Sunday, March 7, 2010
Moving Day
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Post-Games Post-Mort Post
Mostly I’m grateful for this moment of reprieve, as it’s given me a chance to finally step back and try to survey what the greatest party even thrown meant for this city, how it felt to witness it, and the potential problems and opportunities that came along with it.
Vancouver over the past few weeks has been like no city I’ve ever been to. As an enthusiastic transplant from the prairies, this city has always seemed part magic to me- something about seeing the ocean, the Burrard Inlet, the soaring North Shore mountains, and Vancouver Island all at once while you sip a boutique coffee or chat over a glass of wine is a luxury that has yet to get old for me. Every time I visit the downtown core, I get off the train with a smile on my face. But when the Olympic hype started building, and the city was populated by enthusiastic helpers in snappy blue coats, tourists and observers from around the world, as well as citizens not knowing what to expect, the laid back, cosmopolitan din that usually hangs in the air here was inflated to a definite buzz. An energy even. Conversations about how the weather would factor in, about the potential for protest and social resistance, about the world media training its eye on the uneasy relationship between “have” and “have not” so powerfully articulated by the Downtown East Side, about how Canada would fare in the medal standings, about what this would mean for the arts and cultural industries in BC at a time when provincial arts funding was to be the subject of 90% cutbacks. If anything, the city became a massive discussion forum, with anti- and pro-Games activists clashing online, on the streets, and in the media, and moderates caught in an ambivalent position where the excess of the games and the very real problems of rampant corporatism, social justice cutbacks, and over security were constantly echoing in the back of their minds, but where the foreground was emphatically occupied by the excitement of the here and now. I spoke about the dialogic, innovative opportunities that the games opened up in a post I wrote following the early clashes between riot police and members of protest groups known as the Black Bloc and Olympic Heart Attack, and so I won’t delve too deeply into the issue of media, discourse, and democracy, but needless to say, the conversations bouncing through the social media networks were fiery, often polarized, and an embodiment of precisely what it means to live in a democratic Canadian culture.
A number of anti-games activists have claimed that the concerns outlined above (social justice, homelessness, poverty, arts funding) were glossed over by the wild popularity of the games as a branding exercise and as a global-scale marquee media event. I beg to differ. Never in my life have I witnessed the critical voice take such defiant charge of its own potential for change. On the Downtown East Side, a massive tent city was established for the second half of the games to draw attention to the rampant homelessness that characterizes the neighbourhood. A non-profit Legal Observer program was established for the duration of the Olympics on the second floor of W2 Culture + Media House as a way of guaranteeing that citizens, activists, and artists had access to information regarding their rights in a city under 24/7 video and police surveillance. Legitimate, peaceful protest groups such as the 2010 Welcoming Committee planned months in advance to have their voices of dissent heard by the world as the games opened, drawing immediate attention to pressing issues in this city that simply cannot be ignored. The list of examples goes on. The alternative, activist voice in this city has never had more opportunities to create change than it does now.
So while the problems persist, and the questions remain largely unanswered (well…some of them. The provincial budget was just released this week, slashing provincial arts funding by an astonishing 50%, down from initial estimates of 90%, conveniently painting the Liberal government as generous in tough economic times), now more than ever is the time where we may find answers and collaborative paths forward. Activating true dialogue, as the games have done, is the first step toward concrete social progress.
Beyond these fascinating developments in community discourse, the Games were also an amazing party. Canadian musicians like Hey Ocean!, Said the Whale, Hey Rosetta, Mother Mother, Dan Mangan, We Are the City, Broken Social Scene, Jill Barber, Kathleen Edwards, The Arkells, and Sam Roberts were among the must-see acts not just for local music fans, but for visitors from around the globe. Having made it to a few of these shows, I can personally attest to how ridiculously fun it is to experience live music for free with thousands of incredibly diverse and enthusiastic guests. I had the immense privilege of being downtown to watch Jennifer Heil medal in moguls, the Hamelins recover from their initial devastating loss with back-to-back golds, Canada play every single hockey game (including the total bummer loss to the US in the second round), and probably most memorable of all, me and a crew of out of town friends staked out a spot at a pub on Granville at 8:30 in the morning last Sunday to watch Canada play for the gold in men’s hockey. When Sidney Crosby scored that game-winning goal in overtime, I kid you not, you could feel the ground in the city rumble. Friends across False Creek from downtown told me that they could hear the cheers explode out of the core the second the puck hit the net. We celebrated with hugs and cheers in the bar, and then spilled out onto the street to celebrate with thousands of others. We weren’t just celebrating that final game, though. We were celebrating a country and a city ignited by Canadian pride, and the ability to finally be a Canadian without feeling the need to blush. We were celebrating the very ability to celebrate, and the apparent growing-out of our bashful national adolescence. It was thrilling, and a story I’m proud to tell. Mind you, I couldn’t tell it for a few days, seeing as how I had absolutely no voice by the end of it. But the magic of the Internet disavows my irresponsibility.
