Fortescue Release Day

 I was trying to think of why I like Fortescue so much: it’s the story of two young women in Ontario cottage country trying to get a play off the ground, when one of their boyfriend’s show up and shake things up. That’s just the plot, which should be enticing enough, because it’s really well done. But there’s more to it than that.

For anyone who has been following the films of Rebeccah Love there’s such an intense satisfaction of finally seeing her first feature-length film after almost a decade of shorts. 

I think it was Brecht that spoke of the fragment, the self-contained miniature, different then say a draft or unsatisfactory short. Love’s work is full of these fragments, small artworks in themselves that shine much brighter than their size.

I think Fortescue is best described as a kaleidoscope: a small optical device that when you turn you see all of these beautiful shifting colours and shapes. It’s almost like a diamond: shiny and reflective, but there’s also something about it that’s imperfect, almost as if this diamond was cracked, not idealistic. Fortescue takes on such dark energy, trouble, and conflict.

Even in this remote Haliburton setting, in the middle of summer, with all of these beautiful people, the violence of the world still has a way to infiltrate it.

There’s this dichotomy of such beautiful images and such pain that makes Love work so raw, meaningful, and vital.

And it’s on full display here as equally it was on everything done prior.

There are hundreds of thousands of films out there, but there’s only one Rebeccah Love feature, Fortescue. And that’s why we need to love it.

I’ll be moderating the q&a with Love and her actors tonight after the 6:30PM screening at the Carlton.

Fortescue at the Carlton (July 24-25-26)

 I’m happy to announce that I’ll me moderating a panel discussion with Rebeccah Love and part of the cast of Fortescue at its Thursday, July 24^th screening at its Carlton Cinema screening (6:30PM). 

After its premiere at the Forest City Film Festival in the Fall and then a tour of Canada before finally having its Toronto premiere in June at Future of Film, these three screenings are a perfect opportunity for local audiences to come check out the film.

It’s a perfect summer film: Set in Haliburton, two best-friends, Lea (Kelsey Falconer) and Gabby (Chelsea Preston), one an actress and the other a playwright, idle in the sun, hang out by the water, meet neighbours and friends, rehearse, and one of their boyfriends, Kevin (Tyson Coady), even drops by.

Under the omnipresent heat, tensions of a crowded cottage, and stress over whether her new play will be a success things start to go awry for the three, and Lea’s past mental health problems slowly resurface.

By one of my favourite Canadian directors, it’s so great to finally discover her first feature-length film in her own city. I can’t recommend Fortescue enough!

Jean-Marc Vallée at Centre PHI

If you’re in Montreal this summer and you’re a movie buff, there is a great multimedia exhibit and sound-journey to check out at the Centre PHI in Old Montreal on Jean-Marc Vallée (extended until July 6 and takes around an hour to go through). This is his first homage exhibit, after his death in winter 2021. The exhibit was organized by the gallery’s founder and director Phoebe Greene and Sylvain Dumais, working closely with Vallée’s son Alex.

It’s appropriately entitled “Mixtape” as music has always been at the heart of Vallée work and life. One can think of the famous scene of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” in C.R.A.Z.Y (2005) or the iconic selection of Michael Kiwanuka’s “Cold Little Heart” in Big Little Lies (2017). There’s also a remarkable anecdote about his dad being a radio host. 

The exhibit is divided into four principal rooms. The first room has his son Alex Vallée recollecting on his relationship to his father and music. Two more rooms let you hear stories about his work; one with ten booths to listen to audio commentaries on him by peers accompanied by famous songs from his films, and another dark room, where you can sit on beanbags, and listen to more testimonies. One room presents some of his earliest short films such as Les fleurs magiques (1995) and Les mots magiques (1998). These films are also available to watch in a bigger room at the end of the exhibit. Actor Marc-André Grondin makes the argument that his whole cinema is encapsulated in these earlier works.

Vallée was a rather private filmmaker and did not reveal much about himself in interviews. This exhibit opens his personal life up somewhat. For example, we hear Vallée speak of how it was only when he became a father that he started to invest more of himself into his filmmaking. 

