Canadian Film Review: Into the Forest (2016)

* * 1/2
Director: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood

If all technological infrastructure (which, at this point in time, is basically all infrastructure) were to fall in an instant, how long would you keep holding out hope that it will come back and life will resume as normal? A week? A month? Surely not a year and change. Honestly, even a month sounds like pushing it, no matter how naive you might be. I suppose that was at the heart of my problem with Into the Forest, an intimate portrait of the apocalypse. I can buy that one would cling to the normal and the familiar for comfort for a while, but at a certain point you have to concede, because time has passed and because you've seen first-hand how things were already coming apart after only a few days, that your old way of life is gone, so you should probably stop spending so much time rehearsing for that damn dance audition that's never going to happen and start devoting more time to figuring out your food and shelter situations.

Canadian Film Review: I've Heard The Mermaids Singing (1987)

* * *
Director: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Sheila McCarthy, Paule Baillargeon, Ann-Marie MacDonald

I’ve Heard The Mermaids Singing is a gracefully directed film about the frustrated ambitions of an artist. Made in 1987, the film is not ageing particularly well, though at its core there is still something about it that resonates. Alternately whimsical and heartbreaking, with a generous dose of fantasy, it’s a nicely balanced film about the agony of making art.

The film centres on Polly (Sheila McCarthy), a temporary secretary who spends her free time taking photographs. She has an active imagination, which is likely her saving grace. Her fantasies are exciting and make her feel alive – feelings that she tries to translate into her photos. Her life outside of her fantasy world is dull and unfulfilling; she’s a second rate temp constantly being berated for her lack of organization. Her feelings about her job begin to take a turn, however, when she begins working at an art gallery run by Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon), whom Polly refers to reverentially as “the Curator.”

Polly sees Gabrielle through a lens of hero worship that begins to manifest itself as a crush, feelings that are exacerbated by the sudden arrival of Gabrielle’s ex (and future) lover, Mary (Ann-Marie MacDonald). Polly discovers that Gabrielle has a series of paintings in her apartment that she’s never shown to anyone. Hoping perhaps to secure a more permanent place in Gabrielle’s life by giving her the confidence to be an artist, Polly takes one of the paintings and shows it to a critic, who thinks it’s marvellous and spreads the word about Gabrielle’s unique and amazing talent. Watching as Gabrielle is celebrated by the art world, Polly gets an idea to send her photos to the gallery anonymously. Gabrielle looks at them briefly and declares that they show no promise. Polly is crushed, but not as crushed as she’ll be when she discovers a secret about Gabrielle’s paintings.

The story is related to us after the fact in the form of a video confession by Polly. The flashback scenes are intercut with Polly’s fantasies, which keeps the overall tone of the film relatively light. The story is serious but at the same time the film doesn’t take itself too seriously. There is a distinct mocking of “art speak” in the way that Gabrielle and the critic discuss various pieces, and the film offers a gently defiant view of the role of artistic criticism. When Mary sees one of Polly’s photos and Polly repeats Gabrielle’s view that it’s no good, Mary asks why she has to look at it in terms of “good” or “bad” when what she should be asking herself is whether or not she likes it. Whether Polly’s photos are good or bad isn’t really the point; the point is that taking them makes her happy and that they express something about her. Just because someone else doesn’t like them, doesn’t mean they weren’t worth taking in the first place.

As Polly, McCarthy renders an effective and engaging performance. She allows Polly to be without pretence and to wear her heart on her sleeve, and the contrast between her and the more reserved Gabrielle makes her vulnerability seem all the more intense and striking. The way she just seems to deflate when Gabrielle renders her verdict on her photos is really heartbreaking because McCarthy makes it clear that Polly wouldn’t mind if other people didn’t like it, but she wants validation from Gabrielle so badly.

