Sicario

Sicario is a powerful well written and visceral depiction of the horrors and ambiguities of America’s war on drugs that harkens back to similarly excellent films in the Mexican drug war genre like Miss Bala (2011) and Traffic (2000).

Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is a fearless young female FBI agent, who wants to make a difference but is growing frustrated by the system. She volunteers to help a black-ops mission that promises to find and stop the people at the top, responsible for the terror and deaths on both sides of the border.

What Kate soon learns is that no one is playing by the rules anymore and in order to catch the kind of rabid individuals for whom life and brutality go hand in hand, she may have to give up everything she believes in. One mysterious brooding character on the team played by Benicio del Toro tells her; “You will not survive here. You are not a wolf. This is the land of wolves now.” 

French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, Incendies (2010), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), is at the top of his game with this latest crime thriller about Mexican drug cartels and the war on drugs that continues to claim the lives of thousands of innocent people. 

The lawless desert wasteland between the US and Mexican border is scarred with corpses both human and vehicular. Nothing lives there for long and aerial vistas of this devastated no man’s land look like satellite images of an alien planet, testament to the changing landscape that has resulted from the increasing violence of the drug war.

Sicario, which means hit man in Mexico, gives us a searing sense of unease that we know something evil is lurking beneath the surface unseen, like the pulse-pounding opening sequence in which a police raid on a seemingly normal house from the outside hides horrific bone-chilling secrets on the inside.

Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) who head the black-ops team are tasked with stirring up enough chaos and fear to flush out some of the bigger fish that will lead them to the men who are orchestrating the violence from the top.

Visually striking and authentic looking in every way as filmed by master cinematographer Roger Deakins, Sicario is haunting in its disturbing depiction of a dark underground world of death and fear as seen through the eyes of Emily Blunt’s relatively new agent who has many questions that cannot be easily answered.

The paralyzing suspense is palpable as we follow Kate deeper into hostile territory and we’re constantly kept in the dark about who can be trusted and who is operating with their own agenda.

This is an in-your-face hard hitting action drama that pulls no punches as it executes its objective by any means available. The film asks difficult questions about how far we are willing to go to make a difference and how far will we follow the path that may lead us astray and destroy our own moral compass.

Watch for Denis Villeneuve’s next collaboration with Roger Deakins, which is reported to be the much anticipated sequel to Ridley Scott’s cult classic Sci-fi film Blade Runner (1982), scheduled for release in 2017.

JP

Brooklyn

With today’s headlines filled with stories of mass migrations of people from Syria pouring into Europe, leaving their homelands to flee hardship and find a better life, we would do well to remember the story of our own ancestors who once faced similar journeys and prospects when they came to America by the boatful from their ancestral lands in Europe.

Based on the award winning historical novel by Irish author Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn is director John Crowley’s beautifully told, if traditionally staged epic film adaptation of this captivating coming-of-age tale that follows a journey across the sea to a new world.  

Brooklyn focuses on an Irish girl in her early twenties, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), who lives with her widowed mother and older sister in the town of Enniscorthy, Ireland. At a time when work is extremely scarce, Eilis grows frustrated with her prospects in this small town existence and the mentality of its folk, especially the young men who all dress the same and just want to get drunk.

Visually, the production is sparing and conservatively filmed but well researched and beautifully costumed with 50s fashion. The real strength of the film though is in its powerful heartfelt performances and tightly focused story of Eilis Lacey, exquisitely performed by Saoirse Ronan from Hanna (2011), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

Encouraged by her sister and a local Catholic priest who has sponsored her and arranged for a job waiting for her, Eilis reluctantly agrees to venture out and board a boat headed for New York City, leaving behind the only family she has. After a difficult journey she arrives in a strange new land of modern ideas and a large community of Irish workers. 

While staying in a boarding house for Irish women, she starts working for a high-end department store as a sales clerk but becomes increasingly unhappy and homesick until she meets a charming young Italian-American plumber who is totally taken with her. Their relationship grows as she takes night classes to become an accountant, when she gets devastating news from back home that forces her to return.

What she finds upon returning to her hometown in Ireland is that she is treated very differently now. Having grown into a woman with experience from abroad she now has many more prospects than she did before but some things have not changed. Eilis must now make a life changing decision that will determine her future happiness and identity.

The film delves into strong themes of letting go of our past and embracing the uncertain future. Poignant themes of identity are touched upon and the struggles we face when torn between two places and two communities, and the frightening prospect of deciding where we belong and what we want. 

Deciding between our responsibility to ancestral family or the excitement and possibilities of a new modern life, Eilis’ predicament is universally relatable and will tug at the heartstrings. As many of our own ancestors must have done, she must make the difficult decision to return to her old life and family in Ireland for good or embrace a new one in an exciting but uncertain new world far away across the sea.

Brooklyn is an emotionally satisfying straight forward old fashioned romantic film that manages to leave a lasting impression without any fancy editing or camera effects. A must see.

JP

This Changes Everything

This Changes Everything is a powerful passionate new Canadian climate change documentary made by people who don’t like climate change documentaries, and asks the question, “Why don’t we like these kinds of movies? “

Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein’s new documentary answers this question by telling us that it’s because we are often told that climate change is caused due to our greedy selfish human nature. That’s just the way we are so we can’t change it. But what if climate change is due to something else? What if it’s due to a story we’ve been lead to believe is true but isn’t. That, we can change.

They argue against the long and commonly held belief that the earth is a machine to be used, shaped and dominated by people. And that the current political/economic model of continued unsustainable growth and deregulation, which gives Corporations free reign to extract resources out of the earth at any cost to land and people, is linked directly to our current climate crisis and only benefits the few at the top of that system.

Five years in the making, the film shows the devastating struggles by people on the front lines whose lands and livelihoods are directly affected by today’s global economic policies and make convincing connections between our unsustainable destructive economic system and the rapidly changing climate.

The filmmakers take us to all corners of the earth where similar stories are playing out, of regular folks living in rural communities who are forced to go to extraordinary length and risking their lives to protect their families and stop brutal practices inflicted on them by their governments and multi-national corporations. 

Greek villagers living on generations-old pristine unspoiled paradise are being forced to abandon their way of life by a Canadian gold mining company who wants to completely annihilate it by constructing toxic chemical plants with bulldozers and drilling equipment.

Indigenous people in Alberta and elsewhere are being killed and forced off the land they subsist on, despite ages old treaties that promise the land will be protected and can be used only by them. There are many more examples of ever increasing violence against people and the effect these government and corporate practices are having on our environment all over the world.

The film also points to positive ways we can change these practices and continue to provide secure jobs for people by putting our efforts into safe renewable energy and technology that has already been successful in other countries. But greedy governments won’t adopt these ways on their own. They need people to demand change. 

The film shows examples of communities that, after rising up and long struggles, have been successful in bringing attention to their plight and have affected change in their government’s short sighted policies. Many communities have now created local governments that have their best interest at heart with the power to stop these global companies from taking over and destroying their land and homes.

This is an important eye-opening film that deals with issues that affect everyone and is well worth seeing. It should be shown in schools everywhere. As someone in the films says “it’s not just an Indian issue. If you drink water and breathe air, it will affect you.”

Premiering soon at the TIFF Toronto International Film Festival, make sure you take the opportunity to watch it when it comes in theaters later this year.

JP