FILM REVIEW: THE MAN NOBODY KNEW

William Colby in The Man Nobody Knew.

The sins of my father

By Ed Rampell

The Man Nobody Knew is a conventionally made, 104 minute-long documentary about former Central Intelligence Agency Director William Colby. There is the usual use of archival footage, plus a collection of talking heads, which includes a who’s who of the usual scumbags from government, military and top secret circles. However, while its technique is straightforward, what makes this doc -- subtitled In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby -- different is the fact that it’s directed by the subject’s son, Carl Colby. In this sense, The Man Nobody Knew is like Tell Them Who You Are, Mark Wexler’s 2004 documentary exploration of his dad, cinematographer Haskell Wexler – albeit from the opposite side of the political aisle.

History buffs and espionage aficionados will probably be interested in much of the terrain The Man Nobody Knew covers, starting with Colby’s derring-do in the fabled OSS, the World War II precursor of the CIA. Following WWII Colby was recruited by the Agency, and he was posted at Rome along with his family, under the cover of being a U.S. embassy staffer. There, his wife and children enjoyed a privileged existence as Colby helped orchestrate an unofficial version of the Marshall Plan, subverting Italian democracy with massive infusions of dollars to corrupt voting to ensure that the popular Communist Party didn’t win elections and join a coalition government. (Here the doc treads on similar ground as the 2006 feature, Fade to Black, with Danny Huston playing a beleaguered Orson Welles acting in a costume pic in Huston’s birthplace, postwar Rome, and it’s intriguing to see a nonfiction treatment of the same subject matter.)

After sabotaging Italy’s elections, in the late 1950s this not so quiet American was reassigned to wreak similar havoc in Vietnam, where -- as in Italy – the U.S. made sure the masses could not elect the very popular Ho Chi Minh president. In Saigon Colby and his well-heeled kin hobnobbed with South Vietnamese Pres. Ngo Din Diem and other U.S. puppets, such as his despicable sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, who is seen in a news clip haughtily dismissing a Buddhist Monk’s self immolation as “barbecuing.” After Colby left Indochina to become the CIA’s Chief of its Far East Division, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were liquidated in a U.S.-backed coup – just a few weeks before Pres. Kennedy himself succumbed to the Cold War era violence that would also claim his brother Bobby five years later.

When America was waist deep in the big muddy and the big fool said to push on, Colby was re-posted to Vietnam, where he ran a pacification program, including the extremely controversial Phoenix Program, which resulted in the killing of up to 40,994 Viet Cong -- according to the book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by Victor Marchetti and John Marks. 

(It’s interesting to revisit this counterinsurgency strategy as President Obama once again deploys targeted assassination as an arm of U.S. foreign policy. In any case, the extreme prejudice of Colby’s desperate measures were all for naught as Vietnam was liberated from scourges like Colby in 1975.)

Meanwhile, the sleazeball-in-chief – uh, I mean Richard Milhous Nixon – appointed Colby Director of Central Intelligence in 1973. But like King Rat Nixon himself, as DCI Colby became embroiled in scandals that made the Watergate break-in look like a frat house prank in comparison, the Catholic Colby’s sins and covert actions, and those of his Agency, caught up to him by 1974, as the Church Committee launched a nine month-long investigation of dirty tricks, dirtier tricks and dirtiest tricks (can you say “Allende”?) by the CIA, which LBJ had pithily summed up as “Murder, Inc.” Colby dutifully appeared before Congress 32 times in one year, and the doc features choice footage of Congressmembers Ron Dellums and Bella Abzug grilling the spymaster on the hot seat, as the people’s elected Representatives confronted America’s shadowy secret government.

Suspected mass murderer William Colby got his comeuppance when Pres. Gerald Ford rewarded him for his decades of loyal service by summarily firing him in October 1975. Twenty-one years later, Colby rather appropriately died as he had lived: Mysteriously. His filmmaker/ son suspects his dad’s death was somehow self-inflicted. Who knows?

Throughout the rest of the doc director Carl Colby tries to fathom his enigmatic father and come to terms with the parent who led a cloak and dagger life that inextricably cut him off from his own family. Along the way, his rogues’ gallery of interviewees include Zbigniew Brezinski (the foreign policy whiz who helped give us Osama and Al Qaeda), ex-CIA Director James Schlesinger, Iran-Contra co-conspirator Lt. Col. Robert “Bud” McFarlane, former Ford NSA adviser and Bush toady Brent Scowcroft, and Donald Rumsfeld, who had been Ford’s chief of staff (infections).

