HEAVEN'S GATE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - KLYMKIW CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEA 2012 #11: The exquisite Criterion Collection Director's Cut Blu-Ray edition of Michael Cimino's classic epic western and one of the most hotly anticipated titles amongst movie-loving collectors.

In this continuing series devoted to reviewing motion pictures ideal for this season of celebration and gift giving, here is KLYMKIW CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEA 2012 #11: The exquisite Criterion Collection Blu-Ray (or, if you must, DVD) of Michael Cimino's notorious, unfairly maligned, utterly mad, strangely compelling and yes, classic epic western Heaven's Gate.

Heaven's Gate (1980) *****
dir. Michael Cimino
Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Joseph Cotten, Jeff Bridges, Geoffrey Lewis, Paul Koslo, Richard Masur, Ronnie Hawkins, David Mansfield, Terry O’Quinn, Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Heaven's Gate is a sprawling, glorious, poetic, elegiac, subversive and stark ravingly bonkers epic of the Old West, and why, oh why, shouldn't it be?

Written and directed by a passionate, movie-mad iconoclast of the first order, director Michael Cimino had already delivered the memorable Clint Eastwood/Jeff Bridges crime bro-mance Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and the heart-stopping Vietnam epic The Deer Hunter (1978). Heaven's Gate came two years after the The Deer Hunter's multi-Oscar-cleanup. (Best Picture was presented by John Wayne just prior to his death, and a somewhat bittersweet moment considering how Wayne's own Vietnam tome, The Green Berets was universally reviled for its pro-war stance some ten or so years earlier.)

Heaven's Gate was and continues to be a worthy third feature for Cimino, but only now, thanks to Criterion, it can finally be appreciated for what it is (a $40-million-dollar art film of the highest order) than for what it isn't (a bloated piece of crap).

Did the film befuddle American critics? Indeed. Did the film die a merciless death at the box office, destroy an entire studio (United Artists) and put the power of green-lighting and having final say over all aesthetic matters into the hands of pencil-pushing accountants? Sadly, yes - but the fault is clearly not the picture's, but that of all the boneheads at every level of the process who just didn't get it.

Heaven's Gate - now, and in its current form and all its shining glory - is a movie that has outlasted virtually every pathetic, forgettable box office blockbuster that followed in its wake during the worst period (artistically) of movie history, the 1980s. The movie now exists, in the form its director envisioned and it's clear it will live well beyond even the present.

As for the time being, or rather the present, Heaven's Gate brilliantly speaks to the current political and financial position the world finds itself in NOW. We live in a world ruled by a money=and-power-hungry New World Order, a One World government comprised of only the very wealthy and bereft of any concern beyond personal interests and, most chillingly (and at any cost), the culling of what they view as the dregs of humanity. The state of the America right now is not a far cry from the days depicted in Cimino's masterpiece.

His picture is loosely based upon the Johnson County War that occurred in the state of Wyoming in 1892. Similar shameful incidents were happening all over America in the Post-Civil-War period, but none were as blatant and horrendous as what happened here. This was a war waged BY Americans (rich, of course) UPON Americans (poor, naturally) and with the blessing of the American government at Federal, State, military and even County levels.

The 216-minute director's cut of Heaven's Gate follows a group of Harvard graduates who have eventually settled in the wild west and built-up huge cattle empires. James Averill (Kris Kristofferson), though wealthy and well-educated has chosen to uphold the law of the land as a local marshall. His old college chum Billy (John Hurt) ineffectually opposes his cattle-grubbing colleagues with little more than nasty quips and avoiding overt confrontation by burying himself deeper and deeper into alcohol.

Nate Champion (Christopher Walken) is a struggling rancher who finances his desire for success by coldly working as a hired assassin for the cattle barons looking to wipe out new settlers. Both James and Nate are in love with the same woman (in classic Western tradition). Ella (Isabelle Huppert), a wealthy brothel-keeper and prostitute loves both men, but as she doesn't charge James to sleep with her, it's safe to say her hankerings slant a bit more in his direction.

And, of course, no western will ever be complete without a big-time villain and in Heaven's Gate, it comes to us in the form of the downright greedy and villainous Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) who convinces his wealthy colleagues into creating a death list to wholesale slaughter their competition (asserting that the poor New Americans are thieves and anarchists). An army of assassins is hired and the inevitable clash between rich and poor is only a matter of time.

When things look their bleakest during the battle, Cimino delightfully resorts to the last minute salvation of bringing in the calvary. (This, however, is a Michael Cimino film, and as such, this mad dash perversely resembles a similar climax in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation wherein the calvary turns out to be . . . well, you can watch both great movies from opposite ends of cinema's century to see for yourself.

This is pretty much all the plot. There are a few tributaries that run from it, but it is, for the most part, extremely simple and straightforward - AS IT SHOULD BE. The best movies always have a simply crafted and solid wooden coat hanger to drape a whole lotta cool shit upon so it looks magnificent. (As Joan Crawford would have her adopted daughter Christina believe, wire hangers were much too flimsy and should only be used - if at all - for product puked-up by bargain basements.)

Oh! And what glorious cool shit Cimino delivers. Not that I think any of it is superfluous - it's precisely what gives the film its poetic qualities. Infusing the simple narrative with the stuff dreams are made of, Cimino treats us to one sequence after another. Each provides stunning set pieces that place you directly in the WORLD of the film and furthermore, the blend of sumptuous images (rendered by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond) and aurally tantalizing music (by David Mansfield) verge on the hypnotic.

Alas, many of these scenes (which frankly are some of the greatest in film history) were, at the time of the film's release and in subsequent re-assessments, treated by most lazy scribes as self-indulgence of the lowest order. To them, I politely say, "Fuck you and the nag you rode in on!"

One sequence the pseuds always crap on is the film's opening 20-or-so minutes - a graduation ceremony at Harvard which rivals the wedding scene at the Lemko Hall in The Deer Hunter. The difference, of course, is that Heaven's Gate features hundreds of young men and women in their finery, partaking of their revelry in the most cultured, privileged manner, whilst in The Deer Hunter, Cimino gives us a whole whack of Ukrainians who go from the solemn pomp of the Orthodox cathedral to the mad, furious, drunken pigs-at-the-trough debauchery that resembles a Cossack victory piss-up after an especially successful day of pillaging.

Just prior to the stunning waltz on the lawns of Oxford (standing in for Harvard - as if I, a lowly Ukrainian would know the difference anyway) Cimino delivers an insane series of speeches that go on forever - one by Joseph Cotton as the Reverend Doctor and a graduation oratory from John Hurt. Critics also complained these went on forever and made no sense. They can auto-fellate themselves for all I care. I'd have been happy for those speeches to go on even longer.

