Nicholas Philibert’s Nénette is a 70-minute film in which we constantly observe 40-year-old orangutan, Nénette, and her two orangutan companions, through the glass, in her captive habitat at a Paris zoo. Orangutans live to 30-35 years in the wild, so Nénette is quite old, but Philibert has us questioning, throughout the movie, if those extra years were worth the price of captivity.

Philibert puts us in the place of a visitor to the zoo, constantly gazing at but never interacting with Nénette through the glass. Nénette, for the most part, provides little entertainment, sitting still with a world-wearied expression on her face. Philibert fills the soundtrack with voiceovers of zoo visitors talking about Nénette, watching Nénette, pondering Nénette’s thoughts, and sometimes making absurd assumptions. At seventy minutes, the film feels rather long. We are desperate to see Nénette do something -anything – and in the absence of action, we make up a story about how Nénette must be feeling and thinking, just as the zoo visitors do.

Orangutans share many anatomical similarities to humans such as the hairless face and sunken eyes. But they also have a large lump below the neck; many visitors were fascinated by Nénette’s lump, which is not a breast, but is not comparable to any other part of human anatomy. Visitors gawk at the lump, as do we. The lump’s purpose is not explained until very near the end: it stores a large amount of air, which when appropriately compressed, allows orangutans to let out a very loud noise which can be heard from miles away, to warn other orangutans of danger.

We never hear Nénette make this loud cry; in captivity, she has no need to use it, the zookeeper reminds us. We learn that Nénette has had three mates, and has borne four babies, one of which still resides with her. A few years ago, when Nénette lost her third mate, the zookeepers decided to give her a break and not find her another mate; they keep her son with her for company. However, because they are uncertain of whether incest is forbidden in orangutan society, Nénette is on the birth control pill, which is slipped into her yogurt each day. They want to ensure there is no chance that Nénette will be impregnated by her son and they have no way to tell if she is yet menopausal: menstruation leaves no traces of blood in orangutans, we are told. (more…)

What: Kings of Pastry
When: Friday, May 7th @ 11AM
Where: The ROM theatre
How: The film is sold out for the screening so you’ll need to show up AT LEAST 1 hour early and stand in the rush line. It’s during the day so it’ll be free for students if you can get in. HotDocs keeps a set of tickets for press (like me), so once these are unclaimed (15 minutes before the film) they’ll start to let the Rush line in — bring something to sit on and to read!

Every year, HotDocs selects a few documentary gems, which later become great successes (like Helvetica from 2007) and seeing them at HotDocs before they are known is always a pleasure. The trick, however, is finding these films beneath the large mass of films by neophyte directors with inchoate ideas and the ridiculous notion that documentary filmmaking is merely the art of pointing a camera at anything “real”.

So far, I’ve seen two big winners at this year’s festival: Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s Kings of Pastry and the great Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything is Going Fine. Kings of Pastry plays again this Friday at 11AM at the ROM: it is RUSH only so show up early (no later than an hour in advance if you want to make sure you get into the movie) but it is worth the wait.

Kings of Pastry is about a group of sixteen chefs who are finalists for the MOF (Meilleurs Ouvriers de France) competition, a French competition for pastry chefs to show their cooking prowess and earn the very prestigious striped collar. Kings of Pastry focuses on three chefs: we watch them prepare for the competition, revise their pastry inventions, and finally participate in the competition.

The process by which these chefs craft pastries is utterly fascinating: a feat of structural engineering. A delicious dessert is a prerequisite for success but by no means a guarantee; presentation is equally important. One of the challenges of the MOF competition is to make a sugar sculpture, which, by nature of the material, is extremely fragile, meaning the MOF candidates must be very inventive (and careful) to ensure that their pastry is structurally sound and does not break when moved. Structural integrity is This also an issue for every other pastry, and the chefs achieve this by carefully planning and considering, at minimum, the ingredients, the thickness of materials, and the cooking time required.

Perhaps even more fascinating than the structural engineering behind these pastries is the iterative design process – yes, design process – that these chefs undergo to arrive at the perfect pastry. In one scene, we see five different versions of the same puff pastry, each with different arrangements, as one of the chefs tries to decide which pastry he wants to present at the competition. Each participant must make a large wedding cake sculpture, and the one chef we follow most closely designs and redesigns the cake many times, largely in an effort to ensure that it can support its own weight.

Although Kings of Pastry chronicles a competition, it does not feel forced or scripted and it does not follow a formula like American Idol, to use a crude example. Hegedus and Pennebaker focus on the story behind making the pastries and the art and dedication that goes into this trade, with many mouth-watering shots of these gastronomical works of art, which is absolutely mesmerizing. Last year, Nora Ephron made another movie for the epicure, Julie and Julia, about the trials and tribulations of two ambitious chefs and featured many delectable shots of gourmet French cuisine; Kings of Pastry does an equally good job of photographing food and celebrating the epicure culture, though it focuses on the story behind that special food group, dessert that has its own separate compartment in everyone’s stomach. Kings of Pastry, like Julie and Julia, celebrates the art of cooking and it’s sure to leave you craving an incredibly fancy French pastry dessert by the end of the film.

