According to Galloro, cinematography is unjustly overlooked. “It is one of the finest forms of expression,” he says. “It is something that covers all forms of the arts.” Northern Lights highlights the talent of Canadian cinematographers such as Arthur E. Cooper and George Morita, who have escaped the shadow of their Hollywood neighbours. “My interviewees are people that I have previously worked with, people that continue to inspire me,” says Galloro. “I have been fortunate to be able to interview such a talented group of individuals.”

There is no doubt that in this film cinematography is displayed as a serious art form. “Cinematographers will make something fascinating out of anything they are presented with,” argues McGill professor Alanna Thain. Northern Lights explores this artistic ability through the work of a wide range of cinematographers and diverse film clips. In one segment, cinematographer Robert Bocking leads the viewer through one of his favorite shots, taking us from a low point over a river up to the tip of Virginia Falls, providing the audience with an expressive image of true nature. In another clip, the audience is brought into an overwhelmingly produced shot of the Canadian television show Instant Star. Despite their opposing aesthetics, both clips eloquently capture the cinematographer’s ability to create a distinct point of view, no matter the raw materials.

More broadly, however, the film introduces its audience to an analysis of Canadian cinematography, and leads the viewer to ask larger questions about Canadian filmmaking in general. Have we done well in supporting filmmaking in this country? Is Canadian cinematography considerably different from that of Hollywood? Ultimately, have we done enough in the world of filmmaking to say that we have created a national cinema?
“I’m still very uncertain of what a national cinema means,” Thain commented. “In the Canadian context, it is very difficult to say that there is a Canadian national cinema. In terms of lacking a Hollywood-type identity, it has made Canadian cinema more likely to take risks with style, and the kind of ways of telling stories,” she continued. “In that sense, Canadian cinema is often closer to art cinema than commercial cinema.”

But Canadian cinema is not without its faults, admits Galloro. Northern Lights addresses this in one particular interview, in which filmmaker Sarah Polley draws on her own experiences as a woman in a field dominated by men. “There could be more support [for women],” Galloro commented. “Women aren’t really acknowledged like the men. There needs to be more emphasis put on their work and showcasing their talent.”

What makes Northern Lights unique, then, is its failure to claim what is distinctly “Canadian,” while showcasing Canadian cinematography in a way that also reveals artistic talent, regardless of cultural identity or gender. It’s both an exploration of Canadian filmmaking and an attempt to define Canadian culture as not completely exclusive but rather as a conflicted and negotiated identity that both accepts and denies outside cultures.

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This obsession with cleanliness is a topic brought forth by the presentation “Soap,” held in Montreal at the Canadian Centre for Architecture on Tuesday, February 16. Through a series of arrangements led in Pecha Kucha format, the presenters demonstrated the moral and social implications of what is means to be clean, if not too clean. What is clean? What are we losing by having an obsession with being clean? Is the very idea of being clean part of larger issues of a city’s morality and politics?
The desire for cleanliness has manifested itself in both personal and public hygiene to the point where it seems almost innate. Cleanliness habits have been deeply ingrained in the North American personality throughout generations, becoming a reflection of the growth of the urban modern city and the ideals brought forth with it. “Soap” investigated the history of cleanliness in Montreal, taking us on a journey through its most unusual places. Delving into the sewer systems and then back up to the peaks of the snow pile wastes, “Soap” expanded the topic of Montreal’s cleanliness in ways we would never expect, and showcased how a city’s standards of cleanliness can be linked to broader norms of modern society.

The abbreviated images and the diversity of presenters made this an event worth seeing. The evening consisted of six separate presentations in French and English, each speaker interpreting the theme of cleanliness in uniquely different ways. The presentations held my attention with their unusual topics ranging anywhere from the subsistence of animals in the city to the neurotic daily removal of snow.

In her segment Taking Baths In Public, Jennifer Blair draws a compelling argument about the link between the historical phenomenon of the public bathhouses – and how these illustrate the changing conceptions of cleanliness – and one’s social status and reputation. In the early 19th-century, cleanliness was not a norm, it was something that had to be earned. The idea of taking a bath was not necessarily linked to actual bodily cleanliness, but was a cultural custom linked to broader concerns such as social interaction and repressed sexuality.

