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Interview with MP Matthew Dubé

by Anand Bery on

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politwitter.ca

The McGill Tribune sat down with Matthew Dubé, who found himself thrown into Ottawa’s political arena after his surprise victory in last May’s election, to discuss Jack Layton’s legacy and the future of the NDP.  A former McGill student, he spent the summer between his constituency and Ottawa, preparing for the first session of Parliament which opened this week.

What was it like working with Jack Layton? How will Jack’s vision and values continue with the party?

One of the great things I’ll always remember is how he treated everyone with the same sort of respect, and as someone who’s younger than the average politician, I really saw that. In the first conversation I ever had with him, before I was even a candidate, I got to speak to him for a good 15 minutes. For a leader of a federal party, that’s precious time. At the same time, you know he left us with a great project to continue with. None of us expect to fill his shoes and I don’t think any of us want to either, we have to take our own shoes and continue on the path he set us on.

How does the NDP feel about the Conservatives’ renewal of their anti-terrorism legislation?

First of all, we find the comments Stephen Harper made on The National referring to “Islamicism” as a major threat to Canada absolutely shameful. Security is important for the NDP, but at the same time there’s nothing indicating that we’re at risk in any way and right now people’s priorities are issues like the economy, especially job creation and security. We feel these security issues are non-existent and it’s divisive politics, plain and simple. The Omnibus Crime bill, jokingly referred to as the Big Brother Bill, is problematic and illustrates that Conservatives’ priorities are out of whack.

Have you formally endorsed an NDP leadership candidate?

For myself I think that it’s a bit early to say. Leadership was obviously on people’s minds [at the NDP’s general caucus] in Quebec City. We are potentially going to be supporting different candidates but no one has a problem with that. From feedback I’ve been getting in my riding there’s a lot of hope in Quebec that Thomas Mulcair will present himself as a candidate. As for my own personal endorsement, I’m definitely going to see once all the candidates are there and official, and I can make the decision then.

What do you see as challenges for the NDP stemming from the Leadership race?

At the end of the day our goal is to make sure that rather than be something divisive that this be a discussion of ideas. Lots of candidates do have connections to Quebec, which is a natural consequence of the breakthrough that happened in this province in the last election. Thomas Mulcair and Brian Topp, like Jack Layton, are McGill graduates. I compare the process to a family debate at the dinner table about politics. It can get heated at times and not everybody necessarily agrees 100 per cent but at the end of the day it’s shared values, it’s a family and we definitely want to be in government in four years so we’re all going to work together.

Do you feel you and your peers’ electoral success says something about youth empowerment and breaking out of the mould that young people, especially those who want to get into politics, find themselves in?

People had some reservations about the number of young people who got elected—and that’s fair.  At the same time [we younger MPs know] that we’re hard workers, that we can have just as much a say and impact as someone from another generation. At the end of the day, it’s up to us to show that to people. It never hurts to have a new set of eyes on the problems we face as a society. We want to show people that young people can people work positively in this environment and contribute in an important and positive way.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

—Compiled by Anand Bery

News

French to become a minority language in Montreal

by Nathaniel Finestone on

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A report published earlier this month by the Office Québécois de la Langue Française (OFQL) stated that in 20 years, French will be a minority language on the Island of Montreal. According to the report, only 47.4 per cent of those living in Montreal will speak French at home by 2031, compared with 54 per cent in 2006. Montreal’s recent influx of immigrants is likely the major factor behind the decline of the French language in the city.  However, both Premier Jean Charest and McGill Professor Charles Boberg, a sociolinguist, caution that these numbers should be taken in the context of the greater Montreal area, and Quebec as a whole.  

Boberg explained that immigration keeps Quebec’s population numbers from dropping.

“Quebec francophones, like Canadian anglophones and most western Europeans, have seen a dramatic drop in the birth rate owing to a number of social and cultural changes that have been developing since the 1960s,” Boberg said.

Booming immigration has forced Quebec to face problems of integration, and encouraging immigrants to speak French is a top priority for the Quebec government and the OFQL.  

 According to several Montreal residents, this policy appears to be working. An IT consultant for Accenture, the world’s largest consultancy firm, works almost exclusively in French while speaking her native Tamil at home.  

“I was brought up speaking Tamil and English at home, but I went to French school and learned French,” the consultant, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “Now I teach French and all my nieces and nephews speak French, because … the younger generation is speaking French.”  

