I’m still coming down from the brain-frazzling task of compiling our Summer Movie Preview issue, but there are still a few other things happening in town this week that deserve your attention.
For example: if you’re a martial-arts enthusiast planning to see Kung Fu Panda 2 this weekend, you’ll probably want to know about the free screening of Bodyguards & Assassins at the Toronto Underground Cinema at 8 pm Saturday.
Set in 1905, Teddy Chan’s vaguely fact-based actioner re-creates the race to get Chinese political leader Sun Yat-Sen – who’s arrived in Hong Kong with a price on his head – to an historic meeting. It’s basically a kung-fu version of the Bruce Willis actioner 16 Blocks, with a lot more wire work and Donnie Yen … and it’s exactly the sort of oversized action movie that needs to throw itself across a really big screen. The DVD doesn’t do it justice, so this presentation – courtesy of Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival in honour of Asian Heritage Month – is gonna be fun.
On an entirely different note, Wednesday brings the latest in TIFF Cinematheque’s Free Screen series. This time, the spotlight falls on The Perlin Papers, a collection of short films by the Brooklyn visual artist Jenny Perlin.
The Perlin Papers uses the FBI’s domestic surveillance operations relating to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg espionage case to examine American attitudes during the early years of the Cold War. Perlin comes at it sideways, combining animation, live-action and found footage to examine historical events through an individual experience.
Her work is difficult to explain, though it makes effortless sense when viewed you could call it experimental, but I think “interpretive documentary” better suits her intentions. And if you wander down to the Lightbox at 7 pm Wednesday, you can ask her about it yourself.