In her vision of the bathhouse, Blair claimed that the very idea of getting clean stems from a fascination with getting dirty. The notion of the bathhouse expresses a paradox: processes of modernity have indeed produced an expectation of cleanliness, yet simultaneously, the more we desire to be clean the more we rely on processes of production and consumption that create more garbage. Today’s modern home is burdened with a profusion of cleaning products, designed to make our lives spotless. But the chemical industry on which we rely is one of the most toxic and polluting in modern manufacturing, and we inevitably produce more garbage and waste by preserving our effortless consumer lifestyle and obsessions with being clean.

In his series, Animals in the City, McGill’s Jason Prince explored new and unusual ways of cleaning the city. He proposed, for instance, the use of animals instead of machines to clean the streets. But what would you do if you walked outside onto the street and saw a team of goats munching in the gutters? In another presentation, Patrick Evans showed that today we see something even as minimal as snow as a pollution to be disposed of. Each season, $60 million is spent on snow removal, seven million cubic metres of snow piled away – the equivalent to a snowman bigger than the Eiffel Tower. When does it stop? 
Processes of modernization have produced an expectation of cleanliness in modern cities, which has become a reflection of city’s morality. “Soap” traced the attitudes of cleanliness through various facets, demonstrating the social implications of what it means to be clean, and explored – through varying conceptions of cleanliness – the socially constructed processes and techniques of actually “cleaning.” The presentations analyzed the connections between personal and public hygiene as linked to broader subjects, such as changing public expectations for appearance and precision over centuries. In light of the waste generated by the cleaning industry, one would hope that society will eventually calm down and accept that a bit of dirt never did any harm.

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The McGill Daily: Where does your love of food and restaurants come from?
Garrett Johnson: It comes from loving to eat. For me, it is the form of art I most relate to. I am not a painter or a writer; I’m more into cooking because of the colours and the textures. It is something I can do that is not pretentious and I don’t need to it back up any sort of artistic statement.

MD: What was behind your decision to put together this zine? Why breakfast?
GJ: We are both brunch cooks; this is what we do professionally. There’s something about brunch that is so social and exciting. It is very down-to-earth. There are a lot of places that serve brunch and so we decided we wanted to find out which one was the best.

MD: What is your criterion for a good breakfast place? How do you grade and compare the food?
GJ: You need to take everything into account. Yes, it’s going to be the standard eggs with home fries, but it’s more than just the meal. It the whole brunch experience. When you go there, are you relaxed? Is the price-ratio good? How is the service? A lot of the places we go to, you go and are waiting to be seated and once you’re seated it feels like they are just trying to push you out the door. I’m kind of an anxious person and very sensitive to feeling like I’m being pushed out the door.

Desiree Gordon: There is definitely a problem with that. A bunch of places are very cute and small, which is great because it’s all part of the atmosphere. The problem is that you’re pushed up against other people; no one pays attention to you. There is a common trend of people waiting in the door, watching you eat, just waiting to come in, which is also a little unsettling.

MD: So overall, so far, what’s the best priced, best quality breakfast place?
DG: I think Sparrow. The Sparrow (5322 St. Laurent) had amazing food. It was very rushed but the fact that everything is homemade makes it delicious. It’s an English gastro and they have a revolving menu, which is interesting. This is the kind of the stuff that they did right, which makes up for the fact that it was crowded.

MD: What are some of your goals for the blog?
GJ: We plan to continue this. There are four restaurants in each issue. That’s a month of brunch. It is something we enjoy and would like to continue. This isn’t our job; we are not making money off this.

DG: We’ve been relaxed about it. It’s something we are doing at our own pace because really, that’s what brunch is all about!
Gert & Dersy Do Brunch is due to be released on Valentine’s Day and will be distributed in a variety of cafés and restaurants in the Plateau.

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Created by Danielle St. Amour and Tess Edmonson, Palimpsest exists in an exclusive run of 50 issues, which St. Amour hopes to increase with the success of the magazine. The result is a visually unique and distinct magazine, which she claims “reflects the flexibility and tactility of an art object in a way that reveals it as non-linear and heterogeneous.” The manner of viewing art encouraged by Palimpsest becomes less about its visual aesthetics. Instead, it presents the artwork in a way where the sensory aspects of touch and sound are just as significant as sight.

The magazine’s appeal derives from the fact that its form seems to offer more depth and artistic availability than a conventional magazine. It digs deeper, moving away from a magazine culture that is already saturated with an excess of visual arts. According to St. Amour, however, the magazine’s inspiration stems from a similarly fashioned magazine, Aspen, which existed throughout the sixties. Aspen’s contributors were leading figures in the contemporary North American and British art scenes and included cultural heroes, such as Roland Barthes and Andy Warhol. Unfortunately, much of Aspen’s content and memory has been lost throughout history – with Palimpsest, St. Amour and Edmonson hope to bring its memory back into the present. The problems that affected Aspen over 40 years ago, however, still seem to prevail in today’s publishing world.

