FILm REIlIEWS

Why Rock The Boat? Managing editor of the Witness is a pro-union speech he's not absolutely hard-nosed, hard-hearted taskmaster certain he believes. In part a last ditch An exciting film in a quiet and unpre­ wi th the charmingly appropriate name effort to win the love of Julia Martin, tentious way, Why Rock the Boat? of Philip L. Butcher (Henry Beckman). pro-union journalist from a rival paper, intrigues you, charms you and makes Under his strong, misguided leadership Harry's actions are also a final testi­ you laugh without ever feeling it is the paper is undyingly dedicated to mony to his true inability to conform to cheap laughter easily earned. stepping on the toes of absolutely no Butcher's unreasonable philosophies. Comedy is a delicate art - the less one, especially those toes belonging to Without the considerable skills of direct­ apparent the effort, the more effective advertisers and politicians. Try as he or Howe, writer Weintraub and the re­ and funny it will appear and the more may, Harry is unable to hide an innate markably believable and agile perform­ spontaneous and pleasurable the result­ tendency to chafe against the often ance of actor Gillard, the scene could ing laughter. So easy to misfire, film absurd restrictions placed on Witness have killed the film because of its intro­ comedy is a delight when skillfully employees. Not long after being hired duction of a form of slapstick into a scripted, directed and performed - all (to replace a young man fired for the film otherwise low-key in its approach. with a degree of good-natured restraint. cardinal sin of mis-spelling the name of But it works, precisely because its wild And Why Rock the Boat? is indeed a an important advertiser) Harry finds his abandon is in perfect harmony with delight! own status clearly defined by an irate Harry's physical and emotional state. This feature belies the popular view P.L. Butcher who announces he will give Although William Weintraub has that a film lacks true excitement unless him a chance but only because Harry acknowledged toning down the biting it jolts you out of your seat, induces has the least important and lowest pay­ satire of the original novel, the film's you to laugh or sob uncontrollably, or ing position on the paper - " I can't say inven tive satiric forays still hit their drives you out of the theatre with a goodbye to anyone as refreshingly inex­ marks square on and may be all the sudden attack of nausea. Here, you re­ pensive as you. " more successful and scathing because of main seated - calm, dry-eyed and But in spite of his conformist inten­ a delicious veneer of good-natured mis­ smiling. In complete control of your tions, poor Harry is constantly tripped chievous fun. faculties, you are able to appreciate the up by his own sublimated inclination to Particularly memorable, quite aside pleasure of smiling and laughing with a rebel. He is genuinely horrified when his from the swipes at newspaper life, are film instead of at it. This is indeed whimsical but scathing practice stories two ispired send-ups. One deals with exciting: to laugh instinctively without inexplicably begin appearing on the benevolent brotherhood associations: in feeling manipulated or conned; to res­ front page of the Daily Witness. Stolen this case it is the Bellringers Club, whose pond with genuine delight instead of from Harry's desk, the unsigned stories meetings consist of dull speeches greet­ derision. cause a furor and provoke an unsettling ed with catatonic "enthusiasm" by Directed by John Howe, Why Rock search for the " phantom" writer. Un­ members who stand up and ring their the Boat? is a National Film Board edited, screamingly funny, but far from little hand bells on cue. The second tar­ production, written and produced by flattering to their common subject - get is the erotic love scene, and involves William Weintraub who based his screen­ P.L. Butcher - the stories are definitely a delightful show-stealing cameo perfor­ play on his 1961 satiric novel. Both not in keeping with the paper's obses­ mance by Patricia Gage as Elizabeth book and film trace the early days in sive conservatism. Harry watches help­ Scannell, a predatory married woman the career of a young aspiring reporter lessly as his "little" indiscretion mush­ (the city editor's wife, no less) who named Harry Barnes. rooms wildly and threatens to undo all shares a quiet fireside moment popping It is the winter of 1947 and the his well-meaning attempts to become as popcorn with young Harry Barnes. Pop­ engagingly naiVe but ever-eager Harry acceptably innocuous as possible. ping popcorn will never again seem an (Stuart Gillard) is fresh from his studies This is only a portion of Harry's entirely innocent pastime after this clas­ at McGill University. Armed with a painful yet comic struggle to discover sic scene which makes fun of excessively scrapbook of his writings for the univer­ and balance what he really is with what steamy love scenes while revelling glor­ sity paper and with even less experience he thinks he should be in order to iously in its . own peculiar brand of in the ways of the world, our hero succeed in life. For the remainder of the eroticism. bravely sets out to make his mark on film's 112 minutes we are treated to a John Howe's direction reveals excep­ life. Or, more precisely, he sets out to succession of witty and quietly hilarious tional feeling for understated comedy as make his mark in the exciting and glam­ misadventures made all the more amus­ well as a sensitive ability to recreate ourous world of "JOURNALISM". ing because of their low-key presen­ effectively the realities of a past era too Cold reality dictates the first rung in tation and a certain unerring ring of often obscured by the excessive nostal­ Harry's climb up the ladder to success: truth. When Harry's increasing frus­ gia of less capable directors. In Why he is hired as an $18-a-week cub report­ trations in both work and love ultimate­ Rock the Boat? with the talented con­ er for Canada's dullest newspaper, the ly converge and explode, understate­ tributions of cinematographer Savas fictitious Montreal Daily Witness. Infor­ ment is set aside in favour of a marvel­ Kalogeras, production designer Earl med by veteran Witness reporters not to lously raucous climatic scene. A fine Preston and costume designer Philippa "rock the boat" with any fancy ideals blend of satire and slapstick, this scene Wingfield - not only does the look and or else face immediate unemployment, has a drunken and love-sick Harry feel of the 1940's come alive through Harry is no fool and opts for survival as Barnes casting aside all caution as he careful attention to physical and visual he sets out to keep the boat as steady as staggers over the desk-tops in the Wit­ detail, but there is a real sense of what it possible. ness newsroom delivering a stirring must have been like to be a young 74 Cinema Canada person starting a career in 1947. The film could be stronger dramatic­ ally if the leisurely pace were tightened somewhat. No scenes need be excised, just trimmed slightly to make the over­ all production as compact and biting as its individual scenes, and yet retain enough of the leisurely pacing to pre­ serve one of the most effective aspects of the film: the fact that we are per­ mitted an experience of Montreal in the 40's which allows us to appreciate the era more completely, and to understand more fully the depicted experience of young Harry Barnes, cub reporter.

