RKS 2025 CANADIAN Documentary: Three Legends: Bateman, Bristol and a Land Rover “Grizzly Torque”

The documentary is both an adventure and biography of legendary Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman and Bristol Foster photographer, cinematographer and environmental activist and of course their Land Rover “Grizzly Torque” (GT) that between May 1957 and November 1958 transported them on a 50,000-mile adventure travelling through 19 countries including Ghana, Congo, Uganda, Keyna, India, Nepal, Malaya and Australia.

The documentary shows how their adventure shaped their views of nature and life as told by themselves, writers, Indigenous leaders, naturalists, anthropologists and family members. A pioneering and transformative experience instrumental in shaping the trajectory of Bateman the most preeminent wildlife artist of all time and Bristol as a biologist and first director of the British Columbia Ecological Reserve Programme.

Both were young men in their late 20’s looking for adventure having virtually no idea of what they were heading into. Both were naturalists having met as young lads at a naturalist club at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.

Bateman recounts the voyage as a life adventure both mystical and magical with GT as a magic carpet taking them to magical lands.

Bateman developed a talent for sketching life, animals and architecture while Bristol photographed and filmed them rewarding the viewers with spectacular depictions of their adventure. And as you will watch it is a captivating adventure of a world that was emerging into the modern world including a hunting expedition with the Bambuti pygmies in the Congo.

Both men are in their 90’s now and you’ll witness how their epic odyssey shaped their passion for nature and environmental activism.

Fifty-one years later GT was located in pieces and master craftsmen restored it where it is now touring acting as inspiration for youth to show what one can do if they have a dream.

The film screens at the Vancouver International Film Festival on 5October2025 and was directed by Alison Reid.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Documentary Rating 91/100.

RKS 2025 Wine: Moving Beyond the Tyranny of Argentinian Malbec: Bonarda!

The El Enemigo 2021 El Barranco Single Vineyard Bonarda is 85% Bonarda and 15% Cabernet Franc aged for 15 months in old French foudres.

Aroma: Huge black and red fruit particularly blueberry and blackberry complimented by blueberry pie and a smidge of dark chocolate.

Palate: With such mega fruit is the wine jammy? No spin out of control into jamland. You can feel the fruit omnipresent on the palate snug and cozy. Smooth yet just enough acid to make it fresh but not perky! The tannins hit broadly and gradually on a gentle but long finish.

Personality: I am lush and plush but with a strong sense of discipline.

Food Match: Grilled flank steak with chimichurri sauce with a red onion salad on the side.

Cellarbility: If you have a cellar this wine will age well and is case worthy. Will evolve nicely through to 2032 but eminently drinkable presently.

Comments from the Peanut Gallery: A rallying cry for Canadians in the face of repeated Trumpian insults towards Canada and its political leaders is “Elbows Up” a habit of nasty hockey players that elbow defenders in an aggressive manner and hopefully avoid an “elbowing penalty”. So patriotically we promote Ontario wines in the Province of Ontario but you would be hard pressed to find a quality rich red like this for its $27 price.

Price: $27 CDN.

RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 94/100.jamessuckling.com 95.

(El Enemigo El Barranco 2021 Single Vineyard Bonarda, El Enemigo, Mendoza, 750 mL, 13.5%)

RKS CANADIAN Literature: What a Love Story is Not About (Michael Ondaatje)

“A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing-not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.”

Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient”, 1969.

RKS 2025 Film: “Bau: Artist at War”

“Bau: Artist at War” is based on Joseph’s Bau’s autobiographical novel, “Dear God Have You Ever Gone Hungry”.

Bau (Emile Hirsch) was deported from the Krakow Ghetto by the German occupiers of Poland and transported from the Krakow Ghetto with his family to the Plaszow Concentration Camp.

Franz Gruen (Yan Tual) is a vicious concentration camp guard with a seething hatred for Jews and has his eye on Bau suffering a kiss of mockery from Bau in the Krakow Ghetto before his deportation to Plaszow. Gruen wreaks revenge on Bau and if it wasn’t for Kommendant Goeth’s need for the artistic skills of Bau for maps and anti-Semitic posters Gruen would have murdered Bau.

