VENDETTA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Prison Pic Directors/Cast Rise Above Ho-Hum Script

Vendetta (2015)
Dir. Jen and Sylvia Soska
Scr. Justin Shady
Starring: Dean Cain, Paul "The Big Show" Wight, Michael Eklund, Kyra Zagorsky

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's one thing screenwriter Justin Shady gets right in the WWE Studios production of the prison thriller Vendetta - he wastes no time in getting to the goods hardened genre geeks and prison picture aficionados appreciate.

When cop Mason Danvers (Dean Cain, star of TV's Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) and his partner (Ben Hollingsworth) miraculously bust the seemingly un-bustable psycho serial criminal Victor Abbott (WWE's Paul “The Big Show” Wight), they don't count on chief witnesses "disappearing" and their infamous collar going free. What Danvers especially doesn't expect is Victor exacting revenge upon him by savagely beating his pregnant wife (Kyra Zagorsky) to death - with his bare hands. Victor almost seems happy to take the rap for this and go to prison. Danvers, hell-bent upon revenge (of course), murders Big Vic's brother and two other scumbag associates in cold blood. Like his bulky nemesis Victor, Danvers is happy to take the murder rap and go to prison so he can have a shot at killing the killer of his wife and unborn child.

All our hero has left is hatred. He has nothing to lose.

So, this takes all of 20 minutes. No time-wasting on trials or procedurals, but time enough for the dazzling director duo Jen and Sylvia Soska to deliver just enough footage twixt Danvers and his preggers wifey so we can see how much they love each other and how hard they've worked at having their first child and then, the sickening assault upon her, climaxing with Victor repeatedly bashing in the woman's belly, killing both her and the fetus and finally, Danvers delightfully dispatching the three aforementioned pieces of crap with plenty of gushing blood and brain-splattering.

And now, we get to prison. Yeeeeeee Haaaaaaaa!

In fairness to scenarist Shady, he hauls out all the prison picture tropes - the corrupt warden (Michael Eklund), the shifting allegiances on the yard, the requisite scenes against the backdrops of cafeteria, laundry room, solitary confinement, shower room and an eventual full-blown riot. This all continues to move the action briskly enough so the Soskas can continue to bowl us over with their considerable directorial prowess. Things also move narratively at a breakneck clip so we don't have a lot of time to mull over the stadium-sized holes in the plot (such as it is).

Niggling plot-holes aside (as they can ultimately be forgiven) where Shady's script lets discriminating genre fans and, frankly, the Soskas down, is the lack of any genuine thematic, political subtext. Given that the current American prison system is one of the most horrific abusers of basic human rights in the free world, especially since it's been hideously privatized so that prison administrators want their institutions to be ludicrously full and to not let anyone go free (all for profit, of course), one feels a huge missed opportunity here for the Soskas to inject their trademark social commentary and sensitivity to such areas as thematic and/or political resonance. Jesus, even See No Evil 2, their first WWE gun-for-hire gig was rife with strong elements of female empowerment and had a feminist subtext running through it that its screenplay offered plenty of room for.

This script is sadly missing such key elements. Genre fans are not idiots - a bit of flesh on the bones of exploitation is always a welcome treat. I feel badly dumping on the screenwriter here, though, since it's quite possible that the Lions Gate and WWE head honchos were the primary culprits in their own demands for a cookie-cutter approach to the writing. That seems a likely scenario to this fella.

It's too bad. Not only is the direction far better than the film (as written) deserves, but I was especially delighted with the performance of leading man Dean Cain (he's definitely got a nice, steely Eastwood-Bronson quality about him). The delectably smarmy Michael Eklund is never less than entertaining. He comes close to the grotesqueries of John Vernon in Chained Heat.

Why is it that Canucks like Eklund and Vernon make such good wardens in the movies? Probably because of Canada's history of politely corrupt bureaucracies. (Who will ever forget Canuck Hume Cronyn as the detestably sadistic head of prison security in 1947's Brute Force?) This all said, the screenplay doesn't quite allow Eklund to be anything more than a sleaze and he doesn't quite reach Vernon's level of genuine malevolence. (As for Cronyn, we won't even bother going there.)

The real revelation for me was Paul "The Big Show" Wight. Look, he's never going to be doing Shakespeare at Stratford (nor, I suspect, even Shakespeare in the Park in Elbow, Saskatchewan), BUT, as a villain, the man can act. He's a major creep in this picture and even brings a bit of sardonic humour to his line readings. One line the script gives him which he spits out with glee is when he brags about killing Danvers's pregnant wife and chortles that he at least got a "two for one" deal when he decimated her and the unborn child.

I'm happy to credit Shady with this line, but I must also admit, this is the kind of villainy I expect from the Soskas (a la the scum bucket surgery professor in American Mary). Here, though, it's not really allowed by the overall scenario to tie into any larger thematic scope. As for "The Big Show", I, for one, will be looking forward to a lot more of him on the silver screen. Hell, he even has it in him to be a heroic action figure in an Expendables-style picture.

Now, however, we get to the meat of the matter - the action and violence. The Soskas do not disappoint in this regard. Their direction goes far beyond just covering the thwacks, whacks, kicks, testicle-twisting and gore in a perfunctory manner, nor do they resort to the usual wham-bam with no sense of spatiality. I was delighted that they placed a fair degree of faith in actors who could clearly fight, some superb stunt choreography/coordination and a few occasional frissons like the makeshift "brass" knuckles Danvers creates and uses with sweet abandon. (Again, I'm happy to credit this delightful invention to screenwriter Shady.)

As a side note, it is incumbent of me to point out that the one prison movie cliche sadly missing from Vendetta are a few instances of forcible sodomy and blow jobs. Most disappointing. What gives? Even a dull, inexplicably beloved piece of crap like The Shawshank Redemption had a decent anal rape scene.

But, I digress.

Happily, the Soskas avoid the horrendous herky-jerky style of movement, dreadful compositions and endless closeups we're forced to endure by overrated hacks like Sam Mendes, J.J. Abrams and Christopher Nolan, but that they also keep the cuts spare (compared to most pictures these days). My only quibble, and this might partially relate to exigencies of the modest budget and (no-doubt) speedy shooting schedule, is that the action choreography is so good that I longed for wider shots and for many of the cuts to not be employed, thus allowing the action in many of those same shots to play out longer.

The Soskas demonstrate that they naturally understand that both the shots and cuts of action set pieces are dramatic beats and as such, many of them play out more than satisfactorily. That said, the next film they do that has this much action, if not more, one hopes that their producers will budget extra time for these sequences to allow for more shot variation and to allow choreography to play out in longer shots so that the only cuts which occur are those meant to drive the dramatic action forward.

Even though the budgets are ridiculously higher, a good rule of thumb for genuine filmmakers like the Soskas ("genuine" as in their prowess as film artists being hard-wired into their DNA), is to study the work of filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah and John Woo. Both of them utilize a lot of cuts (the final shootout in The Wild Bunch or Chow Yun Fat's first mass slaughter in the bar in The Killer are two of many examples), but what those directors do is to treat the action scenes like dance numbers in a musical (Woo) or a ballet (Peckinpah). Scorsese is a master of this too - the boxing matches in Raging Bull are rooted stylistically in the Powell-Pressburger ballet sequences in 1948's masterpiece of British Cinema, The Red Shoes.

