Pajamas of a different stripe

"My dad says I shouldn't live here anymore, this isn't a place for children." - Bruno

These words are echoed by Bruno, about two thirds of the way through the film, in a bitter sense of irony. There isn't a better line that sums up the entire meaning of the film than this one.

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, is another holocaust movie, a genre that has had many films and will continue to have more, not because of the importance of the subject matter but because it offers a setting to create or present real fascinating stories to tell.

Bruno is an 8 year old child living in World War II's Germany. By orders of the state he and his family are sent to the countryside where his SS Father is ordered to live and oversee the direction of a concentration camp. In Bruno's boredom with only his 13 year old sister as a playmate, he soon discovers the camp and a boy the same age as him who is a prisoner there. Time progresses, the boys develop a bond, with only electric barbed wire separating them from two completely different worlds.

There's a bit of risk taken with this film. The German World War II setting is acted out by a complete British cast, with accents, and no attempt to disguise their background. At first it does provide some confusion, at first I thought this was an English family living in Germany who were sympathetic to the Nazi cause. However, as the movie progresses more characters are introduced who sound just like them. At times it takes away from the realism, but then the actors are so top notch, that if they were to try to speak in English with perhaps German accents the whole movie wouldn't work anyway. Then again I got even more confused as the story went along thinking did the German's successfully invade England or something??

The reality of these questions though is set aside a third way from the film as Bruno discovers the camp and the young boy who resides there. It is the acting between these two that makes the film have the most powerful effect.

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas greatest triumph is how it projects a viewpoint where the simplicity and innocence of a child's mind overrules and expresses the futile madness of the Nazi and more so the adult world that created this living hell on earth. More so, it's conclusion is one of the most fitting. The ending provides an ironic sense of justice and freedom for those who wish to not be a part of it.

In Wall-E, Disney and Pixar turn out to be the little engine that could

There comes a time when you think the same ideas are going to be rehashed for every animated Disney film, and then there are times you get surprised. Disney/Pixar is now the staple of big budget animation and you would think they'd be on the same tired animated formula. However, it's pleasing to discover that in Wall-E they not only avoid the same predictable traps, they took some risks and succeeded wildly.

There's a lot of borrowed ideas in the telling of an old junk-collecting robot. In a future apocalyptic earth, Wall-E is the only remaining inhabitant who collects and stacks garbage. His regular routine is turned upside down when he actually discovers a plant, and a futuristic probe robot comes to discover it. At this point that is all I am going to describe. Anything more would just spoil your fun.

Nevertheless, what does unfold is a film that pays homage to a lot of borrowed ideas, and takes chances on poking criticism of ourselves as humans in the most indirect way. Wall-E's eyes and movements are very similar to the robot in the film Short Circuit that had just as much emotional appeal to it's audience. Better still a chief villain in the film (a captain's steering wheel), harks back to the evil Hall 9000 computer of Kubrick's space odyssey 2001. But the film Wall-E goes one step further.

Perhaps the films greatest triumph, is how it can make the most critical aspects of humanity by poking fun at big corporate consumerism run amok (Big and Large), the need to save the environment, and the waste of human slothery. All these are made in a way that is not only believable but non-offensive and educational to boot. They even make a cockroach the most cuddly thing you can even imagine.

The creators not only made a great film but took big risks that paid off, there isn't even any dialogue in this film for almost an entire hour. With all of that, Wall-E in itself is a work of great genius.

The Up series, part 1 of 2

This review will focus on the first 3 films of Michael Apted's Up documentary series. The first 3 films deal with the ages of the participants at 7, 14 and 21. Part 2 will discuss the remaining films.

The Up documentaries are one of those series of films that is hard to discuss without giving away the joy and revelations of what you are witnessing. Back in the early 60's, Michael Apted and company decided that they would find several kids of the age of seven from several different social classes and background from Britain. They would return every 7 years to discuss their lives and progress.

In this age of mass marketing television, and instant reality based canned drama, observing the Up documentaries is like being awaken to the first breath of air you ever tasted. You are right away introduced to several of the people and following their lives every seven years says more about the human condition than anything you could ever imagine.

Miraculously we only get to find out about the people in this film every 7 years. Viewers can only guess what might happen, and are shocked to find details that come about from out of nowhere. Take for instance Andrew, at his earliest he appears to be a precocious full of life kid, but by the time he's 21 he appears disinterested in everything. In contrast Nicholas' transformation from boy to 21 is almost unrecognizable, it doesn't even seem like the same person.

In the later films, Apted takes steps to show the old footage from the first film when the kids were at their youngest. You see the same images over again but differently each time and it has a marvelous effect. The future is to be told not far from now, but in the simple actions of what may have happened when a 7 year olds ideas were full of bright optimism. At 21 Niel seems to be fighting against something, but when the camera cuts back to his childhood skipping through the streets you can't feel hurt and deep inside and wonder what happened, or will this somehow fix itself??

One of the most surprising aspects happens accidentally. A rabbit on a wealthy estate is killed in the foreground by a young girls dog while being interviewed. When the interviewer asks does that bother you... death? The young 14yr old (if I remember correctly Suzy) provides an answer that seems chilling beyond belief. The films also have an unexpected effect of showing more of a criticism of the English school system, which seems like a caste society.

