By Anne Brodie
A ninety-year-old woman who lives alone in the woods on a 54 acre property knows what we’ve all been grappling with for years – how to live easily on the earth and work with it for our needs, our joys and our belonging. Mennonite Agatha Bock is the subject of the documentary Agatha’s Almanac; she calls a small crumbling house in the woods home; it sings with her optimism and deep store of knowledge; she grows her own food and offers tips on raising and keeping fruit and vegetables that are pretty surprising and innovative. Wearing her signature socks, runners and print dresses, Agatha’s the epitome of a nature girl, walking along with her wagon of gardening tools. She pounces down to the ground to move a twig and whips back up, healthy as an ox, ninja-like. Her wonderful personality imbues the film, easy going, smart as a whip and plenty of common sense. Decades of gardening, forest keeping, preparing and keeping the fruits of her labours and always watching nature are her superpowers, her labours of love, and solitary pioneering. Filmmaker Amalie Atkins, Agatha’s niece, who spent six years making this wonderful documentary says “There’s no artifice here. Agatha’s life is her art form. She’s unknowingly preserved a century of practical magic.” Agatha’s slim, even scrawny because she eats with discipline and labours hard. She admires the big old trees that cover her property, marveling and reporting on all fallen branches and other tree news. She reveals how to plant seeds, for instance, plant beans with onion skins to ensure success. Empty tuna cans keep away cutworms, strawberries will be fresh and crisp stored unwashed in sealed mason jars in the window. And she knows how to keep something stuck in place forever! Agatha’s had four boyfriends in her long life but is happily single living this unique non-modern way. She has a telephone, which is good to know but, alarmingly, walks alone along the highway to buy dry goods. What a woman. Authentic living within the universe one’s chosen, mastering it and finding deep satisfaction in the everyday; she’s an inspiration. Today at TIFF Lightbox with a theatrical rollout to follow.
Keeping in the gardening theme – from the dark side – is this one. Peacock NBC’s Grosse Point Garden Society wraps up its first season with a bang – or a few! The satirical, soapy murder/crime series focusses on a tight group of women bound together – with one man – to keep a Big Secret. They’re uber wealthy folk in suburban Middle America, members of the fiercely competitive gardening club; they desire more than anything else – the South Eastern Michigan Cup. The thought of losing – again – is unbearable and they’ll do anything to secure the crystal award. And thank goodness they have gardens in which they can hide things. Melissa Fumero, Aja Naomi King, AnnaSophia Robb and Ben Rappaport are our main movers. The style’s reminiscent of Desperate Housewives and the less dangerous Dallas, Dynasty, The Stepford Wives, where style overrules substance with eye popping, to die for wardrobes, décor, lifestyles, etc. The inner sanctum we follow shares life-altering secrets, dressed in rather extreme happy floral prints, feminine shapes, intricately perfect hair and makeup – they’re rich, idle except for gardening club activities and fill their time in some pretty dark ways – jealousies, infidelities, secrets and lies. Beneath the collective pretty lurk dark souls. Guilty souls, breakers of the Ten Commandment gals and guy. Its oh so sly – one woman prunes her roses as another plucks her eyebrows – makeup, style, gossip, homes, décor, all extremely glossy, superficial things draw us in. So how does the evil fit in? Very easily indeed. We witness gruesome deaths, and … shhhh. Of course, no one can break faith and give anything away. Moody, operatic in the TV way, with eerie tonal music and sounds. The series and characters aim for sophistication but instead we find poseurs (get a load of the contest judge) who aim for sophistication. In the end its soap, baby, soap. One woman believes another killed her dog so she and the coven plan to destroy the coveted Grand Prize she won at the awards show, one of the less grim paybacks that backfires. These are grown ups addled by revenge and mischief and the need to top whatever is in their way. Loads of plots and subplots whizzing around changing things, combined with the catty folks and their consciences and actions – not us – is FUN.
Canadian author and filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose’s feature film debut, a remake of the 1958 film Bonjour Tristesse based on Françoise Sagan’s novel is extraordinarily seductive. Widower Raymond (Claes Bang) is spending a relaxed summer on the French coast with his daughter Cécile (Lily McInerny) and his partner Elsa (Naila Harzoune) who appears to be about the same age as Cécile. It’s a luxurious life; the estate’s relaxed elegance and rock cliffs provide a private haven for sunbathing and idle living away form prying eyes. The rich and beautiful lead different lives but here by the sea, it gives way as we discover they are just like us, struggling with life, albeit on champagne and caviar. Elsa’s remark “Everything is about listening” seems wise but odd, as the film tends to voyeurism, with limited chat. Its most important, life-altering moments are silent. Suddenly Anne (Chloë Sevigny), a friend of Raymond’s late wife appears and the tone changes. She begins important conversations and cooks, but why is she there? Her presence throws Cécile off-balance; conversations are suddenly more interesting and more personal. Anne becomes an ersatz mother; she slices a pineapple in a homey and intimate sequence. Her intelligence and historic bond with Raymond seem to raise the tenor of the gathering. A walk to the coast changes everything in this portrait of human experience. Sevigny is magnificent and Chew-Bose’s debut confirms her talent and ability to create evocative, important personal cinema. If you didn’t get to the south of France this summer, this will do. TIFF LIGHTBOX now.
