Weekly round-up

>> Gothic goblins, teen tragedies,
child actors and a Quebec classic

by MALCOLM FRASER
and JEFFREY MALECKI

The Spiderwick Chronicles

The Lord of the Rings series and its ilk have dominated the fantasy movie market of late, with their epic and immersive alternate realities, while magical/real hybrids have gone underground. Classics such as Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, and most relevant to the film under review, The Never-Ending Story, all involve real modern-day kids just living their lives when boom, phantasmagoric forces intrude upon their world.

Kids eat this stuff up, as it allows for a connection with reality not entirely possible in Middle Earth. And although not on the same level as the aforementioned films, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a decent addition to this group, offering a little diversion that kids will no doubt love.

The film begins Gothically, in an old country house with Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn), a writer and Renaissance man undertaking a study of a fantastic world of sprites and goblins he has gained access to, compiling and containing his knowledge in a leather-bound book. Flash-forward 80 years, when a mildly dysfunctional family—Spiderwick’s niece and three children—moves into the house from New York. The book is found, the spectres are released, and all must be set right.

There are chaotic family dynamics at play, with two absentee fathers casting long shadows—this strife is mirrored in the fantastic elements, which can be a bit heavy-handed at times. However, the overall magic is charming, and there is luckily, among all of the CGI creatures from the Spiderwick universe, no Jar-Jar Binks types. (JM)

Tout est parfait

Talk about a feel-bad movie—this local drama focuses on a suicide pact among four teenage boys, and the effect of the deed on their families and community. The main character is Josh (Maxime Dumontier), the fifth member of the boys’ gang, who everyone looks to for answers, much to his mounting frustration.

Director Yves-Christian Fournier, in his first feature, has a strong grasp of pacing and atmosphere, and draws some great performances out of the mostly teenage cast. His portrait of restless youth in an industrial suburb sometimes has the feeling of a poetic documentary. The screenplay, by novelist Guillaume Vigneault, is subtle and understated. Where The Sweet Hereafter, a film on a similar theme, wallowed in raw sorrow, Fournier and Vigneault portray their characters going through a whole range of emotions, from denial to anger to acceptance.

At a certain point, Fournier and Vigneault make a decision that’s crucial to the film, but hard to discuss without spoiling it. Suffice to say that it’s a valid choice from an artistic point of view, but likely to frustrate an audience’s expectations. Fournier seems to be striving for the poetic cinema of a Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant or Harmony Korine, but it’s as though he couldn’t decide whether to impose a quasi-Hollywood structure or throw narrative expectations out the window completely, and ended up splitting the difference. In the end, it’s an imperfect but impressive debut that offers hope for what its gifted director could do in the future. (MF)

Normal

A sprawling hillside mansion community in Victoria, B.C. provides the setting for this drama about a tragic accident that, two years later, still haunts those involved. Normal gets no points for novelty: both the eruption of an unexpected event into the fabric of the everyday, and the subsequent period of grief and reconciliation is well-trodden cinematic territory, from Don’t Look Now to Amores Perros. However, the nuanced depiction of the contradictions of the upper-middle class, so privileged but still so prone on a personal level, adds an appealing sheen to this story.

Three different family scenarios play out in their separate enclaves, occasionally colliding: the nuclear family of Nikki, the boy killed in the accident; a more bohemian childless couple, of which Dale (Callum Keith Rennie) was partially responsible for the accident; and the broken family of Nikki’s best friend, Jordi (Kevin Zegers). Each main character copes in their own way. Nikki’s mother Catherine (Carrie-Anne Moss) is wracked by grief, distancing herself form her other son and husband. Rennie finds solace in one of his students, while Jordi becomes romantically involved with his stepmother.

This is a proudly all-Canadian film, and there is a certain, well, Canadian feel to it, which, while occasionally charming, smacks of an under-funded budget and general mediocrity. Each of the main characters has heaps of depth and back-story, and they’re well rendered, especially Catherine. However, they’re surrounded by a generally unimpressive supporting cast and made-for-TV production values that prevent this film from truly distinguishing itself. (JM)

Jouer Ponette

Local filmmaker Jeanne Crépeau brings us this peculiar exercise, a documentary essay on the making of French director Jacques Doillon’s 1995 film Ponette, which starred four-year-old actress Victoire Thivisol as a girl dealing with her mother’s death. Jouer Ponette consists almost entirely of raw footage from the video monitor, a lo-fi feed from the film camera that directors use to watch and review material on set. We see Thivisol, who can’t yet read and thus understandably has trouble memorizing her lines, making her way through take after take, struggling to carry out Doillon’s instructions.

Doillon comes across as an almost cartoonishly stereotypical art-film director, cluelessly insensitive to his young star’s feelings and willing to be borderline abusive to achieve his desired results. As for Thivisol, we see her eventually pull off amazing moments of performance, but it’s hard to know how much was willing and how much was a result of Doillon’s manipulation.

Instead of interviewing Doillon or Thivisol today, Crépeau speculates on their motives and approaches in “hypotheses” that appear in onscreen text. While these are often witty, and certainly break up the monotony, they give the project the feel of an academic exercise. The repetition of material—we sometimes see five takes or more of the same long, slow dialogues—and the grainy, glitchy Hi-8 image add up to a test of audience patience. Ultimately, the film’s intense focus on the filmmaking process makes it of interest only for the most hardcore of film geeks. (MF)

Les Bons débarras

MAGNIFICENT MALAISE: Les Bons Débarras

This 1980 drama is often cited as one of the best Canadian and/or Québécois films of all time, and its reissue shows that it deserves the acclaim. The story takes place in a rural community, where 13-year-old Manon (Charlotte Laurier) finds ever more creative ways to rebel against her mother Michelle (Marie Tifo), a hard-luck case who tries to take care of her alcoholic, slow-witted brother (Germain Houde) while juggling the advances of an older policeman (Roger Lebel) and a pothead mechanic (Gilbert Sicotte).

Directed by Francis Mankiewicz from a screenplay by reclusive Quebec novelist Réjean Ducharme, the drama unfolds at its own pace, ignoring the conventions of both Hollywood and Europe. The portrayal of small-town malaise is unsentimental, but never condescends to its characters, and Ducharme’s dialogue is full of poignant emotion and colourful joual expressions. The performances are all strong, but the young Laurier is quite amazing, capturing both a vulnerability and a capacity for extreme cruelty. And the cinematography, by legendary old-school NFB filmmaker Michel Brault, has the kind of depth you almost never see in movies nowadays.

The Cinéma du Parc is presenting the film for a week, with English subtitles, as part of the Rencontres du cinéma Québécois, and each night will be presented by a different guest, among them Brault, Laurier, and other cast and crew members. It’s worth checking out on the big screen in a newly struck print—not only do they not make films like this anymore, they didn’t even at the time. (MF)

All films open this Friday, Feb. 15

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