The supporting cast is uniformly im­ pressive from the memorable appear­ Stuart Gillard and Ken James ance of Patricia Gage and Henry Scene from "Why Rock The Boat?" Beckman's suitably menacing P.L. Butcher, through Ken James's charm­ ingly raffish Ronny Waldron (Witness photographer and Harry's confidant), to the solid performances of all members of the Witness staff including Sean Sullivan as city editor Herb Scannell, Budd Knapp as Fred O'Neill and Patricia Hamilton as Hilda. Only Tiiu Leek's performance as love-interest Julia Martin is a disturb­ ingly weak link in an otherwise strong chain. This is due primarily to an uncer­ tainty, perhaps partly attributable to director Howe, of whether to portray Julia as a one-dimensional send-up or a more substantial and complex character. Leek's Julia is affable and somewhat amusing in her superficiality; and, in of a certain detached sympathy. Why Rock the Boat? keeping with the style of the film, she is What a pleasure it is to watch Gillard, supposed to be rather unreal and larger as Harry subtly yet perceptibly evolves A person must be pretty big at the than life. But then so is Harry Barnes, during his newspaper apprenticeship and Board to get to be the producer of his and actor Gillard has managed to bal­ his excursion into the world of own screenplay of his own novel. Or ance caricature with human complexity. romance! It is a bravura performance of perhaps A Matter of Fat so impressed Thus, one can only assume that Leek's a different breed - instead of a series of the NFB heavies that they decided to emerging talents are not as yet clever and dazzling character revela­ give William Weintraub the big chance, ready for such a challenge. tions, Gillard's portrayal is impressive along with director John Howe, to fold, Stuart Gillard, whose portrayal of for its restrained and delicate internal spindle, and mutilate a full-blown Harry could easily have been a boring quality. When the film is over, it is fea ture idea. one-dimensional cartoon of a nai"ve inn­ Stuart Gillard that looms in one's mem­ Yes, it's another Canadian screen ocent, here establishes himself as one of ory, his performance growing steadily in comedy, in the grand tradition of Foxy Canada's finest actors because he has stature because it dominates the film Lady, Another Smith for Paradise, refused to depict Harry as anyone less through intelligent and controlled Tobias Rouke, Following Through, than an interesting and complex human understatement. Keep it in the Family, and Only God being. Neither a neurotic Duddy Kravitz Ultimately, although one or two Knows. Proceeding in the familiar somn­ obsessed with succeeding at any price, elements are not entirely successful, ambulistic stagger from one tired nor a spineless nobody, Gillard's Harry Why Rock the Boat? is certainly a situation to another, uncorrupted by is a delightfully complex charac­ successful film. It is enormous fun be­ much in the way of verbal wit, Why terization, a lovingly detailed portrait of cause it is fun with perception and Rock the Boat? concerns itself with the the kind of person national surveys inSight. That is one of the film's greatest journalistic and sexual initiation of a delight in labelling "normal". We can attributes, one that should be applauded cub reporter on the Montreal "Witness" identify with Harry Barnes out of loudly and not undervalued. in 1947. Weintraub, I gather, graduated instant self-recognition rather than out - Laurinda Hartt from McGill in 1947, and joined the

Cinema Canada 75 Montreal Gazette, and it's strange to see inventive with this material. Why Rock performance as King is that we come to how little imaginative use he is able to the Boat? takes us through the familiar care for this tired, battle-worn man. make of that experience. frustrations and longueurs, and event­ Surrounded but rarely supported by The story is set in the middle of the ually propels the voyaging prick into the Nancy Belle Fuller as Jenny, the talent­ struggle to establish the newspaper welcoming harbour of Patricia Gage (the ed girlfriend, and Paul Bradley as the guild, against the unscrupulous opposi­ city-editor's wife), who has the dubious vulgar side-kick, Rhodes' performance tion of owners and editors. Harry pleasure of taking that long-preserved shines with memorable truth. A truth Barnes, our goofy, virginal anti-hero, has virginity. The nicest moment in the gained despite a script that seldom no political ideas to rub together, but movie occurs when Harry gigglingly ad­ allows the actor the lUXury of creative the Girl he Loves is a guild organizer, mits this conquest to his friend Ronnie, invention, and a director who is clearly and in order to win her esteem he reads photographer and stick-man. Stuart insecure with the more revealing a little Lenin. With this intellectual Gillard's acting sometimes has an engag­ moments of an actor's craft. equipment, plus a few shots of rye, he ing authenticity. But Lynch has other skills to offer, surprises himself and everyone else by Not so Julia, the girl of his dreams. As especially a good understanding of delivering a passionate speech to his played by Tiiu Leek she is singularly action. All the musical sequences ring colleagues, snubbing the apoplectic lacking in warmth or genuineness. In an with quiet conviction. So also does a editor, and inspiring a confident solidar­ interview in Cinema Canada No. 15, fight sequence that, leading from a fine ity. A union is born. Weintraub declares that his screenplay is exuberant solo by Paul Bradley, ends on Rather a good moment. Makes you "more generous" than his 1961 novel, a quiet note of