henry, Atom Egoyan, John Waters and Guy Maddin - interviews that are copiously infused with accolades of the most laudatory kind from said filmmakers - we see how some of the world's most important directors love, respect and have been deeply affected as artists by the Kuchars.

In addition to this, the picture also delivers a nice taste of what influenced the Kuchars themselves. Mike Kuchar talks about how they adored going to the movies in the 50s and he describes movie theatres as "temples" which, of course, they were. This was long before the age of the multiplex - where one could be sitting in a packed-to-the-rafters picture palace (which always boasted hundreds, and sometimes thousands of seats). The movies the Kuchars adored were garishly colour-dappled melodramas by the likes of Douglas Sirk and overblown Hollywood star-turns by Liz Taylor in Butterfield 8.

Kroot also wisely focuses on introducing us to the underground cinema scene of the early 60s where in contrast to the picture palaces, young hipsters patronized tiny hole-in-the-wall joints like "The Bridge" in New York City to groove on ultra low budget experimental works. Many of the projects were super-cerebral and contrasted the narrative qualities and huge entertainment value inherent in the works of the Kuchar Brothers.

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I especially love the simple, direct way Kroot juxtaposes the films of the Kuchar Brothers with the blockbuster soap operatic features they loved. Seeing samples from The Craven Sluck or The Devil's Cleavage up against the lofty Kuchar influences like Imitation of Life is what demonstrates how much they loved movies. This for me, is one of the things I personally always loved about the Kuchars - their devotion to motion pictures amounted to deity worship.

They were also always funny, but their own perverse renderings of the likes of Liz Taylor did not fall into oft-despicable spoofs or even parody - the pictures they made had a satiric edge wherein they overplayed the conventions of melodramatic mainstream cinema, yet did so not to mock the movies, but to expose innumerable truths found in everyday human behaviour and relationships by using the movies they loved as starting blocks to render their own unique cinematic style.

What is so astounding about the work of the Kuchar Brothers is that for all the lurid details, the shock value, the intensely overblown melodrama, the cult-ish qualities, these movies are so uncommonly personal that they are often extremely moving. One alternates between laughing and crying, inspired by force one seldom sees in avant-garde cinema (and, frankly, cinema period). The Kuchars managed a magical blend of the grotesque with heartbreakingly emotional truths again and again and yet, again.

These guys are true Masters.

These guys are the real thing!

And they're so cool they're beyond cool.

And certainly, one of the many things I love about Kroot's documentary is seeing and hearing how the Kuchar Brothers' love of melodrama contributed to their exclusive voice, which in turn inspired a whole new generation of filmmakers. When I hear Guy Maddin waxing eloquent about George's use of makeup - especially on women - wherein their eyebrows are ludicrously inflated to look like "chocolate bars", I can only smile and recall Guy's own unflagging boldness in applying raccoon-eye makeup to all his female characters. Guy also cites the "aggressively stylized voices" of the actors, which Guy also brings to his work - or rather, he insists upon stylized vocal delivery, but in his own predilection for all that is repressed and muted. John Waters, of course, took the Kuchars' notion of aggressive vocal stylization completely to heart. That said, the Kuchars' ripe dialogue played a huge part in this and both Maddin and Waters picked up that particular torch and ran with it.

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In the film, we learn that the Kuchar Brothers were born in New York City at Bellevue Hospital, which as George notes, is renowned as the hospital where 50s/60s heart-throb Tab Hunter was also born, and most notably as a hospital devoted to treating the insane. A few years later, the Kuchar family moved to the Bronx - a neighbourhood of blasted-out empty buildings and endless vacant lots. This is where George and Mike (twins, though neither knows if they are identical or fraternal) really discovered themselves. They loved the Bronx and using their bountiful imaginations, they turned this seemingly grotesque world of the abandoned into a veritable paradise - Disneyland for the sons of working class Eastern Europeans.

Their Dad was a handsome, rough and tough truck driver of Hungarian descent and Mom was a gentle, supportive book binder of Ukrainian descent. Dad had an eye for the ladies, or as George says in the doc, he was "very carnal". This resulted in continual friction, but the boys dismiss it as typical family squabbling. I was especially fond of George's recollections of how his own Dad eventually came around to partially accepting their love of filmmaking when the boys started putting lots of nudity in the work. Dad, as it turns out, was an avid collector of "Red Reels" (8mm porno films for home consumption) and he fervently encouraged the boys. Gotta love it when fathers and sons find common ground. That said, George drew a line at refusing his Dad's request for some private porn requests.