With the current state of the economy, it’s a huge accomplishment to overcome the obstacles of financing an independently published magazine. “The biggest limit was definitely funding,” St. Amour admits, clarifying, “This is a project that was completely independently funded and so the hardest part was applying for grants.” St. Amour described a long process of applying for grants and being rejected based on the unique traits of her work. The bottom line: St. Amour and her co-workers were dedicated to achieving their goal. What they have to show is an excellent magazine that is geared toward others who love art just as much as they do.

Beyond this, the biggest limitation affecting St. Amour and Edmonson was the size of the box that was to contain Palimpsest. While packaging material in a box may offer possibilities of including different media, the form had distinct drawbacks as well. According to St. Amour, the cloth included in the magazine was originally in a larger box but needed to be more small and compact. As a result, the textile had to be reinvented to fit the dimensions of a smaller box. Nonetheless, it is apparent that the art was not compromised and the smaller size of the box still succeeds in capturing the magazine’s content in a more practical and efficient way.

Palimpsest Magazine, which hopes to solidify itself as a home for art and the avant-garde, is just beginning. With its unique array of media, Palimpsest brings new and innovative ideas to the mainstream conception of a magazine. Despite all the risks in developing a magazine so unconventional, St. Amour’s advice for those wanting to produce a magazine is simple: “Keep trying. No matter how hard it seems at the time there is always something out there for you to succeed at.”

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Barndt’s answer is not uplifting. Consisting of a selection of contemporary art pieces, the exhibit explores the triviality of human life in relation to the immensity of nature. “Leaps of Faith” is comprised of two distinct groups of work. The first section, “Free Fall,” is a multimedia exhibit, its pieces ranging from paintings and video clips to life-size photographs, occasionally illuminated by eccentric white lamps. Through contrasting visual images of humans falling, the artist expresses his pessimistic outlook. He draws individuals in free fall to express humanity’s collective powerlessness in the face of critical issues. The goal, according to Barndt, is to “exhibit the vulnerability of human life in relation to the severe and daunting disasters of the environment.”

Barndt wanted to capture humanity as “having no feet left on the ground.” To this end, each image presents a unique group of individuals, completely unlike the last. Some faces smile while others are sullen, some are clothed and others naked, some are young and some old. The outcome is honest; everyone, despite their age or social class, can feel defenceless at times.

Indeed, none of the paintings display any sort of imagery that could betray their connection to environmental issues. In fact, the portraits of individuals falling are all painted against a plain beige background in order to create the effect of timelessness, thus providing the audience with an opportunity to interpret the images on their own terms. Through this ambiguous stylistic choice, Barndt allows the audience to engage with the concept of human vulnerability and come up with their own personal explanations of the work. Environmental issues become simply one out of the many causes of the instability in human life.

While the pieces are fascinating, Barndt’s vision of humanity did appear overly cynical. “I admit I am too pessimistic,” he confesses. “After completing [the paintings in ‘Free Fall’] my grandmother came to see my work, and her first response was, ‘Where is your sense of hope?’” As a result, “Leap of Faith” closes with a two-piece exhibit called “Affirmations.” One particular image consists of a life-size photograph of Barndt’s grandmother with a three-dimensional light beam in front of it. This work represents his grandmother’s affirmation of hope and faith despite all the prevailing issues in the world. Barnt explained that with “Affirmations,” he wanted to “represent the optimism that I couldn’t project in my own work.” The incongruity between the two sections of the exhibit – the images of people falling versus standing, and the drab beige backgrounds in “Free Fall” versus the bright white colours of “Affirmations” – make the juxtaposition all the more interesting. Yet it is with “Affirmations” that the exhibit really feels complete, and a vision of hope is presented to the audience.

With his work in “Leaps of Faith,” Barndt displays a great deal of talent and a sincere understanding of the current social worry over the degradation of the environment. The initial response to the exhibit is a feeling of shock – the first image is an unexpected portrait of an elderly women falling with an intense look of fear in her eyes. As the exhibit continues, however, the audience understands that the work is not purely pessimistic. Rather, Brandt’s last portrait, as introduced by his grandmother, offers us “the promise of the sun coming out of the storm.”