reality that in a single want to cheer, like those scenes in in that he now allows the guy to get the shot rubs the excitement of the action schoolboy movies when the timidest girl. If Julia were sexually attractive, with the taste of truth and place that is boy in the class finally leads an attack personally likeable, or credibly admir­ one of the small joys of the film. It is in on the sadistic headmaster. But the able as a radical consciousness, there the quieter scenes that Lynch seems script pushes the moment over the brink might be some generosity in matching unable to break from the banalities of into farce, and the scene collapses into a her with our young reporter. As it is, the script and an obvious awareness of silly rough-house, with people spraying the conclusion of the film looks like the material's triteness and his own the fire hose allover the office. throwing a cub to the Christians. limitations really doesn't help. In almost Harry hasn't "acted himself into a - Robert Fo thergill all the emotional scenes the direction new way of thinking" ; the film sticks to fails to add that stamp of authority and its comic premise that courageous The Hard Part Begins intelligence that would take the viewer radical action is the acciden tal by­ past the flat reality of the screen into product of male courtship rituals. the heady world of imagination and Directed by Paul Lynch, with Donnelly Maybe that is essentially what understanding. Occasionally this passive­ Weintraub believes, in which case the Rhodes, Nancy Belle Fuller and Paul Bradley. ness works, as in a harsh and bitter film's vacuous nihilism has at least the moment between King and his ex-wife virtue of sincerity. But if he doesn't If American hucksterism has accustom­ where limited means and the viewers believe that, and has adopted the idea ed us to the bloated claims of Holly­ sympathy mesh, and the effort, like the simply in an effort to be funny, then it wood, so Canadian hatred of hyperbole words and gestures, lies helpless before betrays a pathetic failure of the imagin­ has encouraged the celebration of a the hurt of old wounds and rekindled ation. tight-lipped quietism. We admire the pain. But by delivering so grudgingly in And I'm not saying that everyone has small and true, praising those mirrors the scenes that work, false notes and to be solemn and respectful about radi­ that reflect harmless angles of our small insecurities become all the more calism. The theory and practice of radical society while forgetting that art is the obvious in sections that don't, as in the activists crIes out to be satirized, if only things we do with gained reality not the to 'expose the contradictions' of people capturing of its pale image. In many next pivotal clash between King and his whose vocation is exposing those of ways The Hard Part Begins is a fine angry son. By couching the perfor­ everyone else. But to satirize something directorial debut for Paul Lynch and a mances in the reticent language of you have to be interested in it; you have measure of its success is that the film master shots, conservative angles and to know its real strengths and weak­ makes one wish that it had risked more; taut editing Lynch draws undue atten­ nesses. The authors of Why Rock the aimed a little higher. tion to the structure and technique, Boat? might just as well satirize the Set in southern Ontario the film which, spawned from television docum­ Catholic Church by implying that all follows a country singer, Jim King, back entaries, too often mistakes tired nuns are sexually frustrated - which is to his home town, now just another generalities and hackneyed thinking for possible, unlikely, and as an idea trivial. dismal stop in a career that lives on local colour. Away from the intelligence dreams of Nashville while facing indif­ of Rhodes' face, parts break away from Well, they will say, but the point was ferent beer-swilling faces in half-empty the fabric of the whole leaving "mean­ not to satirize anything, but to make a clubrooms. During a week of such out­ ingful" pulled focus that arrive only to fun film with some honest-to-goodness rageous fortune that John Hunter's reveal other linking shots; overlapping laughs. So we have yet another film script reads like a caricature of The scenes that add nothing to the story and about a goofy guy's stumblebum Great Canadian Losers theme, King cut-aways that prettify in order to look attempts to get laid. Why do Canadian watches an old friend dying, has his ugly. film-makers find this so funny? (It's the dreams of a Toronto recording contract Great film is the unity of thought theme of Foxy Lady, Rip-Off, and the smashed, loses girlfriend and partner, and feeling through action and while genuinely funny Chester Angus Rams­ becomes once more embroiled in the one grows to respect the director's good, while the type makes another slings and arrows of old family respons­ effort in this film he never manages to appearance in Markson's Monkeys.) I ibilities and, to round off the week, is break away from the faulty looking­ suppose more men than would care to beaten up. Jim King will go on, for glass that is the camera lens. The Hard admit it find themselves identifying pride and hopes leave no alternatives Part Begins is often an honest portrait with the humiliating pangs of despised and the pleasures of the film partiCUlar­ of a sordid world and a fine frame for a lust. But a film has to do something ly Donnelly Rhodes' fine and powerful moving performance by Donnelly