In Heaven's Gate, Cimino uses this entire opening sequence to visually establish the ideals and rituals of a privileged class of youthful Americans and lulls us with a complete waltz before we're jack-hammered with the severe contrast of the wild west, the heat hanging thick as a good, hearty borscht and the swirls of dust muting the glorious blazing sun.

Cimino also continues his seeming obsession with the glorious lifeforce of piggish Ukrainians and other assorted Eastern European barbarians. In The Deer Hunter, they work in the steel plant and in Heaven's Gate, they're up to their eyeballs in cow shit. In both, they're especially adept at boozing, fucking and fighting.

I have no idea why Cimino has chosen "my people" for such hilariously accurate depictions, but it's pretty welcome to this fella'. (In 1985's Year of the Dragon, Mickey Rourke plays a Pole - same diff'.) Hell, even David Mansfield's beautiful Heaven's Gate score occasionally makes use of a Ukrainian folk song that was a HUGE part of my childhood, "Ой чорна я си, чорна" (transliteration: "Oy, Chorna Ya Sy, Chrona" and translation/meaning of song: two dark-haired, dark-skinned Uke lovers who coo too each other how they're made for each other because they're black as Earth). What's strange is that Mansfield only makes use of the folk song as revelry once and for the rest of the movie, he slows the tempo and manages to pull out every ounce of all Ukrainian music's dirge-like qualities (even "happy" Uke songs sound like funeral dirges or can be easily adapted into said dirges).

Mansfield's work is phenomenal all round. His various waltz themes are so haunting and romantic that you'll not get the main waltz out of your head - EVER! What I love about Cimino's use of Mansfield's music is that he's never afraid to lay it down wall to wall. This is a bold move that pays off since the film is all about VISUAL storytelling and as such, Cimino employs a combination of old studio styling with that of silent cinema.

Mansfield, is however, something else altogether and his virtuosity is on display in the movie as a character also. In an astounding sequence in the social hub of Johnson County, the "Heaven's Gate" roller rink, bar, community hall and flophouse (its manager is played by Jeff Bridges), all the settlers assemble for a glorious, old fashioned western dance. Cimino goes a step beyond John Ford here and puts everyone on roller skates. Does this sound nuts? Well, it kind of is, but he delivers a sequence that is so indicative of the film's emotional core that this "indulgence" pays off in spades.

And, of course, he gives us Mansfield on-camera with his band and a scene that will burn itself into your cerebellum to your final death gasps - Mansfield, on roller skates, fiddling like there's no tomorrow.

Cimino's eye throughout his western epic is the stuff only truly great artists in visual mediums are blessed with. His lengthy set-pieces are on a par with any of the finest delivered throughout the ages.

This is really such a great film, it still shocks me how it was used as a scapegoat to deflect responsibility from incompetent studio weasels to an artist who should have been allowed to create a steady canon of work.

My memories of its first release are still vivid.

I was, in those halcyon days, a huge Cimino fan. I loved his first two features, followed his pre-directing solo career as a screenwriter with considerable interest and in 1980, I could hardly wait until his new movie would be unleashed. That said, I briefly regarded an old friend's prognostication prior to its release when he declared that "Heaven's Gate has 'box office disaster' written all over it." Though he had yet to see it, I respectfully mulled over my sage-like mentor's explanation. "It's a $40 million dollar western starring Kris Kristofferson," he dryly observed.

Fair enough. I still pretty much ignored the occasional media reports of cost-overruns and wild tales of Cimino's bloated ego during the making of the film. Besides, all this stuff suggested - at least to me - that a great filmmaker was going whole hog to deliver another terrific picture and a bunch of persnickety pencil pushers, crew-monkeys and loser journalists had bees up their assholes.

Sadly, Heaven's Gate did not open in my hometown of Winnipeg. After a few days of limited release in two North American cities, reviews and audience response was so disastrous that United Artists pulled the 219-minute cut and many months later released a 149-minute cut for wider release.

I saw the latter version. In this form, the movie made no sense whatsoever and I staggered out of the cinema with a handful of similarly befuddled viewers. And the result was a picture that grossed $3 million dollars. United Artists, the studio that backed it, was completely decimated, powers shifted right across the board to a more aesthetically conservative approach. And again, this led to the most mind-numbingly awful decade in American cinema. Lots of hits, but very little that makes any aesthetic difference to the medium (in positive ways).

The survivor, the victor, if you will, is Heaven's Gate (and by extension, Cimino himself). In its pure glory, the film proves its worth well beyond the highly-sought-after ephemeral qualities the industry placed on cinema. (Thank Christ for Tarantino in the 90s - his work somehow put a bit of life back into the art and business of cinema. Sadly, one can only imagine what Cimino might have accomplished if not relegated to pariah status.)

As I look over the myriad of criticisms of this film, I'm reminded how so many people had their heads up their assholes on this one.

The big complaint was the sound mix. Many whined that the tracks were so layered and busy that one could barely hear dialogue. Yes, true, but ONLY when warranted - amidst the bustle of train stations, general town life, revelry and war. (Occasionally and brilliantly, dialogue is hard to make out when we get an audio POV in the same room. It kind of forces us into characters' aural shoes, as it were.)

Frankly, this issue of dialogue was never once a problem for me. Try watching the film with the subtitles, you'll see most of the dialogue is NOT subtitled, and when it is, it's perfunctory dialogue of the "if you hear it, fine, if you don't, no matter" variety. It's all part of the natural cacophony of, uh, life - but heightened to epic proportions of said life. (Another criticism was a cacophony of chatter in various Eastern European languages, often WITHOUT subtitles. Granted, when I could make out the words, I pretty much understood what everyone was saying without subtitles, but even if I didn't have a smattering of understanding of Slavic languages, I doubt it would have been a problem. Most of the chattering is of the aforementioned "if you hear it, fine, if you don't, no matter" variety. And WHEN it matters, there ARE subtitles.)

In many of these sequences, Cimino is telling his story VISUALLY and the soundscape is its own entity at play in this landscape. In fact, when I first watched this astounding Criterion presentation, I didn't even THINK about the dialogue during these scenes - I was too busy WATCHING the movie, thank you very much. I didn't miss a thing. I had no problem following the action, the characters and most of all, I was completely head over heels in love with the film's deeply immersive qualities - part of which is the GREAT sound design and mix and the other part being the expressive visuals.

