[ Editors' Note: ] According to its publicity material, the Montreal Festival of New Cinema held in October each year presents a distinctly avant-garde focus. Viewers will watch film and video, installations, websites and performances with special emphasis on digital work. The festival has four main sections—Feature Length Film and Video, Short and Medium Length Film and Video, New Media, and Digital Cinema. Reviewer Frederic Eger has selected his top picks to critique.
Linda Linda Linda
Drummer Kyoto (Aki Maeda), guitarist Kei (Yu Kashii) and bassist Nozumi (Shiori Sekine) must recruit a new lead singer on short notice for the high-school rock festival. A Korean exchange student, Son (Doona Bae), is a last-minute pick even though her Japanese is not perfect. They rehearse, and rehearse, and rehearse night and day until the singer starts singing correctly in Japanese.
Almost oversleeping in the rehearsal room before the concert, the exhausted/burnt-out quartet nearly misses its fifteen minutes of fame at this "so-important-end-of-term-rock-festival." In a pouring rain, they make it to the concert at the last minute—everything is last minute in this film!—and the crowd goes wildly hysterical to the title song—one could assume some inspirational song of the director's teenage years. The one good thing about Linda Linda Linda is the cinematography. But besides that... Um...
According to some sources, Nobuhiro Yamashita made his reputation directing comedies. This film was an attempt at mainstream Japanese film but ends up as a time-consuming exercise about uninteresting characters. Why producers spent their money on a film with no story... write to me if you have the answer. With effort, this reviewer stayed until the end. I noted that some in the Asian audience laughed during scenes. Must have been a private joke because I didn't get it.
Linda Linda Linda
Directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita
With Aki Maeda, Yu Kashii, Shiori Sekine & Doona Bae
Runtime: 114 min
The Citadel
Atom Egoyan selected the Montreal New Cinema Festival to present what could have just been some home video footage taken from his private library. He calls it a documentary, "a journal, an essay." No matter what it is, Atom Egoyan and his wife, Arsinee Khanjian, were there to introduce their film and host a Q&A with an audience of festival attendees.
After 28 years of living in Canada, Mr. Egoyan and his wife travelled to Lebanon's West Beirut where he and his wife, both Armenian Christians, grew up. Mr. Egoyan declares the resulting video footage/chronicle to be a gift to his son about the war-torn country he emigrated from.
With a tremendous sense of humor and irony, Mr. Egoyan plays tour guide as if he were reporting on the Tour de France. We discover a modest family house where spirituality and Christian symbols are part of everyday life.
When driving from East Beirut populated by mostly Christians to West Beirut populated by Muslims, Mr. Egoyan reflects on the "cult" of suicide bombers whose photographs hang on pillars throughout a city whose residents consider themselves direct descendants of the Phoenicians.
By producing such a documentary, Atom Egoyan could have easily fallen into the pitfall of producing a film that declares "Look how bad these Israelis are!" On the contrary, he explains the why and the how his and his wife's family—like any family—have suffered from the absurdity of war. A beautiful film.
The Citadel
Written, Directed & Produced by Atom Egoyan
With Atom Egoyan (Himself), Arsinée Khanjian (Herself)
Runtime: 93 min
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