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Leila Marshy

Soul Man

Charles Bradley rolls in to town on a song and a prayer

by Leila Marshy
10.05.2013

It’s hard to watch a 60 year old man settle down to bed under tattered blankets in a dank basement. But it’s doubly tragic when you know the man is in possession of one of the most soulful voices of his generation. “I don’t have a life,” Charles Bradley says as he describes how he spends most of his meagre resources taking care of his elderly mother. Nor does he have a career.

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PLAYLIST

5 Songs: Beautiful

A music genre is like a box of chocolates: EAT IT

by Leila Marshy
01.05.2013

Ask somebody what type of music they like and they’ll name a genre. Rap, hip hop, alternative, indie, metal, classical, jazz, folk. Sometimes, if you’re in outlying territory, or at Thanksgiving, you might even hear country. Who cares. It’s rarely honest anyways. Am I going to admit that sometimes I like country? No. And you didn’t hear it from me either. Why do we define music by these kinds of genres anyways? There are other genres, and my favourite of them is Beautiful.

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FILM

Wall and Chain

Triumph of the Wall: Life as a Work in Progress, dir Bill Stone, Cinéma Excentris, April 12 - 18

by Leila Marshy
11.04.2013

Chris Overing is not quite Sisyphus, but a couple of years into his project of building a stone wall you have to wonder what he’s being punished for. Not that he entertains such thoughts. “This is art,” he asserts. How do we know it’s art? “If it’s insane and you’re still doing it, well it must be art.”

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FILM

Let Slip the Dogs of War

The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, Cinema Excentris, March 28

by Leila Marshy
27.03.2013

Remember when you made that touchdown in high school? Or your first job? Or the time you saved a dog from drowning? Remember your first kiss? Remember that village you massacred? Whoa minute, as they say in French. There’s something wrong with this picture. Welcome to the surreal reality of modern-day Indonesia, where the gangsters and thugs are pop stars and their greatest hits include rape, pillage and torture.

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FILM

Amour, Actually

Amour, dir. Michael Haneke

by Leila Marshy
14.02.2013

Michael Haneke’s films are stark and merciless. In La Pianiste, a woman lives in an emotional prison, sharing a life, an apartment and even a bed with her elderly mother. Love, when it comes, is torture. In Caché, a man’s comfortable family life crumbles under the threat of scrutiny. As intimate as both those films are, they don’t come close to the stripped down relentlessness of Amour. Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be. And then you die.

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NEIGHBOURHOOD

Artist Next Door

Patsy Van Roost invites you to be a Valentine

by Leila Marshy
06.02.2013

The postman might not always ring twice, but if you’re lucky she’ll pick your door and knock nicely. A few things have to be just right though. You have to live in a particular Montreal village and your factrice has to be Patsy Van Roost, probably the most inventive, determined and whimsical letter carrier you’ll ever meet.

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POLITICS

All Hail the Chief

Visiting Chief Theresa Spence on day 26 of her hunger strike, Ottawa

by Leila Marshy
07.01.2013

The first thing you notice when you head down to Victoria Island from the bridge linking Ottawa and the Gatineau is the frontier-style village and a large sign that promises “Aboriginal Experiences.” Surely somebody is being ironic.

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Christmas at the End of the World

Do the Shuffle

Zombie Mama, you can't go home again

by Leila Marshy
21.12.2012

If this isn’t the last day on Earth, well maybe it should be. Seriously, planet, what have we done for you lately? It’s not like you haven’t warned us: glaciers splitting in half, oceans solidifying with islands of garbage, entire forests reduced to cinders. Oh yeah, and the Mayan calendar. What do you get for it? Nut jobs like the “preppers” who prepare for the end of the world by digging deep, stockpiling their guns, and vowing to shoot at anything that moves. Nice.

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TASTE

Rolling in the Dough

A little bit of barter with your butter?

by Leila Marshy
11.12.2012

Cerys Wilson is a baker without an oven. Or at least she was last Wednesday when I interviewed her about her new venture the Bread Exchange, an online platform where she exchanges her bread for other people’s skills. “A minor glitch in the system,” she laughs. “They promise me it will be fixed by tomorrow.” For Wilson, who calls herself an independent baker, the oven is a case in point, highlighting both the frustrations and expense that “going it alone” can incur.

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MUSIC

Sing!

Choeur Maha, Ukrainian Federation, December 8

by Leila Marshy
04.12.2012

Like a hum that builds to a song, Choeur Maha, the Plateau-based women’s choir, has become a Montreal institution. While they play only a handful of concerts a year, and are releasing only their second CD, affection for them is palpable and concerts are love-ins.

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TRENDS

Black Friday Indeed

Instant karma's gonna get you

by Leila Marshy
23.11.2012

Why are all my Facebook friends wishing each other Happy Thanksgiving and jumping up and down about Black Friday? Most of them are either Canadian or from abroad. I give a pass to the maybe 10% who are shouting out to their American friends or family. The rest, I can only conclude, are going to bed dreaming vicariously of Blue Rays, iPad minis and even flatter screens. This, people, is how the world ends.

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FILM

Without a Paddle

Living Downstream, dir. Chanda Chevannes, Cinéma Québècois, Oct 30

by Leila Marshy
29.10.2012

Although banned by the European Union, atrazine is the most widely used chemical pesticide in the world. Sprayed on agricultural fields throughout Canada and the US, it is soluble in water, evaporates in the heat, and travels hundreds of miles in one gust of wind. Sandra Steingraber believes it may be the reason she got cancer.

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THEATRE

Death Wish

Interview: Jen Capraru, Seventh Seal, DB Clarke Theatre, October 18-21

by Leila Marshy
16.10.2012

“Who are you?”
“I am Death.”
“Have you come to fetch me?”
“I have long walked by your side.”
“Wait a moment.”
“You all say that.”

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FILM

Prepare to Submit to the Master

The Master, dir Paul Thomas Anderson

by Leila Marshy
07.10.2012

At a time when almost the entire movie industry is being defined by consumer-grade digital SLRs, The Master is the rare film to be shot on 65 mm (and screened in 70 mm). The last to go big format was over 15 years ago (Kenneth Brannagh’s Hamlet). It’s a relief to see a movie whose big screen beauty and panoramic impact is not in the service of car chases, guts splattering against a wall, or hands reaching out to lop off your head.

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BOOKS

Out, Damned Spot

The Lebanese Dishwasher, by Sonia Saikaley, Quattro Books

by Leila Marshy
30.09.2012

Let us praise the novella. The orphan child of the novel; the banished cousin of the short story. The form that invites suspicion from publishers and disdain from readers. Who bothers to print these thin things? Why spend good money on such a small book? Quick to repell those burning questions, publishers and readers alike flock to super-sized slurpees of literature that leave you feeling full and sometimes a little nauseous (anybody finish The Pale King? really?).

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