PulpLit.net

Sweet Canada

When Canadian film critics discuss the great Canadian films, they invariably mention the works of David Cronenberg (Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch), Bruce MacDonald (Highway 61, Dance Me Outside), Denys Arcand (Jesus of Montreal Love & Human Remains, and The Decline of American Civilization), and Atom Egoyan (The Adjuster, Exotica, and The Sweet Hereafter). What is interesting about these films is that many of them are based on source material that is not particularly Canadian.

The best film of the bunch is probably Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, based on a novel by American author Russel Banks. "The Sweet Hereafter," despite its source material, struck me as the most uniquely Canadian movie that I had seen. This is open to debate, of course, but I submit that, because The Sweet Hereafter was directed/written by a Canadian, financed by Canadians, featured a mostly Canadian cast of actors, andwas shot entirely in Canada, the film is essentially Canadian. Indeed, like many Canadian productions, the film was at least partially financed by the Canadian government under the Canadian Film Development Corporation.

The Sweet Hereafter was Russell Banks' eleventh novel. Published in 1991, the novel was inspired by a tragic bus accident in Texas that claimed the lives of fourteen children. Banks relocated the action to northern New Hampshire, where most of his books are set. Banks' novel focuses on the aftermath of the accident, investigated by a slick big city lawyer, and on how grief affected the people of the fictional small town of Sam Dent, New Hampshire (which in the film becomes Sam Dent, British Columbia). The film was shot in two small towns in British Columbia while the urban scenes were filmed in Toronto. Both the novel and its film adaptation share a very cold landscape. It affects the emotions of the characters, who are often closed off and have trouble relating to other people as well as their environment.

The Sweet Hereafter has a large cast of characters, but it basically is told from the viewpoints of lawyer Mitchell Stephens(Ian Holm) and teen Nicole Burnell(Sarah Polley). Stephens has come to get the parents to sue the someone for damages. Nicole was the only survivor of the bus crash, and is now confined to a wheelchair. It is through these two characters that the audience comes to learn more about Sam Dent and its residents. At first, they seem relatively content, but they reveal many secrets as the film progresses. In many ways The Sweet Hereafter plays like a kinder, gentler version of the works of David Lynch, but Atom Egoyan shows more respect for the characters than Lynch usually does.

British actor Holm (who replaced Canadian actor Donald Sutherland at the last minute) is excellent as the lawyer who is keen to get the victims' families to sue either the bus driver or the city for wrongful death of the children. Early in the film, we learn that he is also touched by tragedy; he is estranged from his only daughter, a runaway who has become a drug addict. Interestingly, Holm speaks his dialogue in a kind of monotone that is strikingly similar to what some refer to as a Canadian accent.

Nicole Burnell, is superbly played by Polley, a gifted Canadian actress who even sings several songs in the film (two of which are by Canadian composers) used to comment on the action. Early in the film we see Nicole and the Sam Dent band perform a haunting version of the song "One More Colour" (by Jane Siberry, a Canadian performer) The song fits the movie perfectly, describing seemingly mundane things that add up to a significant whole. The other song performed -- "Courage" by Tragically Hip (perhaps Canada's most loved rock band) - could be sung by Nicole's father and the dark secrets he harbors.

Atom Egoyan's script follows Banks' novel closely, but he addsone important plot point that acts as a brilliant counter-point to the tragedy of the bus crash. In a scene set the night before the bus crash, Nicole reads from the Browning poem The Pied Piper of Hamlin to two of the doomed children she is baby-sitting. Just as in Hamlin, the residents of Sam Dent lose their children in an instant.

Canada's film awards are called "Genies" rather than Oscars. Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter won seven of them, as well as a "Grand Prize of the Jury" from the Cannes Film Festival, all in 1997. Interestingly, the film was awarded an Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film. Canada is still considered a foreign country, even in America.u

-----