Virtually every shot amongst the aforementioned masters is composed with the crosshairs aimed (a la George Miller in the Mad Max films) in the centre of the main dramatic action. This allows for more sumptuous compositions, but also allows for quicker cuts (if and when necessary) that treat everything as dramatic beats and hence, always maintaining spatiality (unless the director wants to intentionally mess with us, but that only works when said approaches are buried judiciously amidst more classical compositions).

This all said, the Soskas' instincts are right. There's just a few two many medium two shots that don't hold long enough before the cuts and a definite dearth of wider shots.

Finally, one very odd issue is the casting - not for the leads, but with the background extras as inmates. This corresponds to my earlier complaints about too many tropes and not much in the way of thematic layering. Given that the vast majority of American prison populations are African-or-Hispanic-American (a genuine tragedy and failing of America, a nation infused with deep-seeded racism and discrimination), this prison population (supposedly outside of Chicago in the state of Illinois, albeit with the hole that is Coquitlam, British Columbia standing in) seemed awfully "white".

While I'm tempted to continue the litany of laying blame upon the beleaguered screenwriter - characters, even background characters do, after all, need to be written in order to be cast and shot, however, there's a part of me which suspects that such failings fall within the purview of too many suits at Lions Gate and WWE wanting a specific property which ultimately lends itself to the eradication of elements which could allow for a film's pulp sensibilities to rise into a slightly more elevated plane.

God knows, classic American directors like Jules Dassin in Brute Force (maybe the best prison film ever made) or Don Siegel with Riot in Cell Block 11 (maybe the second best prison picture ever made) maintained B-movie squalor that crackled with excitement because the films had inner lives beyond the surface tropes. Is it unfair to compare Vendetta to classics? No. The Soskas are such damn special filmmakers, it would be an insult not to compare them to early works of masters like Dassin and Siegel.

The bottom line I think is that WWE and Lions Gate were the ones with their heads up their asses. Thank Christ the Soskas were at the helm to pull a superbly directed picture out of their respective asses in spite of the vision-bereft parameters of the screenplay and property itself.

Curiously, I watched Vendetta with my 14-year-old daughter who has long been a fan of the Soskas (yeah, I know, I know, but she is my daughter, after all). When the picture ended and cut to their credit, she yelled out, "God! That was such a good movie!" And you know what? In spite of wanting a fucking masterpiece, I felt exactly as she did at the end.

Like Daughter. Like Father.

Or something like that.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½

Vendetta is currently available on VOD, DVD and limited theatrical venues.

LOUIS C.K. LIVE AT THE COMEDY STORE (on VOD) - Success = The Wrong Kind of Asshole: TEA TIME WITH THOMAS ZACHARY TOLES COLUMN

Click Above To Get More Info on Thomas

Louis C.K.’s Success:
Becoming the
Wrong Kind
of Asshole

By Thomas Zachary Toles


The Film Corner's
Tea Time Columnist

Louis C.K. struck comic gold by combining [George] Carlin-esque condemnation of Western society with unfailing self-deprecation. Louie argued that society is horrible precisely because of the things that he and all of us privileged assholes love so dearly:

Because we wait in line for a Cinnabon at the airport we arrived at.

Because we congratulate ourselves for thinking of doing nice things without ever doing them.

Because immense suffering far away can be easily justified so long as we get to write YouTube comments while we shit.

Louie didn’t place himself above these depraved aspects of American life; he participated in them. Louis C.K. was not better than America; he was a true American asshole.

In Louie’s newest special, Live at the Comedy Store, he argues that self-awareness is more important than self-love. Good advice. Hard to follow when you’re America’s comic sage. Glowing with inconceivable success, Louie is slowly becoming the wrong kind of asshole.

In Louie’s best routines he remains entrenched in the very problems he decries. In Chewed Up (2008), Louie revels in his whiteness in order to confess his complicity in oppression. “If [race] was an option, I would re-up every year. Oh yeah, I’ll take white again, absolutely.” Rather than attacking white privilege directly, he celebrated it, revealing how fiercely attached all white people are to their racial advantage. Through Louie’s admission, white listeners were given some self-awareness about all that they have to be thankful for, and all they owe.

Louie’s technique of identifying with the oppressor to bring light to the oppressed is also found in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain’s book is written so as not to clash with a racist reader’s sensibility while delicately inviting the reader, along with Huck, to see the escaped slave Jim as a complex human being. This is somewhat ironic because, in Live at the Comedy Store, Louie mocks the excessive use of “nigger” in Huckleberry Finn. The bit has an element of condescension to it that rarely appears in his earlier work.

In the past, Louie has been rightly suspicious of white people’s hypocritical tendency to falsely censor “nigger” with "the n-word.”

“That’s just white people getting away with saying ‘nigger,’” he proclaims in Chewed Up. In his latest special, however, Louie more conservatively encourages the audience to jeer at Huckleberry Finn's careful use of such bold language. The bit's dismissiveness is atypically shallow and simplistic, edging towards the biggest threat to Louie’s enormous talent: self-righteousness.

Perhaps pride is inevitable for the most successful and beloved comedian imaginable. Certainly there was no way Louie could pretend to still be broke, to never get laid, and to live a lousy life. He has inventively worked around the handicap of success for a time: in one segment he admits that the only reason he can resist being as deplorable as a parent who hits their kids is because he has money. Nevertheless, a troubling awareness of his own eminence has quietly seeped into his work.

Louie, a show that long wowed me with its Lynchian weirdness, has recently fallen victim to this very issue. Louie writes, directs, edits, and stars in the show and what once seemed like thrilling individualism has begun to feel moralistic. After five seasons one wonders why Louie must have total control over this show.

“So Did the Fat Lady” from Season 4 is a perfect example of the problem. In an extended monologue, Vanessa (Sarah Baker) voices all the bullshit that overweight women have to deal with in daily life. Louie’s character awkwardly transitions from naivety to empathy by the speech’s end, and the episode concludes with him compassionately taking Vanessa’s hand (as per her meagre request). But we know that Louie wrote this monologue, that he directed himself to feign naivety only to be converted by his own words, to be commended for having the generosity to make such an episode at all. Louie empowers himself more than Vanessa. The old Louis C.K. would never have had the motivation to take Vanessa’s hand. He would have mumbled an excuse and walked away like the asshole he is.

There was something more human, funny, and frightening in that old asshole, in the person who vividly saw the world’s atrocities but was powerless to resist his self-serving urges. Through Louie’s flaws, we became a little more disturbed by our own selfishness and a little more sympathetic to the people we so frequently reject.

Louie was Dostoevsky’s Undergound Man, an intelligent screw up with agonizing self-awareness. Success has lifted him from clumsy indulgence towards knowing wisdom, robbing him of his brutal edge.

Louis C.K. is still a terrific comedian. He still makes me laugh.

He used to make me hurt.

LOUIS C.K. LIVE AT THE COMEDY STORE is available for a mere five smackers by clicking HERE.

KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - True-Life Hostage Drama Opens Today in Limited Theatrical in Toronto and VOD in the rest of Canada Via VVS FIlms

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015)
Dir. Daniel Alfredson
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Mark van Eeuwen, Tom Cocquerel, Jemima West

Review By Greg Klymkiw

By 1986, many young North American lads of distinction had abandoned the domestic brands of beer their fathers drank and opted for the prissy Dutch elixir of hops and brewers' yeast in the imported long-necked green glass bottles which adorned the majority of tables in many a university pub throughout the 80s. After all, its dashing founder Freddy Heineken had himself become a household name a mere three years earlier when he'd been kidnapped and held for ransom in a daring caper pulled off by five good friends with no criminal experience whatsoever and elicited the highest payout of the time.

All this would change, though, when David Lynch released Blue Velvet, which featured the notorious exchange of dialogue between upright young whippersnapper Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan) and the sexually deviant thug Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). It went thus:

Frank Booth: What kind of beer do you like?
Jeffrey Beaumont: Heineken.
Frank Booth: Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!

This oft-quoted exchange, rather than sending the European brew of choice for North American academic effete elites even further into the stratosphere, managed to inspire a healthy return to the working class American beer of American Dads. No matter, though, as the aforementioned daring kidnapping and the dogged pursuit of the kidnappers and meticulous research of crime journalist Peter R. de Vries worked considerable magic upon the Heineken brand's worldwide sales for many years nonetheless.

It's taken over 30 years for a big-screen feature film to be made of this notorious abduction, but alas, the wait has yielded mixed results. A decent screenplay by William Brookfield condenses the intricacies of the massive de Vries text superbly and focuses mostly upon the close friendship of the five kidnappers as well as the claustrophobic and tense setting of the holding cell Heineken is held in.

The direction by camera jockey Daniel Alfredson, who helmed The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, the two remaining parts of the original Lisbeth Salander Millennium Trilogy based on Stieg Larson's bestselling novels, here, as in the two uneven followups to Niels Arden Oplev's superbly directed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, yields mixed results.

Alfredson pulls of the early going rather well as he introduces us to the five young pals attempting to establish their own business during the early 80s economic downturn. Upon being turned down for bank loans, the men come up with a plan to kidnap Heineken.

Realizing they'll be pegged as amateurs by the authorities, the friends pull off a huge bank robbery to finance the perfect crime of abduction in order to make law enforcement believe they're a well-funded criminal organization. So long as Alfredson sticks to the intricacies of character, the film is reasonably compelling - especially during the sequences in their hiding spot one they have Heineken in their grasp.

As he did with the two Dragon/Millennium pictures, Alfredson displays his utter ineptitude with action and hard-core suspense. His herky-jerky, sloppily shot and edited action throw the film completely off-kilter and render a finished product that's infuriating since the writing and performances are so genuinely fine. (Anthony Hopkins, not chewing the scenery as per usual, delivers an especially engaging and revelatory performance as Heineken - maybe one of the best he's delivered in years.)

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is pretty much a mixed bag of nuts. It's a story worth telling as a film, but as directed, the picture is spoiled by a few too many unripe or rotten ingredients.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** 2-Stars

Kidnapping Mr, Heineken opens today in a limited theatrical release day-and-date with access to VOD via VVS Films.

DIRTY WEEKEND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Crime-triple-hander not just lame, but legless.

The movie is as good as its poster.

Dirty Weekend (2013)
Dir. Christopher Granier-Deferre
Starring: Kirsty Oswald, Jamie Parker, Pierre Perrier, Bernard Blancan, Didier Vinson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A singularly unattractive British couple (Kirsty Oswald, Jamie Parker) - not just skin-deep ugliness, either - have their weekend of illicit amore in a country cottage in France scuttled by the appearance of a murderous scumbag (Pierre Perrier) who's in possession of a whack of stolen gold coins. The couple sees dollar signs in their eyes and a drawn-out cat and mouse game ensues, replete with a surfeit of poorly-scribed (by Geoffrey Gunn) yakking, familiar story tropes and clumsily-wrought "suspense".

The only respite from this plodding mediocrity is the appearance of two seemingly bumbling gendarmes (Bernard Blancan, Didier Vinson) who bring some wit to the proceedings. The performances of the leads are imbued with competence, but the characters give them little to do but try to breathe life into ever-so familiar stick figures.

This dreadfully inconsequent film might play for bleary-eyed viewers with little taste in the middle of the night on VOD. The rest of us, should probably cut our toenails instead.

THE FILM CORNER RATING:
*½ One-and-a-half-stars

levelFILM will release Dirty Weekend on VOD & digital in Canada & the USA on October 14, 2014.

RUN RUN IT'S HIM - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Underground doc on Porn Addiction the real DON JON

RUN RUN IT'S HIM (2010/2014) ****
Dir. Matthew (Matt) Pollack, Co-Producer/Cinematographer: Jamie Popowich

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is the real DON JON. The real thing.

It's the straight-up cum-shot to the face that Don Jon's writer-director-star Joseph Gordon-Leavitt could not nor would not do, even if he had a loaded gun shoved up his ass demanding he wipe that annoying smirk off his face whilst making the theme of obsessively wanking to XXX hardcore so horrendously false and, dare I say it, palatable for bourgeois nitwits.

RUN RUN IT’S HIM is an obsessive, hilarious, shocking, touching, imaginative, inventive and altogether astonishing personal portrait of a young man’s addiction to pornography and masturbation. It’s a genuine underground film about WANKING that’s delectably imbued with plenty of WANK qualities. Any obsessive will respond to this, not in spite, but BECAUSE of the picture’s meandering, borderline structure and roughness - its HONESTY! Pollack’s film touches the soul (and a few other, uh, personal places) because it's so goddamn, heart-achingly real. (Oh, and you don't have to be an obsessive to enjoy the movie, but it sure ups the ante if you are a bit out of your fucking gourd on the addictive personality front.)

And make no mistake when you watch this film - this is an underground movie. It's no dull TV-style doc, no slick feature aimed at a wide theatrical market and it is most certainly not some overpriced, earnest National Film Board of Canada documentary about children with learning disabilities who find teachers they can really relate to. It feels grotty, grainy and filthy. It looks like it was shot with a Hi-8 camera from the late 80s and is even framed in one of my favourite aspect ratios - good, old fashioned, square box standard frame. Sometimes the sound is so muddy, the filmmaker needs to affix subtitles to it. Does this mean the movie is badly made or amateurish? Not in the least. It's gorgeously shot. It employs the aesthetic of the very kind of film its director is obsessed with.

This is a dirty movie; not in the usual sense of one's notion of "dirty movies", though it is about dirty movies and the dirty business of seeking out images - almost always degrading and most often infused with sexual violence and subjugation of women. That the movie is about its director's lifelong addiction to an activity that shuts him out of genuine relationships with the opposite sex, is what channels it into very brave places.

Pollack and his small, but dedicated team charted his addiction for 7 years. What we experience is a genuine insider view. We see Pollack's DAILY routine of travelling all across the Toronto streets in search of XXX porn at his favourite purveyors of whack material. He recreates actual whack-off sessions in the privacy of his home. He interviews a porn-shop clerk who turns out to be a veritable Heidegger of porn philosophy. Most hilariously, sadly and entertainingly, he visits with old girlfriends, female friends and women he's long had crushes on and selects his favourite scenes of pornography. It's this latter sequence of footage that is absolutely astounding. We watch the women as they watch the porn, respond and discuss it with him.

