Last night the 29th Annual Genie Awards (The Canadian Oscars) were awarded to the best of Canadian cinema. Much as the Oscars sometimes do, the Genies decided to go for spectacle over substance, which might explain why the overblown war epic "Passchendaele" was awarded best picture. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you might recall a few months ago I wrote a piece on my thoughts of the film.
I haven't seen most of the nominated films, however I did see one other nominee "Amal" which was a small fable of an Indian driver who's kindness to a dying millionaire causes him to inherit his entire fortune. The film was well made and stood out as much stronger to me than "Passhendaele". Gone from the list of nominees was Guy Maddin's masterpiece "My Winnipeg" which was instead nominated for Best Documentary but lost perhaps because it can't be clearly thought of as a documentary. In fact "Up the Yangzte" which was one of the most powerful documentaries I saw all year won the award.
Despite my thoughts on "Passchedaele" it was clear by honoring the film, the Genies were trying to honor the importance of Canadian culture in their films. I cannot judge them too harshly as I myself have not seen most of the films nominated. One thing the Genies does is point us Canadians towards films we should be more familiar with.
1 comment:
Very strange win, as it wasn't really well received by anyone... even if they were rewarding Canadian culture, I would think, My Winnipeg would be a far better ode to Canadiana than this :/
Post a Comment