Very few stones are left unturned in Kroot's documentary. We get generous footage and background on George's work as a film professor and mentor at the San Francisco Art Institute, a tremendously moving section on George's creative and romantic relationship with the late filmmaker Curt McDowell (Thundercrack), some wonderful early recollections on George and Mike's career as graphic artists on Madison Avenue (yikes!) as well as George's friendship with Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffiths that led to his work as a cartoonist in "Arcade" and Bill Griffiths's astounding revelation that Zippy the Pinhead was partially inspired by George. Mike's illustrations of gay porno comic books, George's incredible Weather Diaries, the brothers' devotion to caring for their aging (now deceased) Mother and even the differences in approach to storytelling when the brothers work apart are additional nuggets spread about Kroot's Table de cinéma.

While the wealth of information in this movie is staggering, it NEVER feels like everything but the kitchen sink. Each piece of information, each recollection, each clip, each interview, each piece of the puzzle that is the Kuchar Brothers is meticulously placed and honed to move the story forward in an entertaining and informative fashion.

Most importantly, we are blessed with George Kuchar's secret to providing the exquisite turds on display in so many of his movies. For this, my life is now complete.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Here are some terrific Kuchar related materials including the It Came From Kuchar on DVD at Amazon that you can order directly from the links below and in so doing support the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

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COUNTDOWN #1 TO NYMPHOMANIAC by LARS von TRIER (opening March 21, 2014 at TIFF Bell Lightbox via Mongrel Media). Today's countdown is a review of the Criterion Collection's Outstanding Blu-Ray of one of the most powerful, shocking, terrifying and profoundly moving films of the new millennium, ANTICHRIST - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Antichrist (2009) Dir. Lars von Trier *****
Starring: Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Antichrist is a movie that burns its reflection of pain into your memory like a branding iron – plunging itself through your cranium and searing your brain matter, creating that sickeningly sweet stench that only burning flesh gives off and remaining in your nostrils for (no doubt) a lifetime. The pain and by extension – the Passion – also stays with you.

A first viewing renders you drained, immobile, and numb and yet, paradoxically there are feelings of profound excitement – that you have witnessed an expression of emotion in ways that only cinema, of all the art forms, is capable of delivering. You are also breathless, and in spite, or maybe even because of the horror you’ve witnessed, you’re almost giddy with the desire to recall every beat, every image and every soul sickening moment of the experience. It’s a movie that demands to be seen more than once – it is a movie to be cherished, savored and devoured as ravenously and gluttonously as possible.

There’s simply no two ways about it – Antichrist is a great movie! It will be loved! It will be hated! It will be debated! And it will never be forgotten – neither by those who see it, nor by the sands of time! It’s a picture designed to live forever and will, no doubt, be Lars von Trier’s masterpiece.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my feelings about von Trier used to be mixed. In his early work, he was clearly a serious filmmaker who demanded the sort of regard one lavishes upon great artists, yet in spite of this, I often felt that the art, though dazzling, seemed rooted in spurious posturing. His motives (in spite of his visual gifts) seemed no more serious than any hack machine-tooling a product for the widest consumption possible. I must admit, though, he grew on me and with each subsequent effort I was constantly and increasingly reminded of the fact that all films and certainly most great films ARE exploitation – they exploit subject matter, human emotion and the audience – the best doing so with great panache.

And in this regard, von Trier is a master. The difference, of course, is that rather than working within genre and/or dramatic convention, his is the work of the high-toned, the intelligentsia (if you will) and his genre is that of the “art house film” and as such, he has developed his voice and craft to a sufficient degree that he has earned the right to be called “master” even though I still detest his pretentious early work like The Element of Crime and Epidemic. (Medea's heart is in the right place, but it too, finally stinks.)

This all changed for me with Europa, one of the most indelible screen portraits of post-World War II Germany ever committed to celluloid. Delivering a narrative which, I think, more than ably pointed a finger at America's complicity in the evils of Nazi Germany and in creating a literal act of hypnosis, von Trier plunged us into a nightmarish world that seemed to open the floodgates for one movie after another that brilliantly and entertainingly ripped down the bulwarks of cinema's borders whilst oddly adhering to them as well.

With Antichrist, von Trier has made a horror film – pure, though not so simple.