This is a wonderful picture. It's at once all over the place and completely whole. The movie might seem structurally thin, but only on the surface since the picture's fierce, personal independence is such that one spends less time admiring (like most terrific pictures) its adherence to all those elements contemporary audiences (especially) have been spoon fed into needing. What we respond to is the experiential journey of a brilliant, funny and honest filmmaker laying the truth before us - no matter how dirty it gets.

RUN RUN IT'S HIM is not available on ANY traditional delivery source. It is available via VOD/download via its own website via Big Doll House. This seems wholly appropriate. For a measly 10 smacks, visit HERE and see the movie. I'm hoping some cool Canuck cinemas have the balls to play this movie theatrically with personal Q and A appearances by its director AFTER the launch. Come on Royal Theatre, come on Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, Come on Tiff Bell Lightbox. DO IT! Display thine aesthetic cojones!

Klymkiw watches TV (HBO CANADA) - It's nice when rich people produce films about poverty. Kudos to Maria Shriver for this one. PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF KATRINA GILBERT - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life and Times Of Katrina Gilbert (2014) ***
Dir. Nick Doob, Shari Cookson, Prod. Maria Shriver, Starring: Katrina Gilbert

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can't help it, but trying to remove the taste of bile in my mouth is near-impossible when super-rich White People manage to weasel their way into arts and culture, based primarily upon their wealth, blue-blood family pedigree, celebrity and all the luxuries afforded to them and then make films about poor people. Such is the case of this latest production by Maria Shriver, daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (hence, JFK's niece) and ex-wife of the nanny-defiling movie-star-body-builder-former-California-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Still, I'm happy enough to assess the 75 minute feature film Paycheck To Paycheck: The Life and Times Of Katrina Gilbert on its own terms since co-director Nick Doob has the distinction of being a real filmmaker and a longtime member of the unimpeachable Pennebaker Hegedus Films team, whilst his directorial partner Cookson, has a prolific c.v. which, includes the popular, though somewhat spurious doc series "Real Sex" (with its audience grabbing emphasis upon soft-hard-core antics and personalities).

Doob and Cookson had a whole year to dip into Shriver's access to O.P.M. (said access also generously applied, in fairness, to her many charitable activities) and follow around a Chattanooga, Tennessee nursing assistant to examine the life of the working poor - most specifically an example of America's most vulnerable and largest targets of poverty, single mothers.

Katrina Gilbert has three children and toils for 9 bucks an hour in an extended care facility. It's back-breaking, flat-footing work, but Gilbert genuinely seems to enjoy the daily human contact she has with the old and infirm. Still, she'd prefer to "better herself" and continue her post-secondary studies in the health care field, but in spite of her meagre salary and needing to support three kids, she is turned down - shockingly and inexplicably - for financial aid to further her education and perhaps get a better paying job.

Welcome to America.

Gilbert also has on-going medical conditions which, could well eventually morph into something life-threatening, yet when she goes to get an overdue check-up, she's hit with a doctor bill for over $300 as opposed to the $120 she was initially quoted. In America, there is no socialized medicine - it's big business in the Land of the Free and most people, including the working poor, have to cough up. (Obama Care doesn't appear to be in full implementation during the shooting, but even if it were, it's such a mess I can't imagine it would really help her.) Even more horrifying is that the list of medications she requires to keep her health on the up-and-up are so ludicrously expensive, she needs to make the decision of what drugs she can afford during a last-minute tabulation at the pharmacy.

Welcome to America.

She has three kids to feed, but since her ex is unemployed and often in arrears with his childcare payments, she not only has to lend him gas money to visit the kids, but her ration of food stamps to actually feed her progeny is shockingly and inexplicably cut-off.

Welcome to America.

The film itself is pretty compelling stuff and as a subject, Gilbert is pleasing, kind-hearted and smart. That being said, the movie presents her story in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get style, but I did find a few editing choices somewhat dubious - perhaps even downright unfair to her struggle.

For example, after discovering she doesn't qualify for educational assistance AND forced to choose what drugs she can actually afford, the filmmakers follow her into a beauty parlour so she can "do a little something" for herself. When she drops a healthy whack of dough for her new hair-do, I began to wonder, uh, lady - you have no money for drugs, yet you're dumping 70 or so smackers on what looks to be a (not-especially) flattering makeover. Given how much we feel for this woman, I felt this artistic choice - no matter how "true" - was simply cruel (intentional or not). Maybe it's the filmmakers' desire to make viewers have a similar response to the salon scene and intentionally plant a seed that grows into guilt for even having such a thought.

Whatever the reason it somehow feels out of place, just as a breakfast scene in the family's squalid home is shot and included wherein we watch the kids scarf down grease-laden plates of bacon and eggs, then guzzle-back bottles of pop. Yeah, we know that nutrition-choices are, for the poor, dictated by their poverty, but by continually including such sequences, one occasionally suspects there's a deeper agenda at play here - even if there isn't.

The choice to do this kind of thing might be true to the filmmakers's adherence to a direct cinema approach, but it's almost to the detriment of the film's forward trajectory since you, as a viewer, almost waste more time thinking about the rather mean-spirited approaches than what really counts. I suspect mean-spiritedness was not the intent and that the adherence to a direct cinema approach was paramount. However, even within that context, these moments stick out like sore thumbs rather than integrating with the whole. Greater attention needed to be paid to the desire to present an unfettered reality that should have addressed these important and clearly dichotomous moments in this woman and her family's life.

For example, the movie occasionally interviews individuals on the sidelines of the activities captured - in one case, a man who works as a clerk in a money-lending firm and in another, a clerk in a tax preparation office. In both instances, these brief side trips address the issues at hand - a woman who can't get credit anywhere else other than a usurious money lending service is acknowledged and treated like a human being who knows how hard she's trying to manage her debt and another who seems to even sense the absurdity of poor people needing to pay for a third party to report an income that, for all intents and purposes, is at the poverty line.

Where then is an individual to advocate for the "poor" or even simply acknowledge how easy it is to choose ephemeral pleasure over medical well-being and how prevalent it is in the lower financial strata of society? Where is the same perspective in terms of the grotesquely unhealthy breakfast the family is eating?

I think it's important we see these elements of Katrina's life - especially since it's presented as an individual sampling of the kind of thing millions of Americans are living through. I hate to make generalizations, but I think there's some truth to this one. Poor people see the world through the eyes of hardship and life experience. Some even acquire a modicum of wealth, but they've had to WORK - really WORK for it. Their sense of observation and even balance seem far more aware and open. The rich, generally, are criminals and/or assholes who most always see things from an elevated position. Some are neither, but I'd suggest that even the well meaning ones have prejudices that temper their observations.

Since the directors have not addressed this, I have to ask:

Where, in this film, is the producer (who especially in television has a very strong creative hand) to address the weird perspectives I point out above? And let me be clear, where is that strong hand, NOT to censor, but to address the shortfalls in the direct cinema approach and to do so aesthetically within the context of the whole film and its style/POV?

