TIFF12 REVIEW: 2012 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

Programme 5

The Tape
Score: 8/10 | ★ ★ ★


Rating: NR | Runtime: 5 minutes
Director(s): Matt Sadowski & Matt Sadowski-Austin
Writer(s): Matt Sadowski & Matt Sadowski-Austin

“VHS …”

As the years move on and technology advances, it’s easy to forget that our most cherished memories may be tied to obsolete archives. For Jack (Julian Richings), his search to find one of these moments thought immortalized forever ends in the rather sobering realization time has passed him by.

Matt Sadowski‘s The Tape is both light-heartedly funny and sentimentally heart-warming. When Jack finally gets his hands on the object of his desire in a cluttered, box-filled attic, the recognition that he has no way of watching an old VHS tape hits him with the dumb-founded glory you can expect. Journeying for an elusive VCR, he encounters a new generation of digital age connoisseurs and a litany of like-minded souls who had either trashed or given away their one link to his past too.

We know the contents of the celluloid must be of great importance and thus hope the pawnshop owner (Shawn Lawrence) approached for a favor will acquiesce without the need for monetary retribution. And in a final scene of bliss we’re reminded of humanity’s ability for compassion and the wonderful gift of technology that both enhances our lives and keeps us grounded with the memory of what was. A love song to an age now almost completely wiped clean, The Tape also shows how nothing ever truly dies.


O Genio de Quintino [The Genius from Quintino]
Score: 8/10 | ★ ★ ★


Rating: NR | Runtime: 14 minutes
Director(s): Johnny Ma
Writer(s): Johnny Ma / Johnny Ma & Miguel Silveira (story)

“I want him to fix my fish!”

Able to fix anything mechanical that comes across his path, Ricardo (Ricardo Lima) is lost where it concerns his heart. Something happened to this neighborhood genius in the past that we aren’t privy to, but we can hypothesize from an over-protective mother (Benigna Dias) and her redacted photo album that his life before contained aspects she no longer wishes him to remember.

Happy to live in a daze fixing things at the mechanic shop where he works, it’s only when a young boy (Pedro Henrique Nery) arrives with a broken toy that he discovers the possibility for more. This damaged soul at the center of O Genio de Quintino [The Genius from Quintino] just isn’t ready to open wounds that weren’t there hours previously. He—like us—can infer upon the boy’s real reason for wanting to meet him, but the ability to reconcile the feelings accompanying it needs time to manifest.

Johnny Ma and co-writer Miguel Silveira have crafted a touching piece about familial bond breaking through any obstacles in its path. With wonderful performances by its two leads, we watch Nery and Lima cautiously size each other up and purposefully hold back in hopes the other makes the first move. Lost memories thought deleted forever return in a flood of emotion as the man who can fix anything finally discovers he may be able to fix himself after all.


Aci ni micta cikateriten [I’m Beginning to Miss You]
Score: 6/10 | ★ ★ ½


Rating: NR | Runtime: 3 minutes
Director(s): Sakay Ottawa
Writer(s): Sakay Ottawa

“I’m going out there, I’ll be back later”

A poetic plea for any information Manawan, Quebec residents may have about the disappearance of his brother Pinaskin, Sakay Ottawa’s Aci ni micta cikateriten [I’m Beginning to Miss You] imagery cross-cuts between the darkness of despair and light of hope.

Shot and narrated by Sakay, the film alternates between staccato poetry and the few details known about the last day anyone saw his brother. The black night shots screaming down an icy highway with headlights passing by portrays the chaotic emotional turmoil perfectly while the zoomed out landscape shots of snowy fields and barren birch trees holds the possibility he may come walking up the center of the frame at any time.

Artistically composed with the last glimpses of civilization Pinaskin would have seen before disappearing, they’re displayed not as clues but a representation of the often-overlooked beauty life has to offer. They are scenes of starkly white hope to be filled again by the colorful smile of a man never forgotten.


L’Aubade
Score: 6/10 | ★ ★ ½


Rating: NR | Runtime: 2 minutes
Director(s): Carla Susanto
Writer(s): Arnaud Kamphuis

“There is only death”

Taking the final two-minute goodbye of a dying man (writer Arnaud Kamphuis) and juxtaposing it with the clinical, engraved diagrams from a century’s old medical school textbook is an inspired artistic decision. The high contrast white lines on pitch black race by as the words move from death to the afterlife and nothingness to rebirth.