Alternately fueled by his clear love and respect for Strindberg’s great play “Miss Julie” and the work of filmmaker Carl Dreyer, von Trier ventures into the sort of daring territory we not only expect from him, but frankly, must demand of our greatest artists. As a horror film, however, it might not immediately be in the territory we expect, but certainly as it proceeds on its unrelenting journey, we know all to well that we are ensconced in the genre – not in a traditional manner, but certainly in its use of expressionistic elements.

At the end of the day, Antichrist creates exactly what we have come to expect from the genre of horror and it oozes a creepy quality that not only keeps us on the edge of our collective seats, but inspires the sort of revulsion that dares to make us feel resolutely unclean for having participated in this powerful, foul descent into human suffering. Goose flesh of the most unpleasant kind overtakes us as we watch the picture and when it ramps up to scenes of PHYSICAL torture and violence (the first two-thirds of the picture deal in psychological aspects of the above mentioned), one’s revulsion takes on dimensions that are almost indescribable.

The movie is broken into four parts, or “chapters” as von Trier labels them, which are bracketed by a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue introduces us to the characters of a man (Willem Dafoe) and a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as they make love – the only sound accompanying their passionate coupling being a haunting aria by Handel. As they reach a pitch of orgasm, we follow their infant child as he wanders about the house and eventually perishes in a horrendous, tragic accident. The four chapters that follow are entitled “Grief”, “Pain” “Despair” and “The Three Beggars” as we experience the couple’s suffering and the man’s attempts to help his wife (he’s a psychiatrist) deal with her pain and in so doing, to assist himself with his own feelings of despair.

Most of this is set against the backdrop of a remote cabin in the wilderness where much of the creepy qualities emanate from the natural world itself. This extended therapy session builds to one of the most sickening extensions of inner pain imaginable – where the internal becomes very external. It’s Strindbergian as all get-out, but von Trier doesn’t merely place a razor in “Miss Julie’s” hand, he takes us into the full-blown horror of the actions, which in Strindberg’s play are only implied.

The epilogue, which follows the orgy of horror, contains some of the most stunning images I have ever seen in a picture – images that are as heart-achingly beautiful as they are grotesque. And while von Trier is definitely in Strindberg territory, he does not separate naturalism from expressionism, but is quite happy to make use of both and, when necessary, blend these elements.

As to the charges of misogyny leveled against the film, I can only hurl out the invective, “Bullshit!” While von Trier does not fully attain a level of spirituality that infuses the work of Carl Dreyer, he is nevertheless playing in a similar sandbox in terms of exploring the subjugation and exploitation of women at the hands of patriarchy and/or organized religion. The relentless analysis forced upon Gainsbourg’s character by Willem Dafoe’s character takes on the creepy hysteria and austerity that Dreyer himself explored in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath and Gertrud.

That said, however, von Trier allows a turning of the tables that Dreyer could never have brought himself to actually do, though in fairness, I have some belief that if Dreyer were making films today, he might well have dared to cross into the same territory von Trier does in Antichrist – territory that is as horrific as it is uniquely and profoundly moving.

I reiterate – Antichrist is a great picture!

"Antichrist" is available on an astounding Criterion Collection Bluray and DVD. The picture is a sumptuous high-definition digital master, approved by von Trier and supervised by D.O.P. Anthony Dod Mantle, a FUCKING wonderful commentary track featuring von Trier and Murray Smith, new interviews with von Trier, Dafoe and Gainsbourg, seven mini-docs examining the production of "Antichrist" through interviews with von Trier and others on his creative team, behind-the-scenes footage, "Chaos Reigns at the Cannes Film Festival" - a terrific doc on the film’s world premiere, press interviews with Dafoe and Gainsbourg, Trailers and a brilliant essay by Ian Christie. The picture had its North American premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST-OWN title.

THE BLIND SIDE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - On the precipice of Sandra Bullock possibly winning another Oscar for an awful movie, perhaps the time is right to look at the awful movie that started it all.

"Look, a lot of rich White people, but mostly me, have been really, really
kind to you and I think you better start winning some games - not for
us, but for yourself. Well, and for me, too. Mostly for me, okay?
But mostly, TO BETTER YOURSELF!!!"

