Day 107: Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche (2004)

Being the nerd that I am, I spend the first break I had all week from classes investigting the school library. First week of law school and I'm already volunteering searching the university's library. I was somewhat shocked to find that they have quite an extensive video collection (including the entire Criterion DVD collection). I spent a good 30-mins walking back and forth down the aisles trying to decide on something to borrow, when I noticed this film. Weird Sex and Snowshoes is a book on Canadian film, and I managed to get a copy late last year (it's out of print and therefore less than easy to get) and I've been slowly reading it ever since. I was unaware that a documentary based loosely on the book had been made, and so I was intrigued. As I borrowed it, they stamped it with the return date (three day loan period) and I noticed that someone had borrowed it already this week with a return date of today - meaning someone else on campus went to the library during the first week of school and rented a documentary on Canadian film. Someone else here is just as a big film nerd as me. If only I had a way to meet this person.

The documentary touched lightly on a lot of the issues raised in the book, mainly trying to define what makes Canadian Film. I spent a whole course in my undergrad trying to answer that question, and ultimately we found the question to be unanswerable. It's pretty much the same answer that the film comes up. The film raises a lot of themes that are present in Canadian films, and accompanies this with various dialogue from Canadian filmmakers on both their own films and the Canadian film industry. The film was enjoyable to watch, though I didn't learn anything new. Though I did get the name of a number of Canadian films I hadn't heard of which I will now have to check out. The film would provide a good introduction to a film course on Canadian film, or as an introduction to someone completely unaware of what Canadian film looked like, but beyond that initial introduction it lacks any real depth.