Greg Klymkiw presents his HOT DOCS 2015 HOT PICKS #1: LEAVING AFRICA *****, SURVIVORS ROWE *****, HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD **** and A DIFFERENT DRUMMER: CELEBRATING ECCENTRICS ***½

For the next fourteen days I will only review movies I liked, loved or that totally blew me away during the 2015 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto, Canada. Life is short. I won't bother reviewing movies that were godawful, mediocre or just plain okay. Note my picks, mark your calendars and save some precious hours, days and weeks of your life on planet Earth. Instead, spend it travelling the world via one of cinema's most vital genres.

Leaving Africa (2015)
Dir. Iiris Härmä

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Uganda is a beautiful country and so are its people, but it's been fraught with scourges like the butcher dictator Idi Amin Dada and in recent years, organized religion. The intolerance, repression and mass-manipulation continue to run rampant in the country, but there are many brave people who constantly struggle against it. Certainly, the 2013 Hot Docs presentation of Call Me Kuchu by Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall was a numbing, powerful and moving experience which detailed the country's hatred towards its LGBT community.

Leaving Africa is a new film which superbly presents its material and story with a combination of filmmaking excellence and compulsively fascinating subject matter. Friendship forged through a mutual appreciation for education is the heart that drives Iiris Härmä's truly great film. And yes, this is a film with heart.

And soul.

Finland's Riitta Kujala lived in Uganda for 27 years, bringing public health education to the country and nurturing new generations of those Ugandans who will continue this vital work. When the film begins, she is 67 years old, already past retirement and embarking upon what might be the crowning glory of her legacy and by extension, that of Finland and the Ugandans who carry-on and support her endeavours.

Riitta begins an important workshop devoted to gender equality and sexual health aimed squarely at Uganda's religious leaders. Given that so much of the country's difficulties have stemmed from the backwards idiocy perpetrated by many of God's cheerleaders in collaboration with a government too often exhaling a miasma of extreme conservatism, this is not only an action of utmost significance, but a brave one as well.

Riitta's best friend and housemate Kata Othieno devotes herself as a chief and equal partner in all of her educational initiatives. She's as big-hearted as they come and visually, her tall, robust, full-figured beauty is a striking contrast to that of Riitta's lean, slender, wiry and seemingly steely - dare I say, "buff" - physical countenance. At age 63, Kata could still have her pick of any litter of hunky suitors, but after an often tempestuous and outright abusive life with men, she's eschewed their place in her life - she's tired of lap-doggish gents hiding their inner-most pit bull nature.

Education is her constant bedfellow and driving force.

Luckily for Riitta, she not only has a dear friend and colleague in Kata, but a family. Kata's children and grand kids are the genuinely loving progeny Riitta avoided physically bearing herself, especially having remained single her entire life.

And then, there is the work - a life's work that these two dynamic women have shared. One of the more fascinating and delightful elements of this are the workshops for the Ugandan religious leaders. They've come from all over the country and represent a variety of faiths within the purviews of Christian and Muslim persuasions. Huge drawings of female genitalia with a pointer aimed at various parts of the equation meet the (often) open-mouths of the assembled pupils.

Role playing, discourse, questions and answers relating to sexuality and gender are engagingly presented by the filmmaker in a manner that documents the undertaking itself as well as delivering ideas and information that the participants are ultimately eager to learn about. These deftly-captured-and-cut sequences also contribute greatly to film's compelling narrative. I'd even argue that some of these sequences might well provide a much-needed education to "enlightened" Western gentlemen who see the film. (For me, though, as a descendant of sensitive, open-minded, Eastern-Rite-influenced Ukrainian Cossacks, the information dispensed served merely as that which has already been bred in the, uh, shall we say, bone.)

Though much of the film feels idyllic and good humoured, the crushing reality of repression, tribalism and corruption eventually rears its ugly head - threatening to scuttle Riitta and Kata's influential ongoing legacy. Riitta feels the pull of retirement and the inevitable return to her native Finland, but if an anonymous letter to the Ugandan government, a virtual poison pen blackmail tome fraught with horrendous allegations achieves its nefarious intent, everything could be swiftly destroyed.

Riitta and Kata are going to fight this to the end, though. It might be bitter, bittersweet or uplifting, but love, friendship and dedication will persevere through whatever tempests brew up in the grand, but oft-repressed nation of Uganda.

All of this works quite splendidly as the mise-en-scene and editing are so potent that director Iiris Härmä's extraordinary film feels like one of the best independent neo-realist dramas I've seen in years - worthy, certainly, of the same pantheon occupied by the likes of the Dardennes Brothers. The difference, of course, is that we're watching a documentary and it's undeniably matched by filmmaking of the highest order, which unflinchingly impels Leaving Africa into stratospheric heights.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** Five Stars

Leaving Africa is making its International Premiere at the 2015 edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Visit the Hot Docs website for dates, showtimes and tickets by clicking HERE.

This is one of purportedly hundreds of children

viciously & mercilessly sexually assaulted by

former Anglican Minister & Boy Scout leader Ralph Rowe.

Survivors Rowe (2015)

Dir. Daniel Roher
Prd. Peter O'Brian

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I doubt you're going to see a better short film at Hot Docs 2015 than Survivors Rowe. In fact, I doubt you're going to see a better short film all year than Survivors Rowe. There's something heroic about this picture - it's terrific filmmaking to be sure, but its subjects, all grown men who share their most deeply personal reminiscences of childhood are to be exalted to the highest degree imaginable.

The other heroic element, which cannot be ignored, is the commitment of the short's Producer Peter O'Brian to have offered his expertise, passion and artistry to director Daniel Roher's fine work. O'Brian is a legend. He's a genuinely heroic figure for having produced so many of Canada's greatest motion pictures including, but not limited to The Grey Fox with the late-greats Richard Farnsworth and Jackie Burroughs in one of the great westerns of all time - period - and One Magic Christmas with the astonishing Harry Dean Stanton as one of the most evocative (and dark) guardian angels in film history in (yes) one of the great films about Christmas - period!