Gruen is vicious but so is Goeth (Josh Blacker) although Goeth despises Gruen for his weakness.

Bau discovers Rebecca (Inbar Levi), a woman he admired in the Krakow Ghetto, is also at Plaszow and a romance develops leading to a covert marriage at the camp which was featured in the film “Schindler’s List”.

Rebecca is a manicurist for Goeth but also a resistance spy with access to documents left by Goeth on his desk which she reads and communicates to fellow resistance members for planning purposes.

Bau forges identity documents for Jews outside the camps saving over 1,000 lives by war’s end. A talented sketch artist he amuses prisoners with his satirical etchings of camp guards including toilet paper, each square having Hitler’s image on it. Bau’s sense of humour and courage is an inspiration to fellow prisoners.

Schindler is featured in the film as the saviour of many Jews by having then work in his factories and providing assistance and forged documents to Jews helping them escape death.

As the Allied forces move closer to Berlin the Nazis attempt to remove all evidence of concentration camps by liquidating imprisoned Jews and moving others to camps closer to Germany. Rebecca is located to Auschwitz and Bau to a Schindler armaments factory.

Upon the surrender of Germany on 9May1945 all Jews at Schindler’s armaments factory are to be executed however Schindler ensures the telegram containing those orders is not received by the military garrison at his factory hence saving all the Jewish forced labourers.

By an exhaustive search throughout Europe Bau locates Rebecca.

Bau agrees to provide testimony at the crimes against humanity trial of Gruen in Vienna and through fabricated testimony incites an angry self incriminating outburst by Gruen amounting to an admission of murder for which Gruen is convicted of crimes against humanity spending the rest of his days in prison where he died in captivity.

Riveting courtroom drama. What a surprise to discover who the lawyer for the prosecution is.

The dialogue of the film being English with mimicked Euro accents chips away at its authenticity particularly the American lilt of Hirsch as Bau.

Bad guys Josh Blacker as Goeth and Yan Tual as Gruen deliver performances of pure evil.

Directed by Sean McNamara.

Canadian theatrical release is 26September2025.

RKS 2025 Film Rating 73/100.

RKS 2025 Wine: Janare Q Vino Spumante Brut Falanghina from Italy

Aroma: Green apple, pear, ginger, cinnamon and white peach.

Palate: Aggressive bite. A mighty effective palate cleanser. Pear and honeydew melon. Austere.

Personality: No so much about the fruit and nothing like you might expect from a Prosecco in that regard. I get the job done so you can start your meal with a scoured mouth.

Food match: Definitely a pre-meal sparkler although no argument pairing with an opening act of saline infused Malpeque oysters.

Price: $18 CDN.

Cellarbility: Drink now.

RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 87. Jamessuckling.com 90.

(Q Falanghina Janare Brut (Non-Vintage), La Guardiense, Guardia Sanframondi, Italy, 750 ml , 12%).

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: Queen Bee 2023 Niagara Peninsula Rosé

Ontario rosé is nothing to sneeze at.

But I fear I will be stung by the heavy Muscat component of this Queen Bee rosé as Muscat can be very tiresome in blended dry white and rosé with a very notable exception being the rosé wines by Vokakis Winery on the Greek Island of Samos.

A blend of 65% Muscat, 30% Pinot Noir and 5% Cabernet Franc and Syrah.

Aroma: Nectarine, peach, strawberry, honey and marmalade.

Palate: Dry indeed perhaps too much so. Faint strawberry and watermelon.

Personality: If you are hoping for a rosé with a generous amount of fruit from Niagara you won’t find it here. Instead look to Featherstone Rosé for that.  I am dry and that ought to appeal to those who like pale pinkies!

Cellarbility:  Drink now.

Food Match: Greek potato salad namely field tomatoes, warm potatoes, anchovies, fresh basil and olive oil.

Price: $15 CDN.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine Rating: 83/100.

(Queen Bee 2023 Rosé, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Lakeview Wine Co., Niagara-on-the-Lake, 750 mL, 12.5%).