It would be unfair to explain what happens, it's more important to discover in a film series like this how you can see yourself in all these people, or know someone like Tony. Tony at 7 says he want's to be a jockey... and by golly... at 14 well... there you have it. He's a jockey. But it's hard to put in words what you witness in a series like this. The Up documentaries certainly set the stage for the life to come next, you'll cheer I am sure, be dissapointed, saddened, or highly content. The question becomes who will it be, and for me I can't wait.

The Way Things Go? Or is it just the way things are.

Taking everyday common objects that are familiar to all of us (tires, garbage bags, plastic bottles) Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss create a self "perpetual motion machine" to demonstrate... well what exactly?

Apparently numerous things that are at first quite obvious and then after awhile more telling than we might not have realized. Within a giant warehouse a continual group of objects either roll, jump, spin in a linear fashion. Some are done by gravity, others by chemicals and chain reactions from a lit fuse. As much as the experiment is a look at coincidence and the idea of movement, it's what isn't shown during the 30 minute run time of this film that makes the images and movement we see more cerebral.

At one point a ladder marches down a plank, it almost has a life of its own. Cuts fade away mostly from acid baths that seep into the rest of the machine. Everything just keeps going to such an extent you wonder if a warehouse could be big enough to capture all this marble madness.

Are the artists trying to show us the banality of movement? The glory of chance? The repetitive destruction of the mundane? Are we as viewers being manipulated somehow for a reason, or are we just witnessing a great carnival act that is wild and entertaining? You could watch this over and over again and come up with something different each time. That is one of the films great treasures.

Another great scene simply involves a cup that is rolling from side to side on a plank. Somehow it makes its way to its destination. But how? Was there mathematical possibilities built into the plank or was someone manipulating it all off camera? The answer really doesn't matter but "The Way Things Go" just does more than show movement, it really does force you through it's repetitiveness to ask you what is it you are exactly witnessing and what are the film makers trying to convey? When faced with that question it's a wonderful place to get lost in.

At just over 1/2 hour, The Way Things Go is a hypnotic escape from our everyday lives.

My Winnipeg shows you can't always get away from home

I will film myself out.

So remarks the director (Guy Maddin), as he declares that his escape from this gritty snowy town will only be accomplished from his filming of hatched memories, documented by his own dreamy imaginations, and the accompaniment of some local actors.

My Winnipeg, like a lot of Maddin's previous films (Saddest Music In the World, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary), uses old style filming of the silent times. Iris shots, grainy black and white, throwbacks to a long gone dead film-style era. He uses scenes from times past, and blends in scenes from the present, but you never can distinguish between the two. The other characteristic of Maddin's film is a madness and Eraserhead qwerky-ness that is hard to pin down.

Maddin decides to narrate the film (voiced by another actor) to recreate memories of Winnipeg and describe the cities past where he grew up. What the viewer ends up with is something completely unexpected and difficult to describe. However, once the films gets its bearings (it does have a slow start) the beauty of Maddin's imagery can't be ignored.

It's the vivid imagination that Maddin shows the audience that keeps you captivated. While blaring words appear you are witness to some of the most creative scenes displayed on film. Certainly seeing a batch of dead horses frozen in a river, to a séance that transpires to a dance sequence filled with floating catails and wild grass. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried and Maddin somehow provides a valid explanation for all of it.

Whether you have a hard time determining Maddin's reasoning or truths, and there certainly seems to be a lot of inside jokes that only Winnipegers themselves would get (trust me our writer is an ex-Winnipeger himself), it's an enthralling display of a pseudo-tripout-documentary that you can't say you'll ever forget. You realise within an hour that nobody could ever make a film like this, but somehow... even with the details of being born in a hockey teams dressing room, Maddin has.

Memorable, enthralling... out there... certainly one to see, and definitely something you haven't seen before.

Screening of American Teen at SilverDocs, or how I survived my angst ridden festival days

The nut returns from the SilverDocs screening of American Teen, on a long awaited absence from writing about films.

I couldn't help but watch this film and think how incredibly empty it was. When if anything it should be the opposite.

The makers of American Teen place themselves in the lives of a senior year's class of school. We are to witness the usual cliques of several teens who go through the growing and learning pains of life.

In the end though, the dramatic moments and the loud soundtrack, quick editing, sound bite moments end up making the real people in this film come across as caricatures in their own movie.

The film is bombastic and in your face, when it needs to step away and tone down. When the intimate or poignant moments are described in someones life, it becomes flashy and gimmicky with distracting animations.

When it's suppose to be in depth, it's two sentences and over. You really don't get to know these kids other than what is described in the first 10 minutes of the film.

Scenes are played out of teenage life that everyone can relate to, but with the cameras around, it feels forced and coerced, regardless of whether the incidences are true to life. Someone is dumped by text message on their cellphone, so how do the film-makers capture that in real-time??? You get the sense the viewer is being cheated. A documentary is suppose to let the story unfold by itself, at it's worst American Teen actually becomes "predictable".

The idea of getting into a high school and capturing every detail of intimate moments with the kids, seems to have created a world that almost feels like its scripted when the cameras are around, and overly dramatic, when it doesn't have to be.

All the senior adults in the movie that are related to the kids (parents, teachers) even come across as nothing but pure buffoons who we don't get to know either.

It really does feel like the film-makers project some sort of ideas as to how this one town is a template for every high school in America, when it's really not that simple.

In the end though I wouldn't discourage people from seeing it, but the American teen is way more complicated than this, and the film-makers just haven't got it.