Canadian Film Review: The Timekeeper (2009)

* * *
Director: Louis Belanger
Starring: Craig Olejnik, Stephen McHattie, Roy Dupuis

There's something about The Timekeeper that feels quintessentially Canadian. I can't quite put my finger on it, but maybe it's the "hey, no hard feelings" tone of the ending. Given what comes before - including murder and what is essentially slavery - it's an odd note to end on. Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie; it's just a little strange.

Set in the early 1960s, The Timekeeper follows the fortunes of Martin Bishop (Craig Olejnik), who heads to the Northwest Territories and takes a job working for a railroad that's being laid down. Martin will be taking over as timekeeper, keeping track of the number of hours the men work - or so he thinks. He's quickly informed by the foreman, Fisk (Stephen McHattie), that he's not expected to keep accurate time but simply to record the amount of time Fisk decides that the men deserve to be paid for. This means that they might work 17 hours but will only be given credit for 12, something which does not sit well with Martin. Nor does it sit well with him when he discovers that several men have been exiled from the camp and forced to fend for themselves in the woods, fighting for the food scraps the camp tosses away.

Martin takes a stand against Fisk which results in him being tossed from the camp to join "the garbage eaters." Though initially hostile towards him - another exile means another person fighting for scant resources - the exiles, including the former timekeeper Grease (Julian Richings) and mildly psychotic Scully (Roy Dupuis), eventually join forces with him, first sabotaging the rail line and then making a break for it, trying to escape from the remote region where the camp is located and make it back to civilization. Escape, however, is futile because Fisk is determined to track them down, bring them back to camp, and punish them for their insubordination.

The story is set up along the lines of a David and Goliath narrative, with the lone, brave crusader standing up against a seemingly insurmountable force of corruption, and there aren't a ton of surprises in terms of the way the plot develops (though there are a few). The cast, however, is very strong and their performances, and the clashes of personality that take place throughout the film, make it very compelling. As Martin, Olejnik manages to be earnest without being insufferable and McHattie makes for a great villain. Dupuis doesn't get much to do, but he manages nevertheless to make an impression.

Directed by Louis Belanger, who co-wrote with Lorraine Dufour, The Timekeeper ends up being as much about the scenery as about the characters. Belanger explores the landscape from multiple angles, making it at once a place of freedom, cut off from the rules and laws of society, and the walls of a prison which keep the exiles under Fisk's thumb. The setting is at once a place of startling beauty and unspeakable savagery, the work being done there a signal of progress, but progress achieved through draconian means. Nature is at once Martin and Fisk and the film's exploration of this duality helps keep the tension high and the story moving along. I don't know that the film quite achieves what it sets out to, but it's still an interesting and very well-made endeavor.

Canadian Film Review: The Rocket (2005)

* * * 1/2
Director: Charles Biname
Starring: Roy Dupuis, Stephen McHattie

“You’re a hockey player. Play hockey,” Canadiens coach Dick Irvin (Stephen McHattie) tells Maurice Richard (Roy Dupuis). However, stuck between the Depression and the onset of the Quiet Revolution, Richard could never just be a hockey player and was intensely aware of the symbolic role that he played within the sport and in Canadian culture itself. The Rocket tells the story of Maurice Richard in such a way that it cannot simply be classified as a sports movie – it’s a movie about a nation maturing alongside a sport, and the man reluctantly standing at the centre of it.

Strangely, for a biopic, The Rocket doesn’t dwell much on Maurice Richard the man. We first meet him at 17, laboring as a machinist during the day and playing hockey by night. His anger at the injustices he witnesses and endures in his job are channeled into his playing, where his speed and ferocity sets him apart from the rest. By 20 he has married his sweetheart Lucie (Julie LeBreton), against the wishes of her father who believes that Maurice will never amount to much and never softens towards the union even after Maurice makes the cut and joins the Montreal Canadiens. Though he shows promise early on, the ease with which he seems to get injured prompts everyone to declare him “a lemon," and he spends most of the following two seasons on the bench, worrying about where he’ll go from there and how he’ll support his growing family.

