Film Brockville
The Films
2013 Winter Schedule
| Jan 09 | The Intouchables |
| Jan 23 | Midnight's Children |
| Feb 13 | A Late Quartet |
| Feb 20 | A Royal Affair |
|
Mar 06 (date corrected) | Still |
| April 03 | Rust and Bone |
| Apr 10 | First Position |
| Apr 24 | Amour |
| May 01 | On the Road |
| May 15 | The Sapphires |
| TBA |
Always much more coming! -restarting with the Fall series |
Welcome!
Screening times are the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month (usually - check the schedule), 7:30 p.m., Galaxy cinema, 1000 Islands Mall, Brockville, Ontario.
The box office opens about 7:00 p.m. Seating is limited (200) and is on a first-come first-served basis, so come early. The ticket price is $8.00 (cash only; exact change is appreciated because that makes sales proceed quickly/smoothly). We are not equipped for debit/credit cards.
Film Brockville needs your support to continue bringing interesting films to the city. Encourage friends, colleagues, neighbours and relatives to join the Film Brockville mailing list (filmbrockville@yahoo.ca).
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Dale Chisamore
Film Brockville
The Films
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The Intouchables
Wed. Jan. 09, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
Already breaking box office records as the second highest grossing non-English language film ever (behind The Passion of the Christ), Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano's The Intouchables has become a worldwide sensation. Nominated for nine César Awards (France's equivalent to the Academy Awards), and winning Best Actor for Omar Sy (beating The Artist's Jean Dujardin) The Intouchables tells the story of the improbable friendship between Philippe (François Cluzet, Little White Lies, Tell No One) a wealthy quadriplegic, and Driss (Sy, Micmacs), a young offender of Senegalese descent, who is hired as his live-in caregiver. A widower, Philippe lives with his teenage daughter in a luxurious Paris apartment. When a paragliding accident leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, Philippe requires a caregiver to assist him with his daily physical needs. With the help of his assistant Magalie (Audrey Fleurot, The Women on the Sixth Floor) he interviews a number of highly qualified candidates, all of whom he subsequently rejects in favour of Driss; a recently released ex-con who has only applied for the job to ensure he keeps getting welfare payments. Charmed by Driss's brash self-confidence and sometimes brutal straightforwardness, the jaded Philippe finds the young man’s lack of pity precisely what he wants in a caregiver. Thus begins an unlikely pairing, one of which will change both their lives in a remarkable ways. Propelled by Sy's charismatic performance, The Intouchables is well-executed and thoroughly enjoyable culture-clash comedy about a friendship that transcends the social and economic divide. Based on a true story, writer-directors Nakache and Toledano add just enough real-life seriousness to anchor their narrative, but this simple yet elegant film never loses its sense of humour.
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Midnight's Children
Wed. Jan. 23, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
A momentous collaboration between Academy Award®–nominated director Deepa Mehta, one of Canada’s most gifted and fearless filmmakers, and Salman Rushdie, one of the world’s most imaginative, controversial novelists, Midnight’s Children marks a milestone in international cinema. It is also a luxurious feast of a film, bursting with colour, wit, and magic.
Rushdie’s inspired adaptation of his own Booker Prize–winning magical realist novel follows the destinies of a pair of children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment that India claimed its independence from Great Britain — a coincidence of profound consequence for both. "Handcuffed to history," and switched at birth by a nurse in a Bombay hospital, Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha), the son of a poor single mother, and Shiva (Siddharth), scion of a wealthy family, are condemned to live out the fate intended for the other. Imbued with mysterious telepathic powers, their lives become strangely intertwined and inextricably linked to their country’s careening journey through the tumultuous twentieth century.
An irreverent epic of Shakespearean proportions, shot through with moments of arresting intimacy, Midnight’s Children is a production of truly impressive scope: featuring sixty-two locations, state-of-the-art computer graphics, impressive production design by the director’s brother Dilip Mehta, and an enormous cast and crew, it was filmed under a cloak of secrecy in Sri Lanka, which turned out to be the best possible place to recreate the India of the past century. Brimming with romance, spectacle and intrigue, sly social commentary and uplifting optimism, Midnight’s Children is as vast and beguiling as the great country to which it pays homage.
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A Late Quartet
Wed. Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
A scintillating look into a world of art rarely depicted on screen, the first fiction feature from director Yaron Zilberman assembles a powerhouse cast — Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir, and young star-in-the-making Imogen Poots — for this dramatically charged tale of an illustrious string quartet that is on the verge of celebrating their twenty-fifth season as an ensemble with an ambitious recital of Beethoven's Late String Quartets.