What is not heroic is Canada itself and the country's insidiously grotesque and hateful history with respect to our aboriginal nations, a horrifying element of which is so artfully and powerfully exposed in Roher's short film. It is one of a multitude of inhuman(e) assaults upon Canada's Native People, one that began with colonialism and frankly, continues to this very day, especially in light of the hatred and disregard expressed by Canada's Chancellor (or is it Prime Minister?) Steven Harper, the leader of our country's Nazi party (or is it, the Conservative party?).

This is Canada's Prime Minister.

He and his government of intolerance

refuse to acknowledge the ever-prolonged
exploitation of Canada's Native People and the
heinous crimes perpetrated against them!

Colonialism, Hatred, Violence, Theft,
Human Rights Violations and
Apartheid

will continue under this government's "leadership".

What's reflected in Survivors Rowe is at once, infuriating and on another level, infused with a sense of both healing and forgiveness - indicative of the fearlessness of its subjects and the skill with which Roher renders his film. Skillfully blending archival footage with knock-you-flat-on-your-back interviews, we're introduced to several young men - notably Joshua Frog, John Fox and Ralph Winter of Northern Ontario's Anishinaabe nation. They tell us their stories of living on isolated reservations, a strange combination of genuinely idyllic surroundings, but within the trappings of Canada's own system of apartheid. There are fond, memories, to be sure: living in the wilderness, a special bond with the natural world, skating on icy waterways, genuine play not rooted in the mind-destroying contemporary world of digital gaming and, at least initially, the dashingly dramatic arrival of Ralph Rowe, the rugged man's man who serves as a pilot, Boy Scout leader and Anglican Minister.

Rowe is not only a charismatic, almost mythic figure, but he's actually taken the time to learn Native languages and dialects to converse with elders, adults his own age and kids. What nobody knows, what nobody could ever imagine, is that Ralph Rowe is a pedophile. The on-camera testaments delivered by the film's key subjects reveal some of the most harrowing, horrific and just plain malevolent acts perpetrated by this man of the wilderness, this man of God, this monster.

One of the most extraordinary things director Daniel Roher achieves here as a filmmaker is how he fashions any great narrative's need for an antagonist. On the surface, this figure is clearly Ralph Rowe, but as the film progresses, Rowe's external position as a villain, or rather, as an antagonistic force flows into the pain, sorrow, self-loathing and self-harm faced by the victims of his crimes. Then, even more extraordinarily, the antagonistic force of Rowe, his victims' suffering and the metamorphosis of this into the aforementioned process of healing, gives way to an even greater antagonist - a seemingly perpetual cycle of abuse which, is ultimately societal and must be actively addressed far more vigorously and openly than it is.

Ralph Rowe most likely sexually assaulted over 500 Native children and was, no doubt, responsible for a huge swath of suicides amongst both children and adults (not to mention residual effects upon subsequent generations). Unfortunately, the Canadian judicial system has only tried and convicted him for what amounts to a mere handful of sex crimes. He served a meagre five years in jail, was essentially handed a deal by the Crown to leave him be no matter how many accusations continue to surface and he lives a quiet, peaceful life in Surrey, British Columbia. Neither the Anglican Church nor the Boy Scouts have ever officially apologized to the victims and yet, those victims who did not commit suicide have endured decades and, if truth be told, lifetimes of living Hell.

On a purely aesthetic level, what Roher achieves here is a film that serves as a document of the suffering, torment and misery Ralph Rowe caused, but there is a strangely magical and poetic structure to the work which takes us from idyll to horror and finally and astoundingly, but perhaps necessarily, to forgiveness.

It's impossible to shake the impact this short film has. In fact, it has the sickening shock of a merciless cold-cock, blended with an elegiac, profoundly moving sense of loss and leavened with a kind of grace that not only reflects the deep humanity of the film's subjects, but shines a light of clemency upon a monster.

What the film cannot forgive, nor can any of us (I hope and pray), is the deep-seeded hatred and racism of colonialism which continues in Canada to this very day. If an Anglican Minister and Boy Scout leader viciously sexually assaulted over 500 white children, would he still be living freely in society with the legal implication that he'll never serve more incarceration for his crimes, no matter how many continue to surface?

The answer is obvious.

This is Ralph Rowe. He is a convicted pedophile living peacefully

and freely in Surrey, British Columbia. It might be helpful to have MORE recent photographs circulated.

One final note about the heroism of the film's producer Peter O'Brian: Read his moving article in the Toronto Globe and Mail about the sexual assaults he suffered as a child and eventually came to terms with as an adult. Read it HERE.

And whatever you do, don't miss Survivors Rowe.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** Five Stars

Survivors Rowe is making its World Premiere at the 2015 edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Visit the Hot Docs website for dates, showtimes and tickets by clicking HERE.

How To Change The World (2015)
Dir. Jerry Rothwell

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Preamble: A few things about Robert (Bob) Hunter that contribute, for me personally, to his legendary perch in Canadian history.

"If we wait for the meek to inherit the earth, there won't be anything left to inherit" - Robert Hunter

Robert (Bob) Hunter was many things. Mostly, I just always thought he was cool. And well, you'd kind of have to be that to have accomplished so much in so short a time (he died of cancer at age 63).

As a dyed-in-the-wool Winnipegger, I especially thought it was cool, given Robert Hunter's deep concern for Canada's Aboriginal people, that he was born in the City of St. Boniface which eventually amalgamated with all the wonky neighbourhood city-states along the Red, Assiniboine and Seine Rivers of Manitoba to become - you guessed it, Winnipeg.