76 Cinema Canada Rhodes. We can only hope that Paul not well made - it's easily one of the Look at films like Battle of Algiers or Z Lynch's next film will come soon and most subtle moving films that I have or Burn; now here are injustices that we stretch further. seen this year - but, you see, the story can really get our political teeth into! - Alastair Brown that this film relates could not really But strangely enough, Michel Brault's interest people in Toronto or Edmonton was much more effective because there Les Ordres or Vancouver because, let's face it, it is something packaged about a drama, The knock in the middle of the night certainly couldn' t happen there. Except and something packaged about your for one small fact - it already did. For response to it that makes the experience Written and directed by Michel Brault, the law that (in gentle bureaucratise) artificial. For in these dramatic films, Edited by Yves Dion, Camerawork by " suspended" the rights of those 450 with everything sewed up and nothing Michel Brault and Fran~ois Protat, with: Quebecers also suspended the rights of left dangling, we can all smugly retire to Helene Loiselle, Jean Lapointe, Guy all Canadians. The only difference was our coffee houses with a comfortable Provost, Claude Gauthier and Louise that it was they that were stripped, feeling of enragement. Les Ordres is Forestier. showered, shaven and fingerprinted and different. It is haunting like no other At 5: 17 a.m. on the morning of October thrown into a cell without a word of political film partly because it's so close 16, 1970, I was watching television. It explanation while you and I watched on to home and partly because it's so was quite a funny program, a bit like television thinking, "well anyways, it understatedly real. When no one gets Orson Welles radio program supposedly has nothing to do with me." killed or tortured we are reduced to about the invasion of the Earth by Michel Brault's film , however, pro­ mild words like humiliation and injus­ Martians. This one was called "The War vides no such emotional loopholes, so tice. But anyone who has read the Measures Act," but unlike Welles' pro­ perhaps it's lucky that you probably history books knows that this is how it duction of thirty years earlier, this one will never get to see it. The film isn' t happens - Nazi Berlin wasn't built in a wasn't particularly believable - people out to prove anything beyond what the day. One of the big things in Canadian en masse being arrested and held with­ events themselves proved. It is the story law is precedent, and because it could out trial; soldiers with sub-machine guns of five individuals culled from verba tum happen so effortlessly four years ago, at the corner of Peel and St. Catherine. interviews with over forty people who, ("Daddy, what were you doing during It was just a bit too far-fetched - this is like the rest, had been imprisoned and the War Measures Act?") it could hap­ Canada, after all, British system of held without being formally charged. At pen again. Brault's subtle camera and his justice, nice wide roads, street lamps, the beginning of the film the well portrayal of these five ordinary John colour television, pizza parlors - I known Quebec actors give their real Smiths makes it bloody difficult to feel mean, I know it might sound a little names and describe who they are repre­ smug about anything. trite, but surely "it can't happen here." senting in the film - a social worker, -Ronald Blumer But for 450 other totally innocent union organizer, a doctor and a house­ people, the spectacle was a little more wife. This is done not through any The Lost Tribe involving, because for them that famous Godardian razz mataz, but simply be­ knock in the middle of the night that's cause they are telling the truth. And the On his last day of work as early morning film only supposed to happen in Russia and reviewer with the CBC in Montreal, Associate stories that follow are not souped up to Editor Ronald Blumer decided to try out a Nazi Germany, had already happened. be any sort of epic tragedy because the little test - to give a review of a phony film One minute at home changing the simple fact was, that for most of the with an absurd plot and see If anyone would baby's diapers, the next minute stripped people arrested, the experience was no react. The thesis was that if the cadence of more than a minor nuisance (especially the voice is right, and the whole packaged in Scene from "Les Ordres" when put beside what's happening to the right style, any imaginable absurdity other people in other countries.) could get by. The following review was broad· cast Friday August 30, 1974 at 8:15 a.m So Nobody was tortured particularly, and far as we know the only question asked was, in general everything operated with how can we see this movie? Mr. Blumer is exemplary efficiency - oh ya well there currently on Baffin 1sland scouting locations. was this unemployed guy, married with two small children and the prison guards The second film I saw this week, The Lost jokingly told him that he would be shot Tribe, is a first feature film by the in three days (you know boys will be young Vancouver director John boys) and he believed them! Isn't that a Schouten. The film is worth seeing if scream! But maybe after five days only for its rather unusual script be­ locked up in a cell with no explanation, cause the story presents the astounding when the worst thing that you had ever thesis that the Eskimos of Northern done in your life was to drink a few too Canada are in fact one of the lost tribes many beers - maybe even someone of Israel - presumably they strayed a from Winnipeg might start to believe little North on their way out bf Egypt. that anything is possible. And the