Stephen Thirlwall
This March, the International Film Festival of Ottawa (IFFO) made a big splash with over 30 foreign films accompanied by exciting Canadian short films, all readily accessible to Centretowners.
The IFFO is the newest of the festivals organized by the Canadian Film Institute, an 89-year-old organization whose mandate is to encourage the production, distribution, study, appreciation of use of film in Canada and abroad.
Over the years, the CFI has developed the Ottawa International Animation Festival, several Canadian series, and more specialized series like the European Union and Latin American Film Festivals.
The IFFO presents top-level films from around the world, many of which might never otherwise have come to Ottawa or Canada. For 2024, it neatly wove together not only a series of films, but a cooperative network of venues. Ottawa’s independent theatres (the ByTowne, the Mayfair, the Ontario Art Gallery Salon, and the Arts Court Theatre) each played a share of the films.
The festival is supported by a wide range of sponsors, including all levels of governments, Carleton University, Algonquin College, some local radio stations, foreign embassies, and large and small corporations.
Why such a surge of interest in foreign films?
The Canadian population has become far more international: foreign films can contribute to understanding the effects of immigration on our national identity, what cultural changes are needed, how to integrate diversity, and how to provide newcomers a contact with their past homelands. Without exposure to foreign films, we would miss out on new perspectives and experiencing imaginative and cinematic genius, as well as many cultural lessons.
Each culture and language group expresses itself differently, and all these expressions are based on valid human experiences. While we all share certain experiences, traits, and practices, there are also many differences.
Film allows us to share these together and gain a much wider and deeper understanding of humanity. Being able ourselves to see with these other eyes gives us a more 3-D view of everything and opens us up to new possibilities in arts, science, technology and culture.
The North American film industry works within many limitations. How many remakes of films can we watch before plots become stagnant? How much CGI can we stand? While some is wonderful, it also removes a lot of humanity.
Beauty and heroism are presented in such narrow terms. Actors and actresses have to undergo so much facial and body surgery or muscle building to fit the accepted model. This is clearly visible to audiences.
In almost all the foreign films I have seen, there is much more acceptance of body types and identities of people. Within British, French ,and some other European films, there is a far greater integration of different races, cultures, identities in the stories and some of the major roles, than in American films. Even pieces from past generations are inclusive. All of this hits closer to reality and brings forward the cultural challenges we face in a constructive way. Separating into all-white or all-black films doesn’t achieve this.
The exchange of films between Canada and other countries also allows Canada to promote its cinematic successes and vice versa.
A review of one foreign film
You can also see foreign films year-round at Ottawa’s independent theatres. For example, the film Perfect Days, directed by Wim Wenders, was at the Mayfair in March.
This film follows the life of a middle aged Japanese man, Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), who is very isolated in his life. He has very little and lives simply, working hard and very conscientiously every weekday as a toilet cleaner of public washrooms. The film follows him through his workdays and weekends.
Every morning he arises and folds up his sleeping mat and bedding. He collects his work supplies, loading them in his van. From a drink dispenser, he gets a can of coffee, then drives to each toilet site and cleans. At lunch he sits in the same seat in a park to eat store-made sandwiches.
His break is to look up at the tree canopies and watch the sunlight filter through the leaves. Taking out his camera, he photographs this view. Once a week, he takes his film to get printed and collects his last set of pictures, mostly of the tree canopy.
After work he goes out to a restaurant (always the same one. Everyone knows him) for a modest dinner. All of this time, he barely speaks a word. You think he is mute, until finally he speaks a few short sentences.
Evenings and weekends, he goes for bike rides around the city. Once a week, he goes to the same small club (where everyone knows him). A black woman there sings the blues.
The one thing in his life that he does own a lot of is music cassettes. In Japanese second hand trade, one cassette can be worth $200 or more (e.g., Lou Reed). Hirayama seems to have hundreds but would not part with any for money. He plays them in his van and at home: The Animals (The House of the Rising Sun), Van Morrison, and other British, American, or Japanese pop.
The film ends with the black woman singing “Feelin’ Good”, a song made famous by Nina Simone: “It’s a new dawn, and a new day, and a new life for me, and I’m feeling good” – followed by him driving to work next morning with a bright smile bursting onto his face, then cutting to the sun coming through the leaves.
Hirayama’s philosophy of life becomes fully exposed at the end. Every instant is different from the one before, each perfect. Life and the world are always changing. Even though each of his days appears the same, it is new and different and brings joy. He is spurned by his sister, who thinks he has to aspire to become wealthy, but that is not for him.
The film avoids boredom and repetition because every scene is taken from a new angle and involves different elements of the full scene. You come to appreciate Hirayama’s life and see his joy. If we actually admit it, our own lives are full of repetitive routines. How we view them determines how we feel. This is a film about finding peace, meaning and beauty in life.
Seeing Japan’s rather fancy and beautifully designed public toilets, and the care which he gave them, immediately made me think of the absence of these in Centretown.