There wasn't one. She's a Shriver. Why would she even think about it? Sure, her credentials as a journalist, filmmaker and philanthropist cannot be ignored, BUT there is a perspective she has not been able to bring to bear upon this film that her directors also ignore. Direct cinema, in its purest forms and as we know them today were, in fact, rooted in colonialism, prejudice, poverty, working-class values and very little access to post-secondary education in the Canadian province of Quebec. (Though, it would also be remiss of me to not acknowledge the influence of Dziga Vertov's "Truth of Cinema" movement in the 1920 - born out of repression, revolution and the eventual sad march to another form of repression with a different name.)

Look, I'm not suggested Shriver nor her directors must have tasted subjugation to utilize this form, BUT it's of utmost importance for all artists - especially those working in documentary - to leave as few stones unturned in their quest for truth.

While the journey of Katrina Gilbert moved and inspired me, I could only feel saddened and defeated by the end of the film - not just as a viewer, but for her, those like her and the world as a whole. One of the very last things the film leaves us with is the knowledge that Gilbert is finally getting her first raise at work - ever! It's in the amount of a few cents. Chances look good she'll continue living in a trailer park.

All the film really leaves me with, especially because it does such a good job of detailing her struggle and allowing us to get to know her as well as we can, is one overwhelming annoyance. With one pen-stroke upon a check book, Executive Producer Shriver (who lives in a $10 million dollar Brentwood mansion) could make this woman's life turn around.

Instead, Shriver made this movie. On other people's money.

Welcome to America, indeed.

Paycheck To Paycheck can be seen on HBO Canada. For Dates and Times, visit the HBO Canada website HERE.

CITADEL - A New In-Depth Review & Analysis written by Greg Klymkiw PLUS - Klymkiw Interviews CITADEL Writer-Director Ciarán Foy in Virginie Selavy's ultra-cool UK Film Mag "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema" (links provided below).

Welcome to this special edition of the Greg Klymkiw Film Corner where I will be presenting an all-new in-depth review and analysis of Ciaran Foy's contemporary masterpiece of horror CITADEL. This article is a preview of a chapter I'm adding to my book about the visual techniques of cinematic storytelling. Entitled "Movies Are Action", my book has been a culmination of over 30 years in the movie business - producing and/or co-writing numerous independent features, seeing and studying over 30,000 motion pictures, covering cinema as a journalist in a wide variety of publications and teaching for 13 years at the Canadian Film Centre (founded by Norman Jewison) wherein I had the honour to serve as the producer-in-residence and senior creative consultant for over 200 screenwriters, directors, producers and editors. It's become very clear to me that Mr. Foy's astounding first feature film CITADEL is not only one terrific movie that introduces the world of cinema to a genuine original with filmmaking hard-wired into his DNA, but that his film can and should also serve as a template to all young filmmakers on the precipice of diving into the breach. It's lonely out there, kids, and there's nothing better than using such a mature, accomplished and extraordinary work by someone who is, for all intents and purposes, your peer. Here on this site, you'll be reading a reasonably polished first draft of the chapter to appear in my book, but I'm confident you'll find, thanks to Mr. Foy's great film, a few nuggets to take with you onto the battlefield. -- Greg Klymkiw

CITADEL (2012) ****
Dir. Ciarán Foy
A New Appreciation
By Greg Klymkiw

Single Dad With Agoraphobia. Crime. Poverty. Infection. CITADEL

Context is Everything: Big Screen Pictures on a Big Screen

I first saw Citadel, Ciarán Foy's contemporary masterpiece of horror, during the 2012 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF), one of the most genial celebrations of genre cinema in the world. Blood geysers copiously from the screens at TADFF as both audiences and programmers take deliciously perverse delight in as much carnage wrought by filmmakers as is humanly possible.

But, it's not always about the blood. 

Every year, without fail, I discover one or two gems that scare the faecal matter out of me because they tap into quiet, creepy, subtle and intelligently rendered fears that haunt all of us. And though there will be blood in such pictures, it's meted out sparingly. Like, for example, Citadel. 

TADFF prides itself on presenting genre films designed for BIG-SCREEN THEATRICAL VIEWING, but due to the rather idiotic vagaries of an ever-changing landscape of big-box theatrical exhibition, far too many worthy movies are forced to bypass being exhibited the way movies are ultimately meant to be seen. Citadel , of course, demands a big screen. Thanks to festivals like TADFF, this is - however briefly - possible.

TADFF, like many good festivals, endeavours to present filmmakers in front of each film to introduce it and then to engage in a post-show Q and A. Mr. Foy had been tripping the festival light fantastic for quite some time and when TADFF rolled around, he was in the midst of writing his next feature film. Understandably, but alas, he was not available to attend. 

This was fine by me. I was pretty fucking shagged out from several days in a row of feasting my eyes on all manner of carnage and was in just the perfect mood to sit quietly in the cinema and see what I assumed would be another splatter-fest, but sans the usual raucous, celebratory shenanigans pervading screenings where filmmakers were in attendance. 

I sunk deeply into my front row seat. 

The lights dimmed.

My virginal plunge into Citadel began.

***************

The word "trinity" is derived from the Latin noun "trinitas" which is interpreted by Jesus-Believers as "three are one", though what it means literally is the number "three" (or "triad"). The Greek equivalent also means the number "three", or more literally, a set or grouping of three. In most Christian religions (save for some of the more fruit-cake offshoots - well, in fairness, those that are marginally nuttier than Catholicism), the trinity is recognized as The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit (or my preference as a Ukrainian Eastern Rite Catholic - The Holy Ghost - YEAH!). And yes, indeed, when you see us wing-nutted Catholics (practising or lapsed) crossing ourselves, it is indeed our tribute to God the Father, Christ the Son and the Holy Ghost which is the collective essence of what we're honouring with our pagan ritual.

For me, trinity is a word I'm fond of using to describe elements of storytelling. An example of this comes from the idea that doing things in threes (or higher "odd" numbers) gives your story more bang for the buck. Got a running gag? Great. When a movie presents it twice or four times, it's usually not as effective as when it's rendered three (or five, or seven, or - God forbid - nine) times. Three, however, is a decent enough rule of thumb when crafting a story. A four-act story just doesn't seem to cut it. Tell it in three-acts (properly, mind you), then you're usually on-track.

Of course, trinity can also be played out as a symbolic and/or subtextual storytelling tool. However, it won't work if the storytelling overall is falling flat on its face. Using subtext under such circumstances becomes ham-fisted and pretentious - drawing us completely out of what narrative might remain. This, is never a problem in Citadel. Within both visual and narrative contexts, Foy's extraordinary tale is ultimately rooted deeply in the notion of "trinity", but on a subtextual level it's a visually powerful approach to cinematic storytelling - especially given the harrowing narrative he spins.

Because Foy builds "trinity" into both his narrative and visual design, it provides ample opportunities to tell the story with as many evocative qualities as possible. What separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the filmmakers with vision from the filmmakers who are little more than camera jockeys (the latter term applied to by-the-numbers TV drama directors), is the ability to dazzle us visually, but in a manner wherein the imagery doesn't overtake the narrative, but compliments it.