All this rich land, which not only became the city we all know and hate/love (plus all points north-south-east-and-west) historically belonged to the Metis Nation, but was torn from their possession by the Canadian Government's land transfer scrip system which was virtually useless except to rich white guys who knew how to push it through the complicated bureaucracy to actually cash it in. The vast majority of uprooted Metis were starving, so they sold their scrip to the rich white guys, for pennies on the dollar.

Even more interesting to me was that Hunter's birthplace in St. Boniface ended up being the one community which contributed the most to Manitoba becoming (even now) Canada's largest French-speaking region outside of Quebec. Why? Many of the displaced Metis were also targets for violence because of the 1870 Louis Riel wars against the corrupt rich white guys of Winnipeg and the eastern power-brokers who held a vicelike grip upon the government of Canada. This resulted in a huge number of Metis forcing their Native heritage underground and bringing their French heritage to the fore and living in - you guessed it, St. Boniface.

His tenure as a columnist at the Winnipeg Tribune and Vancouver Sun was before my time. I didn't even become aware of him as a journalist until I moved to Toronto in the early 90s and began watching CITY-TV (when it actually had a real personality thanks to its eventually-departed head Moses Znaimer). Here, I began to enjoy the amazingly cool, almost Hunter S. Thompson-like "environmental reporter and commentator. I was soon compelled to begin reading his books wherein I discovered that he was Bob Hunter, the heart, soul and public face of the environmental group Greenpeace.

This, for me, was virtually cooler-than-cool and when he passed away in 2005, I was genuinely saddened that we'd lost him. Thankfully, this film now exists. It's not a biographical documentary of Robert (Bob) Hunter, but in many ways, it might as well be.



And now, the Film Review proper:

There were many things about Hunter I didn't know after all these years and I'm grateful to director Jerry Rothwell for his almost-epic-like motion picture documentary How To Change The World which presents a side of this great Canadian that was not only fresh to my already-admiring eyes, but kind of jettisons Hunter into some supreme inter-stellar glowing orb of coolness.

Rothwell poured over hundreds of 16mm rolls of film that had been canned and unopened since the 1970s. Seeing, pretty much before his very eyes, the visual history of the Greenpeace organization, Rothwell consulted with Hunter's colleagues, foes, conducting fresh interviews with all of them, blending the result of Herculean research and expertly selected and edited footage from the Greenpeace Archives. (The fact that Hunter was so brilliantly media-savvy pretty much accounts for this wealth of material even existing.)

What we get is the story of a respected counter-culture columnist who aligns himself with a motley assortment of friends and colleagues (most of them of the 60s/70s "hippie" persuasion) to head out on a boat in an attempt to stop nuclear testing on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean and then, with the same bunch, to go tearing after Russian sailors butchering whales up and down the coast of the Pacific Northwest. The campaigns continued and somewhere along the way, the movement of Greenpeace was formed.

With both the existing archival footage and the new interviews, Rothwell has painted an indelible portrait - not only of the key events in the movement, but the individuals themselves - as disparate a cast of characters you could ever imagine. What makes them cool is how different they are as people, but as such, they each bring individual qualities to the movement that had a symbiotic relationship - for a time. As is the won't of anything or anyone growing beyond initial beginnings, egos as well as legitimate desires/directions begin to rear their ugly heads and minor cracks in the "vessel" become tectonic plates, yielding high-Richter-scale fractures.

In addition to the dazzling filmmaking, I was swept away onto the high seas and weed-clouded back rooms of Greenpeace thanks to the perfectly selected and abundant readings of Bob Hunter's exceptional reads. Embodying Hunter is the magnificent character actor Barry Pepper who delivers us the man's words with the kind of emotion which goes so far beyond "narration". Pepper captures the soul of Hunter impeccably. It's a brilliant performance. (If anyone does a biopic of Hunter, Pepper is the MAN!!!

The first two-thirds of the movie is compulsive viewing. The first third, focusing upon seafaring derring-do is nail-bitingly thrilling. With Bob Hunter at the helm of some totally crazy-ass dangerous antics - like some mad, dope-smoking, Sterling-Hayden lookalike - Rothwell creates a veritable action picture on the high seas with an obsessive Captain Ahab targeting not whales, but the hunters of whales. (So much of the film is charged with a great selection of period hit songs and a gorgeous original score by Lesley Barber also.)

Who'd have thought environmental activism could be as thrilling as Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin "Master and Commander" adventures? The middle section begins focusing on the leaks in the organizational battleship that became Greenpeace. Mixing in more derring-do with internal conflicts is easily as thrilling as the intrigue-elements of O'Brian's high-seas swashbucklers.

The final third of the film tends to fall by the wayside a touch. It's not Rothwell's doing, as that of - gasp - real life. There's a great deal of sadness and acrimony in this section of the film and part of me wishes that life didn't throw the kind of curve-balls that surprise your favourite batter at the plate into striking out. This is ultimately a minor quibble though, in light of the sheer force, power and entertainment value of the picture. What epics don't suffer from a sag or three? At least this one eventually builds to a note of well deserved and earned high notes and the movie finally packs a major one-two emotional punch. When this happens, tears might well be flowing amongst many and the lapses of real life will be fleeting, especially when you exit the cinema feeling, "Goddamn! That was one HELL of a good show!"

The Film Corner Rating: **** Four Stars

How To Change The World is making its Canadian Premiere at the 2015 edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Visit the Hot Docs website for dates, showtimes and tickets by clicking HERE.

A Different Drummer: Celebrating Eccentrics (2014)
Dir. John Zaritzky

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Marching to the beat of one's own drum is not without merit and the title alone was enough to pique my curiosity, but then, my heart sank. During the first few minutes of A Different Drummer: Celebrating Eccentrics, I felt primed to hate it. Why wouldn't I? I detest both whimsy and standard TV-style docs - both of which seem overbearingly present within the picture's opening.

