FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead

Scene from Before the Rains

One film on my radar this month is the documentary Blindsight, the audience award winner in Berlin, Palm Springs and Los Angeles. The documentary follows six blind Tibetan teenagers as they set about climbing the 23,000-foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest. Apparently, Tibetan Buddhists treat the blind as outcasts, believing that the affliction is a punishment for misdeeds in a previous life.

Director Lucy Walker (Devil’s Playground) follows Sabriye Tenberken, a German educator whose Braille Without Borders school helps blind kids cope with their condition. To lead the expedition, she enlists the support of US climber Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Everest. While the film has been praised for the way it captures the natural drama of the Himalayas and the dangers involved in such a venture, Walker’s depiction of the conflict that arises between the US goal orientated climbers driving to get to the top of the mountain and educator Tenberken, who believes that they should be taking a more considered approach to the challenge for the kids to get the most out of it, is excellent. The film screens at the Vancouver International Film Centre, July 18-30.

Before the Rains is an enjoyable period drama, in the mold of Merchant Ivory, set in Kerala India in 1937, just before the end of British rule. Henry Moores (Linus Roache), a debonair, English spice baron, believes that, by building a private road through a mountainous forest, he will earn his fortune. His loyal Indian foreman “T.K.” (Rahul Bose) is keen to help him, while also hoping to fulfill his own ambitions of making something of himself and bringing India another step forward into modernity. However, as the movement for independence gathers momentum, ominous clouds are forming on the horizon. Will the creditors cut the project short? Will Moore’s extra-marital affair with Sajani (the lovely Nandita Das), one of the servant girls, imperil everything? Who does T.K. owe his loyalty to?

With sweeping rainforest vistas and impressive scenes of the building of the road, the film is easy on the eye, and the story is straightforward with the direction competently handled. I suspect that director Santosh Sivan has a subtler eye, although he is obviously catering here to a mainstream audience. The strength of the piece lies in the performances of the two male leads, which lift a spare script off the page and make this film much more than just a run-through of familiar Fall of the Raj themes. (Opens in Vancouver on July 4.)

Robert Greenwald has made a name for himself for his pioneering distribution strategies as much for his politically charged documentaries, such as Outfoxed and WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price. He and his company Brave New Films have been at the forefront of self-distribution techniques, using the web and a huge activist network to launch new releases on thousands of community screens across North America. Having proven the effectiveness of self-distribution, he’s recently opened up his network to all independent filmmakers with a new venture called The Brave New Theaters (www.bravenewtheaters.com). Using the tools provided by social networking sites, BNT connects indie filmmakers with people who want to screen the films and those who want to see them.

Hopefully, this venture will raise the profile of participating filmmakers (self included) and give people more choice about what films they see. It’s good to know that if you wanted to screen an indie film here in Vancouver, you wouldn’t require a license for many of the films. As well as Greenwald’s own docs, there’s a pile on the war in Iraq, and many quality films such as John Sayles’ latest Honeydripper, David Zeiger’s Sir! No Sir! and Martin O’Brien’s Freedom Fuels.

Robert Alstead made the Vancouver-set bicycle documentary You Never Bike Alone, available on DVD at www.youneverbikealone.com