The Blind Side (2009) *½
dir. John Lee Hancock
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Kathy Bates

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Watching people be nice to other people is, for the most part, pretty boring. It's simply and unequivocally not very interesting and as such, makes for poor drama. In fact, it pretty much makes for NO drama at all. As Frank Capra proved on so many occasions, the only time in the movies that seeing people be nice to other people had anything in the way of dramatic impact was when the feel-good cinematic epiphanies were preceded by pain, suffering and/or conflict of the most unbearable kind.

The Blind Side is pretty unbearable, too, but not because the movie drags us through hot coals to get to the nirvana of feel-good, but because it's just so unbearably... feel-good.

Based on the true story of rich White people who helped a poor Black boy become a football player,The Blind Side could have been unbearable on the same kind of political grounds that so many movies have been where rich White people are seen as the real heroes in the salvation of Black people from their "lowly" station. This, however, is the least of the movie's problems.

The picture's biggest failing is that a lot happens, but for most of the film's running time it feels like not much of ANYTHING has happened.

Real-life football legend Michael Oher (surname pronounced like "oar") is fictionally presented to us in his adolescence as a big, quiet, seemingly oafish, physically powerful and possibly retarded Black boy - kind of like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. His Momma is a crack addict, but luckily, a kindly neighbour from the wrong side of the Memphis tracks has not only provided him with a home, but is especially kind to him by taking the lad to a high-toned private Christian school to get an education and possibly a sports scholarship. The Coach at the school also proves to be very kind to Michael and fights the good fight with the school administration to let him be admitted as a student. Some of the teachers are not pleased with his lack of academic prowess, but sooner than you can say, "White people are the saviours of Black people", the Science teacher realizes how smart he is and becomes very kind to him. Soon, all the teachers are kind to him (with the exception of the nasty English teacher who thinks he is an illiterate moron).

Alas, Michael becomes homeless when the kindly fellow from the beginning of the movie is unable to extend further kindness since his offscreen wife (like in Diner where we hear, but don't see Steve Guttenberg's wife-to-be) wants this large homeless boy off their couch. Michael sleeps where he can, hand washes his clothes in a laundromat and dries them in dryers left spinning and unattended. Still, this is a minor setback since by this point, so many people have been kind to him, that it's merely a matter of running time before someone will be kind to him again.

In the school yard, for example, when Michael sees some cute little girls on the swings and tries to give them a push, they run away - thinking, perhaps, that he's Chester the Child Molester. Well, sooner than you can say, "White people say wise things to Black people they could never have thought of by themselves," in walks a horrendously cute little White boy (Jae Head) who is quick with the wisecracks and overflowing with precocity. "Try smiling," Whitey says to the hulking, dour Black boy. And Goldurn' all ta' hail, if'n dis' don't work wonders. Michael smiles and soon, this 200 pounds of brawn is happily pushing pubescent girlies on the swings. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but this CAN work for child molesters, mais non?)

At this point in the proceedings, things could be going a lot worse for our hero, but so far, people have been kind to him. Then one night, the rain comes down like cats and dogs. The White boy and his family drive by our drenched hero and the Mom (Sandra Bullock) is shocked that this boy is homeless. Quicker than you can say, "Rich White people are the only ones who can put roofs over the heads of homeless Black people," she lets him sleep in their suburban mini-mansion. At first, he sleeps on the couch, but when his girth threatens to collapse it, Mom kindly buys a bed and gives him his own room.

Mom takes a real shine to this silent oaf and proceeds, for most of the film's interminable running time, to be... you guessed it!... kind to him. Her kindness is overflowing. One scene after another follows where Mom is not only kind to him, but gets others to be kind to him to.

One of Mom's friends remarks, "You're really changing that boy's life." Mom stares off wistfully and says, "No, he's changing mine." How he's changing HER life is a tad beyond me. She's gorgeous, has a gorgeous husband, two gorgeous kids, a gorgeous mansion and a gorgeous wardrobe. Since she's been very kind to him already, one can only suspect that her life changes since she becomes even MORE kind to him. Eventually, everything this Black boy deserves is handed to him on a silver platter - thanks to the kindness of Mom and so many other kind White people.

But wait! Conflict is on the horizon! To get into college to play football, our hero needs a higher Grade Point Average.Well, you might be surprised to hear this, but Mom hires him a private tutor (Kathy Bates). Damn, this tutor is good! And most of all, she is so kind to him. Even more surprising is that his teachers are kind to him and give him the support he needs to get the grades he needs.

But, hark! Do I hear the sound of even more conflict a-rumbling?

You bet! Remember that mean English teacher? Well, he's still pretty mean and it looks like he might not give our boy the grade he needs.

