VIFF 2011: Preview 4

With just days left to the opening of the VancouverInternational Film Festival, we take time to spotlight another ten noteworthy films playing. If you haven’t done so already, you can read up my earlier entries for VIFF here.

First Position (US; directed by Bess Kargman) 

Those of you who watched a little too much Black Swan will be relieved to hear that the ballet world is less about self-mutilation and perverted fantasia, and more about the hard work and toll it takes on the human body. This documentary follows six young children from around the world as they strive to compete in the Youth America Grand Prix, a fiercely competitive international ballet competition that can launch an aspiring dancer from obscurity into the upper echelons overnight. The film is presented in numerous languages with English subtitles, as director Kargman travels the globe to visit with each of her subjects. Although most films for VIFF are unrated, First Position one of the only films that has been classified – with a “G” rating – so that those under the age of 19 may attend and be inspired by young artists at the outset of their careers.

White (South Korea; directed by Kim Sun and Kim Gok)

This title should appeal to those of us who remember the remarkable 1999 anime horror film Perfect Blue. South Korea’s White (its original title literally translates to “The Memory of the Curse”) details what happens to a fictional all-girl pop group who record a new single to revive their flagging careers. The problem? The song comes with a lot of baggage (think of the curse attached to The Exorcist when it was in production). Those who have recorded the song and released it have had bad things happen to them … really terrible things. Can the curse be lifted? In addition to being a horror film, this is also an examination of the contemporary music business in Asia and the pressures it places on its young stars to remain forever young – and profitable. You can preview a trailer, albeit without subtitles, here. 

The Green Wave (Iran; directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi)

You can’t talk about this year’s Arab Spring uprisings without referencing social media. This was arguably the first time in history that social media surpassed mainstream media in reporting unfiltered, hard-hitting, play-by-play accounts of the systematic abuses and crimes that accompanied political revolution. Inspired in no small part by Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis, Ahadi’s Iranian-German collaboration recounts the true stories of people who witnessed the Arab Spring first-hand by blending live-action documentary footage with stylized animated accounts of what happened. The film’s titular colour refers to the movement and symbol for those seeking Ahmadinejad’s removal from office after what was regarded as his fraudulent election as president in 2009.

No One Killed Jessica (India; directed by Raj Kumar Gupta)

How can 300 people at a crowded nightclub not see that the bartender was shot dead, point-blank, in the face, right in front of them? This is a fictionalized account of the sensational 1999 killing of Jessica Lall, an aspiring model and bartender who was shot dead by a politician’s worthless son for refusing to serve him alcohol after last call. The scandal rocked the Indian justice system and exposed the corruption coursing through its veins. Although the assailant went free, justice is indeed served eventually, as an outraged nation finally understood for the first time the systemic abuse of the rich and entitled to absolve them of their crimes and responsibilities.

Elena (Russia; directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev)

What would you do to save your son? Elena drastically tries to put the money together to buy her ne’er-well-do son’s way into university and prevent him from military service, but can she put it together in time? She must resort to desperate measures with some unsavoury characters in an attempt to keep her family together. Elena received the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes film festival and boasts a score by British composer Phillip Glass.

VIFF 2011: Preview 3

Further to my preview of the 2011 Vancouver International Film Festival, which you can read about here and here, here are ten more noteworthy films that are playing at VIFF.

Miss Representation (USA; directed by Jennifer Seibel Newsom)

Rosario Dawson interviewed in Miss Representation

Newsom’s bold documentary explores the (mis)representation of women in contemporary American society and culture. Gathering her considerable resources, Newsom (wife of progressive San Francisco Mayor Gavin) explores what it means to be a woman in 21st Century America, through interviews with such luminaries as Gloria Steinem, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, Rachel Maddow, Katie Couric, Nancy Pelosi and Jane Fonda. In early 2011, no less than Oprah Winfrey announced her acquisition of this film for her OWN network, to be aired at a later date. Why wait when you can see this at VIFF first?


My Little Princess (France; directed by Eva Ionesco)

Still of My Little Princess

Isabelle Huppert seems to be no stranger to controversy to film festivals. Her prize-winning role in 2001’s La Pianiste caused outrage thanks to its volatile subject and presentation, but that didn’t stop the film from clearing the board. Director Ionesco is known as the former five-year-old whose mother sold erotic photographs of her and caused international scandal as a result. Huppert will embody that infamous mother, Irina Ionesco, in one of her trademark difficult but eminently watchable performances. (Those with a long memory will recall that the controversy inspired Louis Malle’s 1978 film Pretty Baby, starring Susan Sarandon and Brooke Shields.)

The British Guide to Showing Off (UK; directed by Jes Benstock)

One of this year’s LGBT entries is this enticing, comic documentary on the Alternative Miss World pageant. Originally started in 1972 as a fringe festival-type event, it has since become a hallmark of London gay life and has attracted the participation over the years of Elton John, Derek Jarman, Andy Warhol, the Sex Pistols, David Bowie, Brian Eno and Boy George. The event has grown in stature and size since, and combines fashion, music and dance in an “anything goes” show that elevates it to the level of high performance art. You can read more on this unique phenomenon on festival founder Andrew Logan’s website.

The Front Line (South Korea; directed by Jang Hun)

Chosen as South Korea’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards, The Front Line chronicles a battle during the Korean Warand the heavy toll it takes on both sides. Stylistically reminiscent of 2006’s Letters from Iwo Jima and Saving Private Ryan, this work gets up-close-and-personal with numerous soldiers in the hours leading to the signing of the Armistice in 1953. Hun’s young career has made him one of the foremost Korean directors, and includes the romance 3-Iron and The Bow, which was screened at Cannes in 2005.

