Klymkiw Reviews 3 short films U can't miss at FNC (Festival international du nouveau cinéma de Montréal) - AVEC LE TEMPS (aka BEFORE I GO), MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET, THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER

WHITE LIGHT OF SNOW
LIGHT OF NATURAL WORLD
LIGHT OF FLASH FRAME
LIGHT OF FLASH FRAME SHADOW
LIGHT OF SPIRIT

AVEC LE TEMPS
aka Before I Go (2014)
Dir. Mark Morgenstern

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Mark Morgenstern's exquisite new film reminds us of the oft-neglected poetic qualities of cinema. Avec le temps/Before I Go also happens to be a real film. It's "real" in that it was actually shot on real film. Its beauty and importance lies in the evocation of the greatest narrative of all - life, death and the seasonal journey of every beat of our lives. Like a short end, life is like a series of leftover bits, seemingly unused and discarded, yet there to be used and to comprise the whole of our existence. Like a flash frame, life is also adorned with those mistakes of perception that are very real, but are so fleeting that we might only be aware of them in times of either repose, reflection and/or death. Like Tom Berner, life only has meaning when we give selflessly to the passion which drives us and, in turn, drives those who receive the benefit of gifts given by those with no other agenda other than to do what has to be done in order to make life richer.

A "short end" is unexposed motion picture negative that is left over at the end of a film roll when the next take cannot be achieved with the amount of stock actually left on the roll. Over the course of shooting any film, especially a series of shorts or a single feature, there can be enough "short ends" to make a whole new film out of. A "flash frame" occurs when the camera is stopped while the gate is still open, leaving a blank frame of extremely overexposed stock. Even better is when the camera takes a few pubic hairs to get up to speed before cranking and allows a frame or two of "flashes", which are, essentially, blasted out frames which include picture. A "Tom Berner" is a man who made independent film a reality for several generations of artists. On the surface, he was a lab rep at Toronto's Film House and Deluxe, but beneath the layers of flesh, he was the spirit of cinema in Canada during a time when it needed him most. It still needs him, but he retired in 2001 and passed away in 2004.

Those whose lives were touched by his, will hopefully be able to infuse others with their own touches of self-sacrificing devotion to the art of film. If cinema is not consecration, it's nothing.

Avec le temps/Before I Go begins with the image of nature resting under a fluffy blanket of snow. The film moves into an interior where faceless shadows appear furtively amidst objects of both beauty and decay. The film has quite literally been constructed with short ends. With occasional flashes of fleeting frames the movie ultimately leaves us with the words "for Tom Berner" on its final frames before the end title credits.

Throughout Morgenstern's haunting, yet joyous and yes, occasionally and alternately creepy film is the light of day through the windows. The light changes as do the seasons - from darkness into light. Ultimately, we're left with the whiteness we began with. No longer is it the chilly scenes of winter, but the warmth and spirit of life itself, which is, ultimately death - a new stage in the journey of existence. A montage of flash frames and extremely short ends (shots), blow our mind during the film's climax, like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey Stargate sequence, albeit with neo-realist dollops, which lead to and leave us with the dedication to the late Tom Berner, enveloped, of course, by light.

We're reminded of two other key moments in cinema.

1. Clarence, the guardian angel's words to George Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life:

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives.
When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

2. Most evocatively, Morgenstern's film reminds us of Gabriel's voice-over at the conclusion of John Huston's immortal film adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead:

"One by one, we're all becoming shades. Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. . . Think of all those who ever were, back to the start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering out as well into their grey world. Like everything around me, this solid world itself which they reared and lived in, is dwindling and dissolving. Snow is falling. . . Falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living, and the dead."

Avec le temps/Before I Go is 12 minutes long. Morgenstern evokes a lifetime in that 12 minutes. It's proof positive of cinema's gifts and how they must not be squandered, but used to their absolute fullest.

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

Canada's Great War Hero, Andrew Mynarski VC,
Shooting Star of Selfless Sacrifice, a man of Bronze.

Mynarski Death Plummet (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre, Robert Vilar, Louis Negin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars
Read the full review HERE

A maze begins in childhood & never ends.

The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer (2014)
Dir. Randall Okita

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths.

Fusing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, binding it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.