To hear his son talk about their relationship you can really feel that love, impact and how music was at the center of this. In this first room, there’s a mashup of samples from his scores and clips, that seems hand selected by his son and seems especially resonant for Vallée, who always said, “I don’t try to hide it, there’s always a little autobiographical trait in my films, that tries to express how I feel.” The
re’s also a maquette of his childhood Rosemont home.

The early short-films also especially resonant – especially as they’ve never been distributed on home-video before – to understand his troubled childhood, which pushed him towards music, which he said made him dream and imagine a more exciting world then the one that he was living in.

In this period, Sinéad O’Connor was a big influence, and so was Led Zeppelin. Through the commentary, we learn of Vallée’s failed attempt to get the rights to the latter’s “Stairway to Heaven” for Café de flore (2011). His music supervisor, Susan Jacobs, recalled how after getting the rights to one of Led Zep’s songs for Sharp Objects (2018), Vallée told her that at a younger age the band’s music helped him find meaning in his life. 

Audio commentaries let you listen to famous actors like Vanessa Paradis, Evelyne Brochu, Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, and Laura Dern speak about his life and work. Stories from Denis Babin from his inner circle, friend Marie-Julie Dallaire, producer Pierre Evan, cinematographer Yves Bélanger and compatriot Denis Villeneuve were especially insightful. All contributors spoke very highly of him.

Paradis said that Vallée was a fascinating figure on set and would act out scenes to help inspire everyone to bring out their best work. Witherspoon spoke about her cellphone videos of him singing during his famous karaoke sessions while filming Big Little Lies which you can watch at the end of exhibit. Laura Dern, in her commentary, spoke reverently of him saying that they had a “master plan” to work together for the rest of their lives. It is both extremely touching and heart-breaking.

Hauntingly, after hearing about his obsessive work writing the script to his John Lennon and Yoko Ono biopic, you hear his last remaining voicemail, telling a friend he was going to go to his new house in Quebec’s countryside, which must have been shortly before he died at age 58 of a heart attack.

I take great pride in Canadian cinema that we had one of the greatest working directors and that he lived in Montreal. This exhibit is a fitting tribute. And make sure to leave with a link to the Spotify playlist so that you can take part of it home.

Best Canadian Cinema (Rebeccah Love)

As a Canadian cinephile, I think, the three greatest directors that best showcase the originality and novelty of Canadian cinema are Jean-Marc Vallée, Matt Johnson and Rebeccah Love.

Perhaps, they are not necessarily all internationally well-known, and in particular, Rebeccah Love, for now, perhaps a more confidential filmmaker, but after her debut feature film Fortescue had its world premiere at the London Film Festival in 2024, the film is now travelling across Canada, at first going to the West Coast and then going to the East, before it finally plays in Toronto in the spring.

I’ve only written two film reviews in 2024: one for Nicole Dorsey’s Balestra and the other one for Love’s Fortescue.

But inspired by our Canadian hockey team win against the United States this week, and in face of a certain rise of intolerance towards our country, I’m feeling a bit more patriotic than usual and I just wanted to reiterate that the one filmmaker who is doing the most to honour this country cinematographically is Rebeccah Love and in particular, if you can, see her first feature film Fortescue.

It is a must-watch film and the responses that it has been getting so far are incredible.

Top Ten Films of 2024

David Davidson

- Fortescue (Rebeccah Love)

- Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” (Jean-Luc Godard, Fabrice Aragno, Jean-Paul Battaggia)

- 2024 Summer Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony (Thomas Jolly)

- Balestra (Nicole Dorsey)

- Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski)

- Une langue universelle (Matthew Rankin)

- Rumours (Guy Maddin, Galen and Evan Johnson)

- Bike (Terrance Odette)

- Juror nº 2 (Clint Eastwood)

- Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

Honourable Mentions: Madame Web (S.J. Clarkson), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Tim Burton), Priscilla (Sofia Coppola), Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola), C’est pas moi (Leos Carax), Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi).