The Turin Horse (Hungary; directed by Béla Tarr)

We’re aware of Nietzsche’s body of work, but what happened to him in the end? It is rumoured that his witnessing the whipping of a horse caused his mental breakdown in 1889, one that caused him to go silent and live in relative obscurity for another ten years. But what happened to the horse? Who owned the animal and how did they react? This film provides a speculative look at the quiet, desperate lives of its owner and his daughter, their hardscrabble survival, and their encounter with one of the foremost philosophers in history. Winner of the Jury Grand Prix at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, this is influential director Tarr’s final work, as he has announced his retirement from filmmaking.

VIFF 2011: Preview 2

Following up on my last post on the Vancouver International Film Festival, here are ten more noteworthy films that you may wish to catch during VIFF. Tickets can be purchased online using your Visa card, as Visa is the exclusive credit card for VIFF. (You take your chances at the door for more popular screenings, but more on that later.)

Take This Waltz (Canada; directed by Sarah Polley)

I have been remiss in forgetting to mention a single Canadian film in my first blog post on VIFF. Polley’s story of a woman (Michelle Williams) married to a perfectly nice guy (Seth Rogan), but who becomes drawn to a handsome stranger (Luke Kirby), is being presented ahead of what might be another awards season run. Williams received an Oscar nomination this year for Blue Valentine, and Polley’s debut feature Away From Her earned Julie Christie a nom. Polley herself has developed into an accomplished writer-director and the film received a rousing reception at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (United States; directed by Sean Durkin) 

Ever wonder what it’s like to escape from a cult? A young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes an abusive relationship with a cult (led by Oscar nominee John Hawkes of Winter’s Bone) and asks her sister (Sarah Paulson) to pick her up and take her home. She is slowly assimilated into society, but … is the cult still watching her? Do they know where she goes, who she’s with, can they read her thoughts? Winner of the prestigious Best Director prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, this disturbing character study features Olsen (yes, the younger sister of the Olsen twins) in a breakthrough performance that has many already talking up an Oscar nomination for her, and plays VIFF ahead of its commercial release in late October / early November. The film also stars Hugh Dancy. (Also, the film has what might be the coolest and creepiest website domain name ever.)

Harakiri: Death of a Samurai (Japan; directed by Miike “Beat” Takashi) 

The man behind the internationally acclaimed Fireworks is back with another wildly madcap feature film. Set in the peaceful Edo era of Japan in the 17^th century, this 3-D(!) Japanese Samurai epic spins a tale of desperate Samurai who are now without jobs and go to the Ronin’s palace to commit seppuku, but secretly hope that they are bought off. One such Samurai embarks on such a quest, secretly hoping … to avenge his son, who committed seppuku in front of the Ronin. Takashi’s films make nearly annual appearances at VIFF, and they always remain crowd-pleasers. This film also had the honour (?) of being the first-ever film screened in 3-D at Cannes.

Buddha Mountain (China; directed by Li Yu)

While this film’s premise sounds like a pedestrian drama – three young roommates looking for a new place to live end up crashing with a former Chinese opera star – what sets the film apart is its cast. Buddha Mountain stars China’s biggest film star, Fan Bingbing, and given the ever-increasing Chinese demographic in Vancouver, it is a natural selection to play VIFF. Playing the opera star is none other than Taiwanese grand dame actress Sylvia Chang, who many will remember from her impressive supporting role in the Oscar-winning Canadian drama The Red Violin. (This is a tip for VIFF: some of these films you’ve never heard of, if it speaks to the local expatriate community, will end up being the most popular and sell out the fastest. Get your tickets early.)

Lost in Paradise (Vietnam; directed by Ngoc Dang Vu) 

Billed as the first-ever gay-themed romance made in Vietnam, the film sounds at first blush like a riff on Wong Kar Wai’s acclaimed 1997 gay-themed drama Happy Together. The film opens with a naïve young man moving to Saigon from a small village and is fleeced by two gay conmen who are in a toxic relationship. When the couple breaks up, one of them meets up with the country boy and they begin a romance. As there have been almost no films on the gay experience in Vietnam, this film’s subject matter was considered groundbreaking. This is also holds the distinction of being the first-ever gay Vietnamese film released in the foreign cinema market.

18 Days (Egypt; various directors)

Earlier this year, ten directors, two dozen actors and numerous film crew members banded together with a mission: to capture the events of the Arab Spring in a series of short subjects that, together, form a cohesive portmanteau film with a common theme. Done in the style of such omnibus films as I Love New York, Paris Je T’aimes and Visions of 8, everyone on this project worked under tight constraints and, due to the highly volatile political situation, did not even tell authorities that they were making a film for fear of retaliation or interference. You’ve heard of guerilla warfare? This is guerilla art, and quite possibly the most daring entry in this year’s VIFF.

VIFF 2011: Preview 1

Ah, fall … the return of the cooler climes heralds the return of rain on what we call “the wet coast” of Vancouver, BC. For Vancouver cineastes, September brings with it excitement surrounding the new fall films that offer something more substantive than the usual summertime diversions. And the end of September, as usual, the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) kicks off.

Following on the heels of Venice and Toronto, VIFF doesn’t boast a lot of stars coming up to do red carpet appearances for their movies, so if you’re hoping to get into a screening and after-party with Gwyneth Paltrow and George Clooney, you’re out of luck. However, that doesn’t mean that one doesn’t get to see the occasional screen star sneaking into a crowded screening while on break from making films up here (no less than Matt Damon, Hugh Jackman and Jodie Foster are all in town filming their latest projects). In 2009, I attended a screening of a film fest sensation, a little indie film called Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. By that point, Oprah had attached her name as executive producer and the film was presented at its sold-out gala screening by no less than its director Lee Daniels. Four months later, he received an Oscar nomination for his work. You never know who’s going to come up here.