Winner of the Toronto International Film Festival's 2014 Grand Prize for Best Canadian Short Film.
THE FILM CORNER RATING:
**** 4-Stars
Read the full review HERE

For further information visit the FNC - Festival international du nouveau cinéma de Montréal website HERE

MYNARSKI DEATH PLUMMET, THE WEATHERMAN AND THE SHADOWBOXER, THE UNDERGROUND: 3 SHORT CANADIAN FILMS at TIFF 2014 (TIFF Short Cuts Canada) - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Canada's Great War Hero,
Andrew Mynarski VC,
Shooting Star of
Selfless Sacrifice,
a man of Bronze.

Mynarski Death Plummet aka Mynarski chute mortelle (2014)
Dir. Matthew Rankin
Starring: Alek Rzeszowski, Annie St-Pierre, Robert Vilar, Louis Negin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The true promise, the very future of the great Dominion of Canada and La Belle Province lies beneath the soil of France and Belgium. Between World Wars I and II, Canada lost close to 2% of its population, the vast majority of whom were the country's youngest and brightest from the ages of 16 to 30. Canadian lads bravely served on the front lines, well ahead of the glory-grabbing Americans, the Yankee Doodle mop-up crew that dandily sauntered overseas after all the hard work was paid for by the blood spilled upon European soil by the very heart and soul of Canada's future and that of so many other countries not bearing the Red, White and Blue emblem of puffery. As a matter of fact, any of the best and bravest in Canada came from Winnipeg and if you had to pick only one hero of the Great Wars from anywhere in the country, Andrew Mynarski, a gunner in the famed Moose Squadron, would be the one, the only. He is the subject of Matthew Rankin's perfect gem of a film, the one, the only genuine cinematic work of art to detail the valiant sacrifice, the one, the only, the unforgettable Mynarski Death Plummet.

Played dashingly in Rankin's film by a real, live, honest-to-goodness, in-the-flesh, Goralska-Sausage-Slurping Polish-Canadian actor, Alek Rzeszowski, Mynarski himself was a fearless Polish-Canadian kid born and raised in the the North End, the only neighbourhood in Winnipeg (alongside St. Boniface, 'natch) that bears any real historical significance in Canada's keystone to the west, the former "Little Chicago" perched majestically on the forks of the mighty Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In 1944, Mynarski flew an Avro Lancaster bomber into the heavy action of northern France. After taking out his fair share of Nazi Pigs, the plane was aflame. He ordered the other lads aboard to drop the Polski Ogórki from his Mom, grab their chutes and bail. They did so with pride in a job well done.

Mynarski was last to leave. Or so he thought until he realized that Officer Pat Brophy (Robert Vilar) was trapped in the tail gun compartment. Our North End Hero did everything possible to save his friend until Brophy demanded Mynarski save himself. The lads exchanged salutes and the Polish Prince of King Edward and Isaac Newton schools, his chute now sadly in flames, took a fateful plunge from the plummeting Avro. His fire-engulfed body shot itself over the fields of France, mistaken as a bomb by some, including a rural mayor (Louis Negin, Canada's greatest actor - like, ever), but was correctly identified by a ravishing, babe-o-licious, though simple country girl of France as 100% REAL MAN, his body melted to bronze as the woman shot beams of love and gratitude from her heart into the spirit of the eventual posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross and honoured by Winnipeg's citizenry with a legendary North End Junior High School in his name.

This is such a great film. I could have watched all seven minutes of it if they'd somehow been elongated to a Dreyer-like pace and spread out over 90 minutes. That said, it's perfect as it is. The fact that you don't want it to end is a testament to director Matthew Rankin one of the young torchbearers (along with Astron-6) of the prairie post-modernist movement which hatched out of Winnipeg via the brilliantly demented minds of John Paizs and Guy Maddin. Blending gorgeously arcane techniques from old Hollywood, ancient government propaganda films with dollops of staggeringly, heart-achingly beautiful animation - bursting with colour and blended with superbly art-directed and costumed live action - Mynarski Death Plummet takes its rightful place alongside such classic Canadian short films as John Martins-Manteiga's The Mario Lanza Story, John Paizs's Springtime in Greenland, Guy Maddin's The Dead Father and Deco Dawson's Ne Crâne pas sois modeste / Keep a Modest Head.

In many ways, Rankin's film is history in the making of history. Most Canadians of my generation know Andrew Mynarski's story by heart, but even still, Rankin's film is so compelling, I kept hoping it wouldn't end as tragically as it did. Thankfully, Rankin infuses his tale with the sumptuous, wildly romantic image of the French babe looking longingly into the night sky and her magical explosion of squid-like polyps from within her big heart, allowing them to sail into the black Gallic atmosphere and plunge into Mynarski's very soul before he transforms into the likeness of the bronze memorial statue erected in Ottawa, the capital of our fair Dominion.

