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Movie Review: 1Minute Nature. Directed by Stefanie Visjager & Katinka Baehr

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MOVIE POSTER1Minute Nature

Played at the May 2016 FEEDBACK Film Festival

MOVIE REVIEW:

In a world where words paint wonderful pictures, 1 Minute Nature follows three children as they individually recount memories from the world around them. Animated based on the story each child narrates, 1 Minute Nature is a creative reimagining of the natural world told through the eyes of a child. Both immersive and engaging, and wonderfully whimsical, each story contains cartoon animations elements moving within a real life background.

Each story narrated story recounts a child’s single isolated memory of an interaction with the world around them, but the visual spectacle is meant to shape both the children, and the viewers’ perceptions of the natural world and they way they interact with it. With the animated moving cartoon images overlaid against a stationary real-life background, there is a charming element of fantasy to the piece that is both engaging and delightful. Our three stories capture the tales of first encounters of underwater exploration, favorite animals and even school-age romance, each one weaving a wonderful portrait of childhood experiences with beautiful images.

Short, entertaining, charming and occasionally laughably honest, these three stories offer a break from the everyday world and invite us into a world of color, creativity, imagination and wonder.

by Kierston Drier
Founder of The Bathroom Stall Project
Consultant at TheKayWorks.com
Freelance Film and Television
www.thekayworks.com

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Movie Review: NOW YOU SEE ME 2

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now_you_see_me_2NOW YOU SEE ME 2 (USA 2016) ***
Directed by Jon M. Chu

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Lizzy Caplan, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman

Review by Gilbert Seah

NOW YOU SEE ME 2, the sequel to the unexpected hit NOW YOU SEE ME has the same 4 horsemen return for another round of magic trickery to astound audiences, whether they love magic or not.

Except for Lizzy Caplan taking over the female role from Isla Fisher, most of the original cast returns. Jesse Eisenberg plays the main role of Daniel “Danny” Atlas, the group leader followed by Woody Harrelson as Chase, Dave Franco as Jack Wilder, Caplan as Lula and Mark Ruffalo as the FBI mole. There are two sets of bad guys here. One is the FBI – a favourite target organization hated by (most) Americans and non-Americas alike. The other is Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe) an unethical magnate that the Horsemen want to expose for unethical tactics, together with his father, Arthur Tresslr (Michael Caine).

Performances are key to a movie like this. It is not surprising for the filmmakers to assemble such an an impressive cast, all of whom inject sufficient seriousness and energy into the venture. But Radcliffe (HARRY POTTER) looks ill at ease at playing a bad guy as does Michael Caine.

The magic tricks performed in the film are especially outlandish. The are also performed really quickly with the solutions provided ever quicker. When the horsemen first appear again in public, they chose the most famous venues in London such as Trafalgar Square. The tricks include making rain disappear and people transported by plane. But the trickery is explained with the solution often so simple. The disappearing rain is accomplished through rain machines and strobe lights.

The best trick on display involves the horsemen forced to flee from their enemy. They leap off a rooftop through a chute and land up in China. If this act appears impossible, the revelation of how this occurs illustrates the power of imagination in a script that writer Ed Solomon constantly impresses. Though the film runs more than 2 hours, it is too long even though one hardly feels it.

Just as magic often uses doubles, the script cleverly adds a component of Merritt’s evil twin brother, again played by Harrelson, hamming it out the best he can in two different roles.

The business aspect of the film? NOW YOU SEE ME 2 hopes to pull in some big bucks for the flailing Lionsgate, the studio responsible for HUNGER GAMES and the TWILIGHT films, now in dire need of a big hit after the shares took a plunge last earnings session after a drop in quarterly revenue. But the bottom line is that this film provides just more of the same tricks – nothing more, nothing less. The first film was a surprise hit taking the box-office by storm. Lionsgate has lumped a larger amount of $90 million into the sequel, a sort of ‘we need a hit regardless of expense’. The film is up against stiff competition with WARCRAFT and CONJURING 2 both opening this same weekend. Looks like Lionsgate needs some magic on its own.