The New Toronto Bizarre filmmakers: Braden Sitter Sr. (The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man) and Nate Wilson (The All Golden).

Candice Beaith Davidson

- The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

- Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

- Carry-On (Jaume Collet-Serra)

- Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann)

- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)

- The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi) 

- Fortescue (Rebeccah Love)

- Anora (Sean Baker)

- Gladiator II (Ridley Scott)

- Wicked (Jon M. Chu)

 

Gilles Lyon-Caen

- Aimer perdre (Harpo and Lenny Guit) 

- Speak no evil (James Watkins) 

- The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

- C’est pas moi (Leos Carax)

- Los delincuentes (Rodrigo Moreno) 

- Le Roman de Jim (Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu)

- Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos) 

- September Says (Ariane Labed) 

- Le Royaume (Julien Colonna) 

- Un amore (Isabel Coixet)

 

Marcus Pinn

- Eureka (Lisandro Alonso) 

- Coreys (Dan Streit) 

- Rap World (Danny Scharar, Conner O'Malley) 

- Hard Truths (Mike Leigh) 

- Janet Planet (Annie Baker) 

- L'Empire (Bruno Dumont) 

- One More Shot (James Nunn) 

- The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

- Rumours (Guy Maddin, Galen and Evan Johnson) 

- The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)  

Great movies from 2023 that I didn’t see until this year: Perfect Days (Wim Wenders), Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki).  

Honourable mention: I Saw The TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun), Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass), Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier), Lost In The Night (Amat Escalante), Transformers One (Josh Cooley), Dahomey (Mati Diop).  

Special mention - I didn't like it but I respect it: In A Violent Nature (Chris Nash).

 

Nicolas Rioult

- La porta del cielo (Vittorio de Sica, 1945)

- Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)  

- The Strangers: Chapter 1 (Renny Harlin)

- Emmanuelle (Audrey Diwan)

- Spider Labyrinth (Gianfranco Giagni, 1988)

- Madame Web (S.J. Clarkson)  

- Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” (Jean-Luc Godard, Fabrice Aragno, Jean-Paul Battaggia)

- Smile 2 (Parker Finn)  

- Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

- 8e Étage (Louis Seguin)  

- Épidermique (Jean-Baptiste Herment)

- The Primevals (David Allen)

 

Mitchell Greenberg

- Serwis (Michał Edelman)

- XXL (Sawandi Groskind, Kim Ekberg)

- Mawtini (Tabarak Allah Abbas)

- Amos, Vogel (Iñaki S. G. Miranda)

- Steppenwolf (Adilkhan Yerzhanov) 

- Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)

- The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)

- The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

- Dealer (Alfio Foti)

- Une langue universelle (Matthew Rankin)

- Ruby, Alia, Ritchy (Mika Baudoux)

- The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (Braden Sitter Sr.)

 

Patrick Devitt

- Baby Blue Benzo (Sara Cwynar)

- Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)

- The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar)

- The Plough (Philippe Garrel)

- Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)

- Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)

- Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)

- Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)

- Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)

- Spectateurs ! (Arnaud Desplechin)

- L’Empire (Bruno Dumont)

- Seven Veils (Atom Egoyan)

- The Palace (Roman Polanski)

- South Park: The End of Obesity (Trey Parker)

- Dedication: Bernice Hodges (Robert Beavers)

- The Dynasty: New England Patriots (Matthew Hamachek)

- The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

- His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs)

- Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)

- A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo)

- The Human Surge 3 (Eduardo Williams)

- Hit Man (Richard Linklater)

- Juror nº 2 (Clint Eastwood)

- Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino)

- The Sparrow in the Chimney (Ramon Zürcher)

- Ce n’est qu’un au revoir (Guillaume Brac)

- Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)  

- Les Gens d’à côté (André Téchiné)

- The Night Visitors (Michael Gitlin)

- The Periphery of the Base (Zhou Tao)

 

