REVIEWS
SPECIAL PRESENTATION
Can. 2011. 92mins Director Guy Maddin Production company Buffalo Gal Pictures International sales Entertainment One Films International, www. entertainmentonegroup. com Producers Jody Shapiro, Jean du Toit Executive producer Phyllis Laing Screenplay Guy Maddin, George Toles Cinematography Ben Kasulke Editor John Gurdebeke Production design Richardo Alms Main cast Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier, Louis Negin, Brooke Palsson, David Wontner
Keyhole REVIEWED BY DAN FAINARU
According to Guy Maddin, his new film is the autobiography of a house. It is also a concise ver- sion of Homer’s Odyssey… and a gangster movie in
The Island President
REVIEWED BY DAVID D’ARCY
A country is threatened with disappearance as the level of the Indian Ocean rises, with no sign of receding. If the charismatic leader of this island land cannot stop the waters, at least he can take a warning to the rest of the world. This is not a dis- aster epic, it is the Maldives today. The Island President brings an urgent take on
trouble in paradise, and a character, Mohamed Nasheed, who could not be a better advocate for an underdog’s position. More entertaining and less didactic than An Inconvenient Truth, the film should ride the zeitgeist to a theatrical release in North America and Europe, and a strong showing in television markets. Nasheed won an election; he should also help The Island President win awards. The documentary by Jon Shenk (who made
2003’s Lost Boys Of Sudan) begins with the radi- ant beauty of the Indian Ocean and the allure of a land of blissful serenity. Prying into that myth, the film traces the trajec-
tory of Nasheed’s career in a tourist Mecca where locals were ruled by a brutal dictator. A dissident, Nasheed survived prison (where some of his friends died) and joined a movement that prefig- ured the more recent Arab Spring. Archive foot- age documents torture and worse. As president, he inherited a newly freed democracy and the risk of losing it all to climate change.
n 12 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 12, 2011
a haunted house packed with ghosts — a super- natural tale where dead people are alive and the live ones are dead. It is also a film about fathers and sons, and about 100 other things besides. All this may very well be true, but it looks as if
Maddin has decided to throw these ingredients into a blender, turn it to high speed and then point his small digital camera at it. The effect is dizzying
enough to suggest that once again, Maddin has made a film for himself and his restricted coterie, and that everyone else will have to watch it at their own risk. At an early stage the voice of a narrator pro-
claims that when a house is abandoned, the happi- ness leaves but the sadness remains. So Keyhole might indeed be the story of a house, cluttered with so many memories and visited by so many ghosts (which are basically memories themselves) that they actually push one another off the screen. The notion this might also be a sort of modern-
day Odyssey, is backed up by the name given to the protagonist, Ulysses Pick, who is played by Jason Patric. Ulysses returns home after a long absence to find his wife (Rossellini) has locked herself in her bedroom, with her naked father (Negin) chained to her bed and an Asiatic suitor paying regular visits The film was shot in 15 days in black and white
(a Maddin tradition), evidently in one location, and then feverishly cut to look like a baffling whirlpool of images, with a soundtrack that has echoes of horror movies. The chaotic, constantly changing shape of the house is a credit to the art direction. Patric has been selected for his dark good looks
reminiscent of Hollywood icons, which he fully exploits here, while Udo Kier’s presence is both an attribute in its own right and a reference to his many earlier roles. Isabella Rossellini’s Hyacinth, meanwhile,
blends the bitterness of a woman abandoned with the strength of a Mother Earth, but truth be said (and indeed some of the actors have confirmed it), none of them really got to the bottom of Maddin’s intentions. Which is probably as it should be.
MAVERICKS
US. 2011. 110mins Director/screenplay/ cinematographer Jon Shenk Production company Actual Films International sales Menemsha Films, www.
menemshafilms.com Producers Bonni Cohen, Richard Berge Executive producer John Else Editor Pedro Kos
The Island President makes visual richness out
of its story’s contradictions. The azure sea that draws sun-seekers from Europe also surrounds horrific island prisons from which escape was impossible. Opponents of the regime, which oper- ated with impunity until 2008, were arrested and isolated. Many were driven abroad. Charisma takes Nasheed and the Maldives only so far. Victories at conferences are compromises
(with the growing economies of India and China declining to make sacrifices), but Nasheed is pre- paring for his next battle, not content to be a smil- ing mascot for a lost cause. The Island President mixes grim imagery from
the archives with on-the-run footage. Production values are high, even when the film-maker is chas- ing his subject. The result is an inspiring portrait in a sea of troubling environmental threats.
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