Yes, yes we "get" it Jeff, but let's get a little real here, shall we? When people talk of the pathetic state of English Canadian cinema, this is the film they are referring to. And the director's faux naive "Gee, I really don't know what to say about my own film," pose, is, let's face it, just that. He has thousands of words to explain why he can't or won't explain the creative decisions he has made so, please spare us the "artiste" attitude. You, sir, are no artist. You have a short film idea blown up into a bombastic and obvious turgid wallow in your own psycho sexual confusion - except it doesn't even feel authentic. Take a simple film of sexual ambiguity like, Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho." A simple tale, borrowed from Shakespeare, about street kids testing, experimenting - and each beat, each frame is charged with all the delicious meaningful ambiguity that escapes this film. What do we get instead? Arbitrariness. Capriciousness. Confusion. Oh, but it's all super clear to the director? Good for him! We all thought that the age of the navel-gazing, nebulous "Canadian" bore- fest films were over, but sadly, the age lives on in Winnepeg. And I put the über-precious, constructivist Guy Maddin in the same bucket - what Nancy-boy, and he's not even gay! This film has such a tiny truth to reveal, such a small-minded, blinkered, pedestrian notion of adolescent sexual confusion, but somehow this misguided auteur and obvious member N.A.M.B.L.A., convinced a whole series of funders to back this project. What happened, Maddin come up dry on that funding go-round? I try to imagine some visitor to Canada checking into his motel room and turning on MPix and stumbling over this over-worked, tepid dross and wondering, "This must be what pass for independent cinema in this country. Poor souls!" And because Astral put money into it, they feel obliged to play it over and over... death by a thousand insipid cuts of mindless nonsense. And you, you reviewers, gushing breathlessly over this misfire - get out much, do you? Out there on the wind-swept prairies? Here's a clue - a shot of a wheat field, is a shot of a wheat field. Not a portal to the ineffable. and here's a clue for Jeff - when next you decide to write a script, and get puzzled looks from those who read it, take it to heart. Next time, why don't you write something outside yourself, just for once - why? I'm gonna give you the gift of truth. If you were Buñuel, if you were Goddard (in his prime) or Eisenstein, or J.M.E.C. Cocteau, or Rimbaud, or even Patty Smith, if you had an interesting life, an original thought or were just a really fun guy, then maybe what comes out of your head, that is so clear to you, but which you just can't explain, might be worth looking at. But, you're not. Not even close. You don't have a point of view worth looking at or listening to. It is base, dull, unimaginative and worse, banal. You bore with your reluctance to really grapple with what's in front of you. You mince around when you should be tearing it up. You lack spine and guts and conviction. You are stubborn but, that's a poor substitute for having something important to say. Do all of Canada, and Winnipeg a big favour and stop making films.