fact The amazing thing is that this unlikely that he had to enter a mental hospital story comes across totally convincingly naked, hands up against the wall of after he was released - well who knows, with Murry Westgate giving a powerfully some anonymous garage, with someone maybe he would have gone a little moving performance as the village lead­ looking up your ass with a flashlight. looney anyways sitting at home watch­ er; a sort of Moses in seal skins, who has Michel Brault's Les Ordres ("The ing television. You see, there are no real led his people out of the desert into the Orders" as in "I was only following. horror stories coming out of this partic­ barren frozen tundra. But the real star .. ." ) is a film that probably will not be ular reign of terror - a few husbands of this film is the special effects man, shown commercially in Toronto or Ed­ separated from pregnant wives, mothers who has turned this vast biblical meta­ monton or Vancouver. Maybe there will separated from their children and phor into something very believable on not even be an English version. Not that people arrested through clerical error. the screen. There is, of course, no part­ the film lacks drama and not that it is Much worse things have happened. ing of the Red Sea in the Arctic Ocean,

Cinema Canada 77 but the splitting of the glaciers and the go by so fast, to see Doug McGrath, a blinding, white on white snow storms male who can literally reek sex, rele­ raise this modest, low budget film to gated to a sexless stereotyped boob-cop epic proportions. role. But he made it a pleasure anyhow, The film is chock full of biblical and· with James Edmond, as a father references converted into Eskimo folk­ who acts somewhat more bewildered lore. There are the non-believers praying than quite necessary (was he ever told to the golden walrus calf and the eating the plot?) and Art Hindle and Les of unleaven whale blubber during the Carlson, the Canadian contingent did pilgrimage to the promised land in muk­ what they could, which was basically, luks. But this Exodus of the North lie low. really exists on the level of personal Keir Dullea played the paperback human drama with Alexandra Stewart pianist with anguished sensitivity rather playing a moving Ruth, and John suitably, but finally the only performer Vernon as the fiercely credible carne out on top was the heavy breath­ Johocifat. Intriguing as the idea is ing garbled telephone voice(s), which though, I'm not sure that this film will gives you some idea of whose alter ego convince very many people that the invented the script. Eskimos are really Jewish; but as the - Natalie Edwards sun sets on the five month long sabbath and you see their ghostly silhouettes against the oil lamps, you get the Margot Kidder in "Block Christmas" spooky feeling that the great Canadian North has many secrets still to be told. have noticed they both dealt with the Child Under a Leaf female. That glossy world pictured in consumer - Ron Blumer The combination was about as sensi­ magazines and in sunny Sunday Sup­ Black Christmas tive as that ad in which a chicken plements, with the fur throws, white encourages you to eat at Colonel San­ deep pile rugs, forever green plants, and Directed by Bob Clark, Produced by ders. wide glass walls leading into flagged Gerry Arbeid, script by Roy Moore from Black Christmas is well located and gardens; that wonder-world of buxom "Stop Me .. , photography by Reginald photographed. It features a sorority healthy women in impeccable white Morris (of the Paper Chase), music by house where, one by one, accompanied caftans sprawled contentedly among the Carl Zittrer. by what women prefer to think of as cushions, with handsome sensitive males I was relieved when I noticed the small harmless though sick-minded obscene standing nearby holding a Chivas Regal, U.S. flag sitting on the detective's desk phone calls, all the little ladies get their and maybe a baby or a cat or dog at Police Headquarters. It made Black comeuppance for being lovely, young, cunningly settled by the latest in porce­ Christmas look like an American movie. well-to-do and/or liberated. And the lain fireplaces; well, that world of fad Also, the kind of crowd that would go most suspicious male is of course artis­ and fashion and fancy comes to a sort to it always bolt abruptly once the film tic. A pianist. of life in Child Under a Leaf, a new ends; they'd never notice the combined The satisfactions of a film in which semi-Canadian film by George Bloom­ financial credit after the titles to upper middle-class females, sharp and field. Famous Players and the Canadian Film sexy, are terrorized and brutally or grue­ Photographed with centre-spread Development Corporation, or that in somely destroyed can be easily seen to skill by Don Wilder (Paperback Hero) fact this was a typical sell-out Canadian appeal to all misogynists, insecure and the woman is Dyan Cannon (Bob and film . And they wouldn't need a U.S. frustrated men, and a thwarted and Carol and Ted and Alice), the lover, flag to identify its national character denied working class who resent college Donald Pilon (The Pyx, True Nature of either. kids, liberated women, intellectual and Bernadette, etc.), the baby Julie Robert Fulford tells us that in Barry particularly artistic males, and, quite Bullock and the husband Joseph Lord's Maoist criticism of Canadian art possibly, the expense of Christmas. Campanella. The emotion-nudging Lord identifies works that colonized The performers carne in for a shaking music is by Francis Lai, known pri­ people create to buy status and profit from Toronto critics, but actually they marily