Leaps of Faith is up at Galerie SAS (372 Ste. Catherine O. suite 416) through December 5.

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The Age I’m In was created out of a project that aimed to map the Australian identity, also coordinated by Champion. The project’s original goals were translated into a universal work that captures many aspects of aging that people the world over experience. “I tried not to aim for Australians in particular,” says Champion. “I want everyone to feel as if they’ve seen a part of their own attitude on stage.” Clearly, this attitude has led to the performance’s success. Champion channels the voices of many different generations, which means that all audience members can relate to the dance they’re seeing. The performance does not tell the audience what to think, but leads them to reflect on the issues brought to the surface.

The first image we see in The Age I’m In is the full cast standing on stage, illuminating the variations in age, physical form, and life experience between them. These disparities elicit a harsh revelation of the inequalities present within society, and some of the differences that set us apart. The innocent adolescent versus the wise elderly person, the healthy versus the sick, and even the skilled dancer versus the newcomer, all become points of entry to larger questions of social segregation. The performance asks broader questions about age by challenging the audience with issues like loneliness, sickness, religion, and drug abuse. In one captivating scene, for instance, the digital screens that act as set pieces expose a young woman’s nude body, showing visible signs of breast cancer, next to another nude figure that has clearly undergone plastic surgery. Every age, it seems, has both benefits and struggles.

United by their movements, the performers create an atmosphere on stage that is built on acceptance. Champion compiled a cast of individuals that she claims “has such a strong and open-minded understanding of each other.” The choreography mirrors this feeling; the steps and the music speed up for the younger dancers, showcasing their technical virtuosity, and slow down in order to capture the courageousness and elegance of the old or less physically able performers. It is a piece, as Champion says, that “works for the strengths of the people.”

The Age I’m In is not solely a dance performance; it incorporates multimedia elements like hand-held screens and voice-overs from Champion’s initial interviews into the work. When asked about her decision to work with technology, Champion replied, “having the cameras adds a lot to our capabilities as artists. It challenges our creativity and adds a testing dimension to the medium of dance.” Amusingly, she noted that the overall stress of the performance did not come from the experience of working with dancers of widely varying capabilities; it was the technology that was constantly on her mind. But it was worth the effort. The combination of dance and technology effectively brings together the multiplicity of real life experiences that were incorporated into the piece.

Through its complex narrative structure and its insight, The Age I’m In brings attention to society’s perspective on aging and looks at it from a variety of viewpoints. The diversity of the performers gives a voice to age groups that are not always acknowledged in dance. Through her unconventional approach, Champion’s piece successfully moves toward the recognition and acceptance of age-based differences.

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The play is centred on an inquiry into the mysterious death of Sebastian Venable and the strange claims of the institutionalized witness, Catherine Holly, which follow. Desperate to uphold her son’s reputation, Sebastian’s mother, Violet Veneble, seduces a young aspiring brain surgeon, Dr. Cukrowicz, with the money required for his experimental surgeries if he promises to “cut that hideous story out of her head.”

While Williams’s charged poetic language is brilliant in itself, it is the acting that makes this play worth seeing. Kristina Sandev steals the show with her performance as Catherine Holly. Through her manic tone and sporadic mannerisms, Sandev gives her character a perfect mix of both vulnerability and madness. Her compelling performance provides the audience with an opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not she is truly insane. Doreen Fagnam is equally impressive with her vindictive performance as Violet Venable. With her slow saunter across the stage and mesmerizing delivery of the eccentric “Tennessee” monologues, Fagnam provides us with a character that we are immediately hesitant to trust.

The rest of the actors put in convincing performances that should not go unmentioned. Dawn Ford and Adrien Desbien-Ben, acting as Catherine’s greedy mother and brother, add some much-needed humour to the menacing storyline. Alex Gordrich, playing Dr. Cukrowicz, does an excellent job as a man torn between his ambition and his virtue. Through Gordrich’s gentle tone and visible desperation, Cukrowicz becomes the one character that the audience most relates to.

The play’s actors cannot fully express, on their own, the excess of emotion and eccentricity found in the narrative. Additional atmosphere is provided by the daring set design of the garden, the site of all the play’s action. Plants literally come to life through the use of real-life actors who stay on stage throughout the entire production. Dressed head-to-toe as exotic plants, they dance suavely across the back of the stage, adding a unique dimension to the stylistic elements of this play.

