Latest news with #Nechako
National Observer
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- National Observer
MOVIES: Surprise! There's a very good movie from Marvel this week
Documentaries are big generally these days and in Canada right now specifically as two big festivals overlap. Hot Docs in Toronto is close to winding up this year's run, while DOXA in Vancouver has just started. At Hot Docs you can still catch repeats of the films that were the most popular with the audience, including: Ai Weiwei's reworking of the opera Turandot, Marriage Cops who settle domestic disputes in India, The Last Ambassador who advocates for Afghani woman, Come See Me in the Good Light about one woman dealing with terminal cancer and How Deep Is Your Love (for your planet you might say) as scientists find and study new species in the oceans and worry about deep-sea mining. For DOXA you can see what's playing and when by going here: Bonjour Tristesse: 3 Nechako: 4 Mr. Nobody Against Putin: 3 ½ The Shrouds: 2 ½ THUNDERBOLTS*: That asterisk in the title actually means something. Stick around through the end credits for a clue and watch the entire film for a very enjoyable return to what Marvel movies used to be like. They've gotten repetitive over the years, understandably so because this is the 36 th of them. But this is fresh and breathes new life in several ways. There's a big focus on interpersonal relationships this time. A rag tag group of characters gathered from previous movies and TV off-shoots have to learn to ditch their differences and work together. Not unusual, but they do it with humor and struggle. Character building is deeper than usual. They have regrets over what they've done before, particularly Yelena who was trained as an assassin. She's played by Florence Pugh in a standout performance and even a grand bit of stunt work. That's really her in the opening scene dropping off the second-tallest building on earth. She survives and joins up with these Marvel characters: Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and her dad Red Guardian (David Harbour) because Valentina, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is trying to kill them all. They had worked for her at some point and she has to eliminate evidence to save her job as CIA director. Congress is trying to impeach her because of a secret research business she runs on the side. With her help she figures the characters will just kill each other, except for one extra who shows up ('I'm just Bob') and will turn out to be a key part of the story. He's played by Lewis Pullman and is the focus of a lot of humor as the others try to figure out who this nobody is and why he's there. The story moves along briskly under the direction of Jake Schreier who is a former musician and has directed music videos. There's action, as you'd expect, but not as frequent as before and the story gets room to develop. A couple of giant set pieces are thrilling though, notably a smash-and-crash street scene involving a hammerhead crane, a helicopter, trucks and cars and people running. As a film it's more credible than the usual at Marvel: some bad guy trying to destroy the world or even the universe. (In theaters) 4 out of 5 BONJOUR TRISTESSE: A popular French novel in 1954, a Hollywood movie in 1958, it's back, as evocative as ever but maybe gentler than you might expect. Growing up and coming of age stories are often edgier these days. This one plays relatively easily in the sun and beauty of the south of France while touching on some tough subjects, competition between women being one, alongside the main regard, the maturing of one young woman and her world view. Françoise Sagan was only 18 when she wrote the novel and her view of things struck a chord. Canadian director Durga Chew-Bose depicts it well without modernizing it to give it more edge. You may wish it were harder in tone, although Sagan's own son has endorsed it as true to her vision. Lily McInerny plays Cécile who comes to spend the summer with her father played by Claes Bang. He's a widower but hardly gloomy. His latest lover (Nailia Harzoune) is there with him and two things bring friction into this sunny life. First is the arrival of an old friend of his (Chloë Sevigny), a designer of stylish clothes and therefore a classy individual. She works to maneuver his lover aside but Cécile feels she's displacing her too. She takes up with a boy who lives nearby, who not only seduces her but has eyes on dad's lover too. Cécile acts out, through her mischievous nature and newly-recognized selfish streak. Quite a summer and a keen study of one young woman in this Canada/Germany co-production filmed in France. As one woman says of her 'She is imagining what she looks like to us as practice for when she wants to be seen.' (Select theaters) 3 out of 5 Two documentaries ... NECHAKO: IT WILL BE A BIG RIVER AGAIN: Here's another fine example of the films coming along these days about Indigenous issues here in Canada, by Indigenous filmmakers. Lyana Patrick is from the Stellat'en First Nation (which is about in the middle of British Columbia). She lives in Vancouver but went back to document the long fight that has gone on about the Nechako River. It has been her peoples' main source of food (salmon) but an aluminum smelter built over near the Pacific Coast harmed it immensely. Its flow was reversed in part to supply a power dam. 'Wasteland' was turned 'into an industrial empire' says a newsreel clip. The people saw it differently. Water was severely reduced where the salmon bred and their numbers plummeted. Land elsewhere flooded, roads were built and other industries moved in. One person in the film described the 'cumulative effect of all this progress' as 'heaping evil on top of evil.' But they couldn't go to court to fight the company, Rio Tinto Aluminium, now Rio Tinto Alcan. In the 1950s it was illegal for them to hire a lawyer and sue. Recently they did get to court. They argued how important the river is to them. As one person in the film says 'Our people were the healthiest, the strongest the most resilient.' They wanted the water restored because as we can see in the film a lot of the salmon grounds are now dry and wildlife trails have been broken up. The court said don't blame the company; two levels of government let them do it. That was appealed and there's a tense scene as people wait to hear the result. In their mind, the case is still not over. We hear much about their pride and resolve. 