The intensity of relationships between women is a consistent theme in writer/director Patricia Rozema’s work, as is the theme of artistry. White Room is about a singer who provides the voice but has another woman act as the persona (whether literally or figuratively is open to some interpretation); When Night Is Falling is about a relationship between two women, one of whom is a performance artist; Mansfield Park is less an adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel than a film about Austen herself, and the relationship between Fanny and Mary Crawford is given an ambiguous treatment. The aesthetic Rozema works with in Mermaids and the issues that she explores flow through her body of work, though her films differ radically from each other. This film, her feature length debut, shows an artist very much in tune with her voice and the end product is a film that is very strong.

Canadian Film Review: White Room (1990)

* *
Director: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Maurice Godin, Kate Nelligan

Whatever faults she may have as a filmmaker, Patricia Rozema is, at the very least, consistently interesting. There are a lot of ideas in her films and they tend to have a magical/lyrical quality that makes them quite beautiful, if not always successful. White Room is a failure but it's a noble failure, one that comes so close but ultimately just misses the mark.

White Room unfolds as a mixture of genres, freely blending elements of fairytale with noir and avante garde stylings. At its centre is Norm (Maurice Godin), a lonely man who still lives with his parents and spends his nights spying on women in their homes. On one such occasion he witnesses the rape and murder of Madelaine X (Margot Kidder), a pop star whom he’ll come to discover wasn’t exactly what she seemed. Norm flees the scene and tries to call the police, but can’t bring himself to admit what he saw happen. His inability to act makes him feel guilty, but his concern over the circumstances of Madelaine X’s death is soon displaced by his curiosity regarding a woman who shows up at the funeral.

Norm follows the woman to a house that seems to be receding back into nature, overgrown as it is with weeds. The woman is Jane (Kate Nelligan), who hires Norm to do some grounds keeping work for her and tries to keep him at arm’s length lest he discover the nature of her connection to Madelaine X, which she feels must be kept secret at all costs. They fall in love and Norm discovers the truth, which is then exposed for the entire world courtesy of Zelda (Sheila McCarthy), a woman who has a thing for Norm and is jealous of the attention he’s been paying to Jane. Jane is devastated, leading to one final tragic act… or not, depending on how you read the film.

Because the film is essentially a post-modern fairytale, Norm is able to undo what’s been done and give himself and Jane a happy ending – but is it earned? There’s a certain level of detachment to the way the story unfolds and it pushes the audience away by constantly reminding us that we’re being told a story, one set in a dreamy version of the modern world that’s so obviously not “real” that it’s difficult to connect to it. The lack of connection, I suppose, is my main problem with the film because I didn’t feel invested enough in the characters to really care what became of Norm or Jane, separately or apart.

The love story, however, is only half the story the film is telling. The other half is concerned with the nature of celebrity and, more specifically, the relationship of celebrity to audience. As a voyeur, Norm stands in for the audience, believing that he’s doing something harmless because all he’s doing is looking. However, that looking is actually a form of consumption that threatens to destroy the real person behind the persona Madelaine X, all for the pleasure of the masses. The question of whether Madelaine is literally or figuratively killed is ambiguous, but what is clear is that the hunger of the audience, who desire to drain a public persona of its humanity, is the real guilty party, rather than the shadowy figure who breaks into her home and is never seen again. This aspect of the film is much more successfully explored.

White Room is the kind of film that has strengths which equal but never really surpass its weaknesses. I admire it for some of the chances it takes, but wouldn't recommend it to the casual viewer.

Canadian Film Review: When Night Is Falling (1995)

Director: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Pascale Bussieres, Rachael Crawford, Henry Czerny, David Fox

This is a film that I really like even though I know that objectively, it falls just short of being good. It’s well-acted and gracefully directed, but the content just doesn’t quite measure up, resulting in the good stuff being dragged down by the bad stuff. However, there’s enough good stuff that I never notice the bad while I’m watching, and only tend to think about it afterwards.

