By Anne Brodie
Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves reflects on life’s quiet offside moments as two characters fallen on hard times find each other. A grocery cashier and a labourer working in Helsinki, Finland had bigger dreams for themselves, but living in squalor on tiny incomes has punctured those dreams. And Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) are lonely. He drinks, she internalises, and listens to updates on the Russian war against Ukraine. The pair meet in a karaoke bar and feel a long-dormant spark; exchange phone numbers and go home alone. Ansa waits by the phone but nothing and then she’s fired for taking expired food meant for the dump. Life is hard in the land of dark winters, and yet it’s a romantic tragicomedy. He loses her number and “disappears” but eventually finds her. They share a barebones but dinner; she mentions her father and brother died from alcohol when he asks for more that she doesn’t have. He storms out. The next day he’s fired for drinking. She takes in a stray dog, he swears off booze and then – a helluva twist. The film is a remarkably subtle cinematic work, and intensely intimate, with a spare script and human universality, but it is slow, slow, slow. The score and songs sung are way out there, so that’s fun. Finland’s Academy Award submission. TIFF Bell Lightbox and select theatres.
Norwegian activist and model Aleksandra Orbeck-Nilssen doesn’t do anything by halves. She moved to Namibia ten years ago, learned San, the local indigenous “clicking” language and lives with the Ju’hoansi bushmen. She and writer-director Pierre Stein set out with her close bushmen friends Cui Gcaq’o and Kamache Kun Jonnas, to walk unassisted from eastern Namibia to the Atlantic Ocean, a 1490 km walk, carrying no money, no food, just small skins of water. They foraged and hunted without much luck and were fortunate enough to be invited for meals along the way. The story is documented in The Long Walk, a visually stimulating dive into nature, sharing space with rhinos, elephants, wildebeests and more. What’s remarkable is the good fellowship along the way; people looked out for them. The idea was to raise awareness of the San, one of the oldest tribes in existence and of precious wildlife in Namibia, where 80% of property is privately owned by whites. An amazing experience that just may inspire conscious travel. Nov. 28 in theatres.
Writer/director Billy Luther’s narrative feature debut Frybread Face And Me is a gem, a remarkable artistic and thematic journey back in time to when we were eleven, reviving innocent feelings in visceral ways. Keir Tallman is young Benny, a Navajo living with his out-of-sorts mother and father in San Diego. He’s packed off to summer with his grandmother (Sarah H. Nataniin a terrific debut), wearing his beloved cowboy hat and Fleetwood Mac T – his fave band – and expecting the worst. She lives on an isolated Arizona desert farm sans internet but with plenty of chores, and a bad-tempered uncle. Benny’s load is lightened with the arrival of his cousin Dawn aka Frybread Face (Charley Hogan) a kindred spirit who names him Shamu because he’s from San Diego, home of her beloved but never-seen whale lives. They horse around, get into scrapes, tease one another, and absorb Grandma’s teaching – history, weaving, and living simply and off the land. It’s his introduction to the traditional life he’s never known and embraces it. Frybread Face And Me is simply a beautiful big helping of love, gentle learning, humour and family, suitable for all ages. Netflix.
Toronto’s global ballet star, Karen Kain celebrates her fiftieth and final season with the National Ballet of Canada in Chelsea McMullen’s CBC docuseries Swan Song now on CBC and CBC Gem. Canadians had mixed feelings about Kain retiring from the National Ballet of Canada. She was named principal dancer in 1971 and was soon a global superstar. Andy Warhol was so taken with her at a party in New York that he asked her to sit for him. Kain admits finds the result ugly but, hey, Andy Warhol. Canada loves Kain but no one begrudges her leavetaking; from the National because she more than earned it. From 2005 to 2021 she was Artistic Director, topping twenty years onstage – five decades of devotion. Kain’s parting gift was her own version of Swan Lake. We follow her and witness the stress and joys of creating and mounting the show, casting, taking risks, and redesigning its traditions, focusing on the “trapped women” theme. Kain, the ageless beauty, left her imprint. At 72 she works with retired dancers and looks back on a flawless career. We meet young hopefuls from around the world who move up the ranks under her mentorship, including Jurgita Dronina, Shaelynn Estrada, and Siphesihle November, the young phenom from South Africa who breaks the colour barrier to play The Prince. Thank you, Karen Kain.
I’m a latecomer to BritBox‘ series Shetland and I’ve really missed the boat. S8 begins Nov. 29 and it is unmissable. What a series, so beautifully written and complex, raising the level of crime series to psychological art. The eight-parter introduces Agatha Raisin’s brilliantly comic Ashley Jensen as DI Ruth Calder, who returns home to the Shetland Islands from London after thirty years to investigate a lead on a murder. Calder has no love for the place but a Shetland girl who fled London for home is suspected of killing a London organised crime informant and stealing a big bag of bills. Jensen’s strictly business in a place filled with ghosts and unsettling memories, investigating what becomes a horrific far-reaching case. There are no trees on the Isles as they can’t survive the winds; a woman displays a painting of tall pines, a subtle indicator of the vibe. Calder encounters the tribalism she escaped as families bear generational grudges, give harbour to wayward members, and live by primitive codes. Someone is slaughtering farm animals and tattooing them with a strange symbol. London gangsters land on Shetland looking for the fleeing woman – she’s found dead bearing that symbol. And Calder must face an astonishing, life-altering personal discovery. Multiple layered subplots coalesced by great writing and direction, the remote brutally beautiful landscape seems suitably ominous via superb cinematography, and the pacing is electrifying.
The Buccaneers is AppleTV+‘s bid, like Bridgerton and other time-bending youth series, to give the past a facelift by populating Victorian or Regency era stories with ultra-modern, free-spirited, 22nd-century ingénues and ideas. Partnering modern clear-eyed youngsters with a romanticised past world is a thing now – are we fed up with our own times? I’m just waiting some someone in a bustle to call someone woke. The all-female Bucacanner creative team and the lead cast created a vastly modernised take on high society in America and London in the 1870s that’s not historically accurate, its appeal is in flipping the bird at accepted norms of the time like they’re on spring break in Jolly Old England. The Oxford Dictionary defines buccaneers as “the marauding (pirates) who used to terrorize the Mediterranean coasts”. These Buccaneers are beautiful, educated, dressed to the nines, and won’t rob anyone. Their mothers, however, hope they will steal the hearts of wealthy British aristocrats and marry well. Hence the thinly disguised man-hunting trip overseas. The eight-parter, starring Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag, Imogen Waterhouse, Mia Threapleton, and Christina Hendricks along with equally physically appealing males, and a driving pop score underlines the series’ hopes for relevance. Just accept the rip in the fabric of time that allows what we watch here and don’t expect accuracy. Girls have always wanted to have fun, but until modern times, it was easier said than done. And long ago, did they really dye their poodles Barbie pink? Here’s me picking irrelevant holes in a series meant to entertain, amuse and uplift a generation of kids who may be tiring of the whole AI, social, politically wounded scene these days. God bless ’em. Enjoy. There’s certainly enough eye candy for everyone! Inspired by the great Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel.
Toronto cake designer and cake illusion artist April Julian @AprilJulianCakes who appeared in Season 1 of Netflix’s Is it Cake? baked some lucky critics a to-die-for S’mores cake at an event recently. Life-altering. Check out Julian’s work:
Netflix has just released a book of recipes gleaned from its food shows that features a Hamburger illusion cake. Available now at Indigo and here:
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/netflix-the-official-cookbook-70-recipes-from-your-tv-to-your-table/9781647229498.html