Tina Fey cowrites and stars as Kate in Netflix’ amusing comedy drama series The Four Seasons and it’d be a crime to miss it. A keen balance of laughs and pathos, if follows three couples on vacation together at a lake house (“cottage” in Canada) as they do each season – lucky them – four vacations a year. But something is rotten in laid back land. The lavishly Vivaldi’d eight parter establishes the group’s tight bond so when Steve Carell’s Nick announces he’s leaving his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney) for a post-adolescent babe (Erica Henningsen), whom he brought instead of Anne, everything is upended. How dare he? “I don’t want to break up my family but life is short” he says, and on his 25th wedding anniversary. The husbands – Jack (Will Forte), Danny (Colman Domingo) and his husband (Marco Calvani) throw their support behind Anne, devastated by Nick’s betrayal. He hardly notices because he’s doing young people stuff with babe. Danny loathes the au naturel “hotel” she chose for them so he moves to a luxury spot a mile away and runs into Anne. She knows they’re all there and confesses she’s come to spy. When a hurricane threatens, out of desperation, they all crowd into Anne’s large suite – uncomfortable! Anne tells Kate (Fey) she knows Nick will come back to her. (She wants him back?) Meanwhile Danny refuses to go for a heart procedure the following week, causing a rift with clingy Claude. And Nick’s tiring of his new gal pal. Succeeding vacations are changed forevah! Fall is a Colonial B & B and antiquing that finds fissures in the marriages and more of Ginny, the babe, who Nick’s daughter detests for ruining their family: she stages a one woman show ripping Ginny and they all attend. Danny and Claude split but get back together for the Winter ski getaway, Anne’s anger issues jump out, Nick faces reality, Kate’s fed up. Oh, so much angst in these half hour-ish episodes, richly drawn and full of life and its ups and downs. The lesson is that we must have friends to count on and be a good friend. Terrific, bumpy, challenging, funny and emotional.
Scrap, writer, director and star Vivian Kerr’s excellent character study follows Beth a car dweller after being laid off. We don’t know why, no savings? No fallback? But there she is, sleeping, changing clothes, eating in her luxury vehicle, while daughter Birdy (Julianna Lane) stays with Beth’s fussy brother Ben (Anthony Rapp) and his judgemental wife Esther (Beth Dover). Beth keeps extending Birdy’s stay with them and she’s not saying why. As far as they now she’s still working. Beth’s making unfortunate decisions, piling up parking tickets, starting fights, missing her daughter’s recital and she’s confrontational with her brother. Added to which, tuition for her daughter’s school is overdue. She does little to fix the problem, earning Esther’s wrath and the nickname “bloodsucking vampire”. Sure, she’s unlikeable, and secretive; we dolnt now why she does what she does. Birdy’s father who abandoned Beth when she told him she was pregnant shows up asking to meet Birdy. Beth refuses but they sleep together and he vanishes leaving a cheque for $5K. Her brother and sister-in-law have problems – he’s blocked writing his latest novel, and Beth’s IVF hasn’t worked, so it’s all a bit dire. Beths only escape is roller skating and Marcus who works there. Finally, Beth and Ben have a conversation and things begin to turn around except he punches Birdie’s father! Given the limited information we’re given, it’s a bit of a puzzle, God forbid Beth straight talks. Kerr’s really pulled off something that could have been problematic. Well worth a look. Available on Apple and Amazon.
Secret Mall Apartment ,a doc on an underground yet above far above the ground art experiment features Providence, Rhode Island tape artist (more on that later) Michael Townsend. He noticed during construction of the Providence Mall that a “nowhere space” had been created in its uppermost reaches. In 2003, he and eight fellow artists decided to call that space home, a living art experiment that they’d film and document in art. It wasn’t an easy place to access, two routes through dark, steep staircases, crawlspaces and even a toilet tunnel. They could live at the mall! A slap in the face of consumerism. They furnish it with throwaways and create a suburban flat with carpets, china cabinets, couch, chairs, tables and plants. It lookslike a TV sitcom set and that’s what it was to the artists – a set on which the next four years would be played. Flatmates Colin Bliss, Adriana Valdez-Young, Andrew Oesch, James J.A. Mercer, Greta Scheing, Alexander Gebrail, Jay Zehngebot, David O’Hanlon, Peter WelchIn and very briefly, Zoe Liu brought life and community to a wasted space during an limited affordable housing period. Director Jeremy Workman interviews many of the artists but focusses on Townsend with a side of his work as a tape artist. The art of using painters’ and duct tape to create beautiful images on walls, most notably in the local children’s hospital, a commemoration to the victims of the Oklahoma City and 9/11. What began as a kind of self congratulatory, anti-establishment rebel yell, the collective became a family that gave back to the community. But how long could it last? At TIFF Lightbox now.