While this milestone would seem to be cause for celebration, it soon becomes a flashpoint for the members' assorted personal traumas and the tangled web of jealousy, envy, ambition, and deeply felt affection that binds the group together. Older than his colleagues, Peter (Walken), the group's founding member, is diagnosed with a degenerative illness that forces him to confront the troubling question of who will succeed him — and what his legacy will be. The marriage between second violinist Robert (Hoffman) and violist Juliette (Keener) goes suddenly south when infidelity rears its head; while brilliant, headstrong and steel-willed first violinist Daniel (Ivanir), already engaged in a battle over first chair with Robert, brings tensions to a boil when he falls into the arms of Robert and Juliette's beautiful young daughter Alexandra (Poots), who is a talented violinist in her own right.
As the film progresses gracefully through its own "movements," we see how Peter's illness brings these discordant elements painfully to the fore, as long-repressed feelings and explosive emotions shatter the delicate harmony that has bound the group together for so long. As the ensemble's aging patriarch, Walken has never been better, brilliantly etching Peter's turbulent indecision and, finally, clear-eyed resolve about the right path to take — even as, unbeknownst to him, the four-cornered universe that he has lovingly created begins to fly apart. Not to be outdone, the rest of the cast rise to Walken's challenge, and Zilberman (who co-wrote the screenplay with Seth Grossman) never missteps, guiding us gracefully through those painful inevitabilities of aging and change that contrast so movingly with the timeless beauty of music.
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A Royal Affair
Wed. Feb. 20, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
A grand period drama with a lusty, beating heart, A Royal Affair displays all the talents and charms of its star, Mads Mikkelsen, while director and co-writer Nikolai Arcel brings a sharp, contemporary edge to this notorious true story of illicit love and poltical intrigue. In the late eighteenth century, Denmark is ruled by the spoiled King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), for whom governing takes a decided backseat to playing with his dog and indulging in all the pleasure of the flesh. That weakness makes him susceptible to the designs of cunning courtiers. Enter Johann Struensee (Mikkelsen), a ruggedly handsome German doctor and staunch proponent of the Enlightenment’s reformist principles, who is so well liked by the king when they meet abroad that he is asked to return with the monarch to Copenhagen as his personal physician. There, Struensee discovers his political match in the king’s physically and intellectually captivating queen, Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander), who happens to be somewhat starved for attention.
Eager to use his influence to advance the cause of social reform, Struensee partners with the queen to convince the king to embark on an aggressive campaign of reforms — all of which stand in direct opposition to the conservative principles espoused by the king’s governing council. These two kindred spirits soon find themselves so engrossed in their explosive passion for each other that they fail to notice the conspiracies taking shape around them. What unfolds is a tale of high-flown idealism undone by the blind passion of love.
Mikkelsen and Vikander are electrifying as the ill-starred lovers, and their palpable chemistry, combined with Arcel’s assured direction and the film’s fine art direction and costume design, create both a sweepingly romantic and subtly nuanced portrait of this infamous episode in Denmark’s history. At once intimate and epic, A Royal Affair is one of the finest, most well-crafted period dramas in recent memory.
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Still
Wed. Mar. 06, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
One of a dwindling number of family farmers in rural St. Martins, New Brunswick, Craig Morrison (James Cromwell) is used to doing things for himself. Sometimes cantankerous and always stubborn, he’s kept his traditional farm going in a period when industrial agriculture dominates the marketplace. The primary reason he’s been able to do so is his relationship with his wife, Irene (Geneviève Bujold), who’s as tough and determined as he is. But when her health begins to fail, Craig is faced with the choice of either building a new, more suitable home for her, or leaving the farm they have lived on for decades. A skilled carpenter, he figures the only obstacles he faces are time and the weather. That is, until he meets Rick (Jonathan Potts), a government inspector who makes it his personal mission to halt construction on the new house.
Based on a true story, Michael McGowan's Still is, in part, about the battle between heritage and modernity. Craig and Rick don't speak the same language — Craig isn't just annoyed at Rick’s persistence, he’s offended by it. Every joist in the new house is square and sturdy, he explains, because that's how his father taught him to do it. But at its heart, the film is an exquisitely mounted and deeply affecting love story about a couple in their twilight years. Filmmakers (or their financiers) have traditionally preferred to focus on younger couples or May–December relationships. As McGowan and his collaborators demonstrate, Craig and Irene's relationship is far richer because of the past they’ve shared. Their conversations are charged, direct, and laden with subtext — not the kind of empty verbal jousting we would normally see in a romance. (An offhand comment about Craig's old girlfriend indicates that old wounds still haven't healed; a discussion about death reveals how deeply connected they are.)
