The ‘House of the People,’ or Casa del Popolo as it’s known, is a Montreal community staple you can’t miss. For almost 13 years, it’s been fulfilling a particular set of desires common to the Montreal citizenry: good vegetarian food, good coffee, good liquor, good tunes, and great local art.

High ceilings give you air to think and breathe while you’re sipping your fair trade. Sink into one of Popolo’s unpretentiously eclectic couches or chairs, and lose yourself in thought. Make sure you enjoy the art on the walls; it might change before your next visit.

A giant blackboard to the right of the door lists upcoming shows (some held at sister venue La Sala Rossa across the street). The big bartop to the left and the friendly folk behind it will get you hooked up with vegetarian wraps, sandwiches, and more (try the spicy tofu sandwich with a pint of St. Ambroise Apricot).

Don’t overlook the Distrobo, a machine tucked to the left of the bar that dispenses an ever-changing assortment of ‘zines, buttons, and tapes for $2. Take advantage of the $4 pint special from 5-7 p.m.

—Casa del Popolo is located at 4873 St. Laurent. For further information about their free events and more, check out casadelpopolo.com. 

Locals will proudly inform you (in addition to boldly asserting that Harvard is America’s McGill) that Montreal is Canada’s worthy answer to New York. While the general sentiment is somewhat bucolic, Montreal does hold a few gems that would fit snugly on the ground floor of a refurbished textile factory in Williamsburg. In the realm of coffee shops, few exude the redolence of hipster grunge quite as pungently as Le Cagibi.

A vegetarian eatery, music venue, and café rolled into one, Le Cagibi occupies prime real estate in the Mecca of nonchalance commonly known as the Mile End. Decorated with a hodgepodge of old furniture, ramshackle chairs, and tables placed ad-hoc on the wooden floors, Le Cagibi consists of two homey, dimly illuminated rooms.  On occasional evenings, small acts remove the table from a low-lying stage and set up musical shop. If you’re fortunate, you’ll catch a low-key performance on a winter evening while drinking a big bowl of coffee ($4). Otherwise, if your habits tend towards the matinal, start a day of study with the Morning Rumble.

 —Le Cagibi sits on the corner of Saint Viateur and Saint Laurent. If you’re in the mood to catch a show, check out the calendar at www.lecagibi.ca

Teddy Bear is a study in contrasts. The dissonance between a tattooed, muscle-bound hulk of a man and his utter domination by those thin and frail is a wonder to behold. This is the state in which Dennis, the titular character of Teddy Bear, is introduced: so nervous on his date that he mindlessly copies her order and ends up with food to which he is allergic. “Why did you order it?” “I didn’t think it had shrimp.” A look. “In a shrimp cocktail?”

Though clad in Schwarzenegger-esque musculature, Dennis (Kim Kold) is more reminiscent of a painfully awkward adolescent. Many aspects of Dennis’ life suggests a man in stasis: from the fact that he’s still living with his mother at age 38, to his computer, which runs Windows 98.

Many lacking Dennis’ physique manage to get the better of him—in one memorable scene, he is emasculated at a urinal by a prostitute. One individual who does this with unfaltering persistency is Dennis’ own mother, played with a convincing mix of infirmity and callousness by Elsebeth Steentoft. Manifesting physical frailty and an indomitable will, she is Dennis’ very antithesis. Her tactics are formidable: a Molotov cocktail of shame and pity.  The size disadvantage is more than compensated by her adroit grasp of psychological manipulation. Some may find her almost sympathetic, but I disagree; if anything, the character is not and Steentoft makes her so.

The cinematography masterfully accentuates this atmosphere, shooting a bedside conversation at a diagonal angle to emphasize Dennis’ mass, or pulling back to a well-edited reveal of the pair’s relative heights (for the record, she is below Dennis’ shoulder). The hand-held camera conveys intimacy to the point where I felt awkward prying. A proliferation of medium shots, as opposed to tight close-ups, has the effect of hitting home Dennis’ loneliness. Even in group gatherings, the camera manages to frame him alone.

Much of the film takes place in Thailand, where Dennis travels in search of love. The filmmakers should be commended for their breakaway from stereotypes; the audience’s first look at the “exotic East” is composed of spacious highways and English billboards, projecting the very core of modernization and globalization.

