Two
weeks back, TIFF announced the results of their most recent survey of the
Greatest Canadian Films of All Time – something they do every 10 years, give or
take. For the first time since the survey started in the 1980s, Claude Jutra’s
Mon Oncle Antoine did not win – that went to Zacharis Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The
Fast Runner for 2001 – which shouldn’t be all that surprising, considering it
placed 5th in 2004, just three years after it came out. Apparently,
the race was close, but Atanarjuat won it. Is it the greatest Canadian film of
all time? Not to me, but it’s pretty damn close, so why complain?
Their
list was as follows:
1.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (Zacharis Kunuk, 2001)
2. Mon
Oncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971)
3. The
Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)
4.
Leolo (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1992)
5.
Jesus of Montreal (Denys Arcand, 1989)
6.
Goin’ Down the Road (Don Shebib, 1970)
7. Dead
Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
8.
C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean Marc-Valle, 2005)
9. My
Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007)
10
(tie). Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)
10
(tie). Les Ordres (Michel Brault, 1974)
When
the list came out, I started thinking about what my top 10 list of all time
Canadian films would look like. I almost immediately knew that if I was going
to make one up, I’d have to limit myself to one film per director – if not, I
could easily have 6 Cronenbergs, 2 Egoyans, and only have two spots left. And
what would be in the fun in that. I think one can argue that perhaps the reason
why Cronenberg – Canada’s best known, and best director, ranked all the way
down at number 6 is because he has so many films that could qualify, and there
seems to be no real consensus as to what his best is. Browsing through the
ballots, there was obviously a lot of votes for Dead Ringers, but there were
also a lot of votes for Videodrome and Crash, and scattered support for Eastern
Promises, Naked Lunch, eXistenZ, Spider, Shivers, Scanners, The Brood – even a
couple of lone votes for M. Butterfly and Rabid. A few, possibly confused,
individuals voted for Cronenberg’s American films – The Dead Zone, The Fly and
A History of Violence. My guess is that if you were to ask this same group who the
best Canadian director of all time was, Cronenberg would win. But that’s just a
guess. In case anyone is interested, I do have a ranked list on Letterboxd of
the Best Canadian films of all time, where I don’t limited myself to one film
per director (and actually, only three Cronenberg’s made the top 10 – although
he makes up a third of the top 21 films). http://letterboxd.com/davevanh/list/my-35-favorite-canadian-films/
Cronenberg
is hardly alone in having multiple films split his vote. While almost everyone
who voted for a Kunuk, Jutra, Lauzon or Shebib film voted for Atanarjuat, Mon
Oncle Antoine, Leolo and Goin’ Down the Road respectively – Egoyan’s The Sweet
Hereafter came third, but also found a lot of support for Calendar (one of the
few films of his I have missed), Exotica, Family Viewing and The Adjuster.
Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal came 5th – but his The Decline of
the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions got lots of votes as well.
Sarah Polley has only directed 3 films – but while Stories We Tell came in at
number 10, she also got a lot of votes for Away From Her. Guy Maddin’s My
Winnipeg made the top 10, but lots of people loved The Heart of the World, The
Saddest Music in the World, Careful and Archangel as well. Canadian cinema
remains a nice market even within Canada (and especially outside of Quebec) –
so it’s not surprising that the same directors show up on everyone’s lists –
they’re the only ones getting things made.
After
making my list, I have to say, I think the TIFF survey did an excellent job. 6
of my top 10 are on it – and 2 others are by directors who made the list, but
for different films. After some honorable mentions, I’ll get to my top 10 –
which I ranked to make things more fun.