Also interviewed are investigative reporters Seymour Hersh and Bob Woodward, and the helmer’s mother, Barbara Colby, a faithful wife whom William dumped after 38 years of marriage. She, like Carl, try to make sense of it all; who really was this bowtied 007? The doc appears to make an attempt to exculpate and justify Colby’s decades of wreaking mayhem around the globe, as nonfiction threatens to turn into fiction. But it’s more delusional than those humans unwittingly subjected to psychotropic drugs by the CIA were to fantasize that Colby, the grand subverter of democracy from Europe to Asia, was an honorable man simply serving his country. It’s no secret that this most private of public servants was, in reality, an agent of imperialism whose claws were as blood drenched as his masters’. 

FILM REVIEW: THE IDES OF MARCH

A scene from The Ides of March.

Liberal light

By Don Simpson

A wise man -- a Shakespearean soothsayer, no less -- once warned "beware the ides of March" and writer-director George Clooney co-opts this infamous quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar presumably to emphasize (or warn us thereof) the overtly-dramatized events of his film. Clooney could have retained the title of Beau Willimon’s source play, Farragut North, but what fun would that have been?

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), a 30-year-old political campaign strategist, has swallowed the proverbial purple Kool Aid of "change" being served up by a progressively-minded idealist whose seemingly uncompromising platform makes President Obama look like a centrist. The mythical Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) is nothing short of a liberal's wet dream candidate for the United States presidency. He is staunchly pro-choice, pro-same sex marriage and anti-capital punishment; he wants the United States to be completely weened from oil dependency within 10 years, not only to save the environment and jump-start the national economy, but to inflict more damage to foreign terrorists than any military action could possibly wield; he advocates for mandatory national service for high school graduates, which he offsets with free college tuition and health care for all. He even refuses to commit to a religious ideology (his religion: the blessed Constitution of the United States); and the state he currently governs boasts a balanced budget! Hey, Stephen! Don't Bogart the Kool Aid! I wanna chug some too!

The other players (and pawns) of this Shakespearean drama include: Governor Morris' campaign manager, Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman); a seductive young intern, Molly (Evan Rachel Wood); Governor Morris' opponent, Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell); Senator Pullman's campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti); and New York Times reporter, Ida (Marisa Tomei).

Set in a fictional and unspecified time period in which the United States finds itself in a situation somewhat similar to the 2008 presidential campaign (and the campaign poster for Governor Morris bears a remarkable resemblance to the Barak Obama Hope poster designed by Shepard Fairey), The Ides of March does not discuss the politics of whoever the sitting president is; and besides a fleeting mention of an attempt by Republicans to influence the polls in key primary elections in order to get the weaker Democrat candidate nominated, the G.O.P. is rarely mentioned. Heck, even Senator Pullman warrants less than a minute or two of screen time.

Other than some stump speeches by Governor Morris, The Ides of March seems almost apolitical. Also, in choosing to place the narrative during a fictional time period, Clooney drains the story of any political oomph that it might have otherwise possessed. The Ides of March may be a strong (though incredibly traditional) political thriller with an unfathomably talented pool of thespians, but the film is rendered inconsequential and pointless. The only truly cutting political soliloquy is when Governor Morris addresses a question regarding whether he would still oppose the death penalty even if his own wife were murdered (a clever reference to a similar question posed to Michael Dukakis by moderator Bernard Shaw during the October 13, 1988 Presidential debate).

The Ides of March reinforces the belief that politics is nothing more than a dirty game of chess ("get down in the mud with the fucking elephants!"), with players and pawns doing dizzying Dosados as the relentless manipulation and backstabbing causes roles to change in a near-endless series of contrived plot twists that would cause even Shakespeare himself to blush with embarrassment. Compromises are necessary -- so are sex scandals -- and that just means that it is impossible for anyone in politics to remain ethically pure. It all boils down to Clooney's two recommendations for those of you who are interested in entering politics: Beware the ides of March and do not fuck the interns.

INTERVIEW: HEATHER COURTNEY

Director Heather Courtney.