The other part of the story that all Canadians of my generation know is that Officer Brophy actually survived the crash. He was not only able to recount Mynarski's bravery and sacrifice, but he was kept alive by the strength and just-plain brick shithouse qualities of the Canadian-invented-and-manufactured Avro Bomber - an incredibly moving moment Rankin recreates in his film. (And sadly, the AVRO corp and its eventual superior aircraft, including "The Arrow", were decimated by the Americans into smithereens when Uncle Sam couldn't hack the fact that Canada had actually created something, uh, better than they could.)

A final important thought about Rankin's astonishing film. There is so much ludicrous, politically correct lip service paid to the new "face" of Canada and the need to represent the histories and stories of the said "new face". I'm all for that, but the problem is that Canadian Cinema has not even properly addressed its own history prior to the "new face of Canada". Until that happens, I think it might not be a bad idea to begin recounting and mythologizing Canada's true heroes as Rankin has done with Mynarski Death Plummet.

I hope this film is shown everywhere - especially in schools, especially to our "new" faces. It's bad enough Canadian History is so poorly taught in our schools, but maybe, just maybe, a super-cool new masterpiece of cinema is a good first-step to begin writing wrongs that the past century has wrought upon our great Dominion. When I say our future was decimated in the World Wars, I'm not exaggerating, but there's more to it than that. Our country has long been besieged by a cultural colonialism that has stifled genuine creativity and placed far too much emphasis on staid approaches to the cultural industries decided mostly by unimaginative bureaucrats who seek either the Status Quo of dull-edged blades or worse, hang pathetically onto their jobs by promoting "diversity" rather than genuinely looking to find ways of dramatically and artistically render a history and stories that have sadly been neglected.

Mynarski Death Plummet is a mere seven minutes long, but its impact and lasting value can be multiplied to the power of the infinite - a fine equation, if you ask me.

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

Mynarski Death Plummet is part of TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

A maze that begins
in childhood
and never ends.

The Weatherman
and the Shadowboxer (2014)
Dir. Randall Okita

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of Canada's national filmmaking treasures, Randall Okita (Portrait as a Random Act of Violence), takes the very simple story of two brothers and charts how a tragic event in childhood placed them on very different, yet equally haunted (and haunting) paths.

Mixing live action that ranges from noir-like, shadowy, rain-splattered locales to the strange, colourful (yet antiseptically so) world of busy, high-tech, yet empty reportage, mixing it up with reversal-stock-like home movie footage, blending it altogether in a kind of cinematic mixmaster with eye popping animation and we're offered-up a simple tale that provides a myriad of levels to tantalize, intrigue and finally, catch us totally off-guard and wind us on a staggering emotional level.

Okita's cinematographer Samy Inayeh is more than up to the challenge of attacking a variety of visual styles with superb compositions and gorgeous lighting. Editor Mike Reisacher knocks us on our proverbial love-buns with his thrilling slicing and dicing.

As per Okita's mise-en-scene, Reisacher's challenge is to maintain the film's avant-garde nature with its equally profound narrative and thematic elements. He's more than up to the challenge and cuts a picture that we're unable to ever look away from and follow a trajectory that wends its way like a complex maze between two different characters and lands us to a spot that kicks us in the solar plexus and wrenches our hearts.

Unbelievably for some, this was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, but it appears to have been seeded and birthed out of the Montreal offices which still manages to consistently escape the often dour safety-zone prevalent in much of the Board's English Canadian output.

As for Okita, he's delivered yet another roundhouse for the ages. This is what cinema should be. Screw ephemeral needs. Immortality is, uh, like, better, eh.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer is in TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

We're all cockroaches.
Don't forget it.

The Underground (2014)
Dir. Michelle Latimer
Starring: Omar Hady

Review By Greg Klymkiw

What's especially fine in this slice-of-life/slice-of-consciousness dramatic cinematic tone poem is how it presents a contemporary political and social reality that's seemingly the exclusive domain of a very specific segment of our population. Through its careful mise-en-scene, that comes close to overplaying its metaphorical hand, but pulls back in time to maintain the necessary poker face (as it were), The Underground deftly creates feelings that can, indeed, be universal.

Inspired by Rawi Hage's novel "Cockroach", the film feels all of a piece rather than some horrendous calling card for an eventual feature length adaptation. If, God forbid, it's supposed to serve this purpose, it would be a tad disappointing to know, but at least it has a singular integrity that allows it to work as a piece of film art unto itself. Cleverly rooted in simplicity to yield complexity, we follow a young refugee from some Middle Eastern hell hole as he lives out his lonely life in Canada within the isolation of a filthy, cockroach-infested slum apartment.