What VIFF might lack in star power, it makes up for in terms of volume. A staggering 300 films will be shown at various cinemas in downtown Vancouver from September 29 to October 15, 2011. Due to our massive Asian population, VIFF brings in works from China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, the Philippines and many other nations in that part of the world. To showcase and promote these hard-to-find – and often sold-out – rarities, VIFF annually presents its “Dragons and Tigers” Award to the most popular young Asian entry in the festival.

VIFF also has a number of other series to demonstrate the vast range of works presented here. The “Canadian Images” series spotlights Canadian cinema, and a number of our homegrown directors have presented films here including Guy Madden, Thom Fitzgerald and Oscar nominees Atom Egoyan and Sarah Polley. “Heaven and Earth” showcases a number of works focusing on environmental issues. “Cinema of Our Time” presents contemporary works from around the globe, always including a number of award winners from other festivals. This year’s series will include the reigning winner of the Golden Bear from the Berlin Film Festival. And as is expected for our fair city, a number of LGBT-related films will be showcased in a series, no doubt inspired by the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.

In the run-up to VIFF, which kicks off on September 29, I will post a few previews of upcoming films on this blog. Here are ten notable films being presented at VIFF:

The Skin I Live In  (Spain; directed by Pedro Almodóvar) 

Presented at Cannes and Toronto to sensational reviews, and gearing up for a commercial release at the end of the year, Almodóvar returns to Vancouver two years after Broken Embraces with his latest entry. Antonio Banderas makes his first appearance in a Spanish-language film in many years as a surgeon who tries to develop new skin (yup), which he tests on an enigmatic young woman he keeps imprisoned day and night in his Xanadu-like estate. Almodovar has said that this film fulfills his desire to make “a horror story without screams or frights”. Given his penchant for creating melodrama and the rapturous reception accorded so many of his films, this should become a new art-house favourite. The Skin I Live In is presented as VIFF’s sure-to-be-sold-out opening gala on September 29.

Wish Me Away (US; directed by Bobbie Birleffi & Beverly Kopf) 

An intimate documentary on country singer Chely Wright’s agonizing struggle to remain in the closet and then coming out in the country music world, the chanteuse allows unprecedented access to her first-hand eyewitness account of the prejudices that are still present in certain sectors of the arts. Wright talks about how her record sales dropped substantially due to negative (to say the least) reaction from the deeply conservative country music world. What’s exposed here is just how deep the pockets of conservative America still run to this day and how their corporate decisions target and negatively affect talented artists.

Sleeping Beauty (Australia; directed by Julia Leigh) 

 

A sensation at Cannes, this film’s shocking premise is of a young woman (Emily Browning) trained to become a high-class prostitute specializing in fulfilling men’s fairy tale fetishes. The woman in question plays Sleeping Beauty, but in the morning, the young woman wakes up and remembers … nothing. And she does the same thing that evening. The film is presented by Oscar-winning director Jane Campion, whose film The Piano took home the VIFF Audience Award in 1993.

VLAFF 2011: El hombre de al Lado

Opening this year’s Vancouver Latin American Film Festival is a nervy black comedy about two neighbours and a wall, the Sundance Jury Prize winner El hombre de al lado (The Man Next Door) is directed by the Argentine filmmaking team of Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn.

Leonardo (Rafael Spregelburd) is a highly successful architect and furniture designer, sort of a cross between Arthur Ericksen and Eames. His designs have been sold around the world and admirers remark on the astonishing prices he charges on a basic chaise lounge. He lives in the only house Le Corbusier ever designed for South America, in La Plata, Buenos Aires. His wife Ana is a yoga instructor who seems to natter about inconsequential matters that can only be characterized as first world problems. They have a daughter who spends most of her time in her room, with headphones on, practicing the same set of dance moves as if she were learning them to audition for Lady Gaga’s next tour. They have a housekeeper. The house is an architectural wonder, one that compels tourists to stop outside and photograph it at all hours of the day. Into this world enters the next door neighbour, a middle-aged cowboy type named Victor (Daniel Aráoz) who decides to open a giant hole on the dividing wall between their properties so that he can let natural light into that side of his house. Naturally, Leonardo is aghast by this latest development.

Leonardo huffs and puffs around Ana, lawyers, friends etc. about the window being intrusive, since it overlooks his house. It is a clear invasion of privacy. As with most egotistical intellectual types, his resolve crumbles around Victor, but he reverts to his passive-aggressive behaviour in any situation except in an actual confrontation. What, Victor asks, is the problem? He just wants to build a window. Victor sees through Leonardo’s veneer of constant busyness and lets the air out of the balloon of his ego a little at the time, thus irking the latter even more. He invests a lot of himself into this game of intimidation, but what’s really at heart here? (Warning: mild spoilers to follow!)

What the directors try to show is that Leonardo’s most meaningful relationship in this film is with Victor, the villain type who lives next door and does pretty much whatever he wants. Leonardo is perpetually annoyed by Ana’s whining about her clients and admonishes her every time she wants a “peck”. Her response is to tell him off for being a jerk. He tries to communicate with their daughter, but all she does is nod, smile slightly, and look away into the distance. Although the actress playing the daughter is credited, it is essentially a non-speaking part, as people talk at her but she never responds to anyone. The comedy is not about the antagonist next door, but a character study about Leonardo himself.

Cinematically Inclined: Vancouver Latin American Film Festival 2011

For film buffs in Vancouver, every season has at least one or two major film festivals. In the late summer, bridging the gap between the QueerFilm Fest and the major International Film Festival in late September is underrated but no less intriguing Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (VLAFF).