RKS 2025 Film: “Dear Stranger”: Wreckage and Ruin: Emotional, Architectural and Physical

Kenji (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Jane (Gwei Lun-Mei) live in a New York City borough with their son Kai (Everest Talde). Kenji and Jane are on the precipice of physical and mental collapse. Kenji is desperate to receive tenure as a professor of architecture specializing in ruins. Jane is a director of a puppet theatre and works when she can at her parent’s convenience store. Her father is in dire need of personal care and to top it all off her mother plies Kai with too many sweets. Finances are tight. Their station wagon is on its last screech and whine. Their relationship is strained at the edge of collapse. Ironical that Kenji, a student of architectural ruin is surrounded by emotional and the physical ruin of New York highlighted throughout the film.

Director Tetsuya Mariko throws tidbits of hints throughout. While grocery shopping with Kai Jane is being observed from the outside and an angry masked man spray paints her car with “BLANK”. Kenji takes the car into Miguel’s body shop for an assessment but an angry assistant nearly bowls over Kenji and in an ominous moment steals a pistol from the car which Jane’s grandfather had given her parents to protect the convenience store. You simply are certain that pistol will reappear! Then the convenience store Jane works at is robbed while Jane and Kai are there. A review of the CCR camera footage of the robbery by Kenji incites his anger. He recognizes one of the thieves! Clearly someone is out for revenge or retribution.

Kenji takes Kai to an architectural exhibit and while networking for a moment Kai disappears. The plot thickens. Detective Bixby (Christopher Mann) of the NYPD states to Jane and Kenji kidnappings of children are most often by someone close to the family. 

The viewer is taken to yet another ruined building, a school, where the kidnapping and rationale unfold. A hint early on in the movie is an important one when Kenji asks Jane if she is still seeing “him”.

A very well told and captivating tale about what the ruin of people may lead to and the bizarre causality of suicide where the innocent by strict logic are the perpetuators and judge themselves as guilty of murder. As Jane is a puppeteer the film could be making a point most of humanity is manipulated by forces outside their control.

In a near closing scene Kenji addresses an audience discussing his book on architectural ruin by stating we must learn from ruins and not walk away. As Kenji sizes up the personal ruins around him and is on the road of learning from them an impactful moment that may send you spilling out of your chair as it did to me imposes a strange twist to the film filling it with false logic that in the most abstract manner is not so false.

“Dear Stranger”, a Japanese/American/Taiwanese co-production will be having its International Premiere at the upcoming Busan International Film Festival.

RKS 2025 Film Rating 86/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: Palatine Hills 2023 Viognier

Viognier is a rare grape in Ontario!

So with great interest Viognier from Palatine Hills.

Aroma: Apricot, peach, Seville marmalade, mango and talcum powder.

Palate: Guava, banana and Orri tangerine. Firm. Dry. Big mouthfeel. Long finish.

Personality: Don’t be timid about giving me a try. You will not find much of me as a single varietal wine in Ontario. To give you the comfort of familiarity it’s like I have a bit of Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer and off dry Ontario Riesling in me. Does this help or confuse?

Food Match: Shellfish in a butter garlic sauce. Turbot meuniere. Sole Florentine. Thanksgiving turkey.

Cellarbility: No later than 2026 year end.

Price: $25 CDN.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine Rating: 93/100.

(Palantine Hills 2023 Viognier, VQA Niagara Lakeshore, Palantine Hills Estate Winery, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario 750 mL, 14%).

RKS Vintage Film: Yugoslav Black Wave Films: “Love Affair: or the case of the Missing Switchboard Operator” (1967)

A complex seemingly discombobulated and incomprehensible movie you might think. Initially a few moments into this film had me both enthralled and somewhat confused. But understanding a director of a film has message(s) in the film to be conveyed to a viewer I was drawn in hook line and sinker determined to discover the message(s). My 1971-1974 travels to Yugoslavia and in the Iron Curtain and my focus on Eastern European communist politics as a political scientist drew me to the film like a proletarian to a revolution! Yugoslavia broke up in the 1990s into several independent nation states with a penchant for conflict. The cement that held Yugoslavia together crumbled in 1980 with the death of its leader Marshal Tito.

