Gao Brothers

Beautiful women stare out, lost in a bleak industrial landscape. Naked bodies are crammed into tiny wooden compartments. The sound of barking echoes in the room—a short film portraying office workers as a pack of rabid dogs. These are just a few of the works that confront you at the newest exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Red Flag: Contemporary Chinese Art.  

Red Flag is a show that represents the versatile work of Chinese artists who have burst onto the international avant-garde scene in the past decade. The work of these artists has been increasingly recognized in the art world; in 2009, 29 Chinese artists were listed on the art market’s top 100, compared to just one only eight years before. The exhibition includes works in many different media—photography, pottery, sculpture, film, and even a tapestry made of human hair.  

Despite this diversity of styles, all the pieces in Red Flag relate to one resounding theme; the jarring disconnect between traditional Chinese culture and modern, urban, industrialized life. Wang Tianade’s work, for example, includes photographs of classic Chinese texts reduced to ashes, and a traditional silk garment slashed and painted with Mandarin characters. Chen Jiagang’s melancholy photographs picture women dressed in mid-19th century clothing, looking displaced in settings that show the dark side of rapid industrialization. Zhan Wang’s stainless steel sculpture seems to sum up these ambiguous feelings—his piece is an ancient mountain rock, covered in a shiny but distorted exterior.

Though it’s a small collection of artwork, the Red Flag exhibition is neither too spacious nor overcrowded. One massive red wall looms over the space, representing the Communist system that still underlies Chinese society. Unfortunately the lighting leaves something to be desired, as what is likely meant as dramatic mood lighting is simply too dim.  

The carefully curated pieces are quite strong as a unit, however, and together they form an intriguing picture of the booming Chinese avant-garde scene. Most interesting is the sense of overwhelming anxiety that these artists have about present-day China. Rapid changes, overpopulation, mass production, Westernization—these worries manifest themselves in powerful works that unflinchingly force the viewer to come face to face with the problematic elements of modern China.  

Red Flag is free at the Museum of Fine Arts, and runs until June 5.

Natalia Evdokimova

Natalia Evdokimova

“A camera is a megaphone through which you can express yourself,” says Sophie Dab, TVMcGill’s vice-president external, on why it is important to celebrate amateur filmmaking. The Fokus Film Festival, an annual event held by TVMcGill since 2006, has grown from humble beginnings to a legitimate film festival. Taking place at Cinema du Parc on Wednesday, the festival is sure to impress even the seasoned film critic with the 29 student submissions in five different categories. Here are three movies that offer a sense of what is to be expected from this year’s festival.

The Adventures of Bruno Unemployed Superbear / Mark James (Animation)

With soft jazz playing in the background, The Adventures is a short animation starring Bruno, a bear in need of employment. Inspiration strikes Bruno in the form of an apple, and the Unemployed Superbear realizes a peculiar theme with Apple products. Presented in the fashion of private detective movies, this film highlights society’s obsession with Apple products and conversely, Apple’s fascination with the letter “i.” Less than a minute long, The Adventures of Bruno Unemployed Superbear innovatively forces the audience to reconsider our dependence on Apple and the “i” movement.

Friday, 9pm / David Zangwill and Micah Dubinsky (Fiction)

On Friday night, around 9 pm, a woman in a swanky black dress visits her bathroom in the hopes of getting ready for a night on the town. Instead, she ends up mediating on what makeup does to the face and to her larger identity. Marie Minio’s voiceover shows her thought process changing from simple, frivolous analysis to deeper scrutiny, which she cannot easily suppress. As the film continues, Minio’s inability to cope with her epiphany about her crumbling sense of self makes for a striking shot. She stands in front of her bathroom sink with two opposing mirrors showing two radically different sides of her face and her identity: one beautifully constructed and made-up and the other deconstructed with pink lipstick freely applied to the cheek. Overall, Friday, 9pm is a profound social commentary on the notion of covering our faces with makeup.

XTC / Daphnee Vasseur

(Experimental)

Recounting the story of a bad ecstasy trip, the narrator takes the audience on a journey of what not to do while taking the drug. First, it would be wise to avoid blind dates. Second, consume water, not wine, since the latter will result in a “baptism” of appetizers on said unwanted blind date. Third and generally speaking, it would be best to steer clear from ecstasy while in a pessimistic mood about the world. Beautifully edited, XTC portrays the narrator’s discernible inadequacy through a series of images ranging from newspapers to photographs to negatives and yearbooks. Coinciding perfectly with these images, the narrator’s voiceover travels as quickly as the images. XTC provides an excellent example of an experimental movie that successfully tells a story while conveying a subtle moral lesson.

