MOVIES
In Generation Wealth, documentarian Lauren Greenfield catalogues the gross excesses of a culture in serious decline.
All the money in the world RE VIEW S GENERATION WEALTH A documentary by Lauren Greenfield. Rating unavailable
For the past two-and-a-half photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield has focused her camera on human excess—L.A. teenagers cruising the beach in luxury convertibles; tulletwirling Russian debutante balls; Chinese mansions with gold toilets; glitzy child beauty pageants; and body-mutilating plastic surgeries. In her 2012 documentary The Queen of Versailles, she famously turned her lens on a former beauty queen and a time-share baron as they tried to build America’s largest monster house on the eve of the last recession. What all her subjects have in common, as she explores in this free-associating and surprisingly personal new documentary, is the compulsive and poisonous pursuit of money and status. In Generation Wealth, she reflects on her career and revisits many of her photographs’ colourful characters. The most memorable include fallen hedge-fund manager Florian Homm, exiled in Germany, desperately sucking the cigars that are the only vestige of the extravagant lifestyle he has left. There’s also a school-bus driver who’s living out of a car due to her plastic-surgery bills, and an aging, workaholic financier who’s pouring thousands into surrogate motherhood. Inevitably, any look at consumer capitalism will cover commodified sex, represented amply here by deeply troubled porn stars, deadeyed Las Vegas escorts, and—in what may be the film’s most unsettling image—the naked performers at Atlanta’s Magic City strip club, maniacally scrambling on all fours across the floor to grab the dollar bills being rained on them. Greenfield interweaves these interviews with reflections on her own comfortable life, career, and family, questioning her privateschool upbringing and her frequent travel while her children were young. The approach (a departure for a director who has largely stayed out of films like Versailles and the anorexia doc Thin) grounds the work in real emotion and reinforces the main idea that love and family trump the almighty dollar any day. But as in so much of this sprawling meditation—an odd mix where the heinously crass often outweighs the authentically beautiful—deep analysis is lacking. An economist does offer views on the rise of global capitalism and the way blind wealth precipitated the decline of all ancient civilizations. Donald Trump also makes several appearances. You’ll appreciate the artistic risks Greenfield takes, her refusal to oversimplify, and—damn! She sure can shoot a picture. But aside from just being appalled, your take-aways
2 decades,
here may stop at “Money can’t buy you love.” That and the realization that, while we’re frantically scrambling for our own dollar bills, Rome is definitely burning.
that covered some similarly transgressive material. The writing is beautiful throughout, especially in the protagonist’s recollections of discovering the hidden parts of grown-up life that > JANET SMITH could be both “pointless and elegant”.
BREATH Starring Simon Baker. Rated 18A
A coming-of-age story without the Stand by Me sentimentality, Breath is a refreshingly original take on boyhood and on surf-movie tropes. This handsome effort is also an impressive feature-directing debut for actor Simon Baker, a Tasmanian busy with the Mentalist series until recently. He produced and cowrote the screenplay with Gerard Lee, the frequent Jane Campion collaborator who created the BBC’s creepy Top of the Lake with her. Here, Baker and Lee adapted a highly regarded 2008 novel by Tim Winton, an author and playwright Australians have dubbed their “poet laureate of the beach”. Winton narrates this tale of growing up in the 1970s, in a wild, seaside part of western Oz, as told from the (retro) perspective of 13-year-old Bruce Pike (quietly memorable newcomer Samson Coulter), known as Pikelet to best pal Ivan Loon (Ben Spence), called Loonie, of course. Pikelet goes to a posh private school, courtesy of his gentle parents (Aussie veterans Richard Roxburgh and Rachael Blake). What little we get of sun-haired bad boy Loonie’s family is not good, vaguely explaining his daredevil spirit. Finding Pikelet’s true nature is what this Hemingway-esque memoir is about, and it comes through the boys’ growing obsession with surfing. This peaks when they meet Sando, a former pro surfer played by a scruffed-up Baker himself. They start hanging out at his bohemian retreat (he’s got Moby Dick on the bookshelf, alongside the Carlos Castaneda), and Sando gives them Zen-like instruction in the deeper arts of ocean-taming. This is over the mostly silent objections of his American wife, Eva, played by Elizabeth Debicky, the tall, French-born Polish-Australian we know from her otherworldly presence in The Great Gatsby and the Guardians of the Galaxy flicks. Eva is a competitive skier suffering from a recent accident, and now her competitiveness has been turned onto Sando, in terms that viewers, and the boys, are not really privy to. Her morose nature has a certain allure to Pikelet, which comes into play when Sando and Loonie leave town abruptly. The two-hour movie loses its way in scenes that—somewhat paradoxically—grow morally darker and too tonally repetitive to sustain interest. Breath recovers, however, and special marks must be given to cinematographer Marden Dean for sticking to a wintry, non-golden-light palette that evokes the ’70s without fetishizing that decade, and to Rick Rifici, who did the superb water photography—as he did for Adore, a fairly recent Aussie film
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> KEN EISNER
WE THE ANIMALS Starring Evan Rosado. Rating unavailable
Moonlight meets Malick in this low-budget character study, centring on a boy who finds himself—in both senses—inside an at-risk family. The animals of the unpunctuated title are a self-contained tribe of three young brothers stranded in upstate New York, with parents who aren’t up to the task. Episodic happenings over unspecified time are told from the perspective of the smallest boy, Jonah (Evan Rosado), about 10 when things begin. He looks to slightly older Manny and Joel (Isaiah Kristian and Josiah Gabriel) for protection, and needs it. Their unnamed father (Looking’s Raúl Castillo) is prone to violence, and Ma (Sheila Vand, of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) responds by zoning out, leaving the boys to fend for themselves for weeks at a time. When not searching for crackers and soy-sauce packets, or raiding nearby farms for vegetables, Jonah hides under his bed, writing gibberish in a journal also filled with increasingly grotesque drawings, some of which burst into life on the screen. His murmuring voice-overs, dropped after a while, recall the first-person narration of the much-lauded 2011 Justin Torres novella on which this is based. These Tree of Life–like incantations give us some very sketchy background to dire situations that are nonetheless honeyed by nostalgia for childhood in a vaguely defined time before digital media. Indeed, the only electronics seem to be an old princess phone and boxy TVs showing old movies or the odd porn tape. The homes here are bereft of culture, and of hope, but not of colour and light. Cinematographer Zak Mulligan finds the lyrical sweep and darker undertow of private spaces, small-town streets, and the local swimming hole. Unfortunately, writer-director Jeremiah Zagar, in his feature debut after making many far-ranging documentaries, relies on visual moods and the compelling presence of nonprofessional child actors to give the story shape and meaning. From the setup, you expect the mixed-culture marriage—Dad is from Puerto Rico and Mom is white—to be a factor, along with the revelations of Jonah’s sexual ambiguity. But the characters mostly remain ciphers, with the sole female figure exerting little influence on dreamlike events. Even the animation is static, hitting the same notes again and again. In short, there’s a lot of talent on display here, although it remains regrettably immature.