Paolo Kagaoan

- Drag Race Philippines – Season 3: Snatch Game (Arnel Natividad, Jennie Uy)

- The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Benjamin Ree) 

- Daughters (Angela Patton, Natalie Rae) 

- Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot)

- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: RFK Jr. (Paul Pennolino) 

- Dìdi (Sean Wang) 

- All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)

- The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)

- Shōgun (Jonathan van Tulleken, Charlotte Brandstrom, Frederick E.O. Toye) 

- Bluey: The Sign (Joe Brumm, Richard Jeffry) 

- The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders) 

- Anora (Sean Baker)  

Throwback of the year: Son of the White Mare (Marcell Jankovics).

Movies I still have to see: Ghostlight (Alex Thompson, Kelly O’Sullivan), Conclave (Edward Berger), My Old Ass(Megan Park).

 

Michael Sooriyakumaran

- Anora (Sean Baker)

- Archipelago of Earthen Bones – to Bunya (Malena Szlam)

- Being John Smith (John Smith) 

- Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)

- Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke)

- Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

- Scénarios (Jean-Luc Godard)

Ryan Krahn

- Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” (Jean-Luc Godard, Fabrice Aragno, Jean-Paul Battaggia)

- Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari) 

- Drama 1882 (Wael Shawky) 

- Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie) 

- Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath) 

- Exergue – on documenta 14 (Dimitris Ethyridis) 

- Scénarios (Jean-Luc Godard) 

- The Damned (Roberto Minervini) 

- Việt and Nam (Truong Minh Quy) 

- Scorched Earth (Thomas Arslan)

Sean Patrick Kelly

1. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet) 

2. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

3. Yintah (Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano) 

4. The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal (Mike Downie) 

5. Riddle of Fire (Weston Razooli) 

6. Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot) 

7. Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar) 

8. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis) 

9. This Is Going to Be Big (Thomas Charles Hyland) 

10. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)

Neil Bahadur

1. Caught By The Tides (Jia Zhangke, China)  

2. Scenarios (Jean-Luc Godard, France)  

3. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada/France)  

4. Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver (Director’s Cut) by (Zack Snyder, USA)  

5. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, Spain)  

6. Queer (Luca Guadagnino, UK/Italy)  

7. Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan)  

8. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, USA)  

9. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, USA/Australia)  

10. Ren Faire (Lance Oppenheim, USA)  

11. Blitz (Steve McQueen, UK)  

12. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, USA)  

13. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, USA)  

14. All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia, India)  

15. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal)  

16. Dune Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, USA/Canada)  

Kurt Walker

1. Here (Robert Zemeckis) 

2. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood) 

3. Le grand chariot (Philippe Garrel) 

4. Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) 

5. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) 

6. Best Secret Place (Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel) 

7. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang) 

8. Between the Temples (Nathan Silver) 

9. Youth (Homecoming) (Wang Bing) 

10. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Mark Cira 

1. Dune (Denis Villeneuve) 

2. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino) 

3. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

4. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)  

5. Queer (Luca Guadagnino) 

6. All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)  

7. Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski) 

8. Rap World (Danny Scharar, Conner O’Malley) 

9. Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen) 

10. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)

Fortescue

One of the biggest cinephile pleasures of living in Toronto these past ten years was to follow the oeuvre of local filmmaker Rebeccah Love. From Drawing Duncan Palmer (2016) all of the way through Acres (2017), A Woman’s Block (2018), Ripe (2019), Parlour Palm (2020), Eve Parade (2022) and now Fortescue (2024), Love is proving to not only be one of the most interesting Toronto filmmakers but the most interesting one, I think. 

Sometimes described as the Emily Dickinson of Rosedale, Love’s work, which has resisted institutionalization, seems to be at the margins of the city’s film scene’s preoccupation as it deals with the intimate and the autobiographical, the intersection of art practices and mental illness. 

All the while never staid or didactic, Love’s work, which seems instinctual through her work with actors and sensuous when it comes to cinematography, benefits from cultural influences that extend far beyond cinema, whether it is literature, painting and theatre. 