Adam Scotti

Adam Scotti

Most little boys dream of making a crowd go wild, maybe with a game-winning grand slam in the World Series or a goal in the Stanley Cup final. For Phil Sly, a U3 vocal performance student at McGill, something similar actually happened on March 13. He was one of five winners of the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions, the most prestigious young-artist opera competition in North America.

“After I sang, I remember starting to cry while I was bowing, and my hands were shaking.  Only then did it really hit me,” he says.

The Metropolitan Opera, commonly called “the Met,” housed in New York City, is one of the premier opera houses in the world. Their 25 plus productions per year have world class casts, costumes, and sets. It is, in short, an easy place to get star-struck.

“You see really, really famous singers all the time backstage, in the cafeteria,” says Sly.

“It’s an extremely well-known competition, everyone knows about it,” says Michael McMahon, a master’s-level vocal coach at McGill who has had a long working relationship with Sly.

One might think that competing there would be nerve-wracking, but Sly was surprised to find the opposite to be the case.

“It’s a big family,” he says.  “It was much more welcoming and homey than I thought it would be.”

Nearly 1,500 singers entered this year’s competition. After competing at district and regional competitions in Buffalo, NY in early January, Sly was one of 20 singers selected to participate in the semifinals in New York City. Eight of those were selected to participate in the grand finale concert on March 13, and five of those were winners. At the age of 22, Sly was the youngest winner this year; the others were in their mid or late 20s.

Sly said he and his competitors were supportive of one another. “There was a great camaraderie between the eight finalists,” he says.

As a winner, Sly received a $15,000 prize, but his victory will most importantly jumpstart his career, which is a huge bonus in an incredibly competitive job market.  On the night of the final performance, the audience was full of important opera personalities.

“It’s a stamp of approval,” he said.

According to a Met press release, more than 100 alumni of the auditions are on the Met roster during a normal season. With great acclaim, though, comes great expectations. “There’s a feeling when you win a competition like this that you have to live up to, or even be greater than you are,” says McMahon. Sly has been inundated with job offers since the final, which he is still trying to sort through. After he graduates, he will spend the next year working for the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.

Though he won the competition with his singing, Sly is also an excellent actor. In his performance as Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress at McGill, he outshone the rest of the cast. His last performance here was as one of the two male leads in January’s La Bohème, which earned him strong reviews.

“He has an incredible imagination, he has a charisma […] and [an] innate understanding of music. It’s not something you have to teach him, you have to just help him discover that he knows [it] already,” says McMahon.

Sly attributed much of his success to Sanford Sylvan, his McGill voice teacher. When he was a high-schooler thinking about which music school to go to, it only took one lesson with Sylvan to make McGill his first choice. He also said that McMahon has been a great help, and was also grateful to Patrick Hansen, McGill’s director of opera studies, who has supervised Sly’s participation in McGill productions.

“Philippe first came to sing for me in high school, and I pushed him in a few different directions. He came to sing for me again and I was stunned by the talent of this young man,” says McMahon.

On the night of the final, Sly sang arias by 17th century composer Georg Handel and 19th century composer Richard Wagner. He thought that he won in part because he chose pieces from entirely different time periods requiring entirely different singing styles.

A lot of practice also helped, said Sylvan.

“[I drilled] him just like an athletic coach. When you’re in such a state of terror, our body needs to reproduce [your performance] whether your brain is there or not.  It’s just like ice skating or diving.”

Though the competition has earned him a lot of things, he hasn’t gotten a reprieve from his schoolwork.

“It hasn’t completely hit me yet, because I’ve got homework to catch up on,” he says. “But it felt so right when I was there, and I can’t wait for that to continue.”

jestherent.blogspot.com

Seeking to rewrite history, Icíar Bollaín’s Even the Rain recalls the ways in which past confrontations can leave a mark upon the present. Connecting the conquest of the New World with the 2000 Cochabamba Water Protests, Even the Rain is a dramatic marriage of indifference, deception, and hope, where reality and fiction coalesce.

Even the Rain stars Mexican actor Gael García Bernal as film director Sebastián, who brings his actors and small-budget crew to Bolivia to shoot a movie. While Bernal (who starred as Che Guevera twice, in The Motorcycle Diaries and the made-for-TV movie Fidel) no longer plays the revolutionary, Sebastián’s artistic vision revolts against itself, with the help of some local protestors.