Part of the reason for the cockroaches could be his fascination with these seemingly vile creatures and his penchant for capturing them and setting up strange domiciles in glass jars. He spends much of his time on the floor of his filthy suite intently examining his "pets", but also experiencing flashbacks to the horror of what must have been his incarceration and torture. When a notice is slipped under his door to prepare for a visit from a pest control company, the film truly takes on the feeling of a living nightmare.

We become immersed in paranoia through a cockroach-eye-view and indeed, the images of hooded pest-control guys take on the same kind of creepy horror so prevalent in David Cronenberg's very early genre features that featured similarly-masked and/or accoutred killers/exterminators. There's a truly sickening and recognizable sense of fear, paranoia and loneliness so acute one wants the protagonist to scream. He won't, though. His is a silent scream.

And though we might all not be or can even fully comprehend what it's like to be a political refugee in a strange land, the film does make us feel and believe that at some point in our lives, if not for always and for ever, we are all little more than cockroaches in a world hell-bent upon weighing us down. We cower, hugging our floors as if we were a fetus in a blood-lined belly of viscous fluids and we wait for the secret police to drag us out of our home, or our cell, to be ripped from the safety of a womb we've made for ourselves.

And then, and only then, are we plunged into sheer horror.

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

The Underground is in TIFF14's Short Cuts Canada program. Visit TIFF's website HERE for more info.

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A similar scene to the one experienced by Jim Jarmusch and others in New York during the 70s and 80s and captured in the documentary BLANK CITY as well as many other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" series was happening in Winnipeg. A very cool explosion in indie underground cinema that I and many colleagues and friends were involved with was spawned during these halcyon days. This period, coined by film critic Geoff Pevere as Prairie Post-Modernism included the works of John Paizs, Guy Maddin, Greg Hanec and many others.

A great selection of early Guy Maddin, many of which that I produced and were written by George Toles, can be secured directly through the following links:



Another great film from Winnipeg during this period is Greg Hanec's extraordinary DOWNTIME which has the distinction of being a parallel cinematic universe to Jim Jarmusch's "STRANGER THAN PARADISE". Both films were made at the same time in two completely different cities and scenes and both Hanec and Jarmusch premiered their films at the same time at the Berlin Film Festival. One's famous, the other isn't - but now that the "lost" and "found" DOWNTIME has been remastered from original elements to DVD, it can now be purchased directly online.

Order DOWNTIME directly
from the film's new website
by clicking HERE

Perhaps the greatest Canadian independent underground filmmaker of all-time is Winnipeg's John Paizs. It's virtually impossible to secure copies of his astounding work which, frankly, is responsible for influencing the work of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Bruce McDonald and an endless number of great indie filmmakers the world over. Paizs' great short film SPRINGTIME IN GREENLAND is available for purchase in a beautiful remastered edition from a fan website, the inimitable Frank Norman. Norman has Paizs' blessing to provide copies of the film, so feel free to directly make your request to Mr. Norman by clicking HERE.

Visit Frank Norman's CRIME WAVE
fan site by clicking HERE

Alas, it's super-impossible to get a copy of Paizs' masterpiece CRIME WAVE (not to be confused with the super-awful Coen Bros/Sam Raimi film of the same name that was released the same year Paizs' film was NOT released properly by its scumbag Canadian distributor Norstar Releasing, which eventually became Alliance Films (where the boneheads sat on the film and turned down several excellent offers from small indie companies to release the film properly on DVD in super-deluxe special editions because they lazily purported to be negotiating a massive package deal on its catalogue titles with some tiny scumbag public domain company that, as far as I can tell, has neither purchased nor released the film). This truly great and highly influential film is, no doubt, languishing in some boneheaded distribution purgatory within the deep anal cavities of the new owner of Alliance Films, a humungous mega-corporation called E-One. Feel free to repeatedly bug their stinking asses and demand a proper release. In the meantime, VHS copies of CRIME WAVE can still be found with the ludicrous title THE BIG CRIME WAVE. Here's a copy available on Amazon:

BLANK CITY and other works in the "Forgotten Winnipeg" Series can be accessed here:

THE AUCTIONEER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

The Auctioneer (2013) ****
dir. Hans Olson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

While I've never been much on all the egg-headed gobbledygook associated with documentary forms like the Direct Cinema movement (first developed by Quebecois NFB types) and the closely related cinéma vérité, I do respond to the one thing they both share - the desire to capture reality as it unfolds before the camera. On the Quebec side of the equation we had the likes of Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault and Gilles Groulx and south of the 49th parallel, such Anglo stalwarts as Frederick Wiseman, the Maysles (Albert and David) and D.A. Pennebaker - all practitioners of this form on both sides of the border who, among others, created a body of fascinating and groundbreaking work.