Movie Review: THE STEPS (Canada 2015)

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the_stepsTHE STEPS (Canada 2015) **
Directed by Andrew Currie

Starring: Emmanuelle Chriqui, James Brolin, Jason Ritter, Christine Lahti, Kate Corbett

Review by Gilbert Seah

THE STEPS of the movie title to the members of a step-family. There is every variation from stepmother, stepfather to stepmothers and stepsisters in this comedy about a dysfunctional step-family.

The setting is the family’s reunion at a lake house in picturesque Parry Sound, a small town in Northern Ontario. The patriarch, wealthy publishing magnate, Ed (James Brolin) has married the love of his life, a lovely, bubbly good-berated Sherry (Christine Lahti) and wants everyone over in order to convince a social worker that the happy family is perfect for the adoption of a Chinese girl.

The story’s main focus could be any member of the family, but it chooses failed investment banker, Ed’s son, Jeff (Jason Ritter) as the one. Whether this is the correct choice makes no difference, as long as the story has an anchor that puts everyone else into perspective. Jeff arrives with his party animal sister, Marla (Emmanuelle Chriqui). They meet Sherry’s children, pot-smoking half-East Indian Samir (Vinay Virmani), David (Benjamin Arthur) and Keith (Steven McCarthy). They do not get along.

Director Andrew Currie directed the zombie comedy FIDO a decade or so back – another family based comedy in which zombies could be trained as a pet. His comedy sense seems largely muddled in THE STEPS – a pity as FIDO was a very well received and hilarious comedy.

The script by Robyn Harding contains lots of potential for comedy. The fact that half of the siblings are American (Ed’s kids) and the other half Canadian (Sherry’s kids) opens humour to be poked at the different cultures. Jeff knocks over a stuffed moose in one scene and David angrily complains that the national animal is not respected. The many siblings from different backgrounds also offer other avenues for humour. The pot smoking allows Jeff to get very high; the party animal Marla is caught giving Keith a blow-job and David blasts Jeff with 7 hits of paintballs. Still, it is a disappointment then that Currie’s film is hardly funny. The jokes are mildly funny at best and the laugh-out loud segments are very few and far between.

Performances are largely wasted. Christian Lahti, so good in her early films like HOUSEKEEPING has nothing much to do here but to smile, complement everyone and lead silly ice-breaker games. The segment on paintball, the greatest potential for humour hardly generates any laughs at all.

When Ed tells Sherry at the film’s mid-point,that his children will come through at the end, the film really dips into predictability. Jeff turns into the perfect son, bringing the family together (literally) into getting the Chinese girl adopted.

The question is whether an audience wishes to see a dysfunctional family of Americans and Canadians eventually come together with silly jokes and pointless humour? The answer is one big ‘no’. But if the film turned out as funny as Currie’s last film FIDO, all might have been forgiven.

Movie Review: ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (USA 2016) **

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Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

alice_through_the_looking_glass_poster.jpg
ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (USA 2016) **
Directed by James Bobin

Sarring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifan

Review by Gilbert Seah

Based on Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass”, the sequel to ALICE IN WONDERLAND entitled ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS is produced by Tim Burton but the director’s reins are now taken over by The Muppet’s James Bobbin. Burton’s dark first film is replaced by glowing dizziness, all shiny stuff and sparkles, delivering a louder and glitzier Alice. Which one is better? Critics have been divided roughly 50-50. But both films had the common trait that the plot’s logic is largely incomprehensible.

When ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS opens, the titles inform that the ship Alice Kinsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) is captain of, is sailing the Straits of Malacca in the year 1874. To those rusty with their geography or history, the straits is the narrow sea separating the west of West Malaysia (known at that time as Malaysia) and Sumatra, Indonesia. It is the time when trade was opening between Britain and the East Indies. Alice is supposed to be prospering in trade. But now, she is pursued by pirates. The pirates are inserted, perhaps to whet audience’s appetite for a new version of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN from Disney. Alice’s ship escapes, thanks to the magic of CGI but she returns to more trouble in London, England.

The plot involves a few different stories. One is her losing her independence and her ship to a former suitor, Hamish (Leo Bill). But Alice escapes through a looking glass back into Wonderland where she meets her old friends Tweedledee/Tweedledum (Matt Lucas from LITTLE BRITAIN), the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) and the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). Everyone appears worried about the depressed Hatter (Johnny Depp), and the White Queen dispatches Alice to travel back into the past to save his family. So the second story involves Alice stealing time in the form of a gyroscope under pursuit by Time (Sacha baron Cohen) himself. The other less interesting one has the red queen (Helena Bonham Carter) dealing with her evil issues.

