by MALCOLM FRASER, MATTHEW HAYS, OMAR MAJEED
and CHLOE ROUBERT

The OH in Ohio

Erstwhile indie queen Parker Posey stars as a sexually frustrated Cleveland executive, with Paul Rudd as her tormented husband, in Billy Kent’s comedy. Posey does her valiant best, investing the performance with energy and spirit, but she can’t redeem Kent’s rambling and unfocused story. It all starts to feel like a creepy mid-life crisis male fantasy, with women constantly praising Rudd’s looks and sexual prowess. Admittedly, hearing Mischa Barton talk dirty is a bonus, but it’s not enough to redeem the incoherent narrative, or the sad truth that this sex comedy isn’t particularly sexy or funny. (MF)

Wal-Town: The Film

This NFB co-pro profiles six student activists as they head across the country to raise awareness about the evil corporate empire that is Wal-Mart. The students do their best to shit-disturb, parking outside Wal-Marts across the country and raising alarm bells for consumers about what the largest corporation in the world is up to. Sergeo Kirby’s feature has some rousing scenes, without a doubt, and any doc that chips away at Wal-Mart’s stranglehold on the retail marketplace can only be a good thing. But Wal-Town often feels like it could have benefited from a sharper edit, with some scenes feeling extraneous. And it can’t help but suffer in comparison to the mother of all Wal-Mart documentaries, last year’s Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Those minor gripes aside, an admirable bit of agitprop. (MH)

Doodh Aur Apheem (Milk and Opium)

It’s refreshing to see an Indian film filled with music that is nonetheless as far from Bollywood as you can get. Swaroop, a young Sufi boy, is part of a family of poor musicians in rural Rajistan. He leaves his village with his shifty Uncle Nazim, a travelling musician and opium addict, hoping to play for rich city folk and royalty. What he discovers is an India either in cultural decay or in the throes of rapid globalization. The cast, most of whom are playing versions of themselves, are excellent and the music is a rich catalogue of traditional folk and fevered qawaali. Milk and Opium manages to convey nuance and grace, even if it occasionally misses a few notes. (OM)

Friss Levegö

The title means “Fresh Air” in Hungarian, and this is precisely what the two protagonists strive for, literally and metaphorically, throughout the movie. Viola works in Budapest's underground public toilets, collects air fresheners and longs for, but never pursues, new men, while her daughter, Angela, dreams of another life in Italy’s fashion industry. In a wonderful way this rather monotonous story becomes a simple excuse for Ágnes Kocsis to play with imagery. Through colour coordination, meaningful compositions and thought-out backgrounds she creates a superb, and superb-looking film. Showing as part of the First Feature competition, this is a visual gem, deep, tough, touching and absurd. (CR)

Shameless: The Art of Disability

Renowned NFB documentary filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein (Not a Love Story) left making movies behind in 1987 after suffering two debilitating strokes. The ensuing brain surgery left her speechless and motionless for almost two years; recovery through therapy was unbelievably hard for the artist and mother (of No Logo author Naomi). Here, she returns to the film medium, profiling herself and four other artists who are also disabled. An artistic life, Klein surmises, demands many of the same things that a disabled life does: resilience, patience and ingenuity. Klein and her charming friends present a dimensional gaze into the lives of those who have overcome some serious obstacles to make a decent existence for themselves. (MH)

Volevo solo vivere

Mimmo Calopresti’s documentary consists of nine Italian Holocaust survivors recounting their time at Auschwitz. Cinematically, it’s very straightforward: talking-head interviews with the subjects and occasional passages of harsh concentration camp footage. The power of the film lies in their stories, sometimes told with a typical Italian flair for gestures and dramatic emphasis, other times with grim stoicism. We all know what went down in the Holocaust, but somehow, hearing Schlomo Venezia matter-of-factly describe his daily routine of loading corpses from the gas chamber to the ovens is more horrifying than any dramatization could be. A sobering, at times inspiring, historical document. (MF)

Black Eyed Dog

One of the rare Canadian feature films at the festival, and, apart from its Canadian-ness—it’s set in a small town in New Brunswick—there’s not much to make Black Eyed Dog worth seeing. The film tells the story of Betty, a woman who had childhood dreams of making it big folk singing, but whose familial situation left her trapped with financial and emotional responsibilities. Years later a bunch of morbid events—including a serial assassin roaming in the woods, killing priests and young ladies—has her question the life she is leading. Although the narration and setting could have touched significant issues, the characters feel fake, the repetitive violence fruitless and the casting is disastrous. (CR)

Waban-Aki: People from Where the Sun Rises

NFB filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin’s latest is another crucial inquiry into the history and evolution of aboriginal communities in North America. The film has some beautiful autobiographical touches—there is sumptuous footage of Obomsawin herself, singing in the field—and Waban-Aki is the community where the filmmaker was born and raised, the Abenaki people her tribe. Obomsawin traces the history of the Abenaki through painstaking research and extensive interviews, looking back at how a people who once occupied much of what we now call New England, the Maritimes and south-eastern Quebec could have been so severely reduced in numbers. A typically compelling doc from Obomsawin, again proving herself a vital and complex filmmaker. (MH)

Cineastas en Acció (Filmmakers in Action)

This part-documentary, part-essay, part-manifesto about the right of filmmakers to have their work exhibited in the form in which it was originally released will resonate with fellow auteurs, cinephiles and fierce art lovers alike. Filmmakers in Action bemoans such abuses as colourization, pan & scan, dubbing and digital manipulation. Director Carlos Benpar employs too many cloying gimmicks, including dramatic reenactments, cheesy graphics and an annoying female host, and the film is also way too long. Nonetheless, some great interviews with filmmakers Claude Chabrol, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sydney Pollack, Woody Allen and Jules Dassin. (OM)

The World Film Festival runs through Monday, September 4. For tix and showtimes see www.ffm-montreal.org

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