Another head-up-the-ass complaint from "critics" was in the area of acting. Yes, Kristofferson's Jim Averill is withdrawn and often taciturn. Has anyone ever watched a western before? Most heroes (or anti-heroes) have this quality. Yes, Isabelle Huppert seems out of place as a madame in the wild west. So too did most immigrants. I can only imagine my own forefathers from Ukraine stumbling into turn-of-the-century White-bread, old-monied Winnipeg. Christ, they were out of place in any age, but especially so back then. Duh!, Grab a fucking brain, people! This is not a valid criticism. Besides, Huppert is a total fucking babe and we get to see her naked. A lot! I have no problem with this.

Another complaint from the army of knot-heads was how so many great actors were "wasted" in small roles. Cimino presents a dreamscape, a tapestry of a bygone era, one that finally exists as an entity unto the silver screen itself. There's not a single performance in the film that's bad and I personally applaud actors of this calibre agreeing to be part of a tapestry and giving their all.

Yet another utterly idiotic charge against the film is how Cimino plays fast and loose with the historical facts. More bullshit! He does what every great artist does - he doesn't let the truth get in the way of a good story. Almost all the characters in the film were real people. Cimino, if anything, does his job as an American myth maker and renders the likes of Jim Averill, Ella Watson, Nate Champion, etc. into bigger-than-life entities. It's the American way, but it's also what makes great movies. For example, the fact of the matter is that in real-life, James Averill was was hung by the cattle barons. Here, Cimino has him living a life of sad memories - a living death, if you will. It's fucking romantic. All the knobs who had a problem with this, are more than welcome to do me a favour and bugger off. Besides, I'm sure none of the real-life personages would have had any problems at all with their depictions.

I could continue mentioning all sorts of thing people crapped on for all the wrong reasons, but the bottom line is this - Heaven's Gate would probably never have been a hit at the time, but the cowardly studio heads were the ones who fucked up. They should have stuck to their guns, or at least, had Cimino's back on this one. I suspect the outcome might have been preferable to what transpired. Besides, the cowardice of the bozos at United Artists killed their studio, almost killed a great director (and severely hamstrung him for much of his career) and worst of all, changed the way movies were made and marketed. The film deserved, at the time, to be regarded as a noble financial failure at worst.

Besides, distributors (especially at the studio level) deep down know the catalogue value of most films and that eventually, almost all pictures pay for themselves and then some. (God knows I've been responsible for a few with that potential.) Time is on the side of studios/distributors. Besides, studios with in-house sales/distribution arms almost ALWAYS make money because they're generally crooks and find ways to ascribe in-house costs as production costs and they ALWAYS take their fees first (including guarantees).

When shit goes wrong, they never blame themselves. They look for handy scapegoats. In the case of Heaven's Gate, it was Cimino.

The whole debacle reminds me of the scene in Roman Polanski's The Tenant (put Cimino in Trelkovsky's shoes here) when the shuffling harridan landlady, played by a gloriously sour ball Shelley Winters answers Trelkovsky's pleas for help after being besieged by an inordinate number of affronts in his new home and says to him dryly, "You only have yourself to blame."

People who fucked Cimino over have made a very nice living since that time by blaming him. Blaming Cimino became a cottage industry. I hope this new lease on his picture's life will give him the last laugh. Frankly, Heaven's Gate completely knocked me on my ass in this Criterion Collection Director's Cut. Cimino reminded me throughout this great film why I have lived and continue to live my WHOLE fucking life for the movies. Using the medium to its utmost power, Cimino did his job - to draw me into HIS dreams - dreams fit for a King, a King so benevolent he allows us, the mere peons, to share them.

Thank you, Michael. You rock.

So does your $40-million-dollar Kris Kristofferson western.

Heaven's Gate is available on a truly amazing Criterion Collection Blu-Ray. The film itself is gorgeously remastered for HD and appears alone on Disc 1, while a solid clutch of supplements can be found on Disc 2.

This scene should speak for itself why anyone who loves movies needs to own this great film:

I wanted another number and sequence like that and would have been happy to watch it. When you see the film, you'll see a heart-achingly romantic sequence that follows-up on the roller skating sequence in a similar fashion. Visual storytelling at its best!

Take a look at this opening waltz from the film and then try telling me this is bad filmmaking:

And so you don't think the whole movie is all fun and games, try this scene on for size:

Now, for any Ukrainian-o-philes out there, here's a gorgeous a capella rendering of the great Ukrainian folk song "Oy Chorna Ya Sy Chorna" that David Mansfield adapted for his Heaven's Gate score:

And here's a version by the brilliant Veryovka Ensemble of Ukraine under the artistic direction of Anatoly Avdievsky. My late Uncle Walter Klymkiw was one of the world's leading authorities on Ukrainian folk music and spent much of his life devoted to studying, archiving, arranging and cataloguing this wealth of music. He was a great friend and colleague of Mr. Avdievsky and the only non-citizen of Ukraine to win its highest artistic honour, the Schevchenko Medal (Kind of like a Pulitzer in the USA or a Governor-General Prize in Canada) for his work in bringing the ancient music of Ukraine to life after much of the culture was wiped out by Joseph Satlin during the Holodymor and purges. Uncle Walter and Avdievsky collaborated closely to bringing this music to the world. David Mansfield can thank both of them. Enjoy:

AND NOW, BUY THE FUCKING MOVIE AND SOUNDTRACK

Greg Klymkiw's SAVAGE 7 - THE BEST HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION and FANTASY FILMS of 2012 (in glorious alphabetical order)

Greg Klymkiw's SAVAGE 7 - THE BEST HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION and FANTASY FILMS of 2012 (in glorious alphabetical order)

American Mary **** (2012)
dir. Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
American Mary is a dazzlingly audacious sophomore effort from the Vancouver-based twisted twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska. It's essentially a rape-revenge fantasy involving a young surgeon who becomes involved in the dark underground world of body modification. As her butchery improves with each subject, she is eventually ready to ply her skill upon her abuser, a senior surgeon whose air of respectability as a healer and academic is the weapon he uses to commit sexual violence. Watch out! Someone's gonna pay. Big time. It's Tod Browning meets early David Cronenberg with a decidedly feminist and feminine slant, as well as a genuine respect, understanding and compassion for those who MUST be different.

