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.

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.