Yugoslavia was one of the more tolerant Iron Curtain countries if in fact it really was inside the Iron Curtain at all but by democratic standards that tolerance may not amount to much more than a hill of beans. Whereas in Yugoslavia I went out pub crawling with the local chief of police in the mountain village of Bled in Slovenia, in Romania a tail and warning not to associate with me was placed on my head by a local police chief.

Extreme prudent morality was enforced in most of Eastern European communist states but Yugoslavia was more progressive with discos, American rock music and some innovative architecture. A heavy inflow of tourists from Scandinavia and Germany along its Adriatic Coast may have given some impetus to “Yugo liberalism”.

Izabela (Eva Ras) is an ebullient and vivacious switchboard operator in Belgrade. Fair to say she has a healthy appetite for carnal activities. She meets “The Turk” Ahmed (Slobodan Aligrude) and in a conventional way falls in love with this quiet and loyal Communist Party member a member of the sanitation forces with a specialty in rat hunting.

The relationship progresses splendidly until Izabela becomes pregnant. Ahmed is delighted hoping she will bear “a little Turkish janissary”. Izabela explodes in anger with this comment declaring herself a slave to Ahmed. Ahmed rapidly descends into depression drinking to the extent he has been found soiled and unconscious in the bushes. He is stopped by Izabela in his suicide attempt to throw himself down a deep well. Izabela pays the unintended price.

There are various “educational talks” throughout the film by a sexologist, criminologist, rat historian and a doctor performing an autopsy lending some fabricated respectability to this offbeat film. Very much like Doctor Everett V. Scott’s role in “Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

Interspersed with the educational “lectures” are patriotic Yugoslav and East German songs lauding communism and films of proletarian masses destroying churches as spreaders of the opiates of the masses. And yes the communist flag is placed upon the base of the mob destroyed church steeple and Lenin’s massive picture replaces the looted icons. Communism the new opiate of the masses?

The message of the film? Propaganda spews but for the average Yugoslav it is meaningless babble. In the Yugoslav communist state there is propaganda about as sophisticated as Peppa the Pig dialogue, crime, misogyny, pettiness, puffed up egos, poor housing conditions and over 60,000,000 rats.

Ahmed the rat hunter can’t eliminate the rats and barely controls them similar to the Yugoslav Communist Party’s inability to quell all opposition to its rule and cultural morals. In a tender and joyous moment, we hear Izabela singing a song of the heart while a patriotic parade can be heard below her flat.

The culture track desired in the Iron Curtain was socialist realism and director Dušan Makavejev’s film conveys the message socialist realism is socialist unreality. Everyday life in Yugoslavia runs contrary to the tenets of socialist realism. Social realism not socialist realism was the hallmark of the Black Wave which began a demise with the Ruling League of Communists holding a session on 27October1969 concluding that certain films had a tendency to be counterrevolutionary and degrading giving rise to the “Years of Lead” in Yugoslav cinema.

You can watch the film on the Criterion Channel which requires a paid subscription to access its films.

RKS Vintage Film Rating 92/100.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine: Adamo’s 2021 Bistro Wine

Adamo’s 2021 Bistro red wine is a blend of 52% Cabernet Franc, 27.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13.9% Merlot, 4.6% Malbec and 2.3% Petit Verdot. The grapes were purchased in the Niagara Peninsula region of Ontario. 20% of the wine was aged in oak. 920 cases made.

What is a bistro wine? Simple French food such as croque monsieur, coq au vin, burgers, steak frites, mussels and onion soup.

Aroma: Smoky. Black currant, cassis, black cherry and Vermont black licorice.

Palate:  Broad based moderate tannins that are between slim and husky with a hint of white pepper. Cherry pie, ripe strawberries and ruby port. Long finish.

Personality/Food Match: I am tough enough to compliment steak frites, croques and even a Bucky Burger. I am not high class just utilitarian.

Cellarbility: Can hang in to the end of 2026.

Price: $23 CDN.

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Wine Rating: 89/100.

(Adamo Bistro 2021, Adamo Estate Winery, VQA Ontario, Mono, Ontario, 750 mL, 13%).