Originally started in 2003 as a vehicle to promote Latin American films, the festival crested the wave of popular Mexican films that gained a global audience at the turn of the millennium, most notably Y Tu Mama Tambien, El Crimen de Padre Amaro and Amores Perros, each of which earned Academy Awards nominations. With Pan’s Labyrinth becoming a major hit a few years later, the emergence of Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Guillermo del Toro on the global stage, and the surprise Oscar win of Argentina’s El Secreto en sus ojos, Latin American film has become a player in world cinema. VLAFF honours this and brings some of the major films of the era into Vancouver.

VLAFF has grown in awareness and stature each year, and has the support of a number of local and national corporate and government sponsors. This year, the list of presenting sponsors and partners include: the City of Vancouver; the BC Council for the Arts; the Province of BC; Scotiabank; the Hamber Foundation, Simon Fraser University (which is also screening a number of films at their many campuses this year); Corona; Smirnoff; Holiday Inn; and the LGBT publication Xtra. Each of the Consulate Generals of Brazil, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela will also take part, as will the tourist ministry of Mexico. A number of other films festivals will also sponsor the event, including the Queer Film Festival, Doxa Documentary Film Festival, Jewish Film Festival and the Al-Jazeera Documentary Channel. As a number of films may touch on human rights issues, Amnesty International have also been announced as a community partner.

VLAFF 2011 will take place from September 1 to September 11, 2011. Films will be played throughout Metro Vancouver, including the following theaters:

• Granville 7 Cinemas
• Pacific Cinematheque
• Roundhouse Community Centre
• SFU Harbour Centre (Downtown)
• SFU Woodward’s / Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
• SFU Burnaby Campus
• PS Production Services 

Please check VLAFF’s website to check on locations and show times. Take note that tickets are $10 per film, but gala presentation tickets will cost $15. As films will be shown unrated, in compliance with local and federal laws, you must purchase a one-time $2 membership in order to see the films. Online ticket purchases can be made here. 

For those wanting an intelligent, exciting alternative to the commercial fare now showing on too many multiplex screens near you, VLAFF is a welcome breath of fresh air. A number of films presented at this year’s festival are summarized after the jump.

Together Again: Janet Jackson’s Number Ones Tour

[Programming note: original article ran June 11, 2011. This piece is running to coincide with the upcoming August 26 concert in Vancouver.)


The Blogger recalls his first-ever concert. On June 9, 1990, he attended Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation Tour. It became, at the time, the highest-grossing debut concert tour of all time. The Blogger didn’t care that he was sitting far in the back and watching Janet storm across the stage as a well-dressed military ant dancer. He didn’t care that production values dwarfed in the unfortunately oversized stadium (there were thousands of seats still available). He was just so darned happy to be there!

The Blogger has had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Jackson (if you’re nasty) live at least three more times since: on the janet. tour in 1994, the All For You Tour in 2001, and 2008’s RockWitChu Tour. Janet remains, Nipplegate or not, his favourite Jackson (sorry Michael). 

Ms. Jackson returned to the road this year for a scaled-down tour supporting her greatest hits double-disc set Number Ones, and showcasing her sets in a more toned-down setting. For those of us who grew up watching Janet dance out from under her brother Michael’s shadow and blaze onto the international stage on her own power, and watch her try to return from the Super Bowl Incident, any occasion to see Janet is a trip down memory lane. Here are five reasons why Janet Jackson still matters.

1. Janet dances her ass off. In an interview with her late, great brother Michael, he took one look at his sister in the 80s when she was heavier and said “lookit that butt!” Yes Michael, we can see it, but not because we’re ridiculing its size: we’re seeing it because she can shake whatever yo’ mama gave her. A Janet Jackson concert is an occasion for the world’s biggest dance party. Like Madonna before her, Janet made her name as a first-class dancer who happened to have a penchant for a great hook and melody. The fact that she has co-written every single one of her hits in her entire career speaks to her passion for the marriage of song and dance, and it’s her words – and therefore her conviction – that compels her to move. It’s guaranteed to make you move, too. 

2. Janet sings all her old hits in concert! Say what you will about her admittedly thin singing voice: Janet doesn’t lip-synch. She doesn’t need a back-up tape of her come-hithers and harmonies for those nights when she doesn’t feel up to it. You can hear every breath in her body and see every bead of sweat when she’s on that stage, and that’s from singing everything. This lady works hard. Janet has a vast array of nearly three dozen global Top Ten singles spanning the last quarter-century (it has been 25 years since her groundbreaking R&B album Control first stormed into the pop world). She understands that her fans have different favourites charting the span of her entire career, and she intends to give them the respect they deserve by singing every last hit, even if she has to blend them into medleys to fit them all in. 

The tour’s set list includes such early singles like “Nasty” and “When I Think of You”; iconic club-stompers like “Escapade” and “Rhythm Nation”; more mature work such as “That’s the Way Love Goes” and “If”; and sing-along favourites like “Together Again” and “Let’s Wait Awhile”. No one goes home from a Janet Jackson concert complaining about the songs she didn’t sing. And this time, with no new material to promote, the show is full of nothing but the hits! Everybody wins! 

Love is King: Sade Live in Vancouver and On Tour

I was warned about attending this show by a close friend who is a major Sade fan. He said “prepare to be taken away. If you have any emotion, bring a tissue”.

Make no mistake that the crowd gathered at Rogers Arena on Saturday, August 13 in Vancouver is not your usual big-arena collective. The crowd skewed older, but testifies to the lasting power of Sade’s sultry sonic output. For those of you whose memories of “vintage” pop music date as far back as Jennifer Lopez’s J. Lo album in 2001: yes, Sade is still a big-name act and one of the few lasting acts in contemporary music. It’s just that their music will never date as badly. Want more proof that people still buy their work? Their last studio album, Soldier of Love, opened at No. 1 in the US last year and sold a million copies. Got it?

