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Culture and Arts

Culture Watch

Scared Sacred
2004, Canada, 105 min., some subtitles, documentary
Director: Velcrow Ripper


Recognitions
Special Jury Citation, Toronto, 2004; Audience Award, Vancouver, 2004; Genie for Best Documentary, Canada, 2004; Best Documentary, Whistler, Best of the Festival, New Orleans


A tour of some of Planet Earth's "Ground Zeros" — such as Bhopal, the jungles of Cambodia, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine, Afghani refuge camps and post 9/11 New York City — in search of stories of survival, resilience and recovery. Stunning photography, and an evocative soundscape are deftly woven as the background to unforgettable stories of how the afflicted in some of the world's top disaster zones deal with grief, pain and suffering.

Why It Matters
The film asks the question: "What does it mean to be a global citizen in today's world, without falling prey to the lure of being a "tourist of darkness". As the director searches for meaning in a time of both inner and outer turmoil, he notes: (I needed to) "avoid filling my pockets with images while leaving my heart untouched."

Unknown White Male
2005, UK/USA, 88 min., documentary
Director: Rupert Murray


Recognitions
Nominated for Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary, Sundance, 2005; and by the Director’s Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Documentary, 2006

On July 3, 2003, alone on a subway train bound for Coney Island, 37-year-old wealthy British ex- stockbroker turned photography student Doug Bruce lost all his memories. Until that moment, he was apparently healthy and then, for no apparent reason, he lost every memory of his friends, his family, and everything he had ever experienced.

The film recreates the first terrifying hours as a disoriented Doug wanders around before encountering the police who send him to the Coney Island Hospital Psychiatric ward where he is given an identity tag reading "Unknown White Male", and then his journey of re- discovery.  For Doug is in the unusual situation of being able to experience the world with the eyes of a child but the mind and body of a man.

Why It Matters
The fundamental question Doug asks himself and others is: "How much is our identity determined by the experiences we have? And how much is already there — pure us?" This film provides an extraordinary opportunity to explore the composition of personal identity and the relationship between memory and experience; to consider how character is formed, and what happens when everything we know and understand about the world and ourselves is suddenly gone.

Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle
1994, USA, 126 min.
Director, Alan Rudolph

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true. 
— Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was a literary talent whose trenchant quotations ('men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses, etc.') are still with us. 

At the time this film begins, she is a drunken, depressed, but undeniably clever woman, working at Vanity Fair magazine with her life-long friend and admirer Robert Benchley.  The "vicious circle” refers to the members of the Algonquin Round Table, a large table in the centre of the restaurant of New York’s Algonquin Hotel, where a legendary group of literary celebrities met daily for lunch — and continued talking and drinking far into the night.  Parker and Benchley were both founders of the group and The New Yorker magazine was born around that table.

Why It Matters
Jennifer Jason Leigh (Mrs. Parker) delivers a stunning performance re-creating the heroine’s iconic “whiskey” voice, and ironic tone as she delivers the famous one-liners. This is an unsparingly honest portrait of alcoholism and ego, threaded through with Parker's gutsy battle against sexual discrimination despite her personal romantic failures.

Pretty Poison
1968, USA, 89 min.
Director: Noel Black

Recognitions
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay, 1968

Based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Geller

One of the prettiest little perversions in the world of movies, this darkly comic classic explores the murky depths of a relationship between a newly released mental patient (Anthony Perkins) and an all-american cheerleader (Tuesday Weld), that has disastrous results. 

He may be weird and an inadvertent arsonist, but she has not qualms about a little murder to support her misguided understanding.... Not unsurprisingly, things begin to unravel in a most horrific — but fascinating — way. Tightly told and with exceptional acting, you won’t be able to stop watching even though you may want to.

Return to Page One of Angela's reviews


Angela Pressburger grew up in the film industry (father Emeric Pressburger made The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and Stairway to Heaven). She has been been an international program consultant at the Vancouver International Film Festival for the past ten years, and has spoken about film and sat on festival juries in both Europe and North America.  She has recently written Show It in Public! — a grassroots guide to showing film in public (www.showamovie.ca) and keeps busy writing reviews for her home video for discerning viewers website, MapToMovies.com



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© 2006 Angela Pressburger for SeniorWomenWeb
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