Honorable Mentions: C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean
Marc-Valle, 2005) is a funny, touching and heartfelt movie about
being a gay teenager in 1970s Quebec (ask me another day, and I may put
Vallee’s wonderful Café de Flore for 2011 here instead). The Dirties (Matt Johnson, 2013) was a funny and disturbing DIY
movie about a school shooting. Ginger
Snaps (John Fawcett) is one of the only truly original werewolf movies –
which brilliantly, and hilariously, likens turning into a werewolf with teenage
girl puberty. Goin’ Down the Road (Don
Shebib, 1970) is undeniably one of the most important Canadian films in
history – and has a brilliant documentary like feel to the story of two men who
come from Out East to the Big City, and find it just as miserable. Goon (Michael Dowse, 2011) is perhaps
not a great movie – but it’s a great hockey movie which is FAR rarer. Hard Core Logo (Bruce McDonald, 1996) has
rightfully become a cult hit – it perfectly captures the messiness of punk rock
and self-destruction (although sometimes, I think McDonald’s under seen
Pontypool – a zombie movie with no zombies - is even better). Last Night (Don McKellar, 1998) is a
very Canadian movie about the end of the world. Mansfield Park (Patricia Rozema, 1999) is as good a Jane Austen
adaptation as more celebrated ones by Ang Lee or Joe Wright. Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014) is the
wunderkind’s best film so far, and I doubt that it will be too much longer
before he’s made a film good enough to be in the top 10. Splice (Vincenzo Natali, 2009) may not been as original as his
Cube, but makes up for it by being batshit fucking insane – which is what I
want from a Canadian movie like this. Thirty
Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (Francois Girard, 1994) is a musician’s
biopic, but one with none of the usual trappings and clichés that mar even the
best the genre have to offer.
10. 21-87 (Arthur Lipsett, 1963)
The
montage films of Arthur Lipsett are fascinating to watch – his first film, Very
Nice Very Nice – was Oscar nominated, and remains probably his best known film,
and the consensus pick for his best. I, however, was much more impressed with
his follow-up film – 21-87, made in 1963. Lipsett uses a mixture of found
footage and footage he himself shot, and made a pessimistic, almost dystopian,
view of society – where machines were taking over, and soon we would all be
reduced to a number, not a name. It’s a sad portrait of our culture, and one
that has only become more relevant in the 50 years since he made the film and
today. The film was a key influence on George Lucas – especially for THX 1138
(although there is a reference to the title in the original Star Wars movie as
well). Sadly for Lipsett, he didn’t last long at the NFB, where he made the
film – his bosses didn’t like, and didn’t get his films, and so by the end of
the 1960s he was off on his own – and slowly slide into mental illness. But
this short film – only 8 minutes long – deserves a spot on this list.
9. The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand,
2003)
Jesus
of Montreal is a more daring film, and The Decline of the American Empire is
out and out funnier, but Arcand’s Oscar winning The Barbarian Invasions is
still my favorite of his work. The films takes place 17 years after The Decline
of the American Empire, and revisits the same characters – and their now adult
children. Remy (Remy Girard), the leftist, womanizing history professor of the
original film, is dying – and although he has done his best to alienate those
around him, they all come back as he faces death. This may seem sentimental or
unrealistic – and to a certain extent it is, as everyone from his adult son,
who has embraced everything he rejected, to his ex-wife, who he cheated on
constantly, to former lovers come back to send him off. Yet Arcand isn’t only
being sentimental here – he has some points to make. The older generation was
idealistic – the younger generation isn’t – and the older generation may
complain about how the world is going to hell, but Arcand makes clear that they
are as responsible for that as anyone else, and if the kids are screwed up,
well just look at who they had for parents? (The younger generation has Remy’s
overachieving side and Marie Josee Croze’s heroin addict as flip sides to the
same coin – and interestingly, they become characters perhaps more complex than
anyone else). The film touches on issues like 9/11, the overburdened Canadian
healthcare system and others as well. But through it all, Arcand remains his
funny, whip-smart self.
8. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (Zacharis
Kunuk, 2001)
The
newly minted “Best Canadian Film of All time” really is a masterful film – and
unlike anything you have ever seen before, or likely will ever see again.
Running nearly three hours long, the film takes place in an small Inuit
community – the time period could be now, or 1,000 years ago, it doesn’t much
matter. It is a film that both shows the Inuit culture in a way that it has
never been seen before, and tells a story of passion, jealously and murder. The
film is both very specific to its culture, and yet universal. It’s also not a
boring film – not in the least – or some dull history lesson. The film is
moving, and at times exciting – the three hour runtime moved by very fast for
me. Kunuk has, unfortunately, not really been able to follow-up the film with
much success – The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006) is fascinating, but feels
much longer than Atanajurat, despite being an hour shorter. No, I do not think this
is the best Canadian film of all time (obviously) – but it is one of the only
films I can think – from anywhere in the world – that I would describe as truly
one of a kind.
7. Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
I could
have easily have put Polytechnique here – Villeneuve’s gut-wrenching, black
& white film about the massacre in 1989, or Incendies, his Oscar-nominated
film about a legacy violence passed down from generation to generation (hell,
ask me another day, and perhaps I would). But for now, I’ll go with
Villeneuve’s most recent film – Enemy – an adaption of the Jose Saramago novel,
The Double, about a history professor who discovers his exact double (both
played by Jake Gyllenhaal in an excellent performance). The movie is 90 minutes
long, and neatly twists itself at the 30 and 60 minute marks, taking the film
in a new direction each time. Villeneuve’s film is a surreal nightmare –
evoking Cronenberg – and making both Toronto and Mississauga seemed darker and
greyer than ever before. The film is really about Gyllenhaal’s relationship to
the women in life – brilliantly played by Isabella Rossellini as his other,
Melanie Laurent as a new girlfriend, and best of all Sarah Gadon as his
pregnant wife. The shock of a finale is ingenious – because it works first as
per shock value, and then as something deeper. Villeneuve is a talented
filmmaker – and Canada may well lose him forever to Hollywood (he has already
directed the wonderful thriller Prisoners there – has completed another
Hollywood film (which will premiere at Cannes this month), and has two more on
the go (including a Blade Runner sequel). But if this is it for him in Canadian
film – he’s left his mark.
6. Leolo (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1992)
The
fact that Jean-Claude Lauzon died far too young – in a plane crash at the age
of 43 having just completed two films – is a tragedy, because Leolo is one of
the most inventive films I have ever seen, and I wish I could have seen more by
him. It is a tale inspired by Lauzon’s own childhood in Montreal – and centers
on an introverted 12 year old from an insane family – and not a lovably
eccentric insane family like most movies of this sort, but genuinely crazy. Not
that Leolo isn’t himself a little crazy – he believes that his real father was
an Italian farmer who masturbated into some freshly picked tomatoes, and the
semen eventually impregnated his mother when she fell in them in the market in
Montreal. Oh, and he’s devising an intricate machine of pulleys to murder his
grandfather – who is a horny old bastard anyway. It’s one of those films that
defy description, and must be seen to be believed. If you haven’t seen it, then
do so. Now.
5. My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007)
There
has never been a filmmaker like Guy Maddin before, and there will likely never
been a filmmaker like him again. His films are inspired by cinemas’ past –
particularly melodramatic silent films – but while his films often take that
form, it doesn’t begin to describe them. His greatest film is My Winnipeg
(although you could vote for any number of his films, and be right – and I hear
his latest, which premiered at Sundance is one of his best) is his ode to his
hometown of Winnipeg. Maddin both seems to love and loathe Winnipeg, and gives
us a “documentary” about his town, and everything that happened in its history
– none of it, and all of it being true. Maddin attributes the movie’s unique
take on Winnipeg as laziness – he was hired to make a documentary about his old
hometown, and decided not to do any research, and just do the whole thing from
memory. In its way, it gives a more interesting insight into the city because
it isn’t researched – and is about how it feels like live there. Basically
though, it’s much more about Maddin than about Winnipeg. That’s why, to me,
it’s the most fascinating film Maddin has made so far.
4. Mon Oncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971)
In
small town Quebec, in the 1950s, a young teenage boy learns a lot about life
and death, and loses his innocence, all over one Christmas Eve. He lives in the
kind of small town where most of the men work at the asbestos mine, and the
entire town will congregate at the local general store – which has everything
one could need to buy. The store is run by his uncle Antoine – who is also the
local undertaker – and the boy works there, alongside a girl around his same
age, from an abusive background. Claude Jutra’s beautiful movie is shot with
documentary like realism in the early scenes – as the film plays as a coming of
age film. The final act of the movie takes on a darker tone though – as the boy
is confronted with a series of uncomfortable truths on a long, cold, snowy
sleigh ride to pick up and return a dead body with his uncle. The film works
wonderfully as a coming of age/loss of innocence story – but there’s more here
than that, as the movie also functions as an allegory for Quebec from the time
the film takes place (the 1950s) to when it was made (1970s) that makes it a
deeper experience. Jutra never hit these heights again – but in Mon Oncle
Antoine he made a perfect film.
3. Away From Her (Sarah Polley, 2007)
Sarah
Polley’s directorial debut Away From Her is a subtle heartbreaker of a film.