(Love’s great blog Toronto Arts Report shows that she’s adept in following these developments too). 

I forget what philosopher it was that brought up the distinction between the fragment and the draft or sketch, but Love’s work leans more towards the fragment. In a body of work up to now filled with six official short-films and a feature-length film, and many other more confidential films, along with more confessional writing and unrealized screenplays, photography and illustration, there is almost the quality of a sparkling jewel to everything that Love does. As if these fragments were shards of a diamond broken off a greater one – rough and brilliant –, all of the while containing a sense of wholeness and poetry that stands alone in their more modest smaller form. 

(Notably in opposition to a lot of more “finished” work in the local film scene that feel more incomplete and unsubstantial which, for whatever reason, still gets so many acolytes).

 On Thursday, October 24^th Fortescue finally had its world premiere at the Forest City Film Festival in London, Ontario. It’s to the great honour of this festival that they rightly saw in Fortescue the merits that it holds and programmed it so well – I’ve never been to a nicer red carpet or reception for a film – and also a shame to all other national film festivals for not doing the same.

There was also something of the experience of travelling to London – almost two hours from Hamilton on a FlixBus and across a beautiful autumnal countryside – and of being in this beautiful smaller city in southwestern Ontario that contributed to appreciating Fortescue.

Love’s work always had its own temporality to it, especially in contrast to other Toronto filmmakers (that tend to emphasize the ambition of male protagonists and the business of the downtown core), as it retreats northwards and out-of-town, emphasizing experiences of stillness and contemplation, anxiety and depression.

Fortescue is set in the Haliburton cottage country and by Lake Fortescue (where it gets its name, and also from an old English idiom “Fort-Escu” meaning strong shield).

Fortescue begins with two women in their twenties, Lea (Kelsey Falconer) and Gabby (Chelsea Preston), enjoying each other and nature in this idyllic setting. One’s a playwright and the other one her friend and actress. They’re smiling, enjoying each other’s company, wearing bright clothes, happy.

And then Lea’s boyfriend and actor Kevin (Tyson Coady) arrives, though seemingly nice, a certain brashness emerges, which disrupts the harmonious relationship at the heart of this house. 

A sexual tension arises, conversations start to be more confrontational (discussing privilege and past traumas), Lea starts to experience episodes of psychosis, and another visiting friend Noah (Nickolas Franco) noticing this then decides to leave. The’re all getting ready for Lea’s upcoming production of Rapunzel (that stars Gabby and Kevin), which they’ll put on for their modest community in Haliburton, that includes Ms. Banks (Jacqueline Greer Graham) from the Stratford Theatre Festival that the’re trying to impress.

There’s something about Fortescue that seems new, especially in Love’s cinema, and it’s captivating to see Love bring her themes and craft from her shorts to a full-length feature.

There’s a naturalness and troubling quality to Kelsey Falconer’s performance of a young women experiencing a mental health crisis, which is either on par or equally as interesting as Sarah Swire did in Love’s earlier shorts (and same thing for Kelsey Falconer in her representation of it).

The drama and naturalistic style, sophisticated dialogue and inner anguish of Fortescue made me think of Noah Baumbach’s films (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) or even, and maybe closer to us, Erik Anderson’s My Thesis Film (2018).

Two new qualities in Love’s work that I noticed was its emphasis on women sexuality and putting the perspective of the director in the film watching their own play (anxiously as it couldn’t be rehearsed).

Perhaps one of the most meaningful reflections that I had about Fortescue is that it brought to mind a quote from one of Ezra Pound’s Cantos (LXXXI), “What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross. What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee. What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.”

Fortescue is bookended by female sorority. Lea’s mental health crisis seems almost instigated by Kevin’s arrival. The utopia that exists between Lea and Gabby is interrupted with his arrival and a positive experience of mental health can only recommence once he departs.

Aside from a critique of a toxic masculinity (which I think is more nuanced and thought-provoking then it is clear-cut, and encourages engagement and conversation), what I took from Kevin and his presence is that he incarnates an external social pressure in artistic production.