Although this choice risked distracting the audience, these actors succeeded in blending into the background to the extent that the audience could almost forget their presence. The show’s stars had an impressive ability to grab the audience’s attention, making it seem as if they were the only ones on stage. They made it clear that they were worth focusing on.

In Ryall’s Suddenly Last Summer, nothing is what it seems to be. Every scene keeps you guessing and grimacing. It is only in the final scene that the truth becomes apparent, and the prior sequences reveal themselves as nothing but an intricate web of lies.

*Suddenly Last Summer runs through October 4 at Players’ Theatre (3480 McTavish, 3rd Floor). Visit ssmu.mcgill.ca/players for more information. *

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What begins as a typical Hollywood murder plot – a wealthy and appealing man running away from his unattractive killer – turns into a well-developed poetic story and extremely stylish film. When we first meet Leo, his life seems ideal: he has a darling daughter, a beautiful wife, and an opulent home. The killer, on the other hand, is anything but. He comes off as a cliché Hollywood murderer; we first see him watching violent television alone in a hotel room (perhaps a hidden message?) and then dining unaccompanied at a deserted Mexican restaurant. Yet the film is interesting for the way it parallels and interweaves the lives of a killer and his victim.

While Leo is much more successful on a superficial level, his life is also filled with emptiness. As a result, upon meeting his own killer, a strange and significant relationship emerges. From this point on, their roles reverse; as Kopas encounters a world of love and sympathy, Leo spirals downward into one of drugs and jealousy.

Despite the alleged action-packed plotline, this movie breaks the classical Hollywood rules through its use of original storytelling and filmmaking strategies. The plot is an exercise in suspense. Both the viewer and characters are constantly waiting – for secrets to be revealed, for someone to show emotion, and, of course, for cold-blooded murder. Moreover, the uncanny film noir mis-en-scène reinforces this sense of suspended anxiety.

The acting alone is worth seeing. Gregoir Colin, playing the eerie hit man, and his counterpart Gilbert Melki, in the role of Leo Zimmerman, provide a strong representation of the complexities of human life. There is nothing motivating or interesting about the characters’ lives themselves – in fact, the roles are actually written one-dimensionally so that one is unable to look into their past and see clear motivations for their actions. Yet despite this lack of depth, I found myself siding with them nonetheless. While the bizarre ending leaves many questions unanswered, these two individuals remained, surprisingly, in my mind long after the movie ended.

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In her newest novel, The Flying Troutmans, Governor General Award winner Miriam Toews introduces us to characters that are both original and comedic. With characters like the purple-haired daughter of the family, Thebes, and her dark and rebellious brother, Logon, Toews has the ability to perfectly capture the complications of growing up in an utterly dysfunctional family.

The book begins with a phone call that forces narrator Hattie to quit her exciting life in Paris and return to her roots in Manitoba. Upon arrival, Hattie faces what she has been running away from her whole life: her sister Min has fallen into another “episode” triggered by her chronic depression. Though she is completely unqualified for the job, Hattie becomes a surrogate parent to her sister’s two children, Thebes and Logon.

Rather than dealing with Min, Hattie decides to flee. “If she was again at a point where she wanted to die, where she was begging me to help her die, then there was no point in keeping [our father] at bay. What difference did it make?” And so, the threesome jams into the family Volvo and escapes to California in search of Hattie and Min’s father, giving Min the final choice to live for her family or give up once and for all.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the unique writing style and strange lack of punctuation. Rather than using quotation marks, Toews narrates the book through the eyes of Hattie. While nothing about this writing technique or the lives of the characters is what we would classify as “normal,” Toews has a distinct style that captures the unique and charismatic qualities of each character.

Even Min, who we meet only through flashbacks and anecdotes, has a strong presence in the book. One anecdote recounts the time that Min reluctantly agreed to go hunting with her uncle, and then, rather than breaking the plans, tried to kill herself to avoid killing an animal. It is no surprise that her family is as dysfunctional as they are.

While the novel begins with the line, “Yeah, so things have fallen apart,” the road trip develops into an opportunity for the three characters to overcome the constraints of Min’s disease and rebuild their family on their own terms.

From encounters with wacky characters to stopovers in hazy drug-infested hotels, the Troutman family embarks on a quirky mission that proves to be anything but simple. Although their relationship appears completely deranged, in the end one comes to realize that, given the Troutmans’ situation, chaos is the only thing that keeps them together.

The Flying Troutmans is 322 pages long and available in hardcover from Random House for $32.

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