Beyond The Black Rainbow (2012) **** dir. Panos Cosmatos
Beyond The Black Rainbow is a 70s/80s-style "head" film that has "cult" emblazoned upon its celluloid forehead. Blessed with a cool score/soundscape as well as an imaginative production design, the movie is replete with a delicious combination of creepy psychiatric experimentation sequences, dollops of shockingly grotesque bloodletting and several dreamscape montages that are trippy to say the least. For me, I got way more bang for my buck out of this modestly budgeted SF-Horror whacko-fest than Sir Ridley's plodding mess Prometheus. I suspect, that like most cult items, Cosmatos's juicy mind-fuck might take some shelf life for the devotion his movie deserves to be fully discovered. In the meantime, fire up a fat doobie and enjoy!

The Chernobyl Diaries (2012) dir. Bradley Parker ***
Young Americans in Ukraine indulge themselves in a bit of extreme tourism and visit the abandoned city overlooking the site of the tragic Chornobyl nuclear meltdown. Things get a bit more extreme than anyone bargained for. Wandering through the deserted disaster area, weird noises puncture the eerie silence and eventually La Turistas are besieged by hungry, radiation-crazed bears, dogs, wolves and ceolocanth-piranha-like fish. When their tour guide's van won't start, darkness descends upon the city. It appears there are other creatures to contend with. As they must, and because it's a horror film, our motley crew ventures into the darkness of the city. Where there is radiation, there will be MUTANTS!!! Where there are mutants, carnage will follow.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) dir. Drew Goddard ***1/2
The Cabin in the Woods is a genre-geek's wet-dream, so set a spell, take a load off and leave your brain home. You won't need any grey matter for The Cabin in the Woods anyway. As moronic, derivative and plot-hole-ridden as the picture is, there are enough genuine surprises and a couple of truly breathtakingly inventive horror set pieces, that by the end, you'll be giddily satisfied. Five college kids - two hunks, two babes and one doper dweeb - hop into an RV and head into back country. Upon reaching their destination, they engage in the usual shenanigans that Hollywood-types assume young people do and before you can say: "Sam Raimi", a whole mess of slavering, rotting, bloodthirsty undead come crawling out of the soil. Thankfully what awaits is a whole lot more horrifying.

Citadel (2012) ****
dir. Ciaran Foy
Citadel is, first and foremost, a film about crashing, numbing, unrelenting fear. It is a palpable fear that's brought on when the film's young protagonist watches - not once, but twice - as those he loves are brutalized and/or snatched away from him. His fear intensifies so unremittingly, with such grim realism, that we're placed directly in the eye of the storm that is his constant state of terror. Even scarier is his struggle to instil enough courage to face the evil. Director Foy jangles our nerves with the panache of a master. His movie will scare the living bejesus out of you. The mise-en-scene is dazzling and the tale is rooted in both a humanity and reality that will smack close to home for many. Its dystopian world of fear, crime, poverty, filth and despair are enough to chill you to the bone, but we're not let off that easy. There is, you see, an infection. Oh yes, an infection, and one that leads to a heart-stopping, scream-inducing, drawer-filling and flat-out dizzying, jack-hammeringly appalling climax of pure, sickening, unadulterated terror.

John Carter (2012) dir. Andrew Stanton ***1/2
When I do the math that counts, I add up the following John Carter attributes:
A handsome, stalwart hunk hero. A major league babe. Noble allies for the hunkster and babe to right wrongs. Great villains. An overall mise-en-scene that captures the SPIRIT of the late, great, original author Edgar Rice Burroughs ("Tarzan of the Apes") whose book ("Princess of Mars") the film is based upon. Eye-popping special effects (that work just as well in 2-D as they do in 3-D, the latter process being one I normally can't stand). Cool aliens. Cool sets. Cool spaceships. Monsters. Yes, monsters. Cool monsters, at that. An astounding slaves-in-an-arena-fighting-aforementioned-monsters scene. A rip-snorting battle sequence. Have I mentioned the babe, yet? The sum total of the above is that director Andrew (Finding Nemo, WALL-E) Stanton's big screen version of Burroughs's first John Carter novel is a total blast.

[REC]3: Genesis (2012) dir. Paco Plaza ***1/2
Buoyed by a clutch of terrific acting, superb effects and some delicious shocks, [Rec3] delivers the goods and then some. Most of all, though, what sells [Rec]3 is the notion that Hell hath no fury like a woman whose fairy-tale wedding is transformed into a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Her white dress spattered with blood, her gamin visage transformed from joy to almost malevolent strictures, her train torn away to reveal her hot gams and armed with one motherfucker of a chainsaw, one only wonders who in their right mind would not be thrilled at the site of this sexy senorita cutting, slashing and maiming her way through one living dead wedding guest after another?

International Online Film Critics’ Poll 2012 - Greg Klymkiw Reporting

International Raquel!!!

International Online Film Critics’ Poll 2012
Nominations Announced - By Greg Klymkiw

I was asked to participate in the International Online Film Critics’ Poll 2012 which nominates and subsequently bestows awards upon movies theatrically released in the USA over a two-year period. The following nominees were determined by a poll of international online critics from eligible titles released twixt 16 November 2010 to 15 November 2012. The 2012 edition is the 3rd edition of this poll and on December 20, 2012, the winners will be announced in addition the Ten Best Poll as ascertained by the critics invited to vote.

According to Mr. George McCoy, the primary contact for the poll, a list of the film critics participating will be a mystery until the final winners are revealed. At that time, the names of the critics will also be unveiled. (Guess I just put mine out there by jumping the gun with this piece.) I've already voted in the nominations round of the poll and just recently submitted my final votes for the winners. 

George McCoy - UK Hooker Critic

Delighted to be part of this poll, I was curious who Mr. McCoy actually was, so I Googled him and discovered a writer in UK who reviews British massage parlours, courtesans and dungeons in extensive detail. A worthwhile service to be sure. As revealed in the -ahem - fine "news"paper The Daily Mail, London Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse's man-boobs are in a wringer over McCoy's audacity to review women providing sexual services.

(That informative article can be read HERE.)

I asked my Mr. McCoy if he was, indeed, "The Real McCoy", and with his answer, my hopes were immediately dashed.

The George McCoy who presides over the International Online Film Critics Poll was born in Scotland, but moved to Italy as a child. He lives in Rome, far from the brothels of Blighty and works, not as a professional connoisseur of the world's oldest provision of services to gentlemen, but as a film journalist in his first language, Italian. As he is NOT the same George McCoy who reviews massage parlours in the UK and given my predilections for the perverse (and occasional disdain for legitimacy), I must live with that fact and do so without reserve.