Per Ezra Pound, “What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.” 

What Lea lovest the most, well, is her friendship with Gabby, it’s where we see her the happiest, the rest is dross, Kevin.

For Love, who values and is outspoken for the need of safe spaces on productions and a healthy work environment, what is the most important are the working conditions on her productions, the friends and people there, and the relationship she has with all of these people (that extend beyond the production schedule). Per Pound, “What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.”

(When I asked Love about making Fortescue she said it was one of the best experience of her life).

And Kevin, these external pressures, it’s a healthy attitude to reject them and not to be determined by this external validation. It only brings stress and anxiety.

Life is confusing and Love is able to shed light onto darkness when it is especially hard therefore even more necessary.

We owe it to Love to express this so beautifully. 

Saint Monica At The Playhouse (July 18, 7PM)

 If folks are free Thursday evening at 7PM in Hamilton, I’ll be moderating a Q&A with Terrance Odette after a screening of his 2002 film Saint Monica at The Playhouse.

If you don’t know Odette, he’s a proto-diy Hamilton filmmaker. 
His first feature Heater dates back to 1999 and he now already five features to his activity (alongside music-videos and television shows). Working with modest budgets, Odette’s able to create these complex characters usually going through these very intense days and nights. 

In terms of his creative process, Odette describes how seeing how actors read his dialogue is one of his favorite things about being a director, and I would add how he is able to film them integrated within a very specific local setting is one of my favorite things about being one of their spectators.

The style of his films recalls that of John Cassavetes and the Italian neorealist.

In Heater two unlikely guys-experiencing-homelessness in Winnipeg on a snowy day come together to attempt to return a boxed heater. How they react to their hardship is so vivid and powerful and following them you get to see the downtown city from an on-the-street perspective.

The coffee-and-donut shop is a reoccurring setting in his films and through them he shows different ways people interact with it. In Heater it’s where the guys go for warmth and the public washroom, while in Fall (2014) and Bike (2024) it’s the spot where they go so that they can reconnect with past friends and family and have intimidate conversations.

Bike, which played at The Playhouse already this year, is noteworthy for its “beautifully apocalyptic” portrayal of Hamilton (thank you Spectator for this apt description of the city). There’s a sense of authenticity to Odette’s cinema and after the Winnipeg of Heater, Toronto’s Little Portugal in Saint Monica, and Niagara Falls and Sault Ste. Marie in Fall, Odette finally captures with Bike one of the best portrayals of Hamilton that I’ve seen (up there with Stephen Hosier’s Attilla).

Bike, tells the story of “Bike,” a rougher-around-the-edges older guy, that collects empty beer cans from local recycling bins on garbage night and steels bikes when he needs to. Bike gets wrapped up in a real-estate murder conspiracy, which forces his hand o

n how he has to resolve some of his family, lawyer and police issues. It’s really gripping. The feature-version (in contrast to the web-series) maybe has Odette’s funnest film references (in a filmography rather sober in them) and the lurking criminals give the whole proceedings an ominous sense of foreboding. 

I think it should of have been more widely seen and it’s a shame that the funding for a sequel wasn’t approved.

But to return to the subject at hand, the reason I think Saint Monica is my favorite of Odette’s films is that in contrast to the heaviness of Heater and Fall – about an end-of-career protestant pastor questioning his life –, Saint Monica takes on a certain reoccurring opacity and mystery that’s there throughout his films, but from the perspective of a young ten-year-old girl, who steals a pair of angel wings meant to be used as part of a procession. It has a religious quality, that of little girl trying to talk to God, which is so powerfully captured through the simplicity of her minimal performance. The film almost feels like a miracle, and as such reminded me of other religious films like Dreyer’s Ordet (1955), Rossellini’s Stromboli(1950) and Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966). Rarely has cinema been this great. 

It’s a great feat that a 35mm print of Saint Monica will be showing at The Playhouse on the big screen this Thursday.

I can’t recommend it enough.