To heed the call up

By Don Simpson

Research shows that for the most part U.S. soldiers come from poor, uneducated, rural families, and Heather Courtney’s documentary, Where Soldiers Come From, gives us an example of one such group of young soldiers from the Upper Peninsula of Northern Michigan. These five childhood friends -- with Dominic and Cole as their de facto leaders -- joined the National Guard when they graduated from high school because they were enticed by the college tuition support and $20,000 signing-bonus.

When Courtney first meets the young soldiers, they are 19-years old. Where Soldiers Come From follows the soldiers for four years, beginning with their once-a-month training sojourns at the local National Guard base and remaining by their sides as they are deployed to Afghanistan to sweep for IEDs. The narrative then returns stateside as the five 23-year-old combat veterans attempt to readjust to their civilian lives again.

JEsther Entertainment chatted with Heather Courtney just before the premiere of Where Soldiers Come From at the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival.

JEsther Entertainment: As a documentary filmmaker, what is your approach to capturing reality?

Heather Courtney: I actually just saw a documentary about documentary filmmaking and one of the filmmakers said: What happens in front of the camera is not always completely the truth, what I hope is to capture a moment that is true and allow the viewers to see a truth for themselves. For me that is a very significant statement because any time you are piecing something together, it becomes an edited and filtered version of reality. What I hope I capture are sincere moments that will help people learn something about themselves and connect with the people on the screen. I try to just let the people in my films say what they want to say. I do not push them at all.

JE: At times it seems very obvious that  the subjects are talking to you, the director. Occasionally, they even say your name. It seems as though you are purposefully informing the audience that this is a film. This is not complete reality. There is someone behind the camera.

HC: [Laughs.] We tried to take a lot of that out, but one person in the film in particular would always say my name and it would always be during very true and emotional moments. But let’s be honest, it is a documentary. There is clearly someone behind the camera asking the questions and the subjects would not be answering these questions if I was not there.

JE: Economics play a major factor in Where Soldiers Come From, specifically because that seems to be the driving force that prompts the subjects of your film to initially join the military.

HC:The the subjects of the film are from the very northern tip of the Upper Peninsula of Northern Michigan; it is a very rural area, very isolated. The nearest city -- Green Bay, Wisconsin -- is over four hours away. For people from any small town in isolated rural areas, economics are always a factor. Research has been published by Bill Bishop that shows that rural America has been effected much more so than other areas by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, because a significant proportion of young men and women from those areas have joined the armed services, often because they do not have any other economic options. The recent economic crisis has made things even more difficult for them.

JE: What changes did you notice in your subjects regarding their opinions of American politics as time progressed?

HC: They were pretty apathetic before going to Afghanistan, whereas their parents were not apathetic at all; they had some very strong opinions. The subjects were also just really freaked out about going to war. That is all they could focus on, all they could handle. Once they arrived in Afghanistan, their political opinions grew directly from their personal experiences. That seems so much stronger to me than someone who forms their political opinions from something they saw on television or read in the newspaper. When they would talk amongst themselves, they would form very informed and articulate opinions. It seems to all come out of their disillusionment and bitterness towards what has happened during their time in Afghanistan.

JE: How much freedom did you have in Afghanistan as far as when and what you could film?

HC: They let me go on almost every mission. They were pretty open to me being there. I was surprised.

JE: Can you explain how you captured the footage while out on military maneuvers from the perspective of the soldiers?

HC: I had these little helmet cams that they would attach to the gun turret on the top of their vehicle and they would attach others to the dashboard to shoot their faces as they were driving. Sometimes they would attach the cameras to their helmets too. There was also a military camera that was installed on the top of the trucks that captured the visuals of the IED explosions.

JE: What has the military’s reaction been to Where Soldiers Come From?

HC: They have not really given me any reaction. They had to vet it to make sure there were not any security issues, but that is the only thing they have commented on.

THEATER REVIEW: EUGENE ONEGIN

Despina  (Roxana Constantinescu) in Eugene Onegin. 