Steven Soderbergh’s film, And Everything is Going Fine, is a continuation of Soderbergh’s obsession with the actor/performer Spaulding Gray. Soderbergh made Gray’s Anatomy in 1996, which was an eighty-minute film version of one of Gray’s monologues. And Everything is Gone Fine is essentially a mash-up of old recordings of Gray’s various monologue performances interspersed with the occasional personal interview (between, presumably, Soderbergh and Gray) and television interview. (more…)

If you missed the opportunity to catch some light comedies at Cinefranco on Saturday, you can still do so tomorrow (Sunday) and all through this week.

BlogUTs picks for Sunday are the light romantic comedy Tricheuse/So Woman! at 7:15PM (reviewed below), the great Costa Gravas’s (director of the chilling but brilliant Missing) drama, East of Eden at 3:00PM, and Le Petit Nicolas, a family-appropriate comedy at 5:15PM, based on the nostalgic children’s books by René Goscinny, which I enjoyed very much  as a child.

Tricheuse (or So Woman! by its English title) has a recycled plot, very similar to Peter Weir’s Green Card, which itself was nothing new, about Clemence, who convinces her immigrant piano tuner, Farid, whose name she can’t remember or pronounce, to bring his two daughters to live with her so she can fake being married in order to secure her apartment and a lucrative litigation job which she needs to salvage her career. Since the piano tuner can barely afford electricity, he gets something out of the deal. Of course, they fight initially as their personalities and cultures clash: she is self-absorbed, superficial, and has a proclivity for boy toys, while he is the ultimate family man who cooks and cares for his daughter. But in the end, they fall in love, and all the conventions of a romantic comedy are met.

Tricheuse is a sweet film and a funny film and there are many scenes of mistaken identities worth a watch. For example, when Clemence’s landlord asks what Farid does for a living, she makes up a wild lie that he is a great sculptor; the building then requests that he make a sculpture for the courtyard and so Farid uses bicycles, toasters, and other objects to craft something similar to one of Clemence’s modern art sculptures in her apartment. When Clemence teaches the eldest how to write an essay, her teacher claims that plagiarism must be at work, so Clemence comes into the school to defend her as a parent and a lawyer. There are also moments of drama when Clemence gets Farid’s daughters to open up to her about their mother and they bond, though sometimes these feel a little emotionally forced.

Tricheuse is not a great film, but despite its predictability, it has some unexpected sophistication and turns, which make it a light enjoyable see for a Sunday afternoon.

What: Cinefranco, the Toronto French Film Festival
When: March 26 – April 3
Where: AMC Yonge & Dundas, right at Dundas subway station
Cost: Students – $8.50, Single Tickets – $10 and can be purchased in person or online. Arrive at least 30 minutes  early  to ensure tickets are available.

Cinefranco, one of the best small film festivals in Toronto, showcases French cinema from France, Canada, and other French-speaking countries that often won’t play in cinemas outside of France or Quebec. This year the festival has moved to the AMC Yonge & Dundas, a much better venue which provides comfortable seating, great screens, and stadium seating – you can still read the subtitles should someone tall choose to sit in front of you. Past years have showcased such gems as La Naissance des Pieuvres (2008), Ensemble C’est Tout (2008), and Peindre ou Faire L’Amour (2007). This year’s festival offers up a wide variety of films from comedy to drama.

Today’s schedule included a lovely laugh-out-loud comedy from France, Le Coach, about a life coach, Max (Richard Berry) who, in an effort to pay off his large gambling debts, takes on a job to coach a hopeless engineer, Patrick Jean-Paul Rouve), into becoming a good manager who can seal the deal with a difficult and important client. The engineer is a mess – from his bad clothes, to his total push-over attitude, to his tendency to get incredibly frazzled whenever having an important conversation, be it with a boss or a beautiful woman. And since the engineer’s bosses erroneously believe him to be the nephew of the CEO, the life coach is forbidden from revealing his true identity and forced instead to train the engineer under the guise of being a 50-year-old intern doing photocopies. Of course, hilarity ensues. (more…)

Both the Dave Holland Quintet and the Branford Marsalis Quartet could have easily sold out the MainStage space at the Toronto Jazz Festival had they each been the headliner act of their own show, so it’s a little strange that they should be shoved together in a double bill on Friday, July 3rd. Nevertheless, it’s hard to complain when you get to see that much talent and good music on display for the affordable price of $40 at the Toronto Jazz Festival, all in one night, even if the acoustics leave something to be desired.