The humour is very, very mad and all over the place. Imagine sitting in a room having tea with a bunch of crazies or on an uncontrollable acid trip. Johnny Depp is in home territory here.

Sadly, the film’s most interesting segments are Alice’s problems back in reality dealing with her mother’s contract to Hamish and how she deals with them. It is when Alice goes to Wonderland, which is the majority of the picture, is when the film gets too crazy.

All the gaudy excesses cannot hide the fact that a film with a convoluted and confusing plot results in a less satisfying entertainment – whether a dark or glossy look is used to disguise it. Both ALICE fins fail to hit the mark. And the film contains too many puns on the word ‘time’.

The film is lovingly dedicated to Alan Rickman who voiced Absalom, the blue butterfly that leads Alice to the magical looking glass. It is funny that Rickman should be remembered by his last film a a blue butterfly than in his first film and best role in DEEPLY, MADLY, SWEETLY.

 

 

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Movie Review: DHEEPAN (France 2015) ***

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dheepan.jpgDHEEPAN (France 2015) ***

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Starring: Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan, Claudine Vinasithamby

Review by Gilbert Seah

Audiard’s (UN PROPHET, RUST AND BONE) latest work, direct from Cannes and a Palme d’Or Winner, is likely the first and only French film shot largely in Tamil. In this one, as in other Audiard’s films, features a desperate protagonist trying to adapt, often successfully in a new environment after much duress and determination.

DHEEPAN is the name of the protagonist, an ex-Tamil Tiger from Sri Lanka (Antonythasan Jesuthasan) who with a woman, Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and child (Claudine Vinasithamby) use false passports and pretend to be a family so that they can immigrate and stay in France where fraternite, legalite and egalite apparently rule. Obviously this is not the case. The three find it just as hard to assimilate, less survive in their new surroundings. They have to learn a new language a well.

The housing project they are assigned to is a front for drug trafficking. Dheepan is given the job as caretaker while his ‘wife’ a job of caregiver for a Mr. Habib (Faouzi Bensaïdi).

Dheepan works as the caretaker for ‘Block B’ and the woman as a caregiver for an old Frenchman while the girl attends school. Like Audiard’s best work UN PROPHET, he shows that prison need not occur behind closed walls.

The film contains other interesting characters besides Dheepan and his family. One is the mysterious Mr. Habib, the elder gent that the wife is hired to cook and look after The other is the Brahim (Vincent Rottiers) who develops sympathy for the wife, Yalini. Unfortunately, Brahim is done away with soon after in the film.

The film’s best segment is the one where the couple have a private talk. Dheepan confesses that he had understood an entire French conversation but finds nothing funny in the joke. The ‘wife’ tells him it is not the joke but that it is Dheepan who has no sense of humour, even in Tamil.

Lead actor Jesuthasan is himself a former child soldier with the rebel group Tamil Tigers (now an accomplished author who have written books Gorilla and Traitor) but his lack of training in acting shows. He is ill equipped to handle the dramatic scenes and ends up pouting or brooding most of the time.

Srinivasan who plays the wife fares better, eliciting both humour and sympathy in her role. But a bigger part in the film should have been written for Rottiers, who is the best actor in the film.

The film’s message appears to be that family is what one makes of it – not what is dished out in terms of blood relatives. Also, home is also what one makes of it. These come out loud and clear through the plot.

The last 15 minutes of the film goes against the grain and mood of what Audiard established so well during the rest of the film. The film opts for a cop-out happy ending after a ridiculous action film-styled shootout in which Dheepan utilizes his ex-Tamil Tigers fighting skills.