The great Julie Christie stars as a woman who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,
and eventually has to go into a nursing home. Her husband, the great Gordon
Pinsent has to deal with the fact that he has been left alone – the woman he
has loved all these years is still there, and yet gone – she even finds a new
love interest, and doesn’t realize that she is already married. Pinsent is
hurt, and tries, in vain, to try and get her back. But this isn’t The Notebook
– but something deeper and truer to life. Polley shoots the film is bright
whites – it takes place during the winter, and there is white snow everywhere,
the sun is shining, the fluorescent lights of the nursing home non-ceasing.
There is nowhere to hide. Polley does a remarkable job adapting Alice Munro’s
short story – something that is hard to do, because Munro’s genius is often
about what happens outside the story – that is not written, but felt. Polley
has directed two other films since Away From Her – Take This Waltz, a
wonderful, underrated examination of infidelity and divorce, and Stories We Tell,
a personal documentary about Polley’s past (that easily could have been here
instead of this one). Alongside Xavier Dolan, she is probably the brightest
hope of Canada’s future cinema, especially since Vallee and Villeneuve seem
determined to go Hollywood (not that I blame them). This is a subtle,
heartbreaking masterpiece.
2. The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)
Over
the lifetime of this blog – started in 2009 – I have been hard on Atom Egoyan
as he makes one disappointment after another (Chloe, Devil’s Knot, The
Captive). But I’m hard on him because during the 1990s – and into the 2000s (I
will still stand up for films like Ararat, Where the Truth Lies and Adoration),
he seemed poised to perhaps one day rival Cronenberg as the greatest Canadian
director in history. That hasn’t happened – but Egoyan has made at least three
truly great films (Exotica and Felicia’s Journey are the others) – but The
Sweet Hereafter really does tower over the rest. The film is subtle and heartbreaking
and shot in the winter, with snow covering everything (much like the previous
two films on this list come to think of it). It tells the story of a tragic
school bus accident that takes the lives of 14 children, and its aftermath. Ian
Holm delivers a remarkable performance as a lawyer who comes to town and hopes
to sign up the parents for a class action lawsuit. But he isn’t a slime ball or
a crusading hero – The Sweet Hereafter is too complex for that – but a sad man,
dealing with loss of his own. The film is not about assigning blame, but is
really about grief, and how nothing will ever make everything whole again.
Adapting the book by Russell Banks, Egoyan has crafted a masterpiece. I want
this Egoyan back – not the one who made Devil’s Knot.
1. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
I’ve
been working on this piece for a couple of days now, and I have gone back and
forth and back and forth multiple times as to what David Cronenberg film should
be #1. I could easily have put Crash (1996) here – and its disturbing portrait
of a sexual car crash fetish, which acts, in its way, as the culmination of
Cronenberg’s career up to that point. Or I could Videodrome here, with its
genre leanings mixed with media messages, and gory special effects. What about
Naked Lunch – a brilliant blending of the sensibilities of Cronenberg and
William S. Burroughs, to come up with something wholly unique. Spider is a wonderful
examination of a schizophrenic mind that came out the time as the feel good
version – A Beautiful Mind. eXistenZ was a virtual reality film the same year
as The Matrix – and Cronenberg’s film was smarter. Eastern Promises was an
exciting, brilliant acted and directed Russian mob movie. The more I think
about it, the more I love Cosmopolis – the Wall Street giant as emotional
vampire film from a few years ago. Even Cronenberg’s less successful stuff –
like the early Shivers, Rabid and The Brood, or later A Dangerous Method or
Maps to the Stars are fascinating to watch. Luckily The Dead Zone, The Fly and A
History of Violence are technically American films, or that would have made
things even more complicated. So finally, what was it that made me land on Dead
Ringers as his best (Canadian) film? Part of it is the technical mastery on
display in the film – it may be easier now to have one actor play two
characters and interact with each other, but it was much harder in 1988 – and
Cronenberg pulls it off brilliantly. Not only that, but the whole movie is
coldly, almost surgically, directed, making an exploitation like premise come
across as something much more serious – and tragic. Part of it is the
performances by Jeremy Irons – who makes the two Mantle twins completely
different characters, even as they are wholly dependent on each other. But it’s
really the final scene that makes me vote for this one, finally, over Crash.
Both films have a tragic conclusion in their way – Crash with a marriage only
temporarily “saved” as the characters continue to careen towards their deaths.
But Dead Ringers final shot is haunting, tragic, sad, inevitable and just plain
brilliant. Ask me another day, and perhaps Crash gets my vote (in fact, when I
initially wrote this up, it did) – but for now, I’ll stick with Dead Ringers.
