Early meditations on VIFF

iven the city’s recent growth spurt, it feels especially appropriate to open this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival with a movie from our own backyard. Set in Chinatown, Mina Shum’s Meditation Park launches the 36th edition of VIFF next Thursday (September 28), ushering in 16 days of Cannes hits, Oscar contenders, industry events, special presentations, and much, much more. It all ends on October 13 with Todd Haynes’s latest, Wonderstruck, which is probably how we’ll feel after power-cramming some of the 300 or so international and domestic features on offer. Our coverage ramps up next week, but here are a few reviews to get your motor running:

ALPHAGO (USA) As an account of 2016’s high-stakes battle between a Taiwanese Go grandmaster and the DeepMind computer program developed for Google by some next-level geeks in London, Alphago is genuinely gripping, and comes highly recommended. As a deeper inquiry into the ramifications of AI, however, Greg Koh’s doc is a little too much in awe of a technology I don’t recall any of us ever asking for. Or, to put it another way, Alphago rhapsodically quotes Gary Kasparov—“a good human plus a machine is the best combination”—without considering who built the machine. International Village, October 2 (11 a.m.); Playhouse, October 3 (6:30 p.m.) > ADRIAN MACK

ANGKOR AWAKENS: A PORTRAIT OF CAMBODIA

(Cambodia/usa) Of the myriad methods director Robert H. Lieberman uses here to paint a picture of Cambodia’s complex history, the most striking is traditional shadow puppetry. The vivid scenes, with their intricate silhouettes, offer an artful remove from the horrors being described. It’s a brief respite: the documentary bears witness to multiple firsthand accounts—from child soldiers, orphans, politicians, diplomats, aid workers—of the Khmer Rouge chaos. (At one point, citizens recall the genocidal regime even targeting people who wore glasses.) The result is compelling—one of the clearest, most complete historical maps of how such a peaceful country could descend into a bloodbath. And a sober warning that it could happen anywhere. Cinematheque, October 1 (6:30 p.m.); International Village, October 3 (11:30 a.m.) > JANET SMITH

AZAR (Iran) From the opening moments, it’s clear the title character is not a typical female in this patriarchal society: she’s dirt-bike racing. But as the understated domestic drama unfurls, it becomes obvious even a woman this strong is no match for the web of rules around her behaviour in Tehran. She works hard at her husband’s pizza joint, but when tragedy strikes, she struggles to run it alone. This is, after all, a country where a woman delivering pizza on her motorcycle at night is a shock. While not as tightly or artfully wrought as an Asghar Farhadi film, Azar raises similar deep social questions, and is helped by Niki Karimi’s strong, near wordless performance. Vancity, September 30 (10:30 a.m.) and October 8 (6 p.m.); SFU, October 11 (9 p.m.) > JS

BAD GENIUS (Thailand) This Thai teen dramedy is terrific fun for the first three of its four-and-a-half hours (plus), until the tale of a good girl—a socially awkward math wiz— gets too complicated for its own good. Still, the slickly made film, about nerdy students who hit on a moneymaking scheme that gradually corrupts everyone involved, is an intriguing combination of heist movie and social-status critique in a culture that has come to overvalue competition. The girl’s overwhelmed single dad is played by late starter Thaneth Warakulnukroh, who led that soulful elephant across rural Thailand in the recently seen Pop Aye. International Village, October 6 (10:45 a.m.); Playhouse, October 8 (6 p.m.) and 13 (6:15 p.m.) > KEN EISNER

BLACK COP (Canada) As puzzling as it is provocative, Black Cop follows its unnamed title character from ambivalent member of his own community (he sneers at Black Lives Matter protesters in an early scene) to angel of inarticulate vengeance, using his uniform to go Maniac Cop on privileged white folk. (Rather pleasingly, on a visceral level.) Charismatic Ronnie Rowe Jr. has to do a lot of the heavy lifting here, suggesting a conflicted inner life that’s deeper and more troubled than anything offered in the script, least of all the event that pushes him over the edge. But the film’s Medium Cool attempt at a high-voltage contemporaneity definitely excites (from doc-style scenes of protest to action viewed through dash- and chest-cams), even if I’m not entirely sure that writer-director Cory Bowles (a.k.a. Cory from Trailer Park Boys) has its politics straight. International Village, October 3 (7:15 p.m.) and 4 (4:45 p.m.); Rio, October 13 (6:15 p.m.) > AM

