(Canada, 80 min.)
Written and directed by Mina Shum
Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere)
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| Photo courtesy of TIFF |
Acclaimed director Mina Shum (Double Happiness) delivers an eye-opening wallop with her first
documentary feature Ninth Floor. This
timely and relevant production from the National Film Board of Canada
chronicles a relatively obscure, but significant episode of Canadian history as
Shum probes the student protests at Montreal’s Sir George Williams University
in February 1969. Shum’s hand at drama propels the film as she interrogates
history through interviews with participants and with meticulous archival
footage: the film plays like a conspiratorial thriller and exposé in one. The
film proves very effective, as Ninth
Floor could easily recount a present-day story.
Shum contextualizes the incident with a healthy dose of irony as Ninth Floor first revisits the glory of Montreal’s Expo ’67 and the promise of progress it brought. Ninth Floor features old images of politicos extolling the new age of diversity and multiculturalism the event would bring to Canada by uniting nations in one massive trade show. Pitches don’t breed reality, though, as a group of black students at SGWU discovered when they realized that their biology professor, Perry Anderson, graded black students on a different scale (re: lower) than their white classmates. (Some of the students have since earned PhDs and positions in public office.) The film explains how they formally charged him with racism, but the ineffective politics at the school rendered it a futile effort.
The film’s next act chronicles how the students took their
actions to the next level by going nine floors up and commandeering the
school’s computer lab to aid their cause. Both the participants and the
archival snippets agree that this occupation proved to be a harrowing turning point:
elements of civil disobedience, mischief, and vandalism on some students’
behalf changed the tone and spirit of the protest and inspired police
brutality, rather than effective results. The participants whom Shum interviews
recount the range of emotions—horror, pride, anger—they felt (and clearly still
feel) as they experienced this collective stand. The voices Shum brings to the
conversation offer a case study in the pros and cons of radical action and they
illustrate the very fine line one must tread between slapping the opposition
with a wake-up call and simply punching them in the face.
The sense that both everything and nothing changes as the
years go on becomes rightfully distressing. Even though this specific incident
inspired the creation of ombudsmen offices on campuses and anticipated official
multiculturalism, Nine Floor puts the
ineffectiveness of institutionalized multiculturalism in the hot seat: what good,
Shum asks, is policy if white Canadians resist change? The interviewees speak
of inspirational moments in which they recognized prejudice in the streets of
Montreal and took action against it only to see history repeat itself day after
day. As one participant observes, Canadians are racist, but they apologize for it.
Ninth Floor thus tackles this
seemingly polite perception of “Canadian-ness” to reveal how dangerously it
perpetuates the status quo.
Similarly, Ninth Floor
urgently evokes the spirit of the Occupy Movement and the 2012
Maple Spring protests in which Quebec students rallied against tuition
hikes. The causes are different, but Ninth
Floor underlines the ongoing wall of indifference that populates the
country’s institutions. Universities should be sites of progress, but this
episode and others like it show how Canadians like their rosy mental image and
prefer to keep it an idealized one, rather than a practical one, for the sake
of comfort.
Ninth Floor
rejects comfort, though, as Shum puts the viewer on edge using a fine bit of
cinematic espionage. Feel like an object under surveillance as Ninth Floor observes its interview
subjects through a TV monitor or through an interrogation room window. Shots
taken in the streets linger and zoom like the eyes of a detail mission. The
film re-creates how it feels to be looked at and scrutinized, or even be made
to feel like a criminal, as the unnerving aesthetics unfold this chapter of
history in the present tense. Canada looks very different from this
perspective, but Ninth Floor paints
Canada in a fair, if unflattering light. It’s a compelling and vital film.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Ninth Floor
screens:
-Saturday, Sept. 12 at Scotiabank 3 at 7:15 PM
-Monday, Sept. 14 at TIFF Lightbox at 4:00 PM
Please visit www.tiff.net for more
information on this year’s festival.
More coverage on this year’s festival can be found here.
