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Conquest [imdb] [viff] Dir: Piers Haggard Country: Canada Shoes Off! [viff] Dir: Mark Sawers Country: Canada

Shoes Off

At first I was rather annoyed that the filmmaker was making a biography about me without my permission. Then I actually started liking this Vancouver-made short film. It was actually well-scripted, well-acted and well-produced. Very odd for a local film. There was a very vocal cheering section for the film, and several of the people involved were in attendance. Cute good film. That's all.

Conquest

Before the film started, while I was making Saskatchewan jokes with my the wife of one of my bosses (not knowing that was her Province of Origin... oops) the director introduced the film by saying "this is a film about the Canadian Praries told by a Brit." Well, yes it is.

After the film was over, the annoying man sitting to my left (who answered all the bird calls with a low whistle of his own) said with pride, "well that certainly was a Canadian film." Well, yes it was. How unfortunate.

Conquest would have had it all if only someone had done something with that script. There were good actors (although dealing with conversations between a Quebecois accent and a British accent were a bix aurally taxing), excellent scenery, fabulously well-developed characters.... but the words coming out of their mouths were trite, dull, silly, or just plain poorly written. Fix the dialogue!

Sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, I could swear someone hit "fast forward" on the character development machine- it was as if they instantly went forward in time, dragging the plot behind them like a drunk cowboy off a horse. I found myself thinking "why did they just say that?" at several points in the movie.

Oh- and the symbols. Man.... Could they be more obvious? I'm fine with symbolism, but let's keep it subtle, folks. These symbols had big flashy neon signs on them saying "HEY! LOOK HERE! THIS IS A SYMBOL!! DID YOU NOTICE???"

Yes, it's a Candian film. Pity.