However, this move towards French is not universal. Saddiq Akbar, who works in McGill food services and owns a restaurant on Saint-Laurent, never learned French and has been getting along very well living in Montreal for the past 13 years after moving here from Pakistan.  

“It’s good to know other languages, but practically if you want a job you should know English. I own a restaurant and in four years I’ve lost business maybe two or three times because I don’t speak French. Before I came over I was worried it would be hard because I didn’t know any French but my in-laws said it was fine and it has been,” Akbar said.

Premier Charest, in his response to the study, claims that most immigrants do learn and are in fact speaking French, thanks to the Charter of the French Language instituted in 1977.  

Newcomers to Montreal tend to install themselves among others who share their language, customs, religion, and food.  On the other hand, an expanding group of middle-class Francophone families is leaving Montreal for the suburbs of Laval, the North Shore, and the South Shore.

As for the future of a French Quebec, Professor Boberg cautions that there is a big difference between the island of Montreal and Quebec at large.  

“Let’s remember that Montreal and Quebec are very different: as soon as you move a few kilometers away from Montreal, Quebec is 95 per cent francophone, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.  The large anglo populations that were once found in the Gaspe, Quebec City, the Eastern Townships, and even the Outaouais are now effectively gone.”

News

Canadian senator and nuclear activist visits McGill

by Eric Mauser on

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theworldmarch.org

The annihilation of the human race by nuclear war is probably not something that has been on the average student’s mind since the end of the Cold War. But according to Douglas Roche, it should be.   

Roche, a former MP, Senator, Canadian Diplomat, and anti-nuclear weapons activist, recently gave a speech at McGill as part of a speaking tour of 23 universities across Canada.  

“I want students of today’s generation to understand the nature of the nuclear weapons problem, what is being done about it, and what they can do about it too,” Roche said.   

Roche noted that the issue of nuclear weapons has fallen to the wayside, especially among those too young to remember the Cold War. He strongly emphasized that the issue of nuclear weapons is still of great importance.

“Nuclear security is as relevant today as it was in the Cold War,” Roche said. “It would be foolhardy to think that everything will be fine in a nuclear world because it very well might not be.”   

Lack of public consciousness over the issue of nuclear safety, according to Roche, could have disastrous consequences. At the beginning of his speech, Roche held up an apple and explained that an apple-sized amount of enriched plutonium was enough to cause huge destruction and an inestimable loss of life.  

He also elaborated on the theft of nuclear materials and the risk this might pose.

“However tightly nuclear materials are guarded today, they are not guarded tightly enough,” Roche said.

The event was organized by the Montreal branch of the Canadian International Council (CIC), an organization committed to bringing international issues such as nuclear proliferation to the forefront of Canadian politics.   

The event coordinator, Kyle Matthews, was delighted that the Honourable Douglas Roche had time to speak with the CIC and with students.  

“We’re always looking to bring in interesting, high level speakers … I thought it was very important that we invite him to talk about our nuclear security and safety disarmament to our membership,” Matthews said.   

While the event was designed for the general public, many McGill students attended, including Shehryar Heider, U1. Heider was not sure what to expect of the event at first, but found it informative and interesting.   

“When I looked at the notice outside, it said [the topic] was ‘Nuclear Weapons,'” Heider said. “I was pretty interested because it’s a very radical topic, especially in Pakistan, where I come from. It’s a topic that has raised quite a lot [of conversation] because we have nuclear weapons and it’s an issue that does have controversy, and I wanted to see what Douglas Roche had to say.”  

“I found the task of how to raise the issue amongst the younger generation important,” Heider added. “We should know the kind of dangers that are associated with nuclear weapons.”  

Roche was enthusiastic about speaking to students.  

“I’m happy to speak at McGill,” Roche said, adding that he hopes students came away with “a better understanding of the danger the world faces with the continuation of nuclear weapons and how the movement to abolish nuclear weapons is gaining strength in the world.”

Opinion

Montreal’s fine arts

by Noah Caldwell-Rafferty on

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Imagine strolling through campus on your way to the studio for CERA 335, Introduction to Ceramics, in a blissful jaunt that stirs your creativity with each step, making you wish you were already sitting at the pottery wheel.  You remark, “How wonderful it is that I can study fine art at such a good school!  In such a nice city!”  To experience this feeling, you’d have to be a student of Concordia University.  What’s a Redman to do, then, when he wants to step into a Bumblebee’s shoes?

