Hasselriis in the manitoban archives
FOUND BY CARSON JEREMA STAFF
Before Kaj Hasselriis opted to challenge Sam Katz for the top political job in the city he was a broadcaster and journalist, producing documentaries for CBC. And like many journalists from Manitoba, Hasselriis (who has a two-year journalism degree from Ryerson) spent some time at the Manitoban. From roughly 1992 to 1995 Hasselriis was a regular contributor to the paper, writing movie reviews and political commentary. He displayed an affinity for Disney movies and found Madonna’s Erotica to be lacking the titillation of her earlier work. He also tackled women’s issues and gay rights.
After sifting through the archives and reading everything I could find authored by Hasselriis, I decided with the election coming up next week it might be appropriate to reprint some vintage Hasselriis. I had wanted to reprint a personal account by Hasselriis of when he was a Young Liberal organizing in the 1994 Quebec elections that featured a photo of him with a caption that read: “Premier Dan ‘The Man’ Johnson with our beaming reporter.” But due to space constraints, I opted instead to go with the first article he wrote for the paper, a 1992 review of The Last of the Mohicans. Enjoy!
Mohican for your hican
dollar
BY KAJ HASSELRIIS
I really wanted to hate this
movie.
Even before it began, I had visions of how I could begin my movie-reviewing career at the Manitoban by completely destroying what looked like a perfectly good film — not only would trashing it be much easier than praising it, but it would be a lot more fun, too.
Count on Twentieth Century Fox to ruin all my plans.
What I was left with upon leaving the theatre was the prospect of having no other choice but to give The Last of the Mohicans an excellent review. Though at first glance it appeared to be nothing more than another cheap “Hollywoodization” of a classic novel, it quickly became clear to the audience that they were in the process of experiencing a truly exceptional film.
Daniel Day-Lewis (fresh from his Oscar-winning performance in My Left Foot) and Madeleine Stowe (fresh from her wooden performance in Unlawful Entry) portray a very unlikely couple caught in the middle of the Seven Years’ War: he’s a white man adopted by Mohawks and she’s the daughter of a British Colonel. However, it is not their (fair, though by no means fabulous) performances that carry the film — instead, this distinction goes to Dante Spinotti’s breathtaking photography and the riveting musical score by Trevor Jones, Randy Edelman and Daniel Lanois (the latter musician being co-producer of U2’s last album).
The battle scenes between the French, English, Mohawks and Hurons are truly magnificent (as they should be, considering the amount of people listed as stuntmen in the final credits), as are the nature scenes, shot on location in North Carolina. All these great effects added up to the whole audience being stunned silent by the final moments of the film.
Pleasantly enough, the movie’s most annoying moments are taken care of fairly quickly, so that we can enjoy James Fenimore Cooper’s great story. These include scenes of the lead actor doing Rambo impressions by running around bare-chested, blowing away all opponents unfortunate enough to get in his path and jumping off fatally high waterfalls, without suffering so much as a bruise (in slow motion, no less). Another bothersome habit on the part of the actors is to ditch their phony British accents and chat in ’90’s slang.
Note to the Manitoba Classification Board: Giving this movie a PG rating is insane. These days a rating like that (even when accompanied by a violence warning) implies a family movie, squirming in their seats when one of the lead actors has his beating heart cut out (not to mention the countless times when people got beaten to death by tomahawks). So, parents beware: this is no Benji the Hunted.
Despite those few minor pet peeves (which I have with every movie I watch), The Last of the Mohicans is a must-see for its technical aspects alone. I’m anxiously awaiting a sequel, The Last of the Mohicans Meets Dances with Wolves.
