(Denmark, 50 min.)
Dir. Maja Friis
Programme: International Spectrum (International Premiere)
Films two and three of Day 2 of Hot Docs showed the strange
magic that film festivals have for allowing us to enjoy a diverse range of
experiences in one quick dose. After the youthful funk of Pussy Riot, I hoofed it to the Isabel Bader and joined a sea of
blue hair for Ballerina. Hot Docs,
which gives free daytime screenings to students and seniors, clearly split the
free ticket vote by age for these two screenings. It was quite a change, as Ballerina is far more sedated than Pussy
Riot is. Back to back, the films were like pairing Peaches with Measha
Brueggergosman.
Ballerina, a Danish mid-length feature by Maja Friis, adapts the biography of 89 year-old Swedish ballerina Elsa Marianne von Rosen. Ballerina shows how von Rosen devoted her life to dance—she wanted to be a ballerina since age nine—and threw herself into a whirlwind of passion for pirouettes and pliés. The film, which lets von Rosen speak in voiceover, then takes a dark turn in its second act as the ballerina talks about how her passion was divided between two loves: ballet and her husband.
The archival and biographical sequences of Ballerina are a bit sluggish—do we
really need so many long takes of von Rosen sitting alone in a room?—yet the
film comes to life in some evocative dance sequences interspersed throughout
the film. Maja Friis shoots the dances, which follow von Rosen’s choreography,
in stark black-and-white that accentuates and celebrates the contours of the
dancers’ bodies as they become tangled in snare of passion, jealousy, despair
and escape. Matched with a haunting score, the ballet sequences of Ballerina capture the passion of von
Rosen’s art and her conflicted pas-de-deux between her two loves. Ballerina might suffer in comparison to
Wim Wenders’ superior dance doc Pina,
and seeing the two makes an excellent case for the success of dance films being
captured in 3D, but Ballerina
nonetheless comes to life and honours its subject respectfully.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Ballerina screens:
Saturday, May 4 – 7:00 pm at TIFF Bell
Lightbox
Narco Cultura
(USA, 103 min.)
Dir. Shaul Schwarz
Programme: Special Presentations
Narco Cultura is
not for the faint of heart. It's a gritty, almost disheartening look at the
Mexican drug culture, aka Narco Cultura. The nation is fighting a war on drugs,
but Mexico looks to be losing. There's little stopping the cartels and their
power is clear in their influence over culture at large.
Narco Cultura
looks at the destruction that the drug trade was wrought on Mexico by zeroing
in on the city of Juarez. Juarez, a border town n the other side of the
fence from El Paso, Texas, is the epicenter of drug-related violence in Mexico.
There have been over 60 000 homicides in Juarez since 2008, and investigators
presume that most of them are actions of the drug trade, although 97% of cases
fail to see a guilty verdict, let alone a full investigation.
Narco Cultural
illuminates the endless rampage of the cartel's bloodshed by following one
homicide investigator as he collects evidence from bodies that pile up at an
alarming rate. The threat of the cartels is so extreme, he notes, that three of
his fellow investigators have been assassinated. The problem is so bad that
crime scene investigators wear masks to hide their identities while processing
the crime scene.
The power of the drug trade is propelled and perpetuated by
the growing influence of cartel culture. Narco cultural seems less like a
subculture and more like strong presence. The violence of the drug trade has
even spawned a new kind of music, narcocorrido,
which sounds like mariachi hip-hop. If American gangsta rap is presumed to be a
glorification of violence, drugs, and thug life, then narcocorrido makes rap seem tame. The music sensationalizes and
valorizes the same acts that are tearing cities like Juarez apart. The narcocorrido singers, however, have
become cultural icons, as do most popular musicians in any culture.
Narco Cultural suggests
that the rise in popularity of narcocorrido
music hints at a greater cultural failure. Citizens, especially the youth,
might accept cartel life as a norm. Likewise, one journalist in the film submits
the thesis that the success of narcocorrido implies that Mexican culture has
ultimately decided to give up the war against the cartels. The film takes a
bold stand against the violence, though, and forces audiences to look at the
consequences of the cartels’ deviant behaviour and see that the music only
serves as a cruel soundtrack. Narco
Cultura offers graphic images that will surely startle viewers—the film
features scenes depicting a “human puzzle,” bodies charred beyond recognition,
murdered children, and at least one street flooded with blood. Director Shaul
Shwarz, however, captures the ugliness of the cartel’s carnage with some
stunning photography that draws attention to the pervasive ugliness of the
cartel’s ways. The reality of narco
cultura is much different than the glorified songs suggest.
Narco Cultura,
then, is ultimately as effective as it is exhausting. At 103 minutes, Shwarz
offers a healthy roster of convincing reasons why citizens should take a stand
against the glamorized violence and speak up. The lengthy evidence is draining
both mentally and emotionally, though, and one emerges from Narco Cultura feeling bruised and
beaten. The effect is rather smart: instead of pumping you up, this story of narcocorrido beats you down.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Narco Cultura
screens:
Sunday, May 5 – 6:00 pm at Scotiabank
Dragon Girls
(Germany, 90 min.)
Dir. Inigo Westmeier
Programme: International
Showcase (North American Premiere)
I really wanted to like Dragon
Girls. This dry German doc is yet another film at the festival that looks
at the growing superpower of China with a curious eye at the nation’s
evolution. Director Inigo Westmeier takes viewers into the disciplined art of Shaolin
Kung Fu as taught at one highly regimented school outside Beijing. Westmeier
interviews a handful of young female pupils, a coach, an administrator, and a
monk, and all the voices from the school depict their dedication to Kung Fu
akin to an intense Buddhist boot camp. The perspectives on the school seem to
differ between the kids and the adults, but Westmeier doesn’t do much with the
contrast. The girls are smart pupils, but Dragon
Girls doesn’t tie their stories together as effectively as, say, last year’s
stories of Afghan female boxers.
Dragon Girls,
unfortunately, doesn’t share the clear vision of its subjects. It’s wildly
unfocused with testimony cutting from one subject and storyline to another
without much coherence. The film also had the misfortune of suffering an audio
gaff at Saturday night’s screening at The Royal, and the wonky sound proved a significant
distraction. Technical misfortunes aside, though, Dragon Girls remained incomprehensible since the subtitles of the
film ensured that not all the dialogue was compromised by the ghostly sounds.
The film is just incoherent. It pities the girls one moment, but then seems oddly
propagandistic the next. Are these girls the victims of an oppressive system or
the warriors of the future?
Rating: ★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Dragon Girls screens:
Sunday, May 5 – 1:00 pm at the ROM