 Concordia offers dozens of BFA programs, ranging from dance to film to computational arts to fibres (if rickety old textile mills stir your passions) to, yes, ceramics.  Our neighbour to the east, UQAM, similarly offers graphic arts and design majors.  In fact, Montreal’s arts culture seems to surround the McGill campus.  Five minutes down Sherbrooke to the west is the Musee des Beaux-Arts, a veritable hotbed of permanent and temporary art, ranging from Greek vases to pieces by Yoko Ono; for the modern art purveyor, the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art lies just five minutes into the Old Port.

The vibrancy of the Montreal art scene outside of McGill is no accident.  Just look at the Quartier des Spectacles.  The city’s newest quarter sports opera halls, bars, cinemas, museums, and libraries, spanning more than ten blocks and three metro stations.  You can do anything from attend the largest jazz festival in the world, to sit on a park bench and watch denizens run through multicolored fountains on the new Place des Arts plaza.  While McGill keeps turning a blind eye to the creative arts, the city of Montreal is picking up the slack.  The magnitude of the $120 million Quartier even breaks the current international trend.  The U.S. National Endowment for the Arts barely gets $150 million per year for the whole country, and even Holland, once the most supportive arts society in the world, is now cutting its subsidies in half.

Most would be surprised to know that McGill had a Fine Arts program 60 years ago.  But true to McGill’s research focus, details of the Fine Arts program are scarce, like a ghost fleeing campus memory with haste. Tracing my way through a maze of obituaries online, one of the few places where records of McGill’s BFA still exist, I tracked down a graduate from as late as 1949. At long last, I found a Gazette article from 1965 in a tangled cobweb of cyber archives.  The pure BFA was terminated in 1952, and thereafter a revamped Art History department kept some studio courses. Even then, the aim wasn’t vocational training. Rather, for the students to judge and study creativity, they needed some understanding of what being creative entailed. If you can find the date of the final moratorium for the fated McGill studio arts, email me—it seems to have vanished into thin air.

Instead of being disappointed with McGill’s lack of Fine Arts courses, this seems the perfect reason for indulging in Montreal’s offerings.  Stay a while after graduating.  Take up mural painting (legally, of course).  Independent art schools are numerous in the city’s downtown. Montreal’s proclivity for enhancing the arts seems boundless, and you don’t have to worry about whether you’re a Redman or a Bumblebee to explore the finer sides of Montreal living. 

Opinion

The Tribune’s GA endorsements

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McGill Tribune

Resolution regarding democratic reform of the SSMU Board of Directors—YES  

The SSMU Board of Directors is the highest decision-making body at SSMU and must consist of only Canadian citizens or permanent residents. This motion would increase the Board of Directors from seven people to 16, and give more power to the legislative council, who are currently underrepresented on the board. Due to the intricacies of Quebec’s liquor laws, this would also allow the SSMU to retain its liquor license. The Tribune fully endorses this motion in favour of representation, so show up to the GA, vote, and get the job done.

Resolution regarding accessible education—YES, with reservations

The Quebec government has announced tuition increases of $325 annually over the next five years for Quebec residents, and will soon announce the increases for out of province students. SSMU is currently mandated to actively oppose all tuition hikes and actively promote accessible education. The Tribune endorses this motion and its long-term goals, but encourages  SSMU to investigate and support alternative funding models, including a more extensive financial aid fund for students most affected by the increased tuition. Although aiming for free post-secondary education is a noble cause, it might be unrealistic given the tuition trends across the province. The Tribune hopes that the aims of this motion are attainable in the long term, but recognizes that other solutions may be better for current students.

Resolution regarding the Sustainability Assessment—YES

This motion mandates that SSMU update the Sustainability Assessment annually. The assessment will include, among other things, an overview of green student groups’ projects, evaluation of the year’s progress, and recommendations for the following year. This assessment was performed in 2008, but has not been updated since then. The Tribune endorses this motion and sees it as a vehicle for transparency between students and sustainability efforts on campus. Turnover is inherent in a campus community, and an annual sustainability assessment which provides reports on past projects and future goals will undoubtedly prove useful for future McGillians.

Resolution regarding reappointments—YES

This motions argues that students should be represented on the consultation committee for reappointments of the provost, deputy provost, and vice principle, and that SSMU should employ all measures at their disposable to change McGill’s policy on the reappointment committee. As it stands, student representatives are only involved in the initial appointment of these members. Students are represented in the appointment and reappointment of faculty deans, and for good reason—all of the above positions affect student life. Therefore, students should be consulted in the case that a member may  not warrant reappointment. For the love of student-consultation, the Tribune fully endorses this motion.