We get the digestible bite-sized thesis in which we learn how a ten-year study revealed that eccentrics are healthier, happier and indeed, manage to live longer than everybody else. We then get the de rigueur snippets of introductory interviews from what will be our wild, wooly and wacky subjects - a lot of which are all set to a frightfully jaunty musical score.

Ugh was dancing across my cerebellum and I almost flushed the sucker down the toilet bowl of unmentionables in order to slap on a different doc, but then, as if by magic, genuinely delightful movie magic began to snuggle up to me and the next ninety-or-so minutes yielded one of the happiest, funniest and moving little pictures I'd seen in awhile.

Zaritzky clearly loves his subjects, but not to the film's detriment. He settles in on each glorious nutcase (a man who lives in caves, a zany inventor, a duck lady, a "joke" politician, a man who celebrates a "useless" American president and one real lollapalooza I won't spoil for you here) with sensitivity and good humour. He's never laughing at them and neither will you. Some you'll laugh with and others you might even need to shed a few droplets of ocular moisture.

At the end of the day, it has been said that I'm eccentric. As such, I luxuriated in Zaritzky's sweet, lovely ode to madness of the most glorious kind and I'd be delighted to host any one of these people in my own home.

The thesis is proven, the whimsy in the opening a minor aberration and one of the more delightful feel-good documentaries made in recent years won me over completely.

Oh, and the best news: I look forward to a long, healthy and happy life.

The Film Corner Rating: ***½ Three-and-a-half Stars

A Different Drummer is making its Toronto Premiere at the 2015 edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Visit the Hot Docs website for dates, showtimes and tickets by clicking HERE.

GMO OMG - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Annoying, 1-sided personal doc about the GMO controversy misses boat.

Is it possible to take a documentary
seriously that incorporates the moronic
social networking acronym OMG in its title?
Yes. If the movie is actually good.
This one isn't.

GMO OMG (2013) *
Dir. Jeremy Seifert

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I sincerely believe everyone should see this film - not because it's any good, but because it's important for audiences to experience how egregiously an independently produced, but one-sided, misguided and all-over-the-map propaganda picture like GMO OMG can be just as dangerous to progressive thought and exploration of issues that affect all of us, as propaganda on the flip side from heavily-financed-and-approved corporate/political interests can be.

Let it be said, though, that these days, I have a fairly strong bias of acceptance when it comes to films dealing with environmental concerns. Firstly, I've always been against corporate culture, ideology and bureaucracy. I believe it's downright evil. Secondly, I've also been extremely skeptical about any political process and feel it's usually little more than legal organized crime devoted primarily to nest-feathering of the most blatant and petty kind. Thirdly, and most importantly, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I came late in life to caring about our world in any green sense, but frankly, to use the well-worn, but perfectly reasonable expression: better late than never.

I've become especially committed to animal rights and hugely aware (and mindful) of both energy and environmental issues. To the latter, I've gone so far as to live completely off the grid, grow my own consumable food product (including free-range animal product of the egg variety) and rescuing animals from torture and inhumane slaughter. When I encounter films dealing with any of the aforementioned, I prick up my ears, sharpen my eyes and drink in the myriad of cinematic perspectives on such issues. That said, I demand the films be good - aesthetically and by extension, ideologically. GMO OMG is neither.

Filmmaker Jeremy Seifert is just your regular garden-variety Dad who became alarmed when he discovered just how much food he and his family consumed was derived from genetic modification. He chose to become a bargain basement Michael Moore and explore the world of GMOs by making a film about it. Fair enough, but what he's wrought is not only poor filmmaking, but does little more than preach to the (ignorant) converted. Even worse is that it places a valuable tool in the hands of scumbag corporations like Monsanto which employs vicious strong-arm tactics to foist their product upon food producers and consumers.

At the beginning of the film, Seifert professes to know very little about GMOs until hearing about them, so he first engages in what will be his uncompromising approach to investigative journalism as he asks ordinary Americans in the street what they think about eating GMOs. Well shucks, it turns out that the folks he approaches known nothing about GMOs and frankly, have never even heard of them. What this proves is the ignorance of the American people, or at least, the ignorance of the American people he approaches in his random fashion.

What the film ignores, is that many Canadians are well aware of GMOs (and proudly) since Canadian scientists at the University of Manitoba in the 70s first developed the exquisite and healthy Canola Oil (modified Rapeseed) which has become one of the biggest crops in North America. Yes, corporate scumbags in the 90s began adding herbicide resistant properties to the seed, but the only real threat here has been of the patent copyright variety. The only mention of Canola in Seifert's film appears to be in one of the many slick animated charts which look and sound like they're providing solid information, but are, in fact, delivering a whole lot of nothing.

Seifert includes images of Haitians burning GMO seed donated to them from Monsanto. Fair enough, the people of Haiti wish to grow their own natural variety of seeds and have bought into the anti-GMO lobby, but there's no investigation as to the corporate ramifications of rejecting Monsanto's donation and a whole lot of negative information about the dangers of not using "natural" products. Last I heard, human beings were "natural" and while some have used their considerable natural brain power to genetically/chemically treat a lot of things that are generally considered bad for you (Big Tobacco, anyone?), the film never makes any attempt (save for getting nowhere with Monsanto) to explore what the positives might be with respect to GMOs.

He interviews a variety of farmers about GMOs - some agin, others for and yet many on the fencepost. His line of questions are just plain scattered. At one point, and seemingly by default, he engages in a decent enough conversation with one farmer, then interrupts the flow, fumbles for a stupid question (which most of them appear to be throughout the film) and idiotically asks the gentleman if he's a God-fearin' church-goer and how this affects his use of seeds that might well be seen (moronically) as playing God. This is a dumb question on a number of levels, but mostly because it's a cheap (and clumsy) attempt to play into Right Wing Christian morality with respect to GMOs and, of course, the fact that many thinking people don't believe or are rightly skeptical of the notion of God within the context of what's been seeded (so to speak) by organized crime, oops, I mean, religion.