I don’t think I would have rather been anywhere else in the world than Vancouver during the Olympics. Our city remains locked in intense social justice debates swirling around unresolved questions of power, inequity, and poverty. But for a couple weeks, I saw all of these issues championed and enthusiastically discussed alongside (and as a part of) a national celebration of our identity as a particular people with our own very unique set of characteristics. The games were expensive, challenging, exciting, and problematic, as any major event usually is. Where we struck it lucky, though, is that Canadians seem totally willing to address these issues head-on, and have the discussions that matter when they matter most. Also, they know how to party. In a big way.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Whoa. Whoa.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Big Days Coming Up!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Lighting a Different Flame: Media, Discourse, and Democracy at the Games
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
One More Reason to go Amish
Monday, December 21, 2009
Listomania
10. The Constant Gardener, Fernando Meirelles, 2005
I feel that this is one of the more overlooked films of the past decade. It really is a tremendous piece of work, with leads Ralph Fiennes and Rachael Weisz delivering powerful, and oftentimes heartstopping performances throughout. Meirelles treats the sweeping, overwhelming vistas of Africa simultaneously with respect, refusing to give into tropes of slum representation, while still making every frame read as something of an abstract composition. I'm still haunted by the image of the overturned jeep on a muddy, salt-crusted lake shore. The story itself is urgent, and unabashedly engages with some of the most pressing issues we face today regarding first world treatment, and oftentimes, devastating abuse, of third world resources, both material and human. Yet at the same time, the details of the mystery are left vague enough that the script dodges the bullet of becoming moralistic didacticism, and echoes in a deeply unsettling way how little we actually know about how money, power, and wellbeing are traded in a globalized economy. I really do love this film, and maybe it's because it seems so effortlessly excellent that it doesn't stick out as particularly challenging, or something like that, but the script, the images, and the performances, taken together, create a pulsating, disturbing, and emotionally engaging brew that shouldn't be missed.
9. Divine Intervention, Elia Suleiman, 2002
On the poster pictured above, this film by Palestinian director Elia Suleiman is described as both hysterical and devastating, and I'm inclined to agree, but perhaps not at the most obvious level. It's hysterical because it's devastating; it makes us laugh out of self defense. And it is devastating because it is hysterical; when we laugh, we realize how staggeringly flawed our perceptions (as Westerners) of the Middle East truly are. Divine Intervention is sort of like American Beauty set within a Palestinian encampment in Israel. Suleiman constant plays with mediatized images of Palestinians as violent, destructive, and dangerous, and then turns them on their heads, swinging us wildly between horror and humor, and in the wake of the transition, a bit of shame and embarassment for having been mislead. Suleiman himself plays the film's central figure, a silent, almost Buster Keaton-type figure who somewhat listlessly shuffles about, never seeming any real threat, yet he constantly opens doors, through hilarious and surrealist slapstick, to legitimate discussions of who defines whom in the Middle East, and to what effect.
8. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2000*
I love the Coen Brothers. They could make almost any movie as well or as poorly as they wanted, and I'd probably love it, but this one holds a particularly special place in my heart as it was my introduction to their work. George Clooney has never been funnier or more bearable than he is as the fast-talking Ulysses Everett McGill, and his superb comedic timing throughout literally always leaves me laughing out loud in a pretty embarassing manner. The barn sequence, coupled with the repeated line "Damn, we're in a tight spot!" is one of my favorite comedy moments of the decade. The film, further, looks absolutely stunning. The Coens capture, in vibrant, vivid strokes, everything from pastoral beauty and picturesque agrarian vistas, to almost operatic and theatrical images of depression-era devastation and poverty, and press them all through a warm, dusty colour palate that makes the whole thing at once stunning and gritty. Many of my favorite scenes and shots of the decade come from this film, such as the Siren Song/River sequence, the Baptism sequence, and an early scene in which a blind, railcar-hopping soothsayer foretells the troubles in Everett's future. If you haven't seen Oh Brother, I really suggest that you do, and if you have, watch it again. I'm almost sure you'll be surprised how hard you fall in love with it all over again.
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel, 2007
Anyone's who's seen this film knows why it's on this list. Stunningly acted by all parties, even Mathieu Almaric who, for the vast majority of the film has mobility only in his left eyelid; Poetically and elegantly photographed by Schnabel; and absolutely beautifully scripted in a way that captures both the frustration of paralysis, and the faint glimmers of hope we find within despair. Diving Bell is just beautiful. I don't have much to say about this film in an academic or analytical mode, because I just love it as it is. Really, it's a classic trope about excess, suffering, and redemption, but Schnabel executes this narrative with such subtelty, honesty, and emotive power, that it's hard to do anything but love it.
6. Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman, 2008
Even if this film weren't emotionally engaging, socially relevant, and superbly voiced (which it is), it would deserve at least honorable mention on this list for its absolutely stunning animation style and genre-bending approach to documentary convention. Ostensibly a documentary, but framed through fantasy, memory, and surrealist dream sequences, Folman brings to the screen, through his incredible non-rotoscope animation style (that is somehow 3D and 2D at once), an intensely personal, idiosyncratic, subjective examination of his own role in facilitating the devastating Sabra and Shatila massacres of the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war. Folman has been criticized by a number of people for refusing to engage with the lager trauma of the war as a whole by languishing in his own fantasies and memories, and some have even claimed that the film operates as an attempt to absolve Israel of its brutality in the conflict. To be certain, there's problematic elements here, such as the curious choice to not subtitle the Palestinian figures in the film, yet I can't help but think that these critiques expect something of Folman that he never attempts to explore, in the first place- after all, what authority does he really have to act as the voice of a suffering Palestinian refugee? He has his own voice, and explores it as his own truth, and never makes an attempt to extrapolate it out into some broad assertion of Israeli innocence. I see Waltz With Bashir as an emphatically personal story, and an innovative, arresting one, at that.
5. Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004 (German Release)/2005 (American Release)
For very obvious reasons, the centrepiece of this film is Bruno Ganz's heart stopping performance as Adolph Hitler in the final 12 days of the Third Reich, as his paranoia, physical health, and mental stability collapse upon him within his Berlin bunker. It really is one of the best performances ever put to film, in my opinion. But in a broader sense, Downfall takes a defiantly innovative approach to the WWII film, shirking sweeping vistas, exploding forests, and tales of individual heroism. Rather, we find a focus upon cramped spaces, the devastation of insularity, and the transformation of the war from something deeply disturbing and visceral into something totally abstracted and distant. Near the end of the film, as the Red Army marches on Berlin, we catch our first glimpses of actual combat. For the vast majority of the running time, however, the war is nothing but distant explosions, the drone of airplane engines, and flickering lights. Nonetheless, the tension within the bunker is almost unbearable, with every character caught between their unwavering faith in Hitler, and a complete awareness that their project has failed, and that they now stare death in face for their crimes. The brutality of this circumstance is fleshed out in exquisite detail by Hirschbiegel, particularly in the heartbreaking sequence in which the wife of Himmler chooses death for her children, as opposed to life in a world without Naziism. A staggering, haunting portrait of self-conscious guilt, and the impossibility of delusion in the moments before the collapse, Downfall is truly one of the most memorable films of the decade, and likely one of the best war films of all time.
4. No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007
Those rascally Coen brothers, taking up two spots on my list. No Country seems to be pretty divisive, with audiences split between abject hatred and boredom, and visceral adoration. I place myself in the latter category, quite obviously. Without being too crass, yes, this film does indeed make a haunting assertion about the omnipotence of terror and the reproduction of oppression over time in contemporary society, but mostly, I felt No Country in my bones. I was literally white-knuckling my armrest throughout the movie, particularly in the scene where Josh Brolin sits alone in a dark hotel room, staring at the sliver of light sliding under his door, knowing that Javier Bardem's terrifying (if slightly unfashionable) villain is only steps behind. This sequence, alongside the gas station/coin flip scene earlier in the film, at once acts as a philosophical fulcrum around which the whole message of the film pivots, as well as a breathless, haunting atmospheric piece that functions almost as a stripped down and terrifying ballet. I find it hard to re-watch this movie, because it affected me at such a gut, base level on first viewing, but one viewing is really all it took for No Country For Old Men to become etched into my memory for what will hopefully be decades to come.
3. Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron, 2006
I love dystopia films. I'm obsessed with possible futures and apocalyptic finales to life as we know it, and Cuaron, in his 2006 film, Children of Men takes a unique approach to the dystopia trope that realigns the conventions of the genre to respond to more contemporary anxieties rooted in the body and the natural world. Bladerunner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and other classics of the genre are obsessed with the breakdown in the boundary between man and machine, yet in Children of Men, the body itself is the enemy, with the film set in 2027, 18 years after all women on earth mysteriously became sterile. Cuaron depicts a rapidly decaying urban London, marked sporadically by new, but conceivable technologies such as video billboards and animated bus ads. Outside of these advertising-based technologies, the only new innovations we see in the film are highly sophisticated, but still cubicle-bound computers, and the slightly more fantastic video newspaper. However, these flashy technologies are hardly the norm in Cuaron’s world. He portrays them as superfluous and mundane decorations amid the anonymous, concrete housing projects, the dreary filth of urban waste, and caged hordes of “illegal immigrants” on street corners. Against this stark and hopeless visual world, though, is a tiny glimmer of hope in the form of a young, pregnant immigrant, Ki, who must be smuggled to the coast to keep her out of the hands of a corrupt government. The ending of the film is often criticized for being vague and unsatisfying, but I really like it. It asks a question of the audience, instead of slipping into the precautionary finger-wagging so common in science fiction. It gives us hope by asserting that the capacity for change and progress lies within our own bodies, but leaves it up to us to make the leap to actually use that capacity.
2. The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006