It helps that McGowan has found the perfect pair to bring Craig and Irene to the screen. As one might expect, Cromwell and Bujold are nothing short of magnificent.
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Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os)
Wed. Apr. 03, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
With his previous three films — Sur mes lèvres, De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté, and the prison drama Un prophète, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes — French director Jacques Audiard established the measured, meticulous approach that has made him one of the most accomplished narrative filmmakers now working, blending taut storytelling with a subtle but scrupulously detailed visual style. His new film Rust and Bone, which has already set box-office records in France, boasts the same carefully wrought sensibility that has become Audiard's trademark, and proves a worthy successor to the acclaimed Un prophète.
Broke, homeless, and drifting, Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) scrambles to make a living for himself and his young son: he steals food, sleeps on the streets, and finally relocates to the French Riviera to live with his estranged sister in her cramped apartment. All too happy to let his sister watch the boy, Ali focuses on his burgeoning career as a back-alley boxer, dreaming of making it big as a mixed martial artist. Taking work as a nightclub bouncer, he crosses paths with Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard), who works as a killer-whale trainer at an amusement park, commanding the beasts with an ease absent from her interpersonal relations. After Stéphanie suffers a terrible accident, the unlikely pair falls into a tender, tentative courtship.
Audiard constructs this character study with masterful precision, blending Dardennes-style naturalism with dreamily impressionistic visions and tense, staccato cutting. Physicality is at the core of the film, and he captures visceral images with unflinching matter-of-factness. His two leads, meanwhile, generate an irresistible chemistry in their strange romance: fresh from his breakout performance in last year's Bullhead, Schoenaerts is that rare combination of imposing presence and vulnerability, while Cotillard gives a bold performance, emotionally raw and achingly soulful. Echoing the film's vivid contrast of brutality and tenderness, Alexandre Desplat's powerful score is interspersed with a surprising selection of pop songs; Katy Perry's "Fireworks" provides one of the film's most moving and unexpected moments.
An unconventional and deeply felt study of human frailty, Rust and Bone proves Audiard's most assured cinematic turn to date.
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First Position
Wed. Apr. 10, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
In the competitive world of classical dance, perfection is paramount. A runner-up for the Cadillac People’s Choice Documentary Award at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival®, First Position chronicles a year in the lives of six young dancers as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the world’s most prestigious youth dance competitions, where victory can mean scholarships, awards and job offers — while failure may put an end to these young artists’ dreams. While each dancer is striving tirelessly for the same goal, their backgrounds and motivations are fascinatingly diverse.
Sixteen-year-old Joan has left his family in Colombia in order to pursue his dream, and hopes to one day repay their support. Brother and sister Jules and Miko have varying levels of both talent and commitment to dance, a reality that has yet to dawn on their supportive mother. Nine-year-old Aran’s military family has made great sacrifices for their young son’s career, including a voluntary tour in Kuwait. Michaela, adopted at a young age from war-ravaged Sierra Leone, seeks to combat stereotypes about black dancers.
Rebecca is a gifted dancer who fears graduating into a depressed job market, which will mean an even scarcer chance of success.
Director Bess Kargman expertly weaves these various stories together as the Grand Prix looms ever nearer, and she brilliantly captures the electric excitement backstage as each dancer waits for their make-or-break moment in the spotlight. A vivid, behind-the-scenes look into the ballet world and a moving depiction of the physical and emotional trials that these talented young people must undergo to realize their dreams.
First Position is a compelling and ceaselessly engaging real-life drama in the vein of Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom.
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Amour
Wed. Apr. 24, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
Precision, calculation, and refinement are the words that spring to mind when describing the work of Michael Haneke. But if his past work has been described by his critics as cool and clinical, Amour, which won Haneke his second Palme d’Or at Cannes, will surely put those feelings to rest. Never has this modern master been in such superb control as in this examination of a couple struggling with mortality — a subject that, in the hands of another filmmaker, could have veered toward sentimentality, cliché and bathos.
