Screen Machine

Review: MIFF ‘10: Tetro, Survival of the Dead, How Much Does Your Building Weigh Mr Foster?, Petropolis

Tetro

Dir. Francis Ford Coppola

There’s so much to love about Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro. First off there’s the brilliant cast, in particular lead Alden Ehrenreich. This being his feature film debut alone surely cements Tetro’s place in history (as the Leonardo DiCaprio comparisons pour in). The rest of the cast are no slouch either. Maribel Verdu is utterly charming and Vincent Gallo puts in an intense and charismatic performance.

There’s also the fact that the film is absolutely lovely to look at, shot mostly in what can only be described as sumptuous black and white, the play of shadow and light will make any aesthetes shiver with pleasure. The film also (unfortunately) features a few irritating and ineffectual flashbacks and dream sequences in colour which looked garish in comparison, in particular the cringeworthy dance-dream scenes.

Though the story is not a particularly original one – one part Oedipal conflict and another coming-of-age all wrapped up in a family drama – it’s all infused with a touchingly personal feel (whether the story is completely autobiographical or not).

However these are the endearing aspects of Tetro. It also had its problems, most of which were in the last 30 minutes. The ending is so full of numerous melodramatic climaxes all of which fall pretty flat compared with the slowly building tension of the rest of the film. Although packed with activity (a competition! a road trip!) and a couple of plot twists (a death and a revelation) the last segment also drags and Tetro, however beautiful, ends up overstaying its welcome.

- Samantha Chater

Survival of the Dead

Dir. George A. Romero

As the crippling shortcomings of Survival of the Dead clearly demonstrate, George Romero has established a dangerous precedent for his work. More so than other films in the zombie sub-genre, the ‘Of the Dead’ series carries a particular expectation for social commentary. Watching any of these films, we are drawn towards the zombies’ allegorical significance. Historically this has proven quite the rewarding endeavour, adding a much-needed cerebral balance to an otherwise entirely visceral experience. Examples which immediately come to mind – bourgeois isolationism, vivisection, consumerism, border protection and the camera’s sadistic tendencies – are just some of the issues enriching Romero’s 42 years of zombie cinema. Yet watching Survival one has difficulty figuring out what it is exactly that Romero is trying to say.

For the most part, zombies take a backseat in Survival of the Dead. Nobody seems particularly phased by their presence. Indeed, one of the major flaws of this film is its characters’ lack of fear, their military resourcefulness and abundance of ammunition. Survival, in fact, never seems to be in doubt: that is, of course, for as long as they steer clear of their fellow human beings. That people are shit is of course the perennial theme of contemporary horror, but could Romero sink so low? That the plot is initially driven by Commando Crockett and Co.’s desire to find “a place where there is no Them” is certainly worrying in this regard.

Yet there is far more to this movie. It transforms the zombie into a battle with tradition. “All my life I stuck to the good Lord’s Word, to his practices. All I’m doing is what he commanded of us,” proclaims Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick), who keeps his zombie family chained to perform their former existence.

While the moral of the film is perhaps that we should rather let the dead go free, Romero unfortunately fails to take his own advice in this regard. The zombie genre is changing, new hybridities displacing more traditional forms. With Survival of the Dead’s feuding families openly borrowed from William Wyler’s American Western The Big Country (1958), Romero could gain better inspiration from the more innovative work of Bruce LaBruce. The zombie-Western complex has run its course across the countless films since Night of the Living Dead (and its adaptation of John Huston’s The Unforgiven, 1960). To survive, Romero needs to start taking his zombies in new directions.

- Peter Jacobsen

How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster? + Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands

Dir. Peter Mettler

I went to this double screening, with no interest in the feature (How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster?) and sincerely looking forward to the “short”. Normally, I would rather dig my own eye out with a spoon than watch an architecture film, but in the end, I was totally inspired by the admittedly posh and self-serious Norman Foster bio, and disappointed with Petropolis.

Specifically, I was disappointed with the image quality, which seemed like it was either played off DVD or a poor quality digital encode, with interlacing, focus and cropping issues. Either way, for a film that hinges almost entirely on its spectacular aerial cinematography, it is poor form to show it in that state, and for me, like watching it through a dirty window. However, despite being distracted by my own neurotic nitpicking, the film still managed to convey something of the scale of environmental devastation that has occurred in Western Canada off the back of their oil boom. There was no tell-tale MIFF applause at the end, and I got the impression that people were genuinely dumbstruck by the horror of being confronted by these images of nature-rape they had hardly imagined before. It was intelligent programming too: many of the ecological themes that emerged in How Much Does Your Building Weigh? segued nicely into Petropolis, including the idea that there is massive wastage involved in the construction of cities and it is little considered by the majority of us, for all our hand wringing about the environment. The contrast between the gleaming, organised, Foster utopias and the slap-dash, shantytown reality of a mining operation where all is shabby – unfinished roads, and roiling toxic waste just set about in thoughtless piles – could not have been drawn more clearly.

- Jessie Scott

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