City of Shadows (Kim Nguyen, 2010): Canada

Reviewed by Gillian Weiner. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

“City of Shadows” is about a tale involving a man named Maxime Vincent (Jean-Marc Barr) who tries to return home after fulfilling his duties as a doctor during a war in North Africa. He has seen horrible things during his time at war and wants nothing more then to leave. However, once a “plague” hits the town he is staying at before he leaves all Herenites, the local villagers, are quarantined by order of the British military stationed there. Kim Nguyen, the director, spells out the plague by showing dead rats on the side of the streets. Nguyen spells out a lot of aspects in the film, the dead rats is the start of its downfall.

As much as Max wants nothing to do with the Herenites his boat doesn’t come for another several weeks making him stuck. While the days pass he becomes more and more interested in the “plague” and what it’s doing to the villagers. After they are quarantined Max becomes nosey and starts to look for answers. He then realizes the “plague” is a hoax and put on by one of the British lieutenants. Max makes it his job to help the Herenites and set them free. They write their stories on dried leaves from the sacred tree and set them free into the wind to let fall above the city. The message is heard and then Herenites are set free the mountains, which they sent; however Max doesn’t live to rejoice with his newfound family.

The beautiful shots of the village and mountains were amazing, but that’s almost it. This film lacked a huge factor of answering the question: “why do I care?” The experience of the narrative lacked a certain detail that should make the audience care. At one point, when Max was ordered to be disinfected by the soldiers the audience laughed because the disinfection process looked funny especially with the ridiculous, long-nosed masks the soldiers wore. The editing seemed sloppy with any lack of thought to the story line. Max spoke seldom but even when he did what he had to say wasn’t that important. It seemed like this movie relied on their acting and story line to produce an amazing film; however, nothing worked. Many aspects of the film seemed staged making the feel of watching this film very awkward. It was almost like when a new scene would begin any movement in the shot would begin one second after the scene started. This made everything feel staggered and inorganic.

This was the only Canadian movie that disappointed me. Every other film in the Canadian bloc of the festival was spot on, this film unfotunatley lacked many things that the other Canadian films