here for his work for Love Story for themselves by helping the imperial were quite acceptable in their roles. rather than his many Claude Lelouch power exploit their fellow colonialists, Abandoning any social, sexual, moral or scores. as " comprador" art. political critical attitudes, toward the This is another CFDC backed film That's Black Christmas. Politically, movie, the females had the edge in made blatantly for the U.S. market, it's a browner's sycophantic effort to performance. Margot Kidder particu­ calculated with such care that commer­ sidle up to lower U.S. taste for cheap larly gave life and vivacity to her charac­ cial slots and easily cut censorable thrills and fast cash. terization of the cynical sorority sister, scenes are practically marked with As Jean Paul Belmondo said to Jean while Andrea Martin (super in Cannibal dotted lines, ready to be clipped out for Seberg at the end of Breathless: "C'est Girls) was humorous, touching, warm, TV. Unlike Black Christmas, it doesn't vraiment degueulasse." silly and sympathetic to a fault. Even place an American flag in sight, and in The strangest thing about seeing this Marian Waldman's guzzling sewer­ fact, to satisfy nationalists, perhaps, an anti-female stock horror caper at the mouthed house mother, wildly over­ Information Canada sign can be briefly Imperial in Toronto was the incredible done, and American Olivia Hussey as an glimpsed in one street scene. juxtapositioning of it with a reasonably affected snob-sister, worked hard to try Other than that there is nothing to clever, highly female-oriented 1972 to capture both the silliness and scari­ offend the American TV viewer with a NFB short, L'oeuf by Clorinda Warny, ness of the plot. sense of the foreign, especially once full of surreal effects and montages re­ Canadian males shouldn't go un­ Micheline Lanctot's French Canadian lating to eggs and life. Someone must noticed either. I found it sad, life does accent has been removed, and another

78 Cinema Canada voice dubbed in. in the way, he's SUSpICIOUS and he's Bloomfield, five years ago produced making threats. He has already killed works like Eloise and Abelard, and Pin­ her French poodle, simply because " he ter's The Basement for CBC-TV, works knew that (she) loved it". For the same that demanded the creation of a highly reason, Joseph is in danger. Perhaps the romantic, dramatic or logically illogic child is too. They discuss murder: world. Here he once again attempts to "Maybe I should kill him . ... But what construct an unreal dramatic world, but if you miss? I'll practice . . . " Joseph unfortunately his writing doesn't pro­ buys a gun, but they do nothing. vide him as director with sufficient It's a promising conflict of tensions. dramatic strength or logical coherence And the child's presence provides the to carry his moralistic tragedy. film with an interesting structural twist The story of the eternal triangle plus on the usual lover, wife, husband tri­ baby-makes-four seems designed as a angle. But writer-director George luscious slick sad story in the women's Bloomfield has left his characters high, weepy vein, but lacks the detail, hon­ though not always dry, uninteresting esty of perception, and style that made and very much unmotivated. They are, most of those underrated forties' films in fact, people with no past, and of so successful. Dyan Cannon, used, tanned, practic­ Scene from "Child Under A Leaf' ally a personification of California, is the woman who has everything: husband, Dyan Cannon home, dream cottage, artistic lover, little dog and, best of all, a pretty baby. There. is always, however, a favorite The moralistic message of the movie scene for me in every film I see. In this suggests she can't keep it all: the burden it is Al Waxman's hilarious gunshop of mother love requires some sacrifices proprietor leafing through a magazine of and decisions. sexy pictures, expressing disbelief, The potential subjects here are excit­ amazement and delight in turn. At least ing and relevant. How much do children the voyeurism and eroticism are frankly restrict sexual adventure? What duties enjoyed for what they are and not and responsibilities are essential? Greed, hypocritically delivered as art. It's a and possessiveness for objects, creatures refreshing moment. and loved ones can i'ndeed lead to disas­ The second funniest scene was unin­ ter, and a contemplation of the inter­ tentional, and involves Pilon and locking uses people make of each other Cannon driving their white sports car to under the banner of love could provide their special field to make love. She the film with a fascinating examination jumps out and in one swift gesture of contemporary means and morals. disrobes and flings her arms up in a gay Unfortunately the characterizations mother earth come-and-get-it pose. In­ are as superficial as the decor. We seem spired, he whisks off his shirt (no but­ to be watching made-up people in a tons) but then suddenly sits back down made-up place, and the surface gloss is in his car. To take off his shoes and so hard we cannot feel the pulse or socks? To hide his genitals? No. To smell reality anywhere. As a result it is drive the thirty feet or so over to her. difficult to care what happens to these Now how much more California can people, and even the death of a puppy you get? dog or a baby is as uninvolving as a - Natalie Edwards newspaper item. This fictitious world with its unbelievable romanticism, is, in fact, unbelievable. Child Under a Leaf Don Wilder's photography reveals to us a world that is glossy, commercially It's all very tragic. The old Greeks pretty and totally false. No