 

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Movie Review: FIRE SONG (Canada 2015)

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Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

firesongFIRE SONG (Canada 2015) **
Directed by Adam Garnet Jones

Starring: Ma-Nee Chacaby, Morteesha Chickekoo-Bannon, Brendt Thomas Diabo

Review by Gilbert Seah

Calgary born Cree-Metis filmmaker Adam Garnet Jones’ first full length feature (he has made a few shorts) begins with a teen suicide in a First Nations community. Her brother, Shane (Andrew Martin), a young Anishinaabe man is at a crossroads at to whether to start school in Toronto or stay in the Reservation after the family comes across some inheritance money. But the family also needs the money for the family house which is in shambles, as seen by a pail collecting water from a leaking roof, at different points in the film. Shane has a girlfriend who wishes to leave with him, but Shane has a gay relationship with David (Harley Legarde-Beacham), the grandson of the community’s leader. Short of cash, Shane tries peddling drugs.

The film is a universal story about youthful dreams confined by reality, set in a remote Aboriginal community and the first LGBTQ drama by an Indigenous, two-spirited filmmaker in Canada.

Despite director Jones’ sincerity, the film is crushed by the weight of the manifold issues it tries to address – teen suicide, small town captivity, drug use, teen angst, gay love, son/mother relationship, native tradition, familial duty and perhaps a few more I might have missed. (They come so fast!) The significance of the title FIRE SONG will become apparent when you see the movie.

When a man has both a girlfriend and a gay lover, it is only a matter of time before the girlfriend finds out. And David faces this confrontation in one of the film’s better scenes.

Performances from the cast of unknowns are fair at best. The gay scene with Shane and David is nothing short of embarrassing. In fact, it is the most unrealistic gay scene I have ever seen in a movie – the two lovers just sit next to each other looking lost as to what to do next. So, finally mother decides to sell the property for the son to go to school. She should have done that long ago and saved every one so much trouble!

But FIRE SONG has played at various festivals including the Toronto and Vancouver International Film Festivals. It is also the Winner of the Air Canada Audience Choice Award at the ImagineNATIVE festival and the Winner of the Best Feature Narrative at the Reel Out Festival. Am I the only one who dislikes this film?

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Movie Review: BRIDGEND (UK/Denmark 2015) ***

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Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

bridgendBRIDGEND (UK/Denmark 2015) ***

Directed by Jeppe Ronde

Starring: Hannah Murray, Josh O’Connor, Adrian Rawlins

Review by Gilbert Seah

BRIDGEND is the name of a Welsh town in Bridgend County in south west Wales. It is a beautiful town and the setting of the new English language Danish film photographed by Magnus Nordenhof Jønck and directed by Jeppe Ronde. If I knew how stunning the area was, I would have visited the place when I vacationed in Wales two years. ago.

But it is not the beauty of the town that is on display here. The beauty contrasts with dark goings-on that cannot be explained. Between December 2007 and January 2012 seventy-nine suicides were officially committed in the area. Most of the victims were teenagers, they hanged themselves and left no suicide notes. Danish documentary filmmaker Jeppe Rønde followed the teenagers from the area for six years and wrote the script based on their life stories.

Is it the water? What was the intent? Is it a mass murderer? Is there a cult at work? And why is it that it is always the parents who discover the suicides. The suicides take place in the woods. These are a few of the questions that spring to mind as Ronde’s film opens. But as the film progresses, it becomes clear that he wants the audience to focus on the people of the village, and how ordinary folk can turn angry and unpredictable.

When the film opens, teen Sara (Hannah Murray from GAME OF THRONES) follows her dad, Dave (Steven Waddington) as they arrive in the small town in Bridgend County. The town is haunted by suicides amongst its young inhabitants. As Sara starts hanging around teens her age, she eventually falls dangerously in love with one of the teenagers, Jamie (Josh O’Connor from THE RIOT CLUB) while Dave as the town’s new policeman tries to stop the mysterious chain of suicides.

The teens are shown by Ronde as teens are. They hang around their own, get drunk, have sex and the occasional high, from swimming naked in a cold stream or doing dangerous stunts with a speeding train. Ronde also show how irresponsible they are, often forcing his audience to take the side of the adults. The local vicar (Adrian Rawlins) has good intentions but the teens mock him. When it comes time to really help, he is at a loss what to do. “Go home,” is the best advice he can give to Sara when she is in time of need.

BRIDGEND is an accomplished debut about the mystery of the suicides. It reminds one of the classic Australian film. Peter Weir’s PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. Like that film, there are certain mysteries in life that can never be explained. Both films do not offer closure on the mysteries, but provide clues in helping the audience interpret the happenings. BRIDGEND finishes with a dreamy sequence that spoils the authentic feel Ronde had created. That is the main flaw of the film.

