Passionate Canadians

By Steven Zeitchik and Borys Kit

Opening night films aren't easy -- especially when they have to be Canadian. So we should go easy on "Passchendaele," the movie (pronounced "Passion-dale") that kicked off the festivities north of the border Thursday night (and a movie which also happens to be the most expensive project in the history of Canada).

Paul Gross' tale of Canadian soldiers who fought in WW1 took years to come together, mostly because of a $25 million budget cobbled together from sources all over the country. We weren't always convinced by the results: it had some forced moments -- it's a wartime romantic melodrama with scenes (and a score) of such schmaltz it sometimes makes "The English Patient" look like a PBS documentary. And for all the talk around it about Canadian identity, it could have used a little more political context.

Still, the film's third act picks up quite a bit; the action scenes, which show artillery fire devolving into hand-to-hand combat, flirts with "Saving Private Ryan" intensity. That's not a surprise given what the filmmakers were aiming for; producers joked (we think) that they'd actually used some footage from the Spielberg pic to lure financiers.

"Passchendael" still lacks a U.S. distributor, but the movie has other goals in its home country. The pic about an event that helped solidify national identity hopes to advance the Canadian films scene in terms of scope and popularity. In that sense, it actually bears similarities to the 1981 Australian movie "Gallipoli." That movie, about a disastrous WW1 battle involving Aussie troops in Turkey, played a pivotal part in Australia's nascent film scene, proving the Australians will come out to see Australian movies telling Australian stories. (It launched the careers of Peter Weir and cemented the stardom of Mel Gibson.)

It remains to be seen whether Canadians will come out to see the two-hour pic, which is being released by Alliance. But film makers may not have a theatrical release as their priority. Gross said his goal was to have the movie sent to every school in his home country over the next three years. Oh, Canada.

Comments

[Festival]

It's very knowledgeble IT information so any one can read it.