In Russia with love

By Ed Rampell

L.A. Opera has launched its new season with two operas that have a single, controversial theme: Infidelity. Both works are conducted by James Conlon. One, Eugene Onegin, is a Russian tragedy composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse. The other, Così Fan Tutte, is an Opera buffa, an Italian comedy composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Sung almost entirely in Russian, in Eugene Onegin’s Act I Tatiana (Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka) is a virginal, repressed young woman living in Russia’s countryside. Tatiana throws herself at the dashing newcomer from Petrograd, Onegin (Slovakian baritone Dalibor Jenis), the friend of her sister Olga’s (Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk) fiancée, the poet Lensky (Russian tenor Vsevolod Grivnov). However, for some reason -- unlike the Beatles – “well, the Ukraine girls don’t really knock Onegin out, Moscow girls don’t make him sing and shout and Georgia’s apparently not always on his mind.” Onegin declines Tatiana’s impulsive proposal, declaring their marriage would never work due to certain unspecified characteristics he possesses which would inflict misery upon her.

At a party in Act II Onegin dances with and ogles Olga, prompting his jealous best friend Lensky to challenge him to a duel. The outcome propels Onegin to embark upon a self-imposed exile; in Act III Onegin is back in the pre-U.S.S.R. He’s been away so long he hardly knows the place; gee, it’s good to be back home. At Saint Petersburg he stumbles upon a ball being thrown by elderly Prince Gremin (American bass James Creswell), who has wed a now radiantly beautiful and worldly Tatiana. In a moment of lucidity, Onegin realizes his woes were triggered by snubbing Tatiana, and pursues the now married sophisticated beauty. Although she still has the hots for Onegin, Tatiana won’t come and keep her comrade warm; the tables are turned and now it’s Tanya’s doing the rejecting. You don’t know how unlucky you are, boy! (My sincere apologies to Lenin and Lennon/McCartney.)

Eugene Onegin’s sets are co-stars in L.A. Opera productions, and while scenic designer Antony McDonald’s ho-hum interiors are serviceable, his glowing exteriors are glorious. In the first act McDonald brings alive Mother Russia’s vast steppes, as reapers rhapsodize about the harvest in a great ensemble number with about 40 performers onstage. Old McDonald’s farm is truly beautiful. As at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, lighting designer Peter Mumford creates a sense of the natural passage of time with his colorful, lovely lights. A pond of water makes a big splash and is imaginatively put to good use; it later serves as a skating rink as winter sports are enacted in the third act, wherein McDonald provides a sumptuous, panoramic view of Petrograd (which I recognized from all of those Eisenstein and Pudovkin films about the storming of the Winter Palace). McDonald also acquits himself well with the cast’s 1820s costumes, but those Russian exteriors are eye popping. Bravo1

The score is sonorous and well-conducted; director Francesca Gilpin’s mise-en-scene and choreographer Linda Dobell’s dances are on point. There is, however, a gremlin in the Kremlin. Gremin is played by a performer who is much younger than the prince is supposed to be – and his age is an important plot point obscured by this casting of 30-something Creswell. But this is a mere quibble that should not deter opera lovers from experiencing Tchaikovsky’s lamentation of love loss. 

Eugene Onegin runs through Oct. 9 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.

MUSIC FEATURE: WDCH 2011/2012 SEASON

LA Phil Music Director Gustavo Dudamel.

Holler for Mahler, Mozart and more

By Ed Rampell

When it comes to L.A. Philharmonic's sprawling new season, it seems fitting to paraphrase Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, concertgoer, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

From a full stage production of Don Giovanni, all of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, the Piatigorsky Cello Festival and the world premiere of two operas, plus much more, the 2011/2012 season may be the L.A. Phil's greatest season ever.

Last night the season kicked off at the world-renowned Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles with a trio of jazzy George Gershwin classics -- Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Cuban Overture. Legendary multiple-Grammy Award winning composer and the L.A. Philharmonic's Creative Chair for Jazz Herbie Hancock tickled the ivories under the able baton of that 30-year-old wunderkind, Gustavo Dudamel, who returns for his third season as L.A. Phil’s Music Director.

The WDCH 2011/2012 season highlights include:

A special Halloween screening on Oct. 30 of a German Expressionist masterpiece and trendsetting horror movie, the 1919 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, accompanied by a live, improvised soundtrack performed by organist Clark Wilson, who has scored many silent pictures, including Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Nicknamed "The French Fries," the Walt Disney Concert Hall organ has 6,134 pipes that range in size from 800 pounds, 32' to a quarter inch long; 61-note manual keyboards; and 32-note pedal boards...it’s enough to wake a murderous, hypnotized somnambulist up!

After offering his signature Beethoven, plus a world premiere composed by Anders Hillborg, in late November, in early December former L.A. Phil Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct the world premiere of the late Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, Orango. Reportedly the story about the corporate media and a human-ape creature, Orango is directed by Peter Sellars, who previously collaborated with John Adams on topical operas, such as Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer.

