Hot Docs Ends (and I'm still sick of popcorn)

I'm taking a break from all the reviews I've been writing - diligently, like some kind of blog hero - to write my impressions of the 2007 Hot Docs festival. I saw nine screenings this year, and this was my fifth year as a festival attendee. I appreciate all the hard work that goes into planning a festival of this magnitude (largest doc festival in North America), but in the interest of honest feedback I offer the following thoughts. Here's what I think could improve, and what should stay the same:

- Perhaps it's time to exclusively book big venues. I like the Bloor, and thank God the Royal has reopened, but please tell me what's up with the Al Green theatre. I thought it would be a really soulful, funky venue named after Love and Happiness Al Green. Instead, I think it was named after the guy who owns my apartment complex. (This has been proven wrong. This Al Green is actually a Toronto area sculptor and philanthropist). The venue is smaller and the screen is twenty feet away from the front seats. The worst part, however, is the seat construction. All the seats are connected on a bleacher like structure. Everytime someone goes to the bathroom their descent down the stairs shakes your row and creates a lot of noise. It's pretty distracting when you're trying (desperately) to stay interested in Village of Socks.

The Two "Al Green"s. Brothers from different mothers?

- It's great to see the Royal open again, but what's with these concession prices? Seven dollars for popcorn and soda? Whoa there. If I wanted to pay ridiculous prices for sugar, salt and corn I'd go to the multiplex and see Spiderman. Royal's seats are pretty wicked though. I love the slight springing action.

- People's choice ballots are printed on the back of your ticket! Great idea. Good for the environment and easy to use.

- Here's an ad you see before every single Hot Docs screening: Guy sits in empty theatre eating popcorn and watching movie. You hear the movie audio of a mosquito, a cow mooing, and then a woman screaming. Guy's head explodes into bad CGI goo. Cue the caption, "Vote for the movie that BLOWS YOUR MIND". Then (finally, thankfully) the ad is over. Now, first of all what kind of documentary is this guy watching with cows and women screaming? Secondly, if my head exploded it wouldn't look anything like that. Finally, isn't this the 27th year this never-funny ad has been forced upon us? If we promise to vote will you please stop making us watch this with every screening? By the end of the festival I was really tired of watching that guy's head explode. Really tired.

- Jewish Film Festival, where were you? I was looking forward to a pickle on a stick while I waited in line. That was the best marketing gimmick I've ever seen - and so delicious!


- I missed not having a guest director with a retrospective and evening discussion. Hot Docs is where I got to see Errol Morris explain why his monkeys-eating-oatmeal commercial was the best thing he's ever done. Last year Werner Herzog made me love him all over again when he introduced My Best Fiend as "my most tragic film and my most hilarious film". I know this year there was a documentary panel discussion, but that wasn't announced until after I had already picked films and settled on a schedule. It was such a treat to see a master film maker's lesser known (and hardly ever screened) work. I hope this was a temporary substitution and next year we'll see a return to retrospectives. Hell, bring back Herzog and I'd be happy.

Werner Herzog pals around with Klaus Kinski in My Best Fiend

Finally, a big thank you to the always cheerful volunteers who helped me find seats and washrooms. Thank you to the programmers for shifting through thousands of entries to come up with their impressive selection, and a huge thank you to Hot Docs powers-that-be for keeping ticket prices affordable. I recommend this festival to anyone that will listen, but obviously it's doing well even without my awesome power over public opinion. I look forward to another season of Doc Soup starting in the fall, and Hot Docs 2008!

Citizen Sam Review

Citizen Sam
(Canada, directed by Joe Moulins)

Citizen Sam is a verite style documentary about quadriplegic Mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan and his bid to become mayor of Vancouver, BC. The film follows Sullivan's whole campaign journey from unsteady start, to frustrating setbacks, to victorious conclusion. In another director's hands Sullivan's disability may have been the basis of a sugary, violin scored, "underdog does good" story. Thankfully, neither Joe Moulins' direction nor Sam Sullivan's character allows the film to devolve into sentimental tripe. Sam Sullivan is first and foremost a politician with a fiery determination to win an election. He has right wing views and an almost Machiavellian glee about vanquishing his enemies. He is smart about whom he courts (speaking Cantonese and Mandarin really helps), and he glad hands and follows the interview circuit with the best of them. I admired the film's ability to be both keen political observation and developed character study. Sam Sullivan is not your average politician in more ways than one.