Oops, false alarm! He's kind too. Those pesky English teachers may seem like old sticks in the mud, but deep down, they're very kind - especially when they're White and want to teach some hard academic lessons to Black people that other White people are afraid to teach.

During the last few minutes of the movie, there is one final bit of conflict when a mean Black lady puts some bad ideas into our hero's head about the rich White lady who is so kind to him and he goes back to the Projects where he meets some not-very-nice Black boys and things get a tiny bit too unpleasant for all concerned.

Thankfully, this does not last long. Kindness rules and all is well again.

Written (I use the term loosely here) and directed (so to speak) by John Lee Hancock, The Blind Side is a movie that has very little going for it - no drama, virtually no conflict or tension, a running time that feels at least forty five minutes too long, a vaguely foul odour of racial condescension and globs of un-earned feel-good.

If, however, there is a plus-side to this odious trough of pap, it's oddly displayed in the presence and performance of Sandra Bullock. She is someone I always found incredibly hard to take. Her earnest perkiness, a perpetually stupid grin plastered on that long, horsey face and a yippy-yappy voice that made me long for the incessant barking of a rabid chihuahua always inspired in me a considerable expulsion of bile.

These feelings eventually shifted from nut-sack squeezing to admiration and, I must shyly admit to a regained firmness of a key appendage at the very sight of her. Somewhere around the time of her appearance in Paul Haggis's heavy-handed, overrated glorified TV-movie Crash, Bullock blossomed into something far more palatable and genuinely appealing. Some age, some maturity, some well-placed heft on her frame have all contributed to the enhancement of her ability to woo the lens of the camera. She also invested her peformance in Crash and the flawed, but underrated Alejandro Agresti film The Lake House with the kind of chops I never realized she had. In the latter title, she actually moved me. And no, it wasn't a bowel movement. The girl made me cry. And Christ Almighty! I even found her sexy and funny in "The Proposal".

In The Blind Side, she commands the screen like a pitbull - ravaging the lens with the kind of intensity I wish the movie itself had. Her performance has Oscar-bait written all over it, but within that context, I'd have to say it's entirely deserved.

If her second Oscar win is for Gravity, it will be for an equally intolerable movie, but at least The Blind Side is moronically entertaining instead of the dull, dour and idiotically overrated sudsy space opera. The Blind Side works very hard to be as awful and stupid as it is.

TARAS BULBA (2009) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Sub-Par Russian Version of classic Ukrainian tale of revolt is little more than a pallid made-for-tv-miniseries-styled slab of propaganda that might stir the loins of Putin-lovers-and-apologists, but it doesn’t come close to mining the stirring potential of Gogol's great story.

Taras Bulba (2009) **
dir. Wolodymyr Bortko
Starring: Bohdan Stupka, Ihor Petrenko, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Magdalena Mielcarz, Sergei Dryden

Review By By Greg Klymkiw

In light of the recent events in Ukraine, it seems appropriate to turn our attention to one of the more egregious displays of cinematic propaganda I have seen in a long time. The charge of disinformation is, for once, not levelled against Hollywood, but Russia. This is not the Russia of the butcher Joseph Stalin, but that of contemporary Russia, a country rife with the sad, evil remnants of Stalin in the guise of its leader Vladimir Putin who, in his previous career was a nasty little KGB spy who specialized in rooting out those who opposed the supposed glories of Communism and prior to that, when he, as a teacher and academic, disgracefully used his position to carry out surveillance on students.

The film on view is Taras Bulba, a relatively recent and expensive (by Russian standards) screen adaptation of the legendary Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol’s great novella of the same name and a film that chooses to use Gogol’s pro-Russian version as its base rather than his original manuscript. Gogol bowed to the will of Czarist Russia and delivered a revised product more in keeping with the country’s own version of Manifest Destiny throughout Eastern Europe.

Propaganda in the cinema is nothing new. In fact, many knee-jerkers will look for any excuse to trash Hollywood for this very thing. Since its very beginnings, a common charge against Uncle Sam’s cinema has been the preponderance of propagandistic elements to extol the virtues of truth, glory and the capitalistic American way in terms of cultural/political superiority and to defend the country’s constant need to engage in warfare. One cannot disagree with this common assertion; however, America ALONE has not propagated the myths of their “superiority” using the most powerful medium of artistic expression – the cinema.