And let us, for a moment, get back to the Monsanto issue. The real problem here is that they are forcing farmers to use their product in a manner in which the corporation decides, at prices the corporation sets and then engages in endless legal harassment (the right of all God-Given Corporate assholes) of those rejecting them on a number of levels. Seifert touches on this, but he's more interested in getting Monsanto and its ilk to discuss and/or release their own scientific findings with respect to the safety and production issues of their seed. This is fair enough, but all we get here is the fact that Seifert's getting the runaround on the telephone (Duh! No surprises here, really) and when he physically enters Monsanto, all we hear is an audio recording of his conversation at the front desk wherein he is told to leave. The cameras remain outside until he returns to express his frustration.

Bud, if you really want to be Michael Moore, why aren't you in there with your cameras and worse yet, why are you giving up so easily? Afraid of getting arrested? That's commitment for you.

Okay, so Monsanto doesn't want to reveal any of this info and is being sneaky about it. The fact remains that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. of A. has its own guidelines with respect to GMOs and has not only given them an okay, but seeing as it's based upon what Seifert and many others charge is a potentially low level of scientific investigation, where are the raft of scientists not employed by Monsanto and/or the FDA who agree with this? Where are all the politicians and bureaucrats who do agree? Why do we only meet one anti-GMO politician who wants greater openness with respect to the whole issue? Aren't there more? If not, why not? Seifert even whines about the legality of patenting seeds. How, he wonders, can life be owned by a corporation? Hey Bud, try taking a Business 101 course sometime.

While Seifert dredges up one scientist in Europe who's come up with some fairly damning evidence against GMOs, were there no others who could agree with him? And what about those scientists who refuted the findings? What do they have to say about it? Specifically, that is. Could they be right? Who says so? Why? Beats me. The film sheds no light on this.

Aside from what feels like a whole lot of personal home movie footage in the movie, Seifert engages in a series of conversations, photo-ops and experiments (strictly for the cameras) with his own kids. One of the little shavers always looks especially terrified - not, I suspect, by truly understanding the ramifications of GMOs, but by his potentially crazy Dad making him do a bunch of stuff that seems a whole lot scarier (to me, anyway) than any of the doom and gloom Seifert espouses.

One jaw-droppingly stupid and seemingly unnecessary "experiment" is when Seifert talks about how kids used to be able to run free and wild through corn rows, but that nowadays, because of genetic modification, the corn is full of potentially poisonous pesticides hard-wired into its DNA, making it dangerous to do so. What does the filmmaker do? He adorns his kidlets with heavy-duty, scary-looking body suits and gas masks, then forces them into the cornfields for the edification of the cameras. The suits are heavy and hot and once they're doffed, he and the children are drenched with sweat and out of breath. One of the kids is upset and crying.

Perhaps this isn't child abuse to the precise letter of the law, but it sure damn well feels like it. This and other such sequences with the kids seem so creepy, I almost think that if the film were directed and produced by someone other than Seifert, it might have, Sherman's March-style, turned into being about something altogether different from what it started to be about: that is, a documentary about a committed, well-intentioned Dad who goes in search of answers to his concerns about GMOs, then morphs into a documentary about a committed, well-intentioned Dad with a bunch of half-baked ideas who runs around trying to prove them and puts his kids through hell in order to do so.

I might have actually enjoyed that movie instead of having to infer it from the available footage in this one. Watching Seifert's kids gaze longingly out the window on a hot summer day as an ice cream truck rings its bell and seeing that they can't run out and grab a yummy cone because Dad tells them it has GMOs in it, has got to be seen to be believed.

There are many outright laughable items in this movie, but one of the biggest for me is that it would have you believe everything is genetically modified. There is, however, such a thing as ages-old breeding: all natural and all part of the long-accepted practice of shaping our agricultural product, uh, naturally. Seifert takes us to the famous Norwegian underground storage facility where every known seed to man (including those of the ancient variety), but all this does is make thinking viewers realize even more than man has been selectively modifying seeds since the beginning of time - doing it genetically does not necessarily mean it's a bad thing.

On a separate note, the movie is jam-packed with a whack of slanted, sentimental montage sequences meant to bolster Seifert's thesis (whatever it ultimately is, anyway) and using some of the most sickeningly twee original music I've ever had the displeasure to suffer through, I was more compelled to upchuck than be moved by the "sad truth". The tunes are warbled by a group called The Jubilee Singers. If, God forbid, you actually like the music, I'm sure it's available on the film's website along with other paraphernalia related to the film. It's strictly of the Kumbaya, My Lord variety, but if you're into it, knock yourself out.

Here's what I think you need to do. See this movie. However, see it at the myriad of independent cinemas that are playing the film across North America - you'll at least be putting money in their pockets. God knows, they deserve it. If you miss it on a big screen, though, skip it. No need putting money in the pockets of anyone else associated with this dreadful and, in its own way, dangerous, ill-informed propaganda.

GMO OMG opens for a limited run at Toronto's first-rate independent cinema, The Royal, on July 25, 2014. It's also playing in a variety of independent theatrical and non-theatrical venues across North America.