Resolution regarding labour disputes—YES, with reservations

This motion would mandate SSMU to extend and modify its current policy of standing in solidarity with  workers on campus. The updated policy would require SSMU to collect varied perspectives on campus union strikes, disseminate this information to the student body, and support workers in their strike. The Tribune endorses the SSMU’s support of campus unions and its collection and dissemination of much-needed information regarding disputes. It is in the best interests of students to be well informed of campus workers’ disputes. While the SSMU may counter information brought forth by the administration—as was the case at the start of the   MUNACA strike—students deserve an unbiased account of these disputes. The Tribune is concerned that SSMU’s blanket statement on all future labour disputes could cause conflict. Although many students support the MUNACA strike, this may not be so in the case in future disputes.

The Tribune is glad to see that students have put forth motions more serious than installing a stripper pole in Gerts or holding a bake sale to rescue AUS from its debts.

The SSMU General Assembly will be held at 4:30 on Monday, Sept. 26 in the Shatner Ballroom (third floor, SSMU building).

Opinion

Pay no attention

by Ricky Kreitner on

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It was the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw who first compared writing a column to standing under a windmill: as soon as you’ve dodged one blade, another is rounding the bend and heading straight for you.

As a writer, I find the comparison apt. As a reader, however, you should be alarmed, and perhaps ask the following question: “Is it really just the pressure of deadlines that prompts you to pen these screeds, these columns you invest with all the rhetorical force of a man, in good faith, setting forth to solve the world’s problems? And you expect that I’ll be guilted into reading them? Are you really so conniving and cruel?”

The short answer is yes. I didn’t want to write this column. I spent the last two days scratching my head, etching notes in class and crossing them out, struggling to think of something to say. This is what I’ve come up with: about 650 words that, if nothing else, fill up the Tribune.

Like every other, this newspaper, the one in your hands, is filled cover to cover with pieces like this, even if they don’t come out and admit it: the makeshift byproducts of  prejudice, haste, and contingency. The ambitions and needs of writers are cloaked in the vesture of authoritative voice and semi-official proclamation from the land of hard, certain truth. The paper waits on the stands, instills guilt in your heart, and bids you to read it or risk being ill-informed.

Both as opinion editor for the Tribune last year and as a writer for a fairly well-read online magazine this past summer, I have closely observed how articles are pulled out of the ether. When I feel positively about the whole writing enterprise, it feels like a miracle. This didn’t exist before, and now it does. With my name on it. When I have my eyes open, though, and am not blinded by my own journalistic aspirations, it’s plain trickery.

Editorials are whipped together not quite so that the editorial board can make its opinions known, really move things and perhaps shake them, too, but because editorials just have to be written; that’s how newspapers work. In the online world, mania for page views overrides care for content. Publications exist for themselves, not for us. Even if writers don’t have anything necessarily pressing to say, the whole structure of media as an industry forces them to write anyway.

What results is not just profits, not just subservience from the masses who foolishly consider the media the place to go to find out what’s really going on, but a whole sphere of base gossip and purposeful propaganda that masquerades as intelligent discourse.

This is the most amusing lie: that by reading about Michele Bachmann’s hair instead of Kim Kardashian’s sex life, you are being “serious.” In truth, though, it’s really the same base human instincts being appealed to, and I rather respect someone who reads People more than someone who reads the New York Times, because the tabloid reader has the guts to come out and declare themselves as base and crude and small, whereas the “news follower” tries pitifully to hide that they are all those things.

Let’s reclaim that great line, and finally heed it this time: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” When we do pay attention to the Wizard of Oz, we find that attention is exactly what he needs. He is lonely, forlorn, and homesick. His needs are, in a way, just as great as the needs of his guests, Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Lion, and Toto.

The same goes for the media. Its needs are great, and we suffer. I propose a boycott: withdraw your consent, and let the system reform itself. Let it conform itself to our needs. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

a, Arts & Entertainment

Neon Indian: Era Extraña

by Chris Liu on

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Nowadays, music genres rise and fall in popularity on a yearly, if not monthly, basis. There was a time when Texas’ Neon Indian was the vanguard of “chillwave,” named for its dreamy synthwork layered around deliciously nebulous vocals. The group’s debut Psychic Chasms—which did much to establish the movement—was applauded by hipsters and critics alike.

