PDXFF ’16: On the Farm

Victorian Londoners might have their faults, but they cared enough about their prostitutes to create a firestorm of alarm over the Ripper murders. Unfortunately, late 1990s/early millennial Vancouver was apathetic enough to allow Robert Pickton to murder forty-nine marginalized women before he was finally acknowledged and caught. Bizarrely, the historical record is even worse than the dramatized survivors’ stories in Rachel (Tank Girl) Talalay’s On the Farm (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Portland Film Festival.

Initially, only Constable Sindead McLeod, whose beat includes the Red Light district, recognizes the obvious signs of a serial killer at work. The prostitutes themselves try to take protective measures, but drug addiction and general desperation keep leading them into bad decisions, like getting into the pick-up truck of millionaire hog farmer Robert Pickton (known simply as “the Farmer” in OTF). He already had a bad reputation among the sex-workers, but he had a knack for finding street walkers jonesing for a hit.

Nikki Taylor is a First Nations prostitute based on a real life escapee from Pickton’s farm of horrors, but her timeline is radically different. In real life, Pickton was briefly tried for her attempted murder, but the prosecution was dropped for reasons of incompetence well before the grisly discoveries on his now infamous hog farm.

Pickton appears only briefly in OTF (but Ben Cotton’s wild eyes and tangled David Koresh hair are eerily spot-on). Instead, Talalay and screenwriter Dennis Foon (adapting Stevie Cameron’s expose) focus on Taylor’s harrowing ordeal and the career-threatening risks McLeod and a handful of RCMP task force colleagues willingly run to stop the killings.

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is frighteningly convincing as Taylor, never whitewashing any of her infuriating junkie realities. She truly could be her own worst enemy. Probably the most recognizable cast member, Tantoo Cardinal delivers the film’s teaching moments with welcome understatement as Taylor’s mother. Patrick Gallagher (Attila the Hun in the Night at the Museum franchise) nicely anchors the film with hardnosed grit as RCMP Jeff Keeley. Sara Canning is competent enough as McLeod, but she lacks similar presence.

OTF had a special community premiere before it aired on Canadian television, but the CBC production’s small screen origins are always pretty evident. Viewers can see the spaces where the commercials would be plugged in. Still, Talalay steadily cranks up the tension and the outrage, reducing viewers to a near state of apoplexy. It is a safe bet Judge James Williams is not a fan, but it is undeniably effective as a procedural with a social conscience. Recommended for Law & Order and Da Vinci’s Inquest fans, On the Farm screens this Saturday (9/3) as part of this year’s Portland Film Festival.

PDXFF ’16: Wizard Mode

You might think pinball machines are veritable museum pieces, but they are still cranking out new machines, often licensing hit films and TV series, like Avatar, 24, and Game of Thrones (you know that one must have a special place in GRRM’s hacienda). It would be fascinating to learn the economics of this apparently still viable industry, but sorry, you are in for some feel-good moral uplift instead. Jeff Petry & Nathan Drillot follow Robert E. Gagno, a high-functioning, highly ranked autistic competitive pinball player in Wizard Mode (trailer here), the opening film of the 2016 Portland Film Festival.

If the only thing you can think of right now is The Who’s Tommy, you are not alone. Petry & Drillot will duly play a cover of “Pinball Wizard” over the closing credits, but they scrupulously avoid all references until then. As fr they are concerned, this is strictly Gagno’s show. Fortunately, for the filmmakers and everyone watching their finished product, Gagno is rather sociable and sympathetic. Granted, he is somewhat socially awkward, but keep in mind, he is Canadian. You know, they have long winters up there and few people. One could argue he is doing rather well, all things considered.

For that, Gagno and his supportive parents credit pinball. It was one of the few things Gagno could lock-in on during his childhood years and he now considers it the key to his socialization. However, viewers might have a more ambiguous judgment on pinball as they watch him struggle under the pressure of championship match play.

Gagno is a nice young man working to find his place in the world, but we get the essence of his story early on. Frankly, most viewers will be more seduced by the flashing lights and old school gaming terms, like “multi-ball,” “wizard mode,” and the dreaded “tilt.” The history and scrappy survival of pinball machine development could well be the stuff of a terrific feature-length documentary—and many will wish this had been that.

However, if first and foremost you are looking for niceness than Petry & Drillot have you covered multiple times over. We really could have done without the long conversations regarding hugging. Still, once you get past those, most viewers will agree, the Gagnos truly look like super-parents and REG (as they call him) deserves credit for becoming a gainfully employed, productive member of society. That is more than three-quarters of the residents of our nation’s capital could say for themselves. Earning a mild recommendation (perhaps partly to avoid looking mean), Wizard Mode screens this coming Tuesday (8/30) and Friday (9/2) during this year’s Portland Film Festival.