"I like the fact that people underestimate me. They pat me on the head and then I rip their throat out." - Sam Sullivan, Mayor with an attitude

The realities of Sullivan's disability are not ignored, nor are they always comfortable to watch. Brushing his teeth, dressing for work, even taking a bath all become intimate scenes from Sullivan's life that the camera records with patient passivity. The film avoids any spoken comment on Sullivan's disability in favour of showing its role in how Sullivan performs day to day tasks. This objectivity makes the disability understood without feeling manipulative or preachy. Over all the bumps along the campaign trail Sullivan also keeps a video diary. In his entries we see a side of politics rarely revealed as Sullivan speaks honestly about his struggles with panic, anger, frustration and simple lack of confidence. It's fascinating to watch a politician speak openly about the lure and danger of power. The film perhaps does a disservice to Sullivan's political opponent Jim Green, who spends much of the film ducking out of interviews and avoiding eye contact. After the screening, director Joe Moulins said that Green was not a bad guy, but rather had the unenviable task of attacking "the guy in the chair". It also doesn't help that Green looks like some kind of 1930s mob boss. Still, Citizen Sam would have been a stronger political study if they had offered an interview with Green to balance the political representation.

Citizen Sam is an inspiring film, and I mean that sincerely and without my usual sarcasm. I didn't feel sorry for Sam Sullivan and I'm not even sure I would vote for him. I did, however, find the love between him and his partner emotionally resonant and affecting. I found Sam Sullivan's determination and drive admirable, and his emotional conflicts honest. The last segment of the film will stay with me long after the screening, and needless to say it made me very proud to be a Canadian. The film is simply but effectively directed, with accolades to editor Carmen Pollard who transformed hundreds of hours of footage into a smartly paced political story with effective highs and lows. Citizen Sam is an NFB production. It will be airing on the CBC and I would highly recommend it. 4.5 out of 5

Village of Socks Review

Village of Socks
(Romania/Germany, directed by Ileana Stanculescu)

Every year at Hot Docs I see a film or two from another part of the world. Sure, I like North American films as much as the next girl, but you don't feel like you've truly appreciated a documentary festival until you've seen a slice of life from somewhere far away. This year (2007), Hot Docs focused their "International" titles on Central and Eastern Europe. Village of Socks, a slow moving observational documentary about the remote Transylvanian village of Viscri fits the bill.

If you like films about cows walking through muddy streets, starkly beautiful hillsides or watching women knit then do I have a movie for you. Village of Socks explores a remote town where economic recession and inclusion in the European Union has left residents unable to modernize and without sustainable income. Enter a German musician who moves into the town and sets up a sock knitting business. Everyday all the women and girls in the village pull out their wool (sheared from their own sheep) and knit clothing to sell at the local tourist gift shop and in stores across Europe. As the women knit they trade barbs about proper stitch count, useless husbands, and the nagging problem of late paycheques. Director Ileana Stanculescu keeps a very patient camera on all the members of the community. From unemployed husbands and lost sons, abrasive nurses and a German woman who exalts the beauty of the region, Stanculescu is complete enough in her representation you feel like you have lived in the village yourself.

Village of Socks is definitely not for everyone but it does reward the viewer who can settle down and watch one camera interviews and logical but slow paced editing. Sometimes Stanculescu overestimates her footage and holds scenes for longer than the audience enjoys (prompting greater than average incidents of watch checking during the screening). The larger topics of female empowerment and globalization are the elephants in the room and never addressed directly. After some documentaries where I was told what the think and feel with the obvious cues of a newscast, I appreciate Village of Socks for its simplicity and quiet beauty. It didn't rock my world, but who goes to a film called "Village of Socks" expecting to be blown out of their seat? 3 out of 5

**I just realized I could have fit in something about "knocking my socks off" but I guess I'll spare you the bad pun. "Sock it to me", and prodigious use of the word "darn" would have also worked. Good thing I don't have time to rewrite this review.