That is also not to say that the audience was sedate simply because the vibe was decidedly downbeat before the set started. There was a conspicuous absence of hallucinogenic drugs and no yahoos were dancing around, shrieking drunkenly. None of that is needed, not at a Sade concert. However, the crowd’s benign façade melted away as the house lights were dimmed and the strains of “Soldier of Love” came over the speakers, the audience rose as one to welcome the band. Once Ms. Adu took the stage in a fitted bodysuit showing off a remarkable physique, everyone at Rogers Arena lost their collective minds.

I should clarify that Sade is not just the stunning, alluring singer known as Helen Folasade “Sade” Adu. It is also a collective comprised of founding members Stuart Matthewman, Paul Spencer Denman and Andrew Hale. If you look through the band’s history, their many music industry prizes include a number of Grammys, two of which were awarded to the best vocal performance by … a duo or group. The band is simply named after her and she is the frontwoman for this long-running collective. This is the key to understanding that Sade is a classy outfit and they put on an elegant show. For the purposes of this review, I will refer to Sade Adu the singer as simply “Ms. Adu”. It would be strange to refer to her otherwise as “Helen”, at least within this context.

The first proof that Ms. Adu is a sophisticated lady and that this was a classy affair was right after the opening number, when she addressed the audience by saying that their long absence from the city was not a reflection of how the band felt about Vancouver. She praised how beautiful Lotus Land was, thanked us for coming, and promised us a show. This was at 9:45. To show us that she meant it, we were still screaming for an encore by the time her set ended at 11:45, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The band ripped through an elaborate back catalogue dating back to their debut album, 1984’s Diamond Love. To keep momentum up after the glorious start, the opening strains of “Your Love is King” brought lovers near and far closer together. At one point I thought that there would be a mass exodus of couples from the venue before the show ended, not a reflection of the show’s quality, but a testament to the band’s lasting power to make some of the best baby-making music ever recorded. Adu’s remarkable voice was an instrument so fine it is the equivalent of a 1683 Stradivarius: an extremely rare, classic instrument that only grows finer and achieves greater clarity as time goes by, and deserves the utmost respect.

Cinematically Inclined: Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2011

Now in its 23^rd year, the annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival will commence two weeks after the Pride activities in town, just ahead our own International Film Festival in the early fall (is it that close already?). An annual celebration of film, it is placed strategically after Pride on the social calendar to catch the residual excitement of the Pride events. Featuring works by and for the LGBT community, the festival is one of the largest amongst its kind in North America and features a number of hard-to-find titles that often become festival favourites, but may not necessarily secure distribution deals. It is an opportunity to show these works to a larger audience, one beyond DVD and the late-night HBO rerun schedule.

A number of films are being grouped under different focuses and titles to cater to the more discerning viewer. Younger-oriented films are marketed under the “Fierce and Under 25” category. The neo-New Wave Queer films are grouped under the heading “New Gender-Queer Cinema”, as a throwback to the 80s heyday of filmmakers such as Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Lizzie Borden. There is also the “Celebrate Queer Vancouver” theme which spotlights local history, and a focus on Asian LGBT cinema. For those festival-goers looking for films with a common theme, these focuses help create de facto ready-made themed viewing packages (although tickets to each of these focuses are sold separately). There’s also a tribute to queer director Bruce LaBruce scheduled for the evening of August 14.

Here are some of the noteworthy titles that are playing the VQFF, but take note that it is by no means an exhaustive list:

To Faro (Mein Freund aus Faro)

The opening night gala, this is a cross between Boys Don’t Cry and Fucking Amal, set in Germany, and tells a coming-of-age tale with a transgender twist.

Grown Up Movie Star

A selection from the Sundance Film Festival, this feature tells the tale of a dysfunctional father-daughter dynamic: he is a disgraced, closeted former NHL star, and she’s dangerously rebellious. This is presented as the Centerpiece Gala and is accompanied by a party at The Helm lounge.

Different from Whom? (Diverso Da Chi?)

The closing night gala presentation is an Italian comedy about the efforts of an openly gay human rights activist and a fiercely conservative politician running together for public office to stop the mayor from erecting a wall to encircle and enclose their beloved city.

Going Down in LA-LA Land

Made by the director of last year’s festival favourite Violet Tendencies, this is a romance between an aspiring actor and a famous but closeted TV sitcom star. Hilarity ensues.

Judas Kiss

Starring Saskatchewan native Charlie David, this is the story of a failed film director returning to his hometown to judge a student filmmaking contest and falls in love with one of the contestants. The plotline alone echoes Thom Fitzgerald’s 1997 masterpiece The Hanging Garden.

The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

It may surprise you to learn that there is a secret trade in the country where orphaned youth and young men are acquired for sexual purposes by older businessmen, politicians, and military officials. This bold documentary exposes the hypocrisy of Taliban and post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Close-up: the Chosen Family Portraits at the Museum of Vancouver

I like to think that I spent the summer of 1995 in a Russian country home with my own banya. Sadly, that wasn’t the case, but I came awfully close by spending it reading Anna Karenina as part of my advanced summer reading for an IB English literature class. I was immediately struck by the epitaph Tolstoy uses to open his magnum opus:

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Every family may have its own quirks and dysfunctions, which in and of itself doesn’t make a family unhappy. What makes a family unhappy is the inability to live with those quirks and dysfunctions, forgive transgresses, and accept each other wholly and completely. This is especially true for the queer community.

