VIFF - Day 11 - "Fifty Dead Men Walking"

Let me count how many movies I've viewed in the past 10 days...9. Which means I should've purchased a 10 feature pass to this year's VIFF (Vancouver International Film Festival). Though I have to admit this year I've watched more VIFF presentations than I have in the 8 or so years I've attended the festival. I think my past record peaks at about 5 or 6 screenings.

Today's festival fare which I attended was "Fifty Dead Men Walking", a film with a bit of controversy already riding its wake. Which is understandable considering its subject material: a fictionalized telling of the story of an informant working for the British who has risen within the ranks of the IRA. It seems that if you do a search in Google with the film's title you'll find more results about the controversies surrounding the movie than about the movie itself.

What I felt the film impressed on me was not anything about the nature or background of "The Troubles". I saw the story as being one focused on a person who, rather unremarkable at the start of the story, manages to survive progressively dangerous and difficult situations. As a crime thriller movie the film worked well. The tension that surrounds a character with the burden of protecting his young family while he carries on his work as an informant is projected quite well in the script.

I'm not quite sure how this film fares in terms of any claim to neutrality with respect to describing the context of the story it tells. There are somewhat obligatory shots of Republican and Unionist trappings, footage of confrontations with riot police and the British army along with glimpses of Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley. Those clips are short enough to provide some indication of the context of the story and they seemed to be concentrated in the first half or so of the film. News clips are interspersed in the mid to latter part of the film to depict the impact of the main character's actions. For me those snippets weren't enough to make me feel that the film was taking sides. But that's just my take on it...


PS: The very first ever VIFF film screening I attended: Otomo Katsuhiro's "Akira" at the Hollywood theatre on Broadway. That was back in 1988 or 1989 I think. I don't remember if the movie was subtitled in English or dubbed in English. But it was packed house...and the audience laughed at the scene where a bandaged Tetsuo makes his way down a hospital corridor to the strains of "Da! Da-da-dan!" playing in the soundtrack.