As for participation in the poll itself, I found it much easier to whittle down my choices over a longer period of time since the richest cinematic cream of my own votes tended to rise to the top far more forcefully. After submitting my nominations, I discovered that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy from 2011 and The Master from 2012 were the pictures that consistently made it to the nominations. Granted, my votes for nominations tended to be rather "out there", so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the vast majority of my selections were, in fact, not part of the nominations (save for the above-named films).

In the meantime, here are the official final nominees and my own PERSONAL picks for the International Online Film Critics’ Poll 2012.

THE MASTER - THE BEST!!!

Best Motion Picture

The Artist
The King’s Speech
Lincoln
The Master
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Okay, I absolutely hated The Artist, which felt like an overlong Mel Brooks movie parody without the laughs and Mel's genuine love for the movies he lampooned. Worst of all, the insufferably cutesy-pie The Artist resembled a Guy Maddin picture without Guy Maddin. I especially detested the interminably predictable uplift of The King's Speech which felt like a dull made-for-tv movie with slightly better production value and far too much stuttering for my taste. While I did not hate Lincoln, I found it rather dull and clankingly jingoistic.

The movies I chose in the first round of voting for nominations in the best picture category that didn't make the cut were Carre Blanc, The Deep Blue Sea, End of Watch, Fat Kid Rules The World, God Bless America, Keyhole, Killer Joe and Take This Waltz. The Master and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy both did make the cut. Given how completely different they are, it seemed almost impossible to vote for just one of them as a winner, but ultimately, I am insanely obsessed with The Master so it got my vote for Best Picture.

Gotta Love this Turkish Poster

Best Director

Ben Affleck – Argo
Tomas Alfredson – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master
Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life
Steven Spielberg – Lincoln

Affleck's direction ranged from competent to reasonable, but I found ARGO to be such an irredeemably racist dung pile of American propaganda that there's less than a snowball's chance in Hell I'd be picking it for anything. Spielberg's direction for Lincoln was pretty damn flaccid and Malick's helmsmanship of the aesthetically flatulent The Tree of Life, was fraught with more pretension than even the worst student films I've seen over the years.

Most of my votes in this category were shut out of the final nominations. I favoured Keyhole by Guy Maddin, Killer Joe by William Friedkin and Take This Waltz by Sarah Polley. Two directors I selected WERE nominated - P.T. Anderson (The Master) and Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). Both of these guys did such great work I felt like tossing a coin to pick a winner. At the end of the day, however, given how expertly Alfredson captured the Cold War flavour of spy bureaucracy, I happily gave him the nod over the more flamboyant P.T. Anderson for Best Director.

Tomas Alfredson Rules!!!

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
Jean Dujardin – The Artist
Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Daniel Day-Lewis was just fine (as he always is) in Lincoln, but every time Honest Abe opened his mouth and said, "That reminds me of a story . . ." I wanted to punch him in the face. Jean Dujardin and Colin Firth were so objectionable in those two execrable films, I was similarly inclined to punch both of them in the face as well.

My own picks for nominees included Joseph Gordon Leavitt in 50/50, Joel Murray in God Bless America and the exemplary Michael Shannon in Take Shelter. Once again, those votes were given the bum's rush, but it did leave two of my nominees in the running - Joaquin Phoenix for The Master and Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. To pick a winner twixt the two proved again to be a bit of a coin toss. Finally though, I chose Gary Oldman's exquisite poker-faced performance as George Smiley.

A smiley-faced laddie

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Elizabeth Holsen – Martha Marcy May Marlene
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin
Quvenzhané Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild

You know, I can't say I was happy with a couple of these nominees, save for the fine work of Elizabeth Holsen, Quvenzhané Wallis and Natalie Portman. Meryl Streep and Tilda Swinton inspired my need to punch face. All my favourite choices here were shut out of the nominations - Rachel Weizs in The Deep Blue Sea, Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn AND Take This Waltz, Tara Lynne Barre in God Bless America, Jodie Foster in Carnage and Stephanie Sigman in Miss Bala. I did, however, love Natalie Portman in Black Swan and was pleased to volley my vote in her direction for the big prize.

Yup. Natalie's a major babe!

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale – The Fighter
Bryan Cranston – Argo
Christopher Plummer – Beginners
Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master

The mad inspiration that is Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Master, was my pick for the best of the best in this category.

I'd follow The Master off a cliff.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams – The Master
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Bérénice Bejo – The Artist
Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter

Amy Adams in either of the final nominated roles would make me happy (though her work in The Master is what really did it for me).

I'd follow Amy Adams off a cliff.

Best Ensemble Cast

Argo
The Artist
The Fighter
The King’s Speech
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Well, amongst this sorry lot, there was only only one ensemble cast that genuinely deserved to be here - that passel of Brits as deadly Cold War bureaucrats in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

I could listen to these guys talk all day.

Best Original Screenplay

Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master
Paddy Considine – Tyrannosaur
Sean Durkin – Martha Marcy May Marlene
Andrés Heinz, Mark Heyman and John McLaughlin – Black Swan
David Seidler – The King’s Speech

There is only one definitive choice amongst THESE nominees, P.T. Anderson's The Master.

Write me some words, P.T.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Lucy Alibar and Ben Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughan – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Alexander Payne, Net Faxon and Jim Rash – The Descendants
Tony Kushner – Lincoln
Chris Terrio – Argo

Hands down - gotta love the best LeCarre script adaptation ever.

Tinker Tailor Tinkers

Best Production Design

Rick Carter – Lincoln
Nathan Crowley, Kevin Kavanaugh – The Dark Knight Rises
Maria Djurkovic – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
David Crank, Jack Fish – The Master
Dennis Gassner – Skyfall

I wish I could live here.

Best Film Editing

Tariq Anwar – The King’s Speech
William Goldenberg – Argo
Michael Kahn – Lincoln
Leslie Jones, Peter McNulty – The Master
Dino Jonsäter – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I was blown away by the creepy pace - punctuated by several blasts of genuine nail-biting suspense in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Snip. Snip. Kaboom!!!

Best Original Score 

Ludovic Bource – The Artist
Alberto Iglesias – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Alexandre Desplat – The King’s Speech
Jonny Greenwood – The Master
Clint Mansell – Black Swan

Hands down, my vote went to Jonny Greenwood's supercool musical dissonance in The Master.

DISSONANCE EXTRAORDINAIRE

Best Visual Effects

The Avengers
Black Swan
The Dark Knight Rises
Skyfall
The Tree of Life

Great effects for a genuinely great movie Black Swan.

