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2016 FESTIVAL
DU NOUVEAU CINÉMA
http://www.nouveaucinema.ca/EN
THE RATINGS
So
far, A & O film critics Robert J. Lewis and Jordan Adler
have seen the following films. Here are their ratings and
comments, always out of 4, reserving 2.5 or more for a noteworthy
film, 3.5 for an exceptional film, 4 for a classic.
________________________
3.4
-- TWO LOVERS
AND A BEAR, Kim Nguyen
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
The event maker in Kim Nguyen’s haunting, fascinating,
highly original, Two
Lovers and a Bear is location (Iqaluit). Everything --
relationships, shopping, partying, dressing -- is under-the-influence.
As the camera follows the favoured means of transportation
(the high-powered, all-terrain snowmobile), the viewer quickly
learns that in the extreme north nothing is biodegradable:
mixed in with the snow banks that line the roads are wooden
crates, discarded junk and a fleets worth of abandoned vehicles.
The director uses the brilliant natural light and pervasive,
antipodal darkness to convey both awe and respect the north
commands: the long shots are breathtaking, the remoteness
unlike anything you’ve ever seen – a wonderland
that invokes terror and incredulity that anyone could survive
there. We quickly learn that extreme conditions often appeal
to people looking to escape the extremes they have been subjected
to in 'the south.'
Madly in love Lucy and Roman are damaged goods, both victims
of abusive fathers. Their fragile love and stability are severely
tested when Lucy announces that she is going south to study
biology. As if in thrall to the harshness and absolutes of
their environment, each in his own manner breaks down. Roman,
flirting with suicide and who has categorically refused to
return with Lucy, drinks himself into a stupour followed by
hospitalization, while Lucy’s demon, in the form of
an hallucination, relentlessly stalks her. Lacking the funds
to fly themselves out, they finally decide to snowmobile their
way home in what will prove to be a journey fraught with peril
and weird and unforgettable scenes that seem to come straight
out of a dream sequence. In an environment that lends itself
to the expectation that whatever can go wrong will go wrong,
Nguyen wisely opts for a balanced unfolding of both major
and minor crises, including philosophical pronouncements delivered
by a talking bear, and a surreal evening spent in an abandoned
radar station.
The casting was a tour de force, from the minor roles delegated
to the locals to the selection of the two leads, Tatiana Maslany
and Dane DeHaan, who deliver deeply affecting yet very natural
performances. From the opening scenes framed by the deep cold,
we are spellbound, like deer frozen in head lights, by the
expressions worn on DeHaan’s face: no matter what he
does or says, everything, like a beautiful sadness, is refracted
through his quiet hurting and fragility.
In cinematic language that is its own precedent, even while
conceding the North invariably takes more than it gives, Two
Lovers and a Bear is an homage to the physical and metaphysical
beauty of the land and its imperatives, and the indestructible
spirit of the defiant men and women who challenge its dominion.
2.6
-- I AM NOJOOM,
AGE 10 AND DIVORCED (Moi, Nojoom, 10 ans, divorcée), Khadija
Al-Salami
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]
Deepa Mehta's Water
and Jeremy Teicher's Tall as the Baobab Tree are
probably better films than I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced
by Khadija Al-Salami, but none is as important. All films
deal with enforced but legal child marriage. Nojoom's case
garnered international attention in 2009 when her plight was
brought to the attention of the Yemeni justice system. Despite
an uneven script and lapses into melodrama the film, quite
brilliantly, manages to address two very separate and mutually
suspicious audiences: the local population that subscribes
to Sharia law and the West that unapologetically regards child
marriage as a legalized form of pedophilia. In a far-off-the-beaten-track
village in Yemen, a farmer and his wife, suffering through
hard times, decide to marry off their 8-year-old daughter,
Nojoom, who only wants to play with her dolls; they are desperate
for the dowry and are looking forward to feeding one less
mouth. The groom, 20 years older than his child bride, rapes
her on their wedding night, after which she is treated like
a slave until she finally manages to escape to the capital,
Sana'a, where she explains to a sympathetic judge that she
wants a divorce. Father and groom are arrested, and interrogated
under oath. The groom is asked if he is familiar with Sharia's
position on child marriage. He explains that he is a decent
law-biding, peasant who can't read, that with the blessings
of the local sheik he is simply following tradition. The judge
explains there is no excuse for ignorance, that Sharia, while
it condones child marriage, obliges the groom to wait until
the child comes of age (message for local consumption: pedophilia
verboten). Where the film could have indulged in
pure messaging and stereotyping, it instead grants father
and groom the complexity of character that humanizes them
despite their ignorance, and contextualizes without exculpating
the tender of children to the highest bidder. Father and groom
are not so much evil as hostage to the traditions into which
they are born. Nojoom is an important true story
that needs to be told again and again. For viewers for whom
cinema is an opportunity to vicariously visit foreign lands,
they will be treated to the fascinating World Heritage architecture
of Sana'a and breathtaking panoramas of Yemen's arid and rocky
countryside turned green under extensive cultivation. A nod
to very credible performances from mostly non-professional
actors.
Ratings for 2015 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2014 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2013 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2012 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2011 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2010 Festival
du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2009 Festival du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings for 2008 Festival du Nouveau Cinéma.
Ratings
for 2007 Festival du Nouveau Cinéma.
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3.5 --
THE SAVER, Wiebke
Von Carolsfeld
[reviewed by Nancy
Snipper]
Once in a rare while there comes along a film that steals our heart because
of its honesty and simplicity. Yet the subject matter is pretty serious.
Fern, a 16-year-old aboriginal girl, living in Montreal, has just lost
her mother who spent her life cleaning houses and taking care of her only
daughter. Fern has to start cleaning those houses. She finds a book about
how to become a millionaire and reads it, but saving money just doesn't
get her far. She ekes out a living cooking in an African little restaurant,
avoiding a terrible landlady, and doing odd jobs for her as a janitor,
and then must suddenly put up with her Uncle jack who appears at the door.
He wants to become her guardian. Fern is on her last rent money and is
told to get out, but not only does she do a great deed to help the mean
landlady and her autistic son, but takes in Uncle Jack once again; after
she kicked him out, and gets herself rehired at the restaurant she is
told to leave for having almost burnt down the kitchen. As Fern begins
to deal with the loss of her mother, she enters a happier stage of her
life, and this is where the film ends. It's a moving little film that
turns victimhood into a reverse state of victory. Imajyn Cardinal is a
great actor who deliberately underplays her role in order to fully inhabit
the psyche of Fern and vibrate the pathos buried in our hearts
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