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Tim has just done a nice post celebrating Canadian music for Canada Day, pointing out some Canadian music worth checking out (such as Malajube, which I second). If I was to write about Canadian music I'd spend the whole time inciting the nation to murder Nickleback, so I won't do that. Instead I'm inspired to write about one of my favourite Canadian directors, Bruce McDonald, in the hopes that if you've never seen anything by him you'll check him out.

Bruce McDonald

My inspiration? Well, I was flicking channels and The Tracey Fragments was on one of the movie networks. I immediately felt a weird kind of rage that in the year of it's release, 2007, it was the asinine Juno-- also starring Nova Scotia's Ellen Page--which received all of the international attention (ultimately winning an Oscar for Best Screenplay).

The fact is that Bruce McDonald is a world-class director, one that, for no reason other than perhaps bad luck, seems to be oft overlooked even here in Canada. For example, his amazing, intelligent "zombie" film Pontypool opened against Watchmen. Watchmen ! And most famously of all, the film some expected to be his breakthrough hit, Picture Claire (starring Juliette Lewis and Gina Gershon) had the misfortune to premiere first thing in the morning on September 11th, 2001 (really).

But I'm getting distracted from my point, which is why you should watch his films. Returning to The Tracey Fragments , I can realistically guess that you've probably seen Juno . Juno was exactly the kind of easy film that wins Oscars; Ellen Page plays a grating teen who quips in the style of someone far beyond her years (parroting transparently the words of screenwriter Diablo Cody) is slightly inconvenienced by wacky events, and has everything all wrapped up just in time for a sing-along.

By comparison, The Tracy Fragments also stars Ellen Page as a grating teen, but instead one that grates simply because she's so realistically young and foolish. Foolish to the extreme, in fact, as she rides the bus endlessly in Winnipeg trying to find her missing brother without care for her own safety. She doesn't care because as far as we can tell, she's gone completely mad. We tell that, not because someone has explained it to us through exposition, but because her madness is splashed across the screen. The fragments are real; all of her thoughts are shown to us through a jumble of split-screen edits that turn the screen into a near kaleidoscope.

Ellen Page in The Tracey Fragments

It's a difficult film. Not difficult the way some of those films we're told to respect are (because they're boring) but because it requires your attention and it requires you to be comfortable with the fact that you're shown, not told, Tracey's broken consciousness. It is brilliant, probably one of the most vibrant and stirring films I've ever seen. And yet few people--even self-confessed film buffs--I know have checked it out.

Then there's Pontypool .  The zombie film genre is tired, so tired, as is (frankly) the entire horror genre. To continue my style of sour grapes, I'll turn to the comparison not to Juno but to Let the Right One In . Let the Right One In , a Swedish vampire flick, was all of the rage last year. Snowy, desolate and human, the film had many positives (though I've never fully understood the appeal) and it surprises me deeply the people that have championed Let the Right One In haven't championed Pontypool with just as much gusto.

The problem, perhaps, is that it's quite hard to discuss Pontypool without giving away the twist (of sorts) that makes it so incredible. One difference? It's a zombie film where there are hardly any zombies, as it's set entirely within a radio studio in the small Ontario town of Pontypool (natch) where Steven McHattie, as DJ Grant Mazzy, starts to hear strange reports of a frenzied madness.

In a tired genre, it's fresh, and gives us a vein of horror that is almost entirely untapped. Of course, as much as McDonald's effort makes it what it is, I'd be remiss to not mention McHattie's place as the centre of the work. As Mazzy, he's a firestorm of lyrical power; people who went to see him as the aged Hollis Mason in the turgid adaptation of Watchmen will be surprised.

Steven McHattie in Pontypool

I've picked a McDonald's most recent films to spotlight, but he's got a long list of films that are all worth seeing. Most fans, I imagine, would pick his earlier work as an introduction--his road trilogy, starting with Roadkill and then Highway 61 , both featuring Valerie Buhagiar and Don McKellar (oh, and Earl Pastko is particularly memorable as Satan himself in Highway 61 !); or Hard Core Logo, which follows the fictional, titular, punk band on tour in a faux documentary format, without having to stoop to the depths of the "mock-doc", instead choosing to truly consider the meaning life of the touring rock band.

They're all good too, and in fact, they point out something that is especially worth celebrating about Bruce McDonald's work. While arguably an auteur, every single thing he's worked on is the sum of its parts, taking the best of everyone who has worked on it. The Tracey Fragments is what it is as much thanks to Ellen Page, just as Pontypool owes so much to Steven McHattie. But they both owe so much to the otherwise forgotten parts of the movie making puzzle--such as say, cinematography or editing.  C an I say that Hard Core Logo would be as good as it is without Reg Harkema's work in the editing room? I really can't.

That's probably what makes Bruce McDonald's work so wonderfully Canadian. They're no work of a Hollywood director where all we hear is it's a "Michael Bay movie" nor are they the latest star-driven vehicle. They're the collaborative work of a group of artists, and I wouldn't have them any other way--other than, I guess, for more people to see them.

Message Edited by MathewKumar on 07-01-2009 03:12 PM

Message Edited by Laura on 07-13-2009 03:04 PM

Message Edited by Laura on 08-21-2009 10:51 AM