Here are some genuinely GREAT documentaries dealing with a variety of environmental issues (and/or just plain great documentaries) that you can buy at Amazon via accessing the various links below directly, and in so doing, assisting with the maintenance of The Film Corner.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 40th Anniversary Restoration @TheRoyalCinema & FantAsia 2014 in Montreal - includes presentation of Lifetime Achievement Award To Director Tobe Hooper

LEATHERFACE (Gunnar Hansen) - MASTER BUTCHER

Preamble:
On the occasion of a painstaking restoration in honour of the films's 40th Anniversay, a reminiscence of my first taste of the blade, 38 years ago:

I first saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on May 6, 1976 at Cinema 3, the long-gone Winnipeg art cinema at the corner of Ellice and Sherbrooke, tucked within a cool little one-block-strip that housed the Prairie Allied Booking Association (film buyers for hundreds of small-town movie theatres), Canfilm (where most 16mm feature film prints were stored and shipped out of) and the Winnipeg branch office of Universal Pictures (which hawked the studio's films to hardtops and ozoners in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario). Cinema 3 was my home away from home during my teen years and was where I saw actual film prints of the very best in classic and contemporary cinema. On this gorgeous spring night, a few days after my 17th birthday, I drove downtown from North End Winnipeg to see a double bill of Andy Warhol's Frankenstein by Paul Morrissey (aka Flesh For Frankenstein) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I'd seen neither film at this point. The Warhol film was first released when I needed my Mom and Dad to take me. Though my folks were surprisingly liberal and took me to see anything I asked them to, I'd oft-bestow some mercy upon them and not request their adult accompaniment to movies I knew would probably disgust them.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had thus far eluded me. The only first-run engagement it had garnered in Winnipeg was at a drive-in movie theatre before I could legally drive a car. Though the notorious horror film found its natural home in drive-in theatres, I'm happy that my first taste of it was at Cinema 3, the birthplace of so many of my cherry-popping alternative-to-the-mainstream movie experiences.

And I can assure you, my memories of seeing it for the first time are vivid. I was as horrified and sickened as I was energized. Gooseflesh overtook my body, as much for the sheer terror the movie generated, as for its dazzling virtuoso filmmaking. Shot after shot, cut after cut, I knew I was seeing something I'd never seen before. I experienced my hair standing on end in ways that had never before coursed through me in all my seventeen years on Earth. When the last frame of picture cut-out abruptly in the famous Leatherface chainsaw ballet pirouettes at the end of the film, I felt like I'd been socked in the solar plexus and left breathless. I stayed rigidly in my chair, still clawing the arm rests on either side of me until the lights came up and I was forced to stagger out into a clear-skied, pitch-black Winnipeg night, rip a cigarette out of the deck in the front pocket of my plaid hoser shirt, jam the fucker in my mouth, light it and suck back the toxins into my body, fuelling it with as much nicotine as humanly possible.

I knew I was hooked. I knew I'd have to see it again. And again. And yet again.

To that end, a couple of years later, I had begun working in the movie business as a film buyer, programmer and film critic. I not only kept seeing movies at Cinema 3, but on Friday afternoons I'd head on over to the little film plaza next door to have lunch at a nearby strip club with the Universal branch manager and a couple of old bookers from Prairie Allied. Once properly fed (usually Salisbury Steak with boiled potatoes drenched in watery gravy) and soused (on several shared bottles of Gimli Goose), I'd stroll into Canfilm to borrow 16mm prints of whatever movies were lying around the shipping room for the weekend, then drive them home to screen on my Bell and Howell Autoload projector.

And occasionally I'd even take a 16mm print of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to watch on my own or to introduce to friends. A couple of years after that, when booking my own repertory cinema, I played the masterpiece endlessly, often stepping into the auditorium to watch the movie with hundreds of shocked (and usually stoned) audiences. In the 38 years since I first saw the film, it's played an important part in my life. Frankly, I can't imagine a world without it.

* * * * *

It's ALWAYS about the MEAT!!!

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Dir. Tobe Hooper *****
Starring: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, John Dugan, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Robert Courtin, John Henry Faulk, John Larroquette

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"There are moments when we cannot believe that what is happening is really true. Pinch yourself and you may find out that it is." - A horoscope read aloud during The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

What hit me when I first saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is how brilliantly the movie is sectioned into two separate, yet inextricably linked halves, the first being a simple narrative set-up for its especially harrowing second half. Creepily building during the first 40 minutes, with occasional exclamatory jolts of violence, the picture delivers a solid bedrock from which it plunges you headlong into the second 40 minutes, a relentless nightmare on film. This is not a passive experience - you're slammed deep into the maw of pure, sheer, unrelenting terror.

Beg all you like. The nightmare never seems to end. When it finally does, the utter dread and revulsion generated by the whole experience stays with you forever. This, of course, is not because of the gore, or the extremity of the violence, but rather because the tone of the movie is so unlike anything you will have experienced. Even with all the slasher films, torture porn and moronically graphic remakes that have assailed contemporary audiences over the past decade, none of them come close to the disquieting power and intelligence with which The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is so astonishingly infused with. As they say, this one's for the ages.

The film opens with the de rigueur 70s white on black credit crawl, read aloud by a sombre off-screen narrator (John Larroquette - yes, the John Larroquette). The slow, methodical accent he places expertly upon such words as "tragedy" and "invalid brother" is undeniably creepy, but when he places an almost lugubrious emphasis upon the words "had", "very, very", "the mad and macabre" and finally his halting, deliberate and portentous tone and rhythm of the final words of narration, the title of the film itself, you're pretty much convinced, before you see even one frame of picture, that you'll be expunging more than a few bricks o' waste matter. (Larroquette's full narration in cutline to photo below.)

"The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
- The full text of John Larroquette's sombre narration over black as the titles crawl slowly upwards.

Once the white light of the credits disappear, we're left in pitch black and begin to hear heavy breathing, sounds of digging, tearing, ripping and sawing until we're jolted out of our seat by the sound and image of a flash bulb going off. We remain in the black, but every so often, the sounds of flashbulbs signal brief images of the most grisly kind until the tinny sounds of a transistor radio broadcast the sound of a news report as we fade slowly up from black into the blazing sun and we peer into the face of something utterly horrendous as the camera slowly pulls back to reveal a sight that's equally sickening. The news report describes what we're seeing as the top Texas news story until the movie dissolves into a title credit sequence up against extreme closeups of the sun as it emits solar flares and the newscaster continues with more news - all of it of the disastrous variety: oil spills, suicides, various acts of criminal activity. Ultimately, things are not right in the world. They're especially not right in the great state of Texas.