Fortunately for Richard, Irvin believes in his talent, even as he’s sitting him out. When Richard gets the chance to get back on the ice, he shows his mettle, becoming one of the league’s top scorers and a beloved home town hero. Unfortunately, because he’s Quebecois, he faces a great deal of prejudice within the league where, as in industry, there is a strict English only policy in upper management. There is also a great deal of corruption which shapes how players are ranked in the league and includes the practice of some teams assigning assists to their star players in order to bulk up their total number of points. Richard takes a stand against this, agreeing to write an opinion column for a Montreal paper in which he exposes a lot of the foul practices behind the scenes, but when he takes a swipe at the commissioner of the league he’s forced to shut it down or risk being banned from playing. As the seasons pass, he gets into more trouble with the commissioner which eventually spurs a riot in Montreal and has him seriously considering quitting the game for good.

Dupuis plays Richard with a quiet determination and almost impenetrable stoicism. He’s not driven by the desire for fame or money or the excesses which come with it, but by a simple love for the game. He would like nothing more than to just be able to play hockey, but he’s not willing to keep his head down and continue to let people push him around, knowing that if someone doesn't stand up the unfairness that governs the league will simply be passed on to the next generation of players. He knows that things have to change sooner rather than later and he takes on the burden even though it pains him. In one scene he breaks down following a game, the pressures of everything outside the rink finally starting to get to him. This is a rare (even for Lucie) glimpse behind the wall Richard has erected to protect himself and Dupuis' performance throughout is one of restraint always threatening to buckle.

If the film has a flaw, I suppose it's that it relies on the audience to come into it with a certain amount of knowledge about Anglo-Franco tensions. With only a cursory knowledge of the events and conditions that lead to the Quiet Revolution, you might not feel the full impact of what's happening on screen. When Irvin enters the dressing room late in the film and hesitantly addresses the players in French, it's a big moment, but if you don't fully understand why it's so unusual and important, you're missing a piece of the puzzle that helps to put the story into the larger social context. Still, this is a strong effort, one that divides itself pretty evenly between the sport and the surrounding politics and makes for good viewing whether you're a hockey fan or not.

Canadian Film Review: Pontypool (2009)

* * * 1/2
Director: Bruce McDonald
Starring: Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly, Hrant Alianak

Pontypool takes a page out of the Jaws handbook, providing a vague, mostly unseen danger to our heroes that looms all the larger for its near total absence from the screen. If you’ve seen Jaws, you know how awesomely effective that method of storytelling is. What we see might be scary but it will never be as scary as what we can’t see and so it is with Pontypool which finds a radio show host and his two producers being bombarded with stories of strange and violent behaviour on the other side of town and knowing that this undefined threat is moving closer and closer to them.

The film takes place over the course of a few hours on a snowy, dreary day in Pontypool, Ontario. Radio show host Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) has a strange encounter on the road, which leaves him shaken up and which he decides to discuss with his listeners. The discussion is cut short, however, when word starts to come in about a demonstration of some kind outside the office of a Dr. Mendez (Hrant Alianak). While Grant editorializes regarding the scant amount of information they have about the unfolding event, his producers Sydney (Lisa Houle) and Laurel Ann (Georgina Reilly) try to find some kind of official corroboration for the eye witness accounts. Though there is no official confirmation from the police about what is happening, people continue to call in to discuss the increasingly violent and disturbing events outside of Dr. Mendez’s office.

As the day progresses, the death toll mounts, and words like "cannibals" start getting tossed around, Grant starts to lose it, believing that this is all part of some big hoax being perpetrated on him. It isn't until the appearance of Dr. Mendez himself at the radio station (which is actually just a church basement), that the reality of the situation starts to sink in. There is a virus of sorts going around, he explains, one that isn't passed through the blood but through the English language itself. This presents something of a dilema for the radio team, who wonder how they can explain the situation and warn people if the language is infected and are also forced to question their own culpability in spreading the virus through their medium.

Save for a few moments, the film takes place entirely in the church basement and much of it takes place in the sound booth itself after Dr. Mendez reveals that the afflicted hunt with their ears not their eyes. Safely (for the time being) locked up in the soundproof booth, Grant and his crew have to figure out what they're going to do to save themselves and how they might cure those who have the virus, but haven't reached the fatal stage yet (those who have the virus and don't find a victim to pass it on to kind of... explode). This minimalist approach makes the film all the more effective because the tension rises as the safe space becomes smaller and smaller. The fact that we don't actually start to see the effects of the virus until about 2/3rds of the way into the film is also quite effective and credit for that goes to the actors, who so successfully convey and transfer their growing sense of terror to the audience. There isn't a lot of gore in this movie (a little but not much) but it's about a hundred times scarrier than most movies that dispense with buckets of blood from openning to end credits. The terror is psychological and that can be pretty hard to shake off.