In celebration of Mahler's 150th birthday anniversary, from Jan. 13 to Feb. 5 “The Mahler Project” -- featuring all of Mahler’s 10 symphonies, plus other works by the Austrian composer – will be performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. The series kicks off with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and his Songs of a Wayfarer, with Dudamel conducting baritone Thomas Hampson and soprano Miah Persson. From there you can get all the Mahler your ears desire (or finances can afford) at what many consider the world's greatest acoustic venue. However, please note that due to the size of production, the Mahler Project’s crown jewel takes place Feb. 4 at L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium, where the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and L.A. Phil team up, literally, with hundreds of singers to present Mahler’s much vaunted Symphony No. 8, "Symphony of a Thousand." This massive effort to perform all of Mahler's symphonies in such a short time may very well be one of the greatest feats in Los Angeles' musical history. It will certainly be one of Dudamel's defining career efforts.

April 5-7 L.A. Philharmonic Creative Chair John Adams conducts the West Coast premiere of minimalist composer Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 9, which the L.A. Phil co-commissioned. 

If hearing Glass sounds like something crystal cool, crystal cool, crystal cool, just wait until May when Dudamel conducts Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s immortal opera, Don Giovanni, with set designs by none other than Frank Gehry, the imaginative architect who created the Disney Concert Hall’s wavy gravy design. These are already the hottest tickets of the season.

Finally L.A. Phil’s 2011/2012 season closes with a bang: Dudamel will conduct the world premiere of Adams’ vocal work, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, which will run May 31-June 3. In what might be described as Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets the Bible, The Gospel According to the Other Mary mixes New Testament Stories, Latin poetry and a combination of other materials, creating a magical realist take on social justice.  

Throughout L.A. Phil’s eclectic season works by Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg, John Cage, Billie Holiday, etc., will also be played, as will holiday favorites, such as Handel’s Messiah. World renowned pianist Lang Lang, violinist Joshua Bell, guitarist Paco de Lucia, the greatly influential Steve Reich, singer-songwriter Judy Collins and Broadway crooner Elaine Stritch in a rare (and what may be her last) West Coast appearance, are among the solo artists who are also scheduled to take the Disney Concert Hall’s stage during this season’s hectic cavalcade of sound fury – and fun. 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic will also perform at WDCH this season.

Lastly, if this sounds great to you, you may want to order your subscription(s) through one of the LA Phil's best kept secrets, Walt Disney Concert Hall's Priority Seating Office. Catering to exclusive patrons, the office can offer you priority seating, free ticket exchange, free ticket replacements, a money back guarantee, free parking, free comp tickets, no taxes and a slew of other benefits not offered anywhere else. You can contact the office at the unpublished number, 323-850-2049. If you are polite and act like you are in the know when you ask for your "representative," they will most likely hook you up (mornings are better).

For more information see: www.laphil.com.   

FILM REVIEW: HAPPY, HAPPY

Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen) in Happy, Happy.

The fears of a frau

By Ed Rampell

Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky’s feature debut, Happy, Happy is a Nordic screwball comedy about marital mayhem, infidelity, closeted homosexuality, slavery and more for adults. Written, shot and produced by women -- screenwriter Ragnhild Tronvoll, cinematographer Anna Myking and producer Synnove Horsdal -- Happy, Happy is also a Scandinavian equivalent to a chick flick.

Kaja (a fetching Agnes Kittelsen) is a wistful wife in a sexless marriage with Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen). The couple have one son, Theodor (Oskar Hernæs Brandsø), and they live not so happily ever after in a rural part of Norway, where they rent a spare house on adjoining property to an unknown couple: the prettier Elisabeth (Danish actress Maibritt Saerens), Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen) and their adapted African son, Noa (Ram Shihab Ebedy).

Kaja is curious about the newcomers, whom she disparagingly compares herself to and places on a proverbial pedestal. But far from being the deal couple Kaja imagines them to be, we soon find out that Elisabeth and Sigve have retreated to the countryside due to problems their own marriage is experiencing. The mixture of the two couples proves to be a combustible combination, and all hell breaks loose.