Drawing on the extraordinary talents of two of the finest and most legendary performers in the history of French cinema — Jean-Louis Trintignant (Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Kieslowski’s Trois couleurs: Rouge) and Emmanuelle Riva (Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour) — Haneke details the painful dilemma that confronts Anne and Georges Laurent, a married couple in their eighties, as one of them gradually succumbs to illness. Ensconced in an apartment that fits them like an old glove, settled happily into their long-established domestic routines, their world is upended when Anne suddenly displays symptoms of a stroke. With Anne now partially paralyzed, Georges struggles to care for her at home, with each day bringing new, ever more painful challenges. A visit from the couple’s dutiful daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) only further indicates how distant Georges and Anne’s lives now are from the rest of the world — a private realm that grows ever more solitary as Anne slips slowly, unbearably away.
Featuring exquisite performances from three of cinema’s greatest actors, Amour reveals a different dimension to Haneke’s vision. His script is a masterpiece of compassion and understanding, which unerringly touches all the right notes. It would have been easy to slip into the conventions of a tearjerker, something Haneke skillfully avoids to far more powerful effect. Full of surprises and consistently humane, this is a magisterial work from a brilliant artist who gazes fearlessly, unblinkingly into the soul.
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On the Road
Wed. May 01, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
At long last, Jack Kerouac’s groundbreaking novel about youth finding freedom, and themselves, has been turned into a film. This most American of books was adapted by Brazilian director Walter Salles, who brought us another unforgettable road movie, The Motorcycle Diaries. Theirs is a vision of American mythology as perhaps only an outsider can see it, a film as lyrical and liberated as the beloved classic that inspired it. On the Road is a portrait of a generation not afraid of breaking rules in their search for meaning.
The film follows Kerouac stand-in and narrator Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), an aspiring writer and inveterate observer drawn to the energy and charisma of his friend Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), who was modelled after Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassady. Quoting Kerouac’s intoxicating prose, Sal’s voice-over is our entree into the world of the Beat Generation, as he joins Dean on a trip through the mental and physical landscape of postwar America. Dean carves a wild path through the highways and byways of the nation, drinking and sexing in and out of trouble, while Sal stores up a stash of memories that will serve him well as a writer. He observes the tumultuous relationship Dean has struck up with his brazen lover (Kristen Stewart), who trails along as part of the pack. It’s not long before they are joined by Carlo Marx (Tom Sturridge), the Allen Ginsberg analogue. They go cruising in a beat-up car with all the time in the world to explore various states of ecstasy via drugs, alcohol and sex. But hedonism, even of the transcendental kind, has its limits.
Dean is one of the great characters of American literature: handsome and energetic, he personifies fifties cool. Yet he is also deeply flawed, and the power of both novel and film lies in the manner in which Sal starts to see through his best friend. Accompanied by a jazzy soundtrack and elegant hand-held camerawork, On the Road reveals the flip side of American conformity in all its unkempt and poetic glory.
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The Sapphires
Wed. May 15, 7:30 p.m., Galaxy Theatre
What a delight The Sapphires is! Set at the height of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement and brimming with Motown hits, this portrait of a late 1960s girl group — Australia's answer to The Supremes — is a celebration of great music and triumph in the face of adversity. Based on the hit stage play by Tony Briggs, whose mother and three aunts formed the real-life singing quartet, The Sapphires is an effervescent, irresistible crowd-pleaser, with plenty of spunk and sass to go along with its fully earned sentiment.
The Sapphires are four young Koori girls — Gail (Deborah Mailman), Julie (Jessica Mauboy), Kay (Shari Sebbens) and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell) — who are discovered one night in a dusty outback tavern by lanky, often soused Irish-born talent scout Dave (Chris O'Dowd). With a sharp ear for honey-tinged voices, Dave convinces the girls to switch their act from country and western to rhythm and blues. While the racist locals vehemently reject the notion of a group of Aboriginal entertainers, Dave vows to make The Sapphires shine — not just in town, not just in the region, not just in the country, but all over the world. And against all odds, he pulls it off: the Sapphires' first gig takes them to war-torn Southeast Asia, where they entertain the troops with tunes by Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and Linda Lyndell.
Fresh off his winning turn in Bridesmaids, the affable O'Dowd is so endearing as Dave that he would nearly steal the show — if it weren't for the sparkling presence and irrepressible charm of his co-stars. Australian Idol alumnus Mauboy is especially magnetic as the group's sexy and bold lead vocalist, but all of The Sapphires sparkle in their own distinct ways. Their sweet voices will send you into a joyful swoon, while their stories and struggles will touch your heart. The Sapphires is a gem of a film.
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TBA
Always more to come!
Film Brockville
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-updated 2013-02-12