Escape to Canada
Directed and written by Albert Nerenberg
Classification: PG
Rating: *½
In the spring of 2003, an Ontario court legalized gay marriage while the federal Liberal party introduced a bill to decriminalize the possession of marijuana. There followed in Canada a mini summer of love, as province after province celebrated its first gay wedding and pot activists profited from a legal limbo to start smoking in public. By September, The Economist, that bastion of thoughtful conservatism, had plopped a moose in sunglasses on its cover to celebrate "Canada's new spirit."
Was it a social trend or merely a coincidence, asks Canadian filmmaker Albert Nerenberg, best known as the guy behind the 2003 documentary Stupidity and the World Stupidity Awards. His sassy new documentary Escape to Canada stacks up the incidents, interviews the players, makes repeated comparisons with the United States - and comes to absolutely no conclusion at all. It's a film that can find neither its theme nor its audience, and is now being rapidly overtaken by events.
As pithily and wittily as he can, with much fast editing and pulsating music, Nerenberg tells us things that happened: An Ontario court ruling threw the constitutionality of marijuana possession laws into doubt; a gay couple known affectionately as the Michaels won the right to marry; Vancouver entrepreneurs opened pot cafes; foreign gay couples flocked to Toronto for weddings; American authorities sought to extradite B.C. pot activist Marc Emery for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet; U.S. President George W. Bush proposed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman; the Supreme Court of Canada closed the marijuana loophole, and so on.
There's no mistaking Nerenberg's point of view: He juxtaposes red-faced evangelist Jimmy Swaggart bombastically denouncing gay marriage as an abomination with footage of two perfectly charming lesbians blinking back snowflakes as they say their vows. However, this initially amusing doc quickly loses both its smarts and its comedy because Nerenberg has mistaken a topic and an attitude for a theme. It is only by greatly exaggerating Canada's moral conservatism (of which his only proof is a series of funny clips in which foreigners label the land "boring") that Nerenberg can suggest 2003 was a revolution, and he never does reveal any evidence of a larger trend. Indeed, if these events do reflect a liberalization of Canadian society in contrast to the United States, then that is not a revolution but rather an evolution that has a historical and political context far beyond Nerenberg's scope.
Without an artistic purpose, the filmmaker is left just stacking up increasingly repetitive scenes of kissing couples and swooning stoners. By the end of 80 minutes, no matter what their sympathies, viewers will be rather tired of hearing Emery or gay-rights lawyer Martha McCarthy trumpet their victories for the umpteenth time.
While this film, co-produced by the National Film Board, mockingly begins as an investigation of developments in a weird foreign land, Escape to Canada offers a degree of detail only Canadians would really appreciate. On the other hand, locals will surely recognize that the film lacks any context for the events of 2003, social developments now complicated by the election of a government that will not re-introduce the marijuana bill and that says it wants another vote on same-sex marriage.
Whether it's Canada's reputation for liberalism or for documentary-making that gives its citizenry that warm, fuzzy feeling, even a country with a bad case of self-satisfaction is going to have to entertain some serious doubts about this one.
Escape to Canada screens tonight until March 16 at the Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor St. W., 416-516-2331. The film also screens during the Kingston Canadian Film Festival, on March 12 at the Empire Capitol 7 at 223 Princess St., Kingston, 613-546-6741.
Kate Taylor