Jeppe is a director to watch. In 2013, he won a Gold Lion for Best Direction, plus a bronze for cinematography for Come4 ‘The Lover’, a seemingly seedy look at one man’s obsession with sex and prostitution, with a twist. The film also won the Craft Grand Prix at Eurobest.

BRIDGEND does not open in Canada this weekend but in NYC at Cinema Village on May 6th. However, the film can be viewed on the SVOD platform as it is released as a Fandor Exclusive Digital SVOD release on the same day. Fandor is available in Canada and North America only.

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Movie Review: SUNSET SONG (UK/Luxembourg 2015) ****

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Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

sunsetsong.jpgSUNSET SONG (UK/Luxembourg 2015) ****
Directed by Terence Davies

Starring: Mark Bonnar, Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, Kevin Guthrie

Review by Gilbert Seah

Terence Davies does David Lean in this adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel of the same name. SUNSET SONG is considered one of the most important Scots novels of the 20th century.

The central character is a young woman, Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn), growing up in a farming family in the fictional Estate of Kinraddie in The Mearns in the north east of Scotland at the start of the 20th century. Life is hard, and made even more difficult as her family is dysfunctional. An early scene shows the patriarch (actor/director Peter Mullan) beating his son Will (Jack Greenlee) for using the words, “Move over, Jehovah,” to a horse in the barn. “I hate him,” Will confesses to Chris that night. But an almost unwatchable scene has Will being flogged later on. Davies shows that more harm comes about from human beings than the land, which is the star of his movie.

SUNSET SONG is Davies’ first film to have a setting in the countryside. All his other works were city bound. Yet Davies manages to bring out great beauty in his films despite their limitations. In THE LONG DAY CLOSES, for example, he has an extended lengthy shot of a carpet in the room, as the sun sets through a window. SUNSET SONG allows him the entire open country as his new playing field. And he uses it at the start of the film, for example, with the wide expansion of wheat in the fields before the camera lingers on its heroine lying in a spot in the field. Davies again shows his fondness for song as his characters often break out into a ditty, though not as often in this film as in THE LONG DAY CLOSES. Davies is also well known for his beautiful tracking shots. These can be observed in segments when his camera scans the deserted battlefields or the village paths where the villagers march to church on a Sunday morning.

A lot happens in the story as time progresses. The First World War arrives and goes. Its impact on Chris Guthrie comes in the form of her husband Ian Pirie (Chae Strachan) who leaves her and returns a different person, often beating her as a result of his postwar trauma. This part is particularly difficult to take by the audience but it follows the style of the book. It is the frailty of human beings that cause trouble. Only the land endures.

Davies omits the incestuous relationship between Chris and her father in the film. In the book, the father tries to persuade Chris to have incest with him, but is unable to force her after suffering a stroke. In the film, the audience sees the father falling out of bed screaming for his daughter, Chris, reaching for the door knob only to have the door locked from the outside by Chris. Davies leaves the scene to be interpreted by the audience.

The film strongest moments occur between Chris and her father. During his funeral, Chris breaks down crying at her father’s casket, unable to leave him a farewell kiss. In reality, she is unable to feel the love for this man who has given up his life for the land and his family.

The title of the film and novel indicates the fond passing of the old, traditional ways and the coming of the new. SUNSET SONG is the first of Gibbon’s trilogy “A Scots Quair”. It would be very welcome if Davies undertook the next book in a sequel to this beautiful SUNSET SONG.

 

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Movie Review: RATCHET & CLANK (USA/Canada 2016) ***

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ratchet_and_clank.jpgRATCHET & CLANK (USA/Canada 2016) ***
Directed by Jericca Cleland and Kevin Munroe

Starring: James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Jim Ward, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Sylvester Stallone
Review by Gilbert Seah

One would definitely shudder of the news of yet another film based on a video game. Though the animated RATCHET & CLANK is one of those, the film is actually not that bad. It plays to what works best – safe bets as demonstrated in previous successful animated films.