BATS IN BALLERINA'S BELFRY

So there you have it, folks - the nominees and some of my personal votes for what I feel should be the winning entries. Check the International Online Film Critics’ Poll 2012 on December 20. 2012 for a full list of the winners at the Poll's website HERE.

Greg Klymkiw's TOP TEN CANADIAN FILMS of 2012

GREG KLYMKIW'S TOP TEN CANADIAN FILMS OF 2012

By Greg Klymkiw

Tonight (December 4, 2012), The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will be unveiling their choices for both the Top Ten Features and Top Ten Shorts (TIFF CTT 2012). I'm certainly looking forward to the announcements this evening. I'm especially looking forward to the free drinks and food, but this year, I might actually restrain myself from bringing a doggy-bag.

So, until TIFF reveals their own selections at 6:45pm (ET), here are my own choices for Canada's Top Ten. In ALPHABETICAL ORDER, here's the GK CTT 2012 - The Greg Klymkiw Canadian Top Ten:

AMERICAN MARY dir. Jen and Sylvia Soska
American Mary is a dazzlingly audacious sophomore effort from the Vancouver-based twisted twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska. With this new picture, the sisters are on (at least for some) shaky moral ground (and/or crack), but happily, they maintain the courage of their convictions and do not tread lightly upon it. This movie is some mighty nasty stuff - replete with elements of slashing satire that hack away and eventually tear open "normally" accepted versions of right and wrong whilst grasping the exposed nerve endings of morality, holding them taught and playing the jangling buggers like violin strings. The picture will provoke, anger, disgust, horrify and scandalize a multitude of audiences - it's one grim, horrific and darkly hilarious fairy tale. On its surface, the picture is a rape revenge fantasy set against the backdrop of body modification, but deep below, it roils with the sort of subversion Canadian filmmakers have become famous for all over the world.

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW dir. Panos Cosmatos
Beyond The Black Rainbow features one of the most thrilling directorial debuts in years. Panos Cosmatos, who both wrote and directed this supremely enjoyable first-feature - a 70s/80s-style "head" film that has "cult" emblazoned upon its celluloid forehead. Gorgeously shot, vigorously edited, blessed with a cool score/soundscape as well as an imaginative production design, the movie is replete with a delicious combination of creepy psychiatric experimentation sequences, dollops of shockingly grotesque bloodletting and several dreamscape montages that are pretty trippy all by their lonesome. If truth be told, the movie can work quite nicely without added stimulants, but far be it from me to deter anyone from enjoying the movie with a massive ingestion of some fine west coast weed. So settle back, folks. Fire up a fat doobie and enjoy!

CLOUDBURST dir. Thom Fitzgerald
The Hanging Garden director delivers a beautifully written ode to love on the run - replete with k.d. lang music, pickup trucks, roadside cafes, Olympia Dukakis, Brenda Fricker and a Nova Scotia that's never looked more heart-achingly beautiful. Fitzgerald's tale is a sort of gentle retirement-age Thelma and Louise. He wisely and bravely delivered a story that's as mature as it's downright universal. Love should have no boundaries and his direction indelibly captures a love story that's familiar, but bolstered by such genuine compassion, that I frankly can't imagine any audience not succumbing to its considerable charms.

THE END OF TIME dir. Peter Mettler
Nobody makes movies like Peter Mettler, so it stands to reason that when Peter Mettler makes documentaries, you're in for an experience like no other you've ever seen before. This hypnotic, riveting, provocative and profoundly moving exploration of time is one of the most original films of the new decade. And yes, time! TIME, for Christ's sake! Of all the journeys a filmmaker could take us on, only Mettler would have the almost-gentle Canadian audacity to explore the notion of time. And damned if Mettler doesn't plunge you into an experiential mind-fuck that both informs and dazzles. Lava flows both scarily and beautifully in Hawaii, Switzerland's particle accelerator seeks answers to the questions of creation, the place of Buddha's enlightenment reveals that the end of time, might just well be the beginning - all this and more are all under the scrutiny of Mettler's exquisite kino-eye (one of the best in the world, I might add). Mettler always journeys far and wide to seek answers, enlightenment and maybe, just maybe, both terrible and beautiful truths. And he lets us all come along for the ride.

FORTUNATE SON dir. Tony Asimakopoulos
This stunning personal documentary is a perfect companion piece to Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell. Telling a brave and identifiable story about love, loyalty and family that extraordinarily mirrors the lives of all who watch it, the picture demonstrates the inescapable truth that love is not easy. For love to BE love, for love to really count, it takes work, courage and fortitude. It means giving up ephemeral happiness for the happiness of endurance, of perseverance, of never giving up - the happiness and fulfillment that really counts. Tony Asimakopoulos is one of Canadian cinema's great unsung talents. His work has been charged with a unique underground flavour - a kind of Greek-Scorsese "boys in the 'hood" quality of obsession, dapplings of George Kuchar melodrama and lurid high contrast visuals. And Fortunate Son is, quite simply, a genuinely great film.

GOON dir. Michael Dowse
A Great Canadian Hockey Movie to follow in the footsteps of Canuck "Lumber-in-the-Teeth" Classics as FACE OFF, PAPERBACK HERO and, of course, the most Canadian Movie Never Made By A Canadian, George Roy Hill's Classic SLAP SHOT. Etching the tender tale of the kindly, but brick-shit-house-for-brains bouncer recruited to a cellar-dweller hockey team in Halifax as an enforcer, Dowse captures the sweaty, blood-spurting, bone-crunching and tooth-spitting circus of minor league hockey with utter perfection. The camaraderie, the endless bus trips, the squalid motels, the brain-dead fans, the piss-and-vinegar coaches, the craggy play-by-play sportscasters, the bars reeking of beer and vomit and, of course, Pogo Sticks - it's all here and then some. GOON delivers laughs, fisticuffs, mayhem and yes, even a dash of romance in a tidy package of good, old-fashioned underdog styling.

KEEP A MODEST HEAD (Ne crâne pas sois modeste) dir. Deco Dawson
Oh, Glorious surrealism! Oh, Canada! Oh, Headcheese de Cinema! Deco Dawson delivers his most mind-blowing magic to date with this delirious ode to French surrealist Jean Benoit. No longer content to volley mere scuds into cinema’s boundaries, Dawson hits all the buttons from mission control at Burpleson Air Base in Gimli, Manitoba to launch several A-bombs and a few H-bombs (for good measure) at the sturdy bastions of convention, thus fulfilling the true glory, madness and poetic potential of the greatest art form of all.