This works two-fold. First of all, it allows (and/or forces) the filmmaker with vision to integrate what I like to refer to (if you will), the visual subtext into the opening of the film - to establish the mise-en-scène, to provide gripping and visually arresting images to draw us into the narrative and to propel us ever-further into the events of the opening - to keep us guessing so we want more story information to answer our questions as to where the story is going and ultimately, to build an opening sequence that is going to knock us on our collective asses. Secondly, the integration of said visual subtext throughout the film shapes and hones the progression of dramatic sequences (and individual scenes) so that we get a series of almost epiphanous dollops of narrative zingers. These work to propel us even further towards the climax of the film and in so doing, provide exponential gains in terms of visceral responses to the narrative. This ultimately provides a climactic sequence that builds on the elements of the opening and delivers something that not only knocks us on our duffs, but slams us repeatedly with the force of a baseball bat every single time we attempt to get up. In Quentin Tarantino's honour, one could demurely refer to this storytelling technique as the "Bear Jew Triple-Ass Turnbuckle Trinity". But, let's not.

From the very beginning of his film, Foy bombards us with sets of three items of note within the images that are used to tell the story. And they are powerful images that build the narrative cinematically to always draw us forward. Given that Citadel is a horror film rooted in the theme of fear, images of trinity are especially salient. Our main character Tommy (Aneurin Barnard) witnesses (not just once, but twice), people he loves being snatched away from him. This set of tragedies manifests itself within Tommy as deep crippling agoraphobia and unless he's able to face his fear (a fear, I'd argue that is a fear of fear itself), he'll suffer a sickening third and maybe deadliest tragedy of all.

One of the first exposures to trinity is the "citadel" itself, a bleakly decrepit housing project with a centre tower as its bulwark and two smaller buildings flanking either side and set further back. Drably coloured grey cement, set against murky blueish-grey skies, it's a formidable and chilling image to dive into at the film's beginning. It stands like some crumbling urban architectural representation of Cavalry during Christ's crucifixion.

Bad Shit goes on in the projects - CITADEL

(Oh, and before you think I'm extolling some foul "God Squad" picture aimed to reel in Christian viewers, you'll see soon enough that Citadel is the complete antithesis to that horrendous genre.)

Now, once inside the Citadel, we're introduced to Apartment 111.

1+1+1=3 Trinity in the projects - CITADEL

Some activity on the other side of the door causes the middle number to become unhinged and flop down. Surely this can't be a good sign.

When Trinity is unhinged, we know shit's gonna happen - CITADEL   

When the door opens, we're introduced to a young couple who are preparing to leave the condemned housing project for a new life. And indeed, Foy reveals a literal new life - a child is clearly growing within the woman's belly. One can see immediately how such opening moments in the hands of a mere camera jockey could be rendered in a dull, by the numbers manner to give establishing information ONLY in a race to get to something suspensefully titillating. Such images would be a by-rote series of pure informational shots. Foy, however, delivers sheer, unadulterated suspense from the very beginning and places us firmly in a world that gets increasingly tossed on its noggin as the film progresses. All is rooted in character, narrative and theme. It also reveals a distinctive voice off the bat.

With his cinematographer Tim Fleming, production designer and art director Tom Sayer and Andy Thomson respectively, Foy serves up a sumptuous (and dramatically apt) look for the film, betraying its low budget nature so that the film's cost is not even a point to consider whilst watching it. This is not to say the "look" is picture-postcard in any way, shape or form. The look is instead one of unremitting bleakness, but it is rendered so expertly and artistically, that shot after shot reminds me of the constant refrain in W.B. Yeats' great poem "Easter, 1916" wherein he refers to the notion that "a terrible beauty is born." And so it is with the masterful look and direction of Citadel.

Too many contemporary films capture bleak imagery with slap-dash sloppiness, but Foy and his team deliver one clearly intentional shot after another that create an indelible and stunningly dichotomous "terrible beauty" that infuses the heart and soul of this film.

Note the lighting, design and composition of this shot as Tommy anxiously tries to get back to his pregnant wife in a grindingly slow elevator. Even though we've been given nothing overt to fear, everything leading up to and including this shot has been slowly keeping us on edge and with the camera rooted claustrophobically close (but not TOO close) and set effectively in what came to be Howard Hawks' almost-trademark eye-level positioning, we're plunged into Tommy's anxiety with the skill one would expect of a master team of filmmakers.

Have I mentioned yet how fucking extraordinary this film is?

Elevators in the projects are slow... and scary - CITADEL

With one salient exception (which, I'll not give away), Foy makes the wise decision to always stay in the sphere of his main character Tommy. Every shot is either WITH Tommy, from his POV or from an angle/perspective he'd be able to have a view of/from. Given that we're dealing with a film about fear and specifically, a horror film where an even bigger challenge than the "monster(s)" is overcoming agoraphobia, this is a perfect approach.

Some might argue it is an OBVIOUS approach as if "obvious" is a dirty word, but for my money it's only a verboten epithet if and when it's the only way to describe that which is mediocre and/or barely (or maddeningly) competent. I'm much happier when a filmmaker "idiot proofs" the work so the audience is not lost for too long without their questions and/or need for information being addressed - either directly, or indirectly with an even more delicious tidbit of information.

In creating a film narrative, the worst thing one can do is force the audience to ask questions which are not answered - especially when those questions are nagging at an audience to the point where they're pulled out of the story and subsequently miss out on even more story beats because the filmmaker was too stupid (and/or pretentious) to pinch a loaf or two that forces their viewers to be ruminating rather than paying attention. Where Foy takes leaps and bounds beyond most young filmmakers (and many old ones who should know better) is how he maintains his proximity to Tommy while also keeping to the subtext of trinity.

For example, once Tommy's elevator reaches the right floor, Foy serves up an incredibly simple, effective and chilling shot from Tommy's POV through the broken elevator doors. There's a creepy inevitability to the contents of the shot, yet you're still jangled into filling your drawers with some manner of unmentionable viscous-like matter.

In the following frame-capture, however, is the subtle use of trinity. On one side of the window is Tommy and on the other is his wife and unborn child. Sorry to sound like an egghead here, but bear with me, as this point has more to do with intelligent, personal filmmaking than anything artsy-fartsy. Masters, like Hitchcock or Spielberg or Friedkin, et al will either be consciously and/or instinctively be choosing to utilize visual motifs that tie into both the narrative and psychology of their films.

Here, the chain of trinity between Father, Mother and Child is broken by an elevator door that's mechanically broken. It's not JUST the sudden terror of Tommy struggling to re-connect this chain and restore balance by rescuing (or at least giving it the old college try), but that what he sees are three hooded figures - another form of trinity in the middleground - that have an upper hand, threatening those he loves (and by extension, himself). Finally, there's the trinity employed within the composition itself - the doors in the foreground, the hooded figures in the middle and Tommy's wife further back.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the best filmmakers do.

A door that won't open. Three hooded figures. A Woman alone.  CITADEL

In the next two frame-captures we see Tommy in the bus shelter preparing to enter the bitter, cold, cruel world outside with the traditional manifestation of Trinity - he crosses himself.

