A CHILLER FROM THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

THE DISAPPEARANCE (1977: Dir. Stuart Cooper)

   

Canadian Cinema was still in its infancy in 1977 when the Liberal Government changed the tax code allowing home-grown film producers to write off all of their cash investment in the first year providing that the project was certified Canadian according to specific content regulations. This decision to encourage film-making in the Great White North led to a surge in co-production that effectively established Canada as an increasingly viable place to make movies. Technical facilities, and crews were finally given the promise of steady employment mainly due to outside investment from counties such as France, the U.K. and the U.SA. The Disappearance was one of these early films to ride the new rails of the so-called "tax shelter"boom in Canada. Adapted by screenwriter Paul (The Man Who Fell To Earth) Mayersberg from the novel Echoes of Celandine by spy author Derek Marlowe (A Dandy in Aspic), it was developed as a British production, with former actor and American expatriate Stuart Cooper attached to direct, and co-star David Hemmings producing. The Rank Organization were to be the principal financiers but when they backed out at the last minute, a partnership was formed with Toronto-based entertainment lawyer and fledgling executive producer Garth Drabinsky. In order for the film to be considered more Canadian, the main character's residence was moved from Britain to Montreal, and New Brunswick native Donald Sutherland, Cooper's former co-star from The Dirty Dozen, was chosen to star after Lee Marvin turned down the lead role of paid assassin Jay Mallory. Sutherland suggested his real-life spouse, Quebec actress Francine Racette to play his on-screen wife Celandine, and together with Toronto born actor Christopher Plummer as the other corner in the love triangle, the film has the distinction of being one of the few of its era to feature three prominently-billed Canadian stars. Dismissed by critics at the time and almost entirely forgotten today, The Disappearance is in an emblematic example of the burgeoning artistic aspirations of Canadian cinematic culture. Thanks to the intellectually jet-setting glamour of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Canada in the Seventies was enjoying a new period of envy in the world just as its neighbour to the south was recovering from the political paranoia and economic uncertainty of the post Nixonian era. Taking advantage of these changing winds Cooper advantageously embraced the Canadian content he was forced to include, resulting in a brooding evocation of a vulnerable yet capable killer, living in the cold climate of Canada, but whose life is still controlled by frosty British bureaucrats from across the ocean. At the time, this was also a subliminal notion for many proud Canucks, whose burgeoning political independence now seemed more than ever diminished by their antiquated British patronage. It is an especially poignant metaphor given what we now know of Trudeau's future plans to introduce the radical idea of repatriating the Canadian constitution. The wintry locale of Montreal's ultra-modern Habitat housing complex overlooking Expo 67's Biosphere on the shores of the St. Lawrence provides the perfect chilly locale for the emotionally distant married life of Mallory and Celandine. They represent Canada's "two solitudes", the French who feel with their hearts and the English who think with their heads. When Celandine suddenly disappears without warning, Mallory is tormented by jealousy but reluctantly accepts an assignment in England that ends up being more personal than he ever expected. Cooper daringly employs a challenging flashback structure to the narrative, while Canadian composer Robert Farnon utilizes themes by Ravel to give warmth and humanity to the otherwise deadly proceedings. Not surprisingly, the American distributors of the picture rejected the Cooper's European art-house editing style thereby reducing the length (and subtlety) of his director's cut by twenty minutes as well as re-scoring it with cheap electronic thriller music. The new Blu-ray from Twilight Time is a revelation compared with any previous releases, as it includes both a standard definition 101 minute director's cut, in addition to a new high definition 91 minute version that preserves most of the film's original moody qualities, particularly the stately elegance of John Alcott's cinematography, as it captures the icy beauty of this subzero story of love and death. BLU-RAY REGION A ONLY

THE POWER OF SPECULATION

RESISTANCE (2011: Dir. Amit Gupta)

It defies understanding when nearly five years after its British release, North American audiences are still unable to see a great film. Resistance, co-written and based on the novel by Owen Sheers, is an intense portrait in miniature about an isolated valley in Wales that is occupied in WWII by the German army. This is the genre of alternate history, a speculation based on the premise of a Britain invaded after the failure of D-Day. Sheers, a proud Welshman, masterfully conveys an ambient sense of place and premonitory power with the story of a group of women who awake one morning to find their farmer husbands have mysteriously absconded in the night. The main protagonist is Sarah, played by the ever-compelling Andrea Riseborough, an abandoned woman in personal conflict with the courteous and cultured German officer (Tom Wlaschiha) whose patrol unit controls the valley. Theirs is a relationship symbolizing everything that makes the British a resolute island people and the Germans a ruthless invader. Northumberland-born Riseborough, an actress whose porcelain countenance and fragile frame often conceal the stuff of steely determination, is superbly matched opposite Wlaschiha, an East German actor whose gentle voice and penetrating stare provide a soothing sense of unease. Their scenes, as with those of  the rest of the cast are expertly directed by Amit Gupta, in his astonishingly assured feature directorial debut. Gupta, with a painterly eye, composes scene after scene of haunting imagery, where solitary figures linger amidst the secluded rolling green hills of Wales. Such serenity provides shocking contrast with a violent war better suited to the baneful beaches of Normandy.  It is however the ambiguity of moral choice that is at the heart of Resistance, driven home by the simple poetry of Sheers and Gupta's screenplay. Silences as much as dialogue, communicate the inner life of characters forced to fully confront the banal danger of everyday existence. Having been born on a continent without a history of invasion, one is humbled by this small yet forceful film. An inspiring tale with an unerring courage of its convictions. DVD REGION 2