The film centers on Camille (Bussieres), a professor of mythology at a Christian university. She's engaged to Martin (Czerney), and one day meets Petra (Crawford) in a laundromat. Later, she discovers that their clothes have been switched (not accidentally, as we know, though Camille does not), and soon Petra is pursuing Camille, who pushes her away with one hand while pulling her closer with the other.

One of the things I like about the film is that it actively engages with religious ideas. Camille’s conflict isn’t “am I gay or am I straight?” as it is in a lot of similar films; her conflict is in trying to find a balance between what she feels for Petra, and the religious ideals that she’s always held. This aspect of the story rests heavily on the scenes between Camille and Reverend DeBoer (Fox), a character I always find myself wishing that we got to see just a little bit more of. He’s not your typical depiction of Christian authority. He disapproves of Camille’s relationship with Petra, but he doesn’t denounce her for it. There’s some slight suggestion that Reverend DeBoer himself might be gay. “People like you” is a phrase that is said twice in the film. The first time is at the beginning of the film, when Camille asks Petra if “people like [her] have friends.” The second time is towards the end, when Revered DeBoer tells Camille that maybe the Church has been unfair to “people like [her].” Is he just more liberal than his post would suggest, or is he so gentle and understanding with her because he really does understand where she’s coming from with regards to her feelings and her religion?

Aside from religious issues, there are also issues of race. Petra is black, Camille is white. This fact never arises between them, nor is it commented on by other characters in the film. On the one hand, this is good because the interracial aspect of their relationship shouldn’t be a big deal. However, subtextually there is some commentary on this aspect of their relationship which is troubling. Petra is a circus performer, a fact which has negative connotations all around. The chemistry between the two actress – and, for that matter, between their characters – is strong enough that it’s unnecessary to exoticize Petra in this way. Also troubling is a scene where DeBoer finds Petra and Camille together and Camille describes Petra as “a street kid.” Petra is no more a kid than Camille, and certainly doesn’t look like a street person. There are any number of ways that Camille could have explained Petra’s presence in her apartment, and the fact that her mind went straight to “street kid” is telling about how deeply she feels that this relationship is taboo.

The chemistry between the two actresses is very good, and so is the development of their two characters. In the beginning, Camille is tentative and guarded, and then begins to let go and open up. Petra when she’s in pursuit of Camille is quite aggressive (not in a bad way, just in a way that her intentions are quite clear), but becomes more guarded as the relationship progresses, afraid that she’s allowed herself to feel too much for Camille when there’s a chance that Camille might stay with Martin. The ways in which they dance towards and away from each other ring very true, though the film lets us know fairly early that there will be a happy ending for Camille and Petra. Consider the two sex scenes, one between Camille and Martin, the other between Camille and Petra. The scene with Martin takes place in the dark, and the sex is energetic but emotionless, and we know that Camille is thinking of Petra. The scene with Petra takes place in the light, is softer and slower, and intercut with shots of two gymnasts performing a high-wire act (as an aside I must admit that seeing the film again recently I was distracted during this scene by the realization that Rachael Crawford must have had a “no nipples” clause in her contract, given the lengths the film goes to not to show them). Camille’s connection to Petra runs far deeper and we know, even if Petra doesn’t, that Camille will choose her.

There are a lot of things about this movie that I feel I can defend, but there’s one thing that occurs at the end that always takes me right out of the movie. Camille’s dog dies at the beginning of the story. At the end, after she’s buried him in the woods, he crawls out of his grave and takes off running. The film begins with Camille giving a lecture on the mythological trope of humans transforming into animals and vice versa. It ends with Camille running away with Petra (and the circus), and the dog running away to… wherever. You could argue that this scene is symbolic of Camille breaking free, that the dead dog coming back to life is symbolic of Camille’s soul or something, but even as symbolism, the scene seems misplaced.

That being said, this is a film that is very watchable from start to finish, and one that stands up against multiple viewings despite it’s problems.