What I often enjoy and appreciate is when there is no narration, little or no score (save for natural source music) and no question and answer styled interviewing of any kind. This poses a challenge to the filmmaker to impart information and tell their story by shooting a whack of footage that's then shaped in the edit room. Obviously, some "manipulation" will be involved in terms of following a beat sheet or even script but usually what happens when the camera rolls is, well, WHAT actually happens. It's not only a challenge for the filmmaker, but in some ways, it can pose an entertaining challenge for the viewer - forcing one to glue one's eyeballs to the screen and really pay attention to what's there and, in many cases, to "get into" the rhythm. Doing both, when the picture is genuinely good or great, yields a truly rewarding experience for the viewer.

The Auctioneer, a National Film Board of Canada (NFB) production, is just such a film. Its virtues are many on so many levels - most notably in terms of both narrative and form - happily yielding a finely wrought, delicate and extraordinary portrait of life on the Canadian prairies. Oh, and lest you mistake this for some overwrought piece of midwestern Canadian nostalgia piece like Who Has Cut The Wind, you'd be sorely mistaken. Though the film is replete with sentiment, it's all in the look, not in the telling.

The story is simple as simple can be. This is especially pleasing because it allows director Hans Olson to work magic from the deftly structured scripting by Clark Banack. The film focuses on the dying art of buying and selling on the prairies. Against the backdrop of farm life in and around Vegreville, Alberta we follow a transaction between an auctioneer and a young man looking to sell off the contents of the family farm. The film meticulously follows the initial contact, through to the examination of goods to be sold, then the preparations on both sides to ready the goods for auction and finally, the auction itself.

Sounds like a barn-burner, huh? Well, in its own unique way, it is. By keeping his camera trained on all the salient details, Olson provides a genuinely fascinating look at what it means to sell used goods in a rural setting - one where ebay auctions still don't quite do the trick. I'll never forget when Canadian filmmaker John Paizs told me that audiences love learning new things when they're watching movies - it's something that always delights me now, on a more conscious level than before. What Paizs referred to, of course, were those little touches that occur primarily within straight up narrative filmmaking, but in documentary, teaching is as important on an overt level as is enjoying a good story. The Auctioneer does both superbly.

There's virtually not a single moment (when the film focuses on the selling and buying) that I didn't learn a whole whack of new things while at the same time, deriving pleasure from following this character-driven yarn about two men on opposite ends of the spectrum finding mutual ground in the very act of selling properties that had lost usefulness for one party, but had plenty of life left for others. (On a strictly personal note, since I've become a bit of a gentleman farmer in the past year, I genuinely learned stuff from the film that I'm going to be able to put to practical use.)

And now, here's where I impart what's extra special about this film - it's the maraschino cherries on the ice cream sundae, so to speak. This movie looks gorgeous. I can't think of a single shot that isn't imbued with ravishing compositions and an expert use of light. Olson's eye and cinematographer Mike McLaughlin's superlative lensing combine to create a painterly look not unlike - and I kid you not - that rendered by the great John Ford and his groundbreaking work with the likes of cinematographers Winston Hoch and Gregg Toland.

This is no mere eye candy. Given the fact that Olson has chosen to utilize a restrained approach wherein the camera shoots from a fixed position and records the action/information, it's especially important that our eyes are glued to the screen. What we gain from this approach, as an audience, is first being drawn in to appreciate the gob-smacking virtuosity of the look, then to fixate on the action and finally, and perhaps importantly why those who live in this world are not to keen on kissing it goodbye. Progress and moving on is not always the best choice when the land given to us by the Creator is as overpowering as this. (And, of course, why my ire is so raised by the destruction of the Oil Sands in the same province.)

This approach to documentary is strangely akin to that of Austrian director Ulrich Seidl who also shoots his work with sumptuous, gorgeously lit compositions and though The Auctioneer borrows from a direct cinema and vérité tradition in terms of capturing "reality" it, like Seidl's documentaries, keeps things on sticks. And if there's anything hand-held at all, Olson and McLaughlin have been blessed with the steadiest operator in the world. All this said, Olson and Seidl part company in terms of subject matter since the mad Austrian is firmly committed to exploring humanity in the most ugly human behaviour (save for Seidl's astounding work on Jesus, I Love You).