In the Name of the Father, the Son and The Holy Ghost.

Great horror films in the western world often knew well enough to employ any number of Judeo-Christian images and rituals in an attempt to ward off evil. With increasing secularity in the world, contemporary horror films oft-abandon religion in both the passive form (as protection) and as purely aggressive weaponry (crosses thrust forward like swords against minions of the Devil or, in fact, the Devil himself). To the latter, none who see it, never, ever forget the image of trapping a vampire in the shadow of a windmill that projects the image of the crucifix upon the ground in Terence Fisher's extraordinary Brides of Dracula. Tommy's use of Old World Christian values here is a perfect element to weave into the narrative.

Lord (as He were) knows, William Friedkin's The Exorcist, the greatest horror film of all time is replete with mega-crucifix action. Not only that, it shares a wonderful thing with Citadel that all great horror films swap saliva over. In The Exorcist, Demon Pazuzu's shenanigans (which included grotesque head-spinning, crucifix-as-dildo-masturbatory-action and green pea vomit expulsion), were preceded by an hour of screen time devoted to the creepy and increasingly painful poking and prodding of the possessed 12-year-old girl by esteemed members of the medical profession. (God Bless the 70s - all the doctors smoke IN the fucking hospital, no less.) As realized by director William Friedkin, the cold and clinical approach to healing by inflicting the extremes of scientific exploration turn out to be equally harrowing as the grotesqueries of the Devil. Foy also plunges us into Tommy's illness with a similar realism. A wise move, indeed.

And with respect to the crucifix in The Exorcist, it's used by priests Max Von Sydow and Jason Miller to wear the Devil's minion down (Max believes, Miller less so). The cross ultimately turns out to be powerless and it's a Christ-like (Christ, the MAN) sacrifice on Jason Miller's part when he demands to be taken by the demon and then commits suicide to destroy the evil. Miller musters his strength of character and humanity to fight the evil.  Tommy's faith in God gets him by (just barely), but when push comes to shove he digs a lot deeper than adherence to New Testament fairy tales to survive.

Though it's partially a matter of interpretation, there are, I think, enough visual signs to suggest that Tommy had most probably eschewed any deep adherence to Christian values long ago, but that his use of them now comes out of a sense of desperation - a kind of unconscious placebo effect or, if you will, a perverse Pavlovian Dog instinct to use the Holy Trinity to temper fear in hopes that it will ward off danger.

Mind and body are finally more powerful allies than faith in the Holy Trinity.

FATHER. SON. HOLY GHOST.  CITADEL

FATHER. SON. HOLY GHOST.  CITADEL

Notice above the sheet of paper affixed to the bus shelter behind Tommy - a tried and true storytelling prop, but one that's often shoehorned in with a bludgeon to get information across or worse, especially in low budget affairs, so poorly designed that instead of assisting the narrative, the audience is taken out of the story. Timing is also important when using such props as a narrative tool.

Turning your attention to the frame-capture below you'll see a punch-in on the same sheet of paper, a notice for a missing child. This shot comes at a perfect point in Tommy's story. His wife has given birth, but remains in a coma and not only is Tommy faced with being a single Dad, his agoraphobia increases a thousand-fold. After all, he has a baby to raise and protect in this dystopian world.

... and children, you see, are going missing in the projects.

Desperate disenfranchised parents are posting such notices where they can. This is not only an effective "milk-carton-like" piece of story information, but note again, the "terrible beauty" of the composition of the shot and how exquisitely designed everything within the frame is - from the Missing Child notice to the smoky, smudged and scratched window of the bus shelter that, through the glass, reveals a somewhat misshapen landscape - bleak and despair ridden.

This is no world for humanity, let alone children.

In the projects, who can afford cartons of milk, anyway? CITADEL

Another superb approach to visual storytelling is on view within the frame-capture below. First of all, there's the big picture as it's one of the very few wide shots in the film to deliver a magnificent snapshot of where Tommy and his baby live. This, very ironically, is where he and his wife were on the verge of moving before the tragic events in the film's opening. The condemned three-tower housing project looming over everything, the row of natty ground floor low-income townhouses and the huge sign in the right foreground that extols the grand design of the local government are not only powerful pieces of story information, but add to the visual design of claustrophobia by creating an environment that feels like it's closing in and practically crushing poor Tommy.

Dwarfed by the oppressive forces of squalor and fear, hunched over (as is his wont) while pushing the baby carriage forward, he passes by an abandoned vehicle. Foy and his team deliver a magnificently composed shot that's both aesthetically pleasing in terms of the "terrible beauty", but also provide a superb sense of spatial geography. (AFTER you see the film on DVD or Blu-Ray, be sure to take a look at the Making-of supplement. This will give you a better idea of how brilliant Foy and his team of collaborators were in their clever design of these and other visual elements in the film.)

The second important element of this shot is to draw your attention to the importance of always knowing in advance what your visual beats are as a director. Knowing what they must be involves delivering prose in the script that paints pictures with words, designing storyboards to ensure that you as a director can piece every needed story-beat together and finally, in so doing, ensure there will be enough footage that will provide an editor with elements needed to breathe life into the film during the post-production process. Throughout the film, Foy and company deliver one maximum impact shot after another, thus allowing editors Tony Kearns and Jake Roberts to weave the magic they do throughout the film - delivering on creepy, elongated suspense that sometimes makes you feel you're being dragged over a bed of hot coals in ultra-slow-motion (yes, for me, this IS a compliment - think Don't Look Now or The Innocents) and when needed (and in blessed moderation) the kind of shock cuts that send you up and out of your seat as if some John Holmes-sized dildo unexpectedly rammed up your asshole (most definitely a compliment - of the highest order).

Hell, go ahead and marry the shot above with the shot below - we go from creepy to mega-creepy. As Tommy moves forward with trepidation, the view of him from within the twisted metal hulk gives a sense of the eyes on him AND MOST IMPORTANTLY HIS BABY!!! As mentioned above, we're always in Tommy's sphere, but often when we're not in his point of view, there's always a profound, creepy sense of eyes upon him - not only when he is alone, but even in seemingly benign moments, the camera oppressively shoves itself towards him and voyeuristically encroaches upon his space - whether it be a specific character's POV or not - all eyes, real and imagined, are on Tommy.

He is, after all, an agoraphobe.

LADIES & GENTS: ALL EYES ON THE AGORAPHOBE, PLEASE!  CITADEL

One of the most lovely touches in the narrative, is the introduction of the character Marie (the stunning and truly great actress Wunmi Mosaku), a kind-hearted nurse who offers support to Tommy in the same hospital his wife vegetates within.

When a genre film can be rooted in reality, it stands a good shot at immortality. When audiences can see aspects of their own lives (a la the aforementioned opening hour of The Exorcist), they respond more strongly to the material. In Citadel, it's the strong elements of humanity that contribute to scaring the fuck out of people.

Marie is an especially crucial character on a number of fronts, but for me, one of the most moving things to come from her is the observation that Tommy needs to express his love for the baby by communicating with it as if the child was, in fact, a person (which, obviously, it is). At the best of times, men often don't have natural communication proclivities when it comes to babies. Speaking for myself, I had to be reminded by virtually everyone I knew that instead of referring to my infant by her name, I kept referring to her as "the child". Ah well, chalk that up to my being infused with barbaric Cossack DNA.

