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Editor’s Note:
Doc Soup is a monthly documentary screening programme run by the good folks at
Hot Docs. It gives audiences in Toronto (and now Calgary and Vancouver!) their regular doc fix each year from the fall through to the spring, leading up to the Hot Docs festival itself.
Editor’s Note: The following review contains what some may consider a SPOILER. To avoid affecting the filmgoing experience for you, gentle reader, I’ve applied white text colouring to the spoiler section. If you want to read it, just click and drag your mouse over the blank area. For those reading the RSS feed, you’ll just have to avoid reading this entry before you’ve seen the film.
Young@Heart (2007, Director: Stephen Walker): It would be almost impossible to make a bad film about the Young@Heart Chorus, a group of senior citizens in Northampton, Massachusetts whose repertoire includes songs by The Ramones, The Clash, Coldplay and Sonic Youth. Stephen Walker’s film is a genuine crowd-pleaser, with scenes of great emotional intensity and some unforgettable characters, and was a great choice to close out this season of Doc Soup. When musical director Bob Cilman began working with the group in 1982, their repertoire was mostly vaudeville stuff, but over the years he’s added more and more contemporary music. Though choir members aren’t often familiar with the songs and in many cases, don’t even like them, by the time they’ve learned them, they end up bringing something unique to their interpretations. One of the clever touches of Walker’s film is the insertion of several “videos” shot for songs like the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” and the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”
Apart from the videos (shot at Cilman’s insistence because he said he never saw old people in music videos), the rest of the film follows a tried-and-true format, following the choir through several weeks of rehearsals before a new show. We get to see the process of learning new material, and it often goes hilariously wrong. Some of the choir members are a bit deaf, or need large-print versions of the lyric sheets. Others can’t figure out how to play compact discs. And some just don’t seem very musical at all. But as Walker’s camera follows them around, we get to know them, and we realize how much this creative outlet means to them.
One of Cilman’s initiatives for the new show is to bring back two members who’d recently had to stop performing due to health problems and have them sing a duet of the Coldplay song “Fix You.” But things take an unexpected (or perhaps only a half-expected) turn when one of them dies, and by the time Fred Knittle sits down on a chair holding his oxygen tank to sing it alone, the lump in my throat was growing. Though his voice is strong and the rendition beautiful, it was the off-kilter beat provided by the oxygen machine that made the song so heartbreaking. That and the lyrics:
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Mortality is the one thing that none of us can “fix” and I’m glad the film reminded us of that. This is something that senior citizens face every day, as they watch their friends and loved ones pass on around them, and wonder when their time will come. Their courage and acceptance in the face of such tragedy, their determination to live every moment, and their simple joy in performing were inspiring and infectious.
If I have any complaints about the film, they have nothing to do with the story. But I did feel that Walker was a little too present in the film, from his intrusive narration to his insistence on talking off-camera to his on-camera subjects. I really enjoyed meeting these fascinating people and watching how the show is produced and rehearsed, but I didn’t enjoy hearing so much about Stephen Walker, though I’m sure he’s a nice chap.
Here is the Q&A with director Stephen Walker along with Bob Cilman and some of the choir members from after the screening:
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Duration: 18:25
Official Site
Official Site for the Young@Heart Chorus
(8/10)
Tagged as:
aging,
music
Water Lilies (Naissance des Pieuvres) (2007, Director: Céline Sciamma): I originally wrote about this film way back in August 2007, anticipating its screening at TIFF. For some reason, I wasn’t able to see it then, so when I saw it in the Cinéfranco lineup, I vowed not to miss it again. And I’m so glad that I didn’t. Céline Sciamma’s directorial debut is a deeply affecting and beautiful film about adolescence: body image, hormones, self-esteem, friendship, loyalty, crushes, sexual confusion, conformity. Though it’s never “about” any of these, it says a lot about them. But it’s not a film of grand gestures. Instead, it’s a very small, very personal film that resonates well beyond its seemingly narrow scope.
It’s summer in an unnamed French suburb. Skinny undeveloped tomboy Marie (Pauline Acquart) goes to the local pool to see her chubby friend Anne (Louise Blachère) perform in a synchronized swimming event. While there, she is mesmerized by the captain of the team, gorgeous blonde Floriane (Adele Haenel). She develops a major crush that becomes an obsession, and abandons Anne to pursue Floriane. Insinuating herself into Floriane’s life by doing favours, she is soon able to watch the team practice and even travel to performances with them. Though it’s obvious that Marie has romantic feelings for Floriane, she is unable to say anything for fear of rejection. Instead, she lets Floriane use her to sneak out of the house to meet boys, causing Marie no end of anguish. Meanwhile, Anne has fallen hard for one of the boys on the water polo team, even though he’s desperately trying to bed Floriane himself. Floriane is just enough of a cypher to cause heartache everywhere she goes, using her flirtatiousness as a defence mechanism to hide her own sexual confusion and fear. Though this leaves Marie confused and heartbroken, she displays a core of toughness that will carry her through. Her friendship with Anne is also deeper than it first appears, and the two outsiders by the end seem much stronger than the supposed “normal” pretty girl.
The setting among a team of synchronized swimmers is a stroke of genius. Back in the fall, I read a few reviews of the film, and I can’t remember where I read it, but I’m stealing the idea nonetheless. A critic stated that synchronized swimming was the perfect metaphor for adolescence. Smiling and beautiful on the surface, but under the water, legs churning like mad to stay afloat. I also liked the idea that, like gymnasts or ballet dancers, there is one particular body type that is required, and anyone else is rejected. The hair and makeup also make the swimmers indistinguishable, since they are all expected to function as part of a greater entity, almost mechanical in its precision. It’s obvious that Marie and Anne don’t fit into this world, but they are magnetically drawn to it anyway. The absence of any adults or any specifics that would place the story into a particular time help to reinforce the insularity of this time in their lives, and therefore its intensity.
As I said in my preview, the film reminded me a lot of Lukas Moodysson’s Show Me Love (1998), and there is even a physical resemblance between the two female pairings. Just as in that film, the director handles the delicacy of first love with great sensitivity, and focuses on how the tiniest of actions or gestures can have great significance. Sciamma coaxes incredibly brave performances from her three young actors, and the cinematography reinforces how beauty is intensified by vulnerability. Though it’s a hoary old cliché, since this is a first film, there is most definitely a lot of Céline Sciamma’s own experience on the screen. I’m desperately hoping she has a lot more to say.
Trailer
Official Site
Interview with director Céline Sciamma
(9/10)
Tagged as:
adolescence,
cinefranco,
coming-of-age,
homosexuality
