Aside from removing the name of the village where this incident occurred, this is a verbatim report from a section in my weekly rural newspaper, The Coast Guard. “From the Cruiser: A Weekly Update with Sgt. Barry MacLellan” is a column that summarizes in mercilessly truncated prose the calls received at the local RCMP detachment.

The report is mostly a humdrum collection of false alarms, minor complaints, threats and reports of vaguely “suspicious people”. Only occasionally does a petty crime show up to add some spice. This is a very safe rural community.

But every so often, a nugget like the item above comes along, making the weekly scan of Sgt. MacLellan’s column worthwhile. For one thing, there’s the challenge of working out what exactly happened. Assuming a “law mower” is meant to cut grass and not trim lawyer’s bills, assuming the number 80 refers to the speed at which the mower was travelling “at the time of offence”, assuming that such a speed is even possible on a “law mower” and assuming this man is a repeat offender who has to resort to speeding around drunk on a mower instead of in a car, this single paragraph conjures quite a picture.

Quite a picture, even if you haven’t seen that great little movie The Straight Story in which an old man subtly played by Richard Farnsworth drives his old ride-on mower across state lines to see a friend.

As unlikely as it seems, this bitter sweet tale was directed by none other than a favourite of mine, David Lynch, king of creep and maker of movies like Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Eraserhead. I love this movie, so naturally I imagine our local hero taking a sip of courage and heading on down the road in quiet but firm defiance of those forces of oppression that we believe bind us all – petty legalities, small-mindedness, the general over-regulation of our lives. These are the kinds of heroes I admire, these understated, Hollywood heroes so nonchalant about the inherent justness of their own values.

Quite another picture if, like me, you know the setting intimately. If I forget Lynch’s character and stop using my Hollywood movie vocabulary to romanticize the RCMP account and instead imagine our hero putt-putting down the roads that wind along our rocky coast here in this economically depressed corner of Nova Scotia, I know very well our hero is no hero at all. He’s probably just another stubborn old cuss, independent as all get out because that’s how fishing communities make ‘em.

There was the man called Jell-O Head banned from his local doughnut shop for riding his horse up to the drive-thru window. When he failed to comply, the RCMP arrested him and impounded his horse.

Then there’s this report from the same column in which Sgt. MacLellan reported that high-speed lawnmower chase:

“A[n] 18-year-old male from… charged with Underage Drinking and Failing to comply with an undertaking order x 2.”

In the villages along this shore, we fail to comply from an early age and we do it repeatedly. Really, is it any wonder the young male in question failed to comply? Given that he was only months away from the legal drinking age of 19, you can imagine his indignation at being charged with the offence. I can see it now, this otherwise upstanding young man quenching his thirst on a hot day with a cold can of beer, innocently minding his own business when along comes Sgt. MacLellan or one of his by-the-book colleagues to harass the boy. Twice, the boy tries to explain that all he wants to do is finish his beer. Twice the officer undertakes to dump it out. They frown at each other in a standoff. Quite a picture.

Fishermen here have always been the independent types, like my father, my uncles and my grandfathers, scraping a bare living from the sea and sometimes scrapping with each to do it. There’s never been much desire to unionize, for example. Fishermen work together and support each other for sure, but in the end, all they want to do is to fish when the fish are there and otherwise do as they please. They don’t time their work to determine its value. They don’t appreciate rules. They can’t abide bosses.

I don’t know Ohio very well, but it may be that Elvin Ray Straight, the character Farnsworth played with such insight, is remarkable because there he’s exceptional. Here, Elvin Straits ride around drunk on mowers and fail to comply as a way of life. There’s nothing malicious about their intentions. They just want to be left alone to live the way they wish. And if they wish to drown their fishing-life poverty and hardships in a bottle, then that’s what they want to be left alone to do. News nuggets like those in Sgt. MacLellan’s column remind me why I love living where I live among the people I live with – this isn’t Hollywood, we don’t act out of universally admirable values, it’s just us stubbornly living our lives together.

I was once one of those 18-year-old males who fail to comply. Now that I’m reaching toward my senior years, I sometimes think I might be turning into an Elvin Strait, living my life in a place and profession both conducive to loneliness, self-righteousness and perhaps even alcoholism. I don’t like measuring the value of my work by a clock. I don’t appreciate rules that tell me I can tell a story one way but not another. I can’t abide bosses. I sometimes drown my frustrations in booze, and often I fail to comply. I’m no Malcolm Lowry writing Under the Volcano between glasses of whiskey, but I could one day be the guy on that ride-on.