THE BOLSHOI (Russia) Valery Todorovsky’s sprawling story of a poor mining-town girl who makes it into the legendary Bolshoi Ballet has the gloss of a TV movie. But what takes it to a higher level is its refusal to stick to fairytale plotting, its access to the elaborate theatre itself, and, most of all, its lead, Julia. Played by a real—yet never clichéd—ballet dancer, the graceful but Shelley Duvall–gawky Margarita Simonova, Julia is an oddball mix of mischief and iron will. You won’t be able to tear your eyes away from her as the story line dances deftly between her hardscrabble upbringing and her struggles coming of age and competing with her rich rival Karin at the ballet. For a movie as weightless as its flawless grands jetés, it also dares to expose the growing economic and social gaps in Russia. International Village, September 29 (3:45 p.m.); Vancity, October 6 (9 p.m.); Centre, October 12 (8:45 p.m.) > JS

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY (USA) Widely considered the most gorgeous actress to come out of Hollywood’s golden era, Hedy Lamarr was born Jewish and rich in prewar Austria but lost her identity and much more after moving to America, where she kept marrying men with money but not much else to offer. This wellconstructed doc about the fatal trap of beauty suggests that being sexy, smart, and ethnic brought at least two qualities too many for the studio system. It makes a solid case for her principal invention, the signal-hopping system that came into full fruition with cellphones, for which she finally received recognition in her own lifetime—even if it was too late to restore her damaged self-esteem. SFU, September 28 (6:45 p.m.); International Village, October 8 (9:30 p.m.); Playhouse, October 11 (3:45 p.m.) > KE

BOSCH: THE GARDEN OF DREAMS (Spain/france) If ever a painting deserved this kind of detailed investigation— via X-rays, experts, and admirers from Salman Rushdie to Orhan Pamuk—it is Hieronymus Bosch’s wild, confounding, and erotically bedazzling triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. José Luis López-linares’s documentary lingers on every fascinating detail of the 16th-century masterwork— from couples copulating in mussel shells to naked men riding unicorns. He juxtaposes them effectively with images from nature, Woodstock-like gatherings, and surrealist film of the last century. Was the triptych a warning against sin, a celebration of earthly abandon, or simply a rendering of some grand fever dream? It’s a tantalizing enigma for the ages—one that not even a film this exhaustive can answer. SFU, September 29 (6:30 p.m.) and October 11 (1:30 p.m) > JS

BUNCH OF KUNST (U.K.) The film with this year’s best title is a slight but still worthy portrait of Nottingham’s Sleaford Mods, whose cathartically rude, lo-fi vision of Britain in collapse has made unlikely stars out of the supercaustic duo. They’re as suprised as anyone about that, and filmmaker Christine Franz captures the air of general incredulity backstage at Glastonbury or, more poetically, in shots of the uncomfortable-looking pair dwarfed inside a vast dressing room at the O2 in London. Even though you’d probably cross the street to avoid these not-verypretty 40-something men, beatmaker Andrew Fearn emerges as thoughtful and warm. Vocalist Jason Williamson is more distant, though his very English gift for inventive swearing and livid gutter surrealism obviously starts at home, as when his wife refers to Williamson’s bouts of post-tour moodiness as “cunt flu”. Vancity, October 6 (6:30 p.m.); Rio, October 8 (3:30 p.m.) > AM

CHAVELA (USA) A should-have-been superstar gets her due in this lovingly made—if not always flattering—portrait of Chavela Vargas, a gender-bending singer who brought fado-like intensity to Mexican rancheras, almost all about lost love. At her height, she wowed the public and visiting movie royalty; she even found herself in bed with Ava Gardner! But her boozy ways (“I drank the rivers dry,” she tells the camera, in retrospective mode) and refusal to compromise contributed to her decline. And then Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar, one of several passionately devoted male advocates in her life, helped launch a spectacular last act.

see next page

Blackcop; Glee’s Hollowintheland.

FILM FESTIVAL Vancouver International Film Festival

1.

2. DOXA Documentary Film Festival 3. Vancouver Queer Film Festival

NEIGHBOURHOOD MOVIE THEATRE

1. Rio Theatre

1660 East Broadway

2. Cineplex Fifth Avenue Cinemas

2110 Burrard Street

3. Vancity Theatre

1181 Seymour Street

LOCAL MODELLING/TALENT AGENCY

Trisko Talent Management

1.

270–1140 Hornby Street 2. Argent Talent Management

120–470 Granville Street 3. Lizbell Agency

202–1477 West Pender Street

LOCAL TV NEWSCAST

1. Global News B.C. 2. CTV News Vancouver 3. CBC Vancouver News

LOCAL TV NEWS ANCHOR Chris Gailus (Global News B.C.)

1. 2. Sophie Lui (Global News B.C.) 3. Tamara Taggart

(CTV News Vancouver)

LOCAL VIDEO- GAME/ANIMATION STUDIO

1. Electronic Arts Canada

4330 Sanderson Way, Burnaby 2. Nitrogen Studios Canada

708 Powell Street

3. Big Bad Boo Studios Vancouver

201–1250 Homer Street