But two years can be a long time. While contemporaries like Washed Out and Toro y Moi sharpened and expanded their sounds to dizzying effects, Neon Indian’s sophomore effort Era Extraña seems more like a reactionary response. It’s murkier and less lucid, though not without moments of nostalgic brilliance. Standout “Polish Girl” features a simple but irresistible riff looping over flaring synth lines. “Future Sick” puts Palermo’s whispy vocals on top of lurching, glittering arrangements. The titular “Era Extraña” cuts through the synth haze of previous tracks with a spacious and  grandiose delivery.  

Yet these few tracks all share a mere comparability with Neon Indian’s brilliant debut disc. The rest of Era Extraña either embodies directionless blips and beeps (“Suns Irrupt”) or overdoses on fuzzy din (“The Blindside Kiss”). Much of the disc is schizophrenic rather than psychedelic.  

This shouldn’t set Neon Indian back indefinitely, but for a band that was at the pinnacle of experimental sound, Era Extraña lacks the artistic vigour to hurdle the sophomore slump, let alone revolutionize a genre as they had done before.

a, Arts & Entertainment

Red Hot Chili Peppers: I’m With You

by Kelly Malfara on

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I’m With You, the tenth record from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the first after a five-year hiatus, takes the signature Pepper funk sound in a different direction.

The new route is undoubtedly due to the departure of long time guitarist John Frusciante, the band’s musical compass, and his subsequent replacement by Josh Klinghoffer.

It is evident that Frusciante’s exit has triggered a streak of self-reflectiveness among the remaining members, given the succinct length of the record and the wistful, intuitive nature of the lyrics. Anthony Kiedis’  voice is steady and poised as always. His classic speak-sing technique doesn’t have the same range as other front men, but he projects confidence in the power and depth of his vocals. Flea’s funky bass lines and Chad Smith’s pounding, cathartic beats are quick and excellent as always. Klinghoffer is searching for his footing with the band, however he does an admirable job finding his place with three men who have been playing together since the ‘80s.

Standout tracks include “Meet Me at the Corner,” a melodic, soulful number, and the cool funk of the album’s first single, “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie.”

It’s a solid and enjoyable album, but not fully up to Chili Pepper standards. Far from needing to prove themselves as musicians, a few tracks give a bit of a waning edge and could have been snipped for an even more concise, clipped gem.

a, Arts & Entertainment

Don’t put this conscious comic in a corner

by Sam Hunter on

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sophiek.com

If comedians were meals, Hari Kondabolu would be the delicious, home-cooked variety. Other stand-up comics are frequently almost equally tasty, but often, I find myself enjoying a routine only to feel nauseous looking back at what I’ve tacitly endorsed with my laughter—exactly how I feel after eating McDonald’s. Following a Kondabolu set, I feel good.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make the guy sound boring—he is laugh-until-you-hurt funny. What’s special is that Kondabolu’s brand of socially conscious stand-up manages to be utterly hilarious while also utterly avoiding the racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes that have made such easy fodder for others. Sitting in the audience, I laughed hard at everything, without glancing around guiltily to see if other members of the audience were the butt of the joke.

Kondabolu got into comedy at an early age, starting to write at age 16,  influenced by the likes of Margaret Cho, Stewart Lee, and Paul Mooney. At Bowdoin College he started to move away from some of the easy, sometimes stereotypical jokes of his youth and towards political humour, and particularly, the politics of race.

In 2006 Kondabolu made a short movie, Manoj, where he portrays both an Indian comic named Manoj who uses stereotypical portrayals of Indians for easy laughs—”A lot of times people come up to me and say, ‘Manoj, why do Indian people eat monkey brains all the time?'” Manoj says in the film. “That is simply not true. If you knew anything about monkey brains you’d know monkey brains are very, very expensive. You can’t just eat them all the time. If I had a dime for every time someone came up to me and asked, I could actually afford to eat monkey brains!”—and himself, an Indian comic disgusted by Manoj’s material. The film was a hit, airing at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival .

Kondabolu didn’t take a normal road to comedy, if there is such a thing. After graduating from Bowdoin College he moved to Seattle to work as an immigrant rights organizer, focusing on “detention and deportation issues,” while continuing to do stand-up at night. There, he found a supportive community of comedians and other artists and was able to make new strides with his material. Eventually, he applied to a human rights masters program at the London School of Economics.  

Everything happened at once for Kondabolu: he was discovered by the HBO comedy festival, he got a set on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and he got into LSE, all in the same week.

