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Penguins, Fireflies, Sunset, and Burning


Thank you Air Canada!  Two recent Ottawa-Calgary and return flights allowed me to watch several highly anticipated movies yet to screen in Ottawa—from South Korea Burning, and from Quebec The Fireflies are Gone.  A small seatback screen to be sure, but welcome given the months of waiting since I missed both at last September’s Toronto film festival. First, however, a look at the latest nature story from Disneynature that I took my brother Roger to see a week ago Earth Day while in Saskatoon for a successful April 24 launch of my film book at the McNally Robinson store.
For over a decade Disney Nature has been releasing animal stories around Earth Day. This one, helmed by Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson, is the 13th and focuses on the adventures of a pint-sized Adélie penguin it names “Steve”.  We can be amused by the typical two-footed penguin waddle on land and ice compared to their speedy ocean diving and porpoising across the waves. Steve finds a mate “Adeline” and they raise a pair of fluffy chicks on a rocky nest. The narration by Ed Helms is in the cute and corny kid-friendly vein, although mention is made of predatory threats from skuas in the sky and leopard seals in the deep. There’s some insight into penguin behavior; just don’t expect an in-depth picture. Only one other of the 17 penguin species, the Emperors, makes even a brief appearance. Challenges such as climate change are not addressed. That said, the cinematography is certainly impressive, with the closing credits giving an indication of the technical efforts involved. B
Sébastien Pilote has emerged as one of Quebec’s finest young directors and unlike the films of Xavier Dolan, his subjects often include forgotten places and people far from the fashionably urban and hip. The setting is a former mill town on a bay where the major employer has closed down leaving a legacy of hard times and hard feelings. That includes the relationship between the divorced father Sylvain (Luc Picard) of the central character Léonie (Karelle Tremblay), an aimless disaffected high-school senior, and her stepdad Paul (François Papineau), an anti-union talk-radio host whom she can’t stand.  Léo sees Sylvain only infrequently when he’s back from fly-in work up north. After a summer job in a nuns’ residence kitchen falls through, she meets another loner Steve (Pierre-Luc Brillant), a gifted musician who lives in the basement of his ailing mother’s house.  They bond enough for her to start taking guitar lessons from him.  Though, as she says about everything, including a part-time job she manages to get at a sports field, she always quits after a month. Steve at least, in his gentle way, manages to get past Leo’s shrugging negative attitude and low expectations.
            Awarded best Canadian feature at the 2018 Toronto film festival, see it especially for the remarkable naturalism of the performances. And if the story’s direction isn’t exactly happy or content, it ends on a hopeful nighttime grace note that belies the title.  A-
Sunset (Hungary/France https://www.sonyclassics.com/sunset/)
Hungarian director László Nemes gained global attention in 2015 when his harrowing debut feature Son of Saul, set during the Holocaust, earned the Cannes film festival’s grand prix and later the Oscar for best foreign-language film. This haunting historical drama, winner of the FIPRECI prize at the Venice festival where it premiered last September, takes place in Budapest in the year before the outbreak of the First World War. The camera again focuses tightly on the figure of a central character, Írisz Leiter (an excellent Juli Jakab), orphaned after her parents, owners of a renowned hat shop, died in a fire. Returning to the city, and the shop that still carries the Leiter name, she discovers the existence of a dangerous brother she never knew—the wanted assassin of a nobleman; gone underground.  As the sun is setting on the Austro-Hungarian empire and its opulent frivolities, Írisz seeks answers, becoming caught up in a swirl of events, secret intrigues, and bloody attacks on the fashionable bourgeoisie. She will need her wits to be a survivor of this society edging closer to the precipice of a cataclysmic war that will destroy its illusions. A whiff of anarchy and decay wafts over the aristocratic pretensions. As Írisz faces each situation we’re drawn into the fever dream of a world about to implode.  A-   
Burning (South Korea https://www.burning-movie.com/)
Director Chang-Dong Lee’s latest feature has picked up numerous awards since it premiered at the 2018 Cannes film festival where it won the FIPRESCI prize.  Adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story, the central character Lee Jong-su (Ah-in Yoo) is an aimless young deliveryman who takes up with an attractive young woman Shin Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jun) he had known but been unkind to years ago in his hometown. She asks favors of him while away on an African trip (such as looking after a never-seen cat). But following her return a new wealthy male companion Ben (Steven Yeun) appears on the scene, one who brags of incendiary vandalism to derelict greenhouses. Is Hae-mi playing a game with Jong-su as she recalls a childhood trauma? Slowly, surely, a triangle of uneasy emotional entanglements smoulders until catching fire in a scorching climax. A-



      

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