Radiant City - Sept 12 part deux

Richard and I have seen every film that Calgary Director Gary Burns has brought to TIFF. Radiant City is a documentary about suburbia shot mostly in Calgary. My friends in Winnipeg know the co-director Jim Brown who works for CBC. The treeless developments with an endless maze of cul de sacs and 2 car families hit home. But despite their large lots and 2 car garages, many of these people are no further away from their neighbours than me.

That's not my main problem with this movie. The repartee, particularly by the eloquent 12 year old, is engaging as are the interesting suburbatrivia. As the story starts to escalate to a wierdly tragic end, the directors shoot through their documentary status and reveal that they used hired actors who were not a real family and that most of the film was scripted. HOW CAN THIS LEGITIMATELY BE PART OF REAL TO REEL??? Aren't there rules? How can they do this and build us up for a fall? Yeah, maybe the suburbs are evil but the do-cirectors are evil for misrepresenting their project. For fraud and being about 25 minutes too long, MMm (better than Guy Maddin but not by much. Canadian filmmakers what's happening to you???)

grim suburbia
Radiant City it's not
neither is this film

Brand Upon the Brain!

Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin's latest film Brand Upon the Brain! is a black and white silent picture. It was produced by The Film Company out of Seattle and they composed an original score for the film which was performed by members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). The loges beside us were filled with the foley guys (time for an instructional haiku, courtesy of Ric):

when you see a film
foley is the sound you hear
foley guys are cool

In fact, on my 5M rating scale, Guy Maddin gets 1 and the orchestra and foley guys get 5. Throughout the screening I kept looking over to the loge to see what the foley guys were doing to generate the sounds. They played an oboe-like instrument for the deep fog horn and rolled a big drum to mimic the rustling wind. At one point, they were reaarranging a corpse onscreen and the foley guy was twisting and breaking celery to mimic the bones cracking. Later, there was some flesheating going on and the foley guy chomped on a juicy orange. They slammed a small door, crumpled plastic wrap and rustled a mess of cassette tape. The experience of the live sound and music was amazing. I also thought this would be a great thing to do with kids in the classroom - watch a silent movie and get them to participate in creating the foley.

Not sure when this might turn up again. Since they require live performances, I heard they were going to do it in a couple other cities and then that's it. Seems a waste of the $11 million investment. I guess they could record a performance and sync it with the film but I'm in no hurry to see it again (foley: good, film: bad) but I never would have picked it so I was glad to see it in the series. Unless you're a Guy Maddin fan (like Piers) I wouldn't recommend it. MMMMM (foley) M (film)