The film is very modest in its general arc. Writer-director Mads Matthiesen valorizes a love that is old-fashioned. A throwback, the kind based on chance and hard knocks. Individual scenes pulse with warmth, yet the plot unfolds in a predictable fashion. Teddy Bear personifies the unfortunate instance in which the whole is less than the sum of its parts. However, this drawback neither diminishes the pleasure obtained from watching Dennis’ personal growth, nor the frustration felt when the solution, so simple to the audience, remains just out of reach.

One can see the film’s “moment of truth” coming from a mile away – the imminent collision of Dennis’ two worlds, the promise of a train wreck – unfolding with awkward timidity. This is not quite so. The climax is skipped over for the denouement. There’s no yelling, no triumphant catharsis — just an acknowledgement that love is a complicated, messy, beautiful thing.

—Teddy Bear opens Friday, September 7th at Cinema du Parc, 3575 avenue du Parc.

This September, the aesthetic of mortality is on display in Montreal for Life and Death, Expressions of Daily Activities in the Worldview of the Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, an exhibit at the Espacio Mexico exploring the spaces between the funeral and the festive.

The intimate venue, showcasing roughly 40 arts and crafts pieces from 14 of the 68 surviving indigenous groups in Mexico, is the country’s first state-supported exhibition of indigenous art at an international location. The majority of the pieces were created by young artists who blend ancient techniques learned in their close communities with avant-garde approaches.  By including works that represent traditional approaches and juxtaposing them with modern interpretations of indigenous art, the exhibit traces the cultural evolution of these communities while celebrating the survival of ancient techniques.

Phil Price, a member of the public relations department of the Mexican Contemporary Indigenous Art Museum (MAIC), explains that the exhibit aims to shape the contemporary portrayal of indigenous groups.

“[We seek …] a flip in the mentality with which indigenous groups are seen and more importantly how they see themselves,” Price said. “Indigenous groups are labelled in a rather general manner as ‘poor,’ referring specifically to an economic context. Widely ignored, however, is their incredibly rich culture, traditions, language and artistic knowledge.”

This richness of the groups’ culture and tradition is immediately apparent upon entering the exhibit. Organized geographically, the display guides viewers through the indigenous groups from the north, centre, and south of Mexico, showcasing arts and crafts in different media.

The central theme surrounding this panoply is the close relationship between life and death. From the northern desert areas of the nation, the exhibit explores pottery made with different types of clay and dyed with pastes consisting of crushed insects. String and percussion musical instruments, as well as traditional decorations used in ritual dances are also present.

The portrayal of indigenous groups belonging to Central Mexico is remarkably varied, forming an amalgam of the native and the European. Some of the more memorable displays included colourfully painted celebrations of nature and agriculture, mixing Christian imagery with indigenous Nahua symbols and mud skulls clad in nun attire, inspired by the national “Day of the Dead” celebration.

In the South, rainforest imagery permeates the artwork. These include an imposing carving of a jaguar, peyote-inspired art employing beads representing a creation myth, and traditional textiles.

Additionally, the exhibit showcases music samples from each region and traditional poetry, displayed in the original languages as well as in English and French.

Ulimately, the exhibition succeeds at showcasing the breadth and diversity of Mexican indigenous traditions. The striking differences in texture, media, and imagery vary starkly—from the austere neutral colours and rustic wooden shapes of the north, to the eclectic and intricate bead designs of the south.  Although the display depicts Mexico as a nation with remarkably vivid indigenous culture, the lack of focus hinders the overall effect of the exhibit. The various media employed make it much more difficult to connect to the character of each indigenous group. This leaves the exhibit toeing the treacherous line of tokenizing each indigenous group by reducing them to a single salient characteristic. A narrowing of scope would lead to a more true appreciation of the complexities characterizing each community.

Despite the loose connection between some of the selections, this artistic sampler accomplishes its aim of highlighting the resilience of indigenous culture in Mexico. While the display takes into account how different groups’ techniques often adapted to include European motifs and approaches, it also celebrates the survival of indigenous culture and traditional art forms despite centuries of colonization.

“[Our proposition is for] this expansive ancestral wisdom to be something not just consigned to history books,” Price said. “Instead, from this living and breathing diversity, contemporary society can learn as we ponder our own existence and look towards constructing a sustainable future for human beings and the planet.”

—Life and Death, Expressions of Daily Activities in the Worldview of the Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, brought by the Mexican Contemporary Indigenous Art Museum (MAIC) and organized by the NGO Espacios de Arte Nomada (EAN),  is on display until Sept. 14 at Espacio Mexico (2055 Peel St.) Admission is free of charge.