In The Upper Room

In The Upper Room (1986)

Performance: National Ballet of Canada

Choreography: Twyla Tharp

Music: Philip Glass

Youtube (Houston Ballet)

The National Ballet of Canada energized the stage with their athletic rendition of In The Upper Room. It is my favorite production from the company to date, and from the instantaneous standing ovation, that of others in the house as well.

The series of nine short dances are choreographed by Twyla Tharp to a glittering score by Philip Glass. Glass' music weaves undulating sounds at varying registers, each with its own pulse, crests, and falls. Somehow, the voices at varying pitches collaborate in their very collision. Like wave upon proceeding wave, the rise and fall of one voice falls into but amplifies the next. The distinctiveness of each register is often accentuated by its crisp electronic tones. The over all soundscape is one with definite thrusts of crystalline form where their edges have been blurred by sharp, articulate, yet shifting notes.

The play between the focussed and blurred was heightened in the performance by a consistent backdrop of fog. Dancers emerged and submerged into the illuminated haze. Some of their hands were and feet were painted red, darting like flashes musket fire in a burst of gun powder. The dancers themselves moved as the waves of music moved; sometimes alone, other times following each other in small groups of three, two, or five, but always ending or coalescing as a unified surge before atomizing again. Such was the movement of their individual bodies also. On occasion, their muscles stiffened holding themselves momentarily as one piece of glass. Then, as if detached from the torso, the hip, knee, heel, and toe shattered and let loose on their own before being collected once more into the same dancer's body. Mesmerizing.

Ausente

Ausente, 2011

Director: Marco Berger

Ausente (Absent) aspires to be so much more than it achieves. The film tells a story of forbidden love between a 16 year old boy and his teacher. More precisely, the boy loves his teacher whom does not return or even consider his pupil's love until an untimely accident kills the boy.

The film does not enter the mind of the boy, the side of the lover. The student remains largely undeveloped. Berger instead follows the mind of the teacher who finds the boy odd, strange, and at times even hateful.

There is a heavy reliance on music, more familiar in thrillers than love stories. The track heaves and falls as possible transgressions between student and teacher loom and subside. Yet no act of love or desire occurs. The music, like the narrative, become as unreliable as to break trust (and interest) between the film and its viewer. What remains is a maze of false starts, empty dead ends, and confused direction. Here is a film that daringly attempts to blur the boundaries of love before examining what love is.

L'Amour Fou

L'Amour Fou (2010)

Director: Pierre Thoretton

L'Amour Fou documents fashion great Yves Saint Laurent with a whimper. Conceptually, Thoretton's construction makes much sense. Yves Saint Laurent is no longer with us. His voice is silent. What remains, however, is the collection of the object d'art and homes he and his partner, Pierre Berge, have amassed over their lifetime. Thoretton chooses to use the treasury of masterpieces to speak in place of Laurent. Art and architecture, after all, have the power to speak to character and person as much as Laurent's dresses.

The failure in the film lies in its inability to tie the objects of art to their collector. Other than a Mondrian painting followed by Laurent's 'Mondrian Collection' (1965), the film uses the art pieces to reveal little of Laurent's personality. In fact, the artwork and architecture conspire and overwhelm the viewer with a sense of gross material luxuriousness, confusingly contrary to Thoretton's portrayal of Laurent as a shy and modest creator of timeless style. The apex of the film is the emotionless mass auction of the Laurent-Berge art collection. In the end, the promised "l'amour fou" or crazed love of Yves Saint Laurent is reduced to a meaningless list of sales.

We Were Here

WE WERE HERE (trailer) from David Weissman on Vimeo.

We Were Here, 2011

Director: David Weissman

We Were Here powerfully portrays the aids pandemic in San Francisco, tracing the fledging gay community as it emerges, transforms, and coalesces predominantly through the 1980's. The documentary rests on testimony from five veterans of the plague: an artist, a social worker, a nurse, a street flower vender, and a political activist. "None of my friends are still around from the early days, that's why I want to tell their story as much as I want to tell mine," says the artist at the opening of the film.

Director Weissman gives each stage of the pandemic its due. The early sense of freedom on Castro Street, the terrible mystery that shrouded the 'gay cancer,' its devastating development, and recovery. The film confronts the shear sense of loss (15,000+ dead or 50% of the gay population in San Fran according to the film), the anger, the merciless decease in all its grotesque alterations without flinching. But it also documented the humanity that endured and even flourished. By the end, it is clear that all five interviewees, in some manner, are survivors. Whether they outlived their friends, over came limits of bearing for human suffering, or found and could love again, this is the first hand account that summons to the present the voices of those that were here.

