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Uptown Magazine - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts, Entertainment & News

July 3, 2008


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2008-07-03

An uncomfortable fascination, indeed

A selection of works by visual artist Erica Eyres both disturbs and delights

(An Uncomfortable Fascination: The Videos of Erica Eyres, July 4, 7 p.m., Cinematheque)

A-

Local visual arts critic Stacey Abramson steps into the role of curator this weekend, selecting a taste test of the video work of Winnipeg ex-pat artist Erica Eyres.

"There is something about Erica's work and its awkwardness that makes it so fascinating to me," Abramson says. "She's able to capture horribly uncomfortable scenes, situations, characters and locations with such great authenticity. But there is also a great amount of dark humour that draws me in."

In her short performance videos, Glasgow resident Eyres acts out the various characters of a dysfunctional but true to life world with sharp wit and a keen sense of nuanced behaviour. Donning fake noses and false teeth, and affecting convincing twitches, stutters, and subtle idiosyncracies, Eyres and her characters are simultaneously hilarious and disturbing.

"Erica's work is different than other role-playing performance artists because she seems to have a great grasp of cinematic qualities that she brings over into the DIY-ness of her work. You can almost imagine Erica working out her characters for months in advance - playing with hair and make-up while developing their life story."

One of the best pieces is Eyres' 2006 video, Baby Marleena, the story of a mother who travels the country from hotel room bathtub to hotel room bathtub, charging the public admission to peer in on her mermaid daughter. The work recalls Eyres' Destiny Green 'documentary,' the story of a young girl who undergoes face-removal surgery. In both, self-assured matriarchs are completely impervious to their own familial dysfunction. In many ways, these characters feel like they could be real and seated next to Montell Williams or Dr. Phil.
— Walter Forsberg

Sometimes, it's just too much...

Sure, Wanted is intense and action-packed - but it's also full of excessive, gratuitous violence

(Wanted, now showing)

C+

Wanted is one wild and bloody, action-packed roller coaster ride - most intense when it takes place atop the El Trains of the CTA and in the streets of Chicago - but just what is this world coming to? Isn't enjoying freakishly excessive violence for entertainment purposes somehow, well, inhuman?

From more-than-competent Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, Wanted comes Winnipeg's way as yet another fanboy comic book-cum-screen action-fest.

The story begins with heavy-handed attempts at endearing the audience to William Gibson (played by the paradoxically ripped-but-scrawny Scotsman James McAvoy) with sarcastic voice-over about his pathetic office-cubicle existence and a 'cue-the-laughter' riff on his boss' obesity. Soon, with even the ATM's screen messages (literally) ridiculing his plight, Gibson suddenly finds himself in the middle of a grocery-store gun battle, defended by the cool bandita, Fox (Angelina Jolie). Kidnapped after an exciting car chase scene, Gibson is then lead to a south-side castle-like textile factory where all of the labourers are trained killers who happily carry out the assassination orders of their lawless club, The Fraternity - orders which are interpreted by reading the thread counts of ancient linen. But, will Gibson answer his fate and join the secret killing club like his thought-to-be-dead-but-not-really father did?

Wanted's absent boundaries of believability are established pretty quickly, with an incredible 60-odd-storey, guns-blazing leap over the Chicago skyline onto the Metropolitan Tower, and a several-miles-long marksman's silver-bullet splatter. Fantastical murder is the plat du jour on Wanted's menu, but it wavers too much on the side of realistic gang-ish shoot-em-up instead of comic-book boyish fantasy.

Despite even the spoiler-worthy shocking twists, Wanted never seems to have the same caricatured from-comic-book-page-to-big-screen sense of pretend that it morally should, and that last year's Shoot 'Em Up did (which, by the way, professed 'black comedy' amongst its official genres). In short (and after heated post-screening critic-gossip), the sheer grotesquely gratuitous violence isn't very smartly executed, but rather, proves pure dumb carnage.

Hey, no one's blaming Marilyn Manson for this, but I find it hard to think of a more disturbing audience reaction in my long tenure as film critic than to have people in the audience repeatedly laugh at random people getting blown away. This film simply glamourizes murder, which, when your target Winnipeg audience is teenagers, makes Wanted entirely uncalled for.
— Walter Forsberg

Real, raw and riveting

New documentary on Seattle punk band The Gits is a winner

(The Gits, July 3, 9 p.m., Cinematheque)

In late 2004, Miami fisherman Jesus Mezquia was convicted and sentenced to 36 years in prison for the brutal rape and murder of Mia Zapata, former lead singer of Seattle-based punk rock band The Gits. This final crescendo put to rest the unanswered question that had dogged members of the band and its close-knit community for over 10 years.

The Gits will be playing as the next installment of the Big Smash! Music Scene Series at Cinematheque, and for anyone that thinks all Seattle music from the early 1990s sounds like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and their unfortunate offspring, they need to check out this film.

Filmmaker Kerri O'Kane and producer Jessica Bender are to be congratulated for making a piece that plays out as an exciting and interesting, talking-head style doc, as well as a loving homage to the band itself. The Gits were a viciously skilled group of players and Zapata's voice could send chills down your spine like no other punk rock chick singer. Sounding not unlike a harder-edged X, their two "official" albums (there has been a compilation and live release since The Gits disbanded after Zapata's death in 1993) ought to be in any self-respecting punk fan's collection.

The film traces the band right back to their roots at Antioch College, Ohio, in 1986 and offers raw live video footage from back in the day. The band then shifted to Seattle in 1989 when the so-called grunge movement was beginning to take shape. There are revealing, funny and insightful interviews with various members of other bands, family members and all of the surviving Gits.

The first two-thirds of the film focus on how the band rose to prominence in Seattle, early tours, and generally, how great things were going until the tragic event that ended it all. Rather than drill down on Zapata's death, O'Kane choose to deliver a documentary about a very cool group of friends that most likely would have risen to some greater acclaim based on the sheer velocity and power of their sound, and on Zapata's personally political lyrics which, at times, even seemed to foreshadow what was to happen to her.

By the time the film moves into the crime phase of the story, you will have already become a fan of the band and the positive effect it was having on its local scene and beyond. There lies the strength of this documentary. Once Zapata is gone, the film pulls no punches in letting you feel that loss. The sense of confusion, defeat and anger is palpable, and you can't help but feel concern for those left to mourn and rage over the actual event.
— Jeff Monk

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