The film’s protagonist, Ratchet (James Arnold Taylor) wants to be a Galactic Ranger – just as the rabbit protagonist in ZOOTPOIA wants to be a cop. While pursuing his ambition, Ratchet comes across a robot by the name of Clank (David Kaye) carrying important information on a planet with a desert landscape. The same premise happens with the character Rey and the robot carrying a message for Luke Skywalker in STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS. The most famous of the Galactic Rangers – Captain Owark (sounding like Captain Kirk) and voiced by Jim Ward has a figure modelled after the Buzz Lightyear character (Tim Allen) in the TOY STORY films. And the line of advice given by Grimroth Razz, Ratchet’s mechanic mentor (John Goodman) to Ratchet: “Don’t aim too high so that you will not get too disappointed,” is identical to the joke/advice given in ZOOTOPIA by the protagonist’s parents. It is uncanny how ZOOTOPIA and RACHET & CLANKS have these similarities.

One can keep on counting – the nods or similarities (depending how wants to look at it). But who really cares? The video game movie is well-intentioned for the kids and family and everything is done in relatively good taste without insult or injury.

The ‘original’ story begins with how the title characters first meet and how they attempt to save the Solana Galaxy from being destroyed by the villains of the piece, Chairman Drek (Paul Giamatti) and the Blarg. With Drek’s native planet Orxon having grown toxic and overpopulated, he sets about invading and plundering large chunks of rival planets to build a new super-sphere for his people. This is the same reason used by every film for an alien invasion of another planet.

The film features a number of the voice actors from the original video game series reprising their roles with a few new ones such as Giamatti, Taylor (as Ratchet) and believe it or not Sylvester Stallone.
The film is sufficiently colourful and the animation incentive enough providing harmless fun to entertain, without scaring the kids.

RATCHET & CLANK is a moderately budgeted independent animated movie. The film does will not outdo any Disney or other big studio animated features, but it should make a decent profit.

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Movie Review: NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT

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nomenbeyondthispoint.jpgNO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT (Canada 2015) **
Directed by Mark Sawers

Starring: Ali Skovbye, Rekha Sharma, Kirsten Robek

Review by Gilbert Seah

NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT has been accurately described by The Globe and Mail paper as ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’ meets Michael Moore.

The film is done in a comedic documentary style, the way director Michael Moore does his films like WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. and BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. The subject is fictitious, that of a female society in which men have no place in – as in Margaret Atwood’s A HANDMAID’S TALE.

The film setting is 1953 where it is documented that a pregnancy has occurred without sex. There is no intercourse involving men fertilizing the female’s egg in the ovary. Director Mark Sawers centres his film on a character by the name of Andrew Myers – supposedly the youngest man in the world. Not only have men been removed from the equation of reproduction, but all babies are now only female. He is hired as a nanny to do the ‘housewife’ chores in a family headed by two women.
To have his film made believable, Sawers spends a fair amount of screen time explaining how this fact of nature could come about. Through humorous mock interviews with doctors, experts and women, the composition of the baby in terms of XY, YY chromosomes are explained. It is also shown how the sperm is now prevented from entering the ovary through mock footage. All this is fine except that too much time in the film is spent on it, with the film being monotonous stressing a fact that has already being made made. But no explanation why only females are born except to point out that nature has taken a change in its course as men are obsolete.

Sawers spends time with Andrew’s family showing how a community will change without men. Females pair off. They might fall in love with each other or just live together for companionship because it is more convenient.

Also in the film are added a group of men that are unhappy with this fact. The reason is that men have ben forced (as they are now a minority) into all male sanctuaries where they just watch TV, play chess and can cause no harm. This forms the film’s funniest and most keenly observant segments.

But after spending all this time on the possible existence of a manless society, Sawers takes the opposite route. Andrew falls in love with one of the woman he works for. The couple become an ostracized couple, hunted down. The film looks much like the story of ZERO POPULATION GROWTH in which a couple have an extra child escape from authorities. It is at this point that Sawers’ film starts taking too much that it can chew. It abandons the documentary format and turns into a fiction film.

As it is a small budget film with no name actors, the amateurism of the performances also comes through loud and clear. The actor playing Andrew, for example looks totally out of place just as his character is out of place in the new world of women.

NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT is a film with an interesting enough concept that does not play out as well as expected. Too many issues and too much time is spent on authenticating the possibility of the premise.

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