The most common example of this would be the vicious work of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who utilized cinema to spread anti-Semitism with The Eternal Jew, a foul “documentary” that goes so far as to trace and equate the spread of Judaism with that of rats and the spread of the Black Plague. Of course, no mention of Nazi propaganda would be complete without referring to the work of the brilliant Leni Riefenstahl – a truly great artist who delivered one of the most stunning, yet reviled works of the 20th century, her stirring document of the Nuremburg Rallies, The Triumph of the Will.

Strangely, the work of Russian propagandists has not seen the same kind of vitriolic bile heaped upon it and yet, Sergei Eisenstein, (surely as brilliant a filmmaker as Leni Riefenstahl) was happy enough to wear extremely comfortable knee-pads as he knelt before the dictatorial powers of Russia to continually afford him the opportunities to make movies. Eisenstein delivered one film after another that not only propagated the myth of Communism and the notion of Russian superiority, but eventually even extolled the virtues of an even bigger butcher than Hitler, Joseph Stalin. (For more on this, see my review of the Kino DVD release of Battleship Potemkin by visiting HERE.)

This new version of Taras Bulba received a substantial portion of its financing from the Russian Ministry of Culture and while it may bear the trademarks of typical old-Soviet-style propaganda, it is hardly a work that bears the hallmarks of superior filmmaking. At least Eisenstein, Riefenstahl and any number of American directors who generated similar propaganda (Steven Spielberg with Saving Private Ryan is a good example) are great artists who created landmarks of cinema that expanded the boundaries of the medium. The mediocre, though clearly competent television director Wolodymyr Bortko (who prefers the Russian transliteration “Vladimir” in spite of his Ukrainian heritage) serves up some sumptuous production value, elicits some fine performances and seasons his celluloid broth of borscht with all the clichés of epic cinema, but none of the depth one might find in the work of masters of the elephantine genre like David Lean. Bortko’s screenplay adaptation unimaginatively catalogues, almost by rote, the events of Gogol’s Russified version of the novella, but somehow manages to completely miss the spirit of the original writing.

Telling the classical tale of a Cossack Chief, Taras Bulba (majestically portrayed by the great Ukrainian actor Bohdan Stupka) who sends his beloved sons Andriy (Ihor Petrenko) and Ostap (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) to the Polish-ruled university in Ukraine’s capitol city Kyiv to not only get a well rounded education, but to acquaint them with the “enemy”. He eventually takes his sons to the legendary Cossack “Sich” (fortress) of Zaporozhia to train them in the skill of Cossack barbarism.

Bulba’s hatred for Poland flares even more intensely when he learns that his farm has been destroyed and his wife is murdered by the Poles. He manages to get the Cossack nation to march against Poland and soon the Ukrainians are wreaking havoc and decimating their Polish rulers. Things come to a head when Bulba and the Cossacks attack the Ukrainian city of Dubno which is under Polish rule. Unbeknownst to our title character, when Bulba’s most beloved son Andriy was at school in Kyiv, he fell in love with Elzhbeta (the eye-poppingly stunning Magdalena Mielcarz) a member of Polish royalty. As bad luck would have it, her father is now the governor of Dubno and Andriy realizes that he is laying siege to the city of his beloved. Love, it would seem, becomes the ultimate enemy as Andriy betrays his country and father to be with her.

It’s a great story! One of its biggest fans was Ernest Hemingway who proclaimed its genius whenever he could. Too bad, then, that this film version is so by-the-numbers. That said, even a mediocre rendering such as this one is no match for the power of Gogol’s literary prowess and for this we are dealt some tender mercies. Finally though, the movie is a bit of a slog – plodding along its way, but without any of the spark of the original writer. In fact, the tone of the movie is resolutely dour. This is no surprise since screenwriter-director Bortko has chosen to amplify the Russified version of the novella. Without that glorious spark of Gogol’s wonderful sense of boys’ adventure and his delightfully, deliciously and resolutely Ukrainian sense of humour (so beautifully captured in J. Lee Thompson's 1964 Hollywood version), the movie has all the spark of a funeral dirge.

By over-emphasizing the Russification of the original text what we have is a brutal glorification of Russian superiority. This grotesque mockery of a story that, in actuality is a rousing depiction of Ukraine’s never-ending fight for freedom from subjugation leaves us with a very foul taste in our mouths. We are handed one ultra-violent set piece after another – all in the service of boosting Russia’s own notion of might as right. By appropriating this very Ukrainian story by one of its great writers and turning it into grotesque Russian propaganda to try and suggest that the Cossacks and in turn, the Ukrainians, consider themselves little more than barbarians doing the bidding of those who would subjugate, exploit and even perpetrate genocide against them (as Stalin did) is thoroughly reprehensible.

