Theatrical Release

For The Bible Tells Me So (Director: Daniel Karslake): This documentary came to my attention through Joel Heller’s excellent site Docs That Inspire, before it played at Sundance this past January. The film explores the intersection of homosexuality and religion, particularly among conservative Christians, and as such, it tackles a subject near and dear to me. I spent many years immersed in the evangelical subculture and went through the very painful coming-out experience of a close friend. This is exactly the sort of film I wish we’d had in the early 90s. Through the experiences of five Christian families, each with a gay or lesbian child, we watch as real people struggle to integrate their love for their families with their own beliefs and experiences. But this isn’t the typical confrontational sort of film many of us have seen before. Instead, we meet clergy who have wrestled honestly with what the Bible says, and who are able to reconcile their faith with acceptance of gay and lesbian people. It’s gut-wrenching stuff, and not everyone will be convinced by the theology, but at least it gets people discussing the meaning of the disputed biblical passages, rather than just quoting them.

I particularly liked that not all the families are the same. Some still struggle to accept what they perceive to be their child’s “sinful” lifestyle, while others have gone on to political activism (in some cases, even to the point of being arrested!). Karslake has made a very wise choice by adopting the name of a particularly obstinate opponent of gay rights, Focus on the Family, as his theme. By focussing on the real families and experiences of gay people, he removes much of the apprehension and fear of straight people, especially religious straight people. I loved the way he introduced each family by having the parents explain how they themselves met and fell in love. It showed us that attraction and romance are at the root of all of our families, and that the relationships of gay people are really not much different than anyone else’s.

If I have any misgivings about the film, they are relatively minor. One is the use of a short animated segment to try to explain some of the recent scientific research around homosexuality. I thought the tone was a little too self-consciously light-hearted and I thought the segment was largely unnecessary. The other quibble was that earlier in the film, Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson is (rightfully) called out for comparing advocates of gay marriage to Hitler, but then later, actual footage of Hitler is used to describe the persecution of gay people. I don’t think you can have it both ways.

Nevertheless, this is a fair, generous, and incredibly moving portrait of real people trying to reconcile their deepest-held beliefs with their very identities of themselves or of those closest to them. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I was moved to tears several times. Despite that, I think it’s a film that would move others who are perhaps not quite so close to the issues. My wife and I have a running joke. We’ve got the great idea that if only fundamentalist Christians and gay people could actually meet each other instead of hurling insults across the divide, much understanding and even reconcilation could be achieved. I’ve offered to hold a series of dinner events called “Fags and Fundies” to which we could invite quite a few of our friends. I think I’ve found the perfect film to get the discussion started.

NOTE: The film is showing in various venues in the US in the coming months, but so far, there are no Toronto screening dates. Check the film’s site for any changes, and look for a DVD release in the coming months.

UPDATE (January 9, 2008): The film’s Toronto premiere will be tonight at the Bloor Cinema as part of the Doc Soup programme. Director Daniel Karslake will be in attendance. Screenings at 6:30pm and 9:15pm.

Official web site of the film

Docs That Inspire’s Joel Heller interviews director Daniel Karslake

Soulforce, an organization of gay and lesbian Christians and their straight allies fighting religious bigotry

PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)

(9/10)

Tagged as: christianity, Documentaries, homosexuality, religion, Theatrical Release

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No End In Sight (Director: Charles Ferguson, USA, 2007): First-time director Charles Ferguson decided to make this film at a time when a number of books were being published about the Bush administration’s disastrous handling of the Iraq war. In fact, Ferguson has known George Packer, author of probably the definitive work (so far) on the war, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, for fifteen years. This helped to explain why there was a familiarity about many of the people I saw on the screen. What Ferguson has made is essentially an even more hard-hitting version of Packer’s book.

Ignoring the question of whether the war itself was justified was a wise choice. By focussing strictly on how the war and occupation were planned (or perhaps more accurately, not planned), Ferguson’s film appeals to both the doves and the hawks, all of whom must agree after seeing the film that the Iraq war is now a full-blown debacle. In interviews about the film, Ferguson has gravely but confidently stated that he believes the US will have a significant military presence in Iraq for the next 20 to 30 years. His film quietly and soberly puts all the pieces together, building emotional power as it goes. He speaks with the people who were first on the ground in Iraq after the invasion, and we hear how ill-prepared they were. Then the hasty establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority turned the country into, for all intents and purposes, a new dictatorship with L. Paul Bremer wielding incredible power and changing policy decisions with little consultation. The three most damning policies he pursued were the failure to proceed quickly with an Iraqi-led government, the de-Baathification of the civil service, and the dissolution of the Iraqi Army. Along with the failure of American troops to stop looting and establish law and order quickly after the invasion, Ferguson and his group of interviewees feel these bad decisions at the beginning of the war were significant in leading to the current chaos.