Tommy is not, however, experiencing the best of times. (An understatement if there ever was one.) Marie's careful, gentle observations and prompting are exactly what spins a perfect narrative turn in the story. For the first time, Tommy holds his child and communicates to it with love and humanity, not fear. The frame below captures a sequence that is designed to both move you, but to also add a new layer to Tommy's character that assists him with moving forward - especially since the most horrible events occur soon after.

Let me again stress - Horrible Events.

Plural.

Note to Hollywood and casting agents the world over: The camera loves Wunmi Mosaku (above right) and she is an extraordinary actress. Someone please make this lady from CITADEL a star.

The screen capture below allows for added discussion on the issue of faith in God. Pictured in the foreground is a distressed Tommy. Way in the background are hordes of bloodthirsty feral kids and in the centre is The Good Father (a sterling performance from the great James Cosmo). The Father is the unlikeliest man of the cloth; he'll go through the motions of reading over the graves of those who are being decimated by crime and rampant infection within the projects, he charitably rescues a young orphan from the citadel and he'll wear his clerical collar when it's necessary for those who believe. His belief system, however, has been shattered. He is hell-bent on destroying the evil residing in the projects - even if it means killing them in cold blood. In the scene below, he's agreed to help Tommy out, but warns him that faith in the rubbish that is Christ won't go as far as faith in oneself.

As bloodthirsty feral children begin streaming from the CITADEL, Tommy is cautioned by the Good Father that faith in God is rubbish. He'll need faith in himself to overcome a greater evil than what lurks in the shadows, his fear.

Citadel resembles Val Lewton's approach to fantastical genres that began in the 1940s American studio system. This brand of cinematic horror, exclusive to RKO Studios is inspired by a myriad of artistic influences from fairy tale through to classical literature, with much of it based on European sources and drenched in film-noir-like shadows and darkness. (Lewton believed that what scared people most were the everyday things that caused many people distress and secondly, the DARK.)

The two back-to-back images below represent the opening frame and closing frame of an exquisitely lit and perfectly composed push-in on Tommy's face. It's simple, yet so effective and most of all, enshrouded in the darkness and shadows of the place he fears most. Like the Lewton pictures (a huge influence upon the best of the best, like Friedkin, Scorsese, etc. and the art of cinema itself) this an example of how Citadel takes us from one manner of fear to another. Throughout most of the picture, Tommy deals with his fears by surrounding himself in the light of day and/or the interior light of his home. The film's final third has Tommy plunged almost completely into darkness - the final bastion to conquer both the pervasive and very real object of terror. And given the final frame below, you can bet your entire stake that the very next frame will be the sweetest of sweet spots chosen by the film's editors to jolt you with the reality of what Tommy witnesses. (And a shot that probably demands you wear a pair of Depends when you see the film.)

Any guesses what the next shot will be? CITADEL

We are living in dangerous days. It's no secret that the gap between rich and poor is ever-widening. Our streets are over-burdened with poverty and the denizens of the gap's debilitating, soul-draining effects have become completely disenfranchised from society. The cruelty with which they are despised is overshadowed only by how they are ignored. Their fears are many, but sadly I suspect their greatest fear is to be forgotten.

Citadel is indeed an important film on many artistic levels outlined above (and in other writings by myself and others). However, its primary importance is that within the context of genre (which has the power to reach huge audiences and young ones), the movie seriously (and, all importantly - entertainingly) addresses, head-on, the horror facing many of us.

While many begin their lives in a state of disenfranchisement and seldom escape,  others have never known the meaning of the word until the rug was pulled from under them due to the increase in downsizing, the insidious magnetic pull of consumerism, the equally spurious lustre of debt and last, but not least, the lack of political will that's been mostly bought off by corporate interests that use government as its puppet to increase profits at the expense of everyone but themselves. Even those few politicians who might have genuinely made a difference were assassinated and in this day and age, unless the powers-that-be want to send a statement using public assassination, kill our best and brightest leaders with secret and nefariously-inflicted "infections".

Then, there is the culling.

The richest, most powerful men in the word clearly want to siphon as much wealth and power as they can, but even now, they are engaged in advocating and downright supporting massive forced sterilization (sometimes right up front and others more subtle, like the new x-ray technology at any number of security checkpoints) in addition to outright murder (spurious "wars" against terror, getting government to approve deadly products like aspartame, fluoride and ANYTHING ingested from sources like Monsanto, Dole and other corporate food entities).

Ted Turner (and he's sadly not alone - yes, YOU Bill Gates and all the rest of this foul ilk) has stated (and defended and reiterated) the following sentiment:

"Right now there are just way too many people on the planet. A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels would be ideal."

Citadel is set in a dystopian world, but there's little that's futuristic about it. The movie feels like it's set "ten seconds into the future" (to coin a tagline from City of Dark, a Bruno Lazaro Pacheco film I produced). One gets the sense that the housing projects Foy's film is set in are but the tip of the iceberg in the larger world of the film. The streets are deserted - not because it's a low-budget movie and not because the majority of the populace in the film are too scared to be on the streets - but because there is an "infection".

A culling.

"Infections" (Ebola, AIDS, SARS, the list goes on and on) are here and now. They kill people. We can fool ourselves into believing they're "natural", but to cull such wide swaths of humanity is a multi-pronged approach.

The results of the 'infection" in Citadel are devastating. It kills adults and children alike, but the latter are often susceptible to living - in a living hell - blind (except to fear), bloodthirsty, savage and feral. If there's a cure, nobody is chomping at the bit to find it.

Though (as pictured below), trinity, however briefly, seems restored to Tommy, accompanied as he is by the young rescued feral kid and baby. What awaits them is a light at the end of the tunnel, but getting there might well prove deadly. And even if they do reach the light, what will they be facing?

It's a bit like life as it is now, and seemingly forever in this age of suffering and collapse. Agoraphobia is a very real and debilitating sickness, but I can't help think that it works within the film as a larger metaphor to expose the potential of a mass agoraphobic reaction to the beleaguering attacks upon those who are described by George Bailey (James Stewart) in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life as all those in this world "who do most of the working and paying and living and dying" in it.

Yes, Citadel is ultimately a film infused with humanity and it seems appropriate that the movie reminds me of George Bailey's full speech to the corporate pig Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) during a point when Bailey's levels of courage are at their highest and before, like Tommy, when they crash to their lowest point and an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) shows up, much like the Good Father in Citadel, to infuse him with the power he needs to fight his greatest and most debilitating fears:

Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you'll ever be!

Ciaran Foy has made a great film. Those who see Citadel will also be much richer for doing so.

Trinity, now restored. Will it survive the light at the end of the tunnel that is CITADEL

Please read my interview with writer-director Ciaran Foy in Virginie Selavy's ultra-cool UK Film Magazine "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema". And whatever you do, buy this movie, study it and cherish it. You'll be getting a ground-floor glimpse into the work of a director who we'll be hearing from for years to come. In the USA, Citadel is distributed by New Video Group, in Canada by Mongrel Media and in the UK by the Revolver Entertainment Group.