“I didn’t know what the fuck to do because comedy wasn’t the plan. I just really liked doing it and you’ve seen what I do, I just didn’t assume this would work in more than Seattle, San Francisco, now Montreal, … there’s [only] a handful of places I could play, so it was kind of weird I was getting mainstream national recognition,” Kondabolu said.

He decided to take a year off from comedy to get his masters, but came right back afterwards. For the past three years he’s travelled and performed, played a part in a Sandra Bullock movie, and built his reputation.

“I don’t want to be niche to be perfectly honest. I don’t think the issues I’m talking about are niche. Racism should not be fucking niche. This should be mainstream and my goal is to be mainstream.”

*****

Kondabolu performed to a standing-room-only crowd at the centre culturel Georges-Vanier this past Thursday Sept. 8, at an event co-hosted by CKUT, Rad Frosh 2011, and QPIRG Concordia and McGill.

The organizers led the set with the 15-minute film Manoj, which got big laughs, even though more than a few of those were for the simple jokes that Manoj was satirizing. Regardless, the audience was ready when Kondabolu took the stage.

It’s difficult to imagine an audience and a performer more perfect for each other than the crowd there and Hari Kondabolu. Educated young people who are politically aware seem to be the target market, and the Montreal crowd couldn’t get enough of the jokes or the worldview. He received a semi-standing ovation, which he later mocked in his Q&A.

Later he tweeted, “Fun show in Montreal. Had poutine after. Feel bad I need to leave this city so quickly.”

So does Montreal.

Visit harikondabolu.com for more information.

a, Arts & Entertainment

Kung fu film an action-packed epic

by Morgane Ciot on

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mymovies.ge

It’s 690 B.C. in ancient China, on the eve of a coronation that will vest a woman with the power of emperor for the first time in China’s history. Looming in the background is a titanic Buddha, under construction as a tribute to the empress’ power and the witness of several spontaneous human combustions. This is the mystery that the empress  calls Detective Dee back from prison to solve—the mystery of the phantom flame, a phenomenon that has felled several important personages surrounding the empress and the construction of the Buddha.  

Dee, played by leading talent Andy Lau, is a sagacious, kung fu-fighting sleuth who commits his all to solving the case despite a history of fomenting rebellion against the empress. In the process, he discovers a cloak-and-dagger subplot involving contending factions vying for the crown à la Game of Thrones. While Dee steers clear of external pressures and incentives, he becomes pseudo-romantically involved with the empress’ loyal protector, Jing’er, a feisty and limber sidekick with her own branch of rope-whipping kung fu (the movie approaches a sex scene but disappointingly fails to deliver).  

While the plot is certainly convoluted enough to engross most people for two hours, the real magnum-ness of the opus is the visual eye-feast. Each scene is lush with magical floating petals, lambent gold lighting, majestic talking deer, purple skies, or subterranean Dante-esque rivers populated by airborne automatons. The kung fu scenes amplify the imagery and make the action scenes resemble a prolonged minuet danced underwater. It is elaborate and entertaining. The choreography, engineered by Jackie Chan’s masterful mentor Sammo Hung, is drum-tight and applicable anywhere in the movie, from fighting deer to one-on-one battles suspended in mid-air by ropes. The rapid-fire kung fu movements parallel the battery of plot twists, and both work to keep the viewer attentive.  

Like any movie that employs fantasy elements and details a complicated story, Detective Dee toes the line of melodrama. This is compounded by the sometimes artificial graphics, such as the immolating victims of the phantom flame or city-wide shots that end up not being on-par with the rest of the movie’s visual splendor. Bouts of humor manage to mitigate this, allowing the artificiality to fit with the style of the movie—a tad over-the-top, like many wuxia films, but by no means kitsch or pretentious.  

Certain melodramatic instances are also infused with greater meaning considering contemporary China’s repressive atmosphere. The movie ends with the compelling message that right and wrong should not be confused when in office, and that there is a right time to turn power over to others. Echoing Henry David Thoreau, a blind man warns Dee as he is released from incarceration that one might be ultimately freer “inside” (of prison) than “outside,” where the empress’s dissenter-crushing stratagems have engendered fear and dissent. Her adage “to achieve greatness, everyone is expendable,” has motivated her to employ ruthless schemes against the people and inevitably brings to mind the current Chinese authorities’ reactions to the tragic train crash this past summer. Dee, in the end, gently reminds her that it’s torture that alienates the people from the empire. The film thus shies away from a typically Manichean good-bad dichotomy and, despite its sweeping imagery, offers some important messages.

In theatres Sept. 16.

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