References

“From the Cruiser,” which appeared in The Coast Guard, July 27, 2010, page 5

Photo Credit

“Don’t drink and drive… lawnmowers” © Darcy Rhyno

DVD cover from The Straight Story

On Writing and Riding Drunk on Lawn Mowers is a post from: Life As A Human

We came across Matera while following in the footsteps of John Julius Norwich in search of the Normans in southern Italy. My first guide book, which I lost, hadn’t made much of Matera but the second was more forthcoming, informing me that Mel Gibson had shot the film The Passion of the Christ there and it was the site of a multitude of early Christian rock-hewn churches.

The town carved out of rocks along the Gravina Valley is almost entirely troglodyte. It was certainly one of the earliest occupied sites of man in Southern Europe. We had no idea how to get into the centre so followed the signs for Locanda di San Martino along an ever-narrowing little cobbled road.

Eventually we parked and went further on foot and found the lovely little hotel created out of Sassi (stone caves). It has all the luxuries (including spa) plus very helpful staff and great breakfast. Your car is taken and parked somewhere in the new town for an extra fee.

After wandering aimlessly but appreciatively the first afternoon, we took the hotel staff’s advice and hired an English-speaking guide for a few hours the following day. This was well worth it as the guide, Nadia, was extremely informative.

We also realised how easy it was to get about. Every level is accessed by stone cut stairs and although it seems quite daunting to have to go up and down, the main square led down into the bottom of the valley opposite a restaurant called Nadi conveniently located a hundred yards from our hotel.

The whole of the old town was more or less empty except for a few restaurants and souvenir shops and a couple of old ladies of 80 who have refused to move out and still live with only basic electricity, no toilets and a local well.

The old town had flourished under its various conquerors Greeks (later Orthodox Christians), Lombards and Normans (Roman Christians) and lost little in the struggles between the Emperors of the West and those of the East.

The tiny rock churches have the most beautiful wall paintings of great antiquity and because of the difficulty of moving up and down levels, there are little churches everywhere. Matera lived, like many semi-medieval villages, a quiet peasant life until the inter-war period when the population exploded.

Although some people were able to add frontages to their houses to live a more sanitary life, others still had their horses tethered at the back of the cave (so that they couldn’t be stolen), the chickens slept under the beds and the rabbits were put in a cage by the front door at night.

The elder children often slept in the back of the cave with the animals or in a separate cave with the animals while the babies were suspended in cots above the parents’ bed to keep them away from the rats. Ten children was the norm and there was an 80 per cent childhood death rate among them. The dead were often buried on top of the houses below, which wasn’t conducive to good health when the rains ran the decaying remains and their consequent germs down into the houses underneath.

Fathers got up at 2.30 a.m. to go off to work in the fields. The nobility’s land disputes over the centuries resulted in the fields where the Materans worked being a two-hour walk from the village. Nobody got get back until 8pm. Most times, however, the mothers worked too.

Children under seven were not allowed to work, so had to be left in the house to look after the babies. Sometimes, the babies had no one to look after them and were drugged with opium to keep them asleep all day so they didn’t cry for food.

Mistakes were made and children died. With over-population, came water shortages and too much human waste polluted the streams, gathered mosquitoes and spread malaria.

They were no longer living like human beings, like Christians, but like animals. Christ hadn’t got this far. He had stopped at Eboli.

Christ Stopped at Eboli was the tale which alerted the Italian authorities to the plight of Matera, Eboli, Aliano and similar towns in the poor South in the post-war period.

It was written by an anti-fascist Jewish artist Carlo Levi who was banished to this Italian ‘Siberia’ from 1935-36. He was at liberty but closely watched so that escape along tiny mountain tracks was impossible. He chronicled all he saw and hid all his papers.

His frequent letters to his sister were censored. His sister was allowed one visit and she brought some much needed quinine. She was profoundly shocked by the incredible poverty – the sort we expect to see only in the slums of Calcutta or war-torn Ethiopia.

Levi was released but continued to be a thorn in the side of the government and fled Italy for a while. After the publication of his revealing book in 1945, the dreadful poverty of the South was declared ‘La Vergogna d’Italia’ – the shame of Italy. In 1954, the Government cleared Matera of inhabitants and re-housed everyone in the new town.

Matera is now a Unesco World Heritage Site and attracts tourists and film-makers. At least five famous films have been made there –The Gospel According to St Matthew, King David and The Passion of the Christ among them.

