Selina Robertson talks to Sarah Polley, Canadian actress and director of Away From Her
Sarah Polley's directorial feature debut about the relationship between a couple who have been married for many years as they cope with Alzheimer’s is a self assured and intelligent piece of filmmaking. How did she enjoy directing? “You do have to fight battles.’ she says. 'I am terrified of confrontation but there are moments when you have to fight for what you want and sometimes what you want is frankly irrational.’ She calls herself a coward and hates conflict but she presents a persona and vision that are altogether different from each other.
During her teenage years Polley was involved in political activism (Disney blacklisted her for refusing to remove a peace badge at an awards ceremony during the first Gulf War); she caught the acting bug after meeting Atom Egoyan (the executive producer on Away from Her) in the late 19903. ‘Atom has obviously been a mentor to me. really nurturing and supportive,’ she says softly.
So why adapt this Alice Munro short story? ‘I was just so moved by it as a love story. It seemed so unique and completely opposite to the love stories that get told,’ she explains. As we talk she reveals that she read it just after her marriage to David Wharnsby (the film's editor), therefore making it more personal. She further articulates how her grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's and spent three years in a retirement home.
It is within these institutional four walls that Polley explores the film‘s themes of memory. guilt. confusion and love. Casting heavyweights Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent as the couple in distress, with Olympia Dukakis supporting, is fiercely courageous for a first time director. Polley describes Christie as ‘curious and engaged‘ and says she pushed her constantly on the directorial process. She adds. ‘My one concern is that I should be creating something new. I can’t just sit around talking about something that I did last year.’
I Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 27 Apr. See review, page 37.
38 THE LIST 26 Apr—10 May 2007
HORROR THE BREED (15) 87min u
‘Give my best to Cujo!‘ yells Nikki (Michelle Rodriguez) as she terches the secret research facility where she's been trapped by a pack of savage hounds. Yes, it‘s another mongrel killer-dog movie (see also Man '3 Best Friend. Rottweiler and Dogs of Hell). in which lovable pooches metamorphose into man‘s worst enemy.
Five partying college kids move into an isolated house on a remote island. where flirty blonde babe Sara (Taryn Manning) gets nipped by a cute puppy. Sara starts acting bitchy. but ’Expendable Black Guy' Noah (Hill Harper) continues to drool over her. And this rabies scare is quickly forgotten when John (Oliver Hudson) and his brother Matt (Eric Lively) witness a man being savaged to death by German Shepherds. Taking refuge in the besieged house. the kids eventually escape from the attic: but their efforts to escape from the island are stymied by the dogs' ability to think. plan and coordinate their anacks.
Director Nick Mastandrea and dog wrangler Sled Reynolds stage the gory canine carnage with skill and enthusiasm, making effective use of actual canines. as opposed to cheesy CGI or clunky animatronics. Meanwhile, writers Martin Peter Wortmann and Bob Conte lumber the humans with some doggerel dialogue. And you won't need 20:20 vision to spot the predictable. Carrie-style trick ending. (Nigel Floyd)
I General release from Fri 27 Apr.
SATIRICAL ADAPTATION FAST FOOD NATION (15) 114min COO
Texan filmmaker, vegetarian and activist Richard Linklater’s fictional interpretation of Eric Schlosser’s bestselling non-fiction book exposing malpractice in the America’s fast food industry is an enjoyable and shocking freewheeling satire on consumer culture. Opening with a hamburger chain marketing executive (Greg Kinnear) investigating contaminated meat patties (and finding animal faeces in them), the narrative is then passed baton-like onto various characters involved in the production and consumption of America’s favourite snack. Among them is an unethical meat buyer (Bruce Willis in an uncredited cameo), a gang of Mexican immigrants working illegally in a Colorado slaughterhouse, a pair of spotty-faced burger flippers and a group of bumbling student activists lead by Avril Lavigne. Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzman and Kris Kristofferson also put in brief appearances.
It’s an uneven film, lurching from gritty drama to slapstick comedy to heavyweight ethical debate and back again. And between the often clumsy direction and some ham-fisted acting, it feels like it was shot on the hoof, as it were, and compiled on the quick. Nevertheless, Linklater and co- writer Schlosser’s collaboration has some admirable sequences. from Kinnear and Willis’ argument over ‘shitburgers’ to Mexican actress Catalina Sandino Moreno working on the ‘kill floor’ of an abattoir. The latter was filmed covertly by Linklater inside a real abattoir, and is the climactic scene the film builds up to. After watching this money shot it’s unlikely you’ll ever eat another hamburger, which, of course, is the intention. Job done. (Miles Fielder)
I Selected release from Fri 4 May.
THRILLER TYPHOON (15) 105min coo
Prepare yourself for Typhoon. the biggest-budgeted smash hit South Korean movie ever made that was shot on location in Korea. Russia and Thailand.
Overplaying the idea of a potentially volatile political standoff between North and South Korea (the film has played well with nee-con audiences in the US allegedly). Typhoon begins With the theft of a South Korean-bound cargo of US-supplied nuclear devices. Mad modern day pirate Sin (Jang Don-kun) is planning to use the devices to contaminate the Korean peninsula by launching them from a ship into the approaching typhoons. But can former Navy SEAL. Kang Se-jong (Lee Jang-jael. a kind of Korean Jack Bauer from TV's 24 forl his plans as the bad weather approaches?
Big hitting director Kwak Kyung-taek (Champ/on. Friend) pulls out all the stops for this high octane thriller that clearly takes its lead from the collected oeuvres of Michael Bay and John Woo. and even if Typhoon ultimately tells us nothing about the real divisions at play in this once great country (for that you need to rent Park Chan-wook's superb 2000 thriller JSA: Joint Security Area) this is highly entertaining fare. (Paul Dale)
I Selected release from Fri 27 Apr.