For such a visual approach to work means that the pacing of the film requires a very challenging languourous quality and its a testament to the editor of The Auctioneer, Dev Singh, that he chooses the most exquisite sweet spots in his cuts so that we move forward emotionally and narratively in a manner that quite literally takes our breath away from shot to shot. This, of course, sets up a rhythm that takes a small bit of time to get used to, but once we do, we're completely hooked - not unlike that of Terencee Malick's pre-Tree of Life pacing when he made real movies and cared about blending style with storytelling.

There is one tiny problem with The Auctioneer in terms of content. Our title character moonlights as a funeral director. The film takes great pains to present this to us in ways that fit the narrative and theme like a glove, but alas, a golden rule is broken. It's the old Storytelling 101 rule of never introducing something that doesn't pay off. The usual analogy would be, if your movie shows us a gun, you have to fire it. Frankly, the movie is begging (or if you will, dying) for a real funeral or memorial service. We get it metaphorically, but that seems like an unfortunate cheat. There might have been exigencies of production that prevented this, but if this was the case, Heaven and Earth needed to be moved at all costs to capture it. The alternative would have been to excise this completely from the film.

It's a minor quibble, but John Ford never avoided an opportunity to have a funeral and/or memorial service and/or graveyard scene. What was good for Ford should also be good for a filmmaker as clearly and richly talented as Olson.

And speaking of John Ford, based on this extraordinary film and Olson's previous dramatic shorts, he's poised to pick up Mr. Ford's torch. If someone in Canada is stupid enough not to deliver a nice fat cheque to Olson, he might need to leave here and go to a place where good, classical filmmaking is appreciated.

He's the real thing. So's The Auctioneer.

"The Auctioneer" is playing at the Hot Docs 2013 film festival. For showtimes and tickets, visit the festival website HERE. It's playing with an excellent short documentary I've reviewed in these pages called "Packing Up The Wagon: The Last Days Of Wagon Wheel Lunch". Feel free to read that review on the same page "Special Ed" is reviewed by clicking HERE. If you're interested in a completely different portrait of life in Alberta, Hot Docs is also presenting Charles Wilkinson's excellent "Oil Sands Karaoke" and you can read my review HERE.

LEGEND OF A WARRIOR - DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw

THIS TERRIFIC CANADIAN NFB MARTIAL ARTS DOCUMENTARY
IS A MUST FOR CHOP-SOCKY AFICIANADOS.
IT'S NOW AVAILABLE FOR DIRECT PURCHASE ON DVD BY
CLICKING ON THE AMAZON.CA LINK JUST BELOW:

I first saw this fabulously entertaining feature documentary one year ago. Now available on DVD, I've taken a third helping and the movie not only holds up for yet another ocular fix, but within the context of a home view, allows one to take in the more subtle, moving and emotional human elements beneath the considerable martial arts razzle-dazzle. This, of course, suggest the picture's sustainability for repeat viewing and at the very affordable Amazon price-point above, a much better hard-copy-buy than the much inferior download or streaming formats also available through other venues.  More on the DVD below the review of the film itself at the bottom of the page.

"Legend of a Warrior" was one of my top 15 films at Hot Docs 2012. It's now available on DVD from the National Film Board of Canada. The movie is a touching, well crafted father-son story set against the backdrop of martial arts and featuring plenty of real-life chopsocky in the gym where the director reconnects with his Dad, one of the most famous and respected martial arts trainers in the world.

Legend of a Warrior (2012) ***1/2 dir. Corey Lee
Starring: Frank Pang Lee, Corey Lee, Billy Chow

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's nothing more exciting on film than movement. Yeah, sounds nuts, right? Movies are movement. Moving pictures. Motion pictures. The movies.

The movement I'm referring to, is when the camera captures a great dance number or chase scene or fight. In recent years, however, all three of those actions have succumbed to supplicating the vile MTV-and-post-MTV generations with annoying ADHD-styled shooting and cutting. You know the kind - the camera never rests for more than a few seconds on some poorly composed shot and is cut montage-like to fake the rhythm. Sound drives the cuts more often than not. Picture is secondary when it comes to conveying information, dramatic beats, emotional beats and/or to provide juxtapositional imagery to convey a thought or idea.

This drives me completely up the wall. It's lazy filmmaking and denies audiences the true power and beauty of an exquisitely choreographed dance, chase or fight.