The Dave Holland Quintet – Robin Eubanks on trombone, Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Chris Potter on alto/soprano sax, Nate Smith on drums, and Dave Holland on bass – opened the evening with a wonderful, energetic 75-minute set of original compositions from Holland’s albums. The set list included: “Step to It”, “Last Minute Man”, “Full Circle”, and “Lucky Seven”. The Dave Holland Quintet has a very eclectic sound, and at times, dissonant. Generally, this means there’s a lot going on at once, with Potter and Eubanks each carrying a bit of the melody – at the same time – and Nelson, Smith, and Holland sharing the rhythm sections. This tends to lead to a lot of complexity, and because of all the different instruments, each with what could be a standalone part, all together, gives you a rich variety of things to listen to. You can tune in and tune out of various different instruments, take your pick, and never be bored. Sometimes all this action leads to really rewarding and interesting dissonance and other times it ends up as just too busy. Sometimes I had trouble differentiating between the parts that Potter and Eubanks were playing, sometimes they blended together, and it felt like a bit too much mushiness. But the band really shone when its three stars took the stage with their solos: drummer Nate Smith, saxophonist Chris Potter, and bassist Dave Holland.

Drummer Nate Smith also played with Chris Potter in his “Underground” group at the Pilot on Monday, but it was in this concert with Holland where he really impressed me. Generally, when drummers take solos, they are so excited to finally be allowed to stray from just beat-keeping that they try to hit and bang as many drums and cymbals as possible in the smallest amount of time: this is their chance to make a lot of noise. But this approach lacks musicality; it’s just an unpleasant racket, the kind I usually can’t wait to stop. But Nate Smith, much like drumming greats Jack DeJohnette and Tony Williams, understands that less is more with drum solos. He hits a beat, he finds a rhythm to play with, and he lets the audience in on what he is doing. We can keep up, we can enjoy, and while it’s not “simple” it’s not overdone either: there’s music and clarity here. He also finds different pitches and tones to play with so that when his drum solo comes to an end, we can’t help but want more, or look forward to his next one. Smith is a great drummer and these are very, very few and far between.
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Last week, BlogUT caught up with Canadian bassist and composer, Brandi Disterheft, for a telephone interview, before her appearance at the Toronto Jazz Festival, as the opening act for the Dave Brubeck Quartet on Canada Day. Her debut album, “Debut”, won the 2008 Juno award for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year, and it’s an impressive debut, with all original compositions, for this very young, late-twenties, up-and-coming artist. Disterheft has studied under Oscar Peterson, who said of her “She has the same lope or rhythmical pulse as my late bass player Ray Brown. She is what we call serious”, and she is currently studying under the great bassist Ron Carter in New York City. Though she is known in the Toronto music scene – her first album was made with all Toronto musicians – she has decided to take on the big apple, where she now lives, and enjoys the new anonymity and late-night jam sessions at various clubs. She has been doing a lot of touring across Canada in the last week from Calgary to BC to Toronto, playing shows with her newly assembled sextet.

BlogUT: How did you decide to play the bass?
Brandi Disterheft: I grew up playing the piano and was playing the flute at one point. But then I wanted to play an instrument that was more versatile, an instrument I could play classical, jazz, and funky lines on. It was actually my dad’s idea to pick up the bass. But I have always been around music and instruments because my mom was a jazz player in Vancouver (where she grew up).

BlogUT: Did you start out playing classical music or jazz? How does that affect your playing?
Brandi: I did a combination of the two, actually. I started playing classical piano and then I got into jazz. I went to Humber College for the jazz program and took some private classical studies after. I’ve been studying under a classical teacher in New York City. Playing classical music is really important because it develops your technique and develops your sound. You get to really know your instrument and play with a bow. I don’t consider myself a classical musician, but I’m studying classical music mainly so that I can grow on the instrument. (more…)

Although the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins (78), master pianist Dave Brubeck (88), and virtuoso double bassist Charlie Haden (71) may be senior citizens, they play as if they’re still young, and what a show they each put on in the last week during the Toronto Jazz Festival. Their sets may have been short, but every minute counted, and every minute was top notch.

Sonny Rollins, the epitome of cool, who made his name as a “saxophone colossus” on the album of the same name, opened the TO Jazz festival on Friday, June 26th, with his very tight band. He walked onto the stage with his ultra cool white jacket and sunglasses, ready to give the audience a run for its money. He opened his show with a whirlwind solo in “Sonny, Please” with so much energy, a little game of “name that tune” in his solo, and a whole lot of bop, that the concert probably could have ended after just the one song, and the audience still could have gone home happy.

But Sonny and his group entertained for seventy minutes, a short concert, but every minute was fine, finer than his last Toronto performance in 2007, which was longer and still great, but not quite this good. He may have run out of breath now and then, but that’s a minor qualm for a 78-year-old that can keep you smiling throughout the whole concert. And Sonny knows how to put on a show. As he takes his solo, ready to heat up the piece and the room, he comes downstage, centre stage, and starts playing away, dancing as close as he possibly can to the audience. Sure, he’s a showoff, but the totally loveable kind. At his last concert, I remember being annoyed that he let his band play too much – we were there for Sonny not for his band – but not so this time. He played his heart out with various hits like “In a Sentimental Mood”, “They Say It’s Wonderful”, “Nice Lady”, and “Strode Rode”. (more…)