In the hands of a more somber helmer -- say, the Ingmar Bergman of 1973’s Scenes from a Marriage or Francois Truffaut of 1981’s The Woman Next Door -- Happy could have devolved into a tragedy. Instead, Sewitsky directs with a deft, droll touch, saving the film from being about endless, dreary Nordic nights filled with contemplation of the sheer meaninglessness of life, existential angst, oh woe is me, blah, blah and blah. Sewitsky’s comic panache spares us, and a quartet of upbeat musicians periodically appear from out of nowhere to serenade and amuse viewers with folksy tunes sung in English in the otherwise subtitled film.

Although her husband belittles her, Kaja is the central character, not the more glamorous, upscale, colder Elisabeth, precisely because the somewhat cloddish Kaja is essentially a warm woman, full of yearnings for love. Often, when you see films the behavior of characters seems completely inexplicable. But if you listen closely to the dialogue, when Kaja briefly, offhandedly recounts her personal back story, it all makes sense. Kittelsen’s performance reminded me of Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh’s similarly titled 2008 Happy-Go-Lucky and in 2010’s Made In Dagneham.

The sex scenes alternate between fun and funny (I could almost imagine Lina Wertmuller shooting some of the sequences, with her tongue firmly ensconced in cheek). The exuberance of new love and sexual awakenings are, of course, intoxicating, those rare moments when we feel truly, fully alive. If I have one criticism of this film dealing with sexuality it’s that while there’s full frontal male nudity, the women are, for some strange reason, less revealed. This works against the storyline, as it is largely about Kaja’s self-revelation.

The sexual interplay (and lack of) of the adults is mirrored by the strange role playing of the two sons, which takes on a First World/ Third World twist, as the blond-haired, blue-eyed Theodor “enslaves” his black neighbor. Some viewers may find this subplot to be disturbing, even offensive.

Yet somehow things manage to work themselves out, due to the writer and director’s comic-tragic vision of this journey we call life. Despite the vicissitudes of her relationships, Kaja manages to come into her own as a newly empowered, confident, independent woman. And like Nora before in another Scandinavian work of art, Kaja too leaves her doll’s house.

It’s an affirmation of life that after the dreadful mass murder at Norway this past summer the first Norwegian film to reach our shores is called Happy, Happy -- and seeing this movie, which won Sundance’s World Cinema Jury Prize, I did feel, well, you know: Happy.     

AGLIFF 2011: FIT

A scene from Fit.

To be tied and tried

By Don Simpson

Fit takes place in a fictional world where people judge, belittle and abuse other people merely because their presumed sexual preference is not “normal.” These bullies accuse their prey of being “gay” just because of how they act and dress, knowing nothing of whether or not their prey would prefer to snog a boy or a girl. In other words, just because someone does not conform to the restrictive social constructs of what defines masculinity and femininity, they are teased, ridiculed and beaten. Oh and for some, their interpretation of The Bible says that gays are evil. Sounds pretty crazy, huh?

Cleverly flipping queer stereotypes onto their heads, Fit lays out several red herrings in order to prompt the audience to make early judgments about the characters. Lee (Lydia Toumazou) appears to be a stereotypical tomboy “dyke” while her best friend Karmel (Sasha Frost) is girly, pretty and obviously straight. Tegs (Duncan MacInnes) is the school geek and is labelled as “gay” because of his gentle personality while his best mate, Jordan (Ludvig Bonin), is a talented footballer (read: soccer player) who protects Tegs from bullies such as the hyper-homophobic Isaac (Jay Brown) and Ryan (Stephen Hoo). All on the verge of expulsion from school, they have been sentenced to dance class with a flamboyantly gay teacher, Loris (writer-director Rikki Beadle Blair), as their final warning. We see these six teenagers, in turn, via their own and others’ perspectives.

Unfortunately for all of us, the cinematic world Blair creates for us is significantly more real than it should be. Our society needs Fit just as much now as it did back when I was a teenager in the 1980s. Heck, any world in which people cannot be legally married to someone of the same sex or where someone as hateful and judgmental as Michele Bachmann could even be considered to be a Presidential hopeful in the United States needs a lot of help.

Though it plays a lot like a 100+ minute episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation or Skins — comparisons that some may find more favorable than others — Fit is the most complex and thorough exploration of teenage queerness that I have ever seen. Most of all, it is quite encouraging: people can change, acceptance (and happiness) is possible. Fit should be required viewing for all teenagers. Let us just hope that it is not “too gay” for the haters in the audience.