It's difficult not to read a political meaning into this film when its protagonist is a radio show host who prides himself on "telling it like it is," language is the enemy, and one of the characters is a soldier recently returned from Afghanistan. One of the symptoms of the virus is repeating a word ad nauseum which, if you've ever watched certain news shows, you know that simply repeating "talking points" in an increasingly loud voice is what passes for political analysis these days. Pontypool isn't aggressively political but this criticism of the way that language is being abused is definitely there.

Bruce McDonald, who directed last year's "love it or hate it" The Tracey Fragments, keeps the film really lean stylistically speaking. The simplicity of his style here adds immensely to the growing feeling of claustrophobia that the screenplay and the actors work so hard at creating. Pontypool is apparently the first film in a planned trilogy from McDonald - I'm not really sure how that will work given how this one ends, but I'll definitely be looking out for the next installment.

Canadian Film Review: Shake Hands With The Devil (2007)

* * * *
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Starring: Roy Dupuis

Canadians love Romeo Dallaire. In the space of about five years, we’ve seen Shake Hands With The Devil the book, the documentary, and now the feature film. It makes me wonder if maybe Dallaire ought to throw his hat into the ring for leadership of the Liberal party, but I suppose that’s another subject entirely. Roger Spottiswoode’s film, adapted from Dallaire’s book, is angry and intense, exploring both the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the psychological effects of bearing witness.

The story begins in 1993, when the two sides of the conflict have agreed to a cease fire and it seems as if an extended period of peace is within reach. The U.N. peacekeepers led by General Dallaire (Roy Dupuis) are cautiously optimistic that a lasting agreement can be made, but it soon becomes apparent that a plot is underway to restart hostilities. The U.N. soldiers have several opportunities to prevent the situation from exploding but each time are given orders not to interfere, to simply stand by as the situation spirals desperately out of control and the slaughter of Tutsis and Hutu moderates begins across the country.

The film has two primary concerns. The first is to demonstrate how, in the name of diplomacy and self-interest, the U.N. left its soldiers impotent in the face of crisis. “If it’s genocide,” Dallaire explains, “they have to do something.” If, however, you call it something else – or ignore it completely – then you have no obligation to intervene. Troops are removed, supplies are too late in arriving, bodies litter the road, all while the U.N. soldiers make do with what little they have to work with and struggle to bring attention to the crisis. The second of the film’s concerns is with the effect that having to stand back and watch people being systematically murdered has on the soldiers. Dallaire himself is represented as being literally haunted by what he sees and by film’s end he recognizes that he’s no longer in any shape to be a part of this particular mission.

The performance by Roy Dupuis is extraordinary. There are so many instances when he could have descended into scenery chewing, but his performance is always restrained and controlled, hinting at Dallaire’s demons rather than hammering them out of the screen and at the audience. As for the film itself, it’s wonderfully assembled. The history of the conflict is complex but the film finds a way to provide a cursory overview of the build-up to the genocide without allowing the story to be burdened with being a mere history lesson. It’s a very well-balanced film, guided with a firm and able hand.

The U.N. doesn’t come out looking particularly good here but it isn’t the sole target of the film’s anger. The focus is actually less on laying blame – there’s far too much to go around to place it squarely on anyone’s shoulders – than on pointing out that hundreds of thousands of people who had nothing to do with the politics of the situation were none the less punished for it. When Dallaire tries to arrange the transport of refugees behind RPF lines, he’s informed that the forces are too busy trying to save the country to concern themselves with refugees. “What is your country?” Dallaire asks, “these hills, those trees, that lake over there?” The people got lost along the way, transformed into symbols and statistics. Shake Hands With The Devil is a brutal film not because the violence it depicts is graphic (it’s pretty tame in that respect) but because the emotional and psychological chords that it strikes are so sensitive. It’s a searing indictment not of any one army or of the U.N. but of humanity in general and the preference for memorializing tragedy instead of preventing it.