Luckily, if Legend of a Warrior had nothing else going for it (and it has plenty to offer), it has the distinction of featuring a whole passel of terrific fight scenes (mostly within the context of training action in the gym). And Glory Be To The Mighty Lord of Cinema, the picture is shot the way pictures involving action should be shot - mostly in long, wide or medium shots and only punching in for anything closer when there's a reason to do so. Most of the time, the superb camera work hangs back and the editing is spare in all the right ways.

Given the film's title and the way I've chosen to lead my review, you might think I was describing a new action picture starring Jason Statham. Curiously, I first watched Legend of a Warrior at the previous instalment of the Hot Docs Festival just after seeing Statham's newest fight-fest Safe (which is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray).

Safe featured some spectacularly choreographed action and fights that were almost completely ruined by a boneheaded "director" who had no idea where to place the camera and tried to create thrills by throwing in as many closeups as possible with a ridiculous number of cuts. Legend of a Warrior, however, was a breath of fresh air (though with emphasis on training so well wrought cinematically, one could imagine the air tempered with the olfactory essence of sweat coming off the glistening bodies and raw pounding of fists and feet upon flesh and leather bags).

This is all the more gratifying when one realizes Legend of a Warrior is a documentary - a low budget one at that, though never betraying the meagre shekels and always maintaining first-rate production value within the context of a simple and solid story.

The picture's simple structure, however, yields considerable thematic complexity. I remember that my second helping of Legend of a Warrior happened to fall within the same period when I was immersed in the classic 50s Inagaki Samurai Trilogy from Japan where issues of honour, brotherhood and, most importantly the craft of shooting action was simple, straight forward and as such, very exciting and lodged very appropriately at  the forefront. The parallel themes shared by the pictures carried over to Legend of a Warrior with even more resonance than previous showings as I watched the movie alone in my man-cave with a pot of joe and plenty of cigarettes to accompany the on-screen HD action.

With the feature length Legend of a Warrior, director Corey Lee delivers a very personal documentary. Corey was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He's half Chinese and worries that both he and furthermore, his kids, need to discover their ethnic roots while they still have time to do so. The ticking clock is Corey's Chinese father. He and Dad have, for much of their life as father and son, been estranged. Corey decides to not only change this state of affairs, but to document it on film.

His Dad is the legendary Frank Pang Lee, a great master of the martial arts who not only runs his own gym in Alberta, but was the personal trainer to the equally legendary Billy Chow, the reigning world kickboxing champion through much of the 80s and a stalwart actor in over 50 martial arts pictures (having co-starred with the likes of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Jet Li, Jacky Wu and among many others, Donnie Yen). Frank's world famous self-designed White Crane technique is also the stuff of legend.

Speaking of legends, Frank is 70 years old. I can't actually believe he's 70. This guy is in stunning physical condition and to see him in action is utterly mind-blowing. Corey in contrast, is buff enough, but hasn't practiced martial arts for over twenty years. He decides the best way to get to know his father and reclaim his Chinese heritage is to train with Dad.

The training sequences are absolutely brutal - not in a nasty violent way, but in the visual/aural combination of punishing, almost obsessive physical exertion with the naturalistic sounds of the gym itself. And they are gorgeously shot and cut. (Someone give this director and his team an action picture to make.)

Through the film, we witness Corey getting into better shape and his kung fu seems to be progressing nicely during the weeks of training. What's not quite happening is the father-son thing he's been hoping for. This only starts to happen once the two of them take a trip to Hong Kong together. This leads to a scene in the film's final third which, in a drama, could have been machine tooled to pretty decent effect, but because this is a documentary, it takes on an added power. Suffice it to say that this aforementioned scene is tremendously moving. (I spewed more than a few geysers of liquid salt from my tear-ducts.)

Between training sessions and a glorious tournament sequence in Frank's gym, we get dollops of Frank's own story - his early years as a gang thug in China, the threat of communism and his eventual escape to Canada. Once in the New World, Frank's fighting prowess comes in mighty handy when he works a few local Edmonton dives as a waiter/bouncer. His exploits at tossing innumerable tough customers reach far and wide and soon, tough guys from all over Western Canada and the far north make their way to Edmonton to try their luck at NOT being turfed by Frank. It's like Frank became the gunfighter with a reputation that always needed to be challenged by young turks who thought they were tougher.

Ah, Alberta! Lotsa beef, lotsa horses and plenty of rough customers straight out of a Randolph Scott western (and in this case, cross-pollinated with some chop-socky).

Many of the early years of Frank's life are rendered via some very evocative animations (still drawings - almost like anime sketches with a few simple moves). These are deftly integrated into the film and even subtly cut into live action moments when necessary.