KRIVINA dir. Igor Drljaca
Not a single shot is fired in Canadian director Igor Drljaca's stunning feature debut, but the horror of war - its legacy of pain, its futility and its evil hang like a cloud over every frame of this powerful cinematic evocation of memory and loss. The film's hypnotic rhythm plunges us into the inner landscape of lives irrevocably touched by man's inhumanity to man - a diaspora of suffering that shall never escape the fog of war. Krivina is an astounding film - a personal vision that genuinely affects our sense of self to seek out our own worth, our own place in the world. Like Olexander Dovzhenko, Sergei Paradjanov and, to a certain extent, Tarkovsky, Drljaca achieves what I believe to be the fullest extent of what cinema can offer - the ability to touch the souls of its characters and, in so doing, touching the souls of those lucky enough to experience the magic that can only, I think, be fully wrought by the art of the motion picture.

PEACE OUT dir. Charles Wilkinson
This a powerful, persuasive and important film that focuses upon the environmental decimation of Canada's northwest. It's about energy and the horrible price we all pay for our hog-at-the-trough need for Hydro. The picture takes you by surprise and leaves you breathless. Diving into this vital film, we're witness to activist cinema of the highest order. Clever, subtle juxtapositions, smooth transitions between the beauty of nature, the destruction of the environment, the fluorescent-lit government and/or corporate offices, the dark, almost Gordon Willis styled shots of energy executives and in one case, an utterly heartbreaking montage of energy waste set to Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #1 - all of these exquisitely wrought moments and more, inspire sadness, anger and hopefully enough of these emotions will translate into inspiring action - even, as a Greenpeace interview subject suggests - civil disobedience.

STORIES WE TELL dir. Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley’s latest work as a director, a bonafide masterpiece, is first and foremost a story of family – not just a family, or for that matter any family, but rather a mad, warm, brilliant passionate family who expose their lives in the kind of raw no-guts-no-glory manner that only film can allow. Most importantly, the lives exposed are as individual as they are universal and ultimately it’s a film about all of us. Love permeates the entire film – the kind of consuming love that offers (as does the film itself) a restorative power of infinitesimal proportions. Sarah Polley is often referred to as Canada's “national treasure”. She’s far more than that. She’s a treasure to the world – period. And so, finally, is her film.

THE WORLD BEFORE HER dir. Nisha Pahuja
What is the future for the young women of modern India? Is it adherence to thousands of years of subservient tradition or finding success through beauty? Is it deepening their love for the Hindu religion through rigorous paramilitary training or maintaining their ties to religion and culture while engaging in the exploitation of their sexuality? The chasm between these two polar opposites couldn't be wider and yet, as we discover in Nisha Pahuja's extraordinary and compelling documentary feature The World Before Her, the differences are often skin deep as parallel lines clearly exist beneath the surface. All of this makes for one lollapalooza of a movie! Vibrant, incisive, penetrating and supremely entertaining, director Pahuja and her crackerjack team deliver one terrific picture - a genuine corker!

Oh, you might have noticed there are actually 11 films here. Don't like it? Fucking sue me!

LLOYD THE CONQUEROR - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Mike Smith (right, above psycho with pig-like Vulcan ears) is no mere Trailer Park Boy, he's the funniest man in Canada. Brian Posehn (left) is no mere Brian Spukowski on The Sarah Silverman Show, he's just as funny as she is and sexier.  Harland Williams (loser with pig-like Vulcan ears on bottom right) is no mere Sheridan College dropout, he is Dumb and Dumber's pee drinking cop. These three giants of the motion picture industry can now be seen together - inspiring copious gushing geysers of spontaneous urination in all who bear witness to their genius in the otherwise mediocre Canuckian comedy effort Lloyd the Conqueror.

Lloyd the Conqueror (2012) ** + 1 Pubic Hair
dir. Michael Peterson
Starring: Mike Smith, Brian Posehn, Evan Williams,
Jesse Reid, Scott Patey, Tegan Moss, Harland Williams

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Damn, I wanted to like this movie. Who wouldn't? It's got a Holy Fucking Trinity of some of the best funny guys in the business (Mike Smith, Brian Posehn and Harland Williams) portraying 40-something losers (actually, mind-blowingly humungous losers) who devote all their off-time (and much of their "on-time", if you can call it that) to the inexplicably obsessive world of role-playing games.

We're not talking about the losers who stay at home glued to their monitors - pretending to be fairy kings, stout-hearted dwarves and bearded fucking wizards in a virtual world.

Nay, these are losers who don costumes (sort of like those maroons who show up to movie premieres as Vulcans, Wookies and fucking Gandalf) and engage in real-life jousts and tournaments in the great outdoors.

If Lloyd the Conqueror had stuck to THESE guys instead of the utterly unentertaining early 20-something losers who lead the film's narrative charge, then it might have had a hope in Hell of being some kind of comedy classic. (It sometimes feels like the filmmakers might have discovered this in the edit room, too. It's uncanny how the movie soars when Smith, Posehn and Williams are onscreen. It might have been best to snip away as much of the uncharismatic purported leads as possible and use every available frame of this Trio of merry mirth makers. The movie feels about 15 minutes too long anyway, so it wouldn't have hurt at all.)

Alas, the movie is little more than a tedious, overlong and (often) unfunny comedy. I was happy to forgive the perfunctory plot this type of movie usually has. In fact, it doesn't get more perfunctory than this: Focusing upon three online gamers who are threatened with a low GPA and the loss of their student loans at College, get a chance to boost their academic standing by participating in actual role play battle in the flesh with their nasty, prissy, grade-lowering Medieval Literature professor (Mike Smith in a nice rival to his role as "Bubbles" on Trailer Park Boys).

SIDENOTE: I also learned something new here. I had no idea colleges offered courses requiring anything resembling reading as I always assumed these institutions were a last resort for the academically challenged on both the student and faculty end of things. Yeah, yeah. So sue me. I'm a fucking snob.

What I was not able to forgive was the woefully dull and virtually interchangeable characters who are forced into this predicament, as well, sadly, as the screen-presence-bereft young actors who played these roles. (In fairness, I'm sure all three of these young thespians are imbued with talent, but I must reiterate that the writing of the characters they play does neither them nor the film any favours.) What films like this need are vibrant characters played by bigger-than-life talents - think "Bill and Ted" (Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter), Wayne's World (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) or "Harold and Kumar" (John Cho and Kal Penn).