amount of would have loved Child Under a Leaf subtle acting, plot repair or charged with its grand and noble passions and direction can dispel the influence of the classic themes of Life, Death and Retri­ visuals as designed and photographed, bution. Of course, the details of Child unless they are calculated for ironic Under a Leaf are long removed from contrast. And when the characters are as antiquity, although the story has a cer­ glossy and unreal as the environment, tain timelessness. It's a tale of two there is no contrast. Thus the design of lovers, their affair and the man who the film, the conflicting art styles pur­ comes between them. In years past, it ported to be by artist Pilon for instance, might have been written in rhyming the meaningless photography, and the couplets: For never was a story of more motivational holes in the story (big woe . . .. Than this of Joseph and his healthy babies that age don't die in­ Domino. stantly from a bit of cotton in their She's married. He's not. Together mouths for example) weaken the film they have a child, a baby girl. The drastically. problem is her husband. Who else. He's

Cinema Canada 79 course a questionable future. Domino All three of these films reflect the phen­ At 99 - A Portrait of and Joseph are in love and that omenon of increasing fascination with Louise Tandy Murch apparently is explanation enough. At the aged, and are probably a healthy least Domino, with a child to love and a reaction to the youth-cult of the 1960's. husband to hate, is emotionally fulfill­ Produced and directed by Deepa Saltzman, by Hideaki Kobayashi, sound ed, even if she's not at all happy. Dyan cinematography by Koji Ota, edited by Lome Gould. Sunrise Cannon, in a fiery and provocative per­ Films, 344 Walmer Road, Toronto, Ontario. formance, captures both the passion and Granny's Quilts despondence of this woman torn be­ Directed by Zale Dalen, produced by Laara tween the child and Joseph. (That Dalen. (Full crew list slipped us by folks, Shot mainly in the house this amazing sounds significantly Christian, doesn't sorry . . . J Highlight Productions, lady has lived in for 61 years, At 99 is a it?) Unable to have both, she will have 24220-112th Avenue, R.R.no.l, Maple Ridge, strong yet gentle film about being in neither. The film's development is pre­ British Columbia. love with life. We follow Louise Tandy dicated on her indecision and its resolu­ A lovely documentary besides a step­ Murch through her daily activities, at tion on her presumably symbolic talent by-step illustration of how to make her 99th birthday party, performing for for unveiling death. It's all very tragic quilts, Granny Quilts captures the mood a group of senior citizens, and simply indeed. of long quiet hours spent meticulously being wonderful. She radiates en thus­ It might also be very touching .. . if producing folk-crafts. The "Granny" of iasm while singing her favourite songs it wasn't so damned serious. The affair the title lives on a farm in B.C. and still (You've got to accentuate the positive, is such a joyless, desperate matter. In uses the frame her grandfather con­ Eliminate the negative . . . ) and accom­ the Grand Tradition of love stories, it's structed out of hand-hewn wood. Last panying herself on piano. Her joy is so an intensely intimate relationship, an year, she made a dozen quilts - over her contagious, she even managed to get the all-consuming passion with its own per­ lifetime, hundreds. However, the art of film crew into a singalong of "The sonal humour and rituals. For Domino making quilts might not survive her Sound of Music" during shooting! Music and Joseph, everything else is unimpor­ generation since machines can now pro­ is her main passion, " . .. because it's tant. Its effect on their lives is pro­ duce them so much quicker and invisible". She took up yoga at age 90, found. Played by Donald Pilon, he of cheaper. Even if it can't spur a quilting which she happily demonstrates while the love-lorn stare, Joseph is a painter. movement, Granny's Quilts has cap­ exclaiming, "Breath is life itself! Oh! And what does he paint? Pictures of the tured the beauty of this lady and her That feels good!" In answer to whether old deserted farmhouses and barns quilts in a warm and lyrical film . she enjoys being old, she smiles, pours a which identify the many countryside locations of their secret rendezvous. His masterpiece is something called Child Louise Tandy Murch Under a Leaf, a private joke that only he and Domino would understand. How remote and all-exclusive! And how very typical. It's easy to watch them from a distance, but rarely do they offer an invitation to come closer, to become emotionally involved. They act as if the world were theirs and theirs alone. No one could conceivably be interested in their ritualistic intimacies, complete with wine, grapes, flowing gowns and the occasional Dionysian open-air setting. Could they? Although Euripides would probably be pleased with it, an affair on-screen as off, de­ mands a little more discretion.

- Mark Miller

Three short films on old people Why are we reviewing shorts - is this a new policy? Yes. Were You There When - the presi­ dent of one of (Canada)'s foreign-owned theatre chains publicly maintained that his houses couldn't run Canadian shorts because they were not told about them? Cinema Canada is trying to ease this situation by periodically covering short films which could beautifully precede features in theatres from coast to coast. (Who ever said we weren't willing to cooperate with Big Business, anyway?) Here's hoping you will soon see such lovely documentaries in our theatres.