For some reason the incredibly soporific film Christ Stopped at Eboli wasn’t filmed there and didn’t do justice to the tragedy of the place or to the fine observations of Carlo Levi. In fact, Levi was imprisoned in another village entirely – Aliano, which in his book he called Gagliano.

The suffering (Passion) of Christ, as graphically portrayed in the Gibson film, is representative of Christian suffering over the centuries but the citizens of Matera had too many crosses to bear, unlike Mel Gibson who seems to fly in to the wrong sort of passion.

Mel Gibson should go back to confessing and taking communion everyday and give passionate and soulful thanks for his blessed life!

Tourist guide

Nadia Garlatti, Via Passarelli 47, 75100 Matera; email: nadiagarlatti@tiscali.it

Further Reading

Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi

The Other Conquest by John Julius Norwich

Websites

www.locandadisanmartino.it — the hotel is also a spa with a lovely pool – quite magic. The site is worth visiting for the wonderful photos.

www.panoramio.com — Specify which town, e.g. Matera, Aliano, Grassano and you will get the Google Earth views with detailed photos.

Photo Credits

“Mel Gibson on the set of The Passion of the Christ”

All other photos © J Mclean: “Old Houses in Matera”, “Peasant Kitchen, Matera”,”Children’s Graves”, “Typical Houses”, “Rock Church Paintings”, “Stone Stairs”

The Passion of Mel Gibson is a post from: Life As A Human

Set in the completely unfamiliar (to me) territory of the Ozarks in Missouri, the movie tells the story of a 17-year-old girl, Ree (Jennifer Lawrence), tasked with taking care of her young brother and sister and her mentally ill mother. Her father, involved with the flourishing meth industry that’s completely ravaged remote and isolated communities throughout North America, puts the house up as his bond when he’s arrested and then disappears. Ree’s tense journey to find him is harrowing and mesmerizing.

What struck me immediately after leaving the screening was that this felt like the first time in recent memory a young woman was depicted with brains and courage, and that she used these traits to negotiate her way out of tough spots, rather than T&A. I had an opportunity to talk about this with Winter’s Bone writer/director Debra Granick, as well as what motivates her as a filmmaker. I hope you enjoy our exchange as much as I did.

Andrea: Ree’s character is the kind of strong female role that seems to not come along very often in film. Was it important for you to tell that story?

Debra: It’s so refreshing and interesting and basically comforting to see this kind of female protagonist…I don’t get to see enough female protagonists using a whole bunch of what they’ve got.

Andrea: And, honestly, young people don’t get a fair shake in most films.

Debra: It makes me want to do more that depict films in that demographic. Not coming of age stories exclusively. So many people don’t get the luxury of the so-called coming of age in that way.

Andrea: There are a lot of brilliant small details in the movie, like focusing on icicles dangling, or skinning the squirrels. As a director, what’s important for you to include to set the scene?

Debra: One thing that attracts us to neo-realist films is photography of everyday life and usually from places we haven’t had a chance to experience personally. Like, I can’t believe I was just allowed to see inside some one’s apartment in Taipei, or a factory, or a food court. And then how this person does the night and what that’s like. Not that I believe everything I’m seeing is actual documentation, but in the wide shot I’m seeing the street life. And turning the camera on your own country…When I go back I have to tell people, ‘Well, we tried squirrel, we tried deer, and it wasn’t exotic, it wasn’t a funky weird transgressive diner serving folk food. It was a very pragmatic, ordinary experience.’ And those are the kinds of things that happen when you go to a place you’re not familiar with.

Andrea: This might sound a bit stupid, but I definitely felt that after leaving your film, that I was suddenly aware of this completely other existence.

Debra: It’s exciting, even in the choices people make in the way they decorate their rooms. I went up to [the house across the yard from the one we were shooting in] and she took me up these rickety stairs to her bedroom and it was so unexpected. There were maybe 250 spirit catchers hanging from the ceiling and it looked like the rafters of a barn, and I was just curious, like why she was attracted to them, why she collected them. People’s choices, you can’t predict them. I couldn’t have sat in New York and written, you know, Interior House Day: 250 dream catchers. Those kind of visual journeys do excite me.

Watch the trailer from Winter’s Bone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ8kqytI_oA

Photo Credits

All photos courtesy of MaplePictures.com

Winter’s Bone a Transformative Film: Interview with Debra Granick is a post from: Life As A Human

I’ve actually got two films for you today. I stumbled across That Mouse by Michael Rubbo (1967, 14 min) on the NFB website. It’s footage of a fawn, bear, mouse, turtle, and several other cute animals spliced together to tell the story of a rather annoying white mouse. All the animals have silly voices. It’s basically an excuse to watch animals being precious (I mean, who doesn’t want to see a black bear and white mouse cuddling?).