As the LGBT community is comprised, like all other social groups such as immigrants, political and religious communities, from members of all backgrounds, the concept of community must naturally extend to form a de facto family structure. The idea of family must by necessity lend support, guidance and unconditional love to each of its members.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival, which will be held from August 11 to 21, 2011, recognized this. In 2010, they organized a large-scale art project called “Chosen Family Portraits”. Led by photographer Sarah Race and journalist Sarah Buchanan, the project is a series of photo essays featuring local members of the queer community posing with those they consider their “chosen family” members. These are not their biological family, nor do these subjects by any means reject their blood ties. It is simply a project calling attention to the fact that a lot of queer youth wouldn’t have survived had it not been for the love and support of those nearest and dearest to them. The labours of this project can be seen from August 3 to September 30, 2011 at the Museum of Vancouver. Chosen Family Portraits will also be exhibited as part of the Queer Arts Festival at the Roundhouse Arts and Recreation Centre, from July 26 to August 13. A select number of portraits will be posted on commemorative streetlight posts throughout the city. The project is supported by the City of Vancouver’s 125^th Anniversary, the Arts Partners in Creative Development, and the Government of Canada. Seems this family is getting a lot of love.

The subjects of this project include a number of the Blogger’s close personal friends – gay, straight, bisexual or otherwise – who have gathered the members of their own “chosen families” to pose for the portraits. The one I’m fondest of features a certain bow-tied gentleman, posing with a few of our mutual friends, including his (straight) best friend, who married one of my own long-time friends not too long ago. Everywhere I go, whenever I see the picture on the cover of the festival flier, I stop strangers and tell them about these special people. And I wonder how many of the haters are secretly jealous at how happy our own chosen families are, seeing as we’re all alike. In fact, our families might be just like your own biological kin (the ones who still owe you money for that failed business venture and won’t return your calls).

You will find more information on the exhibit here. There are a few more of the 28 portraits after the jump. (Although I’d love to have participated, the sheet number of my chosen family would have been what they called in old Hollywood movies “crowd scenes” and require a stadium.)

Happy Nation: Ace of Base Concert Review

Vancouver is a town notorious for having some of the least animated concert crowds. A friend went to Beck’s December 2002 performance and even he was disgusted by our collective behaviour, intoning sarcastically, “uh, this is the last song of the night, you can get up and dance, if you want to.”

Thankfully, there was no such sign at the Ace of Base-headlined Outgames Closing Party this past Saturday. There was only The Sign.

The show took place at the Plaza of Nations, located at 750 Pacific Boulevard in downtown Vancouver, across the street from BC Place Stadium, which non-locals will recognize from the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Plaza is an open-air square and concert space, the sort of piazza that one expects for outdoor performances in Europe and the American East Coast but is curiously missing from the West Coast, despite the fact that there’s a lot more land to build. The Plaza is also home to Gossip Nightclub, a fun straight bar that occasionally attracts a good cross-sectional demographic. It’s also the site of the Edgewater Casino and is located directly from the visually stunning Olympic Village housing development across False Creek. The mixture of fiberglass-and-steel structures, offset by the iconic stadium and pleasure cruises and yachts swanning along False Creek, made for a perfect outdoor concert.

The crowd at the Ace of Base show was surprisingly more hetero-friendly than one would expect. Since it’s well-known that nostalgic pop music concerts cater to a predominantly gay audience, it’s always a bit surprising to find throngs of straight girls and a few of their boyfriends at an event like this. Nevertheless, the beautiful thing about Vancouver is that increasingly, people look beyond the “labels” attached to gay-dominant events and bring out locals from different social groups, all in the name of partying. I worked the ticket booth at the event and saw first-hand the crowd heading into the venue. Everyone was in for a good time and the band did not disappoint.

Someone Like Adele

[Originally posted on May 26, 2011. Updated to include new tour dates and venue information.]

The Blogger nearly walked out on a date a few months back. When he professed his love for the music of Adele, whose gloriously bluesy soul has not left his iPod since the start of 2011, his dining companion declared, “Yeah, I can see why you like her. But I think she’s too easy to like, you know?” No, I don’t know. Why should good music be difficult to be appreciated? Sometimes, all you need is a piano and a voice.

British singer Adele finally achieved global domination in 2011. She scored the dual honour of having the Number One album and single in the UK at the exact same time for several weeks earlier this year, a feat achieved by few artists. Her popularity was such that she had two singles in the Top Five at the same time that she achieved two Top Five albums simultaneously, a feat that only she and the Beatles have accomplished. Adele’s current disc 21 entered the American album charts at the summit and her single “Rolling in the Deep” is the reigning Number One hit. See? It’s not too easy to like, is it now?

Adele herself may have underestimated her own appeal in North America. When tickets went on sale for her current tour, there was a small hysterical dervish evidenced by the hordes of Facebook account holders who despaired at not being able to get tickets. Adele is playing the Blogger’s hometown of Vancouver at the Orpheum Theatre on August 9 (rescheduled from the original date of May 31), and tickets were literally sold out in seconds: 180 of them, to be exact, or a scant three minutes. The only show in recent memory to sell out so quickly is the pair of Lauryn Hill shows last May. Despite the move from the intimate Commodore Ballroom to the larger Orpheum, one feels that there was a missed opportunity for the newly-minted global superstar to sell out even larger venues or play over several nights.

But what’s so easy to like about Adele? It’s simple, really: she’s a blue-eyed soul singer, tinged with a hint of blues. Imagine a combination of Dusty Springfield’s grit, Kate Bush’s lush crooning, Bonnie Raitt’s rockabilly groove and Etta James’s growl, simmered to sonic perfection. Now add Lauryn Hill’s wisdom and sensibility to the mix, combined with Amy Winehouse’s wit (although unlike the recently deceased Winehouse, Adele has been clean and sober for years),  and you’ll understand the gift Adele shares with the world.

