Director Vincenzo Nappi has featured on Warped Perspective a few times before: in fact, I’d go so far as to say that we’ve been following his career. First, the site covered First Bite, a fairly straightforwardly horror short film about – yep – vampires; then there was Filtered, around a year later, which featured some of the very current anxieties around technology and tech horror, as much as it offers just a hint of these in its oh-so brief runtime. And now, as it gears up to screen at this year’s Fantasia, there’s something altogether different.
I don’t know how you’d define Oh…Canada, and that is a bit of a bind as a) a reviewer, and b) someone who has actually just seen the film from end to end. But let’s try: Oh…Canada has a few surprisingly gory moments, but it’s not a horror. In fact, it’s a narrative film either. It pops up as a kind of mock up, retro advertisement for the pleasures of living in that great nation. It’s bilingual; it’s at least at first comedic; it spends more time featuring puppets and animation than live actors. We’re shown – in a roundabout way, with a visual style refracted through different kinds of layering – the joys of the open countryside, the flora and fauna (especially the beaver, emblem of the Canadians for its homesteading and resourcefulness) and overall, what makes Canada great.
But even across a six-minute runtime, the film grows increasingly oddball and sinister: it does have a political point or two to make, even if it gets to these via puppetry and the representation of faux patriotic pride (when you hear a national anthem in a film of this genre – well, get ready). As the film rolls to a close, what we are left with is a surreptitious version of Canada as a place which isn’t, actually, in the best condition. There are hints of environmental concerns, and issues around power and policing in society – even if addressed briefly, these are the main take-away from the film. It just happens to make those points in quite a strange, inventive – if brusque – manner.
Of course, in a short film it can be tricky to land heavyweight points, even if that’s your stated aim, and what we instead have here is a creative and deliberately stagey approach, blending a nub of a political point with a film geared around its particular visual style. It is creative, even if it can feel like it’s being pulled in two different directions, and it’s a world away from the narrative snapshot of the likes of First Bite – which is where this reviewer personally feels that Nappi’s strengths lie. But full points for taking on something wholly different in tone and style, diversifying the old filmography, and working in a different way.
Oh…Canada features as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.