RKS Literature: Murderous Missionary Ships (Pat Barker)

“Rivers was used to missionary islands where canoes paddled out to meet the oncoming steamer, brown faces, white eyes, flashing smiles, while others gathered at the landing stage, ready to carry bags up to the mission station for a few sticks of tobacco or even sheer Christian goodwill. A cheerful picture, as long as you didn’t notice the rows and rows of crosses in the mission graveyard, men and women in the prime of life dead of the diseases of the English nursery: whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, chicken pox, scarlet fever-all were fatal here. And the mission boat carried them from island to island, station to station remorselessly, year after year.”

Pat Barker, “The Ghost Road”, 1995.

RKS Literature:  Supressed Memory and a Smack on the Leg (Pat Barker)

“Was this the supressed memory? He didn’t know. Was it trivial? Well, yes, in a way, compared with Prior’s lurid imaginings. A smack on the leg, a lesson in manliness from an over conscientious but loving father. It’s a long way from sadistic beatings, And yet it wasn’t as trivial as it seemed at first.”

“The Ghost Road”, Pat Barker, 1995.

RKS 2025 Wine: Montes Alpha 2021 Special Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon

Chile has a leg up when the subject is quality and affordable wine many of which are under $20 CDN.

A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Carmenére. It has rested 16 months in French oak.

Montes Alpha 2021 Special Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon is running in the quality pack!

Aroma: Richer than Jeff Bezos. Massive blackberry attack leads the charge supported by a blueberry and dark chocolate platoon. Absolutely decadent but not in an Augusto Pinochet type of way!

Palate: About as huge as the presence of the CIA in the downfall of Salvador Allende. Precise acidity prevents jamminess. In addition to the blackberry and blueberry some spiciness all giving the wine a complex and long finish with some burn not surprising considering the 14.5% alcohol.

Personality: Proudly Chilean strutting incredible quality for a song.

Cellarbility:  Enjoy now with its assertive nature. It may mellow out through to 2027.

Food Match: Think all manner of beef and why not with a prime rib on a cold winter day in Canada. Throw in some Yorkshire pudding why don’t you?

Price: $24.95 CDN.

RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 92/100. 94 Jamessuckling.com.

(Montes Alpha 2021 Special Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon, D.O. Valle de Colchagua, Montes, Chile, 14.5%, 750 mL.).

RKS Literature: Death and Cartography (Michael Ondaatje)

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden as if in caves. I wish for all of this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography-to be marked in nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such earth that had no maps.”

Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient”: 1992.

RKS Literature: The Human Element and Burglary (Michael Ondaatje)

“Caravaggio was constantly diverted by the human element during burglaries. Breaking into a house during Christmas, he would become annoyed if he noted the Advent calendar had not been opened up to the date to which it should have been. He often had conversations with the various pets left alone in houses, rhetorically discussing meals with them, feeding them large helpings, and was often greeted by them with considerable pleasure if he returned to the scene of the crime.”

Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient” 1992.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film: “Clan of the Painted Lady”: Back to Your Roots

Why do some search to find their “roots” while others don’t give a damn? Director/writer of “Clan of the Painted Lady” Jennifer Chiu, a British Columbian, delves into her Hakka culture and her own family history to determine where it originated and where it is travelling to. Like the Painted Lady butterfly that embarks on a 9,000-mile migration around the world each generation completing a leg of that migration not knowing the beginning or end of the migration the Hakka’s have a history of migration but unlike the Painted Lady butterfly they do not know their final destination.

Chiu was born in Kolkata to Hakka parents eventually migrating to suburbia in British Columbia’s Lower mainland. The Hakkas had origins in Northern China and facing war, poverty and social marginalization they migrated the Southern China further migrating primarily to Canada, Jamaica, Mauritius and India.

Chiu searches for others believing Hakka culture is worth saving fearing its disappearance connecting with Hakka in China, India, Vancouver and in The Greater Toronto Area, the largest Hakka community in Canada. She discovers activists seeking to promote a distinct Hakka community, but the younger generation may interpret the promotion of Hakka culture as slavery to the past and an unwillingness to move forward. This is a breaking of the intergenerational bridge of Hakka culture which signifies the beginning of the end of that culture. Are the Hakka drawn into the melting pot and is the younger generation of Hakkas happily immersing itself in the pot?

Through family/friend/community activist interviews and Super 8 footage in Canada, India, Jamaica and China she weaves her lens on Hakka culture in these countries.

When the fundamental existential questions begin raising their heads the documentary veers for brief moments into seemingly less on point kitchen table chit chat and a bit too much personal family focus having questionable relevance to Hakka culture. Her visit to the tannery district of Kolkata, Tangra, might well be the most fascinating segment of her documentary. Tangra is the epicentre of Hakka owned leather tanneries, As Tangra suffers a shutdown by the Indian government economic circumstances dictate the younger Hakkas have little intention of remaining in India. Strangely Tangra Hakka youth have no interest in learning the Hakka Lion Dance so it is Indian youth replacing them. A stark reality that the intergenerational bridge rapidly appears to be collapsing. A small group of Hakka youth are filmed discussing the future and it is one of migration to opportunities. The daughter of the Lion Dance instructor would appear to be an exception wishing to remain in India.

What is clear is that the Hakka are on the edge of losing their identify in the face of their disinterested younger members while a handful of Hakka community activists in Toronto and Vancouver work to promote Hakka culture to save it from irrelevance. Is the Hakka culture worth saving? The answer will only be answered in the future. Unlike the Painted Lady butterflies, it has no final destination. Hakka youth may stop migration of Hakka culture to the next generation cold.