It’s nice to know that our obsession with anthropomorphizing animals didn’t just appear a few years ago with Cute Overload and LOLCats. Though, what this says about our collective I just don’t know…

That Mouse reminded me of the BBC’s Walk on the Wild Side. They have compiled some of their cutest animal footage and added hilarious voice overs. The result? A modern take on Rubbo’s concept, and one that fits in better with our current attention spans (the films are under two minutes each). Below is one of my favourites, but you can find several of the videos on You Tube.

What do you think? Send us a comment with your film review.

Photo Credits

Image from BBC “Walk on the Wild Side”

Free Film Tuesday — Humanizing Animals is a post from: Life As A Human

Before I talk about this week’s film, I just have to tell you something. Did you know that the National Film Board of Canada has 3D movies on their site? And, AND, they will send you a pair of 3D glasses to watch them. For free!

I really want to post a few 3D movies, so everyone run out and request your pair of glasses today. The ones you get at the movies don’t work with online videos, sadly. Or at least, the ones I got at Clash of the Titans didn’t. Yes, I paid money to watch that. And yes, I enjoyed it. Don’t judge me!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

When the Day Breaks (9 min 40 s) by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, came out in 1999. After witnessing a horrible accident, Ruby struggles to find connections to the world around her.

All of the characters in When the Day Breaks are animals, including a stuffy old rooster (complete with hat that accommodates his comb), a timid rabbit as the sales clerk, and a bulldog police officer, just to name a few. The film has a scratchy, newsreel quality to the animation, which was achieved by painting and drawing on photocopies.

If it looks familiar to you, it may be because of the international attention When the Day Breaks received. The film was nominated for an Oscar, and won a few Cannes Film Festival awards as well.

What do you think? Send us a comment with your film review.

Photo Credits

When the Day Breaks film image

Free Film Tuesday – “When the Day Breaks” is a post from: Life As A Human

A lot of people vehemently objected to the show’s depiction of women: overly glamourous, narrowly defined, and ridiculously promiscuous, but frankly I only saw it as a slight exaggeration in some ways (the high heels) and woefully under-selling in others (women talk way more crassly than this quartet).

And besides, I fell in love with the friendship that formed the heart of the show. All of the rest I could take or leave as I saw fit.

So, when I reviewed SATC: The Movie two years ago, I couldn’t shake the swelling feeling in my chest of reuniting with friends, fictional though they were, that I’d left behind.

The movie was by no means a brilliant feat of cinema, and in reality probably should have just aired on HBO where it belonged, but I enjoyed it for what it was: catching up with characters I’d grown up with.

SATC2, on the other hand, was universally and critically derided as an unmitigated disaster. I reviewed it and penned the numerous reasons for my displeasure, but I still couldn’t shake what really bothered me about the film. Finally, after reading countless scathing reviews, I figured out what it was: the movie finally made me ashamed of being a fan of Carrie and Co.

After years of caring not a wit what anyone thought of me for indulging in the quintessential NYC fairytale, I felt stupid for having invested so much into this franchise.

Like a boyfriend, or girlfriend, you can’t believe you ever slept with or loved, I finally feel a sense of guilt that I’ve wasted so many years on something that’s become an embarrassing parody of its former glory.

These are my actual notes (censored, though) from the SATC2 press screening. Think of it as a real-time guide to my break-up. Sad face for this girl.

• So many people here! Never as packed a press screening as there is for SATC.

• Flashbacks of the girls in vintage 80s gear. Fun!

• Good lord. They’re turning the phrase ‘gay wedding’ into a drinking game. Fifteen times in seven minutes.

• Liza Minelli is slurring like a stroke victim. This is painful.

• Big is so spray-tanned I feel like he’s a spritz away from George Hamilton.

• Closet porn. Stupid fight. Montage as we briefly glimpse what everyone’s been up to. Aw. Miss them.

• And, shit, they’re suddenly in the desert wearing ridiculous, hideous things.

• Hmmm, insulting people’s culture isn’t quite the same as poking fun at the massive cultural gaps between East and West. Even in Canada, no one wants to see a couple doing it in public at the next table. Trust me.

• Camels. They’re riding camels in ridiculous outfits. Bah. I even like camels and bah.

• Ugh! Carrie, don’t. Ugh. Ugh.

