Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by clarkjohnsen (R) on April 29, 2007 at 12:00:57

[From Boston's Weekly Dig]

Everything's Gone Green

And Douglas Coupland has gone soft

Say what you will about the state of arts funding in the US, but at least it keeps things interesting. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, you have to be a spunky kind of maniac to gather the needed funds to make independent cinema. It takes an absolute belief in one’s essential awesomeness to persevere through the financial hurdles, and that force of personality tends to find its way into a project. Our art-house cinema may not always be good, but it’s generally something.

This doesn’t hold as true in Canada, the country that has given us the objectionably unobjectionable Everything’s Gone Green. I’m not trying to say that Canadians are meeker, less dynamic versions of Americans. Rather, with their liberal approach to arts funding, that Darwinian asshole filter never gets a chance to kick in. When all that separates a would-be director from his funding is an afternoon spent filling out forms, the result is that a lot of nice, ordinary people get empowered to make a lot of nice, ordinary films.

Anyone who’s watched enough IFC develops a keen eye for this class of state-nurtured cinema.

• http://weeklydig.com/movies/articles/everythings_gone_green   (Open in New Window)