This is a sobering and necessary film. And yet it would have been great to hear even a few suggestions for how to make things right. How can we learn from these mistakes and lessen the damage that’s already been done? Unfortunately, that film has yet to be made.

The film is in limited release right now in the US, expanding over the next few weeks. There is no release date yet for Toronto.

Trailer
Official site for the film

(9/10)

Tagged as: Documentaries, iraq, Theatrical Release

Sunshine (Director: Danny Boyle, UK, 2007): Last night, courtesy of the good folks at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, I was able to catch the preview screening of Danny Boyle’s latest film, a sci-fi epic in the old-fashioned sense. Drawing inspiration from classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and Alien, Sunshine doesn’t really chart any new ground, but it was a blast, and unlike most American sci-fi of recent years, it didn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence. We were fortunate to have the director present for a q&a after the screening (although he arrived from Chicago just in time for the end of the film) and he was refreshingly candid about the difficulties involved in making the film, as well as the very narrow thematic scope of films like this. As he put it, there is always a ship, a crew, and some sort of distress signal. Of course, it would make more sense for the crew to ignore the distress call, but they never do, and thank goodness, or else we’d be watching a pretty dull film.

As it goes, the eight-person crew of the Icarus II, en route to deliver a bomb into the heart of a dying Sun, pick up signals from the Icarus I, lost seven years before. The film functions as an effective thriller and even enters the horror realm as the crew members meet various unexpected ends. We know at the beginning that their chances of returning to Earth are slim, but it’s still affecting to watch as they send messages home. And although the character development is minimal, there is still a strong sense of caring about these people, since they represent humanity’s last hope against the unfeeling machinery of the universe.

In summary, this is not a classic in the mold of the three films it references, but it’s a great synthesis of their themes and shares the same atmosphere, which for me is a huge achievement. This is the sort of summer blockbuster I’d recommend to my own friends.

Here is the Q&A with director Danny Boyle from after the screening (apologies for the low volume, I’m trying to edit these a bit, but let me know if it’s still too low):

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Duration: 18:44

The film opens in Toronto on July 20.

Official site for the film
Production blog for the film

(7/10)

Tagged as: scifi, space, Theatrical Release, uk

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Interview (Director: Steve Buscemi, USA, 2007): Interview is the first film in a planned trilogy of films honouring Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004. Each will be a remake of a Van Gogh film directed by an American actor (Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci, and Bob Balaban).

Van Gogh’s version of Interview was released in 2003 and played at the Toronto International Film Festival that year, where my wife saw it and enjoyed it. So as we both sat down to watch this tonight, Brooke was aware of all the plot twists and turns and thought I’d be surprised. I wasn’t.

The film is a two-hander with Steve Buscemi playing Pierre Peders, a rumpled political journalist who has been assigned, much to his chagrin, to interview a second-rate actress known simply as Katya (a feisty Sienna Miller), who is more known for her reputation than for her work. The majority of the action, if we can call it that, takes place in Katya’s enormous loft where the two alternately spar and flirt until each thinks they’ve extracted what they need from the other. In the original, the action is entirely confined to the apartment but Buscemi adds a bit of business at the beginning at a restaurant, and it’s an interesting choice.

After their initial restaurant meeting quickly dissolves into insults and they both storm out, Pierre is involved in a minor collision when his cab driver becomes distracted by the beautiful celebrity he sees walking down the street. Feeling a bit responsible, Katya takes Pierre back to her loft to recover. It’s unclear whether Buscemi is trying to show Katya as basically compassionate, or whether their initial bickering has aroused some sort of sexual attraction between the two. It remains a mystery thoughout the entire film, but in the end, the mystery is hollow, because both are exposed as the selfish and needy individuals that their professions make them. As well, their forced intimacy is accelerated onscreen by both characters drinking ludicrous amounts of alcohol, which felt artificial. The music, though used sparingly, felt a little “sitcom-y” (is that a word?), by which I mean that the tinkly xylophone seemed meant to defuse the intensity and make you think this was a light comedy.

It’s a clever script, and both actors are never less than watchable, but in the end, it never surprised and left me feeling a bit miserable. I’m not sure if the original was this misanthropic (although from what I know of Van Gogh, I expect that it was), but I think I’m disappointed that Buscemi, known for directing stories of flawed but essentially real human beings (ie. Trees Lounge), has failed to make these two more sympathetic. I felt almost exactly the same way about Closer (2004), another film with strong performances from actors playing unsympathetic characters. After both films, I felt slightly icky.

The film opens in Toronto on July 20.

Official site for the film

(7/10)

Tagged as: celebrity, Theatrical Release

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