80 Cinema Canada cup of tea, and says, "Yes i do, and if I In the film we observe the illusionary up of his eyes is accompanied by a weren't 99 years old you wouldn't be aspects of appearances through the tale ringing sound as his finger circles the here - would you? So you see, it has its of a man who has been a soldier, has top of his wine glass. We flash into some advantages." Deepa Saltzman has been later been imprisoned, and is making a brief shots of soldiers, a sense of terror so inspired by getting to know this belated return visit to what was once his and brutality, and a scream. The sound remarkable lady, she plans to make a home and family. of the scream wavers, trembles, and series of films about active old people. Nothing is what it seems. The man turns into the siren of an ambulance Her next film will probably be about a appears to mistake his grown daughter outside the apartment. This transition in blind 104-year-old Sufi doctor in Delhi, Margie for the young woman his wife and out of his thoughts is created with a India. It's definitely worth waiting for was twenty years earlier. And the young remarka ble fluidity, cleverly con trolled woman, apparently trying to make some by sound. contact with him through this time and While we watch these two strange memory lapse, and perhaps also in order Lyle Leffler - Last of the remote characters, their separation to reconstitute her own past through through time and memory as clear as Medicine Men her mother's and the role of this their obvious physical presence to­ Produced, directed and edited by Micha el strange, tight, singular man in it, effects gether, we are in the power of a young Hirsh, cinematography by Jock Brandis, a peculiar, eerie transition. filmmaker who knows how to create his sound by Elaine Waese and Charles Bagnall, Dressed and made up in late forties' own particular world, one where his production assistant Elaine Waese, graphic style, she presents herself to her father, own myths, dreams and realities can montage by Peter Dewdney , illustrations by and numbly dances with him to the exist. Rowesa Gordon, Nelvana Ltd., 525 King seductive tones of Serenade in Blue. This is the kind of power that Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Freudian comments need hardly be excites. With this it is possible that There most definitely is a Lyle Leffler - specified as daughter and father dance writer-director-editor Battle, whose first he's the proprietor of the Valley City in an uneasy simulation of a past that film with Mark Irwin was a striking Herb Distributors in Rockton, Ontario existed only for one of them. And in impressionistic documen tary called after having made and sold tonics and spite of the fact the plot seems as full of Union Station, can produce some fine teas all his life. The film highlights Mr. holes as a lace dress, and the rescue of future Canadian films. Leffler and his family with such jronic the daughter from the uncomfortable humour and gentle objectivity that the dilemma of bedtime is coincidentally The York University program also audience never quite knows whether to convenient rather than a structured included three capable documentary laugh or take it all seriously (and the element of the plot, and the mysteries films, a proportion justified by the high filmmakers were too smart to destroy of why the father was jailed and for interest in this genre in the department, this subtle undercurrent). After all, who what, and why the mother died and of and its undeniable practicality. Being could avoid being fascinated by a travel­ what are never solved, still the film First by Ruth Hope (who created the ing medicine man whose wife, Baby, maintains a solid level of its own exist­ successful costumes for Battle's film) is wrestled their dancing bear while he ence on its own terms. And this is a a study of the training of an athlete for played accordion and sold snake oil? remarkable achievement in a first fiction competition. Jon Higgens, examines the Shot in southern Ontario, footage cov­ film. musician and teacher and , made by ers the family's manufacturing plant, It is permeated with a sense of loss York students with the aid of Terry old photographs of the Leffler traveling and of unhealed wounds that are partly Filgate, uses Indian music to fine advan­ van, the collecting of herbs and teas in created by the skilled use of exaggerated tage in a well produced work; and Press the fields, and Mr. Leffler's 84th birth­ disorienting sound, coupled with slow, Porcepic, a rough but informative short day party. Definitely an entertaining deliberate visual pacing, and mirrored in on this out-of-the-way publishing house and unusual documentary on a living the stately careful acting presentations made by Paul Caulfield. folk hero. by Jack Zimmerman and Karyn Morris, The only abstract film was an - A. Ibrdnyi-Kiss both very fine. impressionistic melange on Highway The underlying comment in the film 400 North and the one humorous film implies that a sentimental attitude to was a tongue-in-cheek treatment of a REUNION the past cannot bridge the distance no modern problem in an old style, a silent matter how keen the intentions, and in and titled presentation of Rer Decision Script, Direction and Editing: Murray Battle, the story the hurt feelings and misund­ backed by the incomparable piano Performers: Karyn Morris, Jack Zimmerman, erstandings of twenty years earlier are Pauline Hebb, Zanna Ellis, Lighting/ accompaniment of Charles Hoffman. not cleared away, and the man leaves at Cameraman: Mark Irwin, Sound Engineer: Not all of these films are ready for Fraser Smith, Assistant Director: Anthony the end still determined to mai.'ltain his commercial distribution, but it seems to Azzopardi, Assistant Cameraman: Paul illusions and his pain, leaving his me that any distributor ready to prove a Dunlop, Set Designer: Elizabeth Ascott, daughter unable to mend or alter the sincere interest in Canadian filmmakers Costume Designer: Ruth Hope, Laboratory: past he lives in. could easily tuck one of these shorts Bellevue Pathe Ltd., Sound Mixer: Ian The chief assets of the film however into a bill in place of those sunfish and Jacobsen (Film House), Produced by: Murray are not just in the complications of the sailing-in-Bermuda shorts. Without a Battle and Mark Irwin at York University, 28 min. 16mm, colour. story line or the psychological hints of doubt the reactions of a regular movie the relationships, but in the control audience would do much to creating a An interesting and unusual film turned director Murray Battle and professional attitude in the film makers. up at the October showing of six stu­ photographer Mark Irwin have achieved For jeers or cheers, what is needed is an dent films at York University, Ontario. over their material. audience. In one sequence, the father sits nerv­ It was Reunion, a first fiction film by - Natalie Edwards Murray Battle, and the 1973 first prize ously in a chair in his old apartment. We winner in the Student Film Festival in are led into this scene by the daughter's Note: Reunion, Her Decision and Press Montreal that year. (see Cinema Canada monologue, in which she asserts she Porcepic are distributed by the Canadian coverage issue No. 10-11). always knew he'd come back. A close- Filmmakers Distribution Centre. 0

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