Canada is certainly not without any number of great young actors with the comic chops of the above (Hell, a couple of the above-named ARE Canadian), BUT, the roles themselves in Lloyd the Conqueror needed to be written with the same panache that co-writers Andrew Herman and Michael Peterson invested in the roles played by Mike Smith, Brian Posehn and Harland (I wanna keep changing his surname to "Sanders") Williams. Stalwart supporting performers need lead performers who can blow them off the screen or at least hold their own. (Jesus Christ, think Max "fucking" Von Sydow going head to head with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in Strange Brew and you know what I'm talking about here.)

My dream cast for this movie would have been Canadian funny guys who are a bit long-in-tooth for the roles of the three young losers - imagine Jacob Tierney, Dov Tiefenbach, Jay Baruchel or hell, maybe even Don McKellar as a perennial student who just keeps taking college courses to get student loans. That's not only closer to what the film needed, but even thinking about first-rate talent like that might have inspired better writing for the three roles of the youthful "heroes".

Some might say, oh, but this is a low-budget Canadian film. Don't be so mean, Greg. Don't be so picky. It's Canadian. It's low budget. They tried really hard.

So fucking what?

Being Canadian and low-budget means the movie has to reach for the stratosphere, not the tip of the old landfill site in Winnipeg (which is the highest topographical point in that flat, godforsaken city of my youth).

All this said, I can still guarantee you the pleasure of soiling yourself whenever Mike Smith, Brian Posehn and Harland Sanders (Williams) are on screen.

These guys are the real thing and, good goddamn (!) they are funny.

"Lloyd the Conqueror" is in limited theatrical release across Canada. In Toronto it's playing at one of my favourite venues, The Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas (they have the best cheap Tuesday prices in town, so I suggest you see the movie then). Thanks to Smith, Posehn and Williams you'll be afforded a delectable Walmart Rollback admission price to soil your panties.

STORIES WE TELL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - KLYMKIW CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEA 2012 #10: Take anyone and everyone you love to see Sarah Polley's documentary masterpiece. It's currently playing at select indies, but given the season and all the recent accolades (including a Sundance berth), maybe Cineplex Entertainment will light a flame under their own ass and dump a few stinkers from Hollywood to bring it back on as many screens as possible across Canada.

"Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm closely to his side, and, as they stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped from their lives and duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and radiant hearts to a new adventure." - James Joyce, The Dead

“Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.” - William Saroyan

Stories We Tell (2012)
***** dir. Sarah Polley

"Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but ... I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life." - William Saroyan, The Human Comedy

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Nature, nurture and the manner in which their influence upon our lives inspires common threads in the telling of tales that are in turn relayed, processed and synthesized by what we think we see and what we want to see are the ingredients which make up Sarah Polley’s latest work as a director.

Her Oscar-nominated Away From Her was a well-crafted dramatic plunge into the effect of Alzheimer’s upon a married couple. Take This Waltz blasted a few light years forward, delivering a film that’s on one hand, a wonky-plonky romantic comedy and on the other, a sad, devastating portrait of love gone awry and all the while being perhaps one of the most progressive films about female passion and sexuality made in a modern, contemporary North American (though specifically Canadian context).

Stories We Tell is something altogether different and, in fact, roots Polley ever so firmly in contemporary cinema history as someone who has generated a bonafide masterpiece. It is first and foremost a story of family – not just a family, or for that matter any family, but rather a mad, warm, brilliant passionate family who expose their lives in the kind of raw no-guts-no-glory manner that only film can allow.

Most importantly, the lives exposed are as individual as they are universal and ultimately it’s a film about all of us. It is a documentary with a compelling narrative arc, yet one that is as mysterious and provocative and profoundly moving, as you’re likely to see.

Love permeates the entire film – the kind of consuming love that we’ve all felt at one point or another. We experience love within the context of relationships most of us are familiar with: a husband and wife, a mother and child, brothers and sisters, (half and full) family and friends and yes, “illicit love” (at least within a specific context in a much different time and place).

Mostly though, Stories We Tell expresses a love that goes even beyond our recognizable experiences of love and running a gamut of emotions.

The film is often funny, to be sure. It is, after all, a film by Sarah Polley and is infused with her near-trademark sense of perverse, skewed, borderline darkly comedic, but ultimately amiable sense of humour. The great American author of Armenian heritage, William Saroyan, titled his episodic novel (and Oscar-nominated screen story) The Human Comedy – something that coursed through his entire canon and indeed is the best way to describe Polley’s approach to telling stories on film.

She exposes truth, emotion and all the while is not willing to abandon dollops of sentimental touches – the sort we can find ourselves relating to in life itself.

There is a unique sense of warmth that permeates Stories We Tell, and by so employing it, Polley doesn’t merely tug at our emotions – she slices them open, exposing raw nerve endings that would be far too painful if they were not tempered with an overall aura of unconditional love, not unlike that as described by those who have survived a near-death experience.

The emotions and deep feelings of love in Polley’s documentary are so enveloping, I personally have to admit to being reduced to a quivering, blubbering bowl of jelly each time I saw the film. Four screenings later and her movie continues to move me unconditionally – on an aesthetic level, to be sure (her astonishing blend of interviews, archival footage and dramatic recreations so real that they all blend together seamlessly), but mostly on a deeply personal and emotional level.

At the heart of the film is a courageous, vibrant woman no longer with us. Polley guides us through this woman’s influence upon all those she touched. Throughout much of the film, one is reminded of Clarence Oddbody’s great line in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life: “Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?”

I try to imagine the lives of everyone Polley introduces us to and how if, like in the Capra film, this vibrant, almost saint-like woman had not been born. Most of those we meet in the film wouldn’t have been born either and the rest would have lived lives with a considerable loss of riches.

And I also think deeply on the fact that this woman was born and how we see her effect upon all those whose lives she touched. Then, most importantly, I think about Clarence Oddbody’s line with respect to the child that might not have been born to this glorious woman – a child who might have been aborted. I think about how this child has touched all the lives of those in the documentary. The possibility that this child might have never been born is, within the context of the story relayed, so utterly palpable that I can’t imagine audiences not breaking down.

I can’t imagine the loss to all those people whose lives this child touched. And the world? The world would genuinely be a less rich place without this child.

THEN, it gets really personal. I think about all those in MY life who could have NOT being born – people who are very close, people (two in particular) who have indelibly made a mark on my life – people whose non-existence would have rendered my life in ways I try to repress.

And I weep. Kind of like Brando says as Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now: “I … I … I cried. I wept like some grandmother.”

Most of all, my tears are reserved for the film’s aura of unconditional love, its incredible restorative power. Sarah Polley is often referred to in Canada as a “national treasure”. She’s far more than that.

She’s a treasure to the world – period.

And so, finally, is her film.