Beautiful Life: Ace of Base at 2011 North America Outgames

There’s a line in Almost Famous, when Zooey Deschanel’s character says to her un-hip but sweet brother, “don’t worry: one day, you’ll be cool”. Some have claimed 1990s dance band Ace of Base were anything but cool, even if they were the most successful musical act of the planet and sold 20 million records in a single year. It’s rather appropriate then that the group gets to headline the forthcoming North America Outgames Closing Party during Vancouver Pride Week, arguably the single coolest event on the social calendar in Lotusland this summer.

Ace of Base is the brainchild of Swedish singer-songwriter Ulf Ekberg and initially composed of five members, including sisters Jenny and Linn Berggren. Eventually, other members of the band left and the Berggrens' brother Jonas stepped in, forming the most familiar line-up of the group in 1990. Ace of Base first attempted to bring techno-dance sound to the airwaves, but were prevented from major breakout success even in their native Sweden due to the prominence of heavy metal in the early 1990s. Eventually, they broke through with “All That She Wants”, a dub-reggae single that came to represent their signature sound and conquered European pop charts in the fall and spring of 1992-1993.

Ace of Base, the "classic" line-up

The band first emerged on the international music scene in the summer of 1993, when “All That She Wants” appeared in North American clubs after conquering the European charts over the previous three seasons. In a rare feat, and in an era when grunge, New Jack Swing R&B and gangsta rap ruled the airwaves, the dub-reggae-infused dance club single gained significant airplay in the United States and crossed over on the pop, adult contemporary, dance and R&B charts, ultimately peaked at Number Two and selling well over a million copies domestically. Follow-up single “The Sign” gave the band their only US #1 in 1994, but it proved so popular and enduring that Billboard magazine named it the #1 single of the entire year. Parent album The Sign topped the charts as well, and became the year’s best-selling disc.

The band, however, was unable to repeat the same success. Their 1995 follow-up disc The Bridge was a failure on the American charts, peaking at #37 just a year after having the most successful disc in the country. The band quietly reined in their North American efforts, although their cover of Bananarama’s immortal “Cruel Summer” made the Top Ten in 1998 and “Beautiful Life” remains an enduring hit on recurrent radio. Elsewhere in Europe, the band’s success continued through the rest of the decade, even if the Berggren sisters both receded to the background voluntarily before eventually leaving the band. Eventually, they were replaced by Clara Hagman and Julia Williamson, forming the current lineup.

Random Acts of Culture, #1

Tovey and the VSO (source: The Georgia Straight)

It’s often said, at least in North America, that the higher arts are inaccessible to the public due to high ticket prices and the esoteric nature of the material. While the Blogger easily sees the former being a barrier to access, he believes the latter is indefensible. Although many clearly don’t have any affinity for culture, and that’s all well and good, decrying it as being obscure and pouring money into the latest big-budget seizure-inducing Hollywood enterprise or pop star’s juggernaut concert tour while claiming to enjoy “the arts” reeks of sheer laziness.

The Blogger was thrilled yesterday to take part in the City of Vancouver’s 125th anniversary celebrations this past weekend. There were numerous outdoor events such as concerts and public performances meant to collect our citizens together in celebration of our glittering city of glass, still smarting from the ugly Stanley Cup riots of last month. Over the weekend, thousands of people gathered to peacefully partake in public events with minimal or no damage to civic or private property. Citizens were orderly, picked up after themselves at picnics, were generally polite on their cell phones, and there was little to no shoving, pushing, or unruly cattle herd-like behaviour. Who says we’re an unruly mob?

New York City free public concert in Central Park:
most of this, please. Lots more.

In particular, I was thrilled to see tens of thousands of people gathered in Stanley Park’s Brockton Oval to take in a free classical concert performed by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Just when I thought higher culture had all but committed seppuku. Led by Grammy Award-winning conductor and composer Bramwell Tovey, the VSO performed to a rousing but orderly crowd under immaculate blue skies and a blazing yet beautiful sun. This is not unlike the free public concerts that are popular all over Europe, particularly in Vienna, and in the summertime in New York City. Why can’t we have more of these, please? In Vienna, they have free public concerts every weekend in the late spring and summer months. They support their arts enthusiastically. Even if you can’t afford a ticket to see certain plays, the opera house, culture exhibition halls and public parks are equipped with giant video screens in piazzas so that like-minded citizens and tourists can have picnics while watching the performances outdoors, live. And they don’t destroy it afterward, unlike the spoiled brats who defaced the downtown core during the hockey riots. That is how you make culture accessible.

Yesterday’s playlist was filled with instantly recognizable classics:

·     Rossini - William Tell: Overture

·     Strauss - Blue Danube Waltz

·     Baker - Through the Lion's Gate: Mountains

·     Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries

·     Haydn - Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major: I. Moderato

·     Borodin - Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances

·     Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo

·     Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture

The VSO also snuck in a piece by Canadian composer Michael Conway Baker, whose ode to our very own Lion’s Gate Bridge was far more ethereal and sublime than traffic on that bridge ever was or will be. The crowds peacefully took in the immaculate sounds and were transported to a world away, where people could literally waltz to the Blue Danube along the water. In fact, given that there was a large public space to do so, several couples got up and actually waltzed through Strauss’s The Blue Danube, and we were mere feet away from the ocean. Bliss. Given my obsession with German opera, I was thrilled to hear Wagner live.

Mystical Journey: Shpongle on Tour

It seems everyone is a DJ these days. Throw on the latest Britney Spears “song”, stretch it three times the radio edit’s length, and liberally throw in some monotonous autoerotic come-ons. Jack up the speed, throw in a few more beats and be ready to pummel the average clubber into submission. The result is that clubbing is not just tiring, it’s a primal assault on the senses guaranteed to level the hardiest partier.

Thank goodness there are still adventurous electronica artists with Shpongle’s vision and ingenuity.