• If you didn’t think the women would end up wearing burqas, you were crazy. And yet, I was so hoping this would be the one point of restraint.

• WTF was that?

Photo Credits

Sex and the City 2, courtesy of New Line Cinema

Sex and the City Walk of Shame is a post from: Life As A Human

Mike Duff was a Canadian motorcycle racer in the 60s. He shattered his hip in Japan and had major surgery to repair it. His recovery and return to racing was captured by Robin Spry in the 1966 documentary Ride for Your Life (9 min 40 s).

This film has some incredible footage of motorcycle races, and crashes, in the 60s. It also has some images from Duff’s hip operation, so if you’re not a fan of watching surgeries you may want to distract yourself for a few seconds. But it doesn’t last long, I promise.

What I find so fascinating (besides the insanity of racing itself) is the lifestyle that goes along with it. Duff travels around the world with his wife and two toddlers in tow, living out of trailers during race season. He casually mentions how two or three friends die a year in the races, as if this is sad but totally acceptable.

Mike Duff became Michelle Duff in the 80s. She continued racing and writing, and has published several books.

What do you think? Send us a comment with your film review.

Photo Credits

Mike Duff Racing

Free Film Friday — “Ride for Your Life” is a post from: Life As A Human

Runaway is a short animated film set to music by Ben Charest (you may know him from Triplets of Belleville. And if you don’t, you should go rent it right now!), about a train ride that goes horribly wrong.

Director Cordell Barker has done a few films with the National Film Board of Canada. The Cat Came Back (1988) and Strange Invaders (2001) both won several awards and were nominated for Oscars. Runaway is his latest film.

What continues to amaze me is the amount of work that goes into producing short films. You’d think an eight minute piece would be relatively quick and easy to throw together. But anyone in the film industry would probably want to chase me out of the room shaking a pitch fork for uttering such blasphemous words.

Barker discusses the process of creating Runaway here (but watch the film first!).

What do you think? Send us a comment with your film review.

Photo Credits

Image from “Runaway”

Free Film Friday — ”Runaway” by Cordell Barker is a post from: Life As A Human

It’s almost impossible to determine why some SNL sketches get the green-light from the movie industry over others. It’s unfathomable why It’s Pat made the leap to the big screen over something like Chris Farley’s In a Van Down By the River. Wouldn’t a demented take on Will Ferrell’s Falconer character, or perhaps his co-cheerleader act with Cheri Oteri have made a stronger outing than his co-starring turn in Molly Shannon’s Mary Katherine Gallagher-centric Superstar?

MacGruber faces even weirder challenges than the average beloved SNL character. How do you extrapolate an entire film from 45 second mini-sketches? Well, the key it seems is to do everything possible to earn that hard R rating, put a pony-tail on a now-pudgy Val Kilmer, and abuse celery in a way that would make any vegetarian rethink ants on a log ever again.

Is it a brilliant movie? Nope, not at all, but it delights in making a loving mockery of every 80s action flick cliche, and ridiculous, raunchy jokes that my inner 12-year-old laughed at. Loudly. In many ways, MacGruber makes a decent case for more SNL-based forays into cinema. Not because their every attempt at comedy hits the mark, but because on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when all I want to do is flip through my television channels and watch something relatively mindless and amusing, stumbling on Wayne’s World or The Blues Brothers is just the treat I need. Add MacGruber to that list of high-functioning, low-minded, super-entertaining SNL canon.

Check out the MacGruber trailer:

Photo Credit

MacGruber poster, Alliance Canada

What Makes Certain SNL Sketches Movie Worthy? MacGruber to Wayne’s World is a post from: Life As A Human

Okay, I admit it. I was really hungry when I went looking for this week’s film. So I typed “chocolate” in the National Film Board’s (NFB’s) search, and only one film came up. One? I thought. They should make many, many more!

After watching How Do They Put The Centres In Chocolates, I’m not so sure. It’s part of a series of “How do they” films by director Don White. We’re basically watching factory workers and machines assemble chocolates for Purdy’s.

Interesting? Yes.

Appetizing? I suppose that’s in the stomach of the beholder. For me, a lot of the stuff looked like puss.

However, I did find the rhythmic hum of the machines quite soothing. I think I could sleep very happily under one of the conveyor belts, as long as I had some sort of protective covering so I didn’t get doused in cookie run-off.

What do you think? Send us a comment with your film review.

Photo Credits

Chocolate Star © Wikicommons. Some Rights Reserved.

Free Film Friday — How Do They Put the Centres in Chocolates? is a post from: Life As A Human