Carla Susanto‘s L’Aubade becomes a powerful representation of our comprehension and acceptance of something like cancer stealing life away. From the slowly falling scribbles reminiscent of snowflakes to treed landscapes made from drawings of cells to fetuses traveling on a fast-moving train, allegory becomes a huge part of interpreting the film.

The aesthetic should overpower the whole due to its jarring pastiche of reused etches if not for the quick pace of its flicker. Detail becomes tough to grasp without pausing to catch everything that’s going on. So only select frames have time to burn into your mind, combining with the words and forming a fantastical world holding the infinite possibilities of death.


Barefoot
Score: 5/10 | ★ ★


Rating: NR | Runtime: 11 minutes
Director(s): Danis Goulet
Writer(s): Danis Goulet

“Why would you say that?”

I think Danis Goulet‘s short Barefoot is lost on me. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural divide or a philosophical one, but I just don’t understand the premise or what the lead girl Alyssa (Emily Roberts) thought would happen once her pregnancy is made public.

Perhaps this is the point of the film, though, and I’m simply missing it. Taking place inside a tightly-knit Cree community of northern Canada, the societal pressures to have children appear incalculable amongst parents and children alike. Pregnancy at sixteen is the norm and Alyssa yearns to join her friends preparing to begin motherhood. But as her bout with morning sickness spreads like wildfire throughout the school, the reality of such a major step in her life begins to unravel.

Goulet lingers on her lead for the duration and to good effect with quick cuts to home, school, and boyfriend Brandon (Cole Ballantyne). The confusion about what to do next is palpable and Roberts embodies the character’s impossible situation beautifully, but I can’t help ask why she put herself in that position? Lies beget lies and the whole situation spirals out of control as life moves on around her too fast. And with little resolution, the film feels unfinished to me. Maybe the unspoken conclusion speaks to those aware of the issue at hand, but it just left me cold.


Old Growth
Score: 7/10 | ★ ★ ★


Rating: NR | Runtime: 5 minutes
Director(s): Tess Girard

With the sort of poetic visual compositions reserved for a Terrence Malick opus, Tess Girard‘s Old Growth takes us into the cold to see nature’s long-standing accord with man. Through blowing snow over the gentle bevel of road cutting through a flat plain of land, Joseph Noth’s woodsman rolls his wheelbarrow down to acquire his winter firewood. With each cut into the bark’s flesh the reappropriated wedge becomes riddled by markings to continue a long-standing tradition man has shared with trees over the millennia.

Lingering on the graceful slopes of tall grass waving, the machinations of a giant oilrig twirling its arm slowly through the sky, and Noth’s own measured strokes of an ax, Girard captures the wide expanse and how it complements mankind without being overtaken. Unlike a cityscape where nature is all but extinguished, we see this woodsman as a man of honor and integrity respecting the gifts the earth has given us and taking only what he needs.


Let the Daylight Into the Swamp
Score: 8/10 | ★ ★ ★


Rating: NR | Runtime: 37 minutes
Director(s): Jeffrey St. Jules
Writer(s): Jeffrey St. Jules

“And if we go there in search of the dead, we can’t expect to find answers”

The story of writer/director Jeffrey St. Jules‘ ancestry is one of unfortunate circumstances. Being able to recall his grandparents only through photos—a single shot taken at a time when he was alive—the tragic tale of two young lovers leaving their five children to a convent and relatives is told. With little evidence existing to guess at the why, what’s infer from a saved letter is that Helene could no longer be a wife and mother and Donal was unable to care for the kids himself as a result.

Looking to discover some tangible reason, St. Jules crafts this three-part documentary to at least recreate the emotions if not the details of his family breaking apart. Let the Daylight Into the Swamp‘s triptych shares the little history found about his grandparents (Mythology), the scattered recollections of his father barely old enough to remember them when they left (Memory), and the turmoil of strangers who made the same decision so their own children could grow up with a chance at a better, more loving life (Documentary). Told via photos, animation, reenactments, audio recordings, and interviews, the film becomes more than just about the St. Jules family as its clinical study sheds light upon mankind’s universal need for love.

There is a happy-go-lucky humor to the opening third as torn paper frames and old-timey filters lend themselves well to its 3D presentation. The joy of a facsimile Helene (Colombe Demers) and Donal (Pierre Simpson) appears impervious to the world’s harsh realities until the decision to build their family proves ill conceived. A sad tale of love lost that can never be justified or explained, this cathartic reminder is at its best with St. Jules’ father’s heartfelt remembrances and the non-actors sharing a pain they still feel today. Unshakably powerful, this tragic tale will stay with you well after the credits roll.


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