'We survive everything and come back home,' says one in this very well-made film. (DOXA Film Festival) 4 out of 5 MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN: Here's a nervy but also very informative look inside Russia and tangentially at the effects there of Mr. Putin's war on Ukraine. Officially it's a 'special military operation' remember. Schools were ordered to refer it that way and to indoctrinate the children with official information about it. That Ukraine is run by radicals, nationalists and neo-Nazis. That Crimea 'joined' Russia willingly. And so on. Teachers were ordered in a 'New Federal Patriotic Education Policy' to have the children sing songs, write poems and send letters to support the war. 'Commanders don't win wars,' we see Putin say. 'Teachers win wars.' Not so, says Pasha, a teacher in the industrially-scarred city of Karabash. It's been named as one of the most toxic places on earth but that's not the key thing here: it's Pasha's need to fight back against the intrusion on his freedom to teach. He starts photographing all on his cell phone, including cute children reciting propaganda, marching patriotically and singing loudly. Then when more young men are called up, their training and even hair cuts. And his own thoughts spoken right into the camera: that Putin's war is not for Communism but for his own power. And to the young recruits he recalls national heroes and says 'maybe one day you can be a dead soldier too.' We get his passion, a good view of how the regime exerts power and how Pasha's material got out. It's a Danish-Czech co-production directed by David Borenstein and won a big award at the Sundance Film Festival. Here, it's at both DOXA and Hot Docs. 3½ out of 5 THE SHROUDS: Here's a very odd take on the subject of grief. It's from David Cronenberg, one of our most celebrated filmmakers, and was apparently driven by his grief over the loss of his wife. But what a weird response it is. A businessman played by Vincent Cassel invents a video system that allows a person to look inside a grave and still feel close to a lost loved one. You check in now and then and see the stages of the body's decomposition. The cemetery has terminals across its whole area. Cassell's wife is played by Diane Kruger and thankfully we see much more of her alive in flashbacks than decaying in her grave. Still the idea is creepy. It reminds of a similar technology imagined by Cronenberg in his early film Videodrome but here he holds back the body horror excess he's known for and concentrates on grief. Kruger also plays a sister and Guy Pearce plays a computer hacker. The film drifts off-topic into conspiracy and ecology matters thereby creating a jumbled narrative. It plays very slowly and lets your mind wander. To him it's personal. Not, I imagine, to a lot of people. (In theaters, for a week already) 2 ½ out of 5
Vancouver Sun
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Vancouver Sun
5 features to watch at this year's DOXA documentary film festival
Article content In a world full of siloed mentalities, the need for content that expands our view is more important than ever. Article content Here in Vancouver, the long-running DOXA Documentary Film Festival, on May 1-11, sets out to offer a wide range of viewpoints. This year's festival slate includes 39 feature films and 30 shorts and mid-length films representing 30-plus countries. There are 28 Canadian films in the program, 13 of which are features. Of the total films, 11 are world premieres, six are North American premieres and five are Canadian premieres. Article content Article content 'We just turn on our TV, and it looks like we're in a time (where) media and larger forms of information is just coming from zones of power and money,' said Marianne Thodas, programming and industry manager for DOXA. Article content Article content 'Whoever has money has the ability to kind of transfer media. Something that's nice about our documentary festival is that we're able to intersect that zone and that way of information and highlight smaller stories, highlight local stories, highlight zones that have less money, but are still political stories that deserve to be heard. Article content ' Documentary festivals are really important right now. It's a way for people to get information that they don't normally have access to,' added Thodas. Article content 'I think our times, and what has happened in the last couple of months, have showed us that resistance and resilience is something that should always guide us because nothing that we are gaining, in terms of social rights or in terms of rights for minorities, is ever secured,' said Arnaud Menindes, DOXA's managing director. Article content Article content One of the films that fits this theme is B.C. filmmaker Lyana Patrick's Nechako: It Will be a Big River Again. Making its world premiere at DOXA, Nechako follows the Sai'kuz and Stellat'en First Nations as they fight to bring back the Nechako River after its damming 70 years ago. Article content Article content Article content Completed in 1954, the Kenney Dam created the Nechako reservoir and power for Rio Tinto's smelter in Kitimat. Seventy per cent of the Nechako River was diverted into the reservoir, severely impacting the lives of local First Nations who rely on the Nechako watershed for fishing and sustenance. For decades, First Nations in the area have been engaged in resistance and legal actions against the Canadian federal and provincial governments and Rio Tinto Alcan. Article content Part of DOXA's Justice Forum programming, Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again has two screenings. First up is May 5 at 2 p.m. at SFU's Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre. After this screening there will be a presentation with the director and First Nations members. The film will be screened again on May 3 at 5 p.m. at the VIFF Centre.