Formed in 1996 by Simon Posford, British musician and mastermind behind the noted electronic act Hallucinogen, and Raja Ram, co-creator of The Infinity Project and owner Tip Records, Shpongle started life as a downtempo electronica project. Their style has evolved organically from psychedelic conglomeration of analogue and digital sounds into a marriage of western psychedelic trance beats with aboriginal, Indian and Brazilian musical influences. Do not mistake this for now-trendy but faceless “world music” you’ll buy off the counter at your local Starbucks on impulse and play harmlessly at your next dinner party. The problem is that such music has no personality.  Shpongle is anything but that, do not confuse the two.

Posford (left) and Ram (right)

The band’s persona is that of a human face with the eyes layered and superimposed one over the top of the other to create a distinctive mask. One can’t help but be immediately faced with an alternate consciousness that recall both mind-altering psychedelic states and long-forgotten ethnic deities. In other words, unlike so many contemporary electronic artists, Shpongle are intent on giving their music its own multi-sensory signature and creating it organically, rather than building a set of remixes for other artists. This is not your mama’s electronic band, and certainly has a different philosophy than the “mix” that you run to at your local gym.

Posford’s background is unconventional by electronic artist standards. Trained as a sound engineer, Posford’s musical influences include psychedelic 70s rock bands such as Pink Floyd, The Cure and American humourist Bill Hicks. It’s not difficult to see the scale and influence reflected in the Shpongle oeuvre. He went to work as an engineer in the infamous Butterfly Studio in Brixton, under the tutelage of pioneering dance music artist and Killing Joke bassist Martin Glover, better known as Youth. It was here that Posford honed the art of creating psychedelic trance music under the stage name Hallucinogen. Posford then went on to found Twisted Records in 1996, which since has been the home to Shpongle and other boundary-breaking electronic artists such as Ott, Prometheus and Younger Brother.

O, Canada! Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir

O, Canada!

Wherever you are in the world, you might think that the recent very ugly Stanley Cup Finals were representative of my hometown of Vancouver and of Canada in general.

Wipe that condescension and disdain off your face. Have you forgotten that just a year and a half ago, you were fawning over how absolutely glorious our Olympics where? They also took place in Vancouver, you know.

On this Canada Day, I have chosen to honour one of my favourite moments of the 2010 Olympics: the free dance of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the Canadian Olympic ice dance champions.

Because everyone loves a back story, especially for the Olympics, here it is. Tessa and Scott have been skating together since childhood. They were world junior champions in ice dance and debuted spectacularly at the senior level by finishing sixth at the worlds in 2007. They then made the leap to second in 2008, and complimented their silver medal with a bronze the following year. They were one of the contenders for the 2010 Olympics, having won numerous pre-Olympic meets in the 2009/2010 season. They faced stiff competition from their American training partners Meryl Davis & Charlie White, their teammates Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto, and the Russian world champions Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin. This does not include the French, British and Italian couples nipping at their heels.

In the preliminary compulsory dance

By the time of the final free dance, the Canadian Olympic team had collectively taken a bit of a beating. The ambitious “Own the Podium” program was designed with the goal of putting Canada atop the medal rankings with the most medals. It was the midway point of an Olympics darkened by the death of a Georgian luger on the day of the opening ceremony, a lack of snow in what became a record warm winter for the city of Vancouver, and a respectable but unspectacular medal tally for the Canadian team at that point. A rather nasty British journalist sensationally wrote that these Olympics were about to become “the worst ever”, and we were just barely halfway. This was Monday, February 22, 2010.

Then Tessa and Scott took the ice.

Somewhat unexpectedly the leaders going into the free dance, Virtue & Moir were predicted to win a medal, but a lot of prognosticators had forecast silver or bronze for the team, behind the Americans and / or Russians. The country was hungry for a moment to really shine and gain momentum.

What happened next was sheer magic. The clip is below.

I Dream of Dada: Surrealism at the Vancouver Art Gallery

Since May 26, the Vancouver Art Gallery has been showcasing a phenomenal new exhibition for the summer of 2011. This is easily the most exciting collection assembled by VAG since their seminal 2004 Andy Warhol exhibit. Entitled The Colour of My Dreams, this year’s exhibition is a stunning collection of Surrealist art.

For the uninitiated, Surrealism was an aesthetic and philosophical movement that arose in 1920s Paris. French writer André Breton was heavily influenced by the Dadaist belief that excessive rational thought and capitalist bourgeois values had given rise to the First World War. After serving as a military doctor during WWI, Breton and like-minded artists produced writings that, although initially thought as gibberish and nonsense, were actually open-ended and open to interpretation. These were collections of essays published together with like-minded artists in the radical artist journal Litterature. The idea was to create a movement of associated art that rejected what came before it. Breton and his contemporaries called their work “anti-art”.

Use of free association, non-linear thoughts and unusual presentation of ideas was vital to the Surrealist artistic and philosophical conceits. Surrealist art maintained that this presentation of art, heavily reliant on symbolism, imagery and presented in a manner that at first defies logic, is paramount to the aesthetic. The effect is dreamlike, and as such it has its own logic and purpose, one outside of rational thought but open to interpretation. It is no coincidence that Sigmund Freud’s writings, dismissed as obscene just a decade earlier, and the unconscious reflected heavily in the Surrealist movement. It is with these visual arts and writings where much of the Modern Art movement first came to major public attention. Art was, at this point, no longer just pretty pictures and portraits. It is therefore fitting that the exhibition is entitled The Colour of My Dreams.

They’re all here on glorious display, and the list of artists whose works are presented is dizzying: Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy and Joan Miró, amongst others. Edith Rimmington’s famed The Oneiroscopist, a dazzling Mother Whistler interpretation with a monstrous creature dressed in scuba gear, is the appropriate choice for the exhibit’s publicity materials. Why? Because “oneiroscopist” means “one who interprets dreams”, of course.