Christopher and His Kind

Christopher and His Kind, 2011

Director: Geoffrey Sax

Based on an autobiographical novel (1971) by the same name by Christopher Ishwood

Produced by the BBC

The film soon leaves the comforts of gentry London for the underground of Weimar Berlin. Immediately, Christopher is introduced to the cabaret, the brewing politics of the era, and gay life. He meets Caspar, a hustler, seeing him until Caspar vanishes. Christopher next falls in love with Heinz. The film follows Chris and Heinz through a summer, lounging by the lakes of Berlin. But their relationship too is short lived. The targeting of Jews and gays by a soon to be installed Hitler renders life for the couple impossible. Christopher and Heinz seek refuge in Britain and beyond, fleeing from country to country ahead of war. The last glimpse of a young Heinz is at the British government offices where he has been disallowed to stay. Chris offers a kurt "I'm sorry" before exiting the shot to leave a bewildered Heinz, fidgeting, bewildered, alone.

Heinz is eventually caught and sentenced to hard labour in Germany. Christopher meanwhile returns to London before emigrating to the US. He becomes a successful writer. In the final scenes of the film, ten years after the war, Christopher is reunited with Heinz. They make small talk as distanced friends do. Heinz produces a photograph of his new wife, then, a picture of his son, Christian (German for Christopher). Christopher returns Heinz's searching gaze with a blank stare. He pulls off his reading glasses and repeats in a whisper, "Christian." Christopher and Heinz depart for the last time. The postscript indicates Chris and Heinz never communicated with each other again.

Christopher and His Kind is a impactful piece. Emotion is strung taught and just beneath the films surface. Director Geoffrey Sax also peppers his production with humour, skillfully relieving even the most strenuous moments. Those moments are many. The film seriously portrays the stranglehold on vulnerable social groups in rising Nazi Germany. At times, historical events are played out nearly at the cost of the plot. The Night of the Broken Glass, the Book Burning, the day Hitler is made head of state, all carry tremendous associations and consequences, deserving films in their own right. But then again, this is British television and Nazi atrocities sell.

Christiopher's lovers are beautiful, perhaps too beautiful. Alexander Doetsch as Caspar and Douglas Booth as Heinz are distractingly perfect. Some scenes may as well be what Booth also does best, model for Burberry.

Geoffrey Sax's adaptation of the novel appears honest, also to a fault. The flow of the film is discernible by its parts. Again, perhaps due to its intent for television. Yet, the apex of the plot, where Christopher and Heinz meet for a final time, coming only at the end of the film, leaves much to be desired. The scene gives Christopher's character richer dimensions that are otherwise absent. The meeting also raises questions. Surely, Christopher must remember how he loved Heinz. How did Christopher Ishwood emerge to become the famous writer that he now is? The film powerfully depicts love amidst an era brutally hostile to gay men while leaving the torment of loosing love as thin as the postscript.

Barney's Version

Director: Richard J. Lewis

Barney's Version, 2011

Based on a novel by Mordecai Richler

It was difficult to love the guy but impossible to abandon him. For his every misstep, there was an abundance of kindness. In each of his three failed marriages there were moments of humility. Barney is attractive, not as a hero, or even because he is the next-door kind of guy. Barney met the trials and tribulations of life as he bore being accused of murdering his best friend, with a silent steadfast confidence, humanity, and tremendous grace.

It was also refreshing and satisfying to watch a Canadian story played out in Canada, with references and experiences that touch so close and directly with home.

Architecture Is All Over

The transdisciplinary symposium held at the new TIFF Bell Lightbox was a mixed affair. The format appeared promising; three sets of discussions, two presentations and a one on one dialogue each, followed by audience questions. The roster of US and Canadian speakers from leading institutions (of the K. Michael Hays and Sanford Kwinter variety) and their provocative lecture topics seemed a sure hit. Perhaps it was the breadth of topics without designated opportunities for the speakers to address each other that rendered the whole affair overbearing. As the lecture came to a close, one audience member leapt from his seat to broadcast his frustration at not being able to field questions to the speakers, which spawned the exchange of a few sympathetic but souring impressions in the foyer afterwards. Moreover, the uneven depths of the speaker's experience meant that the ideas flowed from delight to bewilderment in fits and starts. The first two speakers were nearly incomprehensible for the speed at which the presented. Others, particularly on the 'agonistic potential of a forgetful, generic architectural interface' were just as inaccessible. K. Michael Hays in discussion with Andrew Payne and in particular, D. Graham Burnett in a game of oral tag with David Gissen, proved that complex issues need not be obscure. Hays and Payne spoke to Lacan's tripartite dimensions of man: imagination, symbol and the real. Hays argued that Mies was keenly aware of the symbolism that Modernism would replace. Free of encumbering the building itself as a symbolic gesture, Hays argued that the ribbed facade may in fact be merely a screen to hold the voided symbolism. Like Heiddiger's jug that is significant for the void that it forms rather than the material surrounding the void, Mies' tower holds the void or loss of symbol/essence in the expansive plaza in front of the screen-tower itself. Content aside, the mixed delivery of lectures during the conference left a glaring impression: that the ideas discussed were compelling but that presentation either obscures or enriches the idea.

Jointly hosted by the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design and OCAD University, Office of the President.