New season promises diversity in films

By Mildred Pierce

Col: MUN Cinema Series

The Winter 2010 MUN Cinema Series begins with a musical treat, The Genius Within: The Inner Life Of Glenn Gould. What’s especially intriguing about the title is that it suggests that it is actually possible to show an inner life on film. But the challenge is especially daunting when it comes to someone like eccentric pianist Glenn Gould; he remains one of the most enigmatic, mysterious, and unreachable figures in the Canadian imagination. Many who know even a little about this incredible performer already knows about his obsessive compulsiveness, his fetish for food and weather, his habit of wearing gloves, humming along with Bach on live recordings, and his curiously detached sexuality. But this highly intelligent film goes past the celebrity gossip to a much deeper place, to, as the film boasts, the genius within. Next week’s screening is far darker drama, a story about the end of the world in a season where this theme is alarmingly popular. The Road, as you probably know, is based on a best-selling novel by Cormac McCarthy. It’s all about a Boy and his father, otherwise known as the Man. Left to scavenge for themselves after some sort of catastrophic event has rent the world asunder, they wander through a dark and hellish reality. Yes, the imagery is grim and the subject even bleaker, but that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t have its own extraordinary beauty. It is telling of the film’s realism and relevance that much of it was actually shot in post-Katrina New Orleans, where many people are still living pretty much like the characters in this movie. These are the ones you don’t see in the tourist ads, of course. Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron are beautiful attractions, to be sure. He is the Man, and she is the Woman to whom he was married, a woman of memory and of much sunnier times. Obviously memory has a role in any human experience. The film has a capacity to challenge us to consider what is quintessentially human. When everything is stripped down to a dog-eat-dog reality, how is it possible to retain dignity, an ethic of being, a humanity that sets us apart and allows the dim hope that a future might be possible? These are difficult questions that both the novel and the film even more starkly take on. This is a very brave accomplishment with an outstanding performance by the always intense Mortensen, well worth the price of admission himself. Does it seem too heavy for you? Come on, you’re a student. Get out and smell the hard edges.

The Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould plays Thursday, Jan. 14 and The Road plays Thursday, Jan. 21 at Empire Theatres Studio 12 in the Avalon Mall. Tickets are $9 for students and seniors, $10 regular admission. Tickets go on sale at 6:00 pm, show time is at 7:00 pm. For full details see www.mun.ca/cinema

Share