Historically, even the occasional guarded loyalty the Zaporozhian Cossacks paid to the Russian Empire was betrayed by both Czar Peter I and Catherine the Great, the former forcing them to scatter or face death, the latter ordering a full-on genocide of the Zaporozhian Sich. None of this would have been lost on Gogol - especially with his first, but suppressed edition of the novel and even within the Russified version, this healthy distrust of the Empire boils just below the novel's surface.

Bortko’s mediocrity as a director reaches its nadir, however, in his lame handling of the fighting, action and battle scenes which is, in a word, dull. With fabulous locations, thousands of extras and impeccable production and costume design, he cannot direct action. His shooting style is cudgel-like, but it never has the thrilling and freewheeling quality the action needs. Bortko appears to have everything that money can buy – everything that is, except the genuinely distinctive artistic voice that would allow him to rise above his own mediocrity.

I do reiterate, though, that such propagandistic shenanigans would ultimately not be as problematic if this was actually a good movie, but it isn’t. Saddled with a clumsy flashback structure, a lazy use of prose narration from the novel and a dull television-mini-series mise-en-scene, Taras Bulba might stir the loins of Putin-lovers-and-apologists, but it doesn’t come close to mining the stirring potential of the story.

Let’s not forget that Gogol came from Cossack stock and that he was inspired by the very moving Ukrainian nationalist “dumy” (folk ballads) of the Cossacks themselves. Also, one of Hohol/Gogol’s chief literary inspirations was the great Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and that “Taras Bulba” was conceived as a Ukrainian version of those swashbuckling tales of Scottish Highlanders battling their British oppressors/occupiers (especially notable in "Rob Roy"). A cool historical footnote is that Cossacks themselves might have had some roots in Scotland at a much earlier historical juncture. Another interesting correlation between Scott and Gogol is that both portrayed strong, sympathetic Jewish characters in their respective swashbucklers - Scott created Rebecca in "Ivanhoe" and Gogol gave us Yankel in "Taras Bulba". (The latter character seems to fit the fact that Catherine the Great effected a genocide upon the Ukrainian Cossacks whose administrative power was actually presided over by Ukrainian-Jews - all the record-keeping discovered in archeological digs at the Sich was found to be written in Hebrew.)

Not surprisingly, the best film version of Taras Bulba is the fabulous aforementioned J. Lee Thompson epic from Hollywood in the 1960s. It captures the derring-do, the humour and the stirring, romantic nationalism of the story by adhering the book’s Ukrainian roots as opposed to Bortko’s ill-conceived attempt to please Vladimir Putin. The American treatment of the character of Andriy, the son who betrays father and country is far closer, I think to the spirit of what Gogol intended. Ihor Petrenko’s portrayal of Andriy is so dull and serious. It especially lacks the boyish charm that Tony Curtis with his swarthy Hungarian-Jewish looks and magnificent sense of humour brought to the role.

The other idiotic attempt to Russify this story is how Bortko has commissioned a musical score so lacking in any spirit whatsoever. At least in the Hollywood version, legendary composer Franz Waxman based his entire score on traditional Ukrainian music and delivered a score that was cited by even Bernard Herrman as one of the great scores of all time. (For my full review of the Hollywood version, feel free to visit HERE.)

In fairness to Bortko, however, his screenplay, unlike the Hollywood version restores the odd symbiotic friendship from Gogol’s novella between Bulba and the Jewish money lender Yankel (yielding a stellar performance by Sergei Dryden) and, most importantly, he includes the whole aftermath involving the capture, torture and execution of Ostap at the hands of the Poles and Bulba’s revenge and final noble sacrifice. These are all stirring story beats and while I am grateful for their inclusion, I am less grateful that they are present almost solely to provide Russian propaganda.

This version of Taras Bulba no doubt has poor Gogol spinning in his grave. I’m sure he never would have imagined that so many generations later his work would be bastardized as a piece of propaganda for the country that even now seeks to consume his Motherland whole and tries continually to repress its spirit, culture, language and people.

Worse yet, that it should be a version that reeks of Made-for-TV miniseries mediocrity.

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