Park City Dispatch. 2.

Canadians tend to get short shrift in American cinemas - from the world-famous (outside of the US, that is) Robert Lepage, to recent great political documentaries like The Corporation and The Take, they don't seem to make much headway on this side of the border. Hopefully, Shake Hands With the Devil, screening this year at Sundance, will get the wide release it deserves. The documentary is based on the memoirs of Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, focusing particularly on his time as head of a UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, before and during its horrific and largely urban genocide. Dallaire's story has changed in recent months from "if only they had..." to "if only they'd just remember..." as evidenced in his recent op-ed piece for the New York Times on Sudan. Forget the "Oil for Food" scandal, forget the tsunami, tragic though it is; if the UN had heeded Dalliare's request for 5000 more troops, nearly one million lives might have been saved. Shake Hands provides clear evidence for the dire consequences of tragic inaction, on both a personal and a political level. Dallaire's supporting appearance at Sundance is a great example of one of the strengths of Sundance. He will be appearing alongside director Peter Raymont on a panel examining the role of documentaries in social change entitled "The World is Watching." We can only hope that it's true.

Another documentary highlight - a revival screening of Barbara Kopple's Academy Award-winning Harlan County, USA, accompanied by a discussion with Koppel and other key contributors (including the legendary Hazel Dickens, who wrote original music for the film).

In the narrative department, Hal Hartley returns to feature filmmaking, venturing into sci-fi with The Girl From Monday. Hartley has recently partnered with long-time editor Steve Hamilton to form his own distribution company, Possible Films, and hopefully this new offering will be on par with The Book of Life. Other interesting indies that show some promise include The Squid and the Whale, from Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote The Life Aquatic, and Mitchellville, previously seen at CineVegas and a true American indie. Mitchellville is amazing for many reasons - it's a film about a dream, and it works. It's a film by a white guy about racism, and it works. It's a film about being a high-end corporate clone made by a lawyer, and it works. At any rate, you have to admire anyone who makes a stack of money and then spends much of it on creating a very unique 35mm (35mm!) film.

Several forthcoming screenings are already noted for their extreme aggression. The Australian horror flick Wolf Creek is just one example and has caused more than one person to tell me, "You know, it was just a real mind-fuck."

With near daily coverage in the week ahead, look forward to reports on Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man and the long-awaited Strangers With Candy movie! Humor at last!

Posted by dwhudson at January 24, 2005 2:56 PM