“Clan of the Painted Lady” has its world premiere on 6/9 October2025 at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Documentary Film Rating 71/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film: “Akashi”: Wisdom of the Cuckolds

Kana Yamamoto (Mayuma Yoshida) returns from Vancouver to her Tokyo home, for the first time in a decade, for her grandmother’s funeral.

Kana is a struggling artist yet to find success like her late artist grandfather. As well she has yet to find success in love after being “dumped” by her Tokyo boyfriend Hiro (Ryo Tajima) just prior to boarding a plane with her to Vancouver. Being in love they were to start a new life together by emigrating to Canada.

Traversing time to the past (as the film frequently does) her grandmother stated then there were few options for postwar marriage in Japan and she married her grandfather knowing he was in love with another married woman. Her grandmother mused life may be more difficult for those with numerous options.

Kana discovers the aggrieved spouses surprisingly recognize a higher form of love suffered at their expense but appreciated.

Perhaps the words of Kana’s father somewhat define “Akashi” upon him saying no one really knows how to live their life only pretending to live life like one is expected to do. Perhaps being lost is exactly where you need to be. There are few truly happy people in “Akashi” being deceived, lost, frustrated or unsuccessful but that is where they are at the moment and that is how they live their lives accepting it and even strangely embracing it.

The film has deceptive soap opera moments about love and deception but dig deeper you’ll find deeper meanings however at times you may just not be sure what they are but have fun attempting to make those determinations unless you are totally distracted by “that omnipresent silly hat”.

Directed by Mayuma Yoshida.

World Premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival 5/9October2025.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film Rating 71/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Documentary: “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue”: Horror and Revenge Understandable: Will it Ever End?

October 7, 2023 saw brutal Hamas attacks in Southern Israel at the Nova Music Festival where 378 people were murdered and 7 communities including the Nahal Oz Kibbutz where 60 civilians and IDF soldiers were killed. Close to 1,200 Israeli’s died in these attacks. Israeli retribution attacks have resulted in some 69,000 deaths in Gaza, at least according to Hamas.

“The Road Between Us” documents the daring and courageous rescue by Noam Tibon, a retired major-general in the IDF and his wife Gali-Mir Tibon of their son Amir Tibon, his wife Miri Tibon and their two infant children at the Nahal Oz Kibbutz.

Mortars started pounding the kibbutz at 07:00 on 7October2023. Safe rooms in each house, if reached in time, offered safety from the Hamas rampage. Hamas fighters indiscriminately gunned down residents as filmed by Hamas fighters’ bodycams, a colossal error in judgment at this point which will lead to its extinction as a military and political force.

Miri and Noam rushed 85 kilometers from Tel Aviv to the kibbutz in their Jeep to save his son’s family and what distressing carnage littered the roadside. Piles of bodies here and there, corpses filling roadside shelters and burned-out vehicles. Noam encountered his former commanding officer at a checkpoint and with a handful of IDF soldiers battled Hamas fighters importantly wiping out a small Hamas contingent attempting to block the road leading to Nahal Oz. With a small group of crack IDF commandos they finally reached the compound of the kibbutz battling their way to clear the compound of Hamas fighters and eventually reaching Amir, Miri and their children.

Noam and in fact most of Israel were angered with the failure of the IDF to react promptly to the attacks and over estimating the effectiveness of security perimeters around the kibbutz. Gali remarked the whole reason for the creation of Israel was to protect Jews but that foundation collapsed on 7October2023. Both Gali and Noam share the opinion the return of the Israeli hostages must be the starting point for moving forward. Gali notes the war on Gaza has an aspect of revenge which is not doing any good for Israel.

The documentary avoids polemics and tells the story of the Tibon’s daring rescue and the helplessness and sense of abandonment experienced by the residents of Nahal Oz Kibbutz. Do we leave the documentary as having done its job admirably?

Whether the extreme reaction of Israel to 7October2023 and its ensuing global condemnation should have been dealt with in the documentary is a fruitless discussion and better left for another documentary. Its imprint of brutality, fanaticism and military ineptitude made their mark.

It also becomes clear watching the documentary there are multiple roads between countries, religions and citizens. As the hostages have not been fully returned the dividing roads expand daily.

You may watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcAf07EN-bQ

Directed by Barry Avrich.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Documentary Review Rating 83/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: Isle of View from Lake Erie North Shore’s CREW

Colchester Ridge Estate Winery, perhaps better known as CREW, crafts a decent Riesling but what about its sparkling version? The label for Isle of View is hardly inspiring but we are always more interested in the contents of a bottle more than its label.

A fine seam of bubbles is promising.

Aroma: Citrus rules the roost. Lemon, lime, green apple with a hint of fresh baked sourdough bread.

Palate: Crisp if not biting scours the palate. Guava, dragon fruit with a fleeting flash of sweetness and a minty buzz.

Personality: I am Mr. Clean scrubbing your palate! I am more about effect than fruit.

Food Match: Ideal pre dinner palate cleanser or with Malpeque oysters to start.

Price: $24 CDN.

Cellarbility: Drink now or hold until 2026-year end.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine Rating: 89/100. Natalie MacLean 89.

(CREW 2023  Isle of View Sparkling Wine, VQA Ontario, Colchester Ridge Estate Winery, Harrow, Ontario, 750 mL, 11.5%).

RKS Literature: Unbalanced by War (Michael Ondaatje)

“Caravaggio sits there in silence, thoughts lost among the floating notes. War has unbalanced him and he can return to no other world as he is, wearing these false limbs that morphine promises. He is a man of middle age who has never become accustomed to families. All his life he has avoided permanent intimacy. Till this war he has been a better lover than husband. He has been a man that slips away, in the way lovers leave chaos, the way thieves leave reduced houses.”

Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient”, 1969.