The film begins its journey in a realistic vein when a Spanish film producer, Costa (Luis Tosar), seeks cheap extras and labour (at a measly $2 per day) in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for a film that re-casts Columbus as a cruel exploiter instead of a heroic explorer. Panning across an endless line of curious locals, the film fixes itself with the character of Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri), who speaks out frequently, inciting trouble out of a sense of personal injustice. Aduviri steals the audience’s attention with his genuine acting and half-playful, half-tragic face. Hiring the locals is efficient and dangerous, as tensions rise against the government in the wake of a 300 per cent increase in water prices from a foreign company. Further, even the rain the locals collect as drinking water is subject to imperial ownership laws.

Antón (Karra Elejalde), the drunk who plays Cristóbal Colón in Sebastián’s film, provides Even the Rain with a necessary dose of humour and skepticism. Speaking to Sebastián about the film, he proclaims: “This isn’t art, this is fucking propaganda!” Statements like these make the viewer wonder how much of this movie is constructed to incite temporary emotional responses, but in the end the film will stick with you for a while.

The dynamics of order and reality reach their height when the film set becomes the site of an actual power struggle between the corrupt police and enraged locals. While the symbolism is not subtle, the message is provocative and compelling. Though the final burning-at-the-stake scene is anxiously put onto film, celebration is muted by a mounting cry for action. In Even the Rain, the most captivating characters seek their own crucifixion. Fortunately, Bollaín and her crew cooperated with locals and contributed little gifts to the barrio of each extra in the film (in a video interview she mentions donating 2,000 bricks for a school).

Why would the average movie-goer labour through a foreign film about an equally foreign issue, the privatization of water? Screenwriter Paul Laverty realizes the futility of documentary style and breaks up the distance between the subject matter and the viewer by subverting the system of suspended belief (where viewers engross themselves in a fiction) and implicating the viewer in the reality of the characters who seem equally real.

Even good intentions can run awry, as Sebastián starts to embody the less-than-noble conqueror who wishes to be remembered as saviour, but forgets human reality in order to construct a golden throne (before it consumes his film). In a somewhat conventional Hollywood gesture, Costa proves that small, personable actions, not grand schemes, are what make a humanitarian.

Opening this Wednesday at TNC Theatre, the 2011 Directors’ Projects are the result of a staggering amount of preparation, coordination, and dedication. Comprised of 11 separately staged productions, the festival is an excellent example of the advantages of student theatre. Each play runs about one hour in length and has been directed, selected, and researched by a different member of this year’s “Directing for the Theatre” class, which is taught through the department of English.

For those unfamiliar with McGill theatre, the Directors’ Projects are a perfect introduction to this multifarious world—a unique exposition showcasing the variety in the student theatre community. The plays range from family tragedy to absurdist parables. They contain accounts of spiritual exploration and artistic creation, and describe  both failing and hopeful relationships. The many themes reflect the disparate personalities of the directors.

One of the few practical theatre courses available at McGill, “Directing for the Theatre” provides an unparalleled opportunity for students to grow and challenge themselves artistically. The class runs a full year in length; the first semester is dedicated to preparing the 11 plays by deconstructing them and researching their background. Casting and rehearsals start up at the beginning of the winter semester. There are few limitations placed on the selection of plays, apart from the obvious problems of having to stage them all within the confines of TNC Theatre. Most directors choose short one acts, though some decide to stage two half-hour plays back-to-back.

Overall, the course aims to give directors the ability to comprehensively stage a theatre production by providing them with a toolbox of techniques and exercises for running rehearsals, helping actors, and structuring their productions. Accordingly, the focus of the festival is on this exploratory element; almost all of the shows lend themselves to experimentation or interpretation.

Rachel Penny, production manager at TNC, said that staging shorter plays also prevents the festival from becoming too cumbersome, and that despite this the performances still “pack a punch.”

Although you may recognize some of the playwrights featured, the plays themselves will be unfamiliar to most students. Each night features at least two different productions. The performances have been matched along rough thematic lines, mostly to avoid overtly jarring combinations. In the mix are a couple of comedies, a pair of pieces from absurdist playwrights Ionesco and Arrabal, and then some more intense selections: a Montreal family drama by Michel Tremblay, an account of a troubled relationship from British Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, and two shorter one acts by Tennessee Williams. Just looking over the schedule, the broad range of selected plays indicates a diversity of interests in both content and approach, brought to the table by the 11 students.

After speaking with various directors about their projects, this diversity could not be more obvious. What remains constant, however, is the way in which each individual has become immersed in the world of their own play, each of which forces you to engage with its own internal logic and narrative. This challenge of engaging the audience is one that has been taken on whole-heartedly by the Directors’ Projects. By presenting a wide array of thorough productions, the festival gives students the opportunity to experience the full scope of theatre at McGill.

The Directors’ Projects run from March 23-April 2. Evening $5, matinees $3. Contact [email protected] for details.