Review: Not all Hot Docs’ films are traditional documentaries (Includes first-hand account)

In most film festivals, there are a number of films that don’t easily fit into other categories. At the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, those movies are put in the “Nightvision” programme. It’s here that audiences can find bizarre tales of horror, sex and outlandishness. We look at two films from this programme: Fear Itself and Nuts!

A female voice guides the audience through countless clips from horror movies going as far back as 1922. The films originate from a range of countries and collect titles from the obscure to mainstream. She relates real-life horrific incidents of death and illness as various scenes play across the screen, contemplating an often asked question of fans’ relationship to the material and what role it fills in their lives.

In spite of the footage being unrelated to the voiceover, the editing often creates subtle connections between the words and images. It’s easy to become absorbed in one or the other, briefly losing track of what was just said or seen. Scenes of Nosferatu lurking in the shadows are juxtaposed with Freddy Krueger’s victims being terrorized in a dream theatre, Dario Argento’s moody style and Roman Polanski’s erratic depiction of insanity. Yet none of the selected moments are the film’s most notorious or horrific, as Lyne chooses to convey fear via his script rather than the screen.

Using archival images and hand-drawn animations, director Penny Lane relates the “somewhat-true” tale of how Dr. John Romulus Brinkley convinced a population of men in 1917 that the miracle cure for erectile dysfunction and infertility was goat testicles. He was not instructing them to ingest them though; no, he was surgically implanting them. Unsurprisingly the popular procedure raised eyebrows and caught the attention of regulators; but it also spurred an unexpected crossover to politics and radio.

The narrator doesn’t conceal his own shock at the story’s peculiarities, allowing his tone to echo the audience’s disbelief. The 20-year journey is filled with humour and skepticism, and recounted in a manner that matches its more fantastic qualities. Brinkley seems to have been quite a character and Lane does an excellent job capturing his personality via the comics and narration.

Showtimes and ticket information can be found on the festival website.

Similar Posts

  • Review: Hot Docs doesn’t want anyone left in the dark on these issues (Includes first-hand account)

    While not all documentary cinema needs to be serious or enlightening, these films certainly have an important place in the genre. Following the old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” a movie can only further illustrate issues not easily explained or provide evidence of an overarching problem. At Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, the “silence breakers” programme features films in which its subjects are drawing attention to topics that require our consideration and demonstrating that there are people trying to instil change. And in a slightly different context, a different political commentary was slipped into the “artscapes” category this year.

  • Review: The best reason to have a ‘Bad Reputation’ (Includes first-hand account)

    One of the great things about film in recent years is their increased (and somewhat begrudging) willingness to tell female stories. In some cases, it’s hard to believe they weren’t told before and in others it’s easy to see they couldn’t have been told correctly until now. But as others have said, seeing oneself on-screen is a powerful thing and women at the forefront have been grossly underrepresented in spite of comprising half the world’s population. That, of course, doesn’t mean they haven’t been doing great things — just that no one was sharing them with the masses. In Bad Reputation, audiences learn about Joan Jett‘s barrier-smashing music career.

  • Review: Hot Docs’ ‘PACmen’ expands on craziness of the 2016 US election (Includes first-hand account)

    The American electoral system is a strange beast with many influencing heads. The system itself is questionably multi-tiered, while it seems an unknown number of external groups can also attempt to sway the vote in their desired direction. In 2010, two Supreme Court decisions led to the creation of the political action committee (PAC), which made it legal for these entities to engage in unlimited political spending as long they did not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties. Unlike traditional PACs, a super PAC can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size. In 2015, PACmen became the first film to go behind the curtain of one of these groups.

  • Review: ‘The Price We Pay’ fails to uncomplicate costs of tax avoidance (Includes first-hand account)

    Globalization and the state of the economy continues to be a hot topic of analysis, accusations, recommendations and predictions. Recovery after the recent worldwide financial crisis has looked different in most countries as governments sought appropriate ways to bolster their markets and support their citizens; expectedly, some have been more successful than others. But most democratic nations are built around the concept of a welfare state in which taxes are used to support publicly funded programs and infrastructure that protect and promote the well-being of its citizens. The Price We Pay provides an in-depth exploration of how companies are avoiding their “fair” contribution to this system and the consequences of their actions, particularly on the middle class.