For the most part, this is a truly compelling documentary, but the two things that, for me, keep it from crossing into the overwhelming scope of a "theatrical" experience is that some of the narration is far-too on the nose (especially in the early going) and secondly, that the movie delivers on the emotional arc of the father-son story, but lacks a good final visceral punch. I was expecting, but never got, a final match between Corey and an opponent of equal calibre. The narration sometimes drove me a bit nuts - often delivering stuff we didn't need to know and if we did need to know it, I think it might have been better to just let the audience piece it together all on their lonesome.

Much of the voice-over was of the "I think this, I think that, I hope this happens, I hope that happens" variety. It often came over dynamic visuals and I'd have preferred a more cerebral approach to conveying these feelings. In a strange way, I'm even more convinced that the narration (though it works somewhat better within a home viewing context) might even be one of the culprits in delivering a wee bit of a letdown when we DON'T get a final match since it often does serve to build conflict that is paid off emotionally, but not visually and viscerally in terms of an expected kick-ass series of kicks and roundhouses.

This, however, is not ultimately going to deter anyone from enjoying the film at all.

It's a terrific story.

Interestingly, if I were the producer of the film, I'd be doing everything in my power to be selling the dramatic remake rights to a studio. There's a great martial arts movie with some heart here. A few embellishments wouldn't hurt, mind you - like a big match at the end of the movie, or better yet, add an underworld subplot requiring father and son to kick some gangster butt together. Or better yet, just try to make the movie without a studio. Get Chow Yun Fat to play Frank and concoct a good villain role and cast Jackie Chan against type in it. Toss Tony Jaa into the mix as Corey. And hey, set the damn thing in Edmonton. There's plenty of Ukrainians there. Toss some Uke mob action into the mix. George Dzundza would be a fantastic Uke mob boss.

Yeah, I know - that's a different movie, and kind of cheesy, but crazier things have happened in this gloriously nutty business.

"Legend of a Warrior" is a gorgeously transferred DVD with a variety of sound and language choices and as mentioned above, the price-point is more than enough to justify adding the title to one's documentary and/or martial arts collections.

There are disappointments, though. The packaging is a very nice "green" recycled plastic that holds the film safely with its covers. That said, the spectacular artwork of the poster and a very nicely designed back cover come (at least with my copy) as a separate slip cover that I presume I must somehow affix myself to the box.

The biggest disappointment is the lack of special features that frankly would have rendered a highly collectible home viewing product. The movie is so beautifully shot that it would have been nice if the whole package had included 3 versions - DVD, Digital AND, most importantly, a Blu-Ray disc.

The possibility for added value features would have been almost limitless and frankly, given the story and the legendary qualities of the director's father, this should have been issued in two versions - the current bare-bones product for cheapies and an amazing extra-packed super-deluxe collector's edition. A moderated commentary track with father and son would have proven amazing and an element much desired by the millions upon millions of fan-boy martial arts geeks, (Yes, Lee and some of the other figures in the film are THAT famous.) A second moderated commentary track with director, producer and cinematographer that spoke to specific elements of production would also have been welcome. 

Given that the film is a documentary, the amount of unused footage would have been more-than-available and useful for any number of specifically-themed making of documentaries - not glorified EPKs, but borderline films unto themselves - not unlike the great work Laurent Bouzereau has done for Criterion and Universal home releases. On top of that, I'm sure there are any number of scenes/sequences that hit the cutting room floor would have been superb additional features (and could also have been presented with a specific series of commentaries from the director). Finally, a nice glossy booklet, or even an attacked to the cover mini-book (a la some of the recent Warner and Universal special editions) could have included a director diary of production and post (even if there wasn't one, it's pretty easy to make one up, or at least generate a brief "memoir" piece), but also two additional essays from martial arts aficionados - one placing the documentary in a historical context within the history of martial arts movies and another being a critical analysis.

All this could have THEN been packaged in a limited edition box, numbered (say an initial run of 1000 copies), personally signed by the director and his father and made available to the willing collector market for product just like this. Given that the National Film Board of Canada is uniquely poised to release many of their own titles, I really think this title and maybe a few others would benefit greatly from this kind of geek-paradise packaging. Collectors will always pay a premium price if a product has a collectable quality and given the difficulty (and/or sheer laziness) pirates have with re-mastering full collectors' editions, even something like this - aimed at a market of Asian martial Arts fans - would, especially if marketed properly to the myriad of geeks in the world, been a great seller with considerable shelf life.

Maybe this can still happen. Video distributors double and triple dip on titles all the time. There's no reason the NFB couldn't do so also.