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> KEN EISNER see next page
Key Dates
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> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < BRICKHOUSE GROPE
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 24, 2018 WHERE: Brickhouse Sorry... we saw you leaving and I barreled over the old couches and grabbed you sideways. You were on the phone and surprisingly smooth about the whole encounter. Yeah, I’m married, but my friend thinks your hot and has no gumption.
CAKE
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JULY 23, 2018 WHERE: Save-On
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Damn, Mackinley, I should have gone to his birthday party. Too nervous to say yes. - Lynn. P.S. I’m gender nonbinary but “I Saw You” doesn’t have a setting for me, so I went with female instead.
STUNNING, EXOTIC BEAUTY, THE LOCAL (KITS)
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 24, 2018 WHERE: Kits Local Friday night, you and your friend were at the end of the bar by the patio... we made continual and fairly intense eye contact but I couldn’t break away from my adult baby-sitting duties to come and say hi. Then you both left when I finally did get the chance...
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF A GLASS WALL
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: JULY 17, 2018 WHERE: A Glass Wall
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you waved. I waved. There was no door... Wish I stayed to find out more.
BREAK A LEG COMMENT
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 22, 2018 WHERE: Coal Harbour You were encouraging someone ahead of their performance, finishing up with ’Break a Leg’. I was getting into the elevator and joked with you about that. It would be fun to extend our conversation!
TUESDAY DRUM CIRCLE VIBES
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 21, 2018 WHERE: Third Beach Drum Circle We were at the drum circle and I first noticed you walking on the path and caught a radiant smile from you. Later on we were hanging with our own friends but were close by. You were drumming and dancing and made healthy eye contact and were exchanging good energy. Afterwards we chatted briefly and I mentioned that I was really digging your vibe but I, regrettably, didn’t ask for your number. I think you are super sweet and would be really happy if I could see you again sometime :)
FALLING OFF YOUR SEAT ON A DOUBLE TAKE ON THE #9
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 21, 2018 WHERE: Kingsway and Broadway I was standing on the corner of Kingsway and Broadway outside Our Town around 9pm waiting for a friend. The #9 drove past and we locked eyes, you almost fell off your seat trying to keep eye contact as the bus kept going. I think you gestured something, but I couldn’t make it out. A part of me wished you got off for a second to introduce yourself.
METROTOWN METROPOLIS
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 23, 2018 WHERE: Booster Juice Line You are the gorgeous lady in the pink dress. I’m the old guy with the fine asset you noticed. You floated through our line at BJ and hovered near, on your phone while enjoying self-titillation. I noticed your beautiful hand and would love to hold it. Anything for you.
RBC
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 17, 2018 WHERE: RBC Lonsdale L e o s / To k y o / b r o n c h i t i s ... i f you’re interested, ask :)
SUPER HUNK IN THE WEST END
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 21, 2018 WHERE: West End I saw you in the Safeway on Davie, before closing, a long time ago. I said hi in passing. After checking out at the same time, you asked me if I needed a ride upon approaching your car (car-to-go). I said no, as I was nervous. I’ve seen you around the West End two more times since then (at different businesses: last night being one.) Perhaps now the opportunity is lost, but every time I see you, it takes quite awhile to get you out of my head.
DOUBLE GLANCE ON 14 GRANVILLE
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 21, 2018 WHERE: Kitsilano We exchanged eye contact twice as I was getting off the 14 Granville bus. Dark hair, bob cut (I think), sharp chin, and wearing earphones. I had puffy dirty blonde hair, with a dark jacket and grey patterned shirt. Wish I had stayed on so I could’ve said something. I picked up a friendly vibe, and you’re v cute. Coffee? :)
DOWNTOWN AFTERNOON RIDE
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 17, 2018 WHERE: Downtown Vancouver You: tall, caucasion, dirty blonde hair, grey shirt, kooda bag. Just wanted to let you know that I think you should get into modelling, if you don’t already.
BUMPED INTO YOU
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 21, 2018 WHERE: Waterfront Station I was walking out of Translink gates into Waterfront Stn. and our paths literally crossed. I almost bumped into you. Sorry! You gave me the best smile ever! You made my day and I hope you have a great one too. Coffee?
Visit straight.com to post your FREE I Saw You _ AUGUST 30 – SEPTEMBER 6 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 31