The sun roils violently as the heavens overlook our fair planet and we're introduced to a world that seems completely off-kilter. We meet our protagonists in short order, five twenty-somethings in a van, out for a Sunday drive. Sally (Marilyn Burns), her wheelchair-bound brother, Franklin (Paul A. Partain), Sally's boyfriend, Jerry (Allen Danziger) and another couple, Kirk (William Vail) and Pam (Teri McMinn), have stopped to investigate the site of the aforementioned grisly discovery. Franklin is left alone in the van and he peers out through the open sliding door on the side to see a raft of law enforcement officials, reporters and local citizens buzzing about.

Franklin's eyes turn to the ground, where lying askew and unkempt is an old drunk (John Henry Faulk) who looks upside down at the chubby, sweating invalid peering down at him. The old man chortles manically and gurgles out the following creepy words of portent:

"Things happen here abouts, things they don't tell about. I sees things, but they say that it's just an old man talking. You laugh at an old man? It's them that laughs that knows better."

There's no two ways about it - shit is going to happen and it's not going to be pretty.

The film follows our van full of young folk as they drive out to an old farmhouse that rests on property owned by Sally and Franklin. On the way, they make the mistake of picking up a smelly, facially scarred hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) waiting outside of a slaughterhouse. Their creepy passenger regales them with tales of how cattle used to be slaughtered.

"They did it with a sledge," the creep says with a big grin. "The cows died better that way."

After passing around photos of butchered cattle, the hitchhiker performers a painful ritual upon himself, then instigates an altercation (of the shocking and violent variety), until he's tossed out of the van and our young people make the unwise decision of pressing on. Even more unwise is that they're seriously low on gas and when informed by the proprietor (Jim Siedow) of a gas station that his tanks are dry, they decide to press on - not before, purchasing some tasty Texas Barbecue for their sojourn. The proprietor, who lives in a near-abouts farmhouse, is one hell of a good cook. A glimpse of his BBQ oven inside the gas station reveals an open closet-sized, oak-paneled chamber, glowing with deep reds and oranges from hot coals and filled with hunks of delectable, glistening meat. This is a site to behold. It almost makes you yearn for some good, old Texas BBQ. That said, your cravings to eat will not last long (unless you favour an upchuck or two whilst watching the movie).

Once the young'uns get to the old family homestead, Kirk and Pam excuse themselves to go take a dip in an old swimming hole out back. Sally and Jerry romp about gleefully in the house whilst crippled Franklin remains alone on the ground floor, chewing on his greasy BBQ sausage, expressing consternation at being abandoned and spitting out odd little bits of gristle.

Damnation! What in the hell is in that sausage anyway?

But, I digress.

Once Kirk and Pam arrive at their destination, they're disappointed to discover that the swimming hole is dried up, but happily, Kirk spies a nearby farmhouse that appears to be powered by a noisy, powerful generator. He and Pam saunter over to buy some gas for their van.

This proves to not be the best idea he's ever had.

When Kirk and Pam don't return, Sally's boyfriend Jerry goes looking for them.

This also proves to not be an especially good idea.

As darkness descends, Sally and her crippled brother are alone near the van, honking the horn and screaming out the names of their chums. What's really anxiety-inducing is that the keys are not in the van. Do they wait or does Sally go looking for them, pushing fat Franklin over the rough terrain in his wheelchair while he holds the flashlight in front of them?

Given what we already know about what's thus far transpired, we're kind of hoping they stay put and maybe hide quietly in the dark until it's daytime again. That would make the most sense, but if they did that, then there'd be no movie.

Building on what's preceded thus far, it's here where The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shifts gears into sheer, panic-inducing and completely experiential overdrive.

The nightmare begins.

What this eye sees, you do NOT want to see!

In many ways, I think The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a perfect movie. I really have no idea precisely how many times I've seen it all the way through, but I suspect it has to be at least 50 full viewings. Not once over the 38 years since I first saw it has the film disappointed. It always delivers, and then some. The movie goes so far beyond what once would expect from a low-budget horror movie marketed to drive-in theatres and grind houses.

Its richness is beyond belief.

At the forefront is Kim Henkel and director Tobe Hooper's terrific screenplay. As mentioned, they've created a structure that shouldn't work, but does (and with flying colours). What contributes to making the separation between narrative and experiential so successful are all the superb details they've layered the screenplay with.

Firstly, there's the whole notion of the sun, moon and planets. Speckled throughout the film are references to the weather, time of year and the various ramifications of the astrological and planetary signs, my favourite being the whole "Saturn in retrograde" motif. Pam is the astrology nut amongst the group and is glued to her horoscope book. Given some of the strange events happening in Texas, she reads the following aloud:

"The condition of retro gradation is contrary or inharmonious to the regular direction of actual movement in the zodiac, and is, in that respect, evil. When malefic planets are in retrograde, and Saturn is malefic their maleficies are increased."

Pam is chided by her friends for her beliefs, yet within the overall context of the film, they'd have all been far wiser to heed her. Then again, she might have also fared a touch better if she herself had adhered more closely to this dire prediction. After all, this is an astrological period when individuals should be assessing their motives and needs and most importantly, to learn when they MUST say no or yes. Alas, several missteps are taken by our protagonists with respect to this. Where the script shines, is that our villains also push against the natural order of things and they too face dire circumstances.

Planets in retrograde are an especially interesting phenomenon. From the perspective of an Earth view, these planets actually seem to be slowing down and moving backwards, their orbit reversing unnaturally. The screenplay is replete with such skewed perspectives from both the protagonists and antagonists. Within the context of the more narrative-based first half of the film and especially during the second nightmare half, the perspectives of the characters and, frankly, even our perspectives as audience members seem to be spinning in reverse, though they are, in fact, moving forward.

The other interesting aspect to Hooper's and Henkel's screenplay is the family dynamic of the antagonists. There's Grandpa (John Dugan) the grand, old patriarch who is reduced to a wizened infirm state and sits mostly alone with the mummified corpse of his wife and family dog. In spite of this, his grandsons worship the ground he hobbles upon - after all, Grandpa was a legendary slaughterhouse worker when cattle were killed the "old way" with a "sledge". He was, as one of the boys says, "the best killer there ever was."

Separated at Birth? Milton Berle, famous comedian (left) & actor Jim Siedow as the "Cook" in TCM.

The three brothers take on a variety of domestic roles. The hulking, mentally retarded Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) is possibly the real heir apparent to Grandpa - his prowess with a sledge hammer and a chainsaw are unparalleled and yet, he fulfills an almost feminine hausfrau role, donning a female wig and dolling up his mask made of dried human flesh with oodles of makeup and lipstick. The Hitchhiker is clearly the family hothead, whilst the gas station attendant is, within the perverse context of this family of killers, the voice of reason. The Hitchhiker taunts him with insults like, "You're just a cook." His considered response is the simple, "I just can't take no pleasure in killing." However, always the voice of reason, of balance, he adds, "There's just some things you gotta do. Don't mean you have to like it."

The screenplay is also rife with the most morbid black humour and it's this aspect of the writing that keeps the film always compelling and entertaining. The horror is occasionally tempered with some of the most hilarious actions and lines of dialogue. One of my all-time favourite moments NEVER fails to make me scream with laughter. After beating Sally viciously with a broom handle. tying her up, shoving a potato sack over her head and forcing her into his truck, "The Cook" starts the engine, looks over to an open door and the light pouring out from inside, turns the truck off, races back to the gas station office, flips the lights off and locks the door. Once he's back in the truck, he looks over at potato-sacked Sally, and like some cross between a Southern gentleman and down-home sage, he remarks, "Sorry to keep you waiting, young lady. I had to lock up the shop and turn the lights off. The cost of electricity these days is enough to drive a man like me out of business."

FRANKLIN:
He's fat, detestably obnoxious
and a cripple in a wheelchair.

One of the best elements of the writing is the deft strokes used to define all the characters and even going so far as to accentuate negative characteristics in the protagonists and almost positive traits in the villains. The character that is, by far, the most bravely written (and beautifully acted by Paul A. Partain) is that of Franklin, the invalid. Larroquette's opening narration places a great deal of emphasis upon Franklin being handicapped and how tragic it is that this crippled young man is subjected to the indignities of this horrific scenario, but that he suffers several indignities, is utterly hilarious.

Franklin is horrid. He's a whining, spoiled and nasty young man and whether he's seen taking a tumble on his wheelchair down a steep ditch while he's trying to pee, or having his fat arm sliced open with a straight razor or even his brutal encounter with a chainsaw, he's the butt of innumerable sick jokes. And damn, if he doesn't deserve it. Franklin is easily one of the most detestable victims in any horror film. There's no sentiment here in his being crippled.

Franklin's a complete asshole. When he finally gets what's coming to him, we're slapping our knees with uncontrollable laughter.

From a purely technical standpoint. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a triumph. The art direction is out of this world, especially the way in which the farmhouse of the psychopaths is dressed. It's replete with such sickening touches as human body parts adorning the furniture (at one point, Sally is forced to sit in a chair wherein the arms are literal human arms that have been severed) and every nook and cranny seems layered with years of filth, blood and all manner of viscera. At times, the grime is so odious that you can almost smell how thick and foul the air is. The makeup, special effects and gore are first-rate. There's nothing digital here, it's the real thing. Hooper and Wayne Bell's score and the latter's sound design work is a thing of absolute wonder, jangling your nerves and sticking resolutely in your craw. Daniel Pearl's cinematography is so stunning, both in composition, lighting and movement that it's hard to believe this movie was made for practically nothing. Even when you adjust for inflation, the base budget of this film was $60,000 and it not only puts virtually every low budget film ever made to shame, the dazzling imagination and virtuosity of this film makes even mega-budgeted work look like crap. Shot on gorgeous 16mm reversal film stock and recorded magnetically, then mixed for an optical track, there are few films that look and sound as good as this one.

Finally, though, it is Tobe Hooper's bravura direction that is the real star here. There isn't a single moment you aren't on edge and in the final half of the film, you will experience a nightmare on celluloid. There terror is relentless. It goes on and on and on and then, when you think you can catch your breath, forget about it. Those dreams we have where we're being pursued and no matter how hard we try to elude our pursuer, we just can't and then, there are those moments where within the nightmare itself, we pass out, then come to and think we're waking up from the nightmare until our eyes focus upon a few details and something's just not right and then, out of nowhere, a sound or action pierces our space and we're once again, smack dab in the middle of that which we think we've escaped.

But there's no escape. Not even when the nightmare ends. For me, this movie is so great, I never want the nightmare to end. I'm more than happy to live it over and over again.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has been painstakingly restored from its original 16mm reversal stock via 4K digital means. It plays in limited release and at film festivals. Please see it on a big screen. In Canada, if you live in Toronto or Montreal, you have no excuse to miss this great film on the big screen. In Toronto the film unspools at The Royal Cinema until July 23. This grand old neighbourhood movie cinema, converted into sound mixing studios and screening venue features the most impeccable sound, picture and acoustics. For showtime and tickets, visit The Royal website HERE. In Montreal, the film screens at the illustrious FantAsia 2014 on July 30 at 9:45 PM in the Concordia Hall Theatre. The film will be preceded by the presentation